Chapter Text
Shuriken couldn’t sleep. Again. His mouth was dry, and when he turned to look at the clock on his nightstand, even the numbers' dim light made his headache worse. 3:00 AM. He’d gotten home from his nightly patrol of the city around 1:00 AM. He’d only gotten two hours of sleep, and knowing how nights like this usually went for him, he wasn’t gonna get any more. This was the third night in a row that Shuri had ended up sitting in bed, staring at the ceiling.
He had come to Crossroads with Vinestaff and Slingshot when he was only 19, and only a few months in, he became a vigilante, just to take the edge off how stir-crazy he was getting from living in the city. And for the first year or two, that had been working for him. He worked at a cafe with his siblings during the day, bored out of his skull, and then once they were asleep, he would go out and fight a mugger or a corrupt cop. He’d even seen Banhammer a few times. They weren’t on good terms exactly, but Shuri made his job a little bit easier, and he skirted being arrested because of it.
But a few months back, that system had started to fall apart. It had started with the insomnia. A few nights a week, he just couldn’t fall asleep after getting back from a patrol. Then it started to become almost every night, and soon enough, Shuri was downing entire pots of coffee behind Sling and Vine’s backs just to keep himself standing. After that was the anxiety. The mix of sleep deprivation and caffeine was making his brain so shot that he got paranoid about everything that could expose his second life to the people around him.
Shuriken just sat there for a long time, sitting up in bed and staring into space. His leg bounced restlessly under the blanket. Finally, the need to go to the bathroom and take a Tylenol for his headache won over his need to keep quiet and not wake up his siblings, and he rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. He was blinded by light the second he flipped the light switch, and could barely keep his eyes open as he walked to the cabinet and opened it up, finding the bottle and fumbling with the lid. He didn’t even bother to take a tablet or two out, just put it to his mouth and upended the bottle, choking the bitter medicine down dry. He’d regret this later, but his brain was more focused on immediate problems. He took a piss, the loud sound of the toilet flushing making him flinch slightly.
He couldn’t make himself go back to bed now. Something about another two hours of sitting in bed made his stomach twist, so he walked to the kitchen and sat down on the counter, absent-mindedly doomscrolling on his phone until he heard footsteps coming from the hallway.
Slingshot was barely taller than Shuri, thin but muscular, with calloused hands and a scar running down the length of his right arm. His hair was short and straight, and stuck to his sweaty forehead slightly. He was always sweaty either because he ran so hot or because he was always in a hot kitchen.
“Morning,” Shuri said, putting his phone on the counter next to him. Sling fliinched, his eyes widening when he noticed he wasn’t alone.
“Shuri?” He mumbled sleepily. “What are you doing up?”
“Couldn’t sleep, I guess. Want some coffee?” Shuri replied. Slingshot tilted his head slightly, giving Shuri a weird look, before shrugging and walking over. Shuri hopped off the counter and pulled the coffee beans out of the cabinet as Slingshot got the coffee maker. They both stared at the various smaller spoons they would have usually used to measure out a non-life-threatening amount of caffeine, but tonight they just looked at each other, silently agreed to never tell Vinestaff anything, and Slingshot dumped half the bag into the coffee maker and turned it on. They stood in silence, listening to the ambient sounds of the coffee maker and the city outside.
“You’re usually not up this early. You ok?” Slingshot asked, taking the pot and pouring it into two mugs. Shuriken took one and put it up to his lips, ignoring the immediate burning sensation in his throat as he took a sip.
“Yeah, just one of those nights, y’know?” Shuri said nonchalantly, leaning on the counter. Sling nodded. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, Sling had been having the same problems as him lately. The conversation died out again after that point. It wasn’t awkward. This happened sometimes. Shuri and Sling would both have insomnia, one from overworking himself and the other from reasons he couldn’t begin to comprehend, and they would end up in the kitchen, drinking lethal doses of caffeine in the dark until Vinestaff woke up and scolded them about getting enough sleep. It was nice, honestly. Having someone around, without having to drain his already dead social battery. Just silent comfort before everything went to shit again.
Slingshot’s phone pinged, and they both looked up. Slingshot only had a few contacts on his phone, barely more than Shuri and Vine. Obviously, they were on the list, along with Skateboard and Boombox, and the owner of Theives’ Rest, the cafe the three of them worked at. Unfortunately, the text came from that last one, which only meant one thing: His lazy ass had forgotten to take any of the stock out of the big shipping truck that came every week to drop off big boxes of ingredients, and instead of just getting up and doing it himself, he was going to make Sling, Shuri, and Vine unload the truck.
