(no subject)

[threepwillow]

Shift-Change; or, Why Blaine Owes Chandler Kiehl Ten Dollars

Jargon glossary-ish thing under the cut! :)


chipotle lingo!
The five working (i.e. non-managerial) stations at Chipotle are tortilla (top end of the line, serves hot ingredients, fries chips), salsa (bottom end of the line, serves cold ingredients, makes/preps salsas and sour cream), prep (back of house, preps chopped veggies and cheese, marinates meat, makes guacamole), grill (back of house, preps rice and beans, grills and cuts meat, sautees fajitas) and cash (self-explanatory, also cleans the dining room/lobby area). TBH tho tortilla and salsa can all kind of do each other's stuff up front. You can also have people functioning as line-backer (not football lol; literally "backing the line up" by swapping out old pans of food for fresh ones, cleaning up messes that the line doesn't have time to stop and clean, etc.) or expo (an extra person between the food line and the register who can put stuff in bags and do the whole "chips-salsa-or-a-drink?" upsell so that the cashier is free to just take money and move faster). I have very serious headcanons for this fic about who does and does not work at the store and who works at each station and how good they are and stuff. ffff.

To master a station is to get to a point where you show so much proficiency in your station that a) You have literally nothing left to learn there and could potentially start learning how to do another station instead and b) You're good enough to train other people to do that station. Over the course of writing this fic I myself mastered the tortilla station, yaaaaay. :)

Chipotle's 13 characteristics are a list of traits they mandate that all employees possess. Canon Blaine Anderson has literally all of them in ridiculous abundance. They are things like being polite, respectful, honest, curious, motivated, etc.

Shift-change refers to both a time of day (after the lunch rush, around 1:30 or 2) and the things that need to get done at that time of day, which basically consists of whoever opened the store in a certain station getting everything ready for the person who will come in to close the store so they don't have to do anything but work their station and then clean for closing (so salsa would be making more salsas, tortilla would be making more chips, everyone re-stocks their area, and so forth).

For the purposes of this fic, Blaine's store operates exactly like my store because as they always say, write what you know lol~

Oh, and if you are COMPLETELY ignorant of Chipotle the restaurant at all, enlighten yourself (by which I mean "make yourself hungry") with our menu.

-xxx-

Shift-Change

"Mild, medium, corn, or hot salsa for you today?"

"Ummmm, no salsa, but can I get the pico, and some corn and some cheese?"

Blaine fights the urge to roll his eyes as he doles the requested items onto her bowl. The "pico" is salsa. The corn is salsa. And perhaps someday, what with how Blaine points at them and all, people will come to understand this.

She also asks for guacamole, and he tells her as earnestly as possible (considering he says it about eight hundred times a day) that it's a dollar ninety-five extra.

"A dollar ninety-five?" she says softly, as if he can't hear her. "Oh, um, never mind."

He plasters his smile on tighter. "So just the carnitas bowl for you today?"

"Yep."

"Any chips, salsa, or a drink with that?"

"Hey," says Sugar from the cash register, "that's my line." She winks at him as she rings the bowl up and hands the woman a cup for water. Blaine flicks his eyes over to make sure they don't have any new to-go orders, then slides back down into position at the center of the line, just in time for -

"Brown rice working!!" screams Rachel from the tortilla end, louder than is strictly necessary.

"Brown rice heard!" Puck shouts back, adding, "Dang!"

The customer right in front of him is still reeling a little from the sudden noise, so Blaine looks up at him like they're in on some joke together, and smiles as charmingly as possible.

"Mild, medium, corn, or hot?"

-xxx-

Blaine's just finishing up shift-change - they went through a crazy amount of sour cream for a Wednesday - when his least favorite customer walks in. Well, there goes all his hard work. He tries to keep his head down, loading stuff into the little fridges under the line, but Rachel's still bagging chips and Marley, who just finished training on tortilla last week, is looking at him with a slight edge of panic.

"I'm still not that great at rolling, yet," she murmurs, biting her lip a bit.

Blaine steels himself. "One sec!" he says, forced-bright, and when he's got the last of the mediums stuffed into place he pops back up and brushes his hands on his apron. "Mild, medium, corn or - "

"Hot," says Sebastian, with one sharp quirk of one too-groomed eyebrow. He has his shirtsleeves rolled up and his hands tucked into his pockets, a slimy version of someone deliberately trying to be loose and casual and thereby defeating the whole purpose. "And extra sour cream."

Blaine's already got the spoon for it in his hand. He pretty much has Sebastian's order memorized, really, but hell if he's giving him that satisfaction. He adds a small sprinkling of cheese and lettuce as instructed, then plops in the tiniest bit of guacamole - he never wants that much, you see, just likes a little taste of it, but he doesn't mind paying the extra charge at all, of course. Blaine actually does roll his eyes at this one, considering there's no one else in the store at 2:45 and this weasel comes in twice a week at least.

"So glad I caught you today, Blaine, I was worried," Sebastian says with a terrifying grin as Blaine starts to roll his burrito.

"I get off at three," Blaine says.

"Oh, believe me, I know exactly when you get off." He pops his eyebrow again, like he's so proud of his double entendre. "Ooh, thanks, you always do manage to roll my burrito so tight."

"Is this for here or to go?" Blaine asks pointedly.

"Mm, for here."

Blaine plops the burrito into a basket and slides it forcefully at Sugar. He whirls on his heel and announces, "I'm gonna go run trash!" in the process.

"Wait, B, before you go," says Sugar - "can you run this online order? It's for two fifty." She hands him the receipt and he takes it gladly, eager to head back to the top of the line with Marley and away from Sebastian, who has chosen (naturally) the highly visible seat closest to the cash register. The order's pretty simple - one burrito, two bowls, some chips and drinks - so he grabs the two bowls for himself and leave the burrito to Marley. "Here you go," he says, "you can practice rolling."

Blaine leaves the order on the line counter between them and gets to work. The first one is really generic - rice, black beans, chicken, mild salsa and some cheese - but the second one really catches Blaine's eye, albeit for a kind of silly reason:

Steak Bowl
Name: Kurt
Comments: Brown rice. Extra veggies please
Rice
Fajitas
w/ Steak
Medium Green
Sour Cream
Cheese
Guacamole
Lettuce

As Blaine's filling up the bowl, it hits him that this combination - extra fajita and all - is exactly what he himself orders, though he usually gets it in burrito or taco form. It puts a smile on his face as he's finishing the two bowls up - at least until he catches sight of Sebastian again, who's eating his burrito as phallicly as possible, sour cream casually caught on his bottom lip.

