A/N: This is the longest chapter in the fic, and it's was one of my favorites to write. I am so excited to share it with you all. I have nothing to add here because, um, well... hahaa... you'll see why soon enough. I'll go ahead and leave you to it. Enjoy!
Chapter 3: Animanie, totally insane-y... Mirrors will Reflect-y
Yakko could hear his brother's alarm clock ringing and echo throughout the tower as he sat up in his ball pit. He couldn't remember how he got back home, but both of his siblings were with him, so he didn't pay much mind to the missing details that racked inside his head. He figured this is what blacking out would be like.
Slowly, as to not make as much noise as possible, Yakko climbed over his sibling's beds to reach the blue clock ringing on Wakko's bed frame. It was a mystery how it hasn't fallen off yet with all the bouncing and buzzing it was doing. He reached over to smack it off, mumbling to himself, "I swear, you two sleep through everything."
He glanced over at Wakko, who was curled up in his bed with the covers dangling from the sides. His thumb was partially in his mouth, drool all over the pillow. He picked up the covers and gently smoothed them out on top of him. It was already morning, but they didn't have anything important to do. Sleeping in wouldn't hurt.
His sister was neatly tucked beneath her fluffy yellow blankets.
Tapping his fingers on the latter, he thought about breakfast. It was their usual routine. Yakko always wakes up first, gets everything cleaned up, prepares breakfast, makes sure they get changed, and so on. He never minded the chores, although it would have been nice to receive some help. He stepped down the latter and felt a cold breeze flow.
It made his fur stand on end.
He looked around for the source. Maybe Wakko had left a window open, or the door wasn't closed right. He didn't see anything wrong around the tower, but he double-checked the windows anyway.
Walking back towards the kitchen, he heard his siblings stir in their sleep. Wakko had woken up first. He didn't think he was being loud, so they must have woken up on their own. Yakko opened the fridge and grabbed the egg carton.
Wakko stretched. He sighed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he sat up and threw the covers down the side of the bed. He hit the side of his sister's bed, causing her to groan in response.
"Six more hours," she groggily said as she turned over.
"What do you want for breakfast?"
Yakko cut in, "I'm making scrambled eggs. Wakko, you want extra eggshells?" When he didn't hear a response, he looked up from the pan he was warming up. "Waks?"
His brother didn't even look over in his direction. Wakko was now sitting on his sister's bed, rolling her over and pulling the covers away, "Wake up!" He poked her forehead repeatedly and laughed as she woke up, grabbing his hands to stop the annoyance.
"Why are you like this?" Dot sat up and pushed her brother off her bed, causing him to fall off the side. He hit the ground with a loud crash. She looked down and smiled, sticking her tongue out at him.
Yakko watched the interaction take place. They probably didn't hear him, so he repeated what he had said. But even then, his siblings ignored him.
"Apple or Orange?" Wakko asked as he walked past his older brother. He opened the fridge and looked around.
"Orange."
"Apple it is," he said as he grabbed a glass and placed it on the counter. He looked at the open egg cartons; and the pan that was eating up on the stove. He glanced over at his older brother before placing the cup on the table, not saying a word.
"That's not my cup," Dot said as she reached for her own. "I don't want that one."
Wakko looked at the cup and cringed. He had grabbed his brother's glass by mistake.
"It's alright," Yakko said, "You can use it; I'll get coffee."
Wakko and Dot looked at each other briefly before focusing on their breakfast.
Yakko was getting annoyed by the lack of acknowledgment. Waving his arms around, Yakko tried to get his sibling's attention, but everything he did was shot down by a passive-aggressive insult towards him. And the worst part of all... they didn't even talk to him. It was all between their own conversation.
What did he do? Yakko tried his best to think back to anything he's done that could have led his siblings to ignore him this way, but nothing came to him. Absolutely nothing. Yakko felt an oddly familiar feeling flow through him, and that's when it clicked.
This wasn't real.
Yakko looked at Wakko and Dot, who were sharing a slice of toast, and for a brief moment, he felt relief before shifting over to a panic. If these weren't his real siblings, then that meant that they were still in the studio. Alone and scared with Nickelwise. He mentally slapped himself for not realizing this earlier. Duh, he's been here before.
He shot up from the table and ran towards the door. If he runs there, maybe he'd make it in time.
"Where are you going!?" Dot called out as she watched her older brother run towards the entrance of the water tower. She saw him open the door and step out. She threw a cup in his direction, causing it to break on the wall, "You know what? Fine! Leave for all we care! You already proved you hate us!"
