Chapter Text
september twenty-fourth, two-thousand-twenty-x (jobs)
there had been something definitive then. something so sure, and simultaneously apathetic, and for the first time, maybe even intimidating. one of those. all of those.
…click.
fine. be like that. clearly you don’t want my help anyways.
… something, something, déjà vu … hm.
blitzo sighed. well, it didn’t matter. if moxxie had made up his mind, there was no changing it.
"excuse me?"
"oh, holy shit—!" he almost dropped his phone off the railing, but caught it before it fell.
"d—hey, octavia...?" she stood between the screen door and the balcony with a betrayed expression. wednesday addams over here… "how much of that did you hear?"
"he doesn't think you're gonna visit him," she stated rather obviously.
"uh, yeah."
"so are you?"
he couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic.
blitzo hesitated a moment before deciding, "no."
octavia crossed her arms. "and why not?"
"it's—early," he excused. "did you want breakfast?"
"you're not answering the question."
blitzo was not loving the attitude. "okay, i'm not visiting because he doesn't want me to."
"that's not what he said," she argued. "he said he doesn't think you will. not that he doesn't want you to."
...huh. "well, yeah, but..." he couldn't really argue with solid logic, but his courage was already broken.
"it doesn’t really sound like he’s in the mood."
"since when has that stopped you?"
something itched at the back of blitzo's mind, like, "what would this teenager know about the world? what would she know about moxxie?" but he knew better than to shut her down, so blitzo let her continue.
"you don't have to stay for long, just go down there quick and then come back."
blitzo scoffed, “and what, you’re gonna make breakfast?”
“is that a challenge?”
he blinked, and then grinned. “maybe. what’s the aim, here?” blitzo asked. every once in a while, you could catch a light in octavia’s eyes, something inspired. “you want to make breakfast?”
“this is a matter of pride, old man. go down there and get it back and i might leave you some leftovers.”
"deal," he laughed as they shook hands.
a great thing about octavia was that she always laid it on pretty strong. she had her mother's dignity and her father's kindness, and her own sense of right and wrong.
octavia contained a smile, then awkwardly looked away.
"can you leave my dad's robe first, maybe?"
"oh—yeah, i need to head back in to grab something anyways…"
dink dink dink. like fingers tapping on glass...
…shuffling…
...mumbly chatter…
…more shuffling…
"uff!"
added weight, near the end of his legs. it was oddly comfortable.
"do you think he's awake?" blitz didn't try to be quiet, and moxxie figured that was the point, so there was no use in trying to sleep-in anymore.
"i do," moxxie raised his hand outside of the blanket. the scarring made it even funnier, in his own opinion.
"oh," he said. "well, that was easy enough. heeeyyyyy, mox!" blitz ripped the blanket away from his face. it was cold, but moxxie didn't try to fight it. "rise and shine," he projected.
"you weren't supposed to actually show up," moxxie spat. just gotta get through it. war of attrition style.
"i had to call your bluff," blitz put simply.
...fuck.
moxxie quickly, however carefully pulled the blanket back over his face, secretly confiding in the comfort of an arbitrarily elephant-shaped stuffed animal.
"hey, c'mon, no more sleeping-in," blitz said as he again pulled the blanket off his face. the two of them blinked at each other for a moment before blitz asked, "the fuck is that?"
blitz didn't pull hard at the animal, and moxxie barely tried to fight it.
there was the initial realisation, something like anger or annoyance, and then there was the secondary realisation that, it didn't matter. it couldn't matter. if it mattered, it would hurt more.
"no, yeah, go ahead, take it, i don't need it."
"what is it?"
he didn't turn to watch blitz's reaction, instead taking the opportunity to steal back his lost territory, and when that was gone, he'd hug the mattress, and when that was gone, the bedframe. he would function like a puppet who's puppeteer gave up trying to learn how to puppet.
"it's a heatin' pad," millie explained.
"oh." now he's the asshole.
the problem was that, blitz didn't seem to care either. the only way you can beat apathy is with more apathy, or so the story goes.
"so that's why you won't get up? you're sore?"
"no." ( yes.)
…kind of. a valid excuse, if nothing else.
"then what is it?"
"why do you care?"
if you're so pissed, then why do you keep showing up to a place you don't even want to be at? out of spite?
blitz nudged him a bit. "i'm still your boss, dipshit."
ah, right. "so are you gonna fire me?"
