Work Text:
10 PM rolls by. A day of snacks, tossed papers, angry grunts. Anna slumps on the couch, barely able to keep her eyes open enough to eat a pizza slice. Matt fumbles with a paper he holds, writing down directions for any playtesters he hires. Natalie is reading a lengthy text on her work computer.
Lance grumbles under his breath. His eyes drooping as he types. Cat here. Cat there. Tree there. Make it meow. Make it sound like Matt. Put Matt there. Put Matt fucking everywhere. Matt’s hidden Matts. Find the Matt. He crushes a can on his desk, letting the hollow and empty aluminum tumble over and drip its remaining fluids into the 80s carpet.
He slams his fingers against the keyboard, his overgrown nails digging into the shitty plastic of the keycaps. He doesn’t notice his surroundings. He never has. He codes. That’s all he does. That is his purpose-
“Dude-”
“AH-!”
Lance yelps, yanking his shoulder from Matt’s touch. Matt waves, a soft smile greeting him. He’s holding a bag in his hand, and a set of keys in another.
He’s leaving.
“Uh.. it’s time for me to head out! Heh..”
“Okay.”
“Your shift. It’s over, man.”
“Okay.”
“Are.. you..”
“No.”
Lance turns back to his computer.
Matt nods. He waves bye to Lance, and gently grabs Natalie’s hand to get her up. Lance immediately goes back to fiddling with his code. He growls lowly at the computer lines. He does not notice anyone passing his desk. He doesn’t hear the keys jingle.
Lance spins back to his desk, saving his work before turning his computer off. He gets up to say a goodbye to the rest of the team-
THUD.
CLICK.
… But he is too late to.
He stares at the door for a moment. He expects that one of them would surely come back for something they needed.
He stays silent, standing still and shoving his hands in his pockets.
Right..?
He stands for what seems like hours. Only 30 minutes pass.
He is alone now. The lights flicker above him. The city outside bustles with life and night afterglow. Natalie’s multiple cat figurines stare at him, their painted eyes reading his soul.
They did not say goodbye to you this time.
What did you do?
He closes the blinds to the outside world and walks back to his desk, staring at his reflection in the empty screen.
What are you?
He does not recognize the person staring back in the monitor. Is that what he looks like? When was the last time he had fully examined himself? Without consequences? Consequences from yourself?
Knuckles full of glass shards. That mirror, his mother’s. Damn it. All to hell. He knew what would happen. That she’d get enraged, kick him out for good. What worth is it staying here 5 more days, when she’ll change the locks on the 18th?
It wasn’t an undocumented destruction of property. They saw him. The metal and wood affixed to the walls. He, His son. Everywhere. Eyes open in haze. They can see what he did.
His hand rests on the desk. His fingers flex and move, almost if he has no control of them. A claw, a fist, back to nothing again. This monitor is new. He broke the last one.
And the one before that.
He pushes himself away from the desk. Cans tumble to the floor. The wheels stick to the floor mat, covered in dried specks and puddles of energy drink. A sandwich sits on a small organizer of paper, 2 bites taken and nothing more.
The other desks are cleaner than his. Natalie’s is full of cutesy pink things and stickers. A corkboard of her family. A crude figure of a toothy rabbit. A white and blue rabbit holding a pie.
Anna’s is covered in pens and pencils, concept sketches littered about. Her pride and joy, her drawing tablet, sits comfortably on a stand. Reference books stack high, with the titles facing out. “Anatomy of the Cat”, “Warrior Cats: A drawing guide”, “Animal Expressions”. A water bottle stood in the corner next to a packet of seaweed, half drunken.
Matt’s desk was almost like Lance’s. A more organized mess. Letters from publishing companies. Taxes. Pay stubs. A calculator. Stacks upon stacks of PC-ROM games from the 90s. A customized figure of his favorite MMORPG character, a dog named Fizzy McMuffin.
He was so different than the rest.
He never went outside, picked up the arts, indulged in shitty trinkets. He was raised to survive. Eat dingy cans of tuna 2 days expired. Steal from the church’s soup kitchen. Eat fruit that grew deep in the woods when his mom would go out without him.
He never had the luxuries the rest had.
