#excited-

Slay Quill

The fact that John had been stiffed with the dreaded Christmas Eve shift was bad enough.  Sam and Dean were spending the majority of the holidays with their mother, Mary, as it was.  Since the divorce, John had found that his time with them was compacted into weekends and the odd evening when they weren’t too tired.  And so to lose this precious evening was the cherry on top of a particularly crappy cake.

John arrived exactly three minutes before his shift started.   He was in no rush.  The resentment carried with him as he stomped through to the staff area, throwing his bag down beside his locker before rifling through for his name badge.

‘Hey John.  Happy holidays and all, I see.’

John practically growled at Bobby.  Shook his head and continued looking until he found his badge.

‘The hell it is,’ he finally answered, pinning it on the breast of his red shirt.

‘Christmas is cancelled,’ John said dryly.  He pulled a bottle of deodorant from his bag and clouded the room with it’s spicy scent.

‘Could be worse.’

At that, John turned the can on Bobby and sprayed it vicariously in his direction.

‘Seriously.  Just go home.’

Throwing the can back into his bag, John stuffed his belongings into his locker and headed out for the shop floor.  Everything was deadly quiet; shelves fully primed for the expected rush, but not a foot in any aisle.  John clicked his fob on the gate and stepped behind the desk.  There was a list of tasks that Bobby had left him to complete; stuff that should have been done during the day but due to the holiday mood that had descended, had been neglected.

When he saw her walking towards the desk, John straightened up a little.  He always got the fuzzies when he saw her at work.  The two passed one another as one clocked in and one clocked out.  Perhaps she’d forgotten something behind the desk?  He pushed papers and abandoned return receipts around but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

‘Hey.’  Eyes narrowed as he frowned in confusion.