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artemismoon12writes · 4 years

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Title: A Vested Interest

Daltonfic Big Bang: Week 3, Day 5, Dwodd

Ryan Cobb still didn’t know about his desk chair, so money was still up for grabs. Nice.

“Fuck off!” Derek yelled, looking across the large, white and glass hallway of the Ohio Brooks Parker Galleria Mall to the Hot Topic.

“What is it?” Bailey asked, not turning from his sink full of dishes. He was up to his elbows in coffee mugs and dessert-stained plates. “Is Sebastian coming up to ask for another job application?”

“Shut up Bailey, you know it’s only because he thinks Julian’s hot, not because he wants to work here. And no; it’s not that asshole.” Derek gestured across the hallway; Bailey couldn’t see it because he still had his back turned, uncaring. “It’s that fucking asshole and his boyfriend!”

“Who?”

“You know, the assistant manager and that hipster guy!”

“Oh Dwight?” Bailey asked. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re fucking again!”

Bailey made an amused noise. “Good for them.”

“Good for them!?” Derek exclaimed, “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, if you could get laid at work you would.” Bailey said, hiding his laughter. “I’m glad you don’t for the record; I don’t want to clean that up, but it’s a little funny.”

“Exactly- how is it that the goth who isn’t even in charge of that place is getting laid and I’m here in a fucking Starbucks like a loser?”

While Derek was ranting, he was ignoring the girl at the register. Bailey shot her a look, commiserating before drying his hands to take her order.

“And if we’re really splitting hairs here Bailey, shouldn’t he, I don’t know? Be doing his job? Instead of letting his little hipster boyfriend fuck him in the changerooms?”

Bailey rolled his eyes, grabbing a larger sized cup for their customer and waving her panicked look aside. It was the least he could do since she was putting up with Derek’s ranting.

“Jeez, Derek if it bothers you so much, just join in our betting pool and you at least could make some money off it.” Bailey said, steaming the milk like it was just another normal day. Which, working with Derek for at long as he had, it kind of was.

“Betting pool?”

Their customer interjected, “I’m from the Barnes and Noble next door; we’ve got it going with us, Clay and the boys in the store, Bailey and y’all, and then then Chels and the Pet Co. downstairs for how long it’ll take the manager to catch them.”

“All those people know? And Ryan still hasn’t figured it out?” Derek asked, confounded.

She shrugged, “Yeah, well, Pet Co. was waiting for the two month mark to send Ryan upstairs at the right moment; but Todd and Dwight were just talking; I’m thinking Clay ran interference so the bet’s still going.”

Derek looked caught between anger and intrigue. He looked at her with a scowl before, “Put me down for fifty bucks on two weeks from now. Ryan’s not an idiot, he’ll realize.”

“Not if he spends all his time downstairs with the fish tanks.” Bailey pointed out.

“Why is he even managing a Hot Topic if he loved animals so much?”

“He’d never sell anything if he worked downstairs, that’s why.” Their customer pointed out, wandering back to the Barnes and Noble with her drink. “Good luck boys!”

Oh it’s on, Derek thought, not realizing how difficult a task it would actually be to accomplish.

---

Two months of this nonsense aside, Dwight Houston had not set out to completely disregard professionalism and decorum when he got this throwaway job at the mall. His mother raised him better than that- or so she kept saying. He was only here for the sole purpose of keeping his car and proving he was responsible- nothing more. If he had enough knowledge of alternative culture to tell people why Hot Topic was the worst place to shop, that wasn’t his problem. He was merely the solution.

When Todd Hendricks, or “Hipster Guy” as he referred to him for the first two weeks in his head, walked in, there was no master plan to get back at his manager for promoting him in this insanity. No, it was only a short conversation, based around Todd’s utter incompetence.

“If she’s a real goth, she will not want anything we sell here. This is emo shit, New Oracle in Glensdale is the real space for crystals. This is just plastic and Yellow 33!” Dwight shook the fake silver jewellery at the customer and his wide rimmed glasses, plaid shirt, and rough, red scarf. “Your sister will not like this.”

