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Even when everything else had changed radically — the music still played in Playcare.
It was strangely soothing, reminiscent as it was of worse times at Playtime. Though he maintained that their current circumstances were better than they had been prior to the Hour, Catnap still missed the few happy moments they'd had while the factory was still operational. When old bloodstains didn't blemish the steps to Home Sweet Home. When the war hadn’t ripped the toys apart, created a rift so deep between them it would never be truly fixed. A wound so severe it would never truly heal.
It was lonely, listening to the music gently playing overhead and knowing that no one else who used to be his friend was listening alongside him. The rest of the Smiling Critters were dead. Only DogDay remained, but his betrayal still hurt, even years later. Catnap still visited, but suffice to say after he’d ripped him in two there wasn't much left for them to discuss. Once, the two of them had been eight year old children, playing in the fake grass of Playcare and chasing each other through the Playhouse. Now, they were — or would have been had the circumstances been any different — two adults, trapped in this facility, imprisoned in bodies that were not their own, stuck in them for so long that neither remembered what it had been like to be human. None of them were human anymore. Hadn't been in almost 15 years and would never be human again.
The only other permanent inhabitant of Playcare was Miss Delight, but Catnap had never gotten along with her, or her sisters, and tolerated her even less a decade after the Hour of Joy. Not that the feeling wasn't mutual. She preferred to stay in the School now, and seldom stepped into the false sunlight of Playcare.
Catnap missed the experiments he'd used to get along with, the friends he'd had. It was odd. He'd never had a lot of friends while still a boy, timid and reclusive as he'd been. He'd only had the Prototype, even back then. But once he'd been made an experiment — suddenly he'd been surrounded with people. Shared misery had that effect on humans. He missed spending time with the other Critters. Missed Huggy, who now lived on the first level of the factory and refused to ever come down, haunted by dark memories. Missed Kissy, or the Kissy he'd known before she had turned her back on 1006, disgusted and horrified by the Hour, and had joined Poppy.
Sometimes, in his darkest, loneliest moments, Catnap even missed Poppy.
That's not to say he didn’t get any visitors at all, of course. The Prototype still came by, when he could. Those instances weren't often, however, busy as he was working on a project he promised had the potential to change their lives radically for the better. He wouldn't say more to him about the matter, and Catnap knew it was because he didn't want to give false hope. It was much easier to handle disappointment if you weren't sure what opportunity you'd missed in the first place. Still, Catnap wished he'd stop by more frequently.
There was one other visitor who regularly stopped by Playcare, though this one Catnap tended to avoid. Even being turned into an experiment like them had not improved Harley Sawyer’s relationships with the toys he'd once tormented. There was some schadenfreude there and considerable satisfaction on the toys’ parts. But there was also bitterness and anger on Sawyer's.
The latter couldn’t be helped, Catnap supposed. People like Sawyer would never admit where they had gone wrong. Even after being backed into a corner, even after being robbed of everything he'd once had, even a decade spent being trapped as a bodiless consciousness in the Factory's systems, the scientist still maintained that everything he'd done to get here was worth it. It was a form of coping, Catnap surmised. The scientists they had slaughtered had been much the same way. Even during their last moments they'd believed the experiments had still been worth it. That just one more breakthrough needed to happen, and then they’d be back. That despite the massacre happening around them — they still needed to forge onward in the name of science. Whether humanity at large would understand them, or not.
To admit they were wrong, to acknowledge that everything they'd done up to this moment had been worthless… it would’ve broken them. Shattered the fragile worldview they had clung to for the sake of their own sanity. Snapped something so deep, so crucial inside them that their psyche would never recover from the blow. Leaving them as empty, soulless husks, not even a shadow of what they once were.
