Work Text:
Ramón was a little bit… consumed. He was working on his elevator, and he was getting a little bit frustrated on one section of the redstone. Instead of taking a break, he moved to a different section of his elevator. He doesn’t really know what time it is, but he doesn’t bother to check.
It’s unimportant anyways.
He has to get this done.
This section of pistons, gears, and wiring was a lot easier to do, so Ramón worked that part of his huge elevator. He managed to finish it, but he still didn’t know what time it was. He went back to the wiring and gear systems he was struggling on, finding that the solution was much easier than he thought.
How could he be so blind?
He didn’t notice his vision going out of focus.
He didn’t notice his off balance stature.
The engineer finished his work, looking down proudly at it, and then found a floating ground, so he went to fix it, changing around the wiring to correct the error. With that small problem fixed, he looked over his previous work, checking to make sure none of it was messed up.
He didn’t hear that someone was calling his name from the top of the shaft.
Noticing a missing small gear, Ramón kneeled down on the stone to put the gear in place. He pressed the button, and the gears started moving properly, instead of being disjointed.
He didn’t notice that someone had glided down the elevator shaft.
“There you are, Ramón!” Fit said, making Ramón jump slightly. He spun around a little too fast, and almost lost balance. Luckily, he managed to regain it before Fit noticed something was wrong.
“You hard at work down here?” His Dad asked him.
Ramón dug his signs out of his inventory, placing one down, and writing, “yea, I want to finish my elevator.”
“Oh, do you want me to leave you alone while you work on it?” He appreciated that Fit was asking him what he wanted. He felt bad keeping him here when he had no idea what was going on, or if he had something better he could be doing.
“You can leave if you have something else to do.”
“No, it’s okay, Ramón, I can sit here and organize my inventory while you work. I don’t want you to be by yourself,” Fit told him, walking over to one of the walls, and beginning to sort through all of his belongings.
Ramón didn’t pay much attention to his dad, opting to stay focused on his task at hand, trying to accomplish his unrealistic goal of finishing his elevator in one work session. He knew it was unrealistic, he just couldn’t make himself stop.
He changed fried wires, broken gears, and reset the steam-powered engines that broke somehow. But every time he seemed to solve a problem, he’d find another. There were many different systems working in tandem with one another. Logically, that meant that there was a higher chance of errors, both between systems individually and working together. It made the slip-ups no less frustrating, but it did bring some peace of mind.
As time went on, he became more and more agitated, but he couldn’t do anything to calm himself down. He looked back at his dad, and found him colour-coding his backpacks. Finally. When he looked back at his machine, he found a setting on one of the redstone parts set to the wrong option, so he used his hand crank and changed it to its appropriate setting.
Ramón let out a frustrated puff of air, pressing the button to activate his whole elevator, and found that there were no issues. He excitedly clapped his hands, flapping them in the air a little.
“Oh, good job, Ramón!” Fit had apparently looked up from his sorting, and saw his test run on his currently incomplete elevator.
Ramón beamed at him, smiling with pride at his creation.
“You’re so much smarter than me, my boy. This is incredible.” He loved that his dad always just knew what to say. Ramón felt happy and loved every time Fit complimented him, or just praised him in general.
“Thank you, but I’m not done yet!”
“Oh, really?” Fit sounded confused, which then confused Ramón. “I thought you would take a break now, because you’ve been down here since you woke up.”
“But I really want to finish :(“
“I know, Ramón, I know you want to finish it. But I don’t think you’ll be able to finish it all in one go. Maybe we should leave this for later? Or even tomorrow?” Ramón knew Fit was throwing out these suggestions because he was concerned for him, but Ramón really wanted to finish this.
Ramón shook his head, and turned back to his pistons, trying to figure out how he could make his elevator go down one more floor. When he realized he should probably write down all the logistics he was thinking of, he went to change the natural stone walls and floor into a white concrete. It didn’t require as much brainpower, but it was way more labour intensive.
When Ramón stood back up, he stumbled slightly, his vision going black for a few seconds. Huh, that’s weird. When he steadied himself, and his ears stopped ringing, he heard footsteps from behind him. He knew who it was without having to turn around. He had hoped Fit had turned around and wasn’t paying attention to Ramón, but it seemed Fit had done the opposite.
“Are you okay, Ramón?” Fit kneeled down to his height, putting both his hands on his shoulders. Ramón took a deep breath, shakily exhaling it through his mouth.
Ramón nodded, but Fit saw right through his lie.
“Ramón, we both know that’s not true. What’s wrong?” Fit pressed gently, massaging his thumbs into his shoulders.
