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Spoke keeps his head down as he steps through the pulsing purple of the portal, as his vision swirls nauseatingly and he steps out. The floor is cold and gray against the gaze he keeps anchored on the ground. He does not look up at Jamato. He does not look at his surroundings. He counts the cracks between tiles as his tail drags along the ground, as his arms cross and his nails find the soft skin beneath his hoodie. He feels cold and empty without his chestplate, like a part of him is gone, like his friendship with Jamato is really done, really gone.
It has been gone for a while, he knows this. It just feels… final. Like the end of Spoke. The end of his name in everyone’s minds as anything but a villain, but an infection on the server, a scourge on everything he had tried to save. Not like anyone would know. But now they never will. Now his past really means nothing, lying broken on the ground, fading memories in the dull red trims on Alt, kicked aside by Mapicc as he levels a blade at Spoke’s heart, as his anger pierces through Spoke more deeply than any blade.
He was never able to escape his past.
Jamato walks behind him for a bit. He never prods Spoke forwards like the guards that soon replace him. It is almost like he is worried that merely touching Spoke will contaminate him, like Spoke is a patient sick with a deadly disease. He walks away from him quickly, like he is glad to be out of Spoke’s presence as soon as he says something to someone other than Spoke. Spoke bites his lip to stop tears from forming. He’s better than this. Better at hiding this stupid, scared child inside of him that is quick to come out at any sign of trouble, any sign of yelling, any sign of being disliked. He’s used to it, used to it. But it seems like the maze broke something more than his chestplate. Dimly, as four pairs of feet come to poke and prod him along the corridor, he wonders what Parrot, Flame and Wemmbu are doing. He wonders if they’ll figure out he’s gone. If they’ll come searching.
But they won’t. Spoke’s always been the one who needed to include himself. It’s why he’s the perfect prisoner, already an outcast, already disliked. The perfect scapegoat.
Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe he was never fit to be a hero or anyone at all. Maybe he was meant to greet the void with open arms when it called to him under bedrock, when purple spirals had reached out and whispered to him that it was pointless to try to be anything other than what people told you you were.
Because once they saw you as someone, it was so difficult to change their views.
And maybe Ash had really truly been right in telling him that they were alike. Maybe he had seen this evil, twisting darkness that has begun worming its way from his heart down to his arms. The cracks that itch and tear his skin. And maybe it was just meant to happen, Spoke falling into Ash’s footsteps half consciously. Because you couldn’t outrun fate. Oedipus had showed this. Sisyphus had showed this. So maybe Spoke was something meant to be hated, the monster for the unlikely heroes to team up together to kill. Maybe that’s just the unlucky truth.
He’s pulled out his thoughts by a lengthy sigh, all too familiar. He can’t help it when he perks up, looking up to see Mapicc, his… friend? Yeah, his best friend, staring through the metal bars. He ignores the way Mapicc does not look at him, only to the Null players standing around Spoke.
“Really? Is this some kind of punishment? We’re not–” Mapicc spares Spoke a glance and then curls his lip in disgust, red eyes shooting daggers at him for a moment. Spoke feels himself shrink beneath the gaze. This is new. He hates this. “We’re not doing this.”
The Null players do not say anything. They open the iron door, shove Spoke in, shut it and leave. Spoke considers his options. What was Jamato’s plan? Ruin their friendship? So why did he put Mapicc and Spoke in the same cell if it was still salvageable? Spoke just needed to explain, just needed to explain and he would have Mapicc again and everything would be okay and they would be all good and they could escape together and save the server and it would be great! It would be good!
Mapicc is still staring at Spoke with that look, hurt and anger twisting in his narrowed red eyes, his tail lashing behind him in barely contained rage, with feelings that Mapicc was currently keeping down.
“Mapicc,” Spoke says, breathless, voice slightly raspy from unshed tears, desperation, and stubborn lack of use. He steps forward on legs wobbly like a newborn foal, arms outstretching slightly. “Mapicc please listen to me, I can explain everything you just have to-”
Spoke is cut off as Mapicc raises one hand and slaps him across the face. Spoke’s words cut off with a choked gasp as he stares at the floor, shocked, head turned, words piling up in the back of his throat until he wants to vomit. He raises one trembling hand to tentatively touch his stinging cheek, sure that if he brings his hand back it will be red with blood. It isn’t, but it hurts like it is.
