Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shit.

Rider sigh, the blinking cursor taunting as he struggles to think of the next word in his work proposal. He absentmindedly takes a bite out of a slice of dry wheat toast that was meant to be his breakfast, now extremely late dinner, as he keeps typing, the last one in the bullpen at 9 pm.

Suits him just fine. The less people around, the less distractions he had to deal with.

“Ayyy.”

So much for that.

Rider doesn’t look up. “Go do some work, Eging.”

“I am working. Here.” Eging Jr tosses the thin file across Rider’s hands on the keyboard. “And now I’m on break. C’mon, it’s way past quitting time, all I had today was a hard-boiled egg like six hours ago, and floor forty-eight has a new cappuccino machine, let’s go break it.”

Rider pushes the file over to the side, resuming his email. “Have fun.”

“I made you a fresh pot of coffee. With the beans I nicked from the COO’s cabinet.”

Rider tries, but still winds up smirking. “One day you’re going to get caught and cod help you when she finds out it was you all along.”

“But I won’t.” Eging shrugs, and Rider finally relents, stretching as he gets up.

Rider heads to the break room, pouring out his seventh cup of coffee that day, and they make their way to floor forty-eight for Eging’s extra sugary cappuccino, before ascending to the rooftop. The bracing wind greets them as soon as they open the door and they shiver, clutching their mugs tighter. Still, they make their way to the railing, looking down Inkopolis, lit up in neon.

Two blocks over, a live broadcast of the tournament quarterfinals is underway, and Rider turns away from it, concentrating on the rim of his cup.

Eging Jr sighs. “You ever miss it?”

“Not at all,” Rider lies, draining his coffee in one last gulp.

His father gave him six months. Six months to make it into the professional circuit. Rider could blame the short timeframe, the cutthroat nature of competitive play, his teammates, anything. But in the end, he was responsible for himself.

He just wasn’t cut out for it. Simple as that.

At the end of six months, he quietly put away his dynamo roller, and applied for university.

And now, five years later, he’s part of the R&D team for Tentatek’s weapon development division. Great pay, doing something he was both passionate about, and excelled at. He’s about to be promoted yet again, if the rumors are to be believed.

And yet…

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m drowning in paperwork, don’t have time, anyways.”

“Yeah,” Eging Jr. sighs, resting his chin against the railing. “It looks fun as hell though. I heard a couple of accounting guys were going to make a casual company team. Was thinking of joining them, even if it’s just to mess around.”

Just then, a roar from the crowd in front of the screen catches their attention, and Eging jumps up, whooping.

“Holy shit, they did it!”

Rider watches as the the camera swivels over to the winners being showered in confetti, and sees a few familiar faces.

Prince, Hachi, Gloves, and…

“Goggles.” Rider mumbles. He hasn’t seen the other squid in years.

“I’m proud of that kid, always knew he was gonna go far.” Eging beams, and he reaches for his phone, quickly texting out a gushing congratulations to Prince.

“Hey, you still see those guys anymore?” Eging asks nonchalantly, finishing up his text.

“No,” Rider snips.

Eging Jr side-eyes him. “Not even….?”

“Especially not him.”

“Huh. Do you want to?”

Rider sighs. “Not particularly.”

“That’s a shame.” Eging hums, finally finishing off his own cup.

Rider turns towards Eging, eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He turns back and heads towards the stairway. “Was just curious.”

“Eging…”

“Look, hate to cut this interrogation short, but I’m gonna get out of here. You should too, man. Don’t kill yourself over this job, it ain’t worth it.” Even after pulling the same hours Rider has, Eging seems like he’s brimming with energy, and Rider knows the marketing rep was most likely heading to a bar for some post-game revelry, psyched about his former teammate’s success.

Rider just feels more tired than ever.

He closes his eyes, taking a few moments to center himself before descending the staircase as well.

He’s got a lot to finish before the night is over.

--

In the end, Rider never does go home, opting instead to crash on the break room’s couch somewhere around 2 am. He wakes up barely in time as 8 o’clock rolls around, and he staggers his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth (having kept a travel-size toothbrush set at his desk) and splash some water on his face.

But by the time he exits the bathroom, Rider can feel that there’s a difference in the office mood. There’s hushed, excited whispers, people milling about talking instead of at their desks barreling through their unreads. Rider makes it to his desk, before leaning over the divider to his neighbor, “What’s going on?”

“You haven’t heard? Marketing managed to reel in just about the biggest star in the country, and he’s coming in today.”

Rider’s stomach drops forty feet, and suddenly the conversation with Eging last night all makes sense.

He’s gotta get out. Fast.

Grabbing his leather jacket, he power walks his way down the hallway, his mind trying to make up the best sounding excuse as to why he had to go home immediately. He makes it to the lobby on the first floor, and finds the very thing he’s been running away from standing next to Eging Jr. and an entire entourage of PR people and bodyguards. He ducks, trying to keep a low profile, but it’s too late as Eging spots him out and yells out a booming “HEY!” towards his direction.

“Wait, is that…”

Eging grins, as makes his way towards Rider, the whole party following him. “Hell yeah it is, oi, Rider, look who’s Tentatek’s newest spokesperson….”

