with a side order of stress
teen!rythian works in a drive-thru. he hates it.
this was gonna be part of a bigger story but then i...lost enthusiasm for writing it...but it may still get written someday
ship/pairing: rythna genre: established relationship, kinda hurt/comfortish? wordcount: 1855 (it’s a rly short self-indulgent bit of realistic teenscast trash ok...realistic in that all teens have to do jobs they fuckin hate) warnings: swears, kinda sensory overload + anxiety disorder mention stuff, marijuana mention, smoking mention, totally sfw otherwise
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The scent of grease, disinfectant and fried potato products is thick and oily in Rythian’s lungs as he impulsively glances at the time on his register for the fifth time in a minute. Squeezing through the tiny window to his left and running for the hills was becoming a more appetising option by the second. Just half an hour. Just half an hour more and you can go.
The thought does little to soothe his itchy ears under his headset, or the revulsion that spikes in his stomach every time his uniform touches his skin, or the constant buzz of the restaurant around him that wears his energy thin as well as his patience. The air is so cloying it almost drives him to burst out of his seat and go for a cigarette early, just to feel the dry, blue smoke curling in his airways instead of the sticky fumes of frying oil.
The only thing to be thankful for was that the drive-thru was quiet today, a Sunday where there is no excess of busy single mothers, businessmen with no time to waste making themselves a breakfast and people on their lunch breaks to clog up the service. Unfortunately, the absence of the usual bustling, polite people with places to be and people to see and no desire to make the interaction last any longer than it needs to left little padding between their polar opposite; the idiots with time to spare.
Rythian’s hackles raise as his headset crackles into life in his ears, indicating a car has tripped the sensor of the driveway outside. He goes into autopilot as he drones the customary greeting into the tiny foam microphone too-near his face, ending it with the predictable question of “May I take your order?”
There is a slight delay in which he realises he actually completed the question without being interrupted by an overzealous customer for once before he receives an answer. The voice seems forced, but Rythian pays more attention to its words than its vocal details, hand poised above the register to input the order.
“Yeah can I get, uh, you, in the back of my car when your shift ends?”
Rythian’s mind goes blank. He would have been at a loss for words if the disgust that rises in his throat did not force them out of his mouth. “Excuse me?”
“Ryth, you idiot, it’s me.”
Indignant tension melts out of the teen’s body immediately upon recognizing his boyfriend’s voice, at a loss as to exactly how he didn’t realize sooner as his cheeks heat. It was breaky and tinny through the headset, but it wasn’t that different. “Lalna...Christ. What the fuck are you doing here? I’m pretty sure these things are recorded, you can’t just-”
“Is that a no?” “No! No, god no. You gotta get me outta here...But first you better order something, it comes out of my paycheck if I waste time, you know.” Rythian looks around quickly, ensuring none of his fellow staff are anywhere near and that that ship hadn’t already sailed. He hears Lalna humming in thought on the other end and bites his tongue, the desire not to attract any more attention to himself than necessary outweighing the urge to snap at him.
“Gimme a regular strawberry milkshake and a black coffee.” Lalna finally answers, and Rythian rolls his eyes and punches in his order while suppressing a smile as hard as he can.
“That’s £3.78. You are exactly the kind of person I fucking hate serving.”
When Lalna’s shitty white car pulls up outside of the window, it is the only time Rythian can recall ever having been excited about having to open it and lean out. The coffee and the milkshake heat and cool his fingers in the few seconds he has to hold them, but the amount that Lalna’s fingers brush his in the transfer of the drinks warms him all over.
He can hear the obnoxious pop music on his boyfriend’s stereo from there, and the fresh air from the open window is streaked with the smoky scent of the inside of the car that Rythian can’t seem to get a big enough lungful of. He pulls himself back from the edge of the window before he gives in to the urge to jump across the gap and claw his way in onto Lalna’s lap.
“I’ll wait for you in the car park, yeah?” the blonde says, handing exact change to the other teen in exchange for the drinks and receiving a weak, grateful smile in return.
When Lalna is gone, Rythian settles back into his seat, checks the cameras for any cars that might’ve been waiting behind him, and finding none hides his face in his hands. His fingers show his skin little mercy as he lifts his head briefly to make a note of the time. Fifteen minutes. That whole thing took fifteen minutes? You’re slipping.
He rubs his hands over his face and pushes his fingers up into his hair, leaning his elbows on the small space of desk in front of him either side of the register. The back of his uniform shirt settles against him and Rythian’s arms tremble with resisting the urge to scratch at his skin.
