Chapter Text
Stiles Stilinski has been called many things: annoying as fuck, an asshole, lots of stuff. But he's not a complete prick. He's not exactly getting awards for his overwhelming kindness, either, but he's not that bad.
Sure, he has no brain-to-mouth filter, he laughs when people fall down (he helps them up while he’s laughing – it’s not that bad), he can’t sit still to save his goddamn life, he’s a sarcastic little shit, he likes to pull pranks, and he just honestly can’t stand how dumb or cruel or frustrating people are.
So he’s a little misanthropic, but it’s not that bad. He can charm his way out of or into most things if necessary.
The worst thing about him though, if anyone were to ask him, is that he’s been fired from every job he’s had since he was sixteen.
Mostly, his old bosses would say, because he lacks customer services skills.
Stiles would say that it’s because people are fucking idiots and he can’t deal with their bullshit.
Stiles’ work history is as follows:
The Sandwich Shop
Finally, a way to pay for gas and video games and junk food and movies and hey, maybe save up a little for something nice – he had plans.
The job was simple: make sandwiches. Boom. Done. Stiles had this in the bag. It was a little hard to bite down on the sarcastic responses to stupid questions – it’s a fucking sandwich, what the fuck? What is so complicated about it?
His dad had stopped by on his second day to buy a sandwich and “support his son” but Stiles knew it was because his dad could order whatever he wanted and Stiles couldn’t say anything.
“The customer is always riiight,” his dad practically sang as he pointed at the bacon.
Stiles finished his dad’s sandwich narrow-eyed and flat-lipped, his gaze promising trouble when he got home.
Everything was going smoothly until he was there for almost a month.
There was a regular who was a veritable nightmare named Lawrence. Every employee hated him. He was a menace: always pushing for extra toppings at no charge, smiling while giving verbal jabs to rile them up so he could get discounts – and seriously, the most complicated fucking sandwich order EVER.
And Stiles did his best not to be an ass, he really really did. He always bit his tongue and ignored the comments, though Lawrence was getting increasingly good at picking at whatever bothered Stiles most at that current time.
That day, Stiles had overslept, missed the first half of his Biology test, been told he’d have to take it after school the next day, spilled his lunch, shut his shoelace in the door and kept walking (which resulted with his face getting reacquainted with its old friend the floor), and almost knocked Lydia Martin face-first into the table for the cross country team’s bake sale when he ran by on his way to work.
All in all, shitty day, right?
So, of course, that would be the shift when fucking Lawrence came in.
All it took was a little smirk, Lawrence opening his big stupid mouth to admonish him for not using enough mayonnaise while saying it must have been his upbringing that led to his inability to listen and didn’t his mother teach him to be nice to people and Lawrence lived in Beacon Hills and he knew he knew motherfucker knew what happened to his mom and –
Stiles snapped.
Reaching into the first container he could, Stiles launched to contents into Lawrence’s face. Baloney, it turns out, can stick pretty well and it clung to Lawrence’s gaping expression.
“How fucking dare you! You know what, Lawrence? You are a fucking terrible person and everyone fucking hates serving you! You suck!” Stiles swiped the half-finished sandwich into the trash and threw his hands up in the air. “Also, you fucking reek! Take a shower or invest in some damn deodorant!”
Lawrence’s face had turned bright red before he began shouting back and the manager was drawn out of the office by the sound.
“What is going on here?” he demanded, hands on his hips.
Stiles turned to explain himself and saw the sly look slide over Lawrence’s face.
“Mr. Geller, your employee is out of control. He threw bologna at my face and started yelling at me about my sandwich preferences. I really hope this isn’t the usual way that your other customers are treated.” His voice was oily and made Stiles’ skin crawl.
Stiles snorted; he knew how this was going to end for him and thought fuck it. “Yeah, that’s right. I threw baloney at him because I’m a terrible employee and not because he’s a giant fucknugget who smells like rotten baboon ass.” He smiled at his manager. “I’m gonna assume I’m fired?”
Brandon sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, Stiles, that’s safe to assume.”
“Awesome.” He turned back to Lawrence and flicked him off. “Enjoy your sandwich.” Stiles walked to the back and waited until Brandon was done and walked around the corner, sighing.
“Stiles, look-”
“Nah, nah, I get it. The customer is always right.” He pulled his hat off and tossed it and his apron onto the desk. Next came the poly-blend polo shirt. Stiles pulled his t-shirt down and plucked his book bag off of one of the hooks by the door. “Thanks for the job.”
“You’ll get your last check in the mail.”
