Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You've always loved working with costumes and props. You were fascinated to no end by how movies could turn lifeless sculptures and empty costumes into living, breathing characters.

It's no wonder that you ended up working as a preservation artist for the special effect exhibits featured in the local pop culture museum. You really do love your work, but sometimes you question your career choice when you're up before sunrise, (not that impressive, given the short winter days) waiting at a bus stop under the misting clouds.

Now what you might find yourself asking is: why you, a perfectly sane and reasonable night owl would be up at this hour? The answer is clear. All the blame falls on the movie industry. This might seem strange, or perhaps even illogical. "Surely movie producers don't expect anyone to need their costumes after filming," and "Nobody in the film industry actively antagonizes art preservationists, least of all one lowly museum worker," but that would simply be wrong.

For you see, anyone that refuses to make props and costumes even remotely capable of holding up against the inexorable march of time is automatically an inconvenience and mortal enemy to you in particular.

One of the older, more fragile and decaying costumes had a piece broken off of it after closing. Nobody actually touched it as all the pieces are either trapped inside glass display boxes, or hiding several feet behind a crowd-control rope.

It just happens that whatever artists decided to make that particular suit chose a type of foam that starts disintegrating after 15 or so years of soft, indirect light and low-to-moderate humidity like some sort of rich lady’s over-pampered, over-engineered purse dog with 17 different diseases. And so, you've been called over at too-fucking-early o'clock to deal with it before opening.

As you vacantly stare into the distance, something strange catches your eye. Across the street, a row of stores sit. They're the same ones you see every day you take this route, but at this time of day the windows are dark, still not opening time.

Your eyes settle on a dingy, narrow alleyway, concrete ground muddied from rain. It's nestled between an unlabeled building with only a sliding garage door on its front, and a small dance school with unlit dance floors and mirrors visible through the darkened second floor window.

In the alleyway there are two oval shapes, glistening with a distinctive glassy glint. They're shifting slightly, with a sparkly graininess that you're not sure is actually there, or is just due to the faint lighting creating static. They look like they’re part of a larger silhouette behind them, enshrouded in shadows that the weak light that creeps out from the street just can’t seem to kill. 

You wouldn't really know how to describe it. Under the dim halos of yellow street lamps, you want to say it's a figure, but that might just be the sleepiness talking, because the proportions are way off to be human.

You check the time and see that your bus won't be here for another 15 or so minutes, so you decide to investigate. Crossing the street, you can make out a little bit more detail.

It does appear to be some sort of figure, slumped over and propped up against a stack of discarded wooden pallets that had been left leaning against the wall.

You walk up to the entrance of the alleyway and stare at the figure some more while you stand under the dance studio's little overhang to avoid the slight drizzle. The first detail that sticks out to you is its absurdly long nose and plasticky white skin.

Correct in your assumptions that it wasn't human, you relax a little bit. You're glad that you aren't being nosy about some poor person just sleeping in an alleyway. Instead, you're being nosy about some strange abandoned doll, which is much more within your scope.

You realize that the strange, staticky shapes you first noticed are glasses. You assume that there's some sort of color-shifting material glued behind the glasses to create that static effect, you wonder where you could buy some for your own projects.

Weighing your curiosity against the risks, you step over to crouch down in front of the doll to examine it more closely. You work with a fair amount of dummies, mannequins, dolls and puppets, so you're decently familiar with common practices in the crafts. You often need to be able to look at a project and know from a glance what steps need to be taken to preserve it. In spite of this, you're having a hard time figuring out the make of this specific doll.

It looks fancy enough to be custom-made, based on the unique face and considerable size. Standing up, it would probably land just around your mid-chest, in comparison. Then again, somebody clearly left it just sitting out like trash out here, not even properly sheltered from rain under the awning. You decide to test the articulation in the arms.

To your delight, you find ball joints that roll smoothly when you move them. Gently setting back down the arms, you grab its head with both your hands and lift it up for a better look. It has little red dots on its exaggerated cheeks and greasy black hair swept up in a mullet.

To your trepidation, the strange doll has a ventriloquist dummy's jaw as well. You've always been freaked out by their weird, detached jaws. It's ironic considering that working with puppets and strange costumes is your literal job .

Now, that isn't to say you're afraid of puppets in general! You're quite fond of marionettes and stop-motion figurines, but ventriloquist dummies in particular have always spooked you way worse than any of the horror movie props you work on. Something about those jaws   with their unmoving lips and jerky way they moved always set you on edge. The image of fake teeth biting down and crunching through skin and flesh unwillingly flashes through your mind.

Nevertheless, you'll be as thorough as possible. You pick the puppet up and feel around the back for the jaw's control mechanism, but you don't find anything. Maybe it's just for aesthetics?

The hands of the puppet are the most intricate, all ivory-white hinges and telescoping, layered articulation that can fold over itself and move with the same fluidity as human hands. It's beautiful craftsmanship. Part of you wants to figure out how to take them apart so you can study the mechanisms and improve your own technique, but the preservation worker in you screams about fragile parts and lack of replacement pieces.

In any manner, this puppet seems to be abandoned and unwanted… and it is your job to preserve and repair things like this. Your workplace doesn't mind if you use their space for your own projects so long as it doesn't get in the way of actual work and you're in between personal projects right now, so you think you'll just take this thing with you to your job. Then once you're done with work, you can start on fixing up and modifying this new plaything of yours. 

Looking at the time again, you hastily sling the puppet over your shoulder, its limp head rolling as you manhandle it. You rush to get back to the bus stop. It's only a few minutes until it's meant to arrive.

Nobody on the bus minds your extra passenger. It isn't the first time you've proudly dragged some unwieldy contraption or elaborate costume onto public transport, nor will it be the last. The middle-aged bus driver with big, colorful earrings just gives you a tired look of recognition: she's used to your antics by now. 

The trip goes by quickly, with you entertaining yourself on the last stretch of walking from the bus stop to your museum with the stares and weird looks you receive from the handful of people up and moving this early.

Now you've made it through the building and into your little backstage workshop, complete with bins of craft supplies and jerry-rigged tools.

You clear off a space on your personal workbench affectionately named 'the operation table,' for being made of dull stainless steel and having remarkably similar proportions to a twin-size bed, or per the namesake: operating table. Not that you've ever seen one in person. A surgical table, that is.

Chapter Text

You quickly snap a couple photos of the puppet and upload them to your art blog with a short account of how you found it, and your plans on doing some modifications. You also ask if anybody knows where it could be from, or who made it.

After that, you put your phone on do not disturb and leave on the table to focus on the work you came here for.

