His head hurt. Really
He wanted to sit up more than he could remember wanting anything else, but a few attempts later he found that he simply lacked the strength. He made it almost halfway up before the weight of his head grew too heavy for his neck, and he let it fall back in the grass with a soft thud.
A groan wafted up from somewhere to his right. "Only highest Heaven is knowing how sore Dodger is feeling right now."
He stared blankly up at the sky, watching as thin, scruffy clouds scampered across the blue. There was silence.
"Dodger?" he asked at last.
"Who is being zhere?" Her voice was tired. He felt a groping hand land on his foot. The fingers tightened, then moved up his leg, and finally Dodger was able to use him to pull herself up into a sitting position. They locked eyes, but neither one of them said anything. They just stared at one another, bewildered together.
"Oi, dingo..."
That was a third voice. With considerable effort, he flopped over onto his side to see who had made the noise, and if he should care that he existed. This new figure wore a tattered corduroy jacket and had curly brown-blond hair that cowlicked near the base of his neck. Somehow, unbeknownst even to him, he recognized the man instantly.
"Good morning, Seeker."
"Seeker, eh?" Seeker opened one eye. "Are you talkin' ta me?"
"Yeah." Yet a fourth voice. He shifted his eyes to see that said fourth form had sat up and begun massaging his wrists. "I think he was talkin' to ya, smart-mouth."
Seeker narrowed his eyes. "Steady there, cockatoo. Ya need me ta teach ya a thing or three 'bout respectin' your elders?"
"Shirtless," Dodger greeted without enthusiasm.
"Lance-a-lashes," he shot back, scrutinizing her up and down.
"Snot-nose."
"Twinkletoes."
"Meathead."
One final groan, longer and louder than Dodger's had been. "Would you dang punks quit your bellyachin' and keep it down?"
He sat up quickly then and all four of them - he and Dodger and Seeker and Shirtless - stared at this fifth form in the grass. More than any of them he looked out of place with his button-down suit (classy coattails and everything!) and his collared white shirt. There was even a top hat perched on his chest. A bright shock of messy gray hair was fanned out beneath his head. He lay on his back with one arm thrown across his eyes, and he didn't look like he would be going anywhere anytime soon. He gave a sniff as though he saw them watching him even with his face covered.
"I'll teach you lot of no-good ruffians about respecting your elders."
Somehow, Seeker produced a fedora from behind his back, and he snapped it once in the air before setting it on his head. "Well," he said, "that's a ruddy nice way ta greet a kookaburra in the mornin', eh Fury?"
"Aw, go cry me a river and haul your droopy butt over the bridge." Fury took his arm from his face and held out his hands, waving them a few times and grunting a whole lot until Dodger impatiently grabbed his wrists and pulled him upright. They were all sitting in a circle now, just blinking and staring at one another.
I know them, he thought, but he couldn't yet... quite...
Shirtless, aside from lacking half his clothing, stood apart from the rest of their bunch with his deeply tanned skin - tanned even deeper than Seeker's - and his close-cropped, greasy-looking hair. A cord was wrapped around his neck, tied off at the end by what appeared to be a gold-glazed shark's fang. Dodger's hair too had a sort of shine to its blackness, but hers, on the other hand, fell in a great wave over her shoulders and poured down her back halfway to her waist. Quite the contrast to her snow-pale skin and the sandy dress that she wore.
Then there was... him. He didn't remember his name, and he looked down at his bony little frame as though that could somehow trigger forgotten memories. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt in a shade of green that was almost sickly and delightful, like the scales of a lizard, along with a pair of black sweat pants. Nothing particularly flashy, but comfortable. His skin, though pale like Dodger's, had a faint pink tint underlying it like a sunburn. The thought alone made him itch.
Shirtless was the first to break the silence, not even glancing up from the fingernails he was picking at with his thumb. "So, anyone got any bright ideas 'bout how we ended up out here?"
Dodger rubbed her forehead, lips pursed. "And vhere is 'here' being, exactly? Dodger is not remembering anyzhing about..." A tight pause. "Anyzhing."
Fury sighed like the wind, and Seeker tipped his head. "What say you on it, Envy? Go on now, don't be shy. There's a good joey."
There was a second pause, until he realized that Seeker and Dodger were both looking at him.
"Envy? Are you trying to imply that's me?"
"Likely wouldn't be sayin' it if I thought it was wrong now, eh?"
