Chapter Text
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Everything, EVERYTHING, has gone to absolute yuckbaskets today!
What would have been a considerably minor thing involving the mime just got a hundred– no, a thousand times more ridiculous! What was she thinking?! Oh, wait… she wasn’t!!
He feels the all-too familiar anger simmering in his veins, threatening to consume all his rational thinking, as he has to physically fight the urge to kill Ember where she stands. She looks guilty, but also way too clueless about the extent of their yuckin’ situation. Luckily, one of the clowns there could see the murderous intent on him and wordlessly dragged her back into the house before he could make good on it.
However, it doesn’t stop his darkened eyes from burning holes into her retreating back as she was escorted away. For her safety, not his.
The other clowns decide in that moment to disperse to different locations as well, some going elsewhere while a few make their way back to the house– all without a word to him. Good. He was definitely not in the mood to talk. He needed at least a few minutes to himself to recollect so he had the mental capacity to have this talk again, but in a more rational manner this time.
Kirk stuck around for another beat, uncharacteristically quiet beside him. Though, he supposes the current circumstances could do that to even the goofiest of people. He feels the other’s meaty hand give a couple of quick pats to his shoulder, a clearing of the throat following the action.
“We’ll figure somethin’ out here, Chatty. I mean, yeah, everythin’s gone to shit like a cow caught in an Ohio tornado in summer with its tail tied to the windmill.” His thoughts exactly. “We just gotta make sure we got a cool head ‘bout this or Slacks’ll have the upper hand in this. Ya hear me, Chatterbox? Cool heads here.”
“…Yeah. You’re right,” he concedes. He lets out a big huff of frustration at the matter. “Just been a long yuckin’ day.”
Kirk lets out a derisive whistle in reply. “You and me both. ‘Bout ready to start wailing on some cops just to send a message that we’re not to be fucked around with, ya know?”
With a twitch of his eye, Chatterbox digs the palm of his hand into his forehead through the mask, the beginnings of a migraine already forming from the stress of today’s events.
“I just don’t know why Ember had to stick her yuckin’ nose into something that could potentially yuck us over, as well as her sister! It’s beyond crazy, man. I mean, this, of all the yuckin’ clown yuck, is definitely not a laughing matter here.”
“Oooh, you don’t have to tell me. I know the kinda shit we’re facing if they decide we’re at fault here.” The southern man briefly pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing. “But Slacks is definitely gunning for us here and that’s gonna make it a little harder to move around. We gotta keep to the straight an’ narrow from here on out if we don’t want our asses in for the 9s.”
“What we need,” the clown leader interjects, “is a fall guy. Or Ember needs to get her story straight with ours. And she falls.”
He hears the man next to him blow air out his nose. “Sounds ‘bout right to me.”
“And we need to call over Cloak. We can’t have no one loose while things are this much of a mess.”
“And we still need them lockpicks from Mr. K, just in case.”
Chatterbox lets out a long groan of his own. “This is a yuckin’ mess.”
“Yup,” Kirk says, popping the “P”.
Chatterbox drops his hand from his forehead– already accepting that the pounding in his head wouldn’t go away any time soon– and faces his best friend with a steely-eyed look. The other man, however, didn’t cower in the face of his anger, meeting it head-on in understanding.
“Well, buddy, wanna head back inside before more shit blows ov–“
A loud ringing suddenly breaks the tension. Or adds to it. He can’t decide with how high-strung he already is. But it certainly adds a break in the conversation they were having. He reaches into his slacks to pull out his phone, noting the unknown caller ID flashing back at him.
This better not be a yuckin’ prank call…
Kirk quirks a brow, also curious, one hand cocked at his round hip. Any call after the day they’ve had could potentially mark their last, depending on who it might be. Chatterbox sensed that unease in the hick, opting to dispell that worry for the time being till he found out who it was. He takes a couple of steps back, waving his hand about in a “shooing” sort of manner, more casual than it actual was.