Yakko stopped dead in his tracks. What did she just say? He turned around to go back inside, but he found that he wasn't even at the tower anymore. He had walked through the door and had been taken somewhere else. His hands were still on the metal door, but it didn't lead anywhere. It was now just a door in the middle of a long hallway. When he let go, it disappeared.
Yakko felt uneasy. His sister had just told him that he hated them, complete with smashed glass and all. He was rather impressed with her performance, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. He would never tell them that, ever. Why would she say that? What could he have possibly done? Yakko countered his thoughts with the fact that he knew it wasn't real. It was all a fabrication Nickelwise had conjured up to scare him. Yakko scoffed; it wasn't going to work. Although, the hallway he was standing in might.
Yakko found himself in the middle of the most long-drawn hallways he's ever seen. There was a row of vertical fluorescent white strip lights behind faded yellow glass frames. They ran on the ceiling, going all the way down the hall. Because of how obscure the glass was, the room was dimly lit with a yellow hue. The walls on either side of him were divided in half, with the lower half being covered with dark oak wood and the upper half painted an off-white. White doors ran along the walls, making it look like he was in some kind of office building.
Yakko walked down the hall, reading the nametags posted on the doors. Some of them were blank, but others had names he didn't recognize. He could hear the hum and flicker of the lights above him- it was making him uncomfortable.
"Warner?"
He jumped at the feminine voice. Last Yakko checked, he was alone. He turned around and noticed a tall, brown-haired lady standing at the end of the hall. She was calling him over with her fingers, and Yakko didn't hesitate to follow. He practically drifted to her. He didn't have to be near her to know that she was the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.
She was wearing a button-up blouse, whose buttons were snuggled nicely against her body. She had a brown blazer on top, matched with the tight pencil skirt and high heels that can probably kill a man if she tried hard enough. The color complimented her tan skin. Her hair was styled, curled, and held up by a clip that blended in with her hair color.
The closer Yakko got to her, the prettier she became. Her make-up was sutled but sultry, no less.
"Helloo, receptionist," he sang as he reached her.
She smiled and leaned down to talk to him better. She pushed her hair behind her ear, and Yakko resisted the urge to look down her shirt. His heart was racing, and it wasn't because he was scared. She smelled of sunshine.
"You ready to get in?"
"Get in what?" he asked suggestively, but the lady didn't react. She simply pushed him inside an open door.
"Get in here, silly." She giggled and shut it behind him, leaving him alone. Here he was thinking he would get a bit of action. Clearing his head, he sighed. It was fun while it lasted- even if it was for 30 seconds.
It was even darker in the room than it was outside. Yakko reached for the door handle but found that the door had entirely vanished. He turned around to face the room, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light. He walked towards the center and ran into what felt like a table. He heard something begin to slide off, and he quickly tried to reach what it was. He had caught it, and he dragged it close to him.
It was a lamp. Yakko felt around and turned it on. "Geez, how much did Pixar sell this for?"
On the table, he found a small index card that read: "Please take a seat, you'll be with you shortly."
It was then when Yakko realized he was standing in a small interrogation room. Complete with a full one-way mirror that reflected himself. The room wasn't lit up completely; it was a small lamp, but it was bright enough to make out the room.
The floor was grey, smooth concrete, and the walls were a brighter shade of grey. The table Yakko was currently leaned against was made of metal, along with the foldable chair. He sat down.
He stared at himself for a while before he looked around the room again. Yakko felt like he was wasting time. He should be finding a way out to help his siblings, not making faces in a mirror. He ran his hand through his hair as he sighed. As he was about to get up, he heard a voice call out to him. There was no one in the room with him, but the voice sounded eerily familiar. He looked at himself in the mirror. It couldn't have been.
Yakko stared at his reflection. He waved an arm, and the mirror followed. "Okay, I gotta get out of here; I'm already hearing things."
"No, you aren't!"
Yakko finched backward. "Hello?" he said in a confused tone.
"Hey!" The reflection answered back, "Yakko, is it?"
"Real funny," Yakko shot back. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea of talking to his reflection. He's had an internal conversation with himself multiple times, but he's never actually spoken to himself out loud, at least not like this. It felt weird.
"You looked like you've seen a ghost. Need me to call the ghostbusters? Or would you prefer the Scooby Gang?"
Yakko didn't say anything. He looked around the room, knowing he wasn't finding anything new, but Yakko had to make sure he was still in his reality.
"Come on, I thought we were the one that yaks? I'm doing all the work here."
Yakko looked at his reflection and raised his hand. Sure enough, his appearance followed.
"You know how mirrors work," the reflection said as he copied Yakko, "Well, given the pants we choose to wear... maybe we might need a few lessons."
