Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Scarab finally looked away from the cobweb in the corner. How the Time Room had amassed cobwebs when as far as he knew, there hadn’t been any spiders that had come through recently, he had no idea. But he was to pay his dues. This largely seemed to mean being the Time Room’s makeshift janitor, but he was going to do his job. Scarab was used to cleaning up other people’s messes. As much as he hated it, maybe with hard work and diligence, his sentence would be lifted.

Maybe. 

Repossessing and interfering with a canon timeline was a rather serious crime. If he had stopped once he had realized the universe had asserted itself into the greater canon, maybe he could gotten off on a lighter sentence with the excuse that it had previously been unsanctioned. However, in his anger, he had dug a deeper hole for himself. 

Not to mention his neglect of checking in with the Cosmic Owl’s fraudulent schemes, or whatever was going on there. He had partially been hoping that the owl would simply come to visit Prismo for help in his schemes since he knew that the two of them met often, but he had been much more focused on incriminating Prismo and bringing to light his mess.

Prismo. The Scarab glanced back at his companion, a little disoriented in how he turned with little transition, his gaze sliding across the wall with the motion of his body. He didn’t let any of the confusion or difficulty show, though. He was a professional. 

Prismo noted his movement, sitting up, or rather, moving higher up on the wall as he looked at Scarab from across the room. “You know you could take a break? We could try making another character. I know you– we got frustrated last time, but that isn’t too unusual, I think. Me and the Ice King had creative differences–no you don’t want to hear about that . But the cleaning. You know you don’t actually have to take care of that right now. If you’re tired, you can wait! Or I can deal with it later.”

“What.”

“I mean, I didn’t have anybody else cleaning up the place before, and it really isn’t that bad in here, you know?”

“Are you suggesting I don’t do my job ?”

Prismo sank down a bit, eyes flickering back to his computer, every motion telegraphed. He was too obvious. That’s what had led to his downfall. “It’s whatever, I guess. If you want to put that much effort into it, that’s on you. I’m just letting you know that I don’t mind.”

Scarab threw the broom against the crease in the wall, fed up with the whole situation. With the lack of care shown by the one who had gotten him in trouble. The one who had gotten off scot-free like he always did while the rest of them had to work their asses off to avoid making the boss angry. But no, everyone liked Prismo. “What would you suggest I do, Wishmaster ? Play fantasy when there are real things at stake? Would you have me get overly attached to mortals like you , where I won’t even be able to take care of myself when one dies ? All mortals die , Prismo.”

Prismo clicked his teeth and made a faint noise as he looked away. Slowly, the sound of typing filled the room again. 

Infuriated, Scarab reached toward the wall, meaning to rip the hinges from reality and reach into the cracks to dismantle the connections and places between the timelines again. Or maybe he would finally reach the spiderweb in the corner, finally influencing a whole plane of reality refusing to bend to the will of something so above it. Anything to dig into the crevices and to feel something other than the odd compressions of corners that folded his body when he walked across them. 

His hands touched nothing, flailing oddly to his sides, and crossing in front of him with an overlap that felt like bending a limb too far the wrong way. When Prismo looked like he was thinking about saying something again, Scarab marched around the room opposite of him and vanished further into the non-euclidean space that Prismo inhabited. 

“Woah, man,” Prismo said, following behind him. “Where are you going?”

“None of your business,” Scarab sneered. He made sure it was reflected in his tone, aware that the expression was weaker beneath his shell, and without the third dimension to help clarify the movement. “I thought you wanted me to take five .”

“Well, I mean I guess, but where are you going?”

“Relax,” he said shortly. “I’m not going to damage anything. I’d like some personal space , not that someone as clingy as you would understand that.”

Prismo drew back, slowing down as he glided along. Finally, he vanished around a corner when they next came upon one. Scarab waited for several seconds, counting by his breathing, or at least by the intangible motions he was making as if he were still breathing, and then headed in a direction at random, never quite getting lost, but paying less attention to where he traveled. 

Prismo had many rooms and many halls, ever-shifting even when he wasn’t actively manipulating them. Scarab was sure that there was some type of subconscious aspect to it, though. The further he went, the more he noticed being turned away from certain directions and paths. 

It became a pattern, and Scarab was very adept at finding and utilizing patterns to his advantage. 

It took some finagling through walls, and a truly embarrassing amount of time dedicated to crouching down to the floor, and sort of projecting himself across to the other side of the wall like the shadow he was to get to where he wanted. Eventually, however, he found the room that seemed to want to keep him away and saw… himself.

He knew that he had been put to sleep at some point and that his body was contained in the same space that he was, but he hadn’t put much thought into the logistics of it. He was a rule-follower and had no plans to commandeer his body, at least at the moment, knowing that it would only get him in hot water. Maybe if he were to wait a couple of decades…

But knowing and seeing were different.

Scarab stared at his body, slumbering on a platform in the middle of the room, pressed against a wall. He looked less comfortable than Prismo’s body did across from his own, curled into thick blankets and a soft mattress, with an empty glass sitting to the side. Scarab was confined to what could be described as a slab with a mattress cover pulled over it, rather than a bed. 

He wondered, idly, how he was sleeping before he dismissed the notion as being idiotic.

Scarab was hardly surprised when he felt Prismo snake up next to him, grimacing and sucking at his teeth. 

“There you are,” he said, strained. 

“You could have found me at any point.”

“You seemed to uh, not want company.”

“And yet,” Scarab gave him a pointed look. 

Prismo had the decency to look ashamed, though it obviously wasn’t enough to make him actually back off. Instead, he drew himself off to the side of the room and peered down at their slumbering forms. 

“That isn’t your original body,” Scarab noted, with something vaguely like horror. A mortal might not have noticed the difference, because he looked the same on the outside, but Scarab had been around much, much longer than any mortal.

Suddenly, a recent false alarm finally made sense. There had been a cosmic-level crime reported, and Primo had been reported as dead. Murdered by a Lich. 

Scarab had been too busy with the direct aftermath—an escape from the Crystal Citadel–and had only heard about the actual check-in with Prismo secondhand and long after the fact. 

But seeing the proof in front of him, he could imagine Primo’s hemming and hawing, and everyone else's lack of conviction to get to the truth because Primo was just such a nice guy that they essentially let everything he did slide. 

“That’s the, uh, mortal I got attached to,” Prismo offered, tone somewhat pleading and plaintive. “Sort of. I’m upset about Jake.”

Scarab gave him a look, but he was concerned that it came across as something more curious than condemning.

“I… it was unsanctioned, you wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Scarab said, watching him thoughtfully. He looked between their bodies, and slowly neared Prismo’s host, noting how the other entity tensed. “But do go on.”

“I sort of croaked for a bit there, when the Lich woke my host body, but I had this plan where I left a message for Jake. He…”

“You tricked the mortal into becoming part of you,” Scarab said disapprovingly. “How many times have you resurrected yourself without filling out the right paperwork? Do you know what could happen if you chose the wrong mortal to try that trick with? If they didn’t come through? If they weren’t similar enough to the last host? You are comprised of dreams. It could affect wishes, the Time Room, your judgment– everything !”

“I know,” Prismo said faintly.

Scarab turned on him. “Was that the reason for the unsanctioned timeline? Faulty judgment? Was it the mortals that gave you that idea?”

Prismo shrugged. “I guess I just wanted something that I worked on to be real for once. Everyone else gets a wish. It was fun to see it come to fruition, where I could watch the stories and characters… it was nice.”

The Scarab thought about a couple of ways he could respond. He dismissed sympathy as soon as it came to mind. He wasn’t sorry and saw no use in offering empty platitudes when he hardly meant them. However, the other’s words were genuine and seemed to be from a good place. 

He hated that.

Genuine or not, sorry or not, it was still incredibly immature and irresponsible of Prismo, or anyone with powers of his magnitude, and Scarab knew that he would have been better suited to the task. He always would have been. Better suited to the empty rooms. Better suited to twisting wishes. Prismo was hardly the most qualified for his position, anyway, too affected by those who traveled through his room. He was too sensitive to come into contact with mortals as often as he did.

A coworker had once mentioned, amidst Scarab’s complaining about them flocking to Prismo’s parties while he did all the work, that maybe someone with a sense of humor is what was needed for making wishes. After all, none of the rest of them were dreaming up wishes and scenarios for mortals. Nor did any of the rest of them want to.

But Scarab did. 

Sort of. 

Partially. He wanted into the Time Room. He wanted the power to create and to twist and to watch the mortals writhe when they got exactly what they wished for because he knew that Prismo let them alter it and gave warnings when he should have let mortals who broke holes in their realities get what they deserved. 

“I see,” he said finally, as he felt Prismo’s gaze settle back on him. “I’m not going to wake you. As you can tell, I’ve had little success in interacting with the physical world so far.”

“You get used to it,” Prismo offered. “And uh, I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but I don’t have a contingency plan this time, so I think I’ll watch while you’re in here.”

“I’m not allowed to visit myself? Don’t forget that I’ve seen you interact with the third dimension.”

Prismo reared back, shape fuzzing out around the edges and becoming more angular in others. “I wouldn’t kill you, Scarab. I’m not that kind of guy.”

Scarab harrumped. “It wouldn’t kill me, regardless of your intentions. Mine is a temporary punishment, while yours of eternal.”

“Way to lighten the mood,” Prismo huffed nonsensically. “You’re right, I guess you haven’t touched the physical world yet. I’ll be–”

“-With your pickles, yes, I know. Or back in the Time Room writing that ridiculous nonsense. I’ll come back to clean, later.”

When Scarab finally turned back, Prismo was gone. He checked the corners of the room for eyes, or little impressions of the Wishmaster that might have stuck around to keep an eye on him, but found none. 

Once he confirmed that he was alone, Scarab crept closer to the other’s body, watching the old man curl tighter away from him, as if sensing his presence. Something dark oozed about in the man's mouth when his lips parted slightly, but it stayed inside when he shut his jaw again, nestling further into his pillow. 

He stayed for another while, taking advantage of his relative privacy by moving away from their bodies and attempting to stretch across the room as Prismo did. Unfortunately, the Wishmaster made it look easier than it really was. Scarab was much smaller than the other and found it difficult to stretch his shape when he had been confined to his stiff carapace for so long. Folding himself over the creases in the floors and corners was still uncomfortable to linger in for more than a few seconds, and sprawling himself across the floor seemed undignified. He hadn’t even attempted to reach the roof yet.

Finally, exhausted of his options and with no further progress in his ability to manipulate his shape or surroundings, trapped in a flat hell against the walls, Scarab returned to Prismo’s Time Room to glower at the dust and cobwebs. 

Except, when he got back, Prismo was delicately moving a broom around the much cleaner floor. He paused when Scarab neared him, and gave a weak smile as he dropped the broom back down. 

Scarab took the time to note the lack of webbing anywhere on the walls, and the absence of dirt or water tracked around his tub. He let the fury wash over him as he stalked across the walls to Prismo.

“Hey, Scarab, I thought you might actually pay attention to some character creators if you weren’t so busy–”

“-Does it look like I can’t do my job?” Scarab snapped, leaning into the being's space. 

Unlike in the physical world, where Prismo was for the most part intangible to those in other dimensional planes, even if Prismo himself acted like he could be touched if they walked over him, Scarab could already feel an energy between their forms as he got closer to the Wishmaster. It was like brushing against one of the older TV’s of timelines or universes that hadn’t had any type of world-ending war yet. It was like pressing the opposite poles of two magnets together. 

“Why would you take my job?” Scarab snapped, refinding his anger amidst his curiosity. “Are you trying to undermine me? Are you careless , or just cruel ?”

When he shoved his arm into what constituted Prismo's side, ignoring how the other being shrank himself smaller and smaller against the wall, babbling all the while, it felt like the pins and needles of a limb waking up. 

At the contact, Prismo cut off his words immediately, stretching around Scarab in jagged lines like lightning, before he came back together and stretched out across the room through the floor at the speed of light until he was safely up towards the ceiling and wall on the side opposite to the Scarab. 

“What was that?” Prismo asked, voice high. 

Scarab hesitated, distracted from his anger momentarily at the first thing he had really been able to feel since his punishment. The broom he had left lying around melded into his shape, into his color. There hadn’t been anything like true sensation. 

The answer seemed obvious. That was what must have passed as contact in the two-dimensional plane. A strange overlapping of their outlines, rather than a physical barrier. 

“ What was that ?” Prismo repeated, form rippling. 

“Have you not touched anyone before?” Scarab asked, bewildered. Then he realized, that no . Prismo wouldn’t have. Not when he was the only Wishmaster still around, with the corrupted shadows swallowed down his host's throat being the only things around that might have offered the same type of overlap. 

Prismo did not need to answer to confirm Scarab’s thoughts. However, the way he immediately raised his trapdoor and vanished into it was answer enough. 

Scarab was not the type to follow unless he was after a target, and running after Prismo while the other sulked would hardly be productive. Instead, he looked around the room, taking in the new cleanliness with a sort of reluctant satisfaction. It was clean. 

But it should have been him cleaning it. That was his punishment, after all, and unlike some , Scarab took no satisfaction in shirking his duties. 

With renewed confidence, Scarab picked up his broom and continued his efforts to make it touch something in the real world, even if he had no true goal this time. 

It would give Prismo a chance to cool off, looking at his pickles or whatever nonsense he had picked up from mortals. And if Scarab peered at Prismo’s computer as he passed by it, glancing at a half-made character from a distance, that was nobody's business but his own. 