“I’ll head up in a minute, Kirk. It’s probably nothing.” He turns around to walk away from the house for some privacy, Kirk giving a nod of his head in understanding before making his way up to the property to join the others.
Chatterbox answers the phone, inwardly hoping it ain’t a cop calling them in. “Chatterbox Funhouse. This is Chatterbox, who’s this?” he greets in his usual, jovial way, even if he feels anything but.
But instead of the authoritative tone of a police officer that he half expected, a deep and familiar chuckle greets him in answer, low and menacing, dragging on in that unbareable way it once did months back. “Well, well, weeeell… it’s been a while. How you been, Chatterbox?”
Bon Bon.
“What you want now, Bon Bon?” he snarls out. “In case you don’t yuckin’ know—since you ain’t now longer a clown and all—I don’t have time for your stupid, little games. So actually make it worth both our time and cut the yuckin’ bull and make it speedy, why don't ya?” He spat out in annoyance.
The ex-clown, that yuckin’ sack of yuck, has the nerve—the audacity—to chuckle again in that irritatingly, condescending way of his. “Oh, my. Can’t a guy catch up with his old buddy? I seem to recall that we... still have to hash some things out.”
Chatterbox looks around with narrowed eyes, as though expecting the other man to be slinking around the trees like the annoying little terror he’s been lately. “Don’t got nothing to say to you anymore, Bon Bon. Not since you made it personal.”
The other man simply snickers. Those god awful yuckin’ snickers.
“Oh, Chatty… Chatty, Chatty, Chatty,” the man sneers into the phone. “I don’t think you quite grasp the magnitude of your position in all this.”
He feels a tick on his cheek. Chatterbox has just about had enough with this yuckin’ conversation. Each passing second mounts more on his building anger and Bon Bon is not helping to quell it with his little theatrics. He needs to end this call now and get back to planning out what they needed to do regarding the mime death. He can't be entertaining the likes of a traitorous clown right now.
“You actually gonna say something important or what?” he rumbles dangerously low into the phone. “Cause I'll tell you right yuckin’ now, Bon Bon, I have other, more pressing matters to take care of than to sit here talking to the yuckin’ likes of you.”
A pause.
“Hmm. Oh, reeeally, Chatterbox? Would you say they’re more important than... oh, I don't know, your precious little Ray Mond?”
...What?
His heart skips a beat in that moment. The grip on his phone tightens immediately, eyes widening considerably from the man’s words.
“Ray? What about her?” he growls out, suddenly seeing red.
That’s when the ex-clown bursts into raucous laughter, so loud that it feels like it’s echoing all around him. He doesn’t know why, but the sound of it worries Chatterbox a little. Even the disturbing way he said the woman’s name gets his hackles rising too.
The bellowing laughter eventually dies down to a derisive snicker that trails on for far too long. Then he hears that slithering snake breathe into the phone again, practically gloating. “Let’s just say she should have been a little more... aware of her surroundings, if you will.”
He feels his blood runs cold and his heart pick up in speed, mind working a hundred miles a second as he tries to get a grip on the situation.
“W-what did you do?” He all but yells out, feeling the metal of his phone digging into his fingers. His vision goes in and out of focus, his mind continuing to whirl with thoughts of whatwhatwhat. “What did you do to her, Bon Bon!?”
Bon Bon chuckles low into the phone again and it makes him want to repeatedly slam the other man's head against something hard until he couldn't do it no yuckin’ more. He hears crunching and the sound of a car horn in the background. He waits on pins and needles for the man to speak again, more likely dragging it out for dramatic effect. He always did like his theatrics, the yuck.
Finally, he talks after another minute.
“There’s a stairwell," he drawls on, his own form of torture. Putting on a performance of all things. "Metal. Kind of hidden. Leads downward." He pauses again.
Chatterbox wants desperately to yell at him, tell him to hurry the yuck up and finish what he had to say. But he's also aware that he's at a disadvantage here, so he keeps his mouth shut instead for the sake of finding out where he's going with this. Bon Bon must be feeling satisfied, so he resumes.
