Thank you for all the reviews, favorites and follows. Your encouragement (and future criticism) means a lot to me. I rushed this thing in about one hour, it's really late right now, but I told myself I'd type up a new chapter today, and so I did.
WARNING: Most likely will not 'flow' or make sense, expect a lot of mistakes, I'm tired, hungry, and just … blazed through this, didn't read it over at all, I apologize, I'm already telling myself how I could've made this much better.
"'Ermione, you can't do zis!" Fleur exclaimed, throwing her slender arms up in the air, clearly frustrated at her lover. "Non! I don't like it, it's not safe, and I remember hearing terrible zings about zat store!" The French woman continued, now pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace.
Hermione sighed, clearly frustrated as well, "Fleur, don't be ridiculous. It's a muggle grocery shop, the worst that can happen is that someone breaks in and I have to blow my cover as a witch to save them all," She said, rolling her eyes from her seat on the loveseat. "I also happened to have lived here longer than you have, and I assure you, nothing terrible has ever happened there."
Fleur stopped her pacing, turning her head sharply towards Hermione, "It does not matter! I don't like it, don't you think it's suspicious how they're specifically asking you to cover night shifts, why not day shifts?!" The blonde veela tried, falling beside Hermione who rolled her eyes again.
"Well, darling, I happened to specifically ask for night shifts, you know I'm busy during the day," Hermione said slowly, "It's going to be fine. I'll bring my wand every night, alright?"
"Zat's not the problem! I know you are more than capable of taking care of yourself with magic, but what about those drunk idiots at night?! They'll do anything in their stupefied state!" Fleur insisted, now shaking Hermione's shoulders gently.
"Well luckily, I happen to be smarter than most, surely I can take care of a few drunks," Hermione said, grabbing onto Fleur's wrists to stop the shaking. "Look, Fleur, I'm going to go no matter what you say. I'm not doing this for fun and you know it, my parents want me to have some muggle experience and I'm not exactly opposed to that."
Fleur remained silent, staring quite intently into Hermione's eyes, looking for any sign of weakness at which she could pick at to win this 'argument'. Finding none, she grumbled, turning her head and hands away from her lover, now staring at the fire flickering in the fire place.
"Fleur? Are you giving me the cold shoulder now?" Hermione groaned, face palming.
Again, the quarter veela remained silent and refused to meet Hermione's eyes, confirming the previous statement. Sighing, Hermione got up from her seat and knelt in front of Fleur who stubbornly shut her eyes.
"Fleur … I'm going now, you should go to sleep soon, don't stay up late?" Hermione said, quietly, holding back a sigh.
At last, Fleur sighed and brought her hand up to cup Hermione's cheek, surprising the younger woman, "Fine. I'll go to sleep, and you … go to work, or you'll be late for your first day." She said, still grumbling like a child.
Hermione smiled softly, nodding as she turned to change, at the last second she popped her head back into the room with a smirk, "Thanks darling, and you might want to get that pout off your face, else it stays on there forever."
"... Really? You had to do this now?" Hermione dead panned, raising an unamused eyebrow as she stared at Fleur from behind her counter.
Everything had gone perfectly fine when Hermione had arrived for her shift, her coworkers were quite welcoming and kind, most were women but she found that the males were quite friendly as well. Feeling slightly mischievous - which was a side effect of being in dangerous situations in most of her younger years - when her break came, the first thing she told them after introducing herself was the fact that she was in love with a woman. They took it surprisingly well, being rather supportive, suspiciously so.
However, to her absolute horror, Fleur Isabelle Delacour just had to make a visit tonight to the grocery store tonight. She came unnecessarily dressed and ready to kill everyone in her killer heels, in fact, Hermione was pretty sure that some of the boys in the stock room might have seriously been dead with nosebleeds had they seen the blond.
All of her coworkers were already muttering amongst each other in the nearly empty grocery store about the gorgeous blond who decided to come in the middle of the night, who only grabbed one bottle of what looked like nail polish in the fashion section and went to Hermione - the newbie - of all people.
In front of her, Fleur merely smiled slyly. She gave a wink and a quiet, "Bonsoir, ma chaton," as she handed the bottle of nail polish over to Hermione who merely stared at the bottle in her hand. Amused with the lack of reaction, Fleur shook the bottle slightly, "Hm? Something wrong?" She asked, clearly enjoying every second of this.
Grumbling, Hermione took the bottle at last - least someone notices her lack of cooperation with a 'customer' and yells at her - and scanned the item. While she pressed the 'PRINT' button, she turned back to Fleur, "Did you really need to buy this in the middle of the night? I wasn't aware you had something important to attend to tomorrow."
Fleur laughed [how dare she], waving a hand as if to clear a misunderstanding, "Non, Gabrielle apparated over and took my favorite bottle, I couldn't sleep knowing that she'd probably never return it, and the rest is history." She tilted her head, looking at the price of the nail polish and handed Hermione the money.
Hermione rolled her eyes and took the money before handing the receipt, change and the nail polish itself, "Of course, Fleur, of course. Go home now, you better be asleep when I get back," She murmured the last part, still aware of the ears that might be picking up the conversation.
In return, Fleur laughed, shaking her head, drawing all kinds of attention near them, "I'll try my best, 'Ermione, but in return …," She bent over, leaning over the counter to reach Hermione's ear, "when you get home, you better let me know," and she left Hermione with a peck on the cheek and a small wave as she made her way home.