Chapter Text

“Uh,” the creature said, peering between the two of them, twisting the creaking bark of its neck as it shifted. “I heard there was only one of you.”

“There’s–” Prismo started, spreading his hands across the room. 

“Unless there’s only one of you and I’m crazy,” the thing barreled on. “Or if you’re just one thing in two places. Are you moving really fast? Why do you look so different?”

“Shut up,” Scarab snapped, trying to angle his broom as if he could reach out and smack the creature, to little success. Prismo had tried telling him about what he was doing wrong, pointing out how he tried to reach out, rather than projecting himself across the distance, but that looked and felt ridiculous, so Scarab had been trying other methods of interacting with the real world. They just… weren’t working yet.

Their visitor was some no-name, unimportant wizard, misshapen through spells and additions to its body to the point that its original species was hard to ascertain, who had stumbled its way to the Time Room with the help of a bastardized spell and pure luck. It was the first visitor who had come through since Scarab had been there, and it was extremely disappointing.

Sure, there were beings who had business in the Time Room. There were cosmic entities with official, sanctioned wishes and changes they had to make to the multiverse, heroes who earned prizes and recognition for their triumphs and efforts, and villains who clawed their way between dimensions with bloodshed. 

And then there were the ones who stumbled into the reward, ignorant and naive to the power that was theirs for the taking. 

“Look, I’m Prismo the Wishmaster, and that’s Scrabby, my janitor-roommate guy who wants to kill me.”

“Roommates?” The thing’s eyes lit up. “Oh my glob . Are you two dating?” 

“I mean, I just said he wants to kill me, so…”

“We’re not dating !” Scarab yelled at it, renewing his vigorous efforts to decapitate their unwelcome guest. “Such– meddling is beneath us!”

Prismo, on the other hand, went a shade darker pink in the face, sinking down even lower to the ground than he already was, stretching his legs out further along the opposite wall. “Don’t you want to hurry up and make a wish?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yyyyyes?”

“I was told I didn’t have to,” the wizard said crossly. “Not right away! I wish I knew what to wish for.”

Prismo sighed heavily. “Wish granted.”

“Wait, WAIT! I didn’t–”

The creature vanished from the Time Room, and Prismo slumped down unhappily. Or, he gave the impression of slumping down unhappily, overly expressive with the few features he had.  

Scarab glared in his direction, putting as much scorn into his voice as he could manage. “You should stop introducing me that way, especially if you’re going to use such a demanding insult.”

“It’s a nickname.”

“I don’t care what it is. You should stop.”

Prismo opened his laptop and presumably picked back up on the fanfiction he had been writing before their visitor had taken up the better part of an hour with its inane questions. 

With some mixture of frustration and curiousness at Prismo’s infatuation with controlling fake narratives, Scarab slowly edged his way around the room to get a better look at the screen. “Are your mortal guests always so clueless?”

“Sometimes they’re worse,” came the flat, disappointed answer. 

“I thought you took more liberties than that,” Scarab said doubtfully. 

“ Now you want me to make allowances?”

“Of course not,” Scarab denied, though it might have made the monotony less intense. It would have at least given them something new to watch. 

Besides, everybody knew that Prismo was too forgiving with his wishes half the time. It seemed that on a whim, he helped word and bend around the rules that were supposed to prevent his help with wishes. Word had it that he was especially soft on clueless mortals, like the one who had just been there. So why wasn’t he being? Was it because Scarab was there? Or was he trying to pay more attention to following the rules now that he had come so close to getting in trouble?

No, Prismo didn’t seem to care that much about the dangers he had invited by not following the rules, and whenever Scarab threatened him, Prismo laughed it off and invited him over to work together on a character. 

Scarab had noted the scruff on Prismo’s face and had taken it as a sign of guilt. He had looked at the eyebags, a self-imposed manifestation of exhaustion and a lack of care, and had written it off as Prismo being worried about the crossover, as he very well should have been.

But it came from before that, didn’t it? When his mortal…

Everybody knew Prismo bent the rules, even if they pretended to be ignorant to it. It wasn’t talked about. When someone (note: Scarab) brought it up, people laughed it off and averted their gazes and changed the subject, or simply tried to get away from Scarab and his pointed questions and knowing gaze. 

People liked Prismo, even if the Wishmaster didn’t like them.

Well, that was the wrong way to explain it, perhaps. As Scarab understood it, Prismo liked their coworkers. He was constantly craving their company, hosting parties, and clinging to the attendees in a frankly embarrassing fashion. 

It was less that he didn’t like them, and more that Prismo had been suckered in and socialized by enough mortals to desire their type of affection more, rather than accepting a job well done and occasional visits as all the attention that was needed. 

Prismo had… different needs.

Scarab stared at Prismo, turning the shapes around in his head and trying to figure out why the others liked him enough to forgive him. “It was something I’d heard.”

“Right,” Prismo said, his tone low. “Do you want to try making a character again?”

Scarab paused in his fruitless sweeping of the wall to peer over. He could indulge in it, this time. “Go through the Fantasy Name Generator again.”

“Sure,” Prismo clicked through it slowly, waiting for Scarab’s denial or confirmation. “I used to make allowances for wishes, I guess. I probably will, er, maybe. Not big ones, I mean, just–sometimes I like to help out if it’s obvious that they don’t know what to wish for. I mean, Jake tried wishing for a sandwich, you know? I could just give him a sandwich, but nobody ever asks what I can just give them without the wish–”

“That one.”

“Oh, good pick. Very edgy necromancer type.”

Scarab edged closer and closer to Prismo until he could feel the edges of their outlines beginning to fuzz. Prismo tensed, but he stayed where he was. Before, when Scarab had tried to touch him again, Prismo had fled to another part of the room each time he got close enough to feel something from it, so this was progress. 

He didn’t entertain the question of what the progress was towards.

Scarab peered down at the screen thoughtfully as he directed the Wishmaster back to one of his character creators, and had him scroll through through several options.

“You know, we could start a story soon, with our characters.”

“So you can make another unauthorized universe? I won’t be a part of something like that.”

“No, I mean just writing it. Maybe drawing it? Keeping it strictly to this laptop. I mean, only if you want to, with your necromancer wizard guy. I’ve got a healer I think would make a nice contrast as another main character.”

Scarab moved closer, holding out his arm until he felt the pins and needles. Until he could taste the battery acid on what was left of his tongue, what with his details having been rubbed away. 

Prismo didn’t move.

Scarab was used to trying just a bit too hard just a bit too early, but this was different. This wasn’t a target that he revealed himself to for a final fight. This wasn’t his talking to the higher-ups to incriminate his coworkers who had gotten out of line, where he was ignored and disregarded for doing his job. This was something… this was different. It wasn’t even tangible, it was just. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to try this, why he wanted to touch this other being that he was spending so much time with. 

Feelings only made one weak. Affected. 

Prismo had mentioned ‘putting in a good word’ for Scarab when punishments had been doled out. Scarab hadn’t believed him, even though the other had bragged about it. However, the decided sentence was indeed less severe than he had initially been fearing. He knew that he deserved far worse, even if he had been acting in the best interests of the multiverse. 

The punishment was still a punishment, a way to depower and control Scarab for the near future. The tasks he was assigned to were tedious and Scarab’s efforts through the ages had obviously been undervalued. 

But he had known they would be.

He hadn’t been destroyed. He hadn’t even been sent to the Citadel to cool off for a few hundred years. Instead, he had been sentenced to a punishment of being in Prismo’s Time Room, of cleaning and ‘paying his dues.’ Prismo must have been listening to Scarab’s rants regarding how he could have been a better Wishmaster because he dangled the idea that he could one day join in above Scarab’s head (literally). 

Why would he have done that? Prismo didn’t like Scarab. He had never been invited to any parties, because they figured he wouldn’t be interested . (Even if he wasn’t, what was the harm in sending an invitation anyway, unless nobody wanted him there?) He certainly hadn’t made any friends with their other coworkers, what with his tendency to accuse and look for the most minor of offenses, but whose fault was that, really? Not his. 

It was his job to look for indiscretions and issues, to keep godhood running smoothly in a balanced system. If he wasn’t paying attention to the little details, something bigger could eventually be overlooked, or people would go bigger and bigger when they weren’t caught on smaller issues. 

Prismo didn’t like Scarab, did he? Scarab had caught him. Nobody liked Scarab after he accused them of something, too scared for their jobs and continued well-being.

But. Maybe it was like an invitation. One that Scarab didn’t understand, but perhaps it was one nonetheless. It wasn’t as if he would know.

“How do you start a story?” Scarab asked, his hand cupped over Prismo’s arm. He could try to accept whatever it was. This time.

Chapter Text

Scarab typed on the computer, pulled close to the wall, bent over so he could stretch his arms far enough to touch the keys. He wasn’t like Prismo. Stretching didn’t come naturally to him, but… he didn’t want to rely on Prismo for everything . So he typed, one key at a time.

Before, he would have been faster. He would have already gotten his thoughts out and organized long ago. 

No. He wouldn’t have focused on his thoughts, his feelings . He would have only sat down to type if it was for paperwork, to sanction or report on something. 

Now, he sat, slowly writing out his story.

It was harder than he had given Prismo credit for. Or perhaps, Scarab wasn’t suited for imagination in the same way.

That would make more sense. It wasn’t as if Scarab was nearly as adept at projecting himself as Prismo was, and whenever he visited his body, finally without Prismo watching his every move when he was in the room, his slumbering self seemed…

Well, if Prismo's host seemed to have almost constant nightmares, Scarab’s seemed to be stuck in an eternal cycle of melancholy dreams. 

Truthfully, Scarab hardly remembered what he usually dreamed about. He slept so little, and so fitfully, that he rarely made it to or even remembered any dreams. After all, he was not bound by the same restraints that a mortal was and did not enjoy resting when he had more productive things to do. That was another point of contention between him and his coworkers, who tended to indulge in mortal activities for fun and pleasure.

But now he was in a semi-eternal sleep, spending his time on something sad, worthless, and unimaginative. 

Typical.

Scarab continued his story, twisting the subjects into a more dramatic and dangerous setting than Prismo would have. He didn’t like to endanger his characters more than they could handle, which meant that even in his adventure settings, the enemies were either tamer, or his protagonists were overly skilled.

It could be enjoyable for a while, but there was only so much fluff or hurt/comfort he could deal with before he wanted to butt in with a classic hurt-no-comfort. 

Scarab could make something better than that. Something that took longer, stretched out along a real plot. So he did, focusing on the beginning scenes as he set up the beginning of a story that the characters found and pursued.

“Scarab?” Prismo asked. 

The Scarab startled, clicking a few of the keys by accident as he jumped in place. Then, he steadied, steeling himself. It was unlike him not to be aware of his surroundings, so he wasn’t anywhere near used to being caught off guard. Prismo was hardly a sneaky individual, which only reflected more poorly on Scarab’s reaction. So, frustrated and embarrassed, he bit out the other’s name. “Prismo.”

“You’re writing,” he said, sounding delighted, where Scarab expected him to gloat overtaking him by surprise. The Wishmaster pushed closer, intentionally coming close enough to risk overlapping with Scarab so he could look at the screen. 

Scarab acted quickly, moving to try pulling the lid of the laptop closed, but before he could get his limbs to cooperate, Prismo had already reached over him to scroll upwards, pausing when they reached the top of the text. 

The Wishmaster made a delighted noise upon reading the first line, ignoring Scarab and making frustrated noises beside him as he got further in. “Is that our characters? I mean, of course, it is, it’s their names but–you’re using our characters?”

“Yes,” Scarab snapped, on the defensive. “You said –”

“I know, I think it’s great! Maybe something more… calm would be a good setting, though? I mean it looks like Prism gets pretty injured here when he’s getting the totem…”

“That adds to the drama,” Scarab snapped. “Vermilion Knight needs the motivation to care about helping him.”

“Wouldn’t he just want to help them anyway? I mean the village here asked for help against what was in the woods.”

“Just wanting to help is more Prism’s deal,” Scarab scoffed. “That’s what got him hurt.”

Prismo frowned but didn’t argue, finally pushing back from the laptop to give Scarab more space. Scarab crowded in closer to the laptop defensively.

“Oh, you could keep writing,” Prismo said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I thought you would be cleaning again.”

Scarab tensed, glancing out around the room. He had figured out a couple of tricks to interacting with the rest of the room, but there were still parts of it that he hadn’t been able to clean yet. Which was terrible, because that’s what he was supposed to be doing. Not writing. He was–

“Scarab?”

“You never said it would be hard to write,” Scarab blurted, staring at a cobweb. Luckily, his words came out bitter and accusing, so it felt more like a demand than an admittance of something.

“Oh,” Prismo moved to another face of the wall. “Everything’s hard at first, I guess.”

“ You write all the time.”

“And you audit, all the time, or whatever. But I wouldn't be good at hunting or threatening or whatever you were supposed to be doing.”

As if Prismo didn’t know what Scarab did. 

Didn’t he? Scarab knew what Prismo did. He had always tried to keep close tabs on the Wishmaster when he had the time and clearance to get close. 

“I keep the timelines in check. I keep you all in check.” 

“How's that working out for you?” Prismo asked flatly. Then he winced when Scarab didn't reply. “I mean—writing, yeah? It's hard, especially at first. Getting it off the page. I mean, you’ve already got characters, and you’ve got settings, you’re already-“

“I know how to do that.”

“Then what do you need help with?” The question was genuine. Curious. 

