Remus’s Trip to the Grocery Store
notes: 3,582 words. originally posted to ao3 on august 22, 2020.
non-magical, modern au. first meetings, fluff, humor.
told in 5 parts, the first two happen at the same time but are told from different POVs, same for the next two, then part 5 happens only once.
4:26pm – 4:36pm: Remus
Remus grabbed a red grocery cart and pushed it forwards. He didn’t have a lot of items to buy today, since he was really only stopping for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow morning’s coffee, but the choice between lugging around a basket that increased in weight over time or leaning heavily on a cart that helped maintain a personal space buffer was a no-brainer.
He grabbed his list from his back pocket. Once an envelope containing unsolicited credit card advertisements, it was now a neatly folded rectangle bearing thin but neat cursive lettering, with items such as “bread,” “premade salad,” and “fucking caffeine.” In the middle of deciding which items to grab first, Remus looked up and suddenly locked eyes with a worker at the cash register, immediately forgetting the pros and cons of his most-recently proposed efficient shopping route. The worker was strikingly handsome. Remus took in his medium-length dark hair, blue-gray eyes, and prominent facial structure, before also realizing that he himself was (1) staring, (2) caught in the act of staring, as well as (3) blocking other customers from utilizing the easiest navigational pathway between the frozen foods aisle and the produce section: a triple grocery store sin.
Shaking off his stare-induced stupor, Remus returned to the task at hand: buying groceries and going home before rush hour, eating a moderately-healthy dinner, getting into bed at a reasonable hour, and then reading until 3am. As he compared the price per ounce between two different boxes of granola bars, he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander back to the worker. They look to be about the same age, he could also be a student at the local university. Remus wonders what his major might be, and if he prefers to sit in the front or the back of lecture halls, or if he ever skips classes altogether. Before he can decide if grocery-store-cashier-boy is a pen-and-pencil note-taker or a laptop note-typer, a woman’s exasperated “excuse me” comes from his side. Realizing he was blocking the cereal section with his cart, Remus made a hasty apology, before mentally cursing his lack of grocery store etiquette. Normally a champion of the unspoken grocery store rules, Remus determines that it must be the boy’s fault for distracting him. Mentally, he cursed him too.
4:26pm – 4:36pm: Sirius
Sirius flicked the switch under the counter, turning off the light above his cash register. He gave a sorry smile to the woman who had been walking towards his lane, basket in hand, before realizing he was temporarily closing the register. Sirius pointed her to his left where Dorcas was finishing a transaction with a mom and two small children. The smaller of the two kept tugging on the mom’s hand, and asking if he could dye his hair all the colors of the rainbow, like Dorcas’s undercut.
“Sure,” the mom said, laughing, “but only once you’re older.”
“I dyed mine years ago, when I turned sixteen,” Dorcas told the little family. “My parents were furious.” She handed the receipt over to the mom with a dramatic flourish, and offered the kids a conspiratorial wink.
“Hey!” Sirius stage-whispered, “stop corrupting the kids with your lesbianism!”
“It’s not like you’re a saint, with your gay-ass rainbow pin!” Dorcas laughed.
“The day I take off this pin is the day I break Effie Potter’s heart,” Sirius declared. “She was so excited to give it to me the day after Planned Parenthood tabled at her work.” Sirius’s voice trailed off at the end when he heard Dorcas return to her customer service voice, asking her next shopper if she had any trouble finding her groceries today. The rainbow pin actually meant a lot to Sirius, as it represented the acceptance and love shown by his adoptive mother, in sharp contrast to the biological mother who threw him out for his “lifestyle choices.” An additional perk of wearing it at work was that he could scan the groceries of complete strangers and not get flirted with. Except for the occasional man who was encouraged by the pin, but Sirius handled those occurrences on more of a case-by-case basis.
Sirius was clocking out for his break on the computer, when he looked up and saw a customer pushing a cart, wearing the thickest sweater he had seen in use all summer, and carrying a real-life paper shopping list. Sirius couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his face at the sight-- the whole combination was too endearing. His eyebrows shot up when the stranger lifted his head and looked right at him: he was gorgeous. In a very sweater-wearing, paper-grocery-store-list-making, probably-falls-asleep-while-reading kind of way, but still, gorgeous. The shopping boy broke eye contact first.
“Break break break break break!” James’s voice crescendoed as he hopped over towards Sirius’s register, before grabbing Sirius and squeezing just under his ribs, making Sirius jump and swat his hands away. Sirius is not ticklish, except for that one spot, which James annoyingly exploits on a daily basis.
