Chapter Text
It's one week until Christmas, and Jean has decided once and for all that he hates his life.
It’d all started the summer after his first year of college, when he’d had a pivotal, terrifying moment and realized he had no idea what he wanted to do. While he had enough sense to take a break, his alternative plan definitely didn’t involve ending back up in Trost on his mom’s couch; at least not for more than a week.
And certainly not a week that turned into a month, and a month that turned into a summer, then autumn, of him playing more World of Warcraft than going outside.
This continued until his mother intervened with “great news”—that she’d found him a job “opportunity” through a friend with several essential pieces of information:
It was a temporary job.
For the holidays.
At the mall.
Of course, it was either accept, or find his own place to live if he didn’t start doing something remotely useful with his time (in her words). However, paying rent and cooking for himself sounded a lot worse than working part-time while living at home until he figured his shit out.
Nonetheless, it's now official: Jean Kirschstein hates his admittedly pathetic life. Every word he hears himself utter has become a sheer, embarrassing brand of agony to which he's simply succumbed. He imagines that this is what prison does to the human spirit—a true tragedy and waste of his intelligence and talents.
“We have a great lotion that'll drive your boyfriend wild!”
The hapless woman who's entered the Bath and Body Works on a quiet Sunday morning looks a little taken aback at Jean's shrill voice.
The entire mall is awash in multicolored lights and musty decorations that Survey-Scout Corp. (corporate mall owner and employer of half of Trost's population) have pulled out every year since Jean was five when he'd come with his mother to visit Santa.
The woman standing in front of him hasn't replied, and she's now giving him a critical look, narrowing two vibrant blue eyes.
“Boyfriend?” she echoes.
Jean assumes that she's being skeptical of his flattery—not that he's got that on his mind right now exactly, since he's way behind on his monthly sales quota—and decides to bolster her ego.
Nothing like a little old-fashioned male attention to get the job done.
He grins, cocking a hip and resting his hand there, straightening to his full height. “Of course!” he continues. “He'll treat you like a queen.”
The diminutive blonde girl looks nonplussed, taking a step back and outwardly rolling her eyes. “My girlfriend already does treat me like a queen, thanks.”
Jean stammers, the smile disappearing from his face. “Um...”
There goes another potential sale... and that leaves him with exactly 30 bottles of special edition gingerbread-scented lotion he's supposed to sell in the next seven days.
“Wow,” she says, surveying him with outright pity now, “you're kinda desperate, huh?”
“No!” He frowns, crossing his arms defensively and scowling. “I'm just trying to be nice.”
The girl rolls her eyes again with a long-suffering sigh. “Just don't assume everybody's straight,” she says, finally cracking a small smile. “Okay, fine, I'll take two bottles of that gingerbread stuff. It actually smells kind of good.”
Jean fights the urge to look grateful, and just nods sagely, as if he that's exactly how he expected this conversation to go.
The store is quiet as he rings her up, save the god awful holiday soundtrack from corporate that contains precisely twelve songs on loop; it's been playing since the first day of December.
Jean is relatively sure at this point that if he could go back in time and put Mariah Carey out of her misery before she could ever sing about how she didn't want a lot for Christmas, he would.
“Catchy song!”
Jean can't fight the groan down that wants to issue from his throat, and it's his turn to give her an incredulous look; she just stares back at him with a cheerful expression.
“Thanks...” he says, looking down at the name on the credit card he's swiped, “Christa. Uh, enjoy your lotion.”
She smiles—she’s pretty in that pure-as-the-driven-snow way—and she closes her painfully cute wallet that has a little crown on it.
“It's actually for my girlfriend,” she explains, tucking her receipt into the festive green shopping bag emblazoned with the store logo. “She'd eat gingerbread men all year if she could.”
Jean smiles, shrugging a little, and nods. “Well, thanks. Have a good day,” he says, but then remembers that he's on the security camera even though his manager's on break, and cringes before forcing himself to speak.
“Also,” he recites in painful, scripted monotone, “if you'd like to sample one of our fresh pine body mists that are currently on special, three for ten, you'll find it's quite...” he swallows in mortification, “delightful.”
