Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Welcome, everyone, to the seventh official Death P.A.C.T meeting.”

Jumbled responses came from the people who’d shown up; Remote offered a simple “hello”, Fanny muttered “I hate these meetings”, Marker did a silly pose and Black Hole simply shrugged. The energy among the group was far more tense than usual.

Tree sighed. “I know this isn’t the place where we usually meet, nor was this on schedule, but… well. I’m sure you’ve all heard the news.”

“That poor girl,” Remote said, clutching at her arms.

Marker blinked. “Wait, what happened?”

“A teenage girl was MURDERED!” Fanny shrieked. “A girl who went to THIS SCHOOL!” she gestured to the brick building that the group had decided to meet in the parking lot of.

Tree nodded. “Yep. And that’s why we’re here; no more dilly-dallying. We need to take this whole death-prevention thing more seriously.”

“Alright,” Black Hole droned, his voice far less monotone than usual, “but what do we, like… do? Marker didn’t even know there was a murder. How are we supposed to prevent death if we don’t even know what’s happening?”

“What we need to do is not lose faith,” Tree held his head high, placing a hand on Black Hole’s shoulder. “I say we ask around, find where the crime scene is, and look for clues.”

“I HATE that plan! It’ll just make us look SUSPICIOUS!”

As if on cue, Fanny’s yelling summoned a man to exit the school building. He had brown skin, dyed jade hair, and his white shirt and pants were covered up by a brightly colored artist’s smock. He scanned the parking lot, spotted the dubious group, and began to saunter toward them.

“Hey, what’s going on out here?” he asked, his voice chipper but distrustful.

Tree held his head up high. “We were just having a meeting. Also, when we’re done here, Fanny needs to walk her brother home from school.”

“A meeting?” The man- who was presumably Object High’s art teacher- questioned, raising an eyebrow. “Are you guys in a club or something?”

“Yep! We’re the Death P.A.C.T!” Marker shouted unhelpfully.

Tree hissed at him to shut up, but the damage had already been done, as the art teacher’s face had fallen, staring at the little group incredulously.

“What.”

“It’s, uh, it’s an acronym,” Black Hole stuttered.

Remote nodded. “It stands for Death Prevention And Creating Trust.”

“No actual death is happening here. That’s what we’re trying to avoid, what with…” Tree made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “You know.”

The art teacher exhaled, placing a hand on his chest. “Oh, thank doodle, I was not looking forward to talking you guys out of jumping off a bridge or something.”

“Yeah, no,” Black hole murmured awkwardly. “Have you, uh, had to do that before…?”

The man blinked, making eye contact with Black Hole for a long, uncomfortable moment, before he turned on his heel to face Fanny. “Oh, hey, I know you! You’re Fan’s older sister, right?”

“Half-sister,” Fanny corrected. “Who even are you? How do you know this?”

“OH! Silly me, I didn’t even introduce myself! I’m Sketchy. I teach art class here. Fan brings you up in my class all the time!”

“That’s sweet,” Tree mused. Fanny elbowed him in the shoulder.

“On the topic of preventing death,” Remote spoke out of the blue, “Do you know anything about Bow Atwater?”

“We’re trying to learn more about what happened to her so we can figure out a way to ensure a situation like this doesn’t happen again,” Tree explained.

Sketchy made a strange, sad facial expression, glancing away from the group of young adults and staring back at the school building. “She was another one of my students.”

“That’s what I assumed,” Tree followed Sketchy’s gaze, but he didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The art teacher was silent for another long moment, before his voice escaped him in a low crawl, like paint spilling down a canvas.

“Listen. I… I think the best thing to do is to not get involved. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt because they dug too deep.”

“Anyone else?” Black Hole questioned.

Sketchy ignored him. “Just… keep yourselves safe, okay? I’ve gotta go back inside. My students are probably wondering what’s taking so long. I’ll tell Fan you guys said hi.”

And with that, he was gone.

The members of Death P.A.C.T shared a glance.

Marker spoke up first. “We all agree that was weird, right?”

Tree nodded. “That guy definitely knows more than he’s letting on.”

“I dunno. He doesn’t really seem like the murdery type,” Black Hole shrugged.

Fanny scowled. “Nobody seems like the murdery type until they MURDER SOMEONE!”

“I like to believe that all of my friends are pure of heart,” Remote offered, clasping her hands together.

“That’s all well and good, but he’s not your friend. We had one conversation,” said Tree. “An incredibly suspicious conversation at that.”

“So we’re sticking with the original plan?” asked Black Hole.

“I hate the original plan,” Fanny growled, but everyone ignored her.

Tree smiled and turned to the group with a flourish. “Yep. Original plan it is. Operation “Prevent Death But For Real This Time” is now officially underway.”

Black Hole, Remote and Marker cheered while Fanny sat there and frowned.

Chapter Text

“It’s so weird that Taco’s just… here now.”

Fan turned to Paintbrush, who’d been wordlessly tuning their bass guitar up until that point. “You know her, Paintbrush?”

Their fingers strike a sour note and they scowl. “Not really. She was just in the same classes I was when we were growing up. I totally forgot about her until she moved back in. She used to, like, bite people and stuff, but now she’s actually speaking in full sentences. And not biting people. And talking to Pickle again.”

“Taco and Pickle had beef? I thought they were best friends,” Fan asked, leaning against his drum kit.

Paintbrush grinned. “Yeah. A little while before she moved away, we had this, like, competition thing for gym class. She cheated or tripped him or shoved him out of the way or something along those lines so she could win, and after that, they just refused to talk to each other.”

