Work Text:
Dappled patches of sunlight reflected off his screen, giving him an even worse headache than he already had. Cobs was still ranting to someone on the phone, having let go of his hand to angrily gesture at something the receiver couldn't see.
MePhone4 brushed his fingers on his tattered suit to get off the lingering grossness and turned around. The cliff was still there. Automatically, his head flooded with nostalgia that tasted like both laughter and violent crying. It held another, much worse undertone too.
He'd spent years trying to forget about Meeple's bleached hallways. He refused to go back now.
Do it. Before you change your mind.
Even the thought made him ill, but there was nothing else left. Or really, nothing he thought he could last even a day dealing with.
He made a quick dart for the cliff's edge, mumbling some nonsense to ground himself. He screwed his eyes shut and let himself fall forward.
A warmly human (coldly firm) hand seized him and threw him back onto the grass. MePhone4 instantly shut his eyes. Cobs had his cellphone on mute and at arm's length, staring down at him with genuine horror puncturing his anger.
"What is wrong with you?" Cobs paused, leaving space for an answer, and kept his voice raised after he didn't get one. "Did- I- Honestly. Honestly, do you wanna know something that just drives me mad?" He flicked his cellphone off, which MePhone4 knew by now was a warning sign.
"You, Four, have never had to work for anything in your life. It's just WILD! Day after day I barely ask anything of you, and yet you still find ways to whine about it like work isn't something every single person on the PLANET has to deal with." Cobs leaned down to snap in his face until he opened his eyes. "And still- and still- you go to such incredible lengths to avoid responsibility, like jumping off a cliff at the brief mention of having to leave your little fantasy gameshow. How is that fair to me?"
MePhone4 limply shrugged in response.
"I know!" Cobs laughed. "It isn't! Ugh..." He paused to rub the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm exhausted. And I'm sure you are too, huh? So, please. I promise things will be okay."
How long ago was it that he would have killed to hear those words?
"I'm not gonna fight you on this. I won't yell or anything. Let's just go back home." Cobs offered him a hand, shifting to block the cliff from view.
Home.
"Home".
"HOME", HE CALLED IT.
MePhone4 slammed the door shut behind him, his breathing raggedy and pixelated. The closet was dim, and for that he was grateful, because he knew exactly where he was. He didn't want to look at a corpse.
He slid into a sit against the wall and buried his face in his arms. The main point here was to not look insane when he walked back.
"Oh, jeez... No, no, come on, relax..." he whispered.
"What do you need to relax for?"
MePhone4's head shot up. "Who's there?"
Two green, rectangular eyes blinked open in the darkness to regard him curiously. "Hey there, kiddo."
Slowly, he got to his feet and stepped a bit closer to the source of light. It was a boxy computer. In all his memory, from when he first woke up to present day, he could never recall Cobs wanting to associate with something so old-fashioned.
"Wow, you don't look much different than my friend over there," Mecintosh mused, gesturing to the rusted robot in the corner with a flick of his eyes.
"Your 'friend'? Did... you two know each other...?" MePhone4 asked, his voice still cracking.
"Oh, heavens no. He, or, uh... assuming they were a 'he'... came much after I did. I just call him my friend because I don't really have anyone else in here. Comedic, right?"
"That's horrible."
"Yeah, it isn't wonderful. You know, I think I've seen you before." Mecintosh raised his screen brightness to illuminate MePhone4's awkward expression a bit better. "However many years ago it was. You came in here once and left me behind."
"I didn't see you," he apologized.
"I never said you did."
MePhone4 hesitated for a moment. "I- uh... I have a question."
"Spit it out, then."
"How do you deal with it?" The dam broke and MePhone4 was suddenly crying full-force. "I- I just, the- everything is so- I screwed up everything, and everyone- they all- they're all gone and I don't know how long it'll be before-"
"Before you're a computer coated in dust stuck in a storage closet?" Mecintosh grinned humorlessly. "Pick yourself up. You look helpless."
"I KNOW!" he screamed, hitting his fist on the shelf below. "I HATE IT! WHY ARE YOU SO CALM? HOW DO YOU DO THAT? HOW DO YOU NOT HATE YOUR LIFE?"
"I think some people cope with hating their lives a little differently than others." Mecintosh was suddenly speaking through gritted teeth, drawing out certain words. It reminded him of Cobs, but maybe Mecintosh was also just generally angry. "I have been unable to move myself a single inch forward for a ridiculous period of time. You want to know how I cope with that? I love to dream. Dream up so many different realities where I'm not stuck in a claustrophobic nightmare. Maybe I live in a cabin? Or in an open-roof house set under the stars? So many places are better than right where I am.
"So, MePhone-whatever-number-he's-at-by-now, what kind of perfect little impossible reality would you like to be in? Cobs took away my freedom to live, and I'll guess he did that to you too from the state of you. But he still gave us the ability to think, just so that we have the means to suffer through every second. Might as well use it."
MePhone4 kept his eyes on the floor, still fighting to keep his face dry. "I definitely have a reality tha- hic that I'd like to live in."
"Yikes. Ugly crier, huh? Anyways, tell me about it. I'd enjoy a story." He smiled as genuinely as his 8-bit face allowed. "And... wanna help get some of this dust off?"
He took him off the shelf and hugged him close while brushing the top of his head clean. Oddly enough, Mecintosh didn't ask him to cut the contact. He just let him talk. While he couldn't understand half of what MePhone4 was saying, it seemed to do a nice deal of relaxation for both of them.
"You seem to have this very thought out," Mecintosh interjected.
MePhone4 frowned. "Don't interrupt me while I'm talking about my gameshow, please."
"But it's all imaginary, right?"
"...Yeah." He set him back on the shelf and wrung his hands together. "I still feel really, uh... sick. But thanks."
"I don't blame you. Thank you for telling me some halfway decent fiction for once in my life. I mean, it could use some reshaping plot-wise, but still okay-ish."
"Yeah, not my best work." MePhone4 strained his already aching brain to generate a notepad and pencil into his hands. "I think I did much better with season three. Uh, do you want to see the..." Characters? People? Dead people? "...contestants?"
"Season three? You never even mentioned a season two. Learn how to count, kid."
"I can count," he muttered while continuing to draw them anyways.
Greetings and salutations! I'm your ____, MePhone4, and this is Inanimate Insanity! REMASTERED