Aisles

Chapter 2

A/N: There's a homophobic comment made in this chapter

Monday, September 16th

"Hey, Remus! Come here to the back," Lily called the moment Remus stepped through the doors of the shop. It was 1:45 on a Monday, fifteen minutes before Remus' first shift. The mini-Tesco was relatively empty: an elderly couple in the free-from aisle and a teen eyeing the liquor behind the tills.

Remus followed Lily into the back (which was more of a glorified stock-room with a table, hooks, a few lockers, coffee machine and the small "office" that Remus' interview had been in. The office had a desk with a computer, two chairs and a few boxes filled with papers). Lily handed him a folded uniform and shooed him into a bathroom. She spoke to him through the door as he changed:

"So I'll give you a quick run-down of the shop, how things work, stuff like that. I know I said a little bit at the Three Broomsticks - great pub, though, right? - but I don't really remember what I said so it would be unfair for me to expect you to remember either. There's not many of us here - I'm manager, of course, and then Marlene is our newest (only a few months she has been here), she's great you'll love her, and then there's Sirius and James - went to school with them and against my better judgement, I gave them good references. Nah, just kidding, they work hard when they want to - don't tell them I've said something nice about them but they're chill, you'll like them.

"Frank has worked here a year longer than me but he works kind of sporadically? If you need someone to cover a shift, he's great for that but if you also go two months without seeing him at all, that's also normal. And then Alice did work here before, but she's moved on (hence hiring you) - I'm only mentioning her because Frank and her are joined at the literal hip, married couple I swear, so you will see her whenever you see Frank. Great, girl, I promise..." Remus got the feeling that Lily was very talkative but he was not complaining - she had calmed some of the nerves that had been plaguing him that morning. Changed, he pulled open the bathroom door. Lily turned to him and said,

"Ah, great, it fits," Remus' face twitched indiscernibly in response, "See, I forgot to ask how tall you were but I see my estimate was appropriate,"

"Okay, so James should be finishing up now, he's been here since 7, poor guy... I'll walk you through the day until about.. 5? Yeah, 5. Take an hour lunch break at some point, too. And then you and Sirius will pretty much have the run of the place until close. I'll tell him to be nice don't worry,"

"Tell who to be nice?" Remus turned to see the new voice and had to work excruciatingly hard to not just collapse, because in front of him was the single most attractive person he had seen in his life. Like, Greek god type shit - high cheekbones, mischievous grey eyes, longish dark hair, and an eyebrow piercing (of course an eyebrow piercing). Remus suddenly felt very insignificant standing next to this piece-of-art.

"Ah, Sirius! This is Remus Lupin, and you better be on your best behaviour..." Lily mock-scolded. Remus found it in himself to make eye contact with Sirius, who was staring at him intently, and smiled tightly.

"Alright, now I'll get you going by explaining the till..." Lily whisked him away, much to his relief.

--<>--

"So, Remus Lupin, huh? That's almost as bad as Sirius," It was 4:30 and Remus had been left alone to restock the tins when Sirius sidled up to him. Remus dropped the can of chickpeas he was holding in shock.

"Yeah... Wolf-Wolf," Remus replied, bending down to pick up the tin he dropped and hiding his flushed face.

"Heard it'll be just us from 5," Sirius said casually. Remus dropped the tin again and swore under his breath. "We don't get many customers at night, too near the big Sainsbury's, so I thought I'd take the time to show you the tricks of the trade that Lily wouldn't - she's too straight-lace, y'know,"

"She's the manager, isn't that kind of her job?"

Sirius shrugged in response.

"Heard you all went to school together?" Remus said, having pulled himself together enough to maintain the conversation.

"Yeah, Prongs and I - sorry, I mean, James - have known each other since we were like eleven. Lily went to the nearby girls school but we all went to the same sixth form college," Sirius replied as he wordlessly began to assist Remus in the shelf-stacking. "Your accent - not from London, are you?"

"Moved from Wales for Uni,"

"Ah, what are you studying?" Sirius asked.

"History at Imperial. Did you go to Uni?"

"Nah. Was meant to study economics at Cambridge but you know, life got in the way," Sirius replied vaguely. Remus scolded himself for the flicker of surprise that he felt. Cambridge? Remus hadn't even gotten in to Cambridge - not that Imperial was easy to get into. Remus felt the stirrings of something (jealousy?) in his stomach - smart and hot? Not fair. He turned to Sirius (having summoned the confidence to make eye contact) and said:

"So, what are the tricks of the trade?"

--<>--

It was half hour till closing and Remus felt absolutely shattered with exhaustion. Sure, the work was hard but what was harder was the effort of trying to seem like a Cool Person to Sirius (for some voice in his head had told him it was very important that Sirius found him cool). His face hurt from meeting the social cues of "smile at joke, raise eyebrow to show irony, make frequent eye-contact but don't stare". Sirius really had shown the 'tricks of the trade' - among other things, Remus got a 30% staff discount, learnt how to hide stuff from customers if he wanted to buy it himself later and how to not smash jars of jam when pushing a bunch of them onto shelves at once. They hadn't spoken about anything else but work, but that was alright. Why would Remus expect anything different?

Remus stood idly at the checkout, the shop completely empty. Sirius had snuck off for a five minute smoke break which gave Remus the chance to relax - being social with people for hours at a time was hard, even harder when they were completely perfect and therefore made Remus feel like a tiny, minuscule speck of dust. He'd had that stirring sensation in his stomach the entire shift and could not understand it - he'd seen attractive and smart and funny and friendly people before and never felt this level of jealousy.

Suddenly, the automatic doors swung open and into the shop descended about twenty balding, drunk men jeering. Just round the corner from the shop was a pub, the Hog's Head, which was known to get a little... rowdy on football nights. The location was difficult - attracted Arsenal fans and Man United fans and there were frequent Facebook videos of fist fights in the streets outside the dingy pub.

The men all started to head towards the tills and Remus started to panic - this was literally his first fucking day and he would have to scan twenty drunk men quickly enough that they don't try and beat him up for taking too long ringing up their Hovis loaves of bread and cider. He started on the first person, praying that Sirius would return from his slightly-longer-than-five-minutes smoke break.

After twenty whole minutes, Remus had gotten to the last person. Sirius was a no-show and Remus was feeling more than a little bit pissed off - the men had heckled him as he checked them out, calling him a "nancy boy" (Remus was very confused at this - he wasn't even gay) and generally stressing him out. The old ladies watching him scan had been pressuring enough, he did not need this. Once he was sure that no one else would come into the shop, he walked to the back and to the backdoor where the bins are (and where Sirius took his smoke breaks).

"Sirius?" He called out - nothing. He wasn't there. There was a half-smoked cigarette crushed on the ground and a discarded water bottle. Nothing else. Remus gritted his teeth, returned to the shop and closed up.

A/N: I wanted to quickly clarify some things to limit confusion! At this point in the story, Remus is working Mondays (half day), Wednesdays (half day), Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (half day - shops are usually open for less hours on a Sunday in the UK, not sure about other places).

This does change occasionally during this 'fic but I will clarify at those times.