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Your name is Jane Crocker and you're checking your phone. A pretty nonchalant thing to be doing at 11:25 at night, the most uncommon thing on earth c, you dare say the most normal thing on this new planet you and your friends made years ago, centuries if you discount the whole time travel but y'know, details.
You're checking your phone’s messaging app while ‘law and order’ is playing on your flat screen, thankful for john going back into timelines and getting you the whole series on DVD as nobody could ever top jerry orbach as lenny briscoe in any of the earth c remakes of earth media. Nobody. You wish you would’ve been his guest.
As you lounge on your multiple seated couch you click on the messaging button that has a ‘:o)’ as its name. The last thing that you sent was around 8:05 pm saying “i got called in for some company related work nonsense, can you please close the shop?” and haven’t gotten a word back since. Not even his tititual clown face or even an emoji of a clown that looks creepier compared to his traditional emoticon of said expression.
Your meeting at crockercorp ended two hours or so ago. You’d gotten home before nine, just enough to have the dinner your dad made for you and your child, and tucking said offspring into bed. If there’s anything you’ll never want to be late for is bedtime and giving your sweet cupcake goodnights and sweet dreams, it's what you always dreamed to be besides a successful detective AND a owner of a giant baking corporation.
You guess tonight you’ll finally be all three, it was time for some investigating. Your father lived with you and his room was on the second floor next to your little cupcake. You also lived in a three story household with high security locks and your father who could still punch cemented walls in his 90’s if he heard the locks being picked. Not like you had too much worry earth c was mostly okay with keeping evildoers locked away unlike your problematic past government. however considering your high status of godhood and your mortal relatives it never helped to be safe.
You had changed out of your baking uniform earlier to your baby blue pajama long sleeved shirt and matching pants. You flick your wrist and your god tier jammies appearify on your body over said other jammies. You are now double jammied, jammied^2, beyond comfort you are on the next plane of comfort. And hopefully you can share that plane later but for now you're out the door and locking it up, sending your father a quick text of “i’m gonna go check on gamzee at the bakery. in case you're still awake :B i won’t be long.” and fly off.
Usually you wouldn't bother with your uniform but it was a bit colder this nighttime due to turning fall and it felt more professional then going out in your jammies. You may be a god but you could at least show some form of class. Even if the floating brown and green’s would get SOME notice it just felt weird not to. Like you don't take advantage of your godhood to do whatever tf you want and be unpresentable, who would do that?
Your flight takes a while, about eleven minutes before you get to the small bakery crammed beside two business buildings. It's red and white giving off a retro 50’s vibe to it with the front having a red handle pop out, showing both a fork, a spoon and a butter knife in the order of left to right. You wish you didn’t HAVE to add the fork but the designers of your logo said it’d fit better for all three and you guess it could be you taking it back and making it your own, but you still feel a gut twisting feeling that makes you rub your neck in habit now whenever you think too hard on it.
You start descending a couple feet away to the empty sidewalk, a couple cars come by left and right on the road but not many are out walking, only the illuminated blue of the streetlights are with you right now. You take a quick check in your sylladex to find your strife specibus that you were able to switch back to it’s spoon kind. you may be a healer but you're not one to not turn it into it’s fork kind if something happens. Despite things being a little better, not even utopia’s can be perfect or safe all the time...or you use your fists your dad taught you in case of attempted kidnappers when you were 8; Roxy was so proud finding that out.
You go to the entrance of your bakery, it’s small and definitely fits the 50’s vibes as inside you can see the inspired seats near the counter, the tables to the right, and a jukebox in the far back that’s unplugged after a certain jape your popop/ectobio-dad/ecto-son pulled two weeks back. You take your keys out from your sylladex and go to press on the door, hoping maybe he just forgot to send you back a reaffirmation tweet and was busy hanging around the mirthful messiah’s cathedral or his moirail. Course you would’ve gotten some word back from tav or Jake on if he was staying the night.
You're proven false in your assumptions as the double glass door’s open. You replace your keys with your spoonkind as you walk in; The inside is filled with more human and troll fifties style posters and artwork, everything's clean and put away properly. You keep your spoonkind to your side as you walk further in, looking over the counter to find nothing but you did notice the double windows to the kitchen that’re located behind it are closed.
