Chapter Text
Parker MacMillan opens the Library, and the whole world falls sideways.
What.
No.
This can't be him. It can't be him. It is him. It isn't him. He's not sure if the screams he's hearing are echoes or his own.
He is Parker MacMillan I II III IIII IIII and he is a firewalker
he is no one
he is the commissioner
he is percolated
he is staring at a book that should not have been opened and he Remembers Before.
"parker?" a voice says behind him, and he jumps, scattered memories flashing through his head. He turns, and it's a terrifying second of unknowing before it clicks that it's just Reader.
"did you know there's a bunch of weird dust under your bookshelf?" Reader says brightly. They don't know, they don't know what he did, and he doesn't want them to hate him but he can't not show them.
"parker? are you ok?"
Parker points wordlessly at the screen, and Reader moves forward to look. Parker turns away. He can't watch.
"oh no," Reader says softly. "oh, parker, no."
Parker turns back to look at them, trying to hold back tears.
"that's not--it's not real," Reader says, wrapping their cloak tighter around them, their voice echoing oddly in the small room.
No. He remembers.
"it's not real. lōotcrates is--making it up, or something."
"Don't lie to me!" Parker half-screams, half-sobs. "You said--you're the only one who I thought wouldn't lie to me!"
Reader says nothing. The silence hangs heavy in the room.
Parker takes a couple deep, shaky breaths and looks up. Reader is avoiding his eyes. They've never looked smaller. They've never seemed more human.
"i don't want it to be real either," Reader says.
Parker sinks to the ground, shaking. He makes it to under the desk before he breaks down.
In a few seconds and/or an eternity, he feels Reader squeeze in next to him.
"this is my hiding place," Reader says.
Parker doesn't respond.
"you can share it for now, though."
Nothing. He can't speak. It's just him and Reader's voice and the desk and the floor and that's all he can do right now.
"i'm not leaving," Reader says. "remember? you didn't turn me in and now you can't get rid of me."
"I might," Parker blurts. "Might in-incinerate you."
"you wouldn't," Reader says fiercely. "you're not that person anymore."
He was that person, though, and that's--it's--he can't get the image of Reader being incinerated out of his head (except it's also Gerund and it's Chorby and it's Jaylen and it's himself).
He presses his feet harder into the floor, clutching at his blaseball mask as if he wants to tear it off.
"focus, wy--" Reader pauses. "focus, parker. concentrate on me, okay? concentrate on you. your memories."
Coffee. No--that hurts. Parker struggles. Consumer attacks. Partytime announcements. FEEDBACK DETECTED--augh, no--
"parker?" Reader says. "can you hear me? are you listening?"
Parker can hear them, he is listening--it's all he can do right now. Drag his mind away from the flames, the burning--
"you have to have some good memories," Reader says. "monitor! nothing bad can possibly come of the monitor. parker, did you ever get snacks from the monitor?"
Parker actually has to think about that for a bit. He concentrates as hard as he can on considering whether or not he has. Nothing else. Desk. Floor. Reader. Snacks. Monitor.
"Big squid, right?" he manages to get out. He's breathing too fast still, but it's a little calmer. The room isn't spinning as much.
"big squid," Reader agrees. "very friendly, glows blue, tries to pat you on the head or maybe that's just me."
Parker almost laughs at the idea of someone patting Reader on the head, but he thinks if he laughed right now it'd turn into screaming. Instead, he leans his head back against the wall of his desk and exhales very slowly.
Reader kind of puts an arm behind him, and then another one in front of him, and then scoots closer (which isn't hard considering the space under the desk is cramped as is).
"Are you...hugging me?"
"yes. shut up. i haven't had much practice."
"It's ok," Parker says, settling into the hug. "I haven't either."
They stay like that for a long moment. It's nice. It's really nice, actually, even if Reader's knee is poking him. At least they don't make any comments about the fact that he's still crying a little.
Eventually, of course, he scoots his way out from under the desk, and tugs Reader out alongside him. There's lots of kind messages waiting for him on Twitter, but of course, the one his eyes are drawn to just says 'call me'.
"nope," Reader says, grabbing the phone away as he is reaching for it. "you are not going to call them, because you have your rights and you need a break."
"A siesta," Parker says.
Reader nods, firmly, and they've hidden the phone in their cloak, so he really doesn't have any choice but to rest.
(A siesta is the only time he can rest. It doesn't last long, but it's enough, and at least the short time means no nightmares.)
Reader is still there when he wakes up. (Of course they are. Where else would they be?)
"I gotta do the announcements," Parker says. He's never felt bad about his job before, he has always done a great job, but today it's just too much and he wants to go directly back to sleep.
"oh, so you are doing something on that computer instead of just ignoring me," Reader says.
Parker ignores them. San Francisco Lovers, hashtag, partytime. There. Done. He buries his face in his hands.
"I don't want to keep doing this."
Reader, for once, is quiet.
Doing the rest of the Partytime tweets is--not fun, really, since he has to "be professional" and all, but it's a distraction. (Reader, of course, keeps offering 'fun facts' about 'unions', although Parker's not sure if that's them trying to help distract him or just Reader being Reader.)
"Wild Card drawings," Parker says, seeing the notification appear on his screen, and sighs again. Why does he have to do so much? It never felt like so much before.
"i'll do it," Reader says.
"It's not a literal deck," Parker says.
"I'll do it," Reader says. "you," shuffle, "shouldn't," shuffle, "have to," shuffle, "do EVERYTHING," shuffle, "around here." They shuffle the cards so quickly it seems like they should fly everywhere, but they don't. It's kind of amazing, especially considering Parker doesn't have a deck of cards in his office. (He usually just uses a random number generator.)
"Where'd you get those?" Parker says.
Reader sighs. "they're not my real cards. i used those up season 19. can't do any real readings with these. good for playing solitaire, though."
"Is that what you're doing under the desk while I'm doing my work all day?"
"yeah. listen, parkey, i mean it when i say you shouldn't have to do all this...stuff. and 'act professional' and whatnot, i mean, come on. you need a break or something!"
"They can never stop," Parker quotes. "I'm just--just following the rules."
"fuck the rules! and fuck the stupid coin for enforcing them!"
"Reader, don't--"
"she's literally hunting me down right now, parker! that's the whole reason i'm here!"
"I swear, Reader, if I could just figure out how to tell Her, I could explain you're not that bad, and She's sensible, and really into fairness, so She'd pr--"
"parker, no," Reader says. "please don't tell her, i know you think you can convince her but--please don't."
And it's the "oh-gods-no-please-don't-hurt-me" look on their face, and it's the taste of ash in his mouth, and it's the way Reader's whole form seems to be wavering shaking flickering, and it's the heat burning up through his feet, and he can't he can't he can't leave his rival-annoyance-friend to die again.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry--" Reader is shaking and his vision is blurry and Reader is scared and he's scared and it's wrong, it's wrong, he messed it up again.
"no, no, i'm sorry, parker, i should'nt have pushed it, not now."
Parker blinks. Startles. "You apologized," he says, and then, "you apologized! Ha! I got you to apologize!"
"oh come on, i'm not that bad," Reader says.
"You are!"
"you're worse than me!"
Suddenly he's laughing, even though he's also still kind of crying, and Reader's laughing too, and it's okay. It's okay. It's not good, he's still trying not to think too hard about everything this means, but it's okay. He's okay.