Fic: This Lane Closed (Or Why Sometimes You Really Should Listen To Your Horoscope)
Title: This Lane Closed (Or Why Sometimes You Really Should Listen To Your Horoscope)
Fandom: RPS, J2 AU
Pairing: Jared/Jensen, mentions of Tom/Mike
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 10,488
Disclaimer: Obviously, the people own themselves. And I am in no way making money off of this.
Summary: Jensen hates his job at the LoBill's grocery store. The only highlight is that every Wednesday the same guy comes in to buy candy and laugh with Jensen at the tabloids. Now if only Jensen could get up the courage to ask the guy his name...and possibly his number.
Warnings: Schmoop, bad tabloid articles, LOTS of candy.
A/N: So, over ten thousand words and there is very little angst. Seriously. Barely any at all. I can hardly believe I even wrote this. Betaed by the awesome anyothergirl415. All mistakes are mine.
Jensen was only two hours into his eight hour shift at LoBill’s Grocery, and already he was wishing the day was over. Or that it was at least time for his break. He glanced down the line leading to his cash register and sighed. No way he could sneak away for a break right now: the woman he was about to ring up had about a month’s worth of food in her cart, and after her was Mrs. Henderson with her weekly purchase of butter and eggs, an old man with a cart of what looked like the entire shelf of Campbell’s soup in his cart, and some really tall guy whose face was hidden behind a sci-fi tabloid magazine.
Huh. Looked like another fake Bigfoot sighting.
When Jensen finished with Mrs. Henderson’s purchase, and the twenty-three cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup were replaced with three bags of gummy bears and a bottle of Mountain Dew, Jensen looked up and into a pair of dark eyes and the widest smile he had ever seen.
Jensen blinked. The smile had very white teeth. And dimples. Wow.
“Wendigo,” the smile said and Jensen blinked again.
“Excuse me?”
The smile grew wider. Jensen noticed, distantly, that it was connected to a very nice, very tan face surrounded by fluffy, floppy brown hair and that the face was also connected to a man. “The tabloid,” the man clarified, pointing to the magazine he had replaced on the rack. “There’s a story about Wendigo sightings. Apparently, in the mountains somewhere there are creatures who used to be human beings, but because they were cannibals they turned into these super strong hunters who live underground and kidnap and eat campers who stray to far from the group.” He shook his head, long floppy strands of hair falling across his eyes as he did. “I can’t believe anyone would actually believe that kind of crap.”
Jensen felt his lips twist up in a half grin of his own. “You’d be surprised. Those magazines are actually one of our hot items. We get all sorts of crazies buying them.”
The man laughed. It was loud and big and matched the smile. “I bet,” he replied, grinning and catching Jensen’s eye like they were lifelong friends with a particularly funny inside joke. It made Jensen grin just a little bit more as he rang up the candy and pop.
“That’ll be five sixty-seven.”
He was still smiling at Jensen as he reached one massive hand into his pocket and brought out a crumpled ten dollar bill, and Jensen tried not to twitch when their fingers touched. He felt a blush creep up his neck and he ducked his head a little, looking away self consciously as he put the money in the cash register.
“Four thirty-three is your change.” He smiled politely. And this time he made sure their fingers didn’t touch at all.
“Thanks.” There was another quick flash of white teeth against tan skin as the man put his change away and grabbed his bags.
“Your welcome. Have a nice day.” The phrase was trite and over used and drilled into him since training six months ago, but it was either say that or do something stupid like ask this--most likely straight--man for his name and number or home address or just a quick make out session in the storage room simply because he had broad shoulders and big hands and a smile that made Jensen blink and lose his train of thought when he saw it. And that was just Not. A good. Idea.
“Yeah. You too, Jensen.” And after another quick smile the man was gone, leaving Jensen to stare after him and wonder how he knew his name. Then he remembered, and was very happy the man wasn’t there to see the flush that took over his face.
Nametag. Right.
---
The guy was back again the next week. This time with a bag of cherry Twizzlers and another bottle of Mountain Dew. His magic, thought stealing smile hadn’t lessened in power.
“Have you read the stories in this thing today?” The man waved the tabloid magazine in his hand.
“Uh, no.”
“Some chick says that her home town has been sacrificing people to an ancient tree god once a year so that their apple harvest comes out great each time.”
“Must have some damn good apple pie then.” He rang up the guy’s purchases. Two dollars and eighty-nine cents.
“Yeah,” the guy replied, dark eyes catching Jensen’s from under his bangs. “Must have.”
---
Tabloid Guy, as Jensen had taken to calling him in his head was back every week after that. Always on the same day and around the same time. Jensen figured he worked somewhere near the store and came in during his lunch or break time to get snacks. Hopefully not for lunch, Jensen thought one day as he rang up the guy’s purchases--two Resees‘ Fast Breaks, a handful of Air Heads and, predictably, a Mountain Dew--because all the guy bought was candy and pop, and he couldn’t imagine that being very healthy if that was all he ate.
“You’re total is three twenty-four,” he told the guy and waited while he dug into the pockets of his jeans, one hand replacing the tabloid he’d been buried in.
“Man, some people are really weird.” He held out a five.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Some woman went psycho and killed her kid before committing suicide.”
Jensen frowned. Didn’t sound like something that would be in a crazy tabloid rag. “That’s sad.”
“Yeah. And before it happened the woman kept going on about how it wasn’t really her kid, how she thought her kid had been replaced by something evil. The magazine was going on about Changelings.”
