Reviews :
chuckiboo : Yyyyep. It gets pretty ugly before any shred of healing happens. Lots of screaming, got some resets and game overs and tears and code room take-overs. Lots of fun! Lmao. and yes, Ora is a gem. She's incredibly smart, you'll learn a lot more about her closer to the end of the story. She's important!
Song Listened To :
Cyberpunk Swan Lake/ Win Win Ft. Tove Lo (Yotto Remix) by Grimes and Diplo
A/N : As of this chapter in the saga, which in all would be Chapter 1,075, the whole saga just surpassed 4 million words! I'm mentally ill! lmfao
But seriously, I hope you all are enjoying so far. This has become my life's work, I'm not 100% positive where this story will go after the 6th story, I usually don't look that far ahead anyways, but... I'm truly hoping I can snake my beloved ocs and canon characters through more scenarios and bigger, broader plots, even beyond Litwak's and into other realms. I am so thankful for everyone sticking with me for so long. Here's to 4 million MORE words! I love you all. Leave a review and let me know if you've been reading since the early days, I always love to see just who's stuck with me for... Holy crap it's been 10 years. This is wild guys, I'm having an existential crisis lmao. And just in time for the saddest chapter of the century. If you assume I cried while writing this, well... You'd be right lol.
T/W : This chapter contains drug usage and its side effects/mild gore
*Chapter 168*
Through a tired sigh, Gideon gingerly flipped through the pages of Ora's notebook, he rubbed his forehead and desperately tried to put his mind inside that of abstract thought, the millions of little suns Ora had drawn almost seemingly mocked him. He paced about his dim bedroom and finally came to his huge floor to ceiling windows, he pressed to it with his upper arm and sagged his forehead to it in a lazy lean, his vision began to bevel at the darkened, gorgeous city below him. Due to their huge home spanning the higher more narrow floors of this incredible building, Gideon was the lucky duck to have a corner bedroom that had a view of not only the arena, but the city all about it. Bright lights amidst the black, as well as the perfectly aligned stars of the hexagonal points of the huge dome above the city, Gideon inhaled a trembling breath and quickly began to feel the drugs he had just taken want to hijack his system. No stranger to acid, he grimaced a little and understood the harrowing night terrors he had last time, when his mother had to literally yank him from his trip, though just as he so much as thought of his mother, he held his breath and very quickly understood that he was doomed. Doors in his brain began to open, the harrowing idea that it was now time to feel all his feelings had him immediately regretting taking that acid tab.
He grimaced and began to grow outwardly frustrated as he yanked himself from his window, he grunted a notion about only having taken said tab to hopefully delve a bit deeper into Ora's subliminal messages, though as he turned to his darkened room, the walls began to almost soothingly crawl with little waves, sidewinder snakes rippled through the textures on his furniture, he grunted a shaky noise and understood now that he needed to sit down and relish in everything to come, whether it be good or bad. Gideon grunted to a sit in his nearby chair, which sat closest to said huge collection of floor to ceiling windows, though as he sat, he took note that any dark areas in his bedroom began to almost pulse with spiraling fog. Not much could be seen in his dim bedroom, he kept lights low due to not wanting to disrupt this new dimmer living, no amount of high lights were present anywhere in their house except Jukkit's warehouse. He inhaled a shaky breath and relished in the cooler, darker colors that glowed from the beam of the city life underneath him, a mesmerizing, slow-spinning kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and images he swore he'd never seen before, though just as he was about to open Ora's sketchbook and dive in, he flinched in rocked surprise as a darkened figure slowly approached him.
"When we wanted another baby, we took down our firewalls. That's how we got you!" Vanellope's voice so lovingly amplified throughout Gideon's room, a pierce of a voice Gideon was now paralyzed by, and it was here did he urgently peer up into this dark figure and only see a mass of a terrifying shadow figure.
Gideon held his breath and felt his temples pulse blood in rapid-fire terror that was due to plaguing him. He gulped a hard swallow, clenched Ora's notepad and now feared for every single last rain cloud he had been successfully holding at bay, all this time, due to now dumping all over him in a torrential downpour. He felt the word 'mom' come to the back of his throat, though he grit his teeth and clenched his fists in a grapple to the armrests of the chair he sat in, he glowered down the figure before him and shook his head as he suddenly seethed through his teeth. The uproar of finally getting ready to unleash the guilt and remorse he had been drowning in was something that triggered his rage unlike anything he had ever felt in his life, and with this, he almost feared for the integrity of the structure of his bedroom and everything in it.
