Chapter Text
Ever since Fizzle had gone Under, Ray had been finding it harder and harder to think clearly. Which, on one hand, mad worrying, on account of the whole ‘Shark Man’ thing and ‘Inevitable Fate of Bosses in the Gone Underworld’ thing going on.
But the fact was that’d kinda always been a problem for him. He got distracted easily. He daydreamed easily. Sucked big time.
That was why he had all the e-tennis and mindfulness and the meditation room and stuff. He’d found ways to manage how antsy he felt when he didn’t have something to do. Keep his hands busy. Find his center. Really give himself the focus to think about the future for Fizzle. He’d learned to keep an immaculate mind palace, every room filled with dreams of future break rooms and company e-scooters.
But now… the dream was over. Fizzle was sunk; and his mind palace was. Kinda fucked.
Whenever he tried to visualize it, it was flooded with deep, dark, sparkling waters he did not feel comfortable exploring. Like. At all. Usually he woulda gone to his meditation room, but. It kinda didn’t. Feel right. On a couple of levels. Like, on one level? It felt... a little like running away. He’d made this mess. He was why Fizzle was like this. The least he could do was go down with the ship, or something. But on, like, another level. It didn’t feel right in a kind of like.
‘ He’d stepped into the meditation room and felt like he could feel the pressure of an ocean underhead, and was pretty sure the walls had started to leak water even as they yawned impossibly apart, creating a horrible endless cavern of the perfect, self indulgent little boss arena..
Only then when he’d stepped back it was totally fine, like he’d just been imagining things, like nothing had ever been there. And it felt wrong .’
...Kind of, way.
Which was a bummer, honestly. All his best incense was in there, and Fizzle was starting to smell like the summer his parents went on vacation and stopped paying the pool cleaning dudes.
So, he’d started to just kinda. Walk. It helped him to think, and also helped him to not think about some stuff, and it felt better than just sitting because he kind of real talk hated sitting in a chair at literally any time . He didn’t have anywhere to walk to, so he just kinda circled his office. And whenever it got too small feeling, he’d pace out into the walkway, trying to think.
Trying reeeeal hard not to look out the windows, either. When they’d first moved in, he remembered being super jazzed about the view out of his office. But that was back when it’d been the city, and sky. Now his view was just. Water. Still, softly bubbling water that seemed to flood strange, impossibly huge caverns. Empty. Definitely empty. No matter what he thought he saw sometimes.
...So. He started to loop the walkway. Keeping his head down. Looking at the office, not the water. Just. Thinking. And watching. And he’d arrived at two conclusions.
One. The office was getting worse.
Two. Jackie was hustling like a god damn champion .
She always had been.That had caught Rays eye early on. She always seemed to be getting stuff done! Kicking ass! Taking names. Even when she wasn’t excited about the job on her plate, she always set to it. Even when he hadn’t been, like. Super clear on why she was being assigned to do the stuff she was doing, admittedly. Or like maybe he kind of was noticing, and it seemed kind of sus. He’d taken it for granted that Marv knew what he was doing.
Pf. So much for that. And now, the minute something happened that Marv couldn’t blow smoke up Rays ass about, he was fucking gone . Go figure.
But Jackie was still there. Even though she didn’t have to be.
And Jackie was working hard as hell. He’d seen her coming back out of the pipes only to get back up, brush herself off, check Twitter for barely more than 10 minutes, and barrel right back down for another go. Literally fighting with everything she had just for the chance that maybe she could do the impossible.
Well. For better or for worse. He was still the boss around there. CEO, founder (ok, ‘founder’, co-founder), all that? He was supposed to making sure his people had what they needed to get the job done. And Jackie needed… at the very least, somewhere safe to come back to to catch her breath. And not. Be all fucked up with monsters. Before she was even done.
He didn’t even know what he could do about that, but there had to be. Something. Right?
So he was brainstorming. He’d snagged a mini-whiteboard to scribble on as he walked, erasing with his blazer sleeve and re-writing over and over again. There was too much he couldn’t be sure of- he didn’t even really know why they all hadn’t gone all Joblin style to begin with.
They went under when they ran out of money. But not RIGHT when they ran out of money. Everyone had been pissed, and sad, and angry. Did everyone feeling shitty about it have something to do with it?
He wrote- ‘MORALE, UP?’ and a little arrow, and underlined it, back turned to the dark, water-filled windows on the walkway over the shared workspace. He tapped the market against his own chin, thinking.
...That seemed doable. He was all about morale. ...Except. All the stuff he’d done so far was. Kinda. Also. The stuff that had gotten Fizzle in this mess in the first place. So eventually he just tried to think about what HE did when he felt shitty and powerless that seemed to help.
He’d paced the walkway and solved half a rubix cube before an idea struck him. He wrote it out, thought a little more, and nervously added a smiley. Then he finally walked downstairs, and cleared his throat, holding the sign up in front of his chest.
It read, simply:
‘YELL AT ME : )‘
Everyone turned to look. And somehow, even the sound of the flooding fountain seemed to go. Real. Real quiet.
“Is this... a joke .” Kara said/asked flatly, the light dangling from her head flaring a little as she looked up at him.
“Totally legit. Listen. I-” he started.
“Is it a trap ?” It was Tappi this time, voice terse, grip tight enough on her cPad tablet he was kinda surprised nothing was breaking.
