Chapter Text
It started with a passive-aggressive note.
Well…
It was actually less passive and more just straight-up aggressive.
If you’re not going to clean your shit up, at least leave us SOMEONE to help this weekend. Assholes.
Gabriel looked down at scribble of hand-written text and frowned.
Ever since the Big Falling Out, which is what they had started calling it, where Gabriel had to let Aziraphale go, the opening shift had been on testy terms with the closing one.
Aziraphale was always skirting away on his shifts to talk to one of the daily customers. It made Gabriel's team, which he prided on their efficiency, promptness, and adherence to policy, look bad. That, coupled with the fact that he was known to eat numerous pastries at work when no one was looking, left Gabriel with very little patience. He didn't care if they were day old or whatever the excuse had been. It was against the rules.
He had sent a very terrible performance review to the General Manager with the hopes of the higher authority handling it, that was the right way to do things after all.
Eventually though, after a couple of weeks of silence and very little behavior change on Aziraphale's part, Gabriel took the initiative and just let the boy go. It was within his right as a manager and dealing with his other employees complaints was just becoming too taxing. Clearly, Aziraphale just didn’t have the proper attitude for the job anymore and no one would be able to fault Gabriel for taking matters into his own hands.
But then it happened.
Gabriel discovered, after the fact, that Aziraphale’s termination had also caused one of the closing shift's employees to quit as well. It turned out that the terminated employee and Aziraphale's regular were one and the same. Gabriel guessed they were friends? More than that? He wasn’t quite sure. Either way, it had left both shifts undermanned and he had a sneaking suspicion the closing shift blamed him for their troubles.
“They’re just so rude,” Michael said making a face after Gabriel showed her the note. “And dirty . For all we know they’re a major sanitation investigation waiting to happen. I won’t do it.”
“I don’t know Michael, the place always looks spotless when we come in in the morning. We've had no complaints about them.”
“I’m pretty sure their manager has never washed their hair.” She continued, wrinkling her nose. “I bet they absolutely reek. Isn’t there a whole section on proper hygiene in the handbook?”
“Again,” he repeated matter-of-factly, “We’ve had no complaints, as far as I know, maybe they just… look like that.”
“Disgusting.”
“Please be kind.” Gabriel chided, agreeing with her silently.
"I bumped into one of them one accidentally one time. They're mean," Sandalphon piped up from behind the counter. “I’m out.”
"I won't work with them either.” Uriel chimed in to make their opinion known, ”Would be like Hell on Earth."
"Guys!" Gabriel lamented.
"Ignore it. It's not like it's a formal request anyway." Michael pointed out. “It’s more of a suggestion than anything. We don't have to entertain suggestions.”
“I just don’t feel right about it.” Gabriel looked back down at the angry note.
“You do it then,” Michael joked.
There was a pause.
“Maybe I will,” Gabriel said, pulling out the scheduling clipboard and writing his own name into the later shifts for the rest of the weekend.
“You can’t be serious.” Michael scoffed.
“Well, I’m catching two bees with one bonnet. If you’re really concerned that their work style should be investigated, then I can’t turn a blind eye to that. Additionally, this is going to be a busy weekend. They will actually need the help.”
“The phrase is ‘killing two birds with one stone’,” Uriel commented.
“I know, but I like birds, that phrase makes me sad,” Gabriel said.
Michael gave him a pitying look. “Good luck. I guess we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bright and early as always!” He responded with as much bravado as he could muster.
-
Gabriel stood up from behind the counter as the bell rattled as the closing shift entered. There were only three of them but he realized as they walked in he had never actually looked at them when they encountered each other in passing before. One was tall and thin with crazy bleached hair sticking out in all directions and eyes that didn’t look like they were focusing on anything in particular. The second was a little shorter with incredibly long wavy hair pulled back so tight it may have also been pulling the skin of her face back, but maybe she just had excessively pointed features. Her skin also had a strange iridescence of something that looked like it had been living in the bottom of the sea. They both looked rather unnerving.
The final person to walk in was the shortest one, rather regular looking comparatively, but with wild black hair that was styled in a way that gave the impression they had just rolled out of bed and decided to skip looking in a mirror before heading out. The first two headed to the backroom to drop their things off, while the third slipped behind the counter next to Gabriel and began rummaging around near the registers. Gabriel looked down at them and noticed that there were patches of skin on their face had a faint texture to it which might have been the faded remains of acne scars.
“Nice to finally meet you uh…” he glanced down and looked at their nametag which had a crudely placed piece of tape with a scribble on it, covering the imprinted name, “...Your name tag just says ‘Sir’?”
“Yeah,” They didn’t look up from the currency they had pulled out and were counting, cross-checking numbers to make sure everything was in order before the shift officially started, “And I expect you to call me Sir.”
Gabriel frowned. This was already off to a prickly start. Not how he had wanted this to go.
