Chapter Text
The first thing Beef thought as he came back to consciousness was: Hey, I’m not dead. Cool!
The second: What’s with the Pokemon music?
Beef opened his eyes.
He was in the Buttercream ICU. Well, that was Spoker’s name for it. Granted, Beef had only been here once after Montrose’s surgery, but in his opinion calling it an “ICU” was being too generous. It was more like Spoker had a basement that she had made a half-assed attempt to turn into a hospital room. There was an actual hospital bed, which Beef was currently lying on, but the rest of the place looked like someone had chosen the worst possible furniture as a bit. Faded loveseats in leopard-print, dripping pipes covered with sopping wet throw blankets, a 70s shag carpet. And, of course, Spoker’s mannequins. She said she needed them for clothing prototypes, but he didn’t understand why they had to be here, specifically. Emerich was afraid of them, and Beef had to admit it was a little creepy how they seemed to watch you no matter where you were in the room; especially because they didn’t have eyes. It smelled like Buttercream, too – gasoline mixed with funnel cake.
And Montrose and Emerich were there.
Montrose was sitting on a couch. He had his DS out – that solved that mystery – and was staring at it with intense concentration. Emerich was right next to him, perched on the couch’s arm with his knees folded to his chest.
“It seems like you’re up a physically-oriented opponent,” Emerich told him. “Perhaps you should use Ember to-”
“Now, Emerich, what did we talk about?”
“Ah, yes, no – no ‘backseating.’ But -”
For a minute he just listened to them squabble. They were alive. If he wasn’t already lying down, the relief he felt could have knocked him over.
Beef tried to move before remembered that he had been shot, and was rewarded for his dumbassery by a sharp pain in his side. He let out a groan. It was just his luck that the two of them weren’t invested enough in the game to ignore it.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, awkward silence stretching over the blaring chiptune music. Beef felt weirdly like he had barged in on something private, even though this was his hospital room. Before he could say anything, Montrose turned to face him. His mask was set to its default expression – creepy serial killer grin – but Beef still got a sense of trepidation from him.
"Are you," Montrose said, "actually awake?"
Beef closed his eyes again. Just for, like, a second. "I don't know how to answer that."
“I will take that as a yes!” He closed the DS, and, thank god, the music stopped - he already felt a pressure headache coming on. “Welcome back to the land of the living, my friend. I – hold on, you are aware of what has transpired, aren’t you? The bullet didn’t give you any amnesia, for instance? Short-term, long-term...."
"Montrose, that doesn't happen in real life.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to generalize. There must be some basis for it in truth, or else it wouldn’t afflict those poor souls on TV.”
“That’s not -” ugh, god, he really didn’t want to get into another argument about how realistic soap operas were with Montrose right now. He was still groggy, his head was pounding, and the disorientation of diving in front of a bullet one second and waking up in a hospital bed the next wasn’t fun, to put it lightly. That, and there were sharp, stabbing pains near his abdomen for obvious reasons. Not the first time he’d been shot, unfortunately, so this all felt very familiar. Shockingly, that didn’t make him feel better. He was going to be really controversial and say that getting shot sucked.
“Okay, someone broke into the arcade, and then….” It was hard searching for the right words in his swimming mind. “Someone broke into the arcade, and we heard them sneaking around in the back, so we tried to ambush them. But then I got shot. Am I missing something?”
"No, that is the gist of it," Montrose said cheerfully.
He groaned. “Shit.”
“So you beefed it,” Montrose barreled on. “It’s inevitable, in the journey of an up-and-coming criminal outfit such as our own, that there will sometimes be some wobbles. What matters is how you climb out of the gutter afterwards. With no disrespect to Gutter City, it’s more of a general metaphor. We dealt with our intruder with the minimal amount of lethal force, and our assets are safe and sound.”
“Forget the assets,” he said thickly. “Are you guys okay?”
“I feel fine. Better than fine, even. I feel -” he paused for dramatic effect - “invigorated.”
“What? Why?”
“Isn’t this exciting, in a way? People clearly view us as a threat. That means we’re gaining renown. Only the big boys get people invading their homes in the night. Sure, we’ll have to set up some new security measures….”
“Montrose, I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but nothing about what you just said is exciting to me. Like, not even a little bit.” He said it softer than he should have, maybe, because he wasn’t actually angry at Montrose. Beef was too glad that he was alive, and playing Pokemon, and trying to sell him on how getting shot was great, actually; things could have gone so much worse.
“- either way, Spoker said that as long as you rest up, you’ll be back to normal in no time. So I would call this a success, and I think you’ll agree with me once you’ve had the chance to distance yourself from the – from the abject terror of it all.”
It was so hard to tell whether Montrose was trying to keep up morale or if he actually believed all this stuff. He hoped it was the former, because the latter was terrifying. Beef knew where that ended. He had never been like Montrose, bent on jumping off every cliff he could find just for the hell of it, but yeah, he’d done some stupid shit, back when the name Beef Punchley wasn’t just a cheap nostalgia grab.
He thought fame made him invincible. And he was right, until he wasn’t. And they had been lucky up until now, absurdly lucky, but ever since Gutter City Beef knew that that luck couldn’t last forever. He didn’t want to get into an argument he already knew would go nowhere, but the fantasy of knocking some sense into Montrose was hard to resist. He could say, for example: How are you so calm right now? It’s going to get worse from here, don’t you get that? One of us is going to end up seriously hurt. Or dead. You could die, I could die -
But then Montrose said “Isn’t that right, Emerich?” and Beef was aware, suddenly, that Emerich hadn’t said a single thing.