The particular costume that broke is so fragile that it can't be quickly moved from its case, so you need to do your work in the actual exhibit. You head over to the room that it's displayed in, alongside dozens of other props and costumes. The room has dark walls and dim lights. Lining the walls and cutting across the room are glass barriers that work to separate the public from these fragile pieces of history. On one of the far walls, there's a rack dedicated solely to showing off guns and blasters from different sci-fi movies and shows. Small, focused spotlights that hang from the ceiling illuminate the display.

There's all your typical clunky laser blasters or energy beams, rusty prop cannons and nerfs and super soakers that have been repainted or cut up to look more futuristic.

However a few of them are coppery, covered with gears or heart motifs, more closely aligned with a steam-punk aesthetic, or its cousin genre soul-punk that shares the Victorian style, but where SOULS and magic are the driving force behind high-tech gadgets and sentient robots instead of steam and copper gears.

To be honest, you've always found the early works in that genre very endearing, back when people were so optimistic that they could make living creatures or even whole worlds completely out of magic. Of course, with advances in modern science, everybody knows that the magics vital to life are far too corrosive and unstable to exist without a solid, mundane body to act as a stabilizer and shield it from the elements. But still, you really do adore the sheer optimism and hope that people held for the rapidly developing field of almaology (study of souls and by association magic, alma meaning soul in Latin). It's really uplifting to look back on how people thought they could change the world with magic, and in some ways it gives you hope for the future.

A lot of the prop weapons are replicas due to the relative ease it takes to make them, but the handful of originals are luckily infrequent guests of the repairs room.

Thin, near-invisible fishing line that hangs from specialized anchor is sewed into parts of the costume that have started to rot and collapse under its own weight, pulling it upwards and keeping it in shape.

The costume's mask has zero of its original paint visible. You had to wipe it away yourself because as the paint broke down, it had started to react badly with the molded silicone face. The rotting paint began somewhat melting a few thinner patches of the mask. You remember because it had taken you and your coworker a full week of tedium to properly stabilize the silicone face and accurately repaint it. Luckily, most of the body pieces were made from lightweight upholstery foam and polyester fabric that seemed to hold up fine under the paint.

You find the damaged piece they called you about, a brittle piece of decaying foam that was part of one of the ridged crests along its torso where the glue had begun to come undone, and peel away. It must have finally gotten weak enough to break under its own weight.

Luckily, it's a simple fix. All you have to do is use a little bit of flexible fabric glue to reattach the fallen piece, but you go the extra mile and reinforce your handiwork with a few invisible basting stitches bonding the underside of the foam piece to the costume's chest.

It’s early in the morning, you’re tired, and anyone else could have done this job. They really didn’t have to call you specifically into work. Mostly you’re peeved that it was such a simple job.

However, you're aware that there's a sizable portion of your coworkers who are afraid of breaking the delicate costumes even further during their attempts at repair.

You put up your tools and reset the display case, but you don’t start leaving just yet, because you're planning on getting a start with your new project. It would be a waste to just leave so soon after arriving, it's been less than an hour since you arrived at the building.

You go back to your cluttered workroom and grab the small, cheap notepad that you keep around for drafting new designs and jotting down notes about the exact procedures for preserving new additions to the collection.

You put away the glue and sewing supplies in their respective boxes. Then you pull a chair up to stand before your oh-so-beloved surgical table, dull and scratched metal surface glittering weakly under the stark light from your bright lamp.

Sprawled out across the steel tabletop but barely taking up half the length is the puppet you had found.

Before you start getting out the power tools, scrap wood, and superglue, you want to make sure to have detailed records on the body's dimensions. That way, you can sketch out a few different plans and not worry as much about getting down the proportions from sight alone.

You steal a roll of tailor's tape and quickly jot down some rough measurements in your notepad. Then, you get started on making sketches.

You would love to take apart one of the hands and cast molds of all the parts for future use in future projects, and to study just for the sake of beauty. Still you're afraid of losing pieces, or forgetting how to put it back together.

All the intricate articulation, full of so many moving parts that in practice would need expert level precision to even produce awkward and clunky movement. And yet, these hands are able to achieve smooth, gliding movement.

The whole puppet just sings of beautiful, elegant craftsmanship, even if you have a personal distaste for the particular style of jaw. You're not afraid , of it. That would be plain silly . You just don't like it. That's all.

You spend the next half hour drawing up concepts and possible plans for customization until you settle on a design you're okay with. You clean it up a bit, then snag your favorite tool for starting projects with from its hook on the tools rack. It's a flexible wire coping saw, with a tarnished carbon steel handle and a bright silvery cable for a blade, shining with piercing clarity.

You take a few seconds to line the saw up to the same place marked on your design but before you can do anything, the puppet. Moves. On its own . You know that you're not touching it. You would be stressed to even call it a weak twitch, but it was certainly movement . That nothing here could have caused.

You've completely frozen up, and from the corner of your eye, you see the puppet's glasses… change color?

You're only able to wonder how that worked for a moment, curiosity cutting through the terror before you're interrupted.

The puppet sits up full with a frantic energy. Its hands are balled into fists held defensively over its chest. You hear a voice. Your first thought is that it must be playing from a speaker somewhere, but in all the commotion, you don't instantly connect it to the horrifying sight in front of you. It's angry and terrified, screaming and swearing, but you can't parse any intended message. The words are drowning in distortions and random interjections.

"OHHH G0D!!! !|! [A]!! WHERE WHERE WH[The p1ace where you can! Everyday is P@radis3e] AM I??? !!" he screams.

Now he's clambering away from you. 

His gaze is fixed steadfastly on the weapon in your hand. 

In the commotion of escaping from an unknown environment, he clumsily struggles across the table. 

The puppet’s limbs sweep across the smooth, cold surface and send assorted stationery, spools of thread, and pressurized cans of specialized adhesives off the rapidly decluttering metal table and clattering to the floor. 

"WH4 T-T-TT IN TH*3 [@^#&$]!!! f-fFf[[%!*#$]] |H3LL !.! ? GET AWAY FROM ME   YOU CREEPY [l33tol S|L1m3]" he fearfully shouts out.

You hear glass shattering followed instantly by a quiet splash. Your beloved and cherished glass jar of slightly diluted turpentine is no longer on your now-poorly-nicknamed surgical table.

The jar (formerly) on your desk which is full of a corrosive and flammable substance.

The jar, made out of glass, widely known for being very, very breakable.

The jar, which must have careened off the table in all the business. Now, it's likely turned into tiny little shards of glass, absolutely coated in a corrosive and hazardous chemical.