"How are you talking?" Yakko finally asked. He walked towards the mirror and placed his hand on the glass. "It's a one-way window, isn't it? Nickelwise?"
The reflection laughed, "No, No! I'm not that stupid clown, I'm just you!"
"So, what am I supposed to call you? Yakko #2?" He felt weird saying his own name, let alone hearing his own voice.
The reflection shook his head, "No. Call me Alvin. We always wanted to know what that would be like."
Yakko stared at him, "Our middle name? Okay. But we hate the name."
"Hate it? Since when? I must've missed the memo. We secretly like it." His reflection bounced on his heels, "In fact, now that I think about it, there's a lot of things we secretly like."
Yakko raised an eyebrow. He didn't quite believe that the reflection, or Alvin, was really him. There was no way. This had to have been some kind of mirror manipulation trick. He's read about the concept in a few of his toon textbooks.
Noticing Yakko's suspicion, Alvin smiled. He released himself from the bond and now moved freely inside the mirror. He pulled out a little notebook from his hammerspace and sat down in the reflected chair. "I can see your mind churning. Here, let me help you out. Want proof? Sit down."
Without thinking, Yakko slowly made his way behind the desk and sat down, feeling the cold metal under him. He didn't take his eyes off of his reflection in case it disappeared. He watched as Alvin flipped through the pages within the notebook. He didn't know what he was about to say, but he knew it wasn't true. He was bluffing. Nickelwise was bluffing.
"Let's see here," Alvin licked the tip of his fingers as he stopped the notebook abruptly. "We secretly like it when Bugs gets suffocatingly protective."
Yakko shrugged, "Okay, sure. That doesn't really mean anything."
The reflection nodded, "Okay, fair." Flipping through the notebook again, he chuckled when he found another one, "Well, we secretly like that one guy in Goof Tro-"
"-Alright," Yakko cut him off before he could finish. He leaned forward in his chair and continued, "That one was a joke, and you know it!"
Alvin laughed and shook his head, "A joke? I wonder what it'll look like when you tell the truth! I don't know what else you want me to say. I swear I'm just you."
"Geez, I talk about going to Spoonerville one time." He crossed his arms in front of him, feeling himself start to blush. "I don't have time for this; I need to find my sibs."
"You can't just leave; we aren't done!"
"I'm not going to waste my time talking to you," Yakko got up from his seat, "Or me? Talking to we? Forget it. Do you know where my sibs are by any chance? Since you apparently seem to know so much."
"Okay, no need to get so defensive." Alvin raised both his hands up, "Not my fault you hate yourself so much that you don't even want to spend time together."
There was a slight undertone of sadness and disappointment in his voice. It left a bad taste in Yakko's mouth. "I never said that."
"You didn't have to. We share a brain."
"I don't hate myself." Yakko expected his reflection to talk back to him. Instead, the room filled with a suffocating silence. He turned back around and found that he was gone. Well, not gone, but Alvin wasn't present anymore. He sighed out of frustration and stepped towards the mirror. "I don't hate myself!"
For some reason, the fact that his reflection said that compelled him to stay. He couldn't just leave on such a sour note. Yakko tapped on the glass.
"Miss me?" Alvin smiled back at him.
Yakko jumped back a bit, "No, just wanted to clarify that I don't hate myself." He rolled his eyes, "Okay, now that that's over, I'm leaving."
"Good luck!" Alvin watched as Yakko looked and walked around the room, feeling the walls for some kind of opening. He smirked as Yakko started to get frustrated. "Geez, try a bit harder; your siblings depend on it."
Yakko glanced over at himself. He would have liked his reflection to help him out rather than point out the obvious, but he knew that that won't happen. He was already stressed as it was. The idea that his siblings were alone with a psychotic clown didn't bring out the happiest of thoughts. "Where's the damn door?"
Alvin shrugged, "Uhhhh, I don't know. I just got here too. Have you tried open sesame? I hear it works."
"This could go a lot faster if you help. We have siblings to get to."
"No, you have siblings to get to," Alvin corrected. "I'm just your reflection. Not my fault you caused us to get separated."
"I didn't-"
"Then where are they? Last I remember, you said something about an equal playing field, am I not mistaken?"
Yakko's hands dropped to his side as he stared at the wall. His reflection had a point. It was his mouth that caused a chain reaction. He should have known something like that would happen, but his stupid mouth kept running.
"Aw, don't beat yourself up about it; It's not your fault we don't know when to shut the fuck up. Now we don't even know where Wakko or Dot is."
Yakko took a deep breath and continued to feel along the walls. He tapped on the concrete, hoping to hear something hollow. He didn't even know what that would sound like, but he figured he'd know when he got to it. He distracted himself from the words coming out of Alvin's mouth.
