Chapter Text
Lately, Poki felt like she was walking around with a giant weight sitting on her chest. And every drama floating around on the internet just added to that weight, little by little. She'd grown so accustomed to feeling close to hyperventilation that it was almost normal at this point. She couldn't even recall the last time she'd woken up feeling completely relaxed.
But for whatever reason, today sucked more than usual.
She turned on stream almost mindlessly, feeling like her head was filled with fog. It was almost too easy to put on a smile and wave to her chat before turning to the mechanics of opening the right settings and logging into Among Us. It felt familiar. Comforting. Like she could pretend the sinking feeling in her stomach came from not eating breakfast instead of something else.
The first few hours went on as normal. She was crewmate the entire time, which prevented her from having to read chat and interact. Instead, she could focus on her wires and chatting to her friends over proximity. Leslie was hilarious as usual, and kept a smile on Poki's face almost the whole time as she tried to play different songs on her otamatone.
"Impostor" flashed across Poki's screen on the next round, which she was grateful for, too. Now she could occupy her mind with venting instead of making conversation- especially since lately, whenever she wasn't actively talking to someone she felt like she could burst into tears.
It bothered her that she couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. She didn't know why she felt like shit today, why even Rae's maniacal laughter couldn't cut through the soul-crushing waves of sadness that kept washing over her like a wave. Poki liked to know what was going on, and this... this tight feeling in her chest unsettled her more than she cared to admit.
It was easier to pretend that she wasn't sad than acknowledge just how sad she was.
Until her eyes caught one message flash by- "impostor is a fitting role for a backstabber like pokimane."
Those words made her stop her character in its tracks, its little feet falling still on the screen. Poki saw Sykkuno's green character pause after passing her, then double back.
"Oh, hey, Poki," she heard him say, as if from a distance. "Whatcha up to?"
"Just checking my task list," she managed to answer, her voice steadier than she thought it would be. But inside, she felt as though she were about to vomit. Like it or not, whoever had said that in chat managed to voice the thoughts that had been lingering in her mind for months, ever since Lily and Yvonne's statements blew up on Twitter, ever since she made her own stream to address the Fed situation...
"Oh, okay! I'll come with you!"
Poki forced herself to move her character towards labs, trying to ignore her rapidly increasing heart rate and the way her breaths kept catching in her chest. Maybe if I give it some time, I'll calm down, she kept telling herself, but she couldn't stop her brain from trying to diagnose why she was freaking herself out, which made her even more stressed.
"You know what I've started in my house?" Sykkuno asked as they both stood at telescope.
"What?"
"A little bean sprout."
Poki managed an almost automatic smile at that, but it came out more like a grimace. Before she could answer, the report animation flashed across her screen and the meeting menu appeared. She let out a slow breath, trying to calm her racing heart and the roaring in her ears. Even though people were talking and she could see their names lighting up, her brain wasn't processing them. They were all starting to sound like they were speaking gibberish.
She buried her face in her hands, trying desperately to regain some sense of control, but she was starting to realize just how badly she was starting to spiral.
Poki tried to find the words to explain to her chat, but no words came to her mind. She felt dizzy, disoriented, and freaked out. Her mouse clicked the 'end stream' button for her almost automatically, the motion already so ingrained in her body that even now she didn't need to think much to do it. Which was good, because she was really starting to have trouble formulating any thought at all.
Rae was always in the habit of keeping an eye on her chat when she was Impostor. While she didn't interact most of the time, she did like to know what was happening, what people were thinking of her kills, and that sort of thing.
So she saw almost immediately when viewers from Poki's stream started coming into her chat.
'Did your internet go out? Poki's stream just crashed,' one of them said, and Rae's forehead crinkled in confusion as her eyes went to the little WiFi symbol on her computer. Full bars.
Rae noticed, then, that Poki said nothing in the meeting, not even to report her suspicions or reciprocate Sykkuno's clear. Even when the meeting ended, Poki's character stayed motionless, standing in the same place around the meeting table.
Worry started to gnaw at Rae after that. She stayed in the meeting room with Poki's little character on the pretense of 'guarding' her, but in reality, she just kept hoping Poki would start moving.
When another meeting passed without Poki saying anything, Rae purposefully killed someone in front of Sykkuno, just to get this game over with.
As soon as the 'Defeat' screen appeared, Rae was turning to her chat. "Our house's internet is being weird, I'm going to go see if I can figure out what's up. I might stream again later, we'll have to see if things are better then. Thanks to all the Poki viewers for popping in, I appreciate the support! Love you guys! Go check out twitch.tv/quarterjade if you're still interested in following the games."
Rae quickly turned off stream then and headed to Poki's room, knocking gently on the door before pushing it open.
She found Poki laying on the floor, holding Mimi. The moment she saw Rae, she started sobbing.
No feeling in the world could compare to what it was like to walk into a room and have a friend immediately burst into tears. It was heartbreaking and terrifying all at once, and made Rae feel so helpless, so useless in the moment.
"What's wrong?" Rae asked, immediately dropping to the floor beside her friend. All Poki could do was shake her head, gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"I don't know," Poki managed, her voice strangled. "I don't know, Rae. I- I can't breathe."
Rae had never seen Poki like this, scared and sad and out of control. She was always so poised, confident, and put-together. Sometimes she forgot that she was older than Poki by years. But this reminded her of just how young Poki was and just how much responsibility weighed on her shoulders. Rae was so used to Poki comforting her that she was frozen at first, not knowing what to do, afraid to make it worse, not knowing what was wrong.
"Come here," she said finally, and pulled Poki to her feet, taking her out of her bedroom, where she knew so much of Poki's stress stemmed from in the first place. Instead, Rae led them to her bedroom, where Mika greeted them with his tail wagging, jumping into Poki's lap the moment she sat on the floor beside Rae's bed.
Rae got a glass of water from the kitchen and helped Poki sip it, which seemed to calm her a little bit. Mika helped, too, by shoving his nose into Poki's hand every time she hesitated even for a moment. "Better?" Rae asked after Poki set down the water with steady hands.
Poki gave a tiny nod.
"What can I do? How can I help?"
"I don't know."
"How are you feeling?" Rae asked, even as she put a hand on Poki's forehead to check for a fever. She knew she wouldn't find one- she knew enough to guess that this stemmed from stress and all of the drama Poki had to deal with over the past months.
She was kind of surprised that something hadn't happened earlier when the OfflineTV situation first started developing- Poki received so much hate, so many people trying to figure her out, trying to pick her apart.
"I'm okay," Poki answered, and Rae knew that that meant she wasn't okay. She knew Poki too well to fall for that, too well to miss the waver in her voice and the tears swimming in her eyes.
Rae let it slide, though, and instead scooted closer and let Poki rest her head on her shoulder. She pretended to ignore Poki wiping away tears every so often, and instead busied herself with collecting the tufts of fur that Mika shed when Poki pet him.
They stayed like that in quiet, the three of them- Rae, Poki, and Mika- until Janet and Celine came home with food and joined them, filling the room with warm hugs and jokes and laughter.