Chapter Text

Lake sat in front of the Cosay family computer with the Twitter sign-up screen open. Jesse was behind them watching, at their request.

“So the e-mail address is easy, whatever, but what do I put for my username?” Lake pondered out loud.

“Oh I know!” Jesse said enthusiastically, then as he spoke he moved his hand through the air with a dramatic flair. “Your username should be Chrome Compatriot.”

Lake snorted and started typing again. “That’s terrible.”

“Well you don’t have to use it.”

“Nah, it’s too terrible not to use.”

Lake typed in their username and continued the rest of the signup process. Then they waited slightly impatiently for the confirmation e-mail.

“So do you know Tulip’s name on here?” Jesse asked.

“Of course, I was there when it was made.”

Jesse drummed his fingers on the back of Lake’s chair. “Are you nervous at all about contacting her?”

“That’s what you’re here for,” Lake said with a small smile. “Moral support. I’m more nervous about Tulip not believing me than anything.”

“You’ll just have to make it super obvious who you are then,” Jesse hummed in thought. “Like, make your icon a picture of yourself, and put in your description ‘hashtag no filter, hashtag, actually chrome’ just to make it extra clear.”

The confirmation e-mail arrived, Lake clicked on the provided link.

“I’m not putting hashtags in my profile. Tulip’s not stupid, just the picture will be enough.”

Lake started to edit their profile and hit another snag with their description.

“Jesse’s not wrong about making it obvious in my description,” Lake thought.

They tapped on a random key in thought. Pronouns, sure, that’s a given. Name, why not? Then it hit them.

“Lake, formerly MT,” Jesse read out what Lake quickly typed.

“I’ll remove the formerly part after I contact Tulip,” Lake said, then added more to their profile, nonbinary, she/they, and the most important part, “Free from The Train.”

“Ah smart,” Jesse chuckled. “‘The Train’ sounds so ominous though.”

“It kinda is if you think about it. This strange train that goes on forever, kidnapping people with personal problems.” Lake then scrolled though multiple pictures of themself to use as an icon. “Wow I look uncomfortable in all of these. I want Tulip to know I’m happy.”

“You’ll get better at having your picture taken,” Jesse watched the pictures fly by. “See, you’re actually smiling in this one you took by the lake.”

Lake took a closer look at the photo, seeing that they did look genuinely happy. It was taken right after Jesse’s dad gave them a cool old jacket of his. It was way too big on them of course.

Feeling satisfied with their new profile Lake saved all the changes and then started following a few accounts. Starting with Jesse. That way they seem more like a real person when they do contact Tulip.

“Thanks for helping me out with all this,” Lake said. “I think I’ll DM Tulip after I give my account a little life.”

“It’s no problem, good luck with the Tulip thing,” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “And if you want me to give you more moral support when you reach out. Just ask.”

Lake smiled as Jesse walked out of the room. They continued to do things on Twitter, and eventually made a change to their profile.

Blame @Jesse_Dracula for the username.

“I wonder how long it’ll take for him to see that,” they thought with a laugh.

Lake tweeted out a couple things, which they found pretty awkward. There wasn’t much to say. Freedom was great and all, but life in Jesse’s town hasn’t been extremely interesting for the average person. A reinforced bed frame was cool for Lake, but was it for anybody else? No.

Tweeting was definitely the biggest hurdle aside from contacting Tulip. Especially once Lake realized that her DMs were turned off for random people.

“Of course,” Lake said with a groan. “It’s like that by default.”

They agonized over what to tweet out to Tulip. A DM was private, a Tweet was not. “Hey, this is your former reflection. I got off the train.” Wouldn’t really work in a public setting.

“Recognize this face?” Would be kinda creepy.

Lake wondered if they sent Jesse out of the room too soon.

They bit the bullet and Tweeted to Tulip, “This is pretty weird, but not as weird as The Train. We know each other.”

Before Lake could even think too hard about what they typed they sent the Tweet.

