Disclaimer: I own none of the people,things, or products mentioned in this fic. Please read with a sense of humor.
Hyde A/N: As it said in the summary or whatever, this is written by Hyde, just Hyde, even though the author says HydeandAis. This is my attempt at a slightly different style of humor than I usually write. Don't worry if it isn't funny at the beginning, I didn't mess up and accidentally mark it humor, it is. It just doesn't become humor until later.
Amon ate supper that night, and watched TV (a special on the making of new high-tech government weaponry), and acted as though it was all just a normal evening. His girlfriend Touko called, wanted to take him along to some party or something that night. He thought about using it as an excuse, but he didn't. Parties didn't appeal to him. He'd just end up with a hangover in the morning, and socializing with a mass of other human beings didn't appeal to him either. He was a chronic loner.
Ten o'clock rolled around and he opened a can of Bepsi. Then, without even drinking it, he threw it away, wanting something more potent. Beer. He drank half of a can while staring at the TV, not even sure what was on. Something with a lot of airplanes. It didn't matter.
He looked at a sadly abused calendar hanging on the wall. It had fallen off the wall onto the floor too many times to count and stepped on for three days each time it left the wall. Plus, there was a beer stain on May 23 and half of May 24. His eye was drawn to today's date, the first Friday of the month. There was a red mark in the corner of the square that represented today. He glared at that mark because it informed him that today was the Dreaded Friday. He wished sincerely that it would just disappear. If he had Robin's power of flame, he would have burned the whole calendar.
Scowling, he turned to look at the plain digital clock atop his TV. 10:52, it declared in glowing red figures. His grip on the half-empty beer can tightened and he mangled it slightly, then threw it with a growl toward the wall holding up the calendar.
He missed the calendar; the beer can hit below it. But now the whole last week of May was beer-soaked, and so was his carpet.
"Damn," he muttered, knowing he should clean it up but having no motivation to do so.
Beer dribbled down the wall, and his carpet was beginning to reek. He needed another beer.
He walked to the refrigerator, and searched for another can. Damn, that was the last one.
He turned toward the TV, which ironically was blaring a commercial for a carpet cleaner. He growled at the TV for reminding him. Cleaning was demeaning, even if there was no one around to see.
He heard a noise behind him that startled him at first, until he realized it was just the calendar falling off the wall. Again. Then he had another realization: it had fallen off the wall onto beer-soaked carpet.
He walked over and picked it up. Yuck. All of May was now damp, and it had probably soaked through to June.
He threw the calendar down in disgust, leaving it in a heap on the floor to soak up more beer; probably it'd soak through to December.
He wished he could just skip the Dreaded Friday, maybe put it off and make it a Dreaded Saturday. But it was no use, he'd have to get around to it eventually. And he couldn't stand another evening of anticipation with no beer.
………………………
Amon looked up. The clock said 11:51. Time to go.
He pulled on his black overcoat, climbed into his black Audi, and roared off.
Nine minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of Grocery Mart. He grabbed an empty black bag from under his seat and strode toward the automatic glass doors, one of which was posted with a crooked red sign declaring "1 Hour Photo" in white letters.
He paused a moment before the doors, steeling himself. He finally pushed one opened and entered. Now came the worst part of the Dreaded Friday, the one that made even a witch hunter quail.
He had to buy his groceries.
………………………
Amon emptied ten TV dinners into his black bag. He used it instead of a shopping cart. It was demeaning for a dark ominous witch hunter to be seen buying groceries at all, much less pushing a shopping cart. Next, he headed straight for the beer. He dropped a twenty-four pack into his bag, slightly crushing his TV dinners. He felt slightly better knowing that when he got home he could forget the whole day in a can of Pudwiser.
The black bag was now almost full and very heavy. Beads of sweat appeared on Amon's forehead as he lugged his bag on to the next stop. He dropped two bags of chips in, and a frozen pizza. Last, he squeezed in a bottle of ketchup, for applying to take-out food.
The store manager happened to be passing by as Amon headed for the checkout lane (self-checkout; it was much easier that way than facing a clerk). He thought that Amon's ominous countenance and large, obviously full black bag were suspicious. He called security.
Amon soon observed a muscular, henchman-looking man approaching him.
"Excuse me, sir, would you mind showing me what you have in that bag?"
"No," Amon said darkly, and opened his bag, allowing the security man, whose nametag said 'Joe,' examine all ten TV dinners, beer, chips, pizza, and ketchup.
"Mr. Chow," the security man called to the manager, who was hovering nearby, "This man here was planning to steal in this bag ten TV dinners, and 24-pack of beer, two bags of chips, a frozen pizza, and a bottle of ketchup."
"I wasn't going to steal it," Amon protested. "I was going to check it out."
"Oh really?" Joe asked. "Then why were you using a bag instead of a cart?"
Amon was starting to feel mad and uncomfortable. "Is there a law against it?" he asked.
"Well…" Joe turned uncertainly to the manager.
"There's no law against it," said the manager, trying to pacify Amon. He had no particular wish to be sued. "We do, however, like to check out anything suspicious. Most customers use a cart, so we feel we must investigate when we see someone using a bag instead."
"May I go check out my groceries now?" Amon asked impatiently.
"Yes, go right ahead." The manager sounded all too patronizing to Amon.
"And Joe here won't be following me around?" Amon said, allowing a hint of threat to creep into his usually dispassionate voice. It said in no uncertain terms, I will sue or worse if you don't comply.
"Oh no, certainly not."
Despite the manager's assurance, Amon was quite sure that Joe, or perhaps a fellow henchman-type security person, was lurking somewhere. Behind that display of canned juice, or on the other side of that rack of noodles, or peering around the side of the frozen food aisle when he wasn't looking.
(Hyde A/N: Ais, I assume you are reading this…Bwahahahaha! Joe! Henchman! Bwahahahaha! –deep breath— Sorry everybody, inside joke. I have a bad habit of putting those in these fics I write. Usually stuff only Ais and I understand. But I can't help it. Okay, on with it.)
After Amon went through the self-checkout, he left hurriedly. After pushing through the glass doors, he hurried around the corner and waited. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a security man popped out. He wasn't Joe, but he wore the unmistakable security uniform.
Not-Joe scanned the parking lot. As he stepped forward to get a clearer view, Amon went into action. He grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him around the corner, shoving him up against the wall and pushing an orbo gun into his gut.
"Looking for someone?" Amon growled.
"N-no," stammered not-Joe.
"I'm just any other citizen trying to buy his groceries," Amon said, "But when someone tries to prevent that, I get mad."
Not-Joe gulped. "W-what are you doing carrying a gun?" he asked, attempting to put an accusatory tone into his voice.
"It's part of my job," Amon said. "Now, you go back in there and tell your manager that he just lost my patronage." Letting go of not-Joe with a jerk, he stalked off.
"We'll sue!" Not-Joe called to Amon's retreating back.
Amon paused and turned back.
"How?" he asked with an expression that might be called a smirk.
Not-Joe had not considered the fact that he had no idea who Amon was, and that one stumped him. Seeing that not-Joe had nothing else to say, Amon left, making sure on the way out that no one could see his license plate.
……………………
When Amon got home, he collapsed into bed. Another Dreaded Friday over with. He wondered if groceries were worth the humiliation. He finally fell asleep eating a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips.
There we are. Please review. I shall be brief because parental units are strongly encouraging me to get off the computer.
May you never be force-fed liver-flavored oatmeal,
Hyde