Chapter Text
After both of the injuries they had accrued from ‘squad vlogs’, Arasha pitched bringing back a different older series, which was the ‘job for a day’ series the original squad had done for a few years. They would spend the episode being trained by a manager at a service job of some sort and by the end of the episode, they would decide who they would actually hire. They decided to ask around and eventually got in touch with the people at Bucca De Bepo, the cast and crew’s favorite Italian restaurant, who agreed to film with them.
The production team decided that it would be fun to send a mix of cast members with food service experience and some who did not. So, they sent in Chanse and Amanda, both with quite a few years of food service experience under their belts, and then Spencer and Olivia, each of which had little to no experience in the restaurant world.
As expected, Chanse was doing extremely well, slipping back into his server instincts and routine very quickly, to the point that he had time to help out with side work tasks back in the kitchen.
“Will you grab us a new case of onions from the walk-in?” One of the line cooks asked him, and Chanse readily complied, making his way back to the large freezer towards the very back of the kitchen. But what the manager and cooks failed to mention to him was that he needed to prop open the door while he was in there because it locked from the inside. Instead, he found out when he went to open the door with one hand as he balanced a cardboard box filled with red onions in the other.
“Shit.” Chanse mumbled under his breath, as he placed the box down, thinking that maybe it was more of a two handed job to open, but in his head, he could feel that was not the case. And he found that out for sure as he started pulling as hard as physically possible and still not getting the door to budge. “SHIT!”
He started frantically banging on the door, yelling at the top of his lungs, hoping that someone would hear him. But alas, the freezer was decently soundproof (hence why most servers went in there to cry) and was pretty far in the back of an already very loud and busy kitchen.
The freezer was approximately 10 degrees Fahrenheit, enough that most people would shudder if they were in there for longer than a minute. But now Chanse, had been in there for at least five minutes, so he was shivering like crazy, curling up into himself to try to get some sort of body heat. It didn’t work, he was loosing that natural body heat very fast and he also was dressed in a long-sleeved yet thin white dress shirt.
“HELP! I’M TRAPPED IN HERE!” Chanse screamed with all the energy he had, which by 10 minutes (or 15, he couldn’t really tell) in, was not much. He felt the fatigue starting to set in as his temperature continued to drop. His teeth were chattering so much he was worried they were going to break apart, and he could barely stay on his feet, so he clumsily stumbled back against an open spot on the wall and slid down into a seated position on the floor.
As another fifteen minutes passed, Chanse could barely keep his eyes open and his fingers felt nonexistent. Every time he tried to make another sound to alert others of where he was, he couldn’t even muster out anything more than a small yelp. Any words that left his mouth were slurred and practically incomprehensible.
As another five minutes ticked by, he felt his pulse starting to slow as he slumped over towards the floor, almost completely passing out as his eyes crept closed. But just as his eyes shut, he heard a loud noise near the door. He forced his eyes open slightly to see if he was imagining it or not, and it turns out he wasn’t because seconds later…
“OH MY GOD! CHANSE!” Olivia shrieked, quickly making her way towards him as Spencer propped the door open with the onion box before following closely behind her. “How long have you been in here?”
“twensy-five mimutes or firty or so…” Chanse slurred out as Spencer shucked off his jacket, placing it around the younger man in the hopes that it would bring him some heat. But as he brushed past the skin of his neck, he became concerned by his pulse, or lack of one practically.
“Shit, that pulse is scary slow right now!” Spencer stated, popping up to run just outside the freezer for a moment. “Amanda, Bailey, call 911.”
“And Tommy!” Olivia yelled from her spot at Chanse’s side, hugging and holding onto him, the hope that her body heat would help him.
“Trommy, my boyfwiend.” Chanse slurred out again as Spencer returned to his side, placing his arm under Chanse’s to support him. Olivia mirrored him on the other side.
“It’s okay buddy, we’re gonna get you up and out of here.” Spencer explained. “Slowly, we don’t want to hurt him at all.” Olivia nodded, as they carefully walked Chanse out of the freezer, helping him to sit down on an apple box just outside the freezer. Amanda closed the door so none of the cold air would escape.
