Work Text:
The shop closes at 7, and it’s 4:42, which you can basically round up to 5, which is super close to 6, so really you don’t have that much time left in your shift.
Fuck, you have to close the store front. Goddammit. That takes at least 20 minutes. Since 4:42 is basically 4:40, you can add that 20 minutes to-
That doesn’t make sense.
Your head thuds against the countertop and you let out a long, bored groan. Maybe you’re being dramatic because this job is really the best one you’ve had in your life (fast food can suck your bulge), but that doesn’t mean you aren’t bored out of your mind. Being a cashier at a garden shop isn’t all that exciting. Occasionally, you have to organize things and move pots and boxes, but you don’t really have much to do. Jade said something about the spring being a good time for the store, but that just means that you would actually have to do work. It’s not hard work, but it’s still work.
Thank god the store was empty, otherwise someone would have seen your sudden craving for a face full of countertop. Jade usually just laughs at your attitude, and the old man (Grandpa Harley? English? You aren’t sure) tuts at you. Jade’s older brother, Jake, always asks if you’re okay, so you assume he isn’t great at picking up social cues, but he means well.
You used to be scared of Jake as a kid. You had the biggest crush on Jade back in middle school, and her older brother is tall as hell. You did not want to get on his bad side, and you also wanted him to like you, just in case anything happened with your crush of the semester. Nothing did, and you got over it and moved on, but you were still a little bit intimidated by the guy.
He’s tall, okay? That’s fucking terrifying to your short ass.
You stopped being afraid of Jake when you saw him get flustered as fuck over Dave’s short ass brother while you were hanging out at the Strider apartment. It was funny and pathetic as fuck, but sweet in a way. If that giant can act like an ambiguously british romcom protagonist, then you don’t have to be scared of him.
And Dirk was short (still taller than you, but still short) and he was scary as hell, so height really isn’t a good indicator of how scary a person is.
The clock said that you had been staring into the counter for 3 minutes and you had to resist the urge to pick your head up and slam it down harder. Could this shift last any longer?
Your phone buzzed, letting you know that you missed 99+ messages in your group chat (which you had muted). Technically, you aren’t supposed to be on your phone at work, but there was literally no one here, besides Jade in the back doing her weird flower pollination experiments and her grandfather out watering things in the greenhouse. You risk it and check your phone.
Again, the group chat is mostly full of single word texts (“F” was a common one) and reaction images, a few of which you saved for later use. Once you finish backreading, you text back a quick “shut the fuck up” (in all caps).
John tells you to shut up and Rose dislikes your message. Sollux attached several stickers to the chat and Aradia just kept covering them with skull stickers. You tell them once again to shut up, saying that you were at work, prompting them to either make fun of you as a group or remind you that they had Saturday evening off, because they aren’t nerds. You send several middle finger emojis and put your phone down.
A few minutes later, your phone buzzes again, and you’re expecting another notification for the group chat (it updates you when there are a certain number of messages) but it turned out to be a text from Dave. He was asking if you were still at work.
You respond with a “yes, read the fucking group chat” (also in caps), and you put your phone into your hoodie pocket quickly as Jade comes barreling through the back door with a flower in a pot. She sprint out of the store to the greenhouse, not even acknowledging you.
You continue to play around with your phone for another 20 minutes, ignoring the group chat, before the front door bell rings. Dammit. As much as you love finally (maybe) having something to do, you hate it when customers come in on a slow day. There’s something very paradoxical about work as a teenager.
You stop yourself from being a poet and peer around the displays to see who came in. You hear him before you see him.
“Yo.”
“Dave fucking Strider. For some reason I don’t think you’re here for flowers.”
He puts a cup of coffee next to you and hops up onto the counter, taking up as much room as possible to annoy you. You hit his leg a few times before you decide to move the coffee onto the shelf below you so you don’t knock it down.
He turns so that he’s sitting cross legged on the counter, facing you. “Was nearby, felt like stopping by before going home.” His face is as stoic as usual, but there’s a light dusting of blush across his cheeks and nose, just barely peaking out form under his stupid shades. You elect to ignore it, figuring it’s just an allergic reaction to committing a kind gesture for a bro. He’s still learning to process acts of kindness and stuff, since it’s really only been two years since he started living with Dirk. You’ve seen a lot of progress in your “best bro” (as he insists on being called).
