Work Text:
It should have been the perfect job for Bellwether. It was familiar, quiet, fairly simplistic, based around organizing, and even at her expense, she could not help but find the parallel of working for a once powerful entity whose own hubris led to its downfall a little amusing. Her late night shifts at one of remaining Flockbuster Video locations had only one issue: she shared the job with a predator, a Lynxley no less.
It made sense to her. Both her and Pawbert left jail around the same time thanks to a criminal rehabilitation program started by Mayor Winddancer, and since a company attempting to scrape its way out of bankruptcy could not be too picky about who to hire, the job practically fell into both of their laps. It did not change the fact that she hated the mere thought of working with a living symbol of everything wrong with the city in her eyes.
Pawbert could sense her apprehensiveness, so much to Bellwether’s dismay, he often spent the frequent downtime trying to strike up conversations with her, handing her stale licorice, or offering to let her borrow his copy of Partnership for Dummies (she obliged just to prop up an uneven table in her apartment).
This night seemed like a welcomed change for Bellwether. Pawbert was awfully quiet, spending most of the night facing away from her. At most, he would make a moan in agreement from behind the counter. This gave her full concentration on restocking and scanning the aisles to ensure that all DVDs and VHS tapes were placed in alphabetical order and sorted into their proper genre.
“Lynxley!” she hollered from the other side of the store, “are there any movies in the QuikDrop box?”
Pawbert responded with a slight hum in affirmation.
“Check them back into the database real quick and bring them over, okay?”
“Whatever you say,” Pawbert said as though thoroughly pre-occupied.
After seconds of Pawbert showing no signs of action, Bellwether emerged from the front aisle and approached the counter. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Uh huh.” It carried the same tone as his previous response.
As Bellwether got closer to Pawbert, she observed him staring at something in his paws that his thumbs sporadically tapped. She then climbed onto the counter only to discover what distracted her co-worker. “A Game Cub? You’re playing a Game Cub while working?”
“Well, it’s not like we’re swimming in customers at this hour,” Pawbert retorted. “Besides, with the way you keep giving me the silent treatment, I thought you’d appreciate me finding another way to pass the time.”
“I’d appreciate you not overtly lallygagging on the clock. Come on, we need to at least appear professional.”
“Do we, though? I mean, we’re pretty much crew mates on the Zootanic working here.”
“Yes, because someone won’t be able to rent that movie if the cashier has his muzzle in some electronic relic.”
Pawbert put the handheld on the counter. “Okay, first, why would anyone even rent that movie? They already know how it ends. Second, this isn’t just some ‘relic’ as you called it. It’s a classic device that stands the test of time if only for the fact that all of its games are available entirely on the cartridge.”
Bellwether flashed her co-worker a devious smile. “Yeah, you’re just saying that because your daddy only gave you the hand-me-downs.”
Pawbert’s ears drooped before he picked up the Game Cub and continued playing, now with the volume at its maximum.
Bellwether scoffed. “I was right, wasn’t I? Flockbuster, Game Cubs, it’s like I’m back in the ‘90s, except instead of meeting my dad on the weekends, I meet my parole—” She halted as began to recognize the music coming from Pawbert’s device. “Wait, is that Petris?”
“Yep. Why? You played it before?”
Bellwether haughtily chuckled. “‘Played’ is a bit of an understatement. I mastered it.” She then peaked over Pawbert’s shoulder. “And based on the looks of it, you most certainly have not.”
“I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”
“Well, you’re getting it. Hand me the game. You need to learn a thing or two from the master at her craft.”
“Ehh, I don’t know. I don’t want you to be lallygagging.”
“Just hand it over!”
Pawbert placed the Game Cub on the counter and slid it towards Bellwether, and due to the size difference, she placed her left hoof on the D-pad and placed her right hoof in-between the A and B buttons.
“So, when was the last time you even played this?” Pawbert asked.
Bellwether shrugged, “Not in years, but I’m sure I’ll get my bearings. Just watch and learn, Lynxley.”
From the moment Bellwether hit the start button, she followed through on her promise to Pawbert. The game’s objective saw players organizing differently-shaped falling blocks into complete rows to remove them from the screen in exchange for points, and while Pawbert’s gameplay saw him forming awkwardly-rowed stacks that eventually clogged the screen, Bellwether’s hooves leaning on the D-pad and hitting the buttons with lightning reflects resulted in neat rows of blocks getting deleted two, three, and even four at a time. Pawbert looked over at the score that his co-worker currently racked up, and to his disbelief, it reached digits that he did not even know the game could display.
“Wow,” Pawbert said, “you weren’t kidding when you said you mastered it.”
“Yeah, you know, for future reference, it’d be wise of you to always believe me,” Bellwether told him while her eyes remained on the screen, and her hooves still twitched around the controls.
“So, bet you played this all the time as a lamb, huh?”
“You know, you’d think so, but only when I was at my dad’s place on the weekends. For whatever reason, my mom banned video games in her house, something about them making me ‘too primal.’ Listen, I love my mom, but I’m still not sure why she’d think that. I played them plenty with my dad, and look how I turned out.”
Pawbert inhaled as though about to make a comment, but he ultimately chose to hold his tongue.
“So yeah, I didn’t play this game a lot. In fact, I don’t have a ton of memories playing it at all.”
“Like you never had lasting moments playing it with your dad?”
