Chapter Text
He’s falling.
Falling.
Falling
.
.
.
Gideon wakes up with a jolt. His chest heaves as he inhales deeply. He pants, catching his breath, and he realizes he’s staring up at the dull-purplish sky of Thither.
The Genasi blinks harshly up at the canopy of trees above him, dappling him and his surroundings with the sunlight that’s filtering in through the leaves. He attempts to get his bearings, Where is he? How did he get here? Why is he here? He’s too discombobulated at the moment to even realize he’s lying on his back. His eyes flutter closed as a wave of nausea rolls through him.
He tries to focus on his other senses, and mentally scans his body. He’s definitely lying down, and he’s settled on something that is pinching—no, prickly. Something is prickling the back half of his body. His eyebrows furrow, still trying to remember how he got into this situation.
How did— a bright light flashes in his memory, everything goes red at one point. Blood. He realizes it’s blood, his own blood. His mental scan didn’t pick up on any injuries, however he could be numbed by adrenaline.
Suddenly his memory provides a horrific sound—the call of the Jabberwock. His eyes fly open, he remembers, they were in the middle of a fight—that stupid chess hallucination distracted him. A horrific fight that he knew they had no chance in winning. He has to get up, he has to help them, he can’t leave them to do it alone.
Gideon rolls himself back so he can gain enough momentum to pop back up onto his feet. Once he’s standing, he looks around, heart pounding hard in his thankfully intact ribcage.
The blood rushes from his head and he immediately becomes light headed, of course, he got up too fast…How long had he been lying there? The Genasi wobbles on his feet before stumbling to his knees. He bows his head in an attempt to calm the spots swimming in his vision. As he does so, he focuses his hearing, attempting to locate the battle, but he hears nothing. Soft wind blowing through leaves, the chirping of birds, soft breathing coming from somewhere behind him, but no horrible roar of the Jabberwock, no thunderous footsteps, no cracking of trees…just peace.
Gideon’s head clears, and he stands up, finally taking in his surroundings. Beneath his feet is a rosebed—that must’ve been what was prickly, the thorns—and as he turns he finds his companions, all five of them lying unconscious in the same bed of roses he just woke up in.
Gideon releases a breath he realizes he’s been holding for too long, and scratches his head slightly, taking in the scene. The five of them had been arranged on their backs, arms peacefully folded over their middles, and with their heads all pointed toward the middle of this strangely shaped rose bed. Gideon can easily deduce that they hadn’t organized this themselves like this…so who did? And why? And how in the hell is he alive?? He is quite certain he was very close to death in that battle with the Jabberwock, so how does he feel fine? He looks around at the others…did they defeat it? Without him? He feels a bit silly—and selfish—wondering that, but he can’t help but feel upset that he missed out on what possibly was the biggest fight of their lives.
After taking one final look around at the strange scene, and mentally checking over his companions, he walks over to the alligator next to him and kneels down, ignoring the thorns jabbing into his knees, “Hey Krem,” surprising himself, his voice is weak from disuse. He clears his throat a bit as he nudges his closest friend to wake him up, but the lizardfolk doesn’t stir, “…Kremy?”
Fear grows in Gideon’s chest, it hadn’t even crossed his mind that they could have been dead. He places his large hand on Kremy’s chest and waits a long moment…
BUMP BUMP
His shoulders sag with relief when he feels the healthy thump of Kremy’s heartbeat, soon followed by a soft intake of breath that his chest rises with.
Gideon hesitantly removes his hand off the gator’s chest and sits back to silently survey the group for a few minutes, watching carefully for the rise and fall of their chests. Once he’s checked each of his friends’ conditions, he decides to stand up once more and make his way out of the strange rose bed.
As Gideon takes careful steps toward the edge of the rose bed, he hears a sleepy rumble that becomes a soft hoot. He turns towards the familiar noise and finds his niece, Hootsie, waking up. She was not sleeping on the rose bed like the others, instead she had been curled up on a soft patch of grass outside of the strange patch. He sees her stretch her four limbs out, then she blinks her large, owl eyes at Gideon, seemingly comprehending that he’s there. Once her sleepiness has worn off, she bounds over to him excitedly and crashes into him, almost knocking him over.
“Woah, woah! What’s gotten into you? Not that I’m complainin’, definitely like the warm reception from you,” The owlbear nuzzles into his chest, hooting happily. “Glad you’re awake, too, Hoots. Now we just gotta wait fer-“ he’s interrupted by a sharp gasp from behind him within the rose bed.
“Gid!” A choked shout follows that initial gasp as Kremy calls out. Gideon whips around, alarmed, expecting to see Kremy looking at him, but instead he sees the lizardfolk staring up at the sky, clutching his abdomen protectively as he heaves in panicked breaths.
“Kremy-“ Gideon answers and rushes over to his companion, “Hey! Kremy, man, you alright?”
Kremy blinks as his silvery-grey eyes slowly drift over and land on Gideon’s face as it comes into focus. Kremy lets out a strangled breath as tension leaves him and he grabs onto Gideon to pull himself up and into a hug with the larger man, “Oh Gid, you’re okay, thank you Baron,” he mutters the last bit under his breath, squeezing tighter and burying his snout into the large man’s shoulder.
Gideon’s hands hesitate over Kremy before finally wrapping around him and returning the hug, “I’m fine, I’m fine, but yer probably gonna have to explain what happened to me, cuz all I remember is the Jabberwock standin’ over me, then…nothin’.”
