Chapter Text
“Plant roots appeared to take on the quality of weeds over several weeks-tangling as though to choke neighboring growth.
Closer inspection revealed a coalescing structure: a shared system rather than competition Enlarged stems, leaves, and fruits soon followed.
During an unprotected interaction, one specimen appeared to latch onto my assistant.
Further contact is strongly discouraged.”
-Unknown botanist researcher.
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When he was fifteen years old, 1983, a high school freshman in Augusta, Maine, he met a woman called Gracie Green, she was a few years above him, a Junior, and they became friends, hanging out often and making jokes, he came to see her like an older sister, making it his mission to join Playtime Co. like her.
However first he had to get a degree in something the factory needed, and all their spots were either something to do with engineering or toy-making stuff, and well- that wasn’t his greatest subject, he was more of a humanities guy.
Gracie, who had become slightly eerie and patronizing since then, said that she’d gotten hired because she studied psychology, and reminded him that the factory, as a matter of fact, had an orphanage to care for orphans and kids, and he could take a job there if he studied something about children, or even finances and PR, as the factory’s last toy line, “The Wrongside Outimals” had flopped, and people began considering that Playtime Co needed to change their leadership from Leith Pierre.
Paxton had quite liked the little guys, buying one of each and had been personally thanked in a letter for buying 25% of all their sales before they got off the shelves.
He’d chosen to study Child and Adolescent psychology & development to become a psychologist for the orphans.
Then the game station opened afterwards, and instead he was hired there.
It was a weird experience, he’d studied to help children develop and adapt better to a new and scary environment, but now he was working with other people to test a kid’s abilities at different mini games, and the other ones seemed weirdly clinical and unbothered, the only person who seemed as uncomfortable as him was Matthew Wayson.
He’d been the one to propose windows in the mini games, and Paxton had happily seconded the motion to get it done.
He missed Matthew, and he didn’t know how to feel about Gracie anymore, now that he knew what she did for a living and the fact that she’d tried to kill him with a knock off PJ-pug-a-pillar mini game.
Like he gets she’s been heavily isolated but that’s all she could think of? Not even hide and seek?
“Ow!” He yelled, clutching his shoulder as he dropped Giblet, who squealed indignantly.
“Warn me next time!” Giblet yelled as he sat up from where he fell.
Paxton didn’t answer, he literally couldn’t, as he was just struggling to breathe as he felt his shoulder blades move under his skin, cracking and expanding and contracting and shakingandbreakingasnewtissueformedandbonebrokethroughhisflesh-
He was heaving, hands on the wall as he struggled to hold himself upright, he couldn’t even bring his hands up to wipe his tears as he shook with barely contained agony.
He heard… something. Everything was blurry, he couldn’t think through the pain as his spine, clavicle, and humerus joined his shoulder blades in sending blinding pain everywhere in his body as they broke themselves apart and then back together.
It sent shots of boiling heat everywhere as his skinmeltedrightoffhimlikesweatandhisbonesmeldedtogetherfromtheunbearableheat-
A particularly sharp jolt of pain in his spine sent him sprawling onto the floor, and he screamed.
His jaws opened up wide and he screamed, it was the only thing he could hear clearly, coming from both of his mouths.
It was both a shrill and rumbling voice that sent chills down his spine, it was multiple voices screaming at once and it was horrible.
Suddenly, the screams from his lower mouth got cut off, and he felt himself choking on his own blood, tangy and iron-like, and he was struggling to breathe and coughing while also breathing perfectlyfineandhewasgoingtodieagainmetalicfingerswerepeekingfromhisabdomen-
“-CK UP GERM!”
He gasped, shooting up from the cold floor, realizing quite quickly that he was shivering, and sweating bullets.
He quickly patted himself down, touching his arms and shoulders until he felt like there was nothing out of place (not like he knew much biology besides the brain but still.) and he heaved a sigh of relief.
“Thank god-” He then realized that Giblet was in front of him, holding Sawyer the Glowby with his two hands, looking innocent and worried at the same time.
“Are you ok!? The Doctor said that you were having a shitty fucking hallucination!”
“Giblet. Shut up.” Sawyer said while looking away with a tired look in his eyes
“Sorry.”
“Don’t talk to Giblet like that!” He said, picking up Giblet automatically and putting Sawyer on the grabpack again.
“Once you manage to get your hands on the negation formula, do make sure I’m not attached to this thing or I will become a part of you like a weird siamese twin.”
They both shivered (literally and metaphorically).
“So, uh, what happened to me?” He asked the two witnesses of what he went through just now.
They were quiet for a moment, Giblet looking pretty uncomfortable, which fit his old-looking face better than his innocent look, even then, he’d take being uncomfortable over Giblet being uncomfortable.
Finally, Sawyer spoke “You went through the first of many hallucinations caused by you getting dunked on the Poppy Gel and not having access to the negation formula, so be prepared to have more than one of them” he explained, sounding weirdly worried about something.
Paxton frowned, he’d gotten a hallucination? But it had seemed so… real, to him at least, the feeling had been very good at convincing him that his upper body had been mutating weirdly while he was awake.
He wasn’t- he was not ok right now, he still felt clammy and could tell he was pale, he didn’t want to continue walking or anything, but he was already enough of a burden with a second mouth that was growing hungry again and apparently hallucinations too.
