Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Rumor Cafe had been open for an hour and the coffee machine was on fire. Krejjh was still serving coffee, the line in front of the counter stretched across the crowded store and out it. They juggled coffee cups between their four hands filling up cups and shuffling the order papers. Brian is huddled in the corner by the order receivers and trying to write down as many orders as he can. And though Brian is a linguist, studying languages isn’t going to do you much when fifty different people are telling you their orders, about five of which may have asked you a question. At this point, he was writing down as much as he could make out before frantically moving the order papers to the basket by Krejjh.

As soon as Krejjh had finished an order they would speedwalk over to the pickup counter and leave them for Arkady or Sana to deliver them to the customer. Sana was currently in a seemingly one-sided argument with a customer that kept insisting that “if this is a coffee shop why isn’t there a bowling alley?”

“Sir, I apologize for any disappointment, but we don’t have a bowling al—” Sana tried to reason with him, but he interrupted her.

“Okay, okay. Maybe the bowling alley was a stretch, but you at least have a giant python that grew legs giving out tango lessons.”

Sana was prepared to commit many crimes.

Arkady was left to wait the tables by herself, she would sprint to the counter, balancing as many drinks as she could safely carry on her tray and a few more. She would then blindly sprint out into the customer crowd shuffling the order papers, trying to figure out which drink goes where while dodging the mildly annoyed and confused customers. 

All in all, despite their short-handedness and heightened probability of many accidents (and crimes), they were managing the flow of customers. That is, until the staff of the other coffee shop across the street, If Gnomes Ran, decided to pop in and check out the new (temporary) competition.

If Gnomes Ran was your classic ‘Large Corporation-Run “Local’’ Coffee Shop’. They worked under In Good Running (IGR for short), which also owned I Give Rup, I Gave Ryouallmymoneywhatelsedoyouwant, and I Got Radishes, a grocery store, clothing store and pharmaceutical respectively. The most important thing to know about them is that if you see them do anything morally wrong or illegal, no you didn’t.

It was in this rush that the employees of If Gnomes Ran entered the coffee store, skipping everyone else who was waiting in line to enter and orderly shuffling in through the door. Worker McCabe was left to hold the door open for all of them. What the staff of If Gnomes Ran didn’t see while scouting out the shop was Arkady sprinting right towards them carrying her tray filled to the brim with drinks and pastries. In fact, neither Arkady nor any of the recent visitors saw each other. And so, as Arkady was attempting to find table five she instead ran right into the entire group of visiting foreign employees. 

The entire shop turned silent and turned to look at the group of sharply dressed If Gnomes Ran employees soaked and covered in many different kinds of coffee and pastries. A few of the customers didn’t notice and continued chatting for a few seconds before noticing the sudden silence and becoming quiet themselves. 

The crackling of the coffee machine fire stood out against the shocked silence and it was only then that Brian realized that the coffee machine was on fire. He bolted over to Krejjh and motioned wildly at the coffee machine, completely silent as to not disturb whatever was currently happening. Krejjh was still frantically completing orders as Brian rushed over to the nearby fire extinguisher and put out the fire. There may have been a bit of foam in the orders Krejjh was making at the time.

Arkady looked up from the order papers she was still holding and stared blankly at the steadily glaring group of soaked If Gnomes Ran staff. Sana rushed over, steadily apologizing and rushing to hand them all towels, but the collective group simply turned and walked right back out of the door.

The coffee shop was silent and the closing door rang the bell and knocked slightly against its frame. Sana and Arkady were still stood right where they were as Krejjh continued pumping out orders and Brian tried to access the damage caused by the fire. Many of the customers were shuffling around silently trying to leave as to not get caught up in any issues with In Good Standing. One of the customers stubbornly waiting for their order coughed slightly, while not a loud cough by any means it stood out against the silence. 

The cough seemed to bring Arkady back to the situation and she hurried over to the fallen mugs and pastries and began to clean up. Sana rested the towels she intended to give to the If Gnomes Ran staff on a nearby counter and knelt down beside Arkady to help. This broke the silence in the coffee shop and the chatter rose up from the customers once again. Brian abandoned his station taking orders to quickly deliver the orders steadily piling up on the counter. Krejjh had run out of space and was now attempting to precariously balance orders on top of each other. 

