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Faraway, like always, was a pleasant little hamlet. It was the perfect place to raise kids! The people were friendly, the crime was non-existent, and everybody could like a perfect, if quiet little life away from the hustle and bustle.
However, being a podunk also had its drawbacks.
There wasn’t much to do if you weren’t content in your own quiet hobby, the nightlife was non-existent, and then came the real problem! Employment.
Not exactly of the adult kind. Everyone had a job in this little place, it's just that was the problem! Everyone had a job! If you wanted a summer job to make a little extra cash, you were shit out of luck! Only Fix-it and Gino’s hired during those hot months, and even then, not enough to give everyone some pocket money. With so many teenagers, let's just say that you didn't have options unless you wanted to take a two-hour bus ride every day to the city to work for nothing.
It was even worse in the case you had some issues that made you less than ideal. Say, if you had a bum knee, or were missing an eye! Thus, the Suzuki siblings were banished from the gainful possibility of employment before they even put themselves out there.
After they both fell down those stairs after their little spat (Sunny called it that, Mari called it the biggest mistake of her life, considering the cost.) They had become a public fixture for a while.
Who wouldn’t want to hear the story about a big sister working her poor baby brother to the bone, and then they both fight and fall on top of a broken violin? Gossip was the lifeblood of any small town. Only they knew it was a simple case of communication and resentment, but nobody wanted to hear that.
And thus, they had paid their price. Sunny had lost an eye and a shard had caught Mari in the back of the leg. She had gained a limp on the days when the pain was really bad. However, not even their parents noticed how it drew them closer together.
But that's beside the point. Ancient history, as far as either was concerned. However, it did make the employment issue even worse. Not only were they “irresponsible teens” but they were disabled ones as well.
Maybe that's what drew them to this line of work. A nearby gravel pit had just opened, and they were hiring “Anyone willing to work.” Both had heard that before but were tired of mooching off their friends during the summer. As the prideful beings they were, pity was not something either of them desired.
After some pointed questions about knives, the absurdly scary lady had offered them the job, and an obscene amount of money to do it. In retrospect, they should have asked a few more questions. But after four summers of rejections for over and under-the-table work, they would sign anything.
After all, who's going to turn down 10,000 a week for a few hours of work a day? Even if that work was “Reasonably harmless.”
They should have known better.
“No way he comes around a third time,” Aubrey muttered to herself. On one hand, she had faith in her Hooligang members. On the other hand, she knew Maverick. She just hoped he wouldn’t fall for it a third fucking time. “No way.”
“He's not thinking,” Sunny replied, sitting down. His legs hung lazily over the side of this strange little catwalk above the courtyard. In his lap, lay the tool of destruction he would use against the weeb “About us, anyway.”
“Is he still pissed about that Kel thing?”
“What do you think?”
“Moron.” Aubrey mutterd. Mav didn’t have the cardio to keep up with Kel, even with the ability to double jump the scout class gave him. Didn’t help that Kel was the only person around that could stomach Bonk. Maybe all that Orange Joe was just training for that garbage. Not that Aubrey used that role. “He's still pissed about that domination?”
“You're saying that like theirs only been one.” Sunny snarked, his ears pricking up as someone ran through the lower level of the fort. He had no idea who the fuck built this place, but they sure must love stalemates. He picked up the sticky launcher, waited for two beats, and pulled the detonator.
The stickies, planted right next to the door to the courtyard, exploded. Sunny grimaced a bit when a bit of blood smacked him in the face. Mav was no more, a fine red mist! At least for 20 seconds.
Honestly, dying the first time was awful, but after it happens enough times, you might as well be playing paintball. Hurts a lot more though.
The money had convinced the rest of the gang to join up, as well as a good amount of other high schoolers. Mari and Sunny did them the kindness of not warning them what would happen. It was better to experience it. Respawn rooms were a hell of a thing
A domination notice rang over the loudspeakers, and Sunny smirked at Aubrey. The pink hair flowed free, despite the protective rubber suit she wore. Aubrey gravitating towards the way of the flame felt a little weird, but hey, nobody else liked playing it. Weird she didn’t wear the mask though. Apparently burning her hair off and respawning reapplied a fresh dye job or something. “Your friends are morons.”