"You guys didn't want me," Gideon's voice coarsely and lowly growled through his clenched teeth, he thrusted Ora's notepad to the ground next to him and dared to shoot to a stand, though upon doing so, the room surged with blacks and grey spinning stars, the black was something his mind now simply had a field day in, pretending up new shapes and colors for Gideon's now tripping brain to run hog-wild in. Gideon dared to get into this figures face, though much to his whole shock, as he pressed through the black fog, Oliver's face was what came to his visual. He flinched in rocked surprise, though aggressively glowered Oliver down and now yelled out into his bedroom, "NONE OF YOU DID!"
Gideon swung, though the black figure hissed away and Gideon's hefty, thorough swing only caused him to lose his footing, to which he thrusted himself to the ground and desperately tried not to let the dizzy spell take ahold of him. Warm kisses of empathy did everything it could to ease his soul, the desperation to just sit back and enjoy the ride was now quickly being muddied by the demons in Gideon's subconscious, every single last shred of true darkness Gideon had been harboring was now brimming over the edge and running wild from his control. He heavily panted as he propped himself on his hands and knees and eventually grunted to a clumsy stand, still seething through his teeth.
"Bud, we had been dreaming of you for awhile before you were actually coded, of COURSE we wanted you," Vanellope's voice so cutely soothed Gideon's soul, the memory of her and Ralph having to awkwardly explain the use of firewalls to his child self was now something that felt like a surge of sharp electricity to his brain. Gideon fervently looked about his now blackened bedroom and could only catch little whisks of figures coming and going, melting in and out of the walls that were closing in on him. He panted in full panic and now grappled at his shirt as he began to outwardly itch with terror, though much to his dismay, his mother's voice so lovingly continued on in echoey reverberations, "We took down the firewalls and you were programmed that very day."
"Can't really imagine life without you, bud," Ralph's deep voice glossed Gideon's brain like a drag of daggers, he cried a loud noise through the grit of his teeth and grappled his skull in a white-knuckled show of crumpling rage.
"Nor life before you," Vanellope soothed, he could feel the back of his little hand being so tenderly stroked by his mother's thumb, he swung around and was desperate to find the source of it all as Vanellope's warbled voice came and went with the memory Gideon had so fervently locked away, never to be replayed, or so he thought, "We built this house with your bedroom in mind, dude. We wanted you for a long time, now."
Gideon erupted in a harrowing, deep war-cry of blistered rage and suddenly swung his fists with the full force of his wrecking, and though he was now blind to whatever was in his room, he caught with some form of furniture and heard it absolutely explode underneath his shivering power. He seethed, whirled around and was desperate to find the source of taunts, creepy black figures kept sinking in and out of the walls of his bedroom. Gideon firmly pounded his sternum once or twice, with the splay and press of his big fingertips, and shook his head in teary, overflowing rage.
"I MADE IT!" Gideon's deep, terrifying voice coarsely screamed, the veins and tendons in his jugular bulged, he trembled with the show of now coming totally unhinged.
"All in one piece!" Vanellope chirped cutely, though Gideon grimaced with the breaking point and swung his heavy arms upwards in readiness.
The room exploded with the eruption of his war-cry, his fists continuously collided with whatever was about his bedroom, glass and shards of metal and wood went flying in the destruction. Concrete walls couldn't even stand in his way, and as he tore into his bathroom, due to such thrashing, he growled in heavy panting and made the unfortunate mistake of catching eyes with his huge vanity mirrors across the way, in the black. He seethed, pressed up to it and came upon hundreds of his own reflection, all of which looked him dead in the eye, a thing he had been desperate to avoid this whole entire time. He went to open his mouth to begin threatening every single last haunting image of the man he had become, the harrowing beast inside of his skin, though flinched the second they all began to rapid-fire him daggers of past trauma, words that cut through his heart with the utmost ease.
"Gideon, I hadn't even opened the gift yet, bud," Oliver muttered sadly.
"Gideon, why did you just do that?" Vanellope hissed.
"Way-to-go, Gideon," Callum meanly sneered, Gideon heavily panted and shook his head in fervent desperation for one of his reflections to say something nice, though he flinched as they merely splayed him with a sea of bullets to the head, though tears now began to stream his cheeks.
"If there's anyone who should be crying, it's Oliver," Wren stated in mocking laughter that echoed throughout Gideon's brain.
"Gideon, shut UP already about this Finch-guy, you're being so loud," Oliver's mean tone rattled his skull.
"Gotta toughen up, bud, they're not purposefully leaving you out, you just have to assert yourself," Zed's stern tone mumbled.
"Comparison steals joy, Gideon, stop trying so hard," Koko's sweet voice did everything it could to not sound annoyed, but failed.
"Watch-it, got innocent ears in the group," Berri muttered in mild annoyance as Gideon could feel the warmth of her hands cup over his ears, he grunted a hard noise and flagged his hands about, as if to shoo it all away.
