Title: Rules of the Shop
Fandom: Black Books
Rating: PG
Length: 575
Content notes: None.
Author notes: For fan_flashworks Challenge #5, "Five Things". Because even if we don't know all the rules of Black Books, we know they're making Manny suffer.
Summary: Bernard's shop, Bernard's rules. Manny's burden.



01. No Mobiles

Manny cowers behind the desk, hands over his eyes as he listens to the sickly, dying warble of a customer's mobile.

Former customer.

Former mobile.

He peeks over the edge of the desk, squinting through the layer of ash and sticky wine that coat the surface like inch-thick fur.

In the center of the shop, Bernard raises a meat tenderizer overhead and gives a mad giggle. "It's his own fault," he announces to the shop. "The rules are clear. Written right there on the board."

POUND. THWACK.

"Mobiles are forbidden. Always."

CRUNCH.

02. No Walkmans.

"What have I said? I know I am speaking, I can hear myself speaking, and still. Ignored! Ignored like a tramp in the street!"

Manny dives over the table and pushes the customer out the door with a broom. "Save yourself!" he shouts over the tinny sounds emerging from the black foam covering the woman's ears. "Run! Don't look back!"

He turns in time to see Bernard snap the curtains open and stalk from the kitchen, his long black coat fluttering. "I heard a Walkman, Manny. I heard it. Find a burlap sack, a rock, and a river."

Manny holds up a bottle of wine, retrieved from behind a collection of Vauxhall service manuals. "Bernard. Bernard. Bernard." He weaves in front of Bernard, bottle held up in supplication. "Wine, Bernard. Look. Wine."

Bernard freezes in place, eyes locked on the bottle. "The good stuff?"

"Three pounds!"

Bernard snatches the bottle and bites out the cork. "Fine. The Walkman may live. For now."

03. None of that.

Bernard staggers out of the kitchen and flops into the chair behind the desk. "Wine. And stop it this instant."

Manny looks down from the top of the ladder and stops attempting to remove the dust brush stuck in his hair. "Wine is right in front of you. Stop what?"

"Cleaning." Bernard pours a glass and lights a cigarette in the same motion. "It attracts customers."

"The dirt is attracting rats, Bernard."

"Rats can't see the till and they never ask stupid questions. They're better than customers. If they could read, I'd become their king." He drains his wine in two swallows without removing the cigarette from his mouth. Refilling the glass, he stares at Manny. His expression doesn't change as he pegs the empty bottle at Manny. "Clean that up. This place is a sty."

04. Or any of the others.

"No." Bernard sweeps a cricket bat across the table and knocks all of the books onto the floor. Manny's carefully arranged stacks and artful displays end in a heap around his ankles. He doesn't move as Bernard pokes him in the chest with the bat. "No," Bernard says again. "We're not fancy. Customers hate fancy shops, with bright lights and shining floors and the alphabet. They want dingy, dusty shops where it takes them a year to find a moldy book."

Manny narrows his eyes. "You won't let me clean the shop, you won't let me leave the shop dirty. I'm beginning to think that you tell me to do whatever I'm not doing just because it amuses you."

Bernard tosses the cricket bat out the front door and lights a cigarette. "You're sleeping on the sofa tonight, Manny."

05. No. Just no.

"Manny, Manny, Manny, Manny."

"Bernard, I was going to--"

"No."

"But Fran invited--"

"No."

"But you said I could--"

"No."

"But Berna--"

"No. Shut up. Wine."