He touched a hand to his chest. Envy. The word did seem vaguely familiar... Reassuringly so.
Shirtless stood and traced his fingers through his mussy hair, still examining the nails on his other hand. "Well," he said, "I'm pickin' out some trees and grass... Looks like a pond over that way, maybe. I'd say we's landed ourselves in a city park of some kind."
Dodger flicked a ladybug off her elbow. "You do not say..."
"Come on, mates." Seeker stood too and offered one arm to Envy and another to Dodger. She in turn took one of Fury's hands, but Envy didn't. "We ain't gonna be gettin' anywhere by sittin' around out here like emus. I say we all strike out for the nearest town, eh?"
"I suppose it's as good a plan as any," murmured Envy. A long lock of black hair fell into his face. He pushed it back behind his ear with a frown.
Fury drew himself up to his entire height - which wasn't much considering that he was slouching, a hand placed against his back. "Back in my day, we didn't wake up lost in some darn park with our darn memories wiped. Stupid punk kids these days."
"If your memories are wiped," Envy droned, "then how can you possibly remember what it was like 'back in your day', old man?"
Fury looked right at him then, and it hit Envy for the first time that he had only one eye. A blue one. An eyepatch covered his left socket.
"Punk," he snarled, the wrinkles on his face twisting. The result was a pinched pug-dog-like face, though Envy wasn't quite sure how he knew what exactly a pug dog looked like.
"Come on now, we ain't got no need ta fight." Seeker stopped walking and stretched his arm up into the nearest tree. There was a snap and a flurry of raining leaves. Seeker briefly paused to admire the silver branch, then passed it off to Fury. "Here ya go, geezer. Try this on for size, eh?"
"Hmph. Now that's more like it." Fury adjusted his top hat and started off again, his makeshift cane tapping on the ground. He looked back only once, eyebrow raised, and called out, "Well? I'm not getting a lot of things I want right now, and I'm especially not getting any younger!"
Envy tucked his fists into the pockets of his sweatshirt and found himself falling into step alongside Dodger. When he began whistling a light tune she glanced at him, her frown deepening.
"Dodger is knowing you from somevhere," she said.
For some reason, Envy found this comment irritating. His shoulders tensed up, lifting nearly to his ears. "Yes, and so what? I'm pretty sure that I know you from somewhere too, confetti-bit."
Her eyes, chestnut-colored, narrowed further. "Dodger does not zhink she vas much liking you back zhen ei'zher. So, vould you care to be explaining to her how ve vere ending up out here in ze first of ze places?"
"Listen toots, Here's my little newsflash for you - I know just as much about all that as you do."
She tipped her head. "Or perhaps you are knowing more."
Shirtless spun around to face them and began walking backwards, even managing to duck a tree branch as he went. "Ayo! Hurry up or we'll leave the two of ya behind for the gators to get at!"
Seeker: "Go on with ya, mate. There ain't any gators in this neck a' the woods."
"Oh yeah? And d'ya expect me ta believe ya'd know it if there weren't, hat-hair?"
"'Cuz I reckon I woulda sensed 'em if there were. I've got me the ears of a Tasmanian devil an' the nose of a fresh dingo."
"Yeah? You wanna pick a fight about it? Ow!"
Envy couldn't suppress his smirk when Fury turned and whacked Shirtless on the back of the head with his walking stick.
"Hey! Geez Pops, what the heck was that for?"
"Stuff up your pie piece, ya ninny!"
Shirtless muttered to himself as he massaged his head and slouched after Fury. Envy watched this in amusement, then began to whistle once more. Again, Dodger shot him a strange look.
"Ve are not all looking alike," she said aloud in her accented English, "and Dodger is not seeing yet how ve could ever have become like friends if ve so irritate vun anozher... but Dodger knows that somehow ve are all connected."
"Pray tell, how exactly do you figure that, doll?" Envy asked, pausing from his whistling just long enough to ask her the question. Before answering, she spent a moment frowning at the back of Fury's head.
"Because unless Dodger is mistaken... Ve are all having ze exact same gap between our teeths."
The walk from the park to the road took nine minutes, and Envy kept expecting their memories to fade slowly back in as they went. They didn't. The five of them spent the time bouncing questions off one another - "How do you reckon we ended up out there?" "How do I know ya?" "You dang punks don't remember anything?" "Is zhis silly dress making Dodger look fat?"
