Work Text:
Erik mashes buttons on his phone in his haste for aid against the incoming menace, blood curdling scream on the tip of his tongue. Well. To be more accurate, Erik’s fingers fly over the screen in a random sequence of taps and swipes as he curses in the eight languages that he knows. He hopes that his phone will put him through to one of the alphabet agencies: CIA, FBI, maybe even the NSA. Surely as a citizen, this qualified as a breach of national security. The military also sounds good too.
He is now a prisoner in his own home. This is his life at stake and if something or someone doesn’t come to save him soon, Erik may very well starve to death, trapped in the corner of his home. It isn’t even the nice corner.
Trust technology to never work in the time of crisis. It doesn’t even put him through to emergency services, the piece of shit. And, of course, he ends up speed dialling Raven of all the people in his contacts.
Raven is still better than no one, and it is more preferable than having to deal with this situation alone. Even if Raven is halfway around the world living in Wombatland, where every creature that so much as moves aspires to kill the human populace with a single touch, her having survived months there must mean she has learnt the ways of the Australian.
Surely.
"What do you want, shitstick?”
The venom in her voice doesn’t faze Erik. His problem is far greater than the time zone that separates them. Who cares if it is… going on midnight over in Wombatland? His problem clearly takes priority over something as trivial as interrupting Raven’s beauty sleep.
"Raven," Erik says calmly, doing a very admirable job of keeping the rising panic out of his voice and acting his mature masculine age of being a turtlenecked thirty-something, "How do you kill a cockroach?"
Normally, Erik wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the nasty creepy crawlies that lurk in his apartment. Live and let live. C'est la vie, as they say. Erik works under the grand assumption that as long as he doesn’t bite them, they won’t bite him. This cockroach, however, is a persistent piece of shit and it stands innocently between him and the door. The door that he needs to have been out of an hour ago in order to get to work.
The line is silent for a good long while, giving the cockroach ample time to skitter menacingly forward. Erik most certainly does not feel threatened, nor does he press up against the wall.
"What,” Raven says at length, disbelief colouring her voice. “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Lehnsherr."
It is difficult to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "No. You don’t understand, Raven. There is a cockroach in my flat,” Erik explains as if Raven is a particularly slow child. “How do I get rid of it?”
"You just kill it and dispose of its corpse."
"No."
"What do you mean— Just stamp on it."
"The bastard has got moves like Mick Jagger. It won’t stand still."
"Fuckin’— Fine. Bug spray then."
"I have emptied five cans all over its ass, and it is still not dead." Erik keeps his eyes trained on the cockroach. He wouldn’t be boxed into the corner of his flat for the rest of his life. He couldn’t. Not by this inferior lifeform.
Raven sounds befuddled when she says, “What— How big is it?”
"About the size of my shoe."
"I hope you’re exaggerating. The Oriental cockroach only grows to be an inch, inch and a half on average—"
Erik blithely interrupts her undoubtedly heart-wrenching speech, “I don’t think we’re talking about any normal cockroach. It’s a mutant cockroach: cockroach superior. If we’re going by logical land size to cockroach ratios, then this has to be the Russian cockroach.”
Raven lets out a despondent sigh. "Those don’t exist, Erik. Look, just trap it underneath a glass or something. It’ll suffocate soon enough. If you want to kill it faster, then drown it, or spray it with soapy water so you block all the necessary pores since cockroaches breathe through their skin. That’s all the advice I have for you. Fuck off and go kill that motherfucker."
The line goes dead before Erik can get a word in edgewise.
He looks about wildly around him for something to trap it with. There’s a newspaper, a half empty carton of takeaway, his PSP console, an empty Tupperware box... Perfect. Skirting around the edges slowly, Erik picks up the box and upturns it into his palm, and turns to aim it at the cockroach.
His heart is racing and with a little skip that would make ten pin bowlers proud, he places the box over the cockroach with a triumphant exhale of breath. And then on top of the Tupperware box, Erik places the heaviest Physics textbook he owns. For security reasons. Just in case the cockroach decides to move and it possesses the strength to move the Tupperware along with it. It is better to be safe than sorry and terrorised.
Brilliantly executed, Erik thinks and pats himself on the back, dusting his hands from a job well done. He safely gets dressed and heads to work two hours late. No one will be any wiser about the brief reign of terror.