“Changelings? Like, creep into the bedroom, steal your kid, ancient Irish folktale Changelings?”
“Yeah. But you know, story like that? Doesn’t need to be put in some trashy magazine. Sometimes it’s best if people just leave things like that alone.” He too was frowning, brows pulled together over dark eyes.
Jensen noticed that he got wrinkles on his forehead when he did. “Yeah, man. I hear you,” he muttered, and handed over his change.
---
Jensen smoothed out the crinkles in the bag of Resees’ Peanut Butter Cups, and ran it over the scanner. “What’s it this time, man?”
Tabloid Guy grinned at him over the magazine. “Vampires, man. Vampires.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? They been drinking anybody’s blood?”
The guy waved a hand. “Nah. Just cows apparently. They‘re good vampires.” He scoffed a little as he said this. “How they related cow killing to vampires, I have no idea, since the cows weren’t actually sucked dry of blood, just split open and drained.”
“Maybe they‘re like vampire bats.” The scanner blipped as he dragged the bottle of Mountain Dew over it.
The guy was staring at him. “Vampire bats?”
“Yeah. They don’t actually suck animal’s blood. They just make a small incision and then lap it up. Total’s four twenty.”
He handed over the money. “How do you know all that?”
Jensen shrugged. “Just do, I suppose. Don’t know where I picked it up.”
The guy shook his head. “Man, you’re a weird guy, Jensen,” he laughed, but it was said lightly, almost affectionately, and Jensen flushed.
“Yeah.”
---
The next week Tabloid Guy came in an hour later than normal, and instead of buying a Mountain Dew and candy he bought two large cans of Monster.
“Rough night?” Jensen asked as he rang him up.
Tabloid Guy grunted. “You have no idea.”
He didn’t pick up a magazine to flip through and the conversation didn’t go much past “Have a good day,” and “You too.” After he left Jensen stared at the tabloid on the rack, the cover claiming some girl’s ex-boyfriend was actually a murdering shape shifter, and tried to tell himself he wasn’t disappointed.
---
It was a packet of sour gummy worms and a box of hot tamales this time, and Jensen shook his head and smiled at the weird combination as he rang them up. Tabloid Guy had grabbed one his favorite sci-fi magazines off the rack when he got in line and Jensen couldn’t help the little wave of relief that went through him when he saw it.
“Dude, look at this!” A tabloid was suddenly shoved in front of Jensen’s face and he found himself staring at a grainy black and white picture of what looked like a bad sixties representation of an alien embracing a guy underneath--was that a disco ball?
Tabloid Guy threw back his head and practically cackled. “This is the best one yet! This guy claims he was abducted by aliens and then they forced him to slow dance! Slow dance!” He laughed again, shoulders shaking and booming voice echoing in the store, bouncing off the tiles and catching the attention of the other customers. “Isn’t it just great?”
“Yeah,” Jensen said, a fond smile on his lips as he watched him. “It is.”
---
“So, I’ve noticed you’ve been working Wednesday’s a lot lately.” Danneel leaned against the counter beside him, swinging the pin covered rope that held her name tag back and forth. “You’ve even been asking for them when schedules are made up.”
Jensen shrugged. “Just trying to keep my schedule as similar as possible each week. Easier to schedule around.”
Danneel rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Because going over to Chris and Steve’s to get drunk and play video games every week requires a schedule.”
Jensen just shrugged again and Danneel didn’t even bother to try and hide her grin. “Nooo,” she started, leaning forward and drawing out the word, “I’m thinking it has something to do with that guy who’s here every Wednesday.”
He tensed. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he muttered, not looking at her.
“Sure you do. The tall guy. Floppy brown hair? Great smile? Comes every Wednesday around eleven o’clock in the morning? Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am talking about, because I’ve seen you moon over him every week. It’s so cute it’s disgusting how you get excited half an hour before he even gets here. I’ve never seen you so happy to work before in my life and that is only on Wednesdays so don’t tell me--”
“Alright!” he snapped, cutting her off. He dropped the receipts he was counting and glared at her. She, frustratingly, just continued smirking. “I know who you are talking about. That doesn’t mean I’m changing my schedule to see him. He’s just another customer, Danneel. Just a regular.”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes again. And really, Jensen was beginning to wonder if someday she would just roll them right out of her head. “Mr. Kripke is a regular, that guy, is like your fan.”
Jensen stopped glaring and just squinted at her in confusion. “What?”
“You haven’t noticed? The guy always goes to your line, Jensen. It doesn’t matter what register you are at or even if there is one with a shorter line. Hell, all the express lanes could be empty and he’d still wait for fifteen minutes in your line.”
Something warm curled in the pit of Jensen’s stomach and his lips bent up in a small smile. He ducked his head, hiding it from Danneel. “I’m sure you’re wrong. It’s probably just a habit or something. You’re making it more than it is.”
“Yeah. Sure. You keep telling yourself that, Jensen.” And damnit, Jensen didn’t need to look at her to know she was smirking. He could hear it in her voice.
---
Jensen tried to convince himself that Tabloid Guy always waiting in his line was just a coincidence, exactly as he told Danneel, but the next time he saw him waiting in line he couldn’t help but look around the store. Sure enough, there were two other cashiers with shorter lines, one an express lane with only a single person standing under the 20 Items or Less sign. The warmth that appeared in Jensen’s stomach when he thought about the man grew a little bit more.
