Fic: Caffeine and Love 1/2 [Glee]
Title: Caffeine and Love
Author: teaboytoaliens
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: None.
Word Count: ~11k
Summary: In between cleaning stainless steel counter tops and making cups of coffee at his job as manager of Anderson Coffee Inc. in Midtown Manhattan, Blaine dreams of breaking out of the shell he’s been trapped in all his privileged life-though of course his father would never allow him to strike off on his own. When someone sets up shop in the abandoned building next to the coffee shop, Blaine thinks nothing of it save that at least his father won’t complain about it going into disrepair anymore. That is, he thinks nothing of it until he meets Kurt Hummel. Then it basically all goes to shit.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Fox's Glee nor do I make that claim. Original creations of this story, including, but not limited to, characters, settings, and plot, are copyright to me.
Author's Notes: Written for naderegan at the kb-holidays fic exchange.
Prologue: May
So this is how the world ends, Blaine thinks to himself while lying in a rather comfortable bed without any clothes on, staring at a ceiling that is definitely not his own. With a sort of hiccup and the sound of someone making tea.
---
(The Prior)
December
“The problem with this time of year is that it’s always so fucking cold,” Santana Lopez declares as she enters the coffee shop, stomping her faux leather boots on the mat just inside the door. “Especially at five in the morning.”
Blaine Anderson looks up from the stainless steel counter top he’s wiping down. “You’re late,” he informs her. “And clean up that slush you’ve just gotten everywhere.”
Santana rolls her eyes. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Five minutes to opening!” Sam Evans declares in a rather terrifyingly good automated voice impersonation, his voice an echo from the break room before he appears behind the counter, tapping his bright yellow plastic watch.
“Yes, thank you, Sam,” Blaine says, rinsing off his cloth and hanging it up above the sink. He grabs Santana’s apron out of the break room and goes out to where she’s wiping up the dirty puddle of water by the door. “Here,” he offers, holding out the apron to her.
She stands and takes it, looping it around her neck and pretending to hang herself with it as she shrugs off her jacket. Blaine raises an eyebrow and she scoffs at him. “Where’s my coffee?” she asks, tying the apron behind her.
“The machines await you,” Blaine says, gesturing grandly at the counter. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
Sam leans against the order counter, watching as Santana dumps her stuff in the break room and clocks in before coming back out, closing the curtain neatly behind her and chucking the paper towels soaked in dirty water at Sam’s head. He ducks and they hit the pastry display case behind him.
“Throw that in the garbage for me, will you, dear?” Santana coos, drifting over to the espresso machine.
Sam tosses out the paper towel without complaint, then checks his watch. “Time,” he says. Blaine turns on the open sign and takes a deep breath.
And so begins another tedious day in Blaine Anderson’s job as manager of Anderson Coffee Inc.
“So, boss, how about that weather?” Sam quips, back to leaning against the order counter.
Blaine sits on a stool behind the counter. “It’s normal,” he replies.
“It’s shit,” Santana contributes, knocking back a shot of espresso straight and smacking her lips.
Blaine winces. “Did you just burn your mouth or are you literally so hot blooded that you should probably be able to breathe fire or something?”
“I’m the dragon queen, baby,” Santana declares, but she’s getting cold water from the sink at the same time, so it doesn’t have the greatest impact.
“Like from World of Warcraft?” Sam muses aloud.
Their first customer of the morning chooses that moment to push his way through the door, breathing into his gloved hands and rubbing them together.
“Good morning,” Sam greets him. “What can I get for you?”
“A large triple suicide, please,” the man says. He adjusts his scarf--clearly designer, from what Blaine can remember of the latest collections--and smiles wanly. “It’s early.”
“I feel you,” Sam says, tapping the order into the register. “Is that everything?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Santana already has the drink--a drip coffee with three shots of espresso--ready by the time the man is finished paying, and she hands it to him with a smile. “Come again!”
The man nods, brushing at his coiffed hair, and turns to leave.
“He was good looking,” Santana comments when the door swings shut behind him. “In a sort of elfin, pale skinned, skinny way.” She raises a suggestive eyebrow at Blaine.
“He had some sort of art major written all over him,” Sam observes.
Blaine raises his eyebrows right back at the two of them. “Agreed. Fashionable, too.”
He’s saved from having to declare the objectification of a customer a finished conversation when another customer comes in. From there, the next three hours are filled with people coming and going, the line seeming to grow longer rather than get shorter as time passes.
By the time eight-thirty rolls around and there isn’t so much a line as just a good few people coming in every so often, Blaine is wide awake, his fingers twitching in a mockery of operating the espresso machine--the product of a childhood spent growing up working at the coffee shop. Sam just looks bit tired, but Santana, however, looks about ready to fall over.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” Blaine asks her.
“Not enough for this shit,” Santana groans.
“Careful what you say to your boss there,” Blaine teases. She rolls her eyes at him. He laughs quietly. “Go take f... ten. You can take ten while Sam and I handle this.”
She smiles almost gratefully at him and brushes past him to go into the break room.
“So, someone bought the building next door,” Sam says conversationally, leaning against the pastry display case and checking his fingernails.
“Yeah, it was sold more than a month ago,” Blaine says.
“No, I mean, like, there are actually people over there doing something with it,” Sam says. “The exterior has a new paint job, did you notice? And I heard a couple customers commenting on a new sign in the window. Apparently Anderson Coffee Incorporated is lucky enough to sit adjacent to Hummel Tea and Love, coming soon.”
Blaine contemplates the new information. “Interesting.”
Sam nods. “Do you think they’ll be competition? Once they open, I mean.”
“Remains to be seen, I suppose.” Blaine shrugs. “People will always want their coffee, I think.”
“Fair point,” Sam agrees. “I wonder what statistics say about people liking tea versus coffee...” He pulls out his smart phone, tapping the keys. He frowns. “Well, tea’s better for you... I think Americans like coffee more? I don’t know.” He shoves the phone back in his pocket and shrugs.
Blaine shrugs back. “Here comes a customer,” he points out. “Is Santana’s ten minutes up yet?”
Sam checks his watch. “In a minute,” he says. “Good morning! What can I get for you?” he directs toward the customer.
Blaine turns to get Santana--likely wake her up from her nap against a wall, if he knows her at all--thinking about what Sam said about the new tea house. He resolves to definitely check it out when it opens.
---
“No, that goes over there,” Kurt Hummel says, frustration evident in his voice.
“Sorry, Hummel,” Noah Puckerman replies, changing his direction while carrying a likely rather heavy section of a light green booth bench. Kurt sighs and tries not to focus on how hot his freelance contractor guy looks.
“The tea house is really starting to look good!” Rachel Berry, his best friend (though the label is up for debate most days), gushes. “You’re going to do great here, I just... can feel it in the air!”
“Is the sense of doing good the same as holiday spirit or something?” Kurt asks.
