Take It Slow

“Take it slow, Agent Four. But, like, quickly.”

Those had been Marie’s words of wisdom that morning before they set out on their mission to rescue the next zapfish. She’d said plenty more since then, but those words had particularly taken Ash’s notice. They had just popped back out of one of the kettles, Slimeskin Garrison stretching out bleakly before them, dull and unpleasant as ever. It was strange how a place outside in the open air clung to such a stench instead of letting it dissipate. Zapfish held under arm and hero blaster held loosely in the other, Ash walked over to the celebrity standing near the entrance.

“Here we go, plus one li’l zappy fella,” they said, loosening their hold on the little creature to hand it over to Marie.

“Good work, Agent,” Marie said, taking the zapfish. “Alright, no need to dawdle. Let’s keep going, in the next kettle I’ve scoped out-”

“Hey,” Ash interrupted. “Can we take a break for now? Get back to it tomorrow? I need to get on with coursework.”

“...Coursework.” Marie did not sound impressed. “...Fine. It’s not like we’re trying to save Inkopolis or anything. We don’t need our main energy source back as soon as possible, no, you get right on home to do your homework.”

Ash frowned. “What, do you think I should just drop everything else in my life for this? My grades have already suffered from me trying to balance uni with helping you out. I’m not going to throw my uni work out the window, I worked frickin’ hard to get a place.”

“I said it was fine, didn’t I?” Marie said, but her tone was cold as she turned away. “Go on, then.”

“Don’t gimme that crap. You’re obviously pissed about it,” Ash said, letting out an irked huff. “But hey, I guess you wouldn’t understand. You’re a celebrity, you’re talented, it’s not like you’d know how hard it is for a nobody to actually get anywhere.” Ah, shit. As soon as the words left their mouth, they regretted them, wishing they could take them back. They hadn’t meant to say anything vicious.

“What, you think I never had to work hard for anything?” Marie snapped, fixing Ash with a harsh glare. “You hadn’t even heard of me when you got here, don’t pretend you know a thing about me. It’s not like I came from a wealthy background and paid my way through everything. The Squid Sisters started out in the boonies and had to make a name for ourselves with hard work and we had shitty minimum wage jobs in the meantime like anyone else.”

“I… Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” Ash said sheepishly. “‘S just… Uni, and all this. ‘S got me stressed. I’m sor-”

“You’re stressed?” Marie said incredulously. “Oh yeah, I’m sure. It must be so hard for you, trying to fit it in around your student schedule and your otherwise completely normal life! It’s not like you have an actual job to contend with, or the most important person in your life missing and probably kidnapped and tortured if not dead!” Marie’s voice had risen angrily as she spoke, and it cracked as the last word came out. She suddenly looked aside, hiding her face behind her parasol, but Ash heard the broken quiet sob that followed. They paused awkwardly, feeling awful.

“...Sorry,” Ash repeated quietly. “I… yeah. That’s pretty awful. But I can’t keep up with this, I’m basically running on empty here.” Even their uni friends had been commenting lately on the bags under their eyes and how late they’d been staying up, and sure, caffeine worked for a little substitute energy, but they couldn’t continue like this, exhausting themself during the day fighting octarians and staying up all night working to deadlines. “I know you’re working hard. And I know you’re worried about your cousin. But I really need a break here. ...I’d bet you do, too.”

Marie didn’t respond, and Ash walked around the parasol to look at her. As they’d expected, there were tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Ash opened their arms out to her. “...Hug?”

Marie turned away. “...Don’t,” she said quietly, her voice wavering slightly. “I… I should be stronger than this.”

Ash furrowed their brow. “You literally just said everything you have on your plate right now. Anyone would be struggling in your position.”

“I…” Marie still seemed hesitant. “No. I have to be stronger than this. No-one else is here, I’m the one who has to lead us. I can’t f-fall apart. If the stand-in leader of the splatoon can’t even keep herself together…”

“Even more reason to take a break,” Ash said. “C’mon. Let’s go grab a coffee or something. Not as Agents Two and Four, just as Marie ‘n Ash. Then our fearless leader remains as cool-headed and leader-y as ever, and you can chill out a bit. Yeah?”

Marie shifted her hold on the parasol to lean it against her shoulder again, still looking down slightly. “...Alright. Yeah, I could go for a coffee..”

Ash smiled slightly, relieved. “Good. I know a real nice li’l place, it’s a little ways out of the city but it’s real cosy. And I can guarantee the coffee there is great.”

