hey whats up mtv welcome to my OC story :^) i used @spatialheather‘s oc-tober list, so here it be. it’s a collab w/ my friend ( @idiototakus ily boo), and it’s been a wip for a couple of years now. basically, the premise of this is that there is a bistro/cafe where the staff are secret members of a magical society, and together they do a whole bunch of shenanigans like you know, be gay, fight evil, serve customers. this work centers between two people, a non-binary POC character named Taylor, who can manipulate electricity, and the bistro’s manager, simply known as Boss (who can shapeshift into a grizzly bear). hope you enjoy!
Summary: In which Taylor learns a little bit more about Boss and his past.
“‘Ey, Boss!”
Taylor sticks their head through the open doorway. A rugged man looks over his shoulder, piercing cyan eyes immediately finding Taylor’s warm olive. The man breaks into a grin, and when Taylor notices the prominent dimple on his right cheek, it warms their heart.
“What’s up, Taylor?” Boss asks, turning his swivel chair around to face them. His red apron is caked with flour, and the white shirt he wears underneath is cuffed at the sleeves. Taylor always found Boss attractive with his muscular build, his salt-and-pepper hair, and bright smile….
Truly body goals.
“U-uh”—Taylor has to cough into their fist to clear their throat—”Ash says that we’re almost halfway through our supply of flour, so we probably need to make an order or somethin’ soon.”
“Oh, I’m on it already,” Boss says with a hearty chuckle. “I tried experimenting with a recipe but it didn’t work out. Hence the, uh, you know.” He gestures to his caked apron, and Taylor laughs as a response.
“You know, I never thought of you as the type to bake and stuff. It doesn’t really…fit your image, I guess.”
Boss laughs and runs a hand through his curly hair. “Yeah? My wife thought it kind of did.”
Taylor’s eyes drift over to the lone picture frame sitting on Boss’s desk. The glare from the glass makes it hard to see, but Taylor can barely make out the image of a younger Boss with an arm wrapped around the shoulders of a beautiful woman, with curly locks cascading over her shoulders, the both of them grinning as they stare into the camera.
“You don’t really talk about her much, do ya, Boss?” Taylor says.
The smile on Boss’s face fades, and he lets out a low hum. “It’s…hard to talk about her, sometimes.”
“O-oh.” Taylor clears their throat again. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Boss shakes his head, and his smile returns to his face. Taylor notices it’s weaker this time around. “It’s fine,” Boss says. “You can ask anything you want, if you’re curious. I know how you are.”
The kind, rational part of Taylor tells them to drop the subject, leave things as they are and continue to work. But the other side, the side that always drags Taylor into trouble pesters them, prodding them to ask one of the many questions floating around in their mind.
The curious side wins—yet again.
“She…passed away, right?” Taylor asks slowly, as if testing the waters.
Boss nods his head, and turns in his chair so that half of his face is hidden from them. His eyes glaze over, looking off into the distance. It’s as if he’s recalling unwanted memories, as if the pain he felt during that time is coming back once again. The faint scars on his forehead seem to shine in the faint lighting, and Taylor feels as if they’re waiting for the healed wounds to reopen and start bleeding again.
“Killed in an Anomaly attack. The same one that gave me”—he gestures to his face with a slight smile—”this.”
Taylor can’t help but chuckle softly; Boss always has room to squeeze in humor somehow.
“It surprised the both of us, so we couldn’t react quick enough. It’s a nasty thing to do, attacking someone at their home.” He shakes his head and sighs through his nose. “She was in front of me that day. Took the brunt of the blow, and if that wasn’t enough to finish her off, the roof pinned her to the ground so that she couldn’t get up. It was….” Boss doesn’t finish the thought. Taylor doesn’t blame him.
In that moment, the room feels much colder, as if Boss froze the air with his words. The hairs on the back of Taylor’s neck stand on end.
In the years that they have been working at the bistro, they have never seen Boss talk like this before.
To witness it right now is…unsettling, to say the least.
The silence is heavy, suffocating almost, as it hovers on Taylor’s shoulders. They watch as Boss continues to stare off into the distance, that faraway look still making his eyes glaze over. If Taylor didn’t know any better, they would have thought that Boss was a mirage, and at the slightest touch, would waver and fade away into nothingness.
Taylor wonders to themself what it must be like to suffer that kind of pain.
“…Sorry Boss,” Taylor finally says. Their words feel lame and empty, but what else are they supposed to say in a situation like this? A part of them feels as if they shouldn’t have asked their question in the first place. They should have just kept their mouth shut and—
“Don’t stress about it, Taylor.”
Taylor blinks and sees Boss facing them once again, a smile on his face. In this angle, Taylor sees the dyed cyan strand of hair in Boss’s hair glimmering in the light.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says gently, “and it’s okay. It’s all in the past now, and even though it hurts to think about sometimes, I can’t do anything to change it. And that’s okay. I’ve lived with it, and I’ll continue to live with it.”
Taylor blinks again, caught off guard, before they finally laugh nervously and scratch the back of their neck. “O-oh, was I that obvious?”
“Your eyes kinda glazed over.”
“You do that too, you know.”
The both of them share a laugh, a quiet one that can barely fill the room, but it’s one that warms Taylor’s chest. The heavy silence hovering over Taylor’s shoulders dissipates, and the atmosphere lightens. Boss’s smile turns into a grin, and for a moment, Taylor thinks they’re staring straight into the sun, being blinded by pure brilliance.
“I’ll see you later then, Taylor.”
“Yeah. You too, Boss.”
As Taylor shuts the door behind them with a soft click, they think to themselves that Boss certainly looks best when he’s smiling.
tfw one of your favorite anime blogs ( @idiototakus ) stops posting anime and starts posting almost nothing but Overwatch and tbh you are completely okay with it