Scarab wanted to pin Prismo to the floor and apply pressure to his non-physical neck until he couldn't ask any more questions. He wanted to sink down into his exoskeleton, pushing his mandibles so close together that they would creak while he split his face open and hissed. He wanted to rip apart Prismo’s form, to bathe in his blood. What would that be like? Starlight? 

Instead, his shadowed form hunched over, becoming more condensed as limbs folded over his torso. He couldn’t react like that. That’s what had gotten him into this situation. 

I can't write , some treacherous part of him threatened to admit. It won't come out right . 

But he didn’t say that. Instead, he looked around, searching for an upper hand. 

He should have been cleaning. He should have been doing his job , instead of wasting his time on frivolous activities. Those were always for other people. 

Not for him. 

Scarab withdrew, closing himself off. If he had been in a three-dimensional space, he might have leered, pushing himself up to appear taller, more threatening. He would have looked for weak points, for anything that could give him an advantage. A childhood injury, a doubt he could pick at, startling his victims by revealing that he knew what they had been doing wrong. Anything to catch them off guard. 

But he was already being punished, and the only real action he had against Prismo was waking him—a cosmic crime. If his trying to destroy Fionna and Cake hadn’t gotten him killed, waking Prismo would .

Besides, it hadn't escaped his notice that Prismo was far more powerful than he was, even confined to the same space as him. 

“Scarab?”

“I don't need any help.”

“Are you sure?” The anxiousness leaked back into Prismo’s voice when Scarab stood. Finally, something Scarab could work with.

“Positive,” Scarab lied, already itching to sit back down with his ideas. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Scrabby,” Prismo said, holding out a hand defensively. He laughed nervously. He looked tired . “Scarab, I mean. I was really happy that you were writing. I thought maybe we could write together.”

“Why would you want to?”

“I mean, I love writing. Maybe we could… collaborate?”

Scarab gestured to the room as a whole. “I don’t have time for that. You know that. Eventually, someone will check in, and see that I haven’t been working.”

“You don’t have to work your entire life, man! You’re such a workaholic. If someone came and raised a fuss about it, I would tell them that I asked you to help me with something. Technically, you’re an assistant.”

Scarab wanted to flee. He wanted to go back out to a room he knew Prismo wouldn’t follow him to, and try to interact with physical spaces where he wouldn’t be laughed at.

Instead, he sat back down.

“Soooooo, question,” Prismo hummed, examining what Scarab had written on the laptop. 

“What now ?” Scarab snapped, unreasonably anxious about Prismo’s approval, for some reason. But also mad. Because this was his 21st question about what had been written. How much criticism could he possibly come up with? 

“Nothing bad,” Prismo started, which meant it was something bad. “How come Vermilion Knight doesn't go to the party with Prism?”

“What?” Scarab asked, bewildered. “Why would he?”

“Well, he was part of the reason for the party. He helped catch the Ogre King on tax evasion and all that. Plus, you're describing this party a lot, and when you focus back on VK out in the middle of nowhere, it just feels kind of lonely, even if he's being really intense about figuring out this mystery.”

“He isn't a party person.”

“Nobody even asked him,” Prismo insisted, sounding frustrated. “They don't know he isn’t a—“ Prismo cut himself off abruptly and stared at Scarab with something like dawning horror. 

Scarab felt the urge to fight, to rend flesh apart in splatters of blood to make him stop making that expression , that curve of his frown and set of his tired eyes. He felt like a bug pinned to a board, spread out for all to see. “Vermilion Knight doesn't go to parties. There are more important things to be done, like figuring out the next step of the quest. There's no time for parties.”

“So Prism can waste time?”

“Prism isn't wasting time.”

“He's at the party.”

“He’s making connections.”

Prismo hesitated. “He isn't just making connections. Sure, he was talking to the mayor, but he only asked a couple of questions before he was back to partying. He’s having fun . Why doesn't VK get to have fun?”

“His name is Vermilion Knight.”

“He could be there with Prism.”

“ No, he couldn't .”

“Why not?”

“You know why not,” Scarab snarled, standing upright and stalking toward Prismo. Sometimes, Prismo sank down, flustered by their proximity, giving the floor to Scarab to have the height and the intimidation that he so desired. 

Other times, Prismo rose higher, circling Scarab, blocking his path with his long reach. This was one of the times when Prismo stared down at Scarab icily, rather than the other way around, and Scarab never knew what to do about the feelings that welled up in what would have been his chest when it happened. “I don't know. Why can’t he go to the party?”

“Nobody wants him there,” Scarab said with finality. He couldn’t move without overlapping with Prismo’s form, but he tried to stand taller to gain something back in the argument. Incidentally, his movements brought him closer to Prismo’s face. His limbs trembled with adrenaline. Hopefully, Prismo was too focused on their argument to notice. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Prism wants him there!”

“Prism can barely stand him.”

“The party is about VK! The village would have been destroyed if VK hadn't figured out that loophole. He's a hero.”

Scarab felt sick for some reason, an anxious energy burning within him that made him want to lash out and grab at the other entity. “Why does it matter to you? It’s just a story, and it progresses the plot faster. You were the one complaining that it was taking too long.”

“I just want him to have some fun,” Prismo said faintly. Finally, he drew back, unwinding himself from where he had wound himself around the floor and walls. “I would have invited him to the party.”

The abrupt lack of closeness Scarab a horribly confusing mix of relief and disappointment. He stumbled back with something he would have called distress on a lesser being. 

That wasn’t fair . When he used Prismo’s mixture of touch aversion and touch starvation against him, it had always been on Scarab’s terms. He had always been the one in control of the situation, and he always knew where and what he was going to touch because Prismo tended to shy away rather than press back. Prismo was obvious with his intent and his movements, up until he wasn’t. 

And maybe the reason that Scarab had yet to verbally acknowledge Prismo’s issues with touch, was because he knew that any resulting argument could be reflected back at himself. 

Of course, he came into contact with more beings than Prismo did, but that was all through fighting. Everything in those situations was meant to gain the upper hand and to incapacitate an enemy who could and would fight back with the intent of tearing him limb from limb until he couldn’t come back, or until he was taken off the case and reprimanded for a lack of progress. 

Touch left him agitated, ready to fight. Keeping himself in place left him exhausted.

“You never invited me .” By the time Scarab caught back up with his thoughts, his body was halfway through saying something that made him want to direct that shaky, excess, violent energy back at himself. “Why should he get to go?”

“Scarab, I…”

Scarab sat back on the ground robotically and reached for the laptop, trying to get a handle on himself before he embarrassed himself further. “Just drop it.”

He started typing again, slower than ever. Methodical. 

After what felt like daysmonthsyears with time passing so oddly in their shared room, Prismo settled at his side, a bit further away than before, and watched him type. 

Chapter Text

“Okay, so, obviously you aren’t going to say anything about it at this point, so I guess it’s up to me to start this conversation.”

Scarab peered at Prismo from the adjacent wall. They had been avoiding each other in all but name since their recent argument after their writing session had ended in an uncomfortable silence, and Scarab had become sick of Prismo’s burning gaze and excused himself. 

It was a bit difficult to really avoid people in such a confined space, but they had managed it thus far. When one of them entered a room, the other left quickly. Prismo tended to stay in the room with his pickles, or in the main part of the Time Room, watching TV. Or, in one case, granting a wish that Scarab had fought himself not to watch, instead relegating himself to hallways. 

There were no more comments, no more gossip, and no more collaborating on stories or characters.

Scarab was hardly surprised that Prismo was the first one to break, but he dreaded the conversation all the same. Still, he gave the Wishmaster his attention, figuring that the other would go ahead and get it over with if he listened. 

“I’m sorry about all this. I really thought it would go better, us getting along. I guess that’s why I write fanfiction? So it goes better. I mean, so I can make it go better.”

Of course, that idea hinged on Prismo making sense. 

“And I can tell you miss being three-dimensional,” Prismo continued, growing closer as he crossed the corner of the room. 

“Don’t you?” Scarab would have crossed his arms if he thought the motion would translate well. As it was, he simply pushed himself taller. 

“Well, not really. I know my host is three-dimensional, but our memories are pretty divided? I was never really mortal Prismo on a conscious level, so I haven’t experienced the third dimension in a way that I would miss it. I mean,” Prismo moved, reaching towards Scarab. However, he paused before actually touching him, hand stilling when Scarab stepped back. “I miss things that are in the third dimension, like people hanging out or going places you can’t when confined to a wall. But I’ve never really wanted to be that dimension, you know? Well, I don’t think you do, because you seem so uncomfortable .”

“My comfort doesn’t matter,” Scarab said condescendingly. “ Surely you understand the concept of a punishment.”

“Obviously. But I thought you might like it here.”

“You thought I might like being demoted?”

“No!” Prismo looked frustrated. He raised a flat hand, drawing it up the wall, and mimed hitting it against where the bridge of his nose would have been had something physical been there. “You wanted my job, so I thought having you in here would be something close.”

Scarab narrowed his eyes. Something wasn’t adding up. “I’m aware of your intentions. I desire the job of Wishmaster so you brought me to where I could see but never have it. I applaud you on that, truly.”

Prismo stopped spreading around the room, instead pulling back and shrinking his image. “I told you that you could maybe grant a wish in the future.”

“You’re often full of empty platitudes.”

“... you think I brought you here to be mean?”

“To be cruel,” Scarab corrected, disliking how he dumbed the word down to–what? Feel less vicious? “It’s ingenious. I never would have expected you to come up with something like that.”

Prismo was quiet for a full moment, apparently stuck dumb. Scarab turned to peer around for an exit Prismo might have let open up anywhere. He would rather go back to them avoiding each other rather than having another conversation like the last one.

“I thought you could work up to it,” Prismo finally went on, voice subdued. “You’d be an assistant or a partner. Not just… I know we don’t get wishes, but I thought getting you somewhere you could eventually grant wishes would be like granting a wish for you anyway.”

Suddenly, Scarab realized that he had lost track of the conversation again. Why was Prismo was infuriating? “Why did you want me here?”

“I wanted company.”

What was he missing? Scarab knew that already. 

He could see the loneliness that had taken over Prismo’s life without even trying. The Wishmaster had long since given up being subtle about watching outdated clips of a dog and his human, or of checking in on Fionna and Cake’s dimension a bit too often. 

Prismo wanting a captive audience was the obvious next step. 

Scarab knew he was supposed to answer to fill the silence, but found nothing of value to say. And the longer he was quiet, the more Prismo seemed to deflate. 

“I can talk to the boss–try to change this. I could see about getting you something different to do.”

“Don’t do that,” Scarab said, alarmed. 

The undertone of fear must have bled through into his voice, judging by Prismo’s confusion. 

But a different punishment could never be a better alternative.

Granted, Scarab avoided getting into trouble as much as possible, following the rules to a T. Any punishments he had been subject to happened very early on in his career, back when everybody was still learning the rules of maintaining order. Maybe they had changed how they dealt with wrongdoers that they didn’t send him after. 

But he doubted it. They had been deeply unpleasant. He couldn’t imagine that they somehow lessened in severity rather than increased throughout the ages. 

Truthfully, Prismo had likely saved his life. Since he had attempted to end a universe, Scarab should have been permanently ended or demoted even further for what he had done, even if he had started out in the right. An eye for an eye, and all that. 

Without someone their coworkers actually liked to calm their fury and direct them towards a less severe solution…

“Oh,” Prismo said, apparently following his thoughts for once. “Nothing like that. I didn’t save your hide last time to throw you under the bus. Just the equivalent of a time out or something.”

Something in that statement felt like missing a step on the stairs. All of a sudden, he could feel that he was suspended in space, rather than being pulled down by gravity as he lost something solid in his footing. 

Just a time out , they had said. For letting your target get away. 

You aren’t pulling your weight if you’re letting troublemakers get away from you. That hurts the success of the team. Think of what he’s probably out there doing right now, because of you. 

Nobody is going to promote you with work ethic like that.

And then, the blinding, scorching light, weaving its way in between the edges and spines of his exoskeleton and digging into the soft membrane beneath. He stayed suspended, splayed out, pinned for an unknowable amount of time in a ruthless version of solitary confinement, in a place so bright it hurt even beneath the shadow of his folded mandibles of his averted gaze and shut eyes. 

His head had pounded and when he had tried to escape into dreams, they either eluded him or matched his surroundings. He had never truly figured out which was which.

He had hungered, and he had tired, like a mortal .

Scarab didn’t know how long he had been in that space before someone had taken pity on him, but it had been long enough that their scolding tone and guiding hand had felt like kindness .

Oh, there you are. I was wondering why you were slacking off. You’re behind again, by the way. Honestly, how could you want to be Wishmaster when you can’t even catch a mortal?

If that was Prismo’s idea of a lighter sentence–

“Scrabby?” Prismo asked, very close to his face. 

Reacting unconsciously, Scarab scrambled backward. He realized, abruptly, that his ‘feet’ had left where the wall connected to the floor. He was unmoored in space, folded in on himself, and moving backward on nothing. Prismo hadn’t moved from where he had stationed himself above Scarab’s level. Scarab had all but floated up to eye level. 

Desperately, he reached down, as if he could catch the edge of the floor and yank himself back down. But he couldn’t stretch like Prismo and he couldn’t grab something that didn’t exist and he was there again, with nothing and everything around him as he floated in an abyss and

Prismo was touching him, tongue sticking out, something like concentration in his gaze. He pulled the image of Scarab down through space, down to a place that wasn’t quite solid, but where he could feel the bend of the crease.

Then he tried to focus.