“Sure!” Rachel says, oblivious to Kurt’s heavy tone of sarcasm. “Oooh, are you going to decorate it for the holidays? If so, you should really think about incorporating Chanukah, becau--”
“Yeah, cool it, Berry,” Kurt interrupts. “I need to get the actual year round decorating done first.”
“Of course, of course. Just a thought...” Rachel leans in closer to him. “I do have to comment, this guy you’ve hired is good looking.”
Kurt snorts at her. “You’re not supposed to be checking out the workers, you’re supposed to be checking out the building.”
“Oh please, like you weren’t checking him out, too,” Rachel scoffs. “I already told you my opinion on the building! It’s a great location, too, not too far from the apartment, especially when contrasted to proximity to the theatre district and where the business men are likely to be heading in the morning.”
“Yeah, sure, but business men are more likely to go to the coffee shop next door. From what I hear it’s been here for years.”
Rachel shakes her head. “Not necessarily. According to your plans this place is going to be pretty homey--the atmosphere might be appealing.”
“Fair point. I got a coffee from there this morning--it’s very silver. There’s a lot of stainless steel and spotless white floors and white chairs. You get my point.”
“I’ll check it out on my way home,” Rachel says.
“All right. What do you think about the counter placement?” Kurt inquires. “I was thinking it needed to be a bit further out, to give more space for the kitchen, but that might significantly inhibit floor and table space.”
Rachel tilts her head in contemplation. “It looks good from here.”
“I think you’ve got it in about the right spot,” Puckerman contributes, joining the conversation now that he’s done setting up a corner of the shop to be approved by Kurt. “I’ve been all around and it’s pretty easy to navigate. There’s a fair amount of space.”
Kurt nods. “But what about once we get appliances back there?”
Puck furrows his eyebrow. “Where were you thinking of moving it out to?”
Kurt marks off a distance with his foot, standing there with a questioning expression on his face.
“I think half that distance would do it,” Puck decides after a moment. “You agree?”
Rachel nods. “Your judgement seems sound.”
“Great,” Kurt says. “That’ll be another thing to get done. I’m starting to regret this December 15th grand opening deadline.”
“No, it’ll be fantastic, Kurt,” Rachel protests. “Doesn’t tea make you think of the winter? People can come in here to get warm and socialize and--”
“It’ll still be winter in January,” Kurt says.
“But the holidays,” Rachel emphasizes.
“Yeah, Hummel, listen to the lady. The holidays.” Puck smirks.
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Back to work with you,” he says. “The set up over there looks just right.”
“Yes, sir,” Puck says smartly.
“You are going to have it open for the holidays, though, right?” Rachel asks as she watches Puck walk across the shop and pick up a drill. Kurt is pretty sure she’s shamelessly checking out his ass. He doesn’t really blame her.
“What’s with your obsession with the holidays?” Kurt shoots back, coming to stand next to her. “And yeah, I made my deadline and I’m sticking to it. My dad will be coming for a few days to see it during Christmas, so I had better have it open.”
“Oh, Burt’s coming to the city?” Rachel looks at him, eyes open wide. “What if I invited my dads, too, and Burt could bring Carole and we’ll have Chrismukkah here!”
Kurt stares at her. “Are you forgetting how big our apartment is? And you know if Burt and Carole come, Finn will want to as well.”
Rachel waves a hand at him. “Whatever. Please, Kurt, it’d be so much fun!”
He shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t. There is nowhere for people to sleep. And I don’t want to buy food, or have to buy decorations for the apartment, or--”
Rachel sighs. “This discussion isn’t over, Kurt Hummel,” she vows, shaking a finger at him. “But I have an audition at twelve, so I’m going to head out and grab an early lunch. Do you want me to bring you back something on my way uptown?”
“That would be great. Just whatever you feel like getting is good,” Kurt says. “Thanks for coming by.”
“Of course,” Rachel says, smiling. She waves as she exits the tea house.
Rachel almost walks past Anderson Coffee Inc. before she remembers that she had said she would check it out. She turns on the sidewalk, ducking past someone, and slips inside. Immediately she’s struck by how accurate Kurt’s description had been--it certainly is silver inside. It gives off a kind of industrial feel, she thinks.
“Good morning!” a tanned woman wearing a red apron, her brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail, greets Rachel. When Rachel moves closer, she can see that the name tag attached to the woman’s apron reads SANTANA in bold capital letters. “What can I get for you?”
“What do you recommend for an early lunch?” Rachel asks while scanning the menu above Santana’s head at the same time.
“Well, Sam makes a mean sandwich... Any eating habits I should know about?”
“I’m vegan,” Rachel says, surprised by the question. “Nice of you to ask.”
Santana smiles. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself by recommending the ham sandwich. It’s happened before. In that case, Sam could whip you up a veggie sandwich. Or, hm--”
“That sounds perfect,” Rachel says. “I’ll take a ham one, too, actually. I’m taking my friend back some food. A medium coffee and a large non-fat mocha, too, please.”
“Sure thing,” Santana says, punching the order in. She takes a couple steps back and turns her head. “Sam!” To Rachel, she adds, “Trust me, he makes way better sandwiches than I do. It’s some sort of voodoo magic.”
Rachel laughs. A blonde guy Rachel assumes is Sam comes out from behind a curtain, looking at Santana questioningly.
“Make this lady a sandwich?” Santana asks, raising her eyebrows menacingly.
“Sure thing,” Sam says, nodding to Rachel. She smiles back and he moves to the other side of the counter, looking at the display screen above the espresso machine.
“So, how long has this shop been here?” Rachel asks, handing over cash to Santana.
“Oh, years,” Santana says, making change. “The guy who manages it now’s father bought it when it was a failing excuse for a coffee shop and built it from the ground up. It’s the most popular joint in the area, I think.” She hands Rachel her change. Rachel stuffs a few dollar bills in the tip jar.
“Any trepidation about the new tea house next door?”
“Is that what it is?” Santana asks, flipping a switch on the coffee machine.
“Yeah,” Sam contributes. “Hummel Tea and Love, coming soon.”
“Huh,” Santana hums.
“To answer your question,” Sam says, “the boss didn’t seem too bothered yet. He said he would have to check it out when it opens.”
Rachel nods. “Well, be sure to tell him December 15th! That’s the grand opening.”
“Really? The sign didn’t say that.” Sam wraps the second sandwich up and puts them both in a bag. “Here you go.”
“I’m friends with the new owner,” Rachel explains.
“That’s cool,” Sam says as Santana puts down two cups of coffee in front of Rachel.
“Thank you,” Rachel says, tucking the bag gingerly into her oversized purse and picking up the coffees. “I’ll see you around!”
“Thanks for coming in,” Santana says, waving to Rachel as she leaves. Rachel raises one of her coffee cups in a sort of wave before the door swings shut behind her.
“That was interesting,” Sam comments. “She’s very perky.”
“Did she stop smiling at all the entire time she was in here?” Santana asks. “My face started to hurt whenever I looked at her.”
