I'm in the autumn of my years

[panspermia]

Who: Greg Universe and any Rescuers
What: who's this asshole
When: June 18
Where: The Rescuers' ship
Warnings: trauma and PTSD

If Greg has a reaction to entering a massive alien guitar spaceship, he keeps it to himself. Between the drama of the ritual, the return of his maimed soul, and his haphazard rescue, he simply has too much to process first before he can take in the rest of the rescuer operation. As a result, first thing he does is find a small, empty room--a bathroom--and ask to be left alone for a while.

An hour or so later, a very different man emerges again.

It hadn't been his first intention in locking himself in that room, but the longer he'd been in there, the more necessary it had felt. Greg hasn't felt like himself in a very long time. The worst of it was the result of Blanche's meddling with his soul, yes, but it extended before that point as well. The face of his youth, the one Blanche used and tried to make into a different person altogether... Greg couldn't keep looking at that face anymore. It hurt too much, made him too sick. Adding a few years on to his appearance and a beard isn't going to fix it, either; he's not the same person he used to be, either. (After all, he did keep the hair.) But this is better, closer than before. Whoever he is now, this is about as close as he's willing to get.

Greg Universe emerges into the ship, avoiding eye contact, and finally begins to take things in.

Comments

[nibelungvalesti]

Greg almost had to go get some more work done.

Fortunately, Meril shed her armor into the ether just a moment before she hit him. Not lightly thanks to her strength and mass... but lightly enough. She was still a small girl, after all, and she wasn't trying to take him down. The hands that went around him clung more than they did squeeze, fingers splayed like she was trying to hold as much of him as possible all at once.

One moment of shivering, desperate tension later, she leaned her head back slightly, her eyes squinted from having jammed them, unthinkingly, straight into his beard.

"You are not safe from either side now," she said, the joke so much brittle ice over worry and relief and a soul that seemed to have been wrung out like a damp rag.

[exhumerus]

Sans has, at least, gotten sort of used to being around the rescuers, by now. He's used to keeping to himself and simply acknowledging how broken he must look to most of these people. They all know what happened to him, don't they? The brainwashing, the amnesia, the...part with the torture. He's just a sob story out of a folder to most of them, isn't he?

A temporary victory to their team. It's different for the ones who are actually his friends, he knows, but... the entire team thing... he still doesn't know how he feels about it. He can't help but feel like he should be in an asylum when he's around this place. He's not a captive, but he's not a hero either. He doesn't really know where he belongs.

Which means he's so very relieved when Greg finally emerges again, only to see... wow. Kind of different, huh? It catches him off guard for a moment, but it's not like random changes are surprising anymore. Hell, his skin totally fell off once and Greg didn't even say 'ew.' He's got no right to talk about anything anymore.

So, instead he goes for the less obvious thing:

"Man. Gotta say, that was one hell of a long dump you took there."

He leans forward over the table he's sitting at, looking weary but surprisingly un-dead. In a couple manners of speaking.

[determinate]

Frisk hasn't seen Mr. Universe since the lab, but they follow news of the musicians well enough. They know he hasn't been...exactly well. It worried Sans and Connie a lot. It worried them too, though maybe in a different way. Soulless people are things they usually have to deal with themself, and it's never gone great.

So it's great news that he's finally been rescued! Enough new people are in that Frisk has been all over trying to see to them all, but Greg was one of the ones they were really looking for. They stop in surprise when they finally see him. Was he hiding in the bathroom this whole time?

"You put it back!" Not all of it; they remember him being more bald and pink than this. But that he would choose to become older again at all is surprising. And, Frisk thinks, probably a good thing.

[panspermia]

For some reason--most likely the result of a lot of built up self loathing--he had expected their reunion to involve a lot more disgust or disappointment than warm, wonderful, desperate hugs. He always failed to give her enough credit.

Greg makes a little choking noise at her comment, caught between a laugh and sob as he puts his arms around her. He's even bigger now than before, but he can't hold enough of her.

"S-sorry," he croaks. His own voice is ragged and raspy, as though all that singing has finally worn it away. "I should've checked with you first."

