Chapter Text
Lunchtime rush was always pretty stressful, so Sling was grateful when things slowed down.
He handed off a brownie to a final customer, relieved to be able to drop the ‘customer service’ grin, before glancing down at his watch. 13:28. Right, that made sense, with rush hour coming to a close. An hour before closing, and on a Tuesday… They probably wouldn’t have a lot more customers.
Sling stepped into the kitchen, where his siblings were prepping things for tomorrow. Well… Vine was. Shuriken was sitting in a chair with his head down on the counter, asleep.
“One hour ‘til closing. Vine, I’ll help with the rest of the prep for tomorrow, and this dumbass will be on register, once he actually gets the hell up…” Slingshot rolled his eyes, stepping over to Shuriken – the dumbass in question – and shouted into his ear, “SHURI! REGISTER!”
Shuriken jolted up, his head bumping into a shelf above the counter. “Ow, Shit– What?!” He yelped.
“I swear to–” Sling pinched the bridge of his nose, “REG-IS-TER.”
Shuri muttered something quietly, then said, louder, “Right. Fine.” and walked out to the main bakery.
Sling rolled his eyes and turned to Vine, who’d previously been shaping the sourdough. Impressive, considering she still only had the one arm, after needing to trim her wooden one just a few days prior.
“I managed to keep Shuri awake enough for him to assemble and ice the cakes, but the decorations aren’t quite done yet. However, the muffins and cookies you asked me to finish are already in the freezer! It’s largely just the pie crusts in the oven and the cakes that need to be finished, and then this sourdough needs to be proofed after I finish shaping it, but I can handle that…”
Sling nodded along as Vine continued, already making a mental plan of how he’d tackle the rest of the tasks. Once she pointed out where she’d stored the cakes for now, Sling quickly walked over. “Thanks for getting everything taken care of, Vine.”
“No problem, Sling!”
Slingshot opened the fridge door, automatically reaching towards a cake, before pausing. On the bottom shelf of the fridge, there was an extra cake, a little smaller than the others. It was pretty simple; It just had white icing. But on top, it was covered with… flowers? Sling tilted his head towards Vine. “What's this flower cake?”
“Oh!” Vine jolted upwards. “We had extra batter, so I wanted to try something with those flowers I was growing on the windowsill! You seemed interested when I told you they were edible, so I thought I might as well use them? I am sorry if you'd have preferred I used the batter for something else…?”
“No, that's fine.” Sling replied, plainly. Hm. Pretty neat. Simple, with just a touch of something unique. Baking was practically a science, but it was always fun to incorporate an art into it.
He proceeded with grabbing a different cake to finish decorating.
After finishing the decorations on all of the cakes, Sling looked back at his watch. 14:01. Hah! Almost beat a personal record.
After enjoying that for a moment, Slingshot looked back up, towards the main bakery. He hadn’t heard any new customers for around 15 minutes… Knowing Shuri, he’d probably fallen asleep by now.
Vine must’ve been thinking the same thing, because she also glanced towards the door, before turning to look down at Sling. “You can go ahead and wake him up, I’ll clean up back here.”
Sling nodded, “That’s what I was thinking.” He stepped over to the cabinet where he kept the cleaners and quickly grabbed a cleaner and washcloth, then stepped towards the door. “I’ll send Shuri out back, then clean the tables, before closing up in half an hour.”
“Alright!” Vine responded, moving to grab cleaning supplies as well, a bit slower due to her current lack of one arm.
Slingshot walked out into the main part of the bakery, and, to his surprise, Shuriken was awake. He was on his phone, frowning at something.
Slingshot, knowing his elder brother wasn’t listening, leaned over, and shouted, “IS THAT A CELLULAR DEVI-”
Shuri jolted, reflexively throwing his phone at Sling, who dodged on instinct. She turned to check on the other’s phone, which landed face-down on the ground. Slingshot blinked, before leaning down to pick up Shuri’s phone. Oops.
“Sling!” Shuriken shouted, angrily.
Sling glanced down at the phone. Oh, okay, it was fine. “It’s fine,” Sling said, handing Shuri’s phone back to him, “Don’t throw your phone, dumbass.”
“I can’t help my reflexes!” Shuriken argued, snatching his phone back.
“Then pay attention instead of doomscrolling,” Slingshot replied, “Anyways, you can head out back. We’re mostly ready for tomorrow, so I’m cleaning the tables.”
“I could do that!”
“Mmm… yeah, sure, buddy.” Sling made a shooing motion with his hand.
Shuri rolled his eyes, but walked away to the kitchen as Sling scanned over the room, before quickly getting to work.
There were only 6 tables, and—he paused for a moment, glancing at the clock—about 25 minutes left until closing (and, of course, some more time after closing), so Sling wasn’t particularly worried about finishing very quickly.
After maybe 10 minutes, Sling’d been halfway through putting the chairs up on the third table before he heard the familiar bell of the door opening, as a customer walked in.
“Aww, am I too late?” An unfortunately familiar voice rang out behind Slingshot. His voice was of a slightly higher pitch than one would expect, with a slight lilt, almost kind of like a bell. Though, he spoke with so much arrogance it only served to aggravate Sling in a way that was all too familiar.
Right. It was Tuesday. Spawns, she was such an idiot. How could she forget?
Slingshot released a small sigh, and turned to face Coil. The two-tone inphernal was leaned against the bakery entrance’s door frame, his arms crossed haughtily. Like always, he had a stupid smirk on his face, which (as par for the course) was fairly scratched up, in addition to several other scratches on his arms, and a bruise near his collarbone. Of course he'd be bruised up.
“No, we’re still open,” Slingshot replied, his voice cold. She didn’t bother with the customer service act, not fully; Coil would be a pain in the ass either way.
