Work Text:
"But dad, that's not in the job description," Cathal argued, showing his dad the printed out version of his job description that he kept on hand at all times for situations like these. It had saved him from getting assigned to random projects in the past from random Cogs, so he was expecting it to get him out of this one too. Even if it was his dad, who just so happened to be the VP, he knew he'd be fine.
"Actually, it falls under bullet point three that says your duties may also sometimes include finding new methods of strengthening Sellbot HQ security," Allan pointed to the bullet point in question. He already knew his son was going to argue, so he'd taken the precautions to motivate him just enough to do the job already.
"But this isn't related to security," Cathal tried to argue a much weaker point as a last ditch effort to get out of being assigned to the project.
"Yes it is. I know you don't like it, but you'll just have to do it. You're a grown adult, don't make me ground you," Allan crossed his arms.
Cathal sighed. He knew there was no more point in arguing with his dad when he was threatened with being grounded as an adult. So, he took the papers and said, "Fine, I'll look at them."
"That's my boy! I know you won't disappoint me," Allan smiled and left his son's office, presumably to return to his own. Only the Multislacker could get the VP to leave his own office...
Once his dad was gone, Cathal looked at the huge stack of papers that were now on his desk. It made his stomach sink knowing that he was going to have to actually read all of that. And he'd only been given a week to do it! He couldn't even procrastinate on this project! Maybe it won't be so bad if I'm at least watching TV while I do it... I guess I can just read during the commercial breaks.
Cathal tuned into one of the few channels he'd managed to get the security system to connect to, which was also about to play his favorite show.
Oh, it wants me to change where in Sellbot HQ Toons teleport to so the systems immediately catch them. I guess that means I have to mess with those portable holes they use.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry, Rainbow?" Fancy Petalrose giggled.
"I'm gonna go fight the VP! I'm really low on IOUs, and, well, you know how trying to fight Multislacker is when you only have Rain," Rainbow showed off her list of IOUs to illustrate her point.
"Oh my gosh! Have you seriously bullied him that much?" Fancy Petalrose started laughing.
"Yes!!! I want that hat, but he won't give it to me because he says he's too lazy!" Rainbow crossed her arms and pouted. It was becoming a joke among her friend group that the Multislacker hated her because she'd fought him over 40 times... and she still didn't have the hat! She at least had the sticker, but not the hat.
"Maybe by the time you've got 50 tries he'll finally give you that hat," Fancy Petalrose teased, making Rainbow roll her eyes as she took out her portable hole. She jumped in, teleporting to Sellbot HQ.
"Ow!"
Rainbow cried out in pain as she immediately felt her laff meter take a huge hit before her vision had even adjusted to the new location. A couple seconds later, she realized it was because she'd been electrocuted by a large light she'd teleported right next to. Then, she realized she wasn't in the main lobby of Sellbot HQ... she was in the Multislacker's office.
Are you serious right now? How did that even happen? Confused and scared, she tried to look for Cathal only to find him staring directly at her.
"Uh... well, this is awkward," Rainbow hesitantly gave a small wave before properly standing up, "Anyways, bye! Before you make me go sad because there's no way I could take you out by myself-"
Before Cathal could respond, Rainbow grabbed her portable hole and teleported to Daffodil Gardens. She recovered the laff she'd lost and then tried again to teleport to Sellbot HQ. This time, she realized she was falling before suddenly colliding with a hard surface. She let out an, "Oof!" on impact, feeling dizzy for a few seconds.
When her vision cleared, she realized that this time she'd fallen onto Cathal's desk and made a huge stack of papers go flying everywhere. Oops... Wait, why am I even here again anyways? I don't really know why I'm here but I seriously need to plead my case before I get a clip-on-tie to the face or something!
"Uh, sorry! Um... technical difficulties?" Rainbow gave an awkward smile and got off of Cathal's desk.
Finally, he spoke, "How did you get in here twice in a row?"
"I don't know! I just.. I was just trying to teleport to Sellbot HQ! I don't wanna fight you right now!" Rainbow started to get a bit nervous, hoping she wasn't gonna get attacked, "I-I was just trying to take a walk! Um, yeah! I wasn't gonna fight anyone or anything! I just wanted to-"
"It doesn't really matter what you wanted to come here for," Cathal almost chuckled. Almost. Instead he sighed and continued, "But you do know you can just leave, right? It's a lot of steps to go down, but the door's right over there."
Rainbow looked over to the door, and then back at Cathal, "But either way that means I have to walk. Sorry to break it to ya... but I'm probably the laziest toon on the planet. So I'm just gonna keep trying until I teleport where I need to be."
"Okay," Cathal carelessly turned back to watching the security cameras, leaving Rainbow to do literally whatever she wanted.
