Chapter Text
Sunday 9th
Having listened to the clops of his shoes on the sidewalk for the past fifteen minutes, Mugman was relieved to finally see the pub come up on the end of his line of sight.
Not relieved actually. Anxious. He was anxious to get this over with, his mouth tucked into his scarf in search of comfort from its soft texture and old smell. This was probably the most anxious he'd ever been for a meeting with the Boss, maybe the most anxious he’d been in his whole life. Mugs knew he had seen bad stuff, done bad stuff in his time, been so sick with anxiety so many times before, yet… he couldn’t recall a single one. This, a situation he'd been dreading for years, uttered like a curse between him and Cup, a deed Mugs had brought down so many for doing, and now he was going to face it. Not run, no, like a moron he was actually walking straight towards it.
Oh cuss, he might actually hurl. On the verge of gagging Mugs hunched over outside the pub and held his knees, battling with his nausea-inducing nerves by breathing through it. Back when this day was theoretical Mugs had always pictured going into it hand-in-hand with his big brother. This… this wasn’t that. Not at all.
Mugman no doubt would’ve spent the whole day outside this bar, thinking up all the different ways a man could be killed. But a fluttering sound brought him out of his terrified mind, his eyes raising to scan the pub properly for the first time.
Police tape was strung around it, the strips blocking the open entrance flitting in the city breeze. With his forehead furrowing Mugs leaned back up to his full height, scanning the gutted building and its burst windows. It wasn’t the result of a raid. Mugs had seen raids.
Stepping up to the open doorway the dish poofed through the tape and into the joint, where he looked around. The walls were blasted and scorched, the floor covered in a layer of glass and splinters. A graveyard of chairs, stools and tables had been swept to the outskirts of the place. There was a hole big enough to fit a grown man through in one of the walls, and what was left of the bar had folded in on itself, the shelves behind it hanging on by a nail each. Mugs spun slowly as he moved forward through the place, taking it all in. Though he’d known on his first step into the building - This had Cuphead written all over it.
Mugman pressed on, towards the stairs he’d spotted descending into the basement. He headed down them, staying careful not to slip on the pieces of glass. Glass made every stair crunch under his shoes.
As he descended into the cold and darkness, his eyes adjusted and focused on the figure of Cuphead. He was already here, waiting, leaning against the wall with his hands in his coat pockets and a foot flat against it. A pair of pupils with a low red glow flicked Mugman’s way, and watched him descend.
To avoid the bottle head lying on the bottom step Mugs skipped it and landed on the basement floor with a percussive crunch, shuffling forward through the glass and gravel, and slinging a thumb over his shoulder. "... What’d you do,” he breathed to the dish lurking in the shadows, out of concern for whatever poor schmuck had been getting a drink while Cup was there.
Cuphead said nothing to answer. He simply chewed, his propped foot pushing him off the wall and into a stance in the middle of the basement, him turning to face the summoning wall.
”A blackout?” Mugs continued to care anyway, watching his brother’s head turn over his shoulder.
Cuphead pursed his lips in mock thought. “No I, think I rem’ber it pretty clear,” he asserted back to him. Mugs frowned.
"You're not well, Cuphead."
Cup tutted. "Why do you care?" He snipped, and then leaned over his own feet to spit whatever rotten tobacco had been in his mouth out. Mugs pulled his gums back in a sneer as he walked up and the smell stewing in his mouth hit his nose.
"… Your breath stinks," he remarked stood next to him. Cuphead just huffed.
Mugs gave it a minute before stepping up to the wall himself, once he’d given his brother the chance to do something useful and he’d done nothing. With his lit finger he began burning the symbols into the concrete, stepping back when he was finished. The two of them watched the letters glow red and open up an hole in the ground in silence. Mugs missed his brother still. But the guy beside him? Mugs hadn’t missed him, not for a damn second.
The hole grew until it reached four feet wide. The dishes waited a moment, in anticipation of someone coming out, grey or purple. Or both. When no one did, Mugs blew out an anticipating breath. He guessed they were going down.
Putting a foot forward he let himself fall into the circular abyss, and landed on the new ground with a big thud. Cuphead clumped in landing a second after, and joined him in looking around the Devil’s Lair. The doors to his throne room were just ahead of them, the walls a dull purple Hell-rock colour due to this being the closest ring to the Surface. The rock got redder the lower one went, a faint memory of first discovering that passing through Mugman’s antsy mind. Just about every memory he’d ever made was fighting for a chance in the spotlight - they were moving too fast for Mugs to dote on any of them. Instead they were one big blur.
The two dishes pushed on, following the dusty blue carpet running down the middle of the ground, with Mugs in front for what felt like the first time ever. As they got closer, the faint tink tink of cutlery being used dogpiled onto the overload already in Mugs’ brain, and the wafting of food. A lot of food.
”Y’ got enough room after breakfast?” A voice nagged from behind him. Scoffing, Mugs turned his head to glance back at the scummy dish.
“Cuss off Cuphead. Y’d think at twenty-three you’d finally learn how to face your frustrations, ‘stead of takin’ ‘em out on others. Like a child,” he emphasised, then shook his mug in disbelief when Cup practically yelled to relieve his airways of the tobacco phlegm clogging it, hacking and clearing his throat. Between that and the yelling inside his mind Mugs was about ready to pop.
Cup sniffed. “… Only child ‘round here is the cusser runnin’ away from the fight.”
”Y’ve been a crook too long,” Mugs swore. “Forgot what bein’ a child is like. Kids fight. Adults walk the hell away.” At least they were supposed to.
He discovered he’d apparently hit a nerve saying that, as Cup grabbed his shoulder and twisted it so his torso turned.
“What’re you tryna say here - spit it out,” he demanded. Mugman made an irked noise and jerked his shoulder free of his mitt. He was running hot, his skin itching all over. Another word out his mouth would’ve definitely send Mugs over the edge. They might’ve scrapped right there outside the doors.
If they hadn’t then opened. And if a six-foot man with a hairline and actual colour in his skin hadn’t slinked out; Hat, in a body they had never seen before. The dishes’ widened eyes followed the demon lord as he walked past them with shame in his shorter posture, the two brothers sharing the look with each other and silently asked each other what the hell they’d just seen.
Mugs knew he was thinking the same. Something had happened yesterday that Bendy wasn’t talking about. But they didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Mugman stepped forward and pushed the door back open with a palm, entering into the Devil’s lair. The white pillars stood tall, the endless fire crackling behind them. The long, navy carpet stretched across the thin floor, leading up to where his throne usually sat. Today it was sat at the head of a long banquet table in the middle of the room, loaded with food. Golden platters, dessert towers twelve plates high, a big roasted…
… Well it wasn’t a pig, a cow or any kind of bird. Its charred horns and spear-ended tail gave it away.
Mugs was void of an appetite. Not even a dinner befitting a King could get him hungry, as he faced a fate contracts warned of. Those few lines of ink buried hidden amongst it all, spelling the would-be consequences of not doing as he was told. For half of his damn life he’d been following orders. He’d witnessed and delivered firsthand the deaths of hundreds of debtors. Yet even still, he’d gone outwith the rules.
He debated whether or not he was an idiot. Whether Cup was right - he wasn’t doing anything but getting himself killed. Abandoning Cala. The skin beneath his gloves grew slick with sweat. Walking up the never-ending length of the banquet table, waiting to finally see his boss, the Devil, behind the stacks of dishes, Mugs wondered if he was even doing the right thing. How cowardly would he look if he ran away now. Could he run away now.
He knew the answer to that one. It was too late. There was no going around this, only going through.
The sound of Mugs’ swallowing reverberated through the open room.
“… Boss?" He spoke up, peering around a tower of seafood and finally seeing his yellow gaze. When his attention flicked up from focusing on the food he was cutting on his plate Mugs jumped on the inside. His eyes were always putrid. Scared a man right down to his bones.
Noticing the two dishes emerging from behind the forest of food, the Devil ‘ah'd. “Here you are. Come," he beckoned calmly, and used his steak knife to motion to a chair on his right. "Sit and eat."