“Guys,” Lightbulb stood up from where she’d been sitting at her keyboard, staring down at the instrument with a sense of urgency.

“What’s up, Lightbulb?” Paintbrush asked. Their brows furrowed- their friend seemed unusually serious.

That was until she flipped a switch on her keyboard and broke out into a grin. “Check this out.”

She held down a key, and the keyboard meowed.

Fan broke out into laughter, stumbling away from his drums to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Lightbulb. “WHAT? How did you make it do that?”

“My special wizard magic,” Lightbulb explained unhelpfully.

Paintbrush rolled their eyes and turned their attention back to their guitar. They’d saved up money for months to buy it, and they considered it one of their prized possessions. Starting this little band of theirs- the Bright Lights- had been their idea after Lightbulb got her keyboard for her birthday. With them on bass and vocals, Fan’s drum playing, Lightbulb on keyboard and Marshmallow on electric guitar-

Right. Marshmallow.

Paintbrush hadn’t been at the party the night Bow died, but Marshmallow had told them what happened. She and Bow had gotten into a huge argument, leading the latter to storm off.

She was found dead the next morning.

“The last thing I said to her was that I wanted her gone,” Marshmallow had cried into Paintbrush’s shoulder. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean it! We’d- we’d promised that the three of us, her and Apple and I could run away together. She hated this town, Paintbrush, and told me that she just wanted to die anywhere else.”

“Painty? You okay?” Lightbulb’s voice broke them out of their thoughts. “Your hair is smoking. Do you not like our Clair de Lune meow cover?”

“Do you know if Marsh is coming to band practice?” Paintbrush asked instead of answering her question.

“I mean, I’d assume not,” Fan shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since the, uh-”

As if she’d been summoned, Marshmallow peered in through the open garage door. “I’m here.”

“Marsh!” Paintbrush stood up, abandoning their beloved bass, and rushing to meet their friend. “Hey. How are you holding up?”

“Not well,” Marshmallow sighed. Paintbrush pulled her into a hug, though it was awkward given the height difference between them.

“We don’t have to practice music,” Fan spoke suddenly. “We could go inside, throw in a pizza and have a movie night or something. My parents are at work and my sister’s out with her friends, so we have the house to ourselves.”

“That… sounds really nice, actually,” Marshmallow smiled.

“Omga, yes! Dibs on picking the first movie!”

Paintbrush narrowed their eyes at Lightbulb, who’d finally stopped meowing. “Lightbulb, if you suggest that we watch Sharknado again, I think I’m actually going to scream.”

“Prepare to get yelling, then,” Lightbulb grinned.

“No.”

“Paintbrush, she called dibs. You can’t go back on dibs,” Fan sneered.

“All in favor of watching Sharknado again, raise your hand,” commanded Lightbulb.

Marshmallow, Fan and Lightbulb all raised their hands.

Paintbrush screamed.

Chapter Text

Pitchfork had spent the majority of her early years in a dingy little farming town called Blankslate. It was the kind of place where everybody knew (and disliked) each other. The place was so small that most maps of the surrounding area didn’t even consider including it, and when they did, it was a barely-labeled pimple compared to the rest of the topography.

Needless to say, moving to the still-small but significantly larger city of Inanimate Isles was quite the shock.

It didn’t take her long to decide that she hated literally everyone there.

“Hey, Pitchfork!”

Exhibit A: Glowstick.

All heads turned to the now-open classroom door, including Mr. Tablet, who’d been in the middle of explaining the instructions for a group project. The science teacher’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Glowstick, you are not supposed to be in this class right now.”

“I know, I know,” Glowstick’s words were smooth off his tongue as he swung his hall pass around his finger, “just checking in on my girl. What’s up, Forky?”

“I don’t belong to you. And don’t call me that,” Pitchfork hissed, resisting the urge to get up and punch him.

Glowstick laughed. “C’mon, don’t be like that!” He sauntered over and leaned a hand on her desk. “You know we mesh so well together.”

Pitchfork swatted his hand away. “No, we really don’t.”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t go playing hard to get now!”

“The only thing you’re getting is on my nerves!”

Mr. Tablet walked over and snatched the hall pass out of Glowstick’s hand. “It seems that you have been caught in the incorrect classroom without a hall pass. This means that you will have to attend Saturday school. Please return to class. Now.”

Glowstick could barely exclaim “What?!” before Mr. Tablet had taken him firmly by the shoulders and walked him out the door. The sound of Salt and Pepper snickering behind her made Pitchfork’s face burn hot with embarrassment.

I hate this stupid school.

Any other student would be excited and relieved at the last class of the school day, but the solemn trod to Mr. Walker’s classroom filled Pitchfork with a low, burning dread that settled deep in her gut. Her final hour was the only class that she had to share with Glowstick. It didn’t help that art was not a strong subject for her, and Mr. Walker (whom Pitchfork refused to call Sketchy like all the other students) was far too cheerful for the forty-five minutes of hell that he taught.

Pitchfork glared down at her painting. It was supposed to be a vase full of roses, but it looked more like an awkwardly colored explosion. Amidst the sea of blue lumps, the one red flower Pitchfork had added for contrast stood out like a bloodstain or a nasty wound.

“Take the art elective, they said. It’ll help with your anger issues, they said,” Pitchfork grumbled.

The girl who sat next to her (whose name Pitchfork could never remember) took her attention off of her own work to look at Pitchfork’s disaster of a painting. “I think it looks nice.”

Pitchfork glanced at her classmate’s work in return; a masterfully rendered piece of a girl being dragged deep underwater by shadowy tentacles. It was obvious she was just trying to spare Pitchfork’s feelings. “Meh, whatever. Yours is way better.”