The two of them made their way back to Tentakeel Outpost. Marie never had accepted their offer of a hug, but Ash left it, satisfied that she was at least going to stop for a moment. Once they got back to the little cabin there, Ash took off their agent gear, swapping back into their baseball jersey and donning their do-rag, cap and sunglasses once more. Marie ducked into the shed and reappeared a moment later, having changed out of the kimono into a simple black dress with a green jacket over the top, a facemask and cap on her head.

“Neat get-up. Looks pretty good on you,” Ash said.

“Eh, it’s just what I wear when I’m not looking to be recognised in public,” Marie replied.

“Well, you do seem like the kind of person who can make just about anything look good.”

“Hmph. Is that a compliment?”

Ash couldn’t entirely tell thanks to the facemask, but the familiar crinkling around Marie’s eyes that showed up when she was smirking was there. It faded quickly, and Marie didn’t seem interested in making eye contact, something in her golden irises seeming dulled. She’s really messed up about this, huh… 

The two of them hopped through the grate and back to the city, popping out just outside Inkopolis Square. They were quiet as they walked, Ash not really sure what to say for now. They couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Marie, constantly worrying about her cousin. They wondered what it would be like if their older sister, Izzy, went missing. The thought of that just seemed wrong. Izzy was always the capable one, always the one who knew what she was doing. Ash was the wayward mess given low expectations, always compared to their perfect sister and asked why they couldn’t be more like her. Izzy just seemed to get everything right, so there was no way anything like that would ever happen to her. If she was the one doing this agent work, she’d no doubt be handling it fine no matter what else she had to juggle with it…

Ash shook their head. This wasn’t the time for their petty jealousy. Especially not if they were about to see her, too. Opening the door to the coffee shop, they glanced up to the counter, but it wasn’t their sister behind it. Oh. Instead it was a young boy sporting an unusual hairstyle who looked somewhat nervous, and barely a day older than sixteen, if that. Looking around, Ash recognised an older inkling they presumed was the manager of the place - she always seemed to be the authority when they’d seen Izzy speak to her, anyway.

“Aww, ‘s Izzy not in today?” Ash asked as they walked to the counter.

“No, it is her day off. Are you a friend?” The boy asked curiously. He had a strange accent, and something about him seemed off, but Ash couldn’t quite place it.

“Naw, she’s my sis,” Ash replied. “Oh well. Mocha for me, please. Whatcha havin’?”

“Latte,” Marie replied.

“Alrighties. One mocha, one latte.”

“Okay. One mocha, one latte.” He repeated their order as he put it into the till, and the pair of them went to sit down once Ash had paid. They were sure a celebrity wouldn’t really need them paying for her coffee, but they figured they were the one to invite her to get it, so whatever. Ash headed to the room at the back, flopping down on the sofa next to the currently unused fireplace. Next to it was a table, on the opposite side of which was another sofa that Marie sat down on. It wasn’t long before their drinks arrived, and Ash picked theirs up to hold, feeling the warmth of it as they leaned back.

“Alright. Talk to me,” they said.

Marie glanced around the room around them, largely unoccupied aside from the two of them, before lowering her facemask enough to blow on her latte to cool it down. “About what?”

“Something. Anything. Whatever you need to get off your mind. Can’t promise I’ll have any answers, but I can listen.”

Marie stared down at the table, silent. She took a long while to speak up, and the tense expression on her face showed that it was a battle even to do so. When she did eventually speak, her voice was quiet, strained. “...It’s just… Callie’s always been there. Whenever I needed her, whenever I needed someone to rely on, or someone to push me to do things, she was there. I wouldn’t be where I am if not for her. She was the one thing that was absolutely constant - if I needed her, whatever for, she was there. And now she’s just… gone. And all that certainty is just thrown out the window. I mean, I don’t even know if- if she’s-” Marie stopped, tears welling up in her eyes again. Ash could see her shaking slightly and could tell it was taking everything she had to hold herself together.

“Hey… I’m sure she’s gonna be okay,” they said.

“But you don’t know that. No-one does,” Marie stated, her voice quivering. “And if she’s not… If we find out, and she’s… I… I don’t know what I’d do without her. What I can do without her. If I can…” She trailed off again, drawing in a deep breath. “But I can’t stand not knowing, I have to find her. And it’s terrifying. I don’t know if I can handle that, if something did happen to her! But I have to find out anyway. I have to.”

