Chapter Text
Dear Yoba.
"What do you think Shane? You gotta have a preference! Everyone has one they like most!"
Dear lord beyond the pale, please, PLEASE, release me from this prison.
"Everyone has oooooone ..."
Sam's voice was doing this annoying thing, where it turned more high pitched at the last syllable, turned more grating. Shane's face was all scrunched up by now. He usually makes sure to retain a neutral, boring, plain grimace, as flat and indistinct as possible, his voice even, his whole self: uninteresting and unexciting.
All of it should theoretically repel someone like Sam, who seemed to be the original model for those old fashioned "Have a radical saturday!" computer ads.
Shane thinks back on those.
For a brief moment, the twenty-something was tuned out, as the thirty-something travels back in time, to video stores and landline phones.
A worse time, definitely.
But didn’t make the present seem any better.
"Okay, I will explain it to you again, alright?", Sam sits back down next to Shane.
Shane, who was still stacking the Moja colas into the down below shelves, a cheaper version of Joja cola, but the wet sock taste was just like the original.
"I think Morris is right around the corner", Shane grumbles, not looking up from his box.
Sam just grins wider, "Dude! He's gone out to Pierre's! You know that will take a while"
"Hm"
"So anyways, there's these cats that live in the forest, right? And they're warriors and it's really cool!" Sam's whole face was shining.
Together with the blond hair he could have just as well been a literal ray of sunshine manifest.
"And they're divided into clans, okay? You still with me? You got that?"
"Hm" Shane is not looking up. Nope. Not gonna subject himself to seeing that .
"Good! Well, okay. These clans all got personalities right? So there's ThunderClan, the strong ones. RiverClan, they're kinda stuck up and fat and lazy. ShadowClan is evil of course - and WindClan is just kinda there to be honest, but they're very fast and they really like rabbits- So! The question is! Again! Which Clan are you!"
He's practically hopping up and down with excitement.
Really, it was a monumental achievement of Sam's that after years of working side by side with Shane at Joja Mart, he had never lost this particular spark of his. Every one of those two days a week he walked in and walked out of it with a big smile on his face and a topic to endlessly yap about.
And today it was this. Whatever this was. Shane was confused. And tired. And really craved something to drink. Those Moja cans looked enticing all of a sudden, despite their wet sock taste written all over the hideous branding.
Which Clan was Shane …
Probably those fat and lazy cats, lying by the river, putting their paws into the water, waiting for a big fish to just swim right in.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you”, Sam teases him.
Shane looks at the other man with wide, offended eyes. It was the first time this week someone had actually broken his frown. Into a deeper frown.
“I think I’d rather be a house cat. Sit on the porch and wait for my bowl to get filled. You know. And not have to fight for my life against barbarians”
Sam chuckles.
And that’s actually a very cute sound all in all.
Shane physically has to wince as that thought occurs in his mind.
“What would you even be?”, he growls, doing his best to sound pissed off and failing at it.
Sam shrugs, “Never really thought about it”
“What!” Shane looks back up, looks positively angry , “Then why were you hounding me for an answer, punk! Can’t even make up your own mind!”
“I dunno”, Sam shrugs, “No one really ever asked me before, I gotta think about it-”
“As if you were capable of thought”
Sam’s shoulders sink, “Jerk”
Shane shrugs, “I am”
“Well, I think-”
Shane suddenly talks very fast, he’s almost passionate, “I don’t care!”
Sam is undeterred, “I think I would like to be a warrior who is really friendly with pet cats! I would visit you, bring you a nice fish, you’d be all thankful and purring!”
Shane growls.
Sam grins, “See! You’re doing it!”
“I wouldn’t need your lousy fish, if I’d have free meals every day. I’d slap that lousy fish right back into your cat face”
“Oho! You’re actually engaging, Oh Yoba!” Sam’s grin, if possible, gets wider. “That’s a real in character reply! Say, do you know Dungeons and Dragons?”