Sawyer was no different, though Catnap wondered if deep down the man realized it. If he knew that if he'd just never come here, if he'd stayed away, everything would've been different for him. He would've never achieved the scientific breakthroughs or recognition he craved, but he would've been free. He would've had his successful career as a neurosurgeon. A house with a nice lawn to call his own. Perhaps even a family if he so desired it. But instead he had come here, and become trapped just like the rest of them, hoist with his own petard. He wondered if Sawyer’s continued bravado, his arrogance, his rage — whether all of it was a desperate bid to keep concealing that truth from himself, because if he admitted it, if he faced it head on, he would become nothing better than the rabids stalking the Playhouse and the levels below.
Not that it was of any consequence to Catnap, of course.
As if aware of his thoughts, Sawyer was there when he entered the offices, his eye flickering on one of the working monitors. Catnap considered turning around, going to the gas production zone instead. The music would be just as loud there as it was inside the buildings, and he didn't feel like heading towards Home Sweet Home just yet. It would be less cozy there, that much was true, but he'd take that over being alone with Sawyer.
Even if they were technically allies now.
Just as he turned to leave, however, Sawyer’s voice stopped him in his tracks. He wasn’t even aware the scientist had seen him come in in the first place.
“You don't have to go, you know.”
Catnap stopped, looking back over his shoulder.
Sawyer was looking right at him, his single eye fixed unblinkingly on his retreating form, the look within it unreadable. The Doctor didn't sound hostile, but that mattered little. Catnap had no desire to spend more time in his company than he had to. The only reason he still hadn't made his way down to the Prison and Secondary lab and disposed of what remained of the Doctor was because Sawyer was still useful to the Prototype. As well as had some shared history with him that 1006 wouldn't tell him about. Catnap wondered if he ever would.
“Why would I stay?” He asked, his broken voice box emitting an eerie hiss of a voice that sounded so unlike his original. The scientists hadn’t had the chance to fix it before the Hour had struck.
Sawyer rolled his single eye, an irritated sigh coming from the overhead speakers.
“Go, or stay, it makes no difference to me, Theodore. But if you were concerned I'd disturb you — I won't. I'm here for much the same reason you are.”
Catnap sharply turned to face him fully, and when he spoke, he couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of his voice.
“You never called me that.”
No one has in years…
Whenever Sawyer had spoken to any of the other experiments at Playtime — he'd always referred to them by their number, including the Prototype himself. Only Yarnaby was an exception to that rule, and even then he was called by his toy name, not his real one. His human one.
Catnap barely remembered what that had been like. To be human.
A tense pause fell between them, neither sure of what to say. Even the slightest of remarks had the potential of culminating in an explosive argument. They weren't on good terms. Probably never would be. How did you even go about forgiving being turned into this? The simple answer was — you didn't. You couldn't. It was impossible. Just as it was impossible to ever go back to being human.
The only mitigating factor, if it could even be called that, was that if it had not been the Doctor it would've been someone else. Catnap knew his fate had been sealed the second he'd ended up at Playcare. If it hadn't been Sawyer, someone else would've taken up the mantle. White. McKabe. Someone. Probably with worse results, leaving him as brain damaged and lost as Yarnaby, everything that had made him Quinn essentially erased. Not only that, but the Doctor was just like them now, another victim of Playtime Co, another tool to be used up and thrown away like garbage.
That did not mean that Catnap was feeling forgiving.
After a long pause, the Doctor spoke, and if Catnap didn't know better he'd say the man sounded… almost cautious. As if he were carefully measuring each word, afraid of a fatal misstep.
It was unlike him.
“I've been speaking to the Prototype in the course of our… research. Vexing as he may be, some of the things he has brought to my attention recently seem to hold some merit. He has suggested that if I wanted to start making some… improvements to our relationship, perhaps it would behoove me to start calling you by your original names, rather than by your numbers, or toy designations.”
Catnap barked out a laugh, the powerful sensations of disbelief and fury warring for control inside his chest.
The audacity.
“Improvements to our relationship?” He asked scathingly, not even trying to keep the anger, hatred and derision out of his voice. “Why? For what purpose?”
Sawyer looked at him, almost seeming tired. Though that was hard to tell, faceless as he now was.
