Chapter Text
Builder Brothers’ Pizza. Elliot looks up at the sign with a sigh, straightening his visor. His footsteps hit the asphalt of the parking lot without so much as a tap, despite how heavy his hatred for the day coming was; After all, another day, another shift with…
He pushes open the door, flipping the sign to ‘Open’ and spotting his dad behind the counter. The man waves, and Elliot waves back, watching as the man dissapears into a door marked as employees-only. Elliot groans, digging the heel of his palms into his eyes until he sees dark dots speckling his vision. He preferred working delivery, but as the employee of the month- well, more like the business in general- and working a severely understaffed job, he doesn’t always get a choice.
With Builder Brothers’ cashier- his sister-off sick, Elliot yet again had to work at the cash register, which, normally, wouldn’t be that difficult of a task, except; Work is never normal for Elliot.
“And… a medium sausage pizza.”
Elliot adds the pizza onto the customer’s order, a sickeningly-sweet customer service smile on his face that contradicted the mind-numbing boredom he felt. He attempts to ring up the man’s total when the screen flicks to an image that Elliot knew all too well. A red figure stands- smugly, Elliot knew- with a shirt advertising team c00lkidd, text plastered all over the screen where the navigational buttons used to be.
Elliot huffs in frustration, a long, drawn out sound. He looks up to see c00lkidd in a corner, hand over his mouth, visibly shaking with giggles. Of course, Elliot had not once had a day without being pestered by the recalcitrant kid, and he knew better than to even dream of even one shift of peace.
“I’m sorry, sir, I’ll be with you in a moment,” Elliot breathes in exasperation, his eye twitching with barely-contained rage. He wastes no time in making his way over to where c00lkidd crouched. The sight of the kid trying to stifle his laughter while the pizzeria’s reputation was actively deteriorating fuelled Elliot’s rage, and he could practically feel steam coming out of his ears.
“c00lkidd,” Elliot growls. c00lkidd giggles; “Yes?” he asks innocently, batting his eyelashes with a smile of faux concern. “You know you’re banned from here. For life,” Elliot gestures towards the door, and c00lkidd nods, standing up with surprisingly little resistance, walking out without a word. Elliot’s eyebrow quirks in surprise, but who was he to complain about his job being made easier?
The customer looks on with curiosity as Elliot returns to the register, writing him a physical cheque and apologising profusely. The customer, seemingly amused, hands over the money and walks out. Elliot follows him with his eyes, his gaze falling on c00lkidd still outside, looking into the pizzeria with tear-lined eyes while practically vibrating with barely-contained laughter.
Elliot looks back at the register, which still donned the image of the young exploiter, and speedwalks while keeping a work-appropriate pace without hesitation. The second Elliot stepped toward c00lkidd, the kid doubled over, laughing to the point he seemed he was struggling to breathe. A stupid png of him could not possibly elicit such a reaction, and Elliot knew better than to think he would stop there. Turning around, he’s met with the sight of the menu boards above the register completely altered.
Instead of the usual pizzas, like sausage, cheese, and pepperoni, were different poo related items. ‘Sausage’ now reads ‘Sewage; now with extra poop!’, while Pepperoni reads ‘Pooperoni’, along with other dumb childish puns.
“Really?!” Elliot hisses, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re like, 10, there's no way you still find this funny,” he shakes his head in disappointment, dropping his hand to his side, a sigh falling from his lips. “I’m calling your dad.” Elliot pulls out his mobile, which, usually, he wouldn’t be allowed to use on the clock, but he was sure this an exception. c00lkidd cocks his head, absentmindedly swaying his tail behind him.
As the ringing goes on, Elliot’s foot tapping grows more frequent, and his arms fold tighter over his chest. Unsurprisingly, 007n7 picks up on the last ring, somehow always picking up calls late despite having nothing better to do. c00lkidd looks on quietly as the conversation plays out.
“Elliot! Hey.. you don’t happen to be calling to ask me about my day do you?”
“007n7. Come here right now and pick up your kid.”
