Chapter Text
He was nearing the end of his third night in a row without sleep as the sun began to peek over the horizon of Los Santos. Most of his night passed while he was in the city getting his various cars out of the impound from what little funds he stole from the Paleto House. By the time he finished parking his club at the apartments, it was four in the morning, and he was too haunted with the sound of her laughter to even consider rest.
Tired of driving around, Chatterbox had opted for a walk and found himself passing the bustling streets of Little Seoul under the neon lamp lights of the city. Avoiding the Southside, he quickly discovered his path leading straight to an all too familiar bridge: his muscles already climbing the support beams before convincing himself otherwise.
New scenery, he thought in a desperate attempt to drive away these flashbacks.
And why shouldn’t he try to convince himself of this? He had spent countless hours on this bridge, most of which ended with a tumultuous fall into the concrete below. There was no reason for her to follow him here.
“The Three Time Yucking Champion!”
He stopped at the top, a faint red glow from the emergency lights casting the flashback in a haunting hue of blood. He saw her there, her hands at her hips, peering over the edge at her fallen opponent. She giggled, turning toward the version of himself kneeling with a prideful grin across his cheeks.
When the memory faded, it was like he had forgotten it was still nighttime.
The sounds of the city swept away her laughter, and he watched the cars pass under the bridge without a single care or contemplation to his presence. How vast the world seemed now.
He never truly noticed that feeling before. Chatterbox suddenly felt his place in this city like a singular ant. A tiny cog in a hungry machine. All these people had lives and all these lives had meaning. Was he truly just another face walking along the street?
And maybe… if he truly stopped to consider these things… he might’ve come to realize that it wasn’t the vastness of the world that scared him. It was consequently the lack of… his.
His world wasn’t here. His world took a flight out. His. His. His.
When she was there, his world was blood and breath. When she was near, his world was braids and bravery. She was his every word, every movement, and every step. How many people could claim to have cradled the world? Who among them had truly held it in the palm of their hands?
He had.
Sighing, he sat on the cold metal staring out at the city and pictured her somewhere safe. It was the closest thing to sanity that he could muster within this drought of communication. If she would not update him, he would picture her himself.
“She’s okay,” he declared to the wind, yet Los Santos offered no reply, “I know it.”
But the reality was that he didn’t, and Los Santos knew that well enough than to offer him any resemblance of reassurance. Even his own gut twisted with the silence that fell upon deaf ears.
Unconvinced, he imagined her at peace. It wasn’t hard when flashbacks of her lying beside him, clutching the sheets of their shared bed, still lingered in his mind. How the sunlight would shine through the shutters, casting long lines across her closed eyelids, until she stirred awake. Very rarely had he woken before her, but when he had, he got the pleasure of seeing true bliss cross her features when she woke up in his arms.
Nothing was more peaceful to him than those days they spent together. Truly together. When embarrassment gave way to curiosity and hesitancy surrendered to desire. Giddy with a stupor of love, they were nearly inseparable during that time, and Chatterbox would do it all again in a heartbeat. Regardless of how many clowns teased him for being “obsessed”.
And it was those encounters, the ones shared under the sheets of their bed, that was perhaps the biggest reason why he couldn’t sleep in that room anymore.
The fabric still smelled like her shampoo. The pillows still held an impression of her head. Her phone charger and ChapStick still lay untouched on the floor. Every breath of air in that room had tasted her lungs. Every panel of wood had felt the steps of her feet. The room was her lingering impression, and he felt his presence as too overbearing. There was still light there, a spark of her memory, that he’d only smother out.
And so he left the memories of her buried in those walls. When he walked, it was almost on tiptoes through the space so as to not disrupt the spirit of her lingering still.
“Chatty?”
She never stopped calling to him, her lips parting with a kiss of pleasure in the forefront of his mind.
“I need–”
He groaned and pressed his palms to his eyes. The air grew cold, despite the sun peaking above the distant summit of Mount Chiliad, and goosebumps prickled his skin. He fought the tears this time, unwilling to allow himself the despair of her absence.
“Peace, Cups,” He whispered, “Please…”
“ Chatty.”
He could practically feel her fingernails digging into his back as the memory of her spread beneath him flashed behind his eyes.
“Keep going.”
And he couldn’t stop the tears this time. He felt his control slip as his desire to fall into the past overcame the need to remain in the present. Los Santos transformed into a faded canvas that only she painted in colorful strokes. Her movements. Her moans. His name on her lips like an artist's signature.
The memory of them, desperately fighting for kisses like the very air between them was running out, practically had him breathless on the bridge. The press of her heels digging into the back of his thighs nearly left him shaking with need. And the scratches of her nails roaming every inch of him were phantoms to the ministrations of his own hands.