James leaned over Sirius to use the computer to clock out as well, officially making them both free of work duties for the next twenty minutes. There was a break room in the back, but James and Sirius preferred to take their breaks at a closed register line, in the middle of the action, so they could continue to distract all of their coworkers. Sirius silently noted that their oddly-extraverted break-taking location would allow for an excellent vantage point, should the sweater-wearing boy want to make any more eye contact.
“So,” James began, drawing out the word. “Are you going to tell me who it is?”
“What are you talking about, James?”
“Who it is.” He repeated. “You keep craning your neck like a tiny little baby giraffe, looking all around the store. It’s precious. It’s endearing. Who are you looking for?”
“What? No one. Also, I’m not short.”
“Sirius. You are a very abnormally short little giraffe. Who is also looking for someone.”
“Oh my god, you are the most annoying person.”
“But I’m also three inches taller than you.”
Sirius narrowed his eyes. “Dorcas, back me up here.”
Dorcas looked up from weighing a customer’s bag of apples, looked back down to her computer, and said “No.”
James cackled unnecessarily loudly. “It’s one of three options. Number one, you’ve done something wrong and are hiding from the authorities. Number two, there’s a shopper here who you don’t want to see. Number three, there’s a shopper here who you do want to see.”
Sirius tried to keep a sufficient poker face, steeling himself to ride out James’s upcoming monologue.
“Number one is the least possible option. As is common knowledge, Sirius Black is a trouble-maker, which I commend him for. However, he is also an excellent escape-artist. In recent events, Mr. Black has been known to assign the blame to others, even his own brother,” James paused for a dramatic gasp, “in order to avoid the responsibility of his actions. If there were an authoritative body present in this fine establishment, and Mr. Black was on his government-mandated twenty minute break per four hours of hard labor, which he is, then there would be no reason for him to remain in such a visible locale.” James paused theatrically.
Sirius bit his cheek to hold in his laughter; he didn’t want to give James the satisfaction. “Are you done yet?”
“No. Possibility number one has been refuted, but possibility number two is also dethroned by the logic of scenario numero uno. If you were avoiding a customer, you would go to the break room. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen…” James made a sweeping motion with his arms, looking in turn at Sirius, Dorcas, and Dorcas’s current customer, an elderly man who appeared to be either a wizard or quite unaware that Woodstock had ended and his hair had turned gray.
“I’m still not listening,” Dorcas added, although her customer evidently was, having now turned himself fully towards James.
“Possibility number three is the only answer. Mr. Sirius Black has his eyes on a customer!” James gasped and covered his hand with his mouth. The elderly/hippie/wizard customer gasped as well, though not as loud as James.
“James, there is no customer, I was literally just looking because I thought I saw a girl from class. But I don’t think it was her.” Sirius lied. He knew that James wouldn’t mind hearing about the gorgeous sweater-clad boy, and Sirius knew he would probably tell him all about their five seconds of eye contact once they were both at home later. But, Sirius also knew that given the opportunity, James would do his best to embarrass Sirius in front of someone Sirius found attractive. It was best to keep James away during first impressions.
“Liar!” James scrambled onto the table where groceries were bagged, and grabbed the handheld barcode scanner. Now apparently conducting an interview, he spoke into the barcode scanner as if it were a microphone. “Mr. Black, do tell us, who is the unlucky victim?”
Sirius realized that he wouldn’t be able to compete with James’s energy level today, so he decided to join him instead. Speaking into the faux-microphone with a deeper-than-usual voice, Sirius answered. “Well, Mr. Potter, it was a shopper, you see, who is simply adorable, and no further questions will be taken at this time.”
“A-ha!” James announced with glee, and flung the barcode scanner down. “So there is someone!”
Returning to his normal voice, Sirius laughed and offered, “yes, you were right, you are always right, and I saw a boy, but just don’t do anything and maybe I’ll invite you to our wedding eventually.”
“Wow, wedding bells already? Must be a rather dashing young lad.” James could read Sirius like a book, they were practically brothers, and he knew when Sirius was done with a joke. Hoping that he would get to witness an interaction between Sirius and the customer today, James mercifully changed the subject to their weekend movie plans.
4:37pm – 4:42pm: Remus
Ten minutes later finds Remus’s cart holding all of the items on his list-- with the addition of two non-list items: one bar of 80% cacao dark chocolate, and one small pack of green tea mints-- and en route to the cash registers.
