Chapter Text
17 days until the concert
It’s Envy’s dream duty shift tonight.
She hates dream duty. Nothing ever happens during it. It’s usually all black screens and deafening silences, the air so stiflingly thick that she could probably cut a slice out and eat it. Half the time she finds herself stealing Ennui’s phone and going through it just to quell her boredom, which doesn’t even work half the time. Who knew Ennui just looked at cat pictures all day long? No wonder she’s always so bored.
Groaning quietly, she lies spread-eagled on the cold tile floor. Every now and then, she checks the screen to see if anything interesting happens, but nooo, Riley’s having her peaceful, dreamless sleep, and Envy just has to brave it out for the next six hours.
“Bored?” A quiet voice rings out through the silence. Envy gasps, her expression lighting up. Only one person is ever awake at this hour, and it’s—
“Joy?”
Not who she was expecting. Yeah, that’s her. Faint blue glow, gold skin, piercing blue eyes. Holding a steaming mug of tea. Her hair is messed up, her bangs all over the place, and there are dark bags under her eyes. Envy raises an eyebrow. Now that she’s looking a little closer, Joy’s a little less bright than she usually is, her usual eye-burning glowiness a little more bearable to look at. A little nasty part of Envy whispers that it’s probably for the best. How’s it fair that she’s the only one who gets to have an angelic glow, huh?
“Wow, you look rough,” she says without thinking. Anxiety isn’t awake to chastise her about being polite right now, so she doesn’t really care. She can just blame it on being tired, which she is.
Joy shoots her a strained smile. “Thanks,” she says dryly. “Appreciate it.”
Envy shrugs. “No problemo. What’re you doing up so late?”
Joy’s glow betrays the fact that her fingers clench tighter at the handle of her mug. “Couldn’t sleep,” She laughs awkwardly. “Y’know, since I’m so full of energy all the time, ha.”
Envy raises an eyebrow.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks.
Joy reels back. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Envy repeats accusingly. “You’ve been acting so weird lately. A few months ago you were our biggest haters, and now you’re the only one who’s giving us a chance. What’s wrong with you?”
Joy forces out a laugh so fake Envy feels her ears melting off. “Pshaw, that’s so funny. I never hated you guys!”
Envy narrows her eyes at Joy.
Joy stares back at her in silence. She takes a sip of tea to fill the silence.
“It’s because of Anxiety, isn’t it,” Envy sighs. She flops back onto the floor, looking towards Anxiety's bunk with her head upside down. She actually seems to be sleeping tonight, the slow rise and fall of her chest rhythmic. “I will never understand how she gets everyone to fall in love with her.”
Spitting out her mouthful of tea, Joy chokes as she scrambles to process what Envy just said. “Okay, I am not in love with Anxiety, first of all,” She says, wiping her mouth and staring at Envy in horror. “Second of all, there’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Uh huh,” Envy says sarcastically. “Love that for you. Why can’t everyone be in love with me?” She whines. “Anxiety doesn’t even like any of you back.”
Joy visibly scrunches up her face at that, but seems equally grossed out at the fact that she even had a reaction, so Envy lets it slide. “Everybody loves you, Envy!” Joy exclaims as cheerfully as she can at 1:47 in the morning. “Well, we might not be in love with you—that’s really weird, forget I said that—but we all think you’re a super valuable member of the team!”
“You sound like a corporate slave,” Envy deadpans.
Joy doesn’t have a response for that.
“Okay, one, I'm not a kid, you don't need to treat me like one,” Envy pouts. “Two, just admit you're bitter. Like, come on, I'm the physical embodiment of envy. You'd think I could recognize it when I see it.”
Joy laughs loudly, Envy shushing her and glancing back towards the others. Anxiety, who's a notoriously light sleeper, groans quietly and shifts in her sleep. Envy glares at Joy. “Are you saying I'm jealous of Anxiety? That's hilarious, I would never—”
Envy stares at her incredulously.
“Ha, it's like, why would I be jealous of the way she takes control so easily, or the way she somehow works non-stop for over 24 hours at a time without tiring, or the way she can actually get the console to react to her, or the way she—”
Joy stops herself, horrified.
“Oh, no.”
Envy flops back onto the floor, not even bothering to look Joy in the eyes. “This is so sad.”
“And I'm awake at two in the morning,” Joy whispers despondently. “What have I become?”
