Butter Pecan #3, Watermelon #15, Coffee #5
Author: winebabe
Title: A Visita
Story: LNOVERKILL
Rating: PG (Content: Death mention, nothing graphic.)
Flavor(s): Butter Pecan #3: soft; Watermelon #15: where did everybody go?; Coffee #5: purse
Word Count: 1847
Summary: A lot has changed in the last few months.
Notes: Adelaide Auer-Beckford, Matthias Elizalde. End of November, immediately post-canon.
“Here,” Adelaide announced suddenly, lifting her head from the cold glass of the car’s window to turn to the driver. “Drop me off here.”
The driver, a white man nearly a decade older than her, frowned and slowed the car to a crawl, but he didn’t stop. “Here? But this area doesn’t look safe.”
“It doesn’t look safe for you?” Adelaide shot back, gathering up her purse in her arms. “Or it doesn’t look safe for me?” He had a point, of course; there she was, in a short, expensive dress and heels that probably wouldn’t survive if she had to take off in a hurry. The area itself wasn’t too bad, and she knew from experience, but it was dark already, the clock on his dashboard reading 10:47 p.m.
The driver held up his hands and brought the car to a complete stop. “Fine.”
She fumbled with door’s handle a little dramatically before staggering out into the night, a gust of wind blowing her lavender-tipped afro all to one side of her head as she made her way onto the sidewalk. The car sped off the second her feet hit the pavement. Adelaide walked to a nearby apartment building and sat down on the cement steps that led to the entrance.
Mid-November was cold, even by Midwestern standards, and Adelaide huddled inside her black pea coat, her face buried up to her eyes in a thick, wine-colored scarf. The boots she was wearing were more for aesthetic than warmth, the velvety black exterior providing little protection; she could feel the cold in her toes already. But she told herself she wouldn’t have to wait long. She had faith.
Rising above the roofs of the houses and buildings across the street, the steeple of the nearby Catholic church loomed ominously against the gray sky. Adelaide, who had been raised more on folklore and home remedies than bible verses and prayer, vaguely took comfort in the sight, though. It occurred to her that they would have had Clark’s funeral there, if they’d been given the option to do so. Even then, a month after their death, none of them had any idea what had been done with Clark’s body. All the group knew of their parents was that Clark was full-blooded Italian; they hadn’t said if their parents were still living, or where they were. In all the months of their friendship with Clark, it hadn’t come up.
Adelaide dug around in her purse and pulled out her phone. It would have taken only a few seconds to send a text, let Matthias know she was sitting on his doorstep, waiting. She knew that if she did, he’d rush right home. It wasn’t what she wanted.
After Clark’s death, after the Feds showed up with that scientist in tow--everything had shifted irreparably. Quentin ran to Laurel and threw himself into his psychology studies, deserting Henry and his grandiose ideas of a society taken into their power through passion and molotov cocktails. Quentin wanted calm; Adelaide couldn’t blame him. It had been fun, for a while, getting up in front of a crowd of people just as angry as they were and fueling what they believed to be a righteous fire. It had been fun until people started dying.
Henry needed Matthias after it all. Adelaide had watched their relationship go from awkward, mutual pining-and-avoiding to something that more closely resembled a real connection with one another. Despite the fact that they’d liked each other all along, Adelaide was still bitter about the shift. She needed Matthias, too. He was her friend first, after all.
Adelaide passed the time by scrolling through her Tumblr dashboard. Clark used to be one of her mutuals on there, and she knew if she went back to check their blog, it would be frozen in time; they’d never cared to set up a queue or schedule posts. But she couldn’t go back and look at her friend’s final posts in the hours before their death.
Matthias’s voice finally broke through Adelaide’s focus long before she realized she wasn’t alone on the street anymore. “Dede?” he asked from just a couple feet away, close enough that she should have heard him approaching. “What are you doing here?”
Adelaide pocketed her phone and looked up at him with a placid smile. “It’s been a while, Mati.”
Matthias sighed and dragged his fingers back through his curls. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He offered her a hand and said, “Come on, let’s go inside.”
Matthias’s apartment was on the second floor, and always smelled like paint thinner and one specific kind of green incense Adelaide had never learned the name of. It had been weeks since she’d last been there, and it was comforting to know that at least some things hadn’t changed.
Matthias took his heavy winter jacket off and left it in a heap beside the door, before immediately making a beeline for the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked, and Adelaide laughed.