Stiles nodded then left, hopping into the Jeep and peeling out of the parking lot, though he was only going five-over in case any of the police happened to be around to add a ticket on top of his already shit-tastic day.
He pulled into his driveway, slumped into the house, groaned all the way up the stairs, and flopped face-first onto his bed. He let himself wallow for five minutes before he flipped over and sighed.
Well, easy come, easy go.
His dad was proud of him for standing up for himself. His dad was also more than a little critical of his methods of fighting back. “Baloney, Stiles, really?” But in the end, he clasped Stiles on the shoulder, shook him a little and smiled warmly.
Bentley’s
After his 17th birthday, he began his job as a busboy, food runner, cashier, and sometimes server at Bentley’s. The manager, Sarah, had been sympathetic to Stiles’ need for a job and she’d known them since Stiles was 4 so she cut him a break.
Not that it mattered, apparently, because that job didn’t work out either.
Erica Reyes had always been quiet and, in high school society, not very interesting. But Stiles knew she was smart and a little shy, sure, but she had a quick sense of humor and had a sweet, if slightly evil, laugh from having her as a partner in Home Economics first semester of sophomore year.
They’d both passed with B's because they couldn’t stop sabotaging the other groups’ flour-bag babies. So worth it for the look on Jackson’s face when his flour bag exploded in his face.
The most recent summer had been incredibly kind to her in the looks department and puberty hit her like a truck. Gone was the mousy girl in the giant hoodies – in her place strutted a long-legged perfectly-curled-blonde-haired vixen with red lips twisted in a wicked smile. She even made the burger joint uniform look good, which was no small feat, with the old-school diner dress/apron combo and non-slip shoes.
Stiles’ first day, he greeted Erica with a hug and a flippant comment about how frumpy she looked, got a pop to the back of the head, and a smacking kiss that left a perfect lipstick mark right on his left cheekbone. He left it there and worked his entire shift while sending flirtatious winks at anyone whose eyes lingered on the mark.
As a busboy, he didn’t have to speak to any customers and as a food runner, he only barely had to deal with them. Everything went well for a couple weeks and then there was a big football tournament that brought several teams from out of town.
Since Bentley’s was the best burger place in town, most of the teams ended up eating there at one point or another. Stiles was running around like crazy trying to take care of the customers at the bar, cash out tickets, run food, and help out the other servers at the same time.
“Erica, table 14 is waving at you,” he informed her as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the window, waiting for their food.
She sighed, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes. “Table 14 is filled with asshats from the next county over and they can hold their goddamn horses because I have been over there eleven times in the past minute. They all need something but can’t ask for it at the same time. Pretty sure they’re just trying to get me to lean over the table. Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “If one of them tries to touch my ass, I’m gonna feed them their cleats.”
Stiles squeezed her shoulder in silent reassurance and grabbed his fries, sliding them in front of Doctor Harvey, his dad’s cardiologist. He leveled the doctor with his hardest stare, his tone firm. “These are on me if you keep me updated on how my dad’s looking heart-wise, Doc.”
He chuckled and squirted ketchup on one end of his plate. “Now, now, Stiles, you know I can’t tell you anything. Doctor-Patient confidentiality.” He leaned forward and winked. “And confidentially, your dad needs to stay away from high sodium foods.”
Stiles winked back. “Got it. Thanks, Doc.”
Table 14 finally finished eating and one of the guys sauntered up to the register with his ticket in hand. He cleared his throat impatiently as Stiles refilled Mrs. Elliot’s coffee cup and Stiles leveled a glare at the dude before finishing what he was doing and meandering over.
“Everything good?” he asked grudgingly as he took the ticket and rang up the meals, not really giving a shit if the hulking cretin enjoyed the food or not.
“Fine,” the guy grunted.
“Your total is $146.27 – how would you like to pay for that?”
The guy held out a credit card and Stiles could see it was a team credit card.
“Great. If you could sign this copy and this one here is yours.” He turned and picked up a plate of onion rings from the window and put it down in front of one of his customers before turning back to the register. He grabbed the receipt and glanced down at the tip line in confusion.
That was a ridiculously large amount to tip, unless…
“Your phone number?” he asked dryly, one of his eyebrows rising.
The guy grinned and shrugged. “Yeah. Pass it along to the hot blonde.” His friends laughed behind him.
Stiles glanced at their mostly clean table and saw not a single bit of money on its surface. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Glancing back at the group of guys laughing and joking about how great an idea it had been to leave his number that way was a bad idea. Stiles crumpled the receipt in his hand and slapped his other down on the counter.
“What the fuck is your problem, dude?” he snapped, voice loud.
