He shouldn’t be up here. He knows that. If anyone, anyone is to walk inside these Chambers while he is still teetering on the edge of the tank, that’s it. Johann’s done for. He’ll be thrown into the brig, questioned to all the hells to figure out what the fuck he thought he was doing. What he planned to do with the Voidfish. 

They don’t know, nor will they ever believe, that Johann has nothing planned. He’s sitting on the thick edge of the Voidfish’s tank, bare feet just an inch above its swirling waters, with absolutely nothing in mind. Johann doesn’t even remember what possessed him to come up here. All he remembers are the hours of lyre-playing that haunted him before. The same seven notes, over and over and over, E-G-G-B-A-B-E, E-G-G-B-A-B-E, E-G-G-B-A—

All Johann remembers is another failed duet.

“I can’t take it anymore, man.”

Johann grips the lip of the tank even tighter until his knuckles begin to ache. He stares down at the Voidfish with intense, narrowed eyes. The angle is alien to him: for the almost two years he’s known the Voidfish, he has always been the one below it. It towers over the entirety of its Chambers, the giant pillar of the Bureau. Always above the mundane life of the gamekeeper. It’s always been Johann who’s had to crane his neck to look up at its glory.

But now he finally gets to witness the Voidfish below him. It’s massive, it always will be, but if Johann lets himself indulge in his newfound madness, he can almost imagine the Voidfish looking smaller from upon this ledge. He can almost imagine the Voidfish reaching up to him. 

The Voidfish stares ahead. Ignoring Johann’s existence, like it has done for a year and many months, surely.

“You haven’t been eating lately. I know everyone’s been feeling like shit lately, and maybe that’s affected my compositions, but nothing? Not even a bite? Not even just… just…”

Johann slams his palms down on the ledge, loud enough to make himself jump. The Voidfish, of course, has no reaction. “This was the one thing we consistently had together!” he yells. “You abandon our playing together, you won’t even sing those same fucking notes anymore, when that’s all I have with you! If you won’t let me try to make a duet with you anymore, fine, but I— I can’t lose everything we have together all because everyone’s acting like the world is dying!”

All that yelling makes Johann gasp for breath. All that yelling doesn’t affect the Voidfish at all.

“Look at me,” Johann hisses. His voice is loud and shaky and so, so desperate. “Just look at me!!”

And, to his surprise, the Voidfish does.

Johann almost slips off the tank in shock. The Voidfish’s large bell swivels and tilts upwards, facing Johann up on the edge of its cage. It has no eyes, but Johann’s body shivers with the distinct sensation of being watched. “Holy shit, you actually listened to me,” he says. His voice is light, as if the Voidfish has sucked the air out of his lungs with just this small acknowledgment.

Johann, against his better judgment, stretches his legs. The tips of his toes brush against the surface of the Voidfish’s waters, sending ripples across the tank that distort the image of the creature below. Johann watches every minuscule wave intently, before his eyes trail back to the Voidfish, scanning for some sort of reaction. Maybe something that could knock his senses back into his head, and make him realize what exactly he’s doing right now.

Instead, the Voidfish decides to push Johann to his limit by reaching up. Its long and flowy oral arms float upwards towards Johann, and the longer he stares at it, the more he thinks he’s about to pass out. What is it doing? he wonders, suddenly gripped by fear. Just…

“Why?”

The Voidfish’s frilly tendrils remain suspended in its tank. They’re long enough they almost break into the surface. Long enough for Johann to stretch out a little farther and touch it. Which he does, with no hesitation, because everything in his heart is telling him he must. He bends over and reaches his hand towards the Voidfish. His fingers brush over the surface of the water and send the tiniest of ripples through it.

And the Voidfish closes the distance. The Voidfish is the one who stretches its frills to touch Johann’s outstretched fingers and graze his dry skin. It snakes around his index finger, dripping water as it wraps him in its tiny embrace. It touches him— no, it holds him. Gently. Lightly. It doesn’t push or pull on Johann, it almost seems to cradle him. Johann shivers at the touch.

It’s everything Johann’s ever wanted from it. Even more, if he’s being honest with himself. A simple acknowledgement has evolved past that, into an act of affection. A sensation. Given up so easily, right when Johann is at his limit. Right when Johann’s gone mad.

But Johann wants more. Of course he can’t be happy with what he’s given.

Johann pushes off the rim and plunges into the tank.

Yeah, definitely mad. Wearing only two layers of sleepwear, Johann kicks his feet to keep himself afloat, with eyes wide as he stares at the Voidfish in front of him. Its swirling galaxies glow even brighter without the thick glass in the way. And those stars and lights and frills— they are all looking at him. All while one of those tentacles cradles his finger in its grasp.

You want me here, Johann thinks. You’re looking at me.

The Voidfish sings. A booming call, like a whale song, but infinitely more beautiful. Practiced and perfected. Johann smiles and doesn’t even care for the water seeping into his lips. He listens to the Voidfish’s call and clutches the tendril with his entire hand, rather than just his finger. Relief washes over him when the Voidfish doesn’t seem to mind. It just continues with its song.

Johann loses his need to understand the why. He doesn’t care to understand why now, after all his months of pleading for its grace, of yelling and screaming in ignored agony, that it finally gives it to him just a few days before Midsummer. Johann closes his eyes and hums to the Voidfish’s song. It forces the precious air right out of his lungs, irritating his nose, but it doesn’t matter. How can he care about such insignificant things when the Voidfish’s song fills him so completely? 

Maybe that’s part of the end-of-the-world stress that’s made Johann mad. But he doesn’t pretend to entertain the thought. He doesn’t care to hide or take unnecessary breaths. Johann floats there, clinging to the Voidfish as it clings to him in return, humming with it. Letting his breath slip out of his mouth.