You call out “gamzee?” quietly, somehow the habit of being in any minimally audible areas made you whisper whether it was at a closed bakery or a barely active boondollar store. Nothing. Your grip tightens and you breath in before giving a little louder call of “gamzee? You're here, I know you are. I love me as good a jape as any other jester but let's save it for the morning for more guests to see okay? So, come out. please.” and hear a thud in the kitchen.
You're hoping it's him, you really are. You haven't done a one on one fight before even with your experience in fistkind and mild fighting you did in the game but the idea of being one on one with an intruder who could and would run towards you, arm elongated to grab you with sharp fuchsia nails-....you shake your head harder this isn't the time for yourself dammit!
Jane => get your clown back.
You go to the double doors that are larger than you, about a foot considering the purpleblood’s height and growing horns as of lately. You push on them firmly, walk inside and flip the switch on. The kitchen is just as clean as the dining area as you look around from right to left. You gasp quickly once you look to your left, sitting right smack dab next to you and under the kitchen window was your clown.
He’s sitting there still in his apron and clothes. He’s slightly darker after his molt but not enough to match his hair color yet, that’ll be YEARS away from that happening. His back is hunched slightly, hands laying on his sides as his left one holds a broken in half vanilla bottle you use for root beer floats or vanilla cherry cola’s. On the end of it was specks of purple, and it took you a look over to find where he stabbed himself; on his forehead.
Fuck, fuck this was something you had the intuition of worrying over. It wasn't uncommon for him to have breakdowns like this, of course you’ve done your best to keep sharp objects away when it happened to prevent this as his psychiatrist firmly recommended after he nearly tried to re-scar up his face scars a ways back.
You go over to kneel in front of him, sylladexing your spoonkind; his legs are curled to his chest so you're not tripping over them. His face is tired, a mix of exhaustion and needing sleep and the tired you’ve seen on his lowest days that had you schedule him to take a couple days off for. His yellow sclera was a tinge orange, not red from rage like karkat had informed you on and research you’ve done but it definitely showed that happened before you came.
His forehead is indeed bleeding, little pricks of purple blood are falling from it and from the looks of it it seemed he was trying to scrape the broken bottle down on it before either you came or he gave up with how uneven the bottle was. His usually pulled back with hairpins and clips that you know your cupcake made him wear because they were cute, disheveled and a bit crusty from the blood on the front ones. You move your hand slightly to pet one and find its crusty in general as if he broke the bottle over his head. Which, unfortunately, you wouldn’t be surprised.
You move to gently grab his shoulder, he’s still awake but he looks listless as you’ve been poking and prodding and messing with him. You give a gentle shake giving a soft almost whispery “gamzee. Gamzeeee.” to see him look up at you ever so slightly, his purple eyes illuminating in the kitchen light before bowing his head down. You watch the blood drip off when he does and breath in, breath out. You go to put both arms under his pits in a hug motion, moving your bent legs to slowly get up and attempt picking up the juggalo.
Unfortunately karkat wasn’t wrong on how strong their body weight was the older they got. You side step towards the sink on the right side of the kitchen and attempt to walk him towards it, dragging his legs though. You're not able to get a few steps further before gasping and losing your grip slightly, still holding him but not as much as you were before. Your baking equipment was lighter than him, you swear. And while you could’ve just levitated him with your life powers like your sprite self had shown you you were more compelled to do this hands on, knowing physical contact was important to him and this situation.
“Gamzee, please, help me.” you pant out, feeling him wiggle in your grasp before popping out of it. in one smooth, almost too smooth for any human let alone troll, he flops his head onto the large sink, giving a weak half finished ‘honk’ that came out as a “hOn…” before apparently giving up on finishing it. A part of you wants to be flustered and miffed that he could’ve easily gotten here but you push it down, you know he doesn't mean it hopefully, bards are something though.
You turn the sink on, hike your sleeves up and start loosely wetting down his vanilla and semi blood colored hair. Shockingly you find there’s no bloody patch on him that isn’t his forehead but from what you’ve gathered he’s the third strongest blood cast, so of course something like smashing a bottle over his head wouldn’t give even a small cut.