Most of the patrons jumped and looked at him in surprise but the big guy just glared at him. “What?”
He raised his voice even louder. “You think that leaving a phone number as a tip on an almost hundred and fifty dollar check when you’re paying with a team card anyway is acceptable? You think that’s funny? What is wrong with you?” He shook his head. “You can go to hell dude.” He crossed his arms and glared right back at the guy.
Skin flushing red around his neck, the guy stepped forward and reached out to grab Stiles by the neck strap of his apron.
Twisting, suddenly realizing how bad of an idea it was to stand up physically to someone three times his size with very little counter space between them, Stiles stepped on a fallen fork and skidded left, elbow flying and hitting the jerk in the nose, hard. Stiles hit the ground and felt his hip throb.
Jeez, try to stand up for someone and end up falling on his ass. Great, just great. This was precisely why he didn’t do this shit.
Erica crouched next to him to help him up while the guy was roaring about his face, his face. Yeah, his stupid ugly Neanderthal face! Erica snickered and Stiles, whoops, had said that last part out loud and oh well. She wrapped him in a quick hug when he was on his feet again and he patted the top of her head.
Suddenly, an even larger guy appeared and started demanding some answers as to why his team captain slash quarterback was sporting what was probably a broken nose and at least one black eye the night before the play-offs and oh shit, this was bad this was bad this was sooo bad.
“Uh…” Stiles gurgled before Sarah appeared and shot him a look.
She calmed the situation down, got the coach to hand Erica exactly 15% of the check, and then turned to Stiles with a sad expression after the group walked out the door.
Stiles, despite only having been fired once, recognized the expression immediately and sighed, nodding. He finished taking care of the rest of his customers, closed out his tickets, and cashed out.
Sarah patted him on the head, handed him his tips for the night and his pay for the week. “You and your dad still come by and see me sometime, okay?”
“Sure thing, Sarah. See you later.” He waved a little and turned to leave.
Erica waited for him at the front door, wrapped in her coat with her bag over her shoulder. She clasped her hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Well if it isn’t my brave hero, coming just in time to walk me home.”
He scoffed and walked out the door without holding it open for her. She laughed at him as he started walking without her and she jogged to catch up, slinging her arm into his.
“It could’ve been worse, you know,” she said after a moment, breath just slightly fogging the air as it started to get cold.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I could’ve knocked the baskets out of the fryer and scarred him for life. Or broken his leg. Or blown up the building,” he muttered darkly.
“You’re really not a bad guy, Stiles. You just have a tendency to say things a certain way that really pisses people off if they don’t know you that well.” She patted his hand.
“Gee thanks. I hated having to deal with customers all the time so I’m not heart broken or anything.” He sighed. “I just really don’t like looking like a fuck up.”
“Hey.” He looked over at her. “You aren’t a fuck up. The physical maiming was accidental – plus he totally started that – and you were just being a good person and calling him on his bullshit.”
“Good person.” He laughed. “I got fired for being a good person. Food service is so fucked up.” Stiles shook his head. “At least I’m not getting arrested for assault. Yay!”
Erica laughed. “Could be worse.” He glanced over at her. She raised her eyebrows and looked at him in semi-serious horror. “You could be working retail.”
He laughed, long and hard, even though it wasn’t that funny, and she started laughing too, leaning against the side of her front porch until her mom came outside and asked if they were okay.
So Many Other Terrible Jobs
His next job was at a shoe store. He had jinxed himself, really. He got fired from that one for telling someone he did not and would not help them try on shoes and, quite frankly, their feet smelled from where he was at the counter and he couldn’t imagine the stench from six inches away.
That one lasted two weeks.
The next job, the grocery store where he told a woman to get off her damn phone and look where she was going when she ran his hand over with her shopping cart while he was on his hands and knees cleaning up a display of applesauce that some damn idiot had knocked over and not told anyone about.
Fired after three weeks.
Another restaurant, a barbecue joint this time. Fired after three days for telling someone that just because it was all you can eat that doesn’t mean that you can get a to-go box which was somehow construed as him saying the man was overweight which he did not say, thank you very much.
Didn’t matter – still fired.
After a certain point, because Stiles was naturally blessed with what he would like to call an impish and curious nature even though others called it destructive and slightly evil, it almost became fun to see how long he could last at certain jobs when he stopped even attempting to be nice.
The rest of the jobs he had in high school were never for more than a few days and really, it was a miracle he kept getting hired in the first place, though he supposed some of that may have come from his dad being the sheriff.
And really – that one football player aside – he wasn’t hurting anyone. It was all pretty harmless and he was going to college in a different town anyway so what did it really matter?