“But that’s why it’s funny. Because it’s not authentic.” The customer (who would be known as Todd) said. “She’ll hate it and it’ll be hilarious.”

“It’s offensive! You say she’s a witch, then it’s doubly offensive.” Dwight said, motioning to put the piece back up on the highest shelf with the pole hook.

“I’m her brother, she’ll know it’s a joke.” He argued. “I’m not here to rock your goth purist boat.”

“I am not a goth,” Dwight said, putting the offending piece out of reach. “I am a post-industrial punk with spiritualist leanings; its completely different.”

“Sure.” Was the response, grinning like he’d not proven anything.

Dwight groaned, “Clay, back me up here; the Vampire Diaries spinoff jewellery is not something we should be promoting to any self-respecting goth.”

His part-timer, Clay Rizzo, poked out from behind the piercing display where he totally wasn’t trying to steal new lip rings. “I don’t know Dwight; I am one of those emo pieces of shit, so maybe I’d recommend it?”

“I get no support around here!” Dwight said, stalking to the back of the store. “Impossible!”

Todd looked over to the part-timer, decked in the unofficial uniform of all black and a hundred emo-band pins. “I think I’m dropping by more often.”

Clay gave him an evil grin. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

---

From there it escalated; Todd coming in multiple times a week just to annoy Dwight. Well, that’s what Dwight assumed until Todd asked for his phone number.

“What? Why’d you want that?”

Todd looked at him like he was an idiot. “Because I’ve been flirting with you this whole time? Were you not…”

Clay, unknown to the two of them, was watching with Robin and Jake from behind the t-shirts. They were supposed to be executing the planogram; but why do that when there was drama to observe?

“I was not.” Dwight said robotically. “Uh, okay, that’s…”

“I literally looped a tie around your neck and pulled you in, and you didn’t realize I was into you?”

Clay, who remembered that exchange, had to be smothered with a Haven shirt but Jake to stop him from making noise.

“In my defence, I’m not used to people flirting with me.”

“If you’re not interested, that’s fine. I just thought-”

“I’m not not interested?” Dwight interjected before Todd turned away and walked out. “I’m just, uh, not used to … this?”

“I can work with that.”

It somehow progressed, in spite of Dwight’s inherent awkwardness. Jake, Robin, Jasper, and Clay respectively waving the pair off whenever Dwight took his lunch break now.

“They grow up so fast.” Clay said dramatically while Dwight gave him the finger. Todd just smiled at his conspirator and told them to take care of the store. Not that he worked there. He was there often enough he’d take to reminding Dwight about stock orders, schedules, and that Jake had a family dinner coming up so someone had to get it covered. The store had never run so well as it did when Todd started dating their assistant manager.

---

“Where did you guys put the Manic Panic?” Ryan Cobb, actual manager of Hot Topic, called out from the stockroom. “There should be a packing slip for a 3 pack of each colour, but all I see is overstock of those short-shorts!”

“I don’t know, ask Jake,” Dwight said, standing on a step ladder with Jasper spotting him. “He was in last night when the delivery came in.”

“I’m asking you. How can you be my assistant manager and not know where the hair dye is? We have that Chang girl coming in later and I promised her we’d have her order in!” Ryan called. “I’m going on break, that dye should be on the shelf when I get back.”

Ryan left, once again for supposedly fifteen minutes- but the entire staff knew he’d be gone for the rest of the day downstairs to play with the parakeets Pet Co. just got in.

“Oh, you’re in trouble.” Robin said, amused.

“Shut up.” Dwight muttered. “I bet Jake just put them somewhere weird. Call him and see what’s going on.”

“I’ll call him. He told me nothing came in last night though.”

“Perfect, just fucking perfect.” Dwight groaned.

“What’s wrong?” Todd asked, coming in with a cardboard tray of drinks. “I just saw Ryan go by, if he’s actually in the store for any minute I’m scared the place will burst into flames.”

