7. Loneliness
Summary: While the Fortuneteller and the Doll are spending time together during the night, the Doll figures that he needs to bring up an important subject. Miss Fortune doesn't take it too well. Takes place after 'Experiment.'
Characters: Miss Fortune, Doll, Ticket Keeper (mentioned)
Pairings: Miss FortunexDoll
Two look-alike figures cuddled together in the thick blankets, doing their best to keep warm. It was a cold night, and the heaters just were not working. Whether the heaters were working or not, though, the two always slept together-Miss Fortune did have the right to do whatever he wanted with his Doll, after all.
"...You're warm." Miss Fortune smiled as he gave the Doll a kiss on the cheek. "I could cuddle with you the whole night!"
The Doll didn't respond for a moment, before he remembered something.
The Ticket Keeper. He needed to ask about her...and about how Miss Fortune ended up in the carnival. It felt like something that he needed to know-he seemed to be the only person that didn't know a thing about it.
"...Can I ask you something?"
Miss Fortune's smile widened slightly. "Ask away, lovely Doll! I don't mind at all!"
The Doll hesitated, snuggling closer to his look-alike, and then he spoke. "How did you end up in the carnival? And...what are your relations between your sister and you like? I just...need to know..."
The Doll suddenly felt himself get pushed back, and he heard the ruffling of sheets as Miss Fortune sat up, rigid and still as if he just woke up from a nightmare. The Fortuneteller was silent, before he let out a sigh and slowly lay back down on the bed again.
"Do you really want to know?" The tone of Miss Fortune's voice sounded scared, as if he was worried the Doll would spread the secret to everyone else.
"I need to. Everyone seems to know but me, and I feel like...I feel like that it would be good for me to know."
Miss Fortune paused, snuggled up close to the Doll, and then started to speak in response.
"I suppose you found out earlier about the Ticket Keeper and I being siblings. Of course you would find out eventually." He let out a sigh, before continuing. "We didn't live in the carnival all our lives-we had a life before that. I would say I had the perfect family. Loving sister, mother, father...it seemed picture perfect." He smiled a little at the memory. "But...the car crash happened. It was bad. Ticket Keeper, known as Sophie back then, got a concussion. I got a broken leg. Father broke a few ribs and an ankle, but Mother was the worst off." He blinked several times, and the Doll noticed him sniffle a bit. "She got thrown right out the window, and landed on her head. And she got hit by a car after that."
"I'm sorry-" The Doll started, but Miss Fortune continued.
"There was so much blood, guts and bones everywhere. I just wanted to put the pieces of her back together, because I thought I could bring her back. I thought it was like how you fix a broken robot-you know, assemble the pieces and flick the switch? I wasn't even half done when the medics took me away. They thought I was trying to eat her, that I went crazy right after the car crash. I got locked up in a big, white room for a long while. There was no one to comfort me. I was alone for fifteen years."
"Oh." The Doll didn't want to imagine it, but the images came to his head despite that. Blood-shed images of dead people, of intestines-
The Doll did not want to throw up now from all the gore he imagined, and forced himself to continue listening and to not try to imagine anything.
"Sophie broke me out-after she killed Father. She said that he had been abusing her-she had the literal and mental scars to show it." Miss Fortune trembled a bit, still trying to restrain himself from crying. "We ran for a while...and then the Ringmaster picked us up. Ticket Keeper didn't trust her, but...I wanted a place to belong in the world, and we stayed. It was weird wearing a dress, but I really, really liked it, despite Ticket Keeper hating it and-"
The Doll didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around his look-alike, not needing to listen to anymore of the story, and he held him close for the rest of the night, trying to soothe the tears and cries that came flowing out.
The Ticket Keeper doesn't like the carnival because she doesn't like the Ringmaster. That makes sense...but if she decided to stay at the carnival, she must have really wanted to grant Miss Fortune's wish... The Doll closed his eyes for a moment, still thinking.
All of this had to happen to them because of a misunderstanding. I get that.
But...what happened with Ticket Keeper?
Author note: This concludes Miss Fortune's history of how he came to the carnival. Some of the carnies' histories will be told from the characters themselves, like Miss Fortune, but others will be written like an actual story (which the Ticket Keeper's history will be more like, I think...). I might also put in a few oneshots of after the carnies came to the carnival, but before the Doll arrived, so we see more of the relations between them.