“Hey,” Jensen greeted him when the guy reached the register. “Read anything interesting today?” His smile as the guy placed his items--a box of Sweettarts and a rope of Nerds--on the counter could have rivaled even the blinding grin the man gave him in return.
---
Tabloid Guy soon grew tired of The National Inquirer and The Globe and even the smaller, weirder gossip rags, and took to reading the tiny horoscope booklet every time he was in line. “’You are very closely connected to your intuition this week,’” he read aloud as Jensen rang up his bag of Blow Pops and Mountain Dew. “'And if that wasn’t enough, your dreams are very powerful as well. Pay attention to both, as they may have some important messages for you.’ What crap.”
Jensen looked up, eyebrows raised. “What? You read those ridiculous stories in the tabloids, but horoscopes offend you?”
The other man shrugged. “I just don’t think that you’ll find the answer to life in the stars, man.”
Jensen smirked. “What, so none of it’s true?” He teased him. “No powerful dreams lately?”
Jensen swore the man blushed, a light pink flush along his cheekbones as he gave a little, self-conscious cough. “Ah, no. No dreams.” Suddenly, Jensen thought he looked very young. He hadn’t thought about it before, but looking at him now, that light blush still on his cheeks as he restlessly flipped through the tiny book, Jensen realized he was at least several years younger than him.
Taking pity on the man, who still didn’t look Jensen in the eyes as he handed him the money for the candy--and Jensen was very curious as to what sort of dreams the man had been having that would embarrass him so much--Jensen handed the man his change and asked, smiling, “So what’s mine say?”
And just like that, the grin was back. “What’s your sign?”
“Pisces.”
“Hey, that means you were born this month, doesn’t it?”
Jensen shook his head. “Next month. March first.”
The guy flashed him another grin before he began to read. “‘This week, try to remember that patience is a virtue. But don’t wait too long, or the opportunities you are waiting for might just pass you by.’”
---
The next week, instead of candy, Tabloid Guy (and really, Jensen needed to find another name for him, considering he didn’t actually read the tabloids anymore) bought a box of cupcakes from the bakery. Jensen shook his head as he rang it up. “Man, you’ve got some sweet tooth, don’t you?”
“Yeah, guess so,” the guy replied, smiling at Jensen like he was missing out on a joke.
Jensen didn’t get it. “Four sixty-nine.” The man handed him a five.
“Hey,” he said as Jensen dropped a few coins in his hand, “it’s the twenty-eighth today. You’re birthday’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
Jensen looked up sharply, surprised the guy had remembered. “Yeah. It is.”
Tabloid Guy grinned and opened the box of cupcakes, taking out one with chocolate icing and blue sprinkles and placing it on the counter next to the credit card scanner. “Happy Birthday.”
Jensen stared at the little cupcake, and grinned like it was a brand new Playstation 3, or maybe a million bucks. “Thanks.” He picked the cupcake up, licking off some of the icing that got on his thumb.
“You’re welcome,” Tabloid Guy murmured, eyes focused intensely on where Jensen’s mouth touched his thumb. Jensen felt a small shiver go up his spine at the look. Maybe Danneel was right after all. Maybe Tabloid Guy was a fan.
---
Jensen did the same thing for his birthday as he had every year for six years: spent it hanging out with his friends in the dump of a bar Chris and Steve usually performed in. It wasn’t the classiest of ways to turn a year older, but the place was familiar, the bar stools were comfy and, thanks to Chris and Steve, the beer was free.
At the moment, life was good. Remembering the chocolate cupcake from yesterday, and even better, the look on Tabloid Guy’s face, Jensen had to say that life was actually very good.
“Alright. Spill.”
Jensen glanced up in surprise. Chris was smirking at him over the rim of his Corona. “What?”
“I know that sappy look. You’re into someone. I wanna know who. So,” he kicked Jensen lightly in the shin, “spill.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, man. There isn’t anybody.” Jensen took a drink of his own beer and avoided Chris’s eyes. There was no way in hell he was telling Chris about the guy from the grocery store.
“Whatever. He’s been flirting with a guy who comes into the store for months now.”
Jensen nearly dropped his beer. “Danneel!” He glared at the brunette as she sat beside him.
She shrugged. “What? You have been. And he’s been totally flirting back, so I don’t know why you’re trying to deny it.”
His glare didn’t lessen at that. Not a bit.
Chris leaned forward. “What, months now? Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Danneel gave a very put upon sigh. “Because Jensen is too much of a chicken shit to do anything other than trade a few words about the crap in the magazines and then stare at the guy’s ass as he walks away.”
Jensen scowled and kicked at Danneel’s chair. “You,” he brandished his finger at her, “are no longer welcome here. I should never have introduced you guys in the first place. I never would have if I had known you would just go running to them” he jerked his thumb at Chris and Steve at the opposite side of the table “with my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Hey, now,” Steve leaned forward over the table, smirking. “I don’t think you get to decide who hangs out here. Besides,” and the smirk grew, “we might just like her better than you by now.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” Chris let his eyes roam up and down Danneel’s body in a playful leer. Danneel just rolled her eyes. “She’s hot.”
“I’m hot!” Jensen protested.
“Yeah, but not I’m not going to sleep with you,” Chris said flatly, and completely ignored Danneel’s muttered “Not going to sleep with me either.”
Jensen leaned back in his chair and picked up his beer. “You could,” he drawled, letting a lazy grin curl on his lips as he dragged his eyes over Chris’s form, “but I just don’t find you hot enough.”
