Chapter Text
Above all else, Jean Loo Pissior, as his name implied, was a toilet. This was a fact that he had come to accept over the years, one that he dealt with through a healthy mix of repression and dissociation, often finding himself caught up in his own cistern. Smeared ink sloughed off the pages he wrote and intermingled with the water in his tank, usually followed by the prompt need to be unclogged due to the large wads of paper floating around inside of him. It wasn’t the existence he would’ve chosen for himself, but despite it all, he made the best of it.
Then came Skylar, with her pink hair and pretty face. Jean Loo had nothing against her, although she seemed to have a natural distaste for him. Most objects in the house did, and he couldn’t judge them too harshly. Barry disliked him because he flung toilet water everywhere when flushed, although that was the Human’s fault for not closing him. Bathsheba found his raps a complete and total earsore, and Amir wasn’t shy about pointing out Jean Loo’s horrible insecurities. The last time he and Amir had talked, he was totally psychoanalyzed, and it left the bathroom tense for the longest while… but that was besides his cluttered, wordy thought process. Skylar was here, and for the first time in his life, the Human had seen him as more than just a commodity.
While his love for the human was on shaky grounds at first, once the word ‘Realization’ started floating around, Jean Loo knew what he needed to happen, yet his pride as a rapper did not allow him to back down. The human would first have to beat him in a crap (NOTE: Cool Rap) battle, although they needed an abundance of time to train for the occasion. Jean Loo didn’t mind. He was patient, quietly writing more bars to hit them with, excitement swirling in his bowl.
Before Jean Loo could even say he was friends with the Human, who’d dated so many objects around the house that they’d gained the nickname Player, the first object had already been realized. Her name was Shelley, a shelf turned woman who… really wasn’t all that interesting. She was supportive all around, holding things up or down or however they needed to be held, although her loud, anxious nature had certainly frightened before. Still, all he could recall was a moment of weakness for her, one of her legs giving out randomly. Luckily, the only thing that tumbled into Jean Loo was spare toilet paper, but the Human removed the bathroom shelf shortly after that. They never got another chance to talk as objects after that, their closest interactions being held through a long game of telephone amongst the other residents.
Still, it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t come face to face again. Shelley was human now, and having a human body was… quite a bit to get used to. There were a couple of recreational acts such as eating or sleeping that just so happened to overlap with human necessity, but then there were the new sensations. The bathroom was a foreign land to most, where bustling noise could be heard from outside but nobody could really be talked to. Most objects didn’t dare venture in from the threat of being soaked by Sinclaire anyway, but once realized… Well, it wasn’t nearly as unsafe as prior.
Showers were weird, Jean Loo knew from watching Shelley take one, awkwardly disrobing and blushing. Despite her sculpted figure, she couldn’t help but be embarrassed over this.
“Oh, man,” Shelley had said to herself. None of the objects responded. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in here with you guys… it’s kinda weird knowin’ I have to use you. And you’re all seeing me naked! Right now! Oh, wow. That’s… yeah.”
The heavy air of silence wasn’t only on Shelley’s part. Jean Loo, Johnny Splash, Amir, Sinclaire- they all held their breath as she stepped under the hot shower water, peering at her form. Not for any lewd reasons, but to see if she would really hold up as a human, or if the water would harm her in any way. When she stepped out refreshed and unscathed, excitement roared across the house. The Dateviators really could bring someone to life, and the race was on to see who would next be realized. Jean Loo could feel it, that his moment was coming, a time in his life where he could be the shit rather than shit on.
And so Jean Loo waited, patient and diligent, practicing away. The human had approached him a couple of times before their final battle, although those moments were… quick.
“Forgot my Dateviators were on,” they said once, not even bothering to let him stand up from where he’d appeared hunched on the floor before taking them back off. It took another month for them to swing back around, and even then, the story was the same. It was an accident, or on occasion, on purpose. Jean Loo always requested the glasses be removed if he were being used as facilities. Those words, somehow, were mistranslated as ‘don’t come around anymore.’
It wasn’t like the human had completely stopped showing their face anyway. They couldn’t. Jean Loo was a toilet, and those had to be used every day. The more objects realized there were, the more business he got, and he started to see new faces.
Then, before anybody could say anything, Johnny was gone. The shower was suddenly nothing more than a structure used for washing off, a means to an end. He saw the singer from time to time, even getting a ‘hello’ on occasion, but it was all spoiled by… ugh. Usage. He hated all of these new humans running around the house. Rather than being used a handful of times a day between two toilets, there seemed to be a new resident to use him every week. Some of them left, but the house, which was certainly big enough for the even more frequent visits back, accommodated more than ten permanent residents those days. Jean Loo saw nothing but visitors all day long, and most of them forgot to say hi, much less ‘thank you’ or ‘how have you been.’
