Strawberry Panic {TomTord}

The one with the filler

Since his first shift had been on a Sunday; the day went pretty chill, if not a bit slowly.

Only a few people came in. Mostly bored college kids, and lonely older men that had probably been kicked out of their basement for a few hours, but still pretty chill nonetheless.

A few of them were interested in him, being the new waitress as he was, but everyone typically stayed in their lanes. Apparently, most of the regular patrons picked one girl as their favourite and tipped them generously for their attention. Cherri had told him that as soon as he had been there for a couple of weeks, he would build up a loyal clientele.

Tom didn't know how he felt about being someone's waifu.

Between hauling milkshakes, and batting his (obviously fake) eyelashes, he had actually had the chance to talk to some pretty cool people. It definitely helped that his and Cherri's sense of humour blended very well. Meaning that they could throw half flirtatious, half ironic quips back and forth during breaks.

It sort of reminded him of Tord.

But for the sake of his mental health, he refused to dwell on the thought for long.

Before he knew it, the cafe was closing. Connie being the last one to usher out her tables, waved shyly at them as they left, the most lovestruck looks painted across their faces. Apparently, the cutesy, little innocent girl act was quite popular.

Again, for the sake of his mental health, he decided it would be best if he didn't think about it too hard.  

They all got changed in a relatively comfortable silence. Once Tom had finished and had donned his usual blue hoody and jeans combo, he met Cherri in front of the large vanity mirror. Scrubbing the caked makeup from his face, they met each other's eyes in the reflection. 

She smirked at him, "How was your first day, Rookie?"

The corner of his lips twitched, "Pretty good? Nobody even touched my ass." 

Cherri laughed, her broad shoulders shaking lightly, "Oh don't worry, you'll get plenty of chances later." 

Snorting in response, he shook his head, rubbing the wipe across his cheeks roughly, "Helllllll yeah."

"Speaking of ass grabbing." She shrugged to herself, lips curling in annoyance, "There's this guy that comes in every Sunday- his tips are huge; like he could fully pay off my rent huge. But he didn't come in today, I wonder why?"

Tom shrugged absentmindedly, not fully listening. He hummed slightly, before he paused, a sudden thought ghosting at his lips.

"Cherri, you said earlier that Connie thought I was trans. Does that mean you always knew that I wasn't or...?" He didn't really know what, or why he was asking. It just struck him as odd.

With her back leaning against the counter, she shrugged carelessly, "Dunno. When I first saw you-you just didn't give off the vibe." 

"'The vibe'?" Tom grunted and turned to face her properly, "How do you know what a trans persons fucking 'aura' feels like?"

She flashed him a smile and wiggled her eyebrows, "How indeed?"

Huh.

Interesting.

Hearing the soft clicking sound of the lock, they both turned to see Connie finally emerge from her own stall, fruitlessly tugging on one strap of her overalls as it refused to be clipped closed. She squeaked as she noticed both of them staring at her, and childishly hid her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry I kept you waiting!"

Cherri shook her head and smiled softly in reassurance, "It's fine, Con. We were actually talking about going shopping later this week, and we wondered if you could make it?"

Tom sent her what he hoped was a discreet pointed look, eyebrow arched slightly in questioning. 

Connie nodded her head excitedly, "Yes! I would love that!" 

"Good." She nodded, picking up her bags, "Tamara here needs bra advice- I'm thinking lace."

She punctuated her point by spanning both of her large hands across Tom's chest, grinning down at him mischieve. He lightly batted her away, murmuring a quick, "Leave my tiddies alone." over his shoulder as he left.

Definitely Tord. 

--

The following weeks continued like that; getting up early, going to work, banter around with Cherri for a couple of hours, and then heading home to start it all again the next day. Settling into a routine bizarrely made him feel more secure and accomplished with himself. By having that new structure in his life, he was forced out of the house on a near daily basis, which got him to socialise more. 

Now that the rest of his problematic roommates had begun to chip in on the rent, and food bills, Edd had started to look less tired all of the time. The overly large bags that had drooped under his eyes had started to fade and appeared to be in better spirits. His eyes now held that happy, spark of life that Tom had forgotten he once had, his broad shoulders relaxing from their uncomfortable strained hunch.

Knowing that he was apart of the reason as to why his best friend had been overly stressed and exhausted, the guilt gnawed heavily in his stomach for not doing anything sooner. 

How long had he turned a blind eye to Edd's distress? How long had he carried the burden in silence, suffering as the people closest to him ignored it, or didn't care enough to look into it further, all the while being ungrateful little shits that sat around all day drinking?  

The thought makes his mouth dry.

Somewhere along the line, he had been introduced to Ivan, the regular Sunday costumer that seemed to have absolutely no trouble with throwing his small fortune away. The first time that they had met, he had handed him a fist full of notes in thanks for his service. It had been a bit of a shock- he thought Cherri was joking- but accepted it as gracefully as he could. 

Ivan, to his credit, wasn't put off in the least about his eyes. If anything he seemed to be overly interested in them. The number of times Tom had caught him staring at them, or otherwise asking questions that Tom really didn't know the answer to, was well within the triple digits. Other than that though, he appeared to be a sort of alright guy.

Apart from that, the only other big life change was the fact that he had actively started to avoid Tord as much as he could. Confused by his suddenly apparent, but totally not real feelings for the sadistic bastard, Tom felt as though he hardly had any other options. Whenever he saw the other mans face, it caused a slight tingling sensation in his stomach, his face red from the remembrance of their previous interaction. 

It had taken him a few tries to get right; the handful of times that he had to hide in the storage closet when he heard footsteps approaching were too embarrassing to forget- not mentioning instances where he had timed himself wrong and had instead slammed face first into Tord's solid chest. 

But apart from those few small failures, Tom was doing fine. Better than fine, even. He'd sometimes push his luck and say that fuck, he was doing great.

Life seemed to be going well.

Until it wasn't.

--

A/N: Sucky filler chapter sucks, I get it. But it's important for later. 

This was hard to write, ngl. I already started on the next one since this one was basically doomed from the start.