Chapter Text
January
gem of panem café team [lucky flickerman’s official hate page]
reaper So just to confirm: brandy’s officially fired
bobbin Damn I thought lucky might decide to actually be cool for once and let her off with a warning
lamina my guy she tried to stab a customer
marcus an ANNOYING customer
lamina well yes!
wovey BRANDY STABBED SOMEONE????????
wovey WHY DO I MISS EVERYTHING
reaper She didn’t actually try to stab her but she did throw a plastic knife at her from behind the counter
reaper Not as bad as stabbing but admittedly pretty bad
marcus again...an ANNOYING customer
dill OMG it was crazy!! I don't think it actually hit her but she did scream really loud and drop her croissant.
coral wait was it was that asshole from h*rvard who told us to go buy more soy milk for her when we were all out that one time
reaper Yep
coral then brandy is my hero bc i do not like that bitch at all
dill She was being crazy rude too. Brandy kept telling her that we were out of the matcha lemonade and that if she was upset she would have to direct her suggestions to the survey and then the girl was like “if you want a TIP you need to shut your mouth, fix your attitude, and treat me with the RESPECT that you OWE ME”
dill And then brandy threw the knife at her
mizzen Awww man i wish id been there for that
jessup #freebrandy she did that shit but she’s innocent
lamina brandy is so cool
lamina i would have just started crying
treech fork found in kitchen
lamina STOP IT
lamina YOU KNOW I DON’T RESPOND TO PRESSURE WELL
treech bruh you cried when you ripped a to-go bag last week
tanner And when you thought you lost your phone charger even though it turned out it was in your backpack the whole time
coral also when you tripped over your shoelace the other day
coral which was weird because you didn’t even fall over or anything. there was 0 reason for that to have been a stressful situation
treech you know how coral’s job is Mean and dill’s job is Cough Loud As Hell
dill C’mon man :(
coral accurate
treech your job is just Cry
lamina …you’re all lucky that brandy refused to get slack because if she were here i would hire her to throw things at you on my behalf
reaper Anyway lucky said he already hired someone else so let’s hope they aren’t violent
bobbin Ummmm no we need some1 violent to fill in for brandy
treech yeah who else is gonna remind ppl that we do not subscribe to that “the customer is always right” bullshit
mizzen Thats what coral is for
coral the Mean Lesbian urge to buy one of those trump FUCK YOUR FEELINGS hats just so ppl get a sense of what my whole vibe is
reaper Please don’t do that
tanner PLEASE DO THAT WTFFFF
At first, Coral thinks everyone’ll be on her side about their new hire.
For one, she makes her entrance to Gem of Panem right as Coral starts her break, which means that instead of getting to zone out on her phone or complain about the morning’s worst customers, she is held hostage—along with Dill, Reaper, and Tanner—by Lucky and his endless new-hire spiel.
For another, Lucy Gray—not just Lucy, it’s Lucy Gray, as she sweetly corrects their boss when he forgets; girls who are obsessed with their middle names tend to be The Fucking Worst—has way too smooth of a rapport with Lucky already, which hints at her being the corporate-bootlicking type, the kind of coworker who sells you out when your break lasts more than fifteen minutes or you eat even a crumb of the inventory at the end of a twelve-hour shift. Every expression that crosses her face during Lucky's simpering Welcome to the team, we’re all a family here speech looks practiced: this is the serious face for when Lucky talks about taking work seriously, this is the smile for when he talks about being friendly to customers, et cetera. Also, she laughs at his jokes, which, goddamn it, only encourages him to keep making them.
Though apparently, Lucy Gray’s dealt with her fair share of smarmy, barely-competent bosses before, because she manages to convince Lucky that there’s no need for him to train her, and she’s sure Reaper, as general manager, will be able to show her the ropes instead.
“So I know how things actually work,” she says to the rest of them wryly after Lucky leaves (the man has the attention span of a toddler, which is hell when there’s a crisis but preferable the rest of the time). She makes a show of massaging her face. “That I-love-working-retail smile really leaves your gums black and blue after a while, doesn't it?”
Reaper snorts. “Don’t worry, he never terrorizes us for more than half an hour at a time. I think he forgets that we exist whenever he’s not here.”
“Well, we love a boss with no object permanence.” Lucy Gray gestures grandly to the door. “Shall we?”