Remus noticed that the boy is still at his register, but that he was now joking around with another worker-- a boy with equally dark but messier hair and glasses-- who appeared to be dodging erratic jabs of an uncapped sharpie marker and laughing. Remus momentarily considered avoiding them altogether, but since (1) they are the only register without a line, (2) Remus isn’t buying any weird groceries, and (3) is capable of casual grocery store chatter with someone attractive, Remus steered his cart towards them. Glasses Boy saw him first, and momentarily frowned before his eyebrows shot up into his curls. He poked Attractive Boy, who turned towards Remus and smiled, before turning back towards Glasses Boy to smack his arm. Remus is now close enough to read his name tag, which states Sirius, and is glad to be able to stop referring to him as “Attractive Boy” in his head. He also happily noticed the rainbow pin clipped under his name. The other worker’s name is James, but Remus wasn’t looking away from Sirius for very long.
“Did you find everything you were looking for today?” Sirius asked, as he quickly types something into the computer. His words may come from the same required script he uses for every customer, but Remus noticed that his tone sounded friendly.
“I did, thanks, how about you?” Remus returned, pleased at keeping his voice calm despite talking to the most attractive person he had ever seen. A beat of silence followed before he realized what he said, and immediately blushed. “I mean, wait, sorry–”
Sirius’s laugh is warm, and it feels like he is laughing with Remus instead of at him, somehow, before he leaned in conspiratorially and offered in a slightly lower volume, “You know, I think I did find what I was looking for.” His eyes remained on Remus’s shocked expression for another moment before he returned to scanning the groceries. Meanwhile, the other worker, James, groaned loudly and took a step backwards.
Now speechless, Remus felt his face get even warmer and was certain he was now the same shade of red as the cart. Could Sirius possibly be flirting with him? Remus knew he wasn’t unattractive, but he didn’t think someone like Sirius would show interest in him.
4:37pm – 4:42pm: Sirius
Now with only ten minutes left of their break, Sirius and James have covered all of the conversational topics available to them within the workplace-- they have updated each other on the happenings of their last two hours, exchanged weird customer stories, discussed the pros and cons of “double texting” the red-haired girl James met in his Anthropology class study group-- and have moved on to entertaining themselves by play-fighting. Naturally, it escalated in volume, and as their manager would say if he was actually on the floor, “obnoxiousness.”
James brandished the barcode scanner and waved it over Sirius’s forearm-- sleeve pulled up to display his constellation tattoos-- screeched a remarkably accurate “BEEP,” and proclaimed that Sirius was worth a total of ninety-five cents. In retaliation, Sirius uncapped a black sharpie marker, and began trying to draw on James. James laughed as he dodged the swipes.
Suddenly, James froze, and looked just beyond Sirius’s shoulder with a small frown. Sensing that their mayhem had finally become noticed by a manager or shift lead, Sirius capped the sharpie and began to draft the perfect story that would get himself out of trouble and throw James under the bus. He was pulled out of his lie-crafting when James poked him in the side, now looking mischievously excited.
Sirius turned around to see the cute boy from earlier, and smiled reflexively. The boy was pushing his shopping cart towards Sirius’s register, and Sirius realized that the boy must not know that his lane is currently closed.
“Oh, yes,” James whispered with glee.
Sirius smacked him and issued a simple warning grunt.
Sirius stole another look at the boy. Now that they are closer, he took in the warm hazel eyes and the few faint scars running between his freckles. Already ignoring the anticipated tormenting he will receive from James later, Sirius quickly logs back in to the computer to be able to ring up the boy’s purchases, despite still being on break.
Now that the boy is actually standing in front of him, Sirius is surprised to find that he is a little nervous. He’s always been a successful conversationalist, and a very effortless flirter. James always pointed out that roughly fifty percent of the annual Thanksgiving food bank donations come from Sirius’s customers. Looking for something to say, he blurted out the first thing he could think of.
“Did you find everything you were looking for today?” Sirius quickly cursed himself for sounding so boring.
“I did, thanks, how about you?” The boy answered, and Sirius immediately loved his voice. He had the timbre of an audiobook narrator. “I mean, wait, sorry–”
Sirius’s laughter interrupted him. Deciding to double-down on the flirting to make up for the fact that he opened with a line about groceries, he put the charm back on and leaned forward just a bit. “You know, I think I did find what I was looking for.”
James groaned loudly and took a step backwards from the grocery bags, but Sirius knew he was still listening intently.
4:43pm – 4:50pm: both
“Is your name actually Sirius?” Remus blurted out. Sirius looked surprised, but Remus spoke again before he could respond. “No, it’s a cool name, I really like it actually, but I work in a coffee shop on campus and sometimes I steal someone else’s name tag because my name is Remus which is kind of a weird name but I just realized that I’m rambling so I am now going to stop talking.”
