Chapter Text
The monster known to most as Pizzapants was currently finishing up an afternoon shift at his minimum wage job at the Ice-E’s P“e”zza location in the little town called Hometown. The rural neighbourhood proudly boasted its four-digit population count on a colourful hand-painted sign wreathed in smiling suns and clouds near the outskirts. It was a cozy place, nestled in a forest within a valley, currently entering the winter season.
Just two more godforsaken minutes.
Late November meant frost and the first sparse snowfalls. The mascot costume Pizzapants was imprisoned in did little to prevent the frigid air from piercing into his fur and flesh and bones, but it was also stuffy and suffocating, so it created an effect of dual discomfort by which he was freezing but also sweating. His shift was over in less than two minutes - he counted every second - but he dare not move from his station, lest the corporate snipers kill him dead on the spot.
I gotta get out of here, he thought. This job will actually, truly, be the death of me.
As soon as the time was up he tore the mask from his face and gasped for air desperately. He hurried inside to punch out and grab his belongings from the break room. He unfortunately failed to notice that he was walking into a trap - his coworker, Blue Ears, was lurking in the corner.
Pizzapants didn’t know his real name, and wasn’t sure if Blue Ears knew his or not. But there he was, sipping his slush-“e” at the farthest table of the break room. His ears perked up when he saw Pizzapants approach, and ambushed him before he had an opportunity to slink away.
“Hey, Pizzapants,” Blue Ears greeted with a punchable smile. He stood up and began closing the distance, his cup-holding arm outstretched. “Want a sip before you go?”
Pizzapants grumbled and turned away. Blue Ears seemed taken aback by this.
“What’s wrong, are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah…” Pizzapants said, shaking his head dismissively.
I just want to get out of here, man, he thought to himself.
“You sure? You’ve seemed kind of on edge lately,” Blue Ears prodded in a concerned manner, placing his cup down on the counter and putting his hands on his hips. “The HR department can help with mental health advising, I can ask Zeke to get you in touch with someone…”
You say that as if I’m not the only sane person in this whole damn town, Pizzapants thought. But he just shook his head again.
“I said I’m fine.” Pizzapants couldn’t help but grumble and furrow his brow. Blue Ears looked at him with wide, sad eyes and picked up his slush-“e” again, holding it out towards Pizzapants. Then the stupid bastard gave him a buck-toothed babyface grin. Pizzapants couldn’t even hear what he said next as blood began rushing to his face in fury, but his lip movements seemed suspiciously similar to “sharing is caring”. Pizzapants snapped.
“Stick a sock in it, Blue Ears! I don’t wanna hear it!” He roared, swiping the cup from his coworker’s paw, emptying its contents onto the linoleum floor below. His smile dropped and his face suddenly became stern like Pizzapants had never seen. Pizzapants turned around and tried to wobble away before Blue Ears could chew him out, but his shaky hands fumbled the door handle when he tried to push it open.
“If there’s something wrong you should talk to someone,” Blue Ears scolded. “You’ve always been a grumpyface, Pizzapants, but I’ve never known you to get angry.”
“Whatever, man,” Pizzapants muttered weakly, finally figuring out that it was a pull door and managing to open it. He stumbled out of the break room and pulled his jacket over his shoulders as he wandered outside, making his way down the sidewalk.
Pizzapants turned over the altercation in his head. He had become a master of the art of winning shower arguments without even bothering with the inconvenience of showering.
I called him Blue Ears to his face, he realized. Damn it, if he’s got any brains at all, he’ll figure out I forgot his name.
He felt a slight twinge of guilt, but…
What’s his deal, anyway? It’s none of his damn business. It’s none of anyone’s damn business. Pizzapants kicked a pebble down the street until it was lost down a drainage opening in the road. As he passed by QC’s Diner, he looked through the tinted windows at the vague silhouettes of the staff moving through the restaurant with plates of food. The diner had a cozy warmth to it that Ice-E’s could never rival. Pizzapants had applied there first, but QC didn’t seem to think he would mesh very well with the other employees for some reason. Unfortunately, the place next door had much lower hiring standards, and the rest was history.
