Chapter Text
A-yao barely restrained himself from making a disgusted face as he grabbed a plate of mashed food off the long silver table to his left and brought it to the crate of dirty dishes on his right. He quickly forced a stack of dishes to stand upright between the dividers in his shallow crate before pulling the extendable faucet towards them to chase at the caked on food with a harsh spray of cold water. Flinching when a spurt of orange sauce went spurting off the plate and onto his long, black apron and his poor face, A-yao dropped the hose.
He leaned around the large metal dish sanitizer to feed the crate on to the conveyer belt, letting go when the machine grabbed on and sucked it into the big grey box. A crate that held two baskets of shining, dripping silverware was pushed out the other end by the force of the dirty dishes being pulled in and slid down the smaller metal table. A-yao dashed for those bins and picked up the whole crate, muscles burning at the weight of two big containers of silverware from lunch rush. He had a whole dinner service, plus closing, to get through and already felt ready to collapse.
“Coming through!” he called in the most commanding voice he could as he made his way through the narrow kitchen.
Servers parted, raising their trays laden with food or dishes, the fryer raised the 20 lb. bag of seasoning to his shoulder to get it out of the way, and A-yao ducked under a flying dishtowel coming from the cook line.
“Watch where you’re going,” came a loud voice from the line. A-yao glared over his shoulder as he made his way to the table where servers wrapped clean silverware in napkins for guests.
“Watch where you’re throwing shit, Mingjue,” he snapped at the most irritating line cook he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting
Mingjue made a face at him, but his dark eyes glinted with a kind of satisfaction that made A-yao’s blood boil. The asshole made a game of pushing A-yao’s buttons. He was kind in that he didn’t wait until the last minute at closing to bring A-yao every bowl, pan, and utensil he’d cooked with that day, like the other line cooks, but he was still an asshole who liked to rile A-yao up for reasons beyond the understanding of people who weren’t overly muscled Neanderthals.
Muttering under his breath about the perils of associating with heavily tatted, long haired men, A-yao found himself colliding with something tall and unmoving. Before he had a chance to slip on the forever greasy floors of the kitchen, A-yao felt large hands latching onto his arms, which gripped the crate of silverware even tighter with the anticipation of a hard fall.
“I’m so sorry!” came a smooth, deep voice that sounded like it belonged in voice-acting.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” A-yao said softly, smiling demurely at his feet and hiking the heavy crate higher in his arms and closer to his chest. He wanted to fucking scream.
“No, I wasn’t paying attention, it was my fault,” the voice protested. A-yao raised his gaze without lifting his head and found a lovely stranger ducking their head to meet his eye.
The man had long black hair in a high ponytail with a few short strands artfully framing his face. His skin was like porcelain; pale and clear of any blemish, and he looked very sharp in the standard server uniform, which was a simple black suit with an ice-blue bowtie.
“Oh, well, I was distracted and not looking where I was going, so I must insist that it’s my fault,” A-yao said with practiced confidence and a big grin before quickly changing the subject. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve met, are you a new server?”
“Yes, sorry, I’m Lan Xichen. I start today, actually,” he said with a small smile that crinkled the skin around his reflective eyes very nicely.
“Welcome,” A-yao said as warmly as one could after two hours of running the dish pit solo. “I’m Meng Yao.”
It’s nice to meet you Meng-gongzi,” Lan Xichen said. “You may call me Xichen.”
“Everyone calls me A-yao,” A-yao said awkwardly, face hot enough to sear the fish Mingjue was cooking across the way. “I’m the dishwasher.”
With that was supposed to come a raised brow, a cool smile, a disgusted grimace, the usual response to finding out that the person you’ve been talking to handles dirty dishes and is responsible for making sure everyone has the plates and pans they need for service. It wasn’t a glamorous job, and everyone knew it.
“It’s so good to meet a friendly face this early in my shift,” Xichen said with an even brighter smile. A-yao almost dropped his dimpled grin into a confused frown but managed to simply nod.
“I hope you enjoy working here, now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Please,” Xichen said almost urgently before smoothing his tone back to the honeyed voice A-yao was coming to enjoy. “Please, let me get that for you.”