"I mean, what kind of brother even lets that happen in the first place? We were supposed to keep us together; separation is the last thing we could've wanted."
"Are you going to keep criticizing me?"
Alvin shrugged, "I'm only saying what you aren't."
Yakko looked at Alvin, who was standing close to the mirror on his end. He leaned against the glass, watching him struggle with a smile on his face. It irritated him.
"Stay for a little while longer," Alvin pleaded. He placed his hand on the glass and dragged it down dramatically, "They can live without their shitty ass brother for a little while longer."
"Don't say that!" Yakko snapped.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot you chose to repress that. Freudian slip, my bad."
"I don't repress anything." Yakko was leaning against the table now. He pinched the bridge of his nose, "Look, I really need to make sure Wakko and Dot are okay."
"Why?" Alvin asked. He took a step back and bounced on the ends of heels, waiting for his reply. His hands were behind his back with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"If you are who you say you are, then you'd already know the answer to that."
Alvin rolled his eyes and groaned. He theatrically stumbled his way back towards the metal table and threw himself down on it. "We always have to watch over them," he whined, "They can handle themselves for once in their life."
"No, I have to go."
"We don't have to do anything. Besides, look at the way they treated us this morning. After we help them with their bullshit our entire life, they had the audacity to fucking shun us."
"That wasn't my sibs. They'd never do that to me. Nickelwise is just a know-nothing who thinks he can tug on my nerves." Yakko could feel his heart begin to beat faster inside his chest.
"Then, why are you nervous?"
Yakko didn't respond.
"It's the distress of not knowing what you've done to them to deserve it, right? Because you know that there are things in here that could easily bring to that outcome." Alvin tapped on his temple repeatedly. Noticing the slight alarm in Yakkos's face, he continued, "Why don't you sit down."
Yakko stood still for a few seconds before slowly making his way towards the chair. His reflection was beginning to scare him; there were things he wasn't proud of inside his head. He didn't need for him to call them out. He's dealt with them already.
Alvin kicked his feet up on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Alright, let's see here," he said as he reached into his hammerspace and pulled out the same small notebook from earlier. "Would you like to start? Or should I?"
"Start with what?"
"Oh, don't be so stupid, me. What do you think could have caused your siblings to hate you so much?" Alvin waited for Yakko to respond, but he was beginning to grow impatient. "Fine, let's start with something small. How about the fact that you sold them out? After the 22-year hiatus that we caused, of course."
"We both know damn well that I did everything I could. I didn't sell us out!" Yakko was growing defensive now.
"Right, everything we could." Alvin scoffed, "What kind of brother agrees to something like that? We handed ourselves over to be locked away, knowing that we had two other mouths to feed. You're lucky they even considered the reboot, or else you'd still be stuck there."
"What else was I supposed to do?!"
"Try harder?! We put up with so much shit from Plotz, the producers, and Spielberg. We worked our asses off on the show, and for what? To be thrown away into the fucking water tower? We signed the waiver, and they passed us around from studio to studio like the whore living on Toon Street! Couldn't we stand up for ourselves?"
"I tried! You know it as well as I do that I tried!" Yakko was beginning to feel a strong sense of guilt build up inside him. Guilt that he had long put away. "I stood hours in line outside of Plots office, I talked to Bugs, Porky, hell even Daffy! I wrote letters to the executives. I read and reread that fucking contract as if our lives depended on it-"
"-Well, you didn't read it hard enough because we spent the next 22 years living in a fucking hell hole."
Yakko ran his hand through his hair. He needed him to shut up. Now.
"And you knew Wakko needed special attention. You failed to think about his hypoglycemia- his diet, you failed. You don't even deserve them after what you put them through!"
Memories from inside the water tower started to spring back into Yakko's mind. Memories of Dot asking about leaving. He remembered Wakko complaining he was hungry. He thought back to moments where he had to wait until they were both asleep to sneak behind the kitchen counter to fritz up as much food as he could since Plotz didn't give them shit. It would leave him exhausted, but he had to do it if they wanted to eat anything.
"What the hell was I supposed to do?" He asked, hoping to find some comfort in his own words, "They would have thrown us out of the studio. At least we had a roof over our heads."
"At least?" Alvin scoffed, "You settled for 'at least'?" He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief, "We really did win the shitty brother award. Congratulations."
Streamers and balloons appeared from above him, landing in a color pile on the table and chair. Yakko was beginning to feel himself start to tear up. He picked the confetti out of his hair, "I did the best I could, I swear." Yakko's voice was barely above a whisper.
There was no response from either of them. Alvin remained seated in his chair, giving Yakko the most disapproving look he could muster up as he blew into a party horn. And it was working because Yakko was giving him a reaction.
