Chapter Text
Tommy isn’t exactly sure how he ended up washing dishes in the back of a kitchen that he was pretty sure broke every single health code violation there was and more than likely was used as a cover up for illegal drug deals. At least that’s what he would tell the police if they ever asked him. Or maybe he would tell them he was held at gunpoint or blackmailed. Either way, when the time came, Tommy would choose one of the above. He wishes he could forget the damn interview, but it was so all over the place that he couldn’t, even as he tried.
“So do you have any references?” a man with pink hair and stupid reading glasses asked. It reminded Tommy of an anime character the ones that were really smart and always had that weird scene where they had to fix their glasses with their middle and ring finger. Tommy held back a laugh at that thought.
The pink haired man raised an eyebrow at the other, probably because he was taking too long to respond and also because Tommy was sure his face must have looked stupid holding back that laugh. Tommy cleared his throat a second longer than needed. “Oh no, sir, I do not.” Tommy responded. He hoped his response was believable. Tommy threw in a totally not suspicious smile.
Tommy didn’t really want the man to know that he got fired from a Kinoko owned diner (he still had no clue what employer had to be high to actually consider Tommy as a suitable option) for bringing his pet tarantula to work, he only got off his leash once. It was managed. How was he supposed to know the health inspector was coming that day? It was Tommy-phobic, in his opinion.
The pink haired man raised an eyebrow before he grabbed some papers and brought them close to his face despite wearing reading glasses. “Bruh, Phil has Wilbur asking this all the time. No wonder no one is ever interested in working here.” The man was squinting hard as he was looking across the paper. Tommy thought for a moment the man might accidentally close his eyes from how hard he was squinting.
Tommy had to admit his interest picked up as to what could be so horrible with those questions, part of him also wondered if he was just saying that because he couldn’t read them. There was a soft knock at the door, breaking both men from their thoughts. A woman with the same color of pink hair opened the door.
“Uhh, Techno, Jack just quit again.”
Tommy bit his tongue hard so as not to laugh. Techno!? Fucking Techno. Who in their right mind names their kid fucking Techno!?
Techno pinched his nose bridge. “He’ll be back next week, but right now we’ll need someone to help Fundy in dish.” Techno looked over to Tommy as if he got an idea. Tommy did not like where this was going.
“You ever load a dishwasher?”
Tommy really wanted to say no, but this was the only place that would consider him after the Kinoko incident.
“Yes?”
“Great, you’re hired. I will put you through training today. You’ll officially start tomorrow. Come at 1:00 p.m. since it’ll be Saturday, then we will work out your schedule for weekdays.”
“Uhh- Tommy, you’re doing that weird thing again…” A boy with orange hair snapped his fingers in front of Tommy’s face.
“Huh? What thing?”
“You know, like staring off into the distance like a main character in a really bad action movie and mumbling to yourself.”
“Wh- if anything, it would be a very good action movie, and you can’t talk Fundy, you think The Boys is a bad show.”
“I just think it’s overhyped and inaccurate.”
“It’s fiction, Fundy. It’s not supposed to be accurate, and I’m not listening to a thing you have to say about any show after what you put on for the customers earlier.”
“Oh, come on Tommy, it wasn’t that bad, plus I liked it.”
“Fundy, a baby literally started screaming at the top of their lungs when their parent walked into the restaurant with them.”
“Well, hey, that’s not fair, it was a baby, it could have been anything.”
“The baby stopped the second we turned the channel.”
“Ok, fine, I get your point.”
He muttered under his breath before opening the dishwasher and setting some plates into it.
“Uhh, Fundy, is there supposed to be smoke coming from the dishwasher?”
“Well, I mean, technically no, but when Jack trained me, he said to just ignore it.”
“And you listened?”
“Well, what do you expect me to do? I’m a computer guy, not a dishwasher engineer. Plummer? Specialist, I- I don’t know any point unless you know what to do. Then Smokey the dishwasher it is.”
“You named it Smokey? You named your dishwasher?”
“Well, technically Wilbur did, and then everyone else picked up on it. Oh yeah, by the way, Wilbur was the guy that was supposed to interview you, but he was out sick, which is why you talked with Techno.”
“Is his name actually Techno, or is that just an unfortunate nickname?”
“Oh no, that’s very much his name. Why? What’s wrong with it? I think it sounds neat.”
