how about i do this solo?

"Bunny from Bend," she responds, grinning and patting the empty spot at her table, "I am also not working today, but I did have a gift card. You know what they say— if it's free, it's for me."

She wrinkles her nose as her mind stretches back to the new t-shirts. "Never say never," she grins, "But... I'd have to be convinced pretty heavily. Especially when there's other, better, options. Why? You thinking of rocking one?"

They listened as Stella explained she’d have to be convinced to wear that bright orange T-shirt. Honestly? So would Bunny.

At Stella’s final question, Bunny let out a single cackle. “Tell me if I ever genuinely seem like I would wear that T-shirt,” they said to Stella, their face now dead serious. “Tell me if my behavior indicates I’d even consider touching it. That’s how I’ll know I’m at rock bottom.”

Bunny took a bite of pizza and thought about how they wanted to phrase their next question:

“On the topic of style, though, I feel like you could actually pull off a lot of stuff. Have people told you that? That your appearance is really versatile?”

Bunny continued: “Me, I had to work in high school to find stuff that looked good on my body type. With my complexion, even. But picturing you in that disgusting orange shirt made me realize that…you’re not like that at all.

“Have you ever considered switching up your style?” Bunny asked Stella sincerely. “Just because you could?”

Austen wasn't watching Bunny. At least, that's what she told her when she caught them doing what could only be described as the world's fastest pivot the moment they noticed her in the stockroom doorway. It had been happening nearly every time they had a shift together. Ducking into aisles, the sudden urgent reorganizing of the CD displays, the way Bunny would glide past her without so much as a head nod.

Austen wasn't used to that. This was an entirely new phenomenon that she had never experienced. So, she did what any reasonable girl with high standards and a mild God complex would do:

Bake.

She found Bunny tucked behind the front counter and she sat the bakery box directly in front of them like an olive branch. "Okay," she said. Her voice was crisp, but not necessarily unkind. She leaned her elbows on the counter, eyes narrowed as she tried to assess if they would try to find a way into beelining it away from her.

"Did I like, do something to you?" Straight to business, always. "I mean, do I smell? Be honest. For real, though, I wanna make sure I didn't say something stupid," she said, letting out a small laugh.

Then, she tapped the container. "Vanilla." Safe choice. "They're not poisoned."

But the box of cookies placed neatly on the front counter—followed by Austen herself initiating conversation—was a real plot twist…and one that Bunny did not think they could navigate while keeping their trademark cool.

(If, of course, “keeping their trademark cool” in the past had included noticeably avoiding Austen at every turn.)

There was no exit. There was only Austen. Bunny pretended that they were not more intimidated by Austen than they had been by any other person on the face of the earth.

“Did I, like, do something to you?” she was saying.

Oh shit.

Had she done something? …Technically no. Had she “said something stupid”? Definitely not. The problem with Austen was that those things never could have happened with her. Bunny didn’t dislike her—they feared her.

The cookies were vanilla. The flavor of classic perfection. …This conversation was going to be hell, wasn’t it?

Bunny let out a long breath, half to collect their thoughts and half to fill the space. It had been very obvious, in hindsight, that they’d been trying not to go near her.

Then Bunny found themself turning to face the wall.

“I’m not avoiding you right now, by the way—I’m embarrassed as fuck,” they said. “I should’ve just asked for different shifts.”

They turned back around; their cheeks, they could feel, were pink.

“This is extremely nice, and I can tell that you put effort into having this conversation right,” said Bunny. “I just hate telling you that it’s something as common as me being intimidated by you. I mean, how many people tell you that on the daily?

“Everything that comes from you is pristine, powerful, perfect.” Bunny leaned their elbows on the counter and placed their head in their hands. “And I got—I get—thrown off. I think I have to keep up. Then I think I can’t.”

Bunny looked up at Austen and added, “Are these honest to God for me?”