You're distantly aware that if you don't deal with that in the next minute, it's going to start eating the floor's finish, and ruining the other fallen materials, soaking them through with toxic, highly flammable liquid.

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances, playing your favorite game, hazard clean-up is not your top priority. There's a couple reasons for this, but if you had to give an example just off the top of your head, you'd probably mention that there is a literal, actual living puppet on your worktable.

You uselessly brandish your tiny coping saw. The rough steel handle is slippery in your clammy grip. To your surprise he flinches , yelping at your sudden threatening gesture. He scrambles away, still not looking away from you, the active threat. In his haste, the puppet launches himself off the edge of the table, falling backwards onto the hard and unforgiving floorboards with a pained groan.

You watch with horror as he jerkily gets back up and continues to stagger away from you. You shift your weight to start backing away and towards the exit door. Your unintentional hostage shudders in alarm at your 'sudden' actions.

He claws his way into a corner. He frantically scrambles to put some sort of obstacle between him and you. He hides behind a stack of heavy plastic storage bins. The glow of his glasses reflect as muddied pink and yellow on the glossy lids.

In response to his own erratic actions, you startle badly and turn tail. You flee through the heavy employee door that opens to a secluded hallway outside of the horror exhibit. As the door closes shut, you hear the distinct click of its lock. Usually you keep it slightly propped open with a scuffed door stopper, but it must have been kicked out of place during the scuffle.

Technically, the door is meant to only be lockable to the outside for safety reasons, such as an evacuation or a fire. However, when they were updating the locks and doors, they put the lock on backwards. This means that the door can be easily opened from the outside, but remains completely locked from the inside without the key. It's part of the reason you always keep your keys on the employee lanyard around your neck. One time, a coworker of yours got stuck in the room for a whole three hours before their shift ended and somebody else came in and found them. So, keys stay around your neck.

Now even as you stand in an empty hallway, you can barely process what just happened.

Light from the low winter sun bleeds through the cloudy white sky and floods outward from the window at the end of the hall. It softens all the shadows, but makes looking outside painful. You stare anyway.

Through the heavy locked door you can hear all the muffled sounds of chaos and glitching, fearful exclamations knowing that there is a very solid barrier between you and the fantastical nightmare situation that you have unwittingly brought into your space by grabbing a random abandoned puppet from off the street.

You're going to get some water. Then, maybe reassess your options. You notice you're breathing rapidly, and you force yourself to slow down. Nope. You are not going to have a meltdown at work. Again. You quickly force those emotions back down. You're setting yourself up for a worse one at home, but you need to be calm right now. Just calm down. Calm down.

The museum opened a while ago, the distant crowd's chattering echoes in your more secluded hallway. You overhear the conversation of two young women as they walk past you. They're laughing, playful and joking. You lean against the wall, hunched over with the top of your head flat against the cold concrete.

Trying to stop the tears, you rub your eyes with your fists and blink rapidly.

Eventually, you feel calm enough to go into action again. Eating and drinking something isn't going to solve the main problem, but it will help quell the pit of dread in your stomach.

There's a little café near the public entrance of the museum. The food is overpriced, and the lights are very bright and very loud. Its tables are too cramped for how many people are meant to sit there. People are always knocking elbows with their neighbors. If they want some more space, they will move their chair farther away, which forces them to awkwardly lean forward to reach stuff on the table.

The modern, chic seats are always slightly too small to sit comfortably.  If it wasn't the closest place to eat at work, you would never go there. Instead, you usually just have to take your food to a bench in the nearby park.

While you often forget to take your wallet to work, you usually keep some money folded between your phone case. It's proven itself vital in situations like this in the past. You reach inside your front pocket, but it's empty. You pat your back pockets and they're empty. Then you recheck your front pockets and find your bus pass and crumpled pamphlet advertising a farmer's market in East Seattle that ended… five months ago. But there's no phone.

Just your bad luck, it is currently trapped in the same room with the haunted doll that you almost dismembered. You remember leaving it there when you were fixing the costume and you never put it back.

Okay. You'll manage.

You track down one of the many fancy water fountains that doubles as a bottle refilling station. You take a few long sips of the cold water. Slowly, your emotions settle from a broiling ocean of confusion and terror into the dull buzzing of anxiety, now tinged with curiosity.

What the hell have you gotten yourself into? What is he? Where did he come from, and why did you find him unconscious, sitting in an alleyway on the way from work? How is he even alive? How do you go from here? Briefly, you consider getting security but discard the idea. It's not really worth the trouble of dealing with other people.

You start feeling guilty for how you were treating him. Were you seriously about to mutilate a living, breathing person? Was he a person even? You think you heard him talk. You're going to err on the side of caution. No wonder he was terrified of you. It probably looked like you were about to kill him. You should probably apologize, right?

You walk up to the door and listen carefully for any signs of life. It's silent which makes you worry. You wait quietly for a few more minutes, and eventually you hear shuffling and slow footsteps.

Bracing yourself, you open the door as quietly as possible.

You hear him get startled somewhere in the room, and you try to look but you can't see him from where you're standing in the doorway.

You step inside your workroom. Your eyes water and your nose and throat burn from the harsh chemical fumes saturating the air. The remaining turpentine has mixed with the melting vanish into a murky puddle on the floor. You're praying that this excursion doesn’t result in lung damage. Boxes are tipped over and spilling their contents onto the floor. At some point the beadwork toolset must have been opened because there's dozens of tiny colorful plastic beads scattered across the floor.

Conspicuously laid out on the otherwise empty workbench, is your set of precision knives, the pack opened up and a single razor and its handle missing.

"[$#!&]!! [%@#&] [$#!&] [$#!&]" quiet, indecipherably glitched muttering comes from the far corner of the room.

You try approaching where you think he's hiding. You call out to him and wait. 

Dead silence.

You take another step forward and-

"DON'T [killed] ME!!! WHAT THE [Hell] ARE YOU [Trying to do]?!?!" the strange puppet jumps out, pointing the small knife at you and waving it around.

You take a few large steps back and hold your hands up in a placating gesture.

"woah, hey, hey, hey, easy it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay."

"DON'T C0ME ANY CLOSER!!!"

The sight of this short puppet wielding a tiny, half inch long blade  would be almost comical if you were a little bit less cautious about knife wounds.

You know how nasty those things can be, and you don't want to risk him hitting an artery. You've heard horror stories about people cutting themselves open when they mishandle a blade, bleeding out in minutes. Far faster than anyone could even call 911. Far faster than anyone could even think to pick up a phone. Far faster than anyone could lay out the address to the operator.