Chris tossed a crumpled napkin at him. Jensen snickered.
“But back to the subject,” Chris said once they all stopped laughing, voice firm and eyes serious as he peered at Jensen from across the table. “Who is this guy? What’s his name?”
Jensen sighed. “I don’t know,” he muttered.
“What?”
“I said I don’t know!”
Chris just stared at him, mouth open a bit. “How can you not know?”
Jensen shrugged.
“You mean to tell me,” Chris drawled, “that you’ve been mooning over this guy for weeks--”
“Months,” Danneel corrected helpfully, and Jensen scowled at her. “Since January.”
“Months,” Chris continued, “and you don’t even know his name?”
Jensen just shrugged again and drained the last of his beer.
“Jesus,” Chris smirked, “that is pathetic.”
“What did I tell you? Chicken shit.” Jensen really regretted introducing Danneel to Chris. He turned to Steve, who’d remained quiet on the whole issue, for support.
Steve shook his head. “It’s just sad man.”
Jensen huffed and got up to get another beer.
He needed new friends.
---
Finding out Tabloid Guy’s name turned out to be very easy the next week.
Unfortunately.
“God, Jared, I don’t know how you eat all this crap.”
Jensen didn’t look up from scanning the groceries of the nameless customer in front of him, didn’t look over to the end of his line to watch Tabloid Guy--whose name Jensen now knew was Jared--bicker over the amount of candy he was buying with the pretty, petite brunette at his side. Instead he kept his head down, and pretended that scanning and bagging the customer’s frozen burritos and boxes of cheerios was the most interesting thing in the world.
He’d seen them come in. He wasn’t about to admit to anyone--especially Danneel--that he’d been watching the doors since eleven o’clock, but he’d seen them come in, laughing and chatting and looking decidedly friendly with his arm draped over her shoulders and hers wrapped loosely around his waist, and for the first time since Jensen had met the man he’d prayed that things would go differently today and the guy wouldn’t come to Jensen’s line.
No such luck.
“Hey, Jensen.”
He finally looked up at them, because he couldn’t not after that, and forced a smile. “Hey.”
Jared grinned at him. “How’s it going?” he asked as put down his purchases--two boxes of Nerds, a king sized Snickers, a Mountain Dew, and, Jensen noted with a bit of despair, a diet Dr. Pepper and a bag of trail mix.
“Great,” he said with another fake smile. “Kind of busy.” Even though it wasn’t today, and he knew that he was going to have plenty of time to torture himself with this whole scene over and over again later.
“That sucks, man.”
“Yeah.” He really hoped he didn’t look as awkward as he felt. He reached for the candy and started ringing it up.
“You know,” the girl said, smiling, “you really should refuse to sell that to him. He eats too much of it as it is. It can’t be healthy.”
Jared gave her a little shove. “Shut up, Sandy. You’re just jealous ‘cause I can eat all I want and not have to worry about getting fat.”
“You might have to worry about cavities, though,” she answered, reaching up to poke at the dimples in his cheeks. Jared ducked away and bat at her hand, laughing.
Jensen felt sick.
“Your total is six fifty-seven,” he told them and didn’t even try to smile this time.
Jared noticed. “You okay, man?” His brows furrowed in concern and he leaned forward a bit to peer at Jensen’s face as he pulled the ten out of his wallet, and suddenly Jensen felt like crying a little bit because such concern would have thrilled him last week, but now it just made him want to run and hide away for a very long time, possibly forever, but at least until he forgot that Jared had ever come into his store to begin with.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just you know, busy day. Like I said.” He took the ten from him and quickly got his change, avoiding Jared’s eyes as he did so, and not looking at the way the girl’s--Sandy’s--eyes flickered between the two of them.
“Oh. Alright then. I guess we’ll just get out of your way.” It must have been the concern still evident in his voice that made Jensen think he sounded disappointed, because Jared immediately grabbed his bags and headed out the door with a small, polite smile and a short, “See ya around, Jensen.”
Jensen nodded and didn’t watch the two of them leave.
He was such a fucking idiot.
---
“His girlfriend? Are you sure?”
Jensen ripped open a box of plastic bags and dropped it on the ground, reaching for another one. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”
Danneel didn’t say anything for a minute, just watched him as he viciously tore open the cardboard box, revealing two more stacks of plastic bags with “Have a nice day!” printed in bright colors on them. When he finally opened a third one--two more than what he needed--and just leaned over it, arms braced on either side, she spoke up. “Are you sure it was his girlfriend? They weren’t just… friends?”
He shot her a dark look.
She held her hands up. “Hey, I’m just saying, you could have been mistaken. I’m telling you, I’ve watched you two together and he seemed into you, Jen. I really think--”
“No. I don’t want to know what you think. You are the one who made such a big deal of him waiting in my line to begin with. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it otherwise.” He started stacking the boxes he opened back on the counter.
She scoffed. “Please. You were smitten with him from the get go, anyone could see it. I just hinted that he felt the same. In fact, I still say that he feels the same. So I really think that--”
Jensen held up a hand, stopping her. “Stop. Alright? Stop.” When she started to protest he shot her a desperate, pleading look. “Please, Danneel. I don’t want to go through that again. So just leave it, alright?”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but paused, eyes flickering from his face to the fist he had clenched on the cardboard flap of one of the boxes before giving a reluctant nod.
