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Enjin was sick.
His head throbbed, his throat burned, his nose refused to function, and his entire existence felt like it had been hit by a car and then drop-kicked. He was tired, and he was starving, and he was cold, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be dreaming about pizza like it was some kind of divine revelation.
But here he was, sitting up groggily in bed — With the most insane case of bed head anyone has ever seen — craving the savory delicacy that was the leftover pizza he knew was in the fridge.
Or should be, had none of the feral raccoon people he lived with eaten it.
So, bleary-eyed and stumbling, he made his way out of his room, trying not to trip over whatever was in the messy hallway or Umbreaker, who trailed behind him like one big lazy shadow.
Enjin dragged a hand down his face, squinting against the dim light of the hallway. Everything felt too loud, too bright, too everything. His head pounded, making every step toward the kitchen feel like a heroic journey he absolutely did not sign up for.
By the time Enjin reached the kitchen, he was already bracing himself for disappointment. The pizza was probably gone. Devoured. Destroyed. Reduced to crumbs by the same creatures that were only legally called children but were more feral goats with opposable thumbs than anything.
He barely registered flipping on the light. But once he did, the first thing he noticed was the whole other person already standing in the kitchen.
His brain, already running at minimal capacity, took one long, buffering second to process what he was looking at.
Leaning casually against the counter, completely shirtless, was a teenager he knew most definitely was not one of his or his adjacent, eating his pizza.
Enjin had gotten used to random friends of his kids simply popping up and not leaving for days at a time. He’d come to accept that he had become the community shelter for stanky kids.
But this one was not one he remembered, so either there’s a new stray he wasn’t informed about, or this was a pizza thief who broke into sick old men’s — Enjin is not even thirty — houses to prey on their helplessly delicious three-day-old pizza.
The kid glanced up from where he was still eating Enjin’s pizza. He stared a bit wide-eyed at the new addition to the room for a moment before recognition clicked behind his aggressively pink irises. “Ohhh, hey, you’re Zanka’s old man, right?” He said, a bit too loudly, ”Wassup?”
Enjin stared at him in a full, soul-searching, fever-lagged stare, like if he looked long enough the situation might rearrange itself into something that made sense.
It did not.
His brain was not updated enough to understand what was going on fully. He pointed a hand at the pizza still being eaten, “You,” he rasped, voice dry and edged with suffering, “are eating my fucking pizza.”
The kid followed the line of his finger down to the slice in his hand, then back up to Enjin.
“Oh shit, this was yours?” He waved the cooling, half-eaten pizza slice, “My bad, dude, but dont worry, I ain't no monster, I left y'all a few slices.”
Enjin didn’t respond.
Because what was there to say to that?
He blinked at the random shirtless kid still standing in his kitchen, then at the half-closed pizza box on the counter, and promptly made the correct decision of grabbing a paper plate out of the pantry.
He shuffled past the kid like a ghost with a grudge, grabbed the pizza box, and flipped it open with the kind of care usually reserved for checking if something inside might explode.
Two slices.
Two.
Enjin stared down at them like they had personally betrayed him. Like they had watched their fallen brethren be devoured and done nothing.
“Fuckin’ kids,” he muttered hoarsely.
Behind him, the kid had the audacity to keep eating, loudly, crunching like he was in a commercial.
Enjin inhaled slowly through his nose, immediately regretted it because his nose was clogged, and then exhaled through his mouth like a dying man trying to remain civil in the face of great injustice.
He picked up one slice. It was cold. Of course it was cold. Of course his life had led him here, to this moment, at four in the morning, feverish and miserable, holding a cold slice of pizza.
Umbreaker flopped down heavily at his feet with a thud, tail giving one lazy thump against the cabinet like moral support.
Enjin took a bite anyway. It tasted like disappointment and cardboard, and maybe something vaguely pepperoni.
He chewed slowly, eyes half-lidded, looking like he might actually pass away right there in the kitchen.
“You got a name,” Enjin croaked after a long, painful silence, “or am I just calling you ‘home invasion’?”
The kid perked up like that was the most normal question in the world.
“Oh, yeah, name’s Jabber,” he said, tapping his chest with the hand not holding pizza. “Been crashing here for like, two days? Three? I dunno, time’s fake.”
Enjin stopped chewing, and very slowly, he turned his head. “Two days.” He echoed, looking as confused as a fish out of water
“Yeah?” Jabber blinked at him, then grinned, completely unbothered. “You sleep hard, man. I respect it.”
Enjin sighed. Had he really been that out of it to not notice a whole ass person he didn’t know walking around his house?
“And which one of them is responsible for you being here?” He asked
“Zanka,” Jabber said easily, like that answered everything. “We were hanging out, it got late, he said I could crash, and then like - nobody told me to leave, so,” He shrugged, taking another bite. “I just kept not leaving.”