“Sunny, you are one of those friends.”
“My point stands.” Sunny pulled back the handle of the sticky launcher, reloading…somehow! He was the best Demo currently in employ, but that wasn’t his aim. No, it was beacuse unlike everyone else, he was used to the mandatory eye patch.
Aubrey rolled her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it, eyes narrowing. With a sudden flash of movement, she brought down the flamethrower from her shoulder and let it rip.
Sunny watched as the invisible man caught fire, screaming as they ran. Huh, was that pretty boy? Hard to tell without seeing any features except the body shape in flames. Sunny watched, as Aubrey simply airblased him, popping him high into the open-air courtyard before nailing him in the chest with a flare. The body rag-dolled hilariously, cartwheeling over the fence as he let out a loony-tunes-esc death screech.
Sunny didn’t care about any of that. No, he was too busy staring at Aubrey. The fierce expression on her face tied his guts into knots. Even with a loose(ish) asbestos suit, his teen mind ran wild. He had always had a bit of a crush on her, but somehow, watching her perform incredible acts of violence just made it stronger!
“Sunny? Sunny are you paying attention to me?”
“Huh?” Sunny blinked. Fuck, he had gotten lost in his own little world again. How long had he been staring? “What?”
“I said you have to be more careful! He was coming after you.” She crouched down, flicking his nose. She laughed mockingly at the way his face scrunched as she sat next to him. It only made his heart hammer harder. “I swear I need to keep by your side all day.”
If fucking only.
They sat there for a while as Sunny reapplied his trap. No need to go too hard today. It was Friday after all, and once the three captures were scored, they would all go home. But they were padding their hours a bit, so neither side had been trying hard to capture the intelligence.
They were comfortable with their silence, as both knew that Sunny had little in the way of words. But after a few more Mav splatterings, she decided to spring the conversation along. “I wonder if Kel is going to ask out Basil soon.”
“you wish.”
“UGH! You know how fucking annoying it is to watch both of those guys dance around the whole issue?” Aubrey grumbled. The entire group had noticed that little romance developing, but none had commented. “They’ve been flirting for weeks?”
“Why do you care?” He asked more to rile her up than anything. It was fun seeing her so steamed over petty bullshit. He lived for the drama too, he just kept it to himself.
“Beacuse I fucking hate when people beat around the bush man!” She grinned at him, delighting in putting down Kel, as always. Some things didn’t change with age. ‘If you have a crush on someone, just be direct! Don’t be a pussy.”
She noticed when Sunny didn’t reply, and looked over. He looked as if he was debating something in his head, although what exactly he was thinking was a mystery to her. Only Basil had the ability to pry into his thick skull. “You drifting off to Lala land again?”
“Remember that motorcycle I bought?” Aubrey blinked at this sudden diversion. But, her curiosity overruled any annoyance from it as she tilted her head.
“Yea. I don’t know why you bought that thing. Neither of us can drive yet.” Aubrey was making the same amount of money but had been spending more than Sunny had. Moving out at 15 was a touch hard, but being able to emancipate yourself with a lawyer and get away from shit family. Sunny, however, bought whatever his heart desired with half the money, and invested the rest. The man slept on fucking plushies at this point.
“Well, when has doing something illegal stopped you?”
“I’m not a good influence, clearly.” And she took so much pride in this. She would have them shoplifting on principal soon enough!
“Anyway, I wanted to take it out for a joy ride tonight. Wanna come?” Sunny asked. Something about this felt different to Aubrey, but she couldn’t tell what it was! They had hung out one-on-one plenty. They had been childhood friends after all.
“Hell yeah, I do! You haven’t shown me any pictures of her yet!”
“Her?”
“All motor vehicles are naturally women. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.” She shrugged as Sunny thought of a perfect name for the bubblegum pink bike.