He sighed, quickly schooling his expression after he noticed them looking at him weirdly.
“I’m fine, are you guys scared you’ll fuse onto me because of how clingy you two are?” he changed the topic, smiling at the two of them.
Giblet’s face dropped, and he yelled, quickly jumping off his arms and running farther away, causing everyone but Sawyer to chuckle.
Sawyer wasn’t fooled by the topic change, and just stared at him in an unimpressed manner, before disappearing from Glowby for a few seconds.
“Huh?”
He suddenly came back, his eyes looking bewildered. “Experiments 1170 and 1172 are alive… surprisingly”
Paxton brightened up. “Really!? We gotta get to them!” He said as he began running, the grabpack arms hanging from the grabpack and smacking against his back with every step he took.
He ignored the little voice telling him that he would soon control those arms and they would be capable of bleeding and feeling.
Once they turned a corner and reached the train station, Paxton’s eyes lit up at the sight of Kissy and Huggy laying on the wall with open eyes as they made small screeching noises at each other.
He beamed at the sight of them and began running towards them.
“Ralph! Amanda!” He yelled, and he’d never been happier to have a voice again.
The two kids’ heads shot up, and while Amanda lit up and tried to get up, Ralph (or Huggy, since he obviously wasn’t acting like Ralph) narrowed his eyes and began growling at him, which made Paxton slightly falter in his step.
What if Ralph didn’t remember him? What if all he saw was the guy that dropped a crate on him? Or the person that only ran whenever he appeared?
However, before Ralph could lunge at him, Amanda grabbed him, and suddenly Paxton’s vision changed.
Instead of the bodies of Kissy and Huggy, in front of him were a pair of kids.
A ten year old kid with messy brown hair and numerous injuries, missing a hand and bleeding from the torso, struggling in the hold of a smaller girl with the same hair but longer, who had recognition sparking in her eyes and tears prickling at it with a burnt left side and missing arm while also sluggishly bleeding from her torso.
Ignoring the injuries, it reminded him of the first time he met the kids when Ralph and a kid named Kevin were about to fight with Amanda and a kid named Matthew stopping them.
He choked as tears pricked his eyes, and he launched himself at Ralph, he didn’t care if Ralph was feeling murderous, he was overcome at seeing them like kids again rather than toys.
Still, who knew how long this hallucination would last? Because that’s what it was, he knew that, there was no way that he could be actually looking at them as kids without seeing old pictures.
He slammed into Ralph, wrapping his hands around his torso as he choked back hiccups and tears began streaming down his face.
“Hey, Wolfy” He felt Ralph stiffen and suddenly relax, fiercely hugging back until his ribs began hurting.
Paxton didn’t care, he was still covered in poppy gel and any damage would be quickly fixed.
Wolfy had been a nickname he and Amanda had made up for Ralph, as it meant “Wolf Counsel” and the little guy was also as fierce as one of them.
“...P-pax…” He froze, looking up at Ralph.
The visual hallucination was now over, but was he hallucinating that too? Was his mind translating the screeches that their toy bodies did?
He pressed into the matted and bloody fur. “I’m here, Wolfy, I’m here” He muttered, and then Ralph broke into crying too, hunching over Paxton as Amanda joined the hug with her one arm.
Suddenly he was very aware of Giblet holding Sawyer in his hands while standing awkwardly in the corner.
He cracked a small chuckle, and motioned Giblet with his head to join the hug.
Giblet brightened up and ran at them, joining the hug, his significantly smaller arms barely managing to cover part of Ralph’s back.
Discreetly, Paxton took Sawyer in Glowby, put it on the floor, and kicked him away, ignoring his protests, this was an emotional moment, not fit for the guy who put them in that situation in the first place.
Some time after the hug was finished, and Paxton had gotten his head in order and confirmed with Giblet that he wasn’t hallucinating anything, they sat in a circle and discussed what to do next.
Suddenly, Paxton had an idea “Hey, Sawyer, you have access to all the cameras, right?” He asked.
Sawyer hummed in affirmation “I do, let me guess, germ, you want me to check the cameras of the entire multiple miles deep factory to see where the redhead doll is?”
Paxton nodded with wide eyes, the gears in his head turning “I guess my intentions were pretty obvious, but then, can you? Or would it take too long? Seeing how you acted so sarcastic just now” He said with a slightly scolding tone.
Sawyer rolled his eye. “Oh don’t take that tone with me young man, I was studying biology while you had naptime, and I can do it, how do you think I controlled so many robots when you confronted me?”
Paxton raised an eyebrow “Sounds like you’re jealous.”
“Do you want me to do this or not? I could always just leave you here and go do my own thing.”
“You wouldn’t, you still want a body” He pointed out, instinctively preventing Ralph from putting his remaining hand in his rumbling second mouth. “Careful, you’ll get it chomped off” he warned.
This time, the scolding tone worked and Ralph wilted before screeching out an apology, with Giblet and Amanda patting his shoulders.
He turned back to Sawyer, waiting for his answer. “That’s true” he sighed “Fine, I’ll check all of that out and come back to you on that, also, I never said it before from the shock but call me Doctor, I’m a doctor.”
“I’m also a doctor,” he said with a smirk. “Just not biology, I have a doctorate in child and adolescent development”
Sawyer didn’t answer, just disappeared from Glowby, but not before rolling his eyes one last time.