Chapter Text
“Are you scared, kid?” Elliot asked her.
“No…” the girl responded, but the trembling of her fingers betrayed her words.
“You’ve got this. You know the menu well enough. All you have to do is punch in the order the customers give you.”
“What if they ask a question I don’t know the answer to?”
“Then I can answer it. Remember, I’ll be right here behind you.”
“W-what if they’re mean?” Her voice wobbled.
“Again, I’m right here,” Elliot repeated. “If a customer is mean to you, I will jump over the counter and punch them.”
She laughed, and Elliot couldn’t help but smile softly at the sound of it.
“Will you now?” she managed to say through her giggles.
“Err… maybe not. We’d probably get sued if I did that. And then Dad will be mad at me.”
“It would be pretty funny to watch Dad yell at you, though.”
“Wow… thanks…” Elliot replied sarcastically. “Seriously though. If a customer is being difficult, I’ll deal with them.”
The girl looked up at him, and for a moment he was caught off guard. Pure admiration sparkled in her blue eyes, as if Elliot was the most amazing thing she’s ever laid her eyes on.
“Thanks so much, Elli.”
“O-of course,” he stuttered out. A chime came from the door, indicating that a customer was entering the restaurant. He ruffled the girl’s hair. “Okay, you’ve got this, sis.”
A determined expression grew on her face, and Elliot took a step back. Somewhere deep inside, he felt the urge to take the girl’s spot at the cash register. To keep her behind him, shielded from any rude customers that may walk in.
He forced the urge down—knowing that he was being a bit ridiculous. Yes, sometimes customers could be nasty, but it wasn’t like she was going to die. It was literally just customer service. And she was a lot stronger than most people—including Elliot himself—gave her credit for.
So he stayed back and watched as his little sister greeted the customer with a big grin.
“The hell is this?”
“It’s a million bucks. What does it look like, kid?”
Elliot stared at the white case Chance shoved in his hands with a puzzled expression on his face.
“It looks like a medkit. But I’m not hurt right now?”
“Obviously it’s not for right now,” Chance huffed. “It’s in case ya’ get hurt later.”
“But what if you get hurt?”
“Kid.” Chance deadpanned.
“But what if my pizza is on cooldown?” Elliot tried to give the medkit back to Chance. They held up their hands and stepped back as if it was made out of poison. “Or I’m not with you. Or I’m dead.”
Elliot didn’t miss the way Chance flinched at ‘Or I’m dead.’ For someone so addicted to gambling, they really needed to work on their poker face.
“C’mon, let’s stop wasting time and do some of those generators.” Chance attempted to change the subject. He walked over to a nearby generator.
“I’m not taking this.”
“Fine, then just toss it on the ground and let it go to waste, ‘cause I ain’t taking it either.”
“Whatever, you win.” Elliot shoved the medkit into his bag. He could always give it to another person later. Or someone could take it off his body if it came to that. He bent down next to Chance and joined them in fixing the generator.
He’d done this so many times before it was practically second nature at this point. Pink wire connects to pink. Green wire connects to green. With the two of them, the machine whirred to life in no time.
They both stood back up. Chance gave his coin a flip, and Elliot scanned their surroundings.
Flip. “Aw dang it.” Flip. "C’mon…" Chance glared at his coin angrily.
“You’re the one who said we should stop wasting time. And now you’re going to spend the rest of the round flipping that coin instead of being useful,” Elliot remarked.
“And you’re going to spend the rest of the round missing your pizza throws.”
“Shut up, a—”
He was cut off by a yell in the distance. And it wasn’t the sort of yell Guest 1337 did when he rushed towards the killer. This was a pained yell—one of someone who was being attacked. Being killed.
Elliot reached into his bag, ready to take out his pizza and run towards the commotion, but paused as Chance held out a hand.
“Chance…” Elliot grumbled, already knowing what they were going to say.
“Stay back here, focus on the generators. I’ll go over and help them. If it sounds like it’s getting bad, you can come on over. But don’t get too close to the killer, capiche?”
“Seriously? Someone could be really injured over there! I can help!”
“You can’t help if you’re… hurt.” Hurt being code for a decaying corpse on the ground.
More protests were on the tip of Elliot’s tongue, but he ended up merely sighing. “Your dumbass better not die. And…” He reached back into his bag and grabbed the medkit. “Might as well take this b—”
But Chance was already running off. Still flipping his stupid coin.
Yet again Elliot put the medkit back into his bag. He knew that there was at least some rationale to the other survivors’ constant protectiveness. He was the weakest out of all of them, and the killers were well aware of that. As soon as they spotted him, they targeted him. Once Elliot was targeted, it took very little to take him down.
Like Chance said… he’d be no help if he was ‘hurt.’
Trying his best to ignore the sounds of fighting in the distance, Elliot started searching around for the remaining generators. It didn’t take him long to find one.
Purple wire connects to purple. Orange wire connects to orange.
It was almost relaxing in a way, if he wasn’t trapped in a twisted death game, that is. Most people hated repetitive menial tasks, but Elliot never really minded them. There were plenty of those sorts of tasks back at the pizza place. Washing dishes was way better than dealing with unruly customers.
Just like how fixing a generator was better than desperately trying to heal your teammates while they’re being chased by a killer.
But still, those sorts of things had to be done.
There was the unmistakable sound of a sword slashing through skin and another pained yell. Elliot huffed and slammed the top of the generator shut.
“Screw this. I’m going over there.”