"He turns one next month, though," Theo cheekily defended, teasing, snickering laughter could be heard echoing throughout Gideon's bathroom, the haunting bevel of his mirrors now began to somehow come off of their wall mountings and encompass him in a never-ending hug of mirrors, the sight of the thousands of his reflections now evilly staring back at him.
"Sorry we missed your art show, Giddy," A bunch of voices suddenly erupted into mean, drunken cackling, the memory of Koko's and Nox's engagement party suddenly dumped into his brain like poison, "We'll catch it next time!"
"There won't BE a next time!" Gideon tearfully bellowed.
"Yeah, go cry to everyone inside Turbotime, it's all you're good for!" Tessa's final words lay into Gideon's heart like a punch to the gut, and with said proverbial hit, Gideon erupted into a coded mess of thrown fists and aggressively yelled into the sudden explosion of mirrors, he immediately destroyed everything with his fists, sudden jolts of electricity fervently coursed through him like lightning that met water.
"Fuck ALL OF YOU!" Gideon screamed into the glass that shattered to the counter and the ground by his feet, he could tell he was cutting himself up though carried on, nonetheless. Tears and sweat now drenched his face as he nearly foamed at the mouth, though as he hunched over the counter and aggressively swiped everything off of it, including the shards of mirror that had fallen, it all exploded to the bathroom tiles in harrowing, echoey crashes of full destruction as he groaned in heavy, raspy panting, full seething that had the veins in his face bulging in entirely unhinged rage, "LOOK WHAT YOU TURNED ME INTO!"
Gideon gasped a sharp inhale, caught with the slippery shards of mirror all over his floor and messily spilled to the lot of it. He could feel his skin come into contact with such shards of glass, and though he was certain he was bleeding, he grunted a noise, slipped trying to get up and finally succumbed to laying in the mess. He heavily panted in raspy, grunting groans of full anger, though after a few moments of cold, harrowing realization that he was entirely alone in this dark, devilish world, he grimaced a full, outward cry and erupted into the true explosion of sorrow he was terrified to allow to the surface. Not being able to reign it in any longer, his deep voice wailed in teary desperation, he sobbed into the echo of his empty, destroyed bathroom, his bloody body trembled as he lay in the wake of his life leading up to now, he felt his whole soul sag in raw defeat and understood that there was nothing more that he'd like, from here, than just to be dead. His face leaked with tears, sweat, drool, he hovered over the bloody glass in a half sit and messily sobbed in coughing desperation down to the ground, though just as he could allow his soul to fully accept the idea that he didn't want to even so much as be alive any longer, he felt a hand firmly rest to the broad of his right shoulder.
No longer able to obtain the ability to see straight, let alone lift his head and see just who was now sitting with him, he grunted a harrowing few cries as said figure messily knelt into the glass, with him, and scooped Gideon into the biggest hug he has received in months. He trembled as this being urgently scrambled to welcome Gideon's much bigger body into theirs, and upon sagging his jaw and head into this person's shoulder, he quickly gathered that Ora had come to his rescue, due to the feeling of her waist-length hair tucked between them, the smell of her person, Gideon now came entirely unglued. He shook in trembling terror, a mix of anger and sadness coursed him faster than he could even comprehend, though he felt his heart hold onto the single shred of hope left the second he could feel Ora's loving hand fervently begin to pet the back of Gideon's head in long, easy, firm strokes. He hiccuped loud cries into her shoulder and sat in her tender loving care as she gingerly shushed him in the sag he laid upon her much littler body, such strength to hold him up was something he was floored to be feeling. He grimaced chokes of cries into her neck and lay limp, his ears prickled as she spoke up, and though her voice shook with desperation, he succumbed to her feverish pleas.
"Let me show you," Ora begged in a whisper as she grappled her arms about Gideon's bigger neck, she held onto him for dear life, "Life or death matter. Sunlight... Please."
Gideon whimpered a noise and knew what needed to be done, he knew exterior swapping with Ora was key, and though he didn't want to keep reliving trauma, he didn't want to entertain Ora here, he held his breath and now fully understood that all of Ora's silly musings and charades were definitely for his detriment. She had been so kind and so patient this whole time, though the grip she had about his neck was now a desperate and blatant show that she, too, was at the end of her rope, entirely done tip toeing around Gideon. She hissed him one last request onto his big shoulder and gripped him tighter into her embrace.
"Lucid state," Ora pleaded, her voice trembled, though Gideon lulled his eyes closed in defeat and allowed his coding to swarm the two into a melt of an exterior swap, once and for all, the tumbling swallow the two took into his lucid state, a place he hadn't visited in months.
