Our Food Is Fresh, Our Customers Are Spoiled

Author's Note: Hey there folks! I will literally never finish this fic if I don't start posting it, so here we are. I'm going to post each meal/order as a chapter twice a week until it's done. All of them vary in length but hopefully you'll have fun following along!

Idea 100% goes to MurdockSchmurdock. Thank you for being my most twisted muse, as always~ And thank you for being my grocery delivery consultant. I hope this makes you happy.


Silkie Chicken Soup

September 16th | 4:05 PM

Will Graham was exhausted. This was not new for him, of course. Being awoken every couple of hours by nightmares and hypnopompic hallucinations had a way of doing that to a person. Exhaustion wrapped itself around him like a leaden cloak most days, weighing down his every movement, making it feel as though his limbs and mind were moving at two different speeds. He could make his body push its way out of his silver V70, but his brain seemed two paces behind, still resting in the seat.

It was for that reason that Will found himself in his vehicle, driver's seat fully reclined, staring up at the ceiling of his car. There were brown stains in the headliner. Will wondered how, exactly, one stained up.

A small tone sounded from his phone. He blinked several times, trying to summon the energy to look. He did want to look. He wanted something to break the monotony of his day. A word from someone, a reminder that there was a world outside of his buzzing head. There wasn't really anyone to expect a word from, but he wanted to hear it just the same.

His heart sank as soon as he looked at the notification. The delivery app.

It's been a while! H.L. is looking for a pickup from Aneto Organic Market and Minhua's Fine Meats. Are you interested?

He was not, in fact, interested. But then he thought of the long list of household items he had yet to replenish because of the ever-dwindling numbers in his bank account, and he sighed.

"Up you get, Graham," he muttered to himself as he fumbled for the latch on the side of his seat, forcing the back of his chair upright. Two stores in one order was odd, especially this late in the afternoon, but not unheard of. Either H.L. had made some impromptu dinner plans, or something had stopped them from doing their grocery shopping earlier in the day. Either way, the customer had left a generous tip. He opened the app and squinted as a vibrant green and orange loading screen flashed across his vision.

Welcome back, Will!

4:45 PM

Will winced as he clambered out of the vehicle, an old shoulder injury catching and sending a jolt of pain through his back. He had pulled up in front of a small butcher shop that straddled a street corner and a dingy alleyway. Its sign flickered and buzzed overhead as Will stepped inside, grimacing at the fluorescent light that immediately assaulted his eyes.

Someone called out in Mandarin; presumably a greeting. He glanced up from under his mop of dark curls, sunken eyes scanning the place for whoever was speaking until he spotted a small, elderly woman with a wide smile and hair tied back in a long grey braid. He offered her an awkward half-smile as he approached, unlocking his phone and compulsively reviewing the list again.

"Hello," he spoke haltingly, realizing it was the first time he'd said anything since he'd gotten his drive-thru coffee that morning. The teller at the last shop had been too busy talking with a pretty girl to pay Will any mind. "I'm here to pick up an order for a customer."

"Of course," the woman smiled, setting down the knife she had been sharpening and approaching the counter. A saw kicked on somewhere in the back of the shop. "What do you need?"

"I believe it's… a Silkie chicken?" Will narrowed his eyes before clicking his phone screen off and slipping it back into the pocket of his worn green jacket.

"Ah, yes," she nodded, wiping her hands down and beginning to look around the register, lifting up sticky notes until she found the one she was looking for. "For Dr. Lecter?"

Will furrowed his brows. "I'm not sure. We aren't given any personal details beyond first and last initials."

"When did the order come in?" she asked, looking down her nose at him.

"Around four."

"Then yes, that's the one. No problem, give me one moment."

Will offered her a stiff smile and nod before turning away, letting his eyes roam through the shop. It smelled different than the very few butcher shops he'd been into before—different spices and preservatives. He couldn't tell if the smell and the sight of the raw meat was making him nauseous or hungry, especially when he considered the frozen lasagna dinner waiting for him at home.

"Here we are," the woman, presumably the eponymous Minhua, huffed as she lifted an entire chicken carcass onto a protected section of the corner and began to package it. Its feathers had already been plucked, leaving its dark skin pimpled and exposed.

"Have you already bought everything else?"

"Uh, yes," Will stammered, turning himself around to face Minhua fully and pushing up his glasses as he watched her work. "Last stop."

"And what did you get?"

Will blinked. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to give that information out, ma'am—"

"Dr. Lecter has been shopping here for years. I know what he likes, and I also know that he is very bad with technology. Somehow I know more about Facebook than him. What did he include in his order?"

A surprised chuckle escaped Will as he raised his eyebrows and nodded his assent, pulling his phone back out and consulting the list. Minhua did not look at him while she worked.

"Twelve red dates, two inches of root ginger, 128… grams of wolfberry, and one fresh bunch of green onion and coriander each," he recited, mental images of each item flashing before his eye.

