Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I loved you. Before "love" became "loved" — I loved you, always. Then and now, even as I search aimlessly throughout the universe for any trace and any scent of where you could've gone.

Because you're not gone. You can't be.

Infinite universes — infinite possibilities.

We know so little about everything; so much so that those who believe they are enlightened are unwittingly only privy to the tip of the iceberg — the fine hairs of a pudgy waterbear. Reality is the dream of a sleeping god, and one day he will awaken. We are empty fishing lines hooking into the mouths of fish who have long since expired. Everything that is exists only in relation to everything that isn't. I am as much of a hypothetical as you are an idea that's come to fruition.

You are out there. I know you are.

"Foxy, are you even listening to me?"

I blink, tuning back into the frequency in which I exist. Colors fade in, and yet there's no defining shape to them. Not anymore. Not without you to mold them into reality. Everything is dark without you.

And yet, the world carries on as if it weren't the end.

Monty is glowering at me over her sunglasses, and I realize I hadn't been paying attention for the past… however long it's been. "Uh," I find it in myself to stammer, glancing around to collect context. Trees, balmy air, glaring sun, birds chirping. A park. A bench. We're stood by the duck pond. A bag of frozen peas have spawned into my paws without me remembering ever grabbing them. I toss them to the ducks, and everything eats and is eaten. "Yeah, yeah — for sure."

Monty is silent for a beat before hissing out her nose. "You got no idea what I just said, do you?" she remarks bluntly. I can never tell when she's mad or not.

"No, I do. You, uh…" I concentrate on a singular point: a blade of grass warbling in the current of the water, unbidden, directionless, dead yet green as life. "We're talkin' 'bout… uh…"

"The reception. My wedding. Next month," Monty filled in, claw rapping against the shell of her skin.

"OH!" I blurted (maybe a bit too loudly, too, as some of the ducks startle from my bark and flutter halfway across the pond). "Yes, yeah — absolutely! I'd love to, dude!"

I give her my biggest grin, but she doesn't budge, still glowering. She held my gaze for a second longer, and I resisted the urge to study the intricacies of the concrete beneath us. Finally, she sighed, expression falling into something I couldn't quite read as she combed her claws through her hair. "Alright, man — look, Terra and I would love to have you." True. "And I'm sure everyone misses you." False. "I've been wor… I… I mean, it's just that…" Her gaze danced around the park, hands fidgeting as she searched for her next sentence in the trees.

Finally, Monty heaved yet another sigh, face grim as she met my eye with an uncharacteristic amount of gravity. "Even if we haven't spoken for… almost a year at this point, I still consider you one of my best friends. I care about you, and I'm just… worried about you and if you can handle the wedding, because it's almost like, every time I bring it up, you go somewhere else, man."

I snort, because I have to laugh. Why wouldn't I laugh? There's nowhere else to be but here. If I focus hard enough on this one moment, everything else ceases to exist, and you're still somewhere with it all.

"C'mon, man," I dismiss with a cautious levity, batting Monty's shoulder and tossing another handful of peas at the ducks. They flock to their food and continue their cycle — a life so simple and happy that I almost had it once, too. "Yes, I'll be there. I'm happy for you, dude! I wanna be there to support you and y—" My voice punches against my throat, and I have to cough to clear it. I blink, ignoring the way my eye and chest burn. "S-Supportin' you and your w—wife, man — I'm all over it, I'll be there. It'll be fire, man. So cool. So, so cool and sick and fuck as hell and shit, man. I'm so pumped. So psyched. I'll make sure FC behaves, too, if he knows what's best for him. Unless you don't want him there, which I'd understand. I can find a sitter somewhere—"

"Foxy."

"Hm?" I turn my attention back to Monty and grimace at her somber expression.

She doesn't say anything. She simply pats my shoulder, as if to take the weight of the world off of it. It isn't enough. It'll never be enough.

We talk semantics and shoot the breeze, resuming our banter as if nothing in the past year had changed. If I deluded myself enough, it hadn't. By the time the sun was setting, we were already headed for Monty's car, and the drive through town was filled with acid rock and heavy metal. I scream and laugh along and it's almost cathartic.

That night, when it's just me in the guest bedroom, everything else has evaporated. The bed is cold. The ceiling is white. It doesn't smell like you. It never smells like you anymore.

"Be careful," Monty had warned when catching a glimpse of the dimensional capacitor I'd clipped to my wrist, and my gaze falls to where it sits on the dresser across the room. It's hard to sleep most nights when I can feel it pulling on my warped and weathered bones. Don't look at it, I remind myself, squeezing my eyes and turning away. Because if I look at it, I won't stop looking at it. I won't stop searching. I'll be fiddling with the screen. I'll be dialing into something promising. I'll be thinking of you and then I'll be searching for you.

But it's a fickle resistance, isn't it? I'm always thinking of you. I'm always searching for you.

FC is asleep with the other kids, in another house. A sleepover at someplace I hope he finds happiness in. I'll be back before morning, and no one will notice I was gone.

No one ever noticed when I was gone.

Except you.

And I'm always…

I never understood how anyone could get used to it. I'd jumped through countless other universes, and still, that deep-seeded nausea and doom never assuages. And, god — it's only ever worse when I keep finding myself back here. I never mean to come back here. I never mean to stumble into it over and over and over again. The jump should be random, and yet it is baffling how often I stumble into this reality, despite everything.

You'd called it a dying universe.

The air is always a bit chilly here. Dancing, fleeting lights flicker through the air, bowing at the dawn of the end and singing silent dirges for a life that wouldn't be remembered. Bluegrass sprouts up towards the shattered heavens and drink the oxygen of infinity, feeding the vast lake that blankets the field and laps at the feet of dying ruins in the distance.

The opal yggdrasil takes root in the water, reflecting the prospect of everything that is, once was, and will never be. I always wonder how often you must've stood where I stood, staring at it.

And though I've searched this realm a dozen times over, I still linger in the spot your soles once sat despite knowing you aren't here. I still wonder why I always end up here. Is it you? Are you telling me something? Are you speaking to me, and I've just forgotten the sound of your voice?

God, please, don't let me forget your voice. My clothes already no longer smell like you. I don't think I could take losing any more than I already have.

A butterfly comes to rest upon my nose. Its thin legs brush against my sensors and its glittering, ivory wings flutter weightlessly. In the face of something so delicate and holy, I sneezed like a gunshot and propelled my face into my arm so violently that it would've left me bruised, had I been made of flesh and blood. With a sniffle and a groan, I nurse my muzzle and watch as the insect fluttered into a mote of starlight and joined a kaleidoscope with its brothers — a singularity becoming a multitude.

It was always so beautiful. Smelling faintly of coconut and vanilla, with just the right amount of ozone that left my fur crackling with the shock of inevitability. This place reminded me so much of you, in the sense I could never fully comprehend it. My ears would always strain to hear music I wasn't adept to catch. A blind eye trying to see in color. I was always at the cusp of understanding, yet it evaded me — just out of reach enough to where I could taste its citrus on my tongue.

How odd, considering I didn't have a tongue to taste with.

Here I was, a blundering fool groping through a china shop with the lights off, tramping over brittle fragments of divinity with all the gracefulness of a bull. You knew how to guide my hand, and without you, I am senseless. I could almost hear your snickers, the gentle touch of your hand as you swatted my arm and named me for my folly with all the fondness I didn't deserve.

But… no, wait, that couldn't be right. That sound is only— I'm not hearing—

Laughter? Here? Not just a trick of memory or the phantasm of a hallucination.

That sound is here. Your laughter is here. I just heard you laugh here.

I swivel toward the melodic drone of your voice, nearly toppling over on my axis as I face the southern shore of the islet and lose my breath to the world.

Because.

              Because that's.

                                        That's…

You.

That's you. That's you, just as I remembered you. Your starlight eyes, your snowdrift hair, a porcelain mask with rosy cheeks and lilac tear-tracks and lips as soft as poppy petals. Your gaze widens as you meet mine, and time stands still for the briefest of moments because right now, you're here with me, right now, you're alive, right now, you didn't die.

I can hardly stammer out your name before you're turning away and fleeing.

"W— Wait, Puppet!" I scream, bolting across the field as a flutter takes off into the sky in our wake — because why? Why? Why do you evade me? Where are you going?

Foxy…

I snag the tailend wisp of your strings and follow the trail, the ghost of your essence just out of reach yet so inconceivably close, tearing through the multiverse as the dimensional capacitor races to keep up. My feet land harshly in one plane before I'm sprinting to the next, my engine thundering to keep up, to keep you in my sight. You take me Home, you take me Elsewhere, you take me to a place we never got to see, to the birth of a universe, to the death of another, to the pyres of a city in unrest, to the respite of a calamity and the eye of a storm. All of it, a blur of color — the only focus ever being you.

Foxy.

Everything begins and ends with you. Nothing can't exist, because you are Everything. A mosaic of worlds fold before me like patterned fabric, aligning at the seams and flowing into the next without disruption. Your careful, expert hand guides the needle and stitches this World into what it is because the World can't exist without You because You are the World and the World is You — and if You are Everything, then what am I? What am I if you are Everything and the World, and both You and Everything and the World are erased from this plane? What is left? Nothing can't exist, because if You are Everything and Everything ended and I'm still here then that means—

Foxy!

A slip. A stumble. The seam ripper tears into the spaces between the fabric just as the needle sews the thread. I am torn between dimensions before I can jump over the infinitesimal synapse adjoining two universes together, and the world falls away from beneath me.

I'm falling. Somehow, I'm falling.

The dimensional capacitor scalds my wrist, ripping me back to reality. All around me, color sails and merges before a bright, burning light eats it all away. Wind tears through my hair as I hurtle downwards towards some unknown destination. I struggle to draw in breath, and I clutch at the wristwatch teleporter buzzing and humming against my exoskeleton, a cry escaping me as the dimensional capacitor puckers and eats at the rubber skin and singes the fur around it with a hiss.