Should he steal them? Swipe them from their place on the desk and place them upon his own?
He walks to Matt’s desk, someone he knows wouldn’t care or notice. His hands graze a copy of Doom, a game that he’s tried before and liked. The jewel case is scraped and scratched, and a sharpie “MATT” is rubbing off of the bottom. The inner disc is scraped and scratched, but loved.
He can’t take this. Matt would definitely know.
The case clatters back upon the pile it left as Lance rummages across the desktop. He knows this is wrong. He knocks the statue over in his frenzy, chipping the paint on the nose.
Something. Something to match. To fit in. Something. SOMETHING…
Lance steps back after a while. Matt’s desk is a sloppy mess now. Games on the floor. Discs opened. His keyboard flipped over, nothing underneath it besides a gift card for Starbucks with “Happy 4th anniversary!” on it.
He cannot take the personality of Matt. It would be obvious that he was.. pining.
He always pined. He wanted warmth. Comfort.
He hurries to clean his desk. Stacking games, making it prettier than the blonde left it. He can’t know that Lance snooped. Even if he felt like Matt would let him. That’s weird. That’s awful. Don’t. Don’t ever do that again.
His hands shake. They tremble like never before. His legs crumble underneath him, making it hard to walk at all. He grips Matt’s office chair with the strength of an alligator’s jaw. The leather strains and rips under the pressure he leaves, but he doesn’t care. Doesn’t notice.
Shame. Shame on you.
It repeats in his head over and over. A banner of words flying across his head like Nicovideo’s comments.
Why would you?
And why did you let yourself?
Matt will know you did this.
Do you want to peel him back?
To get into his skin?
Become him?
Gain what he has, take him as a part of you?
He stumbles into the bathroom, pale faced and sweat dripping. He’s in a full on panic now. No walks, no reassuring words. The water drips from the faucet and the fluorescence beams deeply into him.
The porcelain of the sink supports him. The shine of the gloss catches every drip as he gasps for air. He coughs and chokes on himself, on his thoughts, on his words.
USELESS.
You cannot exist as your own entity.
You try, again and again and again.
Your eyes always catch the personality of someone who admires you. And you shift to become them.
Have you not realized the cycle of you? Of your being?
“… Stop it.” He shouts. He doesn’t realize the volume he squeals it.
The desires you withhold sticks into your mind’s crevices.
His hand folds into a fist.
You find yourself attached to your co-workers because they give you attention.
Something you grew up lacking. AND YOU KNOW IT.
He doesn’t realize his screaming.
YOU ARE A NOBODY, A TOOL.
A COG IN A MACHINE.
YOU ARE A COG, AND ONLY A COG.
“REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!”
SHATTER.
…
Glass shards fall from their aluminum frame.
Blood drips into the sink.
You’ve fucking done it again.
Lance grabs his hand. It aches as usual. Tiny fragments dig into the previously healed scarring. Yikes. It seems almost bad enough to warrant a hospital visit… in the morning.
He picks the larger chunks out of his fist, his focus melting away from his panic attack and more-so on cleaning the wound and hiding the evidence. The wound is huge. It won’t stop seeping blood, and he swears that he can see muscle and bone.
A towel and some tape should do.
…
He settles into his “bed”, a cozy nook under his desk. His hand is covered in a makeshift cast of paper towel and scotch tape. It hurts. It throbs and writhes in waves of heating pain. Whatever. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
…
A yawn escapes Matt as he unlocks the office door. It’s 2 am, and he’s forgotten his phone at the office. He doesn’t know exactly how or why he left it. All he remembers is getting home, cuddling on the couch, feeling his pocket, and getting back in the car. His eyes burn with tiredness as he flicks the lights on.
It smells.. metallic-y? A much different smell than when he left. He walks over to the coffee and food station to prepare himself a cup of coffee. Gotta be awake before he starts looking.
Sniffle
He drinks it straight from the pot. No time for sugar or creamer. He grimaces at the bitter taste of the drink. Eugh. It needs a shot of creamer. But that meant opening the fridge, making a mess, using the rest of Natalie’s Donut flavored limited edition creamer and getting yelled at… It’s better to sip straight from the source.