Mugs blinked out of his confusion as quick as he could, and obeyed his words by reaching for a chair and taking it out. Cup took the one next to him, and as Mugs stepped around to lower himself he and Cup stopped dead when they saw the Boss raise a hand.
"No, not you," he flicked it towards Cuphead in dismissal. "Just the blue one."
Mugman reacted with shock. "W-what??-"
"I have a job for you," he told Cuphead.
Cup inhaled. "B-"
"Only you," he stated.
Mugs gawked. He watched in a daze, as an envelope was lowered into his brother’s palms by magic, his stomach wrenching when Cup’s eyes went to him again, this time scared. They were scared. And hesitant. He didn’t wanna leave. Mugs was sure he wouldn’t have left, if he hadn’t flicked his own gaze towards the hall doors, signalling for him to go. While he still could.
After having an entire argument through brow furrows and small head shakes, Cuphead bowed his bowl, and then spun slowly around. Mugs’ eyes saw him the full way out as he walked through the throne room like a zombie, before slipping between the hall’s doors and out of Mugs’ sight.
Still hovering, Mugman finally sat himself down properly into his chair. He thought for a second the chair had been booby-trapped from the sharp twang that shot up his body. But it was just his primal reaction to the feeling of the Devil’s eyes on him.
"Please, eat," his boss invited, motioning again to the plethora of foods in front and around him. Mugs sent another gulp plummeting down his dry gullet, his focus fixated on the plate below him. He couldn’t look at the demon. If this was his execution he would rather not look up, and risk seeing the trident as it was inevitably struck down onto the back of his neck. He could picture his head slipping free and landing on this plate; how it’d look like a giant’s cup and saucer. His death would be ironic.
"You're not hungry?" The Devil observed with an impassive expression, staring at him as he brought a fork full of meat to his mouth and scraped it clean with his teeth, the room dropping a degree. Mugman hunched his winter-clothed shoulders. He responded with a silence he hoped construed how very un-hungry he was.
The Devil continued to chew, his gums smacking a bit as he tossed the gummy meat around his mouth. "... Well, I would've thought you would be… with all the vigilante work you've been doing," he mentioned. Mugman’s heart leapt up to his throat.
He had to swallow it back down. "... Boss, if this is about the mark-"
"Ah yes, the mark you let run free," he brought up whilst dabbing the corners of his emotionless lips with a napkin. Then when he was finished, he threw the napkin aside, and settled his now very serious sights on the dish before him.
"What do you have to say for yourself?”
Mugs didn't say anything at first. He couldn't - he couldn't lie, but didn’t wanna tell the truth to the Boss and basically cussing hand over his soul on a damn platter. The dilemma clammed his jaw up so hard he thought he wouldn’t get anything out.
”… I just… I-I just couldn’t,” he confessed. In a glance to the Boss he saw his eyes, apathetic and unreadable.
“Couldn’t?” He repeated in a question, the bass of his voice boosted. Mugs gave a weak little nod.
”… I-I ain’t-” The dish pressed his mouth into a line, shaking his head earnestly. “-I’m not good for this no more. Never have been in a sense.” It had been clear from day one Cup had the ability to adapt. Mugs wasn't made of such a mouldable clay.
He then leaned forward, with his suggestion on his tongue. “… I was thinkin’-”
“Save it. Tell your friends in the afterlife,” the Devil told him, as he opened his hand and summoned his trident into it. Oh cuss-
"-W-WAIT-" Mugman jumped up from his seat, holding his palms up to the demon as if that would somehow stop what was about to happen. "Nono no no no, please, look-... I-I can still be of use to you-"
"You had an adequate run boy, but your time is up now," he stated fact past half-mast eyelids. Any hope Mugman had of negotiating his contract vanished, and his dreams of a future was hot on its tails.
Gripping the back of his chair Mugs bobbed between a crouch and a defensive stance, teetering on the verge of sobs. "Please, I-I can still serve you!- Just- Just gimme other jobs please-"
"It was written in ink," the Devil told him, his golden eyes now glaring him down. "You disobeyed me. You broke your contract, twice," he hissed lowly, the air darkening to a chill.
Mugs’ breathed his soul out his mouth. "Ho-how did you... "
The demon used his trident as leverage as he rose to a stand. "𝓨𝓞𝓤 𝓢𝓗𝓞𝓤𝓛𝓓 𝓚𝓝𝓞𝓦 𝓑𝓨 𝓝𝓞𝓦, 𝓘 𝓗𝓐𝓥𝓔 𝓔𝓨𝓔𝓢 𝓔𝓥𝓔𝓡𝓨𝓦𝓗𝓔𝓡𝓔 ," he extended his legs fully and boomed, the fires running around the walls whooshing to the volume of his voice. Their raging red flames lit the hall up in crimson, and the air churned. Mugs felt every particle turn against him, drops of water and dust that used to simply brush past him now fighting to get under his skin, breach his body in sought of his soul. Mugs’ stiffened body fell to the ground, helpless as his lungs betrayed him, abandoning their role of respiration and changing to a pair of palms, cradling his heart, ready to hand it right over to the Devil. His body was bound by contract. He was the Devil’s property, and was harshly reminded of this - Mugman’s thoughts were the only thing not listed in the clause. And in his last seconds he loathed himself and his foolishness. Cuphead. Cala. Bendy, Boris. Only he would get to hear his final thoughts, as the Devil wound his trident back before vaulting it at him, flying towards Mugs’ eyes like one ginormous golden killer bullet.
Then everything stopped. Mugman panted, as he stared at the gold spoke a hair away from poking his eye. For a second he thought this was what death must’ve been for a debtor; staying stuck in one’s last moment, forever.
But then he heard the Devil chuckling.
It started in a low rumble, and then grew into a big raucous belly laugh. Mugs watched the the end of the trident in his face pull back, one spike splitting back to three, and gawked the guffawing demon behind it.
"Oh-ho- I'm just joking," the Boss claimed as he shrunk back to his normal size and dropped himself back into his giant chair, using the tip of his pitchfork to wipe a tear from his waterline. Mugs’ heaving breaths turned to sobs, leaning up and lifting a hand to smother his eyes and the intense scrunching of his face, as he weeped and shook from his spot on the floor. The Devil had patented the impact of fear. Other demons used it to keep debtors obedient; the Devil used it for fun. Mugs had been toyed with more times than he could count… but he hadn’t felt it that bad in ages. Hadn’t been that hopeless, that afraid of his doom… Now he had goals, people, a future to live for. And he’d almost just lost it all in a single second.
To the Boss that second was nothing, and the time Mugs spent blubbering was his time wasted. He eventually growled and ordered the dish stop before he dampened his carpets. Mugman slowly made his way up from the floor, grasping onto the edge of the dining table for leverage as he lifted himself onto his trembling legs, and fell back down into his chair with a drained thud. In his hazed peripheral vision he saw the Boss return to dining, skewering a shrimp-like creature with his claw and taking it up to his mouth to eat, like none of that even happened. It was usual for him. But still unbelievable.
The Boss sucked his claw clean, smacking his lips and humming. "… I have a more important job for you," he asserted amidst chewing, and brought another envelope into existence. Mugs watched it float over to him through stinging vision and drop onto his plate. He’d been served.
"A lackey, gone rogue," he further explained. "I ordered him executed but they slipped through my guards’ claws. He is not worth the effort it is taking to obtain him," he admitted as he brought a chalice up to his lips and took a sip.
The dish looked between his boss and the envelope dumbly. A more important job?
The Devil hissed a sigh, and leaned back, putting his giant feet up and crossed on the table. "All you have to do is eliminate them,” he claimed.
Mugs kept his face neutral to avoid upsetting the Boss, but he had a lot of uncertainty going on behind it. He didn't like this. Something was really wrong here. He’d failed, broken his contract - he should be dead in multiple ways. Why the cuss was he getting another job.
Even with the one in a million pardon, maybe even depending on how he’d slept last night in his Alaskan King, Mugs… didn’t want to do this. Another elimination. He’d made up his mind. And his silence and scratching of the nape of his neck; his reluctance to respond was something the Devil noticed.
