Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aloha frequently called Rider a workaholic, after all he was busy far to much, whether it be turf war anarchy, helping out Sheldon or leading the new squid beak Splatoon.

He was constantly busy, Army thinks it’s to avoid having to think about the past. After all, it has only been a few years since the whole deep sea metro incident.

Rider had lost most of the function in his right eye and also injured his leg to the point it had to be removed just above the knee. And of course being turned into essentially a zombie and forced to attack those you care about messes with your head.

At the time all of this happened he would only really talk to Marie and Army as only he and the octoling were dating at the time.
About what had happened, at this point Marie was basically his big sister.

One night Rider got home at 1:30 in the morning and Mask stayed up to check in on them. After all, she's probably not gonna go to bed until 2:30 AM.

It had been an exceptionally busy day for rider it started out with an anarchy battle he was filling in for Aloha who had to go to a team meeting,
The series ended in a victory for team S5 (despite only four players being able to play at once they still like the name)

He was scheduled to do a shift at ammo nights as Sheldon was spending the day with his kids.

Rider had fixed a total of six busted weapons Goggles came in and terrorized him for a bit (He will never admit it but that was entertaining)
Thankfully the shop wasn’t too busy.

After they finally closed up and locked the shop he got an emergency call from Neo.

They had lost little buddy….again
And also really needed help figuring out a difficult kettle.

It took him,Callie and Neo three hours and 32 minutes to find that cod damn salmon. It turned out he had gotten stuck trying to get into the vegetable garden.

After helping Neo with the octo snipers, finally got an opportunity to rest and chat with Marie.

“Rider I’m worried you are over working yourself. Do you even get to spend any time with your partners at this point?” Marie said in concern

“Oh I'm fine, don't worry and I spend plenty of time with them when we play ink sports.Also why the sell are you even asking I'm fine.” After saying the last part, Rider realized they sounded quite annoyed despite the fact Marie was just worried for him.

She quickly changed the subject and they chatted about other things such as how Callie had started to sleepwalk again.

Or how Skull had gotten stuck while trying to reach for some ice cream in the back of the freezer.
He couldn't quite reach it so he turned into his squid form which is quite big hoping the extra long arm would let him reach the back.

However the freezer made him more solid so he couldn’t get out easily. It was quite a funny predicament.
and aloha took at least 50 photos of it

And then the dreaded question came..
“How’s your eye doing?”
Rider did not like thinking about their eye and how strange it made him look and how it always made him think about Him.

Losing his leg was much more of a physical adjustment but once he got the hang of the special prosthetic it was pretty easy to ignore especially when he wore pants.

“… why do you ask?” Voice laced with venom.

“ You’ve been picking at it for an hour. you only do that when you’re having nightmares or when you’re thinking about Him.”

Rider just stared in front of their self with a blank expression.

“Callie and Neo will be back at any moment you need to sleep. I can tell you’ve been avoiding it.”

“..was I that obvious?”
Marie nodded

“I will upgrade your charger if we stop talking about this please.”

Marie reluctantly agreed as realistically who could say no to a power upgrade.

Rider just wanted to figure out how the low tide ink worked.

“WERE BACK!!!!!”
And then Callie‘s voice came over the snow.
Neo said goodbye and went into the former research centre to get some sleep.
Rider grabbed his things and didn’t run but walked quite fast towards the kettle home.

It was 1:30 when he got back. His partners were all likely in bed or in their rooms.
They were too tired at this point to even bother getting ready for bed even though normally routines were quite important to him.

The only part he bothered to do was to take off his prosthetic. It got quite uncomfortable after an exceptionally long time of wearing it.

“You said you’d be home like three hours agooooo…”

Rider jumped out of his skin, Mask was in the kitchen and rider clearly didn’t notice.

“Mask what the shell???!!!!”
“You scared the life out of me”
At this point rider was just grumpy with the world

“ I’ve been playing my game since 3 o’clock I only just noticed the sun went
dowwwwwn…”

Mask said with xer usual drawl.

“You look like I did actually manage to scare the life out of yooouuu… you should go to bed and not wake up until tomorrow afternooooon..”

Rider groaned “I’ve already taken my leg off. I'll go to bed if you can help me there and you better also go to sleep, deal?”

“sounds better than leaving you on the couch. Come on squid uuupppp.”

With that Rider smiled and turned into swim form mask promptly took them to Rider's bed,it was bigger than hers.

And riders weighted blanket also happened to be in there.

The next morning rider was still sound asleep, all of them had a day off so army made a nice breakfast

“Usually Rider is the second one up, is he okay?”
Army said with concern while putting the last pancake batter in the pan

“I haven’t seen them since yesterday morning. He's probably planning a romantic surprise!” Aloha quipped

“No they aren’t…..He got home at one looking dead tireddddd…”

“I told him he needed to take care of himself can’t be working three jobs in one day.”

Army stated looking mad but in a concerned way.

