Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was Emil’s first day on the job, and he already hated it.

Kyle, aka the guy he’d successfully begged a job from because best friends are cool like that, continued down his list of Need-To-Know Things before Emil went out on his first delivery. “The A/C in the Trick is out, and the windows stick.”

“Oh my god. It’s summer. I am going to die. And why is it even called a Trick?”

Kyle sighed. “Because it’s a dominoes term for a round, and since you’ll be making rounds...”

Emil rolled his eyes. “That’s the stupidest reason for the stupidest name for a stupid delivery truck I’ve ever stupidly heard.”

“I didn’t pick it. Now you’ll also need to wear this.” Kyle tossed Emil a battered winter jacket.

Emil scowled at his best-friend-now-manager. “It’s like 90 fucking degrees out! I’m not wearing a jacket! Not even with A/C, which I don’t have!”

“Your funeral.” Kyle shrugged and went back to taking phone orders. “Thank you for calling Domino’s—”

The Trick sputtered to a rocky stop in front of a small house in the middle of nowhere.

Emil looked at the delivery request to make sure he had the correct address. The house matched the description: two-storey gray with red trim - watch for the cutouts and WEAR A RED JACKET.

Emil rolled his eyes and left the jacket in the Trick, wondering what the customer meant by cutouts. As he approached the steps of the porch, a fully-armored soldier leapt out of the hedge and pointed a shotgun at him.

“FUCK! DON’T SHOOT!” Emil shouted, using the pizza box as a makeshift shield.

“State your name and business, dirtbag!”

“Emil! I’m just here to deliver pizza!”

When nothing happened for a long while, Emil peeked out from the side of the pizza box, just in time to witness the lovingly-painted wooden cutout fully retract behind the hedge.

Well, that explained that part of the description.

Emil briefly considered going back to the Trick to pick up the jacket. But he was only a few steps away from the door compared to a lot more steps to the Trick and back, so he took a deep breath and walked up the stairs to the very red door and pressed the very red doorbell.

The response was near immediate.

“HOLY SHIT!”

All things considered, that was the only reasonable reaction to coming face-to-face with a shotgun. Especially one aimed square at your face through the crack of a barely-open door.

The man behind the shotgun grumbled menacingly. “Put the pizza down on the doorstep, son. Nice and easy there. No sudden moves, or I shoot.”

Emil fumbled to do as he was told, resting the box on the very red doorstep as the shotgun followed his every movement. There was a small pile of cash off to the side of the door.

“Is that—”

“Did I say you could talk, son? No. Now slide the box inside.”

He had to tilt the box sideways to make it fit through the crack in the door, but he did it. Emil got the box through to the other side. He just hoped the pizza survived mostly intact because the last thing he needed was the crazy old man blowing his head off because his pizza had gotten fucked up by gravity and momentum.

As soon as the box cleared the doorframe, the old man grunted and said “Keep the change,” before slamming the door in Emil’s face.

The first thing Emil heard upon returning from the delivery was, “Should’ve worn the jacket.” Kyle didn’t even look up from the pizza he was making.

Emil gave him the one-finger salute anyway. “Shut up.”

“There’s another delivery waiting on you. Make sure you follow the notes this time.”

“Fuck you,” Emil said as he snagged the next delivery.

This time though, he took pains to adhere to the notes.

Chapter Text

It was an ungodly 124°F outside when the call came for another delivery to the two-storey gray with red trim - watch for the cutouts and WEAR A RED JACKET.

This time, Emil made sure to wear the damned jacket.

He was dying by the time he made it to the bottom of the porch steps, too exhausted to even jump at the cutout’s appearance, and by the time he made it up to the porch, Emil was sorely regretting not following Kyle’s advice to bring a giant bottle of ice water to drink during his deliveries.

Upon making it to the very red door, Emil didn’t so much push the doorbell as lean against it, sweat streaming down every part of his body, including places he didn’t even know could sweat.