"Gross," Sugar proclaims, not even trying to be customer-friendly.

"It's not for your benefit, sweetheart," he says, wiping the sour cream from his mouth with the edge of his thumb and staring straight through the line-glass at Blaine. Gross, Blaine's brain supplies, but the politeness is too ingrained in him to be as vocal.

Marley saves him, fortunately: "Um, Blaine?"

He looks over at her, then down at the absolute pile on the burrito she's been assembling. He blanches, and checks the order again - extra rice and extra beans, chicken and barbacoa double meat, a mound of cheese and guac....

"You - better let me handle this one."

-xxx-

Blaine's a little bummed that he's still out taking trash to the dumpsters when the order gets picked up, no chance to see who his order-twin might be, but he's happy enough to get out of there between getting away from Sebastian and finally having a day off tomorrow. He's especially excited because it's the first day in ages that neither he nor Chandler has had to work. Blaine can't wait to see his friend for longer than the fleeting moments between his (and Sugar's) morning shifts and Chandler's night shifts. He thinks they're probably going shopping - they've got this masochistic tendency to buy tons of cute clothes with all the money they make at work, which they then can never wear because they're always working. Blaine's always been thankful that Chandler shares his pain.

"You could at least buy some new pants to show off that precious butt of yours," says Chandler, digging longingly through a pile of beanies that are infinitely cuter than their work hats.

"And give Sebastian even more reason to come and creep on me?" says Blaine, frowning. "No thank you."

"Oooh, was Captain Craigslist in again yesterday?" He extends a thick-knit green one to Blaine and Blaine takes it, scrunching it on over his curls. "That's like, three times in the past five days."

"Don't remind me," Blaine grumbles. He checks his reflection in a nearby mirror. The hat is adorable. Why do they do this to themselves?

"Do you ever spit in his food?" asks Chandler.

"What? No!"

"Oh come onnn, Blainers. You can't tell me you've never thought about it."

"I have never thought about it," Blaine says firmly. "Even if someone is horrible, you can't deny them good customer service. What kind of top performer would I be?" He tugs the beanie off but hesitates on tossing it back.

"I cannot be-lieve you haven't mastered salsa yet," Chandler says, rolling his eyes and snatching the hat so Blaine's forced to return it to the stack. "You're thirteen characteristics and then some, it's positively disgusting."

"I can feel it coming, soon," Blaine insists. "It has to."

"Speaking of feeling it coming!" Chandler squeaks, staring off over Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine turns to look only to spot the way-cute Gap junior manager - the real reason they're always shopping - heading their way with a serious look on his face. He hasn't noticed them yet, so they duck behind a rack of jeans and peer out to ogle in peace, giggling.

"Why don't you just ask him out already?" Blaine hisses.

"Why don't you just ask him out already?"

"You know you're way better at that kind of thing than I am," say Blaine, a little sadly. "Plus, you're a whole year older than me and then some. He'd probably never go for someone my age."

"I'm telling you, Blainiekins, work that hot badonk and anyone will go for you."

Blaine whaps Chandler's upper arm with the back of his hand and Chandler pretends it actually hurt. "I don't want a guy who's only after me for my body. If I did I'd just settle for Sleazy Sebastian." Blaine sighs, and leans wistfully against a nearby shelf of sweaters, venturing out of their hiding place now that Hot Junior Manager is gone. "I want a real boyfriend. I'm nineteen and I've never had a boyfriend. It's so...lonely."

"Oh, sweetums, I know it is," he says. "Heck, you don't gotta tell me. But sooner or later even the most handsome, admirable men get cravings for burritos, am I wrong? So one or two of them are bound to want theirs with a little side of hot!"

He knocks his hip into Blaine's, and Blaine hits him in the arm again, even though he can't hide his grin.

-xxx-

"Fajitas dropped, please!"

"Are you serious?" groans Santana. "I just dropped some."

"We had like four orders in a row ask for extra, sorry!" says Marley. Blaine just tugs the salad from her hands and starts loading it up with the customer's salsa. They're getting slammed in this lunch rush - Rachel, Marley, Blaine and Quinn are all on the line, and Santana and Joe are working their asses off in the back. As soon as it dies off even a little Quinn's going to have to rush back and make some more guacamole. Lauren, their apprentice manager, keeps flitting in and out everywhere, line-backing and expo-ing and running the to-go orders through. Sugar down at the register can barely keep up.

"Can you put mild on two of 'em and medium on the other one?"

"Sure can, sir," says Blaine with his best customer service smile, doling out salsa onto the man's tacos. He adds some sour cream and cheese, too, before passing to Quinn on his left, and he's just about to reach back to Marley for the next order when she jolts into him, squashed into his space as Lauren shoulders between her and Rachel grabbing beans for the latest online order.

"Can I get some fajitas down, please!" she barks, as she grabs the last heaping tongful for one of the bowls she's got.

"Already down!" Santana sasses back, shaking the frying pan vigorously to prove her point. Lauren clicks her teeth and reaches across Marley to grab some meat for her order, even as Rachel is chirping "I can help whoever's next!" and trying desperately to keep their through-put up.

"Hey Anderson," says Lauren, "gimme a hand carrying these to the fax line?" She grabs the two bowls and leaves him to scoop up the burrito, and they dart over to the far end of the store, dumping it all onto the separate counter.

And that's when the familiarity clicks: two bowls, one with extra fajita, and a chicken-and-barbacoa burrito - this is that same group from the other day, the order for Hummel. Maybe today Blaine will actually get to put a face to his order-twin. For now, though, Lauren's already shooing him back toward the front, and he slots back in between Quinn and Marley and preemptively grabs the spoon out of the mild salsa.

"Oh my god," Marley breathes, as she struggles not to drop the tongs down into the mostly empty carnitas pan. "Is it always this crazy in here?"

"Usually just Thursday through Sunday," Blaine promises, trying to be reassuring.

"Yeah, or, y'know, days that end in Y," says Santana - who's suddenly right behind them, and announces "Fajitas up!" in a much louder voice right in their ears. Marley flinches visibly. Blaine just says "Some carnitas would be great, too," in his most charming voice.

