Just Another Day at the Office (Septiplier AU)

Trashcans will never escape his wrath

For the next few days, Mark and I don't see much of each other at all. My night shift is beating me down something fierce, and most of the time I end up barely have the energy to eat the leftovers he places in the refrigerator for me in the morning. There are days that I'm so exhausted from my rounds that I'm not even sure how I got home at all, but as usual I'm able to snuggle up against his warm body for at least an hour or two before he gets up.

I can tell that the medication is starting to wear off in small ways. His spot in the bed is still hot hours after he has left it. If he doesn't concentrate enough he begins to float a few inches off of the ground, and occasionally the smoke detector goes off from an accidental fire.

"God damn it," I hear him grunt later in the afternoon after there is a blare of noise coming from the kitchen. If I hadn't already been finally getting up for the day it would have scared the absolute shit out of me.

"Everything all right?"

He spins around and looks at me like I have asked the stupidest question on the planet. Granted, it wasn't the most brilliant thing that I have ever asked, but I just got up.

"No, everything is not all right," he snaps, with his eyes glowing bright red. "I keep fucking up dinner!"

As if to show me how bad it's gotten he grabs a large pan out of the oven, without using oven mitts, but considering his heat powers, that wasn't too surprising. If a chicken can actually die twice, that was what absolutely happened to the charred piece of meat smoking on the pan. I wince at the sight of what was at least a $25 part of our meal, and I'm not able to twist my lips into a convincing empathetic smile fast enough. He growls with the force of a sand storm as he throws the ruined food into the trash can, and as if the meat was able to grow back a beak and be gifted with human speech to mock him, shoots heat beams out of his eyes.

I yelp like a frightened school girl in those bad horror TV movies as the plastic bin goes up in a whoosh of angry fire. Mark is already focusing on what's in the refrigerator again, seeming to not give a shit about the casual way he's destroying our apartment.

"Babe," I say with an air of hesitation as someone approaching a moody toddler with a loaded gun. "Maybe you should just relax and we get pizza tonight?"

This suggestion doesn't help. At all. At this point he's looking at me like I just asked him to eat broken glass smothered in tobasco sauce.

"I'm supposed to be making sure that you're eating well," he grumbles, as I'm throwing dish water onto what's left of our hapless trash can.

"Pizza is healthy," I reply, now opening up a couple of windows to help with the smoke. "We can get one with lots of vegetables, and I even promise not to torture you by getting pineapples on it."

His eyes flash red at my attempt at a joke, and I take a few steps back. I can't even imagine what he's going through with being off of his medication and his powers coming back in full force. To spend years and years without my ability to wall climb, or use my electric attacks or hell...any of the things that make me Jackieboy Man would just kill me. Then having them all come back in such a short time must be so weird and painful.

"No pineapple," Mark grunts, his muscles shaking as if he can barely contain his rage.

"No pineapple," I repeat, trying again for an empathetic smile.

It works this time, and he relaxes. His brown eyes scan around the room, and fall curiously at the pile of wet ash and melted plastic.

"What happened to the trash can?"

It was such a confused tone to his voice that I just stare at him. Is he joking about not knowing what he had just done a few minutes ago, or is this some sort of side effect of him being off his medication? Mark has one of the best memories of anyone that I knew. He rescued me tons of times with making sure that I didn't forget important dates like birthdays, anniversaries and appointments.

"Don't you remember...doing that?"

His face falls into a deep frown before he falls apart completely, and I'm holding him as he sobs on our kitchen floor. This isn't the way for him to be coming off of his pills. We need help. I'll call Robin first thing in the morning to see if he can have Mark continue regaining his powers in a safer place than here.

"It's okay," I whisper, rubbing his back as he tightens his arms around me. "We'll figure this out. This isn't your fault. I love you. You're a good person."

I'm not sure if he can hear me through all of the tears, but I keep repeating it again and again.

"This isn't your fault. I love you. You're a good person. This isn't your fault. I love you. You're a good person."