Dungeon Item Shop

Fresh sits at the table with a shaking hand, shoveling another spoonful of ice-cream into her mouth. The sweetness distracts her from the pounding in her head and the incredibly dry sensation of her brain, which feels far more crunchy than how she feels a brain should be, under ideal circumstances.

She had half-expected Jubilee to scold her for eating garbage for breakfast, but Jubilee is too busy laying with their head pressed sideways against the table, a bottle of water held against their forehead and groaning. Swallowing the mouthful of sweet-bean ice-cream, Fresh turns her head, looking at Basil who is sitting on the floor by the balcony, still in her robe from last night, her head and arms hanging limply at her side, as if she were a marionette, laid down by its owner who had become bored of it.

Fresh scoops the spoon back into the bucket of ice-cream, getting another mouthful. Fresh’s eyes go wide as a large hand reaches in, taking the spoon from her. “Hey!”

Shamrock shakes his head, carrying the ice-cream and the spoon away, coming back a second later with a slice of toast with a fried egg on it. Fresh frowns. “I wanted ice-cream.”

He nudges the plate her way. “No.”

Fresh groans, leaning back against her chair and away from the food. Shamrock walks over to Jubilee, poking their forehead with his finger.

“Fuck off.”

“Drink.”

“Fuck oooooff,” groans Jubilee.

“Drink,” repeats Shamrock, poking them again. Jubilee lets out the saddest sound that Fresh is sure she has ever heard, as they sit back upright and stare at the bottle of water they had been clutching, but haven’t opened for half an hour now.

Shamrock, seeing that this situation was handled, heads over to the corpse that is Basil.

“Shower.”

“Go away, Shamrock,” says Basil, moaning.

“Shower,” he repeats, lifting her up. Basil yells in surprise, squinting her eyes as she is hoisted into the air, as if she were so dizzy that she wasn’t able to properly process this new movement.

“IAH! Shamrock!” she complains, having the strength to utter protest, but not act it out.

“Shower,” is all that he says. Fresh watches as Shamrock walks out the door to the stairs with Basil, who is slung over his shoulder like a dead body. A minute later, he comes back upstairs, dusting his hands. Fresh notices that he has some difficulty with the motion. He seems to be staring down at his own hands, watching himself do it. His gaze rises back up to the table.

Fresh turns to Jubilee, who just shrugs and opens their water bottle, taking a drink. Fighting the urge to die, Fresh looks down at the single slice of toast and egg, not sure if she has it in herself to eat something like this right now.

“I guess we’re not going to run the store today?” asks Fresh.

“What the fuck is your problem?!” barks Jubilee, wincing at their own loud tone a second later. Fresh blinks, confused, thinking that they’re yelling at her. But she realizes a second later that they were looking at Shamrock, who has made his way back to the kitchen and is now washing the dishes from last night.

He turns his head, looking at them, before turning back to his work without another word.

“Jubilee,” says Fresh. “Don’t be mean to…” She shakes her head, feeling the world wobble for a moment. “- Shamrock,” she finishes.

“Shut up and eat your egg,” replies Jubilee, holding their head in their palms.

Fresh groans.

The rest of the day essentially goes on like this. The two of them sit at the table while Shamrock takes over the brunt of the work. Basil is missing, apparently having decided to live her newest life inside of the shower.

“Just make a sign that says we’re closed, shit-head,” says Jubilee.

“No. You,” replies Shamrock.

Jubilee lets out a frustrated sigh. “Come on, Shamrock,” they groan. Shamrock shakes his head, slapping down some paper and a pen in front of Jubilee.

“Jubilee,” says Fresh. “Don’t be mean to Shamrock. He’s being really nice.”

“Eat your fucking egg!” yells Jubilee at her. Fresh looks down at the single slice of toast and egg that are still there, having long since become cold and soggy now.

Hearing a scratching sound, she lifts her head, watching as Jubilee writes a ‘we’re closed, fuck off’ sign for Shamrock to hang up downstairs. The man stands there, watching with a tilted head and an observant eye. They finish the note and Jubilee’s head falls back down to the table. Shamrock, taking the paper, walks past her on his way down and Fresh grabs his arm, stopping him. She beckons for him to come closer.

“I’ll help you tomorrow,” she says quietly into his ear.

Shamrock nods and goes on his way. The thing is, Shamrock doesn’t know how to write. Sort of. Fresh had always assumed as much, but she’s never really had the evidence until now. It makes sense though, she had seen more than once how he had to mess with his hands to get them to sit right when making some new gestures, she bets it's hard for him to hold something small like a pen.