Envy spent his time offering up the most sarcastic replies he could think of on such short notice - "Fell from the sky, butter biscuit," "Haven't the foggiest," "I remember that I hated you, turkey feather," and "Only from where I'm standing, tootsie roll." That did little to improve the others' moods.
"Will you shut your ding-dang mouth, ya rotten little whippersnapper?"
He rolled his eyes. "Yes sir, O great superior one; I am at your command."
The walking stick snapped across his forehead so fast that he didn't even have the chance to duck. He fell back into Dodger's arms, and she dropped him to the ground in distaste.
"Ow! Why, you-"
Seeker pushed Fury behind him despite the old man's protests and said, "You wanna dance, mate? Go on then, let's dance."
Shirtless cackled and pounded a fist against his other palm. "Now this I've gotta see."
Envy glowered at them both and tightened his fists in the grass. During their walk he had easily deduced that, not counting Fury's slouch, he was the shortest of the gang. Not to mention, unfortunately but very undeniably, also the youngest. How did numbers work again? Hm. Well, he definitelywasn't thirteen. He didn't know why that nagging thought kept popping up in the back of his brain, but it was obviously a lie.
So he'd be seventeen, and going on eighteen. Yes, that was definitely it. Duh. Still, even then Dodger and Shirtless had eight or nine years on him, easy, neck and neck like twins. Seeker had at least a dozen, and probably more. Maybe two dozen, actually.
Nah, couldn't possibly. After all, now he was seventeen. A shrimp of a seventeen-year-old, but practically an adult any day now. Seeker ought to know better than to mess with him. They all ought to. He'd show them up quite nicely in a fight. First he'd break Fury's arm, then strangle Shirtless, then he'd kick Dodger in the nose, then he'd bite off Seeker's ear and burn their remains to smithereens. It was about time they settled the pecking order here and now.
"...Whatever. Let's just go."
Strands of black hair had fallen across his eyes once again. Envy blew a puff of air at them and pushed them back from his face as he drew himself up to his full, clearly-seventeen-year-old height. There wasn't a whole lot of talking after that, so much so that Fury demanded to know what they were all plotting behind his back. Your murder, Envy replied, and instantly regretted that pathetic attempt at a comeback. Had his jabs always been so sad?
But finally the trees peeled away and the grass ran itself out to stubble, and they were out.
They hovered there at the edge of safety, staring at the street with its cars rushing past. Envy reached into the nearest tree and caught hold of a branch to steady himself as he surveyed these new surroundings.
"So?" Shirtless locked one arm behind his head and stretched towards the sky with the other. "Where can a guy go to get a tan around here, d'you think?"
"Come off you now," Seeker scoffed. "You're as tanned over as burned bread twice, mate."
"It's toast, ya curry brain!" Fury slammed his walking stick into the ground and stood there, snarling into the traffic. He made a bit of a ridiculous sight there all dressed up, his coattails flapping, his thick gray hair ruffling about him in the wind of passing cars. No one cared.
Dodger bounced anxiously on the tips of her toes. "So? Vhat are ve doing now?"
"Gotta pass these here iron ponies." Seeker jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the cars on the road. "What's it look like, sheila?"
"Well." Envy released the tree and held up his arms. "This has been a tingle-filled joy for me. However... this is where I'm bowing out."
Dodger whirled on him instantly. "You are about to do ze what?"
"Yo - For once, I'm with Twinkletoes here."
"Ya've only known her for fifteen minutes, ya porridge head!"
Shirtless shook his head and stepped towards Envy. "Ya can't just...go."
"Oh?" Envy arched one brow, keeping his hands in his hoody pockets. Dealing with his shoulders was the hardest part, but he managed to keep them relaxed. Barely. "And you're going to try and stop me?"
Shirtless opened his mouth, but shut it again. He frowned over at Seeker, who frowned at Fury, who just rolled his eyes and muttered something about runaway tween kids these days, dagnabit. Tween. Bah. Yeah right.
"Did you honestly expect," Envy asked in as bored a tone as he could muster, "that I would willingly stick around a bundle of nitwits for all eternity?"
"But..." Dodger reached out one hand, and Envy shifted away on his heels to avoid the grasping fingers. "Are you not feeling it? It is being much more somehow zhan just ze gap between all our teeth. Ve are connected. You cannot be leaving us. Not for good."