WARNING! CAPACITOR OVERLOADED! SEEK EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE: FRACTAL DISRUPTION PROBABILITY IMMINENT!

Or, in other words: You fucked up big time, little man.

I have half the mind needed to process the severity of the situation before I am throttled against the very floor of reality. Pain explodes across my spine and I am left sprawling somewhere uncertain. My head spins, and the nausea from usual dimensional hopping is doubled tenfold as I dry heave in some vain attempt to empty a stomach I didn't have. There is the sound of a car hitting a train and thundering across a canyon, leaving my ears ringing from the blast and my vision blurry and indecipherable.

I have no way to know how long I laid there with my head spinning and not-stomach churning. Thoughts crowded and clouded across my mind with no intelligible words, apart from the vague question over my mortality. Am I dead? I pondered through my own delirium. Is this hell? Is this the end of the world? Eventually, though, the floor settled and I regained my senses enough to bring myself back to a sitting position.

The burning on my wrist was now magmatic, and prying at the singed fur and melted casing around the dimensional capacitor only worsened the sting. Everything around me, in all directions, was empty. At first, I thought I was staring directly into the sun, but even the floor beneath me was that same, blinding white that hurt my eye to look at.

Except the sky. When I gaze towards the firmament, I bore witness to an impossible, spider-webbing mosaic of fragmented hues. They alight the heavens in a weaving, undulating display of stained glass that stretches on past the edges of my perception. I have to tear my eye away from the paradoxical sky, my mind throbbing against the shell of my skull as I blink away the spirals of infinity from my consciousness.

I avert my attention to the curdling pain numbing my wrist, and the ache of my being is dragged back to the forefront. Vertigo had yet to fade, and my limbs buzzed with a static that had me clawing at my skin to dig under it. The broiling heat of the capacitor was maddening, but no amount of tearing at the heated metal would peel it from me. It appeared that, in my blind stupidity, I had possibly overdid things a just little and managed to weld the thing to my very endoskeleton. I tapped the cracked screen, watching as the flickering warning signs glitched and stuttered — sometimes displaying messages of doom, other times showcasing the sickening, spider-webbing graphic of the multiverse in an alarming array of crimson.

What did you do? I asked myself, terror finally springing through my daze and leaping up my throat. Foxy, Foxy — What did you do? What have you done? My teeth found the rubber flesh of my paw and bit into it, desperate to tame the swirling tempest arising in my chest and rattling my bones as I began to pace, each step a new agony. Okay, okay, calm down! It's fine! Everything is fine. Just— Just take a look around, assess the situation, and everything will be okay. You'll be okay! Everything will be fine! Everything is…

Movement out of the corner of my eye halted me in my spiral, and my attention flickered towards a lone figure some odd distance away. It was still a bit difficult to see, and I had to squint a little to keep the light from burning, but my perception was slowly adjusting to the blinding nothingness of the world around me. And as soon as I could pick apart the shape at the edge of my vision, all at once, everything felt so distant. All my bodily pain numbed in the face of its own insignificance, and I found myself stumbling disbelievingly towards my Purpose.

Because of course. Of course. Of course it would've been You. Of course you would be someplace I could've never reached, had things not panned out so horrifically unfortunate in this lifetime.

I could hardly believe it. I pause at the halfway point, fearing that if I took another few strides towards you, you would turn out to be an illusion. That you would turn away from me again and flee, far away into someplace unknown and leave me stranded. That you would look at me and hate what you saw.

But it was you. Despite all that had transpired and all it had taken for me to get here — it was still you.

I am running before I even realize it, and I am breathless and feel a thousand miles away even when I'm five feet from you. I can't properly discern what expression you're fixing me with past the fuzziness of my vision, but it scarcely matters because you're here.

At least... I think so?

In that tidal wave of hope, there's that seed of doubt, and that's all it takes for the life to be drained from me. I tremble as I witness you, because at moment, I'll wake up. At any moment, this would've all been a dream.

"Puppet?" I utter, shaken and smothered on all sides by the anxiety of it being a farce.

You don't respond for a moment, and it still isn't enough time for me to get my emotions in check. You tilt your head this way and that, brows creasing in uncertainty and the bridge of your mask scrunching in a way that was so-very you.

Finally, a word is forced past your lips. A word I never thought I'd ever have the privilege of hearing you ever say again: "F… Foxy?"

And I want that to be it. I want that to be all you say so I can race forward and collapse in your arms and sob and scream the countless apologies I still couldn't forgive myself for. I want to feel your warmth again and the silk of your hair. I want to kiss your temples and hear your sputtering giggles. I want, I want, I want, but—

"You're not supposed to be here."

I swallow the lump in my throat and sniffle past the sting in my eye. "P… Puppet, I've…" my voice dies at my tongue, and I cough. "I—I've been looking f-for you, a-and—"

"I know."

"You don't know how f-far I've— I've gone and what I've done and everything that's kept me from finding you b-because—"

"I do."

"I—I'm always just too far b-behind and I'm not smart enough and everyone s-said that I w—w-was j-just grieving terribly and I didn't know what I was doing and that I'm only hurting myself, but— but I knew— I knew if— if I kept going, e-eventually I'd— I'd—"

"Foxy," you say, and with such tenderness that I have no choice but to fall silent. Your face has bled into the blinding white around you, and I have to wipe at my eye to realize only then that I had started to cry. You hold no malice in your tone nor your gaze, only a careful affection and deep sorrow one would give to a sickly dog.

But that's kind of what I've always been, haven't I?

Your hands clench and unclench, twitching ever so slightly at your sides as though you were restraining yourself from moving closer. "I…" you start, eyes foggy with emotion. "You… You can't be here, Foxy."

"…I know," I sigh, twisting at the fabric of my pants to keep myself from springing into your embrace. I give you a tentative glance after scanning our surroundings. "And, um… where— where is here, exactly?"

Your mouth moves, the corners of your mask pulling ever so slightly. And then, finally — finally — I hear that wonderful sound again. A series of lovely, melodic snickers tumble from your grin and I am in heaven. A few strands of pale hair fall past your face as you fight to regain your composure, and I risk taking another few steps towards you. By the time you look up again, I am close enough to touch you. But I know, right now, I can't. I hold onto the hope that at some point I will.

You meet my gaze, and I wonder what you see in it. Whatever it is, it makes you somber, and your eyes become just a bit more misty. "We're… well, Nowhere, really. We're in the space Between. You… fell into the gap between universes and now…"

You shrug, and I want to hold your hand. Instead, I manage a simple, "Oh…"

Your gaze glints ever-so-slightly, and you cock your head to the side, hair spilling over your shoulder in a river of light. "Why did you follow me?" you hush, despite both of us knowing the answer.

"Why did you run?" I counter, and you wince, looking away.

"I… I had to."

"Why?"

"Foxy, I'm not here anymore."

"But you are."

"No, I know, I just mean — I'm not… alive anymore. You're not supposed to find me. I died, and that's it."

"How can you be dead if we're still talking?"

"It's— I— Look, it's so much more complicated than I can explain. We just… can't exist at the same time anymore."

My ears twitch curiously, another blunt and foolish statement on the tip of my tongue, but I wait for you to continue, whether or not I will actually understand. Simply hearing you speak again is enough for me.

"I died, and that was it. We are made of stardust, and we return to the universe when the curtains close. I'm everywhere now. I exist in the wind that brushes through your hair, in the trees when they rustle their leaves, in the dawn of a new spring and the dusk of a bitter autumn. I exist just as memories exist, just as stars exist, just as everything exists everywhere. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Stars don't die, they are reborn. My essence can't be erased; it has to go somewhere — and so it goes everywhere. Well, as far as I'm able to reach, at least. And if I concentrate on one point hard enough, I can see you there. And I'm always seeing you, because, well, I guess I'm just selfish. I love you too much not to be with you."

You speak more enigmatically than you did the last time we spoke, but I suppose it only made sense. As much as you are just how I remembered you to be, you're still changed. Your words are far too heavy for me to properly hold and comprehend as fully as you do. But I wrap my hands around the fact that I am once again present to hear you say "I love you" after a lifetime of fearing I never would.

You lower your head, and I have to keep myself from comforting you. "I suppose it's my fault for putting too much of myself near you, because now… you saw me when you weren't supposed to. You were never supposed to see me, because I don't exist in the same way I used to anymore. But of course, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you're impertinent and stubborn enough to— to defy the law of reality and find something that isn't technically there, at least not in the same sense that it used to be."

I nod as you meet my gaze again, and you sigh, the faintest hint of a smile twinkling in your eyes as you scan my face. "You have no idea what I just said, do you?" you chuff.

"No, I do, I do…" I reassure. "Kind of."

You shake your head and snicker. "Good enough, I suppose…" But that smile fades from your face, and you meet me again with an aching dismay. "Foxy, you shouldn't have come looking for me. You can't be here. You need to leave, now—"

"How?" I interject plainly, gesturing to the world around us. I turn my attention to the sky, unable to make sense of the kaleidoscopic reality above us, before wryly snapping my gaze back to the soldering wristwatch teleporter on my arm. "Seems like… it's a little too late for any of that, I guess, huh? I said I'd follow you to the ends of the earth. I'd walk through hell with you if it meant I could still hold your hand. You know me, man. I'm a stubborn asshole, and I make good on my promises. I said I'd find you, and I wouldn't stop until I did. And now I have."

"Foxy."

I can't take it anymore, and I finally close the gap keeping us apart and throw my arms around you. Fitting back into your embrace is so natural that it's as though you never left. The walls I'd constructed around my heart to keep the grief at bay crumble as I drink in your presence, and I finally break at the scent of lavender kissing my nose. You fall to the floor with me, hands digging into my coat fervently and collapsing into a puddle of tears against me.

