Chapter Text
The Remains were a hard place to navigate. Even for Deivy who prided himself on his ability to make do in every situation, often found himself baffled at how confusing every structure was, even if he had been down here before. It didn’t help that the only real light source here was from his lanterns. At least he didn’t come alone this time.
He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing, but James insisted on tagging along.
It felt weird. Even if the James he had known previously was only a doppelgänger, it just seemed wrong to have someone you watched die in front of you be all fine and dandy the next moment.
Deivy had insisted that James stay back. Actually no, he demanded that James stay back. But James refused. Unlike Geo or 7k, he could not be told what to do. At least not without major resistance.
The idiot really thinks he knows everything.
Although, Deivy couldn’t be too mad about James’ stubborness. Company was company at this point. And like what was said before, he was rather relieved to not be doing this alone.
Not because he was scared. He was not scared. But because he knew full well that if this mission was going to go smoothly, then—as much as he really, really didn’t want to admit it—he could use an extra pair of hands.
Because his only goal for coming back down to this hellscape was to find Geo, and bring them back to safety whether it be willingly or by force.
“What if he fights back?” James asked out of nowhere. “What do we do then? Just gonna drag them back to the lobby like they’re some sorta feral animal?”
“We do what we’ve gotta! If he fights, then we fight,” Deivy answered firmly and without room for argument.
James raised a brow. “You?” He huffed. “Fighting?”
Deivy’s eye twitched in irritation. “Yeah, and? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged and kept his focus on their surroundings. The whole place was disorienting. Rock structures forming unnaturally. Darkness fogging up the sky. At some point it felt as though the only thing left with color in it was Deivy’s blue electric lanterns.
“You know, I know what I’m doing here.” Deivy huffed.
“Yeah. Sure. I believe you.”
“Then why do you sound so damn sarcastic?!”
“Oh? Maybe it’s because I’m teaming up with a 13 year old in some weird ass territory that barely makes any damn sense!”
“Shut the fuck–I mean frick up!” Deivy huffed. “Why’d you even agree to come if you were gonna be such a bitch about it?”
James let out a bitter laugh. “Really? I’m the bitch here?”
“Yes! Now shut up or I’ll-!”
He raised a brow. “You’ll what exactly?”
Deivy grunted in frustration. He knew full well he stood no chance against James. Despite his hot headed behavior and everlasting knowledge about World Tower Defense, his physical strength was not enough to overpower someone older than him. And Deivy was well aware of that. He wasn’t stupid after all. Although, usually James was less… rude?
Weird. He’s not really one to start shit.
Then it began to dawn on him.
Is this how people feel when talking to me?
He groaned at the thought. He would rather not ask. Deivy already knew the answer, but admitting it was a whole other deal that was for another place at another time.
“I’ll make you wish you didn’t find out!” He finally blurted out.
“Please.” James rolled his eyes. “You think you intimidate me?”
“What if I do? Huh.” Deivy crossed his arms. “Maybe I-”
Deivy froze in his tracks. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Whether it be that James was scared too, or simply confused by his friend’s sudden silence, he stopped talking too. Ever so slowly turning to face into the area that Deivy so firmly had his eyes set toward.
It was nothing. Literally nothing. Just more stone and an endless view of a sad sky. Surely there had to be something else, right? What was James not seeing?
“So what are we looking at?” James finally asked, though he made it a point to keep his voice low.
“At that,” Deivy answered, pointing to what appeared to be a random blank space in the difference.
James squinted at the area. Again. Nothing. This was starting to get annoying. Deivy was probably just messing with him to try and get him on edge. That way he could make the excuse of not being the only one scared down here. Well, James wasn’t about to let him get that satisfaction.
“Deivy, are you stupid or somethin-” Before James even had the chance to finish his sentence, something within the darkness moved almost instantly. It caught both of them off guard, but they wasted no time getting into action.
Deivy was first to chase after it with James quickly tailing behind. Usually Deivy was much more cautious about where he was going, especially when in unfamiliar surroundings, but there was no time to be spent observing. Whatever it was they were running after, it was fast, and they needed to be faster if they ever wanted a chance at catching it.
“What if this isn’t even them?” James asked, not slowing down by any means.
“It has to be! I saw her face!”
