Chapter Text
You are sitting in a bathroom, hugging a roll of toilet paper to your chest.
You think you maybe love this toilet paper. It feels… important? And also: soft. Squishy. Friendly, even. It won’t judge you or hate you or pity you. It can’t ask impossible questions. It never flinches away when you step too close. Maybe the toilet paper can be your new family!!!
You bite back a laugh. Sink your teeth into the inside of your cheek till you taste copper on your tongue. Flecks of black on white tile. But that’s okay. The toilet paper isn’t going to ask if you’re okay. Because it’s toilet paper.
It occurs to you that you’re probably losing your mind.
Which makes sense!!! Doesn’t it!!! You should’ve lost your mind yesterday!!! Months and months of yesterdays ago. It’s not like it would be some great loss. Your mind isn’t very useful here, is it? Not now that all the rules have changed. Now that there’s no one left who’s real, and the only one you can trust, really trust, with your whole stupid heart, is this roll of toilet paper. And you can’t even take it with you, because it’s toilet paper.
If you tried to take it with you, your actors would definitely notice. They’re not polite, like the toilet paper. No one ever taught them not to ask intrusive questions. It would be all, What’s with the toilet paper, Siffrin? Are you going to pee your pants, Siffrin? And why are you hugging it like that? Is it, perhaps, because you’re a blinding pathetic excuse for a person?
It’s time to leave the bathroom. If you stay any longer, your actors will get antsy. Still, you can’t bear to leave the toilet paper behind. (You are tired of leaving things behind.)
…Your inventory isn’t fully wiped when you loop, though, is it? You always keep the coin. And those garden shears. And Mira got to keep that pretty ribbon. Maybe you could keep the toilet paper, too.
You peel off a square of cottony softness and whisper into it, as loud as you dare. “Come with me. Please, please, please loop back with me. Loop back with me. Loop back with me. I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want to be alone.”
Then you fold it over and…
Hm. You’re not sure how to do this part. It’s not like wishing on a tree or a star. How do you tell the wish where to go?
Well. It is toilet paper. You shrug and flush it down the toilet.
* * *
Siffrin’s acting weird.
Siffrin’s been acting weird for 48 hours, at least. Distant, detached, dissociated. They speak up every now and again, but it feels sort of… perfunctory? Like talking to their friends is just another job.
—Not that Isabeau can blame him!! They’re all charging into a fight for their lives; for the lives of this whole country. It would be weird if Sif wasn’t feeling weird.
But even so… Even given everything ahead of them, Siffrin feels especially weird. More so than Mira, who’s taken the fate of all Vaugarde upon her tiny shoulders. More than Odile, who continues to confront each new impossibility with the same flat, deadpan stare. And definitely more than Bonnie.
Maybe it’s that it’s the wrong kind of weird? Sif doesn’t seem daunted, or even particularly scared. They’re just… blank. Resigned. Like there’s nothing left to hope for.
Isabeau shakes himself off. It doesn’t matter. Everyone copes in their own ways. There’s no reason to judge. He’ll just… keep an eye on Sif, without thinking too hard about it. He wouldn’t want to stress them out.
This strategy works well enough until they reach the King. At which point Siffrin asks two inscrutable questions and then drives his own dagger through his throat.
“Sif????” Isa gasps, reeling. “You— Mira!!!”
Mira turns. When she sees Sif, she stumbles back, both hands flitting up for a healing spell. “Oh, Change. Oh, Change, you—you can’t!!!”
“Hhhh,” Sif breathes. Every exhale is a little puff of blood.
No, no, no, they can’t— Isa has to, he has to put pressure on the wound but he can barely find it through the blood and it’s Siffrin’s throat, their whole neck slit crosswise like bleeding a pig to be butchered. Isa’s hands are slick with slippery heat and he can, he can feel their windpipe, the rubbery rigidity of cartilage and behind it a shock of white—Sif’s vertebrae, he thinks numbly, their actual spine, they cut all the way to the bone. He needs to shout, can hear Bonnie screaming already but he can only manage the barest whisper. “S-Sif…”
“Hahhhha…ha!!” Sif wheezes. When they hang their head, a mucusy string of bloody phlegm slips from the crease of their mouth.
“Sif,” Isabeau chokes out, wrist-deep in viscera. “P-Please, you— I don’t want you to…” But what can he tell them that they don’t already know? “Just—please!!!”
Siffrin’s pupil dilates and contracts. Their huge bright eye, focused and unfocused. Their mouth curves up into a smile. “H-Haha!! Ahh… Isa. Isa. None of this matters.”
“I— What? What do you…”
“None! Of this!! Matters!!” Blood wells up from their throat, slopping down the fabric of their cloak. “So just. Hhhhhhh. Just… let me help you.”
I don’t WANT help, Isabeau wants to say. I don’t want any help that asks you to DIE! There’s no point saving the country if I can’t save you!!!
But it’s too late for that. Mira’s magic can’t heal something like this.
Siffrin is dying.
“Please,” Isa whispers instead. “Please, please, I just—I don’t want—I just n-need you to stay, Sif, please.”
Siffrin grins with blood seeping through the cracks in their teeth. “S-Sorry, Isa. I’ll s-s-see you yesterday, hhhhha!!”
“No,” Isa pleads, “no, you can’t, I—”
* * *
—And he wakes up.
* * *
Woah. Woah!! Oh-kay!!! What the CRAB was that????
It doesn’t make sense. It couldn’t have been real, because Isabeau is just… standing in the grass. Not blood-drenched, not sobbing, not holding Siffrin’s windpipe together with his hands. But it just— It felt so real!!!!