“Oh dear, fundy, sweet young, impressional fundy, that is the worst name in all of existence, and I understand with you also having an unfortunate name, you might not realize.”
“Heeey, what’s wrong with Fundy!?”
“Your joking right?”
Tommy had to make the face again, the one where he had to hold back a laugh.
“I thought Fundy was a nice name.”
“Maybe for like, a DND character or something. Same with Techno, a bard named after a music genre that would track.”
Both boys paused in their conversation at the sight of a man crawling through the slightly ajar window headfirst.
“Wh- what the fuck!? Are we being robbed? Oh my god, Fundy, what do we do? What do we do!?”
“No, Tommy, we’re not being robbed. That’s uhh, Wilbur.”
The orange haired man said, walking over to the window, and started to help the man get through.
“What the fuck! Why the hell didn’t you use the fucking door!?”
“Well uhh, Fundy, what’s his name, Jack?”
“No Wilbur Jack quit again, and plus, he looks nothing like him, and his name is Tommy.”
“Oh, eh, close enough.”
The brown haired man had a cocky smile on his lips, something told Tommy this guy has a pastime annoying this Jack guy.
“Anyway, uhh, Tom, can I call you Tom? I’m going to call you Tom. You see, the back door was locked, and I didn’t feel like having to deal with the people in the restaurant saying,
“Are you sure he works here?”
“Is he supposed to wear that dirty coat in here?”
“Doesn’t he need his hair back?”
“ Why is there a finger in my food?’”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“And I thought I had problems, but you people are fucking crazy.”
“I mean, you’ve taken it better than most do uhh Liam, most quit within the first 20 minutes.”
“Oh gee, I wonder why, also, shithead my name’s Tommy.”
“Oh my gods.” Fundy sighed as he reached up and grabbed a chunk of his own hair, pulling slightly before turning back to the dishes. “Wilbur, go back to the grill line before I take your coat home and wash the dang thing.”
Wilbur let out a dramatic sigh and clenched the fabric around his chest.
“Fundy, my boy, you wouldn’t do that to your poor father would you? Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!”
The orange haired boy started chasing Wilbur around with a spray bottle, presumably back to the grill line. Tommy assumed there was only water, but with the crazy shit this restaurant gets away with, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was acid or something.
The nice thing to do would be to help Fundy load the dishwasher, however, he didn’t feel like being the next victim of a hot, fiery, soapy massacre. He would much rather leave that problem in Fundy’s hands.
A moment later, Fundy re-entered the room with noticeably less glove than he left with. Now Tommy was 87 percent sure that it may have in fact been acid or some other glove melting chemical.
“Is it too early to put in my two weeks notice?”
“Tommy, you literally started today.”
“Your point?”
“You said we were the only place that would consider you after the, in your words, ‘kinoko incident.”
“Shit, I forgot about that. Wait a minute, how did you know about that?”
“Tommy, again, you space out a lot and speak to yourself like crazy.”
“Oh, well stop listening weirdo.”
“Wh- you liter-“
“Zip!”
“I-“
“No, no, no talking.”
“I'm going to personally sacrifice you to Smoky.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
And that’s how Tommy found himself running away from a crazy orange. haired man chasing him with a spray bottle. It’s not that Tommy didn’t think he could beat Fundy in a fight, but also Tommy’s suspicion of a skin melting chemical reciting inside of the bottle only grew as the minutes passed.
“Fundy, we can talk about this. Have I mentioned how lovely the name Fundy sounds?” Tommy asked, circling around a vacant table.
Tommy found himself smiling even though he and Fundy were probably going to get yelled at, and for Tommy, possibly worse. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Tommy found out very quickly that every other time he turned his back, Wilbur was going over to literally every other place besides the grill line. He also found out that Wilbur liked to scream at the worker in the Mexican restaurant next door through the drive in window, and the random guy did it back. Tommy was convinced he had to be sleeping, there was no way half these people were real.
Tommy debated if he really needed this job, as much as Tommy wanted to say no the so very wise words of Tommy’s school counselor rang in his head. He didn’t have enough credits to graduate, and they were so graciously letting Tommy earn them by doing hard labor. It wasn’t the worst, he only had to work there for 4 months, then he could quit.
Tommy looked at the clock that sealed his fate for what felt like the hundredth time that day, the numbers read 6:29 .P.M. He only had an hour and a half left to go before he was free from these crazy people, at least until tomorrow anyway, most of the people had good intentions.
