Chapter Text
Twixxel made a lot of revelations in about half a second. The first one is that he has no limbs. Then, in this exact order, he realizes that he’s incredibly small, that every movement he makes is not one he chose, and that each word out of his mouth is not his own. To his astonishment, he was living vicariously… through Verity.
Or so he thought.
It was when he let out a shaky exhale, and the sphere also took a breath, that he realized he had more control than he thought he did. It was terrifying. It was also how he was pretty sure death via being eaten alive was most definitely not supposed to go.
“Stop that,” he heard from his own mouth, even though it clearly wasn’t him. “You’re lucky that Mob isn’t here right now. I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain it to him too.”
“Verity? How—what is this?” Twixxel asks.
“I’m not sure myself, surprisingly. I don’t know what’s happening here. You should be dead.”
“I know that, genius. Why aren’t you sugarcoating things like you normally do? Why aren’t you more stressed about this?”
“I don’t.. I don’t know how to cover it up when I don’t know what’s happening either. Plus, I don’t care enough about you to hide things from you,” Verity remarked, bluntly.
“Ouch.” At least I’m not the only one clueless, Twixxel thinks. “That still doesn’t answer why you don’t care.”
“I care, lots. But it wouldn’t do any good for either of us to lash out. That’s why I’m holding us back. It took a lot to keep you from waking up while Mob was still here.”
“Um, okay,” Twixxel accepts it, hesitantly. He feels like there’s something more he should say, but he can’t think of what it is.
“You don’t know what to say because I’m not letting you.”
“Stop—can you not? Y—you’re freaking me out,” Twixxel sputters.
“I know everything. You expect me to stop knowing everything?”
“You don’t know why we’re in this situation.”
“…That’s fair, I’ll stop. For now.”
When Verity let go, it felt like a heavy weight has been lifted from both of their shoulders. Unfortunately, it made Twixxel a lot more aware of the situation. He kind of regrets asking Verity to stop holding his thoughts back. He had so many more worries, things like how bored he’s going to get, what this means in the long term, what Mob is going to think—
“This is why I held us back.”
Suddenly, he feels like a wall has been put on his mind again.
Twixxel reluctantly thanks Verity, “thanks, I guess. I still don’t know how you did that. Do you have like, invisible lexapro? Is that why you don’t hate me anymore?”
Verity ignores that.
“I’m keeping us like this until I feel like we’d be able to handle this situation.”
Despite the barrier keeping him from his thoughts, Twixxel still has something to ask, even though he’s sure Verity is sick of his questions.
“How do you stand being a ball all of the time? Don’t you ever wish you had a body?”
“You’re only asking me this because you want your limbs back.”
“…Yes.”
“I was already thinking about it before you woke up. I decided it would be better if we had one.”
“How are you going to do that?” Twixxel asks, his voice laced with doubt.
“You know I always have my ways. I know everything, after all.”