Jensen’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. Then he grabbed a box of plastic bags and headed out of the store room.
Part 2
Fandom: RPS, J2 AU
Pairing: Jared/Jensen, mentions of Tom/Mike
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 10,488
Disclaimer: Obviously, the people own themselves. And I am in no way making money off of this.
Summary: Jensen hates his job at the LoBill's grocery store. The only highlight is that every Wednesday the same guy comes in to buy candy and laugh with Jensen at the tabloids. Now if only Jensen could get up the courage to ask the guy his name...and possibly his number.
Warnings: Schmoop, bad tabloid articles, LOTS of candy.
A/N: So, over ten thousand words and there is very little angst. Seriously. Barely any at all. I can hardly believe I even wrote this. Betaed by the awesome anyothergirl415. All mistakes are mine.
Jensen was only two hours into his eight hour shift at LoBill’s Grocery, and already he was wishing the day was over. Or that it was at least time for his break. He glanced down the line leading to his cash register and sighed. No way he could sneak away for a break right now: the woman he was about to ring up had about a month’s worth of food in her cart, and after her was Mrs. Henderson with her weekly purchase of butter and eggs, an old man with a cart of what looked like the entire shelf of Campbell’s soup in his cart, and some really tall guy whose face was hidden behind a sci-fi tabloid magazine.
Huh. Looked like another fake Bigfoot sighting.
When Jensen finished with Mrs. Henderson’s purchase, and the twenty-three cans of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup were replaced with three bags of gummy bears and a bottle of Mountain Dew, Jensen looked up and into a pair of dark eyes and the widest smile he had ever seen.
Jensen blinked. The smile had very white teeth. And dimples. Wow.
“Wendigo,” the smile said and Jensen blinked again.
“Excuse me?”
The smile grew wider. Jensen noticed, distantly, that it was connected to a very nice, very tan face surrounded by fluffy, floppy brown hair and that the face was also connected to a man. “The tabloid,” the man clarified, pointing to the magazine he had replaced on the rack. “There’s a story about Wendigo sightings. Apparently, in the mountains somewhere there are creatures who used to be human beings, but because they were cannibals they turned into these super strong hunters who live underground and kidnap and eat campers who stray to far from the group.” He shook his head, long floppy strands of hair falling across his eyes as he did. “I can’t believe anyone would actually believe that kind of crap.”
Jensen felt his lips twist up in a half grin of his own. “You’d be surprised. Those magazines are actually one of our hot items. We get all sorts of crazies buying them.”
The man laughed. It was loud and big and matched the smile. “I bet,” he replied, grinning and catching Jensen’s eye like they were lifelong friends with a particularly funny inside joke. It made Jensen grin just a little bit more as he rang up the candy and pop.
“That’ll be five sixty-seven.”
He was still smiling at Jensen as he reached one massive hand into his pocket and brought out a crumpled ten dollar bill, and Jensen tried not to twitch when their fingers touched. He felt a blush creep up his neck and he ducked his head a little, looking away self consciously as he put the money in the cash register.
“Four thirty-three is your change.” He smiled politely. And this time he made sure their fingers didn’t touch at all.
“Thanks.” There was another quick flash of white teeth against tan skin as the man put his change away and grabbed his bags.
“Your welcome. Have a nice day.” The phrase was trite and over used and drilled into him since training six months ago, but it was either say that or do something stupid like ask this--most likely straight--man for his name and number or home address or just a quick make out session in the storage room simply because he had broad shoulders and big hands and a smile that made Jensen blink and lose his train of thought when he saw it. And that was just Not. A good. Idea.
“Yeah. You too, Jensen.” And after another quick smile the man was gone, leaving Jensen to stare after him and wonder how he knew his name. Then he remembered, and was very happy the man wasn’t there to see the flush that took over his face.
Nametag. Right.
---
The guy was back again the next week. This time with a bag of cherry Twizzlers and another bottle of Mountain Dew. His magic, thought stealing smile hadn’t lessened in power.
“Have you read the stories in this thing today?” The man waved the tabloid magazine in his hand.
“Uh, no.”
“Some chick says that her home town has been sacrificing people to an ancient tree god once a year so that their apple harvest comes out great each time.”
“Must have some damn good apple pie then.” He rang up the guy’s purchases. Two dollars and eighty-nine cents.
“Yeah,” the guy replied, dark eyes catching Jensen’s from under his bangs. “Must have.”
---
Tabloid Guy, as Jensen had taken to calling him in his head was back every week after that. Always on the same day and around the same time. Jensen figured he worked somewhere near the store and came in during his lunch or break time to get snacks. Hopefully not for lunch, Jensen thought one day as he rang up the guy’s purchases--two Resees‘ Fast Breaks, a handful of Air Heads and, predictably, a Mountain Dew--because all the guy bought was candy and pop, and he couldn’t imagine that being very healthy if that was all he ate.
“You’re total is three twenty-four,” he told the guy and waited while he dug into the pockets of his jeans, one hand replacing the tabloid he’d been buried in.
“Man, some people are really weird.” He held out a five.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Some woman went psycho and killed her kid before committing suicide.”
Jensen frowned. Didn’t sound like something that would be in a crazy tabloid rag. “That’s sad.”
“Yeah. And before it happened the woman kept going on about how it wasn’t really her kid, how she thought her kid had been replaced by something evil. The magazine was going on about Changelings.”
“Changelings? Like, creep into the bedroom, steal your kid, ancient Irish folktale Changelings?”