This time, a spiky-haired blond answered the door, opening it like a normal person, no shotgun in sight.

“Hello?” the blond asked as the doorbell continued chiming inside the house.

“Delivery,” Emil panted, holding the pizza box up; it took a lot more effort than he wanted to admit.

The older man took the pizza before Emil could drop it, reaching a hand out to steady Emil when he went to straighten up. “Woah there, buddy. You don’t look so good.”

“Fuckin’ jacket,” Emil wheezed, wiping at the sweat on his forehead with a free hand and basking in the cool air wafting through the open door.

“I think you should come inside where it’s cooler. Just for a little bit.”

Emil would have loved to do exactly that but... “Can’t. ‘Nother delivery.”

The blond frowned in what Emil was pretty sure was concern. “Wait here.”

“Can’t leave ‘til you pay.”

“...Right,” the man said before dashing off towards what Emil could see was the kitchen. The blond returned a moment later with two bottles of water, one of them frozen solid. “Here,” he said, handing the bottles to Emil.

“Thank you,” Emil gasped, pocketing the liquid water before pressing the frozen bottle to his cheek and sighing with relief.

“And, uh, here,” the man said, passing Emil an unusually thick wad of cash. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” Emil managed to say with a smile before he staggered back to the Trick.

“Just remember to take it slow, okay?” the blond called after him.

Emil tossed his hand up in what he hoped was a grateful wave, but was probably too floppy to be taken as anything other than dismissive. Oh well. It was the thought that counted.

The moment he shut the door to the barely-ventilated vehicle, Emil shucked off the jacket and shoved the frozen water bottle down the front of his shirt, biting down a shriek of shock at the sudden cold on his torso. As soon as the gut-clenching cold became bearable, Emil fumbled for the bottle in the jacket pocket, practically ripped off the cap, and chugged half the water down.

He immediately regretted it.

The relief was instantly replaced by overwhelming nausea as Emil's stomach roiled at the sudden influx of refrigerated water. It took every ounce of his control not to puke it all up over the windshield.

Somehow he succeeded.

As his stomach settled and the intense nausea faded into a more manageable gurgle in his gut, Emil took a deep, bracing breath and drove off to the next delivery, resolving to take only measured sips of the remaining water.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Kyle?” Emil asked, waiting on That House’s usual order to get done before he ran off to deliver it.

“Yeah?” Kyle asked, distracted by filling out various Important Managerial Forms™.

“I was wondering,” Emil began, tilting his head back to stare at the cheaply-paneled ceiling, “what happened to your other delivery guy? The one before me?”

Kyle looked up from his paperwork. “Why are you asking now?”

Emil shrugged. “I was busy adjusting to everything. But I've been wondering for a while why you suddenly hired me after telling me you weren't hiring the day before.” He looked his best friend dead in the eye and asked, “So what happened to the other guy?”

Kyle sighed heavily and gazed dramatically off into the distance. “No one knows,” he finally admitted. “One day, he simply disappeared after making his first delivery to That House.”

“Wait, what?!” Emil looked over at Syndee for confirmation, but she didn’t even bother looking up from where she was laying down the first of three layers of pepperoni. “And nobody called the cops?” he asked, looking back at Kyle.

Kyle snorted. “Oh, we did, but the Trick was parked in the back where it belonged, and the cops found no signs of struggle either in the Trick or on the property.”

“So he just up and walked away? Is that what you're saying?”

Kyle looked the most offended Emil had ever seen. “No! Lopez was my best employee! He was always on time and did his job perfectly. He even fixed the oven before I had the chance to call in maintenance! He would never up and leave without warning!”

“I dunno, Kyle,” said Syndee as she topped off the order with additional pepperoni. “He was pretty weird, what with always wearing that armor of his.”

“Armor? Seriously?” Emil looked over at Syndee, completely unimpressed and letting her know he wasn’t falling for it. She just raised an eyebrow back, so Emil looked back to Kyle. “Isn't that against the dress code?”