"Like it or not, Pixiedust, I'm going." And with that, Envy twirled around and walked away down the sidewalk, whistling. Where would he go? He didn't know yet, but he didn't plan to waste another second of his life around that pathetic bunch of fools. Who knew- Maybe in another time he had loved them, but he had no such memories anymore. Bailing out on them now before he could get emotionally attached was fair game, no regrets.
Seeker stepped aside to let him pass, which caused Shirtless to splutter. An argument broke out, but Envy didn't care to listen to what it was. He made it to the end of the block just as the crossing signal flipped from red to white, so he walked on.
He had hardly touched the other side of the road when the headache slammed straight into his face.
A wave of nausea washed over his entire body, cutting off his whistling abruptly and dropping him to his knees in an instant. His head erupted in a barrage of colors - a few thousand separate shades of green whirling like a kaleidoscope inside his head.
"No!"
The word was fuzzy and static, but Envy could make it out nonetheless. Was that his voice? Did he sound like that? He didn't sound like. Did he? Ick.
"D-don't do this! I'm apartof you!" "Yep,"
A bolt of lightning seared through his brain. Envy's eyes stayed shut, but his mouth fell open and he grabbed for the sides of his head. The voice said only one more word, warbled and faded.
"Good-bye..."
Someone grabbed his arm. The touch singed Envy's skin, and he screeched and tried to shove the other person back, but they held on.
"Kid, can you hear me? Are you all right? Do you need medical attention?"
Envy was heaved back up to his feet. And suddenly, it stopped. The kaleidoscope of green vanished, and so did the voices. He had a splitting headache. Literally, knowing his luck today. His forehead flared as though some lunatic had thrown acid across it, though Envy wasn't sure how he knew what acid was or what it would feel like when it hit.
A man stood before him, a man with dark skin and even darker eyes. His grip on Envy's forearm was like a chain.
"Can you hear me? Are you all right?"
Envy just squinted at him, processing the existence of words but not the meaning behind them.
"Are you all right, kiddo?" the man asked a third time. "You looked like you were having some sort of seizure."
"...No, I..." Distracted, Envy blinked past the man and back down the sidewalk where he had come. Fury, Seeker, Shirtless, Dodger - all of them - were sitting on the ground with their hands clutched over their ears.
All of them.
"I, uh... I-I was walking and I, uh... I accidentally tripped. Right here. On the sidewalk. Where I'm pointing. Just now."
The man raised a doubtful eyebrow, but he let go of Envy's elbow when Envy pushed his hand away.
"If there is anything-"
"No, please - Don't let me keep you." Envy stuffed his hands back into his pockets and inwardly rolled his eyes.
"...If you're entirely sure." The man began to walk again, peeking back over his shoulder only once. Envy offered him the slightest of nods, and the man turned a corner around a building and was gone.
Now Envy studied the sidewalk before him warily. Like the man, he too checked over his shoulder. Shirtless was standing now, arms crossed, sneering at the nearest cab driver. Seeker was in a crouch with Dodger clinging to his forearm as she struggled to climb to her feet without revealing anything beneath that applesauce-colored dress of hers. They seemed to have recovered.
Well. Here went nothing, then. Envy reached out with his right leg, his foot hovering above the cement, and then he placed it down. A sharp pricking began in the center of his brain like the second hand on a ticking clock. A bit bolder now, Envy took another step forward.
The rush of nausea came back, piercing into him full force. Again came that voice - "A part of me that I don't need anymore." Envy yelped, immediately bit his tongue, and stumbled away and fell back on his rear. The pain subsided when he moved backwards, but that pricking sensation returned to his whole skull. One hand cupped over his forehead, he glanced past his shoulder once again to see that Seeker and Shirtless had both collapsed. Fury screamed something that contained the word "Dagnabit!" more likely than not.
Great. Just fantabulous.
Envy stood as slowly and nonchalantly as he could. Again he blew sticky strands of hair back from his face, and then without pause he turned on his heels and set off back across the street the heartbeat the coast was clear. He did not run, only walked with a half-grimace, half-smirk on his face, and the closer he grew to the others the higher his shoulders rose until they were almost brushing his ears.
He stopped in front of Dodger. "Well," he said, "that was certainly... interesting."
She gave him a nasty glare and pushed herself up to her feet, sandy skirts flowing around her knees. "You," she snarled, jabbing a finger against his chest. She jabbed again for good measure.
Envy placed one arm behind his back and the other across his stomach as he ducked his head. "At your service, it would seem."
