"Sir, I understand that you're upset, but you can't walk up to our staff with a pocket full of sliced ham and ask them to help you figure out which cold cuts you bought the last time you were here based on smell. It's a bit unreasonable to expect them to know that. Maybe bring a picture of the packaging next time instead."

"Unreasonable? Your staff should know what they're selling!"

Stood at the customer service desk covered in an anxious cold sweat that had everything to do with how her morning started, Dola had to wonder which was worse; the fact that she had two angry magic men in her apartment fighting over a contract on her soul, that she'd signed a contract on her soul twice, that she still had to go to work to keep the apartment that the magic men were currently arguing in, or that she had to deal with this idiot before her. It was feeling like an all of the above situation.

"Sir," Dola replied through a strained smile, "while we are pretty knowledgeable, we aren't able to identify ham based on smell so-"

There was a dull slap as the man threw a slice of ham in her direction and it hit the wall behind her.

"Forget it!" He fumed turning almost as red as Eirlan had been that morning, "I've been shopping here since 1973 and I've spent a lot of money here, but this is the last time! I'll never shop here again!" the man boomed, turning on his heels and storming off to the doors nearly smacking his face on the too slow automatic doors in his hurry.

"I always wanna ask them to give that to us in writing." Ashleigh chuckled under her breath, watching the man go as she stepped into the customer service booth, arms full of returns, "You okay, hon?"

"Yeah I'm fine." Dola sighed sagging her shoulders and turning to her one and only work friend. When Ashleigh started working at Superior Mart Dola hadn't been thought much of the petite yet very muscular green haired older woman with her southern drawl other than thinking the spelling of her name was a lot, but after a few months they developed a good working relationship. Aside from being funny and easygoing, Ashleigh was on time, did her job and had no idea who Dola was before her fall from fame; Ashleigh was basically god sent.

"Don't let the jerk ruin your day so early on." Ashleigh pat Dola's shoulder firmly and Dola cleared her throat to hide that it nearly knocked the wind out of her.

"Don't remind me how early it is in the day." Dola groaned looking to the clock. She'd only been in for an hour and it felt like she'd been there for eight days. She wasn't sure if it was the hangover or worrying about whether her place would be in one piece by the time she got home that was stressing her out more.

"Really though, you okay?" Ashleigh's brows furrowed as she took in Dola's beyond wrinkled khakis, upside down name tag, untucked uniform shirt and uncombed hair, "You look like hell." She concluded with a warmth that made the statement a little less insulting than it could have been.

"Thanks." Dola deadpanned fixing her name tag before reaching for the small pile of returns just to have something to do so that their boss didn't complain that they were slacking off.

"I didn't mean it like that." Ashleigh softened, "You just looked stressed is all."

"Try hungover." Dola admitted sheepishly, because it was the only thing she could talk about without someone booking her a stay at the grippy socks hotel. That said, if Ashleigh suspected anything else was going on with Dola it didn't show. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree at Dola's words.

"Oooh! Don't tell me you and Fylson went out for a drink last night finally?" Ashleigh asked with wiggling eyebrows and a breath stealing nudge to Dola's ribs.

"Uh," Dola gasped nursing her surely bruised ribs, "No. You know it's not like that." Ashleigh had met Fylson once when he brought over her lunch and keys that she'd forgotten at home. He'd scolded her for forgetting it and told her that he wouldn't cook anymore if she was going to leave it on the counter to go bad and Ashleigh, bless her heart, overheard with wide excited eyes and eager ears. It had been a whole thing since then.

"Boooo. No fun." Ashleigh pouted with a thumbs down, "I'm just saying though. He's hot, he cooks, your both single right?-" She stopped and turned to Dola with eyes narrowed in suspicion, "Wait, is he like crazy or something?"

"No more than anyone else I know."

"Then you must be crazy. He's a ten as far as I can tell, he's already in your house and you're just not interested? At all? That's just a waste." Ashleigh shook her head like a mother disappointed in her daughter's bad grades.

"I'm sure it is." Dola muttered, finishing up the returns Ashleigh had brought over, dumping them into a bin and holding out the bin to the other woman, "Take these to the back for me?" She asked with a pleasant, yet tight smile.

