Remus gives tour-guiding a try!
This is the worst moment of Remus’ life. The moment this short, surely-small-dicked, obnoxious and rude man walks through the door (TEN MINUTES LATE!), Remus elbows James for his hiring choices. His brother- Remus guesses- follows him in, huffing and clearly irritated so Remus immediately likes him better.
But the one in front strides confidentially in, like he owns the whole shop or something. And he’s not even here for a proper shift- he's here for fucking training. And the worst part is, Remus is supposed to do it! He doesn’t even want to talk to that man, never mind teach him how to do basic shit like putting things on shelves or cleaning dirty floors.
It’s just that Remus has dealt with men like this one before- so far up their own arses, they don’t know what the outside world looks like. It’s exhausting. And Remus is definitely getting sleepy and not having a burst of adrenaline when the guy says, “Oh my god, don’t look now but I would have definitely come to this shop more often if I knew he worked here.” to his brother, tilting his head a little at Remus. It was a whisper, but this guy fits his pretentious demeanour by having the loudest whisper Remus has ever fucking heard. Also, Remus just has great hearing.
The blush is almost gone as they walk closer to him, and Remus thinks he can hear (though it’s much more hushed) “It’s just a random guy?” asked rhetorically and very judgementally by the quieter brother.
“You’re late.”
As soon as Remus speaks his truth, the third expected trainee comes striding in. But unlike the guy stood with his hands on hips in front of Remus, she looks fucking cool. Confidence comes off her in waves, and Remus beckons her and calls as she approaches, “Hi, I’m Remus it’s nice to have you here, I'm just about to start with the tour then I'll show you guys what you’ll be doing.”
She smiles and greets them all with an obviously put-on cheeriness, “Hi guys, I'm Dorcas, and I’m really tired so please don’t test me today.”
Regulus smiles and nods- Remus thinks that might be code for ‘I relate’.
“Right then: no testing you, shall we get started- we don’t want to be even more behind on our schedule,” The obnoxious one says this sweetly, but looks Remus up and down as he says it.
“Let’s not forget who pushed us behind schedule in the first place.” Remus grits out.
“Oh yeah, sorry I'm late, thought it would be quite flexible.”
“I’m not sorry, it wasn’t my fault.”
Remus only looks pointedly at Sirius, who has not apologised, tilting his head. He’s meant to look intimidating, but he’s left noticing the length of Sirius’ eyelashes (they’re really quite long) and as he registers this he quickly looks away.
He abruptly marches off, not caring if they follow him or not, starting the tour.
***
Lily stands by Mary and Severus, dressing mannequins, when Remus passes with the newcomers. Severus and Mary have been bickering over outfits for about fifteen minutes, and Lily has a headache coming on.
“The green skirt with the brown top is cuter. Right, Lily?”
“No. Lily, tell her that the yellow trousers are much nicer with it.”
While Mary’s outfit (with the green skirt) is absolutely cuter, Lily does not have the capacity to deal with the wrath of a pissed-off Severus.
“They’re both lovely. It really doesn’t matter how they look.”
From behind Severus, Mary mouths, ‘We both know mine is cuter, you’re just a pussy.’, Lily only rolls her eyes and turns to see Remus approaching, looking very bored.
“This is Lily and Mary, say hello to them and the mannequins.”
The woman greets, “Thank God there are women that work here, I’m Dorcas. Call me whatever you want though, I answer to just about anything if a woman calls me it.”
Smiling, Lily turns to look at Mary who’s grinning at her own dirty thoughts. She raises her eyebrows before saying, “Great to meet you, I look forward to talking to you later, we'll get lunch together.”
“I’m Sirius, and this Regulus. We’re also glad that women work here.”
“You sound so fucking creepy.” The other man- Regulus- says, then to the women he clarifies, “He’s not glad in that way.”
“Obviously not. It’s clear to everyone here that he’s gay.” This is Severus. Because of course it’s Severus.
Lily starts, “Severus you can’t just-”
But Remus has clearly been waiting to yell at someone because he near-shouts, “What the fuck!? You can’t just fucking out someone like that you dickhead- especially in a work environm-”
“I’m not gay.”
And everyone shuts up.
Very slowly, Dorcas looks Sirius up and down. Then she makes a face like she doesn’t believe him, and walks leisurely away. Remus, Regulus and Sirius follow almost desperately. With a weak wave, Lily smiles at Remus -with something she hopes comes across as supportive- who looks just as angry as when he was yelling.
“The green skirt is cuter.” She says to nobody in particular (to Severus, she says it to Severus).
He then promptly marches away, and Lily couldn’t be gladder.
“Fucking men.”
Mary nods and replies, “We don’t need them.”
Then they share a look. Something they’re really good at and that Lily hates with a passion. “Yeah. We’re better on our own.”, and she looks down to continue putting socks into the sock basket.
***
Severus has been waiting for Lily to come and apologise for about half an hour when he gives up. He’s facing a wall, sat on a bench in the warehouse. And giving up waiting. Now he’s just sat there, not waiting, but staying just in case she comes by to say sorry. Which he’s pretty sure she will.
-
Another fifteen minutes later Marlene comes by, she has a go at him for ‘hiding in the back’ and ‘skiving off’ his job. He tries to explain that he was waiting for Lily but it all sounds a bit sad. Marlene asks him to go to a till, saying they’ve been calling him to it for ten minutes and that the customers are in huge lines. Severus doesn’t really care how long the customers have been queuing for but she tells him anyway.
Dragging his feet, Severus gets to checkout and turns on the machine with his key. Someone smiles manically at him as they get closer, and he fights off a shudder.
“Hiya mate. You seen Evan around here today? I couldn’t find him.”