Chapter Text

He lunges— You avoid his wild swinging with a long stride backwards.

You reach a hand around behind you, fumbling and grasping for a weapon. You know from muscle memory where a long broom with a sturdy wooden handle should be propped up.

Your hand strikes its rough and splintered surface and you swing it around towards your current adversary. You brandish it, knocking the creepy puppet's chest with its end, and pushing until he has to stumble backwards to avoid falling over. Taking the sense of temporary safety as an opportunity, you attempt to speak to him again.

"Look, if you could please put down that knife, I could-"

He cuts you off, "DON^^T TRY TO N3GO)TI8ATE%. LIKE WE'3RE [[Equal Footiing]] YOUUU YOU Y- YOU KI1DNAP3ED ME/!!"

"Oh my god.! You're trying to stab me right now! This is self-defense. I should just kick your face in for threatening me."

"THEN D>O *IT ALREADY!!! [Dragged K1cking  AN D kICK//ING and Screaming] ME^^ [A Guy With Glas53S]!!!" replies the puppet, as he braces himself and holds his knife defensively. His whole body is trembling, and his empty hand is held poised and struggling against the wooden handle you have pushed right up against his chest.

It finally kicks in for you. 

He looks so tired.

He looks so scared.

He is so, so much smaller than you.

And you've been trying to hurt him.

"I'm so sorry. Please, let me help,"

He looks at you with shock, and very briefly-- hope. But then, fear and anger overtake him once again, and he lashes out.

"[Help]!! [[Help!!]]???? HAEAHAEAHEAEHEAEHEAEA!!!!! yOU>> TRIED TO [Cut ME] APAR t  T [into a mILLION pIECES]!!!!" the puppet waves around the small blade dramatically, emphasizing his words.

He tries again to struggle past the barrier you've put between him and yourself, and manages to push the handle of the broom to the side.

He gets yet another swing at you.

This time, he actually manages to nick the topside of your wrist, which fully revives your previous mortal terror.

Even as the chemical fumes in the air sap his strength he could still kill you.

Even as he stumbles weakly on his feet, he's still a terrible threat.

You are very, very aware of how sharp your own knives can be when they're turned against flesh.

Now, you're pissed off and afraid.

Quickly, and roughly, you reorient your weapon, and like some sort of spear or cattle prod, you use it to push your assailant against a wall and wedge him into a corner of the room.

He snaps and snarls and swings his blade, but you press down on him with the handle of the broom, and so he is trapped.

His movement is frantic but still so clumsy and weak.

Guilt stabs at your heart, but you need to protect yourself.

He repeatedly makes expectant gestures with his hands, then opens his jaw as wide as it will go, but nothing happens.

He becomes more crazed and panicked with each… Failed? Attempt? With how on the offense he's been, you're not so sure how this is meant to achieve any of his goals.

His teeth snap closed again, punctuated with a terrified yelp.

Now, the way that he regards your presence would make even the most clueless fool deem you the violent aggressor against a poor, powerless, possessed puppet.

"What's the deal with you, man?"

"EAHEAHEAHEHAEAHEHA!! WHAT"TS TH   E DEAL [[Deal or No Deal]] W ' TH YOU?? ?! [dEAREST Ki]- Kidnapper?? ARE YOU LIKE YO>U LIKE OUY LIKE YOU LIKE [Mary Shelly's Frankenstien]??? GONNA [Live Frog Dissection] WHEN.  I.  FINALLY LOWER. MY GUARD."

"Frankenstein? What? No. God no. I'm no modern Prometheus. I don't want to hurt you."

"I DON// T bELIEVW YOU>> I ThINK THAT YOU\LL [Killed] AND  [Maimed] ME IF I JUS>T. JUST. JUST. GIVE UP!!! YOU"R3 BOTTOM OF THE B4RREL [Dumpster Dwelling] [Slime] THaT WILL [[Jumping the GUn]] at ANY CHANCE tO HURT YO U   R VICTIMS!!!!"

"I don't need your trust, believe me," you snap, voice coming out harsher than you meant, "Now. Drop the knife."

"I Wo*  NT!! I WON"T GIVE uP my [Only] DEFESNE!!! Now. LET. M3. GO," his voice drops several levels in volume, and he pleads with you, "Please. Please just let me go."

"Drop the knife."

As best as you can see through his tinted shades, he appears to be glaring at you now.

"NO.!!"

Without falling, you lean as much of your weight as you can onto your end of the broom, and the weird and creepy puppet lets out a pained wheeze.

"You—You listen to me. I'm the one in control here," you pause. "And, I am entirely aware of every terrible thing I could do, right now."

"HELP"

"I won't, probably—won't hurt you. But, I'm feeling very threatened right now. And you know, nobody would blame me if I killed you for attacking me."

He puts up both his hands and lets the razor tumble from his fingers. It clatters to the floor with a metallic finality.

"FINE. F1NE, YOU’VE. YOU"VE  CONVIN<ED ME. Stop it now. Please."

"Sure, promise. Can you kick the knife over to me first?"

Halfheartedly, weakly, he kicks your precision blade across the floor. It skitters across the tiles and you hear it stop a few feet behind you.

"Thanks."

"YEAH Y HEAH!! NoW STO^P [Hurting] ME!! IF YOU>'RE SOO0 O OO IN CONTROL LET UP ON THE [[Pressure.soundtrack]]!!! I"M DYING OVER HRE3!!"

"Right, sorry."

You're not an idiot. You're not going to completely release him and give him another chance to cut you. But you're also not a monster.

You let up a bit on the broom handle and hear him take a gasping breath.

You take a few moments to look him over. His chest is heaving with each labored breath. He's slouched forward, arms hanging limply at his sides.

It's only now that you notice he's missing the two cheery little red dots that were on his cheeks when you found him. What convoluted function of his body allows them to disappear like that? Is it voluntary, or automatic?

You wonder what sort of lung situation he's got going on inside of his chest. When you were looking him over, before you knew he was alive, he didn't seem to have a heartbeat, but maybe you just weren't paying attention.

The living puppet's plastic face turns bright red and ignoring the fact his weird teeth contort his expression into a permanent grin, you would say he's pouting. He blocks your view of his eyes with his hands. Awkwardly, he says, "STOP. STOP LOOKING. AT ME. LIKE THAT."

You hum, indifferent to his protests, then reply, "Then stop being so interesting to look at."

"WHAT."

You decide to stop talking. For unrelated reasons.

With no clear goal in mind you shimmy down the broom handle, getting closer to the puppet. This sends him into a panic and he knocks the pole out of your hands, then lunges at you with his bare hands and gnashing teeth.