After the two of them head onto the floor, Coral gets ready to start a shit-talking session (starting with Lucy Gray’s old-ass combat boots that can not be practical to work a full shift in), only for Dill to immediately turn to her and Tanner with wide eyes.
“Oh my God,” she breathes. “That’s Lucy Gray.”
“No shit,” Coral answers bluntly. Normally it’s hard to be mean to Dill, but there are two minutes left on her break and she’s too pissed to mince words.
Dill shakes her head. “No, I mean—she’s famous. Sort of. Like, online?”
“Guess there’s no money in Internet fame anymore,” Coral snarks.
“I could’ve told you that,” says Tanner, whose dorm-room cooking tutorials, all of which involve illegal hot plates and air fryers, are always going viral. “I fuckin’ lose money bribing my RA not to report me.”
“You’re not the same kind of famous, though,” Dill points out hesitantly.
“They’re both working here, so I’m not sure they’re that different.” Coral finishes shoveling her lunch (half a blueberry muffin she’d snatched from the dining hall that morning) into her mouth and shakes the crumbs onto the floor. “No offense,” she adds to Tanner, who just shrugs.
Dill fights to find the right words as she reties her uniform apron. “But Lucy Gray’s on Spotify. She’s a real musician. I think I saw on her Instagram that she was starting at Berklee, but I didn’t think she would ever be here.” Her eyes get huge. “I used to watch her YouTube channel when I was in high school.”
“Try not to have an asthma attack about it,” Tanner advises her as he heads back to the kitchen.
Dill huffs indignantly, but does stop by her locker to puff on her inhaler. “Just to be safe,” she mumbles to Coral, who fights back a smirk.
Dill can’t stop stealing glances at Lucy Gray once they’re back behind the counter, where Reaper’s giving her a rundown on the cash register, the drip coffeemaker, and the perpetually fucked-up toaster during a lull in service.
“How’s everything going?” Coral asks brusquely, aiming the question mainly at Reaper. He’s got way better social skills than she does, but he’s not immune to sneaking her a Fucking Kill Me Now look behind someone’s back.
“Pretty good,” Reaper answers calmly, and seems to mean it. Maybe he’s just being polite. “Lucy Gray’s a master of the milk frother.”
Lucy Gray mock-preens for a moment. “God, don’t make me blush.” Coral wants to roll her eyes. Lucy Gray glances at her, like she can sense the annoyance; she’s probably not used to people not falling over themselves to obsess over her. “Reaper says you’re somethin’ of an artist yourself when it comes to coffee,” she offers.
“That’s a massive overstatement,” Coral answers flatly.
“No, it’s not,” Dill pipes up. “I don’t even like coffee that much, but Coral made me a London Fog when I had a cold last month, and I swear, my sinuses were, like, exfoliated.” Dill flounders for a minute, like even she can’t tell if that made sense. “It was just really good,” she finishes with a shy shrug.
What’s Dill’s fucking problem? Coral feels like she’s being ganged up on. “Anyone can make a London Fog, it’s fuckin’ easy,” she snaps. Reaper looks amused by the entire interaction. Coral wishes the stupid toaster would explode again.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Lucy Grays says to Dill in a stage whisper. It’s like she wants Coral to hate her. “And remind me, honey, what’s your name again?”
Dill can barely eke out her one-syllable response before she launches into a coughing fit.
“It’s fine,” she wheezes. “I promise, I’m not contagious.”
“She’s really not,” vouches Reaper. (You shouldn’t insult Dill in front of any of them, but especially not in front of Reaper: they grew up in the same neighborhood in Augusta before they both ended up at BU. Coral knows firsthand that you don’t let anyone fuck with a kid you used to babysit.)
“It’s just my lungs,” Dill adds apologetically. “I got whooping cough, like, five times when I was a baby. I’ve been like this ever since.”
“Oh, honey,” sighs Lucy Gray, sounding immediately concerned. “My little cousin had every illness under the sun at least once back when we lived in Ohio. You ever get croup?”
“Yes!” Dill lights up, then starts to wheeze again. “It, um, didn’t help.”
Lucy Gray reaches out to rub her back. “Goodness, are you sure you’re okay? Do you keep an inhaler on you?”