Some blonde guy that looked like he could be mistaken for Tommy’s biological father at some point wandered into Dish and demanded that Fundy and he take a break, then practically force fed them. Fundy would later go on to tell Tommy that that was Philza, the owner.
“Hey, Fundy.”
“Mm yeah, Tommy? What’s up?”
“Now you tell me if I missed this, but can you tell me where on the application it said we only hire crazy people?”
“Tommy… it’s really not that bad, you’ll get used to it soon.”
At the end of the day, Tommy managed to wash a whopping 5 dishes. His shift ended about five minutes ago. Now Tommy just had to wait for Ranboo and Tubbo to hurry up. At some point, Wilbur walked out, cigarette in hand, and decided the best course of action was to sit right next to Tommy.
“Do you have a ride? If you need I can call you an Uber.” Tommy saw a look he hated, it was pity, and he didn’t need it. He didn’t need to be looked down on. This guy knew nothing about him! Who was he to judge?
“No.” Tommy winced, his voice came out much colder than he had expected. He needed to backtrack, he didn't want to seem rude.
“It’s fine, my friends are picking me up there just a little late, they should be here in less than ten minutes. Thanks for the offer though.”
“Ahh, I see.” Wilbur pauses for a moment, his face screaming, I just fucked up.
“The front door is locked.”
“Yep, you guys stoppedking walk ins already.”
“The back door is also locked.”
“Did you actually just lock yourself the fuck out?”
“I need to call Phil…”
Tommy couldn’t help the chuckle that left his mouth as Wilbur got up and quickly walked over to the corner of the building, pulling out his phone before he disappeared from view.
Less than five minutes later, a blue Honda Civic pulled up, nearly going over the curb stop and nearly hitting Tommy along with it. Both Ranboo and Tubbo got out of the car. Tommy noted that for whatever reason, Tubbo was the one in the driver’s seat.
“Do... do I even want to know?”
“Tubbo got his learner's license.”
“ I did a pretty fine job if I do say so myself.” There was a cheeky smile on his face, as if he didn’t almost hit his best friend with Ranboo’s car.
“Ehh” Ranboo let the sound ring out for a couple moments more before continuing to speak, “ I mean, it was better than your last time.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be, like, an illegal adult inside the car while he drives?”
“Find me a legal adult who would willingly get inside the car with him while he’s driving and then talk to me about it.”
“Fair enough.”
“Actually, that reminds me,” Ranboo mumbled before taking his car keys back from one very pedal happy Tubbo. Tubbo looked up at Ranboo with a frown, then a decidedly more annoyed look.
“Tubbo I’m sorry, but I would prefer to not get into a car accident tonight.”
Tubbo rolled his eyes.
“Can we get in the car now? It’s cold, plus I don’t want that homeless guy to talk to me again.”
Tommy points over to the corner that Wilbur had disappeared behind. Ranboo and Tubbo looked over to where Tommy was pointing, and almost as if on cue, Wilbur turned the corner, saw Tommy, and waved.
Ranboo’s and Tubbo’s heads snapped back to Tommy, and the duo quickly pushed him inside of the car. Tommy had to hold back a laugh. Tommy assumed Wilbur probably wasn’t homeless, but he sure looked the part, plus it was way funnier to tell his friends that Wilbur was some homeless guy and not his coworker.
Ranboo was quick to turn the car on once Tubbo got into the passenger seat and quickly sped off, leaving an extremely confused Wilbur just standing there on the sidewalk.
“Oh my god, Tommy, do we need to teach you stranger danger?” Ranboo asked, turning on his turn signal and then turning it off a moment later once he merged with the traffic.
“No, you don’t need to teach me fucking stranger danger. I said no when he offered me a little bag with white powder in it. Thank you.”
“I think the worst part is I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“What, that he offered me crank or that I didn’t take it?” Ranboo shot Tommy a glare with no real heat behind it, it looked more like he was just staring at him than anything.
“Nah, the homeless guy wouldn’t have offered to Tommy, at least not for free.” Ranboo let out a sigh he wasn’t aware he was holding.
Then Tommy realized they had missed the turnoff to his house at least two turns ago. Ranboo knew the way to Tommy’s house, he had driven him there from school plenty of times, plus he was literally the one that picked him up and took him to work.