Your skin is as soft as I remembered; cool to the touch, though not without warmth and life. I bury my muzzle into your neck, and your hair spills over me and through my fingers like water. I bawl like a newborn baby and blubber through incoherent apologies and affections and melt into your arms as easily as I'd done a million times before. You turn your head and kiss my temple, my forehead, my nose, my lips, tugging at my hair and squeezing me desperately, and I feel real for the first time since I had lost you.

It's over sooner than I want it to be, and I chase your kiss as you pull back. "Foxy," you sniffle, muttering a swear as you hastily rub your tears away, fighting to maintain your composure and not break down again. "Foxy, I'm so, so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I assure, but you sigh, something snotty and dismayed and crestfallen.

"No," you reiterate. "No, not that. I'm sorry f-for… Nothing will—will be the same again. It's going to— you're going— You won't—"

You take my hands in yours, your eyes burning a hole into the dimensional capacitor with an intensity I've only seen twice before. Your gaze is maddening when it locks onto mine, desperation seeping through your stare as it rakes across my face. "Foxy, I need you to remember something for me."

I scour your expression for answers, but you're as elusive as ever. I squeeze your hands in an attempt to ease your bubbling anxiety, but all it does is bleed into me. "O-Okay…? What's… What is it?"

You screw your eyes together harshly before regaining some of your composure. When you speak again, it is with a careful, steady tone, "I love you. I have always been with you, and I always am with you. I will always be here for you. I love you more than I can ever hope to express. So, please, please, please — remember that. Remember that I love you. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course," I respond easily, breathless and bewildered. "Of course I can remember that. I love you, too, Puppet."

Your shoulders relax, but it does little to ease the tension stringing your body together. "Good. Please hold onto that. Hold onto my words. Remember that I love you," you say. "Because you're gonna need it for what happens next.'

                 I blink. "What?"

And I can hardly hold your gaze as I stammer, for the

      broiling pain of the dimensional

                       capacitor

reaches its climax in that moment

and

                                     I am left shattering into pieces as the

wristwatch explodes.

And

reality

finally

                                                    collapses

                                 in

on

                                                   itself.

Chapter Text

"What?"

"Foxy, are you okay?

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"HE'S HERE! RUN!"

"It's over."

WARNING! WARNING!

"It's just not the same as it used to be."

"Yeah, uh, can I get a number three, please?"

"And yet it isn't."

"Shut up, dude."

"If you really think about it, that makes no sense…"

"It's over."

FRACTAL DISRUPTION PROBABILITY ACHIEVED! CONGRATULATIONS!

"I kill you, you kill me. Faster and faster we go."

"Mom, I'm tired."

"Did you hear that?"

"It's over."

"And yet it isn't.."

"Alright, here it is! Hope you enjoy."

ERROR CODE 404: DIMENSIONAL SIGNATURE NOT FOUND! THEY'LL NEVER FIND YOU AGAIN! HURRAY! THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!

"Oh, shit, man… you don't look so good."

"this wouldn't have happened if you'd just brought your pass port (◕‿◕)."

"Ew, what the hell is wrong with him?"

"Hey! Get off me!"

It's over.

"I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!"

"I've been thinking — which is dangerous, I know — but…"

And yet it isn't.

"I don't know shit from fuck, bro"

"HEY! WAIT, I DIDN'T THINK YOU'D ACTUALLY GO FOR IT!"

"Ce n'est pas la mer à boire."

"Are you okay?"

"There isn't anything you can do to make it better, so just leave."

It's over.

"A girl never kisses and tells!"

"Good news! We're all out."

01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01101111 01101011 01101001 01100101 00101110 00100000

"I'm tired."

And yet it isn't.

"Can you still hear me in there?"

IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND

IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET

IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S

OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND

YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET IT ISN'T AND IT'S OVER AND YET

IT'S

                                     OVER

                                                                                            AND

                                                                                     YET

YOU'RE

STILL

HERE.

Something shatters, and a horrendous wail fills your ears

Who's talking?

as if an incomprehensible and imperceivable amount of

Something happened.

souls all cried out at once in a keen that rips their vocal chords

Who is that? That isn't me.

and shreds their lungs until all that is left

That can't be right. What's going on?

is a broiling, putrid paste of what once was a person.

It hurts.

The bile bubbles and pops in a series of sobs,

I can't think straight.

a kaleidoscope of impossible misery and pain

Is that you? Is it me?

echoing across the entire scope of the universe.

Who are you?

It is as if you are stretched thinly across every dimension,

Who am I?

folded into a fine blanket that covers the whole of infinity.

I can barely remember…

It is enough to unravel a person, and you are a person — or, you used to be.

Someone said something, didn't they? What was it?

What you are now is not important. Don't think about it,

It feels like I've been here forever, and yet no time has passed at all…

because if you think about it, you won't be able to.

I'm scared.

You are a singularity across every instance, every possibility, every mote of if and what and when and why and how.

I want to go home.

It howls and aches and no one is going to save you after what you've done to yourself.

I don't understand.

Because you did this to yourself, and only you.

I'm sorry.

There is quite literally no one to blame but you.

I want to go home.

You've hurt countless lives by your very presence and absence.

Your existence and non-existence

hurts them.

"FOXY!" I jolt at the sound, startled into reality by the explosion of pain in my shoulder blade as I slam to the ground. The world hurtles around me as I struggle to my knees, warping and splicing and bleeding and merging in quick succession. Something hot and sticky bursts from my throat, coating my tongue as it pours from my maw. The floorboards are painted in an inky puddle that glimmers with the colors of the universe, infinitely vast and empty and inconceivably vibrant all at once. "Christ, Foxy! Shit! What happened? Fuck!"

Someone looms over me, fizzling in and out of focus until their hands wrap under my arms and heft me into a sitting position — and still, the world spins. I heave as they dig their nails into my arm, the only reason I am able to remain upright. "Wh— uh— Hahh— Wha's…" I slur, swallowing oil and trying to make sense of the green shape in front of me.

"Foxy," the same voice barks, and — oh, that's Monty, isn't it? — snaps their finger in front of my face. It echoes and explodes across a thousand senses I shouldn't be privy to, and I wince. "Foxy, are you okay? Are you good? Shit, man. You don't look so hot…"

"Is he okay?" another voice chimes in, softly, from the door. I'm in— a bedroom. A guest bedroom. Right. Was it just a dream? What happened? What happened?

"I don't know. Let's get him downstairs. Foxy, can you hear me?"

"I…" I mumble, listing sideways towards the floor. "What—"

"—happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me!" someone says. I blink; now I'm somewhere else. Or maybe I never left. The floor clings to my palms, a thick coat of grime staining my skin, and my exoskeleton tears slightly when I pull away. I look up from my place curled up on the ground to see Freddy ducking his head under a heavy, violet curtain of stars with an expression I can't discern through the dozen of reflections my eye mirrors back to me. "Are you okay?"

I'm trembling, and my body aches a thousand times over, showers of sparks screaming from exposed wires. "I— I don't— I don't kn— know," I am barely able to stammer past the twist of my tongue and squeeze of my ribcage.

Freddy steps closer, crouching down to where I lay on the floor and looking me over. "You're not in pain, are you? What do you need me to do?" he asks, and I make the mistake of shaking my head, which I am punished for as the world rocks and thunders like a jackhammer against my skull.

"S—Something… Something…" I mumble. "I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on. It's like one moment I'm—"

"—here and the next, I'm—" I stop, my throat clenching as my head splits again. Has it always hurt this badly? I'm being torn apart.

"You're what?"

I blink. There's no one here. I'm rotting somewhere in a cold, dark basement, with a rat poking its head just over the cavity in my chest where it had been feasting on the gore of my intestines.

"Uh—" I stammer.

"No, it's okay, go ahead," says the rat, wiping its muzzle clean from blood and viscera. "I didn't mean to interrupt. You were saying?"

"What's happening?"

01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00101110 00100000 01010011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01010011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00101101

00100010 01010011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111111 00100010

"No, I was just thinking that—"

A knife to my throat cuts me off, and Moon bares his fangs at me. "Shut it, you!" he snaps. "We've had enough of your ramblin' already."

An exasperated sigh from across the room, but I can't see past the light glaring into my optic. "I think this one's a lost cause, Moon. He's not giving us anything we want. With that screaming, I'd wager a bet that he's lost it entirely," a woman's voice says, and I think it's Terra's, but I can't be sure.

Moon's eyes flick back to her, past the gloom of the room. "You really—"

"—quack quack quack quack qu… Quack?" Quack quack.

"Quack quack quack?" quack Quack. Quack quack quack quack quack quack, quack quack quack quack quack quack quack. Quack quack quack, quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack . "Quack quack quack quack , quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack ."

"Q-Quack quack? Quack quack quack… quack quack quack quack ," Quack quack , quack quack quack quack , quack Quack quack quack quack quack .

"Quack quack quack quack quack quack , quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack ," quack quack quack quack , Quack quack quack quack quack . "Quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack , quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack . Quack quack quack quack . Quack quack quack quack quack quack … quack quack quack ? Quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack ."

"Quack quack—"

—think there's anything that could help me. I don't know what to do.

Well, that much is obvious. Do you even hear yourself right now? Honestly, it's no wonder things panned out the way they did. You're arguing with yourself now.

I'm… I'm not doing that. I'm trying to figure out what's going on, and why I'm… all over the place. I think I fucked up somehow.

Duh. I could've told you that.

Are you me?

I'm nothing like you.

Then what are you?

I'm—

—falling and falling and falling and falling. The cycle never ends. The snake consumes and is consumed. It consumes itself. Ouroboros. The ants march, ceaselessly, through the mill — spiraling to their deaths just as they lived. I am a mote in the wake of a star.

[I don't think any of this means anything, Foxy. We should probably turn around and head back.]

But how can we? I don't even know where we are.