He had been self-realizing himself with gravity the whole time without even trying. But since his mind had stayed to that–

“Hey, focus on me, alright? What am I missing out on in the third dimension?”

“ What ?” Scarab snarled, digging sharp edges into Prismo’s arm until the wall behind it had small punctures where his fingers would have been. 

“Brag about it,” Prismo said hurriedly. Panicked, almost. “Since I don’t remember. One-up me.”

“I miss doing my job,” Scarab replied, gritting his teeth, pulling himself back together. 

“I know.”

“My full range of mobility.”

“You do seem a little less detailed. We can work on that, yeah? You always seemed to love jumping around, or scaring people with your face.”

Scarab could feel the self-imposed ground again. “You seem to know more than me.”

“Yeah,” Prismo laughed anxiously. “I used to watch you sometimes.”

Scarab surged backward, alarmed. He didn’t make it far, arm still caught in Prismo’s hold. 

“Yeah, you showed up once when I was watching the sitcom universe once. You were monitoring a crossover, I guess? I sort of followed you for a while, when you were visiting a mortal realm and I could follow along. Not… too much, though. You’re impressive at your job, sure, but it’s a little…”

“Violent.”

“Violent,” Prismo agreed, and let go. Scarab wasn’t sure how the touch had held him physically. When he touched the other, there was very little physicality to it. There was a mixing of energy, but nothing solid to hold onto. “Better?”

“I’m not dignifying that with a response.”

“Fair enough,” Prismo looked askance. “Was it something I brought up?”

“...”

“I won’t mention anything to the boss.”

Scarab felt his traitorous body relax. 

“Do you…” Prismo cast his gaze around the room helplessly. “Want to try writing again?”

Scarab drew in a long breath. Held it. Blew out. “Why not?”

Chapter Text

It was… awkward. Painful, even, sitting there peering at Prismo’s screen as the other wrote. Scarab had declined the offer to take the laptop, too wound up and focused on maintaining solid ground to even attempt thinking about navigating typing again. 

That meant that he stood awkwardly, leaning so he could see the words appear on the screen as Prismo typed up the story, a continuation of what Scarab had started. 

He knew it was merely an olive branch to pick the narrative back up and continue it without all his complaints, but it was fascinating to see the other’s take on what Scarab had tried creating. 

“Go back up,” Scarab directed. “Don’t shorten the slowburn. Vermilion Knight wouldn’t move that branch aside for Prism.”

Prismo glanced at him, opening his mouth. Then he shut it and began to mouse back up several lines.

Put off by his lack of response, Scarab edged closer, folding his arms behind himself so they melded into the rest of his being. “Suddenly you have nothing to say?”

Prismo winced and stopped typing. “Look, I’m sorry for bringing up whatever I did, but–”

“Ignore that,” Scarab snapped. “Move on.”

“... I’m not just going to forget that you essentially had a panic attack.”

“That isn’t what that was.”

“Scrabby, you were breathing so hard I thought you were going to figure out how to pass out as a dream! You don’t even have to breathe here.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That doesn’t seem healthy, man.”

“And you would be the expert?” Scarab glanced Prismo over judgementally, moving his head so it was obvious where and what he was looking at. At Prismo’s uncomfortable glance away, Scarab pushed back further unkind comments. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Prismo sounded doubtful. “I was really worried, man. I feel like I just keep hurting you. You know that isn’t what I meant by any of this.”

“Touching,” Scarab commented dully. “You’ve already made it clear that those weren’t your intentions.”

“... it was the mention of the punishment, wasn’t it? I just thought you might be happier doing something else if I could get you a… less severe sentencing. Since you don’t seem happy here.”

“That isn’t a guarantee.”

“Scarab,” Prismo looked worried. It made Scarab feel something that he didn’t care to identify. “Did they… do something to you before?”

Scarab swore he could feel the space beneath him shift. “You wanted to stop ‘hurting me,’ didn’t you?”

“Yeah…?”

“Then let us drop this topic of conversation.”

Scarab tensed, readying for any comment Prismo might have had. He waited for the argument, for the onslaught of questions that this lack of a denial brought forth. 

But no questions came. Prismo gave an exaggerated, but very serious-looking nod. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

With that, the Wishmaster went back to typing, editing the part that Scarab had pointed out to him earlier. It was obvious that he wasn’t expecting more from the conversation at that point. 

Scarab wasn’t either. Not really. He was tired, somehow, and if he wasn’t so worried about what being by himself would do for his mental state, what with those thoughts of isolation fresh in his memory, he might have left Prismo to take some time for himself. 

However…

There was something that Prismo had said that had stuck with him. And as much as he was loath to admit it, sitting there with company made him feel… better .

“You said I seemed less detailed.”

“Eh?” Prismo looked back at him. 

“Don’t be obtuse. You noted that I ‘seemed less detailed,’ and that ‘we could work on that.’ What did you mean by that?”

“Oh,” Prismo withdrew from the keyboard and moved around to face Scarab from a better angle. “I mean, are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Right, right. Uh, well you know how your form is a projection from your host body?” Prismo moved one of his arms further out along the wall and shifted his hand into the image of a bed. “It’s a lot like lucid dreaming, but instead of affecting the dreams we’re affecting the real world.” 

At this, Prismo’s hand shifted into the fluff that mortals sometimes used to signify dreams, and then into an image of a figure looking around next to a house, before they took to the air, flying into the sky. “There’s a suspension of belief that I think you’re missing out on some, but that’s what lets me mess with things around my room that aren’t on the same dimension as us. Or, if I focus, I can bring some of those three-dimensional things onto the same plane as us, or I can temporarily peel away and join them instead.”

“That doesn’t explain the limitations of our bodies on this plane,” Scarab interrupted crossly. “By that logic, I should be able to do more .”

“Well,” Prismo laughed nervously and instead morphed his image into one of two overlapping hands, with the thumbs held up and the forefingers crossed. “We’re kind of like shadow puppets. You can’t really have a dream on the same plane as reality. That’s part of the whole drawback, all that power with enough rules that you can’t really do anything with it. This is a dog, by the way. I’m kind of bad at shadow puppets.”

“So I just have to believe?” Scarab asked dryly. That did not sound the least bit appealing. 

Scarab never wished for anything. He took .

Perhaps he wouldn’t have been a better Wishmaster after all. 

“Pretty much,” Prismo shrugged. “That’s kind of what I do, it’s just been so long that it’s second nature to like, change my shape and stuff.”

“And the stubble?”

Prismo moved a hand to his face, tracing it over the image of said stubble. “Sometimes there’s stuff that messes with your perception of yourself. If you feel something really intensely, something might slip through that you would expect to happen to your awake self. Like, uhh, when you started floating because you probably realized there wasn’t actually any gravity? Or, I mean… just look at you.”

Scarab went still. 

“You’re usually so prickly,” Prismo moved closer, slowly moving a hand toward Scarab to touch the bend of his arm. When Scarab didn’t pull away, Prismo gripped his shoulder with that strange physicality from earlier. He was almost reassured. “I’m guessing you haven’t been able to open your faceplate.”

“You presume correctly.”

“You’re so formal when you’re tired,” Prismo said, not unkindly. “Don’t get me wrong, because I like the look, but you’re usually red.”

Scarab shrugged off Prismo’s touch, watching the purple of their merging colors slide away. The Wishmaster took the hint and easily glided away along the wall, giving him space. 

“Is that all?”

“Well,” Prismo sucked on his teeth. “I don’t want to embarrass you, Scrabby. I know you’re shy.”

“I’m not shy ,” Scarab hissed through his teeth. 

“Okay, prideful , then. Same difference. Look, you’re all– blue and you’re tiny and you’re smooth and, it’s like you’re hiding! If I didn’t know any better I’d say you didn’t feel safe here. In fact,” Prismo faced away, curling his fingers into fists from where they laid along the floor. “I know you don’t. But I want you to.”

“I will rend your host limb from limb,” Scarab snapped, raising his voice. Suddenly, he felt hot all over. “ Slowly . Everything will be torn off by the time you die and they come to arrest me–”

“See!” Prismo made a noise and covered his face. Poorly, which revealed a faint discoloration across his cheeks. “I knew you’d get all shy about it.”

Scarab made a similar noise of frustration. “Do you have any useful suggestions on how to start? Besides insulting me?”

“‘Fraid not, Scrabby. One step at a time?”

While Prismo’s explanation helped to outline his situation better, that did not actually help Scarab in the long run. Nor did the comments about him hiding . What the hell was Prismo trying to get at?

Still, he supposed that it was better than nothing. He had started hunts with less. 

He sat where the floor connected to the wall, and watched as Prismo went back to their story, and focused. What was he missing?

Scarab had taken inventory of himself several times. He knew that he was smoother, now. That part of him seemed to have been sanded away. The only visible feature he had across his being was his eyes.

Prismo usually only had his smile and the space for his eyes visible within his makeup. However, now he had eyebags, stubble, and occasionally the hint of an eyebrow when the situation called for it, breaking up the rest of his uniform figure. 

Maybe starting in the middle was harder, even if Scarab would have liked the ability to split his true face open. Changing his edges seemed safer, anyway. That was adding to something, rather than scraping away. That was taking what he wanted and applying it to himself. 

So he focused, running his hands over the impressions of his legs, folded in front of him. And– there . That’s where they should have been. An empty, smoothed space where he usually had spines. Sharp, prickly things.

He imagined– no . He didn’t. He remembered where they had once been, how they had felt, how they were sharp enough to cut ropes and hook into the ground to help with traction when he had to resort to chasing someone on all fours.

The spikes were wrapped up and hidden when he wrapped himself up in bandages, protecting himself, concealing his identity. Somehow, this was familiar. All he needed to do was reveal them.

And suddenly, Scarab could feel the spines, almost pricking himself on their edges.

A jolt of electricity ran through him, making Scarab startle, but it was just Prismo barely touching his side, the point on his elbows that were now segmented, holding additional spikes. 

“Hey, you did it!”

Scarab composed himself quickly. “You sound surprised.”

“You just picked it up fast,” Prismo grinned. “Looking good, Scrabby.”

“Go back to the fanfiction, Wishmaker.”

Chapter Text

“You know,” Scarab mused. He ‘leaned’ against the corner dividing two parts of the room, turned so it looked like he was simply sitting back against said wall. He had figured out quickly after Prismo’s explanation that controlling the projection of himself had more to do with how he wanted it to look, rather than what he actually affected. 

If he wanted to, he could stay frozen in space without gravity pulling him in any direction. It went against everything he knew of the physics that affected most of the universes, but he had to adapt sooner or later. 

He just… didn’t want to. 

Scarab waited until Prismo was looking at him to go on, fixing his gaze solidly on Prismo’s face, refusing to let himself back down. “I never wished to kill you.”

“ Right ,” Prismo said, stretching the word out as he looked back down at his laptop. “You just wanted my job.”

“Your title, to be more specific.”

“The job comes with the title, you know.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Well,” Prismo paused in his typing, grimacing at the screen. He had claimed, at some point, to have difficulty holding a conversation while he wrote, because he risked typing what he was saying, or saying what he was typing. “It’s hard to tell when you’ve killed or put so many of our coworkers in your little Tamagotchi eggs. Though I suppose you did cube me instead. Is that better? Maybe I should’ve guessed that you actually liked me.”

Scarab stood up fully and stalked across the space between himself and Prismo. “ Like you?”

“Well, don’t you?”

Scarab neared him, joining him on the same face of the room. When Prismo slank back from his laptop and sank down onto the floor, moving further from Scarab, he followed, eventually leaning over Prismo once the Wishmaster’s head sat in the space just below his gaze. “I think you’re infuriating , irresponsible , too attached to mortals –”

“I like you too,” Prismo replied, voice faint and a little too knowing. 

Scarab hissed in frustration and pushed closer to the other’s face, wishing that his mask could still split apart, instead of just giving the illusion of part of it shifting in the shadows. He was much better at intimidating people when he could get on their level, and Prismo wasn’t the sort to be intimidated by a sharp suit and clean look without the power to back it up. 

“You’re so –”

“Am I, er, should I go?” A voice called from the window. 

Scarab pulled back from where he was pressed into Prismo’s space, where Prismo had been staring up at him, their colors nearly overlapping. Then, Scarab noted how that might have looked were they in the physical plane, how close his flattened face was to the Wishmaster’s, and he stumbled back further, while Prismo hurriedly pushed himself back up, face coloring as if he had been doing something indecent. 

“I can come back later,” the Cosmic Owl said, shuffling around a stack of mortal games under his wings. “I didn’t realize you were– is that Scrabby ?!”

Scarab watched for a moment as the Cosmic Owl panicked, hooting and dropping his games to the floor of the Time Room with a clatter. One of the boxes fell open, and a couple of marbles rolled away. He took a moment to savor the panic, the rush of adrenaline he always got when those he had been sent to collect realized exactly who he was, and what he was there for. 

Although he couldn’t act upon his wishes and fight the owl then and there, it gave him a moment and the composure to straighten himself back up, standing tall with dignity. Then he realized that he needed to address the Cosmic Owl’s concerns before the idiot incriminated himself further and someone else (whoever they had appointed to Scarab’s old job) came to deal with him. 

“I’m on probation,” Scrab said flatly, wondering where the owl had been to avoid hearing the memo. Had nobody been told to let him know? Really, they were a mess without him there. “Stop panicking about whatever you think I’m going to do to you and go fix it instead.”

The Cosmic Owl quieted and flew down to push some of the games back together with his talon. “Prismo? Doesn’t this guy hate you?”

