New fanfiction on A Hat In Time ! I hope you're all well and safe in this very hard period.

I had started this fanfiction for a while and I figured that posting it might help to make me write more. I work a lot with motivation/encouragement, so posting it might be one of the best ways to motivate myself. Anyway, I hope you'll like this story! :D

Don't hesitate to leave me a comment/like if you do, it'll help me a lot!

Happy reading !

Erekio

PS: I made a drawing for this chapter but I can't add it on FF-NET. If you want to see it, you'll either need to read this chapter on AO3 or visit my Tumblr, erekiosuncreativeideas. Sorry, I can't do anything else about that.

Lukas Pryce had seen many strange things in his short life, especially as a college student: people doing incredibly stupid stuff during parties (not that he went to a lot of them), students watching porn in the lecture halls, wandering drunk students in the middle of the night… But this right there? This was way weirder than anything he had ever seen before.

"What the absolute fuck?" thought he young student, as he tried to take in the sight in front of him.

He was standing up in an entrance hall of a famous movie studio, the Dead Bird Movie Studio. To be honest, Lukas never really understood where the name came from and never really thought much about it until more recent events. All he used to know was that they made a lot of stuff, from movies to TV shows, and even musicals! It was strange to think that a single studio could manage such different genres and still doing a good job with them. The student never thought he would ever step in a place like this, but his life had recently taken a route very different than what he expected.

Several persons were running in front of him, most of them carrying fire extinguishers. A fire had apparently started in the middle of a shooting and smoke could be seen through the doors leading to the filming stage. No one was noticing him, as they were all preoccupied with the current situation, and Lukas almost thought about leaving. But he couldn't, as much as he wanted to.

Being a college student, especially a law student, was hard. In a system where students were in debt and had to pay a lot of things, Lukas couldn't afford to lose one of the only job opportunities he could get in his two years spent at the university. While he did have nice parents who helped him to fund his studies, he didn't like the idea of depending too much on them, especially on studies which were quite expensive.

So, yeah, he needed the money too much to consider leaving.

Lukas tried to get closer to the people, hoping to stop someone long enough to know if he should wait and come back later. Well, it did seem like the most reasonable solution, yes, but he had lost too many job positions because of his hesitation. Maybe he would look like a complete idiot, but if it meant he would get this job, then, he didn't care!

-"Hum, excuse me?" he asked, as he managed to grab a someone's arm, stopping them from doing whatever people did in case of fire emergencies. It was a blond man in his forties, and he was very much angry from the sudden interruption.

-"What are you doing? Let go of me, there's a fire in there!"

Lukas tried to get more of him, but the man pulled his arm from the student's hand, who didn't really know what to do with himself. It was a bad time to go to this job interview, after all.

"Maybe I should just leave and go back later?" he thought quickly, turning away from the reception desk. He could call the studio later to reschedule the interview. Sure, Lukas never liked phone calls in the first place, but hey, what can you do against a fire emergency? It was better to leave this place, call back later and have another chance next week. Or at least, he hoped so.

However, before he could push the exit door, two voices interrupted him. While most of his surroundings were loud and full of agitation, these voices were even louder, cutting short all of Lukas's inner monologue. The young student stopped in his tracks and threw a glance behind him, more than curious about what was happening on the other side of the room.

Two figures entered the room, apparently arguing with each other in the most intense way. One was a tall and sturdy black man, while the other was an older and smaller blond man. The former was wearing a set of very excentric clothing, while the latter was wearing a black costume, as well as a black cap on his head, which was hiding his eyes underneath. Both made big gestures with their arms, as they bickered. Something about them felt really familiar to Lukas who, for a brief moment, didn't understand why. It was only when he heard their voices through the general brouhaha that he remembered: they were the famous directors of the Dead Bird Movie studio!

-"Was it really necessary to have that many sparks in the last scene?!" asked the sturdy man -DJ Grooves-, pointing the smoke coming into the room with both hands.

-"Of course it was!" replied the older one, much louder, stomping his foot on the ground. This was the Conductor. It wasn't his real name but the old director never accepted to tell his real name to the media. He was mostly known as "The Conductor" and all of his movies were signed this way. Well, so were DJ Grooves's, but the latter's real name usually appeared somewhere in the credits.

They had recently started to work together on several projects and, while those became extremely famous blockbusters, it was said the two directors had problems working together in the past. It had seemed to improve through the years, but Lukas remembered reading an article somewhere, dealing with the direction problem on their latest movie at the time. While they were both very competent, they also had very different ideas and visions about movie-making, which made the filming quite difficult sometimes.