[You're all.. wrong. I don't know how to help you. I'm sorry. I'll just hold your hand until it's over. Is that okay?]

…I think I'd—

"—like that, actually," Foxy says, but no one hears him. No one is around anymore. No one is here anymore. How could he have forgotten? Why does he keep forgetting?

Foxy pauses and sniffs the air, a singular eye fixated on the dark and empty heavens, searching for something, something, something.

"Who is that?" he asks, fidgeting with his hook. "Do you know what's happening?"

But he receives no reply, other than an echo. The vast and barren wasteland stretches on, betraying nothing of what once walked before. He picks himself up off the desert sand, only to immediately regret it as his head and heart and body and mind rebel against him, fractions dividing from fractions dividing from fractions. He cries out and hurtles toward the floor once more, a—

—sharp pain splitting through my arm as I collapse into the brush, the rabbit just narrowly escaping my clutches. My hollow, gnawing stomach growls in trepidation, but it's not like it's my fault. I never chose this hunger. I was born into this world with neither consent nor knowledge of what "existence" even is. All I know is to hunt and sleep and breed and breathe. It's a simple life, but one filled with far more strife than serenity. I wish to eat until my belly is full. I wish to sleep in the warm sun. I wish I knew why I—

"—fuck everythin' up! Ya always do this!" I flinch as a vase smashes just shy of my head, and I duck to cower at the force before me that is Monty. The living room is in disarray, and her tangled red hair falls like a mop over her face. She throws a bookshelf to the floor and kicks a table, sending a coffee mug flinging in my direction.

"I'm sorry!" I sob, already finding my fur drenched with oily blood and fresh tears. "I'm sorry! I don't know what happened! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Shut yer fuckin' mouth, dumbass!" Monty spits, the floorboards thundering as she storms towards me and yanks my head back by my hair. Up close, the stench of cigarettes and whiskey is overpowering. "Ya think yer real smart, dontcha?"

"No, I don't!" I promise, swallowing past the oil trickling down my throat. "I don't know anything! I don't know what's happening! I'm scared! I'm scared!"

"WHAT'D I JUST SAY?" she snaps, and I flinch just as—

—HeR FisT, WaiT NO, That'S NoT IT. WherE AM I? What'S HappeninG?

{I thought you said you knew what you were doing?} *Eclipse snaps at me, shooting a glare in my direction.

{What?} *I ask, and he rolls his eyes.

"You keep repeating the same thing, over and over. It's like you're doing this on purpose. What did you think was going to happen, honestly?" someone says to me, and I gasp and stagger away as everything crumbles around me and I become what I always have been. What I forgot and remember. What I know and am oblivious to, that

I am the victim and the victimizer

                          the scorpion and the frog

the hero and the villain

the shepherd and the sheep

the dog and the master

                                   the cat and the mouse

                       the ocean and the earth

the elder and the infant

the nightmare and the daydream

the spirit and the body

I make enemies as I

                                       make love and betray the criminal while

                                                               I lock myself behind bars in

the basement as I rot backstage and bear witness

to a thousand calamities while learning

                  to ride a bike at the same time I'm

catching the rabbit and fishing at the pier

                         with a stranger who I've known all my life and

not at all because I am

                                 here and yet I'm not and I am

made and unmade

I am the

creator and the

                    destroyer I am the wound and I am the razor

                                                                                       I am

the lover and I am the

fighter I am the son and I am

the daughter and I am my

mother and I am my father and I

am burying the body and rising

                         from the grave and kissing my lover and

killing my friend and stabbing and

getting stabbed and loving and

                                                       losing and delivering pain and receiving

pain while the world ends at the

same time it begins and the

sun sets while it rises and the stars

                          die and are reborn in the same breath as I

stalk the halls while hiding

                     in the closet with the

knife I cut the cake with because it is

my birthday and my

wedding and my

funeral and

everything eats and is

eaten as

time

                       is fed and

                                                 starved

while the

eyes see and go

                               blind and the

                  tongue tastes of the grave and the ears

go deaf and

hear the reminder someone

                                                   gave me that

they said someone had told me

something to do with

love.

that

someone had said

                  someone

someone told me…

somewhere

softly

                                      that

you had held my hand and

you told me

you had told me:

I love you.

Immediately, everything comes into focus, churning and melding into a chaotic mass of muddled sound and sensation I can't make sense of. I swallow but it does little to muffle the wails wracking my body as I shriek. But something else is here, something more solid that I can make sense of. It draws my mind to this singular moment, and I can feel the ground beneath me again. Something is restricting me — no, hugging me — no, something else? I can't fully comprehend it, but it's definitely something close enough to a warm embrace while not entirely being one, either.

"Can you get me—"

"But dad said—"

I strain, struggling to tune out the cacophony of noise and the inconceivable directions all pulling at me and calling for my attention. I dig my claws into whatever is holding me, desperate to remain anchored and not drift into the vast, chaotic sea tearing at my grip. The soft, gentle thing keeping me together stutters, as if in sharp exhale, and part of the numbness I didn't know was there fizzles away at the touch of fingers combing through my hair.

"So, as I was saying…"

                                  "No, wait! W—"

"Who—"

       "Ah, see—"

Gritting my teeth, I pull my awareness to the hands kneading my side and brushing my hair. There's a voice — I know this, I know there's a voice — but it's muffled under the rabble around my head. I press closer into the embrace threading my torn pieces together and nearly suffocate on my own sobs, but it's lessening. Despite my splitting migraine, it is steadily getting easier to calm my distress and hysteria. The churning, foaming tides of the unrelenting ocean thrashing all around me are slowly receding, ever-so-slightly.

I love you.

"I love you, too."

"Oh! … Thanks, man. That really means a lot."

                                           "Too bad."

                                                                                                          "Aww, same. But I'm trying not to be sappy about it!"

               "Uh… Sorry, I guess?"

"You mean it?"

"Did you say something? I wasn't listening."

                                        "Sh-Shut up! You're embarrassing me…"

                                                    "That's nice."

                "I hate you."

"Good morning to you, too!"

I love you.

"It's a lot, isn't it?" I'm finally able to discern the voice speaking, though it sounds more like it's under water. The arms cradling me give a gentle squeeze, and then again when I squeeze back. "Are you here yet? I'm sorry this is happening."

There's a soft kiss delivered to my head, and I still my weeping for a moment to catch my breath. Though I have neither the capacity to breathe nor the lungs needed for the function, it's something I do in a million other instances. The shoulder I am leaning on is familiar, and it smells of lavender.

I dare to open my eye, and though my vision is blurred and I repeat the action across quintillion realities, I am able to pick apart the blank nothingness of the world around me and the steady hand rubbing circles on my back. I sniffle and hiccup, and I feel so unbelievably drained that I can't begin to fathom ever lifting a finger again.

"I've got you," you say, because it is you who's been holding me together. "You're gonna be okay, Foxy. I love you."

I whimper in response, a shuddering breath wracking through my body. You kiss my head again and sigh. "I know, big guy," you murmur. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

My ears ring as I fight to stay in this singular moment, an exhaustive fatigue sapping my strength as I do so. I rest for a while longer and try not to drift off again, until finally, I am able to sit up.

"You're okay. Take it easy. I've got you," you whisper encouragingly, and I shudder and shake and sniffle.

You meet my gaze carefully, tucking my hair away and cupping my face. "There you are," you sigh, a concerning amount of relief in your voice. "You did a good job."

I chuckle, but it sound more like another choked sob. "W-What did I do? What happened?" I mumble as you wipe the tears from my eye. I blink away the dizziness and latch onto your wrists to keep myself grounded.

You look out across the blinding field around us, eyes distant. "That thing on your wrist… What you've done Foxy, falling into the space between the universe, has… broken you. You're Everywhere now, and you're not supposed to be. You're supposed to be only one person, and now you're… well, all of you."

I swallow again, throat dry. "That's…" I struggle. "That doesn't fully… What does that mean?"

You shake your head solemnly. "It's hard to explain. Almost impossible, really. Words aren't enough to even cover what's happened to you." Your eyes soften. "And… well, I've never been the best with them, anyways. You can try asking Monty. They might know how to answer."

"Which one?"

You shrug. "Any of them. If you're able. If not, find the one you're the most familiar with."

I grimace as another spike of pain shoots through my skull. "I… I don't… want to. Can't I just stay here?"

You mirror my expression and slide my hands from your wrists to hold them in yours. "Foxy, you're already there. Whether you want to be or not."

I am seated on a couch with a mug in my grasp. The air hums with the dawn of the early morning, and I smell bacon cooking on the wind. The pool beside me is still and reflects the faint sunlight and stars like a pane of glass. My body hums with the adrenaline of running across septillion, minute planes of existence, and yet I've been sitting here the entire time.

It takes a moment to realize I'm back at Monty's house — and another moment for me to realize someone is seated across from me. Terra absentmindedly pets the white, fluffy rabbit in her lap while tugging on her cloud of hair with the other, her wheelchair stationed dutifully to the side of the sofa where she sits. She stares down pensively at the plate of bacon and eggs in front of her on the patio table, worrying her bottom lip as someone hums from the kitchen. Footsteps approach, but Terra instead glances up at me as my ear twitches from the sound. Her face brightens ever-so-slightly at me as Monty approaches from my periphery.

"A-a-a-and here we are. One plate for me, one plate for him," Monty grunts, pausing briefly as they set the plates down on the table. "Agh, oh… wait, I forgot he doesn't eat. Huh. Eh, more for me!" Right as Monty makes a move to pick up my supposed plate and dump it onto their own, Terra catches them by the wrist and they falter. Before Monty can question her, Terra points over to me, and they follow her gaze to meet mine. Their eyebrows shoot up and they jump, surprised. "Oh!"

"Are you feeling alright, Foxy?" Terra asks, concern written all over her face as Monty joins her on the couch.