Sirius smiled at him. “Nice to meet you, Remus. I like your name too.” Time paused as their eye contact held, and small smiles began forming. The moment ended when James started making gagging noises, empty grocery bags in hand.
“Bye James! Your grocery bagging skills are no longer required.” Sirius said, shoo-ing him away without looking away from Remus. “Good luck with that girl who won’t text you back!”
James smiled mischievously as he began to make his way towards the previously unused break room. “Good luck with your foot fungus, Sirius! Don’t forget to apply your poultice at the top of every hour!”
Sirius shook his head before returning to Remus’s groceries. “You said you work in a coffee shop on campus? Which one?”
“Oh, it’s the UCenter Caffeine House.” Remus is pleased to have successfully said one sentence to Sirius without butchering any social or conversational norms.
“Are you a student then?”
“Yeah, I’ll be a Junior this fall. Are you also a student there?” Remus hoped his question didn’t sound too excited.
Sirius beamed. “Yeah, I’m going into Junior year as well actually!”
“Oh cool, what are you studying?” Remus asked.
“Philosophy. But I’m thinking about adding an Education minor because I’ve been thinking about becoming a teacher.”
“That’s awesome! I’m studying Psychology, but minoring in Education because I want to work in elementary schools.” Remus thought briefly of his seventh grade guidance counselor, Ms. McGee. “I hope I can help people the way that I was helped.”
Sirius paused his scanning, holding the green tea mints in the air, and looked up at Remus again. “That is really powerful to hear. I owe a lot to the psychologists that worked in my schools while I was growing up.” Remus was pleased to hear that Sirius is appreciative of his path, but also that he seems to actually value therapy and social work. “These mints are so good by the way, I just eat them like candy.”
Remus took advantage of the available lighter conversation topic. “Oh good, they reminded me of one of my favorite drinks at work! It’s a blended matcha mint tea. Although I usually add some chocolate sauce to mine.”
Sirius laughed, now scanning the dark chocolate bar, “Sounds like it matches your shopping cart items. Maybe I’ll have to come try this matcha mint drink, when do you work next?”
Now it is Remus’s turn to smile. “I work a closing shift tomorrow! So I’ll be there starting at 4pm, but the baked goods are half-off after 5.”
“Sounds like I’ll see you at 5 then, Remus. Will you be wearing your own name tag?” Sirius asked innocently.
It took Remus a half second to realize that Sirius was referring to his earlier embarrassing ramblings about his name. Not one to be out-done, even by ridiculously attractive grocery store workers, he replied with his own faux-innocence. “Yep, and if you’re coming right at five o’clock will you need to apply your foot fungus poultice at the shop? We have a bathroom inside.”
They both laugh, and Sirius can’t help but feel warmer, as if somehow this boy walked into the store and ended up talking to Sirius for a reason. They maintain a comfortable eye contact, before Sirius decides he should complete the transaction, having long ago finished ringing up Remus’s groceries.
“Did you want a plastic or a paper bag for these? My bagger seems to have returned to his break.”
Remus pulled out the compact folded reusable bag from his pocket. “Oh, I brought my own actually.”
“Perfect,” Sirius said, and they both began placing Remus’s items inside.
“Wait,” Remus interrupted, “did you say return to his break? Are you on break right now?”
Sirius sheepishly pointed up to the box above his register. Compared to the other lanes with workers, it is not illuminated. “James and I usually take our breaks out here, um, because we like being, uh, a part of the action?”
Remus’s face fell. “I feel so bad for making you work during your break; I didn’t realize your lane was closed, but, you were too nice to say anything. Although the thought of you wanting to stay on the floor during your break makes my introverted soul shudder.”
Sirius laughed, “No, don’t worry, I would have told you I was closed if I didn’t want you here.” Remus smiles in response. “But,” Sirius said, drawing out the vowel, “my break did end while we were talking and I should probably start ringing other customers up.”
“Oh, yes, of course, let me stop distracting you.” Remus picked up his bag of groceries, and took a step towards the exit. “It was nice to meet you, Sirius, and sorry again about interrupting your break.”
Sirius looked up from his station, and despite having already turned on the “Lane Open” sign, called out again. “Wait, Remus, um, your receipt!”
“Oh, I don’t need it, but thank you–” Remus was cut off by Sirius handing it to him, their fingers brushing for just a second.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at 5!”
“Yeah, see you!” Remus smiled as he walked out of the store. His smile grew even wider when he unfolded the receipt to see a phone number scribbled in black sharpie.
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