“Well good. I’ll pick you up at your place around six.”
“Why Sunny~” Aubrey put on her best Mari teaseing voice, letting her eyelids droop into a half-lidded stare. “You gotta be careful with your words. People may think it's a date.”
“That's because it is.”
Aubrey had put on the voice to see Sunny glow like a Christmas tree. He was famously easy to fluster, and it made him look adorable when the tips of his ears went red. However, it wasn’t so fun on the other side. Her cheeks lit up as she processed what he had just said. She wanted to say something, anything to save her pride.
“Wert?”
She honked out like a goose. Her entire persona faded into nothing as her dreams came true in a moment. Not that they knew, but everyone in the group knew this was going to happen eventually, if the other way around.
“See you then.” He smiled softly at her, patting her on the cheek before standing up. He stretched, popping his back as he dragged his claymore behind him. “I’m gonna switch to spy for a while. Killing your lame friend over and over is getting boring. See you around!”
As soon as he turned the corner into the spawn he slumped against the wall and held his chest. He had done it! Without cracking too! He had been the cool one! He was so fucking nervous he was pretty sure he had dissociated for a bit and gone numb. He had never thought he would ever be able to confess!
Mari was going to be fucking insufferable about it though, best keep it to himself.
Meanwhile, Aubrey was staring into the sky, face aflame as her eyes glazed over. This was never meant to happen! Ever. She was meant to sweep him off his little emo boy feat and woo him! But he had taken charge and stolen her moment and she had kinda liked it and she had no idea where that was coming from and oh got her heart was going to fucking explode-
Her body had reacted before her brain did. Maverick, annoyed that his leader had been watching him die over and over. He just wanted to show that upstart Kel what was up, but hadn’t even had the opportunity! So in a fit of frustration about the one-eyed wonder, he had equipped something that guaranteed disrespect. AMmarket Gardner.
However, with Aubrey’s reflexes like they were, and his hesitation to crit her into next Tuesday, instead, he was airblasted into the middle of the courtyard, fell, and broke both his ankles.
Aubrey slowly sat up as Mav screamed. Fucking crybaby. Then her brows furrowed. That girlish excitement, that glee about the confession had been wiped away by his screams. The moment, at least for now, was gone. Oh, that was it.
“OW, FUCK!” Mav leaned against the wall. Welp, he wasn’t rocket jumping like this. “Aubrey! Uh, sorry about that, I was trying to get one eye wonder for those sticky traps! How dare he fight in such a dishonorable way” He flipped his hair, unaware of the malice coming his way. “Could you be a dear and help me respawn? Aubrey? Aubrey, what are you doing with that ax? Wait, no. No that dosn’t go there! AUB-”
The scream that followed almost made it into town, and all agreed it was most likely deserved.
Basil was feeling a bit suspicious today. He had decided, like normal, to keep away from the action. You would think that he would be a medic, after all, he loved to support his friends. Although that was true, he also loved not being filled with holes! He didn’t care if he would come back, dying fucking sucked, and he liked that happening the minimal amount of times!
And so, he waited in the basement, the only company he had being the beep of his sentry, pained painstakingly with vines. It was a bit hard to paint something while it was moving, but hey, it was something to while away the hours, and all he really had to look out for were spies. Something you would think he would be terrified of, but honestly? That was absurdly easy to do.
If there was one thing he prided himself on, it was that he knew his friends inside and out. Considering this, if someone was acting a little funky, he put buckshot through their head! If he was wrong, they would mock him for the harmless bit of friendly fire, if not, well he was right! A win-win. He only had to worry when Sunny was on the other side, as his skill at mimicry was second to none. But, Aubrey was hanging around with him today, so he didn’t have to worry about that, and Mav was too pissy at Kel to harass him.
God, he hoped one of them would make a move soon. Watching them pine was painful.
“Hi, Basil!”