Sinclaire went next, then Amir, then Tyrell. Farya and Barry stuck around for a while, but they were realized too eventually. For a while, it was just Jean Loo and Bathsheba alone in the upstairs bathroom, but despite his efforts to be a polite gentleman, she absolutely refused to talk to him, misinterpreting everything he said as some sort of personal attack while loudly making fun of him on the phone. A tense, lonely month passed, and Bathsheba got her wish of being human. Jean Loo, however, did not.
And Jean Loo was alone. Despite the frequent guests and the sheer amount of strain they were putting on his system, he was completely and totally alone. Months ago, he’d gotten the occasional hello from an old friend, but as the realized objects assimilated into human life more and more, it seemed that they had forgotten their roots.
“Pisser’s out,” he’d heard a disembodied voice say from outside of the bathroom. It wasn’t Player’s by any means. No-- It almost sounded like Abel, the big, sweet man who had always taken care of everybody’s needs, but Jean Loo couldn’t believe that. A kindly man such as him would think higher of Jean Loo’s efforts than to insult him like that. However, the demeaning names continued to seep through the cracks in the door, scratching themselves deep into the inside of his pipes. The can, the pisser, the shitter, the crapper (NOTE: NOT cool rapper ), the john, the loo, the whizzer… all of the names kept coming, and despite some of them being so close to a name Jean Loo actually identified with, he couldn’t recall being addressed properly by any of his ‘friends’ in the past few weeks.
The worst of all, however, was when they called him the toilet.
Somehow, the humans had managed to instill such a hateful inflection into their voice every time they said that word. It was never positive, usually alluding to a clog or a leak, ailments Jean Loo found himself coming down with more and more. These new humans who weren’t familiar with toilet etiquette were essentially torturing him. They flushed things that clogged his pipes, sat and played their phones for far too long, forgot to flush-- the works. Despite the abuse, the toilet kept working, kept doing its best to keep up, but it was grueling labor.
“The toilet is leaking again!” Bathsheba screamed as she stormed from the room, walking on her toes so as to not get her feet wet. “Uh, hello!? There’s, like, disgusting toilet water getting all over the floor? Isn’t anybody going to do anything about it?”
“Tony’s got it,” Tony shouted from the electrical closet. He’d been checking out his old box out of the electrical closet, which he rarely got to use anymore. Really, he wasn’t the best handyman, most of his income coming from being a loveable guy trapped with a horrible famous woman from reality TV, but he was still the human’s handyman, and it was the only escape he got from Tina. “Just gotta get my wrench. It’s probably that same damn bit that’s always comin’ loose. Jean Loo’s got a friggin’...”
Tony stopped himself, turning towards the bathroom door. He can only stare at its white panels for a minute as he remembered his pal… or more so client, Jean Loo. Had the man gotten realized? Had he even gotten romanced? Player, last Tony had checked, was on a break from dating, getting about 90% of the way there before completely giving up. The Dateviators had just been sitting around upstairs, shut away in their drawer with their sex toys, something he’d found out during one of their many romantic nights together…
Either way, Jean Loo’s constant leakyness was starting to become a serious problem for the household. He was dripping water constantly, getting clogged multiple times a week, and his flushes had been weaker than ever. Still, he worked, and so long as he was serving the others, they didn’t care. Tony, however, had a history with Jean Loo. He was essentially his doctor back when they were objects, having to tighten him up once a month to help with his… incontinence problems. It was always an embarrassing ordeal for the toilet, but he went through his treatments with nothing more than a grimace, even when they were painful from how tight he’d needed his valves. He’d never gotten the chance to ask Jean Loo why he was so leaky, but despite his constant return to fix the toilet since he was realized, Tony hadn’t actually talked to him once.
“Go nuts,” was Player’s response when Tony asked about borrowing the Dateviators for a second. It seemed that they were in a small state of depression, too burnt out to continue bringing objects to life. It’d already been weeks of their sudden shift in motivation, yet nobody seemed to care if they were still realizing the left over objects or not. Everyone who had gotten realized was satisfied and didn’t have to care anymore, except for Tony. And it wasn’t like he was the world’s best friend or toilet doctor. If he had let his brain be consumed by another passing thought, he probably would’ve lost Jean Loo from his mind at all. This was just… work stuff, anyway. The best way to find out the problem with the toilet would probably just be to ask.
With that, Tony donned the Dateviators, not feeling very different. Were these what they called ‘rose tinted glasses?’ There were certainly objects that Tony wouldn’t have dated that Player did, but he’d ask about that later, more focused on the work he was there to do. He grabbed his toolbox and placed his unnecessary hard hat on his head, whistling as he walked into the bathroom.