“Once in a blue moon, it happens I guess.” Dwight admitted, climbing down the ladder to receive his kiss on the cheek and the green tea Todd brought for him.

“What’s happening?” Todd asked, taking his own coffee off the tray and pushing the sugar-laden third and fourth cups to the part-timers he’d been subtly converting to his side. Jasper particularly grabbed his eagerly, gushing thank yous.

“Jake might have lost a delivery.” Dwight paused, “Or not? I don’t know about the warehouse, but they’ve been fucking up recently anyways. I swear I can’t find last night’s order but the stockroom does look like shit…”

“You have a computer? There should be a record of orders received and rejected? I know not everyone still does things hard copy.” Todd suggested.

“It’s in the manager’s office!” Robin volunteered. “Not that we’re allowed in there. It’s for Ryan and Dwight only.”

“Well, they can’t fire me so I don’t care about that rule.” Todd said, taking a sip of his coffee and beelining to the back room.

Dwight scrambled to follow him. “No! No! No customers in the back!”

“Oh come on, if Ryan’s going to get mad at you about it then I might as well try to help.” Todd said, finding the tiny room easily and placing himself in the desk chair like he owned the place. “Password’s hottopic123, very creative, not hacking proof at all.”

“It’s a formality, that’s why it’s on the post-it.” Dwight grumbled, reluctant to admit he was grateful for the help.

“Okay, well according to your emails it’s right there. They’re not sending it because of the USPS strike. I don’t know why Ryan didn’t notice that.” Todd said after a few open tabs and a control+f.

“Oh that’s why.” Dwight grumbled, pointing to the open tabs on tanks for tropical fish. “He was distracted.”

“Why is he in charge of a Hot Topic if he doesn’t want to even work here?” Todd asked, looking through the pages. “Like, if you’re desperate you could work for the raptor sanctuary; they’re hiring.”

“Wait, you know the raptor sanctuary?” Dwight asked, intrigued. “I have an owl there.”

“I’m sponsoring Rowena, the prairie-”

“Merlin.” Dwight finished. “Yeah, she’s the one who the workers are teaching how to do the flight tricks right?”

“Yeah.” Todd paused, “You’re Castiel’s sponsor? I thought that name was stupid.”

“It’s not stupid! It’s a good name!” Dwight said before realizing Todd was joking with him. “Oh, okay.”

“So, if Ryan is going to ignore the email in his inbox in favour of spending all his time at Pet Co. I propose we do something to get him back.” Todd said, spinning around in the chair and closing the door to the office. It was more like a cupboard with how much room there was.

Dwight looked at him suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

Todd locked the door, “You’ll see.”

---

Robin wasn’t sure what was happening until he went to knock on the door and heard it. Shit. Maybe Dwight was cool.

First thing he did was tell Jake over the phone, who told Jasper, who told Clay- who told literally the entire mall by the time he’d made it in for his closing shift.

“Who knew the dude had it in him.” Jake said, punching in, careful to give the office door a lot of room. “I mean, I would do that but Dwight’s always struck me as a bit of a-”

“A nerd?” Jasper supplied.

“I’m so proud of my dads.” Clay said, already on the top of a stepladder switching out t-shirts. “Like, I can’t use that office so I don’t give a shit- but it’s also hilarious. How long do you think it takes Ryan to notice?”

“First, they’re not your dads.” Jake said.

“Todd gave me a gold star for my pins last week, they’re my dads.” Clay said, half joking, but mostly trying to annoy Jake.

“Okay, fine. Secondly, Ryan isn’t going to notice shit. If he hasn’t notice you’ve been stealing lip rings to wear while at work he is not going to notice Dwight’s boyfriend fucked him in the office.”

“Or did Dwight fuck him?” Jasper asked.

“I don’t care.” Jake dismissed the comment. “Either way, it’ll be, like a year before Ryan realizes something is up.”

Clay grinned, “Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

“You’re on.”

The pot, by the time Pet Co., Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, and Radio Shack got in on the action, was somewhere around $400. The only ones unaware, were the couple in question and Ryan Cobb.

