i like my sugar with two teaspoons of coffee!

You are about to punch a hole in your stupid fucking front door.

There is a reason for your frustration, it's not as out of left fucking field or the deepest recesses of outer space like you know your anger sometimes (almostconstantly) can be. You are actually somewhat justified this time, honest. Your dickwad porngenerator fuckwit of a brother, after ensuring repeatedly that he would get the lock replaced, after you tried many times to slather the fucking thing in WD-40, after he damn near took the thing apart and spread it across the living room floor before carefully piecing it back together -- after the two of you had tried everything you could think of, you finally got him to swear up and down by his fucking perverted puppet website that he would bite the metaphorical wound-gouging bullet and buy a new fucking lock. One that actually worked.

It's been a week since then, and you have worked every day of that significantly lengthy week, sometimes coming in to cover shifts for your asswipe of a coworker at the last minute, resulting in the boss phoning you frantically (well, her version of frantic involves using this nasally whine that she thinks is endearing or some shit, it's really pretty sad if what she's going for is pitiful, because she only ever manages to sound like she's tried slathering her vocal chords with engine oil) to ask you to take the shift.

"DIRK!" you holler into the apartment, not at all sounding like a whiny tool. You're pretty sure you hear an irritated grunt drift down the stairs in reply, so you continue. "IF THIS FUCKING LOCK ISN'T WORKING BY THE TIME I GET BACK FROM VRISKA'S TODAY I SWEAR TO GOD I AM TOSSING YOUR FUCKING ORANGE PUSSY LAPTOP OUT THE FUCKING SHITTY CRACKED-UP WINDOW INTO THE NEIGHBOR'S FUCKING HUGEASS CHLORINATED-OUT-THE-NOSTRILS POOL. TRY TO MAINTAIN A WEBSITE THEN, YOU EGREGIOUS FUCKSTICK."

About halfway through your hollering you hear a door creak open (Dirk's door could rival the cheesy sound effect in haunted video games, this lock is definitely not the only thing less than functional in this fucking apartment) and towards the end Dirk's offensively blonde head and gay-ass pointed shades poke themselves around the wall blocking the stairs to the upper floor from the doorway.

"Cool your jets, lil man, I'll get to it."

"I will cool my jets," you spit through gritted teeth, "when I can close this fucking goddamn door."

Dirk just rolls his eyes at you, the motion given away only by the slight lift to his eyebrows and the familiar tilt to his head that you've seen before, but you think, by the way he's walking towards the door, he actually intends to follow through this time. You turn to leave without another word because you know he can figure out how to get the stupid thing closed; he's always been better with shit like this then you are, so you leave him to it and you swear to the unholy demonic spirits of the underworld, if it is not fixed when you return, you are gonna choke a bitch.

Your freakish older brother is unnerving and downright assholeish at times, but the two of you know you can't let your brotherly shit get in the way when it comes to the apartment and living stuff. You've both been on your own for years now, and living fairly independently at your aunt's before that, and you've finally found something of a system that works. You're not living in style, not even close, but you're a hell of a lot better off than you were when your useless bitch of a mother took off.

Work isn't too far from your shitty apartment, so you always ride your bike there, leaving the beat-up car your brother finally managed to procure a year ago in case he gets an elusive DJ gig at the last minute. The proximity of the cafe was part of the reason you signed up there in the first place, but honestly, you're pretty glad you did. Vriska is pretty fuckin' chill as a boss, especially for a troll, even though she's a straight-up bitch. Her bitch is sort of the complement to your asshole.

Except when fucking Eridan is working at the same time as you and throwing off the sicknasty equilibrium, but you're not going to think about that fucker right now. You just had breakfast, for chrissakes.

You skid to a stop at the back door to the cafe and hop off your bike, grimacing slightly at the light sweat you've managed to work up in just a couple blocks. It is hot as fuck today. Boston is way less hot than Texas, which is nice, and you and Dirk were both shitting gratitude bricks when your aunt Roxy gave you the plane tickets so you could move in with her for a while, and you both needed the scenery change after everything. But summers are still brutal, regardless of where they are, and here they're fuckin' humid as balls. It's even worse now that you don't have your aunt's glorious and fully functional A/C, but neither of you could stand imposing on her for any longer than you did. Hell, she isn't even actually related to you, she just knew your asshole negligent parents.

So after spending the morning in your only-marginally-cooler-than-the-oven-that-is-the-outside apartment, you are immensely grateful for the waft of icy air that greets you when you open the back door to your place of work.

"Aww, thank you, Vriska," you mumble as the door slams shut behind you.