Sam laughs. “It was cute.”
“She was cute. You know, in a pea coat wearing, bangs having, way too peppy sort of way. Not my type,” Santana decrees.
“Not your type?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. “Weren’t you dating that brunette Asian girl that works here for a bit? She was always peppy, too.”
“Shut up, Samuel,” Santana snaps. “As if I want to talk about my failed relationships.”
“My name’s not actually Samuel,” Sam says, smirking a bit.
Santana rolls her eyes. “I know that, Samuel.”
Sam snorts. “You’re a loser.”
“You’re a freak. I’m going to take a nap against the wall before the lunch rush starts coming in.”
“You need a bed in there,” Sam observes.
“Tell that to our dear Mr. Anderson,” Santana says. “I’ve asked!”
“Of course you have.”
---
Blaine flops down on the bed in his apartment and blows air into the mattress. “I’m tired,” he says to no one in particular. Except for an extended lunch break from ten until one (which hadn’t really been much of a break, seeing as he had spent it being lectured at by his father over too small portions of gourmet food), he had been working all day, from five in the morning to seven in the evening. He would have stayed until closing, but Jeff had insisted that he and Jesse could handle the remaining customers and closing up the shop. Blaine had figured it would probably be okay, based on the number of years Jeff had been working there, but he stills feels a bit anxious.
He can almost hear his mother telling him to lighten up. He groans and covers his ears with his pillow as if it will help him any.
It doesn’t.
Blaine chucks the pillow into his closet door and gets up off his bed, making his way to his kitchen. He opens the fridge and stares inside. It’s pretty much empty, as are the cupboards, on account of how Blaine usually eats at the coffee shop, but that doesn’t stop him from going through them all in an attempt to find something to eat. He doesn’t succeed and retires to his couch with another sigh, flicking on the TV.
“I need a dog,” he announces to the rerun of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the screen. “Or, like, friends that don’t work for me.”
He stares at the television a moment longer.
“Or for Ty Pennington to build me a house. Somewhere that’s not here, preferably. Maybe in Ohio. Nothing ever happens in Ohio, I don’t think.”
---
Kurt sits down on his couch with a groan. “I think every muscle in my body hurts,” he says.
“Poor baby,” Rachel says. “Here, I made tea.”
“Goddess,” Kurt praises, taking the mug she’s offering.
Rachel sits down next to him on the couch and sips from her own mug.
“How did your audition go?” Kurt asks after a moment of silence.
“Oh, pretty well, actually!” Rachel says enthusiastically. “He seemed to like me. But it remains to be seen, you know how I can delude myself.”
Kurt laughs, remembering many a time when Rachel didn’t get a part and lamented that her entire career was useless and that she may as well get a head start on rotting in front of the TV with a carton of ice cream. They hadn’t been funny at the time, because Kurt could only stand so much of such a thing and would thus have to snap her out of it, but in retrospect he can see the humour.
“Good to hear,” he tells her.
She nods. “Did you get a lot done at the tea house today?”
“We did,” Kurt says, nodding. “Puck got in some back up in the form of another guy named Dave Karofsky for the afternoon, and the front is looking good. The counter got moved and we’re starting in on brushing up the flooring before we move in appliances.”
“Glad to hear it,” Rachel says. “I’m so excited for you.”
“I’m excited, too,” Kurt admits. “It’s really starting to come together and look like what I had envisioned.”
“Fabulous, you mean,” Rachel teases. “I’ve seen your designs. They’re legitimately beautiful.”
“Aw, you never told me that before!” Kurt says, elbowing her. “You just nodded and said ‘looks okay’ whenever I asked.”
“Well, I didn’t want to try to hinder your creativity! I don’t have the right sort of artistic eye, remember?”
Kurt snorts. “No, not if your style is any indication, I’ll give you that.”
Rachel frowns and looks down at herself. “I thought I was improving. Aren’t I fashionable?” She pouts at him.
“Only because of my influence,” Kurt sniffs, taking another sip from his tea.
Rachel continues to pout at him. He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.
“Fine, some of it is you,” he concedes. “There have been improvements. Under my guidance.”
Rachel smacks him lightly in the arm. “That’s better. Now, let’s see what’s on TV, shall we?”
“Whatever,” Kurt agrees. “I’m not planning to move until it’s a reasonable hour to go to bed. In fact, I may just fall asleep here.”
“You’ll have to deal with me waking you up, then.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Kurt says through a yawn.
“Try me.”
“I think I will.”
---
“So, I met this girl,” Sam says apropos of nothing during a lull in customers. Blaine raises his eyebrows at the cappuccino he’s making himself.
“Did you?” Tina Cohen-Chang responds, leaning against the counter and flipping her black hair over one shoulder. “What’s she like?”
Blaine looks up just in time to see a lovesick grin spread across Sam’s face. “She’s brilliant. She’s got this sassy attitude that I just love and she thinks my jokes are funny.”
Tina widens her eyes. “She thinks your jokes are funny. Wow, she’s a keeper. What’s her name?”
“Mercedes Jones,” Sam says, his voice taking on a dreamy tone that is quite frankly more hilarious than all of his impressions combined.
“Cute name,” Tina decrees.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Sam corrects. He sighs and leans his back against the pastry display.
“Excuse me before I barf,” Tina says, fake retching.
Sam merely sighs blissfully again. Blaine rolls his eyes as he puts a lid on his cappuccino, though he agrees with Tina’s sentiment. He’s spent years watching his employees find and lose love, and to be frank, he’s starting to get tired of it. Blaine wants love as much as the next guy--though if you asked him, he’d scoff and say that love is overrated, citing the many break ups he’s witnessed as proof.
Some might say that Blaine’s lover is his job. Blaine is utterly devoted to the coffee shop--he gets up early for it, he goes to bed late for it, he spends all his time thinking about it. But it’s really a sort of false love, a struggle to be praised and loved in return--despite growing up behind the counter of Anderson Coffee Inc., Blaine would gladly have broken all ties and set out on his own as soon as he was old enough. He isn’t sure what he would do out there, but this is New York City; he’s sure he could find something. But he never bothered to do more than fancy the notion briefly--his father would never approve.
And so behind the front counter of his childhood he remains, brewing coffee for countless people every day and listening to his employees talk of the lives they live beyond the white washed walls of the coffee shop.
He doesn’t dare dream of getting his own turn.
---
Kurt stands behind the front counter of his tea house and takes a deep breath. He scans the interior, from the impeccably painted walls adorned with select art pieces to the smooth linoleum floor, with the neat leather chairs and strategically placed tables in between. Everything looks perfect.
He turns his back to the door and closes his eyes. “Holy shit,” he breathes out, putting his hands over his eyes.
“Uh, boss?” a soft female voice asks. He opens his eyes to see Mercedes Jones, the dark skinned brunette he’d hired to work weekday morning shifts--no, wait, hadn’t he hired her for the afternoon? But she’s here for the morning, so he must be mistaken. Oh, he feels like he’s going to be sick. “Are you okay?”
