Work Text:
Bela loves coffee, but she hates coffeeshops. And at the moment, she really hates both Java Hut and the joined-at-the-lips couple imposing themselves on one of her shifts.
"Oh my God, would you look at the pair of them, Alexandra…" Bela heaves a sigh and leans against the counter, watching as Deanna Winchester and Cassidy Novak occupy one of the sofas with their… obnoxiously, adorably, sugary sweet love. Kissing each other and whispering little endearments as though there's nobody else in the entire coffeeshop.
"They're so in love with each other. They're so… cute. It's hateful," Bela says, glaring up at her adoptive sister and receiving, for her troubles, a taste of Alex Crowley's Thoroughly Unimpressed Face Number Twelve. The one that says, no, really, do go on instead of giving me my coffee—it isn't that I don't agree with you, it's just that I don't want to be stuck around them any more than you do.
Rolling her eyes, Bela huffs and hops to on serving up Alex's latte. Ava fetched the new bottle of vanilla flavoring several minutes ago now, but it's been so hard for Bela to get a minute with her big sister since Alex started at Edlund University's graduate division. Nigh on impossible. And there's hardly anyone in the shop right now, which is entirely why Sarah hasn't abused her manager's privileges to yell at Deanna and Cas for making a spectacle of themselves on the sofa.
Besides which, Ruby's sitting over at her favorite table. And she might be neck-deep in a textbook right now, but she's fond of Cas, in her peculiar, uniquely Ruby sort of way, so she'd probably jump out of the woodwork to tell Sarah all about how her internalized heterosexism and internalize homophobia are ruining everything forever, how fucking dare she tell those sweet girls to stop Frenching each other on the couch. Never mind that Sarah usually yells at everyone who makes out on the sofa, regardless of sex, gender identity, or orientation.
But at least the current lack of patronage means that there's less of a rush to do anything. So, Bela's dallied on giving her sister a coffee, holding out on it in exchange for conversation and hearing anything about what all Alex has been up to lately, like some reverse Scheherazade.
This whole business is especially hateful for taking away one of the things that Bela loves the best in this world, and as she pumps up the foam to the exact quantity and consistency that Alex likes, Bela can't help slipping into some cheery revenge fantasies. Shaking out her ponytail by way of trying to banish them and soundly failing. Thinking that she'd love to bury one of her sneakers in Deanna Winchester's sanctimonious ass.
Because it's not entirely true, saying that she hates coffeeshops. She's trying to tell herself that more and more of late, because it might make these working conditions easier, for all it hasn't yet. In truth, Bela loves coffeeshops. She loves them regardless of the quality of the interior design (though nicer places are higher on her list of favorites), and she loves them regardless of how many asshole baristas she's ever met. She loves the smell of the coffee and the flavoring, and the arrangement of sofas and chairs, and she loves watching all the different, interesting customers as they elbow each other, trying to find space in the line, or fighting their way to the counter for their orders, or just sitting and reading and drinking their drinks.
Very, very specifically, Bela hates having to work at a coffeeshop on top of everything else in her life just because she needs money, her internship at the Visyak Gallery doesn't pay, and shop-lifting is a problem she's supposed to have left behind in That One Bad Year (the one in middle school, right after her Mother's death, her Father's arrest, and coming to her foster family). Java Hut used to be one of her favorite places, but standing on the other side of the counter is so much less fun. So far, the only things that Bela's gotten out of it are pittances, headaches, and a desire to put her fist through a brick wall.
She's well on her way to forgiving the asshole baristas, at that. Because Bela loves coffeeshops, but she hates having to work at one. And she's coming to understand why so many of them might have been pricks. Deanna and Cassidy aren't even that unusual around their campus—having to watch that and deal with other customers on top of that could turn anybody into a raging bastard. The nicest of people could succumb to the urge to vent frustrations on the customers, even though they aren't supposed to do so—and Bela was hardly the nicest of people before she took this job.
Sighing from the weight all of that's set dragging around her mind, Bela puts the travel cap on top of Alex's latte, hands the cup off to her. She stares at her sister, so close to begging her for some kind of relief from this, to playing the, but you're my big sister, now do your job and protect my interests card. For all there are enough witnesses to make it a bad idea, Bela pouts at Alex in lieu of begging. For now.
Alex arches one of her finely-arched eyebrows and huffs, smirking. "I know how much you hate this job, Darling," she drawls, "but it's going to make itself good for you in the long run. The same way that my stint waiting tables at the Roadhouse did me."
"Yes, but the Roadhouse has better employers than Mister Smith," Bela points out, wrinkling her nose. "Professor Harvelle's family actually runs a respectable institution, with rules and standards of behavior that make sense. Mister Smith… well, he rather speaks for himself—or would, if he were around often enough to do so."
In nearing six months of working here (and several more of paying it patronage beforehand), Bela has actually only met her employer thrice. Each time, he struck her as a well-meaning enough man, but unpredictable, perhaps unstable, and rather flighty, from the tips of his flyaway brown hair to the soles of his sneakers. And she tries to convey all of this to Alex by simply staring at her. Retracting the pout and pressing her lips into a thin, hard line because this might just make Alex understand the seriousness of the situation, how dangerously close to ripping apart Bela's fraying nerves are.
Alex sighs, and gives Bela an affectionate roll of her eyes. For a moment, Bela slouches, sure that Alex is just going to leave—but Alex pauses once she's turned around, and fixes her glare directly on Deanna and Cas. "Excuse me," she starts, in the voice she uses that sounds like sugar-coated poison.
When they don't respond, Alex cuts right to the point, snapping: "Oi! You two! A certain Ms. Blake isn't saying anything out of some desire to be polite and avoid a conflict, but are the pair of you utterly incapable of going anywhere without reminding the rest of us that your relationship is the sweetest thing since those rainbow-crapping, sparkly, flying baby seals? There are other people in this coffeeshop, you know—and you're giving everyone an absolute toothache. At least two lesbians and one bisexual woman—Sarah, my sister, and myself, respectively—wish that you'd have just the slightest bit of decorum and stop. Argue in public, but snog in the dormitory, kittens."
She saunters off without another word, leaving Deanna and Cassidy to gape at her back, then blink at Bela as though she's obligated to explain what in the world that was about. Even with Cas furrowing her brow, looking pouty and sad and perhaps the slightest bit betrayed, Bela just shrugs. Smirks like the fat cat in a canary cage.
"Well," she says as though she has no idea what just happened, either. "I mean, she does have a point. You could dial it back a few hundred notches and cut the PDA back by a lot without loving each other any less, you know."