Basil, who was busy painting a Lilac on the body of his sentry, screamed and bolted up, slamming his helmeted head on the metal body of his protective helmet. “Gosh darn it Kel!” He rubbed his head, trying to frown at him. “I told you not to surprise SWEET CHEESE AND CRACKERS.”
“Can I use your dispenser?” Kel asked. Every square inch of his body was covered in syringes, and he sort of wobbled from one side to the other. “I beat the medic but I uh…oh wow I can see colors.”
“Of course!” he grabbed him by the hand and dragged him to the dispenser. “You need to be more careful!”
“I’ll come back.” In the healing beam of the mechanical marvel, his skin slowly repaired itself, popping out the needles. “See!?”
“Still.” Basil pouted, fussing over him as he made sure he healed right. “I hate to see you hurt.”
“Can I use the dispenser again?”
“Kel you can OH GOOD HEAVENS.”
This time, the lanky man was lacking any needles. Instead, he was full of holes, leaving a cartoonish trail of blood behind him. Considering he was also missing an arm, blown clean off the shoulder. “Aubrey bet me I couldn’t break a sentry with a bat.”
“AND YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?!”
“Well no, but she bet me a whole case of Orange Joe-”
“Just…just come here.” He grabbed him by the hand that was still attached to him, causing Kel to smile dumbly. “What am I gonna do with you?”
“Give me a hug?”
“How are you going to give it back?”
“Just….just how?” Basil stared at Kel, who was more burns than man at this point. He hobbled along, eyes glowing with mirth, and the fused part of his face where his mouth would go flapping uselessly. Basil just pilled him over, taking some grim satisfaction in the yelp from grabbing his burning wrist.
Unluckily, his mouth was the first thing to fix itself. “Aubrey dared me to catch a flare with my teeth.”
“I’m going to have to talk with Aubrey,” Basil muttered. He knew Kel annoyed her, but this was way too much! She knew he had a crush on the big lug, even if he was oblivious to it. Seeing him almost dead over and over like this was taking years off his life he was TRYING TO AVOID BY CAMPING THE INTELIGENCE. “Why don’t you sit with me for a bit? Make sure you don’t have any more burn patches.”
“Sure, but only because you asked dude.” Kel sighed as Basil sat next to him, the touch of his leg on his almost made him forget about his charred skin, almost.
“Kel, come on. He’s going to start asking questions.” Jay sighed. Normally, he would just be playing the game to get paid and get out. The only reason he took this job is so he and his boyfriend could afford a house right out of high school. He didn’t like to drag this out. However, Kel was his friend, even if he was a Red.
“Jay, buddy, it's part of my master plan!” Kel cracked the bonk, grinning wide. “You fill me full of projectiles while I’m high on this stuff, Basil takes care of me, and then we grow closer, and then he’ll ask me out.”
Jay slowly lowered the bow, eyebrow-raising all the while. “Have you been talking to Pretty Boy?”
“Yea! And he showed me all these comics about wooing men!” Kel exclaimed as Jay winced. Oh no. Oh, this was not good. “All those comics are REALLY graphic though. If I didn’t know any better, I would just think their porn! But he assured me they were dating manuals.”
“I….I…” Jay just felt his lips flap uselessly. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he could say that would make this any less stupid. Worst of all, he knew that Kel would think this was the perfect idea no matter what. This was a lose-lose, no matter how you sliced it. “Why don’t you just ADMIT to Basil that you like him.”
“That's hard. Now are you going to shoot me with arrows or not?” Sometimes it was best not to argue with Kel when he was being stupid. Jay sighed and notched his bow. He wasn’t the best sniper, but he could at least hit something besides the head or the balls, right?
He winced as he let the arrow fly and Kel made an oddly squeaky noise. Oops.
Hero dragged himself out of the respawn with a groan. The respawn did bring you back to peak health. Or as close as it deemed peak. But there were a few things that it couldn’t do. It couldn’t fill your belly, it couldn’t replace sleep, and it didn’t give you more energy. Once you were spent, you were spent. Hero was past that now.
