Chapter Text
By the time you arrived home, you were about ready to collapse. Today had been a long day of last-minute cramming, exams, and more near panic-attacks than you could reasonably handle.
Thank the stars it was over. For this semester, anyway. For now, however, you were free to just unwind and forget about formulas and history dates and everything else that you’d been filling your mind with for the past few weeks in preparation. The thought comforted you as you shook out of your jacket and slipped out of your shoes, content to fall asleep in your bed as-is.
A nap sounded really, really good right now.
Just as you felt yourself begin to drift into an easy sleep, you heard your front door slam open and your roommate begin to hoot and holler.
“Hey! Exam week is ov-ah! Where you at? It’s time to party!”
...okay, a drink or seven also sounded really, really good right now, too.
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Your roommate hadn’t needed to do much convincing to get you to agree to a night of celebration and bar-hopping with them. It seemed like everyone else on campus had had the same idea. Every bar you went to was full to bursting, even the establishments that typically didn’t see much student activity.
Thankfully, you and your roommate had stuck to your plans to only hit up the places near your apartment. Drunk you wasn’t always so thoughtful to do so. Even as the night wore on and you got more and more sloshed, you did pretty well at staying in line. Until you and your roommate decided that you were both absolutely starving and absolutely had to go to Micky D’s immediately.
The problem with that, of course, was that only the drive-through was open at this hour, and neither of you had a car or were much less in a state to drive one. Luckily, drunk-you, in a stroke of absolute genius, had a plan.
Which brings you to current situation: shuffling through the drive-through with your arms outstretched toward an invisible wheel, loudly slurring, “HONK HONK! COMING THROUGH!”
The plan was fool-proof. Even if you didn’t really have a car, you could pretend to have a car. The workers would think that you think you have a car. The best part? They couldn’t call you out on it! Wasn’t ‘the customer is always right’ some sort of universal law that must be upheld? You certainly thought so. Even if the customer was also on their way to black-out drunk at the same time. Right? Right.
So your mission was now clear. You were to pretend to drive up and order your food, adding in catchy sound effects to seal the deal. Maybe you’d honk the horn a few more times so that the person taking your order was absolutely sure that your car was absolutely real and that your order was completely legit, no matter how invisible the car might be.
The only hitch in your plan had been when your roommate had had a pretend car crash, veering off to the right and face-planting into a neatly trimmed hedge. No matter! You had more than enough grit and determination to pull this off alone.
You pulled up to the speaker to order neatly (or so you thought), interrupting the worker’s beginning spiel with an over-dramatic imitation of your wheels screeching as you came to a stop.
“Sorry, brakes are actin’ up. Gotta get those fixed,” you slurred, leaning in close to the speaker and almost caressing it as you apologized. “S’not a problem.”
“...what.”
Oblivious to the tinny, confused voice, you regarded the large, glowing menu seriously, humming to yourself as you thought. Distantly, you recognized the speaker emit a sharp, amused exhale as whoever was working must have looked at their security feed to figure out what was going on.
“heh. okay. so what would you like, kid?”
“Hmm,” you intoned for a drawn-out moment, “Got anything on special?”
“can’t say that we do.”
Flabbergasted at this, you mumbled to yourself about outrageous business practices before squinting and leaning in close to the menu once again. “Guess I’ll jus’ have...,” you paused, huffed, then leaned back and smiled, “one’a yer fines’ cow patties. Hoooold the meat. Extra mayo.”
Yeah, that sounded absolutely perfect. Satisfied with your order, you pounded your fist on your imaginary horn. “BEEP BEEP!”
“feeling extra saucy tonight? more of a ketchup guy myself.”
Once again, you found yourself squinting and leaning toward the speaker, corners of your lips cast downward.
“That was bad and you should feel bad. Ya dingus.”
The speaker popped and fizzled in the night air as if he was about to respond but it once again fell silent. When it finally crackled to life one last time, the voice on the other end seemed to be quietly chuckling and catching his breath.
“pull up to the window, please.”
Pleased and feeling victorious, you once again assumed your driving pose and vroom vroom’d your way to the window. You pulled up where a white, boney arm was leaning out of the window. After going through the motions of putting your imaginary car into park, you began rummaging through your purse for the stray dollar bill and change you knew must be scattered in it somewhere.
“How much does I gotta pay?” you asked, stumbling in spot a little as you practically shoved your face into your bag, looking for the stray money. “Gots money around here... somewhere....”
Unable to find anything but a few crumpled sticks of gum, you gathered them in your hand and turned to hand them to the guy at the window. You paused, swaying in your spot as you narrowed your eyes at the monster leaning out of the pay window and regarding you with a raised...
Where are his eyebrows, you thought with alarm. Oh my god.
“Ohhh, geez. Oh, no. Where... You poor, poor man,” you moaned, dropping the gum as you drunkenly slapped a hand to your face and dragged it down. The man, who you now recognized as a skeleton monster, simply watched you with an amused expression. “Your eyebrows. I-I’m... I’m so sorry for your loss.” And... yep, there you go. You were even tearing up a bit.
His seemingly-permanent grin widened even more at that.
“actually, kid... I mayo or mayo not have ever had any to begin with.”
As if personally affronted by his pun, you reeled back and looked at him with disgust.
“Nevermind. You don’t deserve eyebrows!” Statement complete with a dramatic finger jab at his forehead.
He chuckled and shook his head at you a little before finally reaching somewhere behind him and producing a bag.
“fine, fine. I know when it’s time to give up on a dream like that and just relish what I have.”
“I’m not drunk enough for this.” You kept your eyes narrowed at him.
“heh. okay. see ya, kid.”
You continued to watch him with narrowed eyes, going so far as to start driving backwards just so you could keep your eyes trained on him. He simply smiled and waved.
It didn’t occur to you that your roommate was probably still passed out in that bush until you were back home.
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The next morning, you woke up with the worst hangover of your life and a rather irritable roommate. After popping a few tylenol and settling down on your couch with some tea (making vague promises to yourself to never, ever drink again), you spotted the unopened paper bag from McDonald’s. Curious, and vaguely recalling the previous night’s antics, you peered inside. Some sort of sandwich.
You reached in and unwrapped it, immediately making a face as a huge glob of mayo dripped down your front and into your lap. Between the two hamburger buns was nothing but mayo. Not wanting to drip the condiment onto the floor or couch if you stood up right away, you grabbed the wrapper, hoping to somehow wipe the majority up with that.
Something about the wrapper made you pause, and you narrowed your eyes at it as you turned it in your hand for a better luck.
Instead of the arching logo of McDonald’s, the wrapper bore the logo of... Burger King??
“HOW.”