Chapter Text
“Okay, so, we’re going to start with rimming,” said Kryptos.
The sound of gentle shuffling filled Multipurpose Room 5 of the Fearamid as the Henchmaniacs sorted themselves along rubbermaid tables. They all fiddled with the materials set before them, individual stations set with glassware and various squeeze bottles, as Kryptos started the projector and plugged in his laptop.
“It’s, like, important to start out with clean glass and fresh adhesive,” Kryptos continued as the powerpoint flickered onto the wall behind him. “The stuff I’ve set out is already clean, but you gotta actually look at what you’re doing before you start covering it in shit, alright? Paci-fire, you listening?”
“Great, so, you have to set things up before you get started.” The powerpoint clicked behind him as he started laying tools out on his own table. “Some of you – 8-Ball, Hectorgon – have more intensive stuff that needs to be powdered down before you start. Crush those while everyone else picks the glass they want, and we’ll move on to adhesive choices.”
8-ball glanced up and nodded before continuing to pound his cookie into a fine dust. Hectorgon looked dubiously at the few candy canes he had before shrugging and following 8-Ball’s lead.
“Traditionally, juice is the first thing you think of while rimming, right? You’ll often see people in shows or whatever using a lime slice along the top and calling it a day, but I’ve found that it doesn't really provide a good foundation for the rest; it’s too uneven and not sticky enough to really hold on to the grit. Really, I think that a simple syrup is honestly the best option no matter what you’re doing. It’s easy, it doesn’t have any flavor other than sweet, and it’s generally strong enough to hold heavier toppings like the stuff 8-Ball and Hectorgon have. If you really want to use a citrus juice and have stuff stick, it’s the same method you’d use when you have simple syrup.”
Teeth raised his hand. “What’s a simple syrup?”
Kryptos sighed. “It’s equal parts hot water and white sugar, mixed together until clear. Cooled completely before use. And checked for mold before you pour it into anything. Isn’t that right, Paci-fire? Now, take the shallow saucers in front of you and put your juice or syrup in them. Roll your glasses in the liquid… like so…”
Kryptos spun the top edge of a margarita glass through the clear liquid, giving it an expert flick and twist so the coating was even. “We’re gonna set that aside to dry a little bit. We want it nice and tacky.”
This elicited a snide remark about Kryptos’ mother from someone in the crowd who was quickly eaten by Teeth. Kryptos grabbed another saucer and poured a generous helping of kosher salt onto it. He gave it a little swirl to flatten out the pile as he picked up his glass again.
“Now we are going to roll the glass gently through the topping, ensuring an even coat. Make sure not to press too hard, or it will end up just knocking the stuff off as you move it. Remember, we’re really aiming to cover the outside and the very top of the rim, so don’t go crazy and get the stuff too far into the glass itself. You’ll just end up with weird shit floating on top of your drink if you do.”
Pyronica looked down at her hands. She had come into this knowing that this would be some pretentious bullshit and look what she’d gotten: a stemless martini glass absolutely fucked up with syrup and course sparkling sugar in one hand and absolutely no lemon drop martini in the other. She squinted back up at Kryptos’ fuckass presentation.
“And gently tap off the excess. Now, I want to reiterate here the reason we are using two saucers instead of those multi-sectioned-plastic-swivel-pieces-of-trash is because they’re washable. And you know that they’re not filled with fungus and stale crackers, right Paci-fi–”
“It was one time!” Paci-fire bellowed, waving his tajin-crusted pint glass threateningly.
“It was not one time, you nasty slut!” Kryptos sneered back. “I’m sorry some of us don’t like getting an aspergillus chaser with our cosmos!”
“I liked it,” Teeth said cheerfully. “It was kind of tangy!”
“Can we just be done? I’m ready to actually put some booze in this glass instead of just looking at it,” Pyronica interjected. The air around her was starting to smell like burning sugar and melting plastic.
“What booze?” Kryptos asked.
“What…” Pyronica paused, the air around her growing hotter. “What do you mean ‘what booze?’”
“We’ve been out of liquor for, like, two days, Py.” Kryptos pulled out his phone and started to scroll.
“I think there was a jar of Chanh muối in the back of the bar,” Hectorgon said.