“If you’re trying to kidnap me to never be seen again, I noticed you missed the turnoff to my house.”
“Aww darn, I told Tubbo we wouldn’t get away with it. I hate it when our kidnappees realize what we’re doing.” Ranboo’s voice was laced with fake sadness.
“Yeah, Boss man, it’s the worst.” Tubbo let out a dramatic sigh, you could practically hear the smile in every word he spoke, doing a horrible job at pretending to be sad.
“Really a shame.”
As Tommy finished speaking, he realized they were in a parking lot, more specifically, about to turn into a drive through.
Ranboo turned his head to Tommy. “What do you want?”
“Wh- I- Uhhh nothing!” Tommy panicked, two things he hated happened at the same time one, he hated his friends buying things for him, and two, he hated being put on the spot.
Ranboo rolled his eyes and turned over to the speaker box and began ordering.
After what felt like 20 minutes but was probably less than 7, Ranboo was handed the food just for Tubbo to snatch it out of his hands and grab a small box that looked like a Minecraft chest.
Then a loud audible “FUCK” left Tubbo’s mouth as he rolled down the window and threw the toy out of the window, immediately followed by Ranboo berating him while digging his hand into the bag and handing Tommy a box of chicken nuggets with ranch and some kind of ice cream.
“What one did you get this time?” Tommy shoved the food into his mouth, barely making his words understandable.
“That same stupid ass grimace spawn egg, I got that thing the first time and haven’t stopped since. Tom, I’ve got at least 6 since I don’t need 6 Grimace spawn eggs!”
“Have you tried eBay?”
“Yeah, I did actually, it was like $36 I’m not spending that much.”
“I’m pretty sure you already have if you bought at least 6 of those things.”
“That’s different. I make Ranboo buy that if I go on eBay, then I have to use my card.”
Tommy rolled his eyes, shoving another chicken nugget into his mouth. Tommy was more than ready for this day to be over and less for the next one to start, but that was a problem for future Tommy, as most problems were.
Eventually, Ranboo’s car pulled into Tommy’s driveway, and Tommy got out of the car, waving his friends goodbye. In Tommy’s prestigious opinion, Ranboo needed to expand his music taste, it was the same songs on loop every time he got into that car, and Tommy swore if he had to listen to a man sing about redesigning a logo one more time, he was going to flip.
Tommy walked to the front porch. It wasn’t much aside from an old rocking chair, sitting untouched, withering away from the elements, and a buzz from one of those electric fly zappers. Tommy was convinced that thing was more for decoration than anything, either that or the flies were taunting it by flying just far enough away that it couldn’t work.
He unlocked the door, swung it open then stepped in and closed it behind him, making sure to lock it. The sound of a rerun of some soccer game immediately flooded his ears and the sight of his father passed out with a beer bottle spilled on the carpet next to him. He didn’t see his mother his guess was she was either still at work or in bed sleeping.
He walked up the stairs, passing two rooms before entering the one on the right and closing the door. He grabbed a bottle of melatonin, opening it and pouring out two or three he was too tired to remember and taking them, not bothering to drink something with it. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off, now that he thought about it, or changed into pajamas. Oh well, that was another problem for future Tommy.
He turned his light off, and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.
It’s been about 47 minutes since Wilbur locked himself out of the restaurant. He could see his own breath every time he breathed out, his nose and cheeks becoming redder the longer he waited
Just his luck Phil had already gone home, and the only person still on shift was Techno, and for whatever reason, he wasn’t picking up the phone. Techno had driven them there today instead of going in separate cars, not to mention he left his wallet inside the restaurant, and Wilbur would be damned if he would let his wallet sit out there all night and trust it with the opening crew.
A light snow began to take the ground underneath him. Great, just what he needed. Wilbur considered banging on the glass until it caught Techno’s attention, but it was quickly revealed that it wasn’t necessary, as Techno began walking towards the exit, looking at Wilbur with a confused look, opening the door.
“Wilb-“
“ I called you like 20 times! What the fuck!?”
“Oh… my phone was turned off,” Techno said, casually shrugging.
Wilbur grumbled and muttered something under his breath about how that was bullshit, and Techno totally planned that.
Techno adjusted his glasses with his middle and ring fingers, pushing them up as he waited for Wilbur to grab something and then finally get into the car, pulling out of the parking lot and heading home.