Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A faint ringing can be heard in the distance. It sounds familiar… It has a pattern to it. The pattern is repeating. It’s getting closer. Or maybe just louder? Where is it coming from? Why is it familiar? I know exactly how the notes will go, like I’ve heard it countless times… Like I’ve heard it so often it’s an everyday occurrence… Shit.

Rody jolts awake at the sound of his alarm, shaggy ginger hair being flung around as he whips to look at the time. 6:47. Double shit. It’s been going for almost 20 minutes. Those 20 minutes were supposed to be him getting ready. If he wanted to get to work in time, he’d need to leave in three minutes. A minute already down the drain from doing the math, Rody’s vision goes a little dark as he bolts up a little too and towards his wardrobe. Going to change, he realizes he never changed out of his work uniform in the first place.

Groaning from dizziness and frustration, Rody sprints to the bathroom next to brush his teeth and… ‘brush’ his hair. Running his fingers through would be good enough for his last day, right? It’s not like he’d get fired for it.

Throwing cold water on his face as a final wake up call and taking a second to make sure his vision was fully cleared, Rody tries to remember what could have gotten him so fucked up.

+-+

“God, who *hic* died and gave him the right to be such an ass? A donkey? More like fifty donkeys! Hah, I really got him with that one.”

+-+

Suddenly, Rody remembered what could have gotten him so fucked up. Dragging his hands down his cheeks, he swears to never drink on a work night again, then slaps his cheeks a few times as one final wake up maneuver. The messy waiter peeks out of his bathroom to check the time, 6:50, and decides that taking a painkiller wouldn’t hurt. He laughs at the irony of that statement and gulps down a small pill with some water straight from the sink.

Wiping his chin, Rody grabs his bike from the pile of ‘collectables’ and drags it out the door with him, bracing himself for the day to come.

+-+

Vincent wakes up to his alarm easily. Slowly opening his eyes, he turns to see his alarm clock flashing a bright red 5:30 back at him. He closes his eyes, rubs them with a deep sigh, and sits up before turning off the alarm. Vincent glances around the room, the same room he’s been in for years, never changing. The same elegant red drapes, the same red lamp, the same red circular carpet, even the same book lying open on his desk from a few weeks ago.

Stretching his arms upwards, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and does a quick morning stretch. Feeling more refreshed, he leaves his room to go to the bathroom. After a quick and cold shower, he returns to his room, dressing in his everyday chef uniform. The same as always.

Not exactly excited for this last part of his morning routine, Vincent drags his feet to his kitchen. Picking out a few items he hasn’t had in a while, he cooks some defrosted salmon, washes some grapes, and selects some of the more appetizing looking brussel sprouts. Not that any of them were particularly appetizing, he just picked the fresher looking ones.

Once his salmon was done, he added it to a blender already containing grapes, brussel sprouts, half a croissant, and around a half a cup of milk. Sighing, he squeezes a full lemon over it all and proceeds to blend. Taking one final yawn of the morning, he pours the foul smelling mixture into a tall glass and sprinkles some ground peanuts over the top to add a little excitement to his dish. One deep breath, and it’s down the hatch.

The lemon is barely noticeable. Just a slight twinge of his cheeks. The peanuts add a slight bit of crunch to his otherwise puréed meal. He chomps down on a particularly whole one as he glances at the clock on his wall. 5:59. Just in time. He gulps down the rest and rinses his glass before grabbing his keys and going downstairs to open the restaurant.

Chapter Text

Rody sprints from the bike stand to the front door of the bistro. He pauses for a minute to catch his breath, not wanting to start the day off looking bad and smelling sweaty. Rody takes a few more deep breaths while checking his watch. 6:58. Dang, he must’ve pedaled a lot harder than he thought he had. Feeling much more relaxed, he shakes out his arms and uses the glass’s reflection to attempt to fix up his hair a bit. Wait…

Unfocusing his attention on his reflection, he sees through the glass to see Vincent standing directly in the doorway with a disappointed look on his face. Shit, that was embarrassing. Rody’s cheeks get dusted with pink as he awkwardly smiles and waves at his boss through the glass door, scratching the back of his head with his other hand.

Vincent rolls his eyes and takes a swift step to the door to push it open. “Don’t do that. It’s embarrassing our establishment’s image. We have mirrors inside if you need one that badly. Or you could’ve done that at home in the first place.” Vincent holds open the door for Rody, gesturing him inside.

