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If there’s one thing Karkat hates to see during a Saturday night dinner rush, it’s Dave Strider’s ugly mug making its way into his kitchen.
“Yo, Karkat. Can I get an extra side of dressing for the Greek salad on 57?"
Karkat glances at ticket 57. Turkey club. Cup of the tomato bisque. Greek salad, hold the onions, extra olives.
“It's not on the ticket."
"I know it's not on the ticket. Kinda the whole reason why I came back here to let’cha know."
"If it's not on the ticket, I'm not giving you extra dressing. If you wanted extra dressing, you should have typed in that you wanted extra dressing."
"Stop saying ‘extra dressing’ already. And besides, they flagged me down on my way to another table after I'd already put their order in."
Karkat scowls as he puts together, like, the billionth Reuben of the night.
"Whatever. Ring it in as an add-on, and I'll give you extra dressing."
Dave lets out this pathetic sigh, and Karkat can see it in his mind’s eye–the way the guy’s shoulders sag even lower than their normal abysmally poor-postured state. The huffy way he tends to put a hand on his hip and do a half-turn, like he needs to walk off his frustration.
If anyone needs to walk off their frustration, it’s Karkat. Luckily, he’s a grown man who doesn’t spend time bitching to his coworkers about extra fucking red-wine vinaigrette.
"Man, c'mon. They're obviously trying to avoid the upcharge by asking after I already sent through the order. If they see an additional charge for a singular dressing on their receipt, they're gonna leave me like two fuckin' dollars."
"Oh, sorry." Karkat pauses and sets his bread knife down to give Dave his full attention. "I must have missed the point in the conversation where that was my fucking problem."
"You're such a jackass, man. Just give me the damn dressing."
"Ring it in, and I'll oh-so fucking merrily give it to you."
"You don't even care about product cost! You could care less if this place went out of business over the price of extra dressing! You're just doing this to be a douchebag!"
"It's the principle of the matter, Strider!"
It really only took Karkat about ten seconds of looking at Dave to realize he was wearing the same apron he wore yesterday.
Don’t get it twisted–it’s not like Karkat spent a lot of time looking at the guy. It’s just that he happened to be nearby when Dave spilled a hefty helping of guac on his apron the night before, and the stain is clearly still there. Filthy idiot.
Karkat returns to the Reuben, plating it and adding a generous handful of their house-fried sweet potato chips before pulling the ticket and yelling for a runner.
“Look, I know the idea of doing someone a solid is a foreign concept to you–”
“Xenophobic, much?”
“–but maybe try to pull your head out of your ass long enough to realize that some of us kinda rely on tips to pay our bills.”
“It’s incredible you make any tips at all, considering how absolutely insufferable and wringable your neck is!”
“Ringable, you say? Must be why so many ladies leave their numbers on their receipts.”
The Reuben has disappeared from the expo window. That new kid–a shrimpy high-schooler whose name Karkat has yet to remember–must have grabbed it and hurried off before Karkat could even offer a grunt in thanks.
Probably for the best, he reasons, considering his current situation.
“Fascinating. All these alleged numbers you’re getting, but as far as I know, you haven’t been on a date in months. Remind me the last time you did anything after work other than drive straight home and jack off to the sound of the inane drivel trickling from your own unsightly maw?”
Unfortunately, Dave’s glower is replaced by a grin so smug it’d have Karkat retching into a bowl–if it wasn’t such an explicit health-code violation, that is.
“You lookin’ at my mouth enough to deem it unsightly now, Vantas?”
Karkat opens his mouth (to say what exactly?), but is mercifully cut off by the kitchen door swinging open yet again.
“Kar, they wanted it medium-rare. This is just medium.”
Karkat watches as Eridan slides a plate with a half-eaten filet through the expo window.
Now that’s a fucking health code violation. Karkat’s gonna string this guy up and fry him like a fish.
“It said medium on the ticket.”
“I know,” Eridan drawls, “I meant to come back and tell you, but I forgot. Anyways, can you remake it? Table 12.”
He leaves before Karkat can even begin to ream him out for it.
Karkat fumes quietly as he pulls the plate down, dumping it in the trash and tossing it in the dirty dish bin off to the side, only to return and run a sanitizer rag along the surface of the expo window.
He’s almost forgotten Dave is still in the room, until he hears him mutter a few choice expletives.
“Fucking nepo hire,” Dave says. “He gets away with the dumbest shit.”
If there’s one thing he agrees with Dave on, it’s that.
“Yeah.”
Whatever spat they’d been in the middle of has grown stale, as Karkat realizes sullenly that he now has to remake a filet on top of the twelve tickets he’s already working through.
There’s an awkward pause before Dave clears his throat.
“I can run the remake when it’s done,” Dave says.
As much as Karkat loves to deny it, it’s a pretty well-known fact that Dave is good at schmoozing it up with customers and smoothing over any bumps encountered during their dining experience. He’s saved Karkat from bearing the brunt of many server mistakes that would have undoubtedly turned into one-star Yelp reviews criticizing the restaurant’s kitchen staff otherwise.
“Just, uh,” Dave starts, scratching his cheek and looking away pointedly, “have one of the runners grab me when it’s up.”
“Yeah. Whatever,” Karkat says. “Get out of my fucking kitchen.”
“Yes, chef.”
The door swings slowly behind Dave as he leaves.
Karkat’s nose twitches and his ears burn as he restarts the filet before turning to get started on the next ticket: 57.
Hm.
Yeah, well.
If he adds an extra side of vinaigrette with the salad, whose fucking business is it but his own?