[nibelungvalesti]

"I should have looked. Maybe one day I will learn." She opened her eyes again, looking up at him with a gaze that shone both literally and figuratively -- the former a bit watery, as she tried to hold back tears. "But I feel like it has been a century and more since I saw you!"

Not because of his physical differences, but because of everything that had been through. The two of them that had played this past while, that had toured, and done such horrible things -- hadn't been them.

"And I am so glad to see you again..."

[panspermia]

The whole location feels surreal. Everything about it, the location, its people, its leaders, have yet to sink in by any real capacity.

Greg hesitates by Sans' table, uncertain in a way he can't define. It's strange. The two of them look completely different than they used to, now. No one could possibly look between two pictures of them now and at the start, and guess it was the same pair. Yet, as he sits down across from Sans, he realizes how long it's been since they got to talk as friends. These last few months have been so complicated.

"Had a lot I needed to get out of me," Greg admits with an exhausted little smile.

[panspermia]

Greg blinks at the child. There's a lot of vagueness to that sentence, but he can guess at at least some of their meaning.

"Uhh, I guess... I sort of did." He glances away, rubbing at his neck. "Just... thought, you know..." He hesitates, realization dawning. "W-wait, uh--we... did we know each other? Before... all this?" He's regained a fairly sizable chunk of his memories, but nothing of Frisk before their meeting in Vista.

[exhumerus]

Sans's grin widens at that - it's always a good sign when they can still joke. There is something strangely relaxing about this, compared to everything else. Just seeing Greg acting like himself again is its own special kind of drug.

Kind of weird. He was so used to thinking of Greg as younger than him, but like this he's pretty sure he looks like the human equivalent of his own age. And, in reality, Greg is actually at least a decade older.

"You know, I didn't actually expect any of that to work. I find myself pleasantly surprised."

[panspermia]

For his part, Greg didn't bother holding his tears back. Seeing her again, truly seeing her, was too great a relief to bother holding anything at all back.

"Oh god. I can't... I don't know how we spent so long apart." That cold indifference he'd held for those weeks clawed at his memory, full of shame and regret. "I'm so sorry, Meril."

[nibelungvalesti]

"That was not you. I know, because Greg Universe would never have behaved that way. And neither would I."

She lifted a hand up to the back of his head, pulling him down as she hauled herself up to plant a kiss on him. This was much easier, she noted, if she was willing to fly. And that was the only thought she had space in her head for before she lost herself to the kiss and the fierce need she felt for that contact.

[panspermia]

He wants to apologize again--this is his fault, after all, if it hadn't been for him Blanche would never have brought her into this, he could have...

She kisses him, as fiercely and passionately as she ever has, and it pushes the thought from his mind. She doesn't care about that. Of course she doesn't. Blanche is the one who took this from them, and all that matters is they have it back now.

Greg kisses her back without apology, all embrace and reclaiming what they'd lost, and reveling in their return. Now, more than ever, Greg wonders how he could be so lucky to be here with her.

[nibelungvalesti]

Because he was Greg Universe.

That was all.

By the time their kiss broke, Greg might find himself a few inches off the ground thanks to her grip and her completely inability to focus. No sooner did she realize than she let him down with a slight tinge of red to her cheeks.

"Do you feel all right?" Everything he'd been through in the past weeks, culminating in the reversion of physical changes, can't have been easy on him. Belatedly it occurred to her she might be undoing some work by downright manhandling him.

[panspermia]

His feet touch the floor again, but he could still be floating for all he cared. How could he have forgotten how this felt?

Her question, however, does a slightly better job bringing him back to earth. His older face does a better job showing how tired he feels.

"I'm not sure. All the things I said, the way I acted... that might not have really been me, but I..." He shivers, feeling ill again. Her warmth can't cut through all of the chill. "It's hard to have that person inside me."

[nibelungvalesti]

She lifted a finger to his lips, to stop that train of thought before it could sink any deeper into it.