"I got your carnitas right here," Santana grumbles, but she slinks to the back to start shredding up a new pan anyway.

Blaine's pretty sure they're gonna hit a new record today. A family with like eight kids comes in and they all get crispy taco kids' meals - Marley's probably going to have to make some more at shift-change, which they never have to do - and Sugar really needs to restock straws and napkins but she can't catch a sliver of freedom. It's such a salsa-slinging madhouse that Blaine almost misses it; it's a good thing this job has helped so much with training up his selective hearing.

"What's the name?" asks Lauren.

"Uh, Hummel?" The guy hovering by the register is fidgety and kind of enormous - Blaine figures he's probably the double-meat guy. His face falls. Not Extra Veggies Please Kurt, then.

"It's already paid!" says Sugar, immediately ignoring him again in favor of her in-store customers. Lauren hands over the order and the guy is gone as soon as he appeared.

Blaine adjusts his apron a little and tries to shake it off. Nothing to look forward to now but the end of the rush.

-xxx-

He's still grumbling a little, even as he's climbing into the back seat of Sugar's hot pink VW Beetle. "Guys, I just don't - I'm opening tomorrow - "

"I'm opening tomorrow!" pipes Sugar. "No excuses!"

"Yeah, and cash comes in at nine-thirty," says Blaine. "Salsa starts at seven."

"Hey, I didn't come out with you guys tonight to listen to you bitch about your burrito sweatshop the whole time," laughs Tina from the front seat, as she squeezes in too. "Now come on, the summer's almost over, let's enjoy our last few weeks of five hundred dollar paychecks and homework-free nights while we still can."

"Be nice to poor Blainers," teases Chandler, "he's not used to doing the kinds of things you do when you have a real life." He knocks his daffodil-yellow Chuck Taylor into Blaine's brogues, and with that they're off, and Blaine can't escape what they've signed him up for:

They're going to A Club.

Chandler checks out all of the details on some smartphone app of his the whole way there, rattling them off out loud in a stellar Stefon from Weekend Update that has Sugar and Tina shrieking with laughter. Blaine can tell they're all doing it to try to psych him up about the night, coax him out of his reluctance, and he really does appreciate it so he tries to get himself stoked about it too. By the time they arrive, he's checking out his bowtie in Tina's compact mirror and thinking that hey, he really does look kind of slick. Maybe college night at the Pneumatic won't be so bad.

The bouncer cards them but they all pass, and Sugar breezes out four people's worth of cover charge like it's nothing, and before Blaine knows it they're in. They arrive on a wide sort of deck made of sturdy metal grid; the real dance space is below them, down a tall, tight spiral staircase. The lighting is a dead old-gold color that makes the whole place look dim and too-bright at the same time. Every once in a while a rocket of blazing color - bright green, neon blue, hot electric pink - will flicker through the haze, but it's only there for a second and it's gone just as quick. The dance floor itself is what fascinates Blaine the most: Instead of one big, flat space, there's a set of smaller staggered platforms, each raised to a slightly different height stacked in close to one another. The whole vibe is very industrial and Blaine doesn't hate it. He's got a lot of respect for décor with such a strong sense of aesthetic unity.

Tina seems to agree. "I love this place," she admits, and she takes Blaine's hand and tugs him toward the staircase, where Sugar and Chandler are already wending their way down to the floor. The bare metal of it rattles with the bass of the music and it sends a shudder all the way through Blaine - but not a totally unpleasant one. He could maybe get used to this.

The four of them station themselves on the tallest dance platform, about three feet off the ground in the far corner. It's the emptiest, presumably because it's also the riskiest for the Pneumatic's drunker dancers. (Blaine notices that Chandler, the only one among them old enough to drink, shifts down to an adjacent platform soon enough.) For the most part, though, Blaine's surprised to find he's enjoying himself, despite his initial reluctance. He dances snug and silly-dirty up against Sugar, her pelvis grinding into the backs of his thighs as the music hits a song they both really like, and Tina snaps a great picture of them laughing and laughing before she eventually disappears with some nicely-built Asian guy with incredible rhythm. And he dances with Chandler, too - or at least tries to.

"Oh my god no!" Chandler squawks, giggling into his hair.

"It's like dry-humping my own brother."

"Yeah, except dry-humping your brother would be really hot!"

But Chandler, too, ends up finding some vaguely-hunky mystery boy to dance-flirt with, and then it's just Blaine and Sugar, grooving side-by-side and losing themselves in the beat. He drifts with his eyes shut for a while, letting the shifting lights swirl distant beyond his eyelids, and it's not till Sugar snaps his suspenders hard against his chest and mouths "Smile!" into the thumping noise, gesturing with her index fingers, that Blaine realizes just how much he's been spacing out.

So he smiles. And he means it. Against all odds, for the first time ever Blaine Anderson is having fun at a club. He's sweating hard, working a hot outfit (he knows this lavender button-down is an amazing color on him, especially in this lighting) and his best dance moves, and not thinking about work at all. So this is the appeal of this sort of scene.

Blaine's suddenly parched, and he mimes out to Sugar that he's going to go find the restrooms. She points him in the right direction - on the complete other side of the venue - and he worms his way through the crowds until he can slip into the dim, red space and catch his breath. It's much cooler in the men's room, refreshingly, and he hovers over a sink to splash some water onto his face and retouch the hold his gel has on his hair. (He supposes there's nothing to be done about the sweat that's sticking his shirt to his sternum and underarms, unfortunately.) Satisfied, Blaine sneaks back out onto the dance platforms again, scanning the throng for Chandler or Tina and their hot strangers -

And that's when Blaine sees him.

He's dancing near the edge of a long, low platform, arms twisting above his head with a lithe, hypnotizing grace. He's wearing a dark button-up shirt, somewhere between forest green and a more military hue, and a thick leather cuff bracelet on his left wrist, and - Blaine scans down - the absolute tightest black jeans he's ever seen. The belt is the standout point on the outfit, though; it glistens fiercely in the bouncing lights of the club, two parts white snakeskin to one part platinum glitter, drawing all eyes so magnetically to the rhythm in his hips. Blaine finds himself literally incapable of looking away.

