Kent Parson Cant Even

i shouldnt have listened to esther about that cup of coffee 

so ya see what had happened was I started a new job: I now work at a diner. 

(you can already see where this is going, can’t you?)

Bitty’s shift started at 11PM. He’ll only be waiting tables for part of it, he knows, so he’s really been trying to turn up the charm, because there’s a new set of figure skates he’s got his eye on, and he’s only about $100 dollars away from being able to afford them. 

The door opens, and Bitty doesn’t even turn to look. He keeps on clearing his last table and uses his cheeriest voice. It’s only 1AM; he hasn’t even had to have coffee yet. 

“Have a seat wherever you’d like, I’ll be with you in just a sec!”

Normally, he can hear movement after this. Instead, there’s nothing. Bin full of dishes and table wiped down, he turns to look, only to find Falconer Jack Zimmermann standing there, shifting nervously. 

“Just you, hon?” He asks, moving to put the dish bin in the window so Nursey can grab it. Zimmermann nods, and Bitty goes ahead and pours him a glass of water. Probably best to pretend he doesn’t recognize him, he decides. Must get enough of that during the day, and already he seems unsettled. “Why don’t you sit at the counter, then. You’ll get a better look at the pies, that way.” He pauses. “Course, they aren’t fresh. They’re yesterdays. I normally start makin’ the next days around four.” Zimmermann nods, taking a drink of his water. 

“Here’s a menu; just let me know when you’re ready to order.” As he grabs one of the silverware bins to start folding forks and knifes into napkins, he turns back to Zimmermann. “D’ya want some coffee, hon?”

“Decaf, please.” 

Bitty pours the cup, leaving a little room for cream, just as a guess. If nothing else, he figures, he’ll probably get a good tip. Might make up for the lack of good conversation. 

CP AU where Bitty moved to Providence to go to culinary school, and ended up making pies and waiting tables at the Broad Street Diner. He’s not really sure how it happened, either, but he loves his job and his bosses, Hall and Murray, let him choose the whole dessert menu, and use the ovens for a bit of his personal baking, so Bitty doesn’t question it. (He does some days wonder why he doesn’t know their real names. Johnson, their nighttime cashier, just tells him something about how “the author didn’t feel like making up names, and it’s not like their important enough characters to really need them in either story.” Bitty doesn’t ever understand what Johnson is saying, or what Johnson does. Again, he doesn’t question his job, much.)

In our crew, there are some real hard workers. 

SHITTY - Daytime cashier and night time dishboy. He’s somehow able to pull himself together enough during the day to charm all the old people they get, and at night he keeps morale high by making a complete fool of himself. In a pinch, he can work the line, as long as you don’t mind listening to rants about how “even though it’s ingrained in our minds that women are supposed to cook for men, all the highest paid chefs in professional kitchens are men,” while you’re trying to cook sixteen eggs five different ways at once. Holster can handle this. Ransom CANNOT. He’s taking classes at community college when he can afford them, because he was tired of living off his father’s money. 

LARDO - Part-time server, full-time straggler. She got hired because she was always coming in at night and sitting at the counter, working on her drawings. Shitty suggested that she apply to work weeknights, because they’re normally slow enough that she’d have time to draw anyway. So she did, and now she can afford to use slightly nicer paint. She and Shitty may have a thing, but no one’s brave enough to ask either of them. She does all the menu boards when she’s not in class at Rhode Island School of Design.

RANSOM - Part-time cook, full-time future doctor. He’s finishing up his last year of pre-med, and cooking at the diner is less a way to make money, for him, and more a way to force himself to stop thinking about school. Can’t think about biochem when you’re ears deep in tickets and trying not to kill your dishwasher.

HOLSTER - Full-time cook, graduated with a degree in Economics. He’s waiting until Ransom finishes school and chooses a med school before he starts looking for a real job. Can’t really move somewhere without your best bro, can you? (And by best bro, we mean boyfriend. Probably. No one’s really sure, honestly.)

DEX - Full-time server, part-time handy man. He doesn’t really know what he wants to study, so he’s working at the diner until he figures that out. Hall and Murray pay him extra to do maintenance on all the kitchen equipment. He’s the one who you get yelled at by, if you forget to clean a cold table all the way, because he’s the one who’s gotta get in there and deep-clean them once a month. Spends too much of the time he could be stocking arguing with Nursey. 

NURSEY - Part-time dishwasher, full-time English Major, over-time pretentious asshat (if you ask Dex). Doesn’t need this job, but likes to use what he sees as inspiration for his writing. Was hired as a server, but after he dropped six plates his first day, he was moved to the back of the house. He still drops plates, but at least now they don’t have food on them that has to be remade. 

CHOWDER - Part-time server. He’s like, so excited to have this job? He thinks it’s going to be really great experience. What? No, he doesn’t want to work in food service. He just? Really likes talking to people. Spills water every once in awhile, but is always to polite and apologetic that no one has ever gotten mad at him. An awful customer once started yelling at him, and his fake crying was so convincing that the customer started crying and left a $20 tip on a $15 order. Seems sweet, is secretly a little evil. 

JOHNSON - “It feels weird to have been such an important role. Like, I don’t even really fit into the narrative, yet, as far as the author knows, and yet here I am, getting my own bullet point. I think I’m just supposed to serve as a break between the employees and the customers? I work as the night time cashier on all the slow nights, because Shitty has school in the morning. I may also make the donuts? Who knows. Anyway, I’m not really important to the story, probably. Maybe. We don’t really know anything, yet. There’s no plot and a lot of world building.” (Bitty doesn’t know who Johnson is talking to, from his seat at the cash register. It’s 3AM and the place is empty. What a weirdo.)

JACK ZIMMERMANN - Full-time hockey player, part-time patron. Sometimes, when his anxiety is keeping him up, he does walking. during one of those walks, he comes across the Broad Street Diner, and decides that he could really used some pancakes. (Not that this place will have real maple syrup, of course.) So he goes inside, and there is the cutest server he’s ever seen, who makes the best pie he’s ever tasted. It takes him twenty minutes to decide that he’s going to become a regular at this dumb little place. 

And that’s all I’ve got so far folks but I love this AU with my heart so