Unfortunately you don't have anything that isn't hand soap to use to wash it, and even then you just want it wet down enough to be more comfortable and clean up the cut he has. You move his head slightly to his side to have the water hit it, hearing him hiss quietly once it hits and watching purple go down the drain. You pick up one of the white towels that's thankfully clean and move him away from the faucet, dabbing his forehead lightly.
“What happened gamzee?” you ask, loud enough to hear over the sink but soft enough for him. You already know, but you want him to talk first. His head swerves slightly to the left as you hold him in your left palm as if he doesn't want to admit it.
“...’m SoRrY bUtTeR qUeEn.” he replies tiredly. “MoThErFuCkEr FoRgOt ThEm SiCk MeD’s. StArTeD...hEaRiN...tHeM aGaIn. sTiLl...FUcKin...HEaRiN eM.” your hearing his tone fluctuate on the start of two of those words and you know alright he’s serious. It took a good amount of time to get him the help he needed psychiatrically, medically, and any other ‘ically’s there were for his situation.
You move him to keep his claws, or claw as one is still holding the bottle’s stem onto the sink for a minute, even giving the ‘one minute’ hand gesture before looking through your sylladex. Thankfully you come prepared, first aid kit in hand that you know has his emergency spare meds in case of situations like this.
You set it down on the counter next to the sink, opening it and taking out the medical alcohol and dabbing it on some cotton balls in it before moving back to him. You move his head again and dab it over his now scabbing over injury, squinting to make sure there’s no glass shreds in there. You hear him hiss again and move to get a dry cotton ball once putting the purple colored one on top of the towel from earlier, and dry it off in a quiet apology but also in a “sorry but i have to do this.” way.
You move to get his medicine next. “I get it.” you mumble as you go to twist the cap off. “I know it’s, not, easy to be reminded of that voice that was in your head before.” you move to put it on your stomach to uncap it, only to feel his free hand on your wrist. You think he’s gonna help. Instead he pulls you closer, growling and hand tightening as you look up in concern as he husks out a “do you really?”
You gulp. “It’s NOTHIN like WHAT ya MEAN. it’s tickin in my think pan. AND IT'S SO MOTHERFUCKIN LOUD. tick, tock, TICK, HONK. i WANT it OUT.” you wince at his escalating volumes but not by much, being bombed on in your youth has made you rather used to loud noises but the closeness isn’t helping. He’s spiraling, and you need to work fast but your wrist is currently occupied unfortunately.
You yelp as you hear the bottle he still had in his hand shatter as it makes friends with the floor. Both his hands fly up and he takes two steps back from you, you can see him gripping the top of his head and hiding his face in his arms as he bends over a bit. He’s snapped out of it, but you know he’s also going to try hurting himself again. You go to put all your strength into the cap, popping it open and taking two and a half steps forward with two of his tablets in hand and the other still holding his medication bottle moving to attempt pulling his arm away from his mouth.
“Swallow. Now.” you state in your firm mom voice, watching him open his mouth and you putting them into it not even caring about saliva right now and watch him swallow them down. He's panting after, giving two dry coughs as you move to levitate a fanciful glass used for your ice cream specials to the sink, filling it and floating it to him. He slowly moves one arm away from himself to grab it and soon drops the other once you let it go as he bows a little, sipping it lightly and not looking at you.
“...’m SoRrY. sOrRy.” he mumbles after a few sips. You sigh. “It's fine. It's fine. I was, just, not doing well on the whole comfort there. Im, maybe a bit, out of our usual element in these situations.” out of your element is an understatement your heart is palpitating against your chest to the point it's almost painful. After he’s halfway down the glass he puts it in the sink being too far from the cabinet you're next to and latching onto it in exhaustion. You levitate over the fallen glass and get the dust pan on the far left corner of the kitchen’s wall.
You clean it up quickly, giving a small “take a seat.” and he plops there almost like he’s been standing for months as you move to pick up the other glass that was around him earlier. You find the hairpins and clips there and put them in your sylladex before throwing away the shards. Your next course of action is getting another towel and disinfectant spray for the stained vanilla area. You could’ve left it to your other chefs but that’d just be so entitled of you to have your workers clean up a mess you can easily clean too.