His arms screamed in agony as he dragged himself onto the bench, and then the effort to straighten out his back hurt even more. He let the medi-gun flop to the floor, pointing it at himself. He knew it wouldn’t fix the sheer ache and exhaustion that had settled into his bones, but it killed the pain enough that he could breathe normally.
He had started this day thinking it would be a blast! Mari normally covered for that scary lady on the intercoms, announcing things for their team all the while. But today was a rare day! Vance had called out sick and had left them a team-mate short. Considering they didn’t get paid if they didn’t play, it was in their best interest to play.
Mari had been ecstatic. After all, getting hooked up to the respawn reversed her knee pain for a few weeks, if not a month. It was still a lot better than it used to be, but it still irritated her to no end. Sunny had been a bit sore about not growing his eye back, but there was a reason for that.
He had thought, that Mari would maybe play something safe! Like a medic, or an engineer. That was…not the case.
“Mari-”
“Relax Hero!” She looked over to him, winking as her rifle went off. “Whoops! Missed that one!”
Hero winced as a shot was returned from the other battlements, hitting right next to her head. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything. She just held up the heavy rifle and squinted into the scope. “Maybe we could try something else?”
“Hero! Are you saying my aim is bad?” Mari chastised, not looking up from her scope. The answer was yes, she had missed the last ten shots and had nearly been hit half that many times. She had been hit the other half, but Hero was being a good little pocket and keeping her in ship shape. Not like he could stand seeing her hurt.
“No, but isn’t this a little dull?”
She fired again, and stomped her foot, her cheeks puffing. “DRAT! This is harder than I thought it was. Oh oops.” She dropped her next round onto the ground, bending over to pick up the cartridge from the ground, as a rocket whizzed past her into the wall. “Oh well. Let's do this the old-fashioned way!”
Mari discarded her rifle, pulling out the kukri with an excited grin as she lept off the battlements. Hero, having just a moment to process her insane actions, ran over to look over the edge. Well, he did for a second, before his head was taken clean off by the other sniper.
“How exactly does this work again?” Mari flipped up her eye patch, only for Sunny to flip it back down. “Come on! I have both my eyes!”
“it’s the rules.” Sunny shrugged as he placed two stickies on the edge of the battlement. “You run up, jump over them, and press the button. They’ll fling you.”
“Won’t it hurt?”
“Only a bit.” Sunny shrugged, pulling out his sword as he jumped. His boots sparked as the stickies detonated, sending him flying in a perfect arch over to the enemy battlements. They all heard Maverick’s girly scream as Sunny began to chase the sniper around.
“Looks easy enough.” Mari shrugged, placing four in the same spot.”
“Mari? That seems a bit excessive.” Hero eyes the heap with suspicion. “He put down two.”
“Well he didn’t have you overhealing him did he?” Mari said with a teasing pinch of his cheek. ‘Is my big Hero scared?”
“Of exploding? Yes. Explicitly. Now why don’t you-” And she was already taking a running start. Hero, with a heave of his Medi-gun and more effort than he would have liked, ran behind. Several things then happened as he attempted to catch up.
The first was that Mari tripped over a discarded Scrumpy bottle. Her’s to be exact. She detested drinking, and the thing smelled like a horse died in disinfectant, so she had gone without a melee option. However, out of spite, it sent her face-first onto the floor.
Hero, running as he was, could not react. He had already jumped and was turning back to look at Mari, his eyes widening as time slowed to a crawl as the third thing happened.
Mari detonated them.
She was just close enough that the stickies activated and sent Hero flying end over end into the blue sky. It wasn’t majestic, in fact, it looked as if a drunken ragdoll was thrown by an angry toddler, but it had its own kind of style.
At least until the glowing rocket slammed into him mid-air, spreading him far and wide with a loud bang. Mari winced as she felt the blood slowly rain down on her. She gently scooched over, hiding behind the cover of the middle battlement.
“Oops.”
“C-can we take a break?!”
“Come on Hero! We just started!” Mari jogged in place with a grin. Scout was so much fun, if a bit squishy. But she had her beau by her side to keep her nice and healthy!