"Dodger said it." She spun away to face Seeker, folding her arms. "Vas Dodger not saying it? Ve are having ze connections vith each other zhat ve are not able to be seeing."
"Ayo." Shirtless took his hands away from his temples, staring at Envy over Dodger's shoulder. "How the heck'd ya do that to us, pipsqueak?"
"Saw ya take a tumble back there, mate," added Seeker with a tip of his fedora. "Ya thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"
"Rotten kids these days. Always thinking."
Jovially Seeker replied, "Oh, hush up now, ol' man," without taking his gaze from Envy's face. He lifted one eyebrow, repeating his question without words. For his part, Envy stayed silent. He rocked back and forth on his heels, his hands tucked away in his pockets. Long moments passed, but the others didn't say anything - not even Fury.
He didn't want to say it. He really, really incredibly very much so didn't want to say it, but finally Envy took it upon himself to snap the silence.
"We're stuck. We separate, then it would seem that... sickness comes and gets us. We must keep together always; we'll never last on our own."
A grin split across Seeker's face, showing that gap between his front teeth that all of them shared. "Looks like the ruddy lot of us is gonna be the best a' pals forever 'en, eh?"
"Yeah." Envy put bitterness into the word and spat on the ground just in front of his feet. "Regular BFFs. I can hardly retain my ecstasy."
"Kids these days and their friends." Fury rapped his walking stick against the concrete. "Back in my day, we didn't have no friends."
"You don't got friends now," Shirtless retorted, only barely beating Envy to the punch.
Fury looked away with a scowl. "Dang friends, always pokin' their noses up into other folks' business."
"So." Envy had taken his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms, but now he decided that he preferred his hands in the pockets of his hoody and so replaced them. "We're cursed to stay in one another's company. We haven't the faintest idea who we are, where we are, or where we came from. As much as I am having the time of my life right now, I have to be the one to ask: What course of action are we planning to take from here on out?"
A brief silence fell, or at least as much silence as there could be what with cars rushing past them on the street, and finally the question was answered by Dodger, who was tapping her forefingers together against her upper lip.
"I zhink," she said in her careful way, "ve are needing a place to have us be staying at for keeps. To do zhat firstly, ve must be finding us a vay to be securing an incoming. Ah, income, da."
Shirtless grunted, "What's an income?" and only when he received sharp glances from the others did he suddenly blink, snap his fingers, and sputter, "Oh, you're talkin' 'bout moneys!"
"Yes," Envy repeated. "'Moneys'."
Shirtless held his hands up as though in surrender. "Ayo, I never claimed a' be the smartest guy on the block - only the best lookin' one."
"Be a few drops less modest, why don't you?" Envy glanced away and swept his eyes up and down the buildings on the far side of the street, bouncing on his toes. Then he turned back to Dodger. "Hold on a moment now. How did you remember that bit about needing money to secure us a place to stay?"
Silence fell. Dodger blinked and swayed slightly on her feet. "Dodger...is not sure."
Seeker cocked his head to the left. "I 'member that too, now that ya've said it out loud, sheila. Don't reckon I did a shake before."
Envy shook his head, reluctant to admit that he had been about to say more or less the same thing. It was getting fairly late in the morning, and He didn't spot a 'Help wanted' or 'For hire' sign dangling from the front of a single shop on the far side of the street.
Come to think of it, how did he know what he was looking for?
"Dodger is seeing a diner," she offered, nodding her head towards the end of the street, the opposite direction from the one Envy had tried to walk off in. "She can cook."
Shirtless took his hand away from his forehead. "You can cook," he snapped. "Ain't she can cook. It's you, ya get it, Sparklekiss?"
Dodger looked perplexed. "Vhat is being ze difference?"
"A diner." Envy rocked again from toes to heels, toes to heels. "I imagine that won't pay well at all."
Seeker said, "An' ya know this because...?"
"I just do," Envy growled back, and he flicked his eyes away. A faint heat rose in his cheeks when Seeker's gaze continued to bear into him. He didn't want attention. He just wanted to be left alone.
"Back in my day, a handful of nickels was enough to keep an entire bushel of us fed for a week," Fury declared, straightening up importantly. "I don't plan to sit on my grizzled ol' butt out here on the road until I die. This senior citizen needs a proper roof over his head, dagnabit."
"Then why don't you go and sell that pretty coat of yours? Should fetch a pretty penny."
"Who do I look like to you; a flower child? I will not be walking 'round this city all bare-chested-like, ya goldfish brain!"