He exhaled fed-up air out his nose. "I understand you want to better yourself, hm?" He said, doing that thing where he read his damn mind. "... Those friends, Surfacers you've been associating with have made you want to 'improve' yourself, and pretend that you haven't been snuffing souls for the past decade of your dowdy life," he delivered that last part more coldly. Mugs had to stifle a lip quiver.
He glanced to the envelope again. He supposed he was a fraud for wanting to just peacefully run away from a past he had been living not some five months ago. But he'd rather that than continuing it.
"... I-I can't... I-I don't want-"
"What if I said it was your last job?"
His reddened eyes snapped to him, at hearing words he and Cup had been longing to hear for ten years.
"Our last job?-"
”Your last job.”
“… Mine?”
The Boss pursed his lips and dipped his head in a nod. "Finish it… and you, just you… will be free,” he claimed.
More alarms blared a choir in his bowl. That had to be too good to be true. The fact that Cup wasn’t a part of this was bad enough, but Mugman- He was a liability, better to be killed than let go and blab on about his experiences serving the Devil. It was a standard procedure he and Cup had carried out themselves multiple times. No one was let go.
It was either a bluff… or this was a really important mark. Maybe both… But cuss did Mugs want it to really be the last.
He looked back to the envelope. "... And what about- Cuphead," Mugman asked, coughing a tiny bit, after his voice cracked a on his last vowel.
The Devil stayed still a moment, before retracting his feet from the table and leaning forward, placing his arms on and palms flat out across it. "Your brother is on his own journey," he averred with a grin, one that Mugs had never seen, not in all his years. Not even in the extra years the Labyrinth dream had given him.
He didn't like it. Had him questioning what the cuss was in Cup’s envelope; if Mugs had done anything to screw him over in his acts, and the Devil was making him take the fall instead. Or maybe he’d gotten his own ‘final job’. Or maybe the Boss was eluding to the battle Cup was going through right now, and the outcome he was predicting, or knew.
Maybe Mugs was missing out on his freedom by sticking by his new instilled principles, maybe he was putting a target on his back. Whatever it was, he wasn’t doing it.
"... No, I don't wanna hurt anyone else," he spoke up. Took a lot of tensing not to let his fear through, and seem somewhat steady in his face. He was supposed to make himself look bigger to a bear right?
The Devil slid his pie-cut pupils aside in reservation, mouth firmly frowning.
”It will be your final hit,” he maintained, putting his chin atop his interlocked fingers and casting his negotiating gaze over him.
Mugs puffed some air into his top lip. “… I want my last to be my last,” he remained steadfast. He’d gotten this far without getting his throat slit. Why not reach for the cussing stars.
His fingertips seemed to only graze the star, his reaching hand skimming short of it, as the Devil put his nose over his clasped claws, his pupils two little impatient pins.
“… You are wantent for too much, Mugman Dish,” he warned. “Why in all my years, my… billions of debtors, after all the trouble you have caused and rebellion you have wrought, should you get special treatment. Last I remember you were not that remarkable,” the demon minded. In a direct jab. Mugs didn’t fight it. The Devil knew he wouldn’t. It was a crucial part of their dynamic.
”… Because… you need me,” Mugs said, raising his gaze to his and maintaining eye-contact, no matter how much it burned to look into his yellow irises.
After an unmoving pause the King of Hell lowered his locked paws to the table, and looked down his nose at Mugman.
“How so,” he demanded to know. Mugs breathed out, as he crafted the biggest bluff he’d ever bluffed.
“… You can’t get your hands on the pieces without me,” he stated, serious as he could. He was the Devil - he could storm 221b any day he wanted and kill everyone in there. But cuss if he could decipher and unlock the Micco magic they had locked the pieces away with, it was before his time. No, the Devil still needed them, and their connections to the gang.
The demon’s pupils shrunk in surprise.
“… Cuphead… is much more a Judas than you,” he stated matter of factly, that he’d been banking on Cup to rat the gang out. Mugs dared to shake his head.
“He ain’t. Not now that he’s chummy with Bendy.”
One of the Devil’s aged brows lifted in interest.
“Bendy?”
Cuss him and his big mouth. Mugs shouldn’t have dragged Bendy into this. He needed to stay as far away from the Boss as possible. And judging by the glint of annoyance that shot across the Devil’s glare Mugs assumed between that and Hat the hell party Bendy had attended definitely hadn’t gone as well as he’d made out last night. If Mugman managed to make it out of here with his throat un-sliced, he was gonna look for a better telling of the story from Alice or somebody. Something had to have happened.
“… -Bendy… needs the cure,” the dish attempted to stick with his bluff. “Real bad.” … And regretted the tracks he’d forced this conversation onto as the King of Hell’s features moved with intrigue, and revelation. Mugs wasn’t sure on what parts he knew and what parts were so enlightening to him. But it was bad news.
“Cuphead ain’t givin’ it up,” Mugs asserted with conviction. Inwardly he questioned if he was handing Cup over to the wolves or doing some twisted attempt to save the guy, kick him out of this. Let Mugs take over.
Stars Cup was so much better at this stuff. He actually planned out their moves, their words… Mugs had just decided this all in the last two minutes.
Lacking also the composure his big bro had, Mugman dropped his forehead into his hand and his elbow on his thigh, rubbing his palm across his sweaty brow in remorse. There was a reason Mugs stood guarding the door and Cup sat at the poker table when they played. And the fact he was showing this so clearly to the Boss made it ten times worse.
“How callous of you,” he mocked through a gleeful grin. “Throwing your brother under the bus like that, why it’s almost… believable,” he ridiculed, while Mugs let his eyelids fall in dejection and a bit of breath come out his nose. If Dad could see him right now he’d probably die all over again.
“… This show of selfishness - I’m surprised,” the Boss proclaimed while Mugman stayed head-in-hand. What he said next was the only thing that got him back up.
“I’ll adhere to your terms boy.”
Mugs’ neck sprung his head back up like rubber, and stared flabbergasted at the demon. He didn’t laugh, didn’t smirk. And after ten seconds of astonished silence Mugman was assured he was serious.
“… So… no hit, no kill,” he spelled out slowly, cautiously, twisting his chin down at a suspicious angle.
The Devil nodded again. “No hit or kill. You will not have to hurt your mark,” he confirmed, clear as day. “Just collect his contract.”
For what felt like minutes, Mugs was as still as a statue. His lungs beat in his chest, his heartbeat in his head. His fight or flight was triggered and screaming at him something was wrong. Wronger than wrong. He shouldn’t do it.
But he found himself moving anyway. Reaching into the hidden pocket in his scarf and pulling his contract out. Stretching his arm out to deliver it to the Devil. As the Devil’s magic took the contract and unfurled it Mugman noticed it extend in length, an extra three inches unravelling at the bottom. The demon plucked a fountain pen from thin air, and began writing on the floating paper. Mugs’ gut twisted along to every arch and flick he did with his pen, the scribbling sounds crawling up his arms’ skin. The screeching, he’d thought it was the pen tip when he was younger. Now recognised it was multiple souls’, screaming out in whispers, previous debtors warning him of what he was doing. As if he wasn’t aware of what he was doing.
When the Devil was done with a flick of magic he tossed Mugs’ contract over the table to him, Mugs’ hand zipping out to snatch it up before it rolled into a gravy boat, unrolling it frantically and scouring the new additional paragraph. His eyes raced to read every line, every clause, breathing like he’d run a marathon as he checked it all. It had seemed fine. Everything they’d agreed.
Until he stumbled across a statement wrought with true wickedness.
“-Torture??”
“Yes,” the demon confirmed, to which Mugs huffed shakily, staring in horror at the clause where he promised to find and torture vital information out of a man in order to find his mark.
The dish sprung up from his chair and shook his head frantically at the name. “… No, tha- that ain’t fair I didn’t say-”
“Do you accept?” The Devil blinked slowly.
“Torture wasn’t part’a our discussion!” He hollered.
“Do you or do you not,” the Boss said louder, the room flashing red again for a second and frightening Mugs out his skin. He held the back of his chair for support, as he worked out the betrayal. Torture could not cussing be the only way, there- there were millions of others! He’d just…
… Tricked him.