Envy groans quietly, flipping over so that she's lying on her stomach. “It's not what you've become that's the problem, dummy. It's who you're trying to become. You're trying to become her ‘cause that's the whole point of envy, stupid.”
“I'm not stupid,” Joy protests weakly.
“You're a little stupid,” Envy responds. Joy just slumps over defeatedly. With a heavy sigh and exceedingly slow movement, Envy sits up and pats the spot next to her, inviting Joy to sit down. With a small smile, Joy settles down next to her, cradling her steaming cup of tea. She hugs her knees to her chest.
“I'm not trying to become Anxiety,” Joy says eventually. “I swear I'm not.”
Envy sighs. “Yeah, I know. It's like me with Disgust. You don't want to be her, but you want what she has, you know?”
Joy tilts her head in questioning.
“You said it yourself,” Envy explains, lying down and staring at the ceiling. Little green glowing stars dot the darkness, making the top of headquarters look like a kid's crayon rendition of the starry night. Riley hasn't ever seen a clear night sky in her life, only pictures, so it's hard for headquarters to manifest it. “You want her control, her work ethic, her power, but you don't want to be her,” she mutters. “Because she's miserable.”
Joy gasps. “She isn't miserable! She loves it here, she says it all the time!”
Envy shakes her head. “It's complicated. You wouldn't get it,” she jabs. “You don't know her like I do.”
Joy opens her mouth, but after a moment of deliberation, closes it.
She frowns. “You're right.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Envy crosses her arms and smiles smugly. “Of course I am.”
The two of them sit in silence for a bit, the tension absolutely unbearable. Well, on Joy's end. Envy finds it quite funny how torn up Joy is about all of this. She forgets how good of a manipulator Anxiety can be sometimes.
“I just—I'm scared,” Joy says after a while. “I'm scared that I've become too—how does Weewee put it? ‘Old fashioned’?” She says, doing air quotations. “You guys are so new and fresh and up-with-the-times, and I'm just the same old Joy,” she laughs. It takes on a sadder note around the ends.
Envy shrugs. “Yeah, that is one of your issues. You think and act like Riley's life is simple, you know?”
Her gaze hardens.
“But it's not, anymore. We're at the point where if she screws up, she screws up bad. And impulsivity made her endearing as a kid, but now it just makes her annoying. And we don't want her to be annoying.”
Envy sighs, flopping down onto the floor and staring at the ceiling. She blinks a few times.
“Don't get me wrong, Joy, you're so cool. I wish I were half as amazing as you are… but I'm glad that I'm not you, just like you're glad that you're not Anxiety. Because we don't think the same way, like, at all.”
She turns to her side to face Joy, who's looking down at her with an incredibly conflicted expression. “I'm going to be real with you for a second. Riley would not be able to live without you as an emotion. But you need to realize that sometimes…”
She trails off.
“Sometimes it's okay to take the backseat. And don't be a backseat driver while you're at it, you know?” The little glowing stars on the ceiling blink rhythmically at her, and she blinks back in the same pattern. “It's nice being a follower. It's nice not having everything on your shoulders.”
She glances up at Joy. “You should try it sometime.”
Joy stares at her with a blank expression, processing everything. Envy imagines one of those circle loading screen thingies over her head and nearly giggles, but stifles it because it'd totally ruin the moment.
“You're a lot more mature than you let on,” Joy finally says, ruffling Envy's hair. She nearly messes up one of her rollers.
Envy smacks her hand away. “Don't touch that, I need my curls.”
Joy huffs a quiet laugh. “Sorry.”
Silence again.
Joy sighs, before getting up and stretching. She yawns. “Thanks for talking with me, Envy,” she says with a soft smile. “Goodnight.”
Envy just shrugs and turns away. Hopefully she did something to get Joy off her and Anxiety's asses.
Joy walks away. Envy's left alone again, and she realizes that she fumbled her chance at any source of entertainment for the next five hours.
Oh, well.
She'll live.
Muttering bitterly, Envy lies back down, staring at the glowy little stars on the ceiling. It’s peaceful, for a bit, before she hears the pitter-patter of footsteps again. Her face twists back into an annoyed scowl.
Joy ducks back in sheepishly. “Okay, sorry, one more thing, I know the stars are a little outdated,” she laughs, reaching up with a long hook and pulling out a rope from a hidden compartment in the ceiling. “Here, let me help with that.”
