Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jack could hear Uncle Cosmos and Dad fighting. They had been going at it for an hour or so now, and Jack’s head was beginning to hurt. They dug their claws into the couch in the basement, hiding their head under their pillow. Fozy was lying somewhere else, but they didn’t get up to find it.

One of the cat, probably Muffin, had curled up next to Jack’s chest as they pulled themselves into a fetal position and groaned. They wished that the basement was sound proofed like the rest of the house, but apparently whoever built it didn’t think someone would actually sleep down there.

Jack wanted to scream. They wanted to go tell the two to shut up or go find somewhere else to yell at each other. They wanted to cry and shout and act like a child, but they knew their dad wouldn’t like it. They knew their dad would likely see them as ‘even more of a toddler’ or ‘stupid’ for yelling.

They pulled the pillow tighter over their audio receptors and whined as the shouting match grew more intense. Why couldn’t these two just get along?

The only thing stopping Jack from running away at the moment was Muffin. They really didn’t want to interrupt the cat’s sleep since Jack knew how hard it was to fall asleep when someone was yelling. Jack couldn’t remember the last time they had slept for more than a few hours.

Between the nightmares, their programs screaming at them to stay awake and protect their family, and now this new development, sleep has been pretty hard to come by. They didn’t show it often, but there had been a few occasions where their battery failed on them and they collapsed or passed out.

The one who normally found them was Molten…

Molten…

Jack allowed a few faux tears to gather in their eyes at the thought of their supposedly dead friend. The friend who sacrificed themselves for Jack. For them. The thought made them hurt. Protecting this family was their job, but it seemed all they did was fail at it. They had failed to stop dad from dying, they had failed at helping Nexus, they had failed at protecting Dazzle, at protecting Cosmos.

They failed over and over and over again. What use were they at protecting people if all they did was get themselves hurt?

They wanted to hide and scream all at the same time. They wanted to throw everything in their room and sink into the ground. They wanted to sleep and runaway. They wanted to rip off their casing and tackle someone.

They nearly jumped out of the exoskeleton when Muffin sat up and stretched, yawning. He leapt off the couch and trotted away to the other room, shaking himself out as he disappeared around the corner. Jack watched him go with an empty expression, the outlines of small white pupils beginning to bloom in their eyes.

They pushed themselves off the couch and stumbled out of their room. Their blanket dragged behind them as they covered their audio receptors, digging their hands into the back of their head. They could still hear the muffled voices sneaking past their fingers, a whimper dragging itself out of their voice box.

The blanket fell to the ground as they began to walk faster than they had before, their simulated breathing becoming rough and shaky as they attempt to get away from all the noice. Warnings that they were placing took much pressure on the back of the head popped up behind their eyes, but they payed them no mind. They just needed to get away.

They pushed the door open with shaking hands, nearly falling out into the grass as they began running to the dock. They tripped over the grass as they continued to cover their receptors and run. They knew they were being childish, but they didn’t care. They just wanted to be away from the noise. They wanted to be away from the fighting and the yelling.

They wanted to be away from that family.

They felt wood under their thin slippers as they ran onto the dock and sank to the ground. The night air chilled their casing, the sensitive area where the broken half of their face had been replaced stinging. They itched at it, digging their dagger fingers into the slight indent along the orange section of their face.

They could feel sobs tarring away from their voice box as they began to let a bit of the pent of anger and frustration out into the world. They cried into the night air where they knew it wouldn’t hurt anyone. They couldn’t get word out of their voice box as they coughed and chocked on their own emotions.

Tears began to slip out of their eyes, falling to the worn wood beneath them. They knelt on their knees and screamed. They head pounded in their receptors, their body aching as they sobbed. The crying made them nauseous as they squeezed their eyes shut, hugging their own arms and waiting for the storm in their soul to die down.

Their tears ran for a good ten minutes before their body grew tired and they slumped to their side, staring at the water with half lidded eyes. It shown beneath the crescent moon hanging in the sky. Stars glinted in the indigo canvas, the cool autumn breeze causing Jack to shiver.

They blinked their eyes in an attempt to keep themselves awake, but they could feel their low battery beginning to drag them into unconsciousness. Just as their eyes began to fall, foot steps snapped them back into awareness. They didn’t move, expecting it to be their dad or Sun coming to drag them back to the house, however the voice that spoke belonged to neither of them.

