back nextWhen Dirt peddled up to the 7-11 on his bike the night after he got back from his trip, he was alarmed to find that there was a giant construction hole in the parking lot, blocking all of the handicapped parking spots as well as four other regular spots, and was surrounded by traffic cones and caution tape and also those... I don't know what they're called but they're like traffic cones except they're not cones, they're poles. Anyway, the caution tape also blocked off the inclined cement that let wheelchair users get onto the sidewalk, so anyone in a wheelchair or other mobility device that can't go over curbs would be unable to get into the store.
"Hey, what's with the big hole outside?" Dirt asked Amber as he walked inside.
"Yeah, I have no idea. It's been like that for the past few days," she responded with a shrug as she left her spot behind the counter and went to go count inventory.
"That's... bad... It's like, blocking all the handicap spots..."
"Yeah, no, I have no idea what they're doing," Amber reiterated.
"I'm gonna ask Christie if she knows..."
11:01PM
me: do you know whats up with the construction in the parking lot?
Christie: no lol it's been like that for three days & havent even seen anyone working on it for two
me: what the hell?? ok...
Christie: yeah lol i asked tyler and he didnt know either he said hed ask the owner but i havent heard back yet
me: thats weird... its blocking all the fuckin handicapped spots its fucked up
Christie: yeah :/ i wish i knew, its annoying as hell 💀 customers keep asking abt it too
me: fun
Christie: 💀💀💀
Dirt slid his phone back into his pocket. "Christie and Tyler don't know either," he told Amber.
"Weird..." Amber shook her head, and wrote something on her clipboard.
"Do you want me to do counts? I'm actually sober right now," Dirt chuckled a little, assuming Amber was high as usual.
Amber laughed, "Nah nah it's fine. I'm not like... SUPER high... I had a joint like an hour ago, I'm fine," she assured them. "Anyway, how was your trip?" she asked.
"Hah, well, it was for a funeral, so... Not really a splendid little vacay or anything," said Dirt.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I had no idea, sorry for your loss..." Amber said pitifully.
Dirt shrugged, "Nah it's fine, my grandpa sucked."
"Oh! Haha...." she laughed nervously.
"But uh, it was interesting to see my hometown again... I hadn't been in three years, it was weird... Oh, and! I have a sister! My-my sister came out as a trans girl!" Dirt said proudly.
"Aw, nice!" Amber smiled. Just then, a customer entered the store, and Dirt welcomed them, but they ignored him and went wandering around the aisles.
As the one customer was wandering around, another one came in as well. They were wearing a pizza hut uniform shirt with their pizza hut hat on backwards and Dirt felt instant camaraderie. They had a teal mullet and pale skin (though not nearly as pale as Dirt's) and noticable dark circles under their eyes. They were shorter than Dirt, by about a foot, he guessed. This dude looks nonbinary as hell. "Hey, welcome!" Dirt greeted them in company policy fashion.
"Hey. What's up with the... hole out front?" asked pizza hut dude.
"Ah, I think they're just doin' that for fun," Dirt joked.
"...Really?" pizza hut dude asked, like they genuinely believed it for a second.
"N-nah, I don't know what's goin' on with that, I was just jokin' around," Dirt admitted.
"Oh. Haha!" pizza hut dude laughed. Dirt looked over at Amber and saw her silently snickering as well. Pizza hut dude went about their shopping.
The other customer came up to the register with five of those microwavable mac and cheese bowl things and dropped them on the counter. "Find everything okay?" Dirt asked.
"...Dirt? Your name is Dirt?" asked the customer as they squinted at Dirt's nametag, completely ignoring the question he'd just asked.
"Yup," Dirt said with a smile. Here we go again...
"Huh.. interesting....." said the customer in a way that made it very clear they were judging him. Dirt nodded politely and rung up their items, and the Customer Service Script went as usual.
Then pizza hut dude came up to the counter with just a bottle of cherry coke. "Find everything you were lookin' for?" Dirt asked.
"Yep!" pizza hut dude replied enthusiastically as they pulled their wallet out of their back pocket. "Cool name, by the way! Is that a.. chosen name, or...."
"Hah.. No, it's my given one."
"Oh, really? Your parents must be cool. Or.... bad? I guess that could go either way," they laughed nervously.
"Haha! Weird. My parents are weird. I'm Dirt and my little sister is Clay," Dirt told them.
"Ha! Seriously??"
"Yeah," Dirt chuckled. He almost felt, like, second-hand gender euphoria when he talked about Clay and called her his sister and stuff. He was so, so proud of her! I hope she's doing okay.. That mom's not giving her any trouble... I should check in with her on my break. "Your name is super cool, too, man!" Dirt said, noncommittally pointing at pizza hut dude's nametag, upon noticing that it said Porygon.