Syndee snorted. “Not if you wear the uniform over it, apparently.”

“Be nice, Syndee,” Kyle replied, waving his pen like a magical wand of reprimand. “He was a traumatized war vet. And on top of that, the poor guy couldn't speak a lick of English.”

“He sounds like quite the character...” said Emil, suddenly feeling a lot less confident about his best friend’s confidence in him.

Syndee snorted again as she popped the pepperoni-with-extra-sauce-and-pepperoni-minus-the-cheese into the oven. “You could say that.”

Kyle sighed sadly. “I just hope he's better off wherever he is now. The police still haven’t found a body.”

“In the meantime, kiddo, better be on your best behavior when delivering to this address. It'd be a shame if you went missing on us too.”

Emil laughed nervously, the barrel of the old man's shotgun flashing before his eyes.

This time, a man wearing a full suit of brown armor answered the door.

“Oh. Usted debe ser mi reemplazo.”

Emil gaped at the Spanish-speaking veteran. “You’re... Lopez!?” he squeaked, voice fortunately no louder than a whisper.

“Sí,” Lopez replied, his tone completely flat, as if to reflect how dead he was inside.

Emil glanced around Lopez quickly and saw no one else inside. “Are you... okay?” he whispered, leaning closer so as not to be overheard, just in case.

The response was immediate and deadpan. “No.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Emil hissed, frantically running through everything his sister had told him about how to deal with kidnappings or other dangerous situations. Except he wasn’t the one kidnapped here, so that wasn’t helpful. “Anything? Like call the cops? Or something?”

Lopez tilted his helmet thoughtfully before slowly shaking it. “No,” he replied in a final-sounding monotone.

“Oy! Mio hijo!” shouted an unforgettably gruff voice from deeper in the house. “Don’t just stand there gabbing all day! Some of us have a hankering for that pizza you’re holding up.”

“Hijo?! He’s your dad?!”

Lopez sighed, and in so doing, took on the weight of the entire universe. A compartment in his stomach opened up and a tray extended, a tidy pile of new bills resting on top, as Lopez grabbed hold of the boxes.

“Quédese con el cambio,” Lopez said before closing the door, leaving Emil staring slack-jawed at the very red paintjob, the tray of new bills balanced precariously on his still-outstretched forearm.

“I ran into Lopez today,” Emil said the moment he stepped inside. “It turns out that the crazy old man is—”

Kyle held up a hand. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait? Wha—”

Kyle dashed off before Emil had a chance to finish his question, returning a moment later, a guitar in hand. Kyle propped his leg up on an empty sauce bucket and rested the instrument on his knee in proper classical stance.

Emil just looked at his manager. “Where did you even get that?”

Kyle shrugged. “A customer left it behind. I’ve been keeping it in the break room in case they come back. Now, you were saying?”

“Right. So. Apparently the crazy old man—”

“Shotgunner.”

Emil ignored the correction. “—is Lopez’s dad.”

Kyle strummed the guitar dramatically at the revelation.

“Seriously?”

Kyle shrugged again. “Seemed appropriate. Now back to work. You have three deliveries waiting on you.”

“Fuck,” Emil said as he scrambled to do his job as quickly as possible.

Chapter Text

There was a jeep in the driveway when Emil pulled up in the Trick. A bonafide, gasoline-guzzling jeep custom-painted in one of those in-between colors that looked yellow until you put it next to something actually yellow, or looked orange until you compared it to something actually orange. Trying to name the color was giving Emil a headache, and it wasn’t even all that important.

What was important, and infinitely more concerning, was how the front door had been left wide open.

Emil glanced at the order request to check if any new notes had been added since the last delivery. All it read was “the usual”, which was pretty unusual since the notes always mentioned the red jacket, but Emil shrugged it off, figuring that maybe Shotgunner was being lazy today. That, or he had a new trap in mind that he was planning to test on the delivery guy.