The crew served the considerably reduced amount of customers left after the incident before beginning to close the shop early. Arkady and Sana returned the extra chairs and tables they’d brought out and straightened out the original tables and chairs. Brian and Krejjh were cleaning up the counters and general area around the coffee machines while discussing the dangers of fire and physics. After they’d restored The Rumor to its original, clean and orderly, state, they all sat around in the staff breakroom to discuss today’s events.

“So…” Sana began sitting at the head of the table, “That didn’t go as…planned, I suppose… but this is only the first day, and it was clearly an accident. The most we can do at this point is attempt to make amends with If Gnomes Ran and just continue with our plan.”

“This isn’t just any business we’re talking about here, Boss,” Arkady states simply from the other side of the rectangular table. “This is the IGR, everyone knows what they’re capable of.” The group sat silent around the table contemplating the possible repercussions from today’s incident, the only sound being the soft sounds of commotion from outside leaking in through the window.

“There’s nothing we can do about that. All we can hope is that whatever the IGR decides to do, it won’t interfere with our primary mission.” Sana says steadily, looking everyone in the eyes. “But something I think we can all agree on, if we’re going to continue this we’re going to need a few extra hands.”

“Not unless the IGR shuts us down,” Arkady mumbles under her breath. 

“We could always put out a sign in the window and a few other flyers and ads, we just need to make sure we don’t…attract the wrong people,” Brian suggests.

“I could make the flyer!” Krejjh says enthusiastically, raising two of their hands.

“Arkady brings up a point,” Sana declares with a slight tone of finalization, “if business continues at these levels we’ll put out an ad for employment and we’ll see who applies.” She smiles at everyone and stands up from her chair, “until then, we’ll see how it goes.”

Everyone else follows suit and stands up from their chairs shuffling around and gathering their belongings preparing to head home. Arkady lingers by the table.

Brian waits by the door, arms covered in coats, sweaters and handbags. After a minute Krejjh walks up to him and takes their stuff from him.

“Bye!” They say as they follow Brian out the door. Brian manages to empty one of his hands and waves goodbye.

Arkady turns to Sana and asks, “do you need me to close up the shop?”

“Oh, no, you go ahead, I’ll close up myself,” Sana smiles. Arkady lingers for a second more before hesitantly leaving. Sana walks around turning off all the lights and watching the beams of noon sunlight sneak through the cracks in the window blinds. Although it had been a short one, it had been quite a day. She walked out the door and locked it behind her, strolling into the lunch crowd, and mentally preparing for a nap and an important phone call that she’d been expecting.

The next day a sign was put up in the window of The Rumor. Written in large, flowing letters in shiny dark purple ink, it sat in the window declaring to the street: NOW HIRING :) , and below the main text in smaller printed letters in dark blue ink it added: apply at therumor.com/hiring. Many other signs and flyers were seen around the street and a few were spotted in further places in the city. It would be much harder for the If Gnomes Ran employees to ignore them than to acknowledge them. And so they did acknowledge them officially, in their company required daily logs.

Chapter Text

Official Report Of R.J. McCabe. Barista, If Gnomes Ran.

• Completed Quota.
• No Misdemeanors.

Personal Log And Additions:

“Begin log. An incident occurred at the newest competition’s cafe across the street. The situation was handled and no mistakes were made on our side. The threat seemed to be shaken by the event, closing their cafe early. Future incidents will be reported, otherwise, the competition will continue to be observed as dictated under Instruction 2.3 Section 3 Catagory: ‘If The Fish Won’t Swim, Get Rid Of The Fish With a Bubble Gun.’ End log.”

Chapter Text

Arkady had been stuck with interviewing the applicants and she severely regretted it. The first few applicants were relatively normal and at first, she thought it might not be as bad as she’d expected. Then it began. After that temporary bout of normality, a man came in, he hadn’t submitted a resume. The only question he’d actually answered on the quiz on the website was ‘What brings you to this establishment?’, to which he had answered “I have some ideas.” Arkady had no idea whether he was even supposed to be here, and when he came in with a large stack of papers clipped together that he heftily dropped on the table in between them titled ‘Tango Leg-Snake: A Manifesto’ she ended the interview as quickly as she could.

After that came a few of the If Gnomes Ran employees dressed in their normal uniform but also wearing comedic, yet classic glasses, nose, and mustache disguises came in to be interviewed. Soon after the repetitive interviews, in which the If Gnomes Ran staff seemed to interview her as opposed to the other way around, she took her break and contemplated simply picking one of the earlier applicants and stopping the interviews right here. But when she went back to Sana’s office where she was conducting the interviews, she found that the next applicant was already seated and waiting.