“Can you check on Basil, please?” she calls after him.

“Fuck Basil,” says Jubilee. “Let the water take her. It’s for the best.”

“Jubilee!” protests Fresh.

“Eat your egg!”

Fresh looks down at her egg and breaks down into tears like a rational adult.

An hour later, Fresh has managed to drag herself out onto the balcony and is laying on a lounge chair under an umbrella, in the hopes that the sunlight will restore life into her body. But, according to Jubilee, it was just something she’d have to wait out until tomorrow.

So she’s doing exactly that now, her legs out in the sun with her upper body in the shadow of the umbrella, a bottle of coconut water at her side. Basil, who had to be forced to get into the shower, had to be forced to get out of it as well. But now she is back at the balcony, sitting on the floor of the doorway where she was before. The only difference is that she’s clean now.

Basil exhales, sighing loudly as Jubilee walks past her, coming out of their room, shuffling like a zombie towards the cooling cabinet to get something to drink. On their way back, Basil reaches out and grabs them, stopping their exit.

Jubilee sighs just as loudly, not having the energy to fight and just sits down next to her. The two of them sigh a second time each, now in unison.

“You guys should get some sunlight, it feels great,” says Fresh.

She expects to get told to eat her egg, which she has still neglected to do, covering her breakfast with an upside-down bowl. But instead, the two of them just groan at her. She watches, tilting her head, perplexed as Basil rests her head down sideways on top of Jubilee’s and just lets out a long breath as she holds them.

Fresh scratches her cheek. Everyone sure has gotten touchy lately. Not that she minds. She just feels a little left out.

Oh well, it’s nice here too. She turns back towards the blue sky that is visible beyond the rim of the umbrella, wiggling her toes towards the sun as an act of defiance and she takes another drink of her coconut-water.

Later that day, having gotten hungry after all, Fresh rummages around the downstairs, digging through the snack cabinets.

She had had enough of the sun and it has managed to stay relatively cool downstairs. So here she is, down in the dark room downstairs, eating the merchandise. Sure, she isn’t allowed to eat these snacks, since these are the ones ready for sale. But that’s why they taste better than the ones they have upstairs. There’s something about the packaging, the price label, the barely tangible difference in temperatures between this cooling cabinet and the one upstairs that makes it all taste different. The downstairs snacks are better.

Fresh crunches down on the forbidden crab chip, listening to the crunch echo out around her.

“Are you down here?” asks Jubilee. Fresh bolts, quickly hiding behind a shelf, taking the bag of crab-chips with her. “You better not be eating the merchandise!” yells Jubilee, their voice echoing around the darkened store as they walk down the first aisle. Fresh quietly scuttles away, tip-toeing around to the last aisle, as she hears them coming towards the snack cabinet.

“There’s something missing here!” barks Jubilee.

Rising to the tips of her toes, she looks over the shelves and sees the door of the cooling cabinet open. This is her chance to escape.

Fresh, sneaking as fast as she can, makes a break for the door. She’s just going to hustle upstairs and pretend that she had been there the entire time. Truly, a devious plot. She can’t help but smile at her own wickedness as she makes her way to the door.

She stops, looking at Shamrock who is standing there, blocking the way. Her eyes go wide and she hurriedly points back over her shoulder, towards where Jubilee is, making a begging motion with her hands a second later.

He shakes his head and, to her horror, lifts the plate up with the egg and the piece of the toast from this morning that she still hasn’t eaten.

She recoils, knowing that she has to make a choice now.

With shaking eyes, she looks at the egg and then down to the bag of crab chips in her hands. There’s only a few seconds left before Jubilee sees them. She has to act now.

Understanding the man’s deal, she nods, doing her best not to cry. She hands him her bounty and takes the plate with the egg, scooting past him and up the stairs as he heads out into the store.

“Shamrock! You greasy fuck!” yells Jubilee the second she passes around the corner. “I should have known it was you!” they bark.

Fresh hurries up and away, listening as Shamrock takes the verbal beating that was meant for her. In recognition of his sacrifice, she closes her eyes and bites into the egg-toast, opening her eyes a second later as she smacks her lips.

“It would have been better warm…” she mutters to herself.

Razmatazz

-) There's a lesson in here somewhere

-) The title is a play on the chapter title from the north, 'slice of toast' which was already a play on 'slice of life'. The saga continues

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