"Blainers!" cries a semi-sloshed Chandler into his ear, but Blaine barely hears him - he's transfixed by this tall, lean, coiled-power coiled-grace tiger of a boy, his swoop of thick brown hair and the creamy-smooth skin and tight strength of his exposed forearms where his sleeves are rolled up, the redness of his barely-parted lips. How does he look so unflappable and pristine? How is he not even sweating?

"Has Blaine seen - "

"No," Chandler says to Sugar, "I'm trying to...."

Blaine wants to, has to dance with him - no, Blaine can't possibly dance with him. This boy is cool, crisp marble or porcelain. He's gorgeous enough to have any partner in this place, but he's still dancing alone. He's alone on purpose. What kind of self-important dick would Blaine have to be to assume that he, of all people, could be the exception?

Oh, and yet. And yet Blaine finds himself drawn like the proverbial moth to the porchlight, pushing softly past other clubbers and trying to get to the lower platform where the boy in the glittering belt is dancing up a storm. He vaguely registers Sugar and Chandler following close behind, and he's almost halfway to him when suddenly someone is deliberately blocking his way.

"Hey hey, Burrito Boy. Fancy seeing you here."

Speaking of self-important dicks.

Blaine snaps back into himself faster than a mousetrap, the metaphorical haze over his eyes clearing to reveal Sebastian, sporting a tight block-stripe tanktop obviously meant to show off the breadth of his chest and that same sleazy grin that always makes Blaine kind of want to puke. Any fun he might have been having drains out of him alongside the color in his face.

He turns back to Sugar over his shoulder. "I knew this was a bad idea." Because really, he did.

Sugar frowns, and Chandler starts to get a little belligerent. "Hey, fuck off, you lowbrow dickweed! Come on, B, don't let him do you like that."

"Yeah, get lost, Captain Craigslist," Sugar pouts. "We hate you. All of us. Including Blaine. Especially Blaine." She points helpfully at him.

"Don't waste your breath, Sugar," says Blaine. "You guys stay, but I wanna go home. I'll call a cab or something."

"Oh, Blaine, please stay!"

"Yeah, Blaine," says Sebastian, reaching his grabby hands out for Blaine's waist, a little clumsy with drink. "Can't you stay just one more song?"

"Ugh, no!" Chandler shouts. He yanks on Blaine's arm to tug him out of Sebastian's clutches, just in time. "Look, you little rapist bilgerat, I'm drunk and I can still tell you've had toooooo much tonight if you think any part of this is going to work. Now if you'll fucking excuse us, we're all going to leave, because the odor of how absolutely oily you are is making the whole place smell worse than work. Sugar, find T, I'm gonna walk Blaine to the car. Or like...leaning on him, it's whatever."

"She just texted me!" says Sugar, phone in hand. "She said she's going home with that Mike guy and to go ahead and not wait for her whenever we wanna go."

"Perfect," says Chandler. "Hope she doesn't need her gas mask in here." He stumbles into Blaine and they start heading back toward the spiral stairs, Sugar bringing up the rear to keep an eye on Sebastian.

The track has switched to a remix of Call Me Maybe, and Blaine would almost be bummed about missing it if Sebastian weren't miming "call me" at him from across the floor. Instead, he shoots one last longing look at the beautiful boy with the belt, and allows himself to be escorted out by his two fuming friends.

Blaine decides that he loves his friends more than anything in the world, but that he still doesn't really like clubbing very much.

-xxx-

"Anything else for you, man?"

"Uh, yeah," says the customer in front of him, "I'm also gonna need a steak burrito..."

Blaine's pasted-on smile nearly cracks. Literally his biggest pet peeve is people who get all the way to his salsa-end of the line only to suddenly have another order they never mentioned. The only thing Blaine hates more than that is closing.

Tonight, Blaine is closing.

He calls back up to Sunshine at the tortilla end to start the man's second burrito and busies himself in the meantime checking what they've got left in the under-the-line fridge - nearly nothing. Good. They might run out of guacamole but Blaine doesn't even care any more. He's really just a morning person; he's kind of frustrated that apparently one reason he hasn't mastered salsa yet is that he hasn't closed enough. He's mostly just frustrated with all the results of his DJ meeting with Lauren and Mr. Figgins their GM, because he just wants to master already, but right now the whole closing thing definitely feels like the worst part. So he slaps some sour cream on the second burrito with what is probably not the friendliest customer service and then rolls it up and shoves it at Harmony.

"Steak new-button," he tells her, and she makes a face and studies on it, as if that can't possibly be true. (And really, didn't she just watch him make it? What is the point of closing if he can't even do it with Chandler?)

Blaine turns back to where Sunshine is helping a family of three - the only people still in line. "Have you got this?" he asks. "I'm gonna go wash dishes." Even just being on the line right now is giving him a headache; he'd really like to knock everything out as early as possible so he can just hurry up and go home.

There's something calm and oddly relaxing about being alone in the dish pit, though. It almost doesn't even feel like he's still in the store at all - Blaine zones out into the four sinks, spray-wash-rinse-sanitize, like he really is one of the BurritoBots they all joke about being, moving on autopilot. As he scrubs crusted-on rice out of a deep-third pan, Blaine starts to feel more like himself than he has all day. Which is terrible, really, considering it's like nine-thirty at night.

His phone starts buzzing in his pocket right as he's plunging his hand into the soap-murked water of the second sink, and Blaine startles just hard enough that he sloshes soapy water all down his front and jams his thumb right into the sharp metal lip of one of the pans he's washing. He swears softly and yanks his hand from the water, shaking it to relieve the smarting, only to realize that in shaking it he's flinging blood everywhere. Because that's how much it's bleeding.

He swears again, much less softly.

"Language!" teases Jeff from the prep station, where he's blocking cheese, but Blaine's already sprinting to the first aid kit on the back wall, thumb cased in a wad of soggy paper towel that's slowly soaking through with red. He's never been more thankful for the weird "fingertip bandages" they stock, and he grabs one - okay, two, just in case - before slowly peeling back the paper towel to survey the damage. There's a huge, deep gouge running along the lefthand edge of his thumb, parallel to the side of his fingernail and over half as long. The little cleaved-off flap of skin and flesh is still pretty solidly attached at the bottom, though, so there's no tugging it off - Blaine's stuck with it. It's disgusting. And it hurts.