A-yao blinked uncomprehendingly down at the tray of silverware that Xichen was slipping from his grip and watched as the new server quickly grew confused.
“I apologize, but where does this go?” he asked, light pink patches flushing on his high cheek bones. A-yao couldn’t hold back the delighted laugh that spilled from his lips.
“This way,” he said, beckoning at Xichen with his now free hand. Xichen followed him to a table at the other end of the small kitchen where another divided bin of clean silverware sat waiting to be wrapped up in linen napkins for guests. “I set it on this table, and servers bundle it up here to put out in the dining room.”
“I see,” Xichen said, setting the crate on the table and removing the bins of silverware like the whole thing didn’t way at least 40 pounds. “And you take the, um, this back?” he asked, holding up the big crate.
“Exactly,” A-yao said, accepting the now much lighter crate with two hands. “Thank you for your help.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” Xichen said without moving his warm eyes from A-yao’s tired ones.
“You must be Lan Xichen!” came Jin Zixun’s unwelcomed, booming voice.
A-yao grimaced and made to sneak back into the pit unnoticed, trying to weave around his coworkers and their stations, but no one moved out of his way now that he wasn’t carrying something heavy and essential to service. He was caught right as he was about to make the turn to get into the dish pit, and he felt Mingjue’s eyes on him, too. Great.
“A-yao, what are you doing, standing around talking? Don’t distract the servers and teach new hires that they can slack off whenever they want,” Jin Zixun commanded. A-yao turned with a polite and calm smile on his face.
“Of course, my apologies,” he said pleasantly. “It was good to meet you, Xi— Lan Xichen, I hope you have a good shift.”
And with that he scuttled back into the pit, shooting a glare at Mingjue through the gap between the long table of dirty dishes, and the equally long angled shelf above that stored dirty glasses. Mingjue gestured at him with a pair of dirty tongs, sending a dark sauce flying onto the junior cook next to him. This started up a small verbal brawl between the two that had A-yao shaking his head and going back to his station. He couldn’t afford to get behind. Not now.
A-yao thought the rest of his shift would go smoothly (as smooth as a night in the pit could go), but he was quite wrong. It wasn’t even Jin Zixun’s usual badgering or Mingjue’s constant teasing that was bothering him. It was Xichen, actually.
Even without talking to him much, A-yao learned a lot about Xichen throughout their shared, but separate shift. Xichen was dutiful about scrapping dirty dishes clean before putting them on the long table for A-yao to wash. At best, the average server would push a potato off a plate or slide a lobster into the trash. Most of the time, however, A-yao was dealing with salad bowls full of lettuce that could easily have been dumped in the trash, and ramekins full of sauce that could’ve been smacked free if they were banged on the inside of the trashcan. But this man scrapped every bit of food off the dishes that he could.
A-yao knew poor scrappers were part-lazy, and part-busy, so he lost himself in wondering if Xichen was losing valuable time waiting on tables when he cleaned off the dirty dishes for A-yao’s benefit, or if he was trying to avoid the dining room as much as he could. Either was fine, as long as he kept scrapping dishes clean. A-yao even went to thank him for his help (for the second time that night) but found himself faced with an ill looking Xichen. That was when the night started going a little less smooth.
“Xichen?” A-yao asked through the gap between the table of dishes and shelf of glasses above when Xichen came stumbling to the dish pit with a tray of dirty dishes. He narrowly missed cracking the edge of the tray on the side of the wall, which would’ve sent all the dishes crashing down to the floor. Less for A-yao to clean, but the potential risk for Xichen (and everyone else nearby) made that a less than desirable scenario. Concerningly, Xichen didn’t respond, focusing on scrapping dishes with less energy than he had the last time A-yao had a chance to really look at him.
When Xichen first came in around six hours earlier, he looked well put together. His clothes were neatly pressed, clean, and fit well, he was charismatic and charming, and he looked lively. It was a bit dramatic to say this was a far cry from how Xichen looked now, but he definitely looked weathered. His shirt was wrinkled and coming untucked, and his bowtie was crooked, but it was his face that was worrying. His skin was oddly pale and covered with a fine sheen of sweat, and his eyes looked a bit flat.