On second thought, Emil’s money was on the latter.

With the clock running up and a quiet “Fuck”, Emil stepped out of the Trick, stepped over the pressure plate that triggered the cutout, and tiptoed up the steps.

Nothing happened.

On even higher alert now, Emil sidled along the perimeter of the porch railing, backed up against the gray siding, and shuffled over sideways to the open door.

Still nothing happened.

Reaching into his back pocket, Emil pulled out one of his sister's old compact mirrors, the pattern of missing rhinestones reassuring in his grip. He flipped the compact open and slid the edge past the corner of the doorframe, angled just-so to peer inside without exposing himself to any potential firearms.

There was a body on the floor.

Emil fumbled the compact as his thoughts immediately turned to Lopez, kidnapped without a trace, turned into a robot. Had he walked in on a crime scene in-progress? Was this the result of a kidnapping gone wrong?! Should he—

The man snored long and loud, and Emil let out the shuddering breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

He cautiously poked his head around the doorframe to get a better look, only then noticing the note on the floor in front of the fat guy, the message printed in neat, block-lettering:

Slide pizza under hand. Take money from other hand. Keep the change.

Close door on way out.

- Master Housesitter

Easy enough.

So Emil did just that.

Easiest delivery ever.

Chapter Text

In hindsight, the column of smoke visible from the store should have been the first indication that something was wrong at That House.

Also in hindsight, the bits and pieces of flaming debris lining the scenic driveway to the residence should have been an even bigger indication that something was wrong at That House.

But it was only as Emil carefully peered over the edge of the crater now occupying That House’s usual location and spotted Shotgunner, seated serenely in a rocking chair at the epicenter of the earlier explosion, that the wrongness of the situation really registered with Emil.

Emil supposed it was the juxtaposition of the cat and shotgun in the old man’s lap that did it.

Fortunately for everyone involved that day, Emil was wearing the red jacket and a brand new pair of red sneakers.

Unfortunately for Emil that day, gravity was decidedly not on his side as the edge of the crater, most notably the edge Emil was standing on, crumbled beneath his weight and sent the hapless delivery boy skidding helplessly towards the old man seated serenely below.

If Emil happened to scream a bit on the way down, well, so would anyone else in his position.

Emil slid to a stop on his back, the pizza box clutched tight to his chest while the barrel of an all-too-familiar shotgun rocked in and out of his view before it came to a creaky stop.

“Heh heh heh!” the old man chuckled, leaning over so that his weather-worn face peered past his cat-clad knees. “Now that’s what I call service! Your battlecry could use a bit of work though, son. It was a bit more screechy scream than bold bray.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time, sir,” Emil weakly replied, relieved that Shotgunner wasn’t pointing a weapon directly at him.

“Now that’s the spirit!”

“So, uh,” Emil began, sitting up and holding the box out in front of him, “delivery.”

Shotgunner coughed and shifted, the cat in his lap tossing the old man a dirty look before hopping to the ground and sauntering away. “About that, son. You see, my wallet appears to have deserted me. Along with my son. And my fine house. And all my worldly possessions aside from my trusty shotgun and rocking chair.”

Emil sighed and dropped the pizza onto his lap. “So what you’re saying is that you can’t pay for the pizza.”

“Not at this immediate instant, no.”

“Okay, let me just call my manager and see what we can do...” Emil said as he tapped his comm bracelet, planning to call up Syndee to ask for help in this particular situation.

The screen stayed dark.

Emil tapped his bracelet again.

Nothing happened.

Emil knocked out an intricate pattern of taps that happened to share a beat with La Cucaracha. His bracelet emitted an unholy screech that had Emil and Shotgunner clapping their hands over their ears until the wailing stopped a full minute later.

Emil groaned and fell back onto the ground, his ears still ringing. His comm bracelet was dead, probably damaged from when he fell down the side of the crater, which meant that he had no way to call for help. Which meant that he was stuck in the crater with a crazy old man. With a shotgun. And a cat. And he had another two deliveries waiting. And he was probably going to get fired.