"Thanks, I chose it myself," said Porygon. They had already paid, and Dirt had handed them their receipt, but they weren't leaving. No one else was even in the store, though, so it was fine. Dirt didn't mind a little chitchat, especially with someone named fucking Porygon.
"I love pokemon, dude! My sister actually made me an ashtray that looks like a pokeball when she was in high school!" Dirt bragged.
"Haha... Did she make it out of..... Clay?" Porygon smirked.
"Ohho!! Hoh!! Nice one," Dirt laughed.
"Haha. Alright, I'll get outta here. Have a good one, Dirt!"
"You too, Porygon!" And Porygon left the store. That was great :) I love fellow nonbinaries :)
Once the door closed behind them, Amber facetiously said, "Ummm Dirt? Your poor little meow meow Porygon just shoplifted three packs of dunkaroos....."
"HA! Did they really?" Dirt laughed.
"Yeah!! We literally made eye contact as they slipped them in their bag!"
"Haha! Good."
Amber picked up another pack of dunkaroos and examined it. "Yeah.. these are expired," she said with a chuckle, before putting it back.
"They were delivered here already expired," Dirt said as a joke, but was probably right.
By the time Dirt's break started, Amber had left and Leslie had taken her place. Even though Leslie has been mentioned multiple times, I've never found it important to describe him, so I'll go ahead and do that now: Leslie was a tall, gangly 18 year old, a couple inches shorter than Dirt, with long, very dark olive-colored hair that was held back in a bun, which complemented her olive-toned skin. She wore round glasses, and usually looked very tired and Over It All.
Anyways. Dirt went outside and sat on the curb—he had to sit in a different spot than usual thanks to the weird construction pit—and texted Clay.
3:32AM
me: hey ur probably asleep but i just wanted to see how ur doin
me: you and winnie can come over like any time btw. sarah seemed really excited about meeting you :)
CLAY🐲💛🤘: WRONG i am not asleep >:)
me: oh shit hi! haha im on break at work rn
CLAY🐲💛🤘: yeah i told winnie that you invited us and they said they would like to! probably better before we move since we'll be further away after haha i just dont know how we'd get there... winnie cant go on planes so we were thinking about possibly doing a road trip? i don't know!
me: oh shit r they afraid of flying?
CLAY🐲💛🤘: theyre not allowed to haha
me: ...what lmao are they on the fucking no fly list??
CLAY🐲💛🤘: omg no no hahaha they just dont have like a state ID or anything
me: oooh gotcha
CLAY🐲💛🤘: yea so like idk! maybe a roadtrip!
me: well that could be fun, right?
CLAY🐲💛🤘: yeah i think so! id just be worried about… ah well a lot of stuff lol like cost of food, gas, where we’d stay on the way there…
me: yeah yeah that’s true.. i could try to help out with money a little? maybe? haha
me: maybe i could ask salem to help too
CLAY🐲💛🤘: ahhh oh no no don’t ask salem i don’t even know him that’s weird!!!
me: whaaat no it’s not! i’m sure he’d be happy to help out a little! don’t worry about it dude i promise it wouldn’t be weird
CLAY🐲💛🤘: okaaayyy……
me: anyways how is everything at home? how’s mom?
me: i should probably ask her myself huh lol
CLAY🐲💛🤘: haha yes but i understand your reluctance to
CLAY🐲💛🤘: she’s doing okay i think
me: i’m just worried about her a little i mean… i don’t know its just like every conversation i have with her gets so frustrating but i feel like i should check in?
CLAY🐲💛🤘: i feel that lol
CLAY🐲💛🤘: i think she’s alright i mean maybe she’s just good at compartmentalizing lmao but she seems to be acting like her usual self for the most part. her projects keep her busy and all. sometimes i do see her like…. zoning out… kinda like how u do lol
me: maybe it runs in the family lol
me: but that’s good to hear that she’s workin on stuff
CLAY🐲💛🤘: not to pressure u into anything but im sure she’d love to hear from you
me: yeah yeah
me: maybe when i wake up this afternoon
CLAY🐲💛🤘: sweet :)
Dirt slid his phone back into his pocket and sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. There's another conversation I need to have, now... Dirt lamented, thinking about all the Talks he'd been meaning to have with the various people in his life. I really need some alone time with Brian, fucking first-of-all... There's no way he's actually okay with the way Salem acts around him! He said he "didn't want to share me" in the first place! Is he seriously okay with the fact that my other boyfriend is now flirting with HIM?? As Dirt pointed out the other day, Brian wasn't the type to not speak up when something was making him uncomfortable. He sure was quick to speak up about how uncomfortable Dirt's lying made him.