“You spent all day making coffee, and the first thing you want to do when you get home is make more?”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Matthias replied with a smile. He dumped a couple tablespoons of grounds into his French press, and then took the pot to the sink to fill it up. “I’m making enough for both of us.”
“That’s fine,” Adelaide told him. She wandered around the combined space of Matthias’s living room and kitchen, taking in the half-finished paintings propped against one of the walls and the stack of textbooks spread across the coffee table. The only thing that looked different was the amount of cigarettes left sticking up in the glass ashtray. Either Matthias had gotten lax about dumping it out, or he was smoking more.
The gas stove came to life with a hiss when Matthias turned it on, and Adelaide watched as the blue flame erupted around the bottom of the small pot. “We need some music, I think,” he said, and opened up his laptop on the counter.
Adelaide smiled and walked over to the window, taking in the view. The church steeple was even clearer, and she could see the bell inside, dark and shadowed by the brick encasing it. The familiar sounds of Silva started softly from the laptop, growing louder as Matthias repeatedly hit the volume button.
“It’s just like old times,” he announced as he danced over to Adelaide and took her hands in his. With a gentle tug, Matthias pulled her away from the window, released one of her hands, and then spun her around once.
Adelaide laughed. “Do you do this with Henry?”
“I don’t think he’d let me,” Matthias admitted.
After a few minutes, she pulled her other hand from his grasp and then wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you, Mati.”
“I know, Dede. I’ve missed you, too.” He hugged her back, giving her one tight squeeze before releasing her. The water was boiling on the stove, and Matthias headed back over to the kitchen to grab it.
Adelaide took a seat at the small kitchen table and watched with her chin cupped in one hand as Matthias dumped the water into the French press. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask him, but she couldn’t form the sentences. Even the thought was making her heart pound.
Matthias lingered in the kitchen, leaning against the counter beside the French press. He pulled out his phone and messed with it for a few minutes while Adelaide listened to the music and stared off.
It was just like old times, to a degree. Before Adelaide moved out, she and Matthias used to spend hours just hanging out in what they’d dubbed the common area, listening to someone’s Spotify list and doing their separate thing, just enjoying having company.
“Here you go.” Matthias set a mug of milky coffee down in front of Adelaide, and then took a seat across from her, hands wrapped around his own mug.
“Thanks.” Adelaide slid the mug closer to her.
Matthias stared into his coffee for a few moments before he finally asked, “So, what were you doing here, anyway?”
“I was on a date. It wasn’t going well; I had him drop me off here and then just decided I’d wait for you to get home from work.” She wrapped her hands around the mug and sighed. “I just miss the way things were, you know? I miss the way they used to be.”
“I know, Dede,” he said, and reached out to hold her hand across the table. “But we’re not any different. Things between us aren’t different.”
Adelaide laughed. “How are they not, Mati? I don’t live here anymore, I don’t see you anymore; you’re always with Henry or at work. Sometimes you don’t even look at my texts until the next day.”
Matthias sighed. “Henry needs me, he--”
She pulled her hand away. “And I don’t?” Adelaide wasn’t sure how much of her expression was a glare and how much was a pout. It felt strange to be trying to have a serious and undoubtedly emotional conversation while listening to the light, upbeat music they used to play during art nights and study sessions.
“I know, I know,” Matthias said, dropping his gaze to the table for a moment. “It’s just that, well, you know he went through a lot the last month, and I’ve basically been chasing after him since the first time he walked into the coffee shop.” He laughed then, and in any other situation, Adelaide would have immediately started teasing him.
She couldn’t, though. Her throat felt tight, and she reached up to loosen the scarf around her neck. “I know Henry needs you,” Adelaide began softly, “but I don’t have anyone else. Quentin has Laurel, and Henry has you and Quentin, and I--” She abruptly stopped talking to take a deep breath and blink away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I had you and Clark, and now Clark is dead, and you’re not here.”
“I didn’t ask you to move out,” Matthias reminded her, but his voice was gentle. “You could have stayed here.”
“That’s not the point.” Adelaide rested her forehead in her hand, hiding her face from Matthias’s view. “You’re still supposed to make time for me. You’re still supposed to be my friend, too.”
“I know,” Matthias said, and she looked up when she heard the scrape of chair legs against the floor. Matthias circled around the table and leaned over her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you,” Adelaide whispered, reaching up to pat one of his arms.
Matthias pressed a kiss to her temple before he let go of her. “Do you want to stay over tonight? We never finished watching Kitchen Nightmares, and I think the last season is the absolutely worst.”
Adelaide nodded, laughing, as she finally picked up her coffee and took a sip. “Just like old times,” she agreed.