With a grimace, Blaine sticks one of the bandaids down over it as tight as he can, then rolls one of the first aid kit's finger cots on overtop of it, to hold it in place and to keep it dry so he can keep washing dishes. (He tries not to call it a finger condom in his mind, but it's so hard. They're so awkward.) Checking the floor as he goes to make sure he didn't bleed anywhere, Blaine slinks back over to the sink, tossing a glance out to the lobby too in case Sunshine really does need his help and hasn't said anything, He's not expecting that, though, and sure enough the dining room is nearly empty, just one guy walking away from the register with a bag in his hand.

The guy looks - familiar, even from behind, and yet not familiar all at once. His hair is a certain kind of color and shape - and the silhouette of his clothes -

"No," Blaine tells himself, out loud and everything. It's not him. Not the boy from the club. Blaine has to stop thinking about him, because it's been almost a week, and this is getting ridiculous. He probably tricks himself into thinking he's seen him almost once a day, and it hasn't been him yet. Blaine's never even spoken to him; he doesn't even know his name. One guy from one night at one club should not have him this irrationally transfixed.

Besides, if Blaine thinks back to that night - even back to those swaying hips, the cool skin, the tight jeans, the flashing lights - he just thinks back to slimy, salacious Sebastian, and the whole thing comes crashing down around his ears all over again.

Sunshine clears out when the store closes at ten, and then it's just Blaine, Harmony, Jeff, Santana and David left to shut the whole place down. Blaine cleans and cleans and cleans, throwing everything into it as much as his thumb wound will allow, but even with Harmony (who, despite all of Blaine's dislike, is still one of their best closers) it's slow going. They're still mopping the floors and taking the last of the trash out to the dumpster at twelve-fifteen. And even more than the late hours, Blaine's just so worn out by then, the five of them heaving and scrubbing in relative silence, even the usually mouthy Santana.

Closing sucks.

At long last they're free, and David queues up the store's alarms to activate once they've left. Blaine falls into his car and can't even drive off for a few minutes, sprawled against his steering wheel and trying desperately to ignore the throbbing pain in his thumb (not possible). Groggily, he reaches down and tugs his phone from his pocket, sort of morbidly curious as to what undoubtedly oh-so-important alert got him maimed in the first place.

Chandler Kiehl is in a relationship with Jeremiah Fosse.

"What?" Suddenly, Blaine's wide awake, the one-AM blues banished from his overworked brain. Who the hell is Jeremiah Fosse? And how is Blaine finding out about this from Facebook when he just saw Chandler two days ago?

Frantic, Blaine taps through to Jeremiah's profile and tries to scope him out. His profile picture is some nice, hipstery black-and-white photo of flowering vines growing through a chain-link fence - looks like this guy fancies himself an amateur photographer. It isn't until Blaine's eye catches on Works at The Gap that his heart sort of catches, missing about half a beat, and slowly he creeps far enough into Jeremiah's page to prove himself, unfortunately, correct.

The awkward race to Hot Junior Manager is over, and Chandler has won.

-xxx-

"So," Blaine asks as casual as anything, loitering up near the register while he finishes his employee meal and waits to clock in at eleven-thirty. "Were you planning on telling me about Jeremiah?"

Chandler, to his credit, winces, but Blaine's got no sympathy for him. "I meeeean," he says, "that's what social media is for, eye-em-oh. For telling everyone, all at once, rather than having to tell the same story like eight times over. Carnitas on that bowl, ma'am?"

"Barbacoa," answers the customer. "And can I just get a cup for water?"

Chandler hands her one and Blaine presses forward while he rings her up. "I think I get to claim best friend privilege on this one. Not to mention, like, co-conspirator privilege - "

"Co-creeper privilege," Chandler giggles as he swipes the customer's card. "Would you like it in a bag?"

"Yes please."

"Plus, 'co-creeper,' I haven't exactly heard any story."

"Oh, Blainers, it was amazing," Chandler gushes, turning to him and getting way too emotional now that the customer is gone. "I went in to check for some new jeans since most of mine are totally effed from working, and there he was, dreamy as ever, stocking the women's section, and there was like no one else around so I swore that this time I would say something - and so I introduced myself, and asked for help with my jeans situation, and he gave me remarkably good advice - "

" - and so you said 'Thanks so much, I bet they'd look even greater on your floor'?"

"Ch, no, who dost thou take me for?" But he immediately follows with " - Don't answer that. No, he said that he'd seen me in the store before and had always kind of thought I was cute, but he'd never said anything because he still wasn't a hundred percent out everywhere and he was nervous about how people would react if he was super open at work. But that he wanted to ask me out so badly that he finally just went for it!" Chandler grabs at Blaine's hands and looks him dead in the eye, beaming in a gross Chandler way that Blaine kinds of hates because it's so damn cute. "He wanted to ask me out so bad the he came out at work. Isn't that the sweetest most romantical thing you've ever heard of in your life?"

Blaine heaves a huge, defeated sigh. "Yeah," he admits, "it sort of is." (Except for the part where "romantical" so is not a word.)

"So when he got off we just walked through the mall, and he bought us smoothies from that one kiosk at the Belk end and we took pictures in the photoboo - oh, boo, why the long face?"

Blaine presses his lips together, flicks his eyes away, reaches back to his basket to pick at what's left of his tacos where they fell apart in the bottom. "I - I'm so happy for you, C, I really am. I'm just...kind of sad for...y'know, me."

"Oh no! Honey, I - I mean I know we were co-creepers but I didn't think - "

"No, it's not that," Blaine assures him. "I mean, he is really cute, but I didn't - I'm not jealous, it's fine. Not like that anyway." He takes a fortifying sip of his root beer, though it's mostly ice at this point. "It's just - Tina seems really intent on making stuff with that Mike guy more than a one-night thing, and Sugar's been talking to Artie again, and now you and this, and I..." He can't even finish the sentence. This went from teasing to lousy in about two seconds. Chandler's happiness is so serious, and it's making Blaine even more seriously sad and lonely by compare.

Chandler pouts a cute little "I want to be bummed for you but I can't quite manage to feel non-happy things right now" frown at him, and pats a reassuring grope to his shoulder. "You'll find him, B. I have the utmost of confidence that you are going to find the most glistening, fantabulous boy in the whole world someday, and when you do he'll probably be better than all the Mikes and Arties and Jeremiahs put together and we shall all be spectacularly jealous." He smiles again. "Now clock in, you've got like two minutes and Zizes is cranky."