"Uhm…" I mumble, glancing down at the mug in my hands. It looks like coffee, smells like coffee, but I have no way of knowing if it is coffee until I drink it. I can already feel my attention being pulled in nonillion directions, and I concentrate on the heat scalding my pawpads to keep me grounded instead. When I meet the others' eyes again, they're looking at me funny. "What happened?"

Monty and Terra exchange glances. Seeming to decide something, Terra scoots closer to the edge of the couch and rests her hand on the table, regarding me gently as the rabbit in her lap squeaks at the lack of pets. "You had a nightmare, I assume. A really bad one," she says.

"I don't get nightmares," I state bluntly. "I don't even dream."

"Okay, then… you must've at least had something close enough to one, then," Terra suggested.

I consider the truth in her words. "I guess..."

"You scared the shit out of us, man," Monty huffs, and I grimace at the sincerity in their voice. "Woke to you screamin' your head off and fallin' outta bed. You threw up all over the floor and were completely incoherent."

"Oh," I say. "Sorry."

Terra shakes her head at that. "You don't need to apologize. You've clearly been going through something."

I laugh humorlessly at that. "Yeah—"

"—something along those lines."

but i'm not there anymore. now, i'm seated @ tha edge of a bed, in a room that is equal parts rustic & retro in such a way where i physically cringe @ tha mishmash of sensation assaulting mah eye. a young man sits beside me, his bright, blonde hair falling over his pearly, iridescent orbs — & i'm struck with a horrific realization dat i know who he is.

"it's okay," the blondette says. "i'm… here now, at least!" he reaches forward in some gesture 2 comfort me, but he is far 2 close & tha look he's giving me is far 2 intimate for mah own comfort. i yelp & kick out, tha momentum of mah shock sending me hurtling towards da ground. pain shoots thru mah spine, but i scramble away until mah back hits da wall, & i take in tha rest of da room.

oh, of course. of fucking course i would find mahself back here! of all da universes, of all da realities that could've drawn mah attention, it just had 2 be dis 1.

da bedroom is a mess. posters of outdated memes line da wall, and tha bed itself is distinctly nyan cat-inspired. da windows offer a view into tha odd & twisted landscape, reminiscent more of old ps2 graphics than of real life. each face of da room visually rebels against tha other, either 2 simplified or 2 hyper-realistic that it's impossible 2 make sense of anything.

sun gasps & falls 2 his knees in front of me, light bouncing off the younger male's golden freckles as his hair bounces unnaturally around his fair face. "oh no! are you okay?" he cries, & i smack his hand away when he reaches for me again.

"don't touch me!" i threaten, & sun backs off, hoisting his hands 2 da air as he shuffles away.

"okay! i'm not touching u," he assures. "what do u need from me, senpai? how can i help, foxy-kun?"

"NOOOOO! — DON'T U FUCKING CALL ME DAT! SHUT UP!"

sun's face twists in shock, as if i'd just hit him. "i— don't talk 2 me like dat when i'm trying 2 help u! ur being real skibidi right now."

i violently cringe. "i'm going 2 fucking—"

"—kill myself." I blink, and I'm out. "Oh thank god."

Monty and Puppet are staring back at me, bewildered, and they exchange glances. "I can clean it up if you don't want to, bro," Monty offers with a raised eyebrow. His sunglasses sit above his forehead, and the shirt he wears that reads My Name Is Monty Bonnie is far too tight on him. "It's no big deal."

I glance down at the mop I'm holding and startle at the glassy eyes of the Stitchwraith staring up at me, blood turning the cracked tiles of the gas station floor red. I startle and slip on the puddle, but just as I'm about to hit the floor—

—Foxy is somewhere else again. But he's always been here. There's no other place to go. "Oh, shit," he swears under his breath, ducking into the cabinet as the shadow in the kitchen advances towards him at the sound. He bites down on his paw in an attempt to still his racing heart and silence any of his frightened whimpers.

The thing's footsteps are heavy and wet, smelling sickly sweet and warm, like rotting fruit or fresh flowers. It consumes the air in the kitchen, growing stronger and more vile as it pauses just before Foxy's hiding place. Foxy's teeth sink into his own flesh, blood welling up past the cotton stuffing of his muscles and yarn strings of his sinew. He doesn't make a sound even as the metallic taste of his own mortality floods his mouth and seeps towards his lungs.

Drip. Drip. Drip, the blood echoes from his maw.

Drip… Drip… Drip.. the shadow's saliva responds as its spine bends and pops to meet and mirror Foxy's smiling visage. He scarcely has time to make sense of what he's seeing before—

"Foxy, you need to concentrate," you say to me, and I cry out as my mind is assaulted by the splitting sensations. Life. Death. Love. Betrayal. Pain. Bliss. Rage. Peace. I feel it all at once, at every instance, at every subtle turn of the head and flick of the tail.

"Focus!" you hiss at me, crushing me in a hug that forces my consciousness into this moment. "You've got this; I know you do. I love you. Focus."

The mug burns my pawpads. The air smells like bacon. I'm back where I've always been, sitting on the patio sofa and hearing the muted conversation of Monty and Terra in front of me.

Or, no — it's not just a conversation between them. They're talking to me. But when I tune back in to collect any notion of context, they're only staring at me expectantly.

I swallow thickly and give an apologetic smile. "Uh— sorry, what did you say?"

Monty pinches the bridge of their snout. "This is exactly what I'm talking about," they mutter.

"I've had it! Hear me? HAD IT!"

                       "Okay, I'm done waiting."

"Monty," Terra chastises, before meeting my eyes gently. "Foxy, I'm very sorry for what you've been going through. I can't diagnose anything, but you certainly display symptoms that are indicative of a larger issue. I know therapy didn't work out for you in the past, but maybe you can give it another shot? If not with me, then someone else. There's a lot of resources you can use to get help. Grief counseling or support groups would be a good place to start. If not, we can find something else for you. None of us want to see you suffering."

"Oh, fuck that," I blurt, immediately regretting it as Terra's expression becomes pained and Monty grits their teeth in agitation. Regardless, I sit forward and clarify myself. "I don't need any of you talking to me like I'm— like I'm crazy."

                                 "Looks weird, though, doesn't it?"

"She never said we can't go, just that we have to stay here…"

               "Dude, what do you want?"

"We don't think that," Terra responds before Monty has a chance to bite back. "None of us think that, Foxy. It's just… It's clear losing Puppet has taken its toll on you. I can't imagine what I'd do if I lost Monty... It's a kind of pain you can't physically hold onto all on your own. Maybe talking about it to someone would help."

My ears flick in irritation. "Talking doesn't solve anything," I retort, and Monty finally snaps forward to bare their teeth at me.

"And jumping through dimensions does?" they yell, face twisted with agitation.

"Monty," Terra scolds, but they ignore her.

"You aren't going to find her, man — not in the way you want to, at least! You aren't doing yourself any favors, Foxy. Quite the opposite, really! You'll just be doing this over, and over, and over, and over again until you run yourself into the ground. Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Hell, I checked your systems when you went all catatonic on us, and guess what? You display all the symptoms of dimensional sickness. I bet you don't even know what that means. This is going to kill you! You need to take a break from all that, man."

"I don't know. What do you think?"

                    "Hey, I'm here for the interview."

                                                "Boooo! Tomato! Tomato!"

"And think what it's doing to FC," Terra adds. "Yes, maybe it's fun for him to go on adventures, but he needs stability. He needs a father. And you're not there when he needs you. You're always—"

"—somewhere else," Monty finishes, their jaw locking as their sunglasses lowered to reveal the unbridled terror and concern in their eyes. "I know I haven't been the best friend, and I wasn't there for you when I should've been — but in my defense, you never reached out to me. I didn't know where you were! You haven't gotten any kind of support, and I know you think you're all tough and can handle it on your own — but get real with me, man. This is the kinda shit that eats you alive."

For a long few minutes, the only thing that fills the silence is the chirping of birds as they awaken with the dawn. I turn my head to watch the pink sunrise, alighting the tips of trees in its golden rays, flushing the scene in a gentle, morning glow. The wind rustles leaves, singing with the awakening fauna. In this brief moment, where that deep well of anger had been steadily rising in my chest, I find something different sprouting in its wake instead.

It's odd. In this small, silent second of a new day, everything in my head goes quiet. All the howling chaos, the violent clamor, the whirlwind pain of existence — it all goes away as I turn my head towards a thousand sunrises and a centillion horizons.

Because in those gentle birdcalls, in the quiet hum of morning, I can feel you with me.

"I have a question," I say. "A hypothetical."

"Foxy—" Monty starts to sigh, but Terra cuts them off, holding a hand to their arm as I face them again.

"Go ahead," Terra encourages, her voice quiet and reassuring.

                 "Who's there?"

"We're gonna put on the best damn talent show this town's ever seen."

                                         "Dude! Look out!"

I glance down at the coffee still in my hands. The steam rises to the air and dissipates, and then it rises again, over and over with no real end until the coffee will finally cool. "Say someone is jumping randomly between dimensions, but also in quick succession," I start. "So, like… they're going to one place, then immediately jumping into the next — very fast." I meet Monty's eyes again, cautiously. "What would happen to them?"

Monty holds my gaze for a moment, and I can't entirely read what's going on behind their eyes. Terra scritched the head of her pet rabbit and averted her attention to Monty with a fond smile, awaiting the answer neither she nor I had.

Finally, Monty responded, "Nothing good, that's for certain." They cock their head, leaning back against the couch and squinting at me. "We call it the Fractal Probability — but, if I'm being honest, I'd only call it a theory 'cus it won't happen. I'm not arguin' over semantics, though. 'Sides, it's called a 'probability' because of the very, very, very small likelihood and 'what-if' scenario that it could. You'd just have to be extremely, mind-numbingly stupid for it to happen."

"Give it back!"

                        "Hey! Hi! I missed you!"

                                            "Don't make me regret this."