“No, like I don’t remember playing it much if at all. I know I put in the cartridge, but I can’t recall that many specific memories of getting used to the controls or learning any advanced techniques. Perhaps it all just came naturally to me. I mean, I’m kinda a quick learner, so that’s far from a shock.”
Pawbert scratched the back of his head and sighed. “Yeah, that must be nice. So, you got any tips?”
Bellwether remained quiet for a brief moment as she remained focused on the game. “Huh? Oh, right, umm, you need to leave one part of your screen empty while you fill the rest of it completely. That way, if you get an I-shaped piece, you can, uhh, clear your screen the most, uhhh, yeah.”
“Ah, smart move. I really should’ve figured that out myself. So, how would you recommend going about filling out the rest of the screen completely?”
The response Pawbert received was in the form of more button clicking and the various noises from the handheld’s speakers as Bellwether remained attentive on the gameplay. As Pawbert continued to watch her, he noticed that she rarely if ever blinked.
Pawbert leaned closer to her. “Uhh, Dawn? Did you hear me? Are you just ignoring me again? Dawn, can you please stop doing that? Look, despite what you want everyone to think, this isn’t easy for you, starting your life over. You know, that’s why I always try to reach out to you every shift. I know you hate asking for it, but I want to help you. I may not understand everything about you, but I want to try, okay? I might be the only one left who actually cares about you, and if I were you, I wouldn’t push that only one left aside.”
Bellwether still refused to answer.
Pawbert grunted before leaning his muzzle in front of Bellwether’s ear. “Can you please turn off that game and just —”
“Bahhh”
Pawbert jumped back at the sound his co-worker just emitted from her mouth. “Did you just…bleat?” He soon began taking slow steps away from her. “Okie dokie, I’ll just leave you to, you know, get that out of your system. I think I’ll unload the QuikDrop box like you asked.”
All while Bellwether remained entranced by the Game Cub’s monochrome display, Pawbert embarked on the painstaking task of emptying the DVDs and VHS tapes from the QuikDrop bin, inspecting each video to ensure they were in the package without any damage to them, and checking them back into the database. All the while, he glanced back on Bellwether to see if she would snap out of her daze.
During this, an unforeseen circumstance gave Pawbert a jolt: a customer walking through the door. He was a domesticated pig in lavender button-down shirt that as though he spilled something on it. After he went down the aisle marked “Drama,” Pawbert returned to his work.
A minute later, he approached Bellwether at the front counter with a noticeably hefty VHS sleeve in his hooves. “Evening, miss. I’ll just be renting this film.”
After seconds of unresponsiveness, the pig cleared his throat. “Yoo-hoo, ma’am, I’d like to rent a movie.” He soon began tapping his foot. “Okay, that does it! Quit playing with that calculator, and just check me out.”
The pig made an error in grabbing the Game Cub. This caused Bellwether to unleash a deafening bleat in the customer’s face, causing him to jump back.
“Geez,” the frantic pig cried, “what is wrong with you, you ewe?”
Pawbert dashed to the front counter and slid Bellwether to the side of it. “Sorry about that, sir. My co-worker seems to have her head in the clouds this evening. Let me check you out tonight.”
“Thank you,” the pig said to him. “It’s hard to find good help in the retail space these days. The teenagers I’ve got working at my shop are oftentimes worse than your friend on the counter.”
Pawbert timidly chuckled at that. “Yeah, I doubt that.”
The pig handed Pawbert the box, but when the lynx scanned it, he could not help but smile at the pig’s choice in film. “Ah, Zootanic, I see. I hear it’s got a bummer ending.”
“I wouldn’t know,” the pig annoying said.
Pawbert’s ears lowered. “Oh, gosh, I assumed you already saw it. Yeah, sorry about that, but hey, the best films are often about the journey rather than the destination, especially for everyone on the boat. They didn’t make it to their destination.” Pawbert exploded into laughter that quickly died out upon seeing the pig’s disgruntled look on his face.
He then shoved the two-video box into a plastic bag bearing the Flockbuster Video logo it before handing it to the pig. “Due in three days. Just put it in our QuikDrop.”
Once he received his movie, the pig wasted no time walking out of the store.
“See you soon, sir,” Pawbert told him.
“Don’t count on it,” the customer snapped back as he shut the door behind him.
Pawbert inhaled. “Well, we’re never seeing that copy of Zootanic again.”
With the customer gone, Pawbert focused his attention on Bellwether who persisted in her Petris playing. He rubbed his paws together. “Okay, this will either fix her or kill her.” With an unleashed claw, he found the switch located at the top of the Game Cub and flicked it.
The handheld turned off, and instantly, as though she re-emerged out of a body of water, Bellwether’s head snapped upward as she gasped for air. “Whew, that was a good round of Petris.”
Her head then turned to a wall-mounted clock. “Wow, ten o’clock already? Feels like it was just nine.” She then turned to see Pawbert’s dumbfounded expression on his face. “What are you staring at, Lynxley?”
“Uhh, nothing, nothing at all,” he responded.
Bellwether rested her elbow on the Game Cub “Say, think you could bring this with you every night?”
Pawbert grabbed the device from her and slid it into his pocket. “Sorry, but after tonight, I don’t think I trust you with a video game.”
Bellwether crossed her arms. “Why? You jealous of my power, Lynxley?”
“No, I’m frankly terrified of it.”