Chapter Text
Things are fine as Tommy walks up the stairs to his apartment. Why wouldn’t things be perfectly fine? It’s a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, he’d even found 2 dollars on the ground, and had gotten himself a red slushie.
The day is at his disposal, and now he would get to go home to his best friend, and spend the rest of the day playing Mario Kart, or listening to music, whatever his heart desired! All he had to do was step through the door in front of him and-
“Tommy fucking Innit. Don’t you dare take another step into this house!” Tubbo yells, as soon as he stepps through the door.
“Aha, hey big man! Tubster! My bro, my best friend! How are you, my man? What’s up!” Tommy rattles off, both frantic and confused as to what had brought outburst this on.
“Don’t act stupid with me, mister. You know exactly what you did.” Tubbo berates and Tommy looks at him without a thought behind his eyes.
What had he done? He’d woken up, taken a shower, put some toast in the toaster, brushed his teeth, had a glass of chocolate milk and then taken off for a walk around the city. All things considered, Tommy thought it was a very tame day for him.
Tommy shrugs as the shorter boy in front of him lets out an aggravated sigh and reaches behind him, revealing something that looks like pure ash.
“Right.” Tommy mumbles to himself.
The toast.
Tommy holds out his half-drunk slushie, and throws Tubbo a flushed smile, “Apology present?”
“Nope. No. No way.” Tubbo laughs menacingly, “You set our toaster on fire, you don’t contribute financially-”
“How do we even afford this place?” Tommy buts in, to which his friend’s glare shuts him down immediately. Rude.
“Financially.” Tubbo repeats, “And I’m sick of it! Sick I say. You’re going to turn around, and you’re not going to come back until you have a job and a new toaster.”
“Both of them? Buddy, can’t I just get a fucking sick job and eventually buy the toaster? Seems much more rational if you ask me.” Tommy argued.
Tubbo’s rules were evil, how was he meant to be ‘Big Man TommyInnit, Lover of Women and Money’ if he was spending all his time trying to buy a toaster?
Tubbo locks eyes with Tommy, his face falling into a special look that was reserved only for when Tommy was about to get himself into deep shit, well, deeper shit than usual.
“Right, aha. Nevermind Big T. I’ll get going. Be back- Yep. Cya.” Tommy laughs as he slowly backs out the door, before taking off down the stairs and not stopping running until he reaches the street.
Fuck . That was not poggers. Now he’s homeless and out of breath.
----
Things are NOT fine as Tommy walks down the street into the heart of the city. Why would things be fine? It’s a terrible day! His best friend kicked him out, he needed to find a cheap toaster, he needed to find a way to earn money fast, and he didn’t even have his red slushie. There was no way his day could get worse.
“Fucking... Fucking bitch of a roommate, makin’ me do fucking work and shit.” Tommy huffs, kicking a rock on the sidewalk.
Not a second later he heard the breaking of glass and a blaring car alarm going off.
Was that him? Surely not.
“Oi, dude! What the fuck? That’s my car?”
Okay. Maybe it was him.
Tommy takes off running down the street, looking behind him to see a buff man chasing him down the street.
Maybe things could get worse.
Tommy scans his surroundings for anything that could possibly help him, the man was gaining on him, and though Tommy would never admit it out loud, the dude could definitely take him. Who even has the time to become that buff? The man must go to the gym, like, at least once a week.
He doesn’t have time to keep thinking, he desperately needs a miracle.
Tommy glances around again, before catching sight of an alleyway not that far ahead of him. If he can’t have a miracle, a trashcan will do.
He turns down the alley and throws himself into the large trash can, grabbing the lid and placing it above him.
“This is so uncomfortable.” He complains to himself.
The loud footsteps come to a halt at the opening of the alleyway and begin to come closer and closer. Tommy tenses, trying to shrink even further down into the bin.
On the bright side, if he gets arrested he’ll have somewhere to sleep while he’s not allowed in his house. And maybe they’ll give him a toaster as a “get out of jail” present.