Chandler winks, and Blaine forces a little smile, sheepish, before punching in his number and heading to the back of house to grab an apron. Quinn's on prep and she gives him a little "hey," which he answers. He tries to pull himself back together. He tries not to think about Chandler and Jeremiah, or to start whistling Jeremiah was a bullfrog just to be an ass. He tries not to think about the word glistening and about the boy with the belt from the Pneumatic, because that was a week ago, oh my god.

But that's pretty hard when he gets up to the line and Chandler says "Besides, whatever happened to your hottie from the Pneumatic?"

Blaine groans. "Chandler."

"I saw him. He was stupidly attractive, Blaine. Like. Stupidly. I understand your fixations."

"I don't even know his name. The whole thing is ridicu-- what are the odds I'll ever even see him again?"

"Didn't you say you thought you saw him in here, a couple nights ago?"

"I'm..." Blaine rolls his eyes at himself and sighs, giving in. "I'm seeing him everywhere. I think I'm seeing him in my dreams. I just doubt so, so heavily that a guy like that is going to come into a restaurant like this. It wouldn't happen in a million years."

"I'm gonna remember you said that," Chandler sing-songs. "And just you wait. He's going to strut his tight-pantsed butt through that very door" (he points with a melodramatic flourish) "and you're going to owe me ten bucks." He flutters his eyelashes at Blaine and Blaine finally cracks in a genuine laugh, even if it is tinged with derision.

"Yeah, sure, okay. Deal." Blaine squirms his hands into his plastic gloves, speeding up a little when a couple of guys start walking through the door. His hands are still damp from washing them and the gloves stick, harder and harder to tug on. Blaine hates that.

"Mild, medium, corn or hot salsa?" he asks, once he can finally take the first burrito from Rachel.

"Uh, can I get tomato and green?" says the guy.

Also known as mild and medium. But Blaine smiles and does it anyway, trying to focus on the food instead of the hungry-for-gossip looks Rachel is shooting him over the second guy's tacos.

Which is easier said (thought?) than done. "What are you two chattering about down at the salsa end, hmmmmm?" she needles, once the customers are fully in Chandler's care.

"Oh, it's nothing," Blaine says instantly. "Like, really."

"You know, it's not very honest to be so hush-hush and keep sneaky secrets all to yourself."

"Ra-ach - "

"And furthermore it doesn't strike me as very respectful to keep one's coworkers excluded from conversations that take place in the store right in front of them."

"Oh my god."

"You're never going to master your station if you can't embody all of the thirteen characteristics at all times!"

"Hey, Kosher Salt," says Chandler, wandering down to their end with a to-go order. "Did it ever occur to you that it's not very polite to stick your adorable Jew-nose into other people's personal business?" He splays a dramatic hand across his chest. "Such behavior! And from a master of tortilla, my god!"

"Just staying curious!" she trills, and Blaine just sort of laughs again. He digs the spoon into the sour cream to fluff it up, and waves a little to Joe and Kitty in the back, and gets ready for the lunch rush. Lord knows that just about anyone could burst through that door any minute now.

And to hell with beating himself up about it - Blaine knows exactly who he wants it to be.

-xxx-

It's the dead lull of a post-lunch Wednesday afternoon, and Blaine Anderson is having a pretty good day.

He's had a good feeling about today pretty much all morning, really. He loves working the opening shift, even if it does mean getting up at 6:15 on his summer vacation - the mornings seem to pass so quickly, much better than the drone of mid-shift or the drag of closing. He actually knocked out a crazy amount of jalapeños and finished all his salsas in record time, and was able to help Marley bag her chips and get his break in before the store opened. Their lunch rush was nice-busy and not hectic-busy, and he thinks he's really going to like working with Unique, the new cashier who's training with Sugar.

"You sure are sunny today," says Marley, flashing him a sweet smile of her own, and he looks up from where he's been stirring some life back into the browning guacamole and says, "Yeah."

He should have known it wouldn't last. It's Wednesday. He always comes in on Wednesdays. He planted himself firmly at the end of the long table closest to the side door and just sat there, hovering like some sort of gargoyle, and it's not till the lunch rush dies down and he can stroll up at his own pace and be the center of attention that he even starts coming to the front - almost an hour of lascivious staring later. Of course.

Marley must see the dread washing over him as Sebastian approaches, because her lip slips between her teeth and her eyes go wide and apologetic under the brim of her hat. "I've got this," she promises. "Go back and wash dishes or something."

"Thank you," Blaine says, and he really means it. He tugs his gloves off and starts heading for the sinks, where Sam is scrubbing out a crusty rice pot.

"Hey, bro," he says. "I'll be outta your way in one sec."

"No problem," says Blaine. He gives Sam and the rice a fair berth, starting slow with some third-pans that are already in the rinse sink to clear them out of the way. There's not a whole lot to wash and Blaine needs this to at least take long enough for Marley to finish a burrito.

"Dude, I feel like we never work together any more," says Sam, splashing some suds from the wash sink in Blaine's direction. "What gives?"

Blaine laughs a little as the bubbles hit his arm, and his face a bit too where he's bent down to dig out some spatulas and measuring spoons. "I dunno, man. Ships in the night and all that."

"You don't have some hot new dude you've been getting fewer hours for, do you?" he teases.

"Ahh - no," Blaine says. "Trust me, I wish. But no, unfortunately."

"Well, good," says Sam. "I need to be the hottest dude in your life, you know what that means to me." He hefts the rice pot from sink to sink and gives Blaine a wink, and Blaine ducks his head and laughs even more. They shuffle around each other so Blaine can get to the spray sink, and Blaine knows what this is - Sam's always been good at reading people, at cheering them up. He appreciates it and tries to cling tight to it, even though it's hard when Marley joins them, looking slightly flustered.

"Is he gone now?" asks Blaine.

"No," she says, pouty and uncomfortable. "He's just sitting there - thank goodness some other people were still at all the closer tables, he's back over by the side door - and he must have mentioned you like five times." She reaches up past Sam to tug her fryer basket down from the drying rack. "I need to start my shift-change, but I don't want to leave you alone on the line if he's just going to be...lurking...."

"What's this guy's problem?" says Sam.