“Yeah. But you know, story like that? Doesn’t need to be put in some trashy magazine. Sometimes it’s best if people just leave things like that alone.” He too was frowning, brows pulled together over dark eyes.
Jensen noticed that he got wrinkles on his forehead when he did. “Yeah, man. I hear you,” he muttered, and handed over his change.
---
Jensen smoothed out the crinkles in the bag of Resees’ Peanut Butter Cups, and ran it over the scanner. “What’s it this time, man?”
Tabloid Guy grinned at him over the magazine. “Vampires, man. Vampires.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? They been drinking anybody’s blood?”
The guy waved a hand. “Nah. Just cows apparently. They‘re good vampires.” He scoffed a little as he said this. “How they related cow killing to vampires, I have no idea, since the cows weren’t actually sucked dry of blood, just split open and drained.”
“Maybe they‘re like vampire bats.” The scanner blipped as he dragged the bottle of Mountain Dew over it.
The guy was staring at him. “Vampire bats?”
“Yeah. They don’t actually suck animal’s blood. They just make a small incision and then lap it up. Total’s four twenty.”
He handed over the money. “How do you know all that?”
Jensen shrugged. “Just do, I suppose. Don’t know where I picked it up.”
The guy shook his head. “Man, you’re a weird guy, Jensen,” he laughed, but it was said lightly, almost affectionately, and Jensen flushed.
“Yeah.”
---
The next week Tabloid Guy came in an hour later than normal, and instead of buying a Mountain Dew and candy he bought two large cans of Monster.
“Rough night?” Jensen asked as he rang him up.
Tabloid Guy grunted. “You have no idea.”
He didn’t pick up a magazine to flip through and the conversation didn’t go much past “Have a good day,” and “You too.” After he left Jensen stared at the tabloid on the rack, the cover claiming some girl’s ex-boyfriend was actually a murdering shape shifter, and tried to tell himself he wasn’t disappointed.
---
It was a packet of sour gummy worms and a box of hot tamales this time, and Jensen shook his head and smiled at the weird combination as he rang them up. Tabloid Guy had grabbed one his favorite sci-fi magazines off the rack when he got in line and Jensen couldn’t help the little wave of relief that went through him when he saw it.
“Dude, look at this!” A tabloid was suddenly shoved in front of Jensen’s face and he found himself staring at a grainy black and white picture of what looked like a bad sixties representation of an alien embracing a guy underneath--was that a disco ball?
Tabloid Guy threw back his head and practically cackled. “This is the best one yet! This guy claims he was abducted by aliens and then they forced him to slow dance! Slow dance!” He laughed again, shoulders shaking and booming voice echoing in the store, bouncing off the tiles and catching the attention of the other customers. “Isn’t it just great?”
“Yeah,” Jensen said, a fond smile on his lips as he watched him. “It is.”
---
“So, I’ve noticed you’ve been working Wednesday’s a lot lately.” Danneel leaned against the counter beside him, swinging the pin covered rope that held her name tag back and forth. “You’ve even been asking for them when schedules are made up.”
Jensen shrugged. “Just trying to keep my schedule as similar as possible each week. Easier to schedule around.”
Danneel rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Because going over to Chris and Steve’s to get drunk and play video games every week requires a schedule.”
Jensen just shrugged again and Danneel didn’t even bother to try and hide her grin. “Nooo,” she started, leaning forward and drawing out the word, “I’m thinking it has something to do with that guy who’s here every Wednesday.”
He tensed. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he muttered, not looking at her.
“Sure you do. The tall guy. Floppy brown hair? Great smile? Comes every Wednesday around eleven o’clock in the morning? Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am talking about, because I’ve seen you moon over him every week. It’s so cute it’s disgusting how you get excited half an hour before he even gets here. I’ve never seen you so happy to work before in my life and that is only on Wednesdays so don’t tell me--”
“Alright!” he snapped, cutting her off. He dropped the receipts he was counting and glared at her. She, frustratingly, just continued smirking. “I know who you are talking about. That doesn’t mean I’m changing my schedule to see him. He’s just another customer, Danneel. Just a regular.”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes again. And really, Jensen was beginning to wonder if someday she would just roll them right out of her head. “Mr. Kripke is a regular, that guy, is like your fan.”
Jensen stopped glaring and just squinted at her in confusion. “What?”
“You haven’t noticed? The guy always goes to your line, Jensen. It doesn’t matter what register you are at or even if there is one with a shorter line. Hell, all the express lanes could be empty and he’d still wait for fifteen minutes in your line.”
Something warm curled in the pit of Jensen’s stomach and his lips bent up in a small smile. He ducked his head, hiding it from Danneel. “I’m sure you’re wrong. It’s probably just a habit or something. You’re making it more than it is.”
“Yeah. Sure. You keep telling yourself that, Jensen.” And damnit, Jensen didn’t need to look at her to know she was smirking. He could hear it in her voice.
---
Jensen tried to convince himself that Tabloid Guy always waiting in his line was just a coincidence, exactly as he told Danneel, but the next time he saw him waiting in line he couldn’t help but look around the store. Sure enough, there were two other cashiers with shorter lines, one an express lane with only a single person standing under the 20 Items or Less sign. The warmth that appeared in Jensen’s stomach when he thought about the man grew a little bit more.
