#and giving her a severe corneal ulcer in her right eye

[madwickedawesome]

i need sleep so bad but im inventing a 5 week old dsh who weighs 1.7lbs whose name is mop

[cubeswhump]

Something Feels Familiar

Levi before he was Levi. If anyone wants to be tagged in Levi fics, let me know.

Warning for institutionalized slavery, abuse, burns, drug abuse, working in retail.

This isn't what I wanted.

What? Where did such a thought come from? What wasn't what 262847 wanted? Maybe he wanted something else when he signed up. Was that it?

No. This was perfect. He wanted this.

He had a comfortable bed. The other boxies never told on him. They got to eat the food that didn't sell and would otherwise be thrown out. But once, a customer was watching videos on her laptop, and 262 snuck glances when possible. There was an ad showing a boxie and its owner, and the owner was so tender and loving. 262 wanted someone to hold his hand, stroke his hair… 

He slapped his own face hard. One of the two box babes stared at him.

None of them had actually met their owner, who worked way up in corporate. A huge package deal of several hundred boxies trained to be the perfect employees, several placed at every location in the UK. The managers,  -- hired employees rather than pets -- were the ones who kept them in line, and though 262 would snatch up whatever positive attention he could get, it wasn't enough.

Yes it was. He was a pet and he would be happy with whatever he got. He was grateful.

A little voice in his head said it was weird to have a coffee shop boxie. But it made sense, right? His owner was so smart. His owner knew they would save money by having pets rather than employees, as pets could work longer shifts and didn't get paid. Smart.

262 nudged the other boxie at the counter. "861."

"Piss off," the girl mumbled.

"861, what's coffee shop AU? It just popped into my head, and…"

"I don't care. Stop talking to me."

He talked too much. The handlers couldn't beat it out of him, but it suited him well in such a role. The boxies arranged amongst themselves that 262 would always be at the front to deal with customers directly as the others tended to freeze up if a customer went off script and said something they weren't prepared for. 262 even did well dealing with those who hated corporate boxies.

"It's so unfair. They buy a bundle of you freaks and put us all out of jobs!"

And 262's eyebrows would furrow, head tilting to the side. "Gosh, really? Oh no, I'm so sorry."

He'd listen while the customer ranted their heart out, nodding along and sometimes giving shocked apologies. And he'd often sell them a cup of coffee or muffin. 

It was one of these interactions. The customer ranted, called him all sorts of names, but eventually wanted a caramel macchiato with no foam. No foam, always no foam. Do they even know what a macchiato is?

He forgot to strain the milk. He took a small spoon and started flinging foam into the sink until 476 told him to "stop being an idiot" and that he was "gonna get us all in trouble."

Good enough. Just thinking those words nearly made him double over at the pain in his head.

There is no such thing as good enough. There is only perfection and failure.

Yet he found himself handing the woman her drink. She pulled the lid off as he turned to the next customer, smiling. 

"I said NO FUCKING FOAM!"

The coffee shop blurred. He screamed. 

The customer continued to shout. 476 didn't pause from tending to another customer. And fire licked at 262's face. At least, that's how it felt.

Mister Evan, the assistant mansger seemed to appear from nowhere, going "I'm so sorry, Ma'am. 262, stop that blubbering and apologize now. We'll fix that for you."

Within the hour, 262's skin was scarlet, cheek and jaw swelling, right eye unable to open. The tears kept trickling. Evan had him sit out in the employee break room, out of sight. 262 was terrified to step foot in such a place. Boxies don't get breaks. The light overhead flickered. There were no windows. Looking at the posters on the wall made 262's head pound as the letters danced. 

A millenia seemed to pass. Then the door opened. Miss Donna, the manager, stood in the doorway and gasped. 

"Evan, you didn't tell me tmit was this bad!" she cried. 

And that made 262 start crying too. 

A heart-sinking to a pet-friendly hospital in Miss Donna's own car. 262 was such a nuisance. She had better things to do. 

She sat with him through hours of tests, picked him up the next day when he was discharged, picked up his medicine. Bad pet. Burden. 

Second degree burns on more than half his face. Burned cornea and the start of a corneal ulcer. Lid edema, whatever that meant. He had to wear a patch over his eye for two weeks and then they'd know how his vision was affected. 

Ointment. Eye drops. Pills. No one told him what they were, just apply ointment three times a day. Apply eye drops five times a day. Take one pill once in the morning and once at night -- Miss Donna changed that to only take it before bed so it doesn't impede on his performance at work. May take over the counter painkillers every 2-4 hours.

He couldn't make out most of the labels. He was pretty sure the ointment was silver something, but the second word was a doozy. But at night, when it was meant to be lights out, he holled up in the bathroom and squinted at the label. The words grew clear: OXYCODONE 20MG.

861 was brushing his teeth. 581 was waiting to use the loo. 262 just wanted them all to go to bed, leave the bathroom to him. 

You're meant to take the tablets whole. Don't lick or get wet in any way. don't crush, don't break them or it releases the compound too quickly. He wasn't sure how he knew that.

Everyone was asleep, or pretending to be. 861 definitely was asleep, his snores echoing off the walls. It surprised 262 that they didn't get rid of that in training. But the girls said 262 snores even worse.

He carefully shut the door behind him and got the bottle out of the drawer. He took out one pill, two pills, and set them on the counter. There was a tub of face moisturizer in one of the drawers, as management wants the box babes to stay pretty. He tapped it on the counter, ensuring it was hard plastic and not glass. Then he crushed the pills under it and scraped the dust off. 

He smuggled a plastic straw from the shop and cut a small piece from it earlier. At the time, he hadn't known what he was doing, but his body worked on his own accord. The pieces clicked into place. One end went in his good nostril and the powder was sucked through the other end. He closed his eyes in bliss.

Something pushed at the fog in his brain, but he didn't dwell on it. He needed to savor this feeling.