He put another sign down, writing, “I need to finish my elevator. I’ll be fine.”
“You need a break, my boy,” Fit pleaded with him.
He shook his head, trying to escape his father’s comforting hands, despite enjoying the grounding pressure applied by them.
“Ramón, no. You need to stop working on this. Just for an hour or two. Or a whole day. You look tired, my baby boy.” Ramón wished he could accept the tempting offer of rest, but he needed to finish it.
He broke free of his grasp, running off to continue putting concrete where stone once was.
“Ramón!” His dad yelled, but Ramón ignored him in favour of continuing his labour.
He heard his dad sigh, but Ramón kept placing concrete, enjoying the repetitive process to the point he forgot his body was aching, and that his vision and balance were slowly leaving him.
He paused when he finished the floor for his ginormous hallway, but as soon as he did his brain caught up to his body. His knees buckled, but Fit was there to catch him, luckily.
Fit sighed again, and Ramón heard his dad say, “I’m taking you back home. You need sleep.” Ramón started squirming, wanting to get back to working on his elevator.
“Ramón, you can’t possibly think that you can work like this,” Fit said in disbelief, underestimating how obsessed Ramón was with his elevator.
All Ramón could get out was a whine, not close enough to the ground to put a sign. He kept struggling in his dad’s warm grasp, but Fit refused to put him down, keeping him tight to his chest in a warm, pleasant hug.
“Do you want to place a sign?” Ramón nodded in answer, and Fit brought him to the wall, knowing if he set Ramón on the ground that he’d run. He probably wouldn’t get very far, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
“I need to finish. I don’t want to leave.”
“Look at you, Ramón. You can hardly stand. You need a break. At least an hour, if not more,” Fit scolded him gently.
“Fine. Only because it’s you asking me to.”
Fit breathed a sigh of relief, hoisting Ramón further up in his arms. Ramon’s head fit perfectly in the crook of Fit’s neck, like it was meant to be there.
Apparently all his changes to his elevator worked, because his dad was able to press the button and the lift worked without a problem. It was a small victory for Ramón, and he flapped his hands in celebration.
“Good job, Ramón. Now that you know it works just fine, let’s go to my house to get some food in you,” Fit suggested, carrying him up to his house on top of the hill.
Ramón nodded against his dad’s neck, his arms tucked into his chest. Fit always knew what he needed after an incident such as this, and that was a grounding, tight hug. Something about being pressed into his arms, not having to worry about anything else, makes Ramón feel cared for and safe.
They made it to his dad’s house, and they used the secret elevator to get inside. When they got in there, Fit sat down on the couch with him still in his arms.
“Is this okay, Ramón? You’re comfortable? Do you need anything?” His dad was always very attentive, but after Ramón’s close meltdown he was paying extra attention to how Ramón was feeling, and what his body language was like.
He nodded, but grabbed a sign and placed it in front of the couch. “Can I have a fidget toy? Or my block puzzle?”
Fit adjusted him in his lap, looking around in his inventory and backpacks. “Sure, Ramón, I have your block puzzle in my inventory. Are you okay with just that?”
Ramón nodded, because he was just fine with his block puzzle. It was one of his favourite things that his dad gave him. The wood blocks all looked different, but they all were made of smaller squares. All the blocks fit together in a case, but they had to fit in a three by three area.
There were many solutions to the puzzle, which was something that Ramón liked. He had memorised several ways to solve it, allowing him to repeatedly complete the puzzle with little thinking involved. If he wanted to, he could try to find other solutions to it, testing out different blocks to put on the base.
Ramón was content doing the block puzzle over and over again, but after a while he started to try and find other solutions. When he found a different one, he was surprised that it worked, and showed his dad.
His dad looked at the puzzle, and saw different blocks on top than when Ramón usually solved it. “Oh, is that a new solution that you found?”
He nodded, proud of his new discovery, and began slowly taking it apart, attempting to memorise it. He looked at the top and middle rows, but gave extra attention to the bottom row, remembering what blocks went in what spots.
All the blocks went beside him and his dad, and he began putting them back like they were. When he got to the top, everything fit together perfectly, making him even more happy. It seemed that his dad’s plan was working, because he felt much more calm, and he didn’t really want to go back to his elevator for the day.
The blocks got taken down and put back together several times, making Ramón more and more content, the repetition quelling his drive to work himself into exhaustion because of his project.
“dad?”
“Hmm? What is it, Ramón?”
“can we go to one of the flower fields that we found?”
“Of course, Ramón.” He could hear the smile in his dad’s voice. “Which one would you like to go to?”