You open the coffee lid. “You didn’t poison it, right?”
He puts a hand to his chest, feigning offense, “How dare you accuse me of such a thing! What would I even gain from such a smooth murder like that?” He’s smiling now.
You swirl the dark liquid, watching it stain the sides of the styrofoam. “Peace and quiet?”
“I hate quiet,” he says, a little bit too sincerely for you to totally ignore. He hops off the counter and starts wandering around the store, weaving between the isles for apparently no reason. “This place is pretty boring, Karkles.”
“Don’t call me Karkles,” you shoot back on reflex, “And don’t let Jade hear you say that. She was just in here.”
“Well, I’m right,” he continues from the seed display, “Like would it kill them to put in a radio or something?”
You shrug. Honestly, you’ve thought the same thing.
“And the name of the place,” Dave rambles as he plays hopscotch on the floor tiles, earning a small scoff of laughter from you, “like ‘PopPop’ sounds like an old guy or a pancake place, you know?”
“The man that owns this place is legally considered an old guy, Dave.”
“Yeah, but I think it could use a more modern, younger image,” he says, “Like just a tad younger.”
You frown a little more than usual, thinking. (You’re always frowning. It’s just your natural face at this point.) “What’s a fun word for a male parent?”
“Like Dad?” Dave asks, not really following.
“Yeah,” you say, “You said younger. PopPop implies a grandparent, so younger than that would be a father. That’s just the natural progression of a human family tree.”
He continues his hopscotch game. “You’re right, I guess.” He stops on square 8 (you counted as he hopped), and turns to you. “Pop’s Garden Shop. That’s literal gold.” His hands start moving as he explains. “It’s just a syllable shorter, so it sounds cooler, and the rhyme fits a little better. Like, that’s genius. I might have to start that shop right across the street, make some sort of family rivalry out of the thing. That would be a tragic and sick as hell soap opera, Karkat, you’d love it.”
You roll your eyes. He comes to sit back on the counter.
“Could you imagine the marketing for that show? It’s just flowers and plants and ‘new love blooms’ and bullshit taglines like that. You’d see one commercial and end up binging the whole thing. Because you’re a sucker for bullshit taglines.” You scowl at him. He grins and leans closer to your face. “You’re a sucker.”
You push him off the counter and he falls with a squeak.
He pops back up, seemingly angry, but when you look at each other, you both start to laugh. Like, really hard. Your gut hurts.
Once you’ve calmed down, you let him back up on the counter and you talk for the remainder of your shift. Occasionally, Jade will walk though and join the conversation for a little while, but she always has an alarm go off on her phone and she sprints back into her lab/ the back room.
Dave even helps you close. You ask him if he’s going to get in trouble for being home late, but he waves you off, saying that Dirk is out tonight anyway and that he already texted him about it. Which is more than what he used to say when he lived with his other guardian. You both say goodbye to Jade and her grandpa, and walk out of the store. It’s still light enough for you to feel safe enough to walk home, so you and Dave walk down the sidewalk. Your buildings are in the same direction, at least as far as 13th street.
“You know,” Dave says as you walk, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to their dad as pop. Or pops? Where was the apostrophe?”
You shrug. “As a troll, I have never referred to anyone as a father figure, because we have lusi. Secondly, I thought the apostrophe was after the ‘s.’”
Dave frowns. “Who the fuck uses pops to refer to their dad?”
“You suggested it, smart ass. Why are we talking about parenting?”
“Because,” Dave replies, “Anyone who refers to their dad as pops is probably crazy. Just have to make sure and avoid those people. Take this as a warning from your friend that is well-versed in human culture.”
You have half a mind to tell Dave that he doesn’t have the best experience with normal human culture and family units either, and while being insensitive is one of your strong suits, you don’t feel like being an ass. Instead you tell Dave to fuck off and wave goodbye as you part at 13th street.