“Uh-huh,” breathes Dill. “I mean—yeah, I keep one in my locker, in case I really need it. I’ve never had an attack that bad at work, though.”
“Well, let me know if you ever need me to grab that for you,” Lucy Gray says, sounding so sincere that this time, Coral physically cannot stop herself from rolling her eyes. Bitch, you’ve been here an hour. “Or if you ever need me to get between you and secondhand smoke, ’cause something tells me that could be deadly.”
Dill tries to play it cool when she laughs, but she’s practically got stars in her eyes over the idea of Lucy Gray From YouTube being invested in the state of her busted breatheway. But Dill is also barely eighteen, so she’s young enough to still fall prey to fake-nice coworkers. She’s got time to learn, like the rest of them.
gem of panem café team [hell but with really good tomato soup]
reaper Just messaging to add Lucy Gray
lucy gray induction to the unofficial employee slack chat...god i feel so loved <3
lucy gray everyone at my other job uses facebook messenger to communicate and i’m sorry but my country ass is not downloading facebook messenger in the year 2024!
jessup that’s sick and twisted
tanner I feel like my phone would immediately download a virus that made me say quanon bullshit if I installed Facebook messenger
mizzen I dont need facebook messenger for that. LET’S STORM THE CAPITOL AGAIN!
lamina JFIROESJGIREOS;G
marcus my toxic trait is that I think if I was in charge I could have made the insurrection really cool
marcus we would have been walking in with STYLE and CLASS
lucy gray y’all if the fbi busts into the store tomorrow leave me out of this!!
February
Coral’s not dramatic enough to say that she feels betrayed by her coworkers, because it’s Not That Serious. They’re not fucking brothers-in-arms charging onto the battlefield: they are retail workers making breakfast sandwiches and passionfruit smoothies. They have each another’s backs during hectic hours, they coordinate swapped shifts so they don’t have to ask Lucky for time off (there’s a whole patronizing lecture about Being A Team Player that he subjects you to if you ask; Coral had to hear it the first and only time she formally asked for a sick day, and it made her more nauseous than she’d already been), and they hang out outside of work sometimes. They’re friendly, maybe even friends, but they’re not close enough for anything they do to be considered a betrayal.
However, they can still baffle Coral to the point of questioning their sanity.
Because over the next two months, it’s not just Dill: everyone else starts to fall for Lucy Gray’s Whole Thing, too. Everything that Coral finds insufferable, they find cool, or whatever. They like her practically-all-vintage wardrobe and massive hoop earrings, which Coral thinks make her look like a consignment store mannequin come to life. They’re impressed that she does marathon shifts in heels and a full face of makeup and patterned bandanas that keep her thick curls tied back; Coral feels blisters forming and sweat dripping just looking at her. They love when she charms customers with her thick Appalachian accent and quirky banter, but Coral couldn’t find it more forced: it’s like she thickens the accent to drive up her tips. Lucy Gray requests to follow all of them on Instagram (probably just so they’ll follow her back and then she can stealth-unfollow them all), and so Coral is forced to witness Mizzen (who loves a rabbit hole) Insta-stalk her during their breaks. She’s got over forty thousand followers, somehow, in addition to (per Mizzen’s research) sixty-something thousand subscribers on YouTube and her band’s fifteen thousand monthly listeners on Spotify. Coral points out that that’s not that much, right, and Mizzen gives her an incredulous look.
“For someone who works here?”
Coral feels like the last person immune to a bout of mass hysteria as the month goes on. Everybody’s fascinated by the shiny new coworker who clearly adores being the center of attention; everybody’s a little bit in love with Lucy Gray. She’s got pads when Wovey’s period starts earlier than she expected and gum every time Tanner’s fighting the urge to go vape in the alley out back. She gently forces Mizzen to take a break from dishwashing when he’s been at it for almost two straight hours, and takes over for Bobbin when he’s so tired from midterms that he almost falls asleep into the pastry case. She sings—well, she sings all the fucking time, like she can’t go an hour without reminding them all that she’s got the voice of an angel—half the songbook of Leonard Bernstein so Jessup can recite piano scales as practice for his exams (music school is wild). She has advice for Dill about rushing sororities, and advice for Reaper about where to take the girl he’s seeing for dinner in Coolidge Corner, and advice for Marcus about missing his ex-boyfriend.