For the next several minutes, Cathal ignored the sound of crash after crash after crash into his office. Rainbow was trying over and over again to teleport into Sellbot HQ, but every time she'd just end up inside of Cathal's office. She'd managed to teleport phased through a window, on top of the roof, in mid-air, halfway inside the floor, on the trash can {which spilled a bunch of garbage everywhere and got her covered in oil}, and once she even-
"Oof!"
"Ah!"
Both Rainbow and Cathal yelped in surprise when she suddenly fell into his lap.
"Sorry!!" Rainbow squirmed around a bit until she was able to get out of Cathal's lap, feeling incredibly embarrassed even though it wasn't her fault.
"Hm... I guess if you keep showing up in my office that was gonna happen eventually... Guess that means I have to fix it," Cathal sighed.
"Fix it...? Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're responsible for me teleporting in here? This whole time you've been watching TV and ignoring me clipping through your freaking windows and you could've been fixing it?!" Rainbow exclaimed.
"Yeah. I was kinda hoping you'd give up and leave so I wouldn't have to do anything for a while," Cathal casually admitted like it was no big deal.
"Okay, that's it!" Rainbow jumped up on top of Cathal's desk so she blocked his view of his TV show, "You're gonna fix whatever you did with the teleportation right now, young man!"
"...I kinda need to type on the keyboard you're standing on in order to do that," Cathal shrugged and crossed his arms, clearly not caring if he had to actually fix his mistake or not.
"Fine, but I'm gonna be watching very close to make sure you're actually doing it," Rainbow reluctantly got off his desk, choosing instead to stand right next to him. Cathal sighed and slowly scooted his chair in further so he could reach the keyboard, turning off the TV show and actually getting some work done.
It was silent for several minutes, with Rainbow watching intently as Cathal purposefully made watching him work as boring and painful as possible. Even after nearly half an hour had passed, it seemed like hardly anything had actually happened. How did he manage to work so, so slowly?
"Since you're here and seeing all these probably important screens, I guess you can help me. Does anything of yours automatically detect the security systems when you Toons teleport?" Cathal suddenly asked.
"That's... actually a really good question. I don't know, I just place my finger on the place I wanna go on the map in my Shticker book and my portable hole just takes me there. I didn't even know it was you guys setting the teleportation parameters in the HQs," Rainbow admitted.
"We want to block you from coming here at all. But I guess our technology isn't smart enough to block every attempt, since you Toons are able to come here when you steal enough promotions," Cathal sighed, and suddenly stopped typing, "Why do you come here anyways?"
"To fight your dad. And take down factories. And nowadays also to fight you," Rainbow answered like it was common sense.
"But why do you do it though? We're just gonna rebuild those factories, and me and my dad will just get repaired every time. It's all a big waste of time and energy for everybody," Cathal repeated the same speech he said at the end of every single fight.
"Because you guys are tryna take over our towns and recruit us, duh! So we're fighting back," Rainbow reached into her pocket with her wedding cake prepared just in case.
"But what does it do for you to destroy us over and over? Shouldn't you Toons be coming up with plans to stop us for good instead of just stalling forever?" Cathal asked, which made Rainbow completely freeze. He's got a point.
"Uh... well..." Rainbow thought about it for a few seconds before answering, "We are thinking of stuff! It's just, well... we can't put all our power into thinking when you guys are actively taking us over!"
"Huh. I guess that makes sense. I still don't see the point in the whole Toons versus Cogs thing, though. I don't get why we can't both just have our own land and everybody stays there. My dad would stop complaining about money needed for repairs and you guys would stop complaining about us taking over your land..... Oh, it's time for my lunch break," Cathal immediately stopped working and took out a lunch box from his pocket. He opened it, taking out a sandwich and then closing it before Rainbow could get a better look at the contents.
"But I feel like the land you Cogs-"
"Can you run that by me in like, an hour? I'm not gonna talk about that kinda stuff on my lunch break," Cathal spoke with his mouth full, which caused some crumbs to fall onto his suit. He carelessly wiped them onto the floor.
".......What kinda stuff DO you talk about on your lunch break?" Rainbow playfully asked.
"Food. And maybe that Flunky show," Cathal spoke before taking another bite of his sandwich this time, so his voice was actually clear.
"Wait, you watch that show too? Why do you even watch a show made by Toons?" Rainbow tilted her head, genuinely interested.
Cathal got quiet for several seconds. Finally, he responded with, "Because it's my only motivation."
Did I just hit a sore subject for him? "Uh... what do you mean by that?"
He got quiet for a much longer period of time. Turning his head away from Rainbow, he debated on telling her any more. Well, if I end up crying on company time at least it gives me an excuse to step away from work so I can be "emotionally well." After a long period of silence, he finally said, "The Flunky in that show is always so happy. I wanna be like that, I guess."
