Chapter Text
The sun beams through the dirty window of the apartment’s bedroom, making Tommy groan in distaste.
Fucking great. He has woken up, once again.
He blinks his eyes open slowly, sighing as he throws the thin blanket to the side. The mattress under him hadn’t done much, not much different to just sleeping on the floor. Tommy could still appreciate the effort.
Yawning, he swings the door open, stepping out into their mash up of a living room and a kitchen. In all honesty, it wasn’t much, but it was good enough. It had to be, and the three occupants of the apartment were grateful for what they had.
Speaking of which, Ranboo, the lanky bitch, was sprawled out on their small couch, legs easily stretching across the entire thing and beyond. A hilarious sight, truly. He snored softly, face hanging over the armrest.
Tommy snorted, and strolled right up to him, a vicious grin spreading over his face. And then he did what he does best: scare the living shit out of his jumpy best friend.
He landed directly on top of the taller boy’s sleeping form, shrieking loudly. Ranboo screamed ( which he would later on deny doing) and squirmed under him, hands flailing in the air desperately without hitting their mark.
When Ranboo seemed to hear Tommy’s manic cackling, he froze for a moment, before sighing in defeat and going limp. He turned his head, sending a death glare towards Tommy, never quite looking him in the eye, like the boy never did. Ranboo apparently was not pleased with the way he was woken up. Tommy, on the other hand, found it to be the best thing of his entire week.
“Tommy, off. Now.” Ranboo groans from under him, his voice muffled by the couch. Tommy giggles more, but eventually slides off, heading to the kitchen.
Now that he’d fully woken up, nerves began to buzz under his skin and butterflies woke in his stomach. Oh yeah, he had his first workday today. At, you know, one of the biggest cafés in the city. No big deal.
He let out a shaky breath, forcing himself to calm down. It’ll be fine. How hard can being a barista even be?
—
Hard. Pretty fucking hard.
It’s his first day here, and what does he get? A damn load of karens, that’s what.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t sell the Christmas special anymore, it’s almost October.”
The woman in front of him looks furious, her face red. If he was in a cartoon, he’d see smoke coming from her nose and ears. No, scratch that, he wouldn’t see her anymore, because he would’ve thrown her right out of here.
“No! My kids want the Christmas special, so that’s what I’m going to get them! I don’t care if it’s not available, I’m sure you remember how to make it!” She yells, a hand coming up to point at him. He sighs.
“Ma’am, I’m really sorry, truly, but I do not know how to make it. And even if I did, I would not be able to, since we don’t have the ingredients anymore.” He explains as calmly as he can. Honestly, he’s surprised that he’d managed to go for so long. But he’d do anything to get that damn money.
“I don’t care! I want to speak to your manager!” She screams, her children looking increasingly uncomfortable every passing second.
“Sure thing, ma’am, I’m sure she will explain. Niki!” He turns to call her, relief coursing through him at the idea of finally getting rid of this screaming woman disturbing their other customers. There was already a pretty decent line forming behind the woman.
Sure enough, Niki quickly exits the back room, the top of her pink hair being pulled to a bun and the rest hanging around her shoulders. She was wearing her black apron over a brown long-sleeved sweater with flower designs sewed into it.
Even when she’d been extremely nice to him the moment he’d stepped into the café, he had a feeling that she would not hesitate to break his arm when given a reason to. She seemed like a girlboss.
Niki realizes the situation before Tommy even has to explain, and the way she passive aggressively handles the situation reminds him of Ranboo. She’d smile politely, but with a tight face. Her words would be kind, but the tone of them not so much. The karen quickly exited the building, muttering something about suing under her breath.
“Thanks, Niki.” Tommy says quietly, flashing a smile at her. She smiled back, much more genuine than with the woman she’d been dealing with mere seconds ago.
“No worries! I honestly love telling karens off, they never have enough determination to linger for long.”She shrugged, a calm look in her eyes. Like a switch had been flipped.
She went back to whatever she was doing behind the door, and Tommy went back to taking orders and making drinks.
—
No matter how careful he tried to be, at the end of his shift, he had quite a few burns to show for his work. His palms were bright red, irritated skin shining in the cozy lights of the café.
Tommy knows that there was some sort of gauze around, but he’d feel too bad taking Niki’s first aid stuff when he could handle it just fine, so he let the kit be, leaving it to collect dust in the bathroom cabinet.