"Ah… ahaha, yeah…" I chuckle awkwardly, making eye-contact with the couch cushion beside Monty as they continue to hold my gaze.

"A fractal," Monty continues, voice level and firm, "is this thing in math that is, in the simplest of terms, a never-ending pattern. You can zoom in, but no matter how far you go, the pattern is self-similar and repeatin' — infinitely. We call it the Fractal Probability 'cus, if you're jumpin' through all those dimensions, there's the chance you'll find some way to break yourself. You're split across literally every single alternate version of yourself all at once and experience everything at the same time — infinitely. We can't comprehend infinity. The dimensional capacitor can't handle all that, you can't handle all that, and so you collapse in on yourself and… well, die. You'd go insane, your brain and body would shut down, and that's it for you. There ain't nothin' that's gonna be around to save you or pull you back together. Ya dead. Done. Caput."

"Womp, womp."

                                       "LOOK OUT!"

"I'm having an affair."

              "Welcome to the world, little guy."

Monty grinned wryly. "But, again: it's only a probability. The capacitors are just equipped with warnings and procedures to keep you from disaster. The Fractal Probability literally can't happen. The math to communicate that fact can't even be put to paper — that's how small of a probability it is."

I close my eye, swallowing the nausea and giving a curt nod. "I see," I manage to say.

"Why do you ask?" Terra inquires, and my gaze flickers up to meet hers. I'm not sure how to respond at first, but eventually, I find it in myself to set the cup of coffee back onto the table and chuckle.

"I can't drink coffee," I deflect, before finally sighing and relenting: "I think you're right." I can feel the surprise ripple across the space between us, even without glancing up to see their expressions. "I think… I'm gonna go home."

"I'm sorry for what I said."

                   "You like it?"

"Hey, if this is the end, I just wanted to say… I always hated your cooking."

            "Hahah! Now look who's stupid!"

                              "gasp! OwO what's this? >v<"

Monty sat up, eyebrows raising. "Oh… Huh. Back… Back at the old place? With Freddy and them? Or do you mean—"

"Yeah, the one with Freddy," I confirm, and Monty chuffs.

"It's… It's a lot quieter over there now, I'm pretty sure. Not sure if you'd wanna go back. You could… stay here? In this dimension, I mean."

I shake my head. "I already have a place there. And… I don't really want to get wrapped up in any of you guys' business."

Monty coughed awkwardly. "I— uh, kinda sold your old place… the penthouse, I mean… since… you weren't… usin' it…"

"Shocker, shocker."

                        "Ding! Ding! Ding!"

"Doesn't matter," I brush off. "And anyway, I'll still visit. I'll… get my life in order first, though. Eventually, at least… And… I'm sorry."

"Huh." Finally, Monty heaves a sigh and waves me off. "It's… It's okay, man, really."

"Wow." Terra's face is beaming as she speaks. "Is this the first time an intervention has actually worked out for me?" She shakes her hands out and anxiously shoots me an apologetic grin. "Sorry — I know… I know I'm making it all about me, but usually things don't go this well."

"You're fine, honey," Monty reassures.

"I want to be there for your wedding," I state, exhaling heavily at the weight of the situation. I give an awkward smile in a failed attempt at levity. "So… yep! Sorry. I'll be there, at your wedding. I promise. Sorry."

"It is your destiny. Pick up the sword…"

                "You there! Boy! What day is it?"

Monty's smile is much more sincere. "Thanks, man. That really means a lot to me. But no pressure if you can't make it. Honestly."

"I want to," I say in earnest. "And, um… sorry for throwin' up on your floor."

"Oh, that's no problem," Terra chuckles, wringing her fingers. "We're just glad you're okay in the end."

"Yeah, I'll be really honest, that's the most scared I've been in a very, very long time," Monty confesses, laughing as they failed to stifle the wavering in their voice. "Thought I was gonna lose my best friend again there, for a sec."

I quirk my head at them. "You still think of me as your best friend?"

Monty scoffs at that. "Duh! It don't matter if we've seen each other or talked in literal months. We picked back up where we left off like the time didn't pass just fine, didn't we? So yeah, dumbass, you're still my best friend."

I smile. "Thanks, dude… Really."

I sigh, and I find myself back in your arms. The air is heavy for the tenderest of moments. You card your fingers through my hair, or maybe you never stopped.

Finally, I break the silence with the most astute of observations: "I really fucked up, didn't I?"

You pause slightly, before resuming the pets that I'm too flustered to admit my enjoyment for. "I… guess you could put it—"

"Don't sugarcoat it, Puppet. We both know it."

You relent, "Yeah… Yeah, you really fucked up, buddy. I'm sorry this happened to you. This is the last thing I ever wanted. For me, this existence-non-existence is simple. I observe and protect, mostly… For you, it's so much different. I don't think even I can fully grasp what it is you're going through, to experience so much, all at the same moment… You deserved a quiet life. I guess it's… kind of all my fault you didn't get that, really, isn't it?"

I sat up and seized your hands, vehemently denying, "No! No, I… Don't say that, Puppet. I chose you, just as you chose me. I knew what I was getting into."

Yet you still regard me with a pained expression. "But you didn't, Foxy, is the thing." Tentatively, you press our foreheads together, and your eyes are like twin stars. "You had no idea what you signed up for."

"Well, I knew enough. And I came to terms with the fact I won't ever be able to wrap my head around it all. I made peace with it, because it… didn't really matter. Because I love you, and I always will. I… feel like this kind of proves that, doesn't it?" I chuckle, but you don't crack a smile, only continue to study me with that sorrowful gaze. You close your eyes, and I wrap you in another hug. It's only then that part of Monty's words finally processed.

"Wait," I said, "Monty told me— they said someone in my position would go insane and fall apart, basically. Why am I still here?" I quirk my head at you as you blink at me. "Was it you? It had to be you, right?"

Finally, a chuckle escapes your soft lips, and it eases the tension in my shoulders. "Of course, you idiot," you tease fondly, before the gravity returns to your gaze. "I had to keep you together. You were unraveling in my hands, Foxy. I-I thought… I thought I would lose you completely… But… you're a lot stronger than you realize. Definitely more than I thought you were. So, even if I had to watch you dying over and over and over again in my arms, I'm glad I got to save you, even if it was only one that made it."

The reality of that hit me like a truck, and I felt sick all over again. "Christ, Puppet…" I uttered, breathless. And then, again, I plunged even further into that realization. "Fuck. Holy shit. Only one? You had to— I'm the only one that made it? Only one?"

Tears spring in your eyes, even as you smile at me. "There were versions of you that didn't find me here — versions where you chased me but didn't fall into the space outside the universe. You landed in one dimension, infinitely, and then immediately collapsed in on yourself. No version of you that went looking for me last night has lived to see the morning. Except you."

"Fuck." Over and over and over again, it hit me. "Fuck. Oh my god."

"It's not all bad," you comfort. "Across all of infinity, you're dying just as much as you're starting to live."

"Dear god. Christ alive. Oh fuck. Shit!"

"And, really, those wonderful, beautiful moments when we're alive is what always catches my attention. I can choose to give focus to the horrible realities, that agony of watching you die and suffer across infinite planes, but I'm always feeling that pain anyway. Love is what—"

"Dude. Fuck. I can't— Shit! Oh my god! Holy fuck, what the hell?"

"Foxy," you snap, bopping my head with the palm of your hand. "I'll let you have your existential crisis and then continue. You're being a little rude, buddy."

You stay true to your word, and it does take a little bit longer than anticipated for me to calm down again. Despite your teasing, you ground me with another hug and ease me back into a manageable chaos, and it's only then that I'm able to continue. "So," I say, "all of those versions of me… shit, FC will never know what happened to me, will he?"

"No one will," you nod solemnly. "At least in those realities. To them, it's as if you just… vanished."

I sit with that for a long moment, and you take my hand. I watch your movements with careful curiosity, a deep flush settling across my cracked and splintered bones as you kiss my knuckles. "It's sad, but there's little we can do about it as we are. The most important thing we can do is be there for those we love and see the beauty despite the torrent. I do it for the kid — for Charlie. She's a bit like the daughter I never had… though, I suppose I'm more of a guardian angel now, huh?"

I hum, resting my forehead against yours once more and existing in this moment for as long as I am able to.

"Foxy! Hey, Foxy!"

"Aw, what? No fair!"

"Dad! He hit me!"

"Shh! Quiet!"

"I'LL KILL YOU! HERE ME? KILL YOU!!!"

"Hey, um… I… have feelings for you."

"Happy Birthday!"

"Yeah, bad news. We got the torture labyrinth tomorrow."

"Mom, I need to tell you something…"

"Erm… He's right behind me, isn't he?"

"Bro, shut up."

"Hear that? You're her favorite!"

"I have all this love, and nowhere to put it."

"Listen to my voice, and you will find the key."

"You're my best friend."

"Heyyyy!"

"Foxy? You in here?"

"Psst! Here kitty, kitty!"

"Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad… Hi :)"

"Bruh. Are you for real?"

"It hurts. I just want it to be over."

"This is the worst day ever."

"I do."

"Here, give this a listen…"

"This is the happiest I've been in a while, I think…"

"Hey!"

"What happens now?" I ask.

"Everything, and Nothing," you answer with a shrug, and I scowl.

"Can you… like, talk to me normally, please?" I request, wincing at how much I sound like a douchebag. "Uh, not to be rude, I mean. It's just… I don't think I'm cut out for all this philosophical shit. I kinda just want a straight answer."

You snort and cover your face with your palm, startled, but the sound is like the ringing of bells. You tuck a strand of ivory hair away and toss a grin at me. "Sorry. I guess I figured, with you being outside the universe and as much a part of everything as I am, you'd see it the same way. That every…" You trail off, closing one of your hands into a fist as you squint and glance away briefly. "Uh — whoops, almost went on another tangent. I think I hear it now, actually. Sorry, bud."

