Chapter Text
Letherbelk
The plan was simple: buy groceries so he never, ever had to take the children out again until his babysitting duties ended, and take them out to eat at a restaurant so he didn't have to cook and clean up.
Naturally, neither of these things happen.
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A fresh layer of snow covered the outside world as Ludger and the Five Teenagers(TM) made their way to the store. Sanders & Ross, the big supermarket in Letherbelk, was packed this time of year, with families stocking up for their upcoming Yuletide celebrations.
Calling it big was an understatement. It was more akin to a warehouse than the small shops the students were used to. Ludger was about to give them instructions the way he would at a field trip—double file, buddy up, don't pee in random places, the usual boring professorial stuff— when he saw Aidan dash off to some food stall offering cut-up cocktail sausages on toothpicks.
"How much for this?" Asked Aidan as he held up a wrinkly sausage to inspect it.
"Free, young man!"
"F-free…?"
"Yes," the nice lady at the cart urged him on, the tiny sausage-octopus abomination that was the brand's mascot bobbing on her head. "Free sample! Taste all you want."
Aidan's face lit up even more than it already had.
Which was bad. Aidan's whole… whatever he had going on for him—was already bright as the sun, and Ludger didn't need any more brightness.
Ludger needed wine.
The other students huddled around the cart.
Sedena took one and whiffed it suspiciously before holding it out to Ludger. "Clear of poison," she said proudly.
Flora, on the other hand, was not amused seeing this all play out. How dare she try to hand-feed the professor! So instead, she stepped in between the professor and the offensive sausage, taking the whole bite.
This sausage tastes like cardboard, she thought.
Not only had she just saved her professor's honor, she also saved his stomach.
She looked at Ludger, expecting to be praised, as if she had just saved him from an assassination attempt. Instead, Ludger sighed and chastised her for her lack of etiquette, and worried that Aidan was rubbing off on her.
Meanwhile, said menace was still polishing off some more sausages from the cart, with the lady laughing nervously at how fast Aidan was eating all of it. Flora winced, not understanding the appeal. Beside him, Renei eyed the food samples shyly. "Is this really free?"
The cart lady nodded and patiently explained that there are other carts around offering free samples as they browse, she said while pointing to a nearby station that had free samples of cheese and crackers set up.
Aidan and Renei locked eyes, and in a surprising turn of events, developed a friendship so fast that it was like two stray raccoons discovering an unlocked dumpster as they ran off to the next cart, both of them ready to become the next living nightmare of the poor bastard manning those free samples.
Meanwhile, Erendir put on her best princess voice. "How quaint, they're serving hors d'oeuvres to patrons! What excellent hospitality," she said, ignorant of the cutthroat reality of modern grocery marketing.
Ludger was suddenly acutely aware of how easily Erendir could get indoctrinated into a cult.
Flora didn't get the princess's praise, a weird aftertaste still lingering in her mouth, but she refused to look uncultured. She nodded sagely, inspecting a stray toothpick.
"Indeed," she started, her voice—to Ludger's horror—carrying across the aisle. "One can really taste the… artisanal craft in this mechanically separated meat. The pairing with the industrial-grade wax paper is… interesting."
Nearby shoppers, who until that moment had been ignoring the free samples, suddenly got their interest piqued when they saw two very well-mannered girls praising the wrinkly sausages.
Suddenly, everyone wanted to buy one.
A crowd began to swarm the cart, surrounding the poor sample lady under an avalanche of middle-class consumers desperate to get a taste of this "artisanal" meat that Flora had just marketed.
An opening.
With a stern warning to Aidan—who was currently being dragged away from a cheese cube display by Renei and toward a free sample cart with crackers—Ludger finally shoved a shopping cart and the official grocery list to Sedena.
Sedena accepted the piece of paper with both hands, as if he were handing her her diploma.
"I shall guard the logistics and budget with my life, Professor!" she vowed fiercely.
"Do that," he muttered, massaging his temples.
And so, Ludger went to the wine aisle to stare at the wall and get 5 minutes of peace.
Meanwhile, in Aisle 2, the official shopping cart was becoming a battlefield.
"Give me the list, Flora!" Sedena demanded, trying to pull the paper away from Flora. "The Professor gave it to me. I'm the designated grocery master."
"Please," Flora scoffed, maintaining her white-knuckle grip on the list. "You almost let Aidan eat a raw sausage abomination. Clearly, I possess the superior leadership skills required to navigate Sanders & Ross. Aidan—! Get away from the cheese cubes!"
With Flora momentarily distracted, Sedena gave a firm tug.
RRIIIIPPPP!
The grocery list was ripped into two.
A collective, horrified gasp echoed from the group. Aidan actually stopped eating, a half-eaten cheese cracker hovering near his mouth.
"Look what you did!" Flora shrieked.
"Logistically speaking, it was your resistance that caused the tear!" Sedena shot back.
For a tense second, it looked like a magical duel was about to erupt right next to the bulk flour section.
"Maybe we can split up…?" Renei suggested shyly. Both girls looked at her with a dangerous glint. "Eeeek! I'm sorry, I'm sorry—!!"
Renei was about to apologize for her entire existence when Flora piped up.
"Fine, let's split up. We'll see who completes their list with superior efficiency."
"I accept!" said Sedena, her competitive instincts taking over. "Renei, you're with me."
"Why do I get Aidan?" asked Flora. "He's a logistical liability!" Erendir didn't appreciate being separated from Renei, either.
"Fine, Aidan and Renei's with me," Sedena said, immediately tossing a bulk bag of potato chips at Aidan's chest to keep him from whining or running off to another sample cart. "Eat this while we browse. Don't touch anything else."
With the part officially divided, the real chaos began.