“What the fuck is a jar of pickled limes gonna do us, genius?” The sugared glass in Pyronica’s hand started smoking, coils of charred caramel and molten silica dripped through her fingers. “Why did you do this stupid class about alcohol without any alcohol? I heard you promise Keyhole one of those obnoxious chocolate lava malts if he came!”
“I don’t cover things like oxblood or white chocolate until Advanced Rimming 102: Oral Consumption For Fun and Fashion,” Kryptos said with a snide glance up from his phone. “And by the way you’re acting, I’d say it's a little beyond your scope.”
“Arughh!” Pyronica yelled in frustration, hucking what was left of her glass at the projector before turning on Kryptos. “Fine! Let’s go stock up, then! Get your keys, Mr. Mixology. You’re driving.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ill send someone to look at it
Thank You. Please let me know when that will be so I can be home and put my dog up.
He put down his cell phone and sighed. Mr. Arbott would probably throw a fucking fit is he had to leave early today to take care of this stupid hot water heater shit. This was the third time since he moved into that shithole apartment that the water heater had gone tits up. Stupid fucking slumlord and his shitty fucking duplex house. He didn’t even PAY the landlord directly. He had to fucking Vembo his landlord’s rat-ass son on Glarghon %{primeR instead. Sketchy-ass shit. But this was the only place that would take someone with a large-breed pet over 100kg on such short notice after AngieBritaBeth broke up with him and kicked them to the fucking curb.
He reminded himself to look for somewhere else to crash as soon as the lease was up. Sweet Parvo Jr. deserved a better life. At least he had had an employment record when things went sideways, but honestly, working at this 7-12 was just about as bad as living in that moth-ridden duplex.
There was something about the fluorescent lighting that cast everything in a pallid green, paired beautifully with an incessant, ever-changing electric whine to provide a holistic experience of agony the longer one spent in the drone. It really set the mood to send employee and customer alike on a journey of excruciating awareness of their body and the passage of time. Striking such a balance of painful self-perception while stretching the threads of reality to the point of near-snapping had really paid off in terms of store profit margins. Bodily dissociations were up 13% last quarter.
The smell was a whole separate factor. The corporate department head of olfactory sensations would rather you believe that the massive increase in the intensity of the average mental episode experienced on 7-12 properties was mostly their doing, but those with boots on the ground could tell you that smell was only one of many factors at play. Aroma surely made each visit to the convenience store memorable in its own way; doesn’t the particular smell of the 7-12 of your youth bury itself deep within your memory core in much the same way the scent of your grandmother’s soap or the sting of freshly cut grass crushed between your infant fingers does? The beauty of the 7-12 empire is that olfactory experiences from around the universe can be melted down and spread onto every square of linoleum. At least that’s what corporate stated when they announced their “Internationally Compliant Floor Cleaning Solution” back in 2003.
theyll get there when they get there
He rubbed his temples and turned to glance at the camera feeds. There was a clunker of a minivan trundling down the street far below the speed limit, slowly weaving back and forth in its lane, smoke billowing out from the barely-cracked windows. A normal group of customers. It’d take them, like, 10 minutes to actually make it inside after they’d parked. He composed himself, straightening his shoulders, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, steeling his spine. AngieBrittaBethany had always called him a weak doormat. Told him he never stood up for himself. Always let people walk all over him, including her. She was right, of course. But things change. People grow stronger.
I know that this is frustrating, but you still need to let me know when they’re headed over. I don’t want someone in my space without me there. I don’t want them to let my dog out by accident.
Boom. Personal growth on the clock.
Those guys had fucked up pulling into the parking lot. Looks like they’d have to spin around the block. He sighed again (corporate had mandated that employees were only allowed to sigh 4 times per shift, but Mr. Arbott never reported him) and grabbed the grungy rag and “Internationally Compliant Window Cleaner” from under the counter. There were a few boogers stuck to the inside of the fridge glass that had been there a few days.