Sling sighed. “Get dressed and wake up, Vinestaff. He still wants to open at the usual time, so we’re gonna have to be quick.” Shuri grimaced, but didn’t complain, going down the hall to Vine’s room and pounding on the door. After a few minutes of that, the door swung open, and Vinestaff loomed over him, looking like she was on the brink of choking him out.
“It’s 3:30, what do you want? Heck, why are you even up?” She questioned, putting her hands on her hips.
“Boss didn’t restock again,” Shuriken answered simply. Now Vinestaff just looked pissed in general, instead of at Shuri specifically, which was a little better but still made him a bit nervous.
“Oh,” Vine grumbled, sighing. “Gimme a minute.” She disappeared into her room to change out of her pajamas, and Shuriken did the same. There was barely anything clean to wear, but Shuriken managed to find a button-up shirt and cargo pants that didn’t smell or have mysterious stains on them. He quickly fumbled his converse onto his feet and ran out the door of the apartment.
Slingshot was waiting outside, sitting in the driver's seat of the car. It was a beat-up piece of shit, but they couldn’t afford better. Vinestaff was in the shotgun seat, and the car only had two seats, so Shuri ended up having to sit in the dreaded trunk, which he often got forced into because he was the smallest and would get the least back pain and asleep limbs back there.
Lugar was a lardass of an inphernal with big, ram-like horns, a baseball cap that hid the bald spot on the back of his head, and a stained shirt that barely fit his fat gut. Shuriken hated him. Vinestaff and Slingshot hated him. Most of the top layer hated him, really.
“You kids were supposed to be here by 4:00, sharp,” He muttered, taking a drag of his cigarette.
“We live across the city, what were supposed to do? Besides, it’s only 4:30,” Vinestaff complained, glaring at Lugar. He glared right back at her. The only one who wanted to murder Lugar more than Shuri was his sister, and she was even more vocal about it than he was, which was kind of impressive with how much Shuri talked.
“Well, now you’ve got 30 less minutes to get all the shit in that truck–” He gestured to the truck, the back piled high with boxes. “–Into my fucking place of business. Now get to work.” He walked inside the cafe. Vinestaff was the first to break the silence between the three of them.
“I’m gonna kill him,” She grumbled. Vine was not an angry person. She only ever got angry at three people: Shuriken, Slingshot, and Lugar. And even with the two of them, she never got mad enough to make death threats as she did with that fat fuck they had to work for.
“You’re not going to kill him because if you do, we’re all out of a job. And what then, huh? We end up on the street again?” Sling retorted, crossing his arms. “This is the only source of income we have until the next phight.”
“And that’s only if we can win the next phight. Remember how things went last time?” Shuri said. They all shivered at the memory of the last phight. They had gotten their shit rocked so bad that they didn’t get a bonus for making it entertaining. It had been Shuriken’s fault for having such bad performance the whole match. Nobody said it, but Shuri knew that was his fault.
“Alright, it’s Friday. We just need to make it through today, and then we get a break.” Sling said, trying his best to lighten the mood. He was failing. Badly. But still, all three of them walked over to the truck and started carrying the boxes out to the cafe. Lugar was nowhere to be seen, probably in his office on the second floor. They stocked the kitchen and the storage rooms in the back. It took them 30 minutes, and by the end, Shuriken was starting to feel the lack of sleep getting to him. Still, he tried not to slouch too much and keep his eyes open. Shuri knew all too well that the second he started showing any signs of not being ok, Vinestaff would be up his ass about it. And what then? She tells Slingshot? He calls off participating in the phight?
That might have been a good outcome, actually. Less pressure on Shuri to do well in a competition he pretended to be enthusiastic about when he was already performing poorly as of late. When the last box was placed in the storage room, Shuri slipped away to the bathroom. It was spotless, thanks to a mix of Slingshot’s OCD and Shuriken’s boredom, leading the two of them to clean everything regularly. He locked himself in a stall and sat down on the paper towel dispenser so his shoes couldn’t be seen from outside the stall. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.
Despite how much Tylenol Shuri had downed earlier that morning, his headache had only gotten worse, but the quiet of the bathroom was making it more of a dull throbbing. Shuri didn’t know how much time had passed, but apparently it was long enough that he heard the door open and Slingshot’s voice echo off the linoleum walls.
