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The thing is, Jacob is always in the right.
This is a fact of life, Jaiden thinks. Alongside similar ideas, like how he matters more than anyone else (including Jaiden herself), or that everything is always about him, somehow.
This doesn’t mean she can’t disagree with him, but rather that she’s wrong if she does. And that’s okay— she’s okay with being wrong sometimes, unless he’s upset at her. She can’t let him be upset at her. She can’t.
“I don’t— I don’t want to be… scared of you,” she says quietly, tears welling in her eyes. Saying it aloud just makes everything feel worse— her wings start to curl around her. “You’re my… my best friend, Jacob. I just—
“I can’t stop thinking about it. About you,” she pauses, shivering, “killing… not-me.”
Jacob looks down at her for a moment.
Jaiden hates this. She’s— She’s upsetting him. This isn’t okay. She’s not allowed to do this— he’s— they can’t— Her hand falls to her side from where it was held up, from where it was reaching for him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is— is strained. She can’t tell if he means it or not.
As long as it’s Jacob in the right, Jaiden is okay with being wrong.
She’ll fight back, sometimes— she’ll contest him, she’ll make him think, sometimes. But if he just looks at her the right way — something stern, not quite angry, but a warning — she’ll back down. She has to. She— She can’t upset him.
He can upset her, though. He can, and he has, and that’s okay. Jaiden knows how to cope.
She’s about to kill something with her face on it. She swallows the bile that rises in her throat at the idea.
Jaiden readies herself, and then lunges towards it. Her talons are extended out to grab onto it — and she misses, tumbling onto the concrete once more.
And again, she looks back just in time to see Jacob, holding his knife again — at some point, he must’ve pulled it out when she wasn’t looking. It reflects the light the same way, if only with some sludge staining the end of it.
He slashes her. It.
The knife cuts cleanly, completely slicing it in half.
Other-Jaiden makes one last, horrible screech, and then completely falls apart, leaving a puddle of dark sludge in its place.
Her head is spinning — Jaiden watches, she can’t look away. She can’t. She can’t, as it gurgles, bubbles — and then settles.
She just watched Jacob kill her. It. Jacob killed The Thing.
(He didn’t hesitate. It was so easy— it was so easy for him. He killed her.)
Jaiden leans over and throws up on the concrete.
“…Holy shit,” comes Jacob’s voice from a few feet away. Jaiden wraps her arms around herself— How did— How could he do that?
“This is so not awesome.” Dash says.
Jaiden can’t find it in her to respond. She sits down, and she curls her wings around her, and she tries to focus on breathing — in, and out. In, and out.
There’s a lump in her throat. She can’t stop shaking.
Jaiden knows how to cope, she swears. It’s just— sometimes, in the moment, it’s a little hard!
But ultimately, she’ll come out of it on the other side, and she’ll be able to look Jacob in the eyes. She'll be able to smile at him, and laugh with him, and feel like herself around him.
(For days now, she has woken up in the night, haunted by a gurgling screech, a gleaming knife blinding her.
For days now, she has had to sleep with the lights on, crammed into the far corner of her closet. She once tried keeping a knife with her for self-defense. She couldn’t even leave the kitchen with it in her hands.
For days now, she has fallen back asleep repeating her emergency escape plan to herself.)
And Jacob’s able to be at ease with her, too — she thinks he is, at least. They’ve fallen back into a steady rhythm, the same way they were before The Incident.
“Ugh, I’m not even hungry,” Jacob huffs, stretching as he sits up. His hair is a disaster — and it’s especially clear to Jaiden now that something’s wrong.
She frowns. That’s not good. “Yeah... just get something small, at least? You can eat more later, I just— I'd rather you didn't skip meals, or anything.”
“Sure,” he says, and she’s a little apprehensive about how calm he’s being. “We still have some Eggo waffles in the freezer, right?”
“Unless you and Dash ate them all, we should, yeah.”
“I could go for one of those,” Jacob stands, and Jaiden scans his figure anxiously— he seems fine, but is he? “Maybe some water would be good.”