“Um… Hello?” Said a hesitant tone, the accent being very much not anyone in their house. It was too formal and soft.

Jack was on their feet faster than they could think, daggers slipping out of the backs of their hands as they bared their teeth at the animatronic that had spoken. Red and blue eyes blinked at them as they glowered at Ruin, feeling their exhaustion fade in favor of their distaste.

“What do you want, Devil?” Jack snarled, though they couldn’t hide the slightest tremor in their voice and the tear tracks along their face. Ruin’s rays shifted at he placed his hands up. “I did not mean to startle you, Jack…” He said slowly like he was calming an animal.

Jack swallowed the lump in their throat as they let their daggers disappear. “What do you want?” They repeated dully as they turned their eyes to the ground. Ruin lowered his hands and cleared his throat. “Well, I was a tad bit concerned when I heard screaming outside of my back door?…” He explained slowly, Jack’s shoulder’s stiffening as they scrunched up their face. Jack knew this was a public lake, they had seen other neighbors out on it before. They should have known at least someone would hear them out here, but that hadn’t exactly crossed their mind.

They were quiet for a long time, their words locked in their head as they waited for Ruin to get bored and go away. They needed to sneak back into the house soon anyway. The silence was louder than any scream they had ever heard; almost suffocating.

Ruin sighed and rubbed between his eyes. “Would you like to discuss it?” He asked in a voice that was… genuine. Jack finally made eyes contact with Ruin, their chest burning as they bunched up the sides of their pants. This person had killed their father. He destroyed thousands of dimensions. He was known to be a convulsive lair and a manipulative asshole.

Jack had seen what Ruin could do.

They didn’t know why they nodded.

Ruin hummed and settled down on the deck in front of Jack, crossing his legs at the ankles. Jack took a bit to follow before they eventually returned to the ground, settled in a way that they could bolt if they needed to.

A beat of silence followed before Jack began to talk. “I just want them to act like a family again.” They whispered as they stared at the planks. “I’m tired of listening to them fight all the time. I just want Dad and Uncle Cosmos to come to a compromise, I want Sun and Moon to see each other’s prospective and have an actual conversation instead of a fight.”

“I want them to stop acting like children and get themselves therapy instead of pretending everything is fine when nothing is. They’re all grown adults. They know they have problems. They know that it affects other people, but they don’t do anything about it. They have every reason to get themselves help, but instead they act like little kids who can’t do anything.”

“Sun acts as if he’s so much holier than the rest of us and blames all his flaws on his trauma and everyone else. He doesn’t see that he is half the reason he isn’t healing. He picks fights with everyone else when they do what he tells them to. He has constant mood swings that make it hard to talk to him. He’ll hit me with things before asking me to stop but then comfort me after my Dad leaves.”

“Moon doesn’t understand that his actions have consequences. Both him and Sun are hypocritical about each other’s actions. Moon thinks he’s smarter than anyone in a room, and sure, he can do math, but when it comes to people he’s clueless. He expected that unlocking his emotions again would fix everything with him and Sun, but it didn’t. All it did was make things worse than they were before.”

“They have constant tension and can barely have a conversation without it breaking into a screaming match. Dad left in the middle of their fight to go find the Overseer and left me alone to deal with the twins and their shouting. Dazzle is never home now since she goes to school. Molten was my only means of a support system and now they’re dead because of me. I can’t even do my one job right because I can barely protect myself. The only people I feel like I can talk to are Sun’s cats since they won’t get offended and call me an idiot.”

“Why do they treat me like I’m dumb? I’m not as stupid as they act like I am. I’m more emotionally mature than half the people in that house but they act like I don’t understand basic things. I can problem solve, I can understand complex situations, I can help people but they don’t let me. They don’t let me protect people because all of the sudden I’m ‘just a kid!’ And ‘too innocent!’”

“Where was that when I was still learning how to function? I had to learn everything myself! Sun was too busy with Nexus, Cosmos and Terra couldn’t give less of a damn, Dad was dead, and Puppet left to go be in a different dimension before she could actually teach me anything! I had to force myself to grow up so I could keep up with everything! I had to grow up because Sun couldn’t pull himself together! I had to grow up because I had to find Nexus!”