"It's okay," says Blaine. "You've made his food, and I'm sure Sugar's got her eye on him now. He's gonna lurk whether you're doing chips or not." He shrugs and sprays the heck out of a used-up thing of hot salsa, trying not to cough from the tabasco getting misted out.

"What a creep." Marley shudders. "Okay, well, the line's all yours, I guess. We'll shout for you if anyone comes in. I'm only doing three pans, so."

She and Sam filter off back to their tasks and Blaine returns to the short stack of dishes, spraying and scrubbing and dunking. He can hear Santana grumbling to herself as she chops lettuce and the quiet, whispering sounds of a half-dead dining room. Every once in a while Marley or Sugar will call out to him when a customer is there, and he'll bustle up and take care of them, smile firmly in place - even though every time, Sebastian is still there, eyeballing him and sucking his whole happy mood out through the pit of his stomach.

Marley's nearly done with her chips, heading back to wash the bowl and her fryer basket, when Lauren pops out from the office and snags Sugar to run some trash out to the dumpsters with her. So Unique is on her own at the register for a bit, and Blaine is just beginning to worry that Sebastian's going to get a little bolder when she bustles back and trills, "Blaine, someone's in li~ine!" Her voice drops to a conspiratory whisper. "And Unique would not mind giving him some spectacular customer service, if you catch my drift."

Smiling a little and dumping one last cup of onions into his shift-change corn, Blaine wipes his gloved hands on his apron and ducks back up to the front, gunning for the top of the line. The man standing there is in the middle of tugging off a chic pair of sunglasses, but Blaine would probably recognize him even with his whole face obscured.

Because it's the dead lull of a post-lunch Wednesday afternoon, and Blaine Anderson owes Chandler Kiehl ten dollars.

He's even more beautiful than Blaine remembered from the Pneumatic, and up this close it's like staring into the sun. He's wearing a periwinkle button-up shirt with the subtlest texture that cuffs stylishly right at the crooks of his elbows, unbuttoned a little at the collar to make room for a frothy, poppy-colored scarf that renders his marble-cool skin positively radiant in comparison. He tucks the sunglasses into his breast pocket and lifts a hand to casually check his hair, but there's not a strand out of place from his warm brown coif. And his soft pink mouth, and his eyes - Blaine's seeing his eyes for the first time, he realizes, and they're a liquid crystalline blue-green-silver-opal that he kind of wants to write sonnets about. And Blaine doesn't even write sonnets.

Blaine's brain promptly sputters and dies, and when he finally manages to jump-start it it's stuck firmly in friendly-customer-service mode. "Hi, welcome to Chipotle! What can I get started for you today?"

"Yes, I'd like a bowl, ple-- wait a minute, do I know you?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"I think I saw you dancing the other night - at the Pneumatic, downtown? How fun running into you here." He smiles, the playfulness of it creeping all the way up to his eyes, and Blaine has to lean on the line to steady himself for fear of swooning. Oh, god, this angel creature saw him. Remembers him.

"Well, I am here almost every day," says Blaine, his own smile teasing up a little. "Funny how that works."

"You don't say," he says with a little tease of his own - and then, unprompted, "Brown rice, please."

"Brown rice," Blaine echoes, plucking up a cardboard bowl and filling it up with a heaping spoonful. "Is this gonna be for here or to go?"

"Mmm, for here," he says. He rocks up a little on the balls of his feet, craning his (longpaleperfect) neck up and peering down over the line glass.

Blaine raises an eyebrow and chuckles a little. "Something wrong? More rice?"

The other boy laughs too. "No, I just - you all don't wear nametags here, do you."

"Oh, no, we don't - it's, it's Blaine. Blaine Anderson." He smiles warmly up at him, and it's not even his customer service smile, it's a real true Blaine smile. Blaine's struggling to believe this is actually happening right now, but it is - all the things he's usually so terrible at when it comes to cute boys and talking and flirting (oh my god is he flirting?) are flowing so naturally from him, the little smiles and the banter and the smooth, charming exchange of information. Something about this bright, enchanting boy on the other side of his line is making all of it as easy as breathing. Blaine's literally never felt like this before - like he could fly, or do a hundred backflips, or fall in love - and he doesn't even know his name.

"Kurt Hummel," he says, waving just a little at the glass between them. "I'd shake your hand, but, you know."

Blaine halts - sets the bowl down on the line, looks up from the beans, really looks at him. "Kurt Hummel?"

"Yes?" Kurt says, dragging it out, amused and curious.

"'Extra veggies please' Kurt Hummel?"

Kurt preens, and smiles a little less teasing, a little more warm and delighted. "You know my order?"

"Of - of course I do," says Blaine, ignoring the beans now and digging the tongs around into the fajita vegetables. "It's the exact same thing I get."

"Well," says Kurt, eyes shining, "you have excellent taste, Blaine Anderson."

He rocks on his heels and follows Blaine along as he assembles his bowl from memory, steak-medium-sour cream-cheese-guac-lettuce. Blaine doesn't ask anything about the food, doesn't even remind him about the extra charge for guacamole, just talks to him, warm and comfortable - the kinds of things you talk about when you first meet, but with a smooth sweet rhythm like they've known each other for a hundred years, and all of it frosted lightly over with astonishment because Blaine's mystery order-twin is the boy with the belt from the club and is this really real?? The other bowl and the burrito usually on the Hummels' order are for Kurt's father and stepbrother, he says; they all work at a tire shop on the other side of town, and Kurt knows his way around an engine (hot) but more often does the bookkeeping and office work. Blaine talks to him about work, too, about Chandler and jalapeños and the bandaid that's still on his thumb from a week ago. They both conveniently, not-so-subtly mention that they're single. For one burrito bowl's worth of time they are the only people in the store, or maybe in the whole world.

Then Unique nocks some freshly-lined red baskets down onto her pre-existing stack, and Blaine gets tugged back into reality. Reality which includes other people talking to Kurt (he orders a kids'-size bag of chips and a small drink and Unique rings him up), and other customers and Santana chopping up onions in the back and a couple new people walking through the door and

And Sebastian. Sebastian Smythe, the prince of sleaze, who's still there and who's looking back and forth between Blaine and Kurt from across the store with the sourest, most pissed-off glare Blaine's ever seen him sport.

It makes Blaine want to sing.