Kurt takes in another shaky breath, holding himself up by leaning against the counter. “I think I’ll be okay, Mercedes. And you can call me Kurt, not boss.”
“Okay,” Mercedes agrees, nodding. “It’s almost six.”
Kurt glances up at the clock situated over the break room door and nearly tosses his cookies right there. “Oh my God.”
“Are you--”
“Kurt!” Rachel’s voice rings out from behind him. “Do you want to turn on the open sign for the first time?”
Kurt does, but he can’t remember how to walk.
“I think he’s going to be sick,” Mercedes calls to Rachel.
“Oh no, he’s not,” Rachel says authoritatively. She’s suddenly right in front of him, holding her hands to his cheeks.
“Cold hands,” he chokes out.
“I forgot my gloves at home,” Rachel explains. “C’mon, hot stuff, let’s turn on the sign. You’re going to rock this, trust me.”
“Why do I not believe you,” Kurt groans even as he allows her to guide him to the front window.
Rachel shoves the cord into his hand. He breathes in. “It’s going to be fine,” he tells himself.
“It’s going to be great,” Rachel agrees.
He plugs in the sign and turns to the door to flip the lock open.
“Whoo hoo!” he hears Mercedes cheer from behind the counter.
“Let me have the honours of being your first customer,” Rachel demands.
Kurt laughs and walks back to the counter. He still feels a bit light headed, but the nausea has been replaced by a feeling of happiness. I just opened my very own tea house for the very first time, he thinks gleefully. I am living my dream.
“What can I get you?” he asks Rachel, smiling at her.
She grins back at him. “One medium sized green tea, please.”
“Coming right up.”
---
“Shop next door’s open,” Jesse St. James tells Blaine, “and there’s this hot chick I know from the theatre world sitting in there. I think we’re losing half our business to her pretty face in the window. I know where I’d go, in any case.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?” Blaine snaps, irritated. Hummel Tea and Love has only been open for a week, and it’s already becoming a serious pain in his ass. He’s fairly sure he’s lost at least five regulars, and he’s noticed the number of customers has been decreasing steadily.
That’s if he’s not making it up, but he’s a reasonable sort of guy. He doesn’t think he would imagine it.
Jesse seems to seriously consider the question. “Well, Santana’s a sight for sore eyes when she’s not talking. We could force her to sit by the window.”
“Over my dead body,” Santana says from her place leaning against the counter by the sink.
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re missing my point. I said force her. Which translates to dragging your sleeping ass over there and propping you up on a stool with your eyes forced open to make it look like you’re having a swell time.”
Santana wrinkles her nose and moves to make herself her sixth coffee of the morning. Blaine rolls his eyes. “We’re not forcing Santana to do anything.”
Jesse flips his brown curls dramatically out of his eyes. “Whatever. That doesn’t change the fact that I was serious about losing half our business to the Hummel place.”
Blaine sighs and presses his fingers to his temples. “I have noticed, thank you, Jesse.”
“So?” Jesse prompts, arranging his hair.
“So I’m taking my lunch break. Don’t screw anything up,” Blaine orders, grabbing his jacket off the rack just inside the break room.
Jesse spreads his arms out in a what? motion. “I’m offended. When have I ever screwed anything up?”
Blaine narrows his eyes at Jesse, who has been known to botch orders and put espresso machines out of business for at least a few hours, and shakes his head. “Keep him in line, Lopez.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Santana says, deadpan and studying her nails.
Blaine shoves his hands into his pockets and shoulders the door open. He ducks his head against the wind, sticking close to the buildings until he gets to the door to the tea shop and pulls it open, smoothing his hair down as he steps inside.
“Welcome!” a peppy blonde says from behind the counter, waving at Blaine, her ponytail bouncing. He lifts a hand to wave back as he gets in line (which in itself is just sad; the coffee shop is dead and this place has a line?) and starts studying the menu. There’s a section of tea concoctions that he skims through, then a price list for different types of pastries and baked goods.
By the time he gets to the counter, he’s changed his mind about what to order about three times total. “What can I get you?” the guy at the till, whose name tag reads ‘Kurt’ in ornate cursive with a smaller ‘Owner/Manager’ underneath, asks.
Blaine makes the mistake of studying Kurt too closely before saying anything. “I recognize you!” he blurts out.
Kurt smiles uncertainly. “Sorry, I don’t...?”
“You came into the coffee shop a few weeks back. You were wearing that red and black Gucci scarf and you ordered a triple suicide.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt says, nodding. “Well, I won’t be back in there anytime soon.”
“Ah, right,” Blaine says awkwardly, his skin prickling in the face of Kurt’s condescending smile. “Some water and a cheese croissant, then.”
Kurt stares at him for a moment before pushing buttons on his till. “Coming right up,” he mumbles. “$3.25.”
Blaine shoves a five dollar bill at Kurt, who fumbles and nearly drops it. Blaine sighs audibly and receives a glare and his change shoved into his hand. “Pick up over there,” Kurt says icily, tilting his head to the right.
“Yes, you’re welcome for my patronage,” Blaine mutters to himself as he walks over to the pick up. “I won’t come again.”
“Here you go!” the blonde that had greeted him, Brittany as her name tag declares in obnoxiously swirly typeface, says. She hands him a bottle of water and a small paper bag. “Enjoy!”
Blaine snorts to himself and turns to leave. He was already annoyed about this stupid tea house just because it was stealing his business--he hadn’t really needed the owner to be an ass on top of that. Now he hates the place on principle.
He takes his croissant out of its bag and takes a bite (purely because he’d bought it and it wasn’t like he was going to throw it out just because he now hates where he got it).
It tastes like it came from God’s own bakery.
He chucks it in the closest garbage can.
---
“He’s such a douche,” Kurt says, waving his hands in Mercedes’ direction. She steps back, afraid of getting hit in the face by a stray hand. “He comes in yesterday afternoon and is all ‘I know you! You were in the coffee shop!’ and I just said that I wouldn’t be in there anytime soon on account of how I spend all my time here, and then he started acting like a jerk!”
“Acting like a jerk how?” Mercedes asks, frowning.
Kurt snorts dismissively. “He got all snappy and ungrateful. The snot.”
Mercedes rests her arms on top of the pastry case and taps her fingers on her chin. “So... you said what exactly?”
“I told you,” Kurt says. “I told him I wouldn’t be in the coffee shop again.”
“Did you actually mention why?” Mercedes asks, raising her eyebrows.
“It was implied,” Kurt says impatiently. “Can you get that customer that’s about to walk in?”
“Sure,” Mercedes says, standing up straight and waving to the redheaded girl that slips in the door right on cue. “Welcome to Hummel Tea and Love! Can I help you?”