Bailey ran up, holding out and placing a large, puffier jacket that a crew member was wearing around Chanse’s shoulders, on top of Spencer’s denim jacket. Chanse tried to keep his head up, but he was exhausted, so he just kept slumping over.
“It’s okay bud, stay with us, please.” Spencer explained. “Help is on the way and Tommy is gonna meet us at the Hospital.”
“Trommy” Chanse mumbled, smiling slightly.
“This is our fault; I can’t believe we were so focused on the video that we didn’t realize he was gone for thirty minutes or so-“Olivia rambled.
“Well, to be fair, the kitchen staff didn’t notice either so…” Spencer interrupted. The group all shrugged at that point. Seconds later, the EMT’s made their way back into the kitchen, immediately making a beeline for Chanse. The first one placed two fingers along Chanse’s neck, feeling his pulse before immediately pulling away and turning to his partner.
“Yep, clear case of Hypothermia.” The EMT stated, taking a blanket and a set of hand warmers from his fellow EMT. He wrapped him up in the blanket and placed the hand warmers in his hands, then with the help of the other EMT, loaded him onto the stretcher.
“Does one of you want to come with?” The other EMT asked. Spencer nodded, following them out to the ambulance, as Amanda and Olivia explained that they would drive over and meet them there.
Then him and Chanse were loaded into the back of the Ambulance and Spencer couldn’t help but look at the other man, delirious and still shivering, and feel so incredibly guilty. Sure, him getting locked in the freezer was an accident, maybe even negligence on the restaurant’s part, but it still took the cast and crew almost a half an hour to notice he was missing. Despite the guilt, there wasn’t much Spencer could do about it now other than support and help him. Once he had snapped out of his thoughts for a moment, he glanced back up at the younger man and gave him his classic smirk.
“My jacket looks pretty good on you.” Spencer quipped. Chanse tried to smirk back at him, but his face muscles weren’t working as well as normal, so it didn’t really work.
“Caweful Agnew, I might stawt to fink you’re fwirting wif me! I haf a boyfwiend!” Chanse slurred out. Spencer couldn’t help but giggle just a little bit.
“And I have a girlfriend, whatever, it’s fine. What’s a little platonic flirting between bros?” Spencer replied sarcastically. Chanse smiled but before he could respond back, the EMT’s were opening up the backdoors and whisking Chanse away. Spencer accompanied him inside, meeting up with Tommy in the waiting room and bringing him along to Chanse’s bedside.
“Trommy! Babwy!” Chanse cooed out, still slurring his words as he saw him. Tommy looked at him lovingly before shooting a quick death glare to Spencer.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding. Ya’ll really left him in the freezer and messed him up like this?”
“I’m really sorry man, seriously.” Spencer genuinely apologized as the doctor started monitoring Chanse’s heart rate and administering heated IV fluids to raise his body temperature.
“It’s okay, man. I’m just glad you guys saved him.” Tommy replied, squeezing Chanse’s hand lightly.
After an hour or so, Chanse’s temperature was closer to normal, and his pulse had steadied but the doctors still wanted to keep him overnight for observation. So, before sending everyone else home, Olivia and Amanda came in to see him and say goodbye.
“Tanks for swaving me!” Chanse slurred out and the three cast members looked at each other in concern.
“I thought the slurring wore off when your temperature went back up?” Spencer asked.
“It did, he’s doing it as a bit now.” Tommy said, rolling his eyes lovingly. Olivia quickly pushed past everyone to hug Chanse tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Chansey! I’ll do anything to make it up to you!” Olivia cried, Chanse pat her on the head.
“It’s okay, Liv. I sur- “Chanse started.
“Which is why the three of us all pitched to buy you this from the gift shop!” Olivia finished, gesturing towards Amanda who revealed an adorable stuffed turtle that she had been hiding behind her back. She handed it to him with sweet little puppy dog eyes.
“Accept this as our apology?” Amanda asked.
“Of course, guys!” Chanse replied, taking the turtle and cuddling it close to his chest. “I wove you all!”
Everybody rolled their eyes again at his dumb little bit before giving him a hug and heading out, leaving him to spend the night in the hospital with his boyfriend and his new pet turtle.