“Damn, you should’ve run with it,” Bunny commented on Fallon’s recent Adrian story. “Could’ve tested how bad his memory really was.” They added, “Or done one better and convinced him you were a Richie. He was always such a copycat with everything—you could’ve even told him Bend Records was cool and he would’ve spent money there the next day.”

At Fallon’s question, Bunny filled her in: “I actually haven’t even been here that long.” I don’t know the right time to show up for a party to save my life. “The half hour staredown with Adrian is honestly what I’ve done tonight. But congregating with you would’ve been my first pick.”

Bunny caught sight then of the second guy they’d seen tonight taking off his T-shirt.

“Okay.” They gestured to the guy covertly but so that Fallon could see. “Tell me if you know what that means. Is he…having fun? Is he not having fun and overcompensating? Is he doing it automatically, on some kind of timetable—like this is his thing, and he has to do it every time?”

And Bunny added, “My money’s on ‘not having fun’. I think the smile hides the pain.”

But Bunny knew better than that. Everybody counted on this place. As “charitable” as raising money for the girls’ room seemed, strengthening Bend Records was a decision that made sense…and one that paid itself off in full over time.

“Victor, you’re a reasonable dude,” Bunny said as they grabbed the rag they’d been wiping down the counter with before the customer had checked out. “Tell me if this makes any sense.

“We work hard for stuff like this because it’s our job—essentially because it’s our paycheck. But then…aren’t we, like, the backbone of the store?

“Maybe once this restroom gets fixed…we do something as employees to celebrate us. I don’t know what. But I feel like we deserve it.

“Speaking of ‘altruism’...” Bunny finished wiping down the counter and leaned forward. “You ever had somebody be altruistic to you? Just because they could?”

Sloane was exhausted. She didn't know what other way to Bend it, no other way to cure the issue without sleep... The problem was, that since Foggy - her father - left to take care of his ailing mother, she hadn't exactly been sleeping. It was the stress: of losing the record store, of losing her grandmother. It was the newfound responsibility of having a whole team looking up at her, their whole world balancing on her aching shoulders. She had been working at the record store since she was just a kid, she was raised for this... Why did it all feel so - ? She had forgotten Bunny was there until they cleared their throat; hadn't realized her head was hung in her hands, fingers trying to rub the tired away. "What'd you say?" Had they even been talking? Sloane wasn't sure; she knew that her cigarette had gone out, though. That the air felt colder than it had when she sat down. Her lighter was always in her pocket; fingers clicked at the flint. Sloane breathed in the smoke like it was oxygen. "Sorry. Don't think I heard a fucking word."

Today, though, maybe the casual friendship was a little too easy. Anything Sloane did was fine by Bunny—but hang her head in her hands was a step too far.

They’d cleared their throat on purpose. “Honestly…my story about the Richie that tried and failed to prove their musical talent in-store yesterday is worth telling again and again. Thank you for giving me the chance to tell it to you twice.”

They cackled. It was, probably, the funniest thing that had happened to them at Bend all month.

“But in all seriousness—holy shit, Sloane, what is going on.” As smoke rose from the tips of their (now-lit) cigarettes, Bunny took one breath of clean air and continued. “You look exhausted. You look more than that, actually—you look fatigued. Like you’ve been doing too much.

“Is it the damage to the merchandise, the bathroom, the Issue of the Week? Or is it something bigger than that?”

They offered Sloan a smile—something genuine. “I know I’m kind of a walking brick wall, but I’m a surprisingly—and very low-stakes, because I never overshare—good listener.” They raised their eyebrows. “Give me a shot. What’s your crisis?”

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: rip spencer you would have loved crush by david archuleta

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: outside of the stone’s house

Spencer isn’t sloppy, but he’s certainly drunk, the amount of beers and shots he’d knocked back long forgotten. The world is sort of blurry, his limbs loose and tingly, and mind quieter than it was when he’d walked in the door. He might regret it in the morning, but he certainly doesn’t now. He’s not sure exactly how long he’s been outside, lounging on a beach chair despite the chilly weather, eyes trained up on the stars. There’s a pleasant haze around them, drawing him in, so much that he barely registers someone approaching at first.