"This stairwell is on the south side of the university where Mickey Sinclaire is holding his little academia thing. You’ll find exactly what you need at the bottom of them.”
Goosebumps form on his arms under the sleeves of his suit jacket despite the warm air, a lump lodged in the back of his throat. There's a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach at those ominous words.
Bon Bon, for all his shameless acting, takes his silence as permission to continue. “But I would hurry if I were you,” he says it all-too gleefully. “She may not make it in time~”
Click.
The call ends. He’s left frozen in the wake of the news, breathless and empty of all other thought but RayRayRay.
He quickly makes a mad dash towards the truck left by the side of the road, practically slamming the key into the ignition before hearing the vehicle purr to life. He doesn’t give it a second thought before he throws the car in reverse, tires screeching and kicking up dust, and slams on the acceleration and speeds down the road towards the university.
The scenery around whizzed passed him in blurs of color. He doesn’t know how many traffic lights he’s ran through on red, not even conscious of the cars around him. His sole focus is on getting there as quickly as possible.
Please don’t be…
You can’t…
No…
Please, please, pleasepleasepleasepleas–
I can’t– I can’t LOSE! YOU!
His thoughts are a total mess. There’s this buzzing in his ears, so insistent. His hands are shaking on the steering wheel real bad, but he keeps them tight on there because it’s the only thing keeping him physically grounded at this point. He also doesn’t let up on the gas for the duration of the drive, not wanting to waste a single second that could very well be the deciding factor of her life.
He feels like he’s losing his mind, spiraling in ways he’s only ever felt after the incident with Giggles. In the back of his mind, he knew he was acting purely on emotion and he probably should have told the boys about the phone call so they could have come with him in case it was a trap. There was no proving if Ray was even there. She could be happily safe and content at her home or elsewhere, unaware of the turmoil inside his mind. This could have been an elaborate plan devised by Bon Bon to catch him alone so he could kill him upon arrival.
There were too many variables that should have been considered before he took off like he did.
Ray…
No! He couldn’t take the chance of not going and it being true. He can’t do it again. He already lost someone important to him once. He needs this time to be different.
He narrowly avoids crashing into a wall taking a turn into the street leading up to the university building. He doesn’t see anyone out front, so he can only assume that everyone was either still inside or had left. He slams on the breaks, throwing the driver door open and sprinting across the lawn towards where Bon Bon said the stairwell would be.
He runs around the building, pulling his phone out to call Ray’s number. Only when he gets closer to the back of the building does he hear a ringer in the distance. He picks up speed at that.
“Ray! Ray!” he calls out in a panic. “Are you here? Ray!”
He turns the other corner when the ringer finally stops, the atmosphere forebodingly silent again. It’s then he sees a metal stair railing leading downward.
His heart is beating loudly, body thrumming with nervous energy. With shaky legs, he runs the rest of the distance; hoping, pleading, begging that the sight that greets him is anything but Ray. He’d have rather this been an elaborate trick set up by Bon Bon than the threat it was implied to be.
He took a tight turn and looked down–
The first thing he saw was so much red. It glistened in a way it should never have, out of a body it definitely wasn’t supposed to be out of, tucked away in the darkness at the bottom. And in the middle of all that red was–
“Ray!” he cried out, jumping down the steps to reach her. She was passed out, barely gripping the bleeding wound on her stomach. She was slumped against the door, her face a scary white pallor. He shook her gently, trying to wake her, hoping she’d just open her eyes, say something, anything–
“……Chatty?” he barely hears his name whispered in the darkness, but he hears it all the same. It sounds so broken, so small. Everything Ray Mond isn’t.
It startles him, but, in this case, in the best way. It meant she was still alive.
“Ray!” He takes his suit jacket off and begins to wrap it tight around her wound. “It’s ok. I got you.”
She groans in pain, brows pinched together from the movement. “Bon Bon… he’s here… he followed me..” she panted weakly.