The girl indicates that she’s checking out the menu, and Mercedes nods, content to wait. From what Kurt said, she’s fairly sure that the manager of the coffee shop had been offended when Kurt had told him he wouldn’t be back in the coffee shop--he had obviously taken it as a grave insult rather than the idle comment it had been meant as. She just had to make Kurt see that somehow.
By the time she’s finished making a medium raspberry vanilla tea for the girl, she has a pretty solid plan for how to get through to her boss. She may not have known him for very long, but she thinks she has a pretty good grasp on his psyche. After all, a lot of the time all they have to do is talk.
In fact, Kurt turns to her immediately after the girl has left with her tea and says, “You’ll never guess what Rachel saw, either.”
“Oh?”
“He threw out the cheese croissant he ordered after taking one bite. Not only is he a douche, he’s a douche who wastes good food, Mercedes.”
Mercedes sighs. This is going to be more difficult than she’d anticipated.
---
Sam fiddles with his fork. His stomach feels like it’s going to flip right out of his skin, and he’s pretty sure if he makes eye contact with the girl across the table again he’s going to break out into a sweat. He clears his throat. “So, uh, how’s your… chef salad?”
“Really good, actually,” Mercedes says. “How about your chicken?”
Sam blinks at his plate. “It’s great,” he says, chancing a smile across the table.
Mercedes raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t eaten any.”
“It looks great?”
Mercedes laughs. It makes butterflies flutter in Sam’s stomach. I am going to die before this date ends, he thinks.
“Look, Sam, this conversation is going pretty slowly. Why don’t we spice it up by actually talking about something?”
“Sure, sure, anything,” Sam agrees hastily, nodding. He pauses. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, let’s see... how’s work?”
“Work. Work is good. My boss is pretty easy going, so it’s not bad.”
Mercedes nods. “Same here. Actually, hey, I have a good story.”
Sam cuts a piece of chicken. “I’m listening,” he says.
“Kurt was telling me today about your boss coming into the tea house yesterday. Apparently he’s a total douche.”
Sam swallows his chicken almost whole. “Blaine was saying the same thing about Kurt today! It just sounded like a misunderstanding to me, but Blaine wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Kurt wouldn’t, either,” Mercedes says. She puts a forkful of salad in her mouth and chews thoughtfully. “I have an idea,” she says after she’s swallowed.
Sam looks up from cutting his chicken into increasingly smaller pieces. “What’s that?”
“Is Blaine single?”
Sam frowns. “Uh, yeah. His father rides him pretty hard, so he’s never had time to find a guy. That’s what he says, anyway.”
“So he is gay, good.”
“Good for what?” Sam asks, confused.
“My dear boss Kurt is also gay and also single.” Mercedes quirks an eyebrow.
Sam blinks at her. “Are you suggesting we set them up?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“It would never work,” Sam protests. “They hate each other already. They would mutually ditch a blind date in seconds.”
Mercedes’ face falls. “Fair point.”
Sam frowns. “Wait, though. Maybe there’s another way.”
“Like what?” Mercedes asks.
“Well, it’s the age of technology, right? We could give them each others’ email addresses and--what?”
Mercedes is shaking her head. “Kurt’s email address has his name in it. Blaine would know who he was talking to.”
Sam sighs. “So we have them send notes. You can tell Kurt you have someone you think would be great for him, and they can send each other anonymous love letters through us. That’s romantic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince him,” Mercedes says doubtfully.
“It’s worth a shot, though, right? I’ve known Blaine since I moved to the city, and he’s never once seemed really happy to me. This could be his chance.”
Mercedes purses her lips. “Kurt has been saying that the only thing his life is lacking is that perfect boyfriend. Who’s to say it can’t be Blaine?”
“So we’ll try it?” Sam asks.
“We’ll try it,” Mercedes agrees. “Now, why don’t we talk about ourselves. This is our date, you know.”
Sam laughs. “Of course. What would you like to know?”
---
January
Mysterious Guy that my co-worker says is cool,
Hi. I would normally tell you my name about here, but I’m told that would ruin the whole anonymous thing. Kind of annoying, but I’m told it’s necessary (and romantic or something?), so I won’t complain too much.
I had my family come to the city for the holidays--my roommate (and best friend, so help me) somehow convinced me that it would be just fabulous to have Chrismukkah with her dads, my parents, and my brother all crammed into our tiny apartment. It was not fabulous, to be sure, but we managed to have a good time. It might have actually been a good idea, but don’t tell her I said that.
I missed the New Year’s Eve ball drop because I had to escort my family to the airport, which I am a little bitter about, as I’ve lived in the city for four previous January firsts and never managed to attend. I was hoping year five would be the lucky one, but it seems not. Sixth time is the charm, maybe?
Even if I didn’t ring in the New Year the way I wanted, I still have a few resolutions--things that I hope will make this calendar year a good one. I think I’ll keep those to myself, though. I wouldn’t want to spill my guts to a guy who hasn’t even written me back yet.
Signed,
Porcelain (Which is a nickname my cheerleading coach bestowed upon me back in high school, not something I came up with myself. She had an odd sense of humour.)
---
“What?” Blaine asks, staring at Sam blankly.
“It’s from a guy I know. Mercedes and I thought you two might like each other.”
“So why not introduce us?”
Sam shrugs. “Don’t you think this a cool way to get to know someone?”
“Maybe, but it’s a lot more inconvenient than actually meeting him.”
“Oh, shut up,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “Just give it a chance.”
“I can fire you,” Blaine warns, unfolding the letter Sam had handed to him and reading it.
“You wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t...” Blaine mutters, distracted by the letter. “So, what do I do to reply?”
“Write up a note and give it to me. I’ll make sure it gets to him.”
“This is stupid,” Blaine says.
“But you’re getting out a pen,” Sam says triumphantly.
Blaine glares at him. “He sounds nice,” he mutters.
---
Porcelain,
Your holiday celebration sounds exciting. Mine consisted of an awkward dinner and gift exchange with my oh-so-loving father before I went home to drown my daddy issues in whiskey, so you might say I’m a little jealous of you.
Despite having lived my entire life in New York City, I too have never attended the ball drop. It never seemed worth it to me--too cold, too many people, you know, those excuses.
My co-worker says we might like each other. I’m not so sure, but you’ve intrigued me with your talk of resolutions. I figure if I tell you mine, you’ll tell me yours, right?
Well, I only have one. It’s to start living my life.
Yours,
Cliched
---
“He replied already?” Kurt asks, looking from the paper folded in Mercedes’ hand to her face and back again.
“Sure did.” Mercedes puts the paper down on the counter. “My boyfriend says he likes you already.”
“Oh, so he’s your boyfriend now,” Kurt says. “An interesting development.” He picks up the letter and unfolds it.
“It is, isn’t it?” Mercedes issues a love sickened sigh.
Kurt snorts. Mercedes isn’t sure if it’s at her or the letter.
---
Cliched,
An apt nickname, as your resolution is indeed cliche, as well as vague and quite frankly boring. I’m not sure it’s worth my own resolutions.