"I mean, what did you expect?" Yakko asked as he held back tears, "What else was I supposed to do?! I'm only 14! They dump shit on my plate and expect me to run with it!? I can only do so much; I broke so many promises. But I take care of them better than anybody else will!"
"Oh, quit the pity party. You're the only one they look up to because they don't know any better. The second they find out what actual care is, they'll leave you. Then we can add it to the list of traumas and resentments."
There were now tears streaming down his face, tears of frustration and pent-up guilt. Yakko wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, "I don't have resentments."
"Funny how that was the next thing on my list."
Yakko wanted to desperately leave, but he found himself unable to move. His mind was screaming, telling him to get out of the chair; Bash in every wall here with his mallet. He wanted to find his siblings and take them home and prove that he could care for them. He was a great older brother- he knew he was.
His body didn't listen. He couldn't bring himself to get out of the chair because deep down inside, he knew that everything his reflection was spewing at him was true. He did have resentments, but he's kept those emotions locked away for the sake of his sanity. Because... what kind of older brother resents their younger siblings?
"I don't need you to read it for me," Yakko said. "I know."
"Oh, so you admit that you hold a deep resentment for your siblings?"
"It's not a deep resentment."
"Then what is it?" Alvin sat up straight in his chair and stared at Yakko. He smiled as he watched him go into a mental war with himself. "Because one of the perks about sharing a brain, Yakko, is that I know what you're hiding."
Yakko started at his white gloves, looking for a distraction in the fabric.
"Aw, what's with the tears?" Alvin asked as he cocked his head to the side and gave him a pout, "Do we need to call our mommy and daddy for a hug? Maybe they can come to pick us up and make us some warm chicken noodle soup to make us feel better! Oh, wait, that's right... we don't have any. So then," Alvin chuckled sadly, "why do we have a lifetime of memories with them?"
Yakko wanted to pull his hair out of his head. Or better yet, step through the mirror and strangle himself. "Look," he began, "I don't think this is really necessary. We've been through this conversation before."
"Are you scared that I'll prove you aren't the brother you think you are? Or are you just upset I'm ripping off old bandages?" Alvin extended his arms to the side and revealed it covered in brown bandages from all shapes and sizes. He winced as he slowly started to peel them off.
Yakko could feel his fur be pulled. He grabbed his arm and told him to stop, but Alvin didn't. He continued pulling the adhesive tape slowly off his arm, leaving all the pain over to Yakko.
"I'll stop once you admit to yourself that you resent them."
"But I-"
Alvin cut him off by slowly pulling on one of the larger bandages, "Ah-Ah-Ahh, don't even finish that sentence. We already know that's a lie."
Yakko grabbed his arm and held it close to his chest, trying to apply as much pressure as he could so it wouldn't feel like duct tape was ripping his arm to shreds. Damn, what kind of bandages did he have?
"Admit it."
At this point, Yakko didn't know if he was crying because of the emotional hurt or the physical. "Fine, so what if I resent them. It's not like I ever did anything to hurt them."
"Soo," Alvin dragged out, "are we just going to ignore the previous conversation we just had?"
"I can't do this," Yakko mumbled to himself. He ran his hand through his hair and wiped his face. "You aren't even real. You're just a figment of my imagination."
Alvin rolled his eyes as he let the tape go. How many times was he going to have to tell himself that he isn't just in his imagination? "Damn it, Yakko, you are the biggest idiot here. I'm not a figment. I'm your unconscious mind. Everything you've ever thought, repressed, or internalized... is right here. You'd be surprised with how right Freud is. You can't escape me no matter how hard you try. So let's try again," Alvin got out of his seat and headed closer to the mirror, "What is it you resent?"
"If you know, then why don't you tell me?"
Alvin smiled, "Nah, I wanna hear you say it. Come to terms with it."
With a sigh, Yakko stared at himself and shrugged. He had no idea what to tell him. He has so much to say, but he felt so guilty admitting everything because he had assured himself that it didn't matter. It wasn't serious. But now, as he stared at the version of himself he had neglected... he realized how deep his scars went.
"You want a sentence starter? Try: I resent blank, because blank."
Yakko could feel his heart beating in his ears. He could start small, "Fine... I resent Speilburg because he created us."
"Good start. Speilburg can suck it. But he isn't the only one, is he?" Alvin smirked. He released the sticky grip on the bandage and shook them off his arm.
Yakko shook his head in response. Spielberg wasn't the only one that thought it would have been a good idea to implant memories for the sake of a cash-grab film. Sure, the film was successful within the audience and fandom, but it caused so much distress. The more he thought about it, the angrier he felt.