She tugs on it, and the ceiling opens.
It unfurls, splitting in six and retracting almost like one of those old camera lenses, or something. A hexagonal opening reveals the night sky of the mindscape, deep purple and pink, streaked with mystical colours that wouldn’t be possible in real life. A shooting star streaks across the sky, the light reflecting in Envy’s sparkling eyes.
“Woah,” she breathes quietly.
“Goodnight, Envy,” Joy says warmly, heading towards the bunks again.
Staring at her, Envy smiles back.
“Night, Joy.”
The last five hours are much more enjoyable than the previous three.
“Gooooood morning, everybody!”
Anxiety's clear and excited voice cuts through the air as the lights in headquarters flick on. She walks circles around the area, pouring herself cup after cup or coffee and downing them all in one go.
Disgust frowns, peeking her head out of the bedsheets. “Where's Joy?” She asks suspiciously.
“Here,” Joy responds.
Disgust narrows her eyes at her. “Why aren't you the one who's…” she gestures vaguely at Anxiety, who was running around and shaking people awake. She currently has Envy sitting on her shoulders, running around and organizing shelves while Envy gets the bits she can't reach.
Joy hops out of bed, stretching. “Well, it's good to have someone else match my energy here!” She chirps, her expression bright. It contrasts the dark bags under her eyes. “Good leadership and initiative is indicative of a good character!”
“CORPORATE SLAVE!” Envy calls at Joy with a teasing smile.
Instead of getting mildly annoyed like she usually would, Joy just laughs and waves her off. Disgust glances at her strangely.
“Do you guys ever get the feeling that we're missing out on some really big things here?” She mutters to the others.
Embarrassment nods fervently. Everyone else makes vague noises of agreement.
Ennui just scrolls on her phone. The console is currently glowing a deep violet, and Anxiety seems to be hard at work trying to fix that.
“Come on, Riley, get up!” Anxiety calls from the front, Envy still on her shoulders. Onscreen, Riley is awake, but she's lying on her side, scrolling mindlessly on her phone, a nearly perfect mirror of Ennui. It's been almost 15 minutes since her alarm rang.
“Riley?” Her mom calls from downstairs. Riley mutters something incoherent and keeps scrolling.
Anxiety presses a button, the console flooding orange. Riley still doesn't get up. Her face just twists in displeasure.
“Why isn't she getting up?” Anxiety cries. She spams the button, only succeeding in getting Riley to set her phone down and stare nervously at the ceiling.
Envy groans. “She doesn't want to,” she says, hopping down from Anxiety's shoulders and onto the console. “Maybe it's because the news is going to be spreading like wildfire today.”
Anxiety gasps. “You're right! Riley, Riley, get up!” She cries, twisting to press buttons all across the console while still keeping her eyes on the screen. “Riley, come on, you have things to do!”
What usually would take one or two buttons to activate now takes a whole barrage, with Anxiety button-mashing all across the console to even get Riley to shift onto her side. Finally, with a long-suffering sigh, she hauls herself out of bed, Anxiety finally letting go of the lever once she's up.
Without brushing her hair or her teeth, Riley heads straight downstairs. She'll just do it after breakfast.
“Riley!” Her mom exclaims, crossing her arms. “It's almost 7:50, what took you so long?”
Riley, who seems to be exceptionally cranky this morning, just frowns, as if she's trying to figure that out for herself as well. Her mom's expression mellows out from frustrated to concerned.
“Is everything alright, honey?” She asks gently.
Anxiety flicks a few switches, and Riley flashes her a weak smile and a thumbs up.
“Just didn't sleep too well last night,” she says. “Tired.”
“Alright,” her mother says, seemingly unconvinced. “Just take it easy today, alright? Don't want the school calling home for another collapse,” she says, laughing lightly.
Embarrassment squeaks, slamming his hand down on the console. Everyone glares at Anger and Anxiety for the one time they teamed up. Needless to say, after the last incident, they were heavily discouraged from doing so ever again.
An orange and red memory rises on the projector, the scene of Riley running the beep test until she literally passed out replaying, an orange-red mist overplayed over it. Some entitled guy in Riley's gym class had bet he could run for longer than her because she was a girl, so she'd not only beat him, but kept running three levels after he gave up.
The taste of blood in Riley’s throat still lingers from the memory.