“Yeah, but it’s this whole new roommate situation. The big boss was going to ice him or something, so I stepped in.”

The owl glanced Scarab’s new form over once again, this time looking vaguely amused. He gave a chuckle that was more a hoot than a laugh. “What did you do to get in that much trouble?”

“My fault,” Prismo sing-songed, like he was proud of it.

“I think I should be asking what you’ve been doing, considering you were next on my list,” Scarab snapped, hoping it came across threateningly enough. 

It didn’t, judging by how the Cosmic Owl ducked down again to sweep the fallen marbles and dice back into one area. “Well, I’ve mostly got two-player games right now, but maybe we could do–” he rifled around through some papers, completely ignoring Scarab’s implied threat at whatever scheme the owl had been cooking up. 

Scarab waited for a moment for Prismo to object. When a long pause passed without him doing so, Scarab blinked and looked at the owl, feeling a little lost. “Don’t worry about it.”

The Cosmic Owl dropped a few papers and shot Prismo a look. “Now he’s too good to play cards?”

“Well, Scrabby’s still figuring out how to move that stuff around,” Prismo said, tone implying that he thought he was being helpful rather than revealing the one thing that Scarab didn’t want any visitors to know. It was bad enough that he was confined to the wall without any powers to speak of to make up for the restrictions, but not having figured out how to manipulate his surroundings like Prismo had was mortifying. “Maybe he could sit out and watch right now.”

“I’d rather go blind,” Scarab intoned. 

“Got it!” The owl looked relieved at not having to change his plans. He pulled out one of the games and shook it as if that meant something. “I didn’t think Scarab would be that interested anyway. I found a new type of Future Scrabble.”

Or perhaps he was relieved at not having to play with Scarab.

“I don’t really see how they’re different,” Prismo reached across when Cosmic Owl put the box on the floor and unfolded some instructions. “You acted like Ocean Scrabble was different, and it was just themed tiles.”

“This one has a time-traveling mechanics.”

“How does that factor into Scrabble?” Prismo asked, bewildered. 

Cosmic Owl sat down, spreading out some pieces. “So it’s like this–”

Scarab stood to the side, watching as they quickly became entranced with the clumsily translated game mechanics. Scarab felt that he had picked up on the rules faster than both of them and was quicker to note when one of them was misplaying or going against the laid-out ruleset. 

He didn’t say so, however much he wanted to butt in. He bit back snapping at them several times in favor of sinking into the background. 

Prismo seemed fine with hanging out with Scarab when it was just the two of them there, because the Wishmaster was horribly lonely and Scarab was a captive companion. However, with the owl there, it was only inevitable that he was going to wind up ignoring Scarab.

That was only natural… so why did Scarab feel something about that fact?

The Cosmic Owl had been so quick to dismiss him once he stopped recognizing Scarab as a threat. He definitely had something unsanctioned going on that had yet to be dealt with, if he hadn’t heard about Scarab’s demotion yet, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to go fix it, even at Scarab’s suggestion. It was more likely that he would let it stew until it bubbled over, like Prismo’s Fionna and Cake situation.

No. Surely the owl was more responsible than that. The illegal universe was a big risk, and Prismo knew it. 

But that wasn’t his job anymore. 

Scarab looked around the Time Room, noting the newly formed clutter as Prismo and the Cosmic Owl shoved things aside and called forth pickles and sandwiches and drinks. 

His job was to clean up after them.

It would be useless to try cleaning before they were done, but since they weren’t paying attention, he could at least…

“Scrabby?” Prismo asked.

Scarab pulled his hand back from where he strained to coax his form across the crease of the floor and over a can close to him as if the action had burned him. “ What ?”

Prismo paused for a moment, staring at him for long enough that the owl hooted to get his attention again. “Oh, I was wondering if you wanted to… help me play?”

“What.”

“I mean, you didn’t seem thrilled about playing, but I haven’t totally figured out the rules yet. You seem like you’ve got a pretty good head for this sort of game, so you could just… point?” Prismo hesitated for a moment. “You’re invited , you know.”

Scarab stood straighter. “You are a cosmic entity who watches over all of eternity and all of space because you’re bored , and you can’t figure out a simple game?”

“You don’t have to play,” Cosmic Owl muttered, disgruntled. “Everyone knows you don’t like games.”

“I’ll play,” Scarab snapped, walking around to stand ‘behind’ Prismo, so he could get a better look at his layout. 

“You’re ganging up on me,” the owl cried, turning towards Prismo. 

“You’re obviously more practiced in the game,” Scarab noted. “It’s already unfairly weighted in your favor.”

“Only a little ,” the Cosmic Owl honest to glob began to pout . 

Scarab ignored him and gestured as well as he could to one of the tiles. It was only when he moved that he realized how close he was to Prismo again. Despite his instincts screaming at him to put some space between the two of them, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

It was kind of like when he went to Prismo’s side to watch him write, leaning over his being and pushing his leg against Prismo’s arm until they just barely overlapped. 

But right now, Scarab was helping . He wasn’t just arguing with Prismo over the story beats that a character could go through. He was standing beside Prismo, comfortably, socially, almost leaning into him. Earlier, they had almost–

The Cosmic Owl laughed. “You’re still going to lose! Prismo started off too badly.”

“We’ll see,” Scarab said lightly, delighting in the horrified noise that the owl made when Scarab directed Prismo to another tile to lay down. 

Chapter Text

“Simon,” Prismo greeted, tone surprised and rather pointed. His voice was raised a bit louder than usual, at least for the initial word, before he lowered his volume down into a rambling sort of greeting.

Scarab took the hint, standing in the depths of Prismo’s cellar, on the stairs descending from the trapdoor. He had been down taking some private time for himself, and he supposed he would have to take it a bit longer to avoid an… unfortunate run-in.

An alternate form of Prismo crossed the corner fast enough to nearly collide with Scarab. “There you are! Don’t go up there.”

“I can hear him,” Scarab noted, lowering his voice and giving Prismo a disapproving look. 

The Wishmaster had the decency to look embarrassed as he chanced a glance up towards the top of the stairs. More quietly, he continued. “Why don’t we go somewhere else? I’m sure–”

“I wish to listen.”

Prismo hesitated, before relaxing a bit, a faint smile pulling across his face. “Your wish is my command.”

“ Hello, Prismo,” Simon greeted up above them. “I hope it’s not too bothersome if I visit. Minerva–that’s my therapist–”

“Oh yeah, Finn’s mom. We just got to that season.”

“You should be more careful with your words,” Scarab shook his head, letting his helmet cross to either side demonstratively. 

“Yeah, yeah. Let me focus on the conversation here.”

“You could go back, now, and not have to split your attention. I’m not unaware of the situation.”

“I want to keep you company, too.” Prismo paused and narrowed his eyes, shooting Scarab a look. “ Plus , I dunno if I trust that you won’t go up anyway.”

“... yes, Finn’s mother. Minerva said I should try reaching back out to my community. That is, people I was speaking to after I lost the crown, especially those I interacted with during the height of my grief. So, well, I hope it isn’t too much of an intrusion to come by, even if I don’t have a wish?”

“I’m part of your community?” Prismo asked, voice heavy with something. 

“You’re using the wrong mouth,” Scarab prompted, feeling unusually soft. Prismo made a face, and repeated the question above, sounding a little less affected. 

That was… worrisome, perhaps. Prismo got too attached to people, and his clinging to a mortal, an older mortal, at that, seemed like a recipe for disaster. Especially if this was his state after the dog’s demise.

However, it was hardly up to him who the Wishmaster chose to spend time with. 

“If that would be acceptable. I know I was quite rude to you before.”

“Hey man, of course it is! You know, it isn’t everyday someone comes by just to, what, see me?”

“Why hide me?” Scarab questioned, despite knowing that his question would make the conversation more challenging for Prismo. Some part of him wanted to see the Wishmaster struggle. And, well, Prismo claimed to want to keep him company.

“I don’t want to upset either of you.”

“... you’re terrible at keeping secrets.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Yes, and to,” Simon paused above, trailing off with a frustrated noise. He continued on with a quieter tone. “I meant to apologize, as well. I hadn’t apologized yet, had I?”

Scarab looked at Prismo’s face. 

He was in awe, touched, mouth parted slightly. 

Curious and invested in knowing exactly what was drawing that look from Prismo, Scarab started to make his way up the stairwell to better hear the conversation, as their voices grew softer and softer. It couldn’t just be the apology, right? Prismo wasn’t that desperate for company, right ?

Prismo rushed up to greet him. “Scrabby, wait!”

Scarab came to a slow stop and looked back down at him incredulously. 

“Wrong–?”

“Yes, wrong mouth.”

“You said ‘we,’ earlier,” Simon noted, obviously having heard the mistake. Scarab could imagine the man climbing to his feet and peering around the room. “Is someone else, er, watching it with you?”

“Oh, uh,” Prismo hesitated. 

There were footsteps above, as Simon likely crossed the room. 

Prismo was terrible under scrutiny. Most people were nice enough to let it slide because they liked Prismo, but Scarab imagined that Simon might not be that easy to fool. That is, if Prismo was even able to think up an excuse. 

“Scrabby isn’t… Scarab, is it? Are we in danger here?” The human went on, voice edging into nervousness, getting louder as he went on, either from proximity or anxiety. 

“No, it’s, uh. Just my guest. I have someone downstairs eating pickles with me?”

“I… see. And you won’t let me see them?”

“Hopefully not? Uh, why? I can entertain more than just one guest at a time, you know.”

“Well if they visit often, wouldn’t I meet them anyway? I could at least say hello, if we aren’t in any danger.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Prismo hedged. “I mean… they’re kinda…”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

Tired of waiting, Scarab continued his trek up the stairs. 

“What are you doing?!” Prismo surged forward and grabbed onto Scarab’s arm. First, it was the tingly feeling of their colors merging. Then, when all Scarab did was turn to give him an annoyed look, it turned into a more physical hold, like when he had previously caught Scarab from floating away. 

“Unhand me,” he snapped. “I’m going to go up and greet him on my own terms.”

“No!” Prismo pulled him further back, torso wrapping around the floor and above them on the wall. In response, Scarab turned to grab at Prismo in return, trying to force some of the similar type of contact that Prismo had figured out at some point, drawing himself in closer to seize Prismo where his clavicle would be, pushing the idea of claws into the space until Prismo made a noise and gripped him tighter. “Okay, ow ? Come on , let’s just go hide you!”

“I refuse to be hidden because you–”

“Uh,” Simon said from the open trapdoor. He cleared his throat. 

The Prismo from above stretched out onto the ceiling above Simon, looking guilty. “I was trying to warn you guys.”

“... interesting to see you again, Scarab,” Simon sounded embarrassed, for some reason. “I apologize for intruding.”

It took Scarab a moment to notice how Prismo was grabbing him, an arm tight around his ‘chest,’ a hand on his leg–

Scarab gave a sort of gasp and shoved away at the same time that Prismo rapidly unwound himself and reached up the stairs, waved frantic hands at Simon.

“It isn’t like that!” Prismo declared loudly, punctuating the statement with a very hysterical-sounding laugh. “We’re–it’s a roommate situation, see?”

Simon stared between them. Above him, the other Prismo shook his head disapprovingly at the two of them, up until the Prismo beside Scarab muttered for him to get back. 

Usually, he would have watched with fascination how Prismo split himself apart, and recalled himself. As it stood, however, he was too embarrassed to look right at Prismo. 

“Petrikov,” Scarab said, composing himself. He wanted Simon to experience the same sort of fear that the Cosmic Owl had. That would have made him feel better, to watch someone scramble and grovel in front of him. Unfortunately, Simon just looked guilty and awkward, and with Prismo between him and the mortal, Scarab could hardly march up to threaten Simon more effectively. 

Prismo seemed to be aware of this, growing taller up the wall, and stretching further out along the floor and the last few stairs down to the landing. “So, uh, Simon.”

“Don’t worry,” Simon waved a hand, though he was still staring at the two of them, seemingly unable to tear his eyes away. “I was being pushy. I don’t mind visiting some other time, if I’m still welcome.”

“Hey, of course you are, man.”

Simon nodded, blinked, and then steeled himself. Abrupty, he blurted, “Are you two–”

“-Later, though!” Prismo lunged out, and Simon was sent, presumably, back to Ooo in a shower of colors. 

Scarab crossed his arms and looked at Prismo expectantly as the other slowly retracted himself. He felt that he already knew, but... “Are we what ?”

“I’m um, not too worried about it, Scrabby.”

Chapter Text

Scarab knew that he should have expected it sooner or later, but he had allowed himself to become far too comfortable in Prismo’s presence, as much as he had ever been comfortable in his life of hunting down targets and abiding exactly by the letter of the law, if not the intent of it. 

Of course, feeling comfortable didn’t stop the world from turning. All it did was leave him at a disadvantage when his superiors eventually came poking around. 

It was a weakness.

Prismo was a weakness.

Orbo had entered the Time Room, appearing in the middle of it without announcement, and rolling around to look at Prismo. Abruptly, he broke out into a grin.

Prismo had laughed nervously at the intrusion before Orbo’s smile and admiration had put him at ease, and he was quickly swept away into a conversation. 

Scarab had been caught hunched over a laptop when Orbo had entered. He had quickly saved and quit any programs that they had had open, and had shut the laptop firmly while Orbo and Prismo talked. He spent the rest of the time pushing himself back up to a more respectable ramrod-straight posture as he listened to Orbo go on about those Scarab had ‘killed’ being issued new bodies. 

