Chapter Text
The café is tiny, and looks sort of run-down from where you’re standing, on the cracked and uneven sidewalk out front. You double-check the address to be sure you’re in the right place, but—yes, the sign says Crocker Coffee & Tea. This is definitely the place Aradia told you about.
You hesitate before heading inside. Your ancient laptop is heavy in your bag, the strap digging uncomfortably into your shoulder. There isn’t time to find another place to sit and work—the final draft of your review of the latest Aranea Serket novel is due in just two hours. You knew you should’ve just stayed at home today, but damn it, you just weren’t getting anything done sitting there, sandwiched on the couch between your annoying as fuck roommates. You thought a change of scenery would be all you needed to get the words flowing.
With a sigh of resignation, you shove the door open with your shoulder. This place will have to do.
The inside is another story, however.
It’s so cozy, filled with plush furniture and mismatched wooden tables and chairs, with bookshelves lining the far wall. The light is warm and yellow, not too bright, and while the place is filled with the sounds of drinks being made behind the counter—clattering dishes, hissing steam—it isn’t cacophonous or anything. The music that’s playing isn’t too bad, either. Maybe...maybe Aradia was onto something after all.
The handful of patrons (roughly half human, half troll) don’t really take much notice of you as you stand just inside the door, looking around. You feel sort of self-conscious standing there anyway, so you approach the waiting barista, a tall human with freckles and pale hair (and wearing god damn sunglasses, indoors), and brusquely place your order: a decaf latte, with lusus milk.
“You got it, bro,” he says. “Have a seat and I’ll bring it to you.”
His voice immediately irritates you—it’s a quiet sort of monotone, almost a mumble—but you don’t make a big thing out of it. You just pay for your drink, fling a dollar into the tip jar, and turn on your heel to find a good seat.
You’re absorbed in your writing by the time your drink is ready. It’s been almost ten minutes since you ordered. You snatch the ceramic cup from the barista with barely contained impatience.
“Enjoy,” he says, with a little tilt of his head, like he’s looking you over or something. Hard to tell, with those douchey sunglasses hiding his eyes. You grunt in response and turn back to your laptop.
The latte is pretty, at least, even if it took for fucking ever—it’s decorated with a detailed, delicate leaf, drawn on top in steamed lusus milk. You glance over at the barista. He’s chatting with one of the human patrons, a blonde girl wearing an oversized knitted sweater. They’re smiling, talking in low voices. You look away when the girl notices you. Her eyes are a startling color—pink, like her sweater. You shake your head and gulp your drink. You’ve got a deadline to meet.
An hour and a half later, as you’re finishing up your work, your latte long gone, Aradia and Sollux stop by. You hold up a finger to stop them from trying to talk to you until you’ve hit send.
Finally, you sit back in your chair with a sigh of relief. Done. Just in time.
Sollux has gone up to the counter to place his order. Aradia is sitting in the seat across from yours at the small table. She’s looking around at the patrons, with her hands folded in front of her, waiting for you.
“So, Karkat,” Aradia says, a faint smile on her face. “How do you like this place? Was I right or what?”
“It’s okay,” you concede. “I might...think about coming back. To write here again.”
“I love this café,” she says. “They make the best double chocolate mocha. And the pastries are to die for.”
“If you say so,” you reply with a shrug. You’re not all that interested in pastries.
“Especially the croissants, oh my god,” Aradia gushes.
When Sollux returns to the table, you decide to order another latte to drink while you sit and talk to your friends.
The human barista is gone, his shift presumably over. In his place is a cheerful-looking cherub with bright green eyes.
“What’ll it be?” they ask with a smile. You place your order.
You sort of expect it to take an absurdly long time again, but it doesn’t—the cherub barista is much faster. They bring all three of your drinks to the table within a couple of minutes, setting them down with a wink.
“Enjoy!” they exclaim, returning to their place behind the counter with a bounce in their step.
You inspect your latte with a slight sense of disappointment. It may have been ready faster than the first one, but it’s also less...impressive. The art on top is a simple spiral.
It’s very good, though, so—you figure it can be forgiven.
You like this place, overall.
The next time you visit the café, a few days later, it’s to work on your own personal project—a screenplay for a romantic comedy. It’s the first one you’ve ever gotten close to actually finishing.
The human barista is back, and he’s still wearing those ugly god damn sunglasses. You’re beginning to think he never takes them off.
Again, he takes forever to make your drink. You wonder what could possibly be taking him so long, so this time, you set your writing aside. You watch him with narrowed eyes as he fumbles with the espresso machine, fumbles with steaming the milk, spills lusus milk all over the countertop, then gets distracted cleaning the countertop. You clear your throat when he turns away to start cleaning the sink, too, but he doesn’t appear to notice, so...
The direct approach, then.
“Hey, bulgelicker! Get back to making my drink already,” you bark, and he jumps, startled. He turns to face you, eyebrows raised over his shades, as if to ask are you talking to me?
You look around at the small handful of patrons. Only a couple seem to have noticed your shouting—the rest are wearing headphones, or absorbed in their own conversations.
The barista is still just...staring at you. You feel your brow furrow into an outright glare as you tap exaggeratedly at your wrist. Time’s wasting.
At last he appears to understand. His expression turns blank, straight-faced, and finally he returns to the task at hand. You try not to roll your eyes. You get back to work, banging away at your keyboard until he brings you your latte a few minutes later.
