Chapter Text
They still had a lot to talk about.
This wasn't surprising. MePhone4 had weeks worth of questions. Meanwhile, 3GS hadn't talked to anyone but Mecintosh for almost a decade, and X was still just getting used to being able to convey at all.
And, of course, MePad had done a lot of things he wasn't counting on anyone remembering. He took solace in the fact he hadn't gone completely off the rails, which he absolutely could have if he'd continued to live a day without consequences.
He still had fallen out of a tree. He felt fairly foolish for that one. (A lot of the things he'd done, he at least thought they were necessary. That was just clumsy.)
Test Tube, having apparently gotten the memo that he was awake, had come in with her own questions.
"Can you feel your legs?" for instance. "Since when can you receive texts?" was another.
MePhone4 sat in the uncomfortable-looking visitor's chair, swinging between making insensitive jokes (at MePad's expense, he wasn't thrilled about this but didn't feel like he had much room to object) and asking surprisingly pertinent questions about his health.
X loomed over Test Tube's shoulder peering down at her clipboard intently.
3GS was still under the bed. Presumably.
Currently, she was explaining some of the improvements she'd made, while he was under. "-which should make you less prone to water damage, but-"
"Hey, don't give him any ideas!" MePhone smiled, as though this was a simple quip. The distinct edge of panic in his voice-
Understandable. "I promise you both, I have no intention to throw myself into a body of water again anytime soon."
"Ever." MePhone corrected.
Well, yes, optimally, but, "It is the least painful way to die, once I get to the end of my lifespan-"
MePhoneX started shaking his hand no, and he did not stop doing this.
"If you start talking like that again, I'll kill you." Another insensitive joke. But, one that gave him pause.
"I want to live." MePad clarified, carefully watching MePhone's expression. The way it wobbled. (The way it was ever-so-slightly distorted by the cracks that now decorated his screen.) He hadn't said this part out loud, had he? He wasn't seeking the cloying feeling of the dream. "I want to learn, and watch others grow in kind. I am not ready for death."
"Good." It was one word, but his voice cracked. MePhone cleared his throat, turning back to Test Tube with a fake smile. "So it won't, uh, kill him to let Toilet in here?"
"I did try to make him tearful-reunion-proof." She rolled her eyes. "Give me a little credit, I was there, too."
"Oh, it was worse at MeCloud!" 3GS piped up, seemingingly startling Test Tube. She may not have been aware he was under there.
She cleared her throat, a mirror of what MePhone had done just a moment before. Sometimes, the fact he'd made them all made a lot of sense. "Yes, well, no more vigorious exercise, you may not teleport more than once every hour, and don't push it or I'll make it stricter. Now I'm leaving before the waterworks start."
"Does that mean once an hour is arbitrary?" MePad asked as she hung her clipboard at the foot of his bed and turned to leave.
"Hour and a half." She called over her shoulder, closed the door behind her, and was gone.
X (now no longer looming) wandered over to the clipboard, picking it up and flipping through it. He wondered if he should be concerned about X learning his medical information. Probably not?
Her suggestions as his 'doctor' aside. "I feel as though I may be missing some context. You said, worse at MeCloud?"
A thumbs up came from under the bed. "Your companion was very distraught upon remembering everything! Mecintosh only managed to calm him with the reminder that crying is futile, loud, and can get you killed in the field!"
That didn't sound exactly like how Mecintosh would phrase it. But, more importantly, "Mister Toilet was witness to… Several… Unfortunate-"
"Regretting cliff jumping, yet?" MePhone examining his fingernails, feigning disinterest.
He, personally, had been thinking more of the time MePad had been suddenly pushed into the lake and drowned. (He saw, out of the corner of his eye, X flinch. Then, he looked to the door. MePad would have to tell him he didn't blame him for that.)
But, MePhone lived in a glass house. "Yes, I should not have done that, but I do not feel like you of all people have much room to speak on the specific topic of-"
MePad's very accurate retort was cut off by the sound of something slamming full force into the door. Everyone paused for a moment.
X walked over and opened the door, revealing Toilet, dazed. MePad sat up a little straighter, to try and get a better view. "Are you alright?"
He shook himself, got up, and lunged for MePad's bed. "I should be asking YOU that!" The only thing that stopped Toilet from slamming into MePad with just as much force as he'd used on the door was X, who'd clearly picked up on what was about to happen and wrapped his arms around his base. He held him back as Toilet strained to het to him.
"Careful!" MePhone called out, holding his arms up. "Don't make Test Tube fix him again."
Toilet sagged in X's hold, suddenly bursting into tears. He wailed an approximation of speech that was utterly unintelligible. Okay, MePad understood what they were talking about, now.