“What? No?”
“Then! Prove it .” Tappi snapped, shrugging in a sharp motion. She waved a hand through the air, at the whole. Everything around them.
“Because, I am done playing bonding activities, Ray. It’s a little too late for that. I’m not here to do some stupid dance where I say the wrong thing and you decide you don’t like my tone .”
“No I mean it! I uh.” Right up until that moment he’d felt super confident about what he had to say. He’d talk about how he’d looked inward and realized how much of this all was basically his fault, and how he wanted to make it right.
What he hadn’t done was think of a way to communicate that he really... meant it.
He tapped a foot on the ground, thinking fast. How did you do that? Marv had given him so much advice about managing people like how you couldn’t let anyone yell at you, or waver on decisions, and it was actually better if he didn’t spend too much time in the office. But he hadn’t really covered anything like this.
He fidgeted from side to side, looking around the room.
“I- look. I know my track record is bad. But I promise, it’s- total free pass. You can-” He glanced too far, and saw Fern standing by the broken Fizz machine, silently watching him, and the words ‘you can trust me’ died in his mouth.
He bit his lip and looked away, bouncing a foot irritably. Trying to think of something. Else.
“You can say. Whatever you need to say. Anything I haven’t let you say, or haven’t listened. And I know you don’t got… good reasons to think I’m being legit. But I am. And I’m not going to order anyone to do anything. Take me up on it if you want to. And if you don’t… I’ll think of something else to do.” he said finally, looking between them all.
Tappi was looking at her tablet, flicking through something on her end. Kara was thinking, with eclair running in circles around her. Swomp was lurking back near his soda counter. On his soda counter, actually, kinda just. Kicking his feet in the water that’d flooded the tasting area. Ray had no idea if he was listening at all. And Fern was. Probably. Still over there. He definitely wasn’t being a big coward and not looking or something. Definitely not.
“Also I don’t have Marv’s passwords. I don’t even really know how to use the timesheet software, so I can’t even fire anyone or cut pay or nothin’. For whatever that’s worth.” he added, shrugging widely
And that seemed to fly a little. At least, Kara nodded a little.
“Okay.” she said flatly. “Now show me your phone so I can check that this isn’t a fetish.” She said matter-of-factly, holding her hand up towards him.
“Wh- I’m. It’s DEFINITELY not?” he insisted, then scowled “Also? I don’t watch porn on my phone ? Gross??” Ray waved a hand emphatically as he leaned back, recoiling like Kara’d pulled a weapon on him. This whole ‘not yelling’ thing was just, immediately being tested, huh.
“Oh god I hadn’t even thought of that… I mean… probably not, riiiight?” Tappi hissed, holding her tablet up over her mouth like a shield.
“I’m not taking any chances.” Kara said, rolling her eyes hugely.
“Swomps open to it, but if it’s a horny thing, I’m gonna charge ya for it.” Swomp said from his soda counter- when Ray looked his way he was doing that little thumb and forefinger gesture thing, and waggling his eyebrows at him.
“... Ray is telling the truth.” Ferns voice cut through the room, sharp as the crack of a tab can. All heads turned to him, except Rays. He was busy staring at his shoes, trying to remind himself how important it was that he keep all his screaming on the inside. Just like on the family yacht.
“....’bout having a yell fetish, or bout watching porn on his phone?” Swomp asked.
Ray reconsidered his life choices. He’d been doing that a lot recently. So much he’d started to drill all the way down to ‘maybe if I hadn’t cheated his schools reading incentive for the personal pan pizza, things wouldn’t have turned out like this’.
“Both.” Fern said simply.
The room, as one, looked back to Ray. He still wasn’t looking up, but he could tell. He usually liked being the center of attention, so he had a knack for it. He took a deep breath, and scraped together what little composure he was capable of, as an increasingly less human being. It was hard . It felt unnatural. Like just not yelling was making black scribbly smoke fill his head.
Breath in, hold, release .
“...I do not actually know where my phone is, I threw it earlier and don’t know where it landed. If you can find it, I guess you can go ahead and check it. The unlock code is 1234.”
“ Of course it is .” Kara muttered immediately. Ray ignored this.
“If any of you still wanna take me up on this… I’ll be in my office. Just uh. One at a time, please. And no throwing things.” he said, then paused. Last time Jackie came up she’d still been a little on fire. She didn’t even look rested when she got back from her apartment anymore. “...uh. Nothing heavier than an empty soda can.” he said, turning around and heading up the stairs, grabbing a chair on his way to drag up to his office. He set it on the other side of his desk, and propped the whiteboard up with one of his little potted plants, and settled in to wait, cracking a can of fizzle.
Sharkfin Pom was just the thing for a mood like this. Sweet nothing was good, but didn’t have any bite to it- which he liked, the aftertaste was totally clean. And Ginseng Kale or Wasabi Habanero were a little more intense then he felt up to. But Sharkfin pom was perfect. The name always threw people, but the sharkfin part was just like. This smooth, soft kinda texture. Like drinking diluted jell-o. But classy. It went great with the pomegranate’s* sweet depth.
(*‘Pom’, legally, nothing in the flavor compounds had been anywhere near a fruit).
It helped as the minutes ticked down, and he waited to see who’d be first.