Work Text:
Bob jerked his neck upright for the fifth time in a row. Graveyard shift at a 24 hour coffee shop wasn’t the most exciting time he could be having, but he needed money to live. Thus, shaking the sleep from his body at 1 am in the near-dead cafe, Bob forced himself to focus on counting ceiling tiles.
It was pretty dead -- only a few patrons were in, all of them glued to their screens. Three late-night Uber and Lyft drivers huddled around a table commiserating about strange riders. More than a few times Bob had longed to grab a chair and listen in, just as a way of keeping himself occupied. The tea they spilled on harassment and pure oddities in their job made Bob look up what it took to have that job. But you needed a car dated within the last 10 years, and haha, nope; Bob’s ‘97 Kia did not qualify.
Besides the drivers, there were a few students taking advantage of the free wifi to cram for tests and write 12 page papers in 5 hours. The students didn’t cause trouble, cleaning up after themselves and never fighting when Bob’s manager made him tell them they had to buy something else or leave. The kids were in a haze, eyes dry and red-rimmed, plus, they didn’t smell too great; offputting, but harmless.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the night swept in and out, keeping their eyes down. Other late night service workers stopped in too, just as out of it as Bob was right now. God, what he wouldn’t give to duck out before Pepper clocked in at five…
His gaze rested on the black grout line between the tile floor and the plastic of the counter. The other features blurred and Bob let himself fall into a fog.
“Hey, barista boy, anybody home?” spoke a voice like a rusted metal ladder.
Bob flailed back to life, not fully aware of where he was or what year it was. He blinked hard and searched out the source of the voice. “Ah, ah, sorry ahum,” he covered.
He had to sign back into the register, and his fingers swept across they keypad with pure muscle memory. Bob’s twilight zone brain couldn’t place the source of the voice -- where was the guy who’d woken him? His eyes kept searching but it was like those Magic Eye paintings -- his brain could never make out what the hidden picture was.
The harsh voice cleared its throat and Bob had more of a frame of reference for where it came from, but still couldn’t find the man -- the only person standing there was… his jaw dropped.
White lined eyes rolled. “What’s amatter?” She placed her hand on her hip. “Never seen a transvestite before? I’m here for coffee.”
Bob couldn’t stop blinking as his thumbs fumbled with the register. He heard himself stutter out a poor excuse and took her (his?) order. The woman’s features were bold and overdrawn, lips almost to her nose and halfway down her chin, in brick red. Her eyebrows covered a third of her forehead and around her hazel eyes was a thick line of white. She rattled off her order in a voice that was like a cackle had gargled nails, and it was such a disconnect with her feminine image. Her dress clung to her perfectly, showing a single leg through a seam on the right side. In her beehived hair was a sash made out of the same glittering material as her dress.
She was a simple order, Bob forgot what she’d said as soon as he’d made it, and she didn’t order any snacks with whatever it was she’d gotten. He scrawled ‘Roy’ in Sharpie on the side of her drink. He handed it to her and their hands touched. Her fingers were delicate but calloused, long fingers that knew work. For whatever reason, he couldn’t pry his eyes from her even as she gave an appreciative nod and left through the front door, her heels clacking against the linoleum, shards of sequins falling from her dress.