He slowly brings his gaze to his best friend who is panting, teeth bared in a snarl, fingers curled into fists. “Don’t fucking touch me, Spoke. Don’t act like we’re all okay.”
Spoke flinches at the tone, mouth shutting with a snap, before he is opening it again, forcing out an, “I’m sorry,” that feels all too childish and pathetic, trembling like the last leaf on the branch of a tree, autumn wind threatening to send it swirling down to join its dead companions, a graveyard of brown, orange and red.
“Oh, you’re sorry? Sorry? Now? Of course you are, after your whole plan has been ruined! Do you only apologize when things are going wrong for you? Did you ever care about my feelings? About Jumper’s feelings?” Mapicc’s tail lashes against the stone with a scrape.
“I-”
“What. What, Spoke? What could you possibly say to me to make me believe you? After everything you kept from us. From me.” His voice cracks on the last word and the demon clears his throat stubbornly, crossing his arms and lowering his chin.
And Spoke feels a rising sense of panic, of weightless nothingness, of horror and guilt and hatred and everything, all compiling and squeezing his lungs and constricting his airways and making him feel dizzy, dizzy, woozy, and his heart doesn’t feel like it’s beating as he realizes that there is nothing he can say to fix this, that the boy who cried wolf is going to die for telling lies. That he is going to die alone, ripped apart bloody, screaming for help that will never come because he’s self-sabotaged and he can’t come back from this. He can’t come back from this.
He tries to recover, tries to half-heartedly pick himself up off the ground.
“I didn’t send Null after you,” he murmurs. “I’m not their leader.”
“It was really awfully convenient for them to show up and save you though.”
“They didn’t-” he starts, too sharp and biting before he catches himself, softening his words, polishing them until they have rounded edges. Because Mapicc may hate– because he’s not going to yell at Mapicc. He’s not. “They didn’t save me.”
Mapicc gives a disbelieving snort. Spoke thinks for a moment that their circumstances are like when Spoke came to save Mapicc from the Invis Mafia, like how he and Planet and Leo had snuck their way in, how Mapicc had flinched back and tried to hide it under bored annoyance, how the only thing that alerted Mapicc of their identity was Spoke’s stupid George Jr.
Except this cell doesn’t have a pit of lava to jump in in the corner and Spoke doesn’t have his fish, he doesn’t have anything but the clothes on his back and his claws digging into his arms and his teeth biting into his lip and the self-hatred bubbling up in his stomach, and Mapicc hates and fears him as much as he hated and feared Spoke when he was invisible because he thought he was part of the Mafia.
Except Spoke is visible and Mapicc still can’t see him.
Spoke tries to think of what else to say. Mapicc, I care about you. Mapicc you are everything. Mapicc I’m not me without you. Mapicc please don’t leave me. Mapicc please acknowledge me. Please say you care.
He settles for, “Why would I put myself in a cell if I was the leader of Null?” Why would I ever hurt you, Mapicc?
“How do I know!” Mapicc’s scowl deepens, answering both of Spoke’s questions with four words. Four words that strike Spoke in the gut and twist. He has to remember to breathe again. Mapicc thinks this is still a manipulation ploy. Mapicc thinks that Spoke has been using him this entire time, like Spoke wouldn’t destroy the entire world and then himself without him, like he doesn’t know Spoke is not whole without him.
Boy who cried wolf.
His knees give out underneath him, sending him to the floor. He tries to reach out, to grasp Mapicc’s legs but Mapicc doesn’t want to be touched, doesn’t want anything to do with him. Spoke never realized how badly the consequences for his actions could be until it took Mapicc away from him. Because even a step away from Mapicc, arms up and fingers folded, begging, praying as if to a god, Mapicc still feels so very far away.
“Mapicc please, please, please, please, please.” He is the definition of humiliation, but he does it for Mapicc, he jokes for Mapicc, he lives for Mapicc, and if begging and pleading and practically groveling at his ex-best friend’s feet will get him to consider an apology or at the very least to hear Spoke out, Spoke will do this.