“I don’t know where ‘here’-”
“007n7 I’m not playing games with you.”
“Right. I’ll be over in a minute.”
Elliot hangs up the call, turning to c00lkidd with a scowl. “You don’t have any friends you could spend time with instead of making people’s lives harder?” He rolls his eyes when all he receives is a shrug of the kid’s shoulders, and he growls with frustration and impatience. “Of course you don’t.” c00lkidd winces, visibly deflating at the backhanded comment.
It takes 007n7 10 minutes to arrive, despite having a teleporter on hand at all times. Was Elliot surprised? Not really. Irresponsible enough to leave his kid unsupervised enough that he goes and vandalises peoples’ workplaces goes hand in hand with.. Well, everything that 007n7 does. The man appears out of thin air a few feet away, walking over rather slowly.
“Sorry for the wait,” 007n7 smiles nervously, scratching the back of his neck while avoiding Elliot’s scrutinising gaze. “You want me to take him back home?” Elliot narrows his eyes. “I want you to fix my pizzeria, for starters,” 007n7 cringes. “Then, you can teach your kid to… I don't know, not vandalise places he doesn’t pay for?” 007n7’s face drops, and his shoulders droop as he walks inside, “Right, right. I promise this won’t happen again.” Elliot rolls his eyes, “You always say that, and look where we are now. Make sure that this time, you keep your word.”
The cleanup, surprisingly, didn’t take that long. 007n7 had finally put himself to good use, wiping c00lkidd’s pranks from the store in less than 5 minutes. Stepping outside, he isn't even granted so much as a nod of approval from Elliot, who is radiating annoyance.
c00lkidd clings onto 007n7’s arm as the man pulls out his gui, wearing an expression of guilt that Elliot knew all too well meant nothing. 007n7 opted to stay quiet as the c00lgui loaded, head hung in shame. c00lkidd, on the other hand, was grinning mischievously at Elliot right before the teleport finished.
Tch, the kid never changed.
Elliot’s shift ended an hour later, and he was more than relieved to finally be going home. He couldn’t have stuck the key in the ignition any quicker, nor could he have followed the speed limit any faster. The car ride back was short, and that may or may not have been due to Elliot running a few amber lights, but he’d never admit that.
Tossing his visor onto his kitchen island and shrugging off his uniform was freeing, and he wasted no time into getting into the shower.
Scrubbing off the day’s events was always Elliot’s most loved part of his routine, and after brushing his teeth, he collapsed onto his bed, head hitting the pillow with a dull thump. Elliot stared up the ceiling, mind replaying the day’s events- an exhausting task.
c00lkidd had been terrorising Builder Brothers’ pizzeria for close to a year now, following in his dad’s footsteps, and something told Elliot that he wouldn’t be stopping any time soon. The kid was annoying, persistent, and friendless, and Elliot didn’t have a hard time imagining why.
To be fair, it wasn’t c00lkidd’s fault that he was raised like this. Maybe, Elliot wondered, if c00lkidd hadn’t shown up on 007n7’s doorstep, the exploiter would have eventually stopped messing with the pizzeria and left Elliot to work in peace.
Just his luck that the exploiter that griefed his workplace had been given a kid out of the blue and raised him to be exactly like his father. Elliot cursed 007n7’s lazy parenting, scoffing something along the lines of “Can’t raise a damn kid right, if you knew you weren’t fit for parenting, you could’ve given him to someone who was.” He almost, almost, felt bad for thinking such a thing, but he was quickly reminded of who he was thinking it about, and all feelings of guilt or anything similar dissipated.
Tomorrow, luckily, was Saturday, and Elliot couldn’t wait to finally have a break from c00lkidd, hoping whoever was unlucky enough to be working on the weekend would be capable of dealing with the incorrigible menace; If Elliot was off the job, it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. Regardless of how arrogant Elliot might sound if he said that out loud, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.
The air in the room grows warmer as his eyelids grow heavier, and he can feel the weight in his limbs falling away.
Elliot is lulled into a dreamless sleep.