Of Monsters and Men (opppppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeenenenenenenn)

"Thanks." He set them in his handbasket. "Fuck, uh. I don't know. I really need to eat, like, meat, but eating humans is frowned upon here and the others get expensive fast, so that's cool."

“Yeah, I’d say eating humans is bad,” Archer agreed with a nod. “Do they eat normal human food? I can work with that. I used to eat normal human food too.”

“I’d disagree with you, but I don’t got the time to argue with you ‘n explain my dietary needs… I think they eat normal shit..”

Archer shrugged. “Great, because that’s what they’re getting. I’ll just get whatever I think they’d enjoy then.”

“Yeh, alright. Just.. nothing too expensive, I still have to pay bills this month.” He sounded like he was joking, but his face was dead serious. “I’d say.. $50 max for all of us.”

“$50?” Archer exclaimed. “That’s a lot for some groceries. Wow, this should be fun!” He grinned, forgetting about inflation.

"$50 is.. barely anything." Klaus raised his eyebrows at him. "Especially not for groceries."

“Shit, really?” Archer asked, frowning in thought. “I really need to get out more.”

"You really do. What's $50 like in the 1910s? Like.. $200? I don't know the inflation shit."

Archer shrugged. “I barely know what $50 is worth now, so I don’t think I’d be much help. Anyway, better late than never, am I right?”

"Guess so." He walked around a bit, picking up a few things, occasionally stopping to do the mental math. "Alright.. This.. is the best we can do if we don't wan' go flat broke."

Archer watched, eyes wide. “Really? Maybe I should get a job too…it’s about time.”

"Maybe so.. you should look for open spots. I think Target is hiring."

Archer shrugged. “Okay, why not?” His face clouded suddenly. “Wait they have uniforms, don’t they? I’m sort of stuck in this outfit…other clothes fall right through me unless I concentrate on it, and I don’t know if I can do that for an entire work day.”

"Damn, didn' think'a that." He shrugged. "I dunno then.."

Archer bit his lip. “We can think of something, I’m sure…” he said hopefully.

"Yeah. You got a phone?" He looked at Archer, making his way towards the self checkout line. "God.. shitty line's fuckin' long as goddamn hell…"

“Um…no,” Archer said, his eyebrows raising at the curse words. He didn’t curse too much himself, so he was a taken a bit off guard by the cursing.

Klaus continued to grumble out a long string of expletives, glancing around at the other lines to see what was up. “Self checkout is fuckin’ long, but I can’t stand gettin’ the chatty cashiers that are always here.”

“It can’t be that long,” Archer responded, glancing at the line. “They have electronic scanner doodads, that looks quick to me.”

"In theory, it is, innit? But in practice, with this lot of brain-dead troglodytes, things get done at a healthy rate on one-scan-per-hour." He beckoned at the line, which wasn't going nearly as slow as he described, it was just that a lot of people had full buggies.

“Do they really need all of that food?” Archer asked, glancing at the overflowing cart of a nearby couple. “Maybe this will take a while. But at least you’re not alone, right? That would make it a lot worse, at least for me.”

"Who knows." He shrugged, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "A while? Try three decades. I guess it helps that you're here, but like… goddamn. This is a shitshow no matter how you spin it."

“Well, seeing as I’ve been alive for about twenty decades now, this should be nothing for me,” he responded with a shrug, unsure what else to say. He’d already tried to make Klaus feel better, and Archer was terrible with that kind of thing anyway.

He absentmindedly started petting his own hair again, feeling the fuzzy hair against his fingers. "Finally, we're movin'…"

Archer smiled slightly. “See? It’s not that long…” he replied optimistically.

"We'll see. I don't know how long this efficiency will last."

“We could play a game or something in the meantime?” Archer suggested, glancing at the people in front of them before looking back at Klaus.

“Ideas?” He white-knuckled the handbasket. “I don’t got any.”

“No, not really,” Archer responded, thinking. “We could play ‘I spy’ maybe?”