Mugman’s heart bottomed out, as it dawned on him. Fully. The mistake he’d just made. The corner he’d backed himself into, after not looking behind him to see it. After not covering everything - making sure nothing was left unsaid or miscommunicated. The Devil guffawed in the background as he reeled at the prospect of having to do it again, the sound of a man’s lungs gurgling and gasping for breath hitting him like a knife in each side. The begging for death, the concept of a doting father willing to bargain his entire family away just to stop the pain. It stripped people of everything that made them people.
Mugs hiccuped as he stifled a growl, a battle between his morality and the promises he'd made fighting inside of him. The future he’d vowed to Cala to fight for. One last mark.
“… I-”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the word officially. He wasn’t man enough. Leaning his weight into his shaking grasp on the back of the chair in front of him… Mugman gave a pathetic, measly nod.
The Devil acknowledged his with his own. “Good,” he confirmed all chipper. Just like that Mugman had sealed another person’s fate to avoid sealing his own. He lifted the contract he’d crushed against the table’s edge to glower at it. As if to mock him his ten year-old signature rewrote itself, back when he used to hold his pen in his fist, the twists of his baby wrist clear in the scrawling of his name. ‘Mugman Dish’.
“… You forget, death is a mercy for debtors,” the Devil whilst returning to eating continued to talk to the dish hanging his head, working on shucking a snail-like meat out of its shell. “So often they find the lives they wasted running were in fact worse than the pain they experienced at the end. You are to be merciful, mercy-man-”
“-Can I go now,” Mugs abruptly and angrily asked him, with a quiver in his voice. As far as he was concerned he was done here.
The King of Hell gestured openly. ”By all means,” he invited. Mugs clenched his jaw.
He reached out to pick up the sealed envelope, and leave with it. But it yanked away just as his fingers brushed it. His fist struck down on the table, Mugman looking up to meet the Devil’s wretched gaze.
“You succeed better when you listen,” he imparted over his five-course lunch, “and follow orders. Like a soldier. A cog in a machine,” he described. “… Look at you now. Hardly the delicate, quivering leaf you used to be. That bout of boxing did you good. Like I said it would.”
His blue nostrils flared in and out with his shallow breathing. Mugs just wanted the damn letter for cuss’ sake.
“… Your brother is the improviser. He goes rogue often, and thrives off it. It’s his biggest strength. Yours… is doing as you are told.”
“This loose cannon act,” the Devil then looked upon him with humoured pity, his shucking knife hanging loosely in his clawed fingers, “… you aren’t helping anybody or saving the day; the only thing you are succeeding in is in humiliating yourself.”
Mugman’s teeth ground.
Before the Boss could pull anything else he reached out and snatched the envelope up finally, and tucked it away into his waistcoat. He took his contract in his scrunched grip and backed away from the table slowly, keeping eye-contact with the demon, before turning around and marching through the hall. His gait was brisk and angry, ready to bowl anything that got in his way. When the doors came close enough Mugs shoved a shoulder into one and plowed through, letting it swing it’s one-tonne weight around behind him while he went for the hole that opened up the stone floor, dropping into it and going with the switch in gravity to then jump out into the basement again.
Before the hole even finished closing Mugs yelled and vaulted the envelope at the farthest wall, it smacking against the concrete and falling into the dirt. Mugs raged. Gripping the back of his neck he strained to keep his frustration unheard, grunting and gasping to himself in the quiet basement room, and kicking the glass and gravel up with his foot and stomping it into smaller pieces. The anger that ran through him was unbearable, untameable it felt like it had replaced the oxygen in his blood, stealing his ability to breathe while riling him up into a cussing frenzy. Today he’d got a little taste of what Cuphead felt like making the decisions and taking the falls for the impassible ones, a taste, and Mugs couldn’t handle it. Charged like a cussing bull he hit the hand holding his contract against the closest wall, before he began vigorously tearing it to pieces. When they reached a size so small they started fluttering out his fingers like confetti Mugs threw the pieces of paper down and thudded his back against the wall, slapping his freed palms over his face and sliding down until his tailbone touched the cold ground. There, with his knees acting as a table to clunk his held head onto, Mugman shook and sobbed, muffled in his gloves.
Cruel was too small a word for it. The Boss knew, he knew the trouble they’d had that mark, that one time Cup and Mugs didn’t think they could go on. The Boss knew they didn’t do cussing torture it was savage - he knew that they had never recovered after that kid. Now he was using it, as punishment. Using Mugs’ want and need to live, to get people like Cala out of their situations, against him. He had to do it. Sacrificing himself now was just selfish - a coward’s way out. After everything he’d done he owed it to his friends to… help them. He had to keep going, for them. He recognised this. And it was killing him.
The Devil was right. He had the two of them down to a tee. Cuphead was a renegade, and Mugman was nothing more than the master he served. He was an idiot lackey, who’d seen a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and fallen for it. He should’ve noticed it when the light started coming towards him, when plumes of steam were streaming at him. It wasn’t the end. It was a damn train. Now his options were to jump in front of it, his corpse derailing the train from its tracks when it ran over it and killing everyone. Or jump the front carriage, to the detriment of the sole man driving it.
Slinking his hands down from his tear-drenched face, Mugman watched beyond his knees the scattered pieces of his contract pull themselves back together. As it did every time a debtor tried to ruin it in a desperate attempt to be rid of it, the binding sheet of paper simply put itself back together, until it was a completely untouched, rolled out scroll in front of the dish again. He stared at it with contempt, finding its new length off-putting after carrying the same paper around for a decade. It just sat there ominously, whilst Mugman rued what he’d done. No magic had entranced him. No one’s life had been at stake but his own. He wasn’t forced to take that cushy deal.
There were no absent parents to blame this time, or a big brother to take the heat for him. There had been no reason for him to negotiate his death - he should’ve just taken his death when the Devil offered it. No, this choice to go on, and hurt another person… this had been all Mugman.
And with a cussing pity party he wasn’t doing anything but indulging in wallowing in his own guilt.
In an effort to make himself useful before he tracked and stripped a man of every thing that made him human, Mugs got up. Palming the wall he pushed himself up onto his feet… and leaned over to pick his contract up out of the dirt. He dusted it off, folded it and returned it to its place in his scarf, then going over to collect his thrown envelope and pull it out from under grit and glass, sniffing continuously and wiping his tear tracks as he went about it all. Cuss if Cuphead saw him crying. The scolding that would come from that was salt Mugs didn’t wanna buff into the wound.
Once he’d put the envelope away and done his best to erase the evidence of his blubbering, Mugman headed over to the staircase, lugging himself up them and through the wrecked bar. Through the open doorway Mugs saw a corner of red fabric blowing in the breeze. He drifted towards it like a moth to a flame, ducking under the yellow tape and stepping out onto the street. They locked eyes as Cup plunged his own envelope into his coat pocket, though not before Mugs caught enough of a glimpse to assess its shape and spot its ripped seal. Cup’s gaze was unmoving, almost challenging him to ask about it.
Mugman wasn’t taking the bait.
Instead he moved past him and began walking down the street. It took a scoff and a few seconds of indignation before he heard marching footsteps approach.
”Are you seriously still freezin’ me out??” He questioned, following him a foot behind on Mugs’ left.
”Why shouldn’t I,” he remarked coldly in return, while his brother fought with the ends of Cannikin’s scarf flitting about in the wind and hitting him in the process.
Cup made irritated noises as he batted blue cloth out his face, shoving it down and away from him. ”… Somethin big just cussin’ happened,” he announced, reminded Mugs.
“We got separate jobs,” he specified when Mugs didn’t answer. “And we ain’t gonna talk about it??”
“You get somethin’ special in yours?” The younger dish asked in a flat tone, to which he received another scoff.
“No, just- some sad sack on the other side of the city,” Cuphead claimed crossly and further dwindled Mugman’s faith in him ever seeking redemption. ‘Sad sack’. These were people.
Cup’s eyes on him were palpable, gesturing in waiting. “… This is the part where you tell me yours,” he averred.