By the time he had successfully dissolved the splatter of dried, hardened bodily fluid off of the fridge door, the minivan had made its reappearance outside. It had missed the entrance to the lot again and was trying to pull through the ditch. It was making little headway. He turned back to the counter, wiping the accumulated spit off the plexiglass as if that would make the customer’s experience any better. Not that he really wanted them to have a better, clearer idea of what he looked like. It was probably better for everyone that his face remain just a blurry movement behind the scratched and smeared safety divider. He bet that AngieBrittaBethany had already forgotten what he looked like. He bet he was already fading into that vague outline of personhood in her mind too, just like he was in the mind of every drunken, high visitor to this laughable farce of convenience.
sure w/e no ones gonna let your mutt out
youll know when i know, got it
Got it, thank you.
Whatever. He shouldn’t have been texting this much on the clock. He plodded back behind the counter and watched the van try to drag itself through the ditch onto the cracked asphalt. It only succeeded in digging itself deeper into the mud. The sliding door opened, dense red smoke billowing, and a small teal creature fell out. It went behind the van and started pushing, but every heave just made it slip onto its ass. Eventually, a large green gargoyle exited the vehicle, picked up the small teal creature, and wedged its writhing, screeching body under the back tires. This provided enough traction for the van to lift itself out of the gulch and into the parking lot.
At least at this job, he didn’t have to force his face into an expression more than ‘alive.’ It was better than a lot of other gigs that expected you to pretend you weren’t a heartbroken sad sack of shit and keep a mask of ecstatic joy plastered on your mug while customers pissed and shit on you all day. Honestly, the whole ‘keep a smile on’ was probably someones fucking corporate roleplay kink that had spun completely out of control and now society couldn’t fucking function unless the little guys kept their faces placid and said ‘thank you’ every time some shitass Kerighynn screamed and spat on them. Whoever came up with that idea should be dragged by the spine into the center of town and skinned alive in front of a cheering crowd of service workers while--
“Hey, this doesn’t have a price on it.”
He was snapped back to the 7-12 reality by the floating, mustachioed hexagon in front of his counter. There were actually a lot more people in here than he had expected based on the size of the van outside. He slid his cell phone into the gap under the cash register and blandly looked over the pile of stuff the clearly-cop-coded guy had slammed onto the counter. It was holding up a bottle of Malort accusingly at him, waving it through the air like it had personally insulted the queen of Old Zealand. The small teal creature drug itself in through the door and stood there miserably, muck clinging to the edges of a large opening in its skull.
“Hey, you can’t bring your pet in here, man. No dogs or personal non-sentient life forms incapable of legally wielding credit or tender allowed.” He ignored the quivering bottle of booze to point at the filthy thing currently dripping onto the floor.
The hexagon turned to look at the creature before turning back to snarl at him. “That’s not my fucking dog, man. How much is this? And you’ll take this EBT card, right?”
A large pink female poked her head over the aisle to glower at the soaking, whimpering thing in the door.
“Keyhole, get your ass over here and pick out what chips you want. Quit standing there being nasty,” she said before returning her attention to the energy drink fridge.
His eyes focused back down to the counter, happy to no longer be looking at ‘Keyhole’ anymore. There was something really disconcerting about that guy, if he was a guy, even to a level he wasn’t used to dealing with. And that was something coming from a clerk at a 7-12 in the Nightmare Realm. He saw a rubbery red hand waving a couple of food stamp cards at him and pushing the unpriced Malort closer.
“I–” he started saying, before his attention snapped up.
Another member of this group of whackjobs had started wailing about the price of jerky as another one started pulling every pack of Bludweiser out of the fridge and stacking them on the floor.
“Hey!” Keyhole yelled while wiping a grimy hand on the wall. “What’s the code to your bathroom?”
“It’s 63–” He was cut off again by the hexagon.
“Hey, I was asking you something first! What’s a guy gotta do around here to get a little service? Don’t worry about him. He’ll just go in the corner if he needs to. Can you run these cards or–”
“I just wanna wash my feet! I told you I didn’t need to go!” Keyhole squealed in indignation as a tin of roasted peanuts hit the side of his head.
“No one wants to hear about your fucking feet, Keyhole!” A different shape-looking guy picked up another tin of peanuts and made to aim at Keyhole again.