Is bringing that up really necessary? Despite loving to pretend they had gotten over it, Dirt still thought about that whole era quite a bit. It's just so stupid. Brian still thinks I was in the wrong over that! Brian had certainly completely moved on from this. He probably hardly even thought about it anymore. There was no reason for Dirt to still be so mad over it. What more did he want? Brian was his boyfriend again! Things were going great! But that's just it! Things ARE going great, but TOO GREAT. Our relationship has been just a little TOO perfect, don't you think? Dirt was just being paranoid, as usual.
No, no, no, like me and Brian never even ARGUE at all! Salem and I argue like, every other day, and it balances out the relationship so it's never 100% perfect all the time! But there's no constant balance with Brian, it's all too perfect, so it'll come crashing down a million times harder! Dirt dragged his hands down his face. He was annoyed with himself for even thinking like this. He needed to just let himself enjoy that his life was going well, and stop worrying about the future so much!
Dirt sighed and checked the timer on his phone to see how much of his break he still had left. 24 minutes. His stomach grumbled. He hadn't eaten in nearly 6 hours and it was starting to hit. Dirt grunted as he pushed himself off the the ground, and winced as something seemed to pinch in his spine as he stood up. He grumbled and attempted to rub at the ache for a minute before being resigned to the fact that he was just going to have a hurting back for the rest of his shift.
He walked back into the store and went to look for something to snack on. While he was staring at his pantheon of shitty drug store snack options, Leslie unexpectedly addressed him. "Hey, hey uh.. So you just got back from a trip or something, right? How was it?" she asked. It struck Dirt as a little odd. Leslie hardly ever spoke to him about anything that wasn't work-related. When he had walked in for his shift, he merely nodded towards Dirt as a greeting and hadn't even said anything.
"Oh uh... It was fine. I mean, it was a funeral."
Leslie chuckled awkwardly. "Oh! Fuck! I'm sorry!" Dirt groaned internally at how many times he had already had this conversation, and figured he was probably going to have it several more times as well.
He chuckled dryly. "No, it's fine. It was my shitty grandpa. He was a cop." Dirt could only hope that Leslie was also anti-cop and that he wouldn't have to explain any further than that.
Leslie just said, "Oh, okay..." and looked very uneasy. God, she's probably thinking I'm some kind of heartless monster for not being sad about my grandpa dying. AND I can't tell if she agrees that ACAB.. Dirt thought about clarifying a little more, but figured that he might just end up digging himself into a hole and making himself seem even worse if he did that. Telling your coworker you barely know that your grandpa was an abusive alcoholic was something that Dirt figured would probably be pretty inappropriate and uncalled for. Leslie did not sign up to hear about their fucked up family issues.
"Um... But other than that, the trip was okay. I got to see my sister after barely talking to her for like, three years, so that was fun," Dirt added, in an attempt to lighten the mood. As he spoke, he grabbed a pack of nutter butters off the shelf. He was always going to grab the nutter butters of course, and the action of staring at the shelf for so long was more of a game he played with himself than anything else. Like, as IF he would choose another snack. Haha, very funny.
"Oh, cool. Didn't know you had a sister. For some reason, I assumed you were an only child?" Leslie chuckled. Where is all this conversation coming from? Leslie never talks to me! And what was that supposed to mean? He thought I was an only child? Was that a dig at me?
"Ha! What's that supposed to mean? What 'only child' vibes do I apparently give off?" Dirt asked lightheartedly, pretending that he wasn't offended by Leslie's assumption. I'm not *offended* I'm just wondering what she meant by that... There's nothing wrong with being an only child?? Why would I be offended by that? I don't know, but Dirt WAS a little offended by it, nonetheless.
"Oh, I dunno. Just 'cause you never mentioned your sister before, I guess. But I guess you probably don't know about my siblings, either," Leslie shrugged.
"I do not!" Dirt continued to internally wonder why the hell Leslie was suddenly striking up conversation with him. He really just wanted to go back outside and eat his nutter butters, but Leslie continued.
"Older sister and a little brother," said Leslie.
"Cool," Dirt nodded, not knowing what the hell else he was supposed to say. Dirt decided they'd just eat their snack in the back, instead of going outside, because Leslie was like, wringing their hands and looking all nervous like there was something she wanted to say.
I probably made myself sound like a fucking asshole. Don't care that my grandpa died, hadn't talked to my little sister in three years, don't know how to hold a conversation to save my life. He's probably trying to come up with a polite way to tell me that he thinks I'm a terrible person. Jesus, man.
Dirt sat on an upturned milk crate in the back, because the only chair that was back there was strictly only for when you were sitting at the computer. There was an all-caps sign taped to it declaring as much. Tyler had previously cracked down on them, and REMOVED that only chair when he caught one too many people using it without being on the computer, but Christie just brought another chair in the next week. Dirt figured he shouldn't risk getting the chair taken away again.