“Xichen-ge?” he tried again, setting down the stack of plates he was about to load into a crate so he could focus solely on his newest coworker. “Are you okay?”
“A-yao?” Xichen said, looking up like he’d only just heard him as he continued to scrape the now cleared plate in his hand. “Did you say something?”
“I’m just asking how you are,” A-yao said, noting the fine tremor in Xichen’s long fingers.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Xichen said with a tight smile, finally putting the plate down and moving on to another.
“Xichen, please,” A-yao said sternly, startling himself. He wasn’t a stern person. He wasn’t the kind of person who had people to order around and be stern with, like Mingjue whoe ordered the line cooks around and Jin Zixun ordered everyone around.
“I’m just tired, A-yao,” Xichen said, moving to clean out a salad bowl that was full of lettuce and a creamy sauce. His scraping movements were more forceful now, and a sopping bit of lettuce flew over the edge of the bowl onto the table of dirty dishes in front of A-yao. “I- I’m sorry—”
“Xichen, come here,” A-yao said, coming around the side of the table to get out of his station. He hesitantly put a hand on Xichen’s shoulder and pulled the dirty bowl out of his hands.
“What’s going on— what’s wrong with him?” Mingjue said appearing out of nowhere behind A-yao.
“He’s just exhausted, it’s his first day,” A-yao said softly, watching Xichen’s gaze flicker everywhere but at the dishwasher and cook in front of him. “Can you get him some water? I’m just taking him outside through the side door.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mingjue said in the gruff grunt that he used when he was anxious.
“He’ll be fine, don’t worry,” A-yao said confidently to Mingjue’s back as he dragged Xichen out of the kitchen and to the side door right where the kitchen met the dining area. “Here we go, just through here. Come on.”
A-yao bullied his way past a few servers who jerked out of the way like he was a mouse scuttling past their feet. He gave them a polite, tight-lipped smile, tightening his grip that somehow made its way to clasp Xichen’s cold hand. He pushed through the door like escaping crumbling building and tugged Xichen into the fresh evening air. The audible gasp of air Xichen sucked in told A-yao he’d made the right choice.
When he turned to face Xichen, he wasn’t surprised to see closed eyes and lips parted to pull in the most fresh, cool air possible. A-yao knew first-hand that, compared to the literally steaming kitchen, the 80-some degrees of the evening was refreshing. He pulled Xichen a few feet down from the door to get them farther away from the noise of the building, very aware of the fingers that clenched reflexively around his.
When A-yao pulled them to a stop, he turned to face Xichen and placed his hands on his sharp shoulders, adding a bit of pressure until the server gracefully sunk into a squat. Then they were both squatting, knee to knee, in the white light of a streetlamp. Xichen breathed heavily in and out through his nose, and A-yao felt a little awkward to sit and simply listen and watch this man breath.
“I mean no offense,” A-yao started, hands drifting from Xichen’s shoulders to rest loosely around his biceps. “But you haven’t worked in serving before, have you?”
“Is it that obvious?” Xichen asked with a weak but handsome smile. A-yao huffed a laugh through his nose and brushed at something wet— probably that fucking orange sauce— on his cheek with his shoulder.
“I mean no offense,” he repeated, but Xichen’s hands were on his wrists, effectively silencing him.
“I took none. It’s nice to know that there’s someone with a sharp eye looking out for me. I apologize for any inconvenience.” Xichen’s voice was almost back to the smooth, honeyed tone it was when they first met around six hours prior.
A-yao was at a total loss. This man. This man that A-yao had only known for a few hours, had only talked to twice, had literally no information on— this man was heartbreaking.
“Xichen, I—”
“There you are,” came Mingjue’s voice. It was taught with anxiety and A-yao could feel the relief being rolling off him at finding Xichen. “I brought you some water. Sorry it took so long, almost got in a fight with that dumbass new fryer.”
Mingjue thrust a glass of iced water with a clumsily cut lemon slice at Xichen, who accepted it with two hands and big eyes.
