Work Text:
I.
Joe knows what Mitch is going to say even before he picks up the phone, but he can't just ignore the call like he's been doing. Mitch on the phone is just an annoyance, Mitch in the store is a fucker of a problem.
“I'm working on it, Mitch,” Joe says, phone cradled between his head and neck.
“Well, hello to you too, Joe,” Mitch snaps. “That you feel the need to lead with that tells me you're doing what you're always doing, pushing me off and hoping I'll forget.”
“Is that what I'm doing?”
“Joe,” Mitch says, and there's real irritation in his voice which means Joe's time is just about up on this. “Hire someone. There's plenty of desperate kids out there who need a job and don't have criminal records. Pick a couple and make sure they don't touch the tills until you know they're not going to walk out the door with ten rolls of quarters and the coffee maker.”
“It was one time,” Joe says. “And he brought it back.”
“I won't ask again,” Mitch says, and hangs up the phone.
Joe sighs and walks out of his office to the floor. It's dead right now, a couple of kids making out by the bargain rack, another one in a hoodie clearly stoned out of his mind, and the same dark-haired girl dressed in black that's been there every Thursday night for the same three months in the goth section.
“Siouxsie and the Banshees,” he says, walking up to her. “Superstition.”
She eyes him suspiciously, which... fair.
“Joe Reaves,” he adds. “I'm the manager here. It's a good choice.”
“It's an obvious one,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Your collection's kind of shit.”
“Tell me about it,” he says. “I don't know any of this and Mitch sure as shit doesn't. Who would you have picked?”
She thinks about it for a moment. “Princess Tinymeat,” she says. “Or Screams for Tina. Why are you asking?”
“You want a job?”
The girl shrugs. “Why not?”
II.
Deb is surly, confrontational, and is not afraid to tell customers they have shit taste. She's kneed one guy in the balls who asked her if the curtains matched the drapes and one time didn't show up for three days before returning not with a doctor's note, but with a new tattoo and a bottle of whiskey, which she gives to Joe.
He doesn't ask, just nods and tells Mitch that she had the flu.
“You can't just hire one person,” Mitch says. “What do we do she calls out again? Close the store early and lose out on all that money?”
“Working on it, Mitch,” Joe says.
He...mostly is. He's mainly sitting around in the office, playing on his drums and waiting for his pizza when Deb walks in and slaps a resume down on Joe's desk.
“You already work here,” Joe says. “You don't need to actually apply.”
Deb rolls her eyes. “Not for me,” she says. “Some girl handed it to me and said she wanted to work here.” Deb jerks her finger towards the sales floor. “She's waiting for an interview.”
He glances at the resume. Corey Mason. “Really??
“Really. I tried to tell her that you were out, but she said she saw you enter the store this morning and you haven't left.”
Deb and he exchange a glance that says, okay, creepy, and then Joe sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Send her in.”
Deb stomps off and in a moment he can hear her yelling, “Get your ass in here if you want a job.”
The door swings open again and Corey Mason walks in, dressed in a pair of neat khakis and a button down shirt. Joe's just about to open his mouth and ask her if Mitch sent her, because there's no other reason why someone who looks like that would work here, when she hands him another copy of her resume.
“I already have one,” he says.
“Oh, I know,” she says. “But just in case you lose that one or something happens to it, there's another copy here.”
“Right,” Joe says. He looks down at it, scans it, then looks back up at her. “So I don't see anything about work experience here? It's not a problem, but I just want to know--”
“My father says I need to get a job to show that I'm willing to put my nose to the grindstone,” she says. “And I compared several different places, but they require a certain level of experience and retail is the best way to demonstrate that I have a good rapport with people as well as organizational skills, which she'll see in the section on my extracurricular--”
Joe holds up his hand. “Can you work weekends and nights if needed?”
“Yes!”
“Fine,” Joe says. “You're hired.
III.
Corey and Deb get along well enough, which is to say that Deb constantly rolls her eyes at Corey and Corey sometimes looks at Deb like she's grown a third head. They don't get into any major disagreements, though, so he calls it a win.
A week later, he opens the store and then has to take off for a couple of hours. He figures the two of them can handle it and if they can't, he'll just listen for the smoke in the sky and follow it from there.
He returns to a store not on fire. Deb's at the register, ringing up, and Corey's cleaning up a rack that got knocked over. Everything's the same as he left it so--
There's a kid eating pizza on the couch and giggling at the TV.
“Excuse me?” Joe says.
“Oh, man,” the kid says. “I didn't guess it was the old guy.”
