Work Text:
Shift #1
“So since this is your first few shifts, you’re gonna be shadowing Kylo.” her new manager says, pointing out the tall man behind the line at the salsa and folding station, hunched over the counter far below him. He almost would do better to work on his knees. His “black vs pinto” shirt stretched across the broadest shoulders Rey has ever seen. Actually, he’d do better to work as a carpenter, she thinks.
“Alright. Thank you.” Rey says, smiling brightly. At just 17, she stands a good foot below her new training supervisor, who turns to let someone else fold burritos and crimp down the tops of burrito bowls. He comes over to Rey and their shift manager, who introduces the two.
“Kylo, this is Rey, our newest team member. Rey, this is Kylo.”
“Hi.” Rey chirps, excited and bubbly. The tall man says nothing, only looks her over curiously.
“Hi.” he finally returns, voice almost icy, but not quite. “You’re shadowing me?” he says, turning to their manager for the answer before she can reply.
“Just for a few days. I scheduled your shifts together for the next week, just so you can show her the ropes.” the man’s face seems to tighten with distaste, however, which put Rey off, slightly. This was gonna be interesting. “Well, I’ve got a teleconference with the regional rep, so have fun you two!”
They both watched him leave, before looking back at one another slowly. The silence stretches out between the two of them before he speaks. “Let’s go talk in the back.”
The breakroom has a few cubbyholes with decorated names marking their owners, a bulletin board with the shift schedule for the current and next weeks, a few couches, a coffee table, and a coffeemaker. “Go ahead and pick a cubby.” he waves his hand in the general direction of the wall, and goes to a cabinet in the corner. He pulls out a sheet of label stickers and writes “RAY” on the label before sticking it to her forehead.
“Uh, this isn’t how you spell—”
“So the hairnets are kept in here if you can’t keep your hair back, this is a punchcard you can fill out on the next break, here’s a list of the managers’ numbers, go ahead and put these in the cubby. You’re gonna want different shoes than Chucks.” he says, giving a look bordering on a sneer at her black and white hightops. They’re real beaten up, and she frowns up at him.
“I think I’ll be fine with these. They’re comfortable.”
“Suit yourself. I see you’ve already got a shirt, you should get like two more, it’s messy as fuck on the line. You’re probably gonna be stuck as a wrapper, so your main concerns will be leaking burritos, exploding tubs of guac, and clumsy line cooks who have butterfingers on whatever they just made.” she almost laughs, but feels a little too awkward in this situation.
“Noted.” she says, rocking back and forth on her heels. She feels a little like she’s under a microscope.
“Where do you go to high school?” he asks.
“I graduated in May.” she says. “I’m at the community college now.”
“Jakku or Dagobah?”
“Jakku. Dagobah is on the other side of town from where I live.” she says. He nods, understanding.
“What’re you studying?” On paper, this whole exchange looks like some kind of customary smalltalk. In person, it sounds more like an interrogation.
“Biology, for now. I only take a few classes.” she says. “I’m taking care of my grandpa right now. He told me to get a job if I’m not taking the full amount of credits per semester.”
“I know how family can be.” his words reveal some kind of hint at a darker meaning, which only serves to make her more uncomfortable around the man.
“So you’re in college?”
“We should get back to work.” he says, cutting off all conversation.
This was definitely going to be interesting.
Shift #2
After the near-disaster with the burrito bowl on her first shift, she decided a ‘slow and steady’ approach was better than his ‘bat-outta-hell’ wrapping style. “How do you make all the rice stay in the burrito? Why do they scoop so much rice on there anyway?” she laments during a break.
He wants to laugh at the way she vocalizes the very complaints he so often has on the line. “I guess it’s easier the wider the grip you have on it.”
“Practice burritos would be awesome.” she says. He thinks of ways she could practice her job off the clock. She certainly has a lot of spunk, and ambition. He wonders why she wouldn’t want to take as many classes as she wants, with all the ambition she has.