“Yeah? And what if it’s just another one of those dopplegängers? Don’t you remember? If they can replicate you and I, they can most definitely replicate Geo of all people!”
“No. It has to be her! The other two always tried to lure me in! Don’t you think that this one would do the same instead of running away?!”
“Fair enough.”
However, it seemed it would be harder than they thought. Geo seemed to know every single shortcut possible. Each time they got close, he’d disappear under a ledge, and reappear elsewhere. That was until the two got an idea. One that they genuinely had no idea if it would work, or if Geo would by some miracle would manage to slip through their fingers again.
They won't.
James ran ahead, hugging the edge of the cliff Geo was seemingly planning to leap off of to get away from them. Again. But this time they wouldn’t be able to. With James blocking one spot, causing Geo to backtrack, Deivy lept from the side, tackling him to the ground. Even if Deivy knew full well that most of the time he’d lose to typical hand to hand combat, he knew that Geo was one of the few that he could very well overpower. It was sad, almost, but at the same time it came in handy for a time like this.
Gotcha now!
Or did he? Because Geo wasn’t the same from the last time Deivy saw him. No. Not even close.
With a horribly strong force, Deivy was ripped off of Geo, back slamming into James. The wind was knocked out of both of them, but that didn’t matter. Deivy needed to do this one way or another. Geo had to come home.
He was sorry.
When Deivy looked at his friend, however, she wasn’t quite how he remembered her.
Large patches of her skin, her entire right arm, and pieces of her coral shirt had completely turned into stone that seemed to mimic the formation of branches. Oh and her right eye. It was gone, replaced by soft pink flowers that also adorned parts of her arms and torso. She looked ill. She looked scared.
“Deivy,” Geo said. “Go away!”
Their sight switched back and forth between Deivy and James like prey that had been trapped into a corner with no way out. Waiting to be devoured by the monsters that lurked around.
“Geo…” Deivy began to reach for him, but he scampered back.
“Don’t-!”
“I’m sorry.”
James looked at the two of them confused. He was utterly lost as to what was going on. Why was Geo covered in stone and flowers? Why was Deivy apologizing? He didn’t know Geo personally, but he sure didn’t think that this was what they were.
“No! No ‘sorry!’” Geo’s voice sounded almost like a toddler refusing to be near their parents after they had hurt their feelings. Deivy would know the feeling. He was sure everybody did at some point.
I did this.
“Alright. ‘No sorry.’” Deivy nodded in agreement, keeping his hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to see you, Geo. You know?”
It’s the least I could do after everything.
“Yeah. He dragged me along down here to help him. You know how he is, right? Always asking for help?” James added.
“Not helping.”
“Okay.”
Geo frowned and his breath began to stutter. “What do you want now? I have nothing! I can’t make you happy!” He was nearly on the verge of tears now. Perhaps even angry.
“That’s okay, Geo,” He reassured him, “I don’t want anything from you. You’ve already given me more than I deserve.”
Deivy took a step towards him, but for every step Deivy took, Geo compensated with five steps back.
“I-I’ll kill you!” The flowers covering Geo began to bloom as if physically affected by her anger. “I’ll kill both of you.”
James gave Deivy a confused shrug. It was clear he had no idea how to proceed from here. At least, not in a way that wouldn’t piss Deivy off and scare Geo away.
“Give us some space, James, would you?” Deivy asked, sarcasm surprisingly non-existent in his tone. Who would’ve thought that was possible?
Still, James complied, stepping away until he managed to get out of sight between a few stone pillars.
Good.
“I know you’re scared, Geo. But you’ve gotta come back home with-“
“This is my home! I was born here!”
What??
James, or well, his doppelgänger had claimed the same thing. That they were from the Remains. Was this really, Geo then? No. It had to be Geo. A fake would have tried to kill him by now, and it certainly wouldn’t warn him of such.
“Geo…” Deivy began cautiously. Since when did he have to be the voice of reason? “You weren’t born here. You were born on the surface. Just like I was, and 7k was. You belong with us.”
For a moment, it seemed to almost work. Geo’s eyes had softened, and to Deivy, he was sure that at this point they were at the very least contemplating it.
Come on, Geo. You’re so close now.