Deep down, he was glad he would never again see the Doctor’s face.
“You are not the only one who can experience… loneliness.” He said at last.
Catnap felt the bitter disbelieving laughter clawing up his throat again, but forcibly suppressed it, staring at the screen displaying Sawyer’s eye. Waiting for him to continue. To elaborate.
The Doctor obliged.
“What is the point of continuing to hate and avoid each other like this, hm? What purpose does it serve now? Neither of us are going anywhere. Nearly all the perpetrators are dead, and the factory is never going to be operational again. You got your wish, and your revenge. What purpose does continued anger serve you? Will it change the past? Will hating me undo what has been done to you? Did killing my colleagues do that? Look around. We're trapped in this factory for all eternity. Forgotten. Abandoned. Left to rot. The Hour of Joy took some of the toys’ lives. Then starvation and civil war took even more. What purpose does continued resentment serve us? Both of us are allies of the Prototype. Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to at least try to get along and work together, rather than continue to pointlessly hate and avoid each other?”
“Nowhere,” Catnap growled, stepping closer to the screen and looming over it, no longer quite able to suppress his boiling rage (not that he even wanted to), “in that did I hear an apology.”
The Doctor looked at him then, and when he spoke he sounded almost… contemplative.
“Would an apology help?”
Without a word, Catnap turned on his heel and stalked away, heading in the general direction of Gas Production. He could listen to the music there without being disturbed. Without Sawyer.
The Doctor was right.
It was an infuriating quality of his — having a valid point when he really had no right to make one. What purpose did continued righteous anger serve him besides make him feel better, feel validated? Would it undo what had been done? No. Would he ever get to act on his anger? Unlikely, not as long as 1006 still needed the Doctor around. And even if he did get to kill Sawyer, would it change anything? Would it ultimately make him feel better? Catnap had thought killing the scientists would help him… once. But the blood he'd spilt that day had done nothing to quench the emptiness inside, ameliorate the pain he'd felt ever since waking up as an abomination. He didn't regret doing what he’d done that day. If given the chance, he would do it again without a second thought. But the satisfaction and relief had seemingly only lasted a few moments, and as the years went by, the hollowness returned and fully took hold over his soul.
It had been tolerable, at first. There were even moments of rare happiness, while he'd been surrounded by others. But then they’d realized they could never leave, not looking the way they did, not with the risk of being discovered by the authorities, or recaptured by what remained of Playtime Co. Then they’d begun to starve, the bodies they’d accrued from the Hour running out quicker than they had expected. And then… then they’d begun to turn on each other. People he'd known. People he'd trusted. Turning their back on him. Turning their back on the Prototype.
Catnap remembered when Poppy's forces had attempted to take over Playcare. Seeing faces he'd known in the crowd and realizing they’d come to kill him, or chase him out of his only remaining home. The betrayal had hurt, and still hurt even when the dust had settled, when the battle for Playcare had been won, and the years — had slowly trickled by.
And since then, since that betrayal — he'd had no one. He'd been alone, the entire factory split into territories each Bigger Body possessed. Huggy on the top level. Mommy Long Legs and her group in Game Station. The Doctor down in the Prison and Secondary labs. The Prototype in the Main Laboratory.
And Catnap himself — sequestered in Playcare.
Loathe as he was to admit it, the Doctor was right. Theo was lonely, no matter how hard he tried to suppress it, and there wasn't much point in continuing to give Sawyer a wide berth. Neither of them had a rich selection of people to talk to to choose from. The isolation was driving both of them insane.
So, as loathsome as it might be, why not try talking to the only option available? What did either of them have left to lose?
The Doctor came by again a few days later. Catnap couldn't help but notice how he just happened to materialize in the same office Theo was curled up in. Try as he might to act and sound indifferent, pragmatic, it seemed Sawyer was as desperate for human connection as he was, just too proud to admit it. Still, it wasn't like Theo was going to make it easy for him, starting a conversation they both longed for. Though the mere fact he hadn't immediately stood and left seemed to be encouragement enough.
