[stuffed_with food]

One day, Peter is going to grow more than one brain cell, and when he does, he will finally learn how to detect Masen's prissy Deep Thought face before he gets annoyed and starts threatening unpaid overtime.

And, like. Damn. Who's idea was it to make Masen the boss? Probably Emmett, the poor dumb bastard. But who gets the brunt of Masen's perpetual resting bitch face? Peter, that's who. Can Peter help it if he's fun and Masen is…well, not? No, he can't. Frankly, Peter is shocked that Masen has managed to snag someone as wholesome and lively as Bella and not bore her out of her mind.

As it is, Peter isn't going to go around questioning shit, especially since it was Bella who smoothly asked Peter to do her a favor to pick up lunch once she noticed that Masen was edging ever-closer to crushing Peter under a mountain of extra work. Her excuse was that she was too busy helping Alistair work on the digital rendering of the Menagerie characters to go out. She even said she would totally owe Peter for this favor. And then she'd turned those big green eyes up at Masen to bat her lashes and Peter had beat a hasty retreat.

He doesn't think Masen even tried to stop her or protest or anything, the fucking sap. But whatever. It works in Peter's favor. Now he gets to get out of the office and avoid another late night of meeting Masen's perfectionist standards. Score on both counts. Definitely worth the trade-off of playing intern again, even though the company has an official intern now.

But, like. Will Peter be moseying into the back office again when Masen is in the middle of optimizing the algorithm for one of their performance mods? Fuck no. In fact, Peter intends to avoid that office like the plague.

If Peter is assigned any more work, his hands will fall off. And if his hands fall off, then he's going to suffer from blue balls for the rest of his life - and the irony is that he will be blue balling himself because it's his own damn fault he gets assigned more work. He should really do something about keeping his trap shut.

Nah. Too much hassle. Easier to just avoid the back office, honestly.

Bella, pragmatic angel that she is, had the inspired idea to open a tab at NOMAD since it seems to be the office favorite. Now Peter doesn't even need to bring money, because it's all tabulated on Venmo and paid out at the end of the week. So much easier. Bless that girl.

Luckily, today is one of the days that Hot Chef is cooking, so before Peter even reaches the front of the line he knows that the food is going to be mind-blowingly good. His mouth waters so keenly it almost aches. Fuck, but he's so hungry all of the sudden.

At the front of the line, Peter leans up into the food truck on his elbows with a winning grin, waggling his brows at Hot Chef. "Heeeey," Peter says.

Hot Chef greets him with a stone-faced stare and plucks the pen from behind his ear, holding it over the order pad.

"Give me everything you got," Peter says. "Is this German street food? Fuck yeah, I could die happy gagging on one of your bratwursts, you know what I mean?"

Hot Chef stares at Peter, or like, at Peter's chin or something, and then coughs before he writes down the order. Peter purses his lips, tilting his head to peruse the menu.

"Might as well throw in a bunch of that currywurst, too. I know a girl who likes it spicy," Peter adds. "And some, er, Fischebrotchen and pretzel fries, enough to feed like 10 guys."

"Order will take some time," Hot Chef says, ripping the paper off the order pad and pinning it to a corkboard above the stove, all without looking directly at Peter for some weird reason. "I'll bring it out when it's done."

"Roger, roger," Peter says with a wink.

He stakes out the nearest table, pulls out his phone, and scrolls through Twitter to get the latest dish on whoever is canceled today. Looks like the world is canceling a shit load of people today - most of them make sense, too, so Peter tosses in his own hashtag because fuck Chick-fil-a when he has NOMAD for the rest of his natural-born life.

While he's waiting, he also pops over to the Dawn of Warcraft NorCal forum, just to see what the latest news is. If there's a competition for solo bros then Peter wants to throw his hat in the ring to win some bragging rights from Emmett. But there isn't anything new since the last time he checked. He goes to thumb out of the internet app when a new forum post catches his eye.


K.O. Is Still On A Search So Beware
Posted today by anonymous

Listen here noobs I have something to tell you. Watch your back or your sixes or whatever because there's a monster on our server and he ain't hunting any beast. K.O. is a poser poacher but before he steals your shit he demands information. Like, trade between a beatdown and a loss of your kill reward, or just tell him where some rando is lurking. Idk who the hell Pettish is but my dude I think you should be afraid for your life - and your loot.

Comments

Tu-Hurtle
RIP Pettish whoever the fuck you are but also can you just be found already? We're tired of being terrorized

Conolli
I havent been playing long. Who's Pettish? Why does KO want to find him

PlzGlz
KO is a fracking boxer he'll knock you out

K.O.
Pettish is not the handle I'm looking for.

CoCoPoof
Holy shit.

Conolli
Then like who are you looking for and also can you leave me alone?

K.O.
No.

Read More Comments...


Peter chortles at the forum. Oh, man. Yeah, he'd heard about K.O. hunting down some poor unfortunate soul the last couple of months, like the gamer version of a manhunt. He hasn't personally met K.O. online, but Peter is pretty confident his Petulant could take him on, virtual reality man to virtual reality man. Or person. K.O sounds like a dude, but they could be a chick, or maybe they don't have any preferred gender pronouns, which is obviously okay too -

But the point is, Peter invites K.O to come at him and he'll show him what's up.

Although…Peter narrows his eye at that handle. Pettish. That's…similar, but not the same. He hasn't thought of that handle for years. Any similarities are totally a coincidence. After all, Peter can't be the only master of wordplay!

He puts Pettish and K.O. out of his mind, practically salivating when Hot Chef starts bringing out one of the flat cardboard carriers used for mass orders. Peter pops up from his seat, quickly relieving Hot Chef of his burden, placing the carrier on the table, and then brightly offering his help.