"Yeah, yeah." Ashleigh rolled her eyes with a grin, "I know when me and my sparkling conversational skills are being dismissed." She took the bin and turned to walk away, "Stay hydrated hon." she called over her shoulder before exiting the customer service booth and disappearing into the aisles.

Dola sighed before turning to pull the ham that had been thrown at her from the wall catching a glimpse of herself in the reflective side of the one way mirror that belonged to the cash office.

She did look rough. She took a second to smooth her hair down, scowling at how frizzy it was from the summer humidity, she poked at the bags under her eyes with disdain.

It wasn't like she'd had time to do much about her appearance this morning. Shortly after her dinner made a reappearance on the living room floor, her secondary alarm for work had gone off and she'd run into the bathroom took the quickest shower of her life, brushed her teeth while she scrubbed up, threw on her uniform and rushed out of the door promising the still upset duo in her house that they work this out when she got back. They called after her, but she was already gone.

She really hoped that the building was still standing when she got back. Though Dola hadn't been great about holding up her end of the deal with Fylson when it came to 'using her worldly eyes to guide his unwordly abilities' , she had seen him in action once. Back when they'd first met she hadn't been too convinced that the guy who saved her life in some freak accident actually had powers like he'd claimed and that he was probably just some weirdo that she was letting crash on her couch... And then, on one afternoon while they'd been out on an unpleasant and unavoidable trip out of town, he lifted a school bus full of kids that had been stuck on some train tracks that they'd stumbled across on their way back to the city. He'd lifted the bus on her command all by himself and moved it to the side without so much as breaking a sweat. The kids cried and thanked him, the bus driver ran up to hug him and then with a snap of their fingers everyone but Dola forgot what happened. They all went along on their way fussing over running late.

Fylson had climbed back in the car and casually asked her if she had any gum like he hadn't just lifted a twelve ton vehicle and saved at least thirty lives. Dola had been, understandably, gobsmacked by the whole thing and had said as much. He'd shrugged it off and said that it was normal for his people to be able to do such things and that people remembering him doing those things would be a pain in the ass for everyone. They drove home in silence the rest of the way. Dola began to believe in the unworldly that day.

So yeah. Now that there were two of them Dola had to admit she was a little worried that she'd come home to one of them, likely Fylson, throwing her fridge at the other and putting her security deposit at risk.

Maybe if she were lucky, they would decide that it was all too much of a bother and both leave while she was at work. That could work. No pretty boy startling her awake, no more neat freak Fylson nagging at her, sure she'd have to do all the housework herself now, but she had before.

Dola sighed as she snapped out of her thoughts in time to see a woman with a deep scowl on her face and a dripping brown paper bag stop before her at the customer service desk and slam the bag down on the desk with a heavy, wet smack.

"I have a return, I can't find the receipt, but I bought these chicken thighs last month. I ate most of it, but now the rest smells real weird. I shouldn't have to pay for this!"

Dola forced a patient smile and took in a deep breath through her nose and braced herself for what she knew was about to be a very exhausting conversation, "So sorry to hear that ma'am-"

---

Back at the apartment

---

Eirlan and Fylson been cooped up in the apartment for most of the day and now as the sun was setting found themselves hunkered down on opposite ends of the living room watching the other with distrust as they sipped on cans of sparkling water. For the first hour they'd agreed to be civilized and they had, but one sideways look had quickly turned into a yelling match and the yelling match nearly turned to blows until Mr. Onai from the apartment below came up and asked them to keep it down. Fylson had obliged to the kindly old man and instead took to cleaning up around the apartment to keep himself busy and to keep his mind away from throwing the refrigerator at Eirlan and telling Dola that the interloper decided on his own to leave when she got home.

The tactic worked. Fylson put on his taped together beat up headphones and started cleaning while Eirlan watched with disgust. Hours passed and Eirlan had watched Fylson clean the home of Dola from top to bottom. Literally. Fylson had washed all of the dishes, took out all of the trash, organized all of the shelves in the kitchen, cleaned the ceiling with what looked to Eirlan like a cloth on a stick and scrubbed the dirt out between the tiles of the bathroom with a small brush all while wearing a very out of place pink fruit patterned apron, dust mask and gloves.