“I don’t think that EBT cards work for alcohol, sir. And these are made out to a ‘Susan Wellington.’ Are you Susan Wellington? Can I see some ID?” He tried to wrangle his attention back to the counter before catching a long, green arm reaching past him to grab at the cigarettes. “Hey! Sir, please wait your turn. I’ll be happy to assist you after–”
His phone buzzed under the register. The scary-looking wide guy with a baby face on his torso opened a bottle of rum and started pouring it on his head. The woman started superheating the taquitos and laughing as they exploded. The grey shape guy started just carrying the cases of beer towards the door while the hexagon started grabbing for the scanner and card reader to check himself out while the green gargoyle started reaching for the cigarettes with his other hand instead. The chaos began overlapping, triggering the signature 7-12 mental anguish force field.
The turnover at your average 7-12 is kindly termed ‘astronomical’ in the convenience store industry. The franchise location of one Mr. Arbott was no standout in terms of employee retention, maintaining a steady 3 resignations per month. When school was out, the local teenagers filtered through like water in a fish tank. Every now and then, one would wash out in a flood of low self-esteem or desperation, and Mr. Arbott would be able to grind them into the mortar for years instead of mere weeks. But generally, no one stayed employed or lingered in Mr. Arbott’s office long enough to notice the wall plastered with the mugshots and CCTV still-frames of banned customers.
If he had been more observant of his employer’s back office, he would have known that this particular group of misfits and malignant miscreants had been arrested at this particular 7-12 multiple times and banned from 95% of 7-12 properties across the multiverse. He would have known to call the cops at the mere approach of their shitty ‘94 Plymouth Voyager. He would have slipped out the back door and been halfway home by the time they had gotten out of the ditch or been struck with an overwhelming appreciation of the inherent value of his own life.
As it was, moments after the mental anguish force field kicked in, he was cowering under the counter as he watched a long green hand grab both of the Kangaroo Crush Menthol cartons from behind the counter. He listened to the combined and overlapping bitching of the group in the store as they made their way back outside. After a moment, the store went quiet, and the only sound penetrating the field was the sad sputtering of their van starting up outside and pulling away.
hey where are you, they said theyre there
It was getting hot in here. The windows had completely fogged over by the time he managed to pull himself back to his feet. The fire had spread from the hot rollers to the paper good storage next to the restroom, filling the cramped space with acrid smoke and sweltering heat. Broken bottles littered the aisles, the standee of DJ GooMaster 8k 4R34L had been torn in half, the travel-ready lithium battery packs were beginning to swell dangerously.
I’m on my way
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“We gotta go get Amy,” 8-Ball insisted for the third time in the last 15 minutes.
“I fucking heard you the first time,” Kryptos groused, batting back 8-Ball’s hand from the wheel as he wove the van down the freeway. “But I’m not fucking driving all the way out there. Traffic is shit this time of day.”
“Traffic is fine once you get there. There’s always street parking right in front of the building,” Hectorgon quipped.
“I’m not fucking talking to you!” Kryptos took the mirror off a slow-moving Dodge Dart as they passed.
“Just fucking go get Amy, Kryptos. We’re gonna need the space if we’re trying to bust into Friar Hucks,” Pyronica said, idly rolling her window up and down.
“And just why are we doing that anyway? I saw you get vodka from the 7-12. Friar Hucks is locked down tighter than a–”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Pyronica snapped, glaring at Kryptos. “It’s not the right kind, and we’re not going back until we actually have enough to stock the bar. That’s the whole point of this stupid fucking outing. Because someone decided to drink all of my whipped cream vodka–”
“That was you,” someone said from behind her.
“That’s not the point! Turn around! Go get Amy! Fuck!” Pyronica blazed, melting the plastic fabric of the passenger seat. “This is why I always just take Xanthar out.”
“We’re going to pick Amy up?” Pacifire grumbled from the far back seat as Kryptos cut across traffic to take an exit. “I hate her stupid neighbors.” He shuddered after the van had tipped back onto all four tires. “They possess an evil that cannot be contained. It leeches into the air, the soil, the very brickwork of the apartment complex. Even I fear for the soul of any being fool enough to tread there.”
“Can we stop at that café that’s in the lobby? I love their hot chocolate!” Keyhole asked brightly. He was answered with a chorus of shouts and fists, a bludgeoning ‘absolutely not’ from his companions as the van phased into the dimension where the mysterious Amy resided in her off time.