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It was entirely coincidence that the two ran into each other one day, but that’s another word for fate, really.
Coincidence is what you normally use for things that are silly and terribly ironic, and however much painfully so this was, the way it all unfolded was completely unfunny and rather like it’d fallen into place. It started with a tired worker chain-smoking behind the MTT Resort at 9 pm, his face grim.
Burgerpants thinks of many things as he leans against the cold brick wall; he shivers a little, but in his bitterness he doesn’t even mind; the bright lights of inside are too much. He absorbs the night and sighs. There are a few things that touch your mind that are impure when you’re alone, like how long you’re going to spend with nobody. What you’re going to do next weekend with no friends. The only break you get, and you sit at home watching reruns of Ghost Adventures just in time for Halloween and die inside: Fun.
Smoke billows out of his nose with unamusement. His name isn’t even Burgerpants, but that’s on his nametag anyway. His name is fucking Ryan.
He looks off into the distance of the parking lot and squints in the light of the streetlamps. The bulbs of shining light fill him with . . . something, maybe melancholy, and it seems that nowadays more things than ever bring on unwanted feelings. Cigarette burns are illuminated in a pair of lamps by the backdoors of the hotel, flies and moths flinging themselves at the luster while it glows hotly above. He hasn’t put a new one down the line of his arm in a while, and he’s tempted. Burgerpants is filled with an overwhelming floating sensation as he stands in the cold, shaking every once in a moment, but otherwise completely still and staring. Slowly, he raises his hand to bring it back to his lips; smoke trails out of the paper. He stares.
With bad decisions swelling, his nerves can’t help but twitch with screwed-up anticipation of what’s boiling underneath his skin; and if he feels the tang of a lick of fire, maybe it’ll break enough of that bad feeling free that it’ll calm down for a while.
He sucks in his breath, slowly.
.
“Want some icecream?”
And Ryan hisses sharply, because in a moment he finds himself loomed over by a figure in the mixture of yellow luminescence and shadows. His fingers twitch enough, halfway to the soft part of his arm, that little hot ashes sear the inside of his skin. He yanks back his arm and the cigarette, half-finished, falls, and he stands - caught - with half of him wanting to run. The other slightly pauses at the odd question.
He swallows. “I - Uh, what.”
His hands fumble with nothing in them anymore. His nerves are accentuated both by the fact that there is someone leaning toward him with a cone between his fingertips, and the fact that the person himself is. Very interesting. And he hopes he didn’t just see him seconds away from wounding himself - and he succeeded, in one way, with a stinging bloom of red across his skin. He gingerly takes the icecream because he just might as well; besides, it’s melting.
“Thanks,” he mumbles. The other person smiles.
He’s about a foot taller than him, maybe more, and that might be terrifying to come across in the dark shadows in the grungy back side of a building, but he’s so bright in every different way that it offsets that terribly. The horror had vanished as soon as it came. What’s left is just disbelief and a good dose of astonishment, maybe shame. The rabbit’s outfit clashes with his fur, all red and yellow against sky blue, and his hair looks just like the tip of the softserve he’s still not eating. It’s starting to drip very vaguely. Burgerpants feels something very vaguely stir in his stomach, and the other smiles with raised brows at him, expecting something. Probably for him to express his gratitude in actually eating his present, but he’s stuck in a bubble of discomfort that throws that option out the window. Instead he eyes the red cart behind his new friend, just around the corner of the wall.
“Did you ask to sell those here?” he says stiffly, his brow stitching up.
“There’s two girls selling stuff from the trash on the other side of that dumpster,” he replies swiftly. “I didn’t think this was any worse.”
Shit. They were back again. His eyes trail over to the spot he’d described and makes a mental note to himself to kick them out again later.
But first, this g-
“How is your arm? Quite a mishap.” The other shifts on his heels, looking so genuinely sad. “Did I . . . cause that?”
He genuinely feels bad for saying ‘yes’ to that. The guilt that shows on his acquaintance’s face outweighs the satisfaction of being an asshole. Burgerpants’ eyes flick toward the tiny wound and frown as he tries to formulate what to do, spending quite a long moment mulling over it. Because, one: He might take it upon himself to dote over him, and this guy seems exactly like the sort that does that. Two is easy. He either will know he caused it, or it was bound to happen anyway, and one of those responses is counterproductive. The other he would much, much rather avoid - that would draw so much more pity than he thinks he deserves. Either option has a viable reply that is almost equally Unfortunate to the next, and he spends much too long pondering on this. The air is cold but he becomes overwhelmingly hot, seething to himself inwardly and never stopping his self-monologue. Until a dab of vanilla icecream falls slowly to his hand and drizzles itself down the length of his palm, and he makes a face at it as it does.
He shoves it in the other’s face.
And he walks inside.