“Hey Shuri, you ok in here? It’s been 15 minutes, and we’re opening soon,” He said. Shuri scrambled off the paper towel dispenser, flushing the toilet to make it seem like he had actually been doing something. Not like that mattered. He had gone to the bathroom back at the apartment, and it’s not like he drank enough that he would need to go again anytime soon. He opened the door and turned to find Slingshot standing in the doorway of the bathroom, his tail flicking from side to side anxiously.
“Yeah, sorry, I just zoned out. Where’s Lugar?” Slingshot sighed.
“Still upstairs. We probably won’t see him again until he decides to bug us during rush hour.”
“Awesome,” Shuriken said sarcastically. He didn’t make direct eye contact with Sling. He didn’t want to draw attention to how bad his eye bags had gotten. He had probably already noticed, but better not to risk anything. Slingshot had enough to deal with without knowing that Shuri was going out every night to play hero. He couldn’t put that stress on him. They walked out of the bathroom, and Shuri pulled on his apron and nametag, and flipped the sign at the front door from closed to open.
Working at Thieves’ Rest was just short of being in hell, which was saying something, knowing Shuriken had grown up in a region where the plants can kill you. Shuriken was the waiter of the cafe, which basically meant that he had to be polite to people while running on barely any sleep and feeling like his head was going to explode if he saw one more customer come through the door. The afternoon was the worst, since that’s when all of Lugar’s friends came to pay him a visit. Lugar always closed the cafe and made Shuriken run upstairs to the stash of liquor in Lugar’s office and bring it back to the dirty table near the counter where the assholes played poker and said things that made Slingshot have to physically hold Vinestaff back so she wouldn’t murder Lugar.
Shuri sat up on the counter between alcohol runs, leaning back and exhaling slowly. Vinestaff was behind the register, idly drumming her fingers against the counter.
“How are you holding up?” Vinestaff asked, sitting up slightly. Shuri turned around to look at her, not making eye contact.
“Could be worse, you?” Shuri replied, trying to look less tired than he was. Vinestaff was about to answer when she was cut off by Lugar.
“Hey, Twigshit! Get us another round!” Shuri turned away from Vinestaff as he silently hopped off the counter, but he could feel her alternating between staring at him and glaring at Lugar and his buddies. He rushed upstairs, finding Lugar’s office and pushing the door open. Just like the guy who lived there, the office was dirty and smelled like smoke, alcohol, and fast food, a far cry from the sickly sweet smell of pastries downstairs. There was a shitty mattress in the back of the room. Shuri went straight to the cabinet next to it, grabbing another bottle of whiskey. He once asked Lugar why he had to bring one bottle down at a time. Lugar just said something about being ‘classy’ and walked away.
Shuri stumbled down the stairs and put the bottle down on the table, ignoring how bad all the sweaty old fucks smelled and walking away before they could mock him again. Shuri thought he was actually going to drop dead until he looked up at the clock. It was 5:30. Lugar wouldn’t just let them go now, while his buddies were still around, not willingly, at least. But they were his only employees, and no matter how shitty he was, he couldn’t fire them. He made eye contact with Vinestaff. They both turned to see Slingshot peaking out of the kitchen, gesturing for them to follow him. The two of them walked as slowly and calmly as they could. Lugar was kind of like a dinosaur in those old movies: if you didn’t make sudden movement, he wouldn’t notice you.
Once all three of them were in the kitchen and out of sight, they sprinted towards the back door. Slingshot in the lead, Shuriken following close behind, and Vinestaff taking up the rear. For once, the old car started up on the first try, and despite the exhaustion, they all cheered, even Vine.
Shuriken leaped out of the back of the car, running into the apartment building and up the stairs. Once he made it to the door, he pulled a shitty old key from his pocket and fumbled to put it in the lock. He hoped Sling and Vine didn’t notice how much his hands were shaking when they finally caught up to him. Finally, he got it open and stepped inside. Vinestaff took up watering her plants the second she was through the door. Somehow, she always had enough energy to take care of all the giant ferns in the living room or the sunflowers she had planted on the balcony.
Shuriken didn’t care about any of that at the moment. He kept himself looking relatively alive and healthy, but the moment he was out of Vinestaff’s direct line of sight, he leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and sighing. His headache had only gotten worse, and all he could do was stumble to his room, lock the door behind him, and flop down on his bed.
Maybe he would get some sleep this time.