I shrug. "I don't really think the vast cosmos of the universe and its enigmatic secrets concerns me all that much, to be honest. I want…" I look down at my paws, trying to sort out the violent clamor of my mind. The complexion of my being doesn't stay in the lines, instead spiking and bleeding and dancing with each subtle movement in a cataclysm of color. The hole in my wrist where the dimensional capacitor once sat no longer aches, instead now existing as an impenetrable pit of darkness attempting to claw at my existence to eat it whole, and failing. But if I stare too long into the void, my head starts to spin. I meet your eyes again, and my one desire finally surfaces. "I think I just want to be with you."

You tilt your head quizzically. "I can't be the only thing you want. There are people out there who care about you just as much as I do. Don't you want to be with them, too?" you challenge.

"I… I mean, I do, but I can't be everywhere at…" I cut myself off at your expression, and I look away with a flush. "You know what? I'm done trying to make sense of any of this nonsense. Yeah, I want to be with you. I want to be with the people who care about me. But past that, I don't know what to do about it. It's hard enough trying to keep my attention focused right here so I don't drift off again."

You're quiet for another moment, before you open your arms and pull me into your orbit. I rest my head on your shoulder, and my tension eases as you comb through my curls. "The first law of reality," you say, "is 'As Above, So Below.' It says, so long as you care and love something, the universe does, too, and pays you back so in kind."

Oh, boy, here we go, I don't say out loud, waiting for you to continue.

Surprisingly, though, your next words are much shorter than anticipated. "If you concentrate on one reality, the rest of you will go where it needs. If you care enough, you'll be there for the people who need you. You'll still be Everywhere, and you'll still be Here, but your focus, where it is needed, will be where it matters most."

I take a moment, my eye slipping closed as I simply drink in the sensation of your fingers carding through my hair and scratching behind my ear. You press a kiss into my crown, and I chirp affectionately, nuzzling into your neck and snuggling you. You laugh softly and rest your head against mine, and I finally say, "I… think that makes sense? I think I get it."

"Just think of who needs you right now, and be there for them. That's all," you simplify even more, and I can't help but burst into a chuckle.

"Thanks for that."

Another kiss, this one on my eyelashes. "Any time, big guy."

"I love you," I say.

"I love you, too," you respond.

And I go where I'm needed.

Chapter Text

At the edge of the world, a lonely Puppet on a string sits in the remnants of everything she once loved. A reality where everything but her was lost.

And, really, what did that mean? What did it mean when everything was lost, and yet she still remained?

Her existence could scarcely be called an "existence." All she did was sit. Watching. Waiting. Waiting for what? For something to happen? No, she was simply sitting, like a rock at the precipice of a cliff, overlooking a valley of itself and everything else that it wasn't.

Nothing. Nothing but her, herself, and the lonely knoll she sat upon, shaded in the sorrow of a willow tree, its tangled, drooping vines still and solemn. The sun peeked up at her from the vast horizon beyond, as if to say, "Are you really still here? I'd have thought you left by now." But what would the sun know? It, too, remained frozen in stasis. It had been that way since she arrived, and it would remain so for forever.

She'd watched her world fall apart, crumpling in on itself like a paper ball in the hands of her own, gnarled reflection, who howled into the night until his smile split him apart, and she destroyed him, too. She was all that was left in the wake of the cataclysm, and what a wretched storm she was.

He who thinks of death as the worst pain in existence knows nothing of true suffering.

Puppet picked at a few frayed fibers of her skin, her eyes forever burning into that quiet, uncaring horizon. Umbral, inky hair fell over her face like a funeral veil, tumbling past her worn, weathered sweater like shadow. The worst part of it all was that it still smelled like Home. She would never know rest — those faint, persistent memories flickering just behind her eyes to where it took everything in her power to drown them out. But how could she, when there was no sound, no sensation, to do so?

The wind shifted. There never was wind. That was new.

Gently, the grass stirred against her skin where she sat, rooted to the spot, and the thick vines of the willow swayed softly in the breeze. With it brought the careful footfalls of something approaching from behind, but whether or not it was all in her head, she didn't know.

"If you're here to kill me," Puppet droned, "just make it quick."

A huff, as if amused. "Awfully presumptuous of you."

She flinched at the voice, because she knew that voice. She knew that voice. Lowering her head, Puppet twisted her fingers together and let out a humorless laugh. "Ah, great. I really have lost it, haven't I? I'm hearing things now…"

"Not hearing things."

The footsteps came to a stop beside her, and that fiery, red hair stirred a deep well of pain in her chest. "Seeing things, too, then," she murmured, trying all her might to keep her gaze trained on the horizon. "If this is a joke, it isn't funny."

I was quiet for a moment, letting us sit beneath the sway of the weeping willow, watching the warm sky through the vines and the glint of sunlight through the grass. Finally, I spoke up again, "Puppet—"

"Don't," she snapped. "You're not him. Don't do this to me."

I sighed, risking a careful shift towards her direction. She tensed, but made no move to uproot herself from her spot. I studied her expression before offering the quiet murmur of, "What happened?" Even though you already gave me the answer.

Puppet regales me with careful, clipped intonations of the devastation of her world. How Sammy had won, and how she made him suffer the cost in turn. An eye for an eye. A leg for a leg. A heart for a heart. Until all that was left was a broken spirit. It is with almost a detached devastation that she speaks, as if she weren't really here to begin with.

"I'm far away from all that, now," she says. "I ran. I always run. I found this small corner of the universe, and I decided I'll sit here until the elements take me."

I stew in her words for a long, long moment. There's the quiet hush of the wind, its breath tickling my fur and brushing through her hair. "It's quiet here," I say.

"It'll be my grave."

I keep my eye on the sun, and chuckle softly. "Well, at least the view is nice, then."

"Why are you here?"

I tell her.

She doesn't believe me.

We sit in silence again.

"The sun won't set," she eventually says again, the next time either of us speaks. I spare her a glance. "It's been like that since I got here. This place is dead."

I eye the rich, twisting leaves of the willow. "Looks pretty alive to me."

"So do I, but yet here I am."

I watch her for another moment, and I take the risk of tucking her midnight hair behind her mask. There's the stifling of a sob and the subtle sway of her chasing my touch when I pull away, but she otherwise doesn't respond. More silence. I swear I hear the quiet murmurings of birdsong, somewhere.

"Why does it have to be a sunset?" I ask.

Her eyes twitch, and she glances at me. "What?"

I point at our view. "The sun. You said it should be setting. How do you know?"

"Because that's what suns do?" she snips.

I hum indignantly. "I dunno… Could be a sunrise. It doesn't have to be a sunset."

She finally looks at me fully, and neither of us are willing to be the one to break our staring contest. Puppet scowls. "Why are you still here?"

"Because I loved you."

Something stirs in your eyes. I can't be sure what it is. "I'm not the Puppet you lost."

"But we wore the same shoes, didn't we?" I shift closer, and our knees are touching. "I lost you. I lost everything. You were my everything. You know better than anyone how horrible that feels."

You finally look away, gaze misty despite the scowl on your face. "I'm not leaving."

I settle in. "Then I'll stay until you're ready to, if only to keep you company."

There's the hush of the wind again. And the birdsong. The weeping willow stands strong, shading us from the glare of light.

You lean against my shoulder.

The sun begins to rise.

"Foxy," a mother says, somewhere near the center of the universe, taking her hand in mine and fighting to stifle her grin, "I want to show you something."

"What did FC do this time?" I sigh, and Puppet laughs like the tinkling of bells, the ends of her snowy hair tickling her chin as she throws her head back.

"No, it's nothing like that." She glances around the hallway; we can still hear the rabble of our friends and family in the den, carrying on the Christmas festivities in our absence. The air smells of hearth and home, and the holiday garlands and winter decorum is all in part to Puppet, as I was never that great at interior design.

"What is it?" I press further. Part of me wants to rejoin the group for fear FC would set off uncle Monty's very generous gift of totally-legal fireworks in the house (I could hear both of them egging the other on from where I was already, even with Eclipse's snide remarks), but Puppet's demeanor suggested this matter was important. If our house exploded, our house exploded. At least it'd be a Christmas to remember.

Puppet drags me towards the stairs and up to our bedroom without a word, other than the quiet, giddy giggles springing past her lips. She pauses at the door, her hand on the doorknob as she regards me with a beaming expression, tugging excitedly at the sleeve of her hoodie that was five sizes too big for her. Moonlight trails in through the upstairs windows, haloing her as the dim, overhead lights warm her gleeful face. "You know what this is, right?" she asks me, opening the door to reveal the quaint, cozy room of our union.

"Our… bedroom?" I ask, suddenly unsure of myself, and she snickers.

"Yes… and…!" Puppet closes the door, and when she opens it again, the room is pitch black. I cock my head, befuddled, and step closer to see four corners of darkness. But before I can discern anything more, Puppet claps her hand over my eye. "No peeking!"

"Puppet, what is all this? What's going on?" I question, unable to quell the confused anxiety restricting my ribcage even as they take my hand again and lead me through.

"You'll see!" they giggle, and I sigh, trying to ease my nerves. Eventually, they come to a stop and pat my shoulders. "Okay, stay here. Keep your eyes closed."

"Eye."

"Shut up."

I snicker, and some of the tension melts from my mind. I wait patiently, and just before I start to question if Puppet had just left me in here to wile away the days, they return. "Okay," they whisper, voice brimming with infectious anticipation. "You can look."

I slide my paw from my eye, finding that the imposing void we had walked into was not at all as encompassing as I expected. Despite the vastness of the space around us, the area, paradoxically, felt quite small. Small glimmers of faint stars shine in the distance, barely perceivable. My gaze falls on Puppet, and their bright, shining mask, and then to what they hold in the joined palms of their hands.

There, floating weightlessly just above the textured felt of their open grasp, is a tiny, twinkling mote of starlight. I quirk my head quizzically as I look at it, the familiar sensation that I was missing something important settling on my servos. "Uhm…" I say, uncertain and weirdly nervous. "It's… pretty? What, uh… is it?"