"You're welcome, dorkazoid," Vriska calls from the next room, peeking her head topped with her brightly-colored horns through the archway with a light toss of her hair. "Hurry your ass up and get your shirt on, we're packed today!"

You groan a little internally, mentally preparing yourself for a grueling day of work, and switch your shirt to the cerulean blue polo with the logo over the pocket. The design consists of a small coffee cup with some stylized steam wafting off of it, and if you stare at it long enough you can see the way it curls in a vaguely spiky spiral pattern that kind of gathers in the middle, which Vriska says is supposed to look a like a spider. She has this really weird thing with spiders, you just don't get it. You say it looks more like a demonic black hole, neither of which make sense for a fucking coffee shop. In the end, though, you suppose both are kind of ironically cool in their lack of suitableness for the business, which is totally fine with you.

You stride smoothly through the archway into the kitchen, passing through it to the cafe area, which is almost completely full with patrons. Vriska immediately appears in front of you, shoving a small notepad into your hand.

"This is the order from table 2, which is now yours, along with 5, 6, and 3. Hop to it, worthless peon!"

You quirk an eyebrow. "No one but you can read your chicken scratch, you dumb bitch," you tell her, but both your lips are drawn back into slight smirks. This is how you communicate; the name calling is just a part of the gig, and both of you know you don't mean any of it.

"Figure it out, loser!" she calls over her shoulder with a wave of her freaky metal arm as she heads toward one of the other tables.

You toss the order on the counter for the kitchen to deal with and make a quick sweep of your own tables. It looks like 2, 3, and 6 have drinks already, so you'll start with 5 since their table is still empty, and then figure it out from there. 

You've just managed to get drinks for 5 (two waters for the penny pinching douchewaddles, a coffee like that tightwound hussie needs it look at her eye twitch shit is bananas how long has she been awake for jesus, and a chai tea fucking hispters) and taken orders for table 2 (they all got the same thing, what freaks who even does that) when another group comes through the door, and as Vriska passes by you in a rush she mumbles a quiet groan.

"Sorry, Dave, can you put them at 8 and take care of them?"

You know it's serious business with the apology, but the fact that she actually uses your name tells you how worn out she is, and you've only been here for ten minutes.

"Sure thing, Vris," you tell her, and meet the two people at the d- aww, fuck.

It's these two.

"Shit," you say, and the one in front -- a girl with inky black hair and unnatural green eyes -- gives a cheerful giggle.

"Someone's happy to see us, John!" 

Your gut gives a soft flutter, which is quickly followed by a burning wave of self-loathing. You hate it when he comes here, and it always seems to be when you're working, fuckdammit. Can't the asshole take a goddamn hint? He's been in here almost every single fucking afternoon since he and the other two (his sister, which is blatantly obvious if you've ever seen the two of them standing within a mile of each other, and the blonde chick who's the only bearable one out of the group, who unfortunately has only come a total of twice including the first day, which is shit, you actually kinda like her) showed up a week and a half ago and made your job even more unbearable than it already was.

"You're over there," you bark at John, waving vaguely in the direction of the only empty table in the place, in the corner near the kitchen. "If you don't order the most expensive thing on the fucking menu, I'm gonna boot you out on your ass."

"Wow, Dave, why are you being so gracious today? There was only one 'fuck' in that whole sentence!" John fucking chirps at you, that's how high-pitched his stupid giggle is, and it is taking all your willpower not to cover your face in shame as you feel heat rise to your cheeks.

"Sit the fuck down," you snap at him, and he just smiles wider.

"That's more like it!"

The pair of them bounce happily to their table, and you take a moment to sigh and inhale deeply before resolving to visit all the other tables twice before getting him his drink.

But then you remember he's with Jade, and you only hate her half as much as fucking John, so you decide you'll only visit all the other tables once. Well, maybe you'll stop by 3 an extra time, you thought you saw one of them getting kind of low on their soda, and you'll be damned if anyone tries to snap their fingers at you today because you let their fucking drinks run out.

Your other tables are entirely too complacent with their orders, and before you know it you're standing in front of the Bucktoothed Wonder Pair, unable to avoid them any longer.

"The fuck do you want, assholes?"

You swear you gave your honest effort to treating these two the same as everyone else who shows up at your fuckin' job, but it was just impossible. No matter what you did, how much you scowled, however long you left them without returning to ask if everything was alright, they were always fucking smiling. Happily, like they were fucking. Content. With the world. How is that even possible? And theirs are nothing like those asshole smirks Dirk employs, or even the gleeful manic grin of Vriska's. It's like they're legitimately happy to be in this damn place. 

It's fucking unnerving, and you decided you would make it your personal mission to be as shitty as possible to them in an attempt to get them to be miserable for one fucking second.