"Dude... are you okay? Like, seriously. Are you okay?" Rainbow hesitantly asked.
Cathal sighed, realizing he couldn't go back with the information he'd just shared with a Toon. He just hoped his dad wouldn't hear about it since he could only imagine the things he'd say about it... "I... I don't know."
Without really thinking about it, Rainbow suddenly gave Cathal a hug. He froze in place and stared at her, not knowing how to respond. It felt warm and cozy, metaphorically and literally, but... he wasn't used to anyone treating him with kindness like that. That wasn't how he was taught the world worked. Kindness couldn't exist in his world.
"Just a hunch, but... I assume you feel pretty numb a lot of the time? Like, emotionally?" Rainbow asked.
Cathal didn't respond for a few seconds, but after a while he finally asked, "How did you know?"
"I was in a dark place like that a while ago. I used a fake laff meter and everything or else everyone would've known I was always at zero," Rainbow sighed, not wanting to dwell too much on that part of her life. Just thinking about it had made her lose a laff point, which she was sure Cathal noticed. She hugged him tighter.
"...How did you get out of it?"
"I... I had some unresolved issues from my past that I didn't even realize were still bothering me. I don't know if it's the same for Cogs, but... Toon brains try really hard to stay happy because a happy toon is a healthy toon. So it tried to block out the bad memories, but I was still sad from them... so I didn't even know what I was sad about. And after a while it became so normal that I was constantly numb and didn't really feel anything anymore. But... I had the help of some Toony doctors who helped me resolve my issues so I could properly regain laff again and feel joy," Rainbow was able to give a small smile while remembering how good it felt for her to regain her very first laff point back. She lost it very frequently and it hurt a lot to go sad after finally having a laff point, but it'd still been progress.
"Oh... that sounds like a lot of effort," Cathal sounded dejected.
"It is, sadly... But I promise you that it's worth it," Rainbow stopped hugging him so that she could spin his chair to force him to face her, "Seriously, I promise it's worth it. It doesn't feel like it at first, but it is."
Cathal didn't say anything for a while, so Rainbow gave him a couple of headpats, "Promise me you'll try some day?"
"...Okay, I promise," Cathal sighed, clearly feeling a bit uneasy about making a promise that big.
"Much better! You're probably gonna procrastinate on it, but at least I got you to promise to it. It's progress," Rainbow chuckled.
"I procrastinate on everything," was all Cathal responded with.
"I know... you still haven't got back to fixing the teleportation thing," Rainbow giggled.
"I was hoping you would've forgotten about it by now," Cathal sulked a bit.
"Hmm... tell ya what! You can procrastinate for as long as I'm still in the room, but if I leave my portable hole..." Rainbow threw her portable hole in the middle of the room, "You have to go back to work. And remember that I can check whenever I want to by just teleporting back here."
"...Are you trying to play a game?" Cathal asked.
"Yes! A game of keep away," Rainbow took a step towards her portable hole, "You better come stop me!"
Rainbow took another step towards her portable hole, feeling a bit nervous that Cathal might not join in on the game. But, to her surprise, he actually got off his chair and blocked her path by standing in the way! Surprised but happy he actually joined, she decided to try to step around him. He moved to block her path again. After a few more attempts to get past him, Cathal finally sighed.
"This game uses too much effort. I know a better way to keep you from getting to your portable hole," Cathal walked over to it and picked it up, putting it in his pocket! Wait, what?! They could do that?!
"Wait, I didn't know you guys could steal portable holes too!" Rainbow gasped.
Cathal flew back to his chair and sat down, "Only I can."
"Well, give it back! You're cheating!" Rainbow ran back to his chair and tried to take her portable hole from his pockets, but he kept his hand over the pocket to prevent her from stealing it, "Give it back! Play fair and square!"
"Nah, this just means by your rules I don't have to do any work for a while," Cathal smiled a genuine smile.
"...You're not gonna give it back, are you?"
"Not for a while. I'm just gonna waste time until I have to," Cathal shrugged, "Speaking of that, the Flunky show is on."
Cathal turned the monitor at his desk back to TV stations, putting it on the channel that played the Flunky show. Rainbow quickly peered at the TV so she could watch it too, choosing to sit on the arm rest which was... uncomfortable and awkward. She figured she might as well waste time with Cathal because why not? She'd been planning on doing that anyways. Plus, if she let him get his guard down, then maybe, just maybe.... she could steal her portable hole back. She'd already come up with the perfect plan for it, too.
The two of them watched a rerun of the last episode of the Flunky show. The previous week's episode was always shown before the new one of the week, which meant it'd be on for an hour. That was plenty of time for Rainbow to execute her slow plan.