When they had first gotten notified of a movie, no one bothered to run it by them. Yakko and his sibs were told that it wouldn't affect the canon show, which didn't even matter because, by that point, the show had already ended. For a brief moment when they announced it, Yakko had thought that they were being released from the tower. But he was disappointed to find that after two months of filming, they were back inside. He remembered how desperately he wanted to hurt everyone back. The same feeling was being introduced now. Alvin engaging in this wasn't helping.
"No, it was everybody." Yakko counted them on his fingers, "It was the fucking team, executives, producers, storyboard artists, animators, Plotz, and everyone in between." Yakko came off a bit more angered than he intended, but he didn't care.
"But it was such a good movie, Yakko. It brought in lots of money, and we got a bit more fame from it. Just look at our fandom. The film served the same position as this new reboot is now. Come on, it wasn't that bad," Alvin mocked.
"Wasn't that bad? First, you tell me that I'm a shit brother for accepting the offer, and now you're defending them? Pick a damn side." Yakko scoffed, "So what if the movie made a fortune; where the fuck is our part? Where the fuck is our entitled financial compensation for the traumas that they had to give us?! Because last time I checked, being poor orphans to slaughtered parents isn't-" He stopped himself. He was already crying; he didn't need to make it worse, even though he knew Alvin was going anyway.
"Point is," Yakko continued but found that he had nothing else to add, "No, that's it. Point made."
Alvin laughed, "Beautiful point. The fact that we were the only ones given memories to? Boy, I found that the most interesting." He snapped his fingers and pointed his finger guns at him. "Because let me tell you, Wakko and Dot would absolutely leave you for dead when they found out the consequences that had in here!"
With a sigh, Yakko leaned back down in his chair. "It's just not fair."
"What isn't?
"But even then, I don't want them to have them."
"Have what?"
"Because what kind of brother wishes to see them suffer along with him?"
"Suffer with what?"
"The memories!" Yakko didn't mean to yell.
The room went quiet. All that could be heard were the soft sniffles that came from Yakko.
"I'm the only one they gave them to. Wakko has bits and pieces, and Dot has none at all. It's not fucking fair! Why am I the one who needs to suffer with them? On top of that, they gave me the responsibility of keeping them safe, and I swear I try. But how the hell am I supposed to do a good job when they make it harder every damn day?!"
Yakko got up and went closer to the mirror. Alvin did the same.
"Since you seem to know everything," Yakko said. He spoke quietly, with a tone of innocence that Yakko himself didn't even know he could conjure up. "Why don't you tell me why I want them to share the memory with me so badly?"
There was silence as they both stared at each other.
"Because we're tired," Alvin replied. "You can put so much time, emotion, and effort into them. You can comfort and feed them, hell, you're probably the closest thing they have to parents at this point, but that doesn't change the resentment you hold. You have no one there to comfort you. Besides, it gets you thinking, doesn't it? what if everything you've done wasn't sincere enough?"
"Oh- fuck you." Yakko scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, "I lost sleep worrying about them sometimes. I helped them through every problem that they came across, even if I had no idea what I was doing either. So don't tell me that I'm not sincere with them!"
"Look, I'm just picking up what you put down-"
"-Well, put it back down. I might be conflicted, but not that conflicted. I love my siblings half to death, and nothing that happens within these walls is ever going to change that."
"Then what the fuck are you so worried about?!"
"I don't know!"
"Well, it's obviously something! You don't just feel emotions without having a reason to. No one just feels a certain way for no reason. Every reaction comes from a stimulus, a cause if you will. What is it? What are you so afraid of?"
"If I knew the answer to that, I would tell you."
"But you know the answer to that already, Yakko." Alvin mimicked him. Yakko was now sitting on the floor, criss-cross with his hands in his lap.
They both sat there for a while, listening to the buzz of the Pixar lamp.
Yakko wiped his eyes with the back of his glove. He took a few deep breaths, following the same steps he would use to guide his siblings when they had their meltdowns. He wasn't trying to have his own. Yakko had thought he'd done a pretty good job in keeping himself together, well, as much as he could have with everything being thrown into his face. His heart was still racing, and his chest was hurting.
"Why don't you say it?"
Looking up at him, Yakko shrugged.
Alvin sighed. It wasn't out of annoyance, more so out of frustration. Why was he so stubborn? "Say it," he commanded. Alvin repeated it louder a second time when Yakko didn't react, causing him to flinch back.
"I don't wanna say it!" Yakko repeated back in the same tone.