“Kids, what can you do?” Tommy hears the man sigh, footsteps retreating back down the alleyway.
Close call.
Tommy stays in the trash can for a few moments, just for security purposes, before he hops out brushing his clothes off, can’t have his clothes dirty if he’s going to make a good impression.
He gags as he pulls a piece of raw chicken out of the hood of his jacket, only just resisting the urge to vomit up everything in his stomach. Looking down at himself, he decides he looks presentable enough to enter an establishment and ask for a job. It’s not like anyone could resist his smooth talking charm anyway. He was a big man, a big, charming, poggers man, and he was going to get a job.
Walking out of the alleyway and onto the street, Tommy takes up his stride in the direction of the city central, where he was going before he rudely got chased down by a fully grown adult.
Clearly didn’t know Tommy is a minor, and you are not meant to be mean to minors.
Tommy looks at the people he’s passing, none of them daring to meet his eyes. Ha, no-one could dare meet the eyes of the biggest dude around.
“Mum, why does that boy have pizza in his hair?” A child asks their mother, as they pass Tommy.
The mother hushes the child as they quickly move through the crowd before Tommy can turn around and say anything.
He stands in front of the glass at the nearest shop and sees that he does, in fact, have a slice of pizza, cheese side down, on his head.
“How fucking rancid.” Tommy cringes, gagging dramatically as he peels the slice from his hair, and slams it on the ground, “Absolutely fucking putrid.”
Tommy sighs and looks at the pizza on the ground. “I’m sorry, buddy. That was harsh of me. I’ve just had a rough day. I guess I’m in the same boat as you. You got thrown out, I got thrown out. You could have had a great life in someone’s stomach. There’s no hope for either of us now.”
The pizza doesn’t respond, but Tommy takes a seat next to it, his back against the shop.
“You don’t have to talk. You’ve been through a lot.”
It still doesn’t respond.
“My best friend kicked me out. He’s making me get a job. Fucking asshole, he is. How do you even get one of those? Do you just walk in there and tell them you need money? Not that I’m desperate. I have loads of money. And girlfriends. Both.”
Nothing.
“I feel like you get me.”
Tommy stares up at the glowing neon sign above him. It’s starting to get dark and Tommy is impatient. Who wouldn’t want to hire him?
The bell at the shop chimes next to him, and he watches as an employee walks out and gets into a car, putting the boxes he’s holding down on the passenger seat.
Pizza boxes.
“Oh, Pizza! You glorious slice of pizza! This is a holy day, you have helped me reach enlightenment. I will never forget you!” Tommy exclaims, jumping up from his spot.
Today is a good day.
---
“No.”
“What do you mean no?!” Tommy cries to the stupid bald man in front of him.
Assessing the situation, you wouldn’t think the man, “Mr Manifold” as the name tag read, would be in any position to deny Tommy work. Tommy was a good half a foot taller than him (at least), and had used his very best manners.
“You called me bald.” Manifold argues back.
“No, no, that doesn’t sound like me.”
“You- what? You can’t do that. You said it to my face.”
“No, psh. I would never do such a thing, Mr Manifold.”
“It doesn’t matter if you would, you did ”
“You have it twisted, sir. Are you feeling ok? Do you need me to call someone?”
“What is even happening right now?”
“I think you were going to give me a job.”
The bald man sighs, “If I give you a job will you shut up?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You know what? Whatever. Can you drive?”
Tommy cannot drive.
“Yes.”
“Perfect.” Manifold says, grabbing a hat from the uniform rack next to him, and placing it on Tommy’s head, “Meet Pizza Hut’s newest delivery boy. Welcome to the family.”
“I won’t let you down, big man!” Tommy salutes his new boss, throwing him a charming, dazzling, TommyInnit grin.
“I’m sure you will.”
---
Tommy leaves the office with a new uniform, and a new set of company wheels. Not the worst perks in the world. Plus, he won’t have to cook- we all know how that went last time.
But now Tommy has a job! Big man earning big bucks. He’s moving up in the world.