“Please listen to me when I say that I did it to keep you safe. I did it to keep you and Jumper safe and I know that it was bad and I know that it will take a while to forgive me and that– that’s okay! I just need to know that you won’t–” he slips up, fumbles his words. Can’t put them into the air, can’t open up that far, doesn’t think he can say that. He pushes past his discomfort, shrugs off the tears, the hitching in his chest building up.
“Please don’t leave me. I can’t– I did everything for you, all this for you. I care, Mapicc, I really, really, really care. Please let me show that that’s true.” He feels like he’s blabbering, saying nonsense, speaking in a different language with the way Mapicc looks at him, brow furrowed, arms still crossed. He feels like his grasp on the situation is slipping, has been slipping, like fingers on the edge of a cliff holding the weight of the rest of the body, scraping bloody on rough stone.
He’s not cut out for this. He’s really not cut out for this.
Mapicc tenses. “If this is your care I don’t want it.”
And Spoke’s hands slip, his fingers give up and he’s falling. He’s falling and falling’s the worst part, everyone knows this, Mapicc knows this and he promised Spoke he would always be there to catch him but there’s no Mapicc on the ground with arms outstretched. There’s just a road and a car and a deer, and Spoke might be that deer, he might be the roadkill rotting in the hot sun, he might be the screeching tires and Mapicc might be the artificial star of the car headlights. He can’t be the car because the car kills the deer.
Spoke slumps as Mapicc turns his back, emphasizing the finality, the doneness of the conversation. Spoke slumps because he knows that he’s lost. That no one will be able to understand him, no one will understand why he did everything he did, why he hurt himself to keep them safe because to them, to them it didn’t feel like being kept safe. It didn’t feel like concern and care, it just felt like a cage, like manipulation. And Spoke hadn’t realized it until it was too late. Hadn’t thought that maybe some people didn’t want to be saved, that maybe some people didn’t think like him. He wanted to be saved. Spoke wanted to be saved. But who wants to save the old show horse with knobbly, scraped knees from a bad fall. Who wants to save something that’s lost its purpose?
No point in caring for something that’s broken beyond use.
Most of all, Spoke wants to be understood. As he pathetically drags his aching, itching body over the opposite corner, as he curls up with his back pressed to the wall, watching Mapicc sit with his back facing Spoke, Spoke thinks that if he was better, better with words, a better person, better with anything at all, he could have saved this. Could have used this as an opportunity to tell Mapicc and Jumper all the things he had saved them from that they hadn’t even known. Maybe he was included in that. Spoke wanted to be known by anyone, because he didn’t understand himself, the shifting, present, speeding, anxious thoughts in his head that sunk dog teeth into his skull. Thought that maybe they could help him piece together the broken puzzles of his mind and heart into one. Thought that they might say, we understand Spoke, thank you for protecting us, for caring.
He would take even a, what you did was wrong but we will forgive you for it. Because that’s what friends did, right? They forgave each other? Spoke didn’t know. He didn’t know the half of friends and what it meant to be one. He was good at making them but not very good at keeping them. No one wanted to stay long enough to get past what looked like blatant disregard for self and the people around him, for what looked like the inability to take things seriously, to get past the prickly snappiness that came with being too vulnerable sometimes. And he had thought that maybe some people just weren’t meant to be understood.
But gods, it had always hurt to be just a page in someone else’s book. To never be known so deeply. And it had hurt to be known deeply too, so much so that he had kept it hidden, bottled down right next to all the times he had been called annoying and too much and not worth the time. Mapicc had seen a lot but he hadn’t seen everything because Spoke had assumed that he hadn’t wanted to see everything, that he would lose the only friendship he valued above anything else.
And now they’re on opposite sides of the small cell, years apart, years of footsteps between them, in the stale awkward tension between them, in the silent way Mapicc had told him that he wanted Spoke as far away from him as possible. Just like Jamato.
And now Spoke had thrown everything away, everything, his heart on the floor oozing blood between them and Mapicc had looked at it, scoffed and walked away. All of Spoke’s progress down the drain in a matter of minutes. He was apparently really good at messing things up. He was learning a lot about himself, huh.
