Dream shuffled his feet as he watched the clock shift from 2:59 so he could clock in for his shift. He was already not ready for today.
Yes, it was his own fault for staying up until 5 a.m., and also his fault for not eating anything before he left, but he couldn’t help but curse his managers and coworkers silently for his misfortune. He’ll just grab a muffin or something on his 10. 

Finally, he swiped his badge and walked over to check the lane log to see where he’d be for the day. Usually, if he was working an afternoon/night shift he’d be on register and if it was a morning shift he’d be stocking, but he’d been all but begging to be trained on the self scans. It was the next “rank” so to speak. Not only was it an easier position (with less customer interaction), once you complete the training, you also get a raise. As someone living on his own, it’s definitely something he needs.

Dream had been working at the grocery store for almost 6 months and, honestly, he would say he was one of the best cashiers. He knew all of the numbers for the fruits and vegetables, he knew how to help all of the people on the other registers so they didn’t need to bother the monitor, and he had memorized where almost every product in the store was. The only thing he needed was his fellow employees to vouch that he’s ready.

Dream sighed, seeing his name on register ten. Of course he still wasn’t starting his training, and now he had to deal with a steady flow of customers on 4 hours of sleep and a monster. Just to top it all off, George was the closing monitor. At least it was a shorter shift?

Dream wouldn’t say he’s particularly... fond of his older coworker, but he can’t deny that he does his job… decently. Customers love him and he does his best at handling bad attitudes (it’s always funny hearing his comments after someone walks away), and there isn’t a problem a cashier could have that he doesn’t know the solution to, though admittedly he’s kind of lazy and hypocritical when it comes to what the cashiers are doing.

The taller of the two all but pouted as he trudged past George and the self scans monitor (what was her name again?) to his lane. He breathed out and slapped a smile on his face as he turned on his light.
“Hey, I can take someone over here!”

***
    “Hey, Dream, what’s the PLU for cantaloupe?” Tommy called from behind him. Dream didn’t even turn his head as he said “4050” and continued with his order, making conversation with the woman across from him about the cotton candy grapes.

    It was already almost 8 o’clock, meaning that his fellow cashiers would be leaving him soon and he’d be stuck with George the last two hours that the store was open.

George was constantly on his ass about every little thing the entire shift and he was so close to just walking out (and if he wasn’t borderline living paycheck to paycheck, he definitely would have). Why was Hannah allowed on her phone in between customers and Tommy allowed to take 4 bathroom breaks an hour, but if he didn’t clean after every customer and make sure to check and stock the candy anytime there was a break, George suddenly appeared next to him? And there is no way that his drawer needed to keep being counted, he wasn’t even on ISO. No matter what, George is always there, breathing down his neck.

    When he finished ringing up the customer and telling her to have a nice night, he began washing down his belt lest George suddenly appear.

    “Dream, oh my god, you would not believe the customer I just had,” Hannah turned to look at him, leaning her back on the scanner scale. Dream leaned in, interested.

    “What happened?”

    “So like, I was just minding my business scanning his items and - Dream, how hot would you say it is right now?” She leaned on the divider, getting closer to Dream as she told the story.

    “Um 92 degrees?” he itched to check his phone quickly, but gave his best guess anyway.

    “Exactly!” she shot up quickly from her spot on the divider. “It’s 90 degrees out and he asked me why I was wearing shorts! During the summertime - and said that it was unprofessional for a lady to wear shorts at her job! It’s a fucking grocery store,” she scoffed.

    “And why does it matter? Why was he trying to look at your legs anyway, behind the divider? What a creep.” This wasn’t the first time he heard one of these stories from one of his female coworkers, unfortunately they’re usually much worse, so he does his best to keep an eye out for those kinds of customers.

    “Ugh, I literally had to move out of the way so he wouldn’t touch my arm. I hope he doesn’t keep coming in like that one-” Hannah immediately straightened her back as her eyes caught sight of someone walking over. He glanced past Tommy to see George standing next to his register smiling.

    “Hey, Hannah, Tommy, you can turn off your lights and clean your registers now since there’s a lull.” He nodded at the two after their comments of affirmation and gave a pointed look to Dream, who had to physically turn himself around so he wouldn’t roll his eyes at his words.

