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Chapter 4:

A Mixed Bag of Chaos

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Hey, Red. I heard from Mikk that you're working weekends again. Hope you're doing better now. / Boris

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Hey, Red. Haven't seen you around lately. Come down next time. / Darius

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Hey, Red. It's poker night tonight. Don't miss out. / Carlos

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TM: Hey, you coming down or what?

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"Oh, Red? Long time, no see."

Allen just shrugged, keeping his hood up. It had all started out as a bit of a joke, really, from way back when he had first stumbled into the Devil's Nest, wearing a well-worn and fairly soggy red hoodie.

It had been raining heavily then, much like it did now. But unlike that time, Allen had actually managed to make it here without getting drenched, which was a definite plus.

"Yeah, had to do some overtime, but at least I'm back on my usual shift," Allen responded, sliding into his usual seat. "My manager likes me, while the rest of the managers and their underlings don't… But really, they've got nothing on the higherups, or the customers for that matter."

"Amen to that," the bartender said, continuing to clean some glasses. "Just the usual?"

"I need it," Allen mumbled, leaning heavily unto the table. "I nearly hit my head on the doorframe when I came in."

"So, I noticed," the bartender commented, voice perfectly bland. "Long weekend?"

Allen buried his face in his hands, vocalising his feelings on the matter with a distinct 'ugh'. "These two girls kept showing up, taking pictures and shit, and I just had to take it, because customer service and all that."

For a while, the bartender said nothing, simply bending down to retrieve something from behind the counter. "If they did that much, then you should press charges," he said at last, looking at Allen from over the counter. "Are you sure you want your usual? That shit isn't healthy."

Lifting himself up a bit, Allen gave a somewhat dismissive wave. "It's that or an espresso, or like three; I feel like I'm gonna drop any minute now. Besides, pressing charges? I'd definitely get fired for that."

The bartender immediately set to work on grinding some beans. "So, quit then. There are other jobs."

Allen could not help but quirk an eyebrow at that. "Where? And I'm not gonna take some delivery gig, just so you know. Got bad experiences with that."

"But Red, you're still in high school, right?" the bartender commented, not really looking at him. "If you'd just say the word, then I'm sure someone would be happy to sponsor you."

Someone, possibly even several of them. "I don't like debts," Allen said, and that much was true. "And nothing's ever for free."

The bartender had nothing to say to that.

For a while, there were no sounds other than those of the rain and of the bartender working. The bar really was dead at this time of the day, which was not really all that strange, seeing as to how it was a really early Sunday morning, and Allen had barely scraped together four solid hours of sleep in-between now and Friday.

Allen's night shift had ended roughly an hour ago, but he was still too low on energy to take the high route. And since Allen barely even had pocket change on him, this meant that he would have to walk all the way back home in this kind of weather.

Thus, when it had started raining harder and Allen had just so happened to pass by, and seeing that the bar was still open, he had simply decided to go along with it. The fact that this place was apparently open at this odd hour did not scare him away; the odd opening hours was just another fact of life.

But, in hindsight, maybe heading inside had not been his smartest move as of late. Because now that he was in a dry, warm, familiar and relatively comfortable environment, Allen found himself struggling to keep his eyes open.

Heck, Allen had even sent Timcanpy ahead, and−

And−

I'll just rest for a bit, he thought. Just five more…

His eyes flew back open and he sat up straight, staring first at the glass and then at the one who had brought it along.

"It's on the house," the bartender said. "Try it."

Allen just stared, trying to determine the man's motives.

It reached the point when the man just heaved a sigh, glancing at the clock. "Time is money, and I was supposed to close up shop more than half an hour ago. Do you need me to call anyone to come and pick you up, Little Red?"

Allen's eyebrow twitched at the nickname. Little Red Riding Hood; except he had worn a red hoodie, not a riding hood, and he had not been on his way to visit grandma or anything. But yeah, using the name they had given him was better than giving them his own, really. "No need," he said, reaching for the glass.

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In summary, being reinstated to the weekend shift was great. The prospect of having a surplus in his bank account was great. The rest though? Not so much.

Friday had been hectic but all right. Now Saturday on the other hand? Freaking chaos.

"C2! Where are you, C2?! Come on out! C2!"

In hindsight, that stunt he had pulled the other day had been a seriously bad idea.

Why?

Because it had brought Crowned Clown's fans out of the woodwork, and presumably a few vengeful Mugen fans as well.

And fans like these were typically the fanatical kind.