So far you've been completely unsuccessful. Particularly with John.

Fucking John.

"I'll have the Marquis burger with a side of onion rings, please, and Jade can't decide between the chicken noodle soup and the caesar salad. Which would you recommend? As long as neither have any nuts, of course," John says, and fuck him, he really did order the most expensive thing on the menu. Now you feel like shit. Thanks, asshole.

"Salads are for douchbags and lettuce is fucking stupid. Have the soup, we just got some fuckin' awesome freedom chicken or something from this new place, and people seem crazy over it so far," you tell Jade, mentally scolding yourself for cursing at her earlier. She really doesn't deserve it; she's not nearly as much of a dick as John.

"Cool, that sounds good! I'll go with the soup," Jade beams at you, and you can't help the soft smile oozing its way across your face. When you glance at John and see his jaw inching lower and his eyes wide as an overloaded truck, though, your poker face snaps back into place.

Fucking hell did you just do.

"Right. I hope you die in a ditch," you hiss at John. Turning to Jade, you add, softer, "be back in a bit."

You aren't sure why you just can't seem to be courteous to John. You think it might have something to do with the damn smile of his that gets brighter every time you insult him, or the musical quality of his laugh, which isn't endearing in the slightest and you don't know what you just said or where you were even going with that sentence what the fuck is wrong with you.

But if he's going to look at you like he did when you accidentally smiled at Jade (fuck you just know you're going to regret that one, it is going to bite you in the ass, why are you such a dumbfuck), you're relieved you're always such a dick to him.

Because even the memory of it makes your guts squirm like a diseased slug and your cheeks heat up a bit. He looked like someone just. Fucking. Showed him the secret to life, the universe, and everything, or. Something stupid like that.

When their orders are ready and you return to the table, you are surprised to find Jade is absent. It's the first time you can remember either of them leaving your sight while they were in the building, and sometimes they stay for hours.

Only when it's not this busy, though. You wonder what's up with that.

"Choke on this, shitstain," you mutter as you place John's plate gently in front of him. There's no way you're gonna let Vriska take money out of your paycheck, and she totally will if you break anything. You did once, when you first started, and she wouldn't let you carry anything but drinks for the rest of the day because the cups are cheap-ass plastic and damn near invincible.

"Where's your sis?" You ask before you can think better of it, and John's grin widens. You get a sinking feeling and immediately regret your inquiry.

"Bathroom! She really chugged her water," he chuckles, and before you can get the hell out of there to avoid saying anything else remarkably dumb, he's talking again, words tumbling out of his throat way faster than they have a right to. "Say Dave, I was thinking, that um. You should totally come with us to the new coffee place downtown! We're eating lunch there tomorrow, and you can let someone serve you for a change, y'know, instead of looking after us all the time. Our treat, anything you want! And I know you don't work on Saturdays, so you can't get out of it that way! And it would be really cool if you could. Y'know, come with us!" he babbles at you, and you know you should  turn him down with a choice curse or eight, that this is a terrible, horrible idea, why the fuck would you want to spend more time in this dork's presence, but you make the fatal mistake of watching him. You notice him rubbing and wringing his hands together, fidgety, flailing them about his head as he talks, very nearly taking his own glasses off (fuckingadorable) and he won't quite look you in the eye; he comes close, he manages your shoulder, and sometimes up to your ear, but he can't quite meet your eyes (shades). And you're pretty sure there is the slightest redness to his cheeks that isn't normally there.

"Fine, whatever," you mutter, just barely loud enough to be heard among the other voices and clinking of forks on plates, and you pray John didn't hear you just now, because fuck, no, you shouldn't go, you really shouldn't say yes to this boy, why did you have to open your fat fucking mouth?

"Great!" John says, and he is positively glowing, it's like Christmas all up in this bitch, and suddenly you can't bring yourself to regret giving in, and he's finally looking at you, and you're faced with the full force of his smile-and-gorgeous-blue-eyes 2x knockout combo.

And you're down for the count, because you're pretty sure John just asked you out, and you just fucking acquiesced like some dainty, prissy fucknugget.

Shit.

You would wax eloquent about how much you don't want to go through with this, about how you gotta find a way out, cancel, do something, anything, this is the last thing you want to be enduring on a Saturday, but there's a small dilemma in that you're fucking flying on the inside. Throw you off a cliff 'cause you're pretty sure you could beat your arms and glide to safety, fucking birdlike, no problemo.

Goddamn, you really hate this kid. You hate him to the exact quantity of not at all, because you're now the fucktarded assface with a giant fucking homo crush.

Fuck your life.