Who knows what can happen in the eight hour shift he was on? Maybe the cockroach will miraculously kick the bucket.
* * *
Four days later, the cockroach still hadn’t suffocated to death. He would have felt sorry for any other creature had he chosen this method to kill it with, but fuckballs.
He had checked on it before he had gone to bed and had crowed with delight when he noticed it was on its back. Erik might or might not have danced around the Tupperware celebrating the death of the cockroach.
“Hahahaha, who’s dead now, motherfucker?!” Erik had crowed in its dead face, before the cockroach flipped back over to taunt him.
Erik most certainly did not let out a scream of despair.
He had taken to dragging the box around on the floor -- ensuring that oxygen wouldn’t be able to seep inside to prolong its life -- to check whether the cockroach was still alive after that. When the side of the box touched it, the cockroach would run miles causing Erik to flinch and recoil backwards.
Thankfully without upturning the box.
Erik lived in constant terror of the cockroach, convinced that he could hear the way it scuttled across the floorboards. He tossed and turned at night until he couldn’t take it any longer, moving his reading lamp over to stand vigil next to the Tupperware-imprisoned cockroach. All night long. He felt much better being able to see it.
Now day four and without any solid weekend plans, Erik is swaddled in his blankets for protection. There’s a knocking at his door and he quickly gathers his cocoon about him, hurrying to open the door. Could it be that the Ghostbusters have finally arrived? Maybe Erik will require an exorcist after the cockroach dies. He doesn’t want to be haunted by the spirit of cockroach superior.
"Hey Erik! I’ve come to— Hey. Are you feeling okay?"
It’s Charles, his British hottie of a landlord. Erik had been flirting on and off with him for months now and any day now he’ll make his move. This isn’t how Erik had envisioned sweeping Charles off his feet at all.
"Charles! Uh. Yeah. I’m— Come in."
Charles blinks at him with his big blue eyes. He looks rather concerned. "Are you sure? You don’t have a fever, right? The heater is working, right?" Charles is the sweetest landlord in the history of landlords, always looking after his tenants.
"Uh yeah. I’m fine. The heater is fine. It’s just—" How does one explain to their landlord that he couldn’t kill a cockroach?
"There’s a slight problem," Erik admits at length.
Charles smiles politely, inclining his head to go on.
"Um." How does— Fuck it. He’ll explain it all in one go and say goodbye to ever finding himself inside Charles’ pants. "There’s a giant cockroach that, um, still hasn’t suffocated to death yet underneath the box I trapped it under. I’ve tried everything but short of a nuclear bomb, it just won’t die." Erik points with the corner of his blanket at where he’s rigged up the lamp to shine it on the box.
"Oh! Is that all?"
Erik blinks. What does Charles mean when he says ‘is that all’?
Charles is rolling up his sleeves, revealing beautiful forearms. "Let me get that cockroach for you then. Tell me, Erik, how’s work? It feels like we hardly ever have the time to chat these days."
Erik watches, his jaw opening wider with each successive step Charles takes towards the Tupperware. The light is switched off and moved carefully to the coffee table, and before Erik can retreat further inside his blanket, Charles whips off the box and grinds the heel of his hand onto the unsuspecting cockroach.
Charles decimates it with his Bare Hands.
"I think I love you," Erik confesses. He watches intently as Charles picks up the corpse with a tissue and wipes the floorboards clean of the cockroach’s creamy innards.
The cockroach saga is finally over. Praise Charles’ parents for ever having sex.
"That’s very sweet of you, Erik," Charles laughs as he disposes of the corpse and washes his hands free of any cockroach legs. Erik feels like he can finally breathe again inside his flat and most certainly does not swoon.
Okay, maybe he swoons a little.
"Marry me?" Erik asks as he sheds his blankets like a shell.
Charles blinks and then a sly grin crosses his face. “What kind of boy do you think I am, Erik?”
"Please allow me to take my knight in shining armour and blue cardigans out to dinner tonight as repayment for slaying the thing." It isn’t a question and Erik would not accept a no for an answer.
"I’d be delighted to. But only at cockroach-free establishments though," Charles grins. "While I’m glad my slaying skills have finally come into its own, I’d much prefer using some of my other, uh, more orally focused skills, shall we say.”
Erik makes a small whimper in the back of his throat. “Are you sure you can’t marry me now?”
"Dinner first, and then we’ll talk. In bed. If you’re good and very lucky."