Thus, Allen had sought refuge behind some bulky air-conditioning unit, shrinking down his cloak until it was basically just the cowl covering his head and a bit of his shoulders, before vanishing it altogether and pulling up his hood, putting away both Crowned Clown's ethereal light and his fairly eye-catching white hair.

Allen still kept his claws though, alongside the mask, because while there did not appear to be any Akuma in the immediate vicinity, they were hardly the only thing to be concerned about.

"C2! Come on! C2!"

In hindsight, Allen had severely underestimated the fandom; his own at any rate.

He must have been really distracted by those multiple assassination attempts.

"Hey, did you check behind the air conditioning unit? I think I heard something!"

Yeah, and that was Allen's cue to get up and fucking jump, so he did, re-summoning his cloak as soon as he had fallen past the ledge.

"Ah! Oh my God! He's here! He's really here!"

And now he's gone, Allen thought, already mid-swing, headed towards the next building.

"No! C2! Please come back!"

Yeah… no.

"Come back or I'll−"

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

With some speed and acrobatic manoeuvres, Allen managed to vanish from their line of sight while still staying close just in case that crazy fan really did decide to jump.

Because those things did happen on occasion.

Fortunately, this Saturday was not been one of them, but whether or not his luck would hold up for the rest of the weekend, or for the rest of his career for that matter, remained to be seen.

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Sunday… was a mixed bag of chaos. Some of it was good, because Allen had more than filled his quota. Some of it was bad though, because there were even more crazies than usual out tonight, and unfortunately, they were not the kind that could be vanquished or even arrested for that matter. Not by him at any rate.

"I can't keep working like this," Allen muttered to Timcanpy while checking the time. "These people are crazy."

The only good thing about all of this was that his shift was almost over. Almost.

His phone started buzzing suddenly, startling him so much that he nearly dropped it. "So. Fucking. Close," he hissed, putting it to the side just long enough to hand Timcanpy his communicator.

He took the call without bothering to say anything, seeing as to how he was well aware of just who was on the other end.

"Yo, done with your shift yet? Are you gonna turn up or what?"

Wordlessly, Allen reached up, about to pinch the bridge of his nose before stopping midway through the motion. Because one: There was a mask in the way. Because two: The hand not holding the phone was still adorned with long razor-sharp claws, and Allen had just come astoundingly close to poking himself in the eye with one of them.

"Tyki," he hissed. "Read your damned texts."

There was a slight noise of surprise from the other end. "But I don't recall seeing any…"

Allen frowned, because he was pretty certain he'd− Well, it didn't matter now, did it? "Right… okay, so maybe I didn't text you, but no, my shift hasn't ended yet. And no, after that, I'm heading straight home, because I've got classes in the morning."

There was a noise of disagreement from the other end, but Allen hung up without waiting for the continuation. He had heard it all before after all, because for a bad guy, Tyki was surprisingly insistent upon talking about labour laws, especially those pertaining to minors.

On one hand, Allen could most certainly appreciate the concern. On the other hand, beggars could not be choosers and all that, because even with waived tuition and waived medical fees due to his contract, there was still rent and food expenses and−

With a sigh, Allen slipped the phone back inside his pocket and plucked the earring communicator from Timcanpy's mouth, clipping it back in place. Then he sat down, willing his hands not to shake as he undid the wrapper of his only remaining energy bar.

Hopefully, there would be no further interruptions, because he was running low on energy as it was.

His phone buzzed again, this time around with a couple of texts, but Allen very pointedly did not check them. Well, not for another five to ten minutes anyway.

'Look,' he finally replied. 'I'm a wreck, and I don't make good company right now. I'll text you when I feel a bit more like a human again. OK?'

He pressed send and waited.

About ten seconds later, he received a simple response. "OK."

No emoticons, ergo it was fair to assume that Tyki was not in such a good mood.

That made two of them.

-o0o0o-

Unfortunately, the next week showed little sign of being better than the last. In fact, it started out so badly that Allen had to struggle not to give in to the urge to just call Tyki and vent about it. But no, for now, Allen simply had to exercise restraint, and not just in regards to that but also in regards to a whole lot of other things. Because Tyki was a bad guy, and Allen knew for a fact that the Agency would pay close attention to Allen's performance for the upcoming weeks. Thus, Allen would have to be even more careful than usual, even when he was not on active duty.

But in any case, Tyki Mikk was a bad guy; Allen was not entirely sure how bad, but he was positive that the man was into some shady shit. Some drugs too, probably. At the same time though, Allen was also fairly sure that Tyki was not a bad guy, because while Allen was positive that Tyki was some sort of criminal, the man had always tried to look out for him in his own special kind of way.