With that, he made his way to where the action was. He didn’t jump straight into it though. He first hid behind a wall and did a quick survey of the situation.
Shedletsky was being chased by c00lkidd. He looked—to put it in the nicest way possible—like absolute shit. His face was completely bruised and swollen. One hand clutched a bleeding arm, while the other held his sword. Though his grasp on the weapon was weak—like at any moment he would drop it.
Guest 1337 and Two Time ran behind c00lkidd, the former with his fists balled up and the latter holding onto their dagger. c00lkidd swung at Shedletsky but was stopped by Guest dashing forward and body slamming him. With the killer temporarily distracted, Elliot took his chance.
“Shedletsky!” He jumped out from his spot behind the wall. “Catch!”
He threw a slice of pizza at Shedletsky, who caught it and chowed it down. Almost immediately his wounds began to heal. He let go of his arm, which no longer bled, and tightened his grip on his sword.
Unfortunately… this brought c00lkidd’s attention straight to Elliot. A high-pitched giggle reverberated across the map.
“Well, shit,” Elliot whispered to himself.
He used Rush Hour to quickly sprint away from c00lkidd. Apparently not fast enough, though, because even when he slowed down he could still hear heavy footfalls following close behind him. Then he heard a whoosh. He sidestepped and just barely missed a flaming brick to the head. It flew off into the horizon.
Another whoosh. This one from the slashing of a sword. Shedletsky swung at c00lkidd… and completely missed. Because of course he did.
c00lkidd paid him no mind, as if Shedletsky hadn’t even swung, and continued his chase. Elliot grimaced as his legs started to burn—stamina depleting.
Guest and Two Time were still behind c00lkidd. All three sentinels desperately tried to catch up and protect Elliot, but they never seemed to get close enough.
c00lkidd threw another brick at him, and this time it hit. Elliot fell to the ground. His ears rang, his eyesight blurred, and his scalp burnt, and oh god, it hurts. He’s coming closer. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill—
Bang.
“Aww! No fair!” c00lkidd cried out.
Elliot felt hands grab his arms and help him stand up. He wanted to close his eyes and slump all his weight onto the person holding him. Instead, he forced his bleary eyes to focus. The blob of gray in front of him cleared up until he saw Builderman’s face staring down at him.
“Builder… man…?”
“You alright there, pal?”
Elliot nodded, but even that small action made him dizzy.
“Yeah… I’m all good,” he responded. It wasn’t all that convincing.
“I’m buildin’ a dispenser." Builderman bent down and began assembling the machine.
Elliot glanced back, seeing the source of the bang. Chance was running away with c00lkidd hot on his heels. The kid laughed before slamming his entire body into Chance and throwing them down onto the ground. They let out a wheeze as the breath was knocked out of them.
Elliot instinctively reached into his bag but paused when he remembered his pizza was still on cooldown. Stupid Spectre and their stupid rules…
Guest hopped in front of c00lkidd and was about to perform a block. Before he could even get his arms all the way up, though, c00lkidd punched him. Then the kid simply… ran around him.
Chance scrambled up and limped away. His face was bruised, and his nose was bleeding, but he still desperately kept running.
“He’s gonna kill them…” Elliot murmured.
“Get close to the dispenser, pal. It won’t heal you from there.”
“Builderman?” Elliot tried to ignore how his head spun, and how his entire body felt lighter than it probably should’ve. “How much time do you think is still left in the round?”
Builderman put a hand on his chin—seemingly pondering the question. After a moment he shrugged.
“Well, the generators are all done, and I don’t believe anyone’s been killed. I reckon we have only about a minute left.”
“A minute left…? Yeah, that should be enough time.”
Builderman quirked an eyebrow. “Enough time for— Kid, where are you going?!”
In hindsight, it was stupid. Extremely stupid. But, unfortunately, after being bonked in the head with a flaming brick, one didn’t think all that rationally.
So Elliot sprinted straight towards c00lkidd and Chance.
c00lkidd threw another brick, one that surely would’ve killed Chance if it hit him. It didn’t hit him, though. Elliot hopped in front of Chance and took the brick to the face instead.
“E-elliot?! What’re ya’ doing?” Chance exclaimed.
The world spun even more and his ears rang even more, and his body felt even lighter. Almost like he was floating on a cloud…
“Saving your… dumbass…” was the last thing Elliot said as his legs decided to stop working and he collapsed to the ground.
His eyesight flickered for a few seconds before completely fading out. Darkness consumed him.
And then he died.
And then he came back. In an annoyingly familiar cabin.
“Why’d I do that…?” He rubbed the spot on his head where he’d been hit, though the pain was no longer there. He would never get used to having the life being drained from him one second and then the next being completely fine. It was disorienting, as was everything in this fucking place.
And now their healer was gone. Why did he have to be such an idiot? Elliot could only hope the others would fare well without him. Builderman had said there was only about a minute left in the round, well, probably a little bit more since Elliot got himself killed, but… hopefully they’d be okay.
He needed to sit down. He was so exhausted. Rounds always took a lot out of him.
He sighed and started walking over to the couch. He only made it a few steps when suddenly, a voice rang out. A stuttering, shaky voice.
“W-who are you?!”
At the bottom of the stairs was a kid. Well, it was hard to tell if they were actually a kid, but they couldn’t have been older than eighteen. Blue hoodie, green pants. Wide, terrified blue eyes, staring up at Elliot as if he were the most terrifying thing they’ve ever laid their eyes on.
“Um… Hi. I’m Elliot,” he greeted awkwardly. “Who're you?”