“Szoooo…” Gabriel picked up a slight lisp in their speech as they drew that word out. They pulled the schedule clipboard out from below the counter and looked it over, ”You’re gonna work a full day today. Then get up and work in the morning again and stay through tomorrow evening.” Their eyes shot up to meet his, “Are you an idiot?”
“Well,” he huffed, trying to both not be intimidated by their gaze and ignore the insult, “You were the ones requesting more help for this weekend in particular.” And no one else wanted to help you.
“We loszt two--debatably--good people recently; you’ve only loszt one. Obviously, we’re feeling it harder, especially on weekendsz. That’sz why we requested help in the first place.” They looked him up and down. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you, though. Morning shift’sz golden boy, Ga-bri-el himself.” They drew the syllables of his name out, “What did we do to possibly deserve thisz honor.”
They were definitely mocking him.
"Just lucky I guess." He tried to sound genuine.
They snorted, “We figured your people would split the shiftsz. They won’t give you overtime for thisz, you know, taking both. Hoping for some brownie pointsz?”
Gabriel kept himself quiet. He was actually trying to verify if what Michael had said was the truth. This shift already looked like an incompetent mess. All he needed to do was catch them doing something unseemly or in direct violation of the shop’s standard practices and he could look into taking out the trash.
“Well whatever, just remember one thing.” They strode towards him and stood their full height, which, admittedly, was still 6 inches shorter than him, and jabbed him in the chest with their finger, “I’m in charge. Not you. This isz my team.”
He smiled his brightest customer-pleasing smile, “I'm at your service.”
They rolled their eyes flicked their attention down to his apron. “What’sz with that.” they asked, in more of a tone of a statement than a question, pointing at the pin next to his golden nametag.
“Oh, I,” Gabriel looked down at his nametag, “I like doves. You know we’re allowed to wear two items of self-expression. I just went with this one.”
“I’ve never heard of a single person liking dovesz, ever.” They looked back up at his face. “It’sz weird. Makesz you look like a goody-two-shoesz.”
“I mean, I do have two shoes,” he said jokingly, he hadn’t really thought that hard about the meaning behind what doves could mean. It just happened to be his favorite bird. He liked birds.
They gave him a pitiful expression, “Bad at jokesz too.”
“Well, what do you have?” He said, looking over at the mismatched collection of (substantially more than two) items pinned on their apron next to their name tag, “What is that even? A fly? Who likes flies?”
“ I like fliesz,” they said simply, not feeling the need to justify anything to him. “Fliesz are cool.”
“Cool for what? Being annoying? Spreading disease? ...Being dirty?” It was his turn to look then up and down. They were incredibly unkempt, but maybe not exactly dirty as Michael had suggested. He didn't smell anything out of the ordinary either.
“Yeah, exactly.”
"Doves are way cooler than flies."
They looked at him like he had just said the stupidest thing on the planet.
“Oh f-- Sir, they did it again!” came a call from down the counter.
Their focus immediately shifted to the drowned looking person who had walked in earlier, she had moved behind the counter and currently had the small fridge open.
“What’sz up Dagon?” they called over.
“The fridge is a disaster, like always. ” Dagon lamented.
Gabriel glanced over to look inside the fridge in question. “It looks okay to me.”
Dagon looked up and frowned at him. “Of course you would. Your entire shift just doesn’t care one ounce for proper order! How are you even supposed to tell the containers in here apart? I swear sometimes I just--” She began to mutter under her breath as the pulled out the different milks and refrigerated flavorings and began putting them back in a different order.
“Tables aren’t clean,” drawled the tall, wild-haired man who was stalking around the dining area, collecting bits of trash from nooks and crannies and places Gabriel hadn’t noticed were there.
“Clean it up,” they called back to him, “I’ll cover the front while we messz manage.”
They pointed at Gabriel, “You, help Dagon make ordersz. There’sz no time for the fridge organization to take asz long asz I know she wantsz it to take.”
Gabriel shifted down the line, still a distance away from the muttering fish woman who currently cross-checking expiration dates on everything.
The bell jingled and a few customers entered the store. They smiled and walked right up to the front and exchanged pleasantries a weird handshake with the other manager. It seemed like the they all knew each other.
After the quick greeting, an order was taken. As they were entering it in Gabriel noticed they did some weird override in the computing system, took payment, and sent the order down.
He picked up the slip. It read like the most absurd gibberish. He couldn’t even make out the name of the thing.
“What is this?” He asked Dagon holding it out for her to look at.
“Oh, Boss’ special. Hold on, I got it.” Dagon quickly grabbed a slew of different things and began combining them in ways Gabriel had never seen. The resulting concoction didn’t look much different than black tar. Dagon poured the sludge into a cup, topped it with whip and caramel, and sent it to the front. The customer took it enthusiastically and even dropped a tip in the jar.