***
    There hadn’t been many customers for the past hour since Tommy and Hannah left, and if there were, they opted to go to self checkouts. It had to have been at least 20 minutes without anything to do (he had already checked the candy and gum several times, and there was nothing left to “front” by any of the registers at that point) when he found himself leaning on the divider and watched as George worked.

He was very quick in his movements, cleaning each self scans machine after every customer, taking calls with ease, and interacting with customers all the while, all as he got everything ready to close.

    The brunette didn’t notice he was definitely not being admired by the blonde until he had turned, keys in hand, probably to get the drawers from where Hannah and Tommy had previously been.

    “Can I help you?” he asked as he found himself glancing over, now leaning against the window.

    Dream couldn’t control his laughter. “Just- just checking you out."

    “Oh, actually shove off,” he said, rolling his eyes, pushing off the window to clean a scanner that he definitely already cleaned.

    Dream cackled and turned as he saw someone heading to his line.

***
    The two boys barely spoke throughout the night, until closing. Dream had offered to get the coupons from the self scans machines to help out, and George happily plopped the keys in his hands after he took the younger’s drawer from his register to put it in the safe. George even let him do the closing announcement even though no one was left in the store except them. At least they could coexist like this.

    “Coul- would you mind writing it down for me? It’s easier to remember if I have a reference.”

    When George smiled, Dream couldn’t stop the stutter in his heartbeat if he tried. He’s actually really pretty.

    And if Dream waited outside with George for the brunette’s ride to come, well, that was nobody’s business but his own.

***
    Weirdly, the next two weeks, it was just Dream and George closing almost every night. Dream assumed it was because a lot of the night staff was high school students who could only work after school, therefore there weren’t as many adults that could work the longer hours needed.

Either way, both silently agreed it was insufferable to go so long without conversation, especially after their first night closing, no matter how intolerable they found the other. It was quite humanizing, to their chagrin. How can you make passive aggressive comments and ruthlessly compete for no reason if you actually get to know the other person?

    “If they’re not gonna give me any shifts in the back, I wish they would at least let me train in another position in the front. I hate working the same thing everyday, y’know?” he groaned, rubbing his face tiredly.

    “Honestly, I hate bouncing around. I wish they would just keep me in one place.” Dream nodded. That’s reasonable too.

     “You want to be trained on self scans?” George continued, knowing that was the next step up.

    “Yes,” the younger huffed, “And don’t make that face. I’m perfectly capable, I don’t understand why I haven’t started yet.”

    The elder laughed. “Hmm, maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

    The blonde knew exactly where this would lead - one of the biggest reasons he and George had such a wall between them in the first place: competition. When Dream had first started working at the local grocery, George wasn’t often on register and they didn’t interact more than usual coworkers would, but when summer hit, George bounced between almost every position whenever they needed him. This meant that more often than not, both boys were on register together at least once during the day.

    Now, Dream had had a slight advantage the first time - he had been on register longer when George started being put back on - and had a fair amount of donations already for that month’s charity with customers rounding up their change and donating a few dollars occasionally. His name was miles above the other cashiers on the board though - and then George.

    George somehow had a knack for getting large donations, like $5-10 and once even a $25 donation. And yes, Dream shouldn’t have been jealous because it was for charity, but damn if it didn’t hurt his ego a little bit (and also damn if it didn’t impress him). George had even come in his line once and had donated $10 knowing he’d still win. It was incredibly infuriating (and absolutely proving he was his type, which just made him more upset).

    From then on, they always had to compete for everything - the most donations, getting that month’s fastest numbers for scanning so many items per minute, even who could help out their coworkers (seeing the confused face of their managers seeing two rowdy boys in their 20s argue over who gets to clean up the broken spaghetti jar in aisle 3 was admittedly kind of funny, but nevertheless), and honestly Dream wanted to speedrun the positions as quick as possible too, making his situation just so much more frustrating.

    The younger quirked his brow and leaned forward, “Oh? How so?”

    “I mean,” he leaned back onto the window, “I never hear anything about your customer reviews. I get tons of positive reviews, practically keep this place afloat after the whole mess this past summer. So, do you get none at all, or are they so bad you don’t want to say anything?”

    Dream froze. Honestly, none of the cashiers actually said anything about the customer survey that they were supposed to circle on the bottom of the receipt, like they were supposed to. He didn’t think that anyone actually filled them out, let alone that they were told what they said. Instead of saying any of that, however, he scoffed.