However, it was not because of any substantial heftiness of his that you were able to carry his limp body several blocks without a sweat when you first dragged him here. Knowing this, you pick him up and slam him face-down into the ground.

"[!#$&%]!!" He wheezes out in shock.

It was always an unfair fight.

You press a knee between where his shoulder blades would be if he was human—you don't even know if he has a skeletal system. You just sit there, in shock for a few seconds. He doesn't move either.

Something you immediately notice is that his back has a small amount of a give to it. A bit like leather-hard clay, or a densely stuffed plush doll.

Though before you can make any more material comparisons, the puppet under you wildly thrashes around and once again begins struggling against you. He hits his fists against the ground in a display you'd be pressed to avoid calling childish.

But then, he tries to get up and the force with which he struggled terrified you. You're sure that if he was even marginally more your size that he would easily be able to beat you in a fight.

Feeling threatened and thinking fast, you pull one of his arms, hard. You wrench it around and over him, intent on pinning his arm against his upper back.

He groans in pain as you contort his body and in the whole process of forcing his arm behind him, you end up pulling his ball-jointed shoulder and elbow from their sockets, forced out of place with a grinding resistance as the pieces are pushed against each other in directions never meant to be bent to.

Then snapping out of place with the inorganic clacking of ceramic or hard plastic stricken against itself.

He screams out in pain.

You really, really should feel bad, but you don't. Not with the toxic mix of adrenaline and turpentine swirling in your head. You're just relieved he seems incapacitated.

Chapter Text

"Ghhk- AUGH!!*! SsTOP STOP STo>P!!!"

As he struggles under you, you can't help but notice that you can't feel any sort of muscles under his 'skin.' He reminds you of the toy robots you used to mess with as a teen.

"Hho-okayy, budy." You pause, interrupted by a rasping fit of coughs, throat and lungs burning from the fumes in the air.

"Okay. I'll offer-" You clear your throat again—"offer you a deal, of sorts."

"You: come with me. I'll get us out of this room, yeah? Fresh air, the sun on our skin, sound nice?“

The weird doll stills at your words. Why is that? What's so surprising about what you said?

Maybe you're bold to assume it mean anything, because he immediately picked up his struggling again.

Then, to your surprise, he yells at you.

"D DO I EVENhave A [Choice]?!!?!"

You're tired, you're getting lightheaded, and your concerns for the risks of permanent lung damage are steadily increasing. That is to say, you're not very inclined to respond in a patient manner.

"Not really," you rasp out, "I need to leave, and I'm not leaving you asphyxiate in a locked room."

In a mocking tone, he snaps back, "OOOH REALLY!//?? YOU'LL [[Geniune Woo=d Carvingsd]] ME UP BUT YOU'RW NOTG OING TO LEAVE ME TO [Land of the Dead]!!! !"

”Oh my god, I said I was sorry already,“ you snap. That was mean of you. He's clearly scared. Pleadingly you add, ”please, let me help.“

”TH1S. ISn^T. H3LPING." he says through gritted teeth, "YOU [50% OFF] PULLED MY ARM OUT OF [3-Pronged Electrical Socket]!!!"

"You tried stabbing me with a knife!"

"YOU STARTED IT!!!"

At this point he makes some attempt to turn his head and look over his shoulder to look at you. His weird long nose scrapes against the ground.

It turns out, it's pretty difficult to look at something behind you if your ability to move the shoulders and torso get revoked.

Just the typical consequences of threatening someone at knifepoint.

He glares at you from the corner of his eye.

“Ugh! Shut up—I'm trying to be nice now.”

"Y YOU yOU [@#%!] KIDN>>APPED ME!!!"

Your patience is running thin, so you ignore his comment and say, “Can we just leave this room right now? The fumes are frying my lungs.”

"HARD FOR ME [Well-To-Do] THAT. WHEN YOU>RE [location pin] ME down."

“Right. Um. Sorry, yeah.”

You slowly lift your knee off of his back, clambering off from your place on top of him. You stand clumsily, straightening out your sore and shaky limbs.

The puppet struggles to stand with one arm out of service: his balance is off. You watch him struggle on the floor for a few moments longer than usual, entranced by trying to figure out what mechanisms are allowing him to move.

It's all… strangely pretty. You find yourself mesmerized.

That is, until you remember that yeah, he's very much alive?

It's rude to stare.

To move things along, you grab the collar of his jacket and hoist him on to his feet. He flinches hard as you make contact, no doubt jumpy from the previous... scuffle.

He yelps and glares at you, which looks strange with his permanent grin.

With his working arm, he holds his decommissioned shoulder, which you notice is hanging limply from a strange and unnatural angle.

He's alive. You've been rude. Some would argue you've been downright terrifying and menacing. You should... be polite?

You realize you've never asked for his name. Between finding him completely comatose, and his crazed fighting against your—admittedly—malicious intentions, there wasn’t much of a chance to.

So you ask, “I haven't caught your name?”

You think he looks surprised for a second before puffing up and saying, "IT''S. SPAMTON. SPAMTON G. SPAMTON."

”Well, I suppose it's nice to meet you, Mr. Spamton.“

”[Well,] IT^s A  N [[Agony]] TO MEET YOU.“

You cough and pointedly ignore his justified hostility.

”Let's leave, yeah?“

Casually, you shove your hand down the front of your shirt and fish out your lanyard with your keys and worker ID. Glancing at the poorly named table, you're relieved to find your phone undisturbed and in its usual place, somehow spared from the panicked carnage of the earlier struggle.

You pick it up and drop it directly into your pocket, not bothering with any notifications. Of course, there's the far more pressing issue of leaving the current room, given it's full of toxic fumes.

Unlocking the door and pulling it open by leveraging a decent amount of your body weight, you gesture grandly and sarcastically to Spamton, inviting him to go outside.

He inches forward, wincing when his steps jostle his dislocated arm joints, but he stops just short of passing the threshold outside. His expression is guarded and tense, his posture slouched and defensive. His permanent grin is contorted into an anxious, hesitant, and slightly angry expression. Bare teeth contorted into a grimace. The corners of his mouth, straightly downturned. Those rosy blush circles usually found on his face...gone?

How does that work? You need to learn more.

You wonder through what mechanism his blush disappears. In many ways, he seems to have more in common with the costumes you repair than any animal anatomy in a biology textbook. Though clearly, he’s alive regardless.

Spamton continues sulking forward. As he’s passing the threshold between the room and the hall, he turns so that at no point does he have his back turned to you.