“ Is that why he got me to pick up 20 energy drinks two days ago??”

Skull asked confused

“Twenty?!?!”
Aloha yelled

“I’ve been trying to get Rider to go to sleep early and take more breaks but he’s being too stubborn!” Amy said irritation leaking into their tone

The four continue to eat breakfast in silence for a few minutes trying to think of ways to help their loveable but stubborn boyfriend.

“OK I know this sounds morally very wrong but I think we’re all desperate to help him at this point.” Skull stated.
The other three looked at him curiously

“what if one of us hides his leg so he’s forced to rest?”

“I don't want him to pass out from exhaustion in some dangerous stupid place.”

Skull felt quite ashamed after suggesting that but the four of them have been trying to get Rider to take rest days for months at this point

“He’s gonna be so pissed at us but I think it’s the best bet.”
Aloha said sounding serious for once

Army was deep in thought thinking of the pros and cons of pulling the stunt

Pros: your boyfriend would finally get the rest he needs and we’d be able to doat on him for the day.
He would finally have an opportunity to tell you all about the way the inner mechanics of ink sport weapons work.
Which would make them exceptionally happy

Cons: it basically forces him to stay put he can still get around but he’ll likely have to use his cane. And of course might be quite mad after all they’re basically temporarily taking away his independence.

“Normally I would say you’re being cruel and ridiculous for suggesting that but he’s gonna end up hurting himself really bad if we don’t intervene.”
Army said matter of factly

The plan soon went into action.

Aloha started unfolding their couch and grabbing all the comfortable blankets so they could all lay on it together and cuddle and watch shitty movies and ink spot documentaries knowing Rider it would probably end up being more about the history of the sports and the weapons.

Army started making Rider‘s favourite meal.

Mask told Marie about it and she was 100% on board. Rider would receive no messages from the NSBS for a few days Marie had run the show before after all.

Skull went to go literally pick up Rider
“…skully?..what’s happening…”
Rider said speech slurred from sleep.

Shit rider called him skully that immediately turned his heart into mush and was probably gonna make the whole plan more difficult.

Skull quickly thought of a lie to cover himself

“Umm hey babe mask spilled a sticky drink on your bed I know how much you hate sticky stuff because of your sensory issues.”

Rider then gave skull a very warm smile and a quick peck to skulls lips,
Now skull almost looked like a tomato.

Rider was all wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket as skull was carrying him to the living room.It was nice for him to see his partners being cozy and clearly having fun well arguing about what movies to watch.

It was nice he didn’t even realize how much he missed it, once had settled on a movie they all snuggle up together in their giant nest of blankets on the pullout couch.

About halfway through the movie Rider realized his prosthetic wasn’t where he left it last night….
“Um guys where’s my leg??”
“Shit” Aloha mumbled,

“Aloha! What the shell did you do this time??????” Rider was now wide awake and upset that his aid had been moved.

After a minute of very awkward silence and aloha trying to get as far away as physically possible.

“Riy, when was the last time you had a rest day where you didn’t do anything physically straining, you don’t get home until after midnight and then you wake up at 6 AM!.”
Army said very concerned

“Every time we’ve tried to get you to take it easy on yourself you just run oooooffff”
mask slurred out only just putting her game down.

“I was fine!!!!! This is so unfair to just take away my damn leg!!! I am not overdoing it” Rider said his voice is failing from anger to sadness.

“Babe please your not doing well even Skull noticed do you know how much stuff flies over his head”
Army said trying to sound as calm as possible

Rider didn’t know how to respond and just looked everywhere except for his partners faces.

“I know your nightmares are back, it’s close to the anniversary you can talk to us please rider” Army now had their hand on riders.

“Annndddd Marie said yooouuu almost passed out in the snow yesterdayyyy” mask stated clearly trying to make a point

“Even goggles said you were weird I ran into him yesterday on my way to the sweet store” said skull

“You always lecture us when we’re not taking care of ourselves and always get us correct it like when I got hung over one too many nights in a row-that’s not my point you don’t take care of yourself and I really like my damn boyfriend so I’m not gonna let him die in some stupid way!!!!”
Aloha said rather loud

"I sometimes hate how well you guys know me alright…..maybe it was wrong of me to push myself that far but I didn’t want to seem weak”

A combination of “Babe,Rider, and riy riy” rang out

“If I promise to rest more and not overdo it you better promise never to steal my leg again” rider said with a small smile,

“Also where did you hide it?”

“Idk ask ‘loha” mask said obviously tired

“Ok so please don’t be mad at me but diver had to come pick up something of his anyways so I asked him to bring it back at dinner but take it with him to his parents place out of town….” Aloha said refusing to make eye contact with his boyfriend

He was promptly met with a pillow directly to the face.
“You better have wrapped it up safely but I’m too tired to care right now”
Rider said laying back down

“Cuddle me so I don’t get the urge to kill you all” said Rider with a chuckle,

Of course Mask Aloha Army and Skull complied, lunch could wait.