Emerich was slumped over, staring into his lap. He fidgeted with the give-a-ghost projector, but in a weirdly absent way, his movements slow and lethargic. He barely startled when Montrose said his name, and he didn’t look up, either. “Um, yes, I – I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
“See?” Montrose said. “Everything’s fine.”
Ignoring this, Beef said, “Whatcha doing over there, bud?”
“Um. It’s nothing, really,” he mumbled to the floor. “I did prepare a present for you, but it’s – it’s nothing, really, so.”
“Well, you can’t just say that and then not show me.”
“I can’t?” he said with mild alarm. He looked towards Montrose. “Am I not allowed to-”
“It’s a turn of phrase,” Montrose explained, laying a hand on Emerich’s back. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t care either way.”
“He doesn’t? Aww….”
“Not what I said,” Beef interrupted. “I mean, you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to, but…. My curiosity is, uh, piqued.”
Emerich looked up hesitantly, meeting his eye – or his forehead, same difference - for the first time. Beef saw that he was grinning. “Oh, well, if it’s piqued….”
This coming from the guy who used “mellifluous” in casual conversation. He rolled his eyes, smiling. “Yeah, it’s piqued as hell. Are you gonna show me?”
Instead of replying, Emerich aimed the give-a-ghost projector next to his bed. Oh, so it was a hard light thing – actually, Beef didn’t know what else he expected. The good news was that whatever Emerich was doing had injected energy back into him as he turned the projector’s dial with a familiar laser focus. The empty space on top of Beef’s end table shimmered and took form as a vase of sunflowers.
“And, ah, there…. There you have it!” He looked around for validation.
”That was completely unnecessary,” Montrose said with obvious amusement. “Just buy real flowers. Or plastic ones, even. I'm sure that would take less will-power than summoning them with the power of your mind.”
”I can't! I'm allergic!”
“To plastic?” Beef cut in.
”Well -” Emerich started, but he was drowned out by Montrose’s laughter. He sat back down, grumbling.
”Hey, man, I think the flowers are cool,” said Beef.
“You do? I’m – I’m glad you think so.” Emerich smiled tentatively. Weird; he was usually more confident about showing off his inventions than this. He fell silent, but then as if propelled by force added on, “It’s actually a rather fascinating process, recreating organic life rather than -”
”Yes, you're a genius, we know that already,” Montrose cut in. Emerich managed to look both annoyed and flattered. “But if you’ll excuse me, I must be going.”
“Oh. Already?” Emerich asked.
He pocketed his DS. “No offense, but I’ve had just about enough of this room after Spoker removed the pin from my tummy.”
Yeah, that made sense. Montrose didn’t seem the type to like hanging around hospitals. But still - “Tell us where you’re going first.”
“I do appreciate your concern, Beef, but there is no need to keep tabs on me,” said Montrose. “I already told you, our sneaky friend won’t be bothering us again. Ever.”
“Okay, but you get why I’m asking, right?” Beef pushed, ignoring the worrying implications of that. “Just keep an eye out is all I’m saying.”
“I can take care of myself. I always do.” He walked to the door. “And if I do happen to be gruesomely murdered, Deep Dark will send over my last will and testament. You’ll be alright by yourself, won’t you?”
That was to Emerich. Emerich straightened, giving him a put-upon smile. “Yes! Yes, I will definitely be alright.”
“Great.” And he walked off.
They both listened to his footsteps until they melded into the Buttercream’s din.
Beef looked at Emerich. Emerich didn’t look back at him. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and his fingers tapped an agitated rhythm against the worn arms of the couch. The question so what the hell was that about was on Beef’s lips, but before he could actually open his mouth and ask it Emerich abruptly stopped fidgeting and said, “I, ah, I brought something else for you as well.”
“What?”
He rummaged through his bag and walked over and handed him a book.
“Caleb Cleveland?” Beef asked, reading the cover.
“Yes.” Emerich stared at the floor. “I, um, recall you telling us that you have an – a certain affinity for detective novels, so.”
Beef wanted to say don’t you think I’m a little old for this, but Emerich was being so weird and he didn’t know why. He regretted not grilling Montrose on what the fuck happened. “Dealing with it” could have meant literally anything. All he knew was that the book felt like an apology gift. Emerich didn’t think that he blamed him for not acting fast enough or something, right? It didn’t need to be said, but not true.
So he put on a too-wide smile and said, very enthusiastically, “Thanks, Emmy! You’re the best!” For good measure, he gave him a double thumbs up.
Emerich made a noise like a dying mouse, then retreated back to the couch, drew his knees up to his chest and stared into space.
Shit. Where was Montrose when you needed him? Beef felt like he was just making it worse. Whatever “it” was. He wasn’t great at heart-to-hearts, feelings talk, whatever you wanted to call it. Nobody in their little group was. Montrose included, but he sure could wheedle information out of reluctant marks. Maybe that was what he needed.
But Emerich was an adult, Beef reminded himself. If he didn’t want to talk, there was nothing he could do to force him. He opened up the Caleb Cleveland book to the first page, eager for a distraction.
He’d just have to hope that Emerich would bring it up himself.