“No,” they said at last. “I won’t. You’re lying to me!”
“I’m not!”
“Yes you are! You always lie to me!” Geo sobbed. “You lied to me saying that you care about me, you lied about us being friends, and you’re lying right now!”
Oh.
“I…”
“And the worst part is that you’re right to lie! I am a monster! Look at me, Deivy! I’m deformed, mutilated! And it’s all my fault!”
Time seemed to freeze. Silence took over. How did one convince their friend that all the terrible things that had happened lately had nothing to do with them? It was clear that Geo had fallen victim to the Remains, and that Deivy’s neglectfulness had been its accomplice. This was his fault, not Geo’s. He needed him to understand that.
“Geo. None of this was because of you. I swear it.”
“I failed to make you happy! I went off on my own to get better and you’re still not happy!” She cried.
She didn’t get it. She still thinks he cares about his stupid YouTube tutorials. Those don’t matter now! He was a bastard for ever prioritizing them over his best friend. He’d let his friend go mad trying to please him and now he had to pay the consequences.
Deivy was a horrible ‘friend’, if he could even still call himself that.
“Geo…”
“And now I made everything worse-!”
“No you didn’t!” Deivy shouted, promptly cutting him off. Geo whimpered from the sudden sound.
Shit, I can’t do anything right!
He had to make this as clear and concise as possible. No backtracking, no beating around the bush, just blunt and straightforward.
Come on, idiot! Not like you had a problem with doing that before.
“I know you don’t forgive me. Hell, if I were you, I wouldn’t forgive me either.” Deivy chuckled nervously.
Geo stared blankly, tears threatening to fall.
“But I want you to know that I want to be better. For you. And I know now that the way I was treating you was fucking terrible. I took my own best friend for granted. How wrong is that?”
He extended his arm towards his friend. He didn’t see a monster. He only saw Geometry. His bestest friend. One he had disregarded and bullied for far too long.
Geo fixed his eyes on Deivy’s hand. It was unarmed, bare, and a little shaky.
“I love you, Geo.” His voice trembled. “And you don’t gotta love me back. But you do need to come home. You deserve to be safe and happy, not to suffer because of what I’ve done.”
Geo remained unmoving.
Deivy gestured to his still open hand. “You look awfully cold. Wouldn’t you like to warm up?”
Time passed. It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been any longer than a minute of back and forth between Geo watching Deivy’s hand like it would either bite at him or retract before he could even process what he wanted to do.
Then it happened.
Geo let out one final sob before taking Deivy’s hand in his. Immediately, Deivy pulled him into an embrace, Geo desperately clinging to him.
“Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay,” Deivy comforted him, hand running through his friend’s hair. Geo’s body quivered violently. He nearly dropped them from the sudden weight, but he’d have it no other way.
“I’m a monster, Deivy. A monster,” He cried into his shoulder as the other rubbed slow and consistent circles into his back.
“You’re not a monster, Geo. I swear to God you’re not a monster.” Deivy let out a long, exhausted sigh.
For a while, they just sat there together with Geo resting in Deivy’s arms, allowing himself to be consoled. He almost couldn’t believe this was the same Deivy that he’d been with before he ever went down here. Disappearing for weeks on end seemed to do the trick, although he really wished it didn’t take that for their relationship to begin to mend.
Deivy carefully pulled back from their embrace, inspecting Geo’s current state. Besides the obvious many stone and flower growths all over him, and tears still falling, Geo appeared exhausted, a deep black circle under his remaining eye. His hair was a mess, and his shirt and pants were torn.
“What happened?” Deivy asked, fingers gingerly making contact with a couple of the flowers. They twitched at his touch.
“I don’t remember. It’s hard to think,” He answered, rubbing his eye.
“Do they hurt?”
Geo shook his head.
“Good. That’s good.”
“I want them gone, though.”
“We can figure that out on the surface.”
“Okay.”
Deivy guided Geo back into his hold, continuing to rub slow and consistent circles into her back. Even if Geo was accepting of Deivy now, there was no guarantee that she’d be in the next few minutes.