The café was empty, him having the closing shift. Honestly, he preferred it this way, having the morning and most of the day to himself and his friends. They all had late shifts, which they were infinitely grateful for. And in all honesty, they all were definitely more capable of defending themselves in the late night streets than the regular citizens.
He wiped the tables clean, the rhythmic motion calming his mind. It was quite satisfying, seeing the stains and dirt disappear.
Once he’d mopped the floor - a much more annoying task - he was ready to go home.
He swung his red backpack onto his back, and walked out of the café, making sure to lock it behind him.
Instantly, he was hit with the harsh difference of the temperature dropping significantly and making his face tingle in the late night breeze.
He took a deep breath, and began strolling down the streets, hand clenched around his keys to only show the point of it. Just in case.
—
It wasn’t such a long walk, but he was relieved when he saw his shady apartment building come to view in front of him. God knows he didn’t need to stay out any longer, not wanting to deal with all the chaos erupting after midnight rolled by.
Twisting his keys into the old building door, he swung it open and hurried inside. He took in a deep breath once the door slammed closed behind him, a loud slam echoing around the tiny lobby. It smelled horrifying.
Tommy headed for the elevator only to find a sign on the side of it, declaring that it’s broken. Fucking great. He groaned as he turned towards the stairs, barely looking like they could support his very minimal weight, and set a foot in front of the other. And he lived on the fifth story. Again, fucking great.
After the too-long journey up, Tommy stood in front of his apartment door, listening for sounds inside of it. He didn’t hear anything aside from small snippets of conversation between his best friends. Fucking shit soundproofing that this building had, but at least he always knew if someone was in the apartment uninvited.
He barged in, slamming the door shut behind him and his friends flinched in alarm, only to see Tommy throw his bag on the floor and collapse on top of Tubbo’s legs that were propped up on the couch.
He felt Tubbo shake with laughter and kick him lightheartedly on the side. Tommy yelped, offended, and glared at him. This bitch!
“Hard first day, bossman?” Tubbo asked, giggled still occasionally escaping his lips.
“Fuck you.” Tommy decided to settle on, making Tubbo burst out laughing. He was pretty sure that Ranboo scoffed affectionately from his chair a bit further away.
"I'm assuming it was the karens?" Tubbo teased, erupting into another round of giggles at Tommy's affirmative groan.
A comfortable silence settled over the three of them, their shit of a television blasting about some hero and villain fight. Tommy sighed, debating on checking it out in his vigilante gear for a moment. When he saw the live footage though, those thoughts were straight out of the window.
It was the Dream team against the Syndicate. The two most powerful groups, just fighting about on top of some random building. Yeah, it’d be a death sentence to interfere.
Tommy follows the fight in mild interest, watching as Thanatos slams Hypnos to the ground, the villain's black wings flaring threateningly behind him. Dream tries to go help his teammate, before also being slammed to the ground by Blade’s axe making its way into his back.
The news suddenly cut back to the reporter, stating that the recording crew backed off due to the fight becoming too dangerous for them to linger there. Bullshit, if Tommy has a say in it. He’d watch the villains almost die in the hands of heroes, camera zoomed in like some sort of sick movie recording. The news would be blasting with those recordings for the next few days. Tommy had been a victim of a clip like that, not fun, he can confirm ( his ego had been severely damaged ).
“Well, that’s boring.” Tubbo suddenly blurted, turning the TV off. He looked like he was going to get up, until being reminded of the weight on top of his legs. Tommy knew what was coming, but he lay still, until he felt Tubbo move beneath him, fast.
He screeched as Tubbo rolled off the couch, his legs grabbing such a tight hold of his waist that he couldn’t do anything but scream as Tubbo jerked both of them to the ground, a loud thump echoing around the whole room. He heard Ranboo burst laughing next to him, but he was too focused on screaming bloody murder to care.
“ You motherfucker! I’ll kill you in your sleep! I’ll cook all the food you eat for the rest of your life!”
Tubbo gasped, fake horror pouring into his words: “I’ll never eat anything you’ve cooked! I’m not planning on getting poisoned today, or quite frankly, never!”
They slipped into their usual banter, Ranboo watching them with an amused expression from where he was seated in the chair.
Maybe this was just fine. He was content with his current life.
Of course, things can never go his way for once.