"Whyever not?" Envy inclined his head. "Shirtless does it."
Shirtless looked up from picking at his fingernails, then looked back down again.
"Cookies," Dodger said, and that word somehow decided everything. The five of them trudged down the sidewalk until they stood across the street from the little diner.
"They ain't on the markie for employees," Seeker noted, face twisting. "Aw, curse it."
"It vill not be hurting us to asking," insisted Dodger, and so they did. The manager, a short and round stuffy-looking sort of man with a permanently-flushed face, shooed them away before they had gotten ten words out between them. He seemed to find Shirtless annoying especially, ranting something about 'no shirt, no shoes, no service', and particularly not when there were decent customers and children inside who were trying to have a peaceful meal. At that, Envy checked his own feet to find a pair of scuffed gray sneakers he hadn't noticed before. Fair enough.
Outside, Fury threw one hand into the air before wincing and placing it against his back once again. "Well, that's torn it. Anyone else got any bright ideas?"
The smirk came out before Envy could stop it, so he didn't try. He liked the feel of it curling around his face, and he twirled around on his toes and bowed to them all once again.
"You, my faithless comrades, can leave that tiddlywink to me. Causing chaos just so happens to be my specialty."
Thirty-five minutes later, he had his pockets stuffed with rats and salami. Almost ironically, it was the handful of spiders that was the hardest to find, but that had never stopped him before.
... Before. Yeah.
Envy frowned at the itch at the back of his memory, then shook his head. He stood in the side alley partway behind the diner; the one with the green dumpster at its end. A metal door led directly into the kitchen from here. Envy wriggled in his fingers and eased it open a crack. The diner's cooks were hard at work scrubbing dishes and mixing food. As Envy watched, a frazzled waiter burst in, only to disappear back out into the main area with a bucket of water and a dishcloth that smelled far too strongly of oranges.
"Yo, Envy. Got the dogs."
That was Shirtless, who stood curiously at the end of the alley, but not curious enough to come any closer. His fingers were tightened around the respective collars of a greyhound and a terrier that he had found somewhere, although where Envy did not know. He looked away from the door, gave Shirtless a courteous nod, and then pulled his other fist from the pocket of his hoody.
"Go on now," he cooed, releasing the black widows. He'd caught only four of them, and they skittered across the floor before disappearing into the shadows. A boot came down on one of them and Envy put out his lower lip in a pout. That hadn't gone as well as he'd been expecting.
The rats went next. Catching them had been simple, and they skittered and squeaked as they ran around the kitchen. Unlike the spiders, they didn't go so unnoticed.
"Rats! Rats in the kitchen!"
"The dogs," he hissed to Shirtless, shutting the door as he turned away. From his pocket he produced the salami and gave a wave and a whistle. The dogs' ears went up, they started to bark, and Shirtless let them go. The salami was then tossed into the kitchen. The dogs, yipping excitedly, went after it. Within seconds the kitchen was reduced to startled chaos, and Envy leaned back, arms folded and eyes shut as he drew it all in.
Once the coast was clear, he slipped inside and stuffed as much dumpster-junk as he possibly could into the large pot boiling on the stove, enough to make it bubble and overflow onto the stove in a sizzling mess and then onto the floor. The final result, a concoction containting fishbones and lint and hairballs and other random trash, smelled awful enough that even a blind man could have figured out that there was something wrong. Envy switched the stove up to max, tossed some rags into the stove fire, lit a few brooms, grabbed a bag of sugar, and barely made it out the back door again by the time the manager came in to see what his incapable employees had been doing.
Envy whistled as he walked from the alley and back to where the others stood. "Mission accomplished," he told them simply, and they spent several long moments amusing themselves with the sight of waiters and dogs and diner patrons all running around in a blind panic behind the windows. After a third of the employees had been fired, the other two-thirds had quit, and several of his customers were screaming about dog bites and animal control, the manager had been only too happy to hire them - even Fury - and even Shirtless - so long as they simply got rid of "that awful soup" and "those fox-sly rats" and "those horrible dogs" before rush hour came around at eleven o'clock sharp, and only if Shirtless would put on "this here red jacket before someone saw him going around half-dressed like that."
Funnily enough, he never once put two and two together. Stupid man.
There was paperwork to be done first, however. After the kitchen had been put back in some sort of order, the five of them clustered around one of the tables with the checkered cloth.
"Name?"