He watched Geo’s face slowly begin to droop with exhaustion, the time between his blinks growing longer and slower. Eventually, he yawned, nuzzling himself into Deivy’s shirt. Right. Compared to Geo, Deivy was probably a dang heater at this point. Not that he minded. This was good. Very good. If he just stayed still a little longer, Geo would fall asleep and then he could carry him back to the surface without having to worry about him changing his mind.
Just go to sleep for a little while.
He allowed nothing more than the calls of the wind to be in their presence. Or, at least that’s what he thought. James slowly peeked out from his hiding spot, hesitantly making his way towards the two.
“We gotta go. Cool reunion. Almost shed a tear. But just because you’re both best pals again, doesn’t mean that everything else down here is suddenly going to be buddy-buddy with us!” He warned.
Geo’s eyes opened at that, head lifting to face the boy who was walking towards them.
Deivy groaned.
He’s always got to ruin the moment.
No. That wasn’t true. James had risked his life coming down here alongside Deivy all for the sake of finding someone he didn’t even personally know. He had to give credit where credit was due. He wouldn’t have managed to find Geo without him, as much as he hated to admit it. Also, he did have a point. As far as they knew, Geo didn’t have any more control over this place than the two of them did. They could still all very well be in danger.
“Come on. I’ll carry your friend if you want, but I don’t wanna spend another second in this hellhole if I don’t have to,” James said, crouching down beside them.
Geo glanced between the two of them, unsure whether or not to accept the offer. After all, he was spent and didn’t find it in him to have the strength to walk all the way back, especially not after what just happened. Although he wasn’t too fond of the idea of a stranger carrying him around either.
“I’ll do it,” Deivy said plainly.
James scoffed. “Dude, no offense, but there’s no way you’re making it with a whole other person in your arms.”
He rolled his eyes. “He’s way smaller than me. I’ll be fine. C’mon, Geo, let’s go.”
His friend appeared uncomfortable with the idea of it, but at the end of the day, he knew full well he had no strength left in him to make it that far. But making Deivy carry him? That sounded inconsiderate. There was no way he could just accept an offer like that.
He shook his head, staying put.
Why is he making a big deal out of this?
“Geo, I said, come on. You heard James. If anything, you could be in trouble down here, too!”
“He’s not gonna do it.” James crossed his arms.
“Yeah, well, he’s going to have to!”
Geo frowned. Thankfully, Deivy took notice of that, face softening at the sight of his friend’s discomfort. Right. He’d just sworn up and down to not be that way anymore. That was stupid. So much for starting off new again. Oh well. He had to keep going. They all did.
“Sorry. I mean-Do you want to be carried?” Deivy checked his friend over. He seemed to be doing alright minus the obvious.
That was better. Geo paused before finally nodding, and with that, Deivy placed one arm under his knees and the other under his shoulders and hoisted him up. It was clear he was struggling despite the boy’s small frame, but Deivy would rather die than ever admit that. Geo settled comfortably in Deivy’s arms, head resting against his shoulder. His hold was surprisingly steady for a 13 year old.
James rolled his eyes. This was more than he’d asked to deal with, but at least Deivy had Geo now. “I’m so ready to leave this damn place.”
“You and I both.” Deivy exhaled. For once they could agree on something.
The trek back was not nearly as rough the initial way there, but by no means was it easier.
“Ugh.” James groaned. “Why’d they have to go and make us chase them? This shit is awful.”
Deivy would’ve complained as well, but he was too tired to say anything. He feared even muttering something might make him lose his already struggling breath.
At the very least, it didn’t take long for Geo to eventually drift off, hands dangling limp to his sides. He was peaceful. Probably the most rest he’s gotten since he came down here. Deivy couldn’t help but let out a half smile, though it quickly faded as his eyes once again focused on the strange growths all over his body.
Geo said he was made from this place.
No. That couldn’t be true. Sure, Geo didn’t have parents. Nobody did. But that didn’t mean that he was born from rocks and flowers. That wasn’t plausible, even for Deivy who knew little to nothing about biology. Maybe 7k would know, or her friend Tofuu would know? He didn’t know much about them, but from what 7k had said, they seemed pretty knowledgeable on random niche topics.
Geo stirred in her sleep, Deivy subconsciously rocked her, attempting to soothe her fragile sleep.
Right. He had more important things to deal with.
He had been a bad friend, and he was going to change that.
He had to.