The argument kept going despite the agitation around them. In fact, most of the people in the room were avoiding them, by distancing themselves as much as possible from the duo, passing from one side to the room to the others by doing a detour in order not to be noticed.

-"It was? Darling, everything caught fire! I know you like action, but this was way too much!"

-"Pfff, as if you knew the basics of action movies! I know what action scenes need! Mind your own part of the movie, the music!" he said, putting a strong and ironical emphasis on the last word, as if he was mocking it. Which, in retrospect, was probably the case.

-"Excuse me? Conductor, darling, we talked about this: music is as important as action! A movie without any good music is worthless, just as it is without good and measured action!"

The bickering continued for a while and Lukas couldn't help but stare at the two directors. They didn't seem to hate each other as much as they did in the past, at least from what he had seen on TV, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. They both had strong personalities and those didn't mix well together.

Lukas didn't know what to do. He instinctively opened his shoulder back to take the job poster out of it. It was about a stagehand position, which didn't need a lot of experience. It demanded to know how to fix set materials and to know how to sew -which he did-, nothing hard, really. What matters was the pay at the end of the month, pay he very much needed for his studies.

He hesitated a moment: should he step in? Most of the people here seemed to avoid them as much as possible, maybe there was a reason for that? However, if he didn't do anything, he would get back home without any more job than before. What if someone showed up not long after he left and got the job? He didn't want to take the risk.

Lukas needed that money.

The student took a deep breath and walked towards the two bickering directors, feeling his heart sink in his chest. Not only was he approaching celebrities, but he was also going to interrupt them to ask for a job! In a way, this was an extremely bold move, which contrasted tremendously from his usual behaviour. In any other situation, he would have chosen to leave, not to bother them, try later… But he wanted this job and he was ready to step out of his comfort zone to get it!

He finally arrived next to the two men, who absolutely didn't notice him in the least, continuing their previous argument about the (un)necessity of using such or such pyrotechnic. Lukas felt eyes land on him: some workers seemed to notice his intent of interrupting the two directors and silently shook their head in his direction, telling him to give up, that he would end up regretting doing it eventually.

But the student didn't listen. Instead, he cleared his throat, first once, then twice, this time a bit louder. The two directors immediately stopped talking and turned in his direction, surprised by the sudden interruption.

-"Hum… Excuse me, I- I saw that you were looking for a stagehand and I came for the interview," he started, unsure. Lukas wasn't afraid to approach people, usually. But this wasn't a usual situation: he was facing two famous movie directors! And interrupting them in an argument during a fire emergency!

… Suddenly, the whole thing didn't seem like a good idea anymore.

The two men were now staring at him, probably not knowing how to answer. Lukas felt very nervous, being stared at that way. He felt like they were examining him from top to bottom, as if he was just an object.

All of a sudden, the Conductor let out a huge sigh and, still very much angry, quickly grabbed one of the fire extinguishers from someone's hand. He then pushed it violently in the student's arms:

-"You know what, fine, you're hired!" said the old director curtly, before turning away to leave like a sulking child: "Go put out the fires with the others!"

Lukas remained unmoving, too shocked to react right away. Next to him, DJ Grooves let out a tired sigh, maybe because he was used to that kind of things. When the Conductor noticed Lukas's non-reaction, he stomped his foot once again and pointed to the room from which came the smoke :

-"Now!"

Lukas jumped at the harsh order and turned to the stage room as fast as he could, extremely confused by what had just happened. Did he just… Get the job? That easily? There had to be a catch somewhere!

But here he was, passing through the door, only to find something on fire in the middle of the stage, surrounded by several people trying to put the fire out. Without thinking much, the student ran to meet them, almost falling down because of the weight of the fire extinguishers. No one seemed to notice him as they were all focused on the danger in front of them.

Lukas then joined their effort, disabling the safety lock on the device before spraying the fire.

Surely, this was just an exception… The working conditions weren't going to be any weirder, were they? Lukas felt doubt growing in him, as the flames became weaker and weaker as seconds passed.

What did he get himself into?

End of the first chapter ! I hope you enjoyed it ! :D

Chapter two is still a WIP at the moment, but that might change in the near future! My other fanfiction, Reliving An Old Nightmare, is my current priority, but I might continue this one if I'm in need of change!

Thank you for reading !