He made his way across town and towards his apartment building. He sighed and leaned against the rough brick wall. On some level, he recognized, Blue Ears was right. He had been feeling bothered lately, and it was more than just the fact that he was a 22 year old working a dead end minimum wage job. He felt the hole in his stomach open again as his mind strayed to his finances. Rent and groceries. College…
He shook his head. He had just recently pulled from his savings to get his car repaired, only for it to break down again just a few days later. Usually, he was able to find some comedic value in his luck being so laughably atrocious, but by this point he was tired and angry. Being realistic about his situation, at this rate he’d never save up enough for tuition.
Pizzapants reached into his pocket and pulled out a pamphlet. He kept it on him at all times to remember his goal - by this point, it had been creased to hell and back, but the white lettering on the crimson paper was still clear. “ANGEL STATE UNIVERSITY”, followed by a pretentious Latin phrase he couldn’t understand. It was a school with a good reputation and a theatrical arts program, as he always wanted. Sure, the money, fame, and female attention that came with the job was a nice bonus, but acting was also his genuine passion.
…Or, at least, I think it is. I’ve never gotten a chance to test myself, really, but it feels right. I know basing my only career plan on a vibe is probably a bad play, but… I really have nothing else.
But there was another thing. Pizzapants reached into his other pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked several times over. He navigated to his messages.
Still nothing from Azzy.
He scrolled up and down, looking at all the unread ramblings he had sent to his absent friend. One particular message from about a week ago at 3 in the morning stood out from the others.
hey azzy i saw a guy in a pickup truck with a goat riding shotgun not a monster or anything just like a regular goat but it reminded me of you lol i dont know why just thought of you lol
Pizzapants winced and bit his tongue. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking with that one…
Yeah, with people skills like that maybe it’s no wonder that Asriel’s ignoring me.
But there it was, finally setting in.
Asriel’s ignoring me.
I always knew it was too good to be true, I guess.
In that moment, Pizzapants felt like he should have started crying. But instead all he could feel was dull, empty acceptance. He stuffed his phone back into the depths of his pockets from whence it came and looked back at the pamphlet again.
What’s even the point? He wondered. He mulled it over in his head: He was currently on track to have enough money for one term at ASU by the time he was thirty. His plan was to enroll himself in a program which did not necessarily guarantee a stable career and which he probably would not have the talent for in the first place. And his only actual friend, a student there himself and half of the reason for him wanting to pursue this in the first place, wanted nothing to do with him.
Pizzapants quietly and bitterly took the pamphlet in both his hands and tore it into a million tiny crumpled pieces. He let the wind take them up and didn’t move until every last slip of paper had blown away. His hands twitched. He felt nothing. He went inside and up to his apartment.
His living space was confined entirely to just one room, most of which was taken up by his bed, a battered old mattress lying on the floor without a frame for support, draped in thin sheets and a smushed pillow. Pizzapants groaned as he threw himself onto the bed like a sack of potatoes and stretched his limbs. He looked with concern at the growing dark splotch near the base of the wall in the far corner - he thought it might be black mold, but calling his landlord about it had been fruitless so far. Even then, they’d probably find reason to make him pay to get rid of it.
Pizzapants reached towards his small nightstand to retrieve his laptop, an older, damaged brick-shaped device held together mostly by duct tape and willpower. As he fumbled around under the cabinet, though, he accidentally knocked over his small library of books. His box set of The Lord of the Hammer spilled onto the floor. Frustrated, he slid off the bed to pick them up. Just looking at the covers brought back memories that he didn’t want to unearth right now - Asriel was the one who got him into the series in the first place. He placed the books back in the box they came in carelessly, put it on top of his nightstand and grabbed his computer from below, and once again laid back on the bed.
