Work Text:
Emmet hated it when it was his turn to do the groceries.
First, he had to make sure he didn’t forget the list on the fridge. Then he had to go all the way to the store, walk around the probably too crowded aisles, and lug around the hand basket. He couldn’t get a cart since he always ended up impulse buying more than he could carry home. After that, he had to choose between awkward small talk with a cashier or feeling like he’s being watched too closely at the self-checkout, then lug the groceries all the way home.
But he could see the apartment building now and he and Ingo had food again. No more scrounging around the cupboards and trying to find new ways to use their leftover rice like they were learning to cook in college again!
Maybe he should have done the shopping sooner. Oh well, too late now.
Once Emmet managed to get inside, he paused at the mailboxes. He might as well check the mail while he was down here. He put the bags down, glad for the brief break, and unlocked his mailbox.
There were a few things in the box, looked mostly like flyers. Nevertheless, Emmet pulled everything out and locked the box back up. Before going to shove it all in a grocery bag, he flipped through the mail in his hand.
Flyer, flyer, package delivery slip for Ingo, what was probably Emmet’s new debit card, junk mail.
Wait, what was that middle one?
Emmet shuffled through the mail again, dropping one of the flyers in the process, until he found it. Sure enough, it was a delivery slip addressed to Ingo, saying that he had a package at the post office.
They were here!
Emmet hurriedly cleaned up the dropped flyer and jammed everything into a bag. He scooped up all the grocery bags, ran over to the elevator, and started mashing the up button. The elevator felt like it took forever to arrive and even longer to get to the correct floor, but Emmet had made it to his and Ingo’s apartment.
“Ingo!” Emmet yelled the moment he got the door open. “Ingo! Mail!” He slammed the door shut behind him, abandoning the groceries as he ran down the hall. “Ingo!”
Ingo popped his head out of his bedroom door. “Emmet, you’re back! What’s this about the mail?”
“They’re here! They’re-” Emmet realized he had left the delivery slip with the rest of the mail. “Hold please.”
“Holding,” Ingo said as he followed Emmet back to the living room.
Emmet pulled the delivery slip out and waved it in Ingo’s face. “They’re here! Unless you ordered something and didn’t tell me.”
Ingo plucked the slip from Emmet to look at it better. “I am waiting for your birthday present, but I only bought that a few days ago. I do not believe it has even been shipped yet.” Ingo started bouncing slightly in place, voice rising considerably. “So this must be for our coats! They have arrived! We have to go to the post office right now.”
“Yes!” Emmet spun around only to be faced with the bags of groceries on the ground. “We should put away the groceries first. There are frozen things.”
“Groceries, then the post office!”
The groceries were put away and Emmet and Ingo were out the door in record time. They opted to walk to the post office instead of waiting for the train. It would have taken around the same amount of time either way, but they had too much excited energy to wait around on a platform.
They managed to look like average people with a normal amount of excitement when they got to the post office and not like they were about to vibrate into orbit. Ingo even managed to keep his voice to a normal loud and not straight up shouting.
Then they were on the subway home, Emmet bouncing in his seat and Ingo clutching his box to his chest. The moment the train pulled into their stop, they rushed home.
“I am so glad we decided to get them delivered,” Ingo said as the got inside, “I do not know what we would do if we had to go to the store all the way across town.”
“I think we would die of excitement before we got there,” Emmet said, He placed his box on the table and immediately started trying to peel the tape off despite lacking the fingernails to do so.
Ingo was a little more rational, using his keys to cut the tape. Emmet took them when offered.
They lifted the lids off the boxes.
And there they were. Two crisp and clean coats with a matching hat on top.
Slowly, they each moved the hat and picked up a coat, Ingo the dark black one, Emmet the bright white one. The reflective strips shone under the overhead light and the dark red stripes gave the coat the intended railroad look.
Emmet slipped the coat on, Ingo not far behind. It fit perfectly, as expected. The collar was high and the cuffs were big, adding a pleasant heft to it. He backed up and twisted a few times, taking enjoyment in how the coat swayed around him. He looked up at Ingo, beaming. Ingo had put on his hat and was holding Emmet’s out to him. Emmet took it and put it on.
That was when it finally and fully hit them.
“We’re Subway Bosses,” Ingo said, voice choked up.
“We are,” Emmet said, tears already threatening to fall. “We did it.”
“We did it!” Ingo cried, grabbing Emmet’s hands. “We did it!”
Emmet started spinning them around. “We did it!”
They spun around into the living room until they ended up a dizzy pile of laughter and tears on the floor.
They had done it.
They were the Subway Bosses, Emmet and Ingo.