Chapter Text
“We need to order more coffee lids, too,” Price noted sharply, pointing his half-chewed pen at Simon in a manner ostensibly meant to be intimidating and non-threatening. “I know you already ordered double what we normally get last week, but with-”
“With the EUCOM conference going on we’ve had an influx of customers,” Simon finished flatly, not looking up from the untouched login screen on the computer in front of him. “Yes, I’m aware. Also, we’ve had three ICE complaints in the last forty-eight hours about our closing hours being, and I quote, ‘an attack on hardworking, country-serving active-duty service members and contractors alike.’ Should I assume we’re grovelling to the boss lady for extended hours for the duration of the conference?”
Gaz, lounging atop the safe with the grace of a cat beneath a sunbeam, groaned loudly and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Please, do not. It’s already annoying enough having to get home by 21:00, Price. Could you at least shove the closing shift off on Roach or Keegan for the week?”
“No, those two would burn the place down with or without supervision. Simon or I will drive you home until hours go back to normal,” Price said, clearly aiming for impartiality but landing squarely in work-husband-who’s-given-up territory.
“Hmph,” Gaz replied, clearly unmoved.
“And I’ll bring in those Belgian waffles you like.”
“Two packs a day. The frosted kind-”
“With cinnamon. I know.”
“Grand. We have a deal, then,” Gaz said, smiling serenely.
“Uh,” Simon said, and typed his password incorrectly for the third time in a row as he three quarters-listened to their conversation. “Should I draft an email to Laswell for you, then?”
“Sure, sure,” Price replied distractedly, already reaching for his fourth pen of the day to mutilate. A beat passed. Simon finally noticed capslock was on, typed his password correctly, and was rewarded with a loading wheel spinning in an almost hypnotic manner in Simon’s sleep-deprived state.
“Oh, and by the way,” Price added like an afterthought, “the new guy starts Monday.”
Simon’s eyes, which were slightly glazed and staring at the endlessly looping loading circle, snapped onto Price so fast he almost got dizzy. “Fuck. I forgot about that. MacTavish, right? New cashier?”
“Customer experience associate,” Gaz corrected, only slightly haughtily. “Soon enough you’ll have four of us to wrangle. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Not even a little bit,” Simon replied honestly, and returned his unfocused gaze to the loading circle. “You think he’ll last long enough for the training to be worthwhile, or d’you expect he’ll shove off after two weeks like the last guy?”
“Couldn’t be sure,” Price grumbled back. “Been told he’s taking college classes online. 25 years old, here on his own, used to work at Outdoor Rec but quit because they weren’t flexible with his schedule. Good guy, I hear.”
“Well, surely he won’t be a dud since you weren’t the one to pick him,” Simon groused back. “At least HR broke your streak of hiring 18-year-olds with the work ethic of a preschooler.”
“Hey!” Gaz snapped. “Gary is not a dud. Sure, he was a little rough at first-”
“He was late every day for his first month working here.”
“-But now that we’ve refined him,” Gaz went on smoothly, completely ignoring the interruption, “he’s a star.”
“He almost issued someone a $14 million refund last week,” Simon growled, still glaring at his screen. “How do you even do that?”
“Well,” Price began far too gently for Simon’s liking, “when the POS asked for the refund amount, he scanned the barcode again instead of typing in the correct value, and the system read it as $14 million.”
“I know how he did it, John,” Simon snapped. “It was a rhetorical question. For dramatic emphasis. On just how galactically stupid it was.”
“Uh,” came Roach’s voice from the doorway, sheepish as a puppy caught chewing the couch. “Can I get a supervisor up front? I, uh… might’ve double charged a customer’s fuel transaction.”
Simon stared at his loading screen for one more long, hateful second, and didn’t need to look at Price to know he wasn’t about to jump into action. He rose with all the quiet menace of a man deeply, profoundly over it. Without a word, he stalked after Roach like death wrapped in AAFES-branded polyester.
-
Simon stood at his least favourite location on the entire base- nay, planet: the register. Wedged far too close beside him was Roach, sleepy-eyed and barely conscious, allegedly there to “help diffuse the situation.” This despite the fact that Roach had his own perfectly functional POS terminal a mere two feet away.