Rody quickly steps inside to save himself from further embarrassment. “Sorry, Vince. I did do it at home but the wind messed it up during my trip. Guess I should’ve used some gel, huh?” He laughs, embarrassed, and when he gets nothing except cold, dark eyes looking at him, he decides to cut his losses on that. “So, uh, where’s this mirror you spoke so highly of?”

“Firstly, it’s Chef. Not Vince. Follow me.” Vincent walks quickly towards the kitchen, Rody following a bit behind. Going through the swinging doors, he turns to the left and goes towards his forever locked office. Pulling a key out of his pocket, he unlocks the door and walks towards the far corner. Rody, having never been in his office before, took the opportunity to look around.

It was just as weirdly decorated as the apartment upstairs. It was mostly drab if anything, a simple desk and chair, an almost empty looking bookshelf. The only distinguishing feature of the room were the two framed newspaper clippings on the brick wall. Now that Rody was looking a bit to the left of these hangings, he realized the room was half brick walls and half covered in an… interesting wallpaper. Weird…

Stopping at a small chest of drawers in the corner, Vincent points to the mirror on the wall. “There you go. Now fix that rat’s nest you call hair.”

“Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef.” Rody slowly walks towards the mirror, glancing at Vincent to see that Vincent had his eyes securely trained on Rody. Rody decides to ignore that for the time being and looks into the mirror to try his best to calm the storm that was his hair. Running his fingers through the mass of it, he shakes his hair a bit to tussle it into a more manageable form. 

After loosely styling it to the best of his ability for a while, he asks for Vincent’s verdict. “Better?”

“...”

“Vince..?” Vincent had never taken his dead eyes off of Rody, so it was a bit disconcerting that he didn’t say anything. Turning to look at Vincent, Rody saw that his answer was in the form of a facial expression. A strong one at that. It was very clear that his hair was not up to par, with emotions such as exasperation, disappointment, and even disgust crossing his face.

“No.”

Pausing for a moment, Rody wasn’t quite sure what to do. He couldn’t do much more with his fingers anyways, so he might as well ask for something to help himself out. “Then… Do you have a brush I could use?”

This time Vincent looked at him with utter disbelief on his face. “Only my own. And I’m not letting you touch that.” Rody looked towards Vincent with offense written clearly in his entire body. “Oh please, I don’t want your unshowered hair grease gooping up my comb. And yes it’s obvious. Not only do you stink to hell and back, but that soup stain is from yesterday and I clearly remember giving you two uniforms.”

“... Fucking hell.” Rody, utterly embarrassed, crouches down to hug his knees. Shoving his face into his arms does little to hide his embarrassed blush that has quickly spread to his ears and the back of his neck. Rody decides that being brutally honest is the only option he has and squeaks out, “Sorry, Vince… My shower is broken and I’ve been saving up to fix it… I just don’t have enough yet…”

Vincent looks down at Rody, guilt clawing at the bottom of his stomach. He sighs and assesses his options. Either he could let Rody shower at his apartment, finally ridding him of that slight stench and likely saving the reputation of his bistro for the day, or he could leave Rody be and let him embarrass himself throughout the day, Vincent laughing at him from the kitchen corner. While one option does sound a lot more appealing, he decides he should be nice to Rody for today since he already knows how Rody’s day will be ending.

He takes one final sigh, and leans forward to put a hand on Rody’s shoulder. Rody flinches a bit, but peeks out of his arms to glance up at Vincent. Vincent is no longer looking at Rody, but instead is looking to the side, probably looking for something more clean. “It’s… fine. You can use my shower today.” This surprises Rody so much he falls over, away from Vincent.

Sprawled out on the office floor, Rody glares up at Vincent suspiciously. “Why…”

Vincent looks at Rody incredulously again. “I thought I told you already. It’s because you stink badly. Like really badly. And I plan on keeping my restaurant up to inspection standards.” 

… Fuck it, he’s right. Rody is utterly rancid. He needs this shower badly, so he can’t be picky about where he’s getting it from. “... Okay…”

+-+

Before he knows it, he’s in Vincent’s apartment. Again. With the weird decor and uncomfortable atmosphere. At least this time he’s here of his own free will.