Hot Chef nods, just a dip of his artfully scruffy chin, and Peter trots after him, happily filling him in on his goings-on since the last time they talked. Hot Chef is a good listener, even if he does have the facial expression range of Oscar the Grouch. Honestly, at least Hot Chef is a nice grump, unlike Masen who is nice to exactly one person and that person is not Peter.

Hot Chef listens, occasionally flicking his dark eyes in Peter's direction as they carry two other flat boxes to the table. It's only when Peter mentions the Mysterious Case of the Hacked Screensaver that Hot Chef has any overtly interested expression.

"I mean, it would be funny if it was a prank, or like, if the prank made any sense. Like, if it were me, I'd be changing wallpapers to PornHub stills or embarrassing childhood photos or a bad report card from fourth grade that has been haunting someone forever," Peter babbles. He scrunches his face up, shakes his head. "But noooo, what do I get instead? Tibetan temples. Monasteries. Praying monks, and not even cool ones like Miroku!"

Hot Chef places his cardboard carrier down slowly, almost stiffly, and lifts his gaze to stare at Peter in silence. Silence, obviously, is an invitation to continue, which is what Peter does.

"And, like, what's wrong with Margot Robbie? She's a goddess! Did you know she did all of Harley Quinn's stunts by herself in heels? A total legend! Who would have a problem with her?" Peter demands. He huffs, gesturing wildly. "Can you believe some hacker troll wants me to be a monk? Because that's the only explanation! But it's like, no, I don't want to be a monk, thanks, and I don't think real-life pictures of K'un-Lun are going to change that! I'm not Iron fist - and I'm still pissed they whitewashed Danny Rand!"

Hot Chef stands to his full height and stares Peter straight in the eye. "Maybe the hacker wants to free you from distractions so you can pay attention to what's in front of you."

Peter shivers. Hot Chef is, like, weirdly intense right now and it makes Peter feel strange, like his skin is on too tight.

Hot Chef has really pretty eyes, doesn't he? Expressive and fathomless and stuff. Huh.

But then what Hot Chef said finally filters in and Peter can't help but laugh. "Oh, yeah right! I pay plenty of attention!" Peter declares brightly. "Don't think I didn't notice you added one of those mouthwatering cookies. You're ruining me for everyone else, buddy!"

Hot Chef sighs. "New recipe. Brownie stuffed."

Peter whistles. "Man, I love being stuffed too! These are my favorite cookies!"

Hot Chef clears his throat, "On the house."

Peter's mouth drops open. He sidles closer to Hot Chef, his nose level with Hot Chef's chin - and wow is this guy tall or what? Peter grins, pokes Hot Chef right in the middle of his pleasantly firm chest.

"I know you're a nice guy despite your angry eyebrows," Peter says cheerfully. "You can fool the world, but you can't fool me. Nothing gets past this guy right here!"

Dark eyes land on him with a deadpan stare. Hot Chef sighs again.

"Anyway!" Peter says with a winsome grin, stepping back to shoot finger-guns at Hot Chef. "I've got to get back to the office. See you later, man!"

Hot Chef grunts his own goodbye, lumbering back to the food truck and patiently waiting customers with one final glance over his shoulder. Peter winks at him and Hot Chef turns away, his tanned neck getting red, probably from all the sun.

Peter has pep in his step as he goes back to the office. Despite the work surely waiting for him at his desk, Peter can't find a single fuck to care because his mood is so good. Even Masen coming out with another deadline wouldn't get him down now!

But, like. Peter hopes there won't be a new deadline, just in case. Fingers crossed and knocking on wood and all of that.


A/N: Oh, Peter...There were a few clues in this chapter! Paying attention to the exact wording is important and so is Peter paying attention to Pettish. It all makes sense eventually. This is update 2 of 5!

There were a few references in this chapter: Miroku is from the manga/anime Inuyasha, where Miroku is a monk who is cursed with a wind tunnel in his hand and the bit about Margo Robbie doing all of her own stunts in heels is 100% true, which is so impressive considering the acrobatics Harley Quinn pulls off. The whitewashing of Danny Rand in the Netflix/Marvel iteration of Iron Fist is problematic because Danny was supposed to be Asian like he is in the comics; speaking of Iron Fist, K'un-Lun is a mythical hidden temple of ass-kicking monks in both the comic and the TV series. Interesting K'un-Lun is also part of some legitimate Chinese mythology, as it is sometimes regarded as the place where the God of War would live and train his disciples.

Anyway! As always, be brutally honest. I can take it! Stay safe, stay smart, and stay vigilant against people who are crying about Aunt Jemima, because these are people who will insist that the entire motif of Aunt Jemima isn't racist (it is, see: original minstrel play that created the Aunt Jemima image, the "Lawsee" original advertising, and the fact that, when the brand was first on the shelf, "Aunt" or "Uncle" was a way to refer to favored slaves, kind of a softening of the I-Own-You-But-Still-Think-Of-You-As-Family-But-I-Also-Wont-Give-You-Your-Freedom issue surrounding the whole ideal that well-treated slaves were, in fact, pleased as punch to be slaves, which obviously they weren't because they didn't have freedom). These people who are so upset about Quaker pulling this blatantly racist item off the shelves will also try to tell you that Nancy Green, the "first" Aunt Jemima whose likeness was used and who was a paid actress to make pancakes at conventions, was the first black female millionaire (she wasn't, and neither were any of the other Aunt Jemima actresses who came after her) and they will also try to ignore the fact that Quaker (and other companies) have clearly known about the racist connotations of these brands and are only just now doing something about it. And yeah, it is a superficial change, but it's a superficial change that helps remove the subliminal messaging that has been baked into our society.

~Rae