Across from them stood a customer deep into his forties and deeper still into his own entitlement. He was decked out in fatigues and sporting the sort of aggressively patriotic flat top that looked less like a haircut and more like a vintage G.I. Joe action figure. The hair formed a rigid, pencil-straight ring across an otherwise barren scalp, like a desperate island barely managing to rise above sea level.
“Listen,” said Master Sergeant Waller- though Simon had mentally renamed him Sergeant Fuckface three seconds into the conversation- “I’m here on TDY for two weeks. I leave next Monday. I have orders right here in my hand.” He waved a rumpled printout like it was a diplomatic passport. “Does that not count for anything?”
Simon, resisting the urge to physically crumple onto the floor, began mentally counting backwards from 10,000. “I understand that you have orders, sir. But unfortunately, it’s a customs violation to get fuel on post without proper documentation and vehicle registration. So I’m going to have to charge you the full price instead of the rationed rate-”
“But my orders,” Waller cut in hotly, the skin of his face now a distressing shade of Hunt Brothers Pizza red. “I came all the way to fucking Germany from Bragg , and you’re telling me I can’t even gas up here?”
Roach decided that right then was an opportune moment to pipe up. “I thought it was called Liberty now…?”
“They changed it back,” Simon snapped, already seeing the vein on Waller’s forehead pulsing like a warning light. “A while ago.”
“Ah,” Roach nodded, deeply satisfied with this nugget of military trivia.
Waller’s attention snapped back to Simon. “So are you giving me the cheaper gas or not?”
The vein throbbed. Simon’s imagination flared briefly with the mental image of poking it with a pin. Just a tiny one, arterial spray be damned.
“No, sir,” he replied, voice now pitched in the flat, dead tone of customer service neutrality. “As I’ve explained. Twice.”
“Fine. Fuck. Whatever.” Waller groaned, pulling out an overstuffed wallet, then fished out a government travel card and slapped it onto the counter. “But I better get a fucking receipt.”
“The pinpad should give you the option to print or email it,” Roach said mildly, as if they were discussing salad dressing. “Just make sure you enter your number or it’ll kick it back.”
Waller didn’t so much as look at him. He was too busy jamming the card in upside down like a toddler with a crayon and a USB port. Simon’s jaw ticked. It was a minor miracle he didn’t reach over the counter and swipe it for him.
Eventually, the transaction went through. Waller ripped the receipt from the machine with all the grace of a t-rex throwing a tantrum, his other hand already clutching a can of Grizzly wintergreen long-cut like a stress toy, and stormed off in a cloud of righteous indignation and nicotine.
The silence that followed was total, save for the whir of the roller grills and the slow hum of the Slushie machine struggling through another brutal afternoon.
Roach let out a long, theatrical sigh. “Well. That could’ve gone better.”
Simon, still rooted to the floor, just barely refrained from throttling him. Instead, he blinked once, slowly. “He wasn’t even paying out of pocket,” he wheezed, voice distant, hollow, eyes gone glassy with that familiar, all-consuming rage that left him hovering three inches outside his own body. “Why does he care?”
“Maybe he’ll write us a scathing ICE complaint,” Roach said casually. “You like reading those with Price, right?”
Simon’s gaze snapped into sudden focus, sharp and cold as a knife. “How did you know that.”
Roach shrugged, utterly unbothered, and pulled a can of Red Bull from under the counter. It was somehow still cold despite the soul-melting heat of the Shoppette. “I dunno. Price laughs, like, really loud when you read them. And Gaz does those impressions. You can hear them all the way at pizza.” He cracked the tab. “You want half?” he asked, giving the can a mild shake in Simon’s direction.
“…Sure,” Simon muttered, and slunk off to the break room to find a plastic cup and, more importantly, to hit his vape until his soul re-entered his body.
-
The line for the döner kebab food truck was, mercifully, short. A small miracle. Simon trudged toward it with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and a scowl carved so firmly into his face it might as well have been tattooed there. His mental list looped on repeat: lamb yufka for Price- extra white sauce, Diet Coke- döner box for Gaz, no onions, Mezzo Mix- two chicken yufkas for Roach and Keegan, one with extra onions, one without, both with regular Cokes- and for himself-
He was so absorbed in the logistics of lunch distribution he barely registered the tap on his shoulder until a face entered his field of view.