Suddenly, Gabriel understood what was happening. He leaned forward and grabbed the other manager by the shoulder and pulled them aside.
“You’re letting people order off-menu and making your own recipes?” He whispered loudly.
They shrugged. "Maybe, what of it?"
“Blasphemy,” he continued, “It’s just not done.”
“We’re still making the shop money and we don’t over-use the inventory. Why doesz it matter? People enjoy the variety.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “It's not the policy.”
“ It’sz not the policy .” They mocked. “Boring.”
Gabriel looked offended. Rules were there for a reason. They pushed past him back to the line.
“God, you’ve been working here for how many yearsz now? You’ve never tried something even a little different?”
“Of course not.” He watched them pour another one of those… frozen black colored, caramel things out with disgust.
“Thisz shop is good. Solid. The best coffee around. But not much for innovation.”
“I could fire you for this.”
They actually laughed out loud at that as they handed the second drink to another customer and turned back to face him.
“You don’t have firing power over me; we’re both shift managersz. That’sz definitely in your preciousz store policy, bird brain.” They crossed their arms and shifted on their hips, “You’d have to submit a formal request to the General Manager. And you know how bad She’sz been at getting back to anyone recently. Last I heard talk She was on an extended holiday, anyway.”
They paused and tilted their head in thought.
“Actually, if I remember correctly, you’d need to get a shift employee to sign off on the firing request asz well, which, you won’t be able too.” They smirked, “My team would never rat me out over something asz trivial asz whatever you’ve got your feathersz ruffled about.”
He frowned, realizing they were right and they smirked deeper, realizing he had realized they were right.
“Don’t act all high and mighty about rulesz thinking I don’t know them. And we both know thisz place can’t afford that kind of turnover right now. Especially after what you did.”
Ah, so, they did blame him for the Big Falling Out.
“That’sz why I’m not really worried about anything happening. No one who’sz attention mattersz caresz about usz bending the rulesz a little bit.”
“So you’re going to slack?” He spoke up again, redirecting to the other matter.
“Don’t misunderstand me, bird brain.” They shot back, incredibly offended. “We don’t slack here. Everyone doesz their job, we just don’t alwaysz follow your sacred policy. My numbersz are asz good, if not better, than yoursz. I'm not going to put up with people who just phone it in. Or worse.” Their expression grimaced, “Lie to me about what they’re really doing. One of the main reasonsz we’re understaffed and I'm concerned about you working a full two daysz straight.”
"I don't lie on principal and I've never slacked so you don’t have to worry about that," he shot back, tactfully ignoring their second accusation.
They scoffed.
“You slack every single day. Just because you’re up at the crack of dawn and dealing with the 'morning rush' or whatever you like to call it. Doesn't excuse you from slacking off. Dagon organizes and keeps track of every single stock item and Hastur scrubs this place from floor to ceiling, daily. Your people leave everything in chaos. Sometimes they don’t even take the trash out between shifts. It's left for us and then we have to deal with it. We have to deal with all your garbage and laziness. Ever notice that, golden boy?”
Gabriel went silent. He didn’t have a response to that because he truthfully, hadn’t. He had not expected this plan to investigate the closing shift’s incompetence to turn into a session of self-reflection that perhaps he and his staff were actually a part of the overall problem.
"Just because things are out of sight does not mean they're as perfect as you think."
Fortunately, before he had to formulate a response to that, the shift picked up. They were actually quite consistently busy the rest of the night and it was difficult.
He was impressed with how fluid they all worked together, never once falling behind, being able to switch between stations as needed, despite being slammed at all times. He did his best to work around them and help out where he could but they really had a solid system going.
He even got to see some of their other off-menu drink creations. A few even looked moderately edible.
“You know, you’re quite good, actually.” He commented, when they finally reached a lull near the end of the night.
"I have to admit..." The huffed, pointedly not looking at him, "You're not bad yourself. You kept up, that'sz... acceptable."
“High praise." He laughed, "Would you ever want to switch back to working mornings? It’s got to be easier than this.”
“Absolutely not." They grimaced, "I may have started doing mornings a long time ago, but I hated that shift. Besides, they’ve got you so...”
They gestured at nothing, “They’d fall apart without me here.”
As if on cue, there was a yelp from the back room followed by a loud crash.
“BEE--” came Hastur’s voice in a distressed cry. “BEE, HELP!”
The groaned before turning to shout back, “You idiot if you broke something that is gonna offset our inventory count AGAIN Dagon will murder you then I will bring you back from the dead to murder you a second time!”
“Bee?” Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
“It’sz still ‘Sir’ to you!” they snapped before hustling off to the back to deal with whatever had happened.
“I’m never calling you that!” he called back, thinking he might have to ever so slightly reevaluate his previous assumptions.
Maybe flies could be cool sometimes, too.