Most of their talk past that was meaningless drivel, but Scarab listened anyway, knowing that Orbo was there for a reason. Without Prismo sending out invitations, it was hard to make excuses about visiting the Time Room, or unsanctioned universes. Scarab had heard enough of his coworkers complaining to know that the shoe was about to drop. If he paid close enough attention, he could avoid being squashed beneath it. 

Orbo spoke of the latest poster the Cosmic Owl had hung up around the office, advertising a DND session that would likely never get picked up. He went on about some burgeoning new universe that Prismo might not have seen on his TV yet, of a new mortal television drama in the chair universe that everybody was trying to pay attention to, and of a party that one of their coworkers threw that could never measure up to your own, Prismo. When will you throw another one again? 

Finally, at that last sentence, Prismo cracked. Scarab could see the regret eating at him, the guilt and loneliness resurfacing, if only for a moment. “What did you need again? Maybe I could summon it up, or something.”

“Oh, I’m just to check in with Scarab , you know,” Orbo’s tone suggested that he might have shrugged, had he not been… an orb. 

Scarab felt panic coursing through him. It was more likely than not that nothing would arise of this particular check-in, with it being used to socialize rather than finish a job, but… there was always the chance that Scarab would be reassigned to something worse . Something terrible and burning that would have made him shake had he not been holding himself so rigidly. 

“Oh, Scrabby?” Prismo’s tone edged on delighted, rather than the easygoing one he had used throughout the rest of the conversation. Scarab, on the other hand, felt nothing but dread. “Yeah, he’s been fine.”

“Of course you could get him to settle down,” Orbo replied, something like amused awe in his voice. “But like, obviously he knows what’ll happen if he’s not cool.”

Prismo slowed in following Orbo along as the ball rolled around the room, almost explorative in nature, up until they finally faced Scarab, who bit back his snark as they approached. “What’s that?”

Scarab stood to the side, quiet, respectful, and at attention while they talked about him like he wasn’t there. He wished, as he stood straight and kept himself from wobbling or leaning, that he had something more dignified than his broom to use as a makeshift cane. 

It wasn’t as if his leg ached the same way it did in his three-dimensional form, but it would have been nice to have. It fit his image well and tended to make him seem more intimidating when he could use it as a weapon , as an extension of his body. 

Orby laughed. “That depends on how much he’s been annoying you!”

“He, uh, hasn’t been annoying me,” Prismo said uncertainly, turning to glance at Scarab questioningly. 

“You’re such a cool guy, Prismo,” Orbo said reassuringly. “But you don’t have to keep a lid on it for his sake. We’re checking in so you aren’t too bothered by him. There’s other punishments we can assign him to.”

“No, really,” Prismo pulled back a bit. “It’s been fine.” 

“I kinda doubt that, given this whole thing was part of his vendetta against you.” Orbo’s grin lost some of its shine. He directed this less than pleased look back at Scarab. “Alright, give your report.”

Scarab almost spoke back to him, but quickly thought better of it, swallowing down his argumentative tone. Instead, he chose his words carefully. He could play a game of niceties and politeness if he needed to. “Prismo is my direct superior currently. Shall I report through him?”

“Yeah, usually.” Orbo scoffed. “But everyone’s kind of your superior at this point.”

Scarab bit back his scowl. “The title I was given states that Prismo is the only one I am expected to report to.”

Orbo made a noise of annoyance and looked at Prismo. “ Alright , stickler. What has he been up to?”

Prismo pulled back uncertainly. Scarab wished that Prismo would get it together and say something helpful . “He’s mostly just been cleaning, like I asked him to. And, uh, he’s been learning the ropes of the Time Room pretty quickly, but not enough that we’ve branched out to much more yet.”

“What?” Orbo turned back to Scarab, his voice full of doubt. “No directives of your own? No giving yourself jobs, ignoring him as long as it follows the rules ? What rules did Prismo give you, anyway?”

“Nothing specific, as of yet.” Scarab hesitated for only an instance, weighing his options, his respect . “Sir.”

“ Sir ,” Orbo laughed, delighted. “That’s more like it! Is this how he is for you, Prismo? We should’ve demoted him ages ago.”

Prismo didn’t answer, affixing Scarab with a concerned and almost horrified look. 

“Don’t look so glum,” Orby said, looking back at Prismo instead of at him. Scarab kept his gaze firmly set on Orbo as he rolled about, even though he could feel Prismo’s gaze boring into him. “You got off easy , Scrabby.”

“I’m aware, sir.”

“ Anyway ,” Orbo turned in place. “Oh! Did anyone ever catch you up to the whole fiasco that happened before Scrabby started attacking universes?”

“No,” Prismo said slowly.

“It was when Scrabby was bringing up your preposterous universe, and he’d cubed you at the time, I guess? He isn’t supposed to do that without probable cause or a warrant, or whatever the latest memo was about.”

“I had probable cause,” Scarab blurted, his voice lost to the void surrounding the Time Room. 

“So get this, Scrabby comes up and starts threatening to call the Big Boss , throwing a hissy fit all because I wasn’t listening to him, and suddenly he’s trying to start some sort of riot?”

“A riot?!” Prismo asked, sucked back into the description of the office dynamics that he would never see, confined to his world between the universes.

“Well, he was giving some rousing speech about looking past liking you and arresting you anyway because you were breaking the rules, or something to that effect. He’s always arresting people for that sort of thing. I mean, it was always technically a warranted arrest, but he didn’t have to be such a hardass about it. So I was like ‘say goodbye to your legs—‘“

“His legs?” Prismo asked, tone unreadable.

“Prismo, buddy, you have to understand that he was badmouthing you!”

“... you know I literally did what he said, right?”

“Well,” Orbo hedged. “He was being super uncool about it. We probably could have talked it over with you.”

“But… You were punishing him for doing his job?”

Orbo didn’t seem to register Prismo’s tone. Scarab himself was having a hard time placing it, though he was having a difficult time doing much more than clinging desperately to their words, trying to ensure his safety throughout the conversation that it was obvious he wasn’t welcome in. Besides, since he had placed such emphasis on trying to make Orbo go through Prismo rather than himself, he didn’t want to incriminate his station in any way. “Ehh, he’d been asking for it for a while. He’s doing too much. Some of the guys were hoping you could help knock some sense into him in here. Plus, it was sort of a joke. Guy’s got no sense of humor.”

“Right,” Prismo didn’t look at all relieved. “It was… a joke?”

“I mean, mostly, yeah. Or we probably would’ve just stuck him in time-out instead. The whole leg threat just sounded good at the moment. Guy has to learn his place somehow, and it wouldn’t really affect him in the long run.”

Orbo continued on, but Prismo was staring at Scarab again.

Scarab felt–

“Scrabby?” Prismo asked, concern coloring his tone, coloring the room itself. “What’s wrong?”

Orbo turned on him, irritated. “Don’t worry about Scrabby. He just hates listening to his superiors. Right, Scrabby?”

Scarab gritted his teeth, though he knew that the action didn’t translate. “ Whatever you say .”

The moment it left his mouth, Scarab realized that the intent had seeped into his voice, adding a venomous quality to his voice that he knew Orbo recognized well.

Abruptly, Orbo swung around, shoving into the wall where Scarab was. “ Watch yourself .”

And Scarab knew that it couldn’t actually hit him, that it wouldn’t really touch him at all. That it was an empty threat. A joke . But a startled gasp left him all the same. An undignified, unnecessary inhale along with the slightest fizzing of his edges as he grabbed his broom’s handle hard enough to shatter the thing into two-dimensional splinters. 

His cane had always been strong enough to handle when he gripped it for strength. 

Aside from his gasp and the involuntary closing of his eyes, Scarab knew with certainty that most of his reaction hadn’t been very visible. He had gone to step backward, and by the time his mind realized that he would have to go to the side instead, the moment had already passed, leaving him frozen in the same place. 

He was sure that Orbo didn’t see it. Or that he didn’t care to hear it, turned away, all of his attention on Prismo . The lovely, devoted Wishmaster whom everyone adored. 

But Prismo was staring right at him. 

“You should really see about having another party, sometime,” Orbo went on. “You know we–”

“Hey, Orbo?” Prismo interrupted, something dark in his tone. 

Orbo paused. “Huh?”

“That was really uncool of you, man.”

Their coworker reeled back with blatant hurt. “Prismo, what–”

“I told you that Scrabby wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s been a model assistant-janitor-intern, and you ignored me! I love to chat with you, Orbo, but that’s what you came here to ask and you didn’t even listen to me.”

Scarab managed to tear his gaze from Orbo to stare at Prismo, suddenly having a realization at the other’s genuine words, his obvious hurt that Scarab wasn’t being treated fairly, of all things, his weaponized kindness. 

He hadn’t classified Prismo as an active threat to his safety, though Scarab hadn’t allowed himself to examine why, but now that Prismo was an active help , wagering on his influence to rebuke Orbo’s actions, Scarab found himself faced with the feelings that he had been pushing down or ignoring throughout his stay in the Time Room.

At the reprimand, Orbo at least had the decency to look ashamed. “He’s doing fine, then? No problems here?”

Prismo… cared about him, at least enough to stand up for him.

“No problems here,” Prismo assured.

Scarab felt sick .

Chapter Text

“Hey,” Prismo voiced in the midst of one of their writing sessions. “Scrabby?”

Recently, their interactions had been less tense than usual. Prismo was delightedly throwing out his ideas, typing at the speed of light, while Scarab either argued against them or allowed him to add them to the story with a played-up reluctance. However, he could tell from the tone that Prismo’s voice was edging into, that the following conversation might interrupt that odd sense of peace between them.

Scarab gave him an expectant look, hoping that he was reading the situation incorrectly. “What, now ? You don’t want to skip the good part of this mystery, do you?”

“No, of course not,” he denied quickly. “I’m letting it take its natural course! They’re holding hands, but they aren’t kissing yet.”

“That isn’t what I was talking about, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know . They’re focused on the journey. The barkeeper was really vague about the surrounding area, and Prism rolled low on convincing her to talk more, so they’ll probably have to run right into the elemental to actually figure out her plan.”

“That’s what I get for relying on Prism’s supposed bonus.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry, I didn’t roll higher when we were mapping this out. But,” Prismo hesitated, moving further from Scarab. “‘That isn’t what I was talking about.”

“... Rephrase your words, then. I’m not going to understand what you’re blathering on about if you’re that annoyingly vague about it.”

“Isn’t it… you know. A little weird that our characters are falling in love? I mean… they’re kind of us. Do you think that,” Prismo paused for a long moment, staring at him. He swallowed, looked to the side, and waved a hand in an overexaggerated motion. The movements were obvious nervous ticks. Ones that Scarab distantly noted even though he was more intently focused on the other’s words. “Do you think they’re…like us?”

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Scarab could see horror creeping into Prismo’s expression, as the other obviously regretted giving voice to his throats, but if his expression was mixed with anything else, Scarab was having trouble placing it in the limited features of his projection.

He was mortified by the fact that he didn’t know what his own face was doing.

“No,” Scarab denied, finally, knowing it was a mistake even as he spoke the words. He spoke with a finality that didn’t invite argument, and didn’t know how to take it back, or even change what he was saying as it was leaving his mouth. “They aren’t us. Vermilion Knight isn’t me, and Prism isn’t you.”

Prismo swallowed. “Right.”

“Our characters falling in love is what works best for the type of story we have going on. We agreed on that. So no, it had nothing to do with our relationship.”

“I mean… Prism is a little me,” Prismo said after a moment, looking away. 

Scarab tensed. 

“And you can’t tell me that VK isn’t… a little you.”

“I can, and I will ,” Scarab snapped, pushing himself up to stand. “Because he isn’t .”

That wasn’t him. Vermillion Knight was allowed to be weak because he was nothing but a character . In the real world, that would only get them more hurt. In the real world, nobody would stop to help. 

Sometimes he thought he understood why Prismo liked to write so much. 

Except. Prismo had helped him , hadn’t he?

Scarab had trouble thinking about that. His stomach churned, and if he wasn’t careful, his hands shook, when he reflected on how Prismo had called out Orbo for his behavior. 

“Then you’re just lying to yourself, Scrabby.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“VK is–”

“Don’t call him that.”

“You see what I mean?” Prismo threw his hands out to either side. 

“I have a proclivity towards you remembering names correctly?”

“Besides that. Scrabby, look, I…” Prismo paused. There was something like guilt in his expression, for just a moment, before it turned into exhaustion. “It’s…”

“Did you know what we were doing?” Scarab asked suspiciously. “When we were writing them becoming closer?”

“I didn’t!” Prismo waved his hands in front of himself frantically. “I mean–I never thought we’d get this far.” He laughed anxiously. “I guess I was thinking about it, a little, but I never thought you’d agree to any of it, and now we’re so far along and I just keep thinking about–it feels ingenuous to…”

“... I don’t follow,” Scarab said cautiously. “You purposefully introduced a romantic subplot because–”

“-No! No, that wasn’t it. I was…I loved how you were writing them, and I thought that they seemed nice together. They just seemed so lonely , and you agreed !”

“So when did you realize?” Scarab asked, well aware of how desperate the words came out. 

Scarab himself had only realized the implications of their actions more recently, and he was nowhere near ready to accept what it might have meant for their feelings towards each other . He still hadn’t even allowed Prismo to write the characters confessing their own feelings. The two of them had simply been progressing more and more slowly as they grew closer to Prism and Vermillion Knight recognizing their feelings for each other, as if they both had known that talk of those feelings should be avoided.