The other girl’s face lit up. “You really think so?”

“It’s kind of a low bar, but yeah.”

“Aw, she made a friend,” Glowstick sneered from the other end of the classroom. Pitchfork’s eye twitched, and the other girl sank low in her seat. “Nice to see my girlfriend is finally talking to someone that isn’t me!”

That was the final straw. Pitchfork slammed her hands on her desk as she shouted, “I AM NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND!”

The silence that came after was deafening. Mr. Walker had looked up from his cup of coffee, the drowned-painting girl had her hands over her ears, and Glowstick stared at Pitchfork with his mouth open wide. The fact that he seemed genuinely shocked only made her blood boil hotter.

“Look,” Pitchfork growled, “Let me make one thing clear. You and I- we were never a thing. I don’t know where this came from, but I’m nipping it in the bud before it gets out of control. I’m trying to make sure that I actually pass these stupid classes despite my classmates’ stupidity and YOU’RE NOT HELPING, so PLEASE return my lack of affection for you and STOP BOTHERING ME!”

When Pitchfork was done with her rant, she crumpled up her still-wet painting and threw it at Glowstick’s head.

“I,” he blubbered dumbly, hair and clothes now sticky with paint, “I don’t understand…”

“I’m SAYING, LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Glowstick looked like he was about to cry. “You’re breaking up with me?!”

“We were never a thing in the first place!”

Pitchfork took a deep breath, about to continue yelling, but was interrupted when the bell rang. She sighed, standing up and not even bothering to put away her paintbrushes. “I’m going home. Goodbye, Glowstick, hopefully for good.”

As the door closed behind her, Pitchfork heard Mr. Walker say “You’re cleaning that up, Glowstick.”

Pitchfork wasn’t surprised when the door to her house was left unlocked. Her parents, not used to having neighbors, hadn’t gotten in the habit of it. She closed and locked the door, kicked off her boots, and trudged up the stairs to her room.

She could have sworn she left her bedroom door locked. She must have forgotten. She swung off her backpack and flopped down on her bed-

Only to be met with a rustling.

She sat up. There was a piece of paper on her bed. Scrawled on its empty back were the words, “Red to my Blue”, in eerily familiar handwriting.

Pitchfork’s heart stopped in her chest. Her shaking fingers slowly flipped the paper around, too scared to breathe.

A messy vase of roses. Mostly blue, one red.

“Hey, Pitchfork.”

Chapter Text

Limeade and Phone were the only people left in the school building, and the dusk-dark atmosphere had settled down into a comfortable silence. Normally at this time Phone would be at home, lounging on the couch watching reality TV and notably not grading the papers he was supposed to be grading, but earlier that day Limeade had approached him asking if he wanted to help them test out a recipe for tomorrow’s home EC class, and how was a guy like him supposed to refuse an offer like that?

It’s no chocolate chip cookies, but cake is cake, and Phone had come to consider Limeade a close friend. The entire situation was a win-win on all scores, in Phone’s opinion.

“Hey, Phone?” Limeade’s voice rocked the still air, rousing Phone’s attention from where he’d been stirring strawberry-flavored batter. “Thanks for agreeing to do this with me.”

“You know I can’t pass up an opportunity to eat free cake,” Phone smirked. He made a show out of grabbing a strawberry out of the container and popping it into his mouth, at which Limeade laughed. (YES! Mission accomplished.)

“True! That is true. That's why I asked you out of everyone, actually.”

Phone lightly jabbed his friend with his shoulder. “You made the right choice.”

Limeade playfully swatted him on the wrist. “Oi, who’s the one who actually teaches the baking class? Any more violence and there’s no cake for you, my friend.”

“Oh, no. How could I possibly live without subpar home EC leftovers?"

“Hey! For your information, my students try their best. Sketchy thought that the mac and cheese Gaty made last week was great!"

"Sketchy likes anything involving cheese! Sometimes he just eats- plain boxes of cheese!"

"You're one to talk, Mr. Eats Nothing But Chocolate Chip Cookies."

"Hey," Phone growled, but quickly transitioned into laughter.

He poured the cake batter into circle-shaped trays. Limeade took the trays and slotted them into the oven. As they were about to start the timer, their finger stalled, alongside their entire body going rigidly still.

“...You okay?” Phone asked.

“Shush,” Limeade commanded under their breath. After a tense moment of silence, they muttered, “do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Phone turned up his audio processors. As he did, what Limeade had been hearing became terribly clear. “Oh.”

Mumbling. Whispering.

Someone else was in the building.

Hesitantly, Limeade scooped the cake pans out of the oven, turning it off before they tiptoed over to the door, leaning the side of their head against it.

“It’s coming from Sketchy’s room.”

The art class sat at the end of the hall, not too far away from Limeade’s classroom and directly connected to the room Phone and Tablet shared via a supply closet. A tree grew innocently outside, and Phone realized that someone could easily climb it to slip into Sketchy’s classroom via an open window.

Both teachers’ hearts skipped their own separate beats.

"Someone broke in," whispered Phone.

“Come on,” Limeade breathed, opening the classroom door and gesturing for him to follow.

“Limeade, are you crazy?” Phone whisper-shouted, but his friend was already sneaking down towards the art classroom, and he didn’t have a choice other than to follow them.

“It’s two of us versus one of them,” Limeade muttered once Phone was back within whispering range.

“You want to fight them?!”

Limeade ran a hand through their frazzled hair. “Do you have a better plan?”

Phone thought for a moment.