“Thank you so much, I apologize for the trouble—”
“Cut that out,” Mingjue said gruffly. “Your manners are too good for this place, but maybe you can teach A-yao something.”
“Shut the fuck up,” A-yao snapped at the same time that Xichen said, “A-yao has been nothing but a gentleman to me.” The two met eyes and broke into quiet laughter. A-yao nudged the glass in Xichen’s hand, reminding the poor man to drink.
Then Mingjue, who still stood leaning against the side of the building just out of the light of the streetlamp, and A-yao, who was still crouching and holding onto Xichen, watched Xichen chug his glass of water like he’d never had a drink in his life.
“Feeling better?” A-yao asked softly, ignoring Mingjue’s scoff. A-yao knew how much Mingjue hated when his used his soft, kind voice on anyone. It was almost as much as he hated when A-yao flashed his dimples to get servers off his back for being too slow, or Jin Zixun off his back for. . . whatever his problem was.
“Yes, thank you.” Xichen said. And he really did sound better.
“Don’t worry, everyone’s first shift is hell,” A-yao said. “Mingjue cried his first night.”
“I did fucking not!” Mingjue snapped over A-yao’s sharp laughter.
“The point is that tonight is a shit night. But it will get better. You’ll get used to the duties you have to perform, used to managing customers, used to working straight for eight or more hours. You’ll get used to it.”
“You’re wrong,” Xichen said lowly. “Tonight, wasn’t shit.” He gave A-yao, and then Mingjue, the sweetest smile A-yao had ever seen. It sent warmth tingling through him and he couldn’t help but grin back, despite how unnatural it felt to hear such a crude, vulgar word come from Xichen’s pretty mouth.
“Happy to be of service,” A-yao said softly.
“Anytime,” Mingjue added.
They sat for a moment, a much longer moment than they probably should’ve allowed, but it was a nice moment of camaraderie, and of suffering from the same exhaustion and frustration.
“We should probably get back inside,” Xichen said in the most regretful voice A-yao had ever heard.
“You probably should, newbie,” Mingjue said, coming close enough to gently punch Xichen’s shoulder. A-yao glared at him but didn’t say anything. “We seasoned kitchen-folk get an extra minute of break.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” Xichen said, with yet another big smile. “Thank you, again. Both of you.”
“Of course.”
“Any time.”
After Xichen left through the side door, only hesitating a second before going in, the smile dropped of A-yao’s face and he sighed heavily. Mingjue fished out a cigarette and a lighter from the pocket of his black pants, sticking the cig between his teeth. A-yao felt his jaw tighten as he glared at the space in the concrete between his feet before standing. It was complete shit. And there was nothing anyone could do about it, no matter how many of them boycotted or walked out or quit. There was always someone jumping at the chance to work in worse conditions, for less pay, and for more hours.
“Nice touch with the lemon, there,” A-yao said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the side of the building by Mingjue with his eyes closed.
“Fuck off, it has electrolytes or something. I don’t know. Thought it would help,” Mingjue muttered through the cigarette clenched between his teeth. A few flicks at the lighter had a soft flame lighting the end and Mingjue sighed through his nose as he took a drag of his cig.
“I think it did,” A-yao said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mingjue give him an odd look.
“What’s going through your head?” Mingjue asked in a rare moment of emotional intelligence. A-yao was being too hard on him. He knew that. Mingjue was a great person who always looked out for the people he worked with, he was just a bit of an ass to A-yao in particular, most of the time.
“I just feel bad for him,” A-yao admitted. “Poor guy just needs a job, and the one he grabbed is complete shit.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never complained about yours. Why are you complaining about his?” Mingjue asked after another long drag.
“Why the hell do you care?” A-yao snapped, feeling the façade of quiet and submissive dishwasher sloughing off like a snake’s old skin.
“Curious,” Mingjue said with an unaffected shrug. A-yao was silent for a moment.
“I know why I’m here,” he said finally. “And I know where I’m going after.”
“Still trying to get noticed by daddy dearest?” Mingjue asked, looking at him with dark, serious eyes.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” A-yao said, spinning on his heel and marching back into the loud, hot, crowded kitchen.