Ash watched her quietly, and seeing how distraught she was really made them feel for her, and they searched for anything they could offer to help. “Well… I’m just your average mess of a student, but I’m here for you, okay? No matter what it ends up as, you don’t have to deal with it alone, alright?”

Marie didn’t look at them, her gaze still fixed down on the table. She drew in another shaky breath. “...Thanks.”

She didn’t seem convinced, and Ash felt disappointed, wishing they knew how to help. “You sure you don’t want a hug or anything…?”

Marie hastily shook her head. “No thanks,” she mumbled. “Fragile enough as it is right now.”

“Reckon you might fall apart?” Ash asked gently. Marie nodded, ever so slightly, but Ash managed to spot it nonetheless. “That’s okay, y’know. It might be a good thing. Sometimes we gotta let ourselves fall apart, so then we can put ourselves back together again properly.”

Marie’s ear twitched, but she otherwise didn’t respond, still silently looking away. Ash set down their mocha on the table, shifting to the other sofa to sit next to Marie. They left space between the two of them, not wanting to invade her space. They wanted to make it clear they were there for her, but didn’t want to push it too much and end up just making things worse somehow.

“I do wanna help you as much as I can, y’know,” Ash said quietly. “I just have limits like everyone else. And so do you, but you’ve got so much you’re dealing with. And when I say I wanna help, it’s not just about the Zapfish, y’know? I wanna help you.”

“I…” Marie slowly turned towards them, but still didn’t look up. “I’m sorry for pushing you so much. I just…”

“Don’t worry about it. I get it,” Ash said. “I’d want to hurry too.”

“You, hurrying? Sorry, but I can’t see that.”

Ash looked up to see her smirking slightly. Now that’s a little more like it. “I mean, you’re absolutely right, but…” They leaned back on the sofa, stretching their arms out over the back of it relaxedly to illustrate their shared point.

Marie chuckled slightly. “...Thanks. Who knew when I took you on that that attitude of yours might actually do some good?”

“Aw, come on. Everyone needs a chill friend.”

“If I hadn’t been desperate for anyone to help I’m pretty sure I would’ve sent you packing,” Marie mused. “I’m honestly still not sure if I should be impressed or appalled that you were hungover when you first showed up and rescued that first zapfish. I can’t believe I mistook your headachey silence for being star-struck and confused.”

“When did you actually notice? You never said anything,” Ash said, recalling that first mission.

“I started to be a bit suspicious during the mission but since I didn’t know what you were like otherwise I wasn’t completely sure. Then when you came back properly sober I realised, yep, they were so hungover. What even compelled you to follow me in that state?”

“Uhhh… Yeah… about that…” Ash laughed slightly. “Honestly, I hadn’t even seen you. I was in the square and all the noise from the people was just, like, way too much with a splitting headache and being hungover. I was just looking to get somewhere quieter, saw the grate, and thought, what the hell, why not?”

“Wow. Seriously?” Marie stared at them incredulously, shaking her head slightly and sitting back on the sofa. “How is someone like you actually a really good agent, again?”

“My competencies work in mysterious ways. There’ve been a couple times I hopped in turf war after a few drinks and I’d swear my aim was actually better. One time I got three direct hits in a row on The Reef like that. Though depending on how much I’d had, it only worked until all the running around made me wanna hurl, anyway.”

Marie shook her head again, sighing as a smile worked its way onto her face. “You are truly one of a kind, Ash.”

Ash grinned, happy to see her in a better mood - and a little bit more personally happy to hear Marie address them by name. She had never done that before, they were pretty sure, sticking to only referring to them as Agent Four. Hopefully that meant she’d taken their words about coming here as themselves and not as their work roles to heart.

“You know… I do wonder about you. I’m sure you are putting your all into the agent work, but with how relaxed you always are… Sometimes it seems like you’re putting effort into seeming like you aren’t,” Marie commented. “What’s that about?”

Ash shrugged. “This stuff’s important, so I’ll take it seriously, but… Generally, I’m just trying to take it easy. Nothing more to it, really, I’m just not interested in getting all high-strung and stressed out.”

Marie scoffed. “I know acting, here, I’m a profreshional. There’s more to it.”

Ash furrowed their brow slightly. Nothing got past her, huh… Heeeey, wait a second. “Nope. Noooo no no no no. This is meant to be taking a break and getting you to chill for a bit and talk out whatever you need. This is not about me, we are not getting into my hangups.”