“No.”

At that, Limeade’s shaking fingers grasped the doorknob and twisted. The door swung open easily- either Sketchy had forgotten to lock it the previous night, or the intruder had a key. (Oh, Phone really didn’t want to think about that second option, actually.)

The room was empty. Visually, at least. Now that the two teachers were close to the source of the noise, it was easy to tell where it was coming from- under the main desk- and who the voice belonged to.

Phone walked over to the desk, leaned down, and asked, “Sketchy?”

Sure enough, there he was, fitfully sleeping under the desk with his head resting on a ratty old pillow. Phone winced at the realization that he wasn’t even wearing anything to protect his hair. Sketchy’s mouth hung slightly open, whispering and whimpering unintelligibly.

Kneeling, Phone shook Sketchy's shoulder. "Hey. Hey, wake up! Sketchy!"

Sketchy awoke with a start, yelping and jerking upward so hard he hit his head on his desk.

"I... Phone?"

Phone smirked. "Just couldn't wait 'til you got home, huh? Your sleep-talking scared Limeade half to death."

"You were frightened, too!" Limeade squawked, but nobody listened to them.

Sketchy stared up at Phone, and oh, he looked so scared. Something new in Phone’s mechanical heart ached at the prospect of seeing Sketchy this upset.

“No, I…” Sketchy chuckled nervously, his voice trailing off on the exhale. “I don’t really have any other place to stay.”

Phone’s smile dropped. “Oh.”

“What?!” Limeade shrieked. “Have- have we been locking you in the building every night? How do you even get in? I watch you leave every day!”

“I wait outside until everybody goes home, then I climb back in through the window,” Sketchy explained. “I… can you not tell Blue? I’m worried she’ll fire me if she finds out that I kind of sort of sleep in her building every night.”

Limeade thought for a moment, bringing a hand up to their chin then pointing up at the ceiling with a flourish. “She doesn’t have to know! And Sketchy, you don’t have to stay here! I’m sure I could talk my landlord into letting you stay with me at my apartment! I am very persuasive,” they bragged, bringing their hand back down to their chest.

Sketchy’s face lit up. “You’d really do that for me? I mean, you don’t have to-”

“But I want to!” Limeade interrupted. “Of course, not right now, but tomorrow, definitely.”

“You could stay with me for the night,” Phone offered before he even knew his mouth was moving. He and Sketchy seemed to process the statement at the same time. Shit- why did I say that? I can’t drive him home- what about the disguises? What will the others think?

Phone didn’t have the time to contemplate the horrid probability of Tracker calling him gay any further, because Sketchy stood up from his little desk nest and said, “Really? You’re sure?”

“Of course he’s sure! We’re your friends, and we’d love to help you!”

Phone was not a violent man. Far from it. But in that moment, all he wanted to do was punch Limeade in the face. Shit, shit, SHIT- just roll with it, MePhone, roll with it.

"Uhhh, yeah! If Limeade could… drive us there. I don’t… have a car.”

“Absolutely!” Limeade chirped, and the punching instinct faded. “Let me grab my keys.”

The Meeple siblings’ disguised household, settled above Tracker’s store (which he’d fondly named Track And Find), was quiet. Phone had no doubt the others were already asleep.

Phone himself wasn’t asleep, of course, because Sketchy was in his bed. Sleeping. Snuggling him like he was some kind of oversized teddy bear. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held him with this gentle, possessive tenderness, as if he was something precious that needed to be cherished.

Has he ever been this loved?

His heart-battery ached at the thought of being loved, all of a sudden. He’d never wanted anything like it before. He hated his creator, tolerated his siblings, grieved for someone he’d lost, but love was an entirely new idea to him.

As Sketchy snored into his shoulder, Phone found himself shuffling to hold Sketchy back. An electric feeling sung through his circuits. Why does this feel so right?

Half of Phone wanted this feeling to be temporary, that he’d feel normal and cold in the morning, not thinking about Sketchy or the warm feeling that bubbled in his chest when he thought about the other man.

The other half of Phone held Sketchy closer, knowing he’ll forever mourn the warmth on the other side of his bed.

Chapter Text

Social interactions have never been Fan’s forte. He’d lived in Inanimate Isles for all his life, grew up around all the same people, and he had… What, four friends? Maybe five if you counted his sister who was almost never home and told him that she hated him?

Staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on his bedroom ceiling, Fan’s heart aches in his chest. His four-maybe-five count might drop down to a three-maybe-four if he doesn’t play his cards right.

He cares about Test Tube. Of course he does! She’s his best friend! The thought of the argument they’d had the previous night makes him toss and turn in bed even more than he usually does. She’d left- (“I’m sorry, Fan”- HA! What a joke)- and she’d taken Egg with her.

“I’ve studied IT, I’ve run tests on IT, and I know what IT needs to survive!”

Fan sighs, burying his face in his pillow. Maybe she was right. Maybe poor little Egg would be better off without Fan in his life. Maybe it would be better if Test Tube and Egg could hatch and change and break Fan’s perfect patterns with giant cartoon mallets, leaving him behind to be lonely and miserable when all the dust settles.

It’s fine. He’s fine! He doesn’t need them anyway! He can just… make a new friend. Someone who will stay exactly the same no matter what.

Fan shuffles out of bed, grabs his glasses, sits down at his desk and opens his computer.

He started with simple phrases.

Fan would type “hello”, and the program would say “hi” back. “How are you” would be met with “good” or “okay” or “im doing wonderful, how are you, fan?”

Several energy drinks later, Fan’s AI could hold an entire conversation. Even if he didn’t have Test Tube, he could always come crawling back to his second favorite thing in the world- coding.