First: the eyes- so crystalline blue they were nearly painful to look at. Then the skin, sun-warmed and tanned, not by the stingy rays of German overcast but something Mediterranean- Portuguese maybe, Spanish. A jagged scar split his chin, irregular in shape like it had been carved by a broken bottle or a dog bite. And the hair- an actual mohawk. Or maybe a fauxhawk. Simon wasn’t caught up on the finer points of hair-based taxonomy. He barely combed his own.
“Hey,” the stranger said, voice touched with amusement. “You alright? They’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, a solid minute.”
Simon blinked out of the fog, startled just enough to make it obvious, and fought the urge to deepen his already bleak expression. “Oh. Shit. Sorry.” His voice landed somewhere between sheepish and vaguely threatening- a range only he could pull off. “Got stuck opening this morning. I’m not entirely conscious right now.”
“No worries,” said the- fuck- beautiful- wait- handsome- ugh- annoyingly symmetrical man, the corners of his mouth quirking like he knew exactly what he was doing. “You work at the Shoppette, don’t you?”
Simon stiffened. His brain, tragically unaffected by the Red Bull he’d split with Roach, refused to shift into gear. “Uh. How did you know?”
“You’re still wearing your work shirt,” the man said, voice as warm as the midday sun. Simon looked down. Garish blue. Exchange logo on the sleeve. Nametag glinting mockingly.
“Oh. Yeah. Guess I am.” He cleared his throat. His voice had gone a bit thin, like someone trying to play it cool with their foot stuck in a bear trap.
“Anyway, I’m John,” the stranger said, holding out one hand for a shake while the other cradled a plastic takeout bag. “And you must be Simon. I know that because you’re still wearing your nametag, in case you were wondering.”
“I could have guessed,” Simon muttered, eyeing the food truck like it might offer salvation. “I. Uh. I’m gonna go order now,” he added, only belatedly noticing the outstretched hand and giving it a quick, firm shake- professional, polite, and absolutely not lingering.
“Sure, Simon. See you bright and early Monday morning,” John said with far too much delight, then winked- actually winked- before turning and strolling off across the Kantine parking lot, heading toward the front gate like this was all perfectly normal and not some casually devastating ambush.
Simon stared after him, stunned into silence.
“…What the fuck?” he muttered at last, before turning to the döner truck and placing his order.
“Duuuuude,” Roach whined, and tried and failed to shield his precious lunch from Simon without success. The hedgehog self-defense method was wholly ineffective. “It’s not my fault you forgot to order for yourself. Go grab a slice of pizza or a sad little salad or something.”
Simon grunted and swiped another one of Roach’s french fries and shoved it ruefully in his mouth. “Might not be your fault, but it is your problem. And, no, I’m not getting fuckin’ pizza again this week. I’m worried there’s more grease flowing through my veins than blood at this point.”
“The Just Rite Spice™ is more than enough to clog a few arteries,” Price concurred mildly. He was halfheartedly reading through the email Simon had drafted several hours ago, but Simon had enough sense to know that the whole act was for show. He’d send it off regardless of the contents.
“By the way,” Simon said, though he truly resented bringing up fresh wounds, “I ran into some kind of weirdo at the food truck. Said his name was John and he’d see me Monday morning. Was that…?”
“It was more than likely the new hire,” Price confirmed, and sent the email to Laswell with a flourish as though he were signing off on the Constitution. “Did he have uncomfortably blue eyes and a weird haircut?”
“Bingo,” Simon sighed, and pointedly ignored Roach’s wordless whining as he took a sip of his Coke. “Made a total fool of myself. He probably thinks I’m lobotomised or halfway through a benzo bender.”
“Bit of column A, bit of column B,” Roach mumbled through a mouthful of yufka. “Can’t believe you ate half my fries.”
“You’ll live,” Simon said flatly, without remorse.
“Will I?”
“Depends. Do you still have any of your ‘secret snacks’ stashed behind the register?”
Roach’s eyes narrowed. His frown tightened to a thin, defensive line.
Simon didn’t need an answer. That was answer enough.