“And what, act like you haven’t been a complete schmuck to me for tha past week??” Mugs whipped his mug around to look at him finally. “Act like we’re good??”
“We are good,” the hungover cusser brazenly confirmed, and wholeheartedly believed it too. When Mugman turned his head back, huffing incredulously, Cuphead’s tone grew loud with concern.
”… Ain’t we??”
Mugs took his turn to scoff. “In what cussin world are we good.”
“This world?? Where we got different marks for the first time in our entire time servin’??” Cup emphasised, Mugs breathing out disbelief.
“How d’you even know we didn’t get the same damn mark-”
“‘Cause I can see it in your cussin’ eyes Mugs!” He snapped in his face, after grabbing his shoulder and wrenching him to a halt. Mugman gawked at him, wondering how the cuss he got all that from his eyes when Mugs could only see hatred in his.
“… It ain’t none of your business,” he told him, and went to walking again. But Cup just yelled at his back.
“Pretty cussin’ sure it is my damn business while we’re workin’ together, an’ by cuss is it my cussin’ business while you’re my little brother!”
Mugman stopped. He spun around slowly, to see Cuphead whip his arms up.
“Well??” He waited and slapped his sleeves down against the sides of his coat, the middle of his brow furrowing a centimetre as his eyes flicked between Mugs’ confusedly. “… Why you lookin’ at me like that.”
Mugman lifted a hand in surrender, and made another earnest attempt to walk the cuss away. But rushing footsteps tailed him.
“… If somethin’ happened you gotta tell me, we’re in this t’gether-”
“Since when??” Mugs whirled around.
”Since the beginnin’,” Cup snarled. The two of them huffed, out of breath from their anger with each other. Attached at the dam hip, they’d hypothesised so many situations with their contracts, so many ways it might end, bad and worse. But neither of them had seen this coming; the end tearing them apart.
The red-eyed dish glanced down to Mugs’ waistcoat. “Show it to me,” he demanded. Mugs stared at him long enough to see the first drops of rain increase to a light drizzle. And in amongst the growing drizzle Cup clocked he wasn’t gonna give up his envelope, and the only way he was gonna see it was if he took it by force.
He moved first, his arms snapping out to grab Mugs’ by the waistcoat, Mugs jerking to avoid his grasp and hitting a wrist aside. When Cup kept trying Mugs kept shoving his grubby hands away, repeating his name annoyedly, getting louder with each one.
“Cuphead-” Mugman grunted in frustration as his brother managed to get behind him, and pin his arms long enough for his snaky fingers to slither into the left pec of Mugs’ waistcoat. After failing to fight him off Mugs inhaled at the sight of the tan envelope and its blood red seal whip past his face, spinning to see Cup take a couple steps away from him and begin ripping into the envelope.
“-I got my last mark,” Mugman blurted out to him. Just as Cup’s fingertips finished violating the envelope’s top edge. The dish paused, and looked over at him with a narrowed gaze.
“… Whaddo y’ mean last mark,” he asked sceptically.
“I mean my last mark,” Mugs repeated, because there was no other damn meaning to it. “The Boss said I’m done after this.”
Cup’s upper lip lifted in a scowl. “… It’s a trick,” he muttered while taking the letter out and opening it.
“I know it is Cuphead,” Mugman stated bitterly, defeatedly, as he read the letter over, offended he’d ever assume he didn’t know, that he’d fall for the Devil’s tricks… He was as sensitive as a sea urchin about it because what he’d just done proved it.
Having studied the mark Mugs himself hadn’t even seen yet, Cup shook his head. “… What aren’t you tellin’ me,” he interrogated.
Mugs blew steam out his nose. With a deep frown he swiped the letter and envelope from his yellow mitt, and stuffed it back into his waistcoat.
“What, y’ made a new deal or somethin’?”
Mugman ignored him and his lingering, scrutinising eyes. He didn’t give him anything in response. Yet he still came to a conclusion.
“You did didn’t you,” Cup uttered. The fact that there was no surprise no worry on his face, just disappointment… it made Mugman livid.
“-Lemme see,” Cuphead pressed, as his brother began walking again.
“No,” Mugs barked back, moving briskly. Catching up to him took Cuphead into a jog.
”… Lemme see it,” he hissed out his edict, “would y’ just… cussin stop!-”
When Cup’s fist snatched up a clump of the dampened clothes sitting on Mugs’ shoulder and yanked him to a stop, Mugs retaliated, shoving him out of reach. Then he stepped forward and shoved him again, hitting him away, Cup stumbling backwards, almost out onto the road. With a few feet of distance between two stood frozen, puffing, nostrils flaring with every furious breath out. Mugs watched the red of Cup’s eyes flicker to a stronger blaze, a snarling noise coming from his oversized, scowling mouth.
Cup charged him. Like a linebacker Mugs caught the top of his hunched over body and palmed his spiny back, fighting to keep him from lifting his legs from the ground and successfully carrying out his takedown. When Mugman managed to burst free from the wrestler’s move Cuphead’s arms flew apart, the sudden end of their skirmish sending him stumbling into the nearest wall, catching himself on it, before swinging around and going for Mugs again. Mugs deflected his mad mitts as they reached for him relentlessly over and over again, until blocking with his forearm got his arm seized, Cup twisting it and immobilising it against his back and then kicking him away for good cussing measure. As Mugman staggered, winded, from behind him his brother snatched a handful of the blue fabric wrapped around his neck and pulled, wrenching him backwards like he was made of damn putty.
“CUPHEAD YOU-” Mugs grunted as he battled to stay on his feet. And to stop Dad’s precious possession from being used to cussing wrangle him.
“I know where you cussin’ hide it!” Cup reminded him. From there it was clear this was a scrap for his scarf. The pain from the ‘c’ shale his body was being bent back into increasing quickly, Mugman ducked out of the noose, and took this looped end for himself.
Cuphead hauled against his grip. “Gimme it,” he snarled as the two pulled it between them until it was a figure of eight.
“Gimme that- GIVE ME- it-” With one big mean yank Cup pulled it right out of Mugs’ two hands, rolling the scarf up to himself. In response Mugs cursed him out and tackled him above the belt, bowling the both of them into an alleyway.
The two of them doofed against the alley ground in a porcelain heap, Mugs immediately stealing his scarf back from on top. Cup kneed him in the face. When Mugs fell onto his back Cup took the scarf back, and started hurriedly rooting for the pocket. Mugs reached out and grabbed it again. He pulled, moving his hands up to take more of it for himself, like a cussing tug of war. The sound of stitches tearing was drowned out by their growls and yells, until the tension gave.
Mugs flew back and hit the floor again, palming the wet grit he was laid amongst, before processing what had just happened and shooting up again into a sit. In his hands he moved his half of his scarf from top to bottom, while in the foreground Cuphead ripped his folded up contract from its pocket, dropping the rest of the scarf to open the contract with both hands.
While he read, Mugman collected the pieces. Dad’s scarf, in two pieces. A messy, thready tear some mediocre sewing skills could never fix. Mugs was only able to tell which end was the actual end by the initials stitched in above the hem. Sat there on the floor, with his father’s most treasured possession in pieces in his hands, Mugs almost forgot what had even caused it. That was until he saw Cuphead up there, looking at his contract in complete disbelief.
“… What the cuss is this?” He asked with a slight slur and turned the paper to him, imploring him to explain, that it wasn’t what it said it was.
Mugman’s bottom lip wobbled. His face ached as it contorted in shame, and the regretful child he felt like came to the forefront.
“… You… you moron,” Cup’s voice rumbled like a rockslide. Mugs’ tear-pooled eyes snapped up to his, blazing red.
“You idiot, Mugs,” he snapped and held his contract out. “You did this?! You AGREED to THIS?!” He howled. Mugs barely got a stammer out and a protective hand hovered above his head before Cup slung his foot back and struck it forward into Mugs’ hamstring.
“PIECE’A- STARDUST!” He kicked him again, in the hand Mugs had used to grasp the back of his smarting thigh. He would’ve kept kicking if Mugs didn’t stop him on his fourth, booting him his shin. In the second Cup took to exclaim in pain Mugs smoke-bombed through him, and when his bug-eyed mug swung around Mugs punched him in his cheek, the right hook sending him to the floor. His gangly figure landed with a winded wince, a horrible wheezy cough following. Mugman panted as he watched him twist his top half over and hack down at the ground.