Now he just needs to learn how to drive. Surely it’s not that hard.
He would look it up on YouTube, but his laptop is at home. Somewhere he is currently exiled from.
Oh well, there’s no better way to learn than hands-on experience.
First, Tommy goes to the bathroom and puts his uniform on, wouldn’t want anyone thinking he’d just stolen the car.
As for the problem of getting a license- He’ll deal with that later. For now, he goes out the back and finds the car that belongs to his keys and sits in the driver’s seat. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult.
No, nothing is difficult for ‘The TommyInnit, Master of Cars and Ruler of The World.’
It will be easy!
The car is an automatic, easy. Tommy just has to put it in reverse and it will all be fine.
Tommy puts the car in reverse and presses on the accelerator.
The car is pretty smooth, nice.
Okay. If going at 5 kilometers an hour is allowed, then Tommy is killing it.
In all honesty, he’s pretty proud of himself. Better slow then sorry, or whatever the dumb saying is. Tommy puts the car into drive and presses on the accelerator a little more, suddenly becoming extremely aware of all of his surroundings to make sure he didn’t hit anything.
“Can’t have anything else coming out of my sweet pay check.” He laughed out loud, “God, I’m fucking killing it.”
Tommy is, in fact, killing it. In a surprisingly short amount of time, Tommy had driven around the city, and on the main roads, only going up one or two gutters along the way. Pretty impressive.
Now, it’s time for Tommy to pull off his greatest stunt yet. Parking. Tommy checks behind him before putting the car into reverse.
What kind of establishment makes you park facing forward? That was its first mistake.
Its second mistake was thinking that was something that Tommy could do. Because he really, really cannot.
Tommy admits to himself that his tragic flaw is not being able to park. Every main character needs one.
He decides parking is a work in progress and heads back into Pizza Hut at 8pm for the official start of his first shift.
--
It’s a slow start, and Tommy is bored out of his brain, but he keeps reminding himself that he’s earning money from this and that’s all that matters.
He volunteered to do the “graveyard shift” (whatever that means), and was finishing at 5, and time is just not going quick enough for Tommy’s liking. It was a nice night, so more people were out then in, which meant less online orders and more people in store.
Whatever though, he gets a fat pay check at the end of the night and that’s all that matters.
Plus, those other suckers have to make pizza. Sucks to be them.
All Tommy has to do is deliver one every now and then, which really, isn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He’s just bored.
It’s nearly clock off time, and Tommy wants nothing more then to go back home to his best bro, and his super fucking warm bed.
“Newbie. Order up.”
Sucks to be Tommy.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming, right away, boss.”
“I- I’m not your boss?” The chef questions.
“But you’re bald. And Mr Manifold is bald. Therefore you are boss.”
“Just take the pizza’s, kid.”
“Fuck you! I am not a kid! I am a big strong man, and I will sue you, I know my rights!” Tommy huffs, taking the boxes and stomping out to his car.
----
Tommy drives just out of the city, and along a road he hasn’t been down before. He is pretty familiar with the city, and even the outskirts. Himself and Tubbo have spent many a-days wandering, looking for things to do, people to meet and chaos to cause.
Eventually, Tubbo had his interest grabbed by building and making, especially things that look like they could be ripped straight out of a movie. Grappling hooks, flamethrowers. The usual.
Tommy hasn’t found his true calling yet, instead deciding to do whatever grabbed his interest the most at the time.
Still, Tommy hasn’t been down this road. Weirdchamp.
He frowns slightly, double checking the address, and his GPS before continuing up the road.
He reaches an apartment block and rolls his eyes, of course it’s an apartment. It stands tall and looming, taunting him about the fact that he can’t go home yet. This apartment is a dick.
“Just get this shit over with.” Tommy sighs to himself, pulling over somewhere that looks almost like a parking spot. He gets out, grabs the pizza and heads over to the door.
The neighbourhood is a pretty nice one, Tommy notices as he gets closer to the door. Not the worst place on Earth to live, maybe they’ll tip.