Shotgunner nudged Emil’s shoulder with a slipper-clad toe. “Don’t give up just yet, son. You’ve only just arrived! There’s plenty of time to give up later! Preferably never.”

Well, Emil supposed, the old man had a point. The delivery boy sat up and repositioned the pizza box in his lap. “What are you suggesting?”

The old man grinned and shifted his shotgun to point at the lip of the crater. “Why don't you take on gravity and battle her hands-on, man-o-a-cliff-o!”

Emil looked Shotgunner over with a critical eye. Aside from some slight singeing to his very red pajamas, the man seemed perfectly fine. And clean.

Emil crossed his arms over his chest with a huff and glared up at the old man, pizza boy butt parked deliberately on the ground. “So why haven't you tried that yet?”

The old man chortled, repositioning his shotgun to rest barrel-up against his shoulder. “Excellent question, son! See, my old bones aren't as armored as they used to be, so climbing up craterside just ain't possible without some serious mechanical assistance, which as you can clearly see is obviously at a premium around these here parts.”

From where Emil sat, Shotgunner looked to be in peak physical condition, but Nana always complained about her brittle old bones, especially after that one time she punched out Cousin Anna’s stalker, so, after a moment of suspicious skepticism, Emil found himself accepting the explanation with a sigh. “Then what were you planning to do?”

The old man shrugged. “My agent is due back any day now, so I was banking on him figuring out the mechanical details of my extraction.”

“In other words,” Emil said, any hope of him getting back home in time to watch his favorite shows, before Nana monopolized all the data for her soaps, bleeding away to dull resignation, “your plan is to sit and wait for rescue.”

Shotgunner shot straight up, unadulterated offendedness practically shouting from every inch of his rigid posture. “Not at all, son!” he barked. “What I'm doing is making a strategic decision to conserve my energy and resources, holding gravity’s nefarious effects at bay until reinforcements arrive!”

Emil scoffed. “By sitting and waiting.”

The old man spluttered, his grip on his firearm tightening until his knuckles turned white. “I don't see you doing anything different!”

“Oh yeah?” Emil sneered and stood toe-to-toe with the old man, completely done with everything about the current situation. “Watch me!” he spat and shoved the pizza box into Shotgunner’s chest, not bothering to make sure the old man actually had a hold of the box before stalking off to take his frustrations out on something that couldn't shoot him.

In hindsight, the old man had played him.

“There's a handhold to your 3:15!”

Really, Emil shouldn't have been surprised. Nana talked all the time about how easy it was to get young folks to do exactly what you wanted them to, if you just riled them up enough.

“Loose rock at 5 o’clock!”

He really should have known better. Shotgunner hadn't even tried to be sneaky about it. But Emil had still fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker, and now he was scrabbling up the side of a crumbling crater, his noodly arms shaking like Jell-O while he studiously ignored the old man’s backseat climbing.

Fuck that noise. Listening to the old man was what got Emil into this mess, and Emil was not going to fall for any more of Shotgunner’s tricks. He'd decided. He was done.

He was almost at the top.

“Sand trap dead ahead! You'll want to divert to—”

The earth beneath Emil’s fingers disintegrated, and with a screech of pure terror, the poor pizza delivery boy somersaulted into the very much not solid cliff and then down it, hitting more rocks and tree roots than he could count on the heady-heely hurtle down.

He rolled to a stop on the other side of the crater, the steady creak of Shotgunner’s rocking chair a mocking counterpoint to Emil’s misfortune.

“Told ya there was a sand trap dead ahead.”

Emil just covered his face with his hands and screamed into the heels of his palms.

He had been so close. But no. Gravity just had to be a bitch, and now Emil had a million and one pebbles in his clothes, with at least a dozen in his asscrack and a dozen more in places Emil wished he’d remained ignorant of pebbles being able to go, but there was no way in hell he was taking off his clothes around a crazy old stranger. And so Emil would just have to suffer for however long it took for him to get out of the crater.