“… I ain’t standin’ here and takin’ this! Not from you,” he made clear to the dish, who’d been thoroughly humbled by the hit, lying there like a sick and dying old man. Mugs was scum. But Cuphead having the audacity to treat him like he was and take out his guilt on him after choosing not to deal with it for so long… that was a step too far. That was not Mugman’s damn problem that was his.
Tipping back onto his elbow Cup reached up to touch his busted mouth, pulling it back to examine the blood on his fingertips, before dropping his arm tiredly.
“… What were you thinkin’?” He husked, whilst looking up at Mugs through the pained crinkles of his face. “ … What’ve you done, Mugs, you- … He played you.”
“I know,” Mugman tearfully bit out down at him. Of course he cussing knew. And Cuphead’s efforts to patronise him about the mistake he’d made did nothing to help the situation. He was just simply being a jerk.
Like he was doing any of the carrying of their shame, Cuphead sighed. Then he gradually got back up onto his feet, Mugs resisting the urge to beat him back down again as he straightened his knees, and readjusted his coat.
The bleeding crook cleared his throat. “… You have t’ do it,” he said with resolve. Mugman’s eyes widened so far they threatened to pop out their sockets.
He blinked multiple times as he processed what the cuss he had just been told, before holding his palms up. “No… no no no I-I ain’t- I ain’t stayin’ to hear this,” he decided, stay to hear what his demented brother had as his reason for why Mugs should go through with the clause. To torture a man! No- Cuss this!
Yet again he heard footsteps rush up behind him. “You gotta,” Cup urged, coming up beside him, “for your-”
“No! Not for me! You want me to do it for you, so you can still have me around,” Mugman accused him, Cuphead letting out an aghast laugh.
“Is that so bad?! Is it a cussin’ crime that I want my brother to actually live-”
“It’s selfish,” Mugs revealed to him. “You’re selfish.”
Cuphead just stood there in the rain, stunned, while Mugman headed down the length of the alleyway, picking up the pieces of his scarf and the contract that had been dropped at some point in the skirmish. He made it to the end of the alley when Cuphead called out.
"... I did it all for us, y’know!" He then yelled after a big inhale. "… You think I want to go around cleanin' up after the stardust you pull?! To go after all these people?! Everythin' I've done has been for us! To get us out! To get you out!-"
"I never asked you to!" Mugman turned and bellowed back. "I never asked for any of this! I never asked for you to- tear yourself apart just to try get us out! YOU did this to yourself!"
”Oh cuss off! I HAD to! One of us had to step up, an’ it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be you!” Cup sent raindrops flying every where as he threw a spiteful hand up, to which Mugs rolled his eyes around the whole starfallen world.
”The cussin’ older brother card- Do you realise who you’ve become?! Do you realise alone, without me, you’re not a stone-hearted protective big brother - you’re just a scumbag,” he spat with a viciousness he didn’t even know he’d had in him. It shocked Cuphead too, his features looking the most enlightened they had in months.
At the sight of his stunned state Mugs felt encouraged. “… Yeah. And you can’t handle it can you. You’re hangin’ on to this fantasy, where you stepped up to the plate, you toughened up to protect your soft baby brother, when really without me you would’ve become the exact same piece’a dirt you are now,” he let his words out into the world. Without any way of taking them back.
As his face contorted Cup angled his head away to avoid anyone seeing, taking a hand up to his forehead and wiping upwards in an attempt to fight the rain that was running into his eyes. It streamed off his sharp features, his cupid’s bow acting like a moat and pouring down his mouth, blowing or spitting it away on every exhale. Even with his handle to Mugs and his melted mop of hair slumping over his face, his upset was visible. And genuine.
”… I worked… so hard to keep the worst of it from reachin’ you,” he averred through his emotion, “I really did… I worked- my cussin’ tail off to get us through those marks to complete every one,” he vouched, then jabbed a finger fervently down at the floor, “… and we were right cussin’ there-”
"You don't know that!" Mugs howled, and took advantage of the next silence to stop and compose himself a bit, in front of the person who’d seen him at his very worst. Cuphead was crying. They both were. And for some messed-up reason they were still trying to hide it from each other, as if it wasn’t obvious in their ugly gasps and their uncomfortable reactions to the way they were feeling. As if a little bit of opening up wouldn’t have prevented this suffocating onslaught of emotion. And here they were, still not saying the right words.
"... If you're really doin' this for me, then listen: I am done," Mugman told his brother shakily and clearly. "I ain't doin' this anymore. I ain't hurtin’ people, Cuphead. It's not who I am… and is sure as hell not who I wanna be."
Cuphead looked at him with such hatred, pain, his head swishing a millimetre from side to side.
"You're throwin' everythin' away," he breathed through his smothered, trembling lips. Mugs didn’t know how he could think they’d had anything to throw away.
"There was nothin' there Cuphead. We had nothin' until Bendy and Boris showed up," he swore, and lifted his shoulders. "Now... we have everythin'. The only thing I'm throwin' away is ten years of wasted time - ten years I never wanna look back on."
Through the pouring rain he saw Cup’s eyes squint. ”… -And me?!”
“I- … I lost you, a long time ago,” Mugman testified, a giant pain forming in his chest at finally admitting it. “ … I ain’t tryna blame you for changin’ Cuphead, I know you had to; you did a damn good job of bein’ my older brother, protectin’ me from all the stardust that got thrown at us. But you gotta ask yourself: what are you still doin’ it all for,” he asked him.
Mugs feared his heart might actually stop, seeing his brother stoop forward in his weeping, palming his bent knees as his body shook. Rain, tears, blood… and every drop of pain Cup had stored in him was spilling from him now, flowing free into the streams of rain running down towards the nearest city drain. Inside Mugs hoped it was literal; that all that pain would just stream away and never find him again.
“… It’s over,” he told him. “I know it’s hard… But it’s over, it’s done. We… can we done,” Mugman insisted. The tired, drenched face of Cuphead lifted up to look at him again, his gaze begging. It was so bad Mugs had to close his own.
He swallowed. “Whether or not y’ join me, or keep runnin' around for the underground, that’s up t’you," he apprised and turned himself half around, then glanced to him for the last time. "But I sure as cuss… hope that- you ain't gonna end up a part of what I'm leavin' behind bro."
He had to go after that. He had to go, walk a block down, before breaking down at the corner of a minimart. Gripping a streetlight he sobbed into his fist, until he went dizzy from the lack of air. His chest hurt… so bad - he thought he might die of heartbreak. A man couldn’t make it through this much pain alone. The only reason Mugman didn’t die on that street he was sure was only because his life wasn’t his. The Devil owned it. He owned his death date too, and by some awful miracle it wasn’t today.
Cala chewed her lip as she looked on to the door from the kitchen, her forearms rested on the island, and Paul wringing two tentacles nervously above her. It had been an hour or two since Alice and Hol had left for the house, and Mugs had left for his luncheon. She'd been here ever since. She’d watched the sun go away, witnessed the rain start. She was anxious for him to come back. If he was coming back.
Sea stars, she hoped he was coming back.
He'd gone in with a plan. To negotiate his contract. She wasn't sure how open the Devil was to negotiations. She wasn't sure of anything about him, other than that he was a horrible boss, who had sent another demon out to execute Mugs. And he had no idea. And now he was out to see the very same boss. There was no way it could go well.
Cala continued her eyeing of the door. She didn't know how much longer she was going to wait before sounding the alarm and calling everyone. Even though the two brothers were fighting currently Cala still had faith Cuphead would protect him… But nothing, no one, could protect Mugs if the Devil wanted him gone. Nothing.
… -Screw this. She was calling the house. Right now.
The mermaid made a determined march over to their apartment telephone, and began the tedious process of churning out every number she needed to reach Baker’s Street, wrenching the cog-like wheel around with impatient vigour whilst holding the hearing piece up to her ear. She grew irate listening to the clicks of the wheel turning back to its original position after each number entry, and started seeing a greenish-yellow light reflect off the metal detailings grow brighter and brighter.
