Cashiering isn't so bad [Creepypasta/Marble Hornets x Male reader]

Close enough

They sat there in astonishment, mouths hanging open as the two looked from M/n to each other. Tim sighed through his nose, scratching his cheek before letting his hand fall onto M/n's back. He rubbed circles into M/n's back, smiling when he scooted closer and rested his head against his shoulder. It was a strangely comfortable silence as Brian tried to process everything, rubbing his hand over his mouth nervously. He was so wrapped up in everything that he didn't notice M/n and Tim looking at him till he felt a kick to his shin.

   "You alright?" M/n asked?

   Brian's brows furrowed as he turned to face him. "Am I okay? I'm fine, it's you I'm worried about."

   M/n shrugged. He enjoyed having his cheek pressed against Tim's shoulder for another minute, the affection he found was so few and far between he made sure to revel in it before pulling away. Straightening up as he cleared his throat, M/n shuffled around in his spot on the bed, clearly still nervous.

   "Just," Tim started, trailing off as he thought of what to say. "Just start at the beginning."

   "Okay," he breathed in, and you'd think I'd take the easy way out and dissolve into a flashback but you'd be wrong. I genuinely can't stand flashbacks. "So I have an older brother, his names' B/n, and while we were growing up he was kind of... well, a dick." M/n smiled, almost fondly as he thought back on his childhood. "Ever since we were little it was like he had a thing for getting into trouble. Every week was a different issue, with police or our school district, he even pissed off the neighborhood watch a few times. It started small, like vandalism, but then one day he just pushed it too fucking far and I..." when he hiccuped Brian laid his hand on his thigh, rubbing his thumb against it as he comforted him silently.

   "It's okay, you don't have to keep going." Tim said as he lit a cigarette and offered one to M/n.

   He took it, leaning in to light his with Tim's. "I'm fine. I just remember coming home one day and finding my mom crying in our kitchen. She told me he wasn't gonna be home for a while. I didn't know how long it would be but... it... I thought I was never going to see him again. I heard from a friend of a friend who's uncle works in the business that my brother pissed off the wrong people in prison. I couldn't just let him get himself killed, so I offered them my services. Apparently I was impressive enough, for a ninth grader, and they hired me." He talked grimly, taking puffs of his cigarette here and there.

   "I didn't know it at first but apparently my brother had been involved with them for a while, wracked up a lot of debt." He began again and with a sigh he flicked the ash from his coffin nail. "And I also didn't know that after I started I wasn't gonna be allowed to leave... I was naive. I thought if I could pay everything off they'd leave us alone, but that's not how it works. If I was family then maybe... but I'm not, I'm just an outsider. They can't trust me not to run off to police once I'm off their radar."

   The three sat together in silence, Brian finally pulling his hand away from M/n's thigh.

   "How'd you even get good at forging signatures?" Brian asked.

   "My mom was single at the time, she was either at work or asleep so I learned how to copy her signature for school paperwork, and then I started bouncing around different foster homes. After that my friends started paying me to do theirs and then their friends started paying me- it got out of hand."

   "Sounds like it."

   Brian took a sip of his drink as his brows scrunched together "Wait, you were in foster care?"

   "Yeah." M/n nodded. "It was only for two years."

   "But why?"

   M/n shrugged, shuffling in his seat again. He was clearly a lot more uncomfortable delving into his past than he thought he'd be. "We never found out who called cps but since B/n was seventeen at the time we assumed someone was just... concerned. I don't know, but It didn't end up helping as much as they probably thought it did."

   More silence filled the air as M/n started to fidget, picking at the seams of his pants before he was brought back to reality by the sound of M/n's voice. "Are you sure?" Tim asked as he flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

   "Sure about what?"

   "That this is the end of the line, are you sure?"

    "Oh..." M/n took a drag and breathed out slowly. "Yeah, my boss had me come into his office and told me himself. Didn't tell me when though... never does."

   "Why doesn't he?"

   "So you can't prepare. You'll make plans, talk to everyone you normally do, and when you turn up dead no one will think to themselves, 'huh, he *was* acting a bit weird,'. There's always a few months between the warning and the actual hit, so you have time to chill out and let your guard down."

   "That's..."

   "Pretty smart, I know."

   Brian squinted at him before he pursed his lips. "I was gonna say fucked up."

   "Well, that too."

   "You plan on skipping town?"

   "Nah, they'll just hurt my mom and stepdad."

   "... so you're really just gonna let this happen?" Tim asked and he watched as M/n's face contorted into one of frustration, tossing his snuffed out cigarette butt.

   "I don't know what else to do!" He practically shouted. "I just... I didn't want my brother to die! And I don't want my mom to die either!" He sniveled and it took him a little too long to realize that he was crying. "I don't want to die..."

   Between the sounds of the forest around them, and M/n's hiccuped cries there was a third noise. It was the sound of Tim and Brian's cold dead hearts breaking. They eyed each other and they both had the same sympathetic look on their faces. Brian pulled M/n into his chest, holding him there as he cried. It took M/n a minute to melt into his embrace as it had been a while since someone other than his mom had held him, and even then she never held him like this. This was much nicer. He wrapped his arms around Brian's torso, breathing in his cologne as his shoulders shook.

   "It's gonna be okay." Brian cooed, burying a hand in his hair while his other hand rubbed circles into his upper back, his trademarked sympathy pat at this point.

   "We'll figure something out kid, we promise." As Tim scooted closer his eyes locked with Brian's and they nodded.