#[always sunny theme] lorcan and brisket kick the shit out of derrick

[charaznablescanontoyota]

superhero au sebderrick + poor planning?

Seb isn’t technically a hostage anymore, but it’s an unspoken rule that he doesn’t really leave the apartment. Not in daylight, at least, and not without an escort. Just in case. Even if Seb won’t say as much, Derrick knows there’s a reason he showed up half-dead on the apartment’s doorstep instead of crawling back to the ILB, and Derrick owes it to him to help him keep a low profile.

Well. Derrick owes him a lot more than that, but they don’t discuss it.

What they do instead is late night convenience store runs while Shaq is streaming or tinkering with the drones, two perfectly ordinary civilians picking up snacks and soda and not discussing their personal problems. It works until it doesn’t. Which isn’t to say that one of them accidentally trips and falls into a discussion, but that Seb’s civilian getup might be a little too convincing, and Derrick might duck into another aisle for just a second to grab a six-pack of beer, and then a pair of supervillains are holding up the convenience store.

“So, here’s the deal,” one of them says, holding the flat of a blade to Seb’s throat, casual as anything. “I want the register empty by the time I count to thirty, and nobody has to get hurt.”

“Fuck off,” Seb says. It’s spat through his teeth and - well, it’s not the way he used to talk to supervillains, Derrick knows that much. Rude is a good look on him.

Derrick flips up his hood, activates his powers easy as anything. The villain’s partner - they’ve got matching outfits, which is kind of tacky, honestly - is roaming the aisles, presumably collecting wallets. It’s not hard to catch him from behind. It’s sort of what Derrick does, and the poor guy must be pretty inexperienced in a fight, because he goes down easier than expected. He doesn’t even try to scream when Derrick slits his throat.

From there it’s making his way carefully across the convenience store, unnoticed, pausing and ducking every time someone throws a glance his way. It takes a longer time that it should, but it’s worth it for the look of sharp surprise on the face of the villain who has Seb when ey feels a blade at the back of eir own neck.

“Having fun?” Derrick asks, not sure if it’s directed towards Seb or the villain holding Seb hostage. The cashier has been struggling to get the register open this whole time, which must be Seb’s doing, and Derrick’s honestly impressed the villain trying to rob the store isn’t totally coming apart at the seams by now. Maybe ey’re a D-lister, but at least ey knows how to keep their cool.

“The security cameras are off,” Seb says. “By the way.”

“Perfect,” Derrick says. Then, to the villain: “Your partner’s dead. Walk away now, and you won’t join him.”

“Uh,” the villain says, “yeah? He’s been dead a while, bro, that’s kind of his thing.”

“What,” Derrick and Seb say in tandem, and then something blunt and metal smacks Derrick in the back of the head, and his vision goes white.

The hood of his sweatshirt doesn’t cushion the blow at all, as much as he’d like it to. He staggers, grabs a shelf for balance, and blinks the stars away from his eyes just in time to see the guy whose throat he slit standing five feet away, holding a fire extinguisher, half-smiling like he’s not sure if this is supposed to be funny or not.

“What the fuck,” Derrick growls. “You can see me?”

“I told you, bro, he’s dead,” the other villain says. “Peoples’ powers don’t work on him.”

“He slit my throat, Lorcan,” the guy with the fire extinguisher says, entirely deadpan, reaching up to massage the gash in his neck like it’s a minor inconvenience.

“Sucks! Hit ‘em again if you want.”

“Don’t do that,” Seb says, voice rising with panic. Derrick sees the register finally spring open behind the counter, out of the corner of his eye - maybe a distraction, maybe a peace offering.

“You should take your money and go,” Derrick says, careful, shifting the weight of the butterfly knife in his hand.

“Hm,” the guy with the fire extinguisher says. “We might be past that point.”

“Yeah, I think people are getting hurt now,” his partner says, and bears eir teeth in a grin that reminds Derrick of Shaq - which is to say, a way that makes him already deeply exhausted.

“Fine,” Derrick says, peeling himself away from the shelf. “People are getting hurt.”