“Oh, really?” Marie cocked an eyebrow. “So you want me to trust you with my problems but won’t do the same in return?” She turned away slightly, drinking from her latte. “This started with both of us being stressed. And I daresay it sounds like you’re trying to be my friend, not just my colleague. Last I checked, that’s a two-way street.”

“Yeah, but you being stressed is actually to do with that, whereas my stuff is irrelevant, and it’s just dumb anyway,” Ash said, dropping to a mumble as the sentence wore on. Yikes. How did we get onto this? She cornered me pretty fast.

“Oh, please,” Marie said dryly. “Nothing like that is ever going to be just dumb. Start talking, squiddo.”

Ash sighed. “I still think it’s stupid and petty…” Marie gave them a clearly unimpressed look, so they reluctantly continued. “Fiiiiine… It’s just like… No-one ever expected anything from me. When I was a kid, it was always, ‘why can’t you do this? Your sister could do this at your age. Look at everything she can do. Why can’t you do that?’ And I never could catch up to her. So now… no-one expects me to do anything great. So why bother trying?”

“So you pretend you don’t give anything a hundred percent so when it falls short you can fall on that being why.”

Ouch. Talk about hitting the nail on the head… Ash hadn’t even consciously realised that that was exactly what they were doing, but hearing it out loud… That drove it home. “...You don’t beat around the bush…”

“What, you think you’re the only one who does that? Callie and I made our entire careers together. It’s only natural that even after we went solo, people still compare us to one another…” Marie’s expression dropped suddenly, melancholy. “Callie was the energetic one who jumped up saying things like ‘Let’s give it our all!’ while I was… Well, it’s not like my public persona was that chipper, either.” She went quiet, withdrawing slightly.

Ash watched her carefully, wishing they could tell what she was thinking. They’d been doing so well until then…

“That probably just made it worse for Callie,” Marie said quietly, her voice shaking. “Even after I won our final splatfest, and we did our own thing, if… if it looked to her like I wasn’t even trying my hardest and was still doing as well as I did… no wonder we d-drifted.” Marie drew in an uneven breath, and a silent sob shook her body. “This is all my fault. If I hadn’t… If we didn’t…” She trailed off, unable to speak as she tried to hold in her tears.

“Hey… That’s not true,” Ash said softly. “C’mon, don’t act like being a little aloof is the whole problem. I mean, if you’re right, and she’s been taken by the octarians, that is definitely not on you. That’s on them for doing it.”

“But I-”

“Nope. No buts. You didn’t kidnap her. We all make stupid mistakes, but that kind of thing doesn’t lead to this. No blaming yourself.”

Marie’s brow furrowed and she looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She looked down, still with tears in her eyes.

“Seriously. This isn’t on you. And I bet if Callie heard this, she’d agree.”

Marie’s gaze remained low. Oh come on, why can’t you believe that? 

“Y’know what? I know I’m right, and I’ll bet I can prove it. We just have to find her and ask.”

Marie looked up at that, looking almost shocked. “No way, you can’t tell her-”

“Yeah, and why not? Because you know she’ll agree with me and say that’s dumb?”

“Uhh, no, because if she knows that I’m blaming myself and feeling awful about it that’ll just make her feel worse and she’ll have been through enough as it is, she doesn’t need that,” Marie snapped.

Ooookay, that didn’t quite go as planned. Ash couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and Marie looked away again, sighing raggedly and drawing in a steadying breath.

“...I just want my cousin back. I want her safe, and I want her here, so I can tell her all the things I didn’t say because I’m too cod-damn emotionally constipated to say them. I want her to know how much I care about her. I want her to know how grateful I am to have her.”

“...We’ll get her back,” Ash said. “We will. I’ll make sure you get that chance.”

Marie looked over at them, and they gave her the sincerest look they could muster. “That’s a promise, Mar.”

She sighed again, taking a moment to collect herself. “...Thanks, Ash. I’ll be holding you to that.”

“No pressure.”

Marie let out a slight huff at the comment, downing the rest of her latte and drying her eyes. “You know, you say no-one expects anything of you, but… I’ve got some pretty high hopes.”

Ash blinked in surprise, taken aback somewhat. “...Is that or is that not the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me?”

Marie scoffed, a gentle smirk reappearing as she leaned to put her glass down on the table. “...Might be. It’s about time I head to the studio but… Tomorrow at the usual spot?”

Ash nodded. “Yeah. See you there.”

“Alright.” Marie stood to leave, pausing as she moved around the sofa. “Take care of yourself.”

“Thanks. You too.”