A man dressed in a bellhop uniform stands outside the door, “How may I help you, sir?” He asks Tommy.
“Uhhh, I got a pizza delivery for, uh, shit, floor 24.”
The bellhop gives him a suspicious up and down.
“Look, mate, I’m just trying to do my job here, and if the pizza goes cold then I’m in deep shit, and my boss is already a dickhead-”
“Of course, sir.”
Tommy raises an eyebrow, surprised. Usually people are offended by this point. The bellhop opens the glass door and Tommy walks inside, thanking the man.
He gets in the elevator and presses floor 24. The penthouse.
Not surprised by anything at this rate.
The things he does for friendship.
The elevator dings and Tommy steps out. There’s only one door on the floor, so Tommy walks up to it and gives it a knock.
He waits.
He yawns.
God, it must be almost 5am by now.
Impatiently, Tommy knocks again.
And again.
There’s a loud shuffle behind the door.
The door slams open, and before Tommy can process what is happening, a blade is at his throat.
Right.
Tommy sighs irritably.
Of all the situations he could be in, this was not one he was prepared for.
Oh, the things he does for Tubbo.
Standing in front of him, with a sword to his throat is the second highest ranked superhero in all of their city. The Blade.
Nice.
On any other day, maybe he’d be a bit excited, but right now, he just really wants to deliver pizza and get home.
Tommy had pretty much forgotten that he lived in a city full of superheroes and villains up until this very moment.
He wishes it had stayed that way.
Peeking out behind The Blade was the third highest ranked, Siren, and the top ranked, Philza. Fucking hell.
They better tip well.
“One large cheese, one large meat lover and one large vegorama, for, uh, es-bee-eye ” Tommy reads in a monotone voice, from the receipt, as he holds the pizzas out to the hero in front of him.
“Who are you, and how did you find us?” The Blade deadpans, sword still up to Tommy’s throat.
“Pizza Hut. Someone ordered pizza.”
The Blade looks back at the other two who look just as confused as he does, shaking their heads and shrugging.
The Blade’s expression smoothes out, into a scarily calm look. He removes his blade from Tommy’s throat.
“If I find out that you’re lying, you don’t want to know the things I’ll do.” He says, placing his sword against the wall.
“Please don’t threaten me. I have to fill out so many forms. Here are your pizzas.” Tommy tries again to hand them to the man, but to no avail.
Even if you’re a hero, if someone is handing you free pizza, wouldn’t you take it?
“Come on, Blade, take the pizza and leave the poor child alone. I’m sure he’s just doing his job.” Philza reasons, giving The Blade a pointed look. Finally, someone with some common sense around here.
“I’m not a child.” Tommy mumbled quietly to himself.
“You look like a child to me.” Siren sneers in retort.
What the fuck? Tommy is literally just trying to do his job. How did he even hear?
…
Right, superpowers. Stupid question.
“Siren.” Philza warns. God, Philza is the only man ever.
The Blade stares Tommy down one last time before taking the pizzas and slamming the door in his face.
“Not even a tip.” Tommy sighs out loud, “So much for fucking superheroes.”
None of them are as big as TommyInnit. Except maybe Philza.
But Tommy doesn’t care, he just wants to get home.
He gets in his car and starts the engine, heading back into the city.
Meow.
What the fuck?
“What the fuck?” Tommy repeats out loud.
He looks over to the seat next to him.
Meow.
“How the fuck did you get in here little fella?” Tommy asks, pulling over to the side of the road.
He picks up the ginger cat sitting on the seat and places the cat in his lap.
More like a kitten really
“Aren’t you a little dude? Fuck, or dudette. Or whatever you wanna be. No judgement here.”
Tommy looks at the collar around the cat's neck.
“You don’t even have a name yet! Just a number.”
The kitten purrs, rubbing itself against Tommy’s arm.
If you ask Tommy, he will deny tearing up. Sentiment is for pussies. And well, cats.
“Henry. Yep. I’m going to call you Henry. It’s gender neutral, you can be whatever you wanna be.”