Slouched against the table and still feeling rather cocky about his job well done, he replied "Envy." Their to-be employer frowned up at them from behind his glasses.
"Name?"
"...Uh..."
Fury prodded Envy in the back with his walking stick.
"My name is... Elliot. Yes, that's definitely it. Elliot, uh... Smith."
That elicited a swift kick to the ankles from Dodger and a sigh from the manager, but he scribbled it down on his paper nonetheless. When prompted, Envy/Elliot named Shirtless "Monty" and Seeker "Dallas". All three names came from the 'Employee of the Month' wall, but if the manager noticed then he never said.
Fury named himself "Maximus" for no discernible reason as far as Elliot could tell, unless he actually had a sense of humor hidden under that mask of wrinkles and this was a joke in reference to his age. Dodger, on the other hand, was christened "Willow" by Elliot. The dagger-sharp glare she gave him suggested she knew this stemmed from her inability to properly pronounce words that began with 'W'. It would be hilarious forever; of that, Elliot would make sure.
Work began not too much longer after that - noon was fast closing in, after all, and several patrons had already formed an impatient little line - and the five of them retreated to the kitchen to plan their strategy.
"I have to confess, it would seem I look quite dashing in black and white," Elliot announced as he tugged on the cuffs of his sleeves. "Don't you agree?"
Maximus only hmphed, so Elliot squished the old man's face between his palms and put on an expression of sarcastic pity.
"Now baby, you go out there and show them all that Maximus is a force to be reckoned with. Just don't forget to smile."
"Aw, don't you be telling me what to do, young whippersnapper. Dang kid."
"Come, Envy." Willow had found a bright red apron somewhere and tied it in an enormous bow both behind her back and in front of her stomach. "Do not be taunting him. You and Dodger must be starting vith ze cooking."
"Personally, I find myself prefering Elliot. And you would do well to refer to yourself by your new name."
Willow scowled back at him, showing the gap in her teeth as she pulled back her lips. She brandished the wooden spoon in her hand, knuckles white, like it were a far more dangerous weapon and she thought he was afraid of her.
"You'll learn to answer it one of these days," Elliot promised. "That's all I'm ever going to call you."
"Be getting ze bread now," she told him stiffly, and he bowed.
"As you are vishing, my sugarcake."
She hurled the spoon at him, clipping Elliot over the ear, but he hardly cared. Whistling, he selected a nice knife to slice the bread with when Dallas yanked him aside by the collar.
"Why 'Smith'?" he demanded.
"It happens to be a very popular surname," Elliot replied, surprised both by the fact that he knew this and by the fact that Dallas seemed so upset. "I imagined it would help us blend in. What's your problem with it, and how funny will that make it for me over the coming months?"
Dallas only frowned. "...It jus' sounds familiar somehow."
"All the better, then," Elliot said with a shrug, and Dallas wandered off to fetch Willow a new wooden spoon.
Weeks passed by in this way. Like Elliot had predicted, the money they earned would not be enough to buy them a house - not yet - but the others remained hopeful. They reported to the little diner faithfully each morning, Monty and Maximus taking orders ("Smile" Elliot scolded Maximus every day) while he and Willow and sometimes Dallas did the cooking in the back and tried not to poison, strangle, mutilate, or set each other on fire while their employer was watching. Elliot wasn't sure if Trental was pleased with their work since everything about him seemed so incredibly grudging, but they never got fired.
And then, one day, he appeared in the diner.
Elliot sensed him at once and jerked up his head at the exact same moment as Dallas and Willow. "Oi," Dallas called, setting down his cloth, "What's all that ruckamuck about, eh?"
The three of them clustered around the little window, locking eyes with Monty. He offered them a helpless shrug, face grim and his palm's heel to his forehead. It wasn't long before he and Maximus joined them in the kitchen.
"Who is he being?" Willow wondered for them all. "He is making ze hairs on Villow's neck tingle just by his being sitting zhere."
"Golden," Dallas said, like that was the boy's name.
Someone shoved Elliot from behind. Monty, by the sound of his voice. "Go get 'im, Ellie. You're cute and innocent. Ask 'im what he wants."
"Don't forget to smile," Maximus offered with a smirk of false politeness.
It signified that he was either a leader or the most expendable of their group - preferably the former - and so Elliot accepted the task reluctantly by slinking across the diner and trying to make it look like he wasn't.