"Everything is okay! No one is mad at you, you can come over here." X nodded and started approaching, slowly. He placed him down on the bed, gently. "There you go. We just did not want you to hurt yourse-"
Toilet shook his head, flinging his tears everywhere. "I WAS SO WORRIED! I WAS IN THE CLOSET, AND THEN YOU DIED ALL THOSE TIMES AND I DIDN'T DO ANYTHINGGG!"
MePad reached out with a leg to touch him, which did cause him to physically freeze. "Toilet, you-"
"I'M SO SORRY!!!" He wailed again.
But, at least he'd stopped thrashing, which let MePad pull his friend to lay against him. "You did nothing wrong."
"I KILLED ALL THOSE PEOPLE!" He protested, shaking against him.
Oh, right. Yes, he had done that.
"You're in good company?" MePhone offered. X was waving the clipboard around, seemed to realize that wasn't what he meant to do, and nodded with his other hand.
"Mister Toilet, if we are to be talking about fault-"
"IT WAS A LOT OF PEOPLE!"
"And they are all fine now, are they not?" Right? He felt like someone would've lead with that, if somebody had really died. Other than Cobs. "But, if we are to be talking about fault. Listen to me this time."
He sniffed, but otherwise didn't interrupt.
"You and X followed bad orders, and that was not ideal. The one who issued the orders-"
"Act-!" There was the sound of static, under the bed. "Commanding officer- You are responsible- still counts as a war crime!" 3GS laughed, humorlessly. Or, perhaps, it was crying? (It sounded so similar to the way Toilet was crying.)
"None of you are helping, please stop interrupting me." Everyone stiffened up. X took a couple steps back, then went back to messing with the clipboard.
MePad focused, instead, on his friend. On his solid weight against MePad's corner. (He tried to ignore the slightly uncomfortable angle his leg was at, to embrace him.) "You should not have been given false information. You are a kind hearted, helpful person. You were told that not only was your situation not real, you were lead to believe that you were doing something positive. You never intended to hurt anyone. Right?"
There was silence.
"Sorry, that was a question. Mister Toilet, you may respond. You were not malicious?"
He sniffed again, "I guess…"
"In this situation, we must process what happened as we must, but I implore you to take some of the weight off of your shoulders, and put it on the shoulders of the man who sent you to kill everyone." Who was dead, and MePad hadn't even gotten to see it. He felt a bit strange, at how dissapointing that was. "You may still apologize to people, and they have the right to still not be happy with you, but I do not believe there was anything you could have done differently with the information you had at any given time."
There was another noticable pause as, once again, everyone waited to see if he was done talking. He did explicitly ask for it, but it was a bit odd.
He tapped Toilet, and that seemed to work. "I still feel bad. You had to tell me all those times, and- and you told me things were bad, but I never really put together how bad, and you died and I didn't do anything!"
"That is the thing, Toilet, you did exactly what I asked of you. And I appreciated it greatly. The rest of the blame, thus, can fall on me. I should have figured it out earlier, preventing-"
MePhone stood up, chair clattering to the ground. "MePad."
"What? If I had found the solution in a timely-"
He grabbed one of MePad's sides, his other hand squeezing the bedsheet. "Oh my freaking- MePad! What part of you're not solely responsible for the fates of everyone to the detriment of yourself are you not getting?!"
He better not start shaking him again. "I understand I should not have killed myself so often, as it went against the wellbeing of myself and others in a way that was useless to everyone."
MePhone surprised him by, actually, not shaking him. Instead he flung his arms in the air, fingers flexing, grabbing at nothing. MePhone wooshed around, looking for something. He picked up his chair, putting it back on its feet… And then kicked it over again. "That's it. Everybody, we're putting MePad back into the time loop."
Toilet sat up a little. "What?"
"He didn't learn his lesson! Not everything is MePad's fault! We're putting him in some kind of bubble. X, do we have some kind of big bubble for big stupid-"
"BWOM." He replied, holding up the clipboard. MePhone actually paused, grabbing it, and reading it.
… Should he be concerned about MePhone knowing his medical information?
After a few seconds, MePhone's shoulders slumped and he sighed. "Ugh, your handwrititing is so bad. X says something like, that making bad decisions is a rite of passage for Meeple, and congrats, we're all lucky to have survived."
X tapped the clipboard, gesturing to a specific section.
"I'm not calling him that."
X grabbed it back, crossed something off, wrote something else, and handed it to MePhone, again.
"Okay fine." He read the next part like a child forced to apologize to someone they weren't all that sorry about hitting. "Our creator was a person who also believed he was doing the right thing in progressing technology for our species, so we should do a little reflection sometimes. But X doesn't want you to be sad, because- Oh my god, we're not blaming all of this on you, X."
He held up his clawed hands, shrugging in a way that was very reminicent of-
"It's not your loss!" MePhone shoved the clipboard back into X's hands. "Can't any of you pretend to not be like this?!"
"Like, uhm, what?" Asked Toilet, who had mostly ceased crying (thank goodness.)
