fortune telling.

Dave's always believed in the supernatural, ever since he met that old circus performer back when he was a kid. The man could do the impossible, after all. However, if you told him that a fortune cookie that he happened to get, read, and then eat by chance would be right, he wouldn't have believed you.
'You will meet the best person of your life in coming years.' Yeah, right. That's absolute bogus, if Dave had to think anything about it at all. So, naturally, he'd then stuffed that paper back into the cookie bits from whence it came, and ate it. He hasn't really got anything to lose anymore, that including his own life, considering his current occupation and lack of all relations.

As time passed, his own restlessness increased. He was stuck in an unfair, probably illegal contract with a company, and therefore, stuck in a job he didn't want. An employee at a stupid restaurant that bought out his own one, with dumb looking animatronics up on stage to entertain equally dumb children. It made him frustrated-- mad, even, that he had to spend his days at dumps like this. They didn't even have a normal infestation problem, like cockroaches and rats! They had giant scuttlers!
That all said, Dave wasn't happy. Sure, every time he got one of the establishments to close, he was able to escape to Las Vegas for a little while, but they always found him somehow, always dragged him back. It was like an inescapable, unavoidable fate, which was mildly infuriating when you can't actually die.

Alas, the world enjoyed toying with Dave Miller as much as it enjoyed toying with any other person on Earth, especially through awfully conveniently timed appearances of interesting people. First, it was Henry, the man who got him into this whole mess in the first place, albeit unintentionally, and now? A man whose name he didn't know. A man who was weirdly orange in color, like Dave was purple. A man who intrigued him to no end.
Dave decided right then that he'd enlist this strange tangerine man, and call him Old Sport in favor of actually asking for his name. Besides, it's not like they'd ever meet again after the place closed, so Dave had absolutely no reason to learn his name in the first place!

Dave was wrong. Dave was very, very wrong, and it'd be weird to ask for this guy's name now, so he'll just keep calling him Old Sport and hope no one ever corrects him.
See, Dave had made the mistake of actually having fun with this guy, and then he made the other mistake of inviting this guy to go to Vegas with him. He was... exceptional. Showstopping, even. He made Dave's heart pound in a way that he hadn't experienced before, and it made him feel weirdly sick, but also made him feel like he was on Cloud 9 a lot of the time.
This Old Sport guy really drives Dave wild, actually. It's just like old times with Henry, but somehow it's so much better with Sportsy.
Sportsy. He's going to use that nickname the next time they meet. For now, though, Dave will have to wallow over the fact that he sort of ditched Old Sport back in Vegas. Oops?

He met him again a couple months later. In another Fazbenders location, which Sportsy didn't have to return to, and yet he still had found his way back regardless. Dave wondered what drove the man to return to this god awful job every time he escaped it.
Somewhere, deep down, Dave wonders if it's related to himself in any way. He wonders if it was something good about him, or if it was just Dave himself.
However, then, after everything they'd been through together, Sportsy had decided to turn his back on Dave. Why? He thought there was something there, like they had something... special.
Dave had been wrong before. He'd only hoped he was right this time. The world is a cruel place like that, though, not letting him have a single person for too long before ripping them away from him.

Even through that rough patch, Dave decided to play around with Old Sport anyway. Doing exactly as they had done before, only on his own now. He wouldn't stop, couldn't stop, not for anyone.
He had a promise to keep, revenge to enact. With or without Sportsy, Dave would get that closure- he had to. He owed that much to his old friend, Henry. That man, Henry- he'd done everything for Dave, he fixed him, he gave him a place to call home for the first time in his life.
Dave owes Henry absolutely everything, but...
For some reason, Dave finds himself thinking about Old Sport far more than he's ever thought about Henry.

They tricked him.
Those slippery, slimy little snakes-
Everything hurts.
And then it all goes dark. Everything's quiet, and Dave's not entirely sure where he is anymore.
The first time Dave had died, he'd gone here. The second time, too, and all the times after that. After this time, though? Dave wasn't... entirely sure he ever wanted to go back outside. His soul was cut in half at this point, and even if he did go back, what would be the point of trying to restrain the monster that was in his body?
No, not a monster. Dave is not a monster. An animal. A feral, rabid animal, acting on its own in his shell of a humanoid form.
So no, Dave won't go back into that world. Not back to the phone and the tangerine man that crushed his heart once upon a time. If he stays here long enough, he'll end up like the others, and he'll forget how bad it hurts.