“Okay, in hindsight, it was a really bad idea,” Anxiety tries to placate.
“THE LOSER DESERVED IT!” Anger yells.
Onscreen, Riley flushes red. “That was one time!” she protests. “And you’re making it sound bad, all I did was trip.”
“And lay on the ground for 15 minutes longer than you should’ve,” Her mom continues, smirking at her. “Listen, Riley, I’m not trying to attack you or anything, I’m just saying that you tend to overwork yourself when you really get your mind on something.” She looks at Riley meaningfully, with a look that practically screams ‘I know’. “And I don’t want you working yourself to exhaustion, okay?”
Anxiety hisses a breath in through her teeth. “What if she doesn’t want us to go through with it?” She cries. “Oh, but we already told Ms. Kennedy, we can’t go back now, what do we say?”
Without a word, Sadness steps forward and turns a knob.
Riley smiles thankfully at her mom, her stomach roiling. “Yeah. Okay.”
Her mom sets her own steaming plate of eggs and bacon on the table, pulling out a chair and settling down next to Riley.
“You know you can tell us anything, right?” Riley’s mom says gently, setting a hand on Riley’s shoulder. “Me and your dad. We’ll always listen.”
Joy coos at the screen, pressing a button. The console floods a soft gold, still streaked with some blue.
Riley laughs, wiping at her eyes surreptitiously. “Yeah. Thanks, mom.”
With a content sigh, Joy backs up from the console, and it fades back into its resting colour. Riley eats her food slowly, pushing around the eggs with her fork, entirely unappetized. Although Anxiety isn’t directly at the console, she still somehow seems to have an effect on Riley with all her pacing and muttering.
She brushes against the console in one of her unending loops, the whole thing blinking orange. Riley frowns and pushes back her plate, leaving to get her stuff ready.
“Hey!” Fear cries. “Why’d you do that?”
“Our girl needs to eat,” Disgust says, leaning back and crossing her arms. “You think she can make it through practice on an empty stomach?”
Anxiety looks up at them, confused. “What?”
“The console!” Anger exclaims. “Don’t play dumb!”
“What?” Anxiety asks again, even more confused. “I didn’t touch anything?”
Frowning, Sadness gestures towards her leg. “You brushed up against it,” she says. “Now Riley’s getting her stuff ready instead of eating.”
Anxiety pauses, clutching at her clipboard. She looks at the console, still a faint orange from where she brushed up against it, and then at herself.
“I, uh… didn’t mean to do that,” she mutters, almost in wonder. A faint smile tugs at her lips, although she tries her very best to quash it. “It’s really sensitive today, isn’t it?”
Disgust jams a button several times in a row, trying to get Riley to head back downstairs to finish her food. It barely works at all, the idea only registering as a faint nagging in the back of Riley’s mind instead of an actual plan. She huffs in frustration, giving up after the console returns nothing more than a vague green glow after the 15th try.
“No,” she groans. “It’s not.”
“WHAT’D YOU DO TO THE CONSOLE?!” Anger roars, marching up to Anxiety. He rolls up his sleeves, gritting his teeth. “You better tell us, or I’ll punch you right in the kisser.”
Anxiety backs up, putting her hands up in surrender. Her clipboard and pen falls right out of them, clattering to the floor loudly.
“I didn’t do anything!” She snaps defensively. “Jeez, it’s like everything here is my fault these days. I’m sorry that I’m doing my job, Anger.”
Anger scoffs. “Yeah, you better be.” He jerks a thumb at her. “You guys aren’t seriously believing this, are you?”
“Um, she’s right, though,” Envy says, crossing her arms. “She didn’t do anything to the console. Come on, you guys are all here during the day, and there’s always someone on dream duty, so she couldn’t have done it during the night.”
Anger ignores her. “And obviously we can’t trust her little minion, so—”
Envy bristles. “I’m my own person, thank you very much—”
“OKAY!” Joy says loudly, stepping between them. “Enough.”
Envy’s expression softens at the weariness on Joy’s face, and she sighs and backs up. Anger seems to come to the same conclusion, although the scowl doesn’t leave his face.
Disgust sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose, and takes the lead, getting Riley to brush her teeth and wash up. “This is a disaster,” she mutters to herself. The others murmur quiet agreements while Envy and Anxiety look at them, mildly aggravated.
Joy looks at everyone, clutching at her forearms.