Alvin huffed. He got up and pulled his notebook back out from his hammerspace. Alvin flipped through it; the sound of paper hitting paper flooded the room. He stopped at a page and grabbed a pen, and wrote something down. He wasn't going to let Yakko off the hook, and he definitely wasn't going to say it for him.
Satisfied, he stuffed the pencil back into his hammerspace and shoved the little red notebook open against the mirror.
Yakko noticed his sloppy handwriting as Alvin had attempted to write the letters backward. He read the message, and fresh tears filled his eyes. He looked away and covered his face with his hands.
"Out loud."
"No," Yakko replied, trying to not break down. He didn't need to read what was on that note. He had been avoiding it his entire life. Now wasn't the time to face it.
"Out loud!" Alvin was getting angry.
He recognized the tone of voice. It was the same one Yakko would use when he disciplined his siblings. He hated using it, but he had to sometimes. Now it was being used against him, and he didn't like it at all. Yakko ignored Alvin. He was proving to be his unconscious mind, and if he really was, then he would just ignore him, just like he's always done.
"You've ignored me for far too long, Yakko!" Alvin yelled. In a fit of frustration, Alvin pushed against the mirror. He looked around the glass, looking for a soft spot. When he found one, he rapidly began to vibrate, slowly introducing his hand into the glass. Alvin didn't know if it would work, but when his hand made it through, phasing the rest of his entire body was a piece of cake.
Yakko watched in horror as his own reflection stepped into his side. He slid himself back a little to give him room to stand. "What the hell are you doing?"
Alvin shook his hand to stop it from shaking, feeling the tingly pins and needle sensation cease. "You aren't going to keep pretending I'm not a problem you shouldn't deal with," he said as he stepped closer to him. He grabbed the book and erased what he had previously written, and rewrote it again. "Say it."
"You can't just come onto my side without warning. Where's your permit?"
"Haha, very funny." He reached behind himself and grabbed an official government warrant, "There, satisfied?"
Yakko rolled his eyes, "Go back behind the mirror."
"Not until you stop ignoring me. You can only do so for so long. You know that."
"I've ignored you for my entire life; I can do it for a few more minutes." Yakko looked up at himself. The book was shoved into his face.
Alvin grabbed the Pixar lamp from the table and shined the light on Yakkos's face. "I won't repeat myself."
"I'm not scared of you." He replied, pushing the lamp out of his face.
"Is that so? Because your tears say otherwise."
Yakko narrowed his eyes at him. He wasn't going to prove him right. Besides, he wasn't scared of him; he was scared of what he might say to him. That makes sense, right?
"Aw, I'm right, aren't I?"
"No."
"Then prove it. Read it." Alvin threw the book down at him, "Pick it up and read it. Out loud."
"Geez," Yakko mumbled, "Did no one ever tell you it's rude to throw things."
"No, Alvin replied, "I didn't have a mom to show me." He saw Yakko slightly cringe at his reply. "Oh, sorry, too soon?"
Yakko reached over and grabbed the book. He was tempted to flip through it, but he realized that the pages were stuck together. The only pages he could see were the ones it was open on. He read the words a second time. He opened his mouth to say it, but he couldn't. He felt like if he were to read the statement out loud, it would somehow become true.
"What are you so worried about, Yakko? What scares you the most on this planet we call ours?"
He looked down at the writing and closed the book. He slid it back over towards Alvin's feet, "I don't need your stupid book to know." Yakko looked at his hands, "Why do you want me to say it so badly?"
"Because you need to hear yourself say it."
Yakko looked at Alvin before taking a deep breath. At this point, he knew that he was going to have to say it sooner or later.
"I don't want them to leave me."
Alvin watched Yakko's eyes fill with tears. He smiled and picked up the book. It was such a simple phrase. Who would have thought that a seven-worded sentence could have such an effect on him? He crouched down and patted his head, "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Tears were running down his face, and he was trying his hardest not to lose it. Yakko's mind was filled with the same scenarios that he would often dream about. Well, they were more nightmares than dreams.
Alvin held his hand out in front of him, encouraging himself to grab it. Yakko hesitated for a minute but decided to use his own hands to pick himself up instead. Alvin grabbed his arm and practically pushed him onto the chair, moving the Pixar light and shining it on his face.
He shielded his eyes from the white light, "I said it. Can you go back to your mirror?"
"Geez, I'm not even done yet." Alvin walked around the interrogation room before sitting on the table. "What would our siblings think if they saw you act so eager to rudely kick someone out? What kind of example would that be setting? Or better yet, what would they think about you wanting to kick yourself out so badly? Sheesh, I know you said you didn't hate yourself before, boy oh boy."
Yakko looked down, but Alvin reached up and cupped his face in his hands, causing him to look at him.
