A/N: just bear with me on this one, kids- i swear it's gonna be good! like the description says, this is told from the pov of a cashier in the drugstore, but there's all kinds of team bonding action with your favorite seven atf agents. i really hope you enjoy it!
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Retail can be a boring job, but if you like people, it isn't so bad, Grace thinks. Especially since she likes getting paychecks more than she cares about whether or not her first job is a dream job. Of course, she doesn't particularly enjoy the loss of time that adult, working life is... her friends and she have found it increasingly difficult to connect with one another since they've all began to take steps to independence. But overall, she doesn't think she got the bad end of the deal.
Something nice about working in your community's drugstore is that you get to know your customers, and some of them, you already knew. You start to feel kind of like you matter to them, when they come in and know you by name, and Grace hopes that they feel well attended to for this as well.
Some customers don't have a lot to say though. Some customers don't seem very interested in building a rapport with their friendly neighborhood clerk at all, and Grace isn't particularly offended- people can do as they like. But, that won't stop her from putting the same attention on those customers as all of the others.
There's Melinda, a short, serious woman who works in the administration at the local bank. Grace always feels as though joking with Melinda is not allowed, which makes their interactions a little awkward. Joyce, who is the choir lady at the local church, is very particular about everything and always has something to complain about, or attempt to school you on. Grace plows through these interactions as fast as she can, feigning incredible busyness due to her extreme discomfort.
But there's someone else who falls into this category... someone different. She doesn't know his name, and neither do her coworkers who've been there longer. She's asked them about him- she couldn't help it. Her curiosity will be the death of her, she supposes, and Alice always warns her of this. If only her sensible brunette friend knew the extent of her desire for the gossip! No one knows his name, but he's a well-known regular. Everyone saw it in the papers when it happened. It's been a few years now, but his family, killed in a tragic attack, one that some claim to know was meant for him. A car bomb on his truck, a day he drove her car to work for some reason that was perfectly sensible at the time. The papers had been plastered with little else in the days that followed.
Apparently, that man had been rather plastered in the years that followed, too. That's a joke one man who overheard them talking about it one Saturday night made. They had laughed politely but Grace didn't find it very funny.
Every two to four days, like clockwork, he comes into the store. Grace has learned not to say, "Can I help you find anything today?" because he always shakes his head no. He knows where to go and he knows what he's getting. By now, she knows too, as does everyone else in the store.
After less than a minute he has returned from the alcohol isle with the same exact bottle of whiskey. He already has his money ready, and as soon as she's greeted him and reached to scan the bottle, he's shown her his ID and recited his birth date. She wouldn't normally have to check his ID, as he looks to be in his late thirties or early forties, but she always thanks him and inputs the information anyway. She's also learned not to ask him if he has or would like to get a store card. He doesn't, and he wouldn't.
He never says much. If there's a long line, or if some technical difficulty creates a longer interaction where she has to call for help and get someone to resolve some issue in the transaction, he will joke here and there or smile and politely assure her he doesn't mind waiting. Sometimes if it's very busy he'll make some small talk with someone else in line- but it always sounds a little forced to Grace. Everything he does and says sounds a little forced to Grace though, and she doesn't want to read too much into it.
But, how can she help it? She's always had a tenancy to do just that, and even if her friends always chide her, it hasn't stopped her yet. On the way home from work she'll consider his situation and feel a sort of sinking feeling. She doesn't know him, but she regrets that she doesn't. She always silently wishes him the best but she doesn't think he has it. From what little she knows, it seems to her like he would really deserve it for once.
There are so many tragic implications she could read into- the first being that she's only ever seen him alone, his solemn attitude much of time, and the fact that she's only ever seen him wearing all black, as if the void, absence of color swallows him up no matter what he does. He obviously goes through an entire bottle of whiskey by himself in an alarmingly short period of time, and based on his unstopping visits to their store, no one he knows is intervening with that. He doesn't want to get a store card, and Grace has wondered darkly if it's because he wouldn't like to bother or because he never plans to be back.
And, this endless cycle continues on for almost a year. She finally makes up her mind about school and decides to attend. She can't afford to go to an incredibly expensive one like Patty can, but her friend's well-to-do lifestyle benefits don't bother her too much. The local college allows her to be home enough to maintain a reasonable amount of hours at her retail job, and she can split her time as well as she can. She's never been a very driven individual, but she's enjoyed the classroom experience thus far.
The routine of her job has begun to swallow Grace, taking away some of the fun of her job. She doesn't mind too much, and she doesn't grow to dislike the work, but she does find the constant chains of events and people and places to be swallowing her in their stagnation at times. It would be nice if something, even something small, could shake it up.
It turns out that sometimes, when you wish for something, you get more than you bargained for.
YOU ARE READING
to find what none could sell you.
Fanfiction(a Magnificent Seven TV Series ATF AU Fanfiction) | there was a morning when chris larabee's entire world fell apart, and he didn't have enough pieces left anymore to rebuild it. he's a regular customer at his local corner drugstore, the sole market...