And Coral can’t help but feel semi-gaslit by it all. By the fact that everyone sees Lucy Gray and her fawning compliments, her doe eyes, her constant arm touches or pats on the back, her fucking singing, as cool instead of cringeworthy, as natural instead of a try-hard. They think her endless, exhausting, enviable charm is endearing instead of obnoxious. She’s Saint Lucy Gray of the Perpetual Humming, and everyone’s a fuckin’ disciple. Coral wouldn’t really give a shit about being a blasphemer if she weren’t the only one.
March
gem of panem café team [hell but with really good tomato soup]
lucy gray if anyone’s free this weekend my band + i are performing at the democracy center in cambridge on saturday night! it’s 18+ so no fakes necessary <3
marcus wow i wish i werent allergic to cambridge bc i would love to go otherwise
lucy gray marcus i will protect you from the heartbreak!!!!
dill !!!
reaper I’m busy that night
dill :((((
dill Pleeeeeeeeease can you just bring vivian with you?? I want to meet herrrr
reaper You know I keep my work life and my personal life separate
dill If that were true u wouldn’t forbid me from going out without supervision
reaper 1) You being in both my work AND personal life does not cancel out
reaper 2) I cannot physically stop you from going but I think it’s safer if someone goes with you that’s all
treech lamina and i are going dw
reaper Someone else
marcus LMAOOOOO
lucy gray REAPER!
lamina WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO US
tanner Simmons kids!!!! Everyone point and laugh at the SIMMONS KIDS!!!!
treech tf are we even being bullied over
tanner YOUR SCHOOL ISNT REAL
tanner YOU WILL NEVER HAVE AN ACTUAL CAMPUS
lamina we know but heyyyy
lucy gray pardon but why is dill not allowed out without an escort
dill Because reaper thinks just bc he’s known me since i was a baby AND he’s my current boss that means he can control my life
reaper Sure
reaper Or because you’re under five feet tall, barely legal, and prone to asthma attacks. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want someone to make sure she’s safe
lucy gray well cheers to that!
jessup okay well i was planning to go…do i pass the security clearance
reaper Not sure
jessup what the hell, man
reaper I respect you all
reaper I just don’t know if I can see any of you being able to defend Dill’s safety and well-being as thoroughly as possible
dill NO ONE HAS TO DEFEND ABOUT MY SAFETY AND WELL-BEING!!!! I CAN GO OUT BY MYSELF!!!!!
reaper But do you want to
dill Well
dill No
dill Will you please just come too :(((((
reaper I don’t think I can
marcus we’re watching reaper crumble in real time
jessup he’ll give in at any minute
treech dill send an audio of your most pathetic weak and ailing cough
lucy gray y’all i cannot stop laughing
coral HALF OF YOU NEED TO GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONES BECAUSE WHY THE HELL AM I THE ONLY ONE OUT FRONT
reaper Seconding that
Eventually, everyone starts getting sick of Coral’s acidity toward Lucy Gray.
“She’s not even a real celebrity,” Coral says one afternoon while sitting in the break room with Treech and Lamina, who were gushing about some cover that Lucy Gray had performed at her show that weekend. It’s probably the third or fourth time she’s said that in the two months since Lucy Gray was hired, but whatever. “So she went viral on Twitter a couple times. She makes the same mid coffee as the rest of us, so why the fuck are you so obsessed with her?”
“We never said we were obsessed with her.” Lamina picks at her yogurt. “We happen to like her singing.”
“And anyway, she’s interesting,” shrugs Treech.
“Interesting?” Coral rolls her eyes. “Give me a break, dude. It’s sooo interesting that she’s in, like, a musical commune and moves around the country and writes fuckin’ folk songs?”
“Uh.” Treech tugs on his beanie. “Yeah?”
“She’s a nice person, Coral,” adds Lamina patiently. “We like it when other people are nice. It makes us happy. It makes us want to be around them.”
Coral flips her off reflexively. Lamina and Treech give her a patronizing See? look in perfect sync.
“One, fuck you, it’s not my job to be nice,” spits Coral. “Two…Jesus, she’s not even nice! She’s just got, like, a beacon for misfortune.” She stabs a finger at Treech. “Anyone would have spit in that racist piece of shit’s coffee for you.” She turns her point to Lamina. “Or told that chode from your bio lab to fuck off and stop stalking you.”