“I know, I know," he placates her. "I’m gonna take you to the hospital and we’ll worry about that yuckbag later, alright?” He tightens the sleaves of the jacket around her midrift, eliciting a pained cry from Ray. “Sorry,” he amends.
He takes a quick, cursory glance upward around the stairwell just in case. The area is too quiet and it has him on edge, afraid of Bon Bon catching him off guard while he attempts to get Ray out of here. He keeps his ears open for any slight sound, giving it a minute to hear for any foot steps or something of the sort.
When he sees that the coast is clear, however relieving that small bit of knowledge was, he turns back around and hooks both arms under Ray’s, lifting her as gently as he can. It’s a bit of a struggle since she’s badly wounded and every wrong movement has her groaning in pain. But Chatterbox also knows that he has to get her medical help as quickly as possible before she bleeds out and he doesn’t know if Bon Bon is lurking around still or not. Ray’s his priority right now. Any revenge will have to wait till after he knows she’s safe.
It's what pushes him to straighten her up the rest of the way, despite the pained sounds coming from her in response. He helps her up the stairs, one at a time, keeping vigilant for Bon Bon all the while. He feels slightly better now that he’s found Ray, but it doesn't erase the paranoia of the ex-clown potentially getting the jump on them while vulnerable. For yuckin’ sakes, he didn’t even have a weapon on him!
They make it to the top, going at a slow crawl to prevent from hurting her and also because she's unable to go at a faster pace. Logically, he's doing the right thing by not rushing her and possibly hurting her more in the process. However, it still stands to reason that they’re moving too slow for comfort, especially when taking the possible threat lurking around into account. There’s also the issue of the warm blood seeping into his side at an alarming rate, which is the most concerning part of all this. Her body is a little too limp against his by the time they reach the last step at the top, which solidifies his next decision.
Dragging them towards the wall off to the side, he slowly and carefully props her up against the painted stucco and holds her still for a moment. He notices her eyes fluttering closed, his suit jacket dyed a dark color where it’s tied around the wound.
“Ray?” He calls out gently to her. Her head hangs limply off to the side, breathing slow and stuttering.
“Ray?” He calls again, a little louder. This time, he sees her eyes flutter open a fraction and she moans a tiny, pitiful sound. There's a few fly away strands of hair obscuring her face and he moves a hand up to brush them back behind her ear. It breaks his heart to see her like this, but he has to stay focused for what he tells her next.
“I’m gonna carry you out to the truck and then I’m taking you to the hospital, ok? I’ll be really careful not to move you too much, too. But I need you conscious, so you need to keep talking to me, got it? Can you do that for me?”
Her face falls forward a bit and he lightly shakes her again till her attention is back on him. “Can you do that, Ray?”
Gray irises slowly peer up at him through thick lashes, looking so tired and in pain but not without that stubborn light of hers. She gives him a short nod, then re-thinks her response when she sees his brows pull downward. “Yeah… ok," she pants through a wince, as though the act of breathing pains her.
He nods back with acceptance. “Ok... ok.” He takes in a deep breath.
Another look around the perimeter lets him know that Bon Bon still hasn’t made an appearance yet. Good. He turns his attention back to Ray, making sure she’s stable against the wall before bending down to lift her. As carefully as he can, he raises her up by the back of her thighs and back and carries her up in his arms. She groans a bit, but she holds herself together well despite it.
He then carefully makes his way across the lawn again towards the truck just like he promised– this time with his important person alive. This time, he managed to save someone. He didn’t let them down. Now that he's got that down, he just needs to quickly get her to the hospital to be patched up before he can actually let out a breath of relief.
She feels colder than normal, which is very worrisome, so it goes without saying that he wraps his arms around her a little more tightly to share more of his body heat with her. This, of course, presses her tightly against his own, but that's more than fine. Plus, feeling her weight in his arms– solid and real– grounds him so much better than anything he attempted to calm himself with earlier before arriving at the school grounds.
I got you. You’re safe.
...Well, safer. But you’re alive at the very least.