“Fucking finally,” you grumble as he sets it down next to you.
“Sorry it took so long to get ready,” he says, a tiny smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “This has never happened to me before, I swear.”
Then he’s gone.
Odd.
You don’t dwell on it. You’re really itching to get this scene completed—you’ve been turning it over in your mind all morning. You gulp your drink without even looking at it. You focus on writing, pleasantly losing track of time for a little while.
You pointedly ignore the barista, watching you drink your latte with a huge smile on his face. Whatever stupid hoofbeastshit he’s grinning about, you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being curious about it. He can choke on a bag of bulges in human hell for all you care.
When he comes back to the table to take your empty cup, he rudely interrupts your focus to ask whether you enjoyed putting that in your mouth. What a weirdo.
“It was fine,” you reply, annoyed. “Now fuck off and let me work.”
“Not too...hard to drink? Good mouthfeel? What about the taste—”
“Fondle my shame globes,” you growl.
He doesn’t fuck off just yet, even after that. He just laughs. “Hey, if you’re lucky, maybe,” he says, still grinning. It’s. Not cute at all. And his words didn’t—make you feel anything, like a—a twinge of sudden heat deep in your core. Christ, no.
You stare at him, unamused, until he finally leaves, but...when you try to get back into the scene you were writing, it’s no use. You’ve lost it. You can’t focus at all anymore. With a sigh, you pack up your things to go home.
Crocker Coffee & Tea soon becomes your de facto office whenever Sollux and Gamzee start to annoy you too much, which is...often. It’s tougher and tougher, lately, to get anything done at home. Easier to pack up your laptop and get on the bus and snag a table at the café for a few hours.
Word has spread among your friend group about the place, thanks to Aradia never shutting up about it, so you usually have company there—sometimes it’s just Nepeta and Feferi stopping by for iced coffees to go, but sometimes it’s a group of six or eight or more of your friends descending on the place, taking up all the available seating and filling the place with raucous laughter and conversation while you work.
Today, though, it’s just you—at least, for now.
Today, the barista is Sunglasses Douche. Your fucking favorite.
“The usual?” he asks as you approach the counter. He’s already punching it in on the register.
“Yeah,” you reply, pulling out your wallet to pay.
“Cute wallet,” he says, in that flat monotone of his. “It suits you.”
You glare down at your wallet. It’s bright red, shaped like a cartoon crab. It was a gift from Kanaya, for your eighth wriggling day—sweeps ago, now.
“Thanks?” you say, wondering just what he meant by that.
“You know, ’cause you’re so crabby and all,” he says, and, okay. You guess you don’t need to wonder what he meant after all.
You don’t bother replying. You just roll your eyes at him, and chuck a dollar into the tip jar, like always, and march to your usual seat.
“Dave is sort of good-looking, for a human, don’t you think?” Aradia asks under her breath.
You stop typing to look at her, sitting cross-legged next you in an overstuffed armchair. “Who’s Dave?” you ask, mystified.
Aradia doesn’t answer you right away. Instead, she asks, incredulously, “Karkat, how long have you been coming here?”
“I don’t know. Three weeks? A month?”
She shakes her head, smiling slightly. “I’m talking about him,” she says, gesturing subtly toward Shades Douche as he takes an elderly woman’s order.
“Good god, no,” you answer immediately, your face flushing with warmth. “Fuck that guy. What? Him, cute? Handsome? No. No, no no.”
Aradia smiles at you, and her gaze makes you squirm. “Oh,” she says. “Hmmm!”
You clamp your big mouth shut before it can dig you any deeper.
God damn it.
“This really doesn’t look like twelve ounces to me,” you say. “You must have measured something wrong.”
“It’s because you took a drink from it already,” Dave says, an edge of irritation creeping into his voice.
“It was just a fucking sip,” you mutter. “I’m telling you, you messed something up—”
He doesn’t let you continue. He plucks the ceramic cup from your hand, turning swiftly away, and says “Of course. My apologies. I’ll just go ahead and remake that for you.”
“Well,” you say, slightly puzzled by his quick change in attitude. “Well. Good.”
You stop leaning against the counter and go sit back down at your table. Vriska has been pestering you lately about some kind of group game night she’s been trying to organize—you spend a few minutes arguing with her about it over Pesterchum while you wait.
Finally, Dave approaches your table with your drink.
He grins as he hands it to you, like there’s some private joke he’s smiling about. You stare at his shades like somehow they’ll give you the answer, but of course, they don’t.
“Watch the teeth, will ya?” he says. “I mean, damn, those teeth...” He trails off. You roll your eyes, because you don’t really get why he’s talking about your fucking teeth right now, and also because...if he thinks your teeth are scary...
You mean, has he ever met another troll? Your teeth are nothing compared to Eridan’s, or Terezi’s.
He stands beside your table and watches as you take a sip, seeming to hold his breath. His cheeks are turning slightly pink, for some reason. You can’t look away, you’re strangely fascinated by the sight, and there it is again, annoyingly—that little flare of alarm and arousal, igniting down deep in your belly. You maybe don’t quite understand what he’s getting at with all the stupid shit he says, but...still.
He’s so—
Simultaneously attractive and fucking repellent—
Infuriating.
You take another long drink from your cup. It’s just something to do to occupy yourself for a moment—so you don’t have to speak.
He says, “You’re really goin’ for it, man. Guess you like it, huh?”
He turns away then, grinning, his face still all pink, and your stomach flip-flops.