“Riiight. Which was nice of her.” Lamina starts talking slowly, like Coral’s a feral toddler without manners. “Lucy Gray? Kind. Us? Like that. Also, she didn’t tell him to fuck off. She told him that I wasn’t looking to date anyone right now, which was way less likely to get me, like, harassed.”
“Also, you never spit in coffee,” adds Treech. “You just intimidate people until they leave. This way, at least we got tipped.”
“You’re telling me that guy tipped?”
“Not consciously. Lucy Gray included 50% gratuity in his order, and he didn’t notice.” Treech and Lamina both crack up. Fuck. That’s actually pretty funny.
“Anyway, you don’t have to like her,” Lamina finally concedes, going back to her lunch. “Just don’t expect the rest of us to blindly hate her, too.”
“Is she secretly bullying you or something?” asks Treech.
“We’re too old to get bullied,” snorts Coral. “And I don’t hate her.” She spends a lot of time interrogating her coworkers as to why the hell they all like Lucy Gray so much: answers range from “She’s super sweet” (Wovey) to “She’s really easy to work with” (Jessup) to “She doesn’t ask me why I like other employees while I’m trying to fix the toaster. Can you hand me that screwdriver?” (Reaper). But whenever they try to hit back at her and ask her why the hell she doesn’t like Lucy Gray, she deflects. For some reason, Coral can’t bring herself to declare “She’s annoying” or “She’s weird.” She’s already on thin ice when it comes to being regarded as a Lovable Asshole; that would probably tip her into Regular Asshole territory.
(Anyway, the one time she’d tried to use “fuckin’ theatre kid energy” as an excuse, Marcus had said, “Theatrical Design and Production major says what?”, and Coral almost Pulled A Brandy (their new shorthand for throwing shit at another person) before Reaper told them both to finish restocking the napkins and save the fighting for after hours.)
“It’s just—” A rant bubbles out of Coral before she can let the subject die. Treech drops his head back dramatically and Lamina makes a Put Upon Face.
"Why does she always invite us all out all the time? I know you guys won’t stop spamming the old chat with her goddamn Spotify links, but we’re not, like, her fans. We’re her coworkers. We don’t need to go cheer her on like groupies.” Coral pauses. “’Cept Dill, I guess, but she’s, like, a toddler, so.”
“Her band is really good,” Lamina says faintly.
“You should come see them sometime,” adds Treech. “Let the music heal you.”
“I don’t need fucking healing—”
“Songs so good they cure internalized misogyny,” Lamina interrupts, sending herself and Treech into hysterics.
“Oh, get fucked,” Coral snaps, and stalks out of the break room.
It’s fucking annoying that they won’t just let her be a hater. Does she have to have an itemized list of legitimate offenses committed by Lucy Gray in order to complain? Fine. It would probably look something like:
THINGS THAT PROVE LUCY GRAY ISN’T FLAWLESS AND IS, IN FACT, A NORMAL FUCKING HUMAN BEING:
1) She can barely lift twenty pounds.
2) She’s terrible at making cold brews (she never steeps the water long enough).
3) She didn’t hold the break room door for Mizzen when he was leaving right behind her that one time. (Mizzen keeps insisting that she just didn’t see him and that she usually holds the door, but regardless.)
So that’s not that much. Fuck you, they’re still reasons.
The internalized misogyny of it all really fucking stings, though. Coral could swear that it used to be normal—correct, even—to hate other women: you were supposed to call them vapid sluts or whatever, to differentiate yourself (intellectual, chaste, interested in masculine shit in a wholly un-masculine way) from them. Except Coral had always thought that was misogynistic bullshit. She didn’t want to be seen as One Of The Boys when she wore baggy flannels or kept her hair cropped short; she wanted to be seen as, well, not One Of The Girls either, but just as her fucking self. Coral, whoever that was, butch lesbian, whatever gender that was, she/her pronouns, sure, fuck it, who cared. Couldn’t you just not care? Couldn’t you be a woman, whatever that meant, without having to wear a uniform?