“...Ya DoN’t HaVe’Ta...Uh…” he mumbles and you give him the quick finger waving of ‘no no no’ as you go back to cleaning before responding. “You're not in any state to clean up, mister. You can do the dishes back home if you really want to tomorrow but you better not lie to me and force yourself to if you do.” he groans in what you can decipher in a ‘damnit she’s right but i don't like that she’s right’ kinda way.
“DoN’t GoTtA...pUt YaSeLf In ThIs KiNdA sItCh.” he continued. “DoN’t PuSh YaSeLf Ta Do ThIs I mEaN. yAhA gOt Da ShOrT eNd Of Da WhOlE ‘tAkIn CaRe Of Me’ ThInG-” you don’t let him continue as you thwap the towel into the sink to get his attention in hopefully your best ‘i'm disappointed in what you have to say.’ expression.
“Now that I have your attention I'll be glad to tell you to shut up with those kinds of assumptions.” you state firmly, hands on your hips. “I’m not doing this for anyone's sake, or because I got a ‘raw deal’ when all of us grouped together on what to do. I could’ve easily called someone else to go check on you and do this themself but i'm not like that and you better bet your honky dory keister the highest bribe on this race that i'm not going to leave you to shrivel up like some weeks old cupcake wrapping foil.”
His eyes are wide and you're noticing their starting to look more yellow in the sclera; good. The medicine must be working or he’s calming down. Either one is good for you. You kneel down a little as he goes back to finding the floor more visually appealing. “Look, if you want to take this in the most pessimistic route then fine, but I'm not going to let you or anyone assume what I do is for anyone else’s benefit or mine. It's for your benefit, your health, your safety, your everything really.” you state a bit more calmly then your earlier statement, waiting for him to respond with anything.
He’s shivering, you know he’s ready to cry and feel the tinge of guilt on going too hard in this fragile of a time; shit. Your hearing watery gasps that sound almost like he’s...laughing? He puts his arm around his stomach and curls further in chuckling with raspy gasps before he looks up and yep he’s also crying. You're a mixture of confusion and about fifteen other emotions right now.
“gOg DaMn!” he exclaims hushly. “Ya WaStIn Ya SiCk CoLd BrEw TrUtH’s On My UsElEsS aSs. I...hAiN’t WoRtHy SuGa QuEeN.” you sigh in a more upset and worried way, shuffling closer and pulling him into your arms. He goes with absolutely no say and hides around your chest area, shaking more and gasping in a more sobbing way and less in a laughing mixed way. You pet his slowly drying hair down to the shoulder blade area.
“I'm not wasting anything.” you reply, moving his head gently enough to have him look at you dead in the eyes. “And you're none of that now.” you let him retreat back to hiding and feel him dry heaving his cries as you pet him more and rock lightly to calm him down, taking a seat on the cleaned floor. “I know, you think that. That you shouldn’t be forgiven-”
“aN’ i DoN’t-” you lift him up again to put your finger to your lips and visibly say “shoosh.” before putting him back and continuing. “Look, I don't know what it must’ve been like back then. I'm told of it yeah but, i don’t have the emotional knowledge on how all of that must’ve felt. And, yeah, not everyone will forgive you.” you feel him slump in your arms.
“But you shouldn’t let it shape you into being what they think you are. I...i know that...all too well. I know a lot all too well what it might be like. Not like it's the same probably but, it's a reason I wanted you to bake with me after I got all the information I needed.” He looks up at you a little this time. You pet his bangs, keeping them away from the scabbed injury, his clown makeup was washed off a while ago in the sink that weirdly brightens his eyes more.
“You have a lot more potential than you give yourself credit for. A fellow humorous entertainer with an interest in baking his own creations? It's like we should’ve met MUCH earlier.” he gives the smallest smile from what you could tell if seeing one of his overbite fang’s is any indication with a hint of shyness in it.
“Can you stand?” you move to sit up slowly and he follows, hands moving from the floor to yours as you semi help him up having to float; the benefits of being 5’4 you sarcastically think for a second. “We should get back, I told pop’s i wouldn’t be long.”
“BuT iT’s CoLd OuTsIdE~.” he replies almost in a singing form and you roll your eyes with a half hearted “hoo hoo” added to it. “It's not even close to that time yet silly.” you reply and get a small “hOnK.” in response. He moves to get his work apron off as you go to throw away the cotton balls from earlier, pack up the first aid, put the dust pan and spray away and sylladex the towels to go clean them back at your place.