Rider forces himself to look up. Promptly wishes he didn’t as his heart seizes up all over again. Fuck him, he still wasn’t over this squid.

“…..hey, Goggles," he finally manages out.

Goggles smiles at him, warm and bright. “Hey, Rider.”

Chapter Text

Honestly, Rider didn’t have a contingency plan for if he ever met Goggles again.

He figured that really, with the trajectory of their careers and just how absurdly fast Goggles became a household name, he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell at even seeing the other squid face to face.

Instead of coming up with anything witty or charming to say, he musters up what has to be the world’s most screwed up grin trying to pretend he’s perfectly ok and not at all about to bolt like the coward he is.

Goggles doesn’t seem fazed, as he grins back. “I had no idea I’d run into you here, it really is my lucky day.”

One of the suits behind Goggles’ taps him on the shoulder, “Sir, we’re already running late.”

But Goggles brushes him off, “hey, is it okay to call you later? I wanna catch up, it’s been way too long and—”

The more experienced of the suits steers Goggles to the elevators, knowing her client’s tendency to get side-tracked, and Goggles is still shouting at him even as he’s being shoved along, “let’s hang out soon!”

Rider can feel the entire room staring at him and makes a beeline to the exit. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Eging waves at him, firing off a couple of finger guns before joining the entourage in the elevator.

--

Skipper Pavilion.

It’s evening by the time Rider finally stops his bomb throwing practice, rotating his shoulder with a slight wince.

It’s the day after Splatfest, and most of the denizens of Inkopolis have decided to take a much-needed break after fighting for their respective teams. Rider instead saw it as an opportune time to train.

He hears the familiar sound of ink projectile coming from behind him, and he looks over to find a bright blue trail of ink leading up to the ramp he was perched upon.

Goggles leaps from his ink and lands on his feet next to Rider, “I was looking for you!”

“And you found me,” Rider grunts. “Did you want something?”

Goggles takes a moment to think it over. “Umm, yeah! You!”

Silence settles over the two, and Goggles eyes light up in realization of what he’d said. “Oh! I meant—like, well, I mean, yeah. I wanted to see you!”

There was something simultaneously obnoxious and endearing with how stupidly straightforward Goggles is, and Rider wordlessly scoots over so that the other inkling can sit on the ledge next to him.

The water in front of them shimmers gold, the light scent of bamboo from the tatami mats, and the salt from the white sand beach below them and Goggles slightly leans against Rider.

Rider opens his hand, and Goggles gently places his own on top, palm against palm.

Rider’s pride wouldn’t let him lace his fingers into Goggles’, but Goggles does it for him.

“…you ok?” Goggles asks quietly, still staring out at the water.

“Sure,” Rider says, probably a little too flippantly. He tries not to think about what happened under the surface if he can help it. “…what about you?”

Goggles nods. “Fine. I mean, everything turned out well! We got to save Inkopolis and we got new friends, and no one got really hurt. It’s great!”

The older teen frowns, “I was asking about you, specifically.”

Goggles laughs, “I’m happy when everyone’s happy.”

Rider wants to say something, how that was such a bullshit answer, but there’s not a thing he could say that would not make him sound like a hypocrite, and he looks to the side, frustrated at himself.

Goggles takes the moment to lay his head onto Rider’s shoulder, squeezing his hand slightly “I’m happy when you’re happy.”

--

Rider stood outside of the subway station, as he looks around Inkopolis scramble. He couldn’t recall the last time he called in sick for work. He was almost stopped by the indecision, an entire day of nothing to do, before picking the most sensible thing: grocery shopping.

He takes the metro to his apartment, and detours by the nearby supermarket, trying to remember what else he still had that would be edible, trying not to think too hard about what had just happened back at work.

He supposes that Eging was looking out for him in his own roundabout way, telling him to go home last night so he doesn’t look like complete ass when Goggles was in the building. At the same time, he also could have straight up told him who was coming.

“But would you have believed him?” An annoying voice in the back of his mind chimes in.

“That’s not the point.” He mumbles to himself, shoving a head of cabbage into his basket knowing full well he’s most likely going to forget all about it in his refrigerator.

But at the same time, Goggles looked…happy to see him. And not completely disgusted or crestfallen as he had expected. He even wanted to see him again, time away from each other completely not an issue.

It was…nice. Rider sighs, letting his shoulders sag a little. He had assumed Goggles would have been mad, and he had every right to be.

Rider makes his way towards the cash registers, letting himself reminisce about his turf war and of Goggles. He spies the magazines lining up along the checkout aisle and reality comes crashing back down.

Oh. Right.

One of them was an international superstar, and the other was some pencil pushing workaholic that hasn’t seen his family in two years, despite living in the same city and all the guilting his mom does.

The familiar flare of guilt and jealousy starts up again, and he looks away, a deep glower marring his face, unintentionally scaring the grocery clerk at the register into silence.

It’s only after getting home and dropping the food onto the kitchen isle that the rage subsides, and he’s left feeling petty and stupid all over again.

Rider pulls out his phone, and finds that Goggles has somehow (read: Eging) gotten his new cell number and has fired off a few messages. Rider wills himself not to look at them, and gently puts the phone down to put the groceries away.

It might be better not to see him again, after all.