He quickly discovered that the internet connection was down. Even more frustrated, he slammed the laptop shut and tossed it aside, then clawed at his eyes with his hands and sighed.
Man, I’m pathetic…
Blue Ears was definitely correct in his assessment, Pizzapants decided. These past few weeks, he had been even more miserable than usual. But now that he had accepted his complete hopelessness, he felt leagues better. Empty, but better. He just laid there motionlessly for a while, looking at the shapes that were left behind by the chipped paint of the ceiling.
His self-pitying thoughts were abruptly interrupted by his phone buzzing. He angrily picked it up; the caller ID told him that it was his boss, Zeke. Grumbling, he picked up and put on his best faux-happy customer service voice.
“Pizzapants, thank goodness,” Zeke crowed in his sing-songy voice, seemingly uncaring that he was calling less than half an hour after his loyal employee left the restaurant. “We just need someone to fill in for The Warrior, you know his trial starts tomorrow. Can you work overtime for the next few weeks? Seven in the morning to seven in the evening, pretty simple. Whaddaya say?”
Pizzapants put the phone flat on his chest and sigh.
Yeah. I have nothing better to do, his rational mind told himself.
You’re gonna work yourself to death, his intelligent mind told himself.
He chose to interpret the latter not as a warning but as a neutral statement of fact. He held the phone to his ear and spoke through tightly-gritted, reluctantly-grinning teeth.
“Sure thing, Mr. Zeke.” He agreed. “I’ll be there bright and early.”
“Good,” Zeke said. His gratitude was very insincere, but it didn’t matter much. Then he hung up, and so did Pizzapants, who then tossed his phone onto the top of his cabinet with disgust, just for good measure.
Pizzapants felt that he was horribly itchy. He realized that his uniform was drenched in sweat, and rose from his bed, understanding that his aroma was most likely quite unpleasant at that moment, and he should probably bathe (despite his aforementioned knack for shower-free shower arguments) so that he didn’t turn up to work in the morning smelling like he just ran a marathon. He began making his way down the hall to the communal bathroom for his floor. It was occupied, so he just stood there for a while picking at the dirt under his fingernails. Eventually, a middle-aged crocodilian monster emerged from the door, whistling cheerily and fiddling with the towel around his waist.
Pizzapants entered the bathroom. It was notably roomier than his apartment, because of course it was. There were several clean white towels in a little cubby next to the sink, so he grabbed one and threw his change of clothes on the floor as he peeled off his work uniform and dropped it on the ceramic tiles below.
He glanced at the mirror to see his face. Only a mother could love it, or so he had been told, but even that much would be pushing it: Ugly, matted tendrils of dull fur were splayed out across the sides of his head. He hadn’t shaved in a long while. He kept scratching himself, spreading dandruff everywhere. His right eyelid had seemingly developed a twitch, probably from stress. Both of his eyes were deep-set, tired, and framed by massive bags. There was an uneven gap between some of his teeth. His nose was flat and looked as though it had been broken at least once (it had; unfortunate dodgeball incident in high school). His arms were too lanky and he was intermittently too skinny and too fat in all the wrong places.
Pizzapants sighed. After he finished his self-loathing session, he stepped into the shower. The last guy had used up all the hot water, so he had to settle for what was practically a stream of ice pellets. He lathered his fur in the unscented shampoo that was provided and rinsed it, turned off the flow of water, and nearly tripped on his way out. It took him several minutes to dry himself with the towel. He got changed into his casual wear - which at this point basically doubled as his pajamas - and began shuffling back to his apartment, dragging his feet the whole way.
He found himself to be utterly exhausted. Too tired for food and too tired for thought. As soon as he was within range of his bed, he collapsed onto it face first, his head barely landing on the pillow. He reached his arms under the pillow and folded it over his face, then screamed into it silently until he needed to come up for breath again. And then, suddenly, at some point, he fell asleep.