You're taking one more look before leaving with him, turning out the lights, locking the doors and walking. You check the time on your phone and it’s 12:05 now. You wince a bit but hey you can’t rush a breakdown turned recovery time and if pop’s is gonna have a problem then well, sorry but you don’t regret it. You're sure he’ll still be proud of you though, you could never disappoint him intentionally.
You loop an arm around his own as you both walk back. You watch him, watching the sky more as he walks. “tWinKlIn LiL mOtHeRfUcKeR’s bE aLl OuT fOr GuIdIn Us BaCk ToNiGh’.” he smiles a bit as he says, smiling yourself in response. You realize as you walk that it’ll take a good while to get back, and you didn’t bring your purse to pay a driver to take you back so you get an idea. You pause and he takes a step ahead before stopping once realizing you're not continuing as you look at him.
“Gonna try something okay?” he gives the most carefree confused face you’ve seen as you hold his hand. It illuminates with your levitation power as you move to float up a bit, putting both hands over his as you pull up. You're levitating him and thankfully don’t have to use much of your physique to pick him up as he looks down a bit wide eyed. “FuCkiN mIrAcUlOuS.” he replies in a hushed tone as you smile, teeth filled, moving to fly you both back home and keeping an extra eye on him. You're still getting used to this power and don’t do this often but the smile he has being above the streetlights gives you a mental note to practice more with your friends to get used to it.
You come back home around 12:17 and unlock the door. The tv is still on and the dvd you’d put in earlier was on one of the next episodes. You go to usher gamzee upstairs to the third floor you both accompany, and get him to go clean up in the bathroom and get dressed. You go back downstairs and carefully take the dvd out, turn the tv off and make sure it's in its case before going back upstairs and into your room.
You go to your room’s bathroom and you're a mess. Water and purple tear stains and you think some blood droplets got on you during that. You take it off manually, thankful the stains weren’t moved to your second jammies underneath as you put your maid outfit in a basket for future Jane to clean. It's not like it's impossible these outfits were made to be blood-proof washable thanks to paradox space so that’s a plus to dying you guess.
You go back to the hallway bathroom just in time for Gamzee to come out of his tank top and jeans and into his one shoulder off shirt and pajama pants designed like his old outfit but fitted for his new adult look. He looks at you awkwardly and rubs the back of his head. “uHm...ThAnKs.” he mumbles awkwardly and you try not giving an amused but confused look at how bashful he is, like all you did was help pay an extra dollar for his groceries and not help him come down from a mental breakdown bought on by traumatic events.
You offer your hand and he looks at it like it’s alien to him; ironic. “C’mon. It's okay.” you reply, he takes it hesitantly and you move back to your room. You’ve done this a couple times after finding him to be one for physical comfort post-situations like these. Either this, the couch, wherever as long as it got him to sleep. That and you worried about him sleeping alone even if you were literally next door to him.
You both climb into your king bed, the biggest you could get even if his feet dangle out on the end but you feel him scrunch them up a little as he moves to hug you from behind and nuzzle into your neck. You take your glass’s off and put them on your nightstand before laying back and closing your eyes.
“ ‘M sOrRy.” you hear and bend your arm to pat between his horns. “No need for it please. It's fine.” you console but he snuggles up closer. “MeAnT bOuT wHa I sAiD oN iF, yA rEaLlY kNeW wHa It LiKe.” you gulp, rubbing at your neck and hum. “It...i mean...it wasn't the best time to bring that up. Sorry I just thought, maybe comparison could help. I wasn't thinking like usual. I'm sorry.”
You feel him shake his head against you. “MmMm NaH. yA gOt SoMe WiCkEd NaStY gLoP iN yA tHiNk PaN.” you sigh. “It's...too late for that just, you need to get some sleep.” “i’Ll FeEl TiReD iF yA lEt It OuT. gEt DaT pAn OuTtA tHe OvEn JaNeY iT’s GoNnA mOtHeRfUcKiN bUrN.” you inhale, exhale, trying not to let it get to you.
“It’s realy, really nothing i appreciate the concern but its-”
“jAnEy.”
“Hm?”
“JaAaAaAnEy.”