And that wasn’t even including all the bruises.

Emil sat up and immediately regretted it as the crater’s most recent contributions to his outfit chafed.

Sitting around and waiting for help was sounding like a really good idea right about now.

Emil looked over to where Shotgunner sat, rocking gently back and forth with a new cat in his lap, watching the pizza boy intently. Emil sighed, tried to find a more comfortable sitting position, and asked, “When is your agent supposed to get back, again?”

“Hrm...” Shotgunner stopped rocking his chair and brought a hand to his shotgun. He tapped the stock thoughtfully before replying, “He isn’t scheduled to return from vacation for another two days—”

“Two days?!”

“—so we’ll need to ration our food supplies until then. But don't worry. Agent Workaholic always comes back at least a day early.”

Emil looked at the old man. “The only food supplies we have are a pepperoni-with-extra-sauce-and-pepperoni-minus-the-cheese, so unless you’ve got a refrigerator inside that shotgun, our supplies are going to spoil within the next few hours.”

The old man looked thoughtful. “I don’t have a reefer in my shotgun, but I installed one into Lopez just the other day! Except I haven’t seen him since shortly before the explosion...” Shotgunner drew out another “hrm” before shrugging. “Well, I’m sure he’ll find his way back.”

Emil sincerely wished Lopez the best, wherever his predecessor now was. Probably as far away as Emil wished he was, right now.

“In any event,” continued Shotgunner, unperturbed by a lack of response from his captive audience, “it'd be a crying shame to allow such fine food to go to waste, so scooch on over here, son, and have a slice. Or several. It's not like I can save the leftovers, so eat up.”

Emil’s stomach gurgled, and he reluctantly stood, trying to surreptitiously shake out some grit from some very uncomfortable places as he approached the old man in the rocking chair.

Shotgunner already had the box open and handed Emil a slice as soon as he got close.

With a heavy sigh, Emil sat down in front of Shotgunner and began to eat. Surprisingly, the pizza wasn’t half bad even though there was no cheese, though Emil had definitely had better.

The two humans and cat sat in silence for a few minutes, each occupied with their own slice, before Shotgunner asked, “How’d you like the pizza, son?”

Emil shrugged and said, “It’d be better with hot sauce instead of tomato sauce.”

Shotgunner clapped a callused hand over Emil’s shoulder, made deliberate eye contact, and patted thrice. “You're a brave man, son,” the old man said, what looked to be tears glistening at the corners of his eyes. “A brave young man.”

Emil hurriedly looked down at his pizza. “Uh... Thanks?” he mumbled before taking another bite because how do you respond to something like that?!

Apparently, “eat your pizza” was the appropriate response because, after one final pat, Shotgunner took his hand away and began extolling the virtues of Red Pizza—namely that it was the only way to be certain your pizza wasn't contaminated by the nefarious Blueness of cheese—in between bites of his own slice.

The top of the crater was so close, he could feel it. Literally. His fingers were just shy of gripping the edge of the asphalt driveway securely enough to haul himself up.

With a cry of desperation, Emil took a leap of faith and actually leapt up the final inch or so, dislodging the rock he'd been standing on in the process. But as the rock skittered down the crater’s side, triggering a mini avalanche in its wake, the asphalt held, and with a modified frog kick action thing that probably looked as ridiculous as it felt, Emil managed to get his head up over the crater’s edge, expecting blessed freedom to finally be in sight.

Instead, he saw a cat.

A very, angry, hissing cat that took a swipe at his face.

Emil screamed out his frustration as he skidded back down the side of the crater, nursing a scratched-up forehead and hand.

“Keep up the good work, son, and I figure in another ten goes, your battlecry will be the envy of pizza boys colony-wide!” Shotgunner called from his rocking chair, two cats sniffing at the empty pizza box in his lap.

