Chapter Text
007n7 had had an incredibly rough few months.
It started when he found a roughed-up cardboard box in front of his door, soggy from the rain that pattered on 007n7’s windows. Desperate, wailing cries emanated from the box, and as the sound washed over him he realized it had been the first sound of another being that had reached his ears in a while. On top of it rested a note, wet from more than rain, that read, “Take care of him.” He’d opened the box, and there a creature lied. A tiny red thing, with nubs for horns and tears streaming down its face, and 007n7’s heart had shattered for its predicament. His future could only have been one thing from that point on.
Then, it was Noli, whose symbols had begun to reappear in every other thing 007n7 saw. Everything, from spiked crowns to theater masks, to the color purple as a whole, to even something as strange as his own completely unrelated thoughts, brought back memories of the man he had held so dear. It was strange how often he found himself thinking about Noli when in the past he could go months without giving a second glance to things that now held his attention for far too long. Perhaps it was because every moment spent with his c00lgui in use served as a reminder of the other man. 007n7 hadn’t had to spare things second glances because every hour of every day was filled with a reminder so all-consuming that it pressed in on his chest and choked the air from his lungs when he finally went home for the day. Oh, how he missed him. But it was far too late for that now.
After that, it was the discovery of his child’s skin condition, some obscure disease that caused his body to be the shade of red that it was, and forced 007n7 to set aside a large percentage of his earnings for his son’s treatment. Their finances were only made worse by the fact that after 007n7 had quit his exploits, he no longer had money flowing in. Counterfeit cheques, made of nothing but c00lgui code, had been his only source of income when he was actively hacking, but he couldn’t rely on such ill-gotten gains when he had a child in his care. He’d picked up several odd jobs—fast food, delivery services, all of the entry-level positions around town—but nothing seemed to stick. Nobody wanted a famous hacker flipping burgers in their establishment, after all, no matter how good at it he might or might not have been.
So there he was, scrolling job listings at his dingy little apartment’s dining table, on his dingy little laptop, with a hungry C00lkidd in his arms. It wasn’t his fault he was so expensive, 007n7 tried to remind himself; it wasn’t his baby’s fault that he’d been dropped on someone else’s doorstep. He would not pass this child off to the next door down, no matter how bad it got, because C00lkidd was his.
No. C00lkidd may have been 007n7’s son, but he wasn’t his. He was a person. 007n7 would do well to remember that.
Sighing, he closed out the tab and turned to the cash sprawled out on the table among various invoices and bills. He attempted to make neater piles of each, sorting out the white from the green, but exhaustion weighed down every movement he made. He winced as his stomach pinched in displeasure. He wouldn’t be able to skip his next meal or rest if he didn’t want to collapse, he supposed. So, with nothing but shame in his gut, he called the one place that had yet to turn him away—probably because he had never worked up the courage to call it after all that he’d done to their establishment.
He dialed their line cautiously, fingers hovering unsurely over the buttons on his screen as he thought. He wasn’t attempting to remember the digits, however; he had known the number for years now from his escapades in ‘pranks’ and hacking that had served as the establishment’s own personal hell for years. He knew the number like the back of his own hand. No, his thoughts revolved only around how good of an idea this was—rather, how bad of an idea this was.
Finally, he began typing out the number. He felt as though the beeps sounding out from each key were marking each step he took on the path of humiliation he’d been walking for months now. Guilt and shame coiled thick in his throat, both from the forced remembrance of his past actions and the utter mortification that his current situation put him in.
205-543-6654.
And by some miracle, it began to ring.
He was shocked it didn’t go straight to voicemail. The place where he’d always gone at his worst, the place where he’d been the biggest pain in the ass possible, was still welcoming him back after his redemption. They should have blocked him, but he couldn’t help but be glad that they hadn’t.
He was so pathetic now, wasn’t he? Crawling back to the place he’d terrorized for so long was such a sad move to make. It was unfortunate that 007n7 couldn’t think of any better choice.
“Hello, and welcome to Builder Brother’s Pizza. What can I get for you this evening?”