Once Fleur returned home, she let out a sigh of relief. Hermione was safe, her coworkers weren't bullying or making fun of her bookworm-ish lover, and after her 'performance' the boys were certainly not going to be bothering Hermione at all.
She nodded to herself for a 'job well done' before heading off to sleep.
"Oh god! Hermione, look, look!" Anabel gasped, shaking Hermione's shoulder excitedly as her other hand pointed towards another direction, "It's her! Your wife!"
Hearing that, Hermione choked on the tea she was drinking, coughing uncontrollably as she tried to regain her breath after hearing that. After yesterday night's events, no one spoke a word of it, clearly too surprised and mind blown to make any sort of comment, but clearly they had made their own stories about all the missing details.
"Er, Anabel, she's not my wife, just my girlfriend," Hermione explained as she managed to get her words out without choking on them. "Besides, I'm on my break and the others can certainly help her if she needs any."
Anabel gasped once more as she turned from Fleur to Hermione, quite shocked, "How could you do that?! Hermione you can't just sit here while she's clearly looking for you, you're on your break, even if the manager catches you, she can't do anything about it, go to her!" She insisted, pulling Hermione up and shoving her towards Fleur who was making her way, quite innocently, towards the food court.
Grunting, Hermione walked towards Fleur's direction willingly after a few shoves from Anabel. She certainly did not the miss the satisfied smile on Anabel's face or the smirk on Fleur's face as she did so.
"Bonsoir, 'Ermione," Fleur greeted as she turned to Hermione who stood beside her, "you are on your break, oui?"
Hermione nodded, "Yeah, I still got … ten minutes? What are you here for tonight?" She asked, still not amused with Fleur popping up randomly.
Fleur tapped her chin with a finger, "Just a drink, you know I have quite a lot of paper work to fill out whether I'm at work or not, sadly it seems I must have a late night rush, a little coffee should help, non?"
Hermione frowned, it was very, very rare for Fleur to have to rush anything during the night time. Even if the blonde looked like an airhead that cared more about looks, Hermione knew that the blonde was also a hard worker who could complete tasks very quickly once concentrated and focused enough.
She raised an eyebrow at the obvious lie and crossed her arms, "Oh really? Are you sure that's the only reason?"
Fleur smiled in return, nodding, "Oui. Zat is the only reason, did you think I would come here for fun?"
Without missing a beat, Hermione nodded, "Yes, of course."
Behind the two of them, Anabel gasped again, "Hermione! You can't say that, that's horrible!" She exclaimed, and damn the woman was loud. Afterwards, Hermione had to deal with the rest of the female workers telling her that Fleur was probably only worried and trying to look out for Hermione, and that she had no reason to be so mean towards her.
If Hermione didn't know any better, she'd say the rest of them were in love with Fleur. That and Fleur was definitely getting a kick out of this, somehow.
Back at home, Fleur slept peacefully, knowing that her Hermione was not being overworked and did indeed have lengthy breaks, long enough to eat and have spare time.
On Hermione's first day off, she confronted her girlfriend, who never missed a night to visit Hermione at the grocery store. It was something that had gone on for long enough, and Hermione intended to put a stop to all of this nonsense.
"Fleur. We need to talk, where are you?"
From behind, Fleur popped her head into the kitchen, raising an eyebrow. "I hope this is not something bad, you've used the forbidden words," she teased as she made her way over to Hermione.
"Well, things might end bad if you continue to make poor decisions," Hermione snapped, crossing her arms. "I'm going to be blunt: Stop coming to visit every night. It's … stupid, and you really don't need to be visiting everynight."
Fleur narrowed her eyes, "Are they making fun of you because of it?" She asked, wrapping her arms around Hermione, "If they are, I'll-"
"No, Fleur lis-"
"Are you ashamed of me?!"
"Fleur, please listen!"
"..."
"Fleur, I just wanted to have some muggle experience, I wanted to do something … normal, I wanted to take a break from saving the world, to take a break from being in the magical world! I … I don't want to push you away, but having you there, it's like a constant reminder that sometimes our two worlds will always clash against each other, and it's horrible. It's like I have to go out of my way to keep everything a secret on both ends."
Fleur took in the words slowly and quietly before she huffed and leaned her head on top of Hermione's. "Fine, I understand. I apologize for being stupid … I'll leave you alone to your job, okay?"
With a smile, the two sealed the deal with a kiss. And another. Until finally, they found themselves in the bedroom.
EXTRA
"Hermione? I thought you were working for that grocery store down a few streets, what happened?" Her mother asked, as Hermione sat herself on the couch with a frown.
"Fleur happened." Hermione snapped, as she took the teacup in front of her and downed the contents in one gulp. "Stupid French. Stupid loving French woman." She grumbled, ignoring her burning tongue.
Raising an eyebrow her mother continued, "What happened with Fleur? Did she visit you again?"
"No! She found me on my break and … she … I… the closet and the manager … ugh..."
"... Did you have fun?"
"MOM!"
Hope you enjoyed. Favorite, follow, review, tell me to reread all my shit because you can't stand the mistakes, thanks and goodnight.
Prompt: Imagine Person A gets their first job working overnight at a 24/7 grocery store and Person B shows up every night Person A works to buy something that they 'conveniently' need and always goes through Person A's lane.