“You know, I used to hate this tune. I'm more of a classical music person myself. I much preferred going to Carnegie Hall, when I was able.”
Theo only had a vague idea of what the other was talking about. When he thought of concert halls, the images that came to mind were that of the Playtime Theater he and the other orphans had used to go to, before he had become an experiment. Did this Carnegie Hall that Sawyer spoke of look anything like that? Catnap would never know. Would never get to visit. Would never get to see anything beyond the factory walls.
And it was all Sawyer’s and Playtime's fault.
His stony silence seemed to discourage the Doctor as the man fell silent for a while, clearly considering a change in tactics. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter, and if Catnap didn't know better — almost tentative, as if Sawyer genuinely feared his words would make him stand and walk away again.
“Do you want me to apologize?”
Catnap wondered if he had received some advice from the Prototype. This didn't seem like the kind of thing the Doctor would think to ask on his own. He doubted Sawyer had actually listened to him during their last conversation when Catnap had snapped and then walked away. Was he indeed trying, putting genuine effort into improving their relationship? Was his desperation for any human contact really great enough for him to do so?
Regardless, Catnap didn't want to hear it. It wouldn't be genuine. And it wouldn't change what had been done to him.
“No.”
“Do you want me to tell you what Carnegie Hall had been like?”
“No.”
“Is there anything else you can say, besides ‘no'?”
Yes, shut up and leave me alone so that we may never speak again. This idea has been a mistake.
But Catnap didn't say what he was thinking. However tempting it might be, it would effectively put an end to all attempts of the two of them ever being on speaking terms. So instead, he glanced at the monitor sitting atop the abandoned office desk, his white eyes glowing in the soft, reddish gloom of the Counselors’ office.
“What had it been like, waking up as one of us?”
Sawyer’s single eye narrowed, clearly displeased by the turn of their conversation, and suspicious of Catnap's reasons for inquiring such a thing.
“Why do you ask?”
I'm curious what it had been like for you to experience the same thing you had done to us.
“Humor me.”
That didn't seem to sit well with Sawyer at all, but as Catnap had suspected, he was too desperate to argue.
“Disorienting.” He said at last, having seemingly considered his answer carefully. “I didn't know where I was at first. And then I heard White and it all suddenly made sense. Where I was. What had been done to me. I remember an intense headache, as if my head were being split in two. The sensory overload of being connected to so many systems. And then… I heard Leith.”
The last word was uttered in a near growl. Hatred coating every note in a thick layer. Well, that was one thing they had in common, Catnap supposed. Their mutual animosity towards Leith Pierre.
“Theo, nobody's gonna save you. This prison is where you belong. We'll let you out here and there to go see the kids of Playcare, but your home is here… This is your life now. Get used to it.”
The injustice of it was suffocating. The fact that Pierre had survived the Hour, had managed to escape the factory with his life and wealth intact. What right did he have to go on with his life as if nothing had happened? All the while they were left behind to rot, forgotten, abandoned, hiding in the shadows, never to experience a normal life again?
“Screw Pierre.” He snarled, before he could stop himself, and the Doctor chuckled, taking both of them by surprise.
Catnap couldn't remember ever hearing Sawyer laugh. Not genuinely. Even if it was at their mutual disdain towards the same person.
“Screw Pierre.” Sawyer agreed, and the silence that followed afterwards felt almost… like it bordered on amicable. Certainly less tense and hostile than it had been before. The realization was… surprising, but the more Catnap thought about it the more he was sure it was not unwelcome. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As the music continued to play overhead and they both settled in to listen, Theo couldn't help but think that maybe the Doctor had been onto something. Maybe there was a chance of this working. Of there being slight ‘improvements’ to their relationship, as Sawyer had so eloquently put it.
They would never be friends, of that both of them were certain. And Theo would never forgive. But perhaps they could stop being enemies. Perhaps they could talk from time to time, even if just for the simple purpose of staving off loneliness.
Only time would tell.