If it was even possible, Puppet's grin grew wider. "It's a girl."

"Oh," I hum.

The gears turn in my head, and it takes an embarrassingly long moment before that information finally clicks into place.

OH!

"Wait, what?" I barked, a spike of adrenaline shooting through my system as my emotions race to catch up to Puppet's. "Wait, so—"

"We're having a baby!" they announce, jumping up and down and giggling celebratory. They settle down enough to stretch their hands towards me. "Do you wanna hold her?"

"I d— w— I— Y-Yeah! How d— She— What— You…!" My paws are trembling quite violently as Puppet connects the tips of our fingers, and the small speck of starlight gently drifts into my palms. "How'd— How did this happen? Since when?"

Puppet tugged on their hair, hopping in place as they failed to find the end to their elation. "W-Well, we'd been talking about it for a long time, and I think… one day, I just looked at you, and something felt different — like there was something else sitting in my heart where I usually keep you there. A-And I— I looked, and… she was just here! Maybe only a few days old at the time. I was waiting for the right time to tell you, and… w-well, uh… that was three months ago."

"Three mo… No… No, yeah, sure… that makes sense," I lied, head spinning as I pretended to understand a single sentence. I felt dizzy.

"I wasn't… fully certain she was real for a while, so I didn't tell you. I was only sure of it recently, and I decided to wait until Christmas to tell you. So… Merry Christmas!"

"I-I think I need to sit down…" I stammered, carefully maneuvering down to the floor so as to not drop the star in my hands (if that was even a possibility) as I became breathless. I tried to calm my emotions, gaping at the tiny, twinkling light — my daughter. It hit me then, that this was my kid, that I was holding our baby, and the lightheadedness swooped down on my consciousness and made me sway. "I'm g… I gonna have… I'm gonna have a daughter. We're having a daughter. I don't… I didn't think…"

Puppet joined me, sitting criss-cross and cupping her hands under mine, holding me and us and our baby — our baby. "She'll come around in about five months or so, give or take. It's very different from when I had Freddy, which was… more of an Athena and Zeus situation, so to speak. I'm… not completely sure what this all is, but… I'm pretty sure… it's… our Love. Everything I feel for you, and everything— Oh no, are you crying? Hey, it's okay!"

I was, indeed, sobbing uncontrollably. Puppet moved closer and embraced me, and I vehemently apologized, "I-I'm sorry, I'm just— I'm just so happy. Oh, god, I'm gonna have a daughter… FC is gonna have a baby sister!"

I cried out, and you held me, sharing your own tears. "I don't know a lot about her yet," you say. "I just know she's this little silver fox, and she has your eyes."

I threw my head back and wailed; you gave a snotty laugh. "I never thought I'd get to be this happy," I managed to blubber through my tears.

"Yeah," you sniffled. "Yeah, me neither."

I rested my head on your shoulder, and we gazed down at our baby girl. "What are we gonna do? Being a parent of one kid is already hard enough. I don't want to fuck up another one."

You chuckle. "Yeah, well… I was never in my kid's life, either. I don't think we'll ever get it quite right, but we can try. I think fucking up is inevitable."

I sigh. "Sure seems like it's part of the job, doesn't it?"

"Most definitely," you snort. "But I don't know… Feels like things will be alright. I think we're gonna make it."

"FC! Stand still!"

"No!"

I sighed, giving up on straightening my son's bowtie and instead hooking my arm underneath his legs, flipping him upside down and carrying him under my shoulder. FC, despite his squirming, let out a very delighted "Weee!" as he went before immediately reverting back to kicking and complaining.

"Thank you," I grunt, pushing through the villa doors and tramping down the pebble path, "for staying nice and quiet during the ceremony, but we have a few more hours before we can go home. And no — you are not going to get any cake if you keep acting like this."

FC choked, aghast, and slapped my leg repeatedly. He could've easily overwhelmed me with his starpower and shattered my kneecap or jumped out of my grip. I knew that. He knew that. We knew that both of us knew he could do that. But oh, no — FC liked the thrill of the game. And, more importantly: getting on my nerves.

I grumbled to myself, marching past the vineyard plot and ignoring FC's back-and-forth pestering of, "Let me down! I want cake! Oh, look, grapes! I want grapes, father! Let me eat the grapes! I want wine. Why can't I have wine? You smell bad. It's cold! You look stupid. This suit itches. I'm hungry! You want to starve me, father. You rob me of sustenance. I'm thirsty. I tired. I'm bored! When can we go home? I want to dance. Let me dance!"

I stop at the top of the hill, plopping FC down on the bench swing and kneeling to meet his eye. "FC," said, keeping either hand planted firmly on his shoulders, "it is one day. One day — can you not give me trouble? Can you please behave? It's a wedding, and for once, I'd like it if the day was focused on our friends getting married instead of us butting heads."

"They're your friends!" FC argued for the sake of arguing.

I studied him for a moment, eyebrows furrowing as he slumped down in the swing and crossed his arms, a deep-set scowl etching his faceplate. I slid my hands down and grasped his hook and paw, futilely trying to catch his gaze. "FC, what is this really about?" I ask, and when he doesn't answer, I press further, "Are you okay, buddy?"

FC snarled and faced me. "Why do you care?"

"Because you're my son, and whether or not you believe me, I love you and care about you. And I want you to be happy." Again, he didn't answer, and I sighed. The alpine wind smelled sweetly of fruit and sunshine, and the vines snaking up the bench swing sang in the breeze. I lowered my voice, petting his head and considering it a small victory when he didn't smack my hand away. "Is it about Mom?"

Immediately, FC's face screwed up, and he bit back a wall of tears that gathered in his eye. "No," he spat, unconvincingly. He hastily wiped his face and sniffled, returning to his scowl and refusal to meet my gaze.

I exhale softly, joining his side on the swing and digging my heel in to push us back and forth. The mountains stretched on beyond the horizon, and the sun hung right above us as midday descended over the valley. "I miss her, too… but I think you already know that," I say. The wood of the bench creaks with our movement. "That hole you feel won't ever fill in, you just grow around it. It hurts, especially if you spend too long thinking about it, but you can't let it get in the way of moments like these."

I look down at him to see FC staring out across the mountains, his eyebrows furrowed stubbornly even with his lip trembling and eye watering. "I want to say something that'll make you feel better, but I know nothing will make whatever you're feeling go away. And I know it sounds stupid, and you've heard it from me a million times before — but she is still with us, in a way." I reach over, brushing the curls from his eye and petting his head. "There will be bad days, and there will be worse days. But I want you to know that you are not alone, FC. I know we have our differences, and I know we don't often get along… But I think… it's better if we remember that we're in this together. I love you, and I'm sorry I'm the dad you got stuck with… but please don't forget that I do love you."

Somewhere nearby, the birds sing. FC shifts in the swing silently, and I avert my gaze once more to the horizon. "I see her everywhere. In the mornings when the sun rises, and in the evenings when the sun sets. I see her in the flowers and the cars and the birds. I see her in the people we meet, and I see her in you. When you feel that wind in your earrings, that's her. When you hear the sound of everyone being alive around you, that's her. When you see the joy and shared sorrow in the people you care about, she's there. She's all around us, FC. And I think…"

I glance down at FC again, and we lock eyes. I tentatively reach over and wipe the tears from his eyelashes. "I think if she were here right now, she would say…"

FC blinks at me, and I cock my head to the side, closing my eye as I strain to hear. In this peaceful silence, it's easy to discern. When I meet his gaze again, I offer a smile.

"'I love you, and I'm so proud of the young man you're becoming.'"

His face screws up, and he stifles a sob that wracks his body. "Shut up!" he snips, sniffing violently and yanking me into a hug. I startle slightly, shocked into silence since FC never hugged me anymore, but I quickly recover and pull my young teenager into my embrace, holding my son together as he fell apart in my arms.

I can hear the chatter of the wedding party in the distance, and somewhere far off, I can imagine them cutting the cake. A sharp pang in my chest resonates as I realize I'm missing part of friends' special day, but another, larger part tugs me closer to this scene. That moment was for them. This moment was for us. I hold my son tighter, shushing him and holding him like I never did when he was little.

It is a while before he calms down, and I take the pocket square from my suit and offer it to him as he blows his nose and wipes his face. He's reduced to sniffles by the time he sits back, curling in on himself as he tucks his tail around his feet. I fix his hair again and consider his bowtie a lost cause.

"Are you ready to head back?" I ask, and he keeps his eye trained on the mountain tops.

"No," he says.

I nod, folding an arm around his shoulders and pulling him closer to my side. "That's alright," I assure. "Then I'll stay until you're ready to, if only to keep you company."

He hums, leaning his head against my chest and murmuring through fresh tears, "I'm scared."

My heart cracks upon hearing his small, warbling voice, and I give him a gentle squeeze. "I know," I hush. "But it's going to be alright... I think we're gonna make it."

Somewhere,

between Now,

Nowhere,

and Forever,

two souls intertwine outside the heart of the universe.

They are quiet in their pain,

and there is pain,

but there is something so much stronger.

The first law of reality is

"As Above, So Below."

It states that,

so long as you care and love something,

the universe does, too,

and it pays you back so in kind.

It echoes across infinite planes,

through infinite possibilities,

ever refracting and ever repeating.

But this does not negate the fact

that the love is there.

It may be small

in the heart of the universe,

but that doesn't mean it isn't love.

It doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.

If you care,

the universe cares.

It may not save anyone,

it may not change anything,

but it is there.

Despite everything, it is there.

And if you care enough,

if you love with all your heart,

you will be there for the people who need you

when it matters most.

Because every heart,

whether in Here or out There,

keeps the universe's heart beating.

And even if it is never said,

it is still heard.

"I love you."

"I love you."

Go where you're needed.