Chapter Text
⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ ♡ ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖
Paintbrush didn't believe in fantasy stories, like superheroes and such. The object was definitely more of a realist, favoring fact over feeling (though sometimes their feelings controlled them more than they controlled it.)
They knew that things like that weren't real. Magical powers are something that exist in stories, not in real life. It was all fable, all fairytale. Things like that just didn't happen in the real world.
...Or that's what they thought. Until one day, when things started to stop feeling oh-so normal and usual. One day, something unusual happened.
♡ ໒꒱ ࣪ ˖
It was a regular Tuesday morning—another mundane day of work—for Paintbrush. They unlocked the door to their café, their friend and co-worker, OJ, standing behind them, waiting for the door to be opened.
As soon as they got in, Paintbrush immediately went behind the counter to make themself a drink. It wouldn't be a waste, because it wasn't like they had any customers, anyway (well, aside from one person that visited the cafe everyday).
They made themself a coffee, sat on one of the bar stools they had up front, and put on their headphones. If they had to go through another uneventful, boring day of serving a singular customer, sitting and doing nothing for hours until closing time, they at least had to do it with their favorite tunes playing in the background.
Meanwhile, OJ was busy behind the cash register. He counted the profit the shop made from the day before, which was a whopping total of... ten dollars. And seventy-five cents. He sighed, then went to go make himself a coffee, just as Paintbrush did. Drinking coffee seemed to make all the stress and worries the pair had disappear.
The two were sitting and minding their own business, when they heard the jingle that sounded every time the door opened. They both looked up, hopeful to see a customer, but alas—it was just their other coworker, Soap.
"Hey, guys!" Soap smiled in her usual happy and upbeat tone. Paintbrush nodded in recognition and went back to whatever they were doing on their phone, and OJ flashed a small smile and took a sip of his coffee.
Soap gasped out, which her coworkers paid no mind to. "Guys... is that what I think it is? Is that... a speck of dirt on the ground?!" she suddenly procured a spray bottle and cleaning rag into her hands, which she used to clean the singular speck of dirt that was on the cafe's floor. Soap also noticed something else, aside from the dirt, laying on the ground.
"Ooh," Soap uttered, picking up a crumpled comic book from the ground with a pair of tweezers. She inspected the book for a bit. On the cover was a water droplet, who, ironically, was shooting fireballs out of their hands. On the cover was written "FIREYGUY" in big bold letters.
"Woah! Guys, look! It's an old Fireyguy book! Man, I used to love this back when I was younger."
"Fireyguy?" Paintbrush questioned. "Like, the superhero comic thing?"
"The one and only! Y'know, when I was a little kid, I always thought that objects like us could actually have superpowers. I was a stupid kid, haha."
"I wouldn't say 'stupid' is the right word," OJ stated, pushing his glasses up as he took a sip of coffee. "I mean, kids, in general, think the world is all sunshine and rainbows, and that everything that their told—even things they see in movies, or in this case, comic books—is true. When it's not." he said that last part with bitter resentment, for some reason. The other two decided not to press on.
After that awkward moment, silence returned once again to the trio. After a while, another jingle from the door was heard. This time, it was a customer, albeit one that went to the cafe everyday. A regular, if you will.
"Good morning, Paper!" OJ said to the customer, smiling. The glass of orange juice seemed to be a lot more red than usual.
"Hi!" Paper replied, smiling back. "I'll be getting the usual; just an iced latte, please."
"Coming right up!" OJ exclaimed. "Paintbrush?" He continued, turning his head in their direction.
"On it!" Paintbrush replied, walking back behind the counter to make Paper's usual order of an Americano.
"So, Paper..." OJ prompted, turning back around to face the object.
♡ ໒꒱ ࣪ ˖
Paintbrush had been trying to get a plastic cup from the stack of cups they had on the back counter, when they felt a shock from their hand, and smelled what seemed to be... something burning.
They looked down at their hand, and saw a half-melted plastic cup in it. They were definitely very confused by this. It's not everyday plastic cups randomly melted in your hands. Whatever. They would just have to get another cup.
They reached to grab another plastic cup, and took it straight to the ice machine, filling it up with an assortment of ice cubes. As soon as they picked up the cup, however, all the ice in it quickly melted, and the melted ice turned lukewarm. Odd. It must've been really hot or something for that to have happened. But it couldn't have been, for two reasons. First of all; the café was air-conditioned. So it was quite cold. Second reason; ice wouldn't melt that quickly, even if the surrounding temperature was scorching hot. But Paintbrush shrugged it off. Nothing too out of the ordinary, they presumed?
Suddenly, they felt a strange tingle in their hands, and the smell of burning yet again. They looked down at the thing they were holding.
"What the—?" in a shock, the object dropped the plastic cup they were holding. It was on fire, and so was their hand. The strangest thing was, it didn't even seem to hurt. Not one bit. Most objects definitely would've been in terrible pain from literal fire.
Then it got worse. The fire started to spread (and Paintbrush was too much in shock to stop it), and it quickly grew to the point where it could reach the smoke detector. Alarms sounded, and the water sprinklers... Well, sprinkled. The commotion caused all the other three objects in the room to get very worried. Fire? In the café?! What the hell was happening?!
OJ turned around, and immediately noticed something wrong about his friend.
"Paintbrush," he said. "I don't want to alarm you, no pun intended, but... your hand's on fire. And you aren't screaming in panic, for some reason...? Oh, nevermind."
"My bristles!" Paintbrush yelled. They clearly cared more about their "hair" than their hand burning. After making sure their bristles were still in good condition, they looked down at their hand. It was still on fire? They quickly blew it out.
"I- I'm not sure how that's happened. And I know this sounds crazy, but I think the fire came from my hand...?"
"That's not possible. Unless your hand's some sort of magic wand." OJ chuckled.
"No, I swear I-"
"Oh my gosh!" Soap gasped for the fourth time that day. Was everything surprising to her? "What if, you had superpowers? Like Fireyguy!" she excitedly pointed to the cover of the comic book she was for some reason still holding.
"Superpowers? Those don't exist, Soap. You know that." Paintbrush laughed in reply.
"But... what if they did? And what if you had them? That would be so cool, wouldn't it?"
"Soap, you aren't five. They don't exist."
"Well, watch me prove you wrong!" Paintbrush just sighed at the girl's stubbornness.
"I'm gonna go dry off," they said, stepping out of the coffee shop through the back door.
⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ ♡ ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