You're alive... and with me.
His erratic heartbeat from before slows down a bit as he makes the trek back down, adrenaline from the fear of the unknown starting to dissipate some. That's not to say he isn't still on high alert– both of them were defenseless and Bon Bon was holding all the cards. But if it came down to it, he would fight tooth and nail to get Ray out of here: his own life be damned. It was a sort of morbid relief to see that she was, at the most, injured and not lying dead on the ground like he initially thought the second he first came upon the woman.
He feels Ray nuzzle her head against his neck, likely seeking comfort in her state of pain, and he can’t help the way his heart jolts from the action.
“I’m not letting you go. Never again,” he coos under his breath, mostly to himself. But he knows she heard it too with the way she lets out a quiet hum under his chin. That’s fine too. Just as long as she knew he would always be there for her– no matter the distance or circumstance.
It doesn't take long before he hears a tiny sniffle muffled into his skin, the sound strangely sweet and relieving since it helped to remind him that she was alive and was gonna make it. He was gonna do everything in his power to make sure she made it. Nothing, not even Bon Bon, was gonna stop him. It’s why he couldn’t help the unconscious way he tightened his hold on her with the thought.
“......Thank you." He felt, more than he heard, the murmur panted into his neck after a beat of silence. "… Thank you for coming, Chatty," she told him with a wobble in her voice, her petite frame shaking slightly.
A smile tugged at his lips under the mask, his heart finally warming over at her words, holding her impossibly tighter. “Anytime, Ray. For you? Anything."
He's got her now and he's gonna get her out of this hellhole. She wasn't dead. He got to her on time. That's all that matters.
The worst wasn’t over yet, however. He still had to get her safely to the truck and to the hospital.
For yuck sakes, was this truck miles away now that they were heading back. But he was determined to cross the distance no matter what. And after a few minutes, they finally reached the parking lot where the parked vehicle was.
It took some maneuvering– and a lot of twisting his body around till he could safely free a hand for a couple of seconds– but he managed to get the back door open and laid her body across the seats, propping a jacket left by one of the clowns under her head as a makeshift pillow. It hurt him to see her face twisted in pain, but he knew there was no other way around this.
Get her to the hospital.
Once he was sure she was secure, he closed the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. Another quick scan of the area, but still no Bon Bon.
I guess I can count myself yuckin’ lucky, if anything.
He didn’t spend any more time there, now that he had Ray Mond in his possession. He turned on the car and quickly (but safely) sped out of there. He looked into the rearview mirror to see how Ray was doing in the back.
“You still with me, Ray?”
He could see her lips pursed, as though trying to hold back a groan. “Yeah… still here,” she panted out.
“We’ll be there shortly,” he reassured her.
Ray turned her head to look up at him, eyes full of trust despite the pain reflected in them. “I.. I trust you… Chatty. I know…”
It twists his heart in the best and worst way, but he smiles nonetheless.
Satisfied with her answer, he proceeds to pull his phone out from the cupholder to let everyone know of this new developing situation. He saw that there was a notification for sixteen missed calls, all from Kirk, and two voicemails (also Kirk). Being mindful of the traffic this time– carrying precious cargo this time and all– he swiftly selects Kirk’s number from the call log and dials it. It only took a couple of rings before he heard that familiar southern accent greeting him, loud and none too happy.
“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, CHATTERBOX?!” Kirk yelled into the phone, loud enough that he had to briefly pull it away from his ear to avoid going deaf from the sound. When he doesn't hear anymore yelling from the receiver, he brings the device back to his ear with hopes of relaying the news to his outraged friend.
His eyes briefly drift towards the rearview mirror again to check on how Ray was holding up, noting the slow rise and fall of her chest and the slight wheeze in her voice as she laid there panting in the back. His mind then flashes to a memory of Bon Bon’s sneering mug and he feels the anger from before resurfacing all over again.
“Kirk," he says with a hard edge in his tone. "Meet me at the hospital. We got ourselves some more yuckin’ trouble.”
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