"You do not," she said, looking into his eyes as if she could stare straight into his soul. To a certain extent, she could, after all. "That was who you are when you were removed, after all. You cannot be that person so long as you are yourself."

[fantasyseal]

If anything, Reimu has been even more quiet then she had been before. Most of the fight she was off to the side, curled up because she had no way to help..now idea who to try and fight or if she was even able to. Until things had seemed to calm down mostly did she even finally register that everyone was safe and away from all that. It was then she started to wander...and found Greg after a bit. Hesitation hit..but then like nothing had happened, she launches herself at him, clinging tightly and shaking. This hug isn't being let go of any time soon.

"Don't do that again...Please..."

[panspermia]

He smiles, faintly, and takes her raised hand in his.

"I...I know." Logically, anyway. It's harder to truly believe when all the memories are fresh and present. "I... Blanche used someone with my face and voice to hurt people. Maybe he wasn't me, but... people don't know that." He holds her hand tight. "I want to make things right."

[panspermia]

Age has become such a confusing blur at this point. Greg himself has no idea what he qualifies as. Heck, how does he know the body Sans had before was the right age for the skeleton's real self? It's all so arbitrary once magic meddles in these things.

"I'm glad you tried anyway." His smile is soft, weighed with grief and guilt, but genuine in its gratitude. "You saved me, Sans."

[panspermia]

The number of hugs coming at him is a little surprising. Poor Reimu's gone through so much these last few hours--these last few weeks, really. Dragged along as the rest of her band goes wild and breaks apart. He can only imagine how badly he's scared her.

Greg returns the hug. Against all odds, she's safe. For that, he's grateful. "All right, kiddo. Never again." He squeezes. "I'm so sorry, Reimu. You shouldn't have gone through all this."

[nibelungvalesti]

"We will." Her only grounds for confidence were faith in him and a determination of her own. But she thought that would be enough. "We are in the right place to begin doing so, and among the right people."

[determinate]

Frisk shakes their head, hair bobbing. "It was a dream. You probably don't remember." It's normal to forget dreams. Nothing worth worrying about.

They could describe what happened, but it doesn't seem very important at this point. Besides, they don't really feel like it. So instead, they offer him a hand. "Wanna look around?" They can give him a tour! Sometimes it feels like they've spent more time on this ship than they did underground.

[panspermia]

Greg gives a firm nod in response. When she says it with such complete certainty, how can he possibly doubt her? "What about you? How are you feeling?"

[panspermia]

A dream, huh... well, there's no reason to be skeptical of just about anything anymore. If anything, what's most impressive is how far this kid will go for a dream. That's a pretty good sign.

Greg takes the outstretched hand in his. "I could use a tour guide. You been living here this whole time?"

[determinate]

"We were in Vista for a while." Frisk isn't sure they'll ever return. They brought their few belongings with them when they left. "I worked in the mall." They seem too young to be working anywhere at all, but honestly that is not the most incongruous thing here.

They take his hand, leading him down the corridor. None of it is particularly homey; if it were their spaceship, they like to think they'd do some different things. "The rooms are down here. You can pick one." It's lucky there's so many. The common areas are going to be crowded during the day, but even with all the musicians who just came in, they shouldn't run out of beds.

[exhumerus]

It was close enough, as far as Sans can tell. Skeletons don't really show age. The major difference between him now and ten years ago is that he gave up on trying to dress himself properly.

He still has no idea how to accept credit for this sort of thing, but in this case it would just feel obtuse to imply he hadn't been responsible for any of it. The lack of avoidance wiggle room actually makes him speak somewhat seriously.

"The cycle had to stop somewhere," he says. "I should have just taken you before, when I had the chance."

Whoops, self blame just kind of snuck in there. Fuck.

[panspermia]

Greg gives a laugh completely lacking in any sort of humor. "Well, I made it pretty hard for you. You might be a skeleton, but I was the one who didn't have a brain."

There's enough self blame to share between the two of them. Greg looks at his hands, folded on the table before him. He feels so stupid about so, so many things.

When he speaks again, his voice is quiet, and a little bit rough. "How are you doing, Sans?"