"Honey you're gonna turn that phone to stone if you keep that up."
Cala shrieked, jumping away from the telephone and around, to the sudden figure next to her.
”Woa-hoah, cool it with the beams Medusa!” Spyglass flinched, his arms flying up to cover his giant glass eye and protect it from the instinct Cala had had to claw this big grey slob to death.
"What are you- You can't be here!" She and her snake hair hissed at him, glancing around in alarm and shoving the ear piece in her hand back onto its hook. Then she spun the demon around and forced him over to the kitchen, away from the doors that led to all their bedrooms.
"Why can't I?" The demon questioned as they were shoved around the kitchen island, making themselves at home by placing his elbows on the island’s surface and plonking his face down into his nonchalant hands. "The angel's gone," they reasoned.
"Yeah but my sister isn't!" Cala hissed further. The telephone was literally right outside her and Holly’s room!
Spyglass flopped their shoulders. "Meh, sister schmister," he dismissed with a wave. Cala huffed and swirled her head away.
While she directed her glare elsewhere while it calmed down she also petted the snakes squirming in her peripheral vision down from their frenzy, stroking them back into a socially acceptable hairstyle. She prayed to King Triton Ebi was too engrossed in her new origami project to hear them. Spyglass had a knack for just showing up - he was uncontrollable. And had become the bane of Cala's existence.
In her short time knowing him Cala had also noticed he referred to himself in both ‘he’ and ‘they’ contexts, interchangeably. Cala didn’t quite understand it. But she figured complying was the best thing she could do for herself. It’d become habit for her already - this demon was too greedy, too big a monster to have just a singular pronoun.
The gorgon twisted her head back to the demon, looking upon them with particularly hateful eyes. It didn’t go unseen; her display of loathing warranted an innocent glassy one-eyed blink from him.
Cala exhaled out her nose, let her eyelids fall and reached up to rub her brow in stress. "… I need to tell him about you," she told herself more than anything.
Spyglass reacted fast, raising his palms and backing up from the island. "Nononononono no, you know the deal," they pointed at her with a clawed digit as they stepped around it to approach. "You gimme the goss - I don't kill 'im. If you tell 'im, well... that ain't good for either of us sister."
"Can't I just say there's someone after him??" She tried to reason. He had no idea he was being hunted. He needed to know for stars’ sake.
Spyglass shrugged. "If you can deal with soundin' like the most suspicious girlfriend ever then cussin’ go right ahead," they pointed out. Cala frowned up at the seven-foot demon stood in front of her.
"… I hate you," she bitterly, truthfully told him, with venom lacing her tone. Because it was all she could do to express her hate. Tell it to their face. She couldn’t hurt him. She couldn’t sell him out, not without risking the lives of those around her. All she could do while people were home was curse him out under her breath. Like she was underwater. And he was above it.
"Girl please, nobody can hate me," they boasted aboard their boat, sailing it back over to the kitchen island, and bother a vase of rose Cala swore she saw wither at his approaching finger. "It's impossible."
Cala stormed over, swiping the vase out of reach of his tainting claws. “The Devil does," she snarked snidely up at them.
They blinked. "Okay now that was a low blow," Spyglass drew the line at that of all insults. Cala just rolled her eyes.
"C'maaan, we're colleagues here," he prompted and followed her as she left the kitchen for the connected living room, to place the bouquet of flowers atop the coffee table instead, adjusting its position slightly. From behind her Spyglass stepped up and fell back onto the sofa on her left, kicking his feet up and putting his hands behind his head. "… So. Whatcha got?"
She blinked at them, while they blinked back at her with a smile they had to know looked stupid.
"Info," they clarified, and rolled their hand. "You gotta play your part of the deal here."
Cala dropped her gaze to the flowers, retracting her hands. "Nothing more than the stuff I've already told you," she murmured.
Spyglass threw his endless arms out. "C'monnn, I need somethin' useful here! My sweet, innocent, pookie-dookie life is on the line," he purred and interlocked his fingers, raising coy shoulders. Cala wasn’t amused.
"I've told you, the quest has been paused," she repeated annoyedly at them, then made her mouth small, "… I don't have any updates for you."
”You better not be holdin’ out on me fishy,” they threatened with a deadpan eye and a gleaming grin. Remembering Mugman and how this demon was here to assassinate him… Cala swallowed.
"-I-I'll get something of use to you, alright??" She vowed whilst motioning placatingly. "Just... give me time," she requested. "I haven't exactly been able to visit the house recently to get anything.” She’d been stuck in company for the past few days.
Spyglass pursed his grey horse lips. "Fine. But please, you gotta do somethin' soon. I've been dyin' tryna hide out in this damn apartment building," he complained and leaned their bald head back so it dangled off the arm of the couch.
"Don't give me that - Your job is to hide," Cala contested. "It's all you do. In fact you can be doing all this snooping yourself. Why did you have to rope me into this??" She hissed angrily.
"Because your friend from the almighty Heavens is always floatin' around the gang," he answered back with one hand moving in a mocking, magical fluttery gesture, then lifting his boney shoulders. "She would sense me in seconds! You figured me out in seconds!"
"That’s because you are trash at pretending to be people," she snipped hushedly as she stepped around the couch. The demon winced.
“Imptails. I thought you Surfacers were supposed to be nice," he murmured in Cala’s background, heading over to the window again to peer out, hoping for signs of a dish.
"Have you not spied on us long enough to have figured that out already," Cala attested, going up onto her tiptoes to see as much of the street below as she could. But there was no signs of blue.
The mermaid lowering her heels back down, the pit in her stomach growing roots and a sprout, grew ever more frustrated listening to the demon’s grating voice. "Yeah, but I look, sweetheart, I don't listen," they made clear, Cala twisting herself back around. "I've got earholes the sizes of grains of rice, and have yet to find any nostrils. This eye," they tapped a claw a against their flat glass disk, "- is everythin'."
"Does your twin have the ears and nose then?" The gorgon let her annoyance slip in to her bitter quip.
Spyglass hummed. “He would’ve,” he mumbled past the claw he had in his mouth picking at his gums. “If I hadn’t… gotten hungry and eaten him, in the womb,” they sighed.
Cala scoffed. "… You're despicable," she told him after a baffled pause, like he wasn’t already aware. In fact they reacted to the fact with what seemed like gratitude.
Rising from their laid position on the sofa, a hand flew up to their bony chest. "Thank youuu. Ugh, I was startin' to think I was losin' my touch - goin' soft." He shuddered at the mere mention of it. Cala was going to lose her mind she was sure.
"Do you think I'm losin' my touch?" Spyglass rambled worriedly to himself, Cala tuning him out as much as she could, instead focusing her attention on droplets of rain merging and running down the window pain.
“Maybe that's why the Devil wants me dead," they theorised. At the same time Cala saw a moving blob of blue approach her street, her eyes widening to saucers.
"I've become too friendly up on the Surface," Spyglass mumbled, his expression contorting with brimming tears. "Oh, what would Mumsy say if she saw me right now-"
"-He's coming. Get out," Cala hissed into his face, then rushed to make a break for the door.
"Hell and the Devil- what happened to Surface courtesy?? You offer a deal, save a guy's life, and this is what you cussin' get.-"
"Shhhh - go!" She hissed further, wafting a hard hand out to motion for him to leave. He did, but at his own pace, muttering a 'Fine' as he dragged himself off the couch, his feet clapping on their way over to the other kitchen window, and knocking over everything that wasn’t glued to the counter as he clambered out in the most precarious way possible, grunting when his gut got stuck. Cala shrieked at him quietly to hurry up, watching him wiggle and whip his spade-ended tail around before finally squeezing out with a 'pop!'
The second they were out Cala raced out the door. Her feet were a blur running down the staircase to the building’s front door, the gorgon heaving it open to reveal a healthy and intact Mugman.
"Mugman!" She exclaimed, and threw her arms around him before his first foot even left the front step. "Oh my sea stars - you're alive!" She gasped, feeling him in their hug to make sure he was indeed real. "I was sure you were killed!"