His head lifts slowly, glassy eyes training on Bunny, attention captured as if he was looking at some sort of angel rather than an ex-classmate and current coworker. Spencer remembers the day the schoolboy crush bloomed in his chest— he was seventeen and stupid, passing notes rather than taking them in English class. He’d seen them around, sure, but something had been different that day. Their eyeliner, maybe, making their green eyes pop in a way that Spencer had never noticed before. Warmth had spread through his chest and to his cheeks, butterflies had erupted in his stomach, and then he forced himself to look away. Shoved those feelings into a box he never intended to open again. Every now and then he would catch himself staring, daydreaming a little, which was where the ignoring began. It wasn’t as if they talked anyway, so it was easy enough. At least, until Spencer started working at Bend. Though, he’s still full of mumbled, one-word answers when they’re on shift together. Things dropped or knocked over by nervous hands, perpetually distracted. It’s nothing serious and nothing he’s ashamed of, but they’re unattainable, best left to wondering. He remembers being the one on the other side of those sort of actions and he wonders if this is how some of his less popular classmates in high school felt about him. God, they were all doomed.

“Hey,” there’s a slight slur of his words through a lopsided grin, the flush that was already on his face from the alcohol deepening, before he drops his head back down, “You seen the stars tonight? They’re fuckin’… woah.”

Made concerns easier to forget.

Perhaps that was why, when Bunny emerged from the front door and found Spencer Beckett relaxing in a beach chair, cheeks flushed from a night of festivity, they immediately sat down next to him.

The golden boy from high school. The one everyone’d either had a crush on or been trying not to have a crush on; the star athlete, the prom king, etcetera etcetera. Spencer Beckett, the phenomenon.

Spencer Beckett—the one person that, if asked, Bunny would say they’d probably never be able to talk to normally.

(The differences were just too great. The…way Spencer was, and the way Bunny liked to be—some things weren’t meant to be overcome, no matter how many shifts the two had worked together, no matter how much time had passed.

Spencer would never understand Bunny. That was—and really, that should’ve been—The End.)

But there Bunny was, looking over at Spencer…and there Spencer was, looking back. With a look on his face that suggested he—wonder of wonders (Bunny almost debated if they were seeing things)—didn’t mind Bunny stopping by.

…Spencer was drunk. Thank God—so was Bunny.

At Spencer’s mention of the stars, Bunny instantly turned their head to see them for themself. They were…well, they looked normal, but Bunny understood why a Spencer Beckett enjoying a peaceful moment alone would appreciate them.

…Actually, Spencer had a very valid point. The longer Bunny looked, the more their foggy head convinced them as well that, yes, the stars were “fuckin’ whoa”.

“Spencer, we’re trashed,” Bunny acknowledged before anything else. “We’re trashed, and we’re turning to the night sky for entertainment, like—I don’t know—some settlers on the Oregon Trail.” (Spencer and Bunny had shared a US History class.)

“But.” Bunny turned to Spencer and returned the grin, if not as winningly. They found the movement easy—like letting the alcohol in their system and the things that had gone unsaid between them during their time at Bend take the lead.

“...I think it’s, actually, worth remembering: nights like these are special." Bunny’s sentimentality coming out—a rare sight. “Stars, and—and hanging out with people for hours when you pride yourself on not caring about that kind of thing, and finding out that—wow!!—you were probably wrong about yourself there…”

Bunny chuckled to themself. “Or at least that was my night.”

They sighed. “Spencer Beckett, be bluntly honest with me. Would you ever have thought back in grade school that the two of us would be not just coworkers, but at the same event—sitting next to each other, even!

“Is that a future you would’ve even liked back then?”

And Bunny looked back at the starry sky, and they finished their thought with:

“I would’ve killed for the chance to have a single conversation about deep shit with you.”