As the applicant noticed Arkady they hurriedly stood up, smiled awkwardly, and moved to put out their hand before deciding against it and lowering their hand to instead straighten out their resume on the desk. Arkady skimmed over the first page of the resume and read their name as Violet Liu. Violet awkwardly sat back down and Arkady followed and picked up her resume.

Arkady could practically feel the nervous energy coming from Violet. The low, golden light of the setting autumn sun spilling across the dark oak desk and the green carpet. Running along the spines of the books in the bookshelf, that, other than the desk and a vase, was the only thing in the room along with the two people. Arkady was already tired and so Violet’s fiddling and fidgeting didn’t bother her much as she skimmed over Violet’s resume.

Violet Liu is qualified for so much more than a job as a barista at a cafe. She knows this too. Her resume filled to the brim with qualifications, a biology degree, her past job experience causing Arkady to raise her brow. What was this, a joke? “You’re applying for the barista job?” Arkady asks Violet, looking up from the resume.

“Uh, yes,” Violet replies, shifting slightly in her chair.

“You’re sure ?”

“What? Is there an issue?” She asks.

“No, no. No issue,” Arkady skims over the resume once more before tilting the papers up and tapping them twice on the table to straighten them out and setting them down between her and Violet on the table. “Time for the actual interview, don’t you suppose?”

“Yes…yes, of course.” Violet sits up straighter.

Arkady pulls out the interview questions from a drawer in Sana’s desk, dropping a few small pieces of paper that were on top in the process. They fly across the floor, one knocks against her boot, but she ignores it. Violet is slightly confused and glancing back and forth from the papers to Arkady.

“Starting us off, what’s your…favourite tea ?” Arkady flipped through the rest of the questions and sure enough, they were all similar, only one of them seemed to be a useful question. She sighed and looked back up to Violet, who was smiling slightly. “Guess we’ll have to go off-script,” She set Sana’s questions off to the side and rested her hands on the desk folded as professionally as she could manage without seeming underqualified or cheap. “What brought you to our company?”

“Yes, well…should I answer the first question?” Violet had her head tilted slightly and a small smile on her face.

Arkady pursed her lips and tried not to smile, but didn’t succeed. “You...can, it’s optional.”

“Mint tea. I was drawn to your company due to your impressive reviews and the fact that you were hiring.”

“We have no reviews.”

“Very impressive, honestly.”

“Anyways, next question,” Arkady picked up a pen and began to twist it in her hands, “uh…tell us more about yourself, I suppose.”

“I have experience working in cafes and other retail situations. I work well with others and excel under pressure. All other information on my experience or skills should be included in my resume.”

Arkady nodded and picked up Sana’s question sheet just to make sure there were no other viable questions. She was running out of questions to ask, but before she could find any good questions Krejjh slammed the door open and rested against the doorframe with three of their arms breathing heavily. “Krejjh, you kn—”

“The bots.” Krejjh interrupts her. Violet stands up slightly out of her chair.

“‘Bots’?” Violet asks.

“Oh damn it.” Arkady quickly stands up pushing out the chair so fast it almost falls to the floor, tottering back and forth. She glances quickly at Violet then back to Krejjh. Krejjh shakes their head, but Arkady isn’t sure if they were indicating ‘yes' or ‘no’ and she didn’t have time to figure it out. “Stay here.” She half yells at Violet before sprinting out past Krejjh. Krejjh nods and smiles slightly at Violet before quickly following Arkady.

The two walk down the hall leading out of the staff area and back out to the main store. There were about three robots wreaking havoc in the cafe. One of them had figured out how a coffee machine works and was now rapidly churning out cup after cup of coffee and spreading them all out on the counter. It ran out of cups, but its arms continued spinning around as the coffee spilt across the floor and puddled around it. 

Another was now quickly throwing pastry after pastry at the customers, most of which had seemingly run out of the store before the giant pile of chairs and tables was put in front of the door, or were hiding behind a few upright tables, using them as shields. A few simply stood perfectly still in the middle of the chaos, their freeze overpowering any fight or flight. Sana was trying to get them to move out of the way as to not get hurt by any splashing boiling liquids or flying pastries. Krejjh ran past Arkady towards the counter, where Brian was supposed to be working. Arkady ran up to Sana and tried to figure out what had happened. 

