Work Text:
MARCH 1990
The fifteen year old kid nervously wandered around the building, it was his first day working at Playtime Co. and amongst the crowd of touring families, kids playing and staff rushing around, he gave up trying to ask for help the tenth time a worker either ignored him or was too busy. The young boy headed past the main lobby where a giant Huggy Wuggy was posted and into one of the staff only rooms, he muttered an apology as he bumped into someone who jumped.
"For God's sake! Watch where you're going!" A tall middle-aged man wearing a formal suit scolded and before the young boy could mumble an apology, the man shoved him slightly as he walked away.
"Don't worry about him." A gruff voice said behind him, the boy turned as another middle-aged man approached him, the man was burly with a thick beard and pointy hair that ended below his ears, his skin a light bronze. His grumpy expression shifted to slight amusement. "Pierre is always like that."
"Pierre?" The boy tilted his head before rubbing his neck and awkwardly explained that it was his first day on the job and he wasn't sure where to go as employees were too busy with their tasks to help him. "Um, I'm supposed to be in the shipping department."
"Oh, that's my department, I'll take you there. I'm Rich, by the way." The man introduced as he led the young worker out of the main lobby and into further of the wide building. The boy sparred a glance at the huge Huggy Wuggy, who he swears, it's eyes were following him in caution.
After a month of working in the shipping department, Rich knew only a few things about the 'Kid', a nickname he given the young boy as he was the youngest Rich had ever seen work in the shipping department let alone the company itself, though, Playtime Co. wasn't above child labour. The first thing he noticed, the kid saved every coin and stashed any bit of money he had while on his breaks, he'd eat small meals or not much at all. I was a little lean from carrying boxes all day but skinny. Rich would have thought the kid was saving up for something cool as teenagers do, perhaps something trending or pop cultured in young people. Yet, he noticed the boy sleeping in his rusted, barely functioning car after work and occasionally complaining about back pain. He practically lived in his car.
That brought him to the second thing he knew about the kid, sometimes while transporting boxes full of toy parts or necessities for the Playtime Orphanage around different parts of the building, mainly the Game Station, the kid glanced at the orphans with a look of sorrow in his eyes. When the boxes had been successfully delivered, Rich found the fifteen year old playing with some of the kids, making them giggle. Rich thought it was sweet but he knew workers weren't supposed to talk to the children and he didn't want to scold him or the kid about it so he regrettably guided his co-worker away from the now frowning kids, the giant pink spider toy leaning down to them as she stared at the kid and Rich. He found out from Avery that the kid was an orphan himself, of course he had no where to go.
Thirdly, the kid did not have a name. Of course, he had a government given name and when introducing himself to young co-workers only a little older than him, the kid named himself as the initials, J.D. Later, when the Storage and Supply was transferring boxes of groceries and childish snacks to the back of Playcare's School for the orphans, the Kid carried a medium sized box in his arms beside Rich who was carrying a large one. Rich, respectfully (respectfully as Rich could be), brought up the name to the kid, making a joke that the initials of the young boy were a reference to Heathers the movie. The boy chuckled, though, the older man could tell that the kid didn't like talking about his name. Rich, unfortunately, found out the initials stood for 'John Doe' as he was given to the workers at the Orphanage when he was a baby and with no name given and the Orphanage being over crowded, they forgot to give him a proper name.
The gruff man had noticed how lonely the boy seemed but the kid wasn't necessarily sad about it either, just used to it. The kid talked to his co-workers and people around his age, occasionally hanging with them after work, but besides that, he stayed to himself. No one in the factory, apart from the shipping department, really spoke to him so Rich took it upon himself to try and include him in conversations. He even tried to include the Kid in a conversation he was having with Leith Pierre, though, when the teenager did speak up, Pierre gave him a rude stare. Clearly, the Kid did not fit in.
Considering the kid was living in his car and barely eating just to save money for whatever he wanted, Rich assumed he was trying to save up to rent or buy a home but he knew the kid's wage would never afford that unless he was working non-stop for the next ten years on a underage wage, he entered the main lobby and headed to the staff room where his co-workers would wait for instructions and tasks from Stuart, their boss. When Rich saw the kid rest his head in his arms at a table, trying to rest away his fatigue and back pains of sleeping in a rundown car, he placed a large packaged breakfast burger in front of the fifteen year old.
The boy slowly blinked up and raised an eyebrow at his superior, his stomach quietly grumbling at the burger in front of him. "What's this for?"
Rich shrugged and sat at the desk next to the boy, Avery sat beside Rich who was smoking, the gruff man ruffled the teenager's hair and smiled slightly. "Nothing in particular. Just for you."
"I'll pay you back. How much was it?"
"Don't even think about it. I got it for you, kid."