Ramón thought about it, and decided that he wanted to not have to worry about adventuring, which was what he was doing at the second flower field.
“the first one”
“Okay, we can go. Do I need to bring anything for you? I have food and water, but do you need something?” Ramón couldn’t express how much he appreciated that Fit asked these questions to him, letting him vocalise what he needed at that moment.
“can I bring some fidget toys? and some string?”
“Yeah, I think I have those in a chest. Do you want me to put you down on the couch, or carry you with me?” Ramón held up two fingers, letting his dad know that he wants the second option.
Fit sat up, keeping Ramón tight to his chest while he walked over to his chests. He bent down, holding Ramón with one hand, and searching through the chest with the other. A piece of string was produced, given to Ramón to hold. There were multiple, some of them woven together to make a thicker string.
There was a separate chest off to the side, away from all the other chests. It contained all of Ramón's stuff, such as his fidget toys or books. His dad dug through it, finding a couple of different toys for his son to keep his hands occupied with.
“Okay, I think we’re good to go. We should use the waystone. Let’s go, my boy,” Fit said, heading towards the elevator in the corner of the base. He went up the hill to the cave where the waystone was, looking for the first flower field location they found together.
“I found it, Ramón, are you ready?” Ramón nodded, clinging to his dad a bit tighter, anticipating the teleport.
Purple particles wrapped around them, whisking them away to a hilly area with flowers everywhere. Ramón immediately smiled, silently asking to be let down from his dad’s arms. Hesitantly, his dad put him down, watching him to make sure he was okay.
Breaking free from his dad’s grasp, Ramón went to lay down amongst the flowers, a gentle breeze moving the stalks slightly. It felt… peaceful. It was nice, after all the stress he’s had since he woke up.
He heard his dad laugh from somewhere near him, and he felt him sit down near Ramón’s position in the field.
“You comfy, my boy?” Ramón nodded vigorously, dragging Fit to sit closer to him. He complied, sitting by Ramón’s head, allowing his son to rest his head in his lap.
Ramón let out a breath, visibly deflating as he felt more relaxed. More safe. He felt safe here, with his dad, surrounded by one of his favourite things, and in the company of one of his favourite people.
“I’m proud of you, Ramón. You’re so smart, but sometimes even geniuses need a bit of a break. That’s what I’m here for,” Fit reassured, resting a hand in Ramón’s hair. Ramón leaned into the touch, allowing his dad to drag his fingers through brown curls in a methodical pattern.
He placed a sign amongst the flowers, writing, “thanks, dad. for everything.”
Fit responded earnestly, treating Ramón as if he was the most precious thing in the world. “Well, of course, anything for you, my beautiful baby boy. You deserve more than I could ever give you. I’m glad I get to have time with you today, Ramón.”
“Me too.” Ramón rested his head on his dad’s lap, closing his eyes, just listening to the sound of the grass and flowers blowing in the small breeze. Listening to the sound of his dad breathing. The sound of his own breathing.
When Fit looked back down at his child, he found his sleeping son’s face turned towards him, and one of his hands entangled in his own, the other gripping his block puzzle. Ramón’s sleeping face looked so calm compared to how frantic he was just a few moments before this one.
He sat out there, moving Ramón fully onto his chest, letting his son’s head rest under his chin. He didn’t move, letting the moment draw out, holding his precious son close to his body and even closer to his heart.
Ramón was well asleep, getting very deserved rest. He didn’t understand how he got so fixated on his projects, but he’d be there to help him out. Whether that was getting materials, providing companionship, or making him take a break, Fit would be there for him.
When the sun began to set, Fit carefully moved to stand, taking extra care to not wake Ramón. He was a deep sleeper, so it wasn’t too difficult of a task. With slow and deliberate movements, he pulled out his waystone, preparing to teleport to Ramón’s house.
The purple particles surround the father-son pair, transporting them to the child’s home. Opening the door, Fit gently deposited his son on the bed. He tucked the blanket around him, curling it under Ramón’s feet to help him keep warm.
He took off his son’s goggles, setting them aside for Ramón to put back on in the morning when he decided to work on his elevator and basement again. He also pried his block puzzle from his grip, setting it near his goggles so he didn’t panic when he couldn’t find it.
Quietly, Fit left his son’s house, letting his son sleep peacefully after his long and exhausting day. He left a bundle of flowers he picked next to Ramón’s goggles and blocks, and went to go to sleep himself.
Both of them slept peacefully, no restlessness or anxiety to consume them. Thoughts such as those were kept at bay by memories of their loved ones, protecting them from nightmares and bad dreams.