Chapter Text
“And I will SEE ALL YOU DUDES…IN THE NEXT VIDEO!”
The outro music played, a thumping song that made you laugh as you dropped your arms, bopping your head to the beat as you scrolled down to the comments, leaving your own commentary before reading everyone else’s. There were already well over a thousand comments, and you’d clicked the video by pure chance just as it came out. You had learned that twenty seconds of outro music was more than enough time to briefly skim the funnier comments that popped up between the spamming “buy me” bots so abundant these days.
This was a routine of yours: Come home, do some work, watch videos, and sleep. It was a good system, keeping you motivated to actually finish the work you needed to before rewarding yourself with the antics of your favorite youtuber at the end of the day, almost always leaving you smiling as you turned off the lights. Jack, Mark, Ethan, everyone you watched made you so happy (hell, that was probably part of the reason you kept watching them). They might not know you personally, but that was more than okay with you. For you, it was enough to send them your love and support in comments and likes and other little interactions. It was really cool to get get the occasional like or reblog from them in return, and even better to get a rare reply. That felt like being seen in the sea of fans. Really, though, you just liked being a part of the community, laughing at inside jokes with your internet friends, smiling and crying together through all the videos and games. Everyone was so nice, it was unbelievable, and even with the occasional dramatic flare up, you still felt like you were constantly surrounded by millions of friends when you logged on.
You were so lost in thought that it startled you when the music cut out and Jack’s voice came up again in the little outro clip. Ah, you’d forgotten about these! You scrolled up, smiling.
“I fuckin’ dropped my headphones again, dammit,” he said through a laugh, feigning annoyance as he ducked out of frame to pick them up from the floor. You chuckled, shaking your head, and though you knew he couldn’t hear you, you muttered fondly.
“I mean, it’s to be expected ya over-enthusiastic green bean.”
“Yeah, say that to my face, bitch!” The giggled reply caught you off-guard and you blinked at Jack, who was grinning straight at the camera.
“Damn, my timing is on today.” You really should stop talking to yourself, but you couldn’t stop looking as Jack sidled toward the camera, swinging his headset in one hand and adjusting the VR set in the other, smiling down at them.
“It wasn’t even a clever joke, just plain insulting. Over-enthusiastic my ass! I am the perfect amount of enthusiastic!”
“It’s like you can hear me!” But it was funny, the video counter wasn’t counting up anymore…
Jack’s smile dropped in surprise and his eyes shot up to look at the camera. “Wait. You heard that? You…saw that?”
It was your turn to be surprised. This was…not something you expected. Deciding that you didn’t have to worry about sounding crazy as you were home alone, you decided to test it. Why not?
“Uh…yeah. Yes, you said I insulted you.”
“I…do that all the time. I always talk after the video, but…but I mean, you’ve never heard me before.” Jack was staring at you, halfway between concern and interest.
You shook your head. “Okay, I must be really tired. I’m going to bed,” you announced, trying to convince yourself that you were just talking to yourself.
“I mean, if it makes you feel better,” he said, shrugging. But he looked disappointed. It almost made you sad. But…but that would be ridiculous. Getting sad about a hallucination. Ridiculous.
You stood, pulling your headphones off and setting them down. It seemed silly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to close out the tab. This was mad. You were way too tired, exhausted from work, so you were seeing things. Maybe tomorrow you should watch something else, some TV or something, or maybe read a book. Clearly you’d been on YouTube too much lately.
As you took a step toward the bed, your overhead light buzzed and dimmer for a moment. You frowned in its direction. Was there something up with the power tonight? There wasn’t supposed to be a storm, but maybe a power surge. Should you unplug things before you settled down? The light dimmed again, and so did your lamp on your desk this time, the buzzing getting louder. Strangely, there seemed to be another sound in the buzzing, almost like a voice…
Something “tink”d behind you, and you turned to see Jack tapping frantically on the glass, saying something you couldn’t hear.
Okay…dream fully commenced, you supposed. You didn’t think you were tired enough to fall asleep at your desk, but you don’t ever remember falling asleep, right? Why not go with it? Lucid dreaming seemed pretty cool. You picked up the headphones again and put them on.
“-sten to me! Oh, thank Christ, you put those back on, gimme your hand, now!”
“What?”
“Give me your damn hand! You’ve gotta trust me for a minute. I’m not sure how he got out, but you’re in trouble and you need to come on, now.” Jack was leaning toward the camera, hand outstretched toward you.