Once again, the world seems to play with him. Laughing at him again, like he was some sort of morbid entertainment for it.
Well, maybe he was a sort of entertainment for it. He only thinks that because that orange man, that wonderful, awful, soulless tangerine man, was now standing right before him. And Dave couldn't help himself from saying that old, familiar greeting.
"Why, hello there, Old Sport!"

So they'd traveled the halls together of this winding maze, Dave got his things, and then they left. The place Dave had been in, simply for another walk around of his layered haven (albeit with having to fight opponents sometimes much stronger than himself), suddenly filled with explanations, and a goal, and a friend at long last.
It was fun. Dave had fun for the first time in a long, long time, and when Sportsy had to leave, Dave nearly wanted to beg him to stay.
He said he'd be back in a month. Dave wondered if he'd make good on his promise, or if he was just saying that to...
He couldn't even bear to think about it. His chest hurt when he got too close to that possibility.

Sportsy came back, again and again. He wouldn't leave Dave alone. Dave's pretty sure he promised that. Even if he didn't promise, he still came back.
... not to mention how badly that made Dave nervous. He doesn't think he could go another week being on his own again.
So they descend into a deeper level, and Dave explains more things, with all the eagerness of someone who knew exactly what they were talking about. Sportsy forbade him from talking about pizza, and Dave did it anyway- only to get interrupted by a loud, frustrated, and slightly flustered, "FORBIDDEN."
He'd nearly forgotten who else was in this place, apart from that sock puppet, who absolutely hated his guts and-
... also knew Old Sport? By name, too. Lucky thing.

They continue like that for a while, Dave finally knowing this orange man's name. Jack Kennedy. He's always seemed like a Jack, honestly. A Jack of all trades, maybe.
They enlist the sock puppet into their group- his sister, Dee Kennedy. Then, they enlist a phone person into their little posse- a man named Steven. The last person they had to find was on the last level- a place Dave had never been to before, though he was sure he could be of help regarding navigating the place.
All in a month, right? Just in a month. Jack would be back in a month, and they'd never separate again.

The next couple of moments went by like a whirlwind. His friend Henry wasn't ever actually his friend at all, Jack had burnt his physical body (and himself) in some sort of large building tomb, they'd found the last person, a phone person named Peter Kennedy (how many family members did Jack even have??), and then they'd found Jack's soul. A shadow looking dog named Blackjack.
They fought Henry in a void, a prison of his own making.
Then it was time to move on.
For some reason, at that moment, Dave remembered the fortune cookie he read all those years about. Standing in the void with everyone else, Dave remembered the exact words of that damned cookie.
'You will meet the best person of your life in coming years.'
He remembered how he'd thought that was a lie. How he'd thought it couldn't possibly happen, but... looking at Jack Kennedy, Dave had a feeling that somehow, someway...
That stupid cookie was right.
"Dave, you are a complete, and utter WEIRDO... and it should be easy to say goodbye to you. But it's not." Dave knew all that.
Dave hugs Jack, holds him tight, like he never wanted to let him go again. After all, a body without a soul couldn't move on like Dave could- and that's exactly what Jack was.

Jack hands him a dog collar, the name Blackjack etched into its thin polyester. Dave cries.
"Just so you're not lonely when you move on..." Jack had given him his soul. The entire essence of his life.
"... Jack." He interrupts the tangerine man before he can say anymore. With a faint smile, and tears still gathering in his eyes, Dave looks straight at him.
An orange man, soulless, but still so alive. The one man Dave could never, ever get over.
"Thanks for putting me back together."
Jack snorts, tears gathering in his eyes now. He sniffles, then laughs. Dave thinks the world is so, so cruel for this.
As Dave moves on from this connecting realm, Jack remains in the void, weeping to himself. A soulless husk couldn't move on to the afterlife, since he was never supposed to be alive in the first place.
The world laughs at their misery for one final time.