It aggravates Shane immensely. He hasn’t felt real emotion like this in a while. It's unfair, that these flashes blinking through his dense mist of apathy were caused by Sam of all people. Not sweet little Jas, not patient and ever so kind Marnie.
No.
Fucking Sam, the dork chattering at him about fucking Warrior cats.
“I don’t want to know what you get up to in your bedroom”, Shane says. Stands up to get another box. Sam follows him. Even pretends to sweep the floor as he does so.
“Oh-Huh? What do you- OH!”, Sam starts chuckling, “Dude! That’s a bit far fetched, just from me saying the word dungeons twice, don’t you think”
Was it far-fetched?
“How much!”, Shane suddenly says, whirling around, stepping into Sam’s personal space, “Tell me”
Sam doesn’t understand, “What do you-”
“Is it gold you want? Tell me how much, and I’ll pay you, anything, if you’d only leave me alone afterwards!”
And Sam is a bit taken aback, for a few seconds.
And then he laughs. Clear and loud and soft and it's cute. It's cute.
Shane’s teeth clack together.
And then he smirks. Despite himself. “It's not that funny”
“It is! You know, Shane, everyone says you’re a downer, but you got good lines!”
“Hrmgh” Shane grabs his box of pickles, and decides the next course of action should be another round of the cold shoulder. See how Sam deals with that old classic.
Sam, very unsurprisingly, just follows him towards the canned foods section.
“Alright, so I am going to blow your mind with this: Dungeons & Dragons is not some bondage sex ritual”, he says, wetting his mop with some obscene squelch noises, “It's a thing where you sit together with friends, and you imagine yourself being someone else … in a different world!”
“I would prefer the bondage sex ritual”, Shane deadpans.
And Sam laughs again.
He kind of hates that he likes making Sam laugh.
It creates a precedent. It creates a familiarity, which creates expectations, which creates opportunities for these expectations to be dashed.
As Morris returns from his crusade, looking happier than ever, the back and forth between them also ceases.
They couldn’t quite afford losing this job. Joja Mart, though, could definitely afford to replace them with robotic shelf stackers and floor cleaners.
“Do you think Morris ever has feelings, Shane?”, Sam whispers towards Shane. It was only a few minutes now until shift end. No one had visited the store in an hour. Honestly, they could have closed two hours ago. The only one visiting in that timespan had been a very sweaty and muddy farmer, who thought this was Pierre’s, and, after having been informed it wasn’t, had left the premises promptly.
Shane squints at their boss. His back was turned to them. His suit immaculate, his posture perfect. Just like in the employee handbooks.
“I think he might be a robot, Sam”, Shane says, in his unmistakable monotone voice.
Sam snorts.
Eventually they’re released.
The sequence of events that followed was always the same, on every one of those two days a week that Sam was working at Joja Mart.
The script was written on the very first day they had shared a shift, and was henceforth never strayed from:
- Sam asks Shane if he’s free tonight.
- Shane replies No.
- Sam asks Shane what he’s up to.
- Shane replies Nothing.
- Sam makes a sad face.
- Shane shuffles off towards the Stardrop Saloon.
By now it was tradition. By now Shane didn’t even really think, before hurling his two meager replies at Sam. Sam still looked bright as ever, right before the bi-weekly rejection — unchanging, like the sun itself. It would probably take an equal amount of years for both of them, the sun and Sam, to lose their brightness.
But this particular Wednesday, Sam had something new in mind.
“So you’re gonna get drunk today?”, he says. And for the first time, his glow seemed. Tense. Glowier than usual. In fact, ‘blinding’ might be a better word. “Or are you gonna save up for the last of the month?”
Shane is not immediately hostile. Mostly, because he’s caught off guard. He was halfway saying “No” already. His mouth had already been forming the ‘o’.
“I might save up”, he says, perplexed. “Can’t get drunk every night if I want to pay the rent”
“Yeah”
“Yeah”, Shane echoes.
“So why go to the Saloon then?”
Shane blinks.