Emil ignored the old man, electing to yell “I fucking hate you, gravity!” at the crumbling crater wall.

Some more soil dropped from above in reply as the old man chuckled from his seat at the epicenter.

“Have you ever considered taking a more permanent commission in the war on gravity?”

Before Emil could could reply, he heard the screech of tires on asphalt and was forced to dodge some pieces of debris that were flung down from above. A moment later, the metallic sheen of a pistol gleamed in the dying light overhead as a redhead peered over the crater’s edge.

“Officer Carolina!” shouted Shotgunner with a salute of his trademark weapon. “How kind of you to visit!”

Emil ignored the old man in favor of making eye contact with the officer and shouting, “HELP!”

“—attempts were thwarted when it was discovered that the local Fire Department didn’t have any ladders long enough to reach the bottom. Local Police had to call in a construction crane from the neighboring city in order to lift the stranded—”

Kyle paused the news clip on a shot of Emil being lifted out via crane, empty pizza box in hand. The manager turned to look at his still very dirty employee, who had seen that expression on his best friend’s face enough times to know to expect the worst.

“I—”

Kyle held up one finger and Emil fell silent; he wasn’t about to make a bad situation worse.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle held it for a ten count and then sighed. “Do you know how many free pizzas I’ve had to honor today?”

Emil fidgeted and tried to will himself invisible. “A lot?”

Kyle nodded. “A lot. And do you know why I had to give out that many free pizzas?”

“Because we didn’t deliver them within fifteen minutes,” Emil answered without hesitation, having had the fifteen-minute-delivery guarantee hammered into his head on multiple occasions.

Kyle nodded again. “Because we didn’t deliver them within fifteen minutes. And so a lot of our customers were very unhappy. And do you know who else is very unhappy?”

Another easy question. “You.”

Another nod. “Me. And do you know why I’m so unhappy?”

“Because the customers were unhappy?” Emil hazarded, figuring that would be a pretty appropriate manager thing to be unhappy about.

Kyle tilted his head side-to-side. “That’s part of it. And so are the free pizzas. But there’s something else.” And there was the dead-eyed, soul-piercing stare again.

Emil looked around the break room in desperation, hoping to find a clue. He caught sight of the schedule, and his stomach sank down past his shoes. “It was your one day off.”

Kyle deliberately nodded once. “My one day off this week. My. One. Day. Off.”

“But it wasn’t my fault!” Emil wailed, pretty certain now that he was going to be fired for this disaster which was completely not his fault, but it cost the store so much money, and, well, fuck. He was fucked. Goodbye job.

But while Emil was having a crisis of employment, Kyle kept talking. “I know it wasn’t,” Kyle said in a very measured tone that said “I am trying really hard to not lose my temper here, okay, so don’t make things any harder for either of us”. “That’s the only reason why you still have a job, though you won’t be paid for all those hours you spent in that crater even though you were scheduled for them.”

Emil stared at Kyle. “What?” he asked, voice weak with stunned disbelief.

“We may be friends, Emil, but I’m not going to jeopardize my job just bec—”

“No. Not that. Are you saying I still have a job?”

Kyle looked at Emil like he was stupid, and maybe he was sometimes, but this was important.

“Uh, yeah. It’s kind of way illegal to fire an employee for a documented emergency, and thanks to the news rep—”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Emil said as he hugged his boss with every ounce of gratitude he had.

“Okay, you’re welcome, now letmego!” Kyle wheezed, kicking at Emil’s shins.

“I could kiss you!” Emil declared, feeling that the hug alone hadn’t been enough to convey the sheer extent of his relief and joy at still having the job.

Kyle put a hand on Emil’s face and pushed him away. “Please don’t. Now go home and take a shower. I’ll see you at eleven.”

Sweeter words had never been spoken, and Emil didn’t even bother to turn his head to shout “Yes!” over his shoulder as he rushed home to do just that.