“Oh no. don’t you dare-”
“QuItE bEiN a TiGhTaSs-”
“Oh fudge nuggets you’ve spent too much time with roxy.” you turn over with an annoyed pout. “Look, it's not that just, it's late and it's really not a big deal. Like, sure, the mind tiara was bad and I think I kinda get where you come from on being controlled and filled to the brim with someone else’s thoughts and commands and forced to think a certain way because they want you to. But that’s just it i mean, it was temporary so i don’t completely get it unlike yours.”
You pant a bit as he looks at you and pulls you closer. “I mean, you’ve been through way worse. Everyone has, I mean, even John when he opened up about a lot of his timeline’s universe. But I was fine mostly. I mean, the anxiety i’ve had to numb down over being executed for the first 16 years of my life by my weird alien great grandma, getting mind controlled and killing my friend thanks to her, and then being killed by said grandma it’s just…” you rub your neck as you feel a lump growing.
“It’s...i mean when compared to dirk, roxy, jake, half your friends its...its nothing that bad. I’ve had the most stable life until the game and even after i still am i mean, everyone is thankfully but i mean, yknow, compared to everyone else i was, the most normal. I mean John was too but he still had his issues and still has them.” you feel something wet going down your cheek. “And that’s fine, it's all fine, they all went through stuff I can never comprehend. Im...i was fine. Still am.”
The words feel like metal as you feel the coolness of gamzee’s semi visible chest on you as you hide in it. “LeT iT aLl OuTtA tHaT oVeN.” you hiccup and bawl like you never have before, trying to keep yourself muffled in him and your hands moving over your mouth, feeling guilty.
“I...i can’t…” you pant out, hiccuping between. “Can’t...look at red again. I keep...i keep thinking that, if i took it, i’d be making it mmy own. Buhut it’s...i still..see hhER and think her fwhewhen i do. I hhATE my insignia it...i cant look at forks and its so stupid she, she ruined forks for me. But, i dont...i dont want to get rid of it it's like, it's like she WINS and i i dont, want that. She can't have red, or fuchsia or forks and, it’ll feel like i failed like, like i was too cohowardly and weak toho take them back.” your panting and trying your best to keep quiet during your midnight meltdown and feel the clawed hand rubbing your back gently.
“Its...its soho stupid.” you half heartedly chuckle out breathfully. “I...my friends, they went through so much more and i'm sitting here crying over forks and the color red it's so, so ridiculous. They all went through, way worse, i mean, i least got brought back to life, everyone did except john and roxy’s timeline’s friends but, i mean it just shows they’ve had so much more struggle and everyone else is fine and safe and so am i so i shouldn't be like this but i keep, feeling, in there-”
You feel his right hand between your chest, too upset to blush and pause as he’s staring at you, still is. Your heart is beating against his hand. “iT hUrT’s LiKe A mOtHeRfUcKeR iN tHeRe, DoN’t It?” he asks, rubbing a finger slowly over the area. “BuT dAt’S aN uNdErStAteMeNt, Ye?” you put your hand over his tearing up a bit. “It's like...it's empty and full at the same time some days. When I think too hard about it it all just, takes over and I think how I almost...didn’t get to be here. And it’s...horrifying.”
He’s nodding as you sigh heavily, breathing in and now stuffy though. Your laying on him as he pets your hair. “...I...cAn’T lOoK aT tHe BeAcH tHe MoThErFuCkInG sAmE eItHeR.” he mumbles, you listen. “cLoCk’S dAt TiCk GiVe Me OnE mOtHeRfUcKiN hEaDaChE. aN aRrOw’S mAkE mY iNsIdEr StReAmEr’S tWiSt.” you nod as you hide a little. “That’s understandable.”
You're calming more as you both stay down, feeling yourself moving as he lays on his back and drags you to lay on top of him. You shift the comforter over yourselves more as you lay there, clearing your nose with a couple sniffs being too lazy to go get tissues as you look up a bit. “...thank you.” you mumble as he looks back and smiles softly before laying back and closing his eyes.
He’s out like a light after that. You remind yourself to have future Jane make another appointment with that therapist Dirk had you visit before. For now you, present Jane, take a couple minutes getting more comfortable before falling asleep as the moon illuminates your room in a pretty blue hue.