But now Prismo was bringing it up. Why ? What benefit was there in doing so?

“I think,” Prismo hedged. “I think I…can’t do this right now. Sorry, I’ll just…I’ll see you later.”

Scarab darted closer, just as Prismo vanished from the wall into the depths of the Time Room. “Don’t you dare run from this, Prismo!” He raged to the place on the wall where he had been.

He wanted to scream obscenities into the void, to destroy something wonderful that would get back at Prismo for being so–

So –

He wanted to do something that would make Prismo hate him, and destroy whatever affection the other thought they might have been harboring for each other. All because of the actions of some fictional, useless characters.

Scarab sat down in front of the laptop and navigated back to the word document that Prismo had been working on. It only took another moment to figure out how he could delete the document.

He hovered over the key, hesitating despite himself. He clenched his jaw shut, and pulled his now metaphorical mandibles tightly against his face, holding himself tensely. 

He thought about the writing he had done for it, the story he had finally let himself consider writing, after eons of denying himself everything he had ever wanted, every story he had ever thought of in his lonely moments when he wanted but could never have before he had dismissed those thoughts in favor of his job. 

He recalled Prismo’s grin, as they spoke about their characters. How he looked happy for once.

Instead, Scarab saved the document and shut the laptop, feeling weak .

Prismo was right.

Chapter Text

Prismo was avoiding him. Him . 

If anybody was supposed to avoid anybody around the Time Cube, it was Scarab! For Prismo to be skulking around with a previously unknown efficiency was absurd, and did nothing but draw Scarab’s ire when he searched high and low in the shifting halls and rooms and found that he was very actively being kept away .

He was familiar with Prismo’s room encouraging him away from somewhere, but not from entirely disallowing him entry to certain rooms, where he knew Prismo was likely to be. 

Had he had his three-dimensional form, he might have torn more holes into the bricks of the Time Room. As it was, solid walls that Scarab couldn’t yet seep into were something that he could not yet cross. And Prismo was using them to his advantage. He was almost impressed by the sheer audacity of it if he wasn’t so disturbed by the other showing his hand for once. 

Because of course, the Wishmaster knew how to employ such tactics seamlessly. He knew the Time Room better than anybody.

So Scarab, when he wasn’t fruitlessly attempting to track down Prismo through the ever-shifting maze that was the rest of the Time Room, had little to do besides sit and think .

Of course, he cleaned, too. He had a much better handle on his surroundings and was finally able to deal with the discombobulating mess that was shifting across planes of the walls in order to reach different messes, although he still preferred to stay along the wall. 

But mostly, he thought. The tasks were mindless enough that he could do both at once. That was helpful, because much of what he thought about brought some roiling, horrible feeling to the surface, that made him want to destroy something, to curl up and never think again, to grab Prismo and–

Scarab had become weak, at some point. It had been a slow thing, like a rot developing so slowly he hadn’t noticed it until it was too late. But he had missed it, ignoring and avoiding obvious clues and hints until it was quite literally thrown into his face.

He liked Prismo, and when the other had come to him practically begging to be heard, Scarab had denied him. He had known, even in the minute, that it was the wrong action to take, but that crawling feeling of guilt was nothing compared to the sickening, all-encompassing, churning feeling of being in love. 

He wished that Prismo wasn’t avoiding him.

He wished that he wasn’t in love with Prismo.

But bugs, skittering, crawling, weak creatures weren’t made for wishes. 

Scarab watched with a detached sort of annoyance as the Cosmic Owl entered the Time Cube, the other deity rambling about something for a prolonged period of time before he actually looked around and recognized his friend's absence. 

“Ohh,” the owl peered around uncertainly, the noise coming out like a hoot. “Prismo? Have you seen–”

“He isn’t here,” Scarab scoffed. “He’s been avoiding me.”

Cosmic Owl fixed him with an odd look. “He’s avoiding you now ?”

“What does ‘now’ have to do with it?”

The Cosmic Owl looked around, clutching his stack of games as one began to slip. “I mean, he’s avoiding hanging out in here?”

“What do you mean, now ?” Scarab snapped, standing straighter. He would have sneered if he was able. 

“He didn’t avoid you after you tried to destroy his world,” the owl shrugged uncomfortably at Scarab’s searching look. “I found the memo on it. It was in my junk mail.”

“... Yes, he’s avoiding me ‘now,’ and he’s avoiding being ‘here.’ If that’s all, you should take your leave. He obviously isn’t going to play games with you at this time.”

“What about when a wisher comes through?” Cosmic Owl asked, concerned.

Scarab winced. He had thought of the same issue and didn’t know what to do about it. If it came to light that he had driven away the Wishmaster to ignore his job, he would be crucified. As much as he would have liked to simply handle the problem when it arose himself, he hadn’t been granted the powers to do so.

Nor had he earned the right.

“I’m well aware of the issue.”

“Do you know what room he’s in?”

“One of the extended halls to his pickling room, I’m sure.”

The owl hooted thoughtfully and turned to glumly pile the stack of games on the floor and shuffle them around. “What did you do to him?”

“All I did was respond to something he brought up regarding our fanfictions,” Scarab scoffed. 

The owl leaned closer to him, tilting his head to the side. “ Your fanfictions?”

“Well,” Scarab hesitated, realizing that he had given away too much. “We’ve been writing–”

“You like him,” the Cosmic Owl realized with a note to his voice that took Scarab a moment to place. 

“I’m dealing with it,” Scarab defended immediately. “I’m just–”

“He likes you too.”

It was relief .

“ What ?”

“It’s good, probably,” Cosmic Owl said, sitting down. “You’re pretty uptight, but you don’t really seem that bad. You’re alright at games, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scarab asked skeptically. 

“Prismo is fun to beat at cards and everything, but he’s terrible at them. You seem like a half-decent player. Besides, you’re probably way less intense to play Card Wars against.”

“Then who ?”

The Cosmic Owl looked uncomfortable, peering down at his cards instead of meeting Scarab’s gaze. “You should probably ask Prismo. That.”

“His mortal,” Scarab said slowly. 

“Yeah, whatever. Look, it happens sometimes. You interact with mortals enough, and a really interesting one comes along…”

“I’ve interacted with plenty of mortals, and I’ve never had that issue.”

“Yeah but,” Cosmic Owl began setting out cards in an odd pattern. “You like Prismo.”

Scarab stared at him, biting back a response. It took him a moment to formulate a thought that wasn’t I suppose I do , because that was far too much to say in the moment. Eventually, he settled on asking what the owl was doing. 

“Man, I want to play games. Can you touch cards yet?”

“... I suppose I can.”

“Cool, so this is some mortal game I picked up–”

Slowly, Scarab settled on the base of the wall, uncomfortable with the fact that Cosmic Owl had been thoughtful enough to sit close enough for him to reach the cards without issue. He listened to the other rattle-off rules, paying enough attention to be able to keep up, even though the rest of him was in a confused state of turmoil.

Was the owl approving ? He didn’t know how to feel about that. He still didn’t know how to feel about himself in his current predicament, much less how he should feel about Prismo. 

But…

“Are you going first?”

Scarab considered his hand carefully, thoughtfully, well aware of the high chance of stumbling into a misplay if he ran across a rule that Cosmic Owl hadn’t highlighted. 

“You aren’t going to get frustrated, are you?” Cosmic Owl asked suspiciously as if he had had people blow up at him over card games before. Actually, Scarab wouldn’t have been surprised. “I can go first to like show off some of the rules.”

“... that would be appreciated.”

“Sure. Just ask if you don’t get a combination or something. It isn’t the end of the world.”

It wasn’t, was it? 

Scarab watched the owl, and set down his own cards, already seeing how he could form a strategy with them. 

It wasn’t the end of the world. 

He would talk to Prismo. Soon .

Chapter Text

Scarab found himself surprised when the wall parted enough for him to squeeze through the crevice, rather than remaining shut like it had for… well, since Prismo had begun avoiding him. However, he wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity and was quick to slide through the opening.

The halls past that, slowly opening and shifting stairways for him, led Scarab to the room where their respective hosts slumbered.

Prismo was there, leaning over his body. Quiet. Calm. Contemplative. 

The sight set off warning bells in Scarab’s mind. It was obvious that Prismo tended to ignore his body, only coming across it when he needed something from it, or when he had been concerned that Scarab might wake him. There was an odd sort of detachment that Scarab had noted, between Prismo and his dreaming self. 

Of course, it wasn’t all quite him, was it?

While at their very core, the two were alike, Prismo and his host had different memories, different experiences, and different personalities. Unlike when Scarab would eventually wake, after his punishment came to an end, Prismo wouldn’t remember anything from the time Room if he was to be awakened. It was already clear that the other didn’t recall any of his life as a mortal.

That Prismo had risked all of this, essentially committing suicide and trusting a mortal to guide him back to the dream plane was more than a little unsettling to Scarab. 

Such thoughts and feelings about Prismo that had nothing to do with a focus on the laws he was skirting about were still something new and nebulous, though. They were hard to pick through, and even harder to focus on.

Scarab would have never trusted someone enough to become him, to view him the same way, to love him enough to project him across the walls of space and time. 

But Prismo remained before him, unchanged as far as Scarab could tell. 

It was still unsettling. 

Prismo didn’t look his way, but he, of course, knew that Scarab had arrived. It took a long moment of patient waiting for Prismo to sigh, slumping over the wall above his body. “Hey, Scarab?”

“You may ask your question.” 

“Why did you want my title so badly?”

Why wouldn’t he have? “The title of Wishmaster comes with the ability to grant wishes. It’s an all-powerful job dealing with the very fabric of time and space, which needs someone very reliable who can stick closely to the rules, to ensure that there isn’t chaos. The very mention of it garners respect .”

Finally, Prismo turned, expression furious and tired. “The Time Room is a prison .”

That’s where they differed. Although Scarab certainly experienced difficulties with the Time Room, he had seen being assigned to it as a mercy. As a blessing , to finally be allowed and all but welcomed into the place he had yearned for for so long. The drawbacks wouldn’t have mattered so much if he had been worth something. Every job came with rules, and the more important the job, the more strict they were.

“The Time Room is protection ,” Scarab replied, letting the awe and desire that he had been holding in for centuries creep into his voice. 

The entire room had been made for Prismo, any changes shifted with an easy thought to better accommodate him. Scarab had always hoped for a place that would allow him to change and shift the surroundings as he saw fit. A place that could change and adapt and housed one of the most powerful entities in the multiverse. 

“… maybe you would have made a better Wishmaster.” Prismo said, voice downtrodden. “You could have appreciated all of this.”

Scarab felt anger well up at that, although that made no sense. Wasn’t that what he had been aiming for, all along? Wasn’t that the truth that he had been trying to draw out of Prismo for so long? “I haven’t earned it.”

“But you—“

“Please,” Scarab snapped, almost defensive. “ Stop the empty platitudes about it. I’m little more than a janitor at this point, and pretending otherwise is simply cruel.”

“… okay, Scrabby.”

Scarab held himself stiffly, willing that confusing feeling of anger and frustration to simmer down. He wasn’t there to get into a fight with Prismo. Especially not over something that Scarab had thought he wanted.

It was just… the wrong time, perhaps. He had finally started seeing Prismo as something worthy of the position, though of course not perfect. Why couldn’t Prismo have come to that realization before ?

He watched Prismo lean over his body again, shifting to the ceiling in order to peer down at his own, bearded face. 

“You’ve been in here for quite a while,” Scarab noted, finally. “You have other responsibilities that you need to attend to, soon. I know you’re alerted if someone comes to the Time Room, but leaving them there without supervision is hardly a smart idea.”

“I lost track of time.”

“While I understand, you do know that that’s no excuse.”

“Yeah, I know,” Prismo said, staring down. “... I miss Jake.”

“Your mortal.”

“My—I don’t like to call it that, and he wasn’t just any mortal. He was my friend . I know you haven't really spent time with mortals, but in this room, I see a lot of people, and it’s hard not to get attached and live through them when I can only watch . I… miss having,” Prismo cut himself off for a moment, glancing guiltily at Scarab. “ Friends like him.”

Scarab hesitated, gathering his thoughts while Prismo spoke. He loathed speaking about his feelings, which were something that had come up far too often recently. However, he hated the defeated look Prismo was wearing more. 

“The Cosmic Owl is your friend. He was here very recently,” he offered, watching the other’s expression carefully. 

Prismo opened his mouth. “He’s not—“

“ We’re friends,” Scarab said in a rush, feeling something squeeze in his chest. He could feel Prismo’s gaze on him. Hesitant. Warm. Knowing . “Everyone loves you, how could you miss having friends, when you have so many?”

“… I feel like I’ve been driving everyone away. I avoided Owl earlier. I’ve been avoiding you . I haven’t hosted any parties since… and Finn and I had a fight— that’s Jake’s brother. Everyone’s my friend right now , but how long is it until all the mortals I knew are gone, because I waited too long sulking to reach out? And then I’ll be an even bigger bummer, which means no more parties, and then when I get thinking like this, I just can’t do anything else for the rest of the day.”

“What about Simon?”

“What about him?”

“He came to you, voluntarily. It… could be a chance to start reaching out again, before it’s too late,” and then, because Scarab could see issues arising if Prismo got too in his head, he went on with a warning. “But Simon is an older human. You won’t always have time to wallow if you want to make the most of his life.”

Prismo swallowed, the motion exaggerated even when he wasn’t trying to telegraph his movements. 

