Work Text:
"What is your mission?”
The entire room erupts around you in an enthusiastic chorus of “To protect the samples!”
“And who is your enemy?”
“Edward Teach!” And you swear you hear booing and hissing.
“And what will your enemy stop at to compromise your mission?”
“Nothing!”
“So we need to be?”
“Ruthless!”
And yeah, you’ve had a lot of bullshit shift-work in your life that starts its days with any variety of equally bullshit call-and-response team building for “pep”, but this is out there, even for capitalism. You have nothing but questions. Why does anyone need to protect free samples? Who the fuck is Edward Teach and how did they piss of Costco enough to get their own dedicated morning meeting without just earning a lifetime ban? And why does every single one of your coworkers seem fully on board, like not “this is my rent so I can pretend to care” on board but like “Edward Teach spit on my mothers grave and fucked my brother” on board? And most importantly, do you get paid for the 45 minute lunch your new manager said you have to take on this already too short shift? Or what’s the deal?
The buzz around you has cooled off somewhere amongst your revery and your new supervisor is heading your way through the crowd of hairnet bedecked coworkers, clutching a thick binder.
“Here, you’ll need this.” she says, pressing the binder into your hands.
It’s black and battered and three inches thick and there’s a handwritten label tucked into the outer sleeve declaring DO NOT FEED.
You’re baffled but you’re on the clock (you checked, the morning meetings go on your timecard, you made absolutely certain of that before you even entered the breakroom where this ritualistic psych up took place) so you open the binder with your amusement carefully concealed beneath professional interest. The first page is a transparent sleeve holding a polaroid, dated in sharpie from five years ago, picturing a man with a fierce beard and a fiercer scowl. He’s all black and grey and curly long hair and he looks like he’d bend you over his bike and not in a fun way. So, okay, valid, he probably berated sample-hander-outer (somehow it’s your entire first day and you still don’t know what your actual job title is) for giving him something insultingly vegan and now he’s on the banned list, so you move on to the next page and—
Hold the fuck up?
You flip back to the first page, just to check your eyes and your memory since you only had one cup of coffee on your way in today, and yep, yeah, yep. Page two is a polaroid of the same damn guy, dated only six days later, wearing— well it’d be too generous to call it a disguise, wouldn’t it? It’s more like, he piled all those long locks underneath a cowboy hat and stuck a tiny fake mustache on top of his very bushy, very thick, very obvious real mustache. And he still looks pissed , like— did he think he was gonna get away with it ?
Bewildered, but figuring it’s just an anomaly and this guy is just the reason they started keeping the binder, you flip on and— come on. Come the fuck on. Same guy, dated two months down the road, he’s wearing a full face of drag makeup, the tops of his shoulders capped in pink sequins, and there’s a tiny pink fake mustache, once again plopped on top of his pile of facial hair. You look up at your supervisor waiting for the joke, but she’s not laughing, studying the polaroid like she’s never seen it before and it’s gonna give her all the answers to the universe.
Your mask of professional interest starts to crack when you flip to the next page— same fucking guy, eyepatch and tricorn and fake mustache— and the next— wearing colored red contacts and baring fake vampire fangs and a blood red mustache— and the next— a full on professional fursuit with a fake fucking mustache— and on and on and on. A genie, a mailman, a plague doctor, a blond wig and a teal suit that doesn’t appear related to anything specific, a maid, a startlingly detailed alien done up with effects grade silicon and makeup, all with coordinated fake mustaches. Who the fuck is this guy?
“Your worst nightmare.” Your supervisor says solemnly, so you guess you said that out loud.
You clutch the binder and gape at her. What the fuck are you even supposed to do? Like, don’t offer him samples, right? But why does he keep coming back? Why does he even care? Why is he still allowed within two miles of any Costco? And are the snacks in the breakroom just for anyone, like are they free to take?
You shake your head because this is still technically less of a clown show than your last job (an actual literal clown show, like you worked for a circus) and the health insurance is gonna be so fucking good. You can handle a middle aged male Karen in an elaborate costume, you’ve had at least three dates with guys just like that. You’ve got this. You’re just gonna set up on the end of the candy aisle with your probiotic chocolates and try not to think too hard about whether you should really be in the candy aisle or the supplement aisle instead and get through your five hours and not make eye contact with any weird fake/real mustachioed leather daddies.
So that’s exactly what you do.
And you’re right.
It’s fine, it’s easy even, turns out you don’t even really have to try to get people to sample or buy chocolates that they can choose to believe are good for them especially on the first Saturday of the month. And your 45 minute break is paid and you do use it to smoke a joint— just a little one— with the guy in the meat department who is covered in way more blood than his alleged 4 hours on the clock would suggest, but he didn’t ask questions about the weed so you’re not asking questions about the blood. That’s just being a good coworker.
So when you come back for the last few hours of your shift you’re good and relaxed and prepared for this job to have a weird ass management culture but still not be that fucking hard actually. You’re easy breezy, you’re feeling calm, cool, and collected, you’re handing out probiotic chocolates to smiling toddlers and old ladies left and right and it’s a good fucking day and the fluorescent lights are smiling on you.
Until you see it.
Him .
Splayed out on his belly on a flatbed cart, arms thrown out like he’s superman, wearing a cape like he’s literally fucking superman , sporting a fake mustache curled on the ends like he’s superman’s freak uncle, hurtling headlong down the aisle right across from you at a speed you didn’t know those carts were equipped to go, and his eyes are locked on you .
You look at him, terror in your heart and probably in your eyes.
He looks at you, mischief in his, and hollers over his shoulder.