"The mushrooms?"

Will raised an eyebrow. "There were no mushrooms in the order."

The woman clucked disapprovingly as she finished tying the parchment around the package she'd prepared. "He needs the dried shiitake mushrooms. Hold on, I'll see what I have in the back…"

Will clenched his jaw, fingering at the wallet in his pocket, trying to mentally calculate if this error would be put on his bill or not. The driver couldn't be held accountable for anything a customer had forgotten to order, of course, but Will had never had a vendor try to have him add something. He was about to open his mouth to insist that she not add anything at all, that it was against policy, when she dropped a paper bag on top of the other package and turned to the till.

"You be sure to tell him that I saved him, ok? Tell him he will have to buy again next month, or he will owe me for the mushrooms."

"I presume that means he orders every month?"

Minhua looked up, eyes widening for a moment. "Yes," she replied with a mischievous smile. "Very insightful of you."

"I am good at reading people," Will joked, keenly aware of the way he was overenunciating his words. It was an anxiety shielding mechanism, something he did to put others at ease, to let them know that he knew how pretentious most of what he said sounded.

"Ah, well," Minhua smiled as she finished punching in numbers on the till, "you'll have to come back and tell me what it's like to read Dr. Lecter."

She gestured to the card machine sitting between them and raised her eyebrows. Will fumbled to pull out his company card, waving it between two fingers.

"This conversation is making me wonder if I shouldn't review our employee handbook," Will replied, lifting his brows and offering a slightly more natural smile as he paid. "It's been a while."

"Oh, don't worry," Minhua winked as she handed him his receipt and slid the goods towards him. "Dr. Lecter and I won't tell on you if you break the rules."

"I'll keep that in mind," Will tipped his head goodbye and then turned and headed back to his car, head rushing from the sensory overload brought on by that much socialization. The clock on the dash told him he would be a bit past the quoted time, but he'd done worse.

5:30 PM

"Hello?"

Will had never heard that accent before. He looked up to the man standing in the doorway and was immediately taken aback by his striking appearance. The customer's accent was, in fact, far from the most interesting thing about him, vastly outdone by his high cheekbones and puckered lips and his perfectly tailored suit. Will was immediately certain that he had never seen anyone else like this man before—which was saying something, considering how many of his hours were spent staring at people, trying to understand their actions and motivations.

"Are you here with my groceries?" the stranger asked, an utterly blank look on his otherworldly features.

"Uh, yes," Will faltered, twitching his head and blinking rapidly as he stretched out his right hand, passing the produce bags first while he kept the meat cradled against his chest with his other arm. "Assuming that you're H.L.?"

"I am," he offered a curt nod as he reached out and took the bag from Will.

"Excellent," Will replied, shifting his stance so that he could hand the chicken over.

"Thank you," the man replied, looking Will up and down for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching before he attempted to make eye contact again. Will's gaze darted away, feeling very certain that he did not want to be observed by someone as put-together as this customer.

"No problem," he mumbled, "just doing my job."

"So it would seem."

Will could still feel the other man's eyes boring into him. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to turn back to his customer. "The butcher—Minhua, I'm guessing—included some mushrooms free of charge. Usually that would be against policy, but she was quite insistent—"

"And you find insistent people difficult to handle?" H.L.'s eyes were like searchlights, beaming directly into him, utterly emotionless but entirely focused.

Will recoiled, taking a step back on the porch. "I mean—that's not really what I was trying to say. She just wanted me to let you know that she appreciates your business."

"I highly doubt that Mrs. Liang would say that," he replied, and now there was the tiniest hint of a mischievous smile on his lips.

Will felt his stomach twist and curl inside of him as his mind raced to determine the best course of action. "I don't—no, those weren't her exact words. She said that I should be clear that she'd saved you and that you had to come back again next month or she'd charge you for the… the mushrooms." Will waved his hand in the vague direction of the bags.

The groceries looked ridiculous in the other man's hands. He was like a child mimicking a deer in the headlights, bags held in totally slack, straight arms, as if they weighed nothing and mattered less. "That sounds more like her," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Good. I hope you have a good evening, sir," Will offered his customer something between a smile and a grimace and flexed his fingers before turning to take a step away from the ostentatious home. He'd had to park down the street and what had been a quick walk only moments before felt like it was going to be a marathon now.

"Oh, one more thing," the foreign voice chimed in over his shoulder. Will paused.

"Yes?"

"If you happen to receive another of my orders, Will G., you would do well to deliver it on time."

Annoyance flared up in Will's chest. He had only been eight minutes behind the quoted time and he loathed that this man felt comfortable enough to use his name, but he managed to stifle the wave of emotion. "Of course," he replied, forcing a fake smile so that the other man would hopefully hear it in his voice. "Thank you for your patience, sir."

"Have a good evening, Will."