"Um," he said when he stopped by the table in question. Just being near this boy blurred his vision and sent a prickling sensation over his forehead. "Can I help you somehow?"
"Huh?" Golden looked up sharply and sucked in a quick breath. "Ohhh my gosh."
Elliot flicked his eyes to the redheaded girl sitting across from Golden and frowned. There was something he hated about the color red, as he had become aware of over the past several weeks, but he didn't know what it was.
Golden cleared his throat. "Mm... Mmhmm... Uh. Wow. Okay. So." His hair was dark brown and spiked like tufts of untrimmed grass, and he ran his fingers through it, never once taking his gaze from Elliot's face. Elliot tried hard to be patient and unflinching, even though it would've been nice to blow the itchy strands of hair away when they fell over his eyes.
"Can I help you somehow?" Elliot asked again, and this time he pretended to smile. A faint trembling began in his feet. With Golden watching him like that, all he wanted to do was wither away into dust. It didn't make matters any better that the girl too was staring at him with wide eyes, her fingernails digging into the tabletop. The faintest "Meep" escaped her lips.
Golden shifted his eyes beyond Elliot's shoulder, and because of the reflection in the window glass before him, Elliot knew that he had caught sight of the rest of the pack. Their heads ducked away when Golden glanced over in their direction.
"Uh, could I just...?" Golden made a movement towards Elliot with his hand that made Elliot flinch more than he'd ever admit to the others. The hand withdrew, Golden looked back at his menu. "Uh... Well, you work here, I guess." He guessed. "What would you recommend?"
"The grilled cheese," Elliot answered without hesitation or thought. "Willow was born making it, and purely between you and me Dallas has a tendency to overcook the soup."
Now, why had he said that? Elliot frowned inwardly at himself as the prickling in his head grew sharper. What was it about this boy that was making him be so forthcoming? And why did he feel like he'd just named the food Golden had already been planning to order?
Golden and the redhead exchanged a knowing glance that made Elliot tense his shoulders. "Sounds all right to me," Golden said. "What about you, Zoey?"
"Definitely the grilled cheese for me too then, Mike." The way she put emphasis on that name sent chills down Elliot's spine, and he felt a muscle in his cheek give a slight twitch. "And mint tea, please."
Elliot made a few marks on his notepad that he actually didn't need at all and offered a sweeping bow, just to be theatrical. "Your food will be out as soon as we get around to it," he said, and spun on his heels.
"Don't put any salt in it," Mike called after him. "That would just be malevolent."
A thousand stabbing needles raced over his skin. His vision went fuzzy with green. There were sparks in the back of his memory like someone had started up a conversation in the next room and he could hear the noise of it, but not make out the words. His heart seemed to skip at least half a dozen beats. Elliot froze in his tracks, then turned and fixed this Mike boy with a long, curious stare. "What did you just say?"
Mike smiled thinly into the water glass that either Monty or Maximus had set out for him. "Oh, nothing."
The prickling in Elliot's head had started to turn to a headache, so he sent Dallas out when the sandwiches were done. Dallas, however, began to choke when Mike glanced out the window and said loudly "Man, a tuba!" Monty dropped his soapy water bucket when Mike suggested to Zoey that she pour ketchup on her sandwich, and she slammed a palm on the table with a shout of "Vetoed!" Willow couldn't resist chiming in when their conversation turned pleasantly to the upcoming Olymplics. And Maximus, coming to fill their glasses, seemed taken aback when both the teenagers at the table asked him, quite politely, for a bowl of chester - "Uh, chestnuts" - to split.
And yet none of them could figure out what all of this meant.
"Who are they?" Monty demanded, swearing loudly and hurling his dishcloth down on the kitchen counter.
"Your guess's as fair as mine right about now, mate."
"Villow is not liking zhem two bits."
"Quiet down, ya porkheads," Maximus hissed as he glanced out the window separating kitchen from dining area. "Someone out there will hear you, dagnabit. You want to get us fired?"
It took all of Elliot's strength - every squirming little ounce - to creep his way back across the diner when Mike and Zoey were ready to pay their tab.
"Have a particularly lovely evening tonight," he managed, locking eyes with Mike and then looking away just as fast. "Please come again. Preferably sooner rather than later."
Mike laughed, showing a gap between his front teeth. It wasn't a particularly condescending laugh, but it raised Elliot's shoulders just the same.
"You know?" he said as he reached to intertwine his fingers with Zoey's, "I may just have to take you up on that."