Chapter Text
Dot and Workman had offered to host the election viewing, so their relatively tiny apartment was packed with Talkers, the whole team and even some of the shadow teammates they’d only met this year. Everyone was kind of milling around, some sitting half-squashed into each other on the couch or on the floor, and some standing, hovering around the snacks or moving from group to group.
The conversation was all little nothings – just verbal reminders that everyone was here, everyone was together. Dot hurried around, making sure the snack bowls and drink coolers were full, keeping themselves busy, but as the election timer ticked down – only ten minutes now – they took a seat on the couch next to Workman. There was a part of them that was twisting with fear, looking around at the life they’d built – the pictures from siesta vacations hanging on the wall by the window, the armchair they and Workman had spent weeks shopping for, a ball from their first game that Boyfriend had saved for them so long ago on a stand on the shelf. It was their home; they had made it a home, built a life in it.
No one was saying it, but ever since the Front Office had published the press release about wills, everyone knew Dot might end up having to go. Dot had sat with it ever since, the threat of it casting the whole season in a sort of absent dread. By the time the earlsiesta had come around, they had realized they were already trying to find a way to say goodbye, so they had spent more and more time with their teammates; walked every hiking trail anywhere near Halifax with Workman and Beasley, even agreed to be on one of CV’s streams. And now election day was here, and they were as ready as they could be, they supposed. It had been a long, happy decade, and they kept feeling struck with how different this all was than it had been the first time, out in the Meadow with the Mints, blissfully unaware of what was coming, or the second, all the Crabs calling out the election results like they were runs scored or lost, Dot sitting silently in a corner waiting for their name to be called. They felt so much… older, now, for better or for worse.
“Oh, hell yeah,” said CV, and Dot blinked and shook themselves out of their reverie to see that the new decree, Evolution, had been announced. “Do you think this one will, like, give me wings? Or superpowers or something? Poggers!”
“Maybe start with a sense of taste,” said Lachlan, side eyeing the unholy, pungent concoction CV was referring to as his “Election Brew”.
“It’s not that bad,” said Jesus, “You should have seen the one he did a week ago. I didn’t know it was even possible to melt Dloritos.”
“You can’t,” grumbled Lachlan, “Whatever that was,” he shuddered, “it wasn’t a drink. Or a food. Or safe for consumption in general.”
The description of the new decree wound to an end; the wills were about to begin. Dot took a breath, tried to steel themselves as everyone else’s conversation fell silent with nervous anticipation.
“I.. I want to say something,” Ziwa said, and everyone turned to them. They raised their drink ever so slightly, inclined it towards Dot.
“We all know there have been… rumors, that something might happen this election. We, uh, really hope you don’t have to go, but if you do, I – we - just want to say, we have been so proud to call you our teammate and friend. And, uh, if you end up on another team, they’ll be really lucky to have you. But we’ll miss you. A lot.”
“It’s been an honour,” they said, choking up all of a sudden. “I… I’m going to miss all of you too.”
Workman, sitting beside them, extended a hand just a little out in their direction, an offering, and they took it almost in spite of themselves. The room fell silent as the announcer began to speak, reading out the wills.
When they first heard their name, they braced themselves for a moment before processing the rest of the statement: “The Moist Talkers choose PolkaDot Patterson to receive a trust.” And then they were barely even focused on the strange sensation of somehow being even more… aquatic than before, because they were almost overwhelmed with the feeling of love for their team – the trust, however literal in this case, that they team had placed in them, and how they’d learned to trust them, too, even if it had taken years too long.
And then Greer was doubled over, almost glowing a little in the half-light as she was Infused, and then rising up again, taller and broader and far more powerful looking than before. She started showboating around the room, celebrating, trying to challenge Fish to an arm-wrestling contest, and everything was just how it should be. Dot wished they could pause the moment forever, just live in this perfect little infinity, but the announcer was still speaking.
More wills passed – an infusion for a departed Firefighter, Pudge At Large, Nagomi McDaniel ending up in the shadows, Jessica Telephone on the Wings. Dot held their breath, focusing mostly on the hushed noise of their teammates around them, the feeling of their hand in Workman’s. The announcements ticked away, and away.
When their name was called, the feeling was familiar; that little tug in their chest, a little like going home and a lot like leaving it, and they stood abruptly, looked at all their teammates one last time.
“Thank you so much,” they said, resisting the pull, just for a half moment, and just this once, the gods let them have that much, just enough time to say “I love you all.”
And then they were standing under a dark sky, in a crowd of people they had never met, and everyone was looking at them again with what they recognized as hope, as the excitement to meet a new teammate, just like it had been so long ago. And their heart was breaking for the family they had left behind, and they knew they were going to grieve the loss for a long time. But the team – their new team – collapsed around them, asking them if they were alright, welcoming them to their strange underground stadium, and it didn’t ease the hurt but all of a sudden they were hopeful, maybe, that they could do something good here too.
The last two times they were traded, they had made their introductions and left, went back to an empty apartment and sat in the dark and waited for the gods to throw them around again. But that night, they went out for dinner with the team, listened to them tell all their best stories about what being Up had been like, told them the news from this season that hadn’t properly filtered its way down into the subterranean tunnels of their city. It was nice, actually. They’d call Workman when they got back, that evening, make sure they knew they were okay, and they’d text everyone, ask them how the new recruit was settling in.
They weren’t going to shut themselves off, not this time, not from anyone. They were still a Talker, still a Crab, still a Mint – but under the warm gas lamps of a diner near the core of the Immaterial Plane, in the late-night embers of their first conversation with their new team – well, maybe they could learn how to be a Mechanic, too.