“Did it happen again?” She yelled at Sana. Sana opened her mouth to reply but before she could say anything she looked behind Arkady, her eyes widening slightly and yanked Arkady to the left. Arkady quickly turned to look at where they were standing before only to see that they had narrowly missed getting flattened by a chair that had been flung by the third robot. The robot stood near the staff hallway where they temporarily stored their extra chairs and was now throwing them all over the cafe.

“Yep.” Sana quickly yelled as she left Arkady to quickly lead a few straggling customers to the upright tables. Arkady turned around to access the situation some more and figure out a plan, but before she could do so she spotted Violet Liu walking out from the staff hallway. She cursed under her breath before rushing through the chaos towards Violet.

Violet was confused, but not surprised; the robots weren’t the best trained, and she’d often seen them freak out in public, but this seemed more planned. They’d blocked the door, and seemed to go for the most dangerous objects in the store: boiling water, large heavy objects, and carbs. One thing was for sure, no one would do anything about this attack after it was over other than clean up the place and leave the robots outside.

Arkady ran by Violet and grabbed her arm, dragging her to the nearest upturned table and running back towards the commotion. “Wait!” Violet yelled at Arkady’s back but she didn’t seem to hear her, too busy dodging a spray of boiling coffee. She hesitantly knelt behind the table and peeked out, fiddling with her hands and ignoring the hushed questioned of the others with her. Violet watched on as Arkady and Sana half yelled at each other dodging attacks from the bots and leading the rest of the stray customers to the tables.

Violet debated running out and helping them, she knew how to, that was for sure, but she didn’t know if they would listen to her. She continued to wring out her hands and shift her weight from side to side, before making a split-second decision and running out from the table. The bot flinging around the chairs had begun to rushing around the store in erratic loops, returning to the chairs every few loops. She darted around the bot, quickly assessing the movements of the bot and making her way, albeit indirectly, to Arkady and Sana. 

Sana noticed Violet rushing towards them almost instantly and Arkady followed her gaze. “Goddamn it,” she muttered under her breath.

Violet finally reached them, winded and covered in stray crumbs from the flying pastries. “I-”

“What do you think you’re doing!” Arkady interrupted, “you’re going to get yourself killed!”

Violet pressed her lips into a thin line, glancing over to Sana, who was only half paying attention to the conversation, mainly assessing the situation. She turned to Sana, determined to make her point. “I know what we have to do.”

Sana looked at Violet head-on for the first time, startled out of her planning. “What?” She said, “and you’re… Oh! You must be one of the potential new employees!” She quickly took one of Violet’s hands in her own, shaking it curtly. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now, you were saying?”

Violet opened her mouth to speak again but was interrupted once more.

“Are you ser— “ Arkady stage whispered to Sana.

“If you’d just listen, ” Violet interjected. Arkady shut up, slightly stunned. “All we have to do is get behind the bots, there’s a panel that comes off easily. Behind it, there’s a switch that should shut off the bots.”

Sana looked at Violet, taking her in, mildly suspicious. “And how would you know this?”

“I-” Violet paused, thinking over her words for a second, “I used to work for Lovingly Gathered Ruses.”

“So you worked under the IGR!” Arkady yelled, narrowly dodging a flying croissant. “There was nothing in your resume about this!”

“A twice removed branch of the IGR, but yeah,” Violet responded, beginning to fiddle with her hands slightly. “I don’t put it in my resume because of exactly this, people don’t trust the IGR, nobody would hire me. But I promise you, I know what I’m doing.”

“The bots go feral over on the other side as well,” Sana smiled, stepping out of the way of a Danish pastry.

“You have no idea,” Violet responded, attempting and failing to get out of the way of a chocolate eclair.

“Then it’s a plan,” Sana stated, the tone of her voice shifting to be more authoritarian. “We’ll try to shut off the bots.” She turned towards Violet, “I assume you have experience with shutting down the bots?” Violet nodded and Sana continued. “Arkady, you and Violet will go shut off the bot throwing the chairs around. I’ll go over to Brian and Krejjh, tell them the plan and they’ll manage the coffee bot. That leaves the pastry bot, which I’ll shut down.” 

Arkady and Violet nodded, turning to their designated target and slowly but surely, dodging all matters of flying objects, making their way to the bot.

Sana then headed over, sprinting through the madness to Brian and Krejjh. They were already huddled behind the coffee machine, struggling to unplug all the wires that were running the coffee machine. Sana quickly explained the plan and Krejjh nominated themself to go and shut down the bot, while Brian continued with the wires. 