Enjin closed his eyes.
‘Of course it was Zanka.’
Because why wouldn’t his supposedly most responsible kid bring home a random, shirtless, pink-eyed pizza-stealing asshole and just forget to mention it?
“Unbelievable,” Enjin murmured, more to himself than anything, voice frayed at the edges.
Jabber leaned his hip against the counter, tilting his head slightly, “You want me to, like, go or something?” He nodded slightly to where the front door was.
Enjin opened one eye like a high frog. He looked at Jabber then at the pizza. Looked at the space where more pizza should have been. Then he looked at Umbreaker, who blinked back at him with the emotional investment of a rock.
“No, it’s fine,” Enjin sighed again, because he did not have the strength to deal with that right now. “You live here now, apparently. That’s just that’s my life.”
Jabber brightened. “Sick. Thanks dude”
Enjin stared at him with the hollow gaze of a man on the brink. “I am going to pass away in this kitchen,” he informed him.
Jabber winced. “Damn. Can you not? That’d be awkward to explain to Z.”
Enjin dragged his gaze off Jabber with visible effort, like even looking at him cost too much energy. “I’ll try to schedule it for later,” he muttered, taking another slow, resentful bite of cold pizza.
“Appreciate it,” Jabber nodded, entirely serious.
Enjin took another sad bite of even sadder pizza but paused mid-chew when he heard the sound of a door opening down the hallway.
“Zanka,” he called, voice rough but loud enough to carry, “come get your stray before I lose what’s left of my will to live.”
There was a pause.
“YOU’RE UP?!”
Zanka appeared in the doorway like he’d been launched there, hair a mess, hoodie half-on, one sleeve dangling like he lost a fight with it. His eyes flicked immediately to Enjin, a flash of concern slipping through before it got buried under his usual energy.
“You look like shit,” Zanka said.
“Thank you,” Enjin replied flatly.
Then Zanka’s attention snapped to Jabber.
And something in his whole posture shifted. His shoulders loosened, expression softening in a way that didn’t quite match the chaos of the moment. “You’re still up?” he asked.
Jabber shrugged, but there was a small, easy grin tugging at his mouth. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Zanka huffed quietly, stepping fully into the kitchen. “You should’ve woken me up.”
“Thought about it,” Jabber said. “Didn’t wanna deal with you being grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy.”
“You are when you wake up.”
Enjin slowly turned his head.
They stopped whatever that had been. Zanka cleared his throat, like he’d just remembered there was, in fact, a dying man present.
“Anyway,” he said quickly, gesturing vaguely, “this is Jabber. He’s - uh - staying for a bit.”
“I gathered,” Enjin said.
There was a brief pause.
Zanka rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking a little less put-together. “He didn’t, like, cause problems, right?”
Enjin stared at him, then he very deliberately looked down at his plate, then at the pizza box, then back at Zanka.
“He ate my food,” Enjin said.
Zanka looked at the other teen, and Jabber immediately froze mid-bite.
“You ate his pizza?” Zanka asked, voice going flat in a way that suggested this did matter.
Jabber swallowed slowly. “In my defense, I didn’t know it was his.”
Zanka pressed a hand to his face, sighing. “Dude,” He sighed.
Enjin narrowed his eyes, then immediately regretted it because his head pounded harder in response. “Whatever,” he muttered, waving it off weakly. “I’m too sick for this.”
Zanka sighed again, then glanced back at Jabber, like checking in. “You good?”
Jabber shrugged, but he leaned just a little closer without thinking, shoulder brushing Zanka’s again. “Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine,” Zanka said, quieter.
“You look tired.”
“You kept me up.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
Zanka huffed a small laugh, bumping him back.
Enjin stilled. His half-dead brain, running on fumes and spite, finally managed to connect two very unfortunate dots.
He slowly turned his head.
Looked at the way Jabber’s hand had drifted absentmindedly, hooking briefly into the edge of Zanka’s sleeve like it had done that before.
Then back up to their faces.
There was a long, heavy silence as Enjin processed what his brain was trying to tell him.
“No,” He said.
“No?” Zanka echoed, glancing up from whatever he was saying to Jabber
Enjin pointed weakly between them, pizza slice still in hand like a weapon he didn’t have the strength to use.
“No,” he repeated, firmer this time, like denial alone could undo reality. “Absolutely not. I am not dealing with that on top of everything else right now.”
Zanka’s face went through about three different expressions in half a second. Confusion before realization.
“Enjin - ”
“No,” Enjin cut him off immediately, turning away like if he couldn’t see it, it wasn’t real. “I rebuke it. I reject the idea. I’m sick.”
Jabber choked a little on nothing, coughing into his fist.