The kitten purrs again.
Again, Tommy will deny he let out an audible “aww.”
The only issue now is now Tommy has a choice. He can either A) keep Henry and have a BFF for life (beats Tubbo, Henry wouldn’t kick him out) OR B) find a phone and reunite Henry with their owner.
Henry looks up at Tommy and lets out a soft hum.
Sheesh. Henry’s right.
“Okay, I know. You drive a hard bargain but Tubbo would kill me if I bought you home. I don’t have a phone though, so I’m going to have to turn around really quickly.”
Tommy straps Henry into the seat next to him and does a U-turn back to the apartment block. He hopes that there’s a phone in the lobby he can use to call the number on Henry’s collar.
Getting out of the car outside the building, Tommy goes over to the bellhop.
“Back again already?”
Tommy wishes he wasn’t.
He pulls the cat from the nook of his arm, “I found this dude and I need to borrow your phone.” Pause. “Please.”
The bellhop breaks into a wide, toothy grin.
“No need to use the phone, sir. That belongs to the people you were just visiting. Level 24. Head on up.”
Tommy sighs and walks inside the door.
Many bad things always happen. And such is life for TommyInnit. It is so not poggers.
Arriving on the floor (again), Tommy knocks on the door (again) and prepares to almost get his head taken off (again).
To his shock (and luck), it’s not The Blade on the other side of the door, but Philza.
“Why are you here again, kid? I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s very early.” Philza gives him a tired smile.
“I don’t want to be here. I found this, fucking cat. Who I love by the way. I’ve named them Henry. But I found it and I am returning it.”
Philza’s smile changes from tired to bright.
“Siren! Come here!” Philza yells into the apartment before turning back to Tommy, “Thank you, bud. He hasn’t stopped throwing tantrums about this kitten for the last week. Someone left the door open and it ran away.”
Siren appears behind Philza and glares down at Tommy.
What is this dude’s problem?
Siren’s eyes land on Henry and he moves forward to pick him up out of Tommy’s hands.
“Did you steal my cat?” The hero asks.
“Why the fuck would I steal your cat?”
“Money, reward, some sick mind game.”
“I didn’t steal your cat. I did name them though. Henry.”
“Stupid name.”
“Says you!.” Tommy replies.
“You have a stupid name.”
“You don’t even know my name, fucker! What type of name even is, Siren?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“What the fuck does that even mean you dickhead?”
“Okay!” Philza sighs. “Break it up boys. Thank you..” His eyes look down and Tommy’s name tag, “TommyInnit”
“Stupid name.” Siren mumbles.
“Is there anything we can do to repay you?”
Tommy thinks for a second.
“Actually, Big Man. There is one thing you could do…”
---
Tommy contentedly walks out of the building with a toaster in his arms.
He drives back to his place of work, and “parks” the car, taking his toaster in with him to collect his paycheck and head off.
He arrives back at home about 15 hours after he got kicked out of it.
Tommy knocks on the door, and Tubbo answers.
“You crazy son of a bitch, you actually did it.” Tubbo marvels, looking at Tommy, still in his Pizza Hut uniform, holding a toaster under one arm.
“Of course I did, Tubster. They don’t call me ‘TommyInnit, keeper of promises and lover of money’ for nothing.”
“No one calls you that.”
“You don’t know that.”
Tubbo takes the toaster off Tommy and puts it aside.
“Go take a shower, you smell like shit.”
“Aye, aye, bossman!”
---
“I can’t believe you gave him our toaster.” Siren huffs.
“Shut up and enjoy your cat.” Philza retorts, rolling his eyes at his son.
“I believe his name’s Henry.” Blade chuckles.
Siren throws a pillow at Blade.
----
TLDR ; TommyInnit's Guide on: How to Earn Money (and not get killed by your best friend in the process)
- Get kicked out
- Reach a new plane of existence via pizza
- Gaslight a bald man into giving you a job
- Learn how to drive (WORK IN PROGRESS)
- Almost die
- Profit.