“Hey,” Jensen greeted him when the guy reached the register. “Read anything interesting today?” His smile as the guy placed his items--a box of Sweettarts and a rope of Nerds--on the counter could have rivaled even the blinding grin the man gave him in return.
---
Tabloid Guy soon grew tired of The National Inquirer and The Globe and even the smaller, weirder gossip rags, and took to reading the tiny horoscope booklet every time he was in line. “’You are very closely connected to your intuition this week,’” he read aloud as Jensen rang up his bag of Blow Pops and Mountain Dew. “'And if that wasn’t enough, your dreams are very powerful as well. Pay attention to both, as they may have some important messages for you.’ What crap.”
Jensen looked up, eyebrows raised. “What? You read those ridiculous stories in the tabloids, but horoscopes offend you?”
The other man shrugged. “I just don’t think that you’ll find the answer to life in the stars, man.”
Jensen smirked. “What, so none of it’s true?” He teased him. “No powerful dreams lately?”
Jensen swore the man blushed, a light pink flush along his cheekbones as he gave a little, self-conscious cough. “Ah, no. No dreams.” Suddenly, Jensen thought he looked very young. He hadn’t thought about it before, but looking at him now, that light blush still on his cheeks as he restlessly flipped through the tiny book, Jensen realized he was at least several years younger than him.
Taking pity on the man, who still didn’t look Jensen in the eyes as he handed him the money for the candy--and Jensen was very curious as to what sort of dreams the man had been having that would embarrass him so much--Jensen handed the man his change and asked, smiling, “So what’s mine say?”
And just like that, the grin was back. “What’s your sign?”
“Pisces.”
“Hey, that means you were born this month, doesn’t it?”
Jensen shook his head. “Next month. March first.”
The guy flashed him another grin before he began to read. “‘This week, try to remember that patience is a virtue. But don’t wait too long, or the opportunities you are waiting for might just pass you by.’”
---
The next week, instead of candy, Tabloid Guy (and really, Jensen needed to find another name for him, considering he didn’t actually read the tabloids anymore) bought a box of cupcakes from the bakery. Jensen shook his head as he rang it up. “Man, you’ve got some sweet tooth, don’t you?”
“Yeah, guess so,” the guy replied, smiling at Jensen like he was missing out on a joke.
Jensen didn’t get it. “Four sixty-nine.” The man handed him a five.
“Hey,” he said as Jensen dropped a few coins in his hand, “it’s the twenty-eighth today. You’re birthday’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
Jensen looked up sharply, surprised the guy had remembered. “Yeah. It is.”
Tabloid Guy grinned and opened the box of cupcakes, taking out one with chocolate icing and blue sprinkles and placing it on the counter next to the credit card scanner. “Happy Birthday.”
Jensen stared at the little cupcake, and grinned like it was a brand new Playstation 3, or maybe a million bucks. “Thanks.” He picked the cupcake up, licking off some of the icing that got on his thumb.
“You’re welcome,” Tabloid Guy murmured, eyes focused intensely on where Jensen’s mouth touched his thumb. Jensen felt a small shiver go up his spine at the look. Maybe Danneel was right after all. Maybe Tabloid Guy was a fan.
---
Jensen did the same thing for his birthday as he had every year for six years: spent it hanging out with his friends in the dump of a bar Chris and Steve usually performed in. It wasn’t the classiest of ways to turn a year older, but the place was familiar, the bar stools were comfy and, thanks to Chris and Steve, the beer was free.
At the moment, life was good. Remembering the chocolate cupcake from yesterday, and even better, the look on Tabloid Guy’s face, Jensen had to say that life was actually very good.
“Alright. Spill.”
Jensen glanced up in surprise. Chris was smirking at him over the rim of his Corona. “What?”
“I know that sappy look. You’re into someone. I wanna know who. So,” he kicked Jensen lightly in the shin, “spill.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, man. There isn’t anybody.” Jensen took a drink of his own beer and avoided Chris’s eyes. There was no way in hell he was telling Chris about the guy from the grocery store.
“Whatever. He’s been flirting with a guy who comes into the store for months now.”
Jensen nearly dropped his beer. “Danneel!” He glared at the brunette as she sat beside him.
She shrugged. “What? You have been. And he’s been totally flirting back, so I don’t know why you’re trying to deny it.”
His glare didn’t lessen at that. Not a bit.
Chris leaned forward. “What, months now? Why haven’t I heard about this?”
Danneel gave a very put upon sigh. “Because Jensen is too much of a chicken shit to do anything other than trade a few words about the crap in the magazines and then stare at the guy’s ass as he walks away.”
Jensen scowled and kicked at Danneel’s chair. “You,” he brandished his finger at her, “are no longer welcome here. I should never have introduced you guys in the first place. I never would have if I had known you would just go running to them” he jerked his thumb at Chris and Steve at the opposite side of the table “with my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Hey, now,” Steve leaned forward over the table, smirking. “I don’t think you get to decide who hangs out here. Besides,” and the smirk grew, “we might just like her better than you by now.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” Chris let his eyes roam up and down Danneel’s body in a playful leer. Danneel just rolled her eyes. “She’s hot.”
“I’m hot!” Jensen protested.
“Yeah, but not I’m not going to sleep with you,” Chris said flatly, and completely ignored Danneel’s muttered “Not going to sleep with me either.”
Jensen leaned back in his chair and picked up his beer. “You could,” he drawled, letting a lazy grin curl on his lips as he dragged his eyes over Chris’s form, “but I just don’t find you hot enough.”