“Yeah, yeah, definitely drink some water. Lots of it,” Jaiden nods, maybe a little too enthusiastically, as she hops down from her perch on the arm of the couch. This— This reminds her of when he got beat up by Dash, a little bit. The anxiety of it, the constant need to monitor him — the need for him to be okay.
What’s with him and getting physically Fucked Up so much as of late? Better yet, what’s up with her and getting emotionally Fucked Up about it?
“…Hey,” says Jacob, and she blinks, realizing she’s been… staring.
She flicks her gaze up to his eyes — he’s looking straight at her. (It takes everything in her not to flinch.)
“You know I’m fine, right?” he says, “I’m just a little hungover.”
“Yeah— Yeah, of course,” Jaiden nods again, tearing her eyes away from him. “Not the worst thing that’s happened to you. It’s, um— Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
He sighs.
Fuck.
(It’s not the same, and she knows it. It could never be.
On the better days, she’s walking on eggshells around him.
On any other day, she struggles to even look him in the eyes.)
“But— If it wanted hosts, why would it be trying to kill us?”
“Maybe it wasn’t trying to kill us,” Jaiden replies, her voice shaking — her whole body is shaking, and she can’t get it to stop. “Maybe it was just trying to get us weak. Vulnerable. Easier to— y’know.”
A hand slaps over her mouth— she jolts, frightened.
“Hey!” Dash exclaims, and she glances over — he’s put a hand over Jacob’s mouth, too. “I’m so for real right now! Shut the fuck up!”
All she can do is nod. It’s— god. Fuck. Jacob got her thinking about it, and now she can’t stop thinking about it. Was the mimic a parasite? Was— Was it trying to gain their trust by posing as her in order to— to—
“Dash, if you can't handle this, you can leave,” Jacob says. His voice is firm, but not mean— Jaiden shivers regardless. “I'm not going to sit here and just let things happen. I want to at least know what we're dealing with.”
“Thinking of all the horrible ways this House wants to hurt us does what? Say it with me!” Dash lowers his hands from their mouths, “Causes us all to be miserable!”
“I’d rather know,” Jacob says, ever the stubborn one. Jaiden… thinks she understands.
“We can figure out what's happening, sure, I get that, but what you're doing right now is baselessly making theories with no evidence,” Dash looks a little fed up. He sounds the part, too. “That's not figuring anything out, that's fuckin— doomspiraling. You're doomspiraling again.”
“I’m not doomspiraling!” Jacob protests, “I’m considering the possibilities.”
“Jacob, you’re too good at Among Us for this. Get it together.”
“…It's important to think about this kind of stuff, I think, but it is a little, uh… scary.” Jaiden says quietly, turning her focus to her hands, “In a lot of ways.”
He’s scary, she means. But she— she can’t say that. He’s already upset. (She shouldn’t say it regardless. She can’t. She’s not allowed.)
“God. Fuck. I don’t know if I can,” Jacob starts — he sounds frantic. Out of his mind. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven't been able to! It's driving me fucking crazy! At least— at least I can talk about it!
“I feel like I'm going fucking insane, Dash! I— I can't stop thinking about it! I've tried!” His voice is raised, booming. (i don’t want to be scared of you. i think i might be.) “Look, I'm- I'm glad you can just not think about it. That's great. I'm happy for you, genuinely. But I- I feel like it's fucking eating me from the inside out. I can't not know.”
For a second, he’s silent.
Everything is silent.
It messes with her, sometimes. Jacob can be a bit paranoid sometimes — and that’s not a bad thing, she thinks. There’s not really anything about him that’s inherently bad. But his paranoia makes it… hard. She just wants him to be happy. She just wants to be able to make him happy.
Jaiden will do anything for him, when it comes down to it. She’ll do anything if it meant she could see him smiling again — or not even a smile, just… hear in his voice that he’s okay. Hear that tone that means everything is normal and fine. See in his face that he doesn’t hate her. That he still wants her around. That he still considers her a friend.
Jacob’s her best friend. Jaiden doesn’t know if he considers her his best friend. But she’s okay with that. She is.