Chapter Text
Anti was just a character. He was a creative outlet to spice up Jack's videos, and he was completely fictional. He couldn't be real.
Which was why Jack actually found it amusing the first time he thought he saw a green flash in the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. He figured that it was a trick of the light, and he chuckled at himself for thinking of his made-up alter ego when he caught it out of the corner of his eye. He'd just gotten up after a long night of recording, and he'd spent some of the day before brainstorming on ways to bring Anti back into some of his videos. It was just some weird mix of tiredness and the creative juices that he'd had flowing.
Thinking about and portraying Anti always got Sean into a specific state of mind. Sean loved to act, and he loved thinking about the different characters he'd come up with for his channel, but Anti was special in that he'd become an integral part of the community. He was literally the opposite of Jack. There was no yin without yang. But even so, it wasn't like Anti was real. Jack needed to get out of his head sometimes.
He finished up in the bathroom, trying to internally reset from his youtube mindset, and bounced into the kitchen where Signe was frying eggs.
"Wiisher," he said, grinning at her over his own version of a good morning.
He walked up to put a tiny peck on her cheek and then started to clean up a few dishes for her while she made breakfast.
"Morning. I almost thought you'd still be in bed when I left."
Sean looked a bit more sheepish after that, feeling slightly guilty even though he knew that she didn't mind him sleeping in. He was usually up before eight even after a long night, but now it was already past nine.
"Yeah, I was streamin' with Mark last night and we wanted to get a win before we ended it."
"It's okay; I'm just glad I got to see you this morning. Maybe you can go back to bed after I leave."
Signe dished Sean and herself some eggs and they went into the dining room to sit down like proper human beings. Usually when Wiish was out, Sean would just eat in his recording room or in the kitchen because he'd be too busy to sit down. It was important to him that they have breakfast together, though, when they could.
"I have some editing to do first but I'm sure I'll nap later."
"I'm sure you will."
"Hey!"
He couldn't really argue though; they both knew that he tended not to get enough sleep. He was a busy dude!
For some reason he thought about the imagined green flash that he'd seen in the mirror, and took a second to stare at his eggs. He was used to being tired, but he didn't usually see things.
Thankfully, he snapped out of it when Signe had finished and stood up, and Sean shoveled down the rest of his food before thanking her for breakfast and giving her a quick kiss goodbye. Then he added their dishes to the dishwasher and headed into his recording room.
There was a second before he got onto the computer that an image of Anti -different from what he'd thought he'd seen that morning and not part of a video he'd done before- popped into his mind. He filed it away as an idea for later and got to work on editing a video.
It was going a bit slowly since Sean was intermittently checking social media and replying to different comments on the footage of his and Mark's Fortnite stream, but Jack eventually finished with the new video. He wasn't uploading it yet and he needed to start filming the video for later that day, but his mind was in a slightly different place.
He decided to scroll through fanart on tumblr in order to gain some inspiration, and he ended up going through the tag for Anti. It'd probably just been to long since he put the little devil into a video. The fans were getting more and more demanding of even a glimpse of the character, but Jack was suddenly feeling a block. He didn't know what it was, but he was suddenly thinking of Anti in a different way. As if Jack would fall short of portraying him somehow. As if Anti was a separate entity from him.
It made sense in a way. Jack's fanbase were the ones who came up with Anti in the first place. Maybe he was feeling like he couldn't live up to their expectations. But he'd never thought that way before. It was really getting into his head. Like Anti was suddenly unfamiliar.
Jack decided to take a shower and then get started on filming. He sang to himself, loudly, feeling comfortable under the spray of water and goofing off to entertain himself. That was the whole point of what he did for a living, to have fun. And it was fun; he enjoyed it immensely. Even though the work was sometimes straining, he never forgot how lucky he was. He just needed to get out of a rut.
When he sat down again to film, Jack decided to play a funny little game that had been on his list for a while. It was light. It was easy. He laughed nearly the entire time he was playing, and by the end he felt much better about everything.
He uploaded the video he'd edited earlier and went to the kitchen for some lunch. It was a bit lonely sometimes with Wiishu out of the house, but Jack was pretty good at coping with the quiet. He put on some music on his phone to fill up the empty space and munched on leftovers at the breakfast bar. Signe would be back soon anyways and if he finished editing in time, they could have dinner together as well. It kind of felt like they hadn't been spending much time together with how busy they'd both been, but that would be easy to make up for.
Sean finished editing and actually took a nap before Signe got home. He didn't even notice that she was a few hours late.