---

“Shit, Clay! This isn’t what it looks like.” Dwight said hurriedly, Clay pulling open the curtain to the change rooms enough to poke his head in.

“Really? Because it looks like you’re just passionately embracing Todd.” Clay shrugged, “I could be wrong.”

Todd would have normally made a quip back, but he was too close to reply. “Uh, not a good time.”

“Well, you’ve got almost no time at all for this quickie because Ryan is on his way back. AKA, he’s on the elevator and if you’re here balls deep-“

“I will curse you so hard-”

“You’re already hard, I get it. Put some pants on, wrap it up.” Clay said, flipping the curtain closed. At least the two of them were polite enough to not make any of the part-timers do cleaning duties on these occasions.

Either way, Clay has a vested interest in not alerting Ryan right now. The pot was up to $800 now, and he would need that for next semester’s books. College was expensive.

---

In the end, it wasn’t Ryan who caught them; it was the night security guard who got them outside in Dwight’s ridiculously out of date Chevy. With an ‘indecent exposure’ strike on his record, Ryan had to let Dwight go. The betting pool wasn’t sure if this meant the bet was on, or off.

The next week, when he found Todd wandering past the Hot Topic to the men’s bathrooms with one lanky, gothic boyfriend in tow- he shot Todd a thumbs up and informed the rest of the mall the game was still on.

Ryan Cobb still didn’t know about his desk chair, so money was still up for grabs. Nice.

#daltonficbigbang2020 #daltonfic #mat #lols #otp #dwodd #dwight houston #todd hendricks #derek siegerson #bailey tipton #clay rizzo #jake paige #ryan cobb #jasper miller #robin woods #oneshot #artemiswrites

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nix-needs-coffee · 5 years

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We Have Problems

Jane is tired... and so am I.... Another nonsense one-shot.

AO3 Link

Jane rummaged around the bottom of her bag, swiping past hair ties, throat lozenges, tissues, and something she was hoping was not a leaking container of slime that she had confiscated from Anne the day before. Unsuccessful in her search for her keys, she huffed, dropped her shopping to the ground, and propped her knee against the door to hold her bag up so she could see what she was shuffling through.

The slime had leaked.

Her shifting had caused it to saturate everything on one half of her bag.

She looked to the sky, silently pleading with whatever higher power was up there to show her just a little mercy on this night.

Finally locating her keys, she wiped the one she needed clean of slime and slid it in the lock. Before she could turn it, the bolt shifted and the door swung forward, sending her bag flying onto the floor in the entryway.

Katherine stood in the doorway, eyes wide and brimming with tears. She mumbled a soft, “sorry,” before squeezing past Jane and taking off down the street at a brisk pace. Jane watched her go before reaching to pick up her bag, already knowing that the other half of her bag would not be spared from the electric yellow mess.

She collected her shopping and the massacred bag and stepped into the house.

“And another thing, Kat, if I find anymore of your disgusting pink hair in the shower drain I will sever your head again myself,” Anne shrieked as she made her way to the door. Noticing that her intended target was long gone, she threw her hands in the air in frustration and turned back the way she had come from.

Jane took a fortifying breath before going any further into the house. Lugging her shopping into the kitchen, she had to skirt around Parr who was staring at the piles of washing up that had accumulated on the counter.

“I wanted a cup of tea, but we have no more clean mugs.”

Jane could do nothing more than blink at her in response. She set her bags on the table and began to everything away.

“Excellent. I’m famished. We had nothing in the cupboards. Please tell me you remembered the biscuits,” Anna said with exuberance as she bounded into the room, poking through the bags straightaway. “What’s all this stuff? Who eats this?” Not finding what she was looking for, she turned to Jane for answers.

Jane gave a one-shouldered shrug before carrying on with her task.

“For the love of all that is holy, please Jane, tell me that you’re going to do some of the laundry tonight. I can’t take the smell of that mountain of dirty clothes for another day,” Aragon shouted from the living room.