“Babe, they’ve got a newbie and they have chocolate. ”
“Aye, captain!” and then you register his accomplice, a blond cacophony of a man, steering the cart in a three piece floral printed suit, curls bobbing in the air from the speed of his approach. His smile is bright enough to give the fluorescents a run for their money as he enthusiastically cries out “target acquired!” and then they’re barreling across the main aisle, mere feet from colliding with the frail folding table that is the only thing between you and their hurricane of destruction.
You flicker your eyes frantically between the infamous Edward Teach and his creamsicle of an accomplice wondering what god you pissed off and how to pray quickly enough to them to dodge this 400 lb bullet when the accomplice swivels his neck 90 degrees to the right, fires off an impassioned oh fuck, and lets loose his grip on the shopping cart, sending Edward Teach on a flatbed cart flying directly at you. As you watch death approach you at speed you distantly register that the nice legs the accomplice is sporting are not just for show because he’s sprinted completely out of sight by the time the cart collides with your table which collides with you which collides with the unforgiving concrete of the warehouse floor and then you stop registering much of anything at all.
Fifteen minutes later, you’re sitting in the security office glaring down Edward Teach as he nervously twirls his fake mustache. Roach, the guy from the meat department, is checking your head and shining a light in your eye and asking you not to blink, and you’re not sure why it’s him and not an actual paramedic, and you’re not sure why Edward Teach has a knee brace in blue and red with gold trimming that has to be custom to match his disguise, and you’re not sure why you haven’t already threatened a workman’s comp claim, but honestly it’s either the potential concussion or the weed that’s got you way too fuzzy to ask after any of it, but it all seems like a problem for after a nice nap.
“Hey—“ and Edward Teach starts, and then flinches against your answering glare. “Fair, mate, that’s fair— but look, I really am sorry about all that, I don’t know why the fuck my husband left me hanging out of nowhere, but I promise he’s gonna get an earful of it when we get home and—“
And you could point out that it’s kind of a nothing apology, but, concussion. So instead you ask “Where the hell did you find a fake pink mustache?”
And his face cracks open with mischief and it’s kinda a nice face and— no— your morning pep talk was actually right, Edward Teach is the enemy , so you scowl.
“It was custom.” he preens. “My husband— he was just my ‘friend’ at the time— he had this pink angora yarn— don’t ask him about it when he comes to rescue me, you’ll never get him to shut up— and he knew I wanted to try a drag disguise— so he trimmed up the yarn and combed it out and made me the fake mustache as a surprise— just out of nowhere! Lunatic! So, like, obviously I had to date him about it.” And then Edward lets out a blissed out sigh. “The rest, of course, is history.”
You’ve never seen someone look so stupid in love in your life, and for a minute there it warms your cold, dead, still-a-little-high heart.
Then a moment later, your supervisor bustles in through the door, looking way on this side of peeved off, and the feeling is gone.
“Mr. Teach.” she grinds out. “We paged your husband, he should be here to collect you shortly.”
“Cheers, Monique, he always turns his cell off during missions, so that’s a real help.” he says, looking genuinely pleased.
“Mr. Teach, I will not remind you again—
“Mo, Mo, Mo, I knoooow, and I’m sorry, alright? This time really was an accident and Stede—” did you hear that right? “—can explain everything when he gets here and when we send next week’s order we’ll organize it by aisle so it’s easy to pick, right? Right? Okay?”
And somehow, somehow, Monique is begrudgingly nodding, like this chaos gremlin of a man has any kind of leverage in this situation, and Edward Teach is back to grinning like he’s not in Costco jail waiting for his husband to come pick him up like an abandoned toddler.
You’re sure the full absurdity of the situation will hit you, probably sometime around 11pm when you’re trying furtively to fall asleep, or maybe never, and this will just become another mildly bizarre job in a long list of mildly bizarre jobs that you can tell your cats about when you’re old.
But then Mr. Sunshine himself is swanning through the door, and you didn’t think swanning was a verb that people actually did in real life, but sure as shit he’s doing it, and he’s looking at Edward Teach with a very grave expression on his face as Monique pleads with him to escort Edward directly off the premises, and he’s opening his mouth to speak and what comes out is—
“I’ve never seen that man before in my life.”
And ah, there’s the absurdity. It’s hitting you now.
Yeah, you had thought the morning meeting was overkill, and then you saw them in action, and it seemed exactly right, but up close and personal? Tranq darts and a megaphone would be the conservative approach.
And it’s kinda sweet the way the blond guy emphatically insists that he’s not married to superman and couldn’t be prevailed upon to give him a ride home because half a tank of gas won’t get him to Krypton while Edward Teach stifles giggles and twirls his mustache and doesn’t even make a passing effort to get his husband to drop the act, but Monique is running out of patience and she finally snaps.
“Mr. Bonnet , I know your restaurant has a big account with us, but this is absurd, if you don’t take him home we will have no choice but to suspend your membership!”
The Bonnet guy immediately catches eye contact with his husband and they have a silent conversation of eyebrows and smiles.
“Alright, I suppose I could make an exception, I was going to visit Batman on the way home tonight anyways, and I could drop him off there” he concedes with a final eyebrow waggle at his husband.
Insane. These people are insane. You’re intrigued. You have a headache, but this is the most fun you’ve ever had at work, and again, used to work for a circus. So it’s with very little thought and a whole lot of impulse that the next words fall out of your mouth.
“Wait, you guys said you own a restaurant?”
They look startled that you’ve looped back into the conversation but nod slowly, in sickeningly perfect sync.
“Are you hiring?”