A few of the other regulars at the Devil's Nest were similar, but Tyki had always been just a tad more interested that most. The other patrons had a more standoffish demeanour; satisfied as long as Allen bothered responding to their texts every now and then. Tyki meanwhile texted at least every other day, usually about relatively mundane things or to ask if Allen was coming down to the bar or willing to meet up somewhere else.

It was a strange companionship, to say the very least. But Allen was not about to say no to receiving discount coupons to various restaurants around town. Or to being treated to lunch in exchange for lending a sympathetic ear, especially so when his funds were running low.

In hindsight, a whole lot of their so called 'relationship' had been founded upon food; mostly cheap, greasy junk food, but food nonetheless, and it was pretty damned hard not to develop some partiality to a person who kept offering it to you.

That said of course, Allen had definitely been wary at first. Heck, he was still kind of wary of the guy, but it was fairly low-key these days.

Of course, Allen was not about to tell the guy anything truly private about himself, but he could still talk about his life in general terms. The only real lie was that he was working part-time at some fast-food joint; Allen had actually done this at one point, so it was not very hard to fake it, whether he was speaking with Tyki or with the others.

And they were all faking it too, so it was only fair. Or at least they had been faking it at first. These days, Allen was fairly certain that the displays of concern and affection were actually more genuine than the opposite.

The turning point must have been around the time of murder attempt number nine, when Allen had shown up for the weekly poker night with bruises and noticeable limp.

One of the patrons had pulled him aside, putting rough, heavy hands upon his shoulders. It had been kind of cute, really; an unwitting middle-ranked mobster offering to protect and avenge him, as if he could not fight his own battles. It had been quite cute, but futile, because Allen had not been about to point the guy in the Hero Killer's general direction.

It had also been pretty cute how the lot had effectively forced Allen to input their numbers into his burner phone, and how a few of them had later on taken to sending concerned texts and voice messages whenever Allen failed to show up for the weekly gathering.

But really, Tyki was definitely the most tenacious as far as that was concerned and had become increasingly persistent in recent months. Allen figured that he might have given them all a bit of a scare back in February. Of course, they knew little about his encounter with the Hero Killer; they knew only what Allen had told them, which wasn't much.

Speaking of which−

"Not this shit again," Allen thought out loud, because he was so over this, honestly.

He was so over it, personally, but apparently, his subconscious thought differently.

"Just let me sleep, goddammit!" he hissed, clutching his aching head. "Give me nightmares? Fine. But let me sleep first, goddammit!"

Nights, or excruciatingly early mornings like this one, Allen seriously contemplated calling someone, maybe Komui, and telling him to turn up and either knock him out or take him out permanently. Because Komui was the one who had restricted the number of medicines Allen was allowed to take, limiting him to a single brand of painkillers, because none of the others had mixed well with the experimental drugs Allen had been forced to take while recovering from that incident back in February.

February. Yeah. So far, Allen had been dealing with it. And by dealing with it, he had in fact not dealt with it. Or well, he had dealt with the physical aspects of it, but the mental ones? Well, Allen had humoured Komui and the others and talked to some therapist at one point, but he had not found it particularly helpful, so…

So, Allen shuddered, burrowing deeper inside his makeshift cocoon of the covers and extra blankets. It had been about an hour and a half since he had returned from his shift, and he had classes in just a couple of hours. Unfortunately, it seemed as though he would not be able to catch much sleep in-between, because whenever Allen closed his eyes, he saw flashes of that night; the night in-between February 2nd and February 3rd. So, he stared up into the ceiling instead, at the darkness gathered up there.

Gritting his teeth, Allen steeled himself, determined not to lapse into another panic attack. Because he had already had one tonight, and fairly out of the blue at that. He would not report it though, obviously, because if he did, then he would no doubt get pulled from the weekend shift, possibly even from working altogether. And Allen honestly could not take that, financially or mentally; he needed the money to live and if he could not hunt Akuma at all, then he would go stir-crazy in less than a week. Allen knew that for certain; he had already experienced it once after all.

"Tim," he gasped. "Do you think you could−?"

Knowing what to do, Timcanpy darted off in direction of the bathroom while Allen just lay there, struggling to retain control. And to think positively, because you were supposed to do that, right?

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TM: You know…

TM: It's not a good sign to be forgetting things…

CBA: Tyki, which part of 'I'll text you when I feel a bit more like a human again' eludes you?

CBA: It means 'Don't contact me. I'll contact you.' As in 'Leave me the fuck alone.' Got it?

TM: Someone's irritable today.

CBA: Someone hasn't slept since Monday.

TM: …

TM: …

TM: …

TM: OK.

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