But none of it was yucking her… and his need felt hopeless.
“Cups,” he sobbed, as the memory began to fade.
He knew he’d return to reality with that awful guilt in his stomach. That utter longing with nothing to satisfy. God if these flashbacks were going to inconvenience his life, the least they could grant him was the pleasure of their lustful illusions.
But even that was asking too much.
“Yes, pl–”
“–ease no.”
Her words blended into his as he begged for the memory to stay.
“Don’t go!”
But she was already gone. She’d been gone for weeks now. All that was left was fragments of their life without a promise of a future. And that realization was the final string holding up his mental.
“I can’t promise anything,” she had said.
And so when he fell apart, he fell hard. He sobbed in mourning for the life they might’ve had. Very rarely had he ever allowed himself the acceptance of breaking apart. Growing up in the terror of the Funhouse, he simply couldn’t allow the pieces to break, so the weight stacked and stacked upon his shoulders unusually well. Sure it got heavy, but more times than most the weight never lingered. It either resolved itself or buried itself within him. Little did he know that getting buried never meant disappearing.
The weight grew heavier in her absence and now he was shattered on the skyline of the Clown Risk Bridge. As if mocking him, the flashbacks dulled to a headache in his brain. His body ached still with the ghost of her touch, a noticeable need pulsing at his core, but he ignored it still. Without her, none of that bullyuck meant anything.
As the sun broke above the horizon, pink clouds turning orange in the morning light, Chatterbox returned to the harsh reality of another day without his queen. Another day with blinding headaches and teasing memories.
“I can’t do this forever,” A voice spoke inside him. A voice that he feared.
Because the truth was that he was suffering.
He couldn’t…
But the idea of… moving on… meant leaving her behind. And there could be nothing on this earth that could convince him to go back on his word to her. He’d rather die than break that promise.
And so he was floating through time in a perpetual state of need: He couldn’t move on, and he couldn’t go back.
“She’ll be back. She’ll be back. She’ll be–”
All he had were words now. Empty words that could perhaps disguise themselves as medicine to this illness of longing.
After a few moments, when his breath had returned to its proper place, his hands searched for his phone in his pocket again. He typed her name with muscle memory alone: his fingers already conscious of the placement and space it needed to take up to spell her name.
It rang against his ear with an echo of haunting laughter.
He knew better… but he always tried.
“Sorry ya couldn’t reach me,” her voice spoke through the voicemail, “If it's important, leave a voicemail, if not… you should probably text me because I won’t call back. If this is Chatty, you should know where to find me.”
He sighed, having lost the privilege of knowing where she was in the city.
“Okay, BEEEEEEEEEP” her voice finished, the actual sound of the phone cutting off her attempts to recreate the noise.
The first ten seconds were spent in silence. He was transported to a payphone outside the Grapeseed clothing store the night she lost her memory. The way his hands trembled as he held up the rusted receiver listening to the sound of her uncaring voice: “Hello? Ray Mond.”
He couldn’t speak then. He just wanted to hear…
“Hello?”
He didn’t recognize her then and it broke his heart.
“I think my phones broken–” and the call clicked off.
Now, sitting at the top of the clown risk bridge, he felt a similar effect having listened to the sound of her voicemail for what must now be the hundredth time.
“Uh,” he began shakily, “It's me… again.”
A bright light reflected off a building and into his eyes as the rising sun finally turned to a clear blue sky, “Good morning, Cups.”
“Morning, Chatty,” A flashback of her seemed to reply.
“I hoped you slept well… God knows you’re probably still sleeping,” he laughed. He could hear her dramatic gasp as retaliation, “Not much been going on here. I can only imagine what incredible stories you’ll come back with.”
You’ll come back… right?
“Missing you extra today… I– I love you, Cups.”
And with nothing more to say, yet everything to beg for, Chatterbox ended the call. On their message history another * 1 Missed Call * was added to the feed. He hated leaving it to stand by itself.
“Good morning, My Queen,” he typed out underneath it, “Wishing your light was here to greet me instead of the sun.”
Maybe today would be the day he went to the hospital. Maybe today he would finally use those pre-paid visits with Pixie that Kirk bought him.
Or… maybe… he’d succumb to the memories of his dreams. Despite the light of the sun, Chatterbox was suddenly feeling very tired. Exhaustion from three days without sleep decided it was time to take over, and he had very little strength to fight it.
“I’m eepy,” her voice sang in his head, almost lulling him to sleep right there.
He smiled, imagining her curled up in a red and black weighted blanket.
“Me too, Cups,” He whispered to the wind, “Me too.”