Egotober - 2024

7. Power || Jackieboy Man & Antisepticeye & Chase Brody

Jackie knew Anti was a problem, he just didn't want to admit it. Because really, how embarrassing, to be a hero and still be so close with a villain. Well, kind of a villain. Nothing had come out about Anti, but that didn't mean he didn't do horrible things in his spare time, it just meant that he was good at hiding it.

And by close, he meant being friends with someone who was friends with the demon. He knew how much Anti meant to Chase, but he could never really figure out why.

Maybe it had to do with their matching scars, or the fact that they looked like twins, despite not being related? At least, Jackie was pretty sure they weren't related, because Chase had never brought up having a twin before, or even any siblings at all, and that seemed like something one best friend would share with another.

From the moment Chase introduced him to Anti, Jackie could sense this sort of power around him. Like hazy static, it coated Anti, making him blurry in Jackie's vision. There was also a high pitched buzzing sound, also reminiscent of static, that followed him around.

Basically, there was something off about Anti, but Jackie could never figure out what.

Not to MENTION that he was never away from Chase, it was like he was Chase's shadow. Even with the colors he wore, it was like he was some sort of inverted version of Chase.

And again, there was just something so off about him. He was sugary sweet to Chase, acting as if there wasn't anyone else in the world when Chase was around, but once he was alone he would draw into himself, putting up a sort of shield that didn't really exist but Jackie could definitely feel.

He was just worried that Anti was using Chase in the worst way, and he really didn't want to see Chase hurt if that ended up being the case.

Jackie had noticed that something was off about Chase too, something about him was different from the version of himself that existed before he had gone missing. Which really wasn't surprising, things like that happened all the time, but it was the way Chase went around handling it.

Jackie would notice small things about him that had changed, like how Chase hated having overhead lights on, or how he never ate at the right times (breakfast at eight in the night, or lunch at four in the afternoon) and never had a meal schedule anymore, something he used to be really strict about. Something he had picked up from being a parent, Jackie assumed. But now it was just weird. He thought maybe it was symptoms of Chase's anxiety or depression, but once he figured out that it wasn't, he really couldn't figure out why this change had happened so randomly.

One of the other things was that he kept talking to himself, always muttering under his breath or holding full conversations with himself at a normal volume in the middle of the night. AND he never slept, even though he took every precaution to make sure every light in his vicinity was off and he was listening to at least one sound.

Really, the list went on and on, but Chase would never talk about what had happened to him, and Jackie wasn't about to ask Anti. Not when he felt enough power under Anti's skin to vaporize an entire county. There was just something intimidating about him.