I would tell you not to be jealous of me, but I don’t envy your daddy issues, so I won’t bother. My own father generally deserves Father of the Year every single year, so I can’t talk.
What is it like having lived your entire life here in NYC? I’m from small town Ohio, so it’s a foreign concept to me. Did you go to university here, too?
Still not spilling my guts,
Porcelain
---
Part Two
Author: teaboytoaliens
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/Warnings: None.
Word Count: ~11k
Summary: In between cleaning stainless steel counter tops and making cups of coffee at his job as manager of Anderson Coffee Inc. in Midtown Manhattan, Blaine dreams of breaking out of the shell he’s been trapped in all his privileged life-though of course his father would never allow him to strike off on his own. When someone sets up shop in the abandoned building next to the coffee shop, Blaine thinks nothing of it save that at least his father won’t complain about it going into disrepair anymore. That is, he thinks nothing of it until he meets Kurt Hummel. Then it basically all goes to shit.
Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of Fox's Glee nor do I make that claim. Original creations of this story, including, but not limited to, characters, settings, and plot, are copyright to me.
Author's Notes: Written for naderegan at the kb-holidays fic exchange.
Prologue: May
So this is how the world ends, Blaine thinks to himself while lying in a rather comfortable bed without any clothes on, staring at a ceiling that is definitely not his own. With a sort of hiccup and the sound of someone making tea.
---
(The Prior)
December
“The problem with this time of year is that it’s always so fucking cold,” Santana Lopez declares as she enters the coffee shop, stomping her faux leather boots on the mat just inside the door. “Especially at five in the morning.”
Blaine Anderson looks up from the stainless steel counter top he’s wiping down. “You’re late,” he informs her. “And clean up that slush you’ve just gotten everywhere.”
Santana rolls her eyes. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“Five minutes to opening!” Sam Evans declares in a rather terrifyingly good automated voice impersonation, his voice an echo from the break room before he appears behind the counter, tapping his bright yellow plastic watch.
“Yes, thank you, Sam,” Blaine says, rinsing off his cloth and hanging it up above the sink. He grabs Santana’s apron out of the break room and goes out to where she’s wiping up the dirty puddle of water by the door. “Here,” he offers, holding out the apron to her.
She stands and takes it, looping it around her neck and pretending to hang herself with it as she shrugs off her jacket. Blaine raises an eyebrow and she scoffs at him. “Where’s my coffee?” she asks, tying the apron behind her.
“The machines await you,” Blaine says, gesturing grandly at the counter. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
Sam leans against the order counter, watching as Santana dumps her stuff in the break room and clocks in before coming back out, closing the curtain neatly behind her and chucking the paper towels soaked in dirty water at Sam’s head. He ducks and they hit the pastry display case behind him.
“Throw that in the garbage for me, will you, dear?” Santana coos, drifting over to the espresso machine.
Sam tosses out the paper towel without complaint, then checks his watch. “Time,” he says. Blaine turns on the open sign and takes a deep breath.
And so begins another tedious day in Blaine Anderson’s job as manager of Anderson Coffee Inc.
“So, boss, how about that weather?” Sam quips, back to leaning against the order counter.
Blaine sits on a stool behind the counter. “It’s normal,” he replies.
“It’s shit,” Santana contributes, knocking back a shot of espresso straight and smacking her lips.
Blaine winces. “Did you just burn your mouth or are you literally so hot blooded that you should probably be able to breathe fire or something?”
“I’m the dragon queen, baby,” Santana declares, but she’s getting cold water from the sink at the same time, so it doesn’t have the greatest impact.
“Like from World of Warcraft?” Sam muses aloud.
Their first customer of the morning chooses that moment to push his way through the door, breathing into his gloved hands and rubbing them together.
“Good morning,” Sam greets him. “What can I get for you?”
“A large triple suicide, please,” the man says. He adjusts his scarf--clearly designer, from what Blaine can remember of the latest collections--and smiles wanly. “It’s early.”
“I feel you,” Sam says, tapping the order into the register. “Is that everything?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Santana already has the drink--a drip coffee with three shots of espresso--ready by the time the man is finished paying, and she hands it to him with a smile. “Come again!”
The man nods, brushing at his coiffed hair, and turns to leave.
“He was good looking,” Santana comments when the door swings shut behind him. “In a sort of elfin, pale skinned, skinny way.” She raises a suggestive eyebrow at Blaine.
“He had some sort of art major written all over him,” Sam observes.
Blaine raises his eyebrows right back at the two of them. “Agreed. Fashionable, too.”
He’s saved from having to declare the objectification of a customer a finished conversation when another customer comes in. From there, the next three hours are filled with people coming and going, the line seeming to grow longer rather than get shorter as time passes.
By the time eight-thirty rolls around and there isn’t so much a line as just a good few people coming in every so often, Blaine is wide awake, his fingers twitching in a mockery of operating the espresso machine--the product of a childhood spent growing up working at the coffee shop. Sam just looks bit tired, but Santana, however, looks about ready to fall over.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” Blaine asks her.
“Not enough for this shit,” Santana groans.
“Careful what you say to your boss there,” Blaine teases. She rolls her eyes at him. He laughs quietly. “Go take f... ten. You can take ten while Sam and I handle this.”
She smiles almost gratefully at him and brushes past him to go into the break room.
“So, someone bought the building next door,” Sam says conversationally, leaning against the pastry display case and checking his fingernails.
“Yeah, it was sold more than a month ago,” Blaine says.
“No, I mean, like, there are actually people over there doing something with it,” Sam says. “The exterior has a new paint job, did you notice? And I heard a couple customers commenting on a new sign in the window. Apparently Anderson Coffee Incorporated is lucky enough to sit adjacent to Hummel Tea and Love, coming soon.”
Blaine contemplates the new information. “Interesting.”
Sam nods. “Do you think they’ll be competition? Once they open, I mean.”
“Remains to be seen, I suppose.” Blaine shrugs. “People will always want their coffee, I think.”
“Fair point,” Sam agrees. “I wonder what statistics say about people liking tea versus coffee...” He pulls out his smart phone, tapping the keys. He frowns. “Well, tea’s better for you... I think Americans like coffee more? I don’t know.” He shoves the phone back in his pocket and shrugs.
Blaine shrugs back. “Here comes a customer,” he points out. “Is Santana’s ten minutes up yet?”
Sam checks his watch. “In a minute,” he says. “Good morning! What can I get for you?” he directs toward the customer.
Blaine turns to get Santana--likely wake her up from her nap against a wall, if he knows her at all--thinking about what Sam said about the new tea house. He resolves to definitely check it out when it opens.
---
“No, that goes over there,” Kurt Hummel says, frustration evident in his voice.
“Sorry, Hummel,” Noah Puckerman replies, changing his direction while carrying a likely rather heavy section of a light green booth bench. Kurt sighs and tries not to focus on how hot his freelance contractor guy looks.