Sure, you could. It’s just that you were wrong to do so, based on Coral’s experience from roughly twenty-one years of being alive and socializing with other women. They were never interested in inviting her to be a part of The Sisterhood. Some snake-eating-its-tail bullshit: other women saw that Coral was friends with mostly men, therefore meaning she must hate women and crave male attention; Coral was only friends with mostly men because women excluded her for being friends with mostly men. It was like no one could imagine that Coral might make a decision without thinking about how a dude would either be repulsed by or get off on it. You were hated if you tried to get their attention; you were hated if you didn’t try to, because that was shaming other women, somehow.
(Coral would like to blame her lack of dating life on all that bullshit, but alas, lesbophobia could not be blamed for her total lack of game. She’s hardly a fucking incel, thank you very much, but as Mizzen put it sympathetically, she was still “rizz deficient.” Whatever.)
Lucy Gray was the first girl in a long time to neither be intimidated nor turned off by Coral’s Whole Vibe. She was perfectly nice, in fact. “You make it look so easy,” she’d sighed while helping Coral take inventory of the stockroom; “I’m tellin’ you, you have a gift,” she’d commented after trying Coral’s iced coffee. Even when Coral answered with monosyllabic grunts or flat rebuttals (“It’s the same gift a Keurig has”), Lucy Gray’s eye rolls always seemed more amused than annoyed. But Coral couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all so fake, like a pending transaction. I graciously compliment you, Lucy Gray probably thought, and in return, you swear your undying admiration and adoration of me. Her fucking fan club didn’t need any more members.
After pacing the walk-in freezer and letting her internal storm calm a bit, Coral checks her phone and realizes there are still ten minutes left on her break. She doesn’t have the humility to go back to the break room or the temperament to head out front (well, when does she ever, but she’s especially lacking congeniality at the moment) so she decides to be assistant-managerial and proactive and all that résumé-building shit by taking care of the kitchen trash cans. It’s gross, but it doesn’t require fake-smiling: Coral can scowl as much as she wants as she snaps out fresh plastic liners, knots the old bags, and lugs them out to the back alley. It’s almost therapeutic.
But of course, just as her inner rage has almost evaporated, the universe remembers that it fucking hates her. As Coral is heaving the final bag over the edge of the dumpster, its propped-open lid shakes precariously before mercilessly dropping down onto her right hand, which was stupidly and innocently resting on its ledge. Coral shrieks, which turns into a bellow as she yanks her hand free, which turns into a prolonged groan as the pain does not subside in the slightest. She clutches her fingers—fucking piece of shit landed right under her knuckles—and begins mumbling every curse she can think of, leaning against the brick wall and letting a few hot tears spill down her cheeks. Son of a fucking bitch, this is not my fucking day, huh?
Right as she lets out a stream of profanity—Dickfuck shit bitch fucking suck my dick—Saint Lucy Gray appears in the propped-open doorway. She looks concerned but a little wary. Probably upset that Coral’s loud-ass reaction to her injury interrupted her while she was, like, singing the daily specials to a bunch of enraptured customers.
“Very impressive,” Lucy Gray offers, sounding a little wry but also a little hesitant, like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to make jokes at Coral or not. “I think that may have been, verbatim, what I wanted to say to the toaster last week. What happened?”
“Just the fucking dumpster lid,” Coral mumbles. She tries shaking out her hand to show indifference, but it immediately starts to throb again, and she hisses with regret.
Lucy Gray tsks and, without asking, reaches for Coral's hand. “God, it got you good.” She rubs Coral's knuckles, where the skin is bright red and a big-ass bruise is definitely going to form. Her hands are soft and warm, which Coral finds herself not immediately pissed off by. It's comforting, like what she imagines an older sister would act like. But okay, how annoying is that? They're the same goddamn age. “Well, let’s leave it here to think about what it’s done. In the meantime, why don’t we get you some ice.” Lucy Gray keeps her right hand around Coral’s and touches her shoulder with her left. “C’mon. Wovey’s covering for me out front.”
Coral cannot believe that Lucy Gray is trying that nurturing shit on her. She yanks her hand away (bad idea! It really hurts!). “I’m fine, seriously.” For some reason, she can’t make her voice as venomous as it usually is. She really wants to cry again. Bitch-ass dumpster. “I’m just gonna stay out here for the rest of my break, and I’ll be fine when I come back in.”