Before going out into the main section of the museum, he leans his disjointed shoulder against the painted concrete wall of the hallway and leans. He screws up his face, clenching his eyes closed in dread. The ball joint snaps back into place with the pressure. There’s no way that isn't painful. You're sure.

Even though you did your best to take the quickest and least crowded route to exit the museum, you regardless run into a fair number of guests, who still turn to gawk and stare at the apparent new ‘attraction.’

You want to get to the bus stop in the next twenty minutes, and so you urge Spamton to speed up. He looks dizzy from the strange and overwhelming architectural decisions of your workplace. Vibrant chrome paint on billowing panels of sheet metal isn't everyone's concept of the ideal walls to drape over a museum.

When you finally get outside, the sun is low in the sky, obscured by clouds streaked with dark blue, platinum and rosy gold. The thick blanket of silver clouds covering the sky have parted slightly, leaving marbled streaks of bright blue across the field of white and glowing grey.

The colorful, metallic exterior walls of the museum reflect distorted images of the silver-gold sky. Following the gradual, organic curves of the structure's ruffled form gives the impression of a dancer's skirt embroidered with enchanted silk thread.

The shadows on the ground are long and distorted, the edges faint and diffuse from the lack of direct sunlight.

Awash in the yellow light of the late day, the near-black pine trees seem to glow orange and gold.

You’re glad that you mostly take the bus; the sun makes driving westward hellish this time of year. The sun always lingers directly in the line of sight of the drivers, like a dare to look too long and go half-blind on the road.

You notice Spamton is standing stock still, staring up at the sky. First in awe, then confusion. He looks across the sky quickly, seemingly searching for something.

What a weirdo. There isn't time to waste on freak-outs. You want to get to the bus before it reaches half-past the hour. Otherwise, you'll be tacking on another 30 minutes to your commute time.

“What? Dropped a balloon earlier?” You joke, slightly impatient. He doesn't laugh. You watch him hunch over slightly, shoulders rolling inwards as he tenses up.

"WHERE''S THE [Sunshine]?? IT S ALL [[Hide element]]!!!" Spamton says as he gestures towards the sky, sounding worried.

"Are you taking about the sun?" you're confused by his concern.

"YES!!! IT S THE [Light] WORLD SO   WHERES  THE [[Solar system]]!?!?"

"It's behind the clouds." you try to answer. Shouldn't he already know this? “This your first time seeing the sky or something?”

“Y YES.”

No hesitation.

You are rendered speechless.

 … That was a rhetorical question. How? You found him outside that doesn't make any sense-

"NEVERMIND!!! DON'T [Thinked][Worry] ABOUT IIT!!! OF     COURSE THAT'TS THE [sealed the court c@se]!! !!!" he dismisses the conversation, wringing his hands anxiously.

Doubtful that you'll get anything else that both resembles an explanation and makes sense, you decide to move on.

"Whatever. Follow me."

You lead him through the city, following your usual route home. At the bus stop, you both get on. Spamton gapes at the bus like he's never seen a slightly grimy city bus—or any other public transport. Where did he come from?

The bus driver, you recognize. She's an imposing, heavyset and muscular middle-aged woman, who always wears fruit slice themed earrings. For many years, you've dragged many a project in varying stages of completion and dismemberment on this bus. She pays zero attention to the creepy, supernaturally animated puppet.

Finally!

Your hobby of taking horror movie props and dolls on public transport is paying off!

This is to say, you don't pay a second fare for your guest.

On the bus ride, far fewer people pay attention to Spamton. You would have to assume that anyone taking public transit is used to sharing the ride with bizarre passengers. That, or they don't want to mess with whatever drama you're causing.

Better tell your roommates what's going on. Unlocking your phone, you go to text your good friend Sebastian.

Sea Bass Bestie

(206-xxx-xxxx)

Today

You: On bus home from work

SB: Okay!

You: Having a guest over btw. Not someone you’ve met

SB: Thank you for telling me. I'll make some coffee.

You: He looks kinda weird jsyk. Pls don't make a big deal abt it

SB: I would be very interested to know where you met him-

SB: What do you mean by that?

SB: "Looks weird" ???

SB: I know what your standards for "weird" are.

5 mins ago

You: Don't worry

SB: What????

SB: Hey.

SB: Can you PLEASE elaborate? What's weird?

2 mins ago

You: You'll see

SB: Tell me!!

You: Too much to explain over text

SB: Well, can you call?

You: No, that would be rude. I'm on the bus

SB: You have time to explain!

1 min ago

You: Too bad 4you

Now

SB: Ugh

Finally, you and your—Companion?—get back to your home. You fumble with the lock for an embarrassing amount of time before one of your housemates, Sebastian, opens the door for you. Whatever, that run-down front door is overdue for a replacement anyways. It's probably rusted or worn down or uncalibrated. You stand there in silence for a second too long. Spamton shuffles on his feet restlessly.

Sebastian, you realize, is staring at Spamton.

Spamton gives an impatient wave.

Sebastian briefly falters over his words as you stew in your feelings.

"So, uhm- is that your…guest—" his hands make a quote-unquote gesture, "—that you were talking about?"

"O-ooOH?? I>M A [[Este3med Guests]] nOW!?? I-I THOUGHT THIS WAS   A KIDn[Napping]!!"

Sebastian gives you a look. You have so much explaining to do.

Chapter Text

You, Sebastian and Spamton are sitting around the table in the kitche's breakfast nook.

You've backed into a corner facing the window.

Spamton is sitting in the chair opposite you. Sebastian is sat in between you and him, subtly closer to Spamton than you. Sebastian is leaned forward onto the table, his elbows propped up and boobs resting on the edge—not a binder day then. The golden light from the west-facing window casts a burnt amber glow on his freckled brown face and is swallowed up completely by his dark eyes.

For the past half hour, Sebastian has been needling you and pulling out your account of the day's events. Spamton can't seem to make up his mind between glaring at you smugly and shoveling into his mouth more of the salmon pierogi sebastian served him.

You politely declined any food. There's an untouched mug full of expensive, wonderfully smelling tea in front of you, slowly going cold. It’s painted in the colors of the frequent solar storm aurora borealis that grace your city. No doubt crafted by a local.

After a brief freak-out over having a creature that looks like it walked straight out of a high budget SOUL-punk movie, Sebastian's strong etiquette for hosting any guests kicked in. He made everyone tea and served up the extra meat pastries he had bought for lunch earlier in the day.

Even if he can't control what fictional creatures become real, he can control how he treats any guests, goddammit.

For no reason in particular, Sebastian has slowly been becoming increasingly frustrated with you.

This is surely not a consequence of you explaining your harmless attempts to “customize” a puppet you found in an alley on your way to work.