On the screen, Fred's ripped off the werewolf's mask and the rest of the group are gasping. The kid's gasping too and Joe's coughing, but that's more due to the fumes coming off of him than anything else. The kid's gotta be baked out of his mind, which would explain why he's just chilling on their couch.
“You know,” Joe says, keeping an eye on both the guy and the door, “this is for employees only.”
“Is it?” The kid looks around. “Whoa. I didn't even know.”
“I bet. Listen,” he says, “I don't know how you got in here--”
“They let me in,” the kid says, pointing out towards the sales floor. “They told me to drop off the pizza and then they got busy so I figured I'd just leave it here.”
“You're here to deliver a pizza?”
The kid freezes, a string of cheese hanging from his mouth. “Yeah, “he says. “Oh, shit, that's their pizza.”
He doesn't laugh, but it's a close thing. “When did you deliver it?”
“An hour ago,” the kid says. He slumps down on the couch. “Man, I'm going to get fired again. I just started working there.”
Joe shakes his head and then catches sight of Deb, peering through the door. “Wait here,” he says.
“I guess I have to,” the kid says morosely.
He walks out and Corey's shown up as well, peering behind Deb.
“What the hell--” he begins to say.
“Can we keep him?”
IV.
Mark proves to be a friendly, if deeply unreliable addition to the team. He takes his time, tends to drift off into a daze, and has somehow dragged one of his co-workers, Eddie, along into getting hired here.
And he's not even the first one to do that. Somehow, Joe's ended up hiring Deb's... whatever he is, Berko, who seems fairly level-headed at least. Between him and Eddie, Joe's pretty sure he's met Mitch's hiring quota and then some.
Until...
“You want to work here,” Joe says, raising his eyebrows. He looks down at the application, which he's fairly sure he never made, not unless he got stoned and thought asking people about how they feel about the word “fuck?” It's clearly Lucas's handiwork and it's telling that his only response to it is “it could be worse.”
“I do,” Gina says firmly. “I really like this place and I think there's a lot of cool people who work here.”
“Thank you,” Joe says. “There are.”
“Plus, I really love music,” she adds. “Like a lot.”
He hires her, mainly because she can work weekends and nights, which is a problem now for both Corey, who has AP sessions twice a week, and Mark, who... well, Joe doesn't know what Mark does, but apparently, it's asking for random times off because he has “things.”
Joe posts the new schedule for the week two days later, and doesn't really pay attention as the kids drift in, checking it out. There shouldn't be any problem with it, he thinks – Lucas opening with Mark and Corey, he'll close with Deb and Gina and he'll slot the other two to fill in some gaps until he gets maybe one more person...
Deb walks in, takes one look at the schedule, and says very clearly, “Fuck my life,” before stomping off.
Joe gets up, walks out of his office, and looks after the dark cloud storming its way towards the register. “What was that about?”
“You know they hate each other,” Corey says, walking in, drinking a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Deb and Gina.”
“They haven't even worked together.”
Corey smiles at him like he's a very dumb toddler. “Sometimes you just know,” she says. “I'm sorry, Joe.”
She drifts off, and Joe's not really sure what happened, but he thinks he just got patronized by a 16 year old.
V.
“Now before I hire you,” Joe says, “I want to ask a question?”
“Shoot,” AJ says. He's a nice enough looking kid, all floppy hair and flannel shirts. He's been doodling on a sheet of paper while Joe's asked the basic questions about availability and experience, and from what Joe can see, the kid's got talent. Maybe he'll have him work on the signage, get something eye-catching so Mitch stops complaining about the dip in foot traffic.
“You don't have any problems with anyone here, right?”
AJ blinks. “Problems?”
“There's no one here you can't work with or who just rubs you the wrong way or who might have slept with one of your boyfriends or girlfriends or both?”
“Uh, no?” AJ says. “I haven't seen everyone but I don't think I know anyone who works here?”
“Cool,” Joe says. “So you're hired. I've already made the schedule this week, so you won't be on it, but I usually have it up on Wednesday, so please let me or Lucas know before then if there's anything you can't work.”
“I will,” AJ says solemnly. “Thank you very much for this opportunity. I won't let you down.”
“I'm sure you won't,” Joe says and he fights the urge to pat him on the head.
There's a knock on the door and then it opens.
“Sorry, Joe,” Corey says. “But I just wanted to know if I could get Saturday off. I know it's last minute, but I have this review session that my father managed to book for me and I absolutely can't miss it.”