“Hullooo...?” a voice sounds next to him, whipping the teen’s attention away from his overloaded senses and buzzing body to settle his eyes on one of his fellow staff. The girl is stocky, small, with red hair and a round, cute face, and it soothes him briefly to think of Zoey. “What’s your name again?” “Rythian.” “Right. You don’t look so good. Are you feeling alright?” Rythian shifts awkwardly and avoids her gaze, retracting back from the register to make himself smaller in his seat, settling his hands in his lap. “Not exactly.”
“You wanna get off early, maybe...? I can take over for you.” He bites his lip and nods, slowly standing and moving away from the tiny workspace near the window. As he passes her he notices she looks a little surprised - taller than she expected, perhaps. “Thank you,” he murmurs, with a cursory glance to her nametag. “Lindsay.”
The girl beams at him before she moves around him to take his place, allowing Rythian to negotiate his way through the restaurant’s hot, bustling kitchen and collect his coat and bag from his locker. Shrugging on the coat as he shoves his way out of the nearest fire exit, he pauses to locate Lalna’s car in the car park and buries his hands in his coat pockets as he strides stiffly across to it.
The walk to that little white car seems to take too little time. The ground crunches a little under his feet, a stark and welcome change from the synthetic, sticky floors of the restaurant that make him feel as if he is walking through treacle. The air is crisp and freezing and it demands a presence in his lungs where the recycled smog of the kitchen would move through his airways like thick molasses. Everything is refreshingly bright and cool, the wide and flat spaces of the car park making him feel incomprehensibly small.
Muffled music comes into Rythian’s range of hearing within a few metres of the car, bursting out at him as well as an aura of warmth when he opens the passenger door. He throws his bag into the legspace and climbs in, too eager to escape the cold Autumn outside and the restaurant itself, which now glares at him from across the lot with its bright signs and warm windows.
Lalna reaches to turn down the stereo while Rythian pulls his coat tighter around himself, ducking his head down into the high collar and pulling his legs to his chest in the seat. The blonde looks at his boyfriend in silence for a moment, bordering on speaking before he chooses simply to pull the cup of coffee from the cupholder and extend it to him.
Rythian hesitates before he takes it, carefully, sliding his feet back to the floor and letting the drink warm his hands as he closes his eyes. “I got let off early,” he finally offers as an explanation, “Some blessed girl said I didn’t look well and took over.” “You don’t,” Lalna confirms, taking a sip of his milkshake. “You’re really pale for...Well, for you. Have you eaten today?” “I had breakfast...Skipped out on lunch. Too anxious.” Rythian sighs, lifting the coffee to his mouth to take a sip. It is bitter and scalding on his tongue and the plastic lid had absorbed some of the smell of the restaurant that made him shove it into the cupholder. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.” The blonde scoffs, putting his milkshake beside the other teen’s coffee to free up his hands to start his car. “Like what?”
“Like...this. Y’know.”
Lalna looks over and runs his gaze over Rythian, taking in his disheveled curly locks, his currently pallid skin, face half-hidden in his coat collar but with slivers of his garishly coloured uniform showing through the gaps in the coat in its unbuttoned state. He looks miserable, slumped as far into the seat as he could possibly be, bony hands wringing in his lap with nothing else to do, which tells Lalna he is in dire need of a cigarette.
“You still look like my boyfriend to me.” he says, shrugging, and though it is meant to be reassuringly casual he feels his heart hurt with how fragile the smile Rythian gives him in return is. It is soothed a little when he sees the Swede start to shrug off his coat as soon as Lalna looks away to busy himself with the car, trying to find an inoffensive radio station to provide background noise to drive to.
He risks another look over once the coat is off and the radio is chattering away to itself happily, and entirely welcomes the kiss that Rythian leans across to the driver’s side to give him. Lalna feels the other teen hold his head in place with a few fingers on his cheeks, releasing one hand from the parking brake to touch his side through his shirt.
Rythian slides his hands to Lalna’s throat and sucks on his bottom lip, able to taste the sweet tang of strawberry milkshake on his mouth as well as something distinctly earthy and dull. He pulls away, frowning and trying to pin what is on his breath.
“Lalna, are you fucking high right now?”
The blonde snorts and settles back into his seat from where he’d leaned into the kiss, finally shoving down the parking brake. “Barely. I had like half a blunt two hours ago. I saved the rest of it for you.”
“You should not be driving...” the Swede mutters, deciding he is too tired to engage in this argument and looking out of the passenger window. “And gee, thanks and everything, but I think I’ll stick to tobacco.”
“That shit’ll kill you.”
“Not if you do first.”