Scarab looked at Prismo’s host, trying for the umpteenth time to note the differences between this one, and the old one, though he had only rarely seen Prismo’s real form. After all, the Wishmaster usually hid him away in the depths of the surrounding void when he was having guests. 

It seemed likely that Prismo would continue to wallow if Scarab let him, so, despite the gnawing anxiety, Scarab cleared his throat performatively, and waited until he attracted Prismo’s attention again. 

“About what you asked before,” he began. He let the words hang in the air, as he stepped closer and held out a hand towards Prismo, stretched across the wall. 

The Wishmaster blinked at him in confusion. “Scrabby? What’re you doing?”

“I wrote the next chapter of our story,” Scarab said carefully. He knew that the symbolism would be lost on Prismo, at least until the other read it. 

Something in him screamed for him to lower his arm, that all Scarab was doing was embarrassing himself. 

But he had done his research. This was far from the worst way to let someone know that he too, wanted companionship.

It wasn’t the best, either. 

“ As they set up camp for the night, Prism found himself worrying for Knight, who had lost some of his bags in the gorge. It had left him without cover, for the night. Vermillion Knight had waved away any concerns, positing that he had spent more time in worse places with even less cover than the trees and open sky above. However, Prism had continued to worry. So as the night grew colder, Prism opened his tent, held out his hand, and invited Vermillion inside .”

Scarab held himself still, waiting for judgment to be passed on the excerpt he had recited. It was easier when it was on a document when he could pass it off and not look at Prismo when things were read over when he could insult and comment and deny liking what the other wrote even as he stared at their shared document. 

Saying it aloud was worse. 

But there. Something seemed to spark in the other’s gaze. Some recognition.

Following Prismo’s train of thought was far too easy. The other entity traced his gaze across the room, peering between their hosts on opposite sides of the room, and finally dragging his gaze back up Scarab’s form, landing on his outstretched hand. 

Prismo hesitated, finally displaying some inkling of sense when Scarab least wanted him to. He drew back like the offering might be a trap. And it might have been, once. “I thought their relationship had nothing to do with us.”

“We,” Scarab said haltingly. He gritted his teeth together, clenched his other hand into a fist, and tended his stomach against the unwanted, sickly feeling. “Are more complex, but their interactions are not… unlike our own.”

Prismo reached out and took Scarab’s hand. A soft feeling of warm static crawled up his wrist as Scarab performed the act of closing his fingers around Prismo’s now tangible palm. His colors showed up in a solid line, rather than overlapping where he and Prismo’s fingers touched. 

Scarab brought Prismo’s hand to the lower half of his mask and focused on giving that substance as well, as he pressed a facsimile of a kiss to the back of Prismo’s hand. 

The Wishmaster made a noise and leaned closer as if he was craning towards the offered affection. In response, Scarab brought the hand higher, pressing it to the upper part of his mask instead, as if holding it against his forehead. 

“It isn’t weird, is it?”

“If you make me talk about it too much in one sitting, I may rediscover my inclination to kill you.”

“Right, right,” Prismo said, lapsing into silence. 

He could feel the Wishmaster staring at him, but Scarab held the position for a long moment, leaning into the touch that he was allowing. Hesitantly, and despite everything in him screaming at him not to, Scarab squeezed his eyes shut and waited. 

“Scrabby?”

“Pardon?” 

“There’s probably stuff we’ll have to talk about. Later.”

“Later.”

“It isn’t like you to procrastinate.”

“I’m simply… pursuing a more difficult target, at the moment.”

“Am I that hard to get?”

“You aren’t as difficult as I initially perceived you to be.”

“Oh. Sorry to be a disappointment.”

“You’re… intriguing ,” Scarab offered, finally pulling away. Prismo’s hand curled tighter around his own, and he stopped, letting the contact continue. “I suppose that’s enough for now.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, so,” Prismo spread himself across the floor, slinking across the Time Room to join Scarab where he sat in front of their laptop. 

Scarab glanced at him as he moved, waiting until the other stilled before he looked back at the document to continue typing. Unlike Prismo, he had no trouble typing and talking at the same time, keeping his thoughts separate as he worked. “For the last time. I’m not shortening the slowburn.”

Prismo made a pained noise. “ Still ? But you could get right to the good part if you just– okay, look. You know how I said you could maybe grant a wish one day?”

Scarab slowed, already disliking where the conversation was heading. “I told you I didn’t care for your false platitudes.”

“Yeah, I know, but what if, theoretically , I checked with the higher-ups, and you could grant a wish with supervision .”

Scarab peered up at Prismo’s form from where he had projected himself across the ceiling and shot his roommate a displeased look.  

“What?” Prismo’s tone grew questioning. His lip turned slightly at the edge as if he were uncertain. “I checked and everything! It’s allowed and official . I thought you’d like that.”

“I thought it was theoretical,” Scarab noted dryly. Upon seeing Prismo’s sheepish grin, he sighed. “We both know that nobody wants me to grant a wish.”

“... you want to.”

“And how did you manage to gain me this approval?”

“Uh, Orbo seems like he’s trying to be more cool , so–”

“So he’s letting you do whatever you want to get back into your good graces.”

“... probably a little bit.”

Scarab turned back to their story, hitting the keys with more force than necessary. It was performative and took more concentration than the usual light tapping, but it served its purpose in making Prismo sink down onto the floor. “ You don’t even want me to grant a wish.”

“Then I wouldn’t have offered,” Prismo argued. “You’ve wanted this job forever . I made sure you were classified as my assistant, not my janitor or whatever, so this is just like another part of the job! You would be helping me figure out how to interpret a wish.”

“I would be granting one,” Scarab stressed the word, frowning at Prismo. Did he not understand what was being offered?

Prismo waved his hand dismissively, sliding his arm back and forth across the wall. “Granting is just interpreting with a little extra power.”

Scarab fixed him with a look. Prismo needed to treat his job with more care than that. It wasn’t as if that revelation was new, though. “I believe you underestimate how much power goes into this.”

“Well, probably,” Prismo smiled uncertainly. “You don’t have to do this, either, I just… wanted to get permission, for you to grant one. If you wanted.”

“... I’ll consider it,” Scarab said. He wasn’t yet willing to accept, not when he didn’t have all of the details. But… he couldn’t deny that some part of him wanted to leap at the opportunity and immediately agree.

Prismo relaxed, and rejoined him on the same face of the wall, arm settling on Scarab’s shoulder.

“Interpretation, you said? Is there a trick to it beyond what seems obvious?”

Scarab wasn’t completely out of his depth. When crying for the job position, he had done all the studying available on the position and the methodology behind granting the wishes of those worthy. In addition to that, he had watched Prismo closely as the other granted wishes. If he focused, he could feel that pooling energy of the Time Room’s core, though he had yet to tap into it himself. 

“Oh, uh. Not really, I guess. You can take wishes pretty literally, but a lot of them depend on the wishmakers. There’s a whole monkey paw situation to it, too. I usually try to be pretty lenient, uh, when I’m feeling better than I… you know.”

“I’m aware,” he said, letting fondness seep into his tone. While Prismo had been rather short with the recent handful of wish makers that had found their way into the Time Room, Scarab was well aware of his usual leniency. He was quite sure that once Prismo felt better, the other would be aggravating Scarab with how much he was letting mortals get away with. 

Feeling better wasn’t quite how Scarab would describe how the other dealt with the depression he had fallen into. It hadn’t been as obvious, at first, when Scarab was still grappling with fury and fear and anxiety regarding his new placement in the Time Room under someone powerful who he knew held a grudge against him. But before long, he had noticed the trend of Prismo’s mood. The other seemed to have more days where he smiled more easily the more they interacted positively, and the more social he was. So, Scarab tried to bring it out of him more often. Despite himself, despite the fury that he had leveled against Prismo for so long, something about the way the other brightened up mid-conversation made Scarab’s chest twist in a way he wanted to chase.

“Like, okay for example,” Prismo went on, gesticulating wildly. “If someone asks for a long-dead singer to play for a venue, but they don’t specify how they want them, you have to sort of figure that out.”

“Go on,” Scarab allowed, both curious and vaguely amused.

“Well, I don’t know if they want a cool zombie vibe, or if the singer has to be alive. If I make them still alive, do I have to rewrite the timeline to do that? Do I sub them in from another universe? Do I have to just bring them back to life? Okay, do I kill them again after? My best bet is usually to drag them from a time they were still alive and not doing anything important and hope they get fucked up enough not to accidentally cause any paradoxes. Sometimes I can work in some slight amnesia for the time, but that isn’t what the wish is about, so what I can do there is kind of limited. I dunno. I’ve been told I think too much about it, but it’s kind of my job.”

“Have you considered that your job would be easier if you went with a simpler interpretation, such as sticking with the zombie idea?”

“I mean, yeah obviously, but that’s usually the most monkey paw answer. I get a bad rap if I do that sort of thing too much. I mean, I don’t mind if you choose that kind of route, I mean if you decide to grant a wish, but I do think you should consider different avenues of wishes.

Scarab leaned further against Prismo, settling against the warm buzz of their forms. It was a good point, though Scarab couldn’t see himself bending over backward to take care of a mortal who made a flippant and ill-thought-out wish. “May I ask something potentially upsetting?”

“Oh, uh. Sure, man.”

“What would you wish for?”

“Oh,” Prismo said. “ Oh . You’re uh… you’re already sounding like a Wishmaster.”

“Then you don’t have one?” Scarab was a bit surprised. “Let me clarify, I mean that-”

“-No, I get you Scrabby. What do I think one of the better wishes would be, right?” Prismo stretched, limbs gliding across the floor and across Scarab. The arm closest to him settled near his shoulder, close enough for him to feel the warmth. “Jake asked me something similar, one time, but… I dunno. Theoretically speaking, I’d wish to hang out, I guess.”

“You should be familiar enough with how wishes work to know you wouldn’t ask something like that .”

“Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean. There isn’t a—true wish, or anything like that. People come through asking for that kind of thing all the time, you know? Oh, I want world peace, I want to know what the perfect wish is, I want to know the meaning of life . Like, that all depends on the person asking. Their meaning of life won’t line up with someone else's. If I’m not careful, it’ll dump too much knowledge into their heads, and that’s never fun. Usually. I mean, one time this guy got close to a great wish, with his intentions anyway. He wished to always know exactly what to feed his family, or something along those lines. It got a little twisted because sometimes he knew food with ingredients that he wouldn’t have access to, like, ever , but he was such a good cook. I watched him like a baking show.”

Scarab considered the television, across the room from him. “That’s all you would wish for? To spend more quality time with people? You do that plenty, here. Or,” Scarab considered him thoughtfully, recalling the oddly depressed way Prismo had been secluding himself. He thought, somewhat privately, that he was helping the other out of that mindset, seeing as Prismo was finally reaching out and communicating more. “You did that, and you have the ability to do so again.”

Prismo nodded, expression distant and thoughtful. “I guess maybe I would wish to leave the Time Room for a bit, but that seems pretty anxiety-inducing. I’d probably come running back, and then it’s just a waste of a wish.”

“Most wishes are wasted,” Scarab noted. “Never mind continuing if the thought is upsetting. I was merely interested in whether you had considered it before, given your station. I’m well aware that doing such is somewhat… inappropriate, when you don’t have a wish of your own, but I thought that this job may give you more insight.”

“Nah, it isn’t so much upsetting as… lonely, I guess?”

“Well,” Scarab said slowly, trying to inject as much meaning into his words as he could. “You should avoid that as well.”

“Oh,” Prismo said faintly. “Thanks, Scrabby. I don’t want you to be lonely, either.”

“Indeed,” Scarab finished the paragraph he was working on and pushed the laptop towards Prismo. “Look over that.”

“Mmm ‘kay,” Prismo said, shifting the screen so he could see it. “So do you think you’ll try granting the wish?”

Scarab couldn’t deny that he had hoped for that for quite a long time. Ever since Prismo had come along and won a glorified popularity contest, in fact. While Scarab had taken pride in his job as a God Auditor, he recognized that he was doing dirty work. It was a very intensive job with few prospects to look forward to. When Scarab had tried to climb the ranks, going beyond what was asked of him, he was insulted, hated, and told off for it, even if he was following the rules of his job to the letter. 

There had never been any future for him, there.

Maybe that was true for all of the jobs they had been assigned to, though. It wasn’t as if they could resign without invoking serious consequences. Even Prismo, with his lauded job and title, seemed unhappy.

If he tried, Scarab could view Prismo’s twisting of his demotion as an opportunity.

“Scrabby?” Prismo asked, his tone somewhere between prodding and worried. “Did you not want me to ask?”

Scarab reached up to take Prismo’s hand in his own. Then he leaned his mask against the Wishmaster’s knuckles. “You should have checked with me beforehand, but I’ll keep the opportunity in mind.”

“Well?” Prismo asked sometime later, dragging Scarab into the main part of the Time Room to greet a mortal. Together, they peered down as the magician blinked around as if blinded by the brightness of the walls, as if surprised that they were there at all. “What do you think, Scrabby?”

Scarab inhaled, more for the feeling than the function. Then he grinned, lips curling up beneath his mask as he stood straighter. Taller. He felt Prismo back off, shrinking to the side, confining himself to a smaller corner. This left Scarab in the center of the room, standing right where the mortal’s gaze eventually fell along the wall. 

“ Welcome to the Time Room ,” Scarab purred, watching with delight as the mortal opened their mouth to breathe a wish into the air.

Perhaps his reassignment wasn’t all bad.