A/N: Hello, everyone! It's me, your friendly neighborhood Glissxndo, bringing you a brand new collaboration. This will be written from Allen's point of view, with another fic featuring Tyki's; it'll be posted on this profile, so keep an eye out next week if that sounds interesting to you! For now, I hope you enjoy the first chapter of Customer Service!

Nothing made Allen's blood boil more than trying to serve a customer too busy talking on their phone to offer him a simple hello. It's always the same thing with these people. They spit out an order in his general direction, lips drawn into a fine neutral line that makes Allen wonder if they're face would break in half if they dared to smile.

None of them—whether this one or the next—should be surprised when they give him a name and it comes back to them horribly butchered, like the anglicized version of a Hebrew name. Despite how petty it obviously is, it's the closest thing he can get to revenge in the retail business.

Nobody can pitch too much of a fuss about something so silly as a misspelling, right? Especially not when someone had a name like Tyki, like Allen's least favorite customer did. It wouldn't be a lie if he said that he didn't know how to spell it, though he doubted Tiki—like the torch, though much dimmer—was correct.

That was the name he'd gifted them the first time they'd wandered into his line and the reaction gave him no less life weeks later when he was still doing it.

A single twitch of Tyki's eyebrow and Allen's heart soars with his silent victory. A smile so sweet that it's sickening spreads across his face at the sight of his obvious irritation.

"Have a wonderful day," Allen says without hesitation, relishing in his agitation.

He knows it won't be so easy to scare off any customer—much less a businessman—but it still fuels the fire in his blood when he walks into the coffee shop the following morning, their phone in hand like it was surgically attached to his ear. If it were both legal and socially acceptable, Allen might've opted to test that theory for validity.

Instead, he had the misfortune of being the barista to serve his least favorite customer their usual blend of nasty, black coffee bullshit.

It was fortunate for Tyki that serving opinions wasn't a job he got paid for, but it was a stroke of luck that didn't last for him when Allen served him coffee with a name written across it that was horribly misconstrued.

Tiky, it read, assuming anyone could get past the sloppy loop on the last letter to actually make sense of what it said. He offers the same excessive gratitude and pleasantries as he did the day before, wishing him a spectacular day and thanking him for returning to their establishment. Their reaction is the same as the day before and Allen feels a sting of disappoint that they didn't have a more adverse reaction to his subtle attack.

No one is that easy to scare off, however, and Allen fully expects to see them again the next morning. They'd arrive at the same time as usual, instead of making a bee line for their rival shop right across the street.

However, the next day doesn't come with as much as ease as he'd like. He leaves work late that evening after working a double shift, mumbling his irritation about lazy coworkers that couldn't be arsed to so much as call in before deciding not to show up.

Allen hated walking home this late. This late into the year, it was a commute characterized by the chill in the air and the frosty breeze and the sun that had set hours ago marked that his primary concern was no longer the oncoming winter weather.

His neighborhood is decorated with barely maintained sidewalks and littered with tasteless graffiti that would offend several artists Allen knew. The poor conditions matches his home and every single one around it. Even some of the people are as bad as the pavement they walk on and they lurk these streets at night like predators awaiting fresh prey.

He's used to this.

He breaks out into a sprint, starting a chase that marks him as the prey. It's a mere minute before he can hear them plodding after him, some of them yelling to comrades meant to head off their victims.

He's used to this.

So many times this has happened to him, it was more an inconvenience than a fear—and besides, he probably deserved it.

He deserved the feeling of his lungs screaming from exertion; he deserved the ache in his limbs that begged him to rest, which he so rarely did. Still, he didn't stop moving and luck brought him to the staircase landing faster than his would-be assailants.

Though many stop their pursuit by that point, Allen doesn't stop rushing until he inserts the key and steps into his apartment, locking the door tight behind him. It's only then that he's able to take a breath of the sweet relief that's almost palpable in the air.

A smile lights his face when something rubs against his leg and he crouches down to close the difference in their heights. Fingers touch the fuzz ball's skull, running down the length of the cat as it purrs, greeting him as per usual. Gray eyes glimmered with glee as he gave his own hello to the Maine coon with a golden mane.

"Hey, Tim," he says, laughing as the cat leans into the gentle touch. A soft mewling tells Allen exactly what he wants, despite the language barrier. "I know, you're hungry. I am, too."

A sigh of exhaustion spills from his lips as he stands, stepping over the cat carefully to proceed into the kitchen.

"I have food for you, at least."

He reaches into the cupboard, pulling out one of the few things contained within to procure a single can of cat food for his best friend whose hunger was insatiable as his own.

Reaching down to pick up Tim's bowl and fill it was easier said than done when the cat is dancing around his feet, eager for their evening meal that was already late, thanks in large part to the double that Allen had pulled. When he sets the bowl back down, the cat throws himself into it, scarfing the food down at a pace that matched Allen's own.

"Don't let me forget to go and get more," Allen says, an unpleasant lilt in his voice that causes the cat to stop and stare at him. "Don't worry about me, Tim; I'll be fine."

Still, that sad smile spreads across his face as he says, "I'm used to this."

Working in retail, Allen's learned to expect the absolute worst from the moment he steps in the door. It meant getting used to the entitlement of customers and the laziness of coworkers as much as it meant being prepared for the coffee shop equivalent of a zombie apocalypse.

This also meant that the next morning, when his manager approached him to request he pull another double before he'd even clocked in, he was neither surprised nor able to refuse. Allen didn't have a stable enough bank account to refuse unless he was bleeding out on the lobby floor.