Okay. Oh-kay, okay, okay, let’s just— Let’s just calm down for now!!! Okay?? Whatever it was that Isa thought he saw, it obviously didn’t happen. Because if it did, Sif would be—
(—calm down, calm down, it wasn’t real, IT WASN’T REAL—)
Isabeau just has to see them, is all. He knows it’s stupid, but he has to see Sif moving, smirking, breathing. He has to see that they’re okay.
* * *
When he whips around the corner, he nearly bowls over Mirabelle.
“O-Oh!!!” she squeaks. “Are you—”
“Sif!!!!” he bellows, before he remembers himself. “Um!!! Sorry!!! Where’s— Have you seen Sif???”
Mira blinks. “I was just on my way to wake them? They’re taking a nap in the meadow, south of—”
“I’LL TAKE CARE OF IT!!!!” Isabeau bellows, and bolts.
* * *
He finds Siffrin stretched out in the field, patting vaguely at their pockets with a grim, lightless expression that Isa’s never seen on them before. Not even when they were thrusting that dagger through their—
“Sif!!!!”
Sif jolts to their feet. When they meet his gaze, they look weirdly shocked. “Wh— Isa? What are you doing here?”
“I was just—!!!!” He has to hold his own hands to stop them shaking. What he needs more than anything is to reach for them. To feel the thrum of their pulse under his palms, warm and solid and alive. But he knows how Sif feels about touch. “I just… had a… bad dream?”
It didn’t feel like a dream, though. It felt so real.
Siffrin frowns at him. “Um. Well. I have to go… do something. Now. But are you—um. Can I… help you?”
“H-Haha!!” Isa sputters. “I—Yeah! Or, I mean, no! Don’t worry about it! I’m totally fine!”
“Really?”
“Yeah!! Yeah!! All good!! Totally super normal!!”
Sif shrugs. They move to sidestep past him, but stop halfway. “…What was your dream about?”
“Oh! Um. I… wouldn’t worry about it, haha! I’m probably just nervous for tomorrow.”
“But what happened.”
“It doesn’t really matter…”
“Isa.”
Wow. Has he ever heard Sif sound that forceful? “Uhh. Um. Well. The fight with the King, I guess.” He rubs the back of his neck with one hand and grins, sheepish. “Makes sense, huh?”
“But what happened.”
Ah. Okay. No weaseling out of this one. “It was just… um. You… got hurt.” He shudders, remembering. Blood on his hands. Fingers brushing bone— “Uh. P-Pretty bad.”
“...Huh.”
“D-Don’t worry!" Isa says hastily. "I know you wouldn’t— Or, I mean, it’s not like I’m doubting you or anything!! I know how good you are in a fight!! Way better than me, honestly!! It was just a stupid dream. Just my dumb brain trying to mess with me.” He raps on the side of his skull. “Bad brain. Cut that out. Am I right?”
Sif’s eye narrows.
Isabeau flushes. “Aw, I dunno, Sif. I guess I’d just… I’d kinda lose my mind if something happened to you, and tomorrow we’re… well. You know.” He shakes his head vigorously, trying to shake off the traces of nightmare still clinging to his skin. “Don’t worry about it. It’s stupid.”
“I had a dream, too.”
Isa’s eyes widen. “Y-You did?”
“I was fishing in a giant bowl of alphabet soup.”
“Huh? What? Really?”
Sif nods solemnly. “I guess I was trying to catch some z’s.”
“You— Sif!!!!!!”
When they smirk at him, he can feel the weight of the nightmare lift a little. Sif always knows how to cheer him up.
* * *
Isabeau waits until Siffrin’s out of sight before raking a hand through his hair. He’s sweating a little. Or… maybe more than a little. Sif doesn’t usually catch onto feelings-stuff, but even they seemed sort of suspicious, near the end. But what was Isa supposed to say? ‘I’m probably having nightmares about you because I’m totally stupid in love with you? I want to touch you so bad it feels like my heart’s gonna climb out my throat? Just being around you is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and the thought of losing that—losing you—makes me want to burn the whole stupid House to the ground?’
—Nnnnope! Haha, no thanks! Hard pass, actually! Isa acts pathetic enough around Sif as it is! He really doesn’t need to look even less cool.
…Not that that’s ever been his strong suit.
Ugh. It’s always been like this, with Sif. Or maybe Isa should say that he’s always been like this. Can you blame him? They’re just so cool!! They saunter around with their big floppy hat and their big swooshy cloak and that sly little smirk, like they’re listening to a joke that no one else can hear. Always watching and listening and taking everything in. And Isabeau does mean everything. If you say something that no one else hears, Sif will always, always notice. They’ll wink at you with that big bright eye and for a second it’s like you’re the only two people in the world. Sharing a secret, just between you.
Isa squeezes his eyes shut and covers his face with his hands. STOP. For Change’s sake. They’re not even here!! How are you still this embarrassing when they’re not even HERE??
Not that he’s much better when they are around. The first time he saw Sif, he practically forgot how to talk. The whole party was boxed in and worn down, bloodied and gasping and totally out of their league. M’dame Odile managed to slow the Sadness down a little, but every blow that it landed was nearly a knockout. Mira was too busy healing to get a single hit in. But it wasn’t enough. They were losing.
And then a blur of black and white hurtled out of the canopy and gouged a gash clear through the Sadness’s sobbing face. All Isa could do was stare, goggle-eyed and totally beyond dumbstruck, as the stranger looked over their shoulder and winked. “Mind if I cut in?”
* * *
“Stoooop,” Isa whispers into his hands. He can’t afford to waste time flailing around in a field like a total crabbing loser. Nightmares or no, he still has a country to save.