Elliot wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he approached the house of the infamous exploiter 007n7, but it certainly wasn’t what he saw.
The man opening his front door looked tired, a distinct lack of carefree life in his eyes—replaced by the shadow of exhaustion belonging to someone far older than the rest of him looked. A threadbare sweater hung from his shoulders, cream-colored naturally or from dirt, Elliot couldn’t tell, topped with a sky blue vest that had most certainly seen better days. His eyes raked over 007n7’s form like a house cat coming face-to-face with a tiger. The man wore a pair of charcoal sweatpants and knitted socks, too; his top half making an attempt at professionalism, where the clothes on his lower half didn’t bother. But, whatever, Elliot wasn’t exactly the epitome of trendiness or fashion. He couldn’t point out another’s lack of style, something about rocks and glass houses coming to mind.
He realized he had been staring at the other man for far too long and forced his eyes up to meet the other’s, staunchly ignoring the faint red flush spreading across 007n7’s cheeks.
“Your pizza,” he said tersely, holding the offending object as far away from him as he could manage. The man smiled kindly at him and took the box. He saw it disappear through a portal made by a familiar interface and suppressed a shiver as unpleasant memories resurfaced. Even so, he accepted his payment as it was pushed into his hands. He was confused when the stack of bills felt far too thick for the payment he was supposed to receive. Blinking, he pulled back and started counting everything out, and realized with a start that 007n7 had paid twice the amount he should have.
“This is way too much,” he tried to tell him. “You gave us double our toll.”
“I know,” 007n7 replied. “That’s your tip.”
But Elliot knew better after dealing with customers his whole life. 007n7’s posture and face reeked of his guilt. This could be nothing other than an apology for everything the man had done in years past. Admins, 007n7 was giving him an apology. What alternate reality had Elliot been transported to?
A baby’s cry tore him from his thoughts, coming from deep within the apartment, and 007n7 tensed.
“Sorry, have a good night,” he rushed, before carelessly slamming the door in Elliot’s face in his haste to get to… what? The child in his care? He frowned as he left.
Elliot walked to his car and drove back to Builder Brother’s in a daze. 007n7 had a child now, apparently. And the only people that had caught wind of such a thing, as he’d heard whispered in disbelieving laughs while walking past shady alleys or overheard from the darkest corners of Builder Brother’s, were coincidentally some of the least credible sources. Well, ‘coincidentally.’ Elliot wouldn’t put it past a hacker as terrible as 007n7 to use some weird hacking script to change the very fabric of reality itself or something of the sort. It probably wasn’t by chance that the only people who had been able to spread such a rumor were the kind of people they were. He made and delivered orders without any conscious thought as he continued to wonder.
Then, why the sudden switch-up? Nothing had been able to give 007n7 pause in his exploits for even the slightest moment during his tenure as a menace to society.
Why now? Elliot asked himself, and was frustrated when he couldn’t find any answer other than ‘Nothing didn’t include a child before.’
Had he truly been hiding a soft spot from everyone all those years, just waiting for the time when it could show itself to those around him, or had it been just as much of a surprise to 007n7 himself when he’d taken in what sounded like an absolute spitfire of a child? Had it been both? Neither?
(How would ‘neither’ work, anyway?)
Elliot shook off his trance upon arriving back at his home. His thoughts had occupied him until the end of his shift, and he’d been so engrossed in them that he hadn’t committed any of it to memory. He found this relatively disturbing, but his unease was overshadowed by the discomfort that came from finally internalizing the fact that one of the most notorious hackers in Robloxian history was now a single father. He looked like someone with a tight budget, too, which Elliot had certainly not known of the man when he had no job listing other than burning buildings and giggling like he’d yet to hit puberty despite being in his early twenties. So he was trying not to exploit for this new kid, too; what in Builderman’s name?!
Admins, if Elliot had known that baby trapping, of all things, would turn 007n7 to good, he would have dumped a child at his door sooner than anyone could say the word.
...Maybe not. Elliot cringed as he remembered the (former?) exploiter's haggard appearance.