Title: A Visita
Story: LNOVERKILL
Rating: PG (Content: Death mention, nothing graphic.)
Flavor(s): Butter Pecan #3: soft; Watermelon #15: where did everybody go?; Coffee #5: purse
Word Count: 1847
Summary: A lot has changed in the last few months.
Notes: Adelaide Auer-Beckford, Matthias Elizalde. End of November, immediately post-canon.
“Here,” Adelaide announced suddenly, lifting her head from the cold glass of the car’s window to turn to the driver. “Drop me off here.”
The driver, a white man nearly a decade older than her, frowned and slowed the car to a crawl, but he didn’t stop. “Here? But this area doesn’t look safe.”
“It doesn’t look safe for you?” Adelaide shot back, gathering up her purse in her arms. “Or it doesn’t look safe for me?” He had a point, of course; there she was, in a short, expensive dress and heels that probably wouldn’t survive if she had to take off in a hurry. The area itself wasn’t too bad, and she knew from experience, but it was dark already, the clock on his dashboard reading 10:47 p.m.
The driver held up his hands and brought the car to a complete stop. “Fine.”
She fumbled with door’s handle a little dramatically before staggering out into the night, a gust of wind blowing her lavender-tipped afro all to one side of her head as she made her way onto the sidewalk. The car sped off the second her feet hit the pavement. Adelaide walked to a nearby apartment building and sat down on the cement steps that led to the entrance.
Mid-November was cold, even by Midwestern standards, and Adelaide huddled inside her black pea coat, her face buried up to her eyes in a thick, wine-colored scarf. The boots she was wearing were more for aesthetic than warmth, the velvety black exterior providing little protection; she could feel the cold in her toes already. But she told herself she wouldn’t have to wait long. She had faith.
Rising above the roofs of the houses and buildings across the street, the steeple of the nearby Catholic church loomed ominously against the gray sky. Adelaide, who had been raised more on folklore and home remedies than bible verses and prayer, vaguely took comfort in the sight, though. It occurred to her that they would have had Clark’s funeral there, if they’d been given the option to do so. Even then, a month after their death, none of them had any idea what had been done with Clark’s body. All the group knew of their parents was that Clark was full-blooded Italian; they hadn’t said if their parents were still living, or where they were. In all the months of their friendship with Clark, it hadn’t come up.
Adelaide dug around in her purse and pulled out her phone. It would have taken only a few seconds to send a text, let Matthias know she was sitting on his doorstep, waiting. She knew that if she did, he’d rush right home. It wasn’t what she wanted.
After Clark’s death, after the Feds showed up with that scientist in tow--everything had shifted irreparably. Quentin ran to Laurel and threw himself into his psychology studies, deserting Henry and his grandiose ideas of a society taken into their power through passion and molotov cocktails. Quentin wanted calm; Adelaide couldn’t blame him. It had been fun, for a while, getting up in front of a crowd of people just as angry as they were and fueling what they believed to be a righteous fire. It had been fun until people started dying.
Henry needed Matthias after it all. Adelaide had watched their relationship go from awkward, mutual pining-and-avoiding to something that more closely resembled a real connection with one another. Despite the fact that they’d liked each other all along, Adelaide was still bitter about the shift. She needed Matthias, too. He was her friend first, after all.
Adelaide passed the time by scrolling through her Tumblr dashboard. Clark used to be one of her mutuals on there, and she knew if she went back to check their blog, it would be frozen in time; they’d never cared to set up a queue or schedule posts. But she couldn’t go back and look at her friend’s final posts in the hours before their death.
Matthias’s voice finally broke through Adelaide’s focus long before she realized she wasn’t alone on the street anymore. “Dede?” he asked from just a couple feet away, close enough that she should have heard him approaching. “What are you doing here?”
Adelaide pocketed her phone and looked up at him with a placid smile. “It’s been a while, Mati.”
Matthias sighed and dragged his fingers back through his curls. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He offered her a hand and said, “Come on, let’s go inside.”
Matthias’s apartment was on the second floor, and always smelled like paint thinner and one specific kind of green incense Adelaide had never learned the name of. It had been weeks since she’d last been there, and it was comforting to know that at least some things hadn’t changed.
Matthias took his heavy winter jacket off and left it in a heap beside the door, before immediately making a beeline for the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked, and Adelaide laughed.
“You spent all day making coffee, and the first thing you want to do when you get home is make more?”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Matthias replied with a smile. He dumped a couple tablespoons of grounds into his French press, and then took the pot to the sink to fill it up. “I’m making enough for both of us.”