Kremy releases the embrace and looks up at Gideon, a pensive look crossing his face. He fully sits up—now more carefully as to not rip his suit on the roses’ thorns—and opens his jaws to speak, but slowly closes them when he finds he can’t say the words he has to. Luckily, before he can get anything out, he’s interrupted by a sudden, gravelly yell.
Torbek is up, sobbing loudly and painfully. He shoots up from his spot and immediately grabs for his head, tugging on clumps of his hair, “wHY WHY WHY???!! WHY?!!” His chest heaves with panicked breaths as large tears stream down his face.
Kremy and Gideon initially freeze at the sudden emotional outburst, but are able to quickly kick themselves into gear as soon as they shake it off and hurry over to Torbek.
“Torbek! Torbek, hey- hey, hey! Easy, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” Kremy says firmly, kneeling down to Torbek’s left. To Torbek’s right, Gideon gently wraps his hands around Torbek’s forearms, avoiding any machinery or tubing, and attempts to hold his arms in place to loosen the strain he’s putting on his scalp.
Torbek’s tearful, magenta eyes look up at the two familiar faces, and relief immediately crosses his expression. Torbek tries to pull himself together in front of two of the people he admires most, but he quickly finds that he can’t stop the tears and snot and drool from running down his face. He finally releases his hair, wipes his face on the sleeve of his jacket, and then quickly moves into Gideon arms for emotional support. Torbek wraps his long arms around his friend and heaves in deep, even breaths in an attempt to calm himself down.
Gideon flinches at the quick movement and sudden physical contact from the bugbear, but soon puts a warm hand on his back, “What happened, Torbek, do ya wanna talk about it?” Gideon asks as softly as he can, still trying to fish for information. Kremy watches on, non-existent eyebrows furrowed heavily, and he methodically taps the skull of his cane with his claws as he surveys the rest of the scene in front of him. Hootsie wanders over, concerned, and tries her best to cheer up Torbek by nuzzling her face against his, wiping his tears with her feathers.
Torbek chuckles softly at Hootsie as he gently pushes her out of his face, then he breathes in and out a few times, shakily yet evenly, and finally shakes his head ‘no’. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He never wants to think about what happened. ever. again.
Kremy reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a fancy handkerchief. After carefully dabbing at his own face briefly, he hands it to Torbek who graciously accepts it and harshly trumpets his nose into it. Kremy can’t help the disgusted grimace that appears on his face, even though that’s what he expected when he’d offered it.
“Look fellas,” Gideon starts, and the two of them, plus Hootsie, turn to him, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there to help y’all out, but I think I may need some help in figurin’ out what happened. I don’t remember much of anythin’ an’ I wanna be able to help ya out…”
Kremy almost immediately starts shaking his head, “Don’t apologize for dyin’, Gid. I hadn’t seen much o’ the fight either, couldn’t really explain our situation even if I tried, but I assume it was some sorta horrible hallucination.”
Suddenly the small, green figure next to them heaves in a breath—interrupting, as per usual.
All three’s attention turns to Gricko.
Gricko lays, face up, in the rose bed with his hands clutching his chest. The goblin is panting softly, but quickly, as silent tears stream down his cheeks, “Hootsie…” he croaks quietly…so quietly, in fact, that they have to strain to even hear it.
Upon hearing her father wake up finally, Hootsie whips her head around to face him. Of course, she immediately rushes over and nuzzles her big, round head into his chest.
At her appearance, Gricko loses whatever composure he was trying to keep and begins crying harder. He wraps his arms around her and buries his face into her feathers to muffle his sobs. She looks to the guys then back down at Gricko with clear confusion on her owlbear features. She’s clearly and justifiably worried about him. She lowers her weight on top of her papa to comfort him.
Gideon watches on in concern and confusion, “We musta missed somethin’ real bad…” He looks at Torbek and Kremy who are also watching the scene, just as confused and concerned as Gideon.
Torbek sniffles softly against Gideon’s chest, and Gricko moves his head out of Hootsie’s feathers to suck in a deep breath of fresh air and take some soothing breaths. His eyes are squeezed shut and his lips begin to move. It takes a moment, but eventually they can hear him whispering, “Please be real. Please be real. Please be real…” over and over again, under his breath, as he squeezes Hootsie.
They let them stay like that for a moment, but Torbek can’t take the sounds of Gricko’s anguish much longer and pulls himself out of Gideon’s embrace. He stands up and creeps over to the smaller goblinoid, trying not to startle him. As he gets closer, he sees the little green guy staring up at the sky with wet and irritated eyes from crying.
Gricko sniffles wetly and blinks tears out of his eyes that roll down the sides of his face and into his ears. Torbek comes into view, towering over the little goblin, and sits down at his head. The bugbear hesitates momentarily, then cards his claws gently through Gricko’s dirty blonde hair.
“Torbek’s sorry Gricko…for everything. Torbek should’ve been able to do better…”
Gricko looks up at Torbek’s face. The bugbear’s always sad features seem even more pathetic that usual, even from his upside-down point-of-view of them. Gricko reaches up and gently removes Torbek’s hand from his hair to grasp onto it with both of his smaller, clawed hands, “Me too, Torbek…” Gricko says, his voice sounding distant, “I should’ve done more…”
Kremy and Gideon watch on quietly. Kremy slips his hand into Gideon’s, and Gideon looks over to him, giving the reptillian’s hand a grounding squeeze. Kremy squeezes his eyes shut, willing the images of his ironic husband’s mangled body out of his head.