Work Text:
Arpad Lazlo thought he could make it. Two years of being nothing more than Maraczek's delivery boy had brought him to this very moment, to the very responsibility he'd wished for all his life- a proper job. He knew every price, every label, every perfume (plus every ingredient that went into said perfume), every cologne, every soap, shampoo and hand cream. His mental maths was perfectly honed, and he'd memorised all his times tables with some difficulty only a few weeks before he'd got the position. He'd polished his bike about fifty times the night before his first shift, determined to make a good- if not great- first impression as a sales clerk even before he'd walked through the door. Yes, Arpad was sure, after having done all of this, that he was completely prepared to be the best sales clerk the parfumerie had ever seen.
What Arpad wasn't prepared for, though, was something else entirely. It hadn't bothered him for days now- or rather, it had been bothering him, but he'd been ignoring it as best he could. Nothing had happened, after all- it was all just one big accident, that's what he'd been told. Mr Maraczek had been cleaning his gun, that was all. And then he'd walked in, and then he'd screamed, and then he'd sprinted, sprinted for his life, reaching out to grab the gun away, anything to get the gun away from Mr Maraczek, anything to save him, and then the gunshot--
The store was empty without Mr Maraczek, and from the quiet, uneasy demeanour of his friends- no, his co-workers- that first morning, Arpad could tell it wasn't just him who felt so alone. Behind the wide smiles and easy goodbyes the parfumerie felt like some sort of haunted house, just without the ghost who so frequently haunted its corridors. Arpad had settled comfortably into the routine of a sales clerk, had made absolute certain to serve his customers with all the respect and kindness he could muster as of late, but nothing, nothing in the whole world could erase from the forefront of his mind the desperate, devastated, broken man he'd seen that night in Maraczek's eyes.
And it wasn't just the store that sent his memory into overdrive; at night, when there were no friends to talk to, no customers to serve, it was far worse. He hadn't slept in two days- he couldn't, because in his nightmares, he was always a second too late. If he let himself sleep he'd just wake up sobbing, drenched in blood that was never shed, gunshots wailing in his ears. Instead he drank far too many cups of coffee, read till late hours of the night, polished his bike one last time. His own lethargic suicide.
It wasn't long, then, until the store blurred the lines. A customer was a customer until suddenly they weren't, and in their place was Mr Maraczek, tears streaming down his cheeks, blood dripping from the gaping hole in his head, and suddenly Arpad couldn't take it anymore, mumbled an apology to the customer and sprinted, sprinted for his life, sprinted up the stairs into Maraczek's office and shut the door and slid backwards down the door and cried and cried and cried and cried. He'd ruined his brain and now he'd ruined his job, and there was nothing he had that could distract him, nothing he could do to stop the pain.
Nothing except--
By the time Sipos reached the office door Arpad had found the gun. He'd hidden it away that horrible night, shoved it behind the bureau drawer while Mr Maraczek was on the phone to the hospital, telling them how he'd been cleaning his gun, how it was all just one big accident. Arpad had never held a gun before that moment. It was much heavier than he thought it would be, much smaller than he thought it would be, but it was black and shiny like his bike. Familiar. He tried to think of his bike now as he placed the tip of the gun to his temple. He hated himself for doing this here, doing this in the daytime, doing this to himself, but it was the only way out, and if Mr Maraczek had had guts enough to do it then he was sure that he could. After all, if there was one thing he was certain he could never let himself do, it would be to let Mr Maraczek down- and he'd messed things up enough already.
"Arpad!"
Arpad looked up- desperate, devastated, broken. He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't tell if that was actually Sipos standing by the door or just a hallucination, since his usually impassive face was twisted with fear and concern, almost unrecognisable. Arpad wasn't sure if he would ever know.
"Arpad, please." At some point, Sipos had entered the office, shut the door behind him so no one else could see. Always the logical one. "Put the gun down."
Sipos took a single step forward, careful and deliberate, the complete opposite of what had happened that night, how he'd acted when he'd seen Mr Maraczek. Arpad felt waves of guilt and shame crash down on him all at once, and suddenly he was pressing the gun so hard against his head that he could feel bone.
"Don't come any closer!"
And Sipos obeyed, stayed put where he was, made no further move to stop him- again, the complete opposite of what had happened that night. Arpad almost wanted to laugh at how ironic it was. If he'd stayed put, Mr Maraczek would be dead. If he'd stayed put, the blood in his dreams would be real.
Sipos was a second too late. Sipos was two seconds too late. Sipos was three seconds too late. Sipos was stood there, completely silent, and Arpad wasn't dead after all.
"Sipos."
"Yes?"
"Sipos, I'm scared."
"I'm scared, too. For you."
"You don't understand. I can't stop thinking about it, it's-- it's all I think about. I can't do my work, I can't sleep, I can't even kill myself right--"
"Don't say that."
"It's true! You just don't get it! You weren't there that night, when-- when--"
Arpad wanted to tell Sipos everything, wanted to prove him wrong, wanted to prove that this was the right thing to do for everybody's sake, but the words were stuck in his throat. His very last failure. His trigger finger itched, his hand shook uncontrollably, his eyes clenched themselves tight. He took a deep breath. He wasn't going to back out now.
Arpad felt a force knock him off his feet, propel him backwards--
The gun went off.
Once Arpad opened his eyes, it didn't take him long- even through his clouded vision- to realise he was staring up at the ceiling. Upon sitting up he noticed Sipos was sat beside him, trembling with adrenaline, tears brimming in the corner of his eyes.
"Don't ever do that again, kid."
And at that, the door opened. All at once his co-workers- no, his friends- piled into the office, Ilona and Georg and Amalia, the very people he'd let down just by thinking of doing what Maraczek had tried. Arpad let the unshed tears pour from his misty eyes, let Sipos pull him into a tight hug, let the others join in and embrace the two of them, let himself forget Maraczek and the gun and the blood and the office for the first time in what seemed like forever.
Safe at last in the arms of his friends, Arpad finally let himself breathe.