Shift #5
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Rey asks, looking up at Kylo on the line. She’s marking burritos and grouping orders for the cashier, but her attention is latched onto the tall, blonde woman that walks in through the glass door. She pushes her short blonde hair out of her face, hanging her ultra-mod black sunglasses from the hem of her shimmery silver shirt.
“That woman I was telling you about is here.”
“The ‘brotein’ woman?”
“Yup.” he answers, not looking away.
“The woman that orders like five burritos whenever she comes in?”
“That’s the one.”
They watch her come down the line to them, getting five double-steak, no rice, hot salsa, extra guac burritos with an accent so posh, she seems frighteningly out of place in a Chipotle. When she moves her massive order down the line in front of Kylo, she drawls, “Kyyyylo, darling, when are you going to come work out with us again?”
“Work’s got me pretty tied down at the moment, Phas.” he mumbles across the line. Her intense stare flits over to Rey, who’s desperately trying to make out what the meat station guy, Finn, is mouthing to her about the orders. Rey feels her skin prickle at the scrutinization.
“I see. Well you know where to find us.” she says, with a biting, no-teeth smile, before leaving to finish paying and leaving.
She stares at Rey the entire time she devours her order.
Shift #50
“What do you mean, you’re moving Rey to a different shift rotation?” Kylo demands of their shift manager.
The man puts his hands up to supplicate the burrito wrapper. “She says her new classes are making it hard to get to work.”
“Well move me to her shift. I don’t want to work with anyone else on the line but her.” he sounds fevered, desperate, so unlike himself when he’s at work.
“Are you doing alright, Kylo?” he asks, looking at her curiously.
His mood turns a little somber. “If she doesn’t want to change shifts because of me, then move me to her new shift.” he says, schooling his features into a cool glare.
“Wh...what? Why? Hey, wait!” the manager calls, but Kylo has already left the room.
Shift #51
“Hey!” her delighted voice calls into the breakroom. He looks up from his phone, and he doesn’t quite smile, but his whole body seems to relax. “I didn’t know they moved you too!” she comes up and puts her backpack in the cubby before sitting next to him. They have a little bit of time before they need to officially clock in.
“Yeah, it was kinda sudden for me, too. Maybe they wanna keep us together.” he says, belying what he truly went through for the pleasure of her company.
“Well I’m glad. I was afraid to tell you that I’d requested the later shift.” she admits bashfully. “I was scared of working with anyone else but you.”
“You don’t need to be scared of something you need.” he says gently, nudging her knee from across the couch with his own.
Pre-shift #60
“I don’t feel very well.” Rey texts Kylo, about an hour before they have to be at work.
“What kind of not well?” he asks, not admitting he’s feeling much of the same.
“VERY NOT WELL” is her response, and he reads it just as another wave of nausea settles into every bone in his body. He rushes to the bathroom for the eighth time that day.
He calls her after the carnage he’d unleashed on the poor toilet. He groans against the side of his bathtub. “Please tell me what’s going on with you, it’ll tell me if I need to go into work or not tonight.” he says, a little breathlessly.
“I have never had cramps this bad, I feel like I’m going to shit my pants every four fucking seconds. I think I’m gonna vomit again.”
“Fuck hold on.” he puts his phone up on the sink and heaves into the toilet bowl again. “Fuuuuuuck this is so shitty fuuuuck.” he whines, and he hears her weak, tinny laughter from the other line.
“My grandpa is in Coruscant County I don’t think I can drive myself to the hospital, Kylo.” her voice hitches with fear, and it sends a stab of pain through his heart to hear her so scared. She’s so used to taking care of others, making everything perfect for everybody else, but she doesn’t even for a minute think she should put her own needs first.
“Don’t be afraid.” he says softly, spitting into the toilet. “Once I’m done puking and shitting my brains out, I’m gonna come get you. Don’t worry.”
He is worried she didn’t hear him, but after a moment he hears her breath hitch again, a sharp stifled sob mixed with that beautiful laugh he lives to hear. “Thank you.” she chokes out.
“I’m gonna take care of you.” he promises.
Right before he pukes into the toilet again.