“That’s fine,” Adelaide told him. She wandered around the combined space of Matthias’s living room and kitchen, taking in the half-finished paintings propped against one of the walls and the stack of textbooks spread across the coffee table. The only thing that looked different was the amount of cigarettes left sticking up in the glass ashtray. Either Matthias had gotten lax about dumping it out, or he was smoking more.
The gas stove came to life with a hiss when Matthias turned it on, and Adelaide watched as the blue flame erupted around the bottom of the small pot. “We need some music, I think,” he said, and opened up his laptop on the counter.
Adelaide smiled and walked over to the window, taking in the view. The church steeple was even clearer, and she could see the bell inside, dark and shadowed by the brick encasing it. The familiar sounds of Silva started softly from the laptop, growing louder as Matthias repeatedly hit the volume button.
“It’s just like old times,” he announced as he danced over to Adelaide and took her hands in his. With a gentle tug, Matthias pulled her away from the window, released one of her hands, and then spun her around once.
Adelaide laughed. “Do you do this with Henry?”
“I don’t think he’d let me,” Matthias admitted.
After a few minutes, she pulled her other hand from his grasp and then wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you, Mati.”
“I know, Dede. I’ve missed you, too.” He hugged her back, giving her one tight squeeze before releasing her. The water was boiling on the stove, and Matthias headed back over to the kitchen to grab it.
Adelaide took a seat at the small kitchen table and watched with her chin cupped in one hand as Matthias dumped the water into the French press. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask him, but she couldn’t form the sentences. Even the thought was making her heart pound.
Matthias lingered in the kitchen, leaning against the counter beside the French press. He pulled out his phone and messed with it for a few minutes while Adelaide listened to the music and stared off.
It was just like old times, to a degree. Before Adelaide moved out, she and Matthias used to spend hours just hanging out in what they’d dubbed the common area, listening to someone’s Spotify list and doing their separate thing, just enjoying having company.
“Here you go.” Matthias set a mug of milky coffee down in front of Adelaide, and then took a seat across from her, hands wrapped around his own mug.
“Thanks.” Adelaide slid the mug closer to her.
Matthias stared into his coffee for a few moments before he finally asked, “So, what were you doing here, anyway?”
“I was on a date. It wasn’t going well; I had him drop me off here and then just decided I’d wait for you to get home from work.” She wrapped her hands around the mug and sighed. “I just miss the way things were, you know? I miss the way they used to be.”
“I know, Dede,” he said, and reached out to hold her hand across the table. “But we’re not any different. Things between us aren’t different.”
Adelaide laughed. “How are they not, Mati? I don’t live here anymore, I don’t see you anymore; you’re always with Henry or at work. Sometimes you don’t even look at my texts until the next day.”
Matthias sighed. “Henry needs me, he--”
She pulled her hand away. “And I don’t?” Adelaide wasn’t sure how much of her expression was a glare and how much was a pout. It felt strange to be trying to have a serious and undoubtedly emotional conversation while listening to the light, upbeat music they used to play during art nights and study sessions.
“I know, I know,” Matthias said, dropping his gaze to the table for a moment. “It’s just that, well, you know he went through a lot the last month, and I’ve basically been chasing after him since the first time he walked into the coffee shop.” He laughed then, and in any other situation, Adelaide would have immediately started teasing him.
She couldn’t, though. Her throat felt tight, and she reached up to loosen the scarf around her neck. “I know Henry needs you,” Adelaide began softly, “but I don’t have anyone else. Quentin has Laurel, and Henry has you and Quentin, and I--” She abruptly stopped talking to take a deep breath and blink away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I had you and Clark, and now Clark is dead, and you’re not here.”
“I didn’t ask you to move out,” Matthias reminded her, but his voice was gentle. “You could have stayed here.”
“That’s not the point.” Adelaide rested her forehead in her hand, hiding her face from Matthias’s view. “You’re still supposed to make time for me. You’re still supposed to be my friend, too.”
“I know,” Matthias said, and she looked up when she heard the scrape of chair legs against the floor. Matthias circled around the table and leaned over her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you,” Adelaide whispered, reaching up to pat one of his arms.
Matthias pressed a kiss to her temple before he let go of her. “Do you want to stay over tonight? We never finished watching Kitchen Nightmares, and I think the last season is the absolutely worst.”
Adelaide nodded, laughing, as she finally picked up her coffee and took a sip. “Just like old times,” she agreed.