Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rider was on his way to Blue’s apartment when he got out of his appointment. He would not admit it out loud but he was glad his own team dragged him to the hospital when he stumbled into their base a day after the whole…thing.

Maybe the appointments were actually working because the constant headaches and the burn stopped.

(Physically at least, for the burn.)

Although his eye…he couldn’t see a damn thing. Hey, at least the random flashes of mint green were not so frequent anymore. The eyepatch helped, probably. (Also it looked cool.)

He was doing…quite fine, he guessed. Not the most amazing awesome but he wasn’t at his worst. Probably.

He wondered what the others were doing. Apparently the octoling and his friends (Hachi, he remembered his name as) were doing well on their own. Rider saw them a few times in the lobby. At first he tried to hide from them –Hachi specifically, because for the love of Cod he tried to kill the guy– but then they noticed him and went up to him.

It didn’t really help his guilt but he was glad Hachi was fine. The way the octoling spoke so cheerfully reminded him so much of a certain blue inkling he knew.

…a blue inkling he also tried to kill, like Hachi.

He hadn’t seen Goggles, nor his teammates ever since the metro. It was like they vanished to thin air.

So he was surprised when he found Bobble sitting at the furthest corner of some cafe he was passing by.

She didn’t notice him nor heard the bell from the door despite the lack of customers in the cafe and continued to stare at the table– which added to the strangeness of the fact for Rider, her eyes were open and she wasn’t smiling.

Her eyes seemed tired, and she kept rolling a piece of biscuit wrapper on the table mindlessly.

Rider decided to approach. Normally he would scutter away to the nearest hiding spot whenever any Blue member was around– although if he was honest, it was only Goggles and Bobble– but he found himself walking towards the blue inkling out of concern.

“Hey,” Rider took a note of the concerningly deep bags under Bobble’s muted purple eyes as he tapped the chair in front of her.

He seated at Bobble’s nod, found himself fidgeting with his hands with a sudden strange feeling of nervousness starting to consume his heart. This was Bobble, one of the most carefree inklings he knew, yet something about her made him nervous.

…and worried. To put it bluntly, Bobble looked like a wreck. Her bob cut was disheveled, her eyes were bloodshot red and her cheeks were puffy, not to mention she was constantly sniffing as if she just stopped crying.

Rider couldn’t bring himself to speak, also he couldn’t lie but he kind of wished Bobble to start chatting, but he guessed she wasn’t in the mood.

“Hey.” So, he just started instead.

“Hey Rider.”

Rider’s frown deepened at the dead voice tone of the other.

“I haven’t seen any of Blue in a while,” he figured he could just cut to it. “Are they with you, or…”

Bobble shifted on her place to sit straighter, looking aside nervously.

“W-well, Headphones is with me right now, she just went to the bathroom.”

“What about Goggles–”

“Oh there she is!” Bobble said with a meek cheer as Rider turned his head to the direction she was pointing at.

Headphones was also a wreck like Bobble. She had an old ruggedy hoodie on, her namesake was missing, there were scratch marks on her two front tentacles and she, like Bobble, had eyebags deep as hell as well.

She pulled a chair and sprawled on it, giving a nod to Rider as a greeting. She then started to scroll through her phone.

“Here we are…I guess.”

Rider lifted a brow as Bobble sheepishly grinned.

“So it’s only you two right now.”

“Yeah.”

“What about–”

“He’s not here, Rider,” Headphones piped in with a raspy but a firm voice as she tossed her phone on the table.

Rider blinked and Bobble looked aside again as Headphones threw her head back with a sigh.

“And when did you care anyway…you don’t even like us, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered– more like slurred the words out. “So just go off and do something else, dunno.”

Rider was way too surprised at the sniper to speak.

Bobble could, though. “Don’t say that, Headphones…"

“Whatever,” the sniper said with an eyeroll and stood up, pocketing her phone. “I’m going to practice.”

“But we just got here?..” Bobble stood up right after and grabbed her sleeve, likely to stop her.

“Yeah but now I wanna leave,” Headphones said in a snappy tone. “You don’t have to follow me everywhere, Cod.”

A quiet “What?” was all Bobble could muster.

“I said what I said,” Headphones said in an even firmer tone, it was too obvious she was about to snap. “Just leave me be.”

Bobble could watch in shock as Headphones yanked her sleeve off of her, continuing her walking a bit more paced this time.

The slosher user’s frown deepened, with little pricks of tears brimming on her eyes.

“Weren’t you supposed to look out for us?!”

Headphones stopped at Bobble’s yell, right before the exit of the cafe. The few customers inside even turned their heads in interest, watching the whole thing going down. After all, two members of the infamous idiot team fighting wasn’t something they’ll see everyday.

“You were supposed to look out for us,” Bobble repeated without any care for the watchers standby, and Rider noticed the sniper’s shoulders shaking slightly.

“There’s no us,” Headphones said in a tone as lifeless as a robot, slowly turning her head around to look at Bobble from her shoulder. “So, drop it.”

“I’m not dropping it! You have been avoiding me since that day and so is Goggles and I want to know what happened to our team!-”

“I said there’s no fucking Team Blue, Bobble!” Headphones whirled around and snapped, before her voice getting quiet again, with a wobble this time. “Not anymore at least. I clearly cannot look out for anyone anymore.”

The silence was too loud. And awkward.

“But we still have each other…right?..”

“...I doubt that.”

She left the cafe, as Bobble stood on her spot.

Rider watched the blue inkling staggering back to her seat and dropping down on it, looking at her lap with the still wide-eyed, shocked expression she wore earlier.

He thought to leave since he assumed Bobble might want to be left alone, but he stopped when he saw the blue inkling wiping her eyes at the speed of light and doing a full 180° on her mood, her signature smile on her face.

“S-sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” he said, taking notice of how wobbly and crafted Bobble’s smile is.

“So…” she began, her hands fidgety. “How are things? W-with your team?”

“We’re fine, thanks.” Can’t say the same about your team though, he almost said out loud but he didn’t, because Bobble looked like she was one second away from a panic attack. He knew that first hand.

“That’s amazing, uhm, what about…” She slowly pointed at her eye, her hands shaking slightly. “Y’know?”

“It’s getting healed, I guess. The headaches stopped at least. The eyepatch’s nice.”

“I’m very glad you’re doing well…Anyway–”

“How about you?”

“Whuh– what?”

Here goes nothing. “I said how are you doing.”

“Um, well…I’m good, I guess.”

Rider lifted a brow as Bobble fidgeted with her hands as she averted her gaze again, her smile vanished.

“We’re…fine.” Her voice got even quieter as she curled in upon herself more.

“How are the others?”

“...we’re fine,” she muttered, still not being able to look at the yellow-green inkling. “Headphones practices a lot these days. Goggles is staying with his grandma. There.”

Rider squinted his eye in suspicion. “And–”

“Well, would you look at the time!” Bobble suddenly exclaimed with a wide smile again, startling Rider. “I have an uhh, appointment– with the dentist! Yeah I gotta go the drinks are on me bye!”

With that, she left the cafe at the speed of light before Rider could ask anything further, leaving the shocked yellow-green inkling behind.