🪦Dead Plate🍽️ One-Shots

Aftermath

{Alternative Universe}
•Vincent survives
___________________

Rody was laying on his run down couch, feeling like a corpse. It's been a year or two since the bistro burned down and Rody was still haunted by it. After a month of the burning of the restaurant, Rody quickly applied to a fairly new restaurant, where it seemed more relaxed. More inviting compared to the bistro. The auburn was grateful for the manager and letting him work, Rody was worried they would reject his application. The woman running the place was understanding and knew what he was going through, so she didn't hesitate to hire him.

Rody felt less pressure, especially since he wasn't the only waiter anymore. The bonus was that his coworkers were friendly and full of life, something he missed and lacked nowadays. Rody sighed as he sat up, staring at his messy apartment. The mess had only gotten worse and he was supposed to clean today, but Rody didn't have any motivation to do such a task.

Rody felt like instead of being organized and clean, he was adding more skeletons in his closet. His nights slowly turned into sleepless ones, constantly being haunted by everything that happened. Waking up drenched in sweat as he relived the nightmares. He stopped caring about himself more, always trying to keep himself occupied rather than facing his troubles. Rody brushed his troubles aside, telling himself he'll get to them, but knew he was lying to himself. Something he's done since childhood.

He constantly felt like he was on the urge of being sick, hardly eating anything anymore out of fear of what's been cooked. The auburn had slowly started isolating himself, even when his coworkers were so generous, so welcoming. He didn't want to bring them bad luck.

RING, RING

RING, RING

Rody let out a small sigh as he picked up the phone. The first thing that filled his ear was loud noises, something that made the auburn pull the phone away a bit. His hearing is a bit more sensitive seeing as he only had one ear now, something that he made sure his hair covered up. Nobody needed to know the story behind his missing ear, or did he want to recite it.

"Hello?"

"Rody! Hi!"

A cheery, warm voice greeted Rody. The auburn male immediately recognized one of his coworkers, Nicole. She's a year older than him, but still had a lot of energy and spunk left. She was the first one to warm up to the older male, with the first thing she said was how they're both somewhat redheads.

"Nicole, is everything alright?"

"Uh, so," Nicole cleared her throat. "I know today is your day off, but we really need you! It's so busy it's weird, and one of our waiters had an accident."

"Are they alright?" Rody asked, worried laced in his voice.

"Yeah, nothing too major. But that puts us down a staff."

"I'll be there in a few minutes." Rody confirms as he puts on his work clothes. "Anything else?"

"Two famous chefs are coming in, and based on what I heard, they're a big deal. It's making our boss on edge."

"Do you know who they are?" Rody asked, tying his shoelaces together.

"All I know is their last name is Charbonneau."

♠

Rody was already regretting coming in, especially after what Nicole had said prior. However, he already agreed to come and was now in the back. Nicole was briefing him in on the orders and which parton had ordered them. She also told the male to be alert for when he comes, something that made Rody uneasy, but didn't show it. After the quick briefing, Rody was out serving with his charismatic smile plastered on. Whenever a customer asked about their previous waiter, he would smile and tell them there was a minor issue, but to assure them everything was under control.