To Dirt's relief, Leslie didn't say anything else to them for the rest of their break, and he was able to finish his little snackie in peace. When he finished his snack, Dirt sort of just sat there and stared at the wall. They tentatively wondered what Salem was doing at that moment. Probably sleeping. But thinking about Salem, shot the reminder through Dirt's head that he needed to talk to Brian about Salem, and then the reminder that he needed to talk to his mom after work, which made a pit of anxiety form in his stomach. He groaned and rubbed his eyes before checking his break timer again. 59 seconds.
Jesus how did I just spend like 20 minutes staring at a wall? Dirt sighed and stood up, his spine popping multiple times, and got back to work.
After Dirt had finished cleaning the bathroom, he went to stand behind the counter next to Leslie, who immediately began speaking. "Hey uhh.. Can I ask you something—er—ask you about something that's uh, maybe kind of personal?"
"Uhhhhhhhhh...." Great, here it comes. I knew she was gonna berate me for all that shit eventually. "I guess so..." The store was empty except for the two of them, so Dirt figured it might as well happen now.
"Um....." Leslie nervously adjusted his glasses, and started picking at the skin around his fingernails. "I want to come out to my little brother. As nonbinary."
Dirt felt a weight lifted off of him. Jesus christ THATS what he wanted to talk about? Good fucking god. To no one's surprise, Dirt had been overthinking, and was anxious over nothing. Leslie continued, "I was just wondering... Like, are you out? Uh, to your family? Or whatever? Uh.. yeah..."
"Uh, jeez..." Dirt sighed. "I'm probably the wrong person to ask for advice on this, man. I literally just came out to my sister a few days ago... And my mom doesn't know. Uhhh how old is your brother?"
"Fifteen," Leslie responded.
"Mm. Yeah. I dunno, dude, I'm sorry. I wish I could help more..."
Leslie chuckled awkwardly. "Heh, i-it's okay! It's just like.. weird. I don't know. Like my mom and sister know but it's like... they NEVER use she/her for me. And like it's fine, like technically they're not misgendering me, like, I still use he/him, but like.. yknow? Like they pretend that it's not a thing."
Dirt nodded knowingly. "Yeah... I'm sorry, dude..." They felt bad that they didn't really have anything else to say on the matter. She's braver than me, coming out to her mom as a teenager. To be fair, Dirt's circumstances were probably different than Leslie's, too. Dirt's mother had made it clear in his upbringing that she did not approve of him doing anything that didn't conform to the gender he was assigned at birth. She flipped the fuck out when he did so much as dye his hair, and paint his nails black.
And even aside from gender, she was always very controlling over the way Dirt presented themselves when they were younger. She threatened to throw away his favorite hoodie more than once if he kept wearing it outside the house because she thought it was so disgusting. He knew she was holding back during their visit when he showed up in that old thing. Maybe she's different now, though.. At least a little? She hasn't forced Clay to get a haircut like she usually does when it gets that long... Maybe she's lightened up a little? Maybe I should talk to her about this... Ughhhh... God I don't want to fucking do that, though. Maybe I should ask Clay about this stuff first...
"Dirt? You okay, dude?" Leslie asked, breaking Dirt out of his stupor. Fuck I did it again..
"Yeah! Sorry, I just zoned out. Did you say something?" God, what is wrong with me?
"I just said, like, sorry for like, bringing it up and stuff. And then you just like.. blanked out. It was a little scary, haha!" Leslie chuckled.
"Sorry, I do that a lot, apparently, heh.. Don't worry about it, though. I'm sorry I can't help you with your stuff, dude. It's hard..."
"Yeah, no, it's cool, dude. I get it. Um. I should like, clean the slushie machine or something."
"Yeah, good idea."
Leslie left to go do that.
The rest of Dirt's shift went by uneventfully. A few annoying customers, but that was about it. As he walked out the door after clocking out, he pulled out his phone and texted Brian.
6:02AM
me: hey r u awake? just got off work
He typed "and i wanna talk" at the end of that sentence originally, but decided that it mind sound too confrontational, so he left it at that.
brian♥: just caught me lol was getting ready to sleep whats up
Dammit, I don't wanna keep him up with a stupid emotional conversation... Dirt could at least ask if they could see Brian right now. As his boyfriend, he would probably be happy to see them. Urgghh..
me: oh ok. i was just wonderin if i could come over but i dont wanna keep u up
brian♥: nah dude come on over i miss u idc if i miss a few hours of sleep if it means i get to hang out w my baby
Oh..... Dirt smiled all gayly at his phone as his heart fluttered.
me: hehe okay :3 ill be over in a min
brian♥: sweet
Dirt shot Salem a quick text letting him know where they were going before getting on their bike and pedaling off to Brian's apartment.