“Here’s a new uniform. Return it sometime soon, I don’t feel like financing your wardrobe. Do two rounds of shampoo, you need it. Blow dry your hair after so you don’t look like a wet dog. I’ll cover your morning responsibilities, but you had better be down in time for opening. I’m not covering you any longer than I need to when I have better things to do.” Vincent shoves the uniform into Rody’s hands and quickly leaves Rody behind in his apartment.

A bit whiplashed from just how quick that interaction was and how much information was shoved into his ears, Rody lets out an, “Okay then,” and heads to the bathroom.

+-+

Feeling more refreshed than he had in weeks and loving the new lemon smell on him, Rody prances downstairs, having gotten ready fast enough to have a bit of extra time to look at some portraits around Vincent’s house, not finding anything interesting, and head down earlier than needed.

Walking through the front door, Rody waves to Vincent, who is busy wiping down the final tables. “Hey, Vince! Thanks for letting me use your shower! Your shampoo smells super good! Where do you get-” Vincent whips around to Rody and covers his mouth with a hand.

“Firstly, it’s Chef. Not Vince. Now shut the fuck up before someone hears you. My shower is a one-time charity case and I don’t want any of those deadbeats to get the idea into their thick skulls that they can use it whenever they need. Now get to work.” Vincent has an air of anger, but his eyes don’t seem to have any anger in them. Instead, they didn’t even have the normal cold and dead look to them. There was something there, but it wasn’t anything negative. Rody is a bit confused about this, but before he can say anything Vincent has already left to the kitchen, the doors swinging behind him.

Wondering what could have set his boss off this much despite his generally neutral expression, Rody decides to let it be and just finish his last day of work. He won’t have to worry about what his boss thinks of him or other people by the end of the day anyways. Rody moves to finish up what his boss had been working on before, cleaning the last table right before the first customer comes in. Great, let’s get this over with .

Chapter Text

Fuck…

Vincent storms into the kitchen and veers to go to his office.

Fuck.

Vincent slams through the door and forcefully shuts it behind him, hurriedly leaning against it and sliding down to land on the floor, face in his hands.

Fuck!

Vincent slowly looks up to his office, dragging his hands down his face as he does every morning, but not taking them off. He keeps them covering his cheeks. He doesn’t want his nonexistent audience to see his face. If no one can see it, then it’s not happening, right?

THAT FUCKING STEAMING PEICE OF SHIT!!

Vincent finally lowers his hands to wrap around his knees, letting his flushed cheeks become visible to no one in particular. Vincent mutters under his breath, “Why does he look so much better now… Why did just one shower change his appearance so much… God, he looked so ho-” Vincent clapped a hand back over his mouth to stop himself.

Vincent struggles with his thoughts, sure that he would never want ANYONE to know about them. Unluckily for him, he doesn’t get that luxury. Why did he look like that? Rody shouldn’t look like that. Rody’s hair doesn’t do what it was doing. Rody’s hair is supposed to be forever messy. So why did it look so good, styled, neatly brushed into place, still very curly but in an almost organized sense, softly bouncing as he walked, so soft that I could probably use it as a pillow and never wake up. God, if he was in his shower, does that mean it smelled like lemons? Would he smell like lemons if I were to- Vincent cut himself off from his racing thoughts. He was not going there… Yet.

The disgruntled chef takes some deep breaths to calm his nerves and his head. He has work to do. He can’t stay here. He has chefs to command and a very special dish to prepare for Rody. Wait. Fuck. How can he serve his food to Rody when he looks like that?? Vincent decides that the best way to deal with this predicament is to either make Rody look like shit again… or exposure therapy. A lot of it. It would be a waste for him to look almost crunchy again…

Vincent, with new conviction, stands up, brushes himself off, and with one last deep breath goes over to the back corner of his office. This corner had a small hole in the wall between his office and the dining room. He often used this hole to make sure his wait staff were doing their jobs properly when they thought they weren’t being watched.

Bracing himself, Vincent leans towards the hole.

+-+

Rody feels a shiver go down his spine. Hah, I’m working. There’s no way someone’s watching me right now.

He quickly returns to work. He notices how the customers are being a bit kinder to him today. Some have even asked for his number, though he has turned all of them down. Just how bad was it for there to be this big of a difference… Rody shrugs and moves on. It’s not like it’ll matter much since this is his last day here.