Money made the world go round, much like how sleep deprivation did for him.

Unfortunately, the bags under his eyes weren't enough to scare customers into leaving him alone—especially not his favorite customer, who liked to walk in at the start of his shift to set a nasty tone for the rest of the day.

The bar was so low, but this man was a master at limbo that set it ever lower with each passing day.

Allen doesn't need his name anymore. He knows his name by heart as much as his order and even the spelling was something that no longer genuinely confused him. It was unfortunate that Allen didn't share the creativity of his best friend—the human one, at least—when it came to progressively terrible misspellings.

Lavi was the unsurpassed master of awful nicknames. If only they were one of those con-artist psychics that could project their thoughts unto others and grace Allen with his genius in times like these, when he needed it the most.

He settles for the first thing he can think of. It's not funny. In fact, it's downright stupid and he feels a pang of disappointment in himself that will probably have him pouting in the bathroom half an hour from now.

Tickles, it says on the cup, drawn in a messy scrawl that would look nicer if a chicken had picked up a pen and written it in his stead. He's barely offered a glare when he passes off the cup to them with a smile so sweet it'd rot the teeth right out of any other man's mouth.

This was the kind of harassment that would've had Allen doubled over with laughter, but no one could convince him that it was his own attitude that prevented his number one customer from finding amusement in it.

The rest of his shift passes as Allen would expect it to. Morning fades into evening at a pace so slow that it's agonizing as he dreads the dark walk back to the shack that had somehow earned the title of "home".

The sun falls as his focus on coffee shifts to the only person—pet—waiting for him at the end of the day. The only part of that building that he could call "home" was his cat.

Stepping out into the frigid weather, he stayed with the shift manager long enough for her to lock the door and make a break for her car to get out of the biting wind that cuts into him with every gust as he walks in the opposite direction of all his coworkers. Where they go out to their cars and drive off to greener pastures, Allen returns to the hell on earth that is his neighborhood.

The only company he keeps on his lonely walk home is the shadows cast by overhead light fixtures and the feeling of eyes on him, though he couldn't be sure if that was real or an imagined product of his anxiety.

There's a sharp contrast between the neighborhood where he stayed and the one where he worked. There, even the streets were free of cracks. They were maintained with all the love in the world by underpaid city workers that probably lived as far from their work as he did.

But here was a neighborhood suited better for use as a post-apocalyptic movie set than a place for people to live. No one but the brave or the stupid roamed these streets this late at night, preferring the underside of a bridge to navigating through here long after the sun has fallen beneath the horizon.

Just like the night before, the thugs still lurk here and they catch sight of him on the empty streets with ease. He hears them coming, feet pounding against the degrading cement as they approached. Every single time, it was the same three or four guys, ganging up on him and as much as Allen wished he was the superman some of his coworkers thought him to be, that was too much for him.

And after two days of double shifts and having only ate a few scraps of food that had been left on display for a few hours too many to salvage, running was as likely a loss as fighting was.

He saw the first punch coming long before it was thrown, stepped backwards with calculated precision to avoid it. The second came from elsewhere, colliding with Allen's cheek, the ring on their finger cutting into his skin and creating a fresh gash.

He was used to this.

The kick landed at the back of his knees had them buckling. It was the first bruise of many that followed as Allen reminded himself that this was normal, that it wasn't unusual for someone like him to be beaten up in back allies.

Few would notice if something happened to a nobody like him—fewer than that would even care.

They land kicks and punches on him with cruel laughter; they're the pitiable ones, Allen reminds himself. They don't care about anything but the few bucks left in his wallet, emptying it before landing another solid kick to ribs that crack under the pressure and elicit a sharp gasp from him before they discard it near enough that he'll be able to scoop it up when he manages to pick himself up.

But he doesn't move when they're gone, remaining pressed against the cold sidewalk that soothes bruised flesh. His pain is numbed by the icy air of fall, but eventually, he forces himself to get up. Limbs shake and bones ache as he plucks the wallet off the hard ground with as much difficulty as he does himself.

Worse than a walk home with the threat of being beaten up is the trudge home after it's happened. The staircase leading up to his apartment is his biggest struggle and he doesn't know whether it hurts more to cling to the railing or to attempt the climb without it.

This was far from the first time he arrived home feeling like he'd been hit by a truck, though it wouldn't have been the first time if he'd passed out before he got there, either.

It's a miracle that he unlocks the door, makes it inside, closes and locks it before crumpling onto the couch. He groans when his weak body hits the hard cushions, a shock of pain surging through his abdomen before sliding into a position both less comfortable and less painful. He moves gingerly, every small movement eliciting a short whine of pain from him.

His hand slips off the side of the couch, fingers grazing his dirty living room carpet. Today, Tim's meows are too loud; his head's already pounding without the additional sound that goes silent a moment before he feels golden fur rub up against his hand.

"I'm sorry, Tim..." he says, all his strength long gone, voice muffled by cushions his face was pressed into. A greeting that usually filled him with joy now filled him with guilt instead, his heart aching. "Can you wait until the morning?"

As if sensing what was wrong with his master, a rough tongue gave a solitary lick to Allen's hand as if Tim was giving him permission to skip feeding him this one time.

"Thanks, Tim."

The two words are barely out of his mouth before he slips into blissful unconsciousness with a single painful reminder on his mind.

Tim, too, was used to this.

A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!