Work Text
If Ethan was still a depressed, sleep-deprived, broke college student running on caffeine and spite, maybe he would have snapped sooner. But he was a depressed, sleep-deprived, broke forty-two year old running on caffeine and spite, so he had a little more restraint than that.He'd been out of work for three months by the time he finally ran out of interviews and casting calls and also rent money. So he sucked it up and got a job at his local Walmart, bagging groceries and flatscreen TVs for anyone and everyone who passed through checkout line three. This anyone and everyone notably included one middle-aged British dude who always came into the store right before closing time. Ethan took every shift he could get, meaning that he was usually one of the only cashiers left at 10:45 PM when the British guy checked out.Technically, Ethan wasn't sure if the guy was middle-aged or British. He couldn't have been more than a decade younger than Ethan, though, and his accent was suspiciously English.It wasn't his accent that piqued Ethan's interest and eventually sent him over the edge, though. It was what the man bought.It started out as duct tape and a pack of energy drinks. The man came in during Ethan's first week on the job, when people's faces hadn't started blending together yet and Ethan wasn't too dead on his feet. The encounter wasn't particularly memorable except for the small smirk the man shared with Ethan as he accepted his change.Ethan may have seen that smirk when he closed his eyes for the next three days, but that was between him and God.The man's next few Walmart runs were similarly unremarkable. He bought a Nokia and a pair of plain sunglasses the next week as well as a bag of sour cream and onion chips five days later. A Dell laptop, a second Dell laptop, and a paper shredder were next. Then another Nokia, another pair of sunglasses, and forty bucks worth of gaffer tape.The purchases were a little odd—who buys two laptops within a week of each other?—but nothing to cause Ethan to do more than raise an eyebrow.Then the man walked up to cash register three with a black eye, a bag of coffee grounds, and seven pairs of wire cutters.“Rough day?” Ethan questioned as he scanned each pair of wire cutters individually. Usually, he would scan the same item seven times, but the man had somehow managed to find each of the seven separate wire cutter brands Walmart had in stock that month.“You have no idea,” the man responded, winking at Ethan as he pulled out his wallet.“Well, hope your eye feels better,” Ethan couldn't stop himself from saying before the stranger could turn away with his items. “Have a good night, man.”The man grinned at him and tipped an imaginary hat in his direction. “You too, mate.”It only got weirder from there.The next week, the man approached cash register three with a bag of popsicles, a pack of razors, and a roll of medical-grade bandages. The black eye was nearly gone, but in its place was a laceration in the man's forehead about four inches long and held together in the middle with a square Hello Kitty band-aid.Ethan stopped himself from saying something stupid like, Woah, what happened to your face? but it was a close call. Instead, he said, “Nice band-aid. I’m partial to the bunny with the pink hat, myself.”The man narrowed his eyes at Ethan. “Are you having me on?” he asked.“Having you on what?” It was a serious question, but Ethan suspected he’d misunderstood when the man started laughing.“Nevermind, love,” the man made a dismissive hand gesture. “Thank you, though. These were the only ones my coworker had.”Ethan was decidedly going to ignore the incredibly attractive man calling him love. “How’d you get a cut like that? If you don’t mind me asking.” He put the popsicles in a flimsy plastic bag and grabbed the razors. They were bright pink and had the word FIERCE printed across each handle.“Would you believe me if I said it was a mowing accident?” The man’s pitch went up at the end, reflecting how his shoulders rose up to his ears. He had a light dusting of a blush across his cheeks, as if the memory was embarrassing.Ethan snorted. “What, did you try to mow your forehead?”“No, it wasn’t actually the mowing that did it,” the man said, his hands coming up to wave as he talked. “I was just mowing my backyard, as one does, when I saw this yellowjacket. It startled me, so I immediately fled—right into a pole. A pole that had a metal screw sticking out of it.” At Ethan’s alarmed face, he added, “Don’t worry, I have had my tetanus shot.”“I don’t know whether to pity you or laugh at you,” Ethan said, then remembered this was a customer and he was on the clock. “I mean. Ouch.”Thankfully, the man took it in good faith. “Yes, it was quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of my life. My coworkers are never going to let me live it down.” He smiled then, warm and genuine. “You’re an interesting man, Mister Ethan. Very forward.”“How do you—right.” His nametag. Ethan flushed and said, “Thanks? But I’m not the one who ran face first into a pole while running from a bug. So.”“It was a yellowjacket, which is one of the scariest bugs—” The man stopped at the sound of Ethan’s laughter, dropping his hands to his sides. “Oh, you are having me on. Well played.” His eyes darted to the side for a second, and his face fell just a little. He fished his phone out of his pocket. “Bollocks. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the chat, ta!” He rushed off without another word, almost sprinting towards the exit.“BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUR—stuff.” Ethan looked down at where he’d just rung up the bandages and sighed. Hopefully whatever other injury the man needed to treat wasn’t an emergency.Ethan kept the items beside him for the rest of his shift just in case the man came back for them. He didn’t, and Ethan had to pay for the popsicles when they all melted. He saved one for the drive home and drank some blue raspberry while thinking of brown hair, a charming smile, and an accent that just wouldn’t leave his mind.The man didn’t come back for three weeks. Or, at least, not while Ethan was working. He had the passing thought to show a picture of the man to his coworkers and ask if they’d seen him, but then he realized he was being obsessive again, and he didn’t have a picture of the man, anyway. He would have to sketch the man out and, while he was confident in his drawing abilities, that would be a little too much, even for him.So he went to work, tried not to sigh despondently too often, and went back home. Rinse and repeat. He had no idea when he’d started looking forward to the man’s weekly Walmart trips, but he needed to stop, now. This was unhealthy. His old therapist would tell him he was obsessing. Well, fuck you, Leonard.And then the man came back again.Three weeks and four days after he’d run out of the store without his groceries, the man appeared at register three, looking like…shit.“What happened to you?” Ethan blurted, then closed his eyes, already resigned to his fate of being fired or, worse, being embarrassed. “Fuck. I mean. Shoot. Ignore everything I just said. Cash or card?” What was he saying? He needed to go crawl in a hole and die.The man cracked a weary grin and said, “That’s alright, love. That’s the pretty standard reaction. I’ve also heard, ‘Did you get hit by a bus?’ and ‘I should see the other guy, right?’ Frankly, I’m flattered anyone thinks I could survive getting hit by a bus and not just keel over dead.”Ethan had missed this man’s way with words and weird aura. “I feel like you’re in worse shape every time I see you. What happened this time?” He wouldn’t have been surprised if the man had gotten hit by a bus. He was bruised all over, his skin angry shades of purple and yellow, and the left side of his neck had a bandage the size of Ethan’s palm slapped across it. The man had a few more cuts around his left jaw that had scabbed over.“Got mugged,” the man shrugged. “Only had about ten dollars on me, so I got a few extra kicks for that inconvenience. I’m alright, though.” At that, he deposited his items on the conveyor belt—two rolls of fishing line, tweezers, adult diapers, and a jug of vinegar. And then, out of nowhere, he pulled out a statue of two gnomes dressed as bikers and placed it alongside the other items. The biker gnomes were wearing sunglasses, but Ethan could swear they were looking at him.“Okay, why could you possible need all these?” Ethan asked instead of expressing sympathy for the man who had just gotten beaten half to death over ten dollars. “You buy the weirdest shi—stuff. It’s driving me crazy. What do you do with it all?”The man raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you been thinking about this?”“All the time,” Ethan groaned, raising a hand to massage the bridge of his nose. He was past being professional. He didn’t need to pay rent, anyway. “My only guess is that you’re one of those prank YouTubers. Please tell me you’re not a prank YouTuber.”The man barked out a laugh that made Ethan’s gut swoop and his toes curl inside his worn sneakers. “Oh, dear. That’s a new one. No, I’m not a prank YouTuber.” He shook his head, his shoulders shaking with mirth. “As for what I’m actually doing—I’m afraid that’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He winked for good measure.Ethan could have swooned. “I’m tempted to let you kill me just to get my questions answered, but I guess I’ll just have to ring you up instead.” He grabbed the fishing line and scanned it, ducking his head a little to avoid eye contact. He could see no way to make this interaction normal again.He saw the man fishing around in his pockets out of the corner of his eye before ducking down to do…something. Ethan busied himself with bagging the man’s items before reading off what the man owed.“I hope you feel better,” Ethan told him when the man had all his bags in hand (because he had decided not to use a cart for some reason). “Make sure to ice that. I think.”“Sound medical advice! Thank you,” the man grinned before shifting all his bags to one hand and pulling a folded pink slip of paper from his front pocket. He held it out to Ethan and said, “Here you go.”Ethan took it hesitantly, attempting and probably failing to not show his confusion on his face. He opened his mouth to ask what the paper was, but before he could, the man shot one last smile at him before promptly turning around and hurrying away, throwing a quick, “‘Till next time!” behind him.Apparently abrupt exits were a habit of his. Ethan shook his head and unfolded the pink sticky note in his hand. In black sharpie and an atrocious scrawl was written,
Maybe I won’t have to kill you. Call me sometime. XXX-XXX-XXXX ~Benji
Ethan couldn’t help the wide smile that spread across his face as he read the words again and again. Maybe I won’t have to kill you. Call me sometime. His name was Benji. Benji had bought a biker gnome statue and given Ethan his phone number!Ethan was going to figure out what the hell Benji was doing with all the crap he bought. But first he was going to take him out to dinner. He’d have to find somebody to take his shift.