Fan feels his eyelids begin to flutter closed by themselves. He ruBs at his eyes under his glasses, yawning and checking the time- a little after two in the morning. Normally around this time he’d be going to bed, (he internally curses his messed-up sleep schedule,) but this is important. He gropes around his desk for another energy drink.

The can he retrieves is empty.

That’s fine. He reaches for another just to find it’s jam-packed full of air.

The next can he curls his fingers around in a desperate, sleep-deprived haze is empty, too.

Fan soon realizes that he had drained an entire six-pack of Monster Energy over the course of about three and a half hours.

He groans, peeling his jittery, twitchy body away from his computer to go grab more caffeine.

When he returns from the kitchen, some of Fanny’s disgusting black coffee in hand, Fan discovers that his code had changed by a significant amount. That… that’s not supposed to happen. As a test, he inputs “hello” and presses enter.

“Hello!” the program responds.

Fan’s stomach sinks. He hadn’t programmed in capitalization or punctuation in that particular response. He gives his code another once-over, eyes widening at the realization that it had changed again.

And then it starts to type.

“Are you there?”

Fan’s jaw drops wide open, staring at his computer screen with eyes the size of dinner plates.

A pop-up appears in the corner of his screen. Untitled_program.exe is requesting access to Front Camera.

Fan is panicking at this point. Did he accidentally program some kind of computer virus? If he clicked “Allow”, would a dark, bloody version of a beloved cartoon mascot crawl through his screen and kill him like in all the online stories he’d read?

He doesn’t know why he clicks “Allow”- whether it be curiosity or morbid fascination or a need to have a dance with Death itself- but he does, and the program’s code visibly twitches.

“There you are,” it types. “Hello!”

“...Hi,” Fan says slowly. “What… are you?”

“You programmed me, silly,” His AI responds, and Fan’s heart rate quickens to a level he hadn’t thought possible.

“I- I mean, I made the base code, but- but this is- not what I intended at all! You- your code is…”

Fan’s breath catches in his throat. “You changed. You’re changing.”

The program takes a few seconds to respond. “Is that bad?”

“YES!” Fan yells before he can think about it. “You’re just a thing I made because I was lonely and scared. Now you’re- you’re changing, why is everything changing? This- this wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to happen- I just want one thing to be predictable, is that too much to ask for?”

Fan was too busy burying his head in his hands and trying not to cry to notice that the program had typed and deLeted several responses. By the time he glanced back up at his screen, it had closed itself.

The reality of what he’d just done hit him like a truck would hit an isekai protagonist. He’d coded a sentient computer program only to have a mental breakdown in front of it and tell it that it wasn’t supposed to exist within five minutes of it being active.

“Oh, what have I done,” Fan deadpans. He slumps his head into his arms. “Test Tube was right. I’m horrible at this.”

Wait. An idea strikes him. Test Tube! If she’s really as good at unusual childcare as she says she is, then surely she’ll know how to turn this situation around, right?

It’s worth a shot!

Fan manually re-opens the computer program and monologues as he throws on his shoes. “Hey, there, I know you’re probably super mad at me which- you know, entirely understandable- buuuut I think I know how to help you. I’ve got this friend called Test Tube and she’s super smart- a genius, really- so I’m gonna bring you over to her house so that she can fix this mess, okay?”

The program takes a long while to respond. Eventually, it just types “ok”.

Not ideal, but it’s a win in Fan’s book. He scoops up his laptop, making sure it’s still open, as he exits his house and heads down the sidewalk to Test Tube’s. On the way, he codes in a text-to-speech program because, honestly, having to glance down at the screen every time he wants to check if his AI had written anything was beginning to get annoying.

As soon as the TTS is installed, it asks, “are you going to break into her house”

Fan scoffs. “Do you have a better plan?”

“...no”

The rest of the walk was silent. Test Tube’s family lived in the better-off part of the neighborhood, with rows of identical houses that Fan couldn’t help but be a little unnerved by. Amongst the cookie-cutter family homes, Test Tube’s house stood out like a sore thumb, with mechanical attachments and several rooms that had been added on after the house had been bought. One of Test Tube’s siblings even had a slide in their room that connected to the bottom floor of the house.

A building this beautifully haphazard must have some sort of design flaw to exploit.

Fan paces a couple laps around the house, checking it for any weak points. He knows that Test Tube’s room is on the bottom floor, but he also knows that all of her bedroom windows have a spring-loaded dart blaster that would tranquilize him the moment he tried to open it and get inside. Entering through the doors was a no-go, since Test Tube had explained all the anti-intruder functions in explicit detail the last time he’d visited, and he wasn’t going to try and break into any of her siblings’ bedrooms because he’s not a creep (and also they would probably kill him).

It only took twenty minutes of sleep-deprived searching for Fan to give up. He groaned, loud and low, slumping against the side of the house and cradling his computer to his chest.

Just as he was about to give up and go home, he heard a voice.

“Fan?”

He looks up.

There Test Tube sits on the roof of the bUilding, one hand on her telescope and the other holding Egg. She’d thrown on a lab coat over the clothes she’d been wearing the previous day, and her hair was a mess; she obviously hadn’t gotten any sleep, either. Fan had never been more relieved to see anybody in his life.

“Test Tube!” Fan calls, fumbling his laptop around in his hands in order to free an arm to wave at her with.

Test Tube smiles down at him, detaching her telescope from its spot on the roof and pressing a button on it that sprouts helicopter blades from its handle. She uses it to float gracefully to the ground, planting her hand on her hip once she lands. “Want to explain what you’re doing in my backyard in the middle of the night?”