“Evan? Evan Rosier?”
It’s so weird how he knows Evan’s name. Severus had always assumed that Evan didn’t have friends.
“That’s the one. Is he in today?”
“He stopped working Thursdays because that was the day the fire happened. Doesn’t make sense to me, but he said that avoiding danger was the only way he’s stayed alive so far.”
Severus scowls at the memory, and scowls all the more as this random guy recounts the rest of the story.
“Oh yeah, he told me that story now I think about it. He also told you that that’s why he felt fine with you- because you wouldn’t hurt a fly. Then you went looking for a fly to hurt! Yeah, yeah, we laughed about that.”
“Okay well, I did end up killing a fly that day, so actually-”
“Do you know when he’s next in?”
Severus is shocked into silence for a second before, “Tomorrow.”
“Great. Bye.” Then he picks up the item without paying for it, and Severus- more intimidated than he is around Evan- doesn’t even move.
***
Pandora joins the tour silently, matching her footsteps to the man next to her. He startles when he realises that she’s there, but she only smiles.
“Hi, can I help you?”
“Oh, I just fancied a look around, thought I'd join you.”
“Are you looking for something?”
“Sometimes I look for ripe bananas on this aisle, we don’t have many of those.”
The man tilts his head and gapes a little, before she pushes his mouth gently shut.
“Oh, hi Pandora, where’s your vest?” That’s Remus, who has always been nice to Pandora.
“I didn’t want it on, I wasn’t going for ‘employee’ today.”
“Are you going for employee today,” She reads his name tag, “Regulus?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And the customers get confused over weighing the fruit somehow- it's so easy an ape could do it- but this is how you do it.” Then Remus nudges a man out of the way, who has the language set to Latin and the pricing in Yen. Remus clicks the screen in places where there aren’t even buttons and, in a flash, ends up on a screen that displays a picture of a peach and pricing in pounds. He grabs the man’s bag of fruit and in about two seconds there’s a sticker on it.
Sirius looks at him like he just hung the stars in the sky.
“Clear?”
There’s a murmur of confused ‘yeah’s and then they move on. Pandora does not, she stays to play with the fruit pricing machine, she likes setting the language to Latin and the currency to Yen.
***
Mary is excited for the new people, don’t get her wrong, but she’s beginning to get bored of hearing James talk about them. They’re putting the ice creams away- she really shouldn’t be in the cold section, she can already feel a cold coming on- and he won’t stop going on.
“Like, it’ll be cool- they seem interesting. Especially Regulus, and don’t you think he’ll be a good worker? Like, he just seems so hard working- you know? I think I made a good choice picking him- right?”
“Yeah, I think I'm starting to understand. Maybe keep talking about him for another fifteen minutes and I'll completely get it.”
Mary is sooo good at sarcasm. It’s her favourite.
James just gives her a flat look before asking, “Well, what do you think?”
“I think Dorcas is hot.” (But not as hot as Lily.)
“Yeah, they’re all so hot.”
“Hm.”
James must be on something. He gets obsessed quickly, yes, but he has never gone on about a crush this much. It’s a repeat of The Frank Situation. But worse.
“What else?”
“I think Dorcas is a lesbian. Straight girls don’t have that great of a style.”
“Well, you have great style, but do you think Regulus is?”
So oblivious.
“I’m starting to think you are. Stop going on about him.”
“Oh, shut up and put away the ice lollies, he’s just new is all.”
“Hm.”
“Yeah. Hm.”
Hm indeed...
-
“I’m plotting something.”
“Spill.” Says Marlene immediately, as eager for drama as ever.
“James has the fattest crush on one of the newbies- I want to see how many times someone can get him to mention them before he catches on.”
“Ooh I still need to meet them all, been stuck in meetings all day. I fear shipments of beans will never excite me the way they did before today. But yes. Yes, we need, need, neeeed to make this into a competition. Who’s involved?”
“No one yet, I wanted to see what your thoughts on it were first.”
“Aww.”
“Because your standards for respect are much lower than anyone else I know.”
“Aww.”
“Aw indeed, shall we all put in fivers?”
“I will, but how can we make sure no one lies?”
“About that, you know that recorder we recalled...?”
***
James has been looking for someone to get on the tills for ages. But nobody is around except two of the new employees (Regulus and Sirius), Severus (who’s on a till that people are avoiding), and James himself, who cannot take all those people at once!
“Sirius! Hey, do you want me to show you how to work the checkout?”
Sirius grins- nodding with enthusiasm, and turns to say bye to Regulus- who James smiles at but feels too nervous to talk to for some reason. James doesn’t know why they’re so close, but they’ve stayed together the whole day, he just hopes Dorcas doesn’t feel left out... wherever she is.
Regulus strolls away down the cleaning aisle as Sirius bounds towards James, who’s already leading the way, wondering about where Regulus is going.
“You got a key?”
“Uhh, am I supposed to have one?”
What has Remus been doing all this time!?
“It’s fine, I have a spare. Right, it’s easy, just scan the stuff like you would at self-checkout if you were shopping in any other shop in this entire country, or click the produce if anything doesn’t have a readable barcode. Then you just click this ‘done’ button and then card or cash once you’ve asked them and then it starts again. I’ll be at the next one along if you get confused.”
Sirius does get confused- a lot of times. But James helps, and one time Sirius calls him over about a dessert’s name he’s sure is spelt wrong, and James has to assure him that ‘spotted dick’ is, in fact, a real thing.
Anyway, it goes smoothly and after about ten minutes the other employees start appearing again.
***
Dorcas has no idea what bet she’s just put five quid into, but whatever it is, it starts tomorrow. And more importantly, she needs to talk to her boss: alone.