“Too late to back out now.”

After coming home from a study session with Mikayla Tulip scrolled through her Twitter and saw two notifications. Which was a bit unusual, she didn’t have very many followers. One new notification was a strange Tweet from somebody who looked like they were made out of metal, the other was of them following her.

The Tweet mentioned “The Train” which really stood out to Tulip so she checked out the person’s profile.

A couple things interested Tulip, mainly this person having “formerly M.T.” in their bio, but also another mention of The Train.

Tulip laughed when she saw Lake’s most recent retweet, it was from the “Jesse_Dracula” mentioned in their bio.

“Hey! @ChromeCompatriot sounds cool you know, like a superhero”

Obviously those two were friends.

Tulip clicked on Lake’s profile picture to expand it and took a good look at their face. It became completely obvious that this was indeed her former reflection. Wow, what a change. They look happy.

So Tulip followed Lake back.

The DM was pretty much instant. Tulip had wanted to quickly grab a snack but clearly Lake was excited to talk.

Lake: I don’t know where to start! I guess, how are you? Tulip: I’m good. Definitely didn’t expect to hear from you today. Lake: Yea. Just figured we could catch up. Oh right. I can remove formerly M.T. from my profile now. I only had it so you knew who I am. Tulip: Do you have a Discord too? We could voice chat and catch up that way. Lake: I don’t have Discord. I could sign up later. Dinner’s soon so I can’t right now.

Tulip looked at her clock, it was already past 7PM.

Tulip: Where are you? Lake: Arizona Lake: I wasn’t really thinking when I messaged you. I can quickly type out what happened tho. Tulip: Sure. And then I can update you.

It took a while for Lake to go over all the details, and Tulip wished that she was voice chatting with them because it sounded like an interesting story. Meeting Jesse, a deer with magic powers! Running from the flecs, a cult, One-One’s role as conductor.

Lake: And Jesse was so upset that he left the train without me that it picked him up again. One-One couldn’t figure out how to solve his problem since I couldn’t leave the train without a number. Tulip: Really? So how’d you get off? Lake: Simple. I reflected Jesse’s number on my hand. Tulip: Good thinking Lake: It’s so good to be free! Kind of boring tho. But whatever I need a little boring right now. Lake: So what have you been up to?

“What have I been up to?” Tulip thought. “Oh wait, Lake didn’t see how I got off the train.”

Tulip: After I helped you out of The Chrome Car I went to a car that was a kids’ playground like they have at

“Hold on,” Tulip searched her memory. “Do those places even have mirrors?”

Tulip: Well it was a kids playground. You’ve never seen one. There was a stuffed rabbit named Khaki Bottoms and I had a break for a bit. Tulip: Then “the conductor” showed up and tore the place apart.

Typing the part that came next proved hard for Tulip. It all worked out in the end, Atticus was turned back to normal. But...

So she decided to leave it out as she continued to go over what all Lake missed on the train.

Lake: Wow. Lake: So an old lady kicked One-One out of the engine room. Tulip: I wonder what she’s doing? Lake: Don’t know. I just know about the Apex gang. I hope they run into her so they can smarten up. Tulip: Right them.

The next reply took a while to show up. Tulip figured Lake was eating dinner.

Lake: A lot of them are little kids. Lake: I hate them. Lake: Anyway how’s life off the train going? Tulip: My parents were really worried about me since I was gone for so long. Tulip: They wouldn’t let me go anywhere alone. Lake: Fair. Tulip: Eventually I got to go to game design camp. It was great! Lake: Cool

Tulip recalled how sick of programming Lake sounded so she decided to not go too into detail and bore them.

Tulip: School’s been school. It was nice being around people again. Tulip: But I got sick of it really fast. Lake: I’m going to school too. Lake: It’s not terrible. Tulip: You’re going to school??

The rest of the night was spend chatting about school and just general life stuff.

It was nice catching up.