Chapter Text
“Cucumber! Get up, it’s eleven! You’re late!”
Pickle barely registered his mom’s voice. He’d been up way past midnight watching one of his favourite streamers struggle playing through some old game. She’d called him like five times, and now she was fed up enough to storm in.
“Ya Allah, get up! The trucks are already here and half your boxes are still empty!”
She ripped his blanket off like she was revealing a crime scene. Cold air slapped his skin, and his eyes finally cracked open.
“Okay, hooyo…” he groaned.
“No ‘okay’! Pack! Move!”
Without hesitation, she chucked his blanket into a box, followed by notebooks, headphones, and- “Hooyo! The laptop!”
Pickle lunged and rescued it like it was a newborn.
“Who are you shouting at like that?”
“Sorry sorry sorry… just- it’s delicate!”
“Aboowe, you are not delicate. The laptop is not delicate. I am the only one here who is delicate!”
She stormed off muttering something in Somali that sounded vaguely like a curse. Pickle stood up fully, rubbing his eyes.
He scanned the room. Total disaster. Open boxes, crumpled posters, three mismatched and half filled mugs with coffee, and an old sock on the windowsill. At least she’d left him a folded stack of clean clothes by the door. He picked them up and shoved them into a box that smelled faintly like old cereal.
He was packing for college. His first year. Dorms. Freedom. The chance to totally fake being a functioning human. Or, as his mom calls it, “a step toward becoming doctor, inshallah.”
She really believes in him.
Unfortunately.
“Yo turd, are you done packing yet?”
Test Tube leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed like she hadn’t just spent the past thirty minutes yelling at a failed invention. Pickle shrugged.
“Gimme the tape.”
He handed her the scissors.
“That’s scissors, you fungus waffle.”
“Oh- right.” He grabbed the actual tape and tossed it over.
Test Tube got to work with scary haste. Every rip of the tape made Pickle wince.
“Can you stop flinching like you owe the tape money?”
“It’s loud and scary! I’m fragile!”
“Fragile, yeah, I don’t think someone ’fragile’ can break someone’s MONTHS worth of work by, and I quote, ACCIDENTALLY pressing the big red button that clearly says DO NOT PRESS!”
“Come on! That was weeks ago! I think. Whatever, it’s in the past!”
She grunted and kept taping. Pickle grabbed his backpack from under the desk and slung it on.
“How do I look, Testy? Smart? College-y? Hot in a mysterious academic way?”
“You look like the first dropout in a Netflix teen drama.”
“Wow… Good for character development at least.”
She tossed a roll of socks at his head.
“GET OUTSIDE, YOU TWO! THE TRUCK GUY’S YELLING!”
“Oh crap- grab that box, I’ll get the other ones!”
Pickle snatched up two light boxes while Test Tube got stuck with the heavy one.
“You actual donkey,” she wheezed, knees buckling as she made it to the stairs.
“Sorry sorry sorry,” Pickle giggled, already halfway down.
He sprinted past his mom in just socks, dumped the boxes into the truck, and zoomed back upstairs.
His sister was halfway down, doing the world’s slowest crab-walk with the heavy box.
“Wallah Pickle if you make me trip and I fucking die I will haunt you.”
“You can’t haunt someone who’s already dead inside.”
Finally, everything was packed. His mom was mid-argument with the driver, something about fuel prices and “if you scratch even one box, I’ll call your mother myself.”
Pickle slid into his slippers and turned to Test Tube who was already at the back of the truck.
“You gonna miss me, Testy?”
“Miss what? The scent of despair and fart clouds?”
“I was being sweet, but okay.”
“You were being crusty. Get in the truck.”
“You’ll miss me.”
“Like a rash misses the ointment.”
Pickle grinned and made a loud raspberry with his mouth. She gave him a dead stare.
“I hope your roommate is as horrible to you as you are to me.”
“I’m great!”
He laughed and gave his mom a tight hug. She kissed his cheeks repeatedly while whispering dua under her breath.
“Hooyo, not in front of the driver. I gotta sit next to this dude for two hours.”
“So? He can know I love my baby boy.”
“I’m not a baby-”
She kissed his forehead again.
“Okay fine, I’m baby.”
He climbed into the passenger seat, still nodding and mumbling responses to her worried shouts.
Test Tube blew him a raspberry. He waited for his mom to look away before flipping her off. She returned it with a proud little salute.
Finally, he looked at the driver. Big guy. Blonde. Beard that had given up halfway through growing. Shirt looked like it had a personal vendetta against soap.
“So… what’s your name, man?”
“Trophy.”
“Winner Trophy? Pfft- You’re driving a moving van. That’s so ironic it hurts.”
Trophy didn’t respond. Just gripped the wheel tighter.
“Haha… we’re cool, though? Buds? Comrades?”
Trophy growled low.
“Cool cool cool. Silent type. I respect that.”
Pickle looked out the window. Trees with no leaves. Same three bushes on loop. He tried checking his phone, but scrolling made his stomach flip right away. He shut his eyes and let the road noise blur everything out.
“WAKE UP, DICKHEAD!”
Pickle blinked awake.
“Huh?”
“GET UP. RUN.”
He blinked again.
Two police cars were speeding toward them.
“WHAT- WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?”
Trophy turned the Truck to crash into a dried bush, making Pickle’s chest almost break in against the seatbelt.