“I don't know,” Joe says. “Gina can't work it and Mark's already requested it off, so--”
“I'll work it,” AJ says. “I can take it.”
“I'm not sure--”
“Please,” Corey says, looking from Joe to AJ and back. “I really need to be there.”
Her puppy dog eyes are particularly effective, and Joe sighs. “If we can get AJ's paperwork done in time and Deb's willing to train--”
“Thank you!” She hugs Joe and then AJ before skipping off.
“So uh, get your social security card and birth certificate,” Joe says, after they're both left there in silence for a while.
“Sure thing,” AJ says and he walks out.
The door opens again.
“Corey, you don't need to--”
Lucas plops down in the chair in front of Joe. “That's going to end well,” he says.
“What?”
“That kid's going to get his heart crushed,” Lucas says, shaking his head. “Don't tell me you couldn't see his massive crush the minute he saw Corey?”
“Shit,“ Joe says.
“Relax, Joe,” Lucas props his feet up on the wall. “At least Gina hasn't made a move on her yet.”
Joe, slowly and carefully, puts his head on his desk and closes his eyes.
VI.
He doesn't ask Lucas to do anything more than go to school and not get into trouble. He never for a moment thinks of asking him to work for him.
It's bad enough that even when he was younger, he felt obliged to help around the house, washing dishes and sweeping and generally trying to make himself usual for Joe.
“I'm not going to throw you out, Lucas,” Joe said at the time.
Lucas nodded. “I know, Joe,” he said.
And then he proceeded to do exactly what Joe told him he didn't have to.
See, dealing with Lucas has always been like taking care of a cat – a feral one that's been coaxed to come inside and eyes everything with great suspicion, wary that it's all a big trap designed to snap shut around it. He can tell the cat that it's safe here, that no one will make it leave, that it's found a home, but the cat is a stubborn, independent thing that--
Takes money out of the safe and runs away to Atlantic City.
Lucas looks up as Joe walks in. “Isn't this your night off?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Joe says. “But I really wasn't feeling it.”
“You know,” Lucas says after a moment, “you don't have to lie to me, Joe. It's okay if you're checking up on me. I get it.”
“I'm not checking up on you,” Joe says quietly. “I know why you did it and I know you're not going to do it again. Just like I'm not going to get mad at you like that again. You didn't deserve it.”
“Yeah, I did,” Lucas says. “I stole money from you, Joe. You should had me arrested like Warren to teach me a lesson.”
“First off,” Joe says. “I think the only thing Warren learned was that if he steals from us, we'll give him a job and let him tell people their musical taste is shit.”
“He does hang out too much with Deb these days,” Lucas says. “It's all her fault.”
“Yeah, because I haven't caught anyone else saying the exact same thing,” Joe says dryly. “Anyhow, I'm sorry.”
Another long pause.
“I'm sorry too,” Lucas says. “I just--”
“You knew I wasn't happy, “Joe says. He smiles, rubs Lucas's hair. “I just wish you hadn't decided the best way to solve the problem was by creating a whole bunch of them.”
“It's what I do.” Lucas is smiling now too. “It's why you hired me.”
“Technically, I didn't,” Joe points out. “You just showed up one day and asked me where your name tag was. You didn't have to work here.”
“I know,” Lucas says. “But I wanted to, same as everyone else.”
He gets up, walks over and looks out at the sales floor. Corey and Gina are dancing in the middle of one of the aisles, while AJ is apparently drawing something on Mark's arm with a marker. Warren, Eddie, and Berko are apparently having a heated discussion about the best bass guitarist, if the shouting is any indication.
In a few months, most of these kids are going to be gone, moving on to bigger and better things than some struggling record store that's barely making ends meet. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they won't, but Joe hopes that at least they'll think about their time here and not regret it.
He doesn't, not in the least. This store might be his bread and butter, but these kids are the best investment he's ever made and he can't wait to see what they're going to achieve.
“Hey,” Joe hears and he looks up to see Deb leaning against the door frame. “You going to hole up in here all night or is management going to join us peons downstairs for a slice?”
Joe looks at Lucas. “You should go down there,” he says. “Before Warren eats all the cheese pizza.”
“Sure,” Lucas says and he gets up.
Then he yanks Joe up with him by the arm.
“Hey--”
“One night, Joe,” Lucas says. “We can put up with the old man for one night.”
Deb takes his other arm. “I guess,” she says, mock-rolling her eyes, but she's smiling. “What do you say, Joe?”
He looks at the two of them, hears the others laugh, shout, sing down below.
“Why not?”