For the life of him, Eirlan could not figure out what was going on here. Why was Fylson cleaning? Why was Dola working a normal job and not out on missions? The whole point of any of this was for Dola to find people in the world who needed help and to guide Fylson to use his powers to help them. That was the long and short of the contract. So what was going on here? Perhaps it was a good thing this error happened, from where Eirlan stood, Fylson was not fit for this job and only with someone structured and responsible like Eirlan would order be restored. This was what Eirlan had decided when Fylson told Eirlan that here was only a bit of time until Dola got back and handed him a can of liquid that Eirlan had not seen before; he called it sparkling water.

"I still think the best option is to report this to management and have them advise us on what to do next." Eirlan insisted quietly for what must have been the millionth time that day, but first time in the last few hours. Fylson rolled his eyes.

"You would think that's the best option, wouldn't you?" Fylson scowled, cracking open his own drink and leaning back against the fridge, "Shut up and drink your drink before you piss me off again." It had been bad enough that he was locked in the house all day with the guy who seemed to be eager to replace him, they didn't have to talk.

"Of course I think it's the best option! It's the only option" Eirlan fired back catching a second wind, "I did nothing wrong! I have nothing to hide!" He narrowed his eyes and looked to Fylson with disdain, "Can the same be said about you? From where I sit, it looks to me as if you are slacking on your work." Eirlan accused, squaring his shoulders and crossing his legs.

"You know, maybe I should be grateful." Fylson smirked between a sip of his drink, "Sometimes I think having a contract to Dola is so annoying and tiring and that it would be better to be back home. Now that you're here, I remember how annoying almost everyone back home is. When you leave, because you will leave, I will remember to be more grateful in the future."

"Oh yes, it's everyone back home that's the problem," Eirlan rolled his eyes setting the bubbly drink to the side, "there's no way it's you that's the problem. Even back in academy you were-"

"Don't you, of all people. even bring up academy!" Fylson boomed slamming his drink down and spilling water all over the counter he'd just cleaned. They both glared at each other from across the room a long moment. The room was filled with tension and the sound of Mr. Onai banging his broom on the ceiling in protest to their yelling.

Fylson was seeing red, while Eirlan just saw someone in over their head lashing out because he saw that Eirlan was in fact the better choice for the job. This was his first contract, he was not losing out to Fylson, the laughingstock of his class in academy of all people.

"I'm home." Dola appeared in the doorway swinging the front door open and nearly smacking Fylson as she did so. Both men turned to face her, Eirlan with a haughty look that insinuated that now that she was home she'd be on his side and Fylson with a dark look like he wanted to punch Eirlan through the wall all day and was barely resisting the urge, "Oh." Dola remarked as she took in the tension that had been building up over nine hours.

As she placed her bag down, she felt them watching her every move, waiting for her to address this, to fix this and she had no idea how to do either of those things. The work day had been draining and full of idiots who had no right to be upset with her. Now at home she had to deal with three idiots, herself included for getting into this mess, and all three of them had a reason to be upset with her. Fun.

"So are you ready to explain?" Fylson was asking between clenched teeth as she took her sweet time easing off her work vest, clearly trying to stall.

"Hah! Uh. You guys don't want to get a bite to eat or something first? You've been cooped up in the house all day and I'm starving-" Dola suggested hopefully.

"We can order in." Fylson replied with a tight unamused smile.

Damn, thwarted.

"Right." Dola sighed willing and able to think of a million things she'd rather do than to sit down and work this out. She would have rather plucked and counted her eyelashes one by one and then glued them back on in size order or worse; go back to work.

"Please, I simply would like some answers here. I'm very confused and he's been no help." Eirlan pleaded, rising from where he'd sat across the room and walking over to crowd into the small cluttered area near the door. He fixed watery honey eyes and Fylson watched her with a clear anxiety behind the anger that she'd never seen before and Dola felt bad for trying to side step this.

"Fine." She tossed her head back, shoulders sagging because she really just wanted to go to bed, "Let's work this out."