“The tea house is really starting to look good!” Rachel Berry, his best friend (though the label is up for debate most days), gushes. “You’re going to do great here, I just... can feel it in the air!”
“Is the sense of doing good the same as holiday spirit or something?” Kurt asks.
“Sure!” Rachel says, oblivious to Kurt’s heavy tone of sarcasm. “Oooh, are you going to decorate it for the holidays? If so, you should really think about incorporating Chanukah, becau--”
“Yeah, cool it, Berry,” Kurt interrupts. “I need to get the actual year round decorating done first.”
“Of course, of course. Just a thought...” Rachel leans in closer to him. “I do have to comment, this guy you’ve hired is good looking.”
Kurt snorts at her. “You’re not supposed to be checking out the workers, you’re supposed to be checking out the building.”
“Oh please, like you weren’t checking him out, too,” Rachel scoffs. “I already told you my opinion on the building! It’s a great location, too, not too far from the apartment, especially when contrasted to proximity to the theatre district and where the business men are likely to be heading in the morning.”
“Yeah, sure, but business men are more likely to go to the coffee shop next door. From what I hear it’s been here for years.”
Rachel shakes her head. “Not necessarily. According to your plans this place is going to be pretty homey--the atmosphere might be appealing.”
“Fair point. I got a coffee from there this morning--it’s very silver. There’s a lot of stainless steel and spotless white floors and white chairs. You get my point.”
“I’ll check it out on my way home,” Rachel says.
“All right. What do you think about the counter placement?” Kurt inquires. “I was thinking it needed to be a bit further out, to give more space for the kitchen, but that might significantly inhibit floor and table space.”
Rachel tilts her head in contemplation. “It looks good from here.”
“I think you’ve got it in about the right spot,” Puckerman contributes, joining the conversation now that he’s done setting up a corner of the shop to be approved by Kurt. “I’ve been all around and it’s pretty easy to navigate. There’s a fair amount of space.”
Kurt nods. “But what about once we get appliances back there?”
Puck furrows his eyebrow. “Where were you thinking of moving it out to?”
Kurt marks off a distance with his foot, standing there with a questioning expression on his face.
“I think half that distance would do it,” Puck decides after a moment. “You agree?”
Rachel nods. “Your judgement seems sound.”
“Great,” Kurt says. “That’ll be another thing to get done. I’m starting to regret this December 15th grand opening deadline.”
“No, it’ll be fantastic, Kurt,” Rachel protests. “Doesn’t tea make you think of the winter? People can come in here to get warm and socialize and--”
“It’ll still be winter in January,” Kurt says.
“But the holidays,” Rachel emphasizes.
“Yeah, Hummel, listen to the lady. The holidays.” Puck smirks.
Kurt rolls his eyes. “Back to work with you,” he says. “The set up over there looks just right.”
“Yes, sir,” Puck says smartly.
“You are going to have it open for the holidays, though, right?” Rachel asks as she watches Puck walk across the shop and pick up a drill. Kurt is pretty sure she’s shamelessly checking out his ass. He doesn’t really blame her.
“What’s with your obsession with the holidays?” Kurt shoots back, coming to stand next to her. “And yeah, I made my deadline and I’m sticking to it. My dad will be coming for a few days to see it during Christmas, so I had better have it open.”
“Oh, Burt’s coming to the city?” Rachel looks at him, eyes open wide. “What if I invited my dads, too, and Burt could bring Carole and we’ll have Chrismukkah here!”
Kurt stares at her. “Are you forgetting how big our apartment is? And you know if Burt and Carole come, Finn will want to as well.”
Rachel waves a hand at him. “Whatever. Please, Kurt, it’d be so much fun!”
He shakes his head. “No, it wouldn’t. There is nowhere for people to sleep. And I don’t want to buy food, or have to buy decorations for the apartment, or--”
Rachel sighs. “This discussion isn’t over, Kurt Hummel,” she vows, shaking a finger at him. “But I have an audition at twelve, so I’m going to head out and grab an early lunch. Do you want me to bring you back something on my way uptown?”
“That would be great. Just whatever you feel like getting is good,” Kurt says. “Thanks for coming by.”
“Of course,” Rachel says, smiling. She waves as she exits the tea house.
Rachel almost walks past Anderson Coffee Inc. before she remembers that she had said she would check it out. She turns on the sidewalk, ducking past someone, and slips inside. Immediately she’s struck by how accurate Kurt’s description had been--it certainly is silver inside. It gives off a kind of industrial feel, she thinks.
“Good morning!” a tanned woman wearing a red apron, her brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail, greets Rachel. When Rachel moves closer, she can see that the name tag attached to the woman’s apron reads SANTANA in bold capital letters. “What can I get for you?”
“What do you recommend for an early lunch?” Rachel asks while scanning the menu above Santana’s head at the same time.
“Well, Sam makes a mean sandwich... Any eating habits I should know about?”
“I’m vegan,” Rachel says, surprised by the question. “Nice of you to ask.”
Santana smiles. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself by recommending the ham sandwich. It’s happened before. In that case, Sam could whip you up a veggie sandwich. Or, hm--”
“That sounds perfect,” Rachel says. “I’ll take a ham one, too, actually. I’m taking my friend back some food. A medium coffee and a large non-fat mocha, too, please.”
“Sure thing,” Santana says, punching the order in. She takes a couple steps back and turns her head. “Sam!” To Rachel, she adds, “Trust me, he makes way better sandwiches than I do. It’s some sort of voodoo magic.”
Rachel laughs. A blonde guy Rachel assumes is Sam comes out from behind a curtain, looking at Santana questioningly.
“Make this lady a sandwich?” Santana asks, raising her eyebrows menacingly.
“Sure thing,” Sam says, nodding to Rachel. She smiles back and he moves to the other side of the counter, looking at the display screen above the espresso machine.
“So, how long has this shop been here?” Rachel asks, handing over cash to Santana.
“Oh, years,” Santana says, making change. “The guy who manages it now’s father bought it when it was a failing excuse for a coffee shop and built it from the ground up. It’s the most popular joint in the area, I think.” She hands Rachel her change. Rachel stuffs a few dollar bills in the tip jar.
“Any trepidation about the new tea house next door?”
“Is that what it is?” Santana asks, flipping a switch on the coffee machine.
“Yeah,” Sam contributes. “Hummel Tea and Love, coming soon.”
“Huh,” Santana hums.
“To answer your question,” Sam says, “the boss didn’t seem too bothered yet. He said he would have to check it out when it opens.”
Rachel nods. “Well, be sure to tell him December 15th! That’s the grand opening.”
“Really? The sign didn’t say that.” Sam wraps the second sandwich up and puts them both in a bag. “Here you go.”
“I’m friends with the new owner,” Rachel explains.
“That’s cool,” Sam says as Santana puts down two cups of coffee in front of Rachel.
“Thank you,” Rachel says, tucking the bag gingerly into her oversized purse and picking up the coffees. “I’ll see you around!”