Zanka shot him a look. “Don’t you fuc - ”
“I’m not - ” Jabber wheezed, failing to keep the grin off his face.
“You are,” Zanka hissed.
“Okay, okay - ” Jabber held up his hands, still smiling, then glanced back at Enjin. “So, like, are we not telling him, or - ?”
“You already told him!” Zanka snapped under his breath.
Enjin very slowly turned back around. “Oh my God,” he said, voice flat with horror.
Zanka straightened a little, rubbing the back of his neck again, suddenly looking about ten times more awkward than he had any right to be. “We were gonna tell you,” he said.
“When,” Enjin demanded, “after you moved him in permanently? After he finished eating the rest of my groceries? After I died and found out in the afterlife?”
“Preferably before the afterlife part,” Jabber offered.
Zanka elbowed him hard in the ribs.
Enjin stared at them.
“I got up,” he said slowly, like he was piecing together a nightmare in real time, “at four in the morning. While sick. For pizza.”
Neither of them spoke.
“I found a half-naked stranger in my kitchen,” Enjin continued, voice gaining a thin, incredulous edge, “eating said pizza.”
Zanka winced.
“And now,” Enjin gestured weakly between them again, “you’re telling me that stranger is - ” He trailed off, like the word physically would not come out.
Jabber, entirely unhelpful, supplied, “His boyfriend.”
Zanka made a strangled noise. “Bro - ”
Enjin closed his eyes. For a long moment, he just stood there processing, rr attempting to but failing, mostly.
“I’m going back to bed,” he decided finally, because that was the only option his body, mind, and soul could agree on.
“Yeah,” Zanka said quickly. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”
Enjin turned, already shuffling toward the hallway again, dignity hanging on by a thread. Umbreaker got up to follow without question. Halfway out of the kitchen, Enjin stopped, his brain picking up some bits and pieces of the last ten minutes of his life.
“Condoms are under the sink!” He blurted before he actually thought about the words leaving his mouth.
Jabber straight up lost it. A sharp, wheezing laugh burst out of him before he could stop it, immediately devolving into him trying — and failing — to muffle it into his hand.
Zanka made a noise that could only be described as his soul leaving his body.
“OH MY - WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!” Zanka snapped, voice cracking in a way that suggested he might actually combust on the spot.
“I am SICK,” Enjin cut him off, turning slightly, eyes wild with exhausted indignation. “My brain is not responsible for what comes out of my mouth right now!”
Jabber was still laughing. Like fully laughing, bent slightly at the waist, shoulders shaking, trying to breathe through it and failing spectacularly.
“That’s - “ he wheezed again, “that’s actually helpful, though - ”
“YOU’RE NOT HELPING,” Zanka snapped, shoving at his shoulder and almost pushing the other over completely.
Jabber stumbled half a step, still grinning like this was the best moment of his life. “Nah, nah, your dad’s real for that - ”
“Stop talking.”
“I’m just saying - ”
“Stop!”
“ - Great communication - ”
“JABBER.”
Enjin closed his eyes again. This was actual, genuine hell.
“I take it back,” he said, voice thin. “Figure it out yourselves. I don’t want to know. I don’t need to know.”
“You already said it!” Zanka groaned.
“I revoke it!”
“You can’t revoke that!”
Enjin dragged a hand down his face again, looking like he was physically holding himself together out of spite alone.
“I raised you better than this,” he muttered.
Jabber snorted.
Zanka rounded on him immediately. “You- Quit encouraging him!”
Enjin pointed weakly at both of them, not even fully turning around. “No talking. No - no anything. Not in my house. Not while I’m awake. Or alive. Just - ” He made a vague, helpless gesture. “Be normal.”
Zanka stared at the back of his head. Jabber bit his lip, very obviously trying not to laugh again. Enjin exhaled, long and shaky, like his body was finally reaching its limit.
“I’m going to bed,” he said again, more final this time. “If I wake up and this is still real, I’m filing a complaint with God.”
“That seems excessive,” Jabber said.
And with that, he shuffled off down the hallway again, Umbreaker trailing faithfully behind.
Zanka covered his face with both hands. “I’m never recovering from that,” he mumbled.
Jabber leaned back against the counter again, still smiling, though softer now. “Your dad’s kinda cool.”
Zanka dropped his hands just enough to glare at him. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I really don’t,” Zanka admitted under his breath, because apparently, tonight was just a series of things that somehow mortified him more than the last.
Jabber’s grin softened, just a little.
Down the hall, Enjin collapsed face-first into his bed, pulling the blanket over his head like it could protect him from reality itself.
“I hate this house,” he mumbled into the fabric.
Umbreaker flopped down beside the bed with a heavy, content sigh.
At least someone here was at peace.