“Great!” Coil said, not giving Sling enough time to finish speaking, “Got some time to serve lil’ole me?”
Slingshot rolled his eyes, already regretting telling the truth. She walked over to the counter, putting down her cloth and spray bottle and stepping behind the counter. “What do you want?” He asked, bluntly.
“Wooow. That tone isn’t very ‘customer service’ of you,” Coil commented, largely ineffectively.
“Cry about it,” Sling replied, without missing a beat. *Gonna have to try harder than* that.
Coil snorted, following behind Slingshot. He rested one elbow on the counter, leaning his head on his hand.
“Got any chocolate croissants left?”
Sling shook his head, “We ran out of those at 12.”
“Aw, come onnnn…” Coil complained, pushing off of the counter.
“Maybe if you’d come on time, and not when we were about to close.” Sling spoke, unsympathetically, moving to clean the counter as she did so.
Coil scoffed, “Can’t you… make more? Or somethin’? Should be easy.”
Sling paused his cleaning of the counter. He could *feel* the slight twitch in one eye.
Sling took a breath. “No, I can't. It's not that simple.” She replied, stiffly.
Coil tilted his head, still smiling cockily, “Sounds like you have a skill issue, to me.”
“Yeah, well, you'd understand if you actually had a job.” Slingshot retorted, finishing cleaning the counter. She dropped the washcloth before looking back at Coil, her arms leaned on the counter.
Coil's eyes followed Sling's hands as she dropped the washcloth before looking back up, “Pfft. A job? Real inphernals don't need some shitty 9-5.”
“Is that so?” Slingshot asked, rhetorically. He tried to keep his face neutral, though from how Coil was still smirking, she probably wasn't doing great.
Coil scoffed, “Mm-hm. Don't need a job when your friend's got a perfectly good basement.”
“Ah, so you're just a moocher,” Slingshot said, nodding, “I see.”
“It's called teamwork,” Coil replied, “I thought you'd get teamwork, kitty.”
“I-” Slingshot froze. What?
His mind blanked for a moment as he processed what the other inphernal had just said. “What did you just call me?”
Coil leaned closer, staring down Slingshot. “Kitty. It's accurate isn’t it?”
Slingshot was still for just a moment, then stepped back as she realized her face was flushed with embarrassment. He turned away quickly, rolling his eyes, “It's stupid.”
“Yeah, that's what I said.” Coil said, without missing a beat.
She rolled her eyes, “I'm not stupid.”
“But you are catlike?” Coil said, practically grinning.
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't deny it, either~”
“I swear to…” Slingshot cut herself off, already aggravated enough. “Are you going to order something or not?”
Coil smirked, then pushed off of the counter with both hands. “Fine, I guess. Whatcha got?”
“The case is literally right next to you.” Slingshot deadpanned, gesturing towards it with one arm.
Coil glanced to his right, down at the case, where the few remaining pastries were displayed.
“...Nah. Just tell me what’s there.” Coil tilted his head.
Sling rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no.”
“Woooooooow.” Coil crossed his arms. “Rude.”
“I treat customers with the amount of politeness they deserve.”
Coil rolled his eyes with a smile, then turned back to the case.
Coil tilted his head as something on the menu caught his eye. His expression was, surprisingly, mostly unreadable. Intrigue and something else, that was all Sling could tell.
“Whatever. Uh… Caramel-cinnamon cupcake,” Coil chose, shrugging.
Sling turned to look at the 5 cupcakes that Coil had referred to that were left and let out a small sigh. She had planned to bring those home, to leave on Katana’s doorstep… the older inphernal had seemed to like cinnamon. Even if he kept trying to refuse the pastries.
Whatever. There were still 4 more of those. That was probably enough.
Sling stepped over, grabbing a single latex glove from the box placed behind the counter, and reached into the case. He slid the cupcake across the counter to Coil, who grabbed it easily, with a stupid grin.
After typing in the cupcake to the cash register, Sling glanced back at Coil. “$7.49.” She said, simply.
Coil scoffed. “7 bux? For a cupcake?”
Sling rolled his eyes, checking his watch. 14:11. Nineteen minutes left. “I'm about to close, and I don't have time for you. Take it or leave it.”
“Alright, alright, chill.” Coil pulled out a 10 bux bill from his pocket and slid it across the counter.
Sling took it and quickly counted out his change. She was almost glad it was just a 10 bux bill; knowing Coil, it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to try and pay exclusively in dimes, or something of the like.
Sling handed Coil his change back as quickly as possible. “Alright, there, you happy now? I have other work to do.”
To Sling's further irritation, Coil didn’t respond. Instead, he just held up one finger as he took a bite of the cupcake.
“...Meh.” Coil said, after a moment, “Would be better with dulce de leche.”
“...What?” Sling tilted his head.
“Dulce de leche. Y'know. It's kinda like caramel, but with milk instead of–”
“I know what it is.” Slingshot cut in. “We make our caramel from scratch; I'd need a new recipe to account for the differences between milk and water and I don't have the time or resources to compare recipes to find what works and what's consistent.”
Even as he said that out loud, a part of Sling's mind whispered, You could use sweetened condensed milk. It's consistent and cheap in bulk. And you've been looking for an excuse to try topping cupcakes with churros.
Slingshot tried to push that thought away. Why did he even care? It didn't matter; his current recipes were doing fine. It wasn’t like one guy's opinion affected anything.
“Skill issue~” Coil replied in a sing-song tone as he walked out, giving a half-hearted wave.
Slingshot watched Coil walk away for a moment, thinking. Then, silently, she reached over to her watch and added sweetened condensed milk to her shopping list.