When MePhone turned back around, his face was in his hands. "It doesn't matter, just go back to telling MePad you care about him until he internalizes it. I'm going for coffee."
3GS slid out from under the bed. "I should probably also- schedule maintenence- come along. I'll, um." He patted Toilet's top, twice. "Send us a text if you need anything?"
The two of them exited the room, but X kept standing in the exact same spot. He wasn't fidgeting with the clipboard, writing, or adjusting his weight, or… Anything.
MePad got a notification of a text message from X and went to check it.
➡🚪❓ Arrow, door, question mark. "You need no permission to leave, you are allowed to just do so."
He stood still for a beat longer than usual, then turned invisible. The door opened and closed again, so he probably left.
There were a few moments of silence. It was the closest to time to himself since he'd woken up. He was glad everyone cared so much. It felt nice to be liked, to be worried about. But, in a way it was also a bit… Suffocating, to have to withstand conversations he had gotten used to dodging. Or, well, putting off. (He really hadn't expected anyone else to remember, expected that only the last one would matter. This was his penance, perhaps, for that assumption.)
Then, Toilet wiggled. "I'm layin' a bit funny, actually, let me just-"
Oh, right. "Now that you mention it, my leg is starting to cramp."
They both readjusted. Toilet ended up laying down in a way that wasn't so haphazard, and MePad took the opportunity to wipe some of the moisture off his screen and cover them both with the blanket. (He hadn't noticed until now the print. Floral. It was baby pink, and floral.)
Toilet sighed, leaning just a little more weight on MePad's screen. "Sorry I was so, uh…"
Ah, probably apologising for the way he'd come in here. "You saw how much I struggled with everything, I think a few tears are natural, with all that happened."
"I guess…" A deep inhale, and a fast, frustrated exhale. "I was, like- All those times you got hurt, I remembered and I got so scared, and I came down expectin' you to be okay and you weren't and Mister Phone was crying and I was crying and, and-"
"Everything turned out okay." He reminded him, squeezing Toilet just a little tighter to himself.
"I know, but I had all that time to think about if it didn't!" He was crying again. In a calmer way, less shivering, but just as many tears streaking down his face. "You died a lot, and what if it stuck, you know! What if there was no more MePad? And- and I had to think about you never waking up and having to bury you and how- how alone I'd be."
"Oh, Toilet." He'd had those thoughts, a couple times. About if a bad loop stuck. About the guilt, and the consequences. And now, his loved ones got to experience the inverse. "I am very, very sorry you had to seriously consider that."
"I'm not- I don't got friends, or- I really care about you!" He squeezed his eyes shut, nearly whispering the next words. "Don't leave me again."
He hugged Toilet even tighter.
He absolutely could not promise that. He knew he couldn't. Aside from the self-worth issues he apparently had (that were seemingly obvious to everyone but himself, when he actually voiced his thoughts) MePad was an electronic device. Made by Meeple. Who were built to be discarded in less than 5 years. Infamously difficult to repair, built to break. Built to be replaced.
He'd been being realistic, hadn't he? He couldn't promise anyone anything. (And yet, he'd never thought about MePhone that way. And yet, Mecintosh was 40. And yet, in that flood of medical information, Test Tube told him his battery was going, and that she fixed it. And yet, MePad told that little light he'd be here when it came to visit.)
Was he being realistic, or was he just holding himself back? He was alive, wasn't he? No one knew how long they would live, to deny that was unhealthy… But it wasn't healthy to do things this way either.
He hadn't been allowing himself to imagine he could have a future. That he could live in aparment, or study an interest, or-
"Okay." Or spend his life with someone. Wake up every day and know that they were alright. That you were there for each other. That no matter what was happening, you would get through it together. "As long as I have a future, I want to spend it with you."
"You mean it?!" He was still crying. MePad wasn't but, in a way, he now understood. He'd cried over him, too. Over this, and the idea of not having it. "I love you! You're my- You're everything!"
(He'd been so scared, of a world without Toilet. Without this warmth, when he was so open and loving. Without this comfort. Shouldn't he take advantage of the life he had? Shouldn't he cherish their time together?)
What he said was, and he hoped his tone managed to convey his earnestness. "Of course. Toilet, we are a team. I have always been… Really, very glad, ever since we… After that time, in the hot air balloon…"
Where was his ability to find words, now that he wanted to say something really important? Nothing he was coming up with was meaningful enough to convey what he was trying to say.
"I just like being with you?" Not a question. "I care deeply about you. I hope to never lose that. Us. Our partnership."
"Aww, I love you too, buddy!" And yet, he had the perfect words.
"Yes. Thank you." That was right. MePad loved him. Maybe he was supposed to die, but he hadn't, and now he got a chance to really actually live. And, to say, "I love you, Mister Toilet."
"I love you, Mister MePad!"
He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and he laughed. Today was the start of the rest of his life, wasn't it? He was so, so… Happy.