Cala then grew concerned, when she didn’t get a response back. She murmured his name in worry, as the dish moulded like clay into her embrace, and shook with sobs. Cala hugged him tighter when she noticed, holding the back of his scarf-less neck and burying her mouth into his shoulder, unsure on what to say, what to do other than just hold him, and look up past her own tears to the heavens and whatever higher power had helped him walk away from the Devil alive.
Sniffling, Cala pulled back from him to take his hands and lead him out of the rain and inside to sit, for fear he would collapse in a moment, taking him over to the stairs and gently pushing him down, before sitting down on his left. She remembered a tissue in her pocket, retrieving it and giving it to him, but the square piece of thin paper was barely equipped to withstand several minutes worth of crying, and a breakdown that she was guessing had been ten years overdue. Cala had so many questions, like how he’d gotten so soaked, why was he holding his scarf in a fist; what had happened?
She was lost. But clearly Mugman was broken. Cala patiently awaited the explanation he might have as to why.
“… Me and Cup-” He hiccuped, his face pulling in all different distraught directions, “-we fought,” he sobbed. “Real bad, I-”
“… I think I- left him,” he stammered out in staggered shock. Cala watched him shudder and jerk like a broken car engine.
“-He’ll come back,” she tried to comfort… But she was seeing it for maybe the first time; Mugs had lost faith in him. Fully.
His ceramic head swung from side to side. “… I ain’t sure anymore Cala,” he choked out the confession, like it hurt to utter the words, his breath hitching, “-I think he’s go-hone,” he cried coarsely and dropped his face into his hand. Cala was helpless sat there beside him, brushing her palm up and down his hunched back in an effort to soothe him, or at least aid him through his grief. It was grief - Mugs was grieving Cup like he’d died. He had in a sense. The both of them had lost themselves years ago. But it seemed they’d only just taken down the wall that allowed the grief to flood in.
A lot of tears were shed. Maybe even all of the liquid Mugs’ had in his body. After swiping her knuckles across his glistening cheeks multiple times over Cala took the tissue up to his running nose and held it there like she’d done with leaking pipes. For that she received a hint of a smile and a little huff too, the mermaid tittering a bit herself as Mugs took over holding the tissue, wiping his cupid’s bow and lips clean of all the snot that had run down them. If that was his only flaw stars she’d take it.
Apart from some nasally noises and sniffing now and again, and some deep, shaky breaths Mugman quietened. He was still upset. It was just there was only so much crying one could do.
“… The uhh… the Devil wasn’t too open to negotiatin’,” he then began retelling his day with the King of Demons. “… Didn’ even let me speak really,” he said all blocked-nosedly into the tissue. It didn’t surprise the gorgon, only made her scrunch her lips to one side in distaste.
”He knew about my cuss-up but also a previous cuss-up I did, months ago,” Mugs disclosed. “Not even Cup knows ‘bout that,” he proclaimed. A ball formed in Cala’s throat, her fingers going up to palpate it. With such a disturbing fact the gamble that Mugman had taken in facing the Devil and leaving his lair still alive sounded more like a miracle.
“… I thought I was a goner,” he admitted in a weary exhale, the shoulders he so often compared to his father’s sunken and solemn, “… but he just… gave me another job,” the dish revealed. “Said it was my last.”
“Your-” Cala veered her head back, then angled it sceptically. Sparing a servant for his mistakes was one thing but letting him go, allowing him to fulfil his debt… that was impossible.
Mugman’s despondent expression agreed: it was impossible. So what deal had been struck.
”… What’s the catch,” Cala asked him, water already swelling in her lower lids. She knew it wasn’t good, but seeing Mugs’ chin tremble as it did struck her with a new level of fear.
”… ‘S bad,” he said, his mouth creating a saliva bubble before it burst with his next sob. “The worst-” He clammed up, shaking his head again. Cala rubbed her hand over his shoulders as he took some deep, shuddering breaths.
“… I gotta hurt somebody,” he unveiled. Cala’s heart wrenched in her chest. He hadn’t been made for this, he’d been made for something much, much kinder. Something noble. This wasn’t it, this wasn’t what he’d been spawned on this earth for. It was destroying him.
Reaching over Cala laid her fingers on top of the ones he had clutching his scarf, and found his gaze. “… You don’t,” she told him firmly.
“You can choose. There has to be another way,” she expressed, raising a hand to his slick cheek and gently moving his face back when it veered away. Cala dipped her chin and furrowed her brow strongly up at him. “… You’ll figure it out,” she spoke with conviction. His sea-blue irises were swimming in tears.
“… What if I can’t?” He weeped at her, his eyelids falling, forcing more tears to cascade down his face. Behind the shroud of his lids Cala’s features contorted with grief, pulling faces she couldn’t bring herself to make while he could see. She got the worst crinkles and creases out, in time for him to open his tired eyes again, brushing her thumb back and forth across the porcelain of his cheek.
“… I want our life,” she confirmed as she flicking between both eyes, pressing her lips together when they started shaking uncontrollably, “… but I don’t want to see you suffer for it,” she squeaked out in a sob.
Mugman clasped her shoulders and she his, both of them bracing for the pain that came down on them. Together on that step, they cried over the unspoken words, over what Mugman’s other options were if he refused this mark. How the options were limited to running and eventually being found, or handing his own debt in… Cala didn’t want that. Stars, Cala really, really didn’t want that. She was bawling at the thought of it. Losing him before they could even get started on their future.
… But it was his choice ultimately. And she refused to spend their time together however much remained loathing him. She’d rather spend it loving him.
As she shook and snivelled in front of him, eyes squeezed shut and her throat projecting the most ugly sounds she’d ever made, she felt him tuck a tentacle behind her ear, then press his forehead against hers. Cala pushed into it. As hard as she could. Because who knew if she’d ever get to feel him push back again. When she opened her eyes again she glanced down, at the now empty hands that were taking hers into his.
“I promised to get you out,” Mugs uttered softly, and sniffed. Cala barely held herself together.
Swallowing, she shook her head the tiniest bit against his. “… Promises don’t always work out,” she whispered through the thick coating of emotion in her throat, “no matter how much they mean, no matter how… hard… we try.”
Sometimes it was just the way of things.
It was the meaning that counted. He’d fought so hard - he deserved to go whichever way he wanted now. Cala vowed, she would follow him through anything.
“… -I love you Cal,” he managed to choke out in a wavering but clear voice. Cala lifted her gaze to meet his for the first time since they’d bumped brows, and immediately she crumpled in it.
“… You too,” she whispered and inhaled sharply, before she hugged him again. Tight. Tighter than tight - she used all the strength she had to hold him like he might escape. She hoarded the feeling of his arms wrapped around her, the sounds of him crying and the smell of his old clothes, hiding beneath the layer of rain. With a demon lurking around her chambers, and the King of Hell holding a knife to Mugs’ neck, she couldn’t be sure she’d get to experience these senses and the feelings they ignited again. For all she knew this was it. Spyglass could get him or her tonight, in their sleep. Or maybe Mugman had been slipped a slow-working poison. Maybe the universe would get Cala for inadvertently stealing Cuphead’s little brother from him. They could have days on their clock. Weeks. Months, years. They could have hours before they had to pack their bags and run, leave everyone. If it wasn’t one loss it was another.
Sat there between a roof and four walls, their bellies decently full from breakfast, warm in their clothes and safe in the embrace of each other’s bodies, Cala didn’t take a single second for granted. She soaked in it, for fear the next time she needed, wanted comfort from him he could be cold and soulless. Or not even all together. For the chance this was the last hug she’d ever share with him where he reciprocated it, where he was whole, Cala tried to make it last an eternity.
Though she wasn’t sure eternity would even be enough.
They stayed there for what felt like hours, holding each other through the pain and the dread of what would come next. Everything was changing. And the odds weren’t in their favour for all of them to make it out of this last stage. Some of them weren’t going to see the end, they couldn’t all finish the race. And it was agonising knowing Mugman was somewhere at the back of the pack, with Cala stood waiting for him. And knowing if it came to it she would run the other way with him.