“Did you forget to take your stupid pills today?”, he grunts, “Stick to your alternative friends, I don’t need a teenage life coach”
“I’m not a teenager!”, Sam cries.
Morris’ voice drawls through the shut store doors, “Please vacate Joja owned premises after your shift. This is company property you’re loitering on!”
They shuffle over to the bridge. Shane wants to use this opportunity to just keep walking. Sam, of course, doesn’t let him.
“I’m sorry”, he gasps. “I might have overstepped boundaries, I just - I just worry, you know”
Shane stops walking.
So here it was. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. His whole plan had been to isolate himself. Now Sam got attached, that was one more person he doesn’t want to be responsible for.
One more attachment, that made him feel stuck even further in the quicksand of his continued existence.
“Stop worrying”, he says, without turning around, without stopping for Sam.
Sam continues to follow. By now they were passing Alex’s grandparents’ house. Alex himself was outside, throwing his gridball around with the sort of concentration on his face that made it look like he was trying to make it explode with his mind.
Sam and Shane both ignore him.
"It's just that … I think there’s cooler things to do with your life than drinking”
Shane emits a raspy, ugly sound that Sam doesn’t even register as laughter at first.
Sam sighs. And stops. And watches Shane go. Watches him disappear behind the saloon doors. And not come out again.
Unlike Shane, Sam was up to something. Band practice with Sebastian and Abigail. Then maybe late night gaming, also with Sebastian and Abigail. Then way later on, ranting for hours on end in the discord vent channel they shared.
Venting about … Shane. It was shameful, Sam knows. ‘Shaneful,’ Sebastian would interject — and receive only silence from both Abigail and Sam. It was a hyperfixation-
"It's an obsession” Abigail corrects him, “And you should stop. Besides, he’s disgusting”
“He’s not disgusting!” Sam says.
“He’s 45”, Sebastian comments.
“He’s 32!”, Sam cries.
They were in Sebastian’s fortress of solitude, on the floor, sprawled around. Sebastian was doodling on something. Abigail was carving a knife. Sam was … wrestling with his feelings.
“Do you guys think this is a crush or something?”
“It's a crush”, both Abigail and Sebastian say, in perfect unison.
“I just think he deserves a friend”, Sam whines. “He can be really funny, you know? And he has a great imagination! He tries to come off as a rock or something, but I think he’d even enjoy D&D! And once you get him started talking about chickens? He’s adorable-”
Sam stops at that word.
Adorable.
“By Yoba …”, Sebastian groans, “This is just painful to listen to. Shane is a disgusting, grumpy, lifeless, husk of an old man!”
Sam isn’t even listening.
“We should steal his driver’s license. Find out once and for all how old he actually is”, Abigail suggests, whacking her knife into the carpeted floor, probably testing it for strength. It cracks a little. She frowns.
Adorable.
Sam is floating somewhere high above them, his hands only vaguely aware they’re strumming along on his guitar. A little tune. A ballad. He thinks about himself as a cat, an orange one with white spots, pretty fluffy too. And he was carrying a fish, right over the fence, where his favourite kittypet lived, the dark grey tiger, with the broken tail.
It makes his chest ache.
“Your helper syndrome”, Abigail says, waking him out of his daze. “It's not healthy for either of you. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you’re obsessed with him, just because of your incessant need to fix everything and everyone - then that’s neither fair to you or him ”
Sebastian throws in, “I think Shane deserves to get a little heartbroken. See how it feels to be treated like trash”
Sam winces. “Seriously Seb, what is your backstory with this guy?”
Sebastian shrugs, “It's just sad to see someone throw away his life like he does. Feels wasteful” He was definitely not saying everything he could have said, “Who would move here on purpose, when they could have stayed in the city?”
Sam just shakes his head. Thinks about the city. About Vincent. About Mom.
About Dad.
“I don’t want to fix him” he carefully lies, “I just want to help. If I’m able to help … why wouldn’t I?”
Abigail and Sebastian both groan. In unison.