Anxiety shakes her head and turns back to her clipboard. “Okay! Binders, check, equipment, check, lunch money, check, everything, check!” Anxiety exclaims, having Riley look over everything in her bags. Once she’s ready, she slings her stuff over her shoulder and heads downstairs, meeting back up with her mom.
She claps, squealing excitedly. Clasping Envy’s hands, lifting her up, and swinging her around, she laughs maniacally, the laugh rapidly approaching cackle territory.
“Wait, wait, hold on, I just realized. When did—when did you guys step back in for the day?” Fear asks timidly. “I thought yesterday was a one-time thing? Didn't we agree that you guys would only step in during the afternoon?"
Anxiety laughs, waving a hand. “Oh, Fear. Didn’t you read the terms and conditions?”
He blanches.
“The what?” Joy asks quietly.
Envy giggles. “The terms and conditions, silly! It was on the whiteboard when we pitched our plan to you!”
Anxiety's already run to the back and brought back out the whiteboard, flipping it over to the plan and gesturing at it. The black writing on it is scratched and faded, but the words are still somewhat legible.
“Here!”
She points to a section on the flow chart of the plan that clearly reads ‘Anxiety and Envy rejoin day team’ in the same scuffed lettering as everything else. She then points to a tiny chunk of text on the bottom.
“Everything on this board will be set into action upon agreement,” Joy reads out loud. “No exceptions will be made.”
Silence rings out within headquarters.
“That's…”
Disgust groans loudly. “Okay, this is real funny, but I've had enough. I hereby UNAGREE to everything,” she hisses, propping her hands on her hips.
“Me too,” Anger huffs, crossing his arms. He glares at Fear, who doesn't make a move.
“Me three,” Fear hurriedly amends.
Embarrassment signs an agreement. Sadness nods. Ennui shrugs.
Everyone looks at Joy.
“I…” she mutters.
Anxiety's heart pounds at the sound of her indecisiveness. She steps forward and takes Joy's hand in her own.
“Joy,” she says quietly. “Please. Think of the future.”
“You want her control, her work ethic, her power, but you don't want to be her,” Envy's voice echoes in Joy's mind. “You're trying to become her.”
“You don’t want to become obsolete, do you?” Anxiety asks, in that solemn, sober voice of hers.
Something clicks in Joy's mind.
No matter what she says, Anxiety and Envy are going to have their way. The console only reacts significantly to them anymore. They're smart, they're efficient, and they're cunning. They'll figure out a way to enact their plan one way or another, no matter what Joy agrees or doesn't agree to.
If she says no, the console will reject her. She'll never see gold in headquarters again.
Riley will never be happy again.
She'll become outdated.
“But that just means I only know Riley for who she is now, instead of letting who she was seven years ago cloud my judgment,” Anxiety's soft voice whispers traitorously in her mind. “I don’t have any qualms about Riley not being like she used to, because I don’t have any experience of who and what she used to be outside of vague recollections and instruction manuals.”
She'll be discarded.
“You don't want to be her, but you want what she has, you know?” Last-night-Envy mutters bitterly.
She'll become obsolete.
Right now, she's still the leader.
Right now, she's still of use.
Is it so wrong of her to want to hold onto it for just a little bit longer?
“We agreed,” she says weakly, ashamedly. Disgust's face visibly falls, and Joy, unable to face her, turns away to look at Anxiety. “We agreed to the plan. I—I trust you, as a member of the team. I hope you know what you're doing.”
The bright smile that lights up Anxiety's expression almost makes it all worth it. It's like the sun finally peeking out through several days’ worth of storm clouds, except for the fact that the sun in this simile is more like a meteor about to destroy the earth.
Anxiety squeals, grabbing Joy's hands and twirling her around. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She cries, tackling her in a hug. Joy chuckles quietly, ignoring the eyes burning holes into the back of her skull. She can feel Anger's heat from where she stands.
Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Envy looking at her meaningfully. There's a faint, understanding smile on her face.
No, not understanding.
Knowing.
Joy's smile slips off her face, despite the fact that she's still entangled in Anxiety's hug.
Her hands tighten on Anxiety's striped turtleneck as the high of making someone happy washes over and she realizes what she just agreed to.
She meets Envy's eyes again, her own eyes wide.
God, she's so selfish.
With the way Envy smiles at her, Joy knows she agrees.