    “Sorry, I’m not so obsessed with myself that I even stress over what is said about me at my job, of course I get good - no, great - comments.”

    George’s eyes seemed to gleam, “Hmm, okay, so it should definitely be easy to get at least three positive reviews on your exceptional customer service by the end of the week, right?”

    The blonde toyed with his lip as the brunette spoke, but couldn’t stop himself from answering immediately after he finished, topped with an eye roll. “Obviously."

    “Great then! If you can do that, I’ll talk to the managers about starting your training.”

    “Deal.”

***

    “No way, you play Minecraft?”

    “Do not laugh at me, it’s a good game! Plus, it’s a good way to work on coding projects that feel less like work but help me to not lose the knowledge of my degree.”
    “You have a coding degree?”

    “Uh, a computer science degree,” George laughed, “What are you studying? If you’re in college.”

    “Oh, English. I want to be an author, though I do actually… code plugins, sometimes. For Minecraft that is.”

    “Oh, my god, are we nerds? We’re nerds,” the brunette dragged a hand over his face, eyes filled with mirth.

    “Just maybe,” he laughed.

    Friendship came easily between the two after they got over themselves, light conversations slipping into their shifts easily. Anytime the two were free, they somehow made their way to each other, laughing about customers and talking about all the little thoughts that crossed their minds during shifts.

    “So, English?”

    “Yeah, I wanted to be an author but God, it’s exhausting. I think I hate writing now.” Dream glanced away as he saw movement in his line and turned from the elder. George’s eyes left Dream to look over at his own area, but didn’t leave, watching Dream as he took the quick order.

    “Like what you see?” he quirked an eyebrow, black nails against tan fingers tapping the screen to close the computer.

    “Just checking you out.”

    “Hey, wait, no- that’s my joke, you can’t just do that!” Toothy grins shined brightly at each other at their little joke.

    “I think I just did,” more laughter, “Oh! Also don’t forget you need to help me lock the cases behind the desk.”

    “You only use me for my height,” Dream jokingly frowned.

    “Uh, do you want me to use you in a different way…?” George flushed at his own comment.

    “Oh my- oh, my god.” The blonde sputtered.

    George’s body shook with laughter, as he reached out to hold the divider. Dream couldn’t help but smile.
   
***
    Turns out Dream didn’t need the deal with George, because before the week was over and he’d find out if he even had any reviews, he started his LMS training. He can’t say he wasn’t confused at the timing - it taking forever and then suddenly happening the day before even finding out if he won the bet or not - but he was content. It still felt like he won. He even stuck his tongue out at George as he headed to the computer, and the other boy just giggled.
Reaching the desk, he received a text.

Idiot :]:
Good job!

***
    He couldn’t help his curiosity as he stood outside the managers’ office at the end of the week. Even if he didn’t have to tell George, he needed to know if anyone had filled out his survey.

    “Hey, uh, Phil?
    Phil looked up from the computer and adjusted his chair to face the boy slightly. “What’s up, Clay?”

“I was just wondering, er, well I heard that we can see the reviews people leave on our surveys and I was wondering if I had any comments this week?” Dream inwardly cringed at himself for being so awkward, but tried his best to at least maintain eye contact, wondering how he looked to the older man.

    “Huh…” Phil turned away, pulling up something on the computer, “George asked me the same thing yesterday. Anyways, yeah, one person did fill out your survey.” He said, closing out the tab.

    Dream nodded. “Er, I - is there any way I can read it?"

    Phil pointed to the iPad. “Yeah, go to the usual website and sign in with your usual ID information and there should be a tab on the far right that should give you a drop down and click on “my surveys”.”

    He nodded once again, following his instructions, eyes running over the words as Phil spoke again.

    “Speaking of George, you should thank him. When he came in yesterday, he talked about how good you were at your job and saying he thought you were ready to start your training. Spoke really highly of your skill.”

    Dream choked, hearing these words while reading the survey answers.

What’s your email?
[email protected]
Who helped you today?
Dream
What would you rate your experience here today?
★★★★★
How was your experience with this employee?
You can tell he really puts an effort into his job and cares about the customers and his coworkers, and it really shows. He’s patient and kind, and can tackle any challenge in his way, swiftly. He always makes everyone around him feel welcome and would definitely thrive in any job he’s given
Any other comments?
Just wondering when he’s going to ask out his cute British coworker