"I know how this is going to go and to be quite honest with you, I really don't want to waste more time than we have to."
"Oh, so now you're worried about time? My sibs are out there fighting a whole clown, and we're just sitting here talking to ourselves!" Yakko smacked his hand away from his face, "Since you want to be so condescending and act like your better than me-"
"-Of course, I am better than you!" Alvin smirked, "You can barely admit to the most trivial flaws! You have breakdowns over the simplest things! And do you wanna know why that is, Yakko?"
"I bet you're gonna tell me."
"Such a smart little cookie," he laughed. "It's because you let your own insecurities control you when it's supposed to be the other way around."
Yakko looked at Alvin and said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"You stay up all night crying about things you can't handle. You focus on what other people might think of you-"
"They're my siblings! Of course, I'm gonna care about what they think of me!"
"Did you give them a reason to hate you?"
Yakko looked up at Alvin like he was the stupidest guy on the planet. "What?! You were the one that told me how minimal and shitty my efforts were to keep us under contract." Yakko was now standing beside his chair, leaning against the table Alvin was sitting on. "You were the one that shamed me for having resentments towards them! What the fuck do you mean? I question almost every move I make when it comes to the well-being of my siblings. You make me feel like shit about my own thoughts and emotions, and now you have the fucking audacity to ask me what the reasons are?"
Alvin smiled sadly and wiped away the tears from his face, which was pointless because new tears replaced them. Yakko swatted his hand away. "So, you did give them a reason to?"
"You know what?" Yakko scoffed, "That's it. I'm done with you. You can't do this to me."
Holding his arms up in defense, Alvin asked, "What am I doing wrong? It's not my fault your just a shitty older brother who can't stand up for his siblings or himself, apparently."
"No, I know what I'm doing! For the past 27 years, I've been through hell and back to make sure Dot and Wakko have everything they need! I made sure they had food on the table and a bed to sleep on. The contract I signed was the best deal I could muster up. I've never acted out on my resentments, and I never will because I know damn well that they don't deserve living through it. I'm a great brother. They're the best thing that they could have given me, and I wouldn't let anything happen to them! And if they hate me, so what? I'm doing the best that I can. I raised them well enough to understand that!" Yakko was furious.
No, he was livid. All he had left to do was beat the shit out of himself, but that would be unnecessary. He had his limits.
Alvin smirked. He was finally getting somewhere with himself. The good thing about being the unconscious mind is that while he knew everything Yakko was thinking, Yakko didn't. Alvin knew what Nickelwise was doing to him. He had known the entire time. Using his own mind against him. Smart move because it worked, just not in the way the clown planned.
He wasn't going to let Nickelwise outsmart himself. Yakko didn't have a weak mind. Yakko's unconscious mind took this as an opportunity to finally give himself an excuse to let go of all he was carrying. There was so much more Yakko needed to work through; this was just the tip of the iceberg. All Alvin did was bring it out into the light for Yakko to finally acknowledge them. Thank God for reverse psychology.
"Well, I'm glad that's settled." Alvin dusted his hands off and got up from the table. He made his way towards the mirror and started to phase through.
"That's it?"
Alvin smiled and shook his head, "Oh no, you'll never get rid of me. You'll see me stop by a couple of times, but I got what I needed for today. Also, there really is no way out of here so you're just gonna have to wait a while. Maybe your siblings would come and get you."
Yakko glared at himself.
"Relax, you know they will. They won't leave you." Alvin gave him one last smile before it disappeared in front of him, entering his own reflected realm. Alvin sat down and mimicked Yakko's position.
Yakko waved an arm, and sure enough, the arm waved back. Alvin was gone. Yakko sat back down in the chair and wiped his eyes. Mentally drained wouldn't have been the best words to describe what he was feeling; unless you times that by ten. He felt as if he had just run the biggest race of his life. His heart was still pounding, and tears were still flowing.
Now that he was finally alone, he let himself cry. That stupid fucking clown.
A/N: Yakko, my beloved, sweetie, I am so so so sorry. Readers, please forgive me. I- I dropped my angst and emotional baggage all over the place but I hope you all cried along!
My psych degree must be proud. I actually enjoyed writing and exploring Yakko's psyche, I found it to be a pretty interesting place. I made Yakko go through his own personal hell and I honestly wasn't expecting it to get so intense, but hey, I'm not mad. And Nickelwise would be the one to do this so if anything... blame the clown, haha *sobs*. Also, Alvin was such a fun character to write omg- I love him and I hate him.
But that's all we have for this week folks! The fic is coming to an end, and I am really glad you all stuck around for it! Feel free to comment and I'll see you all in the last and final chapter next week!