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“Oi! These packages just arrived and won’t be stocking themselves!”
Félix swallowed the curses that rose to his throat and turned to grab the package on the counter.
He had seen the delivery man arriving through the stand window but it seemed like he had miscalculated something, as he hadn’t been fast enough in getting out of sight before his manager put another task on him before the end of his shift.
Félix whirled in place, package with the personal hygiene items in grasp, and headed for the stands. The grocery store had a decent amount of movement at this time of the night, so Félix still made a point of taking the aisles that’d help him in avoiding the stray customers scattered around.
For some reason, late-night customers all seemed to look creepier than morning or afternoon ones, so he started avoiding them way more after changing shifts—oh, wait, he was thinking of the illustrations on that horror book with anthology short stories featuring late-night shifts; maybe reading it hadn’t been a good idea, but he couldn’t resist the irony of finding the title “(Stories on) The Night Shift” on the day of the change.
He squeezed through a breach at the end of the personal hygiene section, box held above the stand, then began to put away the deodorants and hair products on the appropriate shelves. He deliberately stocked the shelves at a slow pace to burn the time he’d otherwise spend idle in the store, vulnerable to any customer that saw him fit to help them with whatever deed they needed.
But it seemed that he also had miscalculated something in here, as he could hear faint sobs from somewhere behind his back.
Félix didn’t stop putting the items away, even as his shoulders tensed up and something crawled on the skin under his sleeves, he just breathed in and kept organizing the deodorants by their brands on the shelf. When he turned to move to the shampoos, a loud whimper startled him. He flicked his eyes to where the sound was coming from—now repeated thuds followed by muffled hiccups—then grasped the shampoo boxes to put them on the shelves.
The thuds stopped and a high-pitched scream took its place. It soon stopped too, and the sobs resumed.
Félix placed a hand on a small snacks stand—when did he drop the package?—and looked around it to the kitchen aisle. A small frame curled on itself by a blender rack, a pile of silverware scattered around their feet, seemingly having been dropped from a higher shelf.
“Hey,” Félix called—why? What the fuck was he doing here? “can you hear me?”
The person hiccuped, grumbling as they held themself tighter.
What. The fuck. Was he doing?
He didn’t know this person’s coping mechanisms, if this was their first time in a situation like this, if they had someone accompanying them, and all the information in the world wouldn’t change how much more harm he could cause at one mishap! He should just go and hope someone more prepared came to deal with this.
The person was still grumbling under sobs and hiccups as Félix forced his throbbing limbs to move. He was already up when he vaguely recognized one of the words spilled out.
“Is that French?” he asked, unconsciously changing languages.
The person snapped their head up. A woman with blue eyes shimmering with tears as she stared up at him; disheveled black locks cascaded around her head, stray strands falling over her swollen nose.
Félix averted his gaze, uncomfortable with the marveled look this person gave him.
“You–” She coughed, more hiccups clogging up her throat.
Félix was crouching by her side again with a handful of napkins before he could process having moved. And where did these napkins come from?
“You…” She picked a napkin, nodding gratefully to him, and wiped her nose. “…French?”
“I know French.”
“Dat’s what I asked.”
Félix sat at the balls of his heels in front of the woman—she wiped her nose a few more times then took another napkin to dry her eyes—head heavy over his body, which seemed to have stoned in place. He pulled his sleeve to check his wristwatch.
00:17 a.m.
His shift ended.
“Thank you.” Félix snapped his attention back to the woman. “I–” She glanced around, inhaling, then choked on air, sucking in ragged breaths as her eyes watered again.
“Hey, hey,” Félix called again, this time in French, moving to be in front of her. “It’s OK; breathe in, count to seven, hold it– one, two, three, then out…” Félix counted and breathed with the woman, repeating the process a few more times before asking if she could stand up.
He extended his palms to her, close enough to keep her from fumbling if needed, in sight so she wouldn’t be surprised if he touched her, and away enough that he wasn’t too much into her personal space.
It didn’t seem to have been necessary, as she didn’t have any problem grasping his arms for support to get up, smiling at Félix as she centered herself.
He clamped down his surprise and nodded to her, stepping back when she released his arms and folding them behind his back.
“Is there anything else I can do to help, miss?” Félix had taken on the retail voice again, even though his shift was over and this wasn’t part of his job description, but his brain was too heated up to think properly at the moment, so whatever.
“No, no…” The woman looked back down at the blender box slightly pulled out of the shelf, then to her purse. “I hadn’t realized I left my money at the flat and I just–” She bit her lip, shutting her eyes in shame, and gestured vaguely to where she had tucked herself in.
“I see,” Félix said, and it was the most honest statement that had come out of his mouth in months. “It’ll still be here tomorrow, you can come get it once you’re able to pay.”
“Yeah…” She nodded, fixing her purse on her shoulder as she followed Félix to the exit. “It’s so obvious, isn’t it?”
“Anxiety likes to hide the obvious when it’s being a bitch,” Félix said automatically as he held the door open for her, weirdly pleased with the hearty laughter it got out of her.
“Yep! Do you deal with panic attacks often?”
Félix’s jaw clenched, but the woman seemed a lot calmer than a minute ago and there wasn’t any pity or faux sympathy in her eyes. She asked in the same tone one would ask his favorite book, which was strangely nice, for a change.
Still, he replied wearily, “More or less. What I walked you through is just a simple breathing exercise that helps me calm down when my anxiety is acting up.”
“You seemed to know how to talk very well too though.”
“That’s more on the fact I know French rather than anything I did.”
She blinked confusedly for a moment then recognition fell over her eyes. “Oh, right!” She looked around as if to make sure London was still here, giggling. “I… almost forgot that part. Still, though–” She straightened up, clearing her throat, then said in an uncertain English: “Thank you for your help. You were very kind today.”
Félix bit his tongue—you just say that because you don’t know the instincts to let you to your own devices I had to shoulder through in order to get to the “kind” option—and nodded stiffly as she turned away to continue her trek down the street.
The next day, when Marinette—as he had come to learn—arrived at the grocery store during the morning shift, Félix was already there with a blender separated for her.