“Yeah, and my bedding needs washing again. Katherine’s hair dye got all over it when you washed it with her towel,” Anne’s voice piped up from the same location.

Jane closed the cupboard after putting the last item in its place, picked up her sticky, yellow-covered wallet and keys, and made her way back to the front door. Walking straight back out of the house, she set course through the park and toward her favorite pub. She passed Katherine sitting on a park bench, her face red with fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Jane patted her shoulder gently as she walked past, only half-hearing her complaints about Anne being mean.

The quiet ambience of the pub soothed her at once. She had just arranged herself in a corner booth after ordering a salad and a glass of wine when she caught sight of all the girls walking through the door.

“Jane, the bathroom hasn’t been cleaned in ages,” Anne said slipping into the booth and jostling Jane in the process.

“No one has done the washing up, either. When is that going to be done so I can start making my own tea again?” Parr inquired, sitting across from Jane.

“I’ve had to go out and buy every meal for days. There’s no food in the house,” Anna spoke next, sliding next to Anne.

“The laundry needs doing, too. It is making the whole house smell,” Aragon stated as she settled next to Parr.

Katherine bit her lip as she stood awkwardly at the end of the table. Her arms were wrapped around herself and she looked too intimidated to join them all at the crowded table.

Jane took several sips of her wine before she looked at each of them and said simply, “I know.”

“You know? What does that mean?” Anne asked incredulously.

“It means that I know.”

The girls stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Okay… so you know what is happening? ‘Cause we’d sure like to know too,” Anna said slowly, as if she were talking to an invalid.

“There are so many problems, God help us, I don’t even know where to begin to explain them all,” Aragon said, letting some of her frustration show.

“Stop telling me we have problems,” Jane set her wine glass down and looked at each of the women. “I know we have problems, and I’m trying my hardest to ignore them.”

Astonished faces scrutinized her.

“Four days,” she said by way of explanation. Again, she was met with confounded looks. “It took you four days to notice that I stopped doing all of the housework, and it took you four days to turn the house into an absolute wreck.”

She could see some of their puzzlement begin to clear away. Now that the curtain had been lifted, a few of them had the good sense to look slightly embarrassed, although Anne still gawked at her, mystified.

“We all might have been used to having other people look after us in another time, but here and now, I was the only one doing any of the work. I’m exhausted, and I’m done looking after you lot. Now, if you’d be so kind as to take yourselves and your problems back to the house, I’d like to enjoy my dinner in peace.”

Shame-faced, all but Anne stood from the table to take their leave.

“Wait, but what? You’re just going to leave the house like that?” She exclaimed, bewildered still.

Parr shushed her and tugged at her arm to get her to leave the booth.

“But really, though? Is she going to leave it like that?”

“Shut up, Anne,” Aragon hissed as she joined Parr in pulling Anne along.

***

A second glass of wine later, Jane made her way back to the house. Upon opening the door, she was met, unexpectedly, with quietness.

The mountain of dishes were no longer growing colonies of bacteria, and were instead drying on the rack. She noticed a few more groceries from the corner shop lining the counter. When she walked past the bathroom, the unmistakable gleam of a scrubbed shower greeted her. She made her way upstairs and was grateful, at least, to smell copious amounts of fabric refresher, instead of the musty, dirty clothes. Although the mound of clothing was still there, it was better than she had hoped.

She was most thankful, however, for the tranquility that she had been searching for was present as she made her way to her bedroom. The previously inescapable bickering and shouting had, at least for this moment, ceased.

It had certainly been a long and disgusting four days she wasn’t sure she would survive. Though the breaking point had occurred three whole days before Jane had expected it to, the underlying smell of sweaty apparel reminded her that she had resigned to forfeiting her plan as soon as she had finished her dinner that night.

She put the first load of laundry in the machine and went to pour herself another glass of wine.

#six the musical #six fanfiction #prompt: stop telling me we have problems. i know we have problems. i'm trying my hardest to ignore them.

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