Lucy Gray presses her lips together but nods, releasing Coral and heading back inside. Bullet dodged. Coral slides down the brick wall, rubbing at her knuckles and mumbling swears half-heartedly. Her already-shitty mood is quickly spiraling into self-pity mode, where she can’t stop her brain from making the worst of one bad thing. Can’t even throw trash away right. Everyone’s just tolerating you. Such a fucking dick to them. Going to be stuck wasting away at this place forever. Never going to do anything. Stupid bitter asshole, why are you crying, stop fucking crying, just grow up already—
“Alright, I know you don’t want to come back inside, but I figured—” Lucy Gray comes gliding back into the alley, cradling a lumpy dish towel, but stops short when she sees Coral crying. Her big brown eyes widen, and she strides right over to Coral like she’s a wounded baby animal on the side of the road. “God, hon, is it that bad?” she asks, crouching down.
“Fuck off,” Coral croaks before she can stop herself. Hon. She doesn't want to be doted upon, doesn’t want to owe Lucy Gray her gratitude, to have to admit that she was wrong about her or whatever. She wants to be left alone with her thoughts until she’s borderline suicidal, and then go back to work like nothing happened. It makes her feel tough, like she can beat anything, but she can’t do that if Lucy Gray is hovering like Florence Nightingale (that’s that famous nurse, right?), trying to score Good Person Points off of her pain.
Lucy Gray does not fuck off. She doesn’t stop looking sympathetic, but she raises her eyebrows and there’s a dryness in her voice when she says, “Hey now, I didn’t smash your hand, did I?” She holds out the towel. “This isn’t a cure-all, but it’ll do something.” Coral stares at it warily. “Good Lord, Coral, it’s an ice pack,” Lucy Gray snorts. “Famously helpful for injuries?”
Okay, so Lucy Gray can get bitchy when she wants. Coral snatches the towel with her non-suffering hand and sets it over her stinging knuckles. Lucy Gray stands up, rests her hands on her hips, runs her tongue along her gums. Is she seriously waiting for a thank you? She’ll be out here all fucking day, if that’s the case. Coral glances at her shoes. They’re fucking embroidered. This girl is not from the real world.
“Alright, well. Take your time out here.” Lucy Gray finally turns to go. “I’ll cover as long as you need.”
Coral can’t bring herself to eke out Thanks, so she just watches Lucy Gray disappear back inside. Great. Now she owes the bitch.
(Maybe not the best thing to think if you’re trying to beat the internalized misogyny allegations.)
Lucy Gray went and blabbed about Coral’s hand to everybody, apparently, because when Coral slinks back inside (her hand still aching but, fucking damn it, feeling slightly more tolerable thanks to the ice pack), Treech and Lamina are hovering by the back door. Instead of continuing to be huge assholes, they say sympathetic things and cuss out the dumpster and let Coral take inventory (which is mostly just subtraction, since Lucky is always forgetting to order shit no matter how many painfully professional Slack messages Coral sends him) for the rest of her shift. She rushes out the door as soon as her shift is done, walks against the wind all the way through the Common, and collapses on her bed, outdoor clothes and all, as soon as she’s back in her dorm.
Coral fully intends to take a massive nap, just to turn her brain off from this shitty day, but the reminder of Lucy Gray holding out that ice pack is nagging at her. Maybe part of her just hates the idea of giving Lucy Gray a real reason to dislike her (besides nearly two full months of the cold shoulder). Maybe she doesn’t want to do something to really hurt Lucy Gray’s feelings, like there was some line she was unaware of until she’d crossed it and found that it felt bad. Maybe she’s just begrudgingly grateful that her bruise isn’t swelling as bad as it looked like it would pre-ice pack.
Whatever.
Coral opens up Slack and shoots off a message before she can stop herself.
gem of panem café team [lucy gray]
coral was in a terrible mood for obvious reasons earlier but wanted to thank you for your help, really appreciated you covering for me
coral would tell you to take my share of tips but i literally made a dollar seventy-five before smashing my hand so you might as well let me have it as bus fare
Coral switches her phone to Do Not Disturb. Then powers it off. Then drops it in her backpack and slides her backpack all the way across the room and underneath her desk. You are the most embarrassing person alive, she thinks before switching off her light and committing herself to sleeping like the dead.