Whimper
Matt sips slowly and observes the office as an entire unit. It’s not bad for $2,000 a month. An insane deal was had. Maybe it was because someone got murdered here? Matt liked to think so. It’s located above a pizza place, with various smaller practices around them. He considered going to the dentist located across from them, but their reviews said otherwise.
The glass makes a soft thud. He cracks his neck as he marches over to his desk. Has it.. always been this clean? Did he clean it recently? He opens a drawer and- aha! Phone located. It’s barely even at 20%, but that’s no big deal.
Sob
“..?”
He turns around to locate the noise. A dog? A cat? Oh shit, is it a rat?
Matt notices the lump of pillows under Lance’s desk. They’re shaking a little. Lance is sleeping under his desk again.
But. He’s crying.
He curls himself tightly, hands covering his face inside the pillow. Even though he seems to be sleeping, he’s still distraught. He makes his way over to the boy and kneels down. His sobs are louder now. Matt can see snot dribble out of his nose and all over his face. His eyes are puffy, and his face is scrunched in a deep frown as he gasps.
Ah…
Matt knew that Lance wasn’t much for… affection. He hated being touched. Anything done to help him, he blew off with a snarky remark. He didn’t know if he should even try to aid in any form of comfort. He gently scooted closer and moved one of Lance’s hands. It was bandaged roughly in his typical style, scrapped together with scotch tape and.. was that glue? Blood was already seeping through it, getting stains on the pillow and carpet.
Lance’s hand twitched as Matt began to hold and examine it. He didn’t yank it away. He didn’t object in his sleep. He seemed to calm down, almost.
“God, Lance. You’ve.. really done it this time.” Matt thought to himself. He gently placed the hand next to Lance’s head. He seemed to ease back into distress, however. Scrunched face, louder sobs, snot.. Matt couldn’t leave him like this.
He reached up to Lance’s face, gently wiping away the tears and snot with his sleeve. It was gross. It was so, undeniably gross. Lance didn’t wake up at all throughout the process. He just accepted it, and calmed down once again. Matt took off his fishy overcoat and tossed it to the side.
“Uh.. hey, bud..” He began. He could feel something within him try and resist. He rubbed a hand throughout Lance’s hair as he began his comfort spiel. Even when Lance showered, his hair natually had a form of oily sheen.
But there’s no time to focus on the grime in his hair.
“It’ll be okay, you know?”
He sat there in silence, massaging his head with his hand. Lance had stopped crying at this point. His once huge sobs simmering down to sniffles. Matt could feel him leaning into the touch. He liked this. Or, he liked the concept? He couldn’t imagine Lance’s true and visceral reaction to this. He would say something snarky. Probably spit?
“I don’t… know why you’re upset, but… I’m here.”
Matt moved the rubs to Lance’s back. He had an un-natural arch from his slumping habits. Not quite something to check out, but noticeable enough. Lance made a soft trill as he nuzzled his body closer to the rub.
Matt had never known Lance to be like this. It was always the opposite. This is weird. This is… weird. This…
“I don’t… want you upset. You… you pull the team together, yeah?”
“I’m… honestly not sure what I would do without you.”
He kept at the habit. Head, back, back to head. Lance had stopped crying at this point. Matt knew he could stop. To get up and leave. Go back to his house, cuddle with Natalie.
“It’s… weird. I… don’t know, dude.”
He didn’t wish to return, to go back. Lance needed him in that moment. What kind of friend would he be.. if he left Lance alone?
“… You’re okay now, yeah?”
“……… mrf.”
Lance rolled over and faced away from Matt, finally seeming to sink into a deeper sleep. He pulled his hand away, seemingly no longer needed. He felt a sting as Lance away, as if he didn’t want it to end.
Dumb. He should have been happy it ended.
Why was he upset?
Was that the feeling?
Matt got up, gently dusting himself off. He kicked the snotcoat underneath his office chair and walked to the exit door, grabbing his keys.
“… Goodnight, Lance…?”
He didn’t get a reply, just a halfhearted snore from across the room.
Matt felt weird on the drive home.
Is he falling for his co-worker? No. He has a girlfriend! He can’t fall into a slippery slope like that!
What if he was, though?
What if?
“Oh, god. What is wrong with ME??”