“I- Test Tube, I was looking for you. I’m so, so sorry about yesterday, I was thinking about what you said, and… I think I made a really big mistake.”

“I did, too. Golly, I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that, Fan.”

Fan holds up a hand in front of him to stop her. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s what I needed to hear. Especially considering… this.”

He turns his computer around to show Test Tube his program. “I… got lonely and… weird… so I just decided to… make a new friend. Oops, turns out it’s actually alive, and I said… some pretty horrible things to it. Um. Help?”

Test Tube gestures for Fan to sit down, and when they’re both settled, she lays Egg gently on the grass to hold Fan’s computer in her lap. Her eyes widen in disbelief as she reads. “Fan, you coded this all by yourself?”

“I… no, not really? I made a lot of it, but then the code just… changed?”

“A self-writing AI…” Test Tube muses. “Jeepers, Fan, I… Egg is one thing, but, golly, I can’t be a parent! We’re only fourteen!”

“Parents?!” Fan squawked.

Test Tube gestures wildly with her hands. “You made life, Fan! That sounds like parenthood to me!”

“I’m HORRIBLE at this! I can’t be a dad! The- Our bot already knows this!”

“Bot?” the AI spoke suddenly.

Test Tube stares down at the computEr screen with a confused yet adoring glow in her eyes. “Yeah. That’s… what he said.”

After a moment of silence, the AI spoke up again. “I like that name. I’d like to be called Bot.”

“Of course we can call you that,” Fan smiles, looking up at Test Tube. “I… Bot, I-I’m really sorry. About everything. Is there anything we can do to make it up to you?”

“...Well. There is one thing.”

By the time the sun had risen, Fan and Test Tube were friends again, they’d decided on firm Egg custody rules, and the two of them had built a robot body for Bot- small, pale green and vaguely butterfly-shaped. Bot had decided they wanted to use they/them, realized they loved drawing, and while they were still (understandably) mad at Fan, they were willing to get to know him.

“Things will be different,” Test Tube muses, cradling a charging Bot in her arms.

“You know what?” Fan smiles, looking up at his best friend. “I think that’s okay.”

Chapter Text

“Alrighty, everyone!” Sketchy chirped, dropping a thick stack of magazines onto his desk with a loud THUD. “Today we’ll be making collages!”

A red-haired girl in the back of the class raised her hand. “What’s a collage?”

The art teacher grinned. “I’m glad you asked, Apple! Basically, you cut up pictures from comic books or magazines and glue them together to make something new!” To demonstrate, he grabbed a magazine from the top of the stack, and moved as if he was going to display it to the class, but something about its cover made him stop and stare.

After a long, uncomfortable moment, Sketchy dropped the magazine into the trash. “Not that one.”

“Why not?” Mitten blurted, not waiting for Sketchy to call on him in typical Mitten fashion. The girl who sat closest to the trash can, the one with the weird British accent and who still wore Spoiled Lemon merch in the year of our Lord 2013, dug into the bin with her bare hand (gross) and fished out the magazine.

“I just, uh,” Sketchy stammered, “it’s already been used for… other collages! There’s not enough… intact pages left…?”

British Girl flipped through the magazine. “It appears to be entirely untouched, actually.” She squinted at the cover with her one good eye, seeming puzzled, as if she recognized the model on the flimsy book’s front from somewhere but couldn’t quite remember where they’d met.

“Here, gimme that,” Mitten demanded, and British Girl craned around backward in her seat to hand the magazine to him. Sketchy made a noise in the back of his throat that indicated he was very uncomfortable but didn’t know what to do about it.

It seemed to be your run-of-the-mill cash-grabby fashion magazine. The model on the cover was decently pretty, sure; bouncy blonde hair, tanned skin and thin as a pencil, but she had a sad kind of look in her eyes that Mitten couldn’t help but be a little unnerved by.

“Can we move on now?” Sketchy asked, his voice lacking its usual enthusiasm.

Mitten took a moment to think. He wasn’t the smartest, he knew this for a fact, but there was something fishy about this whole situation that rubbed him the wrong way.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he replied, shoving the magazine into his backpack when Sketchy looked away.

It was only when school had adjourned for the day that Mitten slung his backpack over his shoulder, the plush weight inside reminding him that the fabric container held cargo far more important than some stupid magazine.

He found a secluded hallway, leaned against a locker and slid down to sit on the floor before he unzipped his backpack.

“Hi, Mitten!”

“Hey, CB.”

The fox-shaped plush toy launched herself out of the backpack to latch her paws around Mitten’s neck. He smiled, curling his arms around her and releasing an exhale he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Geez, you really missed me that much?”

Cinnamon Bun nodded before she peeled herself away. “Yeah, but this is way better than staying at home! Can I come to school with you every day?”

Mitten hissed in a breath through his teeth. “Eeh, I’m not sure, CB. Who knows how my classmates will react if they know that you’re… y’know, alive and stuff?”

The living toy shrugged. “Your parents didn’t think it was weird.”

“Wh- Dad cleans out storage units for a living! He’s seen way weirder! And I’m pretty sure Mom doesn’t care, like, at all. What if someone like- I dunno, Knife or Trophy sees you?”

“...Mitten?”

Speak of the devil. At the end of the hallway stood none other than Knife, self-proclaimed jerk and the one kid everyone knew not to mess with. His arms were crossed and he stared, puzzled, as Cinnamon Bun went limp in Mitten’s grasp.

