Chapter Text
The pizza place glows soft and golden under flickering fluorescent lights, the kind that buzzed if you listened for too long.
There was a peaceful stillness that lingered throughout the shop. No customers. No calls. Just the sound of ruffling papers.
His sister sits at the small table near the window, kicking her feet under the chair and humming softly as she tucks her worksheet into her backpack. Elliot had just finished helping her with those messy long division problems—the kind from fourth grade that most teens and adults forget how to do by the time they hit high school.
His break is over.
He returned to the counter at the cutting station where they also box up pizzas. As a young teen, his dad, Mr. Builder, trusted him with the family business. He was in duty of slicing pizzas and boxing them, not ready to deliver them just yet at fifteen years old.
He turned back to the finished pizza where steam rose from the melted cheese and pepperoni. He picked up the pizza cutter without thinking. Round blade. Plastic handle. Dull edge. He’s used this thing a hundred times. A thousand. His dad always said to keep it sharp, but not too sharp — "Don't wanna kill someone, eh?"
Elliot laughs under his breath.
But something makes him stop mid-slice. The wheel jams against a thick part of crust. He pushes, and it resists just enough to feel it in his wrist. His smile falters.
If I sharpened this more… just a little more…
If I used more force and stopped the blade from rolling...
His thumb runs along the edge. It wouldn’t take much. A grindstone. Ten minutes. If it could glide through crust, it could go through skin. Through the back of someone’s neck. Straight through the soft spot where it doesn't hit the bone.
The thought comes fast.
Elliot blinks. The air in the kitchen feels heavier.
He sets the cutter down and shakes his head quickly, like shaking water out of his ears. He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes salt.
Where did that come from?
That's not him.
He felt his heartbeat skipping, his fingers slightly trembling as he leaned into his forearms, bent against the counter. His eyes locked on his knuckles, turning red from how hard he was pressing into them. His face was scrunched, brows tight like every thought was physically trying to force its way out. His chest felt like it was caving in, and his neck had gone stiff and narrow, like there was only a thin tube left for air to squeeze through. He breathed slowly into his chest, but it felt shallow and useless.
Then, finally, he took a deep breath and stepped back from the counter. His fingers were still shaking, his arms tense, his jaw clenched. The feeling hadn’t passed. It just… dulled around the edges.
Elliot swallows. His palms are damp. He wipes them on his apron, leaves darker streaks along with the red sauce stains. The tremor in his hands wont stop; it travels up his arms and crawls into his back. A prickling heat tingles at the nape of his neck.
Why am I shaking? It’s just pizza. It's just pizza.
And then the thought returns to him.
Would blood spray or pour? Would it smell like copper, or hot like the oven when you open it too fast?
"Stop," he breathes, louder this time. He presses knuckles to his brow until color flashes behind his eyelids.
He stepped back from the counter, arms loose at his sides now, fingers still twitching with leftover static. His heart was finally slowing down, but it thudded unevenly in his ears. He’d just spiraled over nothing.
He let out a short, breathy laugh, almost more of a cough.
"God," he muttered, rubbing at his face with both hands, dragging them down like he could smear the feeling off. "What the hell was that?"
It was ridiculous, really. He plays too many video games. He doesn't care about death — nor killing people. He was just an edgy teenager with a boredom fantasy, protecting his brain from a boring day at work. He lives a perfect life and has zero reason to think about killing somebody.
Shaking because of an intrusive thought was silly. Especially THAT big of a reaction.
But it still felt so real.
So what? He was still the nice person who everyone knew. He just had some intrusive thoughts when he was bored.