“What you do mean, him?! How the hell…you’re a YouTube video, how the hell do I take your hand? What trouble?!” The lights flickered again, the buzzing now a constant drone, and the faint voice was definitely audible now, singing something you couldn’t understand the words to.
“Him, dammit, now c’mon! Just reach out!”
“Jack, I dunno…” This dream was quickly turning into a nightmare, and you were starting to get scared.
“C’mon dude, you can trust me, please!”
Your overhead light shattered with a loud POP and you jumped, hand surging forward before you could think. You reached…
…and felt his hand grab yours. Suddenly, you were falling.
And then you were standing. Shell-shocked, you blinked and stumbled a step back, but someone’s hands were on your arms to steady you.
“Easy, easy, that kind ‘a travel’s hard on you the first time you do it.”
You gaped. Jack was standing right in front of you, in person. His hands were warm on your skin, his grip just tight enough to keep you from falling over, and you could feel their absence when he stepped away.
“How-? What-? How did-? I’m-?”
Jack smiled in what seemed to be half panicked and half reassuring way. “Hi. Ah…welcome to the video?”
“Weirdest. Dream. Ever.”
“Ah, yep, that’s probably the most sensible take on this. Sure, a dream it is then.”
“Dream it is,” you agreed, not willing to argue the point with a figment of your own imagination. “It’s…nice to meet you I guess, Jack. Or Sean, I guess-“
“Oh, no, no,” he said quickly shaking his head, “I’m not Sean. I’m Jack.”
You stared at him blankly. “Meaning?”
“Meaning Sean is part of your world. He’s the…actual person, I guess.” He shrugged. “There’s no great way of explaining all of this. Honestly, I’ve never had to before, I’ve not had this happen before, so…Let’s go with this for now. I’m Jacksepticeye, meaning I’m the part of Jack that exists online. In his videos, on twitter and tumblr and all that. I’m a…a persona, I guess. But I’m just that persona.”
You nodded slowly, still not understanding fully. “So…I’m…in the Internet right now?”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded. “Welcome to the Web.”
“A physical place.”
“More or less.”
“How?”
“Again, I don’t really know. I wasn’t here for the beginning of it. All I know is that I exist. This place exists, at least to me…us. It’s sort of half-real I think. More electricity and code and computers and all that than physical stuff, if that makes any sense.”
“That makes exactly no sense.”
Jack shrugged again, holding his hands up in defeat. “I did say I’d never explained it before. I dunno if I can do any better than that.”
Sighing, you shook your head. “Well, this is still a dream, so it’s working on dream logic I guess. This exists because it does, that’s all.”
“Alright, yeah,” he agreed, smile returning full force.
“Now about that…thing…”
And the smile was gone. “He hasn’t done that before.”
“He?” But Jack didn’t seem to hear you. He walked over to the camera, looking at the screen on it for something before busying himself finding a plug for it.
“He’s never made it out of a video before. It shouldn’t be possible, he’s no more real than I am, in that sense. I suppose after Halloween, he would be stronger, though, wouldn’t he?”
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realized why you recognized that voice in the static. It was one you’d been hearing only in static, in glitched-out clips of otherwise normal videos. “Not…?” He nodded, but didn’t say anything, so you continued. “But isn’t he stuck…out there, then? In my world?”
“No. I think…I mean, again, he’s only as physically real as I am, so I don’t think he’s capable of actually getting out. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I think he’s…connected to you, somehow. And I thought he might try to…well, I dunno what he was trying to do, but I didn’t really think it through. Maybe I should have just crashed the page, but I wanted to save you, and you could actually see me…”
The sinking got faster. “Does this mean I can’t leave?”
He rubbed his neck uncomfortably, looking at the floor. “Well, the thing is…I don’t exactly know…how to send you back? And we need to find a way to trap him so he can’t nab you on the way back out. So…no. Not yet.”
You wished he hadn’t used the word trap. You sunk down into the chair to the side of his computer, and he walked over to you and put an arm around your shoulders. “We’ll figure it out, okay? I’ll get you home. I promise.”
You nodded numbly. Just a dream, you kept repeating to yourself. It’s just a dream. But still, the idea was terrifying. You’d loved the idea of him when you’d thought it was just that: an idea. You’d even hyped him up all the way through October, hunting through videos for little clues, liking gifsets and theories on tumblr. You’d never considered how it would be to meet him, and now you hoped that you never did. Thinking back to your room, you finally thought you knew what he’d been singing.
“One, two
Anti’s coming for you…”