Chris tossed a crumpled napkin at him. Jensen snickered.
“But back to the subject,” Chris said once they all stopped laughing, voice firm and eyes serious as he peered at Jensen from across the table. “Who is this guy? What’s his name?”
Jensen sighed. “I don’t know,” he muttered.
“What?”
“I said I don’t know!”
Chris just stared at him, mouth open a bit. “How can you not know?”
Jensen shrugged.
“You mean to tell me,” Chris drawled, “that you’ve been mooning over this guy for weeks--”
“Months,” Danneel corrected helpfully, and Jensen scowled at her. “Since January.”
“Months,” Chris continued, “and you don’t even know his name?”
Jensen just shrugged again and drained the last of his beer.
“Jesus,” Chris smirked, “that is pathetic.”
“What did I tell you? Chicken shit.” Jensen really regretted introducing Danneel to Chris. He turned to Steve, who’d remained quiet on the whole issue, for support.
Steve shook his head. “It’s just sad man.”
Jensen huffed and got up to get another beer.
He needed new friends.
---
Finding out Tabloid Guy’s name turned out to be very easy the next week.
Unfortunately.
“God, Jared, I don’t know how you eat all this crap.”
Jensen didn’t look up from scanning the groceries of the nameless customer in front of him, didn’t look over to the end of his line to watch Tabloid Guy--whose name Jensen now knew was Jared--bicker over the amount of candy he was buying with the pretty, petite brunette at his side. Instead he kept his head down, and pretended that scanning and bagging the customer’s frozen burritos and boxes of cheerios was the most interesting thing in the world.
He’d seen them come in. He wasn’t about to admit to anyone--especially Danneel--that he’d been watching the doors since eleven o’clock, but he’d seen them come in, laughing and chatting and looking decidedly friendly with his arm draped over her shoulders and hers wrapped loosely around his waist, and for the first time since Jensen had met the man he’d prayed that things would go differently today and the guy wouldn’t come to Jensen’s line.
No such luck.
“Hey, Jensen.”
He finally looked up at them, because he couldn’t not after that, and forced a smile. “Hey.”
Jared grinned at him. “How’s it going?” he asked as put down his purchases--two boxes of Nerds, a king sized Snickers, a Mountain Dew, and, Jensen noted with a bit of despair, a diet Dr. Pepper and a bag of trail mix.
“Great,” he said with another fake smile. “Kind of busy.” Even though it wasn’t today, and he knew that he was going to have plenty of time to torture himself with this whole scene over and over again later.
“That sucks, man.”
“Yeah.” He really hoped he didn’t look as awkward as he felt. He reached for the candy and started ringing it up.
“You know,” the girl said, smiling, “you really should refuse to sell that to him. He eats too much of it as it is. It can’t be healthy.”
Jared gave her a little shove. “Shut up, Sandy. You’re just jealous ‘cause I can eat all I want and not have to worry about getting fat.”
“You might have to worry about cavities, though,” she answered, reaching up to poke at the dimples in his cheeks. Jared ducked away and bat at her hand, laughing.
Jensen felt sick.
“Your total is six fifty-seven,” he told them and didn’t even try to smile this time.
Jared noticed. “You okay, man?” His brows furrowed in concern and he leaned forward a bit to peer at Jensen’s face as he pulled the ten out of his wallet, and suddenly Jensen felt like crying a little bit because such concern would have thrilled him last week, but now it just made him want to run and hide away for a very long time, possibly forever, but at least until he forgot that Jared had ever come into his store to begin with.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just you know, busy day. Like I said.” He took the ten from him and quickly got his change, avoiding Jared’s eyes as he did so, and not looking at the way the girl’s--Sandy’s--eyes flickered between the two of them.
“Oh. Alright then. I guess we’ll just get out of your way.” It must have been the concern still evident in his voice that made Jensen think he sounded disappointed, because Jared immediately grabbed his bags and headed out the door with a small, polite smile and a short, “See ya around, Jensen.”
Jensen nodded and didn’t watch the two of them leave.
He was such a fucking idiot.
---
“His girlfriend? Are you sure?”
Jensen ripped open a box of plastic bags and dropped it on the ground, reaching for another one. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”
Danneel didn’t say anything for a minute, just watched him as he viciously tore open the cardboard box, revealing two more stacks of plastic bags with “Have a nice day!” printed in bright colors on them. When he finally opened a third one--two more than what he needed--and just leaned over it, arms braced on either side, she spoke up. “Are you sure it was his girlfriend? They weren’t just… friends?”
He shot her a dark look.
She held her hands up. “Hey, I’m just saying, you could have been mistaken. I’m telling you, I’ve watched you two together and he seemed into you, Jen. I really think--”
“No. I don’t want to know what you think. You are the one who made such a big deal of him waiting in my line to begin with. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it otherwise.” He started stacking the boxes he opened back on the counter.
She scoffed. “Please. You were smitten with him from the get go, anyone could see it. I just hinted that he felt the same. In fact, I still say that he feels the same. So I really think that--”
Jensen held up a hand, stopping her. “Stop. Alright? Stop.” When she started to protest he shot her a desperate, pleading look. “Please, Danneel. I don’t want to go through that again. So just leave it, alright?”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but paused, eyes flickering from his face to the fist he had clenched on the cardboard flap of one of the boxes before giving a reluctant nod.
Jensen’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. Then he grabbed a box of plastic bags and headed out of the store room.
Part 2