It also certainly has nothing to do with any shoulders of other people that you forcibly dislocated.

Not at all .

You half ignore spamton's increasingly smug expression and quips, as Sebastian tears into you for your rude behavior and downright diabolical behavior.

Apparently, they've deemed you 'lectured enough' because the conversation between the two shifts to Sebastian sharing anecdotes of your other dumbassery, occasionally featuring your partner in crime and youngest roommate, Birch. 

Many people believe that attending the sorts of prestigious academic institutions that ke does, would indicate a lack of dumbassery, but all of its close friends know ke mostly got in on its merit of being stupid good at differentiating different magic types and being stupid sensitive to any amount of the stuff.

You remember when they assessed people for it during your highschool years. Those working mages wheeling in their bulky magic emitter machines. The flecks of colorful magic that stained the skin of their palms, got trapped under fingernails, and seeped into their eyes and hair. The rows of little magic-blocking-cloth cubicles they set up in the gym for a week, chockablock full of sensors and jury rigged wires and buttons. Classes being systematically called over via intercoms to come and get tested for Sight. They handed out pamphlets that outlined career and educational opportunities for different levels of ability. The amount of scholarship money they'll award to people with Birch's talent makes you dizzy. Sure, you got a year or two free for your mage potential, but it’s on a whole other level. Once, it confided in you that it flunked senior year of math and science; the hit to kes GPA didn't matter. It was already guaranteed a full ride at any university that offered almaology (study of SOULs) (either research or medicine-focused) or other magic majors.

In a desperate bid to keep Sebastian from getting to the end of the mortifying anecdote he's currently recounting, you offer up one of the many hilarious stories of Birch fucking something up during their research internship in a way nobody else had managed before.

Unfortunately, opening your big mouth only has the effect of redirecting them back to the topic of your own stupidity and obliviousness.

Back to making fun of poor old you . Gods.

How were you supposed to know he was alive when you were drawing up plans to cut him up?

…

Just now, you remember that you took photos of spamton and posted them to your blog.  

Ah..

You should probably take those down. Now that you know he's-- you know, alive.

Just as you were about to interrupt Sebastian and Spamton's conversation, Birch enters stage, walking in through the front door everyone forgot to lock.

Ke is a lanky, spindly college kid with more freckles than common sense. Its chest length curly blonde hair is tinged with green that most people assume comes from chlorinated swimming pool water. That is, if it wasn’t the most vibrant at kes roots. You take note that the palms of kes hands are a few shades greener than usual. Must be a magic-heavy week for kes research.

__________

Birch notices Spamton.

Birch freezes in shock.

Their pale cheeks gain a flustered shade of red.

 Sebastian is winding up to explain the whole, “Living puppet…yup, 'no i swear he's actually alive,' we checked ,” situation to it when Birch turns to you with a fanatic expression.

”I didn't know you were a Deltarune fan!”

” A what fan?“

“Sorry, but I don’t think I’ve heard of that before. Care to explain?” Sebastian squints at ke in confusion.

”You-y'all know, the video game? It's this really cool SOUL-punk rpg.”

Ke continued, “I didn't know that you were working on an actual Spamton puppet as one of your projects! You should have told me!”

“H-HEY I>M NOT A PUPPET!! hHOW doY>YOU MKNWO MY NAME>>?!“

”Your name? From Deltarune…? Oh! Is that a cosplay then? Whatever voice modulator you have in the mask is like, really good .“

”I>MM NOT A COSTUME, nOT  A [[wORTHLess]] pUUPPET!! i. AM. REAL.“ Spamton waves his arms in frustration, face turning bright red. Is that a plume of steam…?

You discreetly pull up your phone during this tense exchange. What did Birch say it was called? Delta-something...

You type, "soul pnuk rpg Videgame detla” into firefox and it autocompletes to “soul -punk RPG Videogame Deltarune.”

Jackpot.

“Deltarune is an episodic role-playing video game developed by Toby Fox as a follow-up to his 2015 video game Undertale. In the game, the player controls a human teenager, Kris, who is destined to save the world together with Susie, a monster, and…”

Monsters. Definitely SOUL-punk then. Looks like it veers slightly more into medieval than steam-punk, though.

During your brief distraction, Sebastian began explaining everything to Birch.

”WHAT'S  YOU LOOKING AT ON YOU'RE [[Ring Ring Ringing]] ??“ You nearly jump out of your skin when you hear Spamton’s abrasive and scuffed-to-hell voice.

You decide to screw with him a bit. Payback for the past hour or so of insufferable jabs at your moral character. Nevermind that you (technically) started it.

“The latest techniques for butchering annoying and creepy dolls. So, the usual,” you say nonchalantly, not looking up from the screen, aside from a casual glance.

To your complete befuddlement, Spamton barks out a glitchy laugh at this. You didn't think he was at the point of processing his oh-so-terrible you-related trauma to find any joking about it funny. Huh. Maybe he won't be completely intolerable.

Puppets can have a sense of humor too; who knew?

“YOU>>RE nOT GOING TO FIND ANY thing THAT'LL WORK ON TH3 [[lIKES OF me]]!!”

“Oh no. How terrible. How will I ever defeat you now?“ you say, jokingly.

“COUNTLESS Y3ARS OF  [[Trying and Failing]]!!!”

”Sounds like too much effort. Eh, I was just messing with you anyways. Here, “You tilt your phone screen so that Spamton can see it.

“It's that game thing that Birch—the pale kid Sebastian is arguing with—mentioned. It seems ke mistook you for one of its characters? I was curious, and you guys seemed busy. I don't know.”

The discussion between Birch and Sebastian is slowly escalating. It's approaching argument territory. However, if you didn't know both of them so well, you'd still think things were perfectly civil.

“Definitely fits what you are—genre-wise.”

You flick his nose and he yelps and glares at you. He shields his nose with his hands, affronted.

You go back to ignoring him.

Sebastian—he’s usually obsessed with being cordial and orderly at any opportunity. He’s stopped prefacing each of his responses with an acknowledgement of the validity of Birch's opinions and viewpoints. That’s how you know that Birch's increasingly desperate insistence that your current guest must be a costume is finally, impossibly, getting on his nerves. 

Birch, who always acts with a heavy dose of niceties, your darling Birch, the usual sweetheart, has pulled three ' oh, bless your SOUL ' so far. That is brutal coming from it.

You get so lost in the drama of Sebastian and Birch's argument that you don't notice Spamton creeping towards you until he's snatched your phone right out of your hands.