About ten minutes into the show, Rainbow "accidentally" grabbed Cathal's hand. She blushed and stammered out a, "S-sorry!"
She planned to linger a bit longer and then move her hand away to act bashful, but to her surprise Cathal actually grabbed her hand before she could pull away! She could feel herself blushing even more. Well, that wasn't part of the plan. Why is he holding my hand anyways? Why is he holding my hand anyways?!
After several seconds of stunned silence and Rainbow actually bashfully looking away, Cathal suddenly said, "You know, sitting on the arm rest of my chair doesn't look very comfortable. I don't have any other chairs in here and I can't really scoot over, so... you can sit in my lap if you want." What?!
"O-oh, um, really?" Rainbow stammered. Wait, why am I actually embarrassed by all of this? Am I okay? Wait, do I LIKE him? ...Oh no. I think I do...
"Sure, just don't mess up my suit too much or my dad will get mad," Cathal seemed very nonchalant about the entire situation. Rainbow didn't know if Cogs could blush or how they showed embarrassment, so she couldn't tell if Cathal was actually embarrassed at all or not. From what little she knew about him, she assumed probably not.
"Well, if you say so..." Rainbow hesitantly sat down in his lap. She immediately took notice of how strangely soft the fabric of his suit was, and his body almost felt... plush-like? What were these Cogs even made out of?!
Rainbow looked back at Cathal, but he was just watching the show without seeming to have a care in the world. So, she turned her attention back to the TV and kept watching. She wasn't sure when, how, or why it'd happened, but...
"Oh, I guess you fell asleep..."
Rainbow opened her eyes, not remembering where she was at first. Then, she realized that her arms were wrapped around Cathal and her head was resting on his shoulder. The next thing she realized was that the sun was setting... and the third thing she realized was that Cathal was also asleep with his arms wrapped around her. Well, he was probably asleep. He didn't seem responsive and his TV eyes looked "closed," but she wasn't sure if Cogs could actually sleep or not.
For several seconds, she was in stunned silence. What was she supposed to do? Well, a part of her was telling her to steal her portable hole back {and maybe also that darn hat she'd been trying so long to get}, but... a bigger part of her didn't wanna do that. The bigger part of her wanted to just sit here and enjoy the moment. She wanted to sit here with Cathal and just... exist with him.
Yeah... I definitely like him...
It's not my fault he's so cute...
Rainbow carefully brought one of her gloved hands up to his face. It was smooth and cold, which she expected. She brought her hand up higher and curiously poked at the strange lights and gadgets on the top of his head. She touched a wire out of curiosity, which made her giggle when it slightly zapped her. That seemed to 'wake up' Cathal, though, and he slowly raised his head.
"Huuuh...? Oh... you touched the wire on my head..." Cathal said in a sleepy voice.
"Oh, uh, sorry! I uh... didn't know it would wake you up," Rainbow smiled apologetically.
"It's okay. That wire just zaps whoever touches it and wakes me up if I'm asleep, I don't really know what it does besides that," Cathal 'yawned,' "Did you sleep well? I didn't wanna wake you up."
"To be honest... you kinda feel like a big teddy bear. You're actually pretty comfy to sleep on," Rainbow chuckled a bit.
"I am?" Cathal kind of chuckled.
"Yes, you are!" Rainbow smiled, giggling. After a couple of seconds, she added, "Um... is it alright if I... uh... never mind."
"Is it alright if you......?" Cathal prompted curiously.
"It's stupid! I'm not gonna say it," Rainbow buried her head away in Cathal's shoulder out of embarrassment. She couldn't believe she'd actually almost asked Cathal such a stupid question...
"It's okay, you can tell me," Cathal teased a bit.
"Fine...." Rainbow sighed, slowly bringing her head back up to face Cathal, "Well....... is it alright if I.... well.... kiss you? I know it's a weird question..."
"It's not that weird since we're cuddling right now. You can kiss me, I don't really care," Cathal gave a small smile, still not seeming to really have much of a care in the world.
Rainbow felt her heart beat really fast, but she slowly leaned in anyways... and kissed him on one of the knobs on his face.
Bonus Scene
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!" Rainbow giggled as she fell through the portable hole, straight into Cathal's office.
"Oh, you're back. I guess you really like that I gave you permanent teleport access into my office," Cathal chuckled, not even bothering to look away from the TV.
"Yes, I do! I can come see my favorite Cog and watch my favorite show!" Rainbow smiled as she sat in Cathal's lap, "By the way, does your dad even know we're a thing?"
"He found out pretty quickly once he saw I purposefully gave a Toon teleport access in here," Cathal admitted.
"What'd he say about it?" Rainbow asked.
"He thinks it's gonna make a great sales pitch to the Toons."