"that's not funny," he said sternly.
"no, well, i wouldn't blame you. i haven't clocked in for like..." he could barely count the days anymore. "like, a month. over a month," he corrected himself. "satan..."
moxxie pulled the blanket back over his head so they wouldn't see. he hated the way his voice trembled. he hated letting them hear it.
had it really been that long? why was that so shocking to him? he had sworn each day dragged on too long. and now he couldn't pick a single one out. she was right. blitz had been right.
"hey," blitz tugged at the blanket, but didn't pull it off. instead, something deliberately weighted was placed near moxxie's head.
"y'know what i think it is?" blitz asked rhetorically.
"i think you're scared."
"okay," moxxie said, and then nothing more. what a reach.
"i think you're so scared that you can't move," blitz continued. "you're like a deer in headlights and that's why you won't get up."
he wouldn't admit it, but that seemed... right, for some reason. it hadn't really been the idea going in, that was for certain.
"if i'm so scared, then what do you think i'm afraid of?"
"i don't know," he said simply. "you won't tell me."
well, how—no, where would you even begin?
they wouldn't get it. they'll never get it.
well…no, of course not. they'll never get it if you never say anything.
...oh.
"what's the point?" moxxie asked. he knew he was losing the battle. "what good would it do? it wouldn't change anything."
"well, mox, you can't change a whole lot here."
"exactly."
"no, i’m not done," he said. "you can't expect anything you do to change anything about this, you're tryna control something that can't be controlled. it's not gonna work."
shit.
okay, well, maybe saying it out loud doesn't sound very scary, but the implications—
"i'll tell you what's gonna work, moxxie. you want options, so i'm gonna give you some options. i'll be like..." so 'and' becomes 'or', "i'll be like—think of it like a videogame, i'll be like the character you're playing, you be the controller or something."
"i don't play videogames."
"well, that's lame as fuck. look, what do you want for breakfast?"
"i'm not hungry," he lied.
"no, that's not an option," moxxie felt the bed shake as blitz moved; he was sitting on one leg while the other hung off the edge of the bed. "you can't have nothing. you gotta eat. anything in the world," he tried to make it sound exciting, "literally anything. what do you want?"
"green eggs and ham."
blitz laughed and nudged him again. "you gotta be careful what you say, mox. i'll do it, no balls. you get one more try, come on."
no! stop!! i don't want to, i can't, this wasn't what was supposed to...
"fine." moxxie pulled the blanket off of his face.
it took a lot of consideration. a part of him wondered if this was just a hypothetical, that blitz wasn't serious, that he was just going to have to eat the damn mini-pancakes anyway.
but if you could have anything...
"i don't know," and his voice quaked, "like... churros?"
"yeah? what else?" blitz was paying full attention, with this stupid grin on his face, like he knew he had won. not like he was bitter, but that he was just... happy about it.
"a bocata," which he had never eaten before.
"okay," blitz pulled out his phone and started typing, "do you want a misto or a cappuccino?"
stop stop stop stop stop,
"cappuccino," he said, fully resigned.
"alright, and whaddayou wanna watch?"
"huh?"
he leaned over the end of the bed and dragged out the infamous box of vhs tapes. ooh.
blitz started pulling them out one by one, naming them off as he set them on the bed. moxxie could only watch in disbelief.
"they let you bring that up here?"
"oh, dude, visitation hasn't even started yet. i came in through the window."
"we're on the third floor." idiot.
"yeah, i'm pretty sure i lost a few on the way up. ferris bueller's sounds fun though, how 'bout that?"
does he even know what a bocata is…?
"sure," moxxie said, still trying to wrap his head around all of this.
"okay, cool."
blitz stood up, peaking out the door before shutting it. he fumbled with the VCR for a few minutes, almost falling off the chair, but in went ferris bueller's day off, and out went blitz, through a portal.
it's not gonna be what you want. it's not gonna taste as good as it does in your head.
or worse, this is as good as it gets. one decent breakfast out of a possible fifty.
and then what? the clouds all clear away? sunny days in venice? how would it feel then, that you were pouting over nothing? what would this all have been for?
or, if the clouds could clear away for just long enough, maybe he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face. he could close his eyes and pretend he was on a sandy beach in the mediterranean.
worth a shot, if nothing else.