”Hey-!“

”SH-sHUT UP>“ he pushes away your grabby hands, ”YOU [[Low-Interest  Debt]] 0WE ME!!“

”Like hell I do,” you snarl, “now gimme ”

”IN> A [[Minuto]]!“ he says, too busy typing something on your phone.

You leer over him to get a look at the screen and he leans away and angles the phone so you can't see.

Oh god. He better not be getting into your payment accounts, not that he would have anywhere to send your money. You don't know if you'd put it past some magical creature dragged in from outside to drain your spending money out of spite.

While you're busy assuming the worst, Spamton finally finishes whatever he was trying to do, and makes a noise of triumph.

” LOOK!! LO0K! IT>S Y0uRS TRUELY!!“

You have to reel back a little bit, because Spamton, continuing his trend of being an absolute pill decided to show you what he pulled up on your phone by getting on his tippy toes and stretching his arm all the way out, just so he could shove the screen uncomfortably close to your face.

Brushing off your annoyance, you actually take a look at what he's showing you. It's open to your browser, and he's searched his own name— egotistical much?

Unfortunately, you can't make fun of him for it, because something much more pertinent catches your eye.

The search results are him . There he is, as a pixel art sprite above a link for a character profile on some video game wiki.

You don't have anything to say to this. Wordlessly, you grab your phone—he lets you—and you signal Sebastian to look.

He briefly gives you an impatient look for interrupting his perfectly civil discussion with Birch.

The expression is wiped off his face when he finally looks at the screen.

He sputters for a second before saying, "So, why… exactly, does putting our guest's name into google turn up results for an identical , fictional video game character?" Sebastian's voice takes on a manic edge.

Birch finally snaps, throwing its arms up in exasperation, ”I’ve been TELLING you this! Spamton. is from. A. Video. Game !“

”Also— I actually began believing you about Spamton actually being alive—like 5 minutes ago,“ Birch adds offhandedly, checking kes nails and picking at the green flecks trapped under the white of kes nails.

Sebastian puts his face in his hands, rubbing his temples. No doubt trying to quell his frustration.

”Then why —” Sebastian starts with a growl, before abruptly changing tone and topic, “No, nevermind. I don't care. What do we do next?“

”W3!?  I DOn>T KN0 W YOU [[Three Musketteers]]“

Wait… What Birch said earlier, ' Are you a fan of Deltarune too ?' 

You finally realize something.

”You know Birch,“ you give it a tricky smile, ”I'm surprised you're not going completely fan-crazy right now.“

It averts its eyes, swallows thickly, and responds, “I've got no idea what you're talking about.”

You know you've hit gold when kes extraordinarily pale face becomes several shades more blood-tinted than normal.

It was so quick to recognize him, and you know how ke usually goes through their media. Once, you tried to have small talk about the latest and greatest tv show that it seems, from everybody else, you could not escape from it, and Birch hadn't even noticed it existed.

Ke gets really into one or two things at a time, and shuts out everything else. So, for it to recognize Spamton, 'Deltarune' almost certainly has to be something they've obsessed over.

“Ah- y'all have fun. I just remembered.... Something...“ Birch trails off, subtly brushing kes long, blond and curly hair to obscure kes face, ”I'm heading to my room.”

It rushes off.

____

Don't say that Sebastian “Sammy” Nicholson isn't a gracious host. 

He may have two roommates, one of which has an unsightly habit of dragging dismembered mannequins through the front door like a cat brings you dead birds, and the other may be comically disaster prone, but that doesn't stop him from being perfectly hospitable.

You just chased Birch up the stairs to kes room, hopefully interrogating it. Now it's just him and the surprisingly intact , supernaturally animated puppet, standing in his kitchen.

No big deal.

…He won’t ask why his guest is making mysterious hand and jaw motions with increasing urgency and strain. That doesn’t have to be his business. He walks back to the table you and them were sitting at earlier.

Spamton scrambles close behind, climbing and standing atop one of the chairs. The extra distance from the floor nearly lets him match Sebastian in height.

“WH  Y  IS [Magic Spell]>> sO WIERD H3RE!!?!”

Sebastian hums in confusion.

“You’d do better asking Birch or your- uh, kidnapper. They’re the mages , not me.”

It looks like everyone’s done eating, so Sebastian decides to clean up.

“[[Witches Wizards  Warlocks]] ?!!? cAN THHEY [Caster] S3PEL Ls> USING THIER [HeartShapedObject]] ?!!”

“What? No,” Sebastian says in a bemused tone. He smiles as if explaining some obvious truth to a child. Sure, you and Birch may be mages—he continues explaining, “but that doesn't mean anything except that they're damn good at learning new languages and have a weak stomach for sappy, sad movies."

If he’s remembering what they taught during the mage-testing days at highschool correctly, it’s something to do with how the SOUL organs in mages are more interconnected with the central nervous system. There’s some weird feedback loops that amplify their emotions and sensory input.

“WHAT AB0out [[Monstera Plants 50% Off]]??!”

“...Monsters? Those aren’t real. A creature made entirely from magic would be like a human made entirely out of skin, or brains , and nothing else. It just… doesn’t work, as far as modern science knows.”

“BUT MAG3S WE1LD MAGIC  RIGHT??!”

“They can kinda see it, I guess.”

“THEY MUST BE ABLE TO USE IT > PLEASE.” Spamton jitters on, voice steadily underscored with more pleading and less incredulity.

Sebastian interrupts, "Look, I don't know what you think a SOUL is, or what it does, but it's not really different from any other body part," As he speaks, Sebastian collects all the dishes from the breakfast nook table, “SOULs sit in the chest, slightly above the heart, and regulate all of the little biological interactions that involve magic. That’s it.”

Really, the only thing weird about them is that some people can make them project weird, glowing constructs that let people interact with the organ without cutting open the chest. Nobody’s kidneys do that.

He half chuckles, "It can't cast 'spells.' It would be just as well to ask if my blood can summon fireballs .”

Spamton follows closely behind him. He starts pacing with a restless energy when Sebastian stops in front of the sink.

Sebastian sighs when he sees your mug is still mostly full. He pours it down the drain. What a waste.

“IT>S g0TTA—”

Sebastian cuts him off, “At most, it just interacts weirdly with your senses and language processing,” he pauses for a moment, and adds, “ If you're a mage." 

“CAN AN YONE @t ALL USE IT??!”

Sebastian briefly pauses to think, "I've heard of some scientists who work with a lot of magic that end up with weird… 'sight'? No, no-that sounds wrong—Oh, how did they pronounce it?”

Sebastian pulls open the dishwasher and crouches down to put in the plates.

“They said it like, ‘ Sight .’"