He steps out from behind the line a little and over to where it opens up to the lobby on the other side of the register, ignoring the look Unique shoots him and the way Marley starts to giggle a little into her chips bags. "Listen," he says softly to Kurt. "I know we've only just met, really, and I don't usually ask for favors so soon after getting to know someone - "

"What is it?" Kurt asks, and god, his face is so bright and sincere, Blaine almost thinks Kurt would give him anything.

"Just, for a quick second..." He takes a deep breath and tries not to look at Sebastian or he'll give it away - "will you pretend to be my boyfriend?"

Kurt's eyes go wide, his baby-bag of chips crinkling in his hand a little, but by some miracle of trust he nods, just a fraction, and his arms come open like it's the most natural thing to him, to fold Blaine into this sweetly, nervously intimate embrace. Blaine's pretty sure Kurt can feel his heart thudding against him like a jackhammer, and he's also pretty sure he's smearing medium salsa from his apron onto Kurt's nice, cool shirt, but Kurt presses the feather of a kiss to the side of Blaine's neck and Blaine feels his knees weaken and he sucks up a sharp startled breath that's full of just the scent of him and Kurt's cologne is downright mouthwatering and everything about it is totally, completely perfect. Not least of all the flustered outrage that freezes onto Sebastian's face.

Kurt's caught on, whispering in his ear. "Is this about that rodent near the side door who keeps staring at you like you're a Black Friday doorbuster?" He pulls out of the hug, cants his body toward Blaine like they're having some sweet boyfriends' chat and not discussing their charade. Oh, he's good.

"Sebastian Smythe," Blaine confirms, copying Kurt's body language, daring to run a hand up and down the side of his arm for a moment and smiling just a tinge too venomously. "He's in here all the time - ever since he first had me make his food. He got kind of...fixated." Blaine shudders, making it cutesy, staying in character. "He placed an ad on missed connections that mentioned, and I quote, how he'd be 'totally interested in swapping hot sauces with the sexy little burrito boy on the morning shift.' My numerous refusals have apparently done nothing to deter him." He laughs. "My friend Sugar said if I was Burrito Boy, then he was my arch-nemesis the evil Captain Craigslist, and it sort of stuck."

"That is adorable and yet simultaneously kind of makes me want to vomit," says Kurt. "I'm ah. I'm happy to help."

"Thanks," Blaine says. "It means a lot to me, really."

"I'll bet it does," snorts Sugar, as she and Lauren reappear from trash duty. Blaine shoots her a dirty look, but she's not paying attention; it's actually Lauren that's gunning straight for him, and he straightens up a little, perplexed.

"Anderson," she says. "Sam tells me you've got a leech out in the lobby."

"Lech is more like it," pipes Marley, as she finishes up with the most recent customers and heads back to her bagging.

"Is that true?" says Lauren. "Has he really been out there perving on you all day?"

"Since - since about twelve-thirty, yeah," says Blaine, almost embarrassed about it. He flicks a glance back to Kurt, who's giving him a sympathetic little frown.

"Through that big clusterfuck online order that picked up at one, even?"

"Yeah, Z, the whole time!" says Sugar.

"Well then, congratulations, sweetcheeks, you just mastered salsa."

Blaine's jaw literally drops - he thought that was just an expression but it actually happens. "Wait, what?"

"If you can beast it out like you have been all morning in such slimy working conditions as all that - " she makes a deliberate gesture toward Sebastian, then gives a fight me! body-lurch when he pulls a face - "then I think you have every right."

"Oh my god!" Blaine can't stop grinning - he actually jumps into the air a little, bouncing and clutching his hands to his face. He mastered salsa. He thought he was never going to get here. He finds himself hugging Lauren, Marley, Sugar, even Unique; he looks into the back for Sam, his savior, and Sam flashes him a toothy grin and a big thumbs-up with a cut-gloved hand.

Kurt, he realizes suddenly, and Blaine whirls to him only to find that he's taken a seat, at the recently-vacated high table closest to the register. He hasn't started eating yet, though, and he's smiling beautifully over toward Blaine, eyes twinkling impossibly blue.

"Congratulations," he says. "I'm not sure what it means but it sounds impressive."

"Thank you," says Blaine, and he means it, so much that it aches a little. "Thank you so much."

"So what does a salsa master have to do before he's free to leave for the afternoon?"

"Well, I'm almost done with the corn - I guess I need to do like four sour creams - four? no, maybe six milds - I should have enough jalapeños done for everything else so it's mostly just - uh." Blaine catches himself, and colors a little. "W...why?"

"Well, you see," says Kurt, picking his fork into his bowl a bit and looking through his eyelashes at Blaine - shyly? - Was this magnificent man actually shy about something? "It's just that I've never really cared much for pretending."

He drops the fork, and slowly slides his hand over to where Blaine's are, where he's leaning on the edge of the table. With absolute wonder, Blaine tangles their fingers together, staring entranced at Kurt's pale, soft strength and his own grubby plastic gloves. He lifts their hands to his mouth and kisses slow, slow and soft to the back of Kurt's knuckles, looking straight up at him the whole time. Kurt blushes high in his cheeks and gives a bright little sigh that sounds, just a tiny bit, like Blaine's name.

"I'll be right back," he promises, eyes never blinking from Kurt's. Kurt nods, just a little, and ducks back to his food, and it all seems so hyper-real and serious - Blaine really mastered salsa, he really has a glistening fantabulous boy waiting for him when he clocks out, like he's had some wishes magically granted and the other shoe could drop at any second. It's almost too much for him to bear, as if his skin's been stretched too tight and his mouth is burning with adobo spice, and he needs to do something to break the spell, to laugh again in this moment that's so shiningly happy.

Sugar's whoops of approval from the register kind of does the trick.

So Blaine laughs, and finally heads back behind the line with a stupid little wave which he's beyond delighted to see that Kurt returns. There are more customers now, falling into place up by the counter and shying away from where Lauren is kicking Sebastian out of the store, and Marley's never going to finish bagging if she keeps having to do both so Blaine hastens to get to them and start putting their orders through. And he's happy to do it, even if it means his own shift-change is going to take a little bit longer, even if it means dealing with people that ask for pico and avocado on their burritos or who want three times the regular serving of cheese.

Blaine's good feeling about today is back, and this time - along with the boy waiting for him at the tall table by the register, sipping on the Minute Maid lemonade and flashing his blue blue eyes at him through the glass every once in a while - he doesn't think it's going to go anywhere.