But whatever Mapicc wants, Mapicc gets. Because it hurts Spoke but Mapicc means more to Spoke than Spoke’s own feelings. He’ll do this for him even if it hurts.
His swirling torrent of tormenting thoughts comes to a halt as Spoke makes a final, awful conclusion. Jamato put them in the same cell for the same reason that he sent Mapicc after Spoke in the maze. Because he knows that this will hurt Spoke more than death ever will. That this is Spoke’s own personal hell, hated by the one person that Spoke had given everything to. Hated by the whole universe in the one demon in red hoodie across the room.
There is no salvaging this friendship. Jamato knew this, knew Spoke in his hopeful naivety would think there was a possible chance. Knew that the second death of Spoke would hurt more than the first one. Knew that this, all this, was the actual ending to Spoke.
Not a loud, server ending death but a quick argument.
Spoke curls his claws into his pants, feels the sharp scrape of nails against his legs. He was known, wasn’t he? But it was by Jamato, the very person who wanted Spoke to suffer. Spoke just wanted someone to tell him he was a good person and to console him while he cried. Was that so much to ask for? Was it so much to want to be wanted?
This time, Spoke is too tired to stop himself from crying. He lets the tears fall, numbly staring at the droplets on the sleeves of his hoodie, numbly feels them trickle warms down his face. He chokes down a loud sob, feels pain build in the back of his throat, his shoulders shaking with the effort. Mapicc is just going to see this as performative, as crocodile tears from a known liar.
That’s all everyone knows him as. That’s all he’s boiled down to always. Maybe he does deserve all that Jamato says is coming. Maybe he deserves to be alone when truth to him doesn’t come easily. Maybe that’s all he is. A villain, a liar, a bad friend.
His tears aren’t content with coming down, no, he’s reached the point where he hasn’t cried for so long that his body needs to let everything out loudly. His muffled shaking comes out as a small pitiful whine, He squeezes his eyes shut, presses his hands over his mouth as he hears Mapicc shuffle and move from across the room. A small, rebellious part of him hopes that Mapicc will come over, that he will wipe Spoke’s tears like he used to in the past, whisper how much he cares about Spoke while he brings Spoke into his chest and soothes him with a hand in his hair. Maybe he’ll hold him through the ugly tears until Spoke falls asleep. Maybe they’ll wake up together, warm and okay even in the cell because they’ve been in worse situations but always got through them because they were together.
But Mapicc just scoffs and doesn’t move from his corner. Doesn’t say anything as the dam bursts and Spoke sobs like a child, burying his head in the crook of his arms until all he can see is inky blackness, heart beating weird and irregular in his chest, tears threatening to drown him.
His tail curls around himself, an attempt at self-comfort but Spoke doesn’t know how to comfort himself, only knows how to ignore and run away and self-sabotage. Only knows how to hurt and suppress and ruin things.
Spoke buries his head deeper in the darkness between his legs and arms, wraps his tail closer around his body so cold, so cold because Mapicc is his warmth, his fire, imagines Mapicc’s tail curling around his, selfishly imagines Mapicc by his side and thinks that he has lost everything. Everything. All of the items in his ender chest, his dignity, his legacy gone. Most importantly, he’s lost himself, lost his beating heart because it’s not in his chest its in Mapicc’s and Mapicc wants nothing to do with him, thinks Spoke a monster, thinks Spoke a villain. The very thing he had spent days convincing Spoke that he wasn’t.
And Spoke breathes out shakily, sniffles again and entertains the thought of throwing himself into the void, of falling into a warm hug as it steals all the oxygen in his lungs, as he drowns, dies in the inky blackness he was born in, as no one mourns his death message, no one even notices.
Maybe it would have been better if he had listened to it. Maybe Mapicc would be better off with him dead. Mapicc knows that Spoke would do anything for him if he asked, that he would give him the world or burn it down in a heartbeat. Or at least he’s supposed to know this. But maybe Mapicc doesn’t know what he wants, but Spoke knows what’s best.
And if that just happens to be jumping into the void… well…
Maybe that’s the only thing Spoke does right in his life.
Maybe this is how he saves Mapicc.