Work Text:
A dark SUV with tinted windows pulls up to the menu board.
Irene watches as the driver rolls the window down. It seems to take forever. Idly, she wonders if the vehicles are purposefully built that way to amplify dramatic effect. As the seconds tick by, she considers this supposition all but confirmed.
The window is finally rolled down. She turns on her mic. “Welcome to Culver’s,” she chirps cheerily. “What can we make fresh for you today?”
The man in the driver’s seat is huge and muscular, with cropped hair and serious eyes. He seems uncomfortable. “Yeah, uh, can we have a second?”
“Take your time,” Irene says. Through her earpiece, she hears some shuffling in the backseat of their vehicle.
“Just order some goddamn cheeseburgers and let’s go,” the man in the passenger seat whispers intensely. He has spiky black hair and looks like an asshole.
The man in the driver’s seat turns to face him. “What about-” he says, and then there is more shuffling from the backseat, making the rest of his sentence inaudible.
“He’ll be fine,” Spiky Hair says, irate.
“He’s been strapped in back there for five hours.”
Irene’s eyebrows climb into her hairline on their own accord. These men have a child?
“You know he can’t tolerate people-food,” Spiky Hair hisses. “I don’t wanna be stuck cleaning up his vomit.”
Oh. Dog, then.
The driver looks over his shoulder into the backseat. “He looks so pathetic, though,” he protests. Spiky Hair rolls his eyes.
Irene glances at her watch. There is a long line of cars behind these guys waiting to order, and this is taking forever. She makes an executive decision.
“Um, excuse me,” she says into the mic. “We do offer a dog-friendly pup cup type thing. Just a little bit of custard with a dog treat on top. If you want.”
The feed goes silent. If not for the shuffling coming from the dog in the back of the SUV, Irene would have thought that there was some kind of technical issue going on with the audio system.
“We’ll take it,” Spiky Hair says, leaning in over the driver to get closer to the mic. “And six cheeseburgers. And some cheese curds.”
“Alright,” Irene says, punching the order into the system. “That’ll be $22.03 at the window. Please pull ahead.”
***
Several minutes later, she’s bringing their order out to their car. It’s a creepy car, sheer black and mean-looking. She feels like she’s about to be pulled into the backseat and dragged away, never to be seen again.
That would probably be preferable to finals this week, she considers. Mrs. Lewis is such a hard-ass.
She makes it to the driver’s side window with no attempted kidnappings and recites their order for them as she hands them their food.
“Thanks,” the guy at the wheel says. Spiky Hair is too busy stuffing his face for manners.
“You’re welcome,” she says politely in her customer-voice. “Have a great day!”
The man grunts, shifting the SUV into drive. Spiky Hair shuffles with the food as the window begins its slow ascent upwards.
As she’s walking back to the building, Irene hears a distinct, shrill, “Hey! No biting!” from Spiky Hair. She grimaces. That is why she’s a cat person.
The SUV pulls out of the driveway. She watches it go and hopes that those men never stop by this Culver’s again.