Krejjh jumped up on the counter, avoiding the growing puddle of coffee on the ground. They leapt swiftly from one counter to the other, relishing the adrenaline rush. The bot was still rapidly turning its arms, blocking any possible route to its body. The coffee machine stopped dispensing coffee and Krejjh shouted out their thanks to Brian.

They made their way dangerously close to the bot’s arms, thinking their actions through. The bots’ arms weren’t the part that was spinning, it’s torso was, the arms simply going along with it. And if Krejjh squinted just the right way, they could see, there, on the bot’s torso was the faint outline of a panel. A simple plan formulated in their mind, they knew it was reckless, but what was life without a little risk. 

Krejjh took a deep breath and jumped onto the bot. The bot barely shifted under their weight, but they wouldn’t have noticed because they were too busy desperately holding onto the bot. Luckily they landed almost perfectly onto the panel, they’d quickly swung their legs around it and was holding on for dear life with three of their hands, the last one working on opening the panel.

The panel wasn’t screwed in, but it was perfectly flush with the rest of the bot’s torso. If Krejjh wasn’t looking for it they’d have never noticed the unobtrusive outline of the panel.

They tried to pry at the panel with their hand, but it wouldn’t budge. They released another one of their hands from the bot and tried again. Nothing. Krejjh began to try every single way they could think of to open the panel. Pushing it, twisting it, softly tapping it. Nothing. They ran one of their fingers around the panel, trying to feel for any weak points when suddenly the perimeter of the panel lit up a bright blue. The panel then popped out of the bot. Krejjh breathed a sigh of relief and moved the panel aside.

Where the panel used to be was a cavity in the bot, wherein lay a large switch. Krejjh took in a deep breath and flipped the switch. The bot suddenly froze, and Krejjh took the opportunity to slide off of the bot and sit on the ground, winded and dizzy. The bot fell to the ground, splashing up the coffee.

Brian had made his way over to the counter near the bot a while ago and he reached out a hand to Krejjh sitting in the large puddle of coffee. They tried to take his hand but missed. Trying again they took his hand and unsteadily stood up. Brian led them to the counter and they sat down heavily, leaning into him.

Sana had left Krejjh and Brian and headed over to the pastry bot. This was one of the slower bots, taking the time to aim its sweet missiles. She snuck up behind the bot and waited until it began to take aim. Then tried to pry the panel open. It didn’t work. 

After over fifteen rounds of pastries sent flying Sana finally came across the method to open the panel and quickly flipped the switch, neutralizing the bot. She looked out over the cafe, Krejjh was sitting on the counter with Brian, and Arkady and Violet had just made it over to their bot.

Arkady and Violet had tried to stick together through the cafe but were inevitably often separated. Even then in the short snippets of time, they were together they formulated a plan on how they’d deal with the bot.

When they finally reached the bot, which had decided to take up permanent residence beside the chairs once more, they moved to their planned positions and waited until the perfect moment. Arkady was standing almost right in front of the bot, meanwhile Violet was behind the bot, waiting for Arkady’s move. As opposed to the pastry bot, this bot didn’t aim at all. It didn’t pause at all, picking up the seemingly infinite amount of chairs and instantly throwing them.

Arkady watched the bot for a few seconds, hastily dodging its throws then she saw her opportunity. Before the bot could throw the chair in its hands Arkady grabbed the chair and yanked it forwards, jumping out of the bot’s way at the same time. The bot fell to the ground hard, stunned for a moment it fumbled on the ground. But before the bot could even begin to stand up Arkady tipped over one of the heavier tables onto its arms. The table wasn’t heavy enough to break anything, the IGR was rather protective of its property, but enough to safely pin its arms down so that it couldn’t get up. Violet moved on the bot, skillfully tracing the perimeter of the panel and moving it aside. She flipped the switch and waited for a few seconds afterwards before getting off of the bot. 

The staff of The Rumor congregated by the door, beginning to clear it up and Violet followed to help out. They got the door cleared and the remaining customers hurried out of the cafe. The staff began to clean up the rest of the cafe and Violet silently helped.

Sana and Violet were carrying one of the bots outside and as they dropped the bot on the sidewalk Sana stood up and turned to Violet.

“Well, you’ve certainly proven yourself,” Sana breathed heavily before taking a deep breath, smoothing back her hair, smiling at Violet and extending a hand, “you’re hired.” 

Violet smiled back and shook Sana’s hand.