“Hi, Marco!” comes a cheerful shout from Christa just as Jean is biting out the last word, and he immediately flushes.
Of course—of course—the guy that works across the way in the Men's Wearhouse has to come in right as he's telling some girl that he's offering “delightful” body mists on special.
But wait, this Christa person knows...
Marco, who, up until now, has been known to Jean as Hot Guy With Freckles In Well Tailored Suit.
“Hey!” Hot Guy With Freckles—Marco—waves cheerfully, nodding. “Christa, right?”
She smiles, shifting with her bag and looking up at Marco who's at least a foot taller. “Sort of, but I've been going by Historia recently. That's actually my real name.”
“Oh, cool,” he says, unfazed and polite, not even asking why. “Are you going to meet Ymir?”
“Yeah,” she smiles charmingly, “she goes on break in a few minutes, right?”
“Yup,” Marco confirms. “I'm due back in fifteen myself, but I figured I'd stop by to, um...” He looks over Historia's shoulder at Jean unexpectedly, and their eyes meet.
“I'm in the market for some body products!” he declares, his voice an octave higher than Jean's ever heard it when Marco's come in before, which is surprisingly often.
Although Jean knew of the Bodt family vaguely as a teenager—you couldn't go anywhere in the tri-county area without meeting a Bodt—he and Marco never shared enough third person connections to actually meet.
What he had figured out, though—mostly through overhearing Marco's conversations with his coworkers—is that the guy has seven sisters (Jean knew there were a lot, but he didn't know it was that many), which would explain his frequent gift expeditions at the store.
“Who's Ymir?” Jean blurts out, saying the first thing he can think of so he can stop staring at Marco like an idiot.
Historia snorts and raises at eyebrow at Marco. “She's my girlfriend, actually, and works at the same store as Marco.”
“Oh!” Jean exclaims, feeling silly and fighting down the blush in his cheeks. “Um, she works at Men's Wearhouse, too?”
“How'd you know that?” Historia asks, turning to focus her attention back on Jean curiously.
Jean falters, his eyes widening, and he freezes; he just admitted he knows exactly where a guy whose name he doesn’t even know works. Because that’s not creepy.
Mariah Carey is screaming about wanting only one thing for Christmas, everything smells like a nightmare made of gingerbread lotion, and he'd be perfectly fine right now with death by fairy light strangulation.
“Oh, Jean's seen me around here a lot,” Marco laughs, and the moment passes without incident.
Jean exhales before realizing that neither of them seemed to have even taken much notice of the fact that he knew where Marco worked.
Stop acting weird. You're a cool guy, so be cool.
The best he can muster is a deep breath, though.
...Wait, Marco knows his name?
“So,” Marco starts warmly, turning to Jean with a dazzlingly adorable smile, “have you got any more of that gingerbread lotion?”
The word “adorable” did not just pass through Jean’s mind.
Nonetheless, he blinks dazedly as Historia departs to go meet her suit-selling girlfriend, and all he can think is two things:
1. He hopes Marco buys all the lotion he needs to sell.
2. How is anyone allowed to look that good in a suit?
“Maybe you can try some on me to see if I like it?” Marco sounds slightly mystified as Jean just stares.
There's a short silence filled by some new Christmas song Jean suddenly can't place despite the fact he's probably heard it a hundred times by now, and he finally forces his mouth to work as he pulls himself out of the gravity of Marco's eyes.
What’s your problem? Get your shit together, Kirschstein.
“O-okay,” he finally stammers, gathering his wits and forcing himself not to think about the fact that he's about to rub some stinky lotion onto this guy's wrist.
Marco just smiles again, and Jean prays he doesn't look too much like a startled reindeer in the headlights of an errant airplane.
“If I like it, I'll take at least eight bottles,” Marco adds.
That grabs Jean's attention, considering that'd put a serious dent in his overstock of merchandise, and he blinks.
He finally forces himself to grin a little, mustering some of his abandoned dignity, and nods.
“So, we can start with this sampler...”