“Hey- HEY! You didn’t see anything, alright?!” Mitten barked, shoving Cinnamon Bun back into his backpack and zipping it up.

“Dude,” Knife muttered, reaching for his own backpack.

Mitten leaped to his feet. God, they were doing this, weren’t they? He was about to get in a fight with Knife- who knows what he’s got in that backpack- what if Cinnamon Bun gets hurt- the hell do I do?! The second I lay a finger on him, the Terminator from the corner store will kill me!

“Dude.”

Instead of revealing a gun or something, Knife produced a doll from his backpack.

“Is that… is that Dora the Explorer?” Mitten couldn’t help but breathe a soft laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

Knife clicked his tongue and made a finger gun with his free hand. “Your secret’s safe with me.” Then, he gently put his doll back in his backpack, zipped it up, and walked away like nothing had ever happened.

“...Uh. Let’s just go home.”

“Yeah,” Cinnamon Bun agreed, her voice muffled through the layer of fabric between them.

When Mitten got home, he freed Cinnamon Bun from his backpack and watched her chase her own tail for a bit. He leaned back on the couch and dug through his homework to grab the magazine he’d stolen an hour or so prior.

“It’s just a stupid magazine,” he monologued to himself. “Why was Sketchy freaking out over something like this?”

Before Mitten could answer his own rhetorical question, the flimsy book was snatched out of his hands by a pink blur of fabric and violence. Cinnamon Bun flipped through its pages with a grubby paw, before her embroidered eyes became the size of dinner plates as she turned to the cover.

She pointed to the uncanny model and shouted, “I know her!”

“Really?” Mitten sputtered. “How?”

“She won me at a fair! Her name is Painting! Uh. Well, it was Painting. Past tense.” Cinnamon Bun’s ears flicked backward. “She died.”

Mitten felt his heart sink. “Oh.”

“She was really sad all the time,” Cinnamon Bun continued before Mitten could say anything else. “She worked at a place where people took pretty pictures of her, but she came home crying a lot. And then she would look in the mirror for a long time, or lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, or eat weird candy that made her act all funny. And it was weird, I never saw her eat anything else until-”

She stopped, the embroidery that made up her mouth visibly quivering at the thought of whatever she was about to say next.

“Cinnamon Bun… you don’t gotta tell me if you don’t want to,” Mitten said as gently as he could.

“I want to!” Cinnamon Bun cried, furiously scrubbing at her eyes. “She was- she was so sad and so hungry, but someone took her tummy out, see this line?” She pointed to a detail on the magazine’s cover that Mitten hadn’t noticed before- a barely visible scar that ran down the length of Painting’s stomach.

“And then,” she choked, “one night, she tried to eat. She tried a lot, but she kept having to run to throw it all up, over and over until she…”

“Until she died,” Mitten finished for her. “I… CB, I’m so sorry you had to see that, kid.”

Cinnamon Bun buried her tiny face in Mitten’s shoulder, and he held her closer than ever before. He didn’t know what to do or say- what’s a kid like him supposed to do in a situation like this?

“It wasn’t fair,” Cinnamon Bun whimpered. “She brought me to life, but she was so sad, and I couldn’t do anything to help.”

Mitten rubbed up and down Cinnamon Bun’s back. “Well… uh, wherever she is now, she’s in a better place,” he stumbled over his words, not entirely believing himself but needing to soothe his patchwork friend.

“It’s ok, CB. You’re okay.”

Oodle cast a small spell to light the kindling he'd prepared. The glowing, wavering heat illuminated the patch of forest he'd run to in what was, admittedly, a desperate, avoidant moment of weakness. The night was cold, even through the hoodie Oodle had stuffed himself into and the flame now flickering softly in front of him.

He hadn't lit it to keep himself warm.

At his side, Oodle produced a cardboard box, dented from being sat on and thrown around. Inside was all that was left of his life as Painting Tunic-Carpenter. He ripped open the tape that sealed it shut with a claw he didn't bother to disguise, grabbing something at random- a ratted pair of leggings that were far, far too small for him now- and cast them into the flame.

More clothes, shoes, bottles of medicine for both weight loss and to take his mind off of the horrid reality of what he'd been through- all of it went into the fire, even the cardboard box itself when everything else had been burnt to a crisp.

If only he could burn his own memories- erase the knowledge of who he'd become in the aftermath of the worst years he'd spent in this dimension.

Alas, his mind remains intact.

Chapter Text

A significant amount of time ago- not yesterday, not history, but just long enough that the memory is blurred around the edges- there was a little girl named Taquita. Her parents had just divorced, and so her mother took her away to a scary new country that nobody could decide on a name for. King-land (or, as her mother called it, England, or something like that, but Taquita preferred her name better, because here there was a king and not an Eng in sight) was always cold, and dreary, and rainy, but maybe that’s because she was always sad here and she read in a book somewhere that thoughts can change the weather.

Taquita was a quick learner, and quickly she learned that in order to live in King-land England, she had to leave herself behind in Inanimate Isles, her old home before this one. Far, far away, the silly carefree version of Taquita was still playing with her friends and pretending to be dinosaurs on the soccer field, but here they called it Football and the newer, gloomier version of Taquita had no friends to speak of.

She missed her friends. She missed them terribly. She wrote them letters, wasting her poor mother’s computer paper, but had no idea how to send them, so she stuffed them all in a box under her bed and left them to collect layers and layers of dust.

Taquita- or, Taco, as she now preferred to be called- grew up sad and cold and lonely and dead in the heart just like those dinosaurs she pretended to be all those years ago. She still played pretend, still masqueraded as something long gone, but instead of a giant, fearsome lizard, Taco taught herself how to pretend to be normal.

