After Forever: A Black Sabbath Fanfiction

7~ The Night Shift

Four hours into my job, and it was getting dark outside. I checked my watch, it said 7:20. "God, I have like three hours left," I sighed, picking up a used copy of Paranoid and opened the cover, smiling once I saw the inside picture and noticed Ozzy in the corner. I sighed happily to myself as I looked at him. Yes, I thought he was good looking. Cute. Handsome. I had fallen for a hard core rocker, and there was nothing I could do about it. One of my coworkers, Jeanna, noticed me staring at the album in my hands and smiled at me. She was at the register, and I was stocking a box of records that we had just received. The store was two stories tall, with the basement as well. The basement held folk, country, and blues records, the first floor (where we were) held rock, metal, and pop, and the top floor held soundtracks, used records, cassette tapes, and VHS tapes. There were always at least thirty people in the store, but tonight there were only about seven, not counting us. The store was hopping during the day, but at night, we were dead.

"Aren't you supposed to be stocking the shelves and not staring at albums you want? You're slacking, Marie," Jeanna joked, giggling.

"I-I, um... I'm sorry," I apologized immediately, not understanding that she was kidding.

"It's fine. I was joking around. What are you looking at, anyway?"

"Uh... nothing. Nothing at all, why do you ask?" I said, freaking out a little. "Nothing."

"Marie, are you staring at guys again? Who are you looking at?"

"Uh... Black Sabbath,"

She stifled a laugh. "Seriously? All of them are ugly. Besides Tony. He's like, the only attractive one in the band. If you're staring at one of them, I hope it's Tony and not Geezer or Ozzy or the other guy,"

The second she said Ozzy my heart dropped a bit. "I... uh... yeah,"

Jeanna walked over to me, knowing no one was going to buy anything any time soon. "Is something up with you? You've been acting weird lately. Oh, hey. Look at that. That's a nice necklace," Everyone had been commenting on my necklace because I had literally been wearing it every day since I got it, and when they asked who bought it for me, I'd just say "a friend".

"Uh, heh. Thank you,"

"Where'd you get it? I want one,"

"Um... a friend bought it for me," I said, blushing a bit. She noticed my cheeks getting dark, and smirked.

"Oh, was it a boy? Did a boy buy it for you? Is he your boyfriend? What's he like?"

"No... but he sure won my heart," I whispered, glancing back down at the Paranoid album in my hands.

"Oh, is he cute?!"

"To me," I sighed.

"What's his name?! Tell me! I need to know,"

"I... I don't know if I should. Number one, you won't believe me, and if you do, you won't approve. And number two, hell, there's no number two. You'll just... not approve," I sighed, blowing the curled bangs out of my face. "So let's just drop it, okay?"

"But Marie, I want to know who stole your heart. At least tell me what he looks like. Please?" Jeanna was begging now, and I rolled my eyes, trying my best not to give a good description.

"Uh, well he... um... he has long brown hair, he's British, lovely green eyes with lots of different shades in them like hazel and stuff... he's kind of a tough guy... he's got a lot of tattoos... uh... and he's great at giving hugs," I sighed happily, my heart jumping a bit.

"Well he sounds like a fun guy. One question... does he smoke?"

I hesitated. "Uh... yeah, but-"

"Marie, I told you not to go for the guys who're slowly killing themselves! He's probably going to get you hooked on smoking if you aren't careful,"

"Oh shut up. I'm teaching him how to give up his ways, and it's actually working. Y'know?"
(Did I just say y'know
Oh god he's making an influence on me and my everyday speech)

"I've never heard you say "y'know", is that something new?" Jeanna smirked, going back to the register. "Now get back to putting those records away. We haven't got all night,"

I glanced at the wall clock, and it was now 7:40. The night was going by so slowly, and I sighed to myself, then remembered Ozzy was going to come visit me, and I informed Jeanna. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. You're going to get to meet the guy I was just describing. He's dropping by to say hello,"

"Oh, is he? Nice. Maybe he'll buy something."

"Heh... yeah,"

About half an hour later, as I was carrying a dusty red milk crate of pop records, I glanced out the bay window and smirked. Ozzy was on time, and walking towards the store, hands shoved in the pockets of the jacket I had bought him. I placed the milk crate down with a groan and began putting the Genesis albums into the G - section in the pop category, and the bell on top of the door jingled as Ozzy pushed the door open. "Oh, well there you are," He said, smiling as I turned around and gave him a tight hug around the waist. He just grinned and pet my head.

Jeanna slowly looked up with just her eyes and then jumped, eyes widening as she adjusted her glasses. "Wait, what? Marie, this is-"

"This is my friend, Ozzy. He's real nice," I giggled. "My British friend,"

"I... I can see that. Um... wow. I don't know what to say. I was just expecting someone, uh,"

"Not famous?"

"Yeah. Are you sure he's your friend? I don't know you to really be friends with... well... famous people," Jeanna said, cocking her head.

"We're friends. I told you that,"

"More than friends," She said to herself under her breath, but I just ignored it. Ozzy followed me to the records I was putting away, and he began looking through them.

"Do you want me to buy you something?" He asked.

"No, no. I'm fine. You don't need to waste your cash on me,"

"That's exactly what you said about the necklace. I'm going to buy you something. How about... Sabbath Volume 4?" He said, smirking.

"I already have that,"

"But you don't have it signed by the entire band, do you?" He found a mint copy fresh from the factory and flipped it over, reading the songs. "Ah, Snowblind. That was a fun song to write,"

"Oz, you don't have to buy it for me. I'm okay. Promise,"

"But I want to. It's only eight dollars. I'll buy it and you'll get it tomorrow once it's signed," He walked up to Jeanna and gave her the eight dollars, then he opened it up and handed the album to her. "I want you to play this on the turntable over there to see if it plays all the way through. Put it on Snowblind." As he leaned on the checkout counter, Jeanna set the record onto the song, and as soon as it started playing, I smiled to myself. Snowblind was my favorite song on the entire album. After the song ended, Jeanna took the record off of the turntable and slipped it back into the sleeve, handing it to Ozzy. "You two enjoy that album,"

Ozzy took it and smiled. "Trust me, we will,"

Before I left early, I smirked. "Tell the boss man that I got sick and had to leave, thanks."

"Yeah, lovesick," Jeanna whispered to herself as she adjusted her glasses again.