“Alright, just gotta…” Tony mumbled to himself as he stared at the toilet, casually placing the toolbox on the sink counter before laying towels haphazardly across the floor. Jean Loo, as a toilet, looked just as regular as ever. Well, maybe not that regular. He was certainly dirtier than he’d been during previous visits, but that was probably just due to the busy schedules of the very important humans that lived there. Despite the fast drip of the water, the towels did their job well, and the surrounding area was staying relatively dry…
When Tony looked at the toilet again, there was a blue haired man in its place, eyes closed and mouth open with an expression of pure nothingness. “Shit,” Tony exclaimed, not having realized that the Dateviators worked so quickly. “What are you… Jean Loo?”
Jean Loo’s eyes sleepily opened at the mention of his name, words he hadn’t heard in nearly half a year.
“Huh? Business or pleasure?” The words barely escaped Jean Loo’s mouth, more of a mumble than an overconfident statement about the affairs of a human. The toilet man did not look good in his human form. Despite not needing to consume food, he’d somehow completely hollowed out, his cheeks gaunt. His eyes were sunken, purple rings defining them rather than his cool blue irises. Even those had seemed to fade into a dull, haunting gray, alongside the originally white porcelain of his jacket. So much dust and grime had been allowed to collect that his once clean outfit was disheveled and unmatched.
“Oh my god,” Tony exclaimed as his eyes drilled holes into the subject below him. Jean Loo could feel every millimeter of scrutiny applied to him, shamefully looking away. He refused to meet Tony’s eyes at all.
“Tony,” Jean Loo greeted. It was only polite to say his name back, although he had heard Tony’s name being screamed last night.
“Jean Loo? Hey-” Tony started, kneeling down to look at Jean Loo’s face. The toilet man couldn’t focus on Tony if he tried, staring through him at the wall. His pupils were huge, suggesting that he was catatonic. “We… We gotta get you to a doctor. We gotta call Farya.”
“Farya is gone,” Jean Loo mumbled. All traces of life were eradicated from his voice. “They are all gone. It has been just… Jean Loo.”
“Jean, you’re not listening to me. You look bad,” Tony reiterated. He didn’t know it was possible for an object not found at the dump to get in such bad shape, although when he looked at the toilet without the Dateviators, he really looked fine. The stark difference in forms was certainly a cause for concern. “Something is wrong with you. You gotta see yourself. Can you stand?”
“Will you just fix Jean Loo and leave? He is humiliating himself!” Jean suddenly let out, although the lifeless tone didn’t leave his voice. “Jean Loo cannot be used if there is… is…”
Jean’s words trailed off. He had some funny wordplay about the situation in his head, but all of his thoughts were flushed. The drip suddenly increased to a leak.
“Woah!” Tony exclaimed as water sprayed out. Clearly, this was a problem that ran deeper than a few leaky valves. Something was very, very wrong with the toilet internally. “Okay, Jean? Are you here with me, buddy?”
“Jean Loo cannot leave,” Jean spat through his teeth. His breathing seemed to grow more labored with each passing moment, and he was starting to wake up… then, his eyes shot open, and his hands were firmly wrapped around Tony’s shoulders. “Jean Loo has been trapped in this spot for decades! Is… Is the human still going to realize Jean Loo? He does not care if they want to rap or crap or what! They may have his love! Are they still coming for him? Say yes, Tony!”
Tony’s eyes darted away, and Jean Loo’s face completely fell. “Look, Jean,” Tony started, and he suddenly found it much harder to stay in charge of the situation. “The human has been doin’... a lot. For everybody. They need a break-”
“No,” Jean Loo suddenly yelled. He started to change positions, trying to get onto his feet. If he could just go talk to the human, this would all be over. His isolation and objectification as everyone else thrived could be over! “Jean Loo wants to talk to them. He needs them to make him human!”
“Jean, quit it! You’re gettin’- Hey!” Tony leapt to his feet much quicker than Jean could, and for good reason. The rapper was completely unsteady once upright, shoes sliding on his own dirty water. His legs trembled under the weight of the chains around his neck, and before he knew it, he was falling forward into Tony’s strong arms. Their thighs knocked together, and the hose attached to Jean Loo’s pants fully came undone. Great. Now they were both completely soaked in stink, but that was the least of Tony’s worries. Jean Loo was practically unconscious in his arms, although the water had finally stopped flowing. He leaned the rapper back against the wall, taking off the Dateviators and sitting them on the counter. This leak would be easier to deal with if Jean Loo was a toilet, and there was no point trying to keep talking to him if he was barely coherent. Tony would need to get a second opinion from an actual doctor anyway, since Jean Loo’s symptoms were more present in his human manifestation. All he knew was that his friend, who he’d always liked more than disliked, had an issue, and he was a guy who solved problems.