“The only time I could act my age was when I was with Dazzle since she wouldn’t leave me from being a kid! And now that this family recognizes that I’m a child, they overcompensate and treat me like a toddler! No one tells me anything! No one explains anything and I have to just go with it!”

“Sun made me apologize for things that weren’t my fault. After I had just gone through the most traumatic and horrific experience of my life, he made me apologize to Dazzle for saying we weren’t friends anymore! I had just been force to kill people and she was the one getting an apology? She was the one being coddled? How hard is it to explain possession to a kid? How hard is it to understand? Why was it my fault?”

“I feel like all of their deaths are my fault. That it was me. The guilt is eating me alive but I can’t get rid of it. I haven’t been able to sleep properly in nearly a year at this point. The nightmares keep getting worse and worse and the yelling every single night isn’t fucking helping! But they don’t care! They never care! I know it’s selfish, but I hate it! I hate them and I hate their yelling and their attitude and their- everything!”

“I’m tired of this house, I’m tired of this family, I’m tired of the yelling and the tension and everything! I’m tired of everything! At this point I want to run away and die out in the woods!”

“I’d be more useful there anyway…”

The tears had began pretty early into Jack’s rant as they sobbed out their frustrations. By the end of it they had curled themselves up into a ball, hiding their face in their pants and continuing to cry. Ruin hasn’t said a word until Jack finished their vent, watching them break down and let all the pent up emotion break out into the world.

Once they had been reduced to a whimpering mess on the dock, Ruin spoke. “Jack… remind me how long you’ve been online.” He said slowly, his face neutral as shifted a little closer to them. They peaked their watery eyes over their knees to look at Ruin. “A year and a half?… a little longer?…” they murmured, confused where the question had come from.

“In that year and a half, have you ever had a vent session with someone?” He asked lowly, his eyes narrowing as he watched the smaller bot. Jack shook their head, still confused. Ruin sighed. “Your family, excuse my language, needs to give you a fucking break. You’re a child surrounded but adults acting like children and you are not selfish for feeling frustrated. In fact, the idea you haven’t given them a piece of your mind yet is baffling.”

Ruin’s voice remained steady as he spoke, though there was a slight hint of anger in his words. Jack stared at the ground. Ruin studied them for a long time before he spoke again. “Look, Jack. I’m not the person you should get advice from, but my ten cents is that you should find a way to get out your frustration. Have a fight with the wall in the morning, take up boxing or something. Hell, go shout at your family for an hour, but do not hold in your feelings until they drown you.”

Jack nodded slowly, possessing the words and mulling them over. They looked up as Ruin cleared his throat. “Would you perhaps like a hug or something?” He asked, though the hesitation was palpable. He expected Jack to say no and run away back to the house or give him a look, but he was surprised when they sat up and collapsed into his arms.

They hugged his waist and hid their face in his chest as they hiccuped and sniffled into his vest. He sighed and hugged them back, letting them curl up and hide from the rest of the world. It almost reminded him of all those many, many years ago when he as a daycare attendant comforting children again.

Ruin rubbed Jack’s back as they began to cry again. They doubted they had ever cried so many times in their life, but they felt a little better. They eventually split, Jack scrubbing their face in an attempt to get rid of the tears stained into their face. Ruin grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, offering his hand to Jack. They reluctantly took it and allowed him to steady them as they stumbled a bit.

“I still hate you…” They drawled as Ruin began to lead them back to the house. “I don’t doubt that.” He hummed, keeping a hold of their hand. They came to the back door that still stood open from when Jack had ran away through it. Cosmos and Solar seemed to have finally finished their screaming match since the house was quiet.

Jack hesitated at the door before they turned and hugged Ruin one last time. “Thanks…” they whispered, squeezing his middle like they would to their dad. Ruin rested his hands on their back and nodded. “I didn’t mind. Feel free to knock if you would like to talk again.” He huffed, letting Jack step away.

“Okay…” they murmured, disappearing into the house. Ruin watched them go before he departed back to his house. Tiger Rock would likely be wondering about his long absence soon enough.

Jack wondered back to their room and collapsed into the couch, drawing Fozy to their chest and letting their eyes shutter closed. Their head and face still hurt, but they hadn’t felt this calm in ages. Cleo and Muffin arrived a few minutes after they fell into bed, curling up and purring as they made themselves comfortable.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Jack slept the whole night without so much as a dream.