Hero wheezed in response. Sure, connecting the beam to her boosted his speed as well, but that didn’t mean he had any more cardio experience than he already had! That was to say none. They had been running for what felt like ages!
“Mari…Mari, I need to…Mari?” He looked up, seeing that Mari had run too far ahead and was currently playing havoc on a medic. However, that pride was short-lived as he felt two barrels press into the back of his head.
“Sup fatty?”
Hero groaned in pain, whimpering as he tried to stand. Nope, nope his legs were noodles now. Every single action had brought him nothing but pain today! At least Mari was having fun, but he was not. Even Aubrey was more reasonable than this, and she was running around trying to set people on fire!
“Is someone worn out?” Mari sat next to him, still equipped for running. The baseball bat just felt natural in her hands, considering her previous sports.
“YES!” Hero threw up his hands in the air, eyes widening at the flash of pain. Also, they stuck in place, the aching muscles holding his arms limply in the air. But he continued anyway. “You just keep on throwing yourself into danger like nothing is going to happen!”
“Nothing is going to happen!” Mari rolled her eyes, her tone like she was talking to a small child. “We respawn.”
“It scares me, Mari.” Hero admitted, voice going quiet. “I remember seeing you both at the bottom of the stairs and I…I…” His voice gave out, and only a horse whisper remained.
“I know it does my love,” Mari replied, placing a finger on his lips. “But this has to stop.”
She didn’t even wait for him to respond, she just continued. “I know that it scared you. It scared me! Coming that close to something truly awful happening to all of us, all over my own Ego. I can only imagine how it felt for you. I can’t even imagine a world where I lose you.”
He grinned and opened his mouth, only for Mari to close it again. “BUT you need to stop treating me like a wilting lily. My limp may be worse, but I’m not going to turn to dust if I get hurt! I’m tough damn it!”
“But-”
“No buts!” Mari narrows her eyes. He knew it was all a performance, but maybe she had a point. “ We both could die at any moment, but that dosn’t mean we should just not live to prevent any harm that comes our way! We should live life instead, knowing that any day could be our last! I want to LIVE Hero.”
She was…right. She was always right. He sighed. He had been a bit protective since that day, and it had gotten the better of him. He had always been risk averse, but it had been getting worse over time. He needed not to worry so much.
“Fine. I admit I’ve been a bit…”
“Over the top? Cautious? A wimp?”
“Overly careful. I just worry, you know?” He flushed as she teased him, they both knew the other loved it. “Just…promise me one thing?”
“What?”
“Next time you want to prove a point, don’t spend an entire day pretending you don’t know what you’re doing and getting me killed.” Hero whimpered as she slowly pulled his arms to his sides.
“No promises.” She bopped his nose, recoiling as he moaned in pain. Maybe she overdid it. Eh, she had all weekend to make it up to him, either way.
By the time the whistle sounded, everybody was already by the clock out. It was a Friday, after all, and that meant a whole two days away from killing each other for sport, as well as absurd paychecks. The aftergame chatter was nice, but they all had better things to do at the moment.
Aubrey and Sunny said their goodbyes and quickly went home to change. Sunny had some leathers to put on and a bike to roll out the forest. Meanwhile, Aubrey had to figure out how tough to dress for their date. She would settle on classic punk, and Sunny would love it.
Kel was being dragged by Basil to his house. After all, he had been nothing but clumsy, and clearly needed someone to keep him from doing something stupid this weekend. Kel simply nodded and played along, heart hammering on his chest to his touch.
Mari carried Hero out of the building bridal style. The poor boy had worn himself to the bone and didn’t have any gas left in the tank. She had no issue loading him into the car, as the healing effects still lingered for a while longer. She eyed the kids and decided they could handle themselves for an evening, she had earned it.
One by one, the employees dispersed, and silence rang over the gravel pits. In the end, there was something universal to all employment. Everybody had something better to do than overtime on a Friday. No matter how strange or murderous the work.