It stung. It was exhausting, and Taco knew she couldn’t keep it up forever.

There had to be something wrong with her, right? All the other children her age played their roles effortlessly, leaving Taco behind to scramble and struggle in the endless race of day-to-day life. She had people she knew, but none she would even think about considering a friend. Lying soon became a second nature to Taco. It was far easier to pretend to be amiable than to say how she truly felt and turn the classroom into a battlefield.

War broke out the day before summer.

After years and years of hiding herself, Taco- the real Taco, the crazy-eyed, metal-mouthed, weird-kid-on-the-soccer-field Taco revealed herself in all her terrible glory during her secondary school graduation.

She had no doubt that all her former classmates hated her now. They had good reason to. Taco surely would have hated herself, too, if it hadn’t felt so freeing. It was as if her meticulous, world-weary disguise had shattered and exploded, engulfing the dull grey hues of her life in a kaleidoscopic exhale she hadn’t been aware she was holding in.

However, at the end of every exhale comes an inhale- unless, of course, the breathing individual is dead. The happiest English summer of Taco’s life had begun to curl into itself, the days slowly but surely counting down to back-to-school, and died, eaten alive in the very same moment Taco’s mother got speared through the chest in the front seat of her car.

Her father had whisked her away back to America after that. She’s home now, Taco reminds herself some days. But her home isn’t home without her mother.

“Eugh,” Taco groaned, pawing at eyes freshly dampened with tears.

Pickle, next to her on the couch, couldn’t help but breathe out a wet laugh. “Are you crying? I didn’t think the movie was that sad!”

“You’re tearing up too!” Taco shouted, elbowing Pickle in the shoulder, which only made him laugh louder. Whether the dewdrops of liquid in the corners of his eyes were from his giggles, the sad movie the two of them had just finished watching, or his tendency to cry whenever anyone else around him was upset, Taco had no idea.

With a groan, she peeled herself up off of the couch. “E-excuse me, I need to go change my bandage. Cried all over it- which was a REASONABLE REACTION, mind you!”

Pickle only laughed harder as she excused herself to the bathroom. She knew how to change her bandage, of course she did, the doctors had told her and even if they hadn’t she would have been able to figure it out herself because she isn’t stupid. Slowly, facing the large bathroom mirror, she peeled the thin layer of protection off of her eye, and-

And…

Reality had to have… glitched, a bit?

The bandage was off now, a glossy wetness moistening her skin in the afterimage of it, but half of Taco’s vision remained blank and blurred around the edges like a hazy photograph or ancient, fossilized history.

She blinked. Waved her hand in front of her face, as if addressing someone, but her eyesight stubbornly refused to return.

The doctors hadn’t warned her about that. Taco’s face scrunched up as if she’d just tasted something sour. Vines constricted around her throat as she watched herself crumple, a choked, delicate sob escaping her strangled neck when her knees hit the tiled floor.

Pickle, having surely heard the thud of Taco’s collapse, called out her name in worry. She was too petrified to answer, or maybe she didn’t hear him at all over the swell of blood in her ears thumping a discordant rhythm and the noise of her mouth muttering “I can’t see, I can’t see,” over and over like a funeral prayer. She was barely cognizant of the bathroom door opening and even less aware of Pickle scooping her up into his arms so that she was seated on his lap like a little kid.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, her own hands cradling her empty, broken face, all of her sight now entirely obscured. A shaking breath (inhale, breathe, exhale, die) drew her back down to Earth, to the warmth of being held by caring arms, and she just couldn’t help but mumble, “Mum?”

Taco’s mother- now dead, deep in the ground in a box somewhere- did not respond.

“Are you okay? What- what happened?” Pickle asked instead, and his voice only made Taco want to cry harder. So concerned, looking at her and not through her like those fake faces back in England, so loving and caring and kind- She could never bring herself to lie to him. Not him. Never him, no matter how badly it stung to bare her soul and admit the truth after years of using lies as a shield.

“I can’t see,” Taco sputtered, clinging to Pickle as if he was the only thing on Earth capable of keeping her alive. “My eye- the, the doctors said I…”

Taco trailed off as Pickle gently herded her hands away from her face with his palm. Instead of wincing at her nasty new scar or the stitches that trailed down her forehead, he used his thumb to wipe Taco’s tears away.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Pickle reassured her, both hands now cupping her face as if she was something precious. Taco shakily reached up to hold his wrists.

She took a deep, rattling breath, before the air escaped her in a miserable laugh. “It sure feels like it.”

Pickle stared into her eyes for a long moment before he sighed, bonking his forehead against hers.

“Taco, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, sincere.

Taco felt as if she could have fallen apart right then and there. Her heart ached, throat burnt with unshed tears, as she choked, “S- you’re sorry for what?”

Pickle’s response was immediate. “Everything.”

“Don’t be.”

“How can I not be?” Now it was Pickle’s turn to start crying. “You’re- everything is so horrible for you right now, and I- just- I don’t know how to help you. I- I feel so useless, like nothing I’m doing is making you any better, and I want you to be better, you don’t deserve to be going through any of this-”

“Pickle,” Taco interrupted.

After a beat of silence, two beats, three, Pickle hoarsely whispered, “yeah?”

Taco dragged her hands down the length of Pickle’s arms, curling them around his back before she leaned to press her face into the crook of his neck.

“I missed you so much.”

A significant amount of time ago, not yesterday, not history, but just long enough to tell a story, a silver-tongued girl who called herself Taco found herself home at last, and her heart kept beating even after the end of the world.