“Thanks for coming in,” Santana says, waving to Rachel as she leaves. Rachel raises one of her coffee cups in a sort of wave before the door swings shut behind her.
“That was interesting,” Sam comments. “She’s very perky.”
“Did she stop smiling at all the entire time she was in here?” Santana asks. “My face started to hurt whenever I looked at her.”
Sam laughs. “It was cute.”
“She was cute. You know, in a pea coat wearing, bangs having, way too peppy sort of way. Not my type,” Santana decrees.
“Not your type?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. “Weren’t you dating that brunette Asian girl that works here for a bit? She was always peppy, too.”
“Shut up, Samuel,” Santana snaps. “As if I want to talk about my failed relationships.”
“My name’s not actually Samuel,” Sam says, smirking a bit.
Santana rolls her eyes. “I know that, Samuel.”
Sam snorts. “You’re a loser.”
“You’re a freak. I’m going to take a nap against the wall before the lunch rush starts coming in.”
“You need a bed in there,” Sam observes.
“Tell that to our dear Mr. Anderson,” Santana says. “I’ve asked!”
“Of course you have.”
---
Blaine flops down on the bed in his apartment and blows air into the mattress. “I’m tired,” he says to no one in particular. Except for an extended lunch break from ten until one (which hadn’t really been much of a break, seeing as he had spent it being lectured at by his father over too small portions of gourmet food), he had been working all day, from five in the morning to seven in the evening. He would have stayed until closing, but Jeff had insisted that he and Jesse could handle the remaining customers and closing up the shop. Blaine had figured it would probably be okay, based on the number of years Jeff had been working there, but he stills feels a bit anxious.
He can almost hear his mother telling him to lighten up. He groans and covers his ears with his pillow as if it will help him any.
It doesn’t.
Blaine chucks the pillow into his closet door and gets up off his bed, making his way to his kitchen. He opens the fridge and stares inside. It’s pretty much empty, as are the cupboards, on account of how Blaine usually eats at the coffee shop, but that doesn’t stop him from going through them all in an attempt to find something to eat. He doesn’t succeed and retires to his couch with another sigh, flicking on the TV.
“I need a dog,” he announces to the rerun of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the screen. “Or, like, friends that don’t work for me.”
He stares at the television a moment longer.
“Or for Ty Pennington to build me a house. Somewhere that’s not here, preferably. Maybe in Ohio. Nothing ever happens in Ohio, I don’t think.”
---
Kurt sits down on his couch with a groan. “I think every muscle in my body hurts,” he says.
“Poor baby,” Rachel says. “Here, I made tea.”
“Goddess,” Kurt praises, taking the mug she’s offering.
Rachel sits down next to him on the couch and sips from her own mug.
“How did your audition go?” Kurt asks after a moment of silence.
“Oh, pretty well, actually!” Rachel says enthusiastically. “He seemed to like me. But it remains to be seen, you know how I can delude myself.”
Kurt laughs, remembering many a time when Rachel didn’t get a part and lamented that her entire career was useless and that she may as well get a head start on rotting in front of the TV with a carton of ice cream. They hadn’t been funny at the time, because Kurt could only stand so much of such a thing and would thus have to snap her out of it, but in retrospect he can see the humour.
“Good to hear,” he tells her.
She nods. “Did you get a lot done at the tea house today?”
“We did,” Kurt says, nodding. “Puck got in some back up in the form of another guy named Dave Karofsky for the afternoon, and the front is looking good. The counter got moved and we’re starting in on brushing up the flooring before we move in appliances.”
“Glad to hear it,” Rachel says. “I’m so excited for you.”
“I’m excited, too,” Kurt admits. “It’s really starting to come together and look like what I had envisioned.”
“Fabulous, you mean,” Rachel teases. “I’ve seen your designs. They’re legitimately beautiful.”
“Aw, you never told me that before!” Kurt says, elbowing her. “You just nodded and said ‘looks okay’ whenever I asked.”
“Well, I didn’t want to try to hinder your creativity! I don’t have the right sort of artistic eye, remember?”
Kurt snorts. “No, not if your style is any indication, I’ll give you that.”
Rachel frowns and looks down at herself. “I thought I was improving. Aren’t I fashionable?” She pouts at him.
“Only because of my influence,” Kurt sniffs, taking another sip from his tea.
Rachel continues to pout at him. He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.
“Fine, some of it is you,” he concedes. “There have been improvements. Under my guidance.”
Rachel smacks him lightly in the arm. “That’s better. Now, let’s see what’s on TV, shall we?”
“Whatever,” Kurt agrees. “I’m not planning to move until it’s a reasonable hour to go to bed. In fact, I may just fall asleep here.”
“You’ll have to deal with me waking you up, then.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Kurt says through a yawn.
“Try me.”
“I think I will.”
---
“So, I met this girl,” Sam says apropos of nothing during a lull in customers. Blaine raises his eyebrows at the cappuccino he’s making himself.
“Did you?” Tina Cohen-Chang responds, leaning against the counter and flipping her black hair over one shoulder. “What’s she like?”
Blaine looks up just in time to see a lovesick grin spread across Sam’s face. “She’s brilliant. She’s got this sassy attitude that I just love and she thinks my jokes are funny.”
Tina widens her eyes. “She thinks your jokes are funny. Wow, she’s a keeper. What’s her name?”
“Mercedes Jones,” Sam says, his voice taking on a dreamy tone that is quite frankly more hilarious than all of his impressions combined.
“Cute name,” Tina decrees.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Sam corrects. He sighs and leans his back against the pastry display.
“Excuse me before I barf,” Tina says, fake retching.
Sam merely sighs blissfully again. Blaine rolls his eyes as he puts a lid on his cappuccino, though he agrees with Tina’s sentiment. He’s spent years watching his employees find and lose love, and to be frank, he’s starting to get tired of it. Blaine wants love as much as the next guy--though if you asked him, he’d scoff and say that love is overrated, citing the many break ups he’s witnessed as proof.
Some might say that Blaine’s lover is his job. Blaine is utterly devoted to the coffee shop--he gets up early for it, he goes to bed late for it, he spends all his time thinking about it. But it’s really a sort of false love, a struggle to be praised and loved in return--despite growing up behind the counter of Anderson Coffee Inc., Blaine would gladly have broken all ties and set out on his own as soon as he was old enough. He isn’t sure what he would do out there, but this is New York City; he’s sure he could find something. But he never bothered to do more than fancy the notion briefly--his father would never approve.
And so behind the front counter of his childhood he remains, brewing coffee for countless people every day and listening to his employees talk of the lives they live beyond the white washed walls of the coffee shop.
He doesn’t dare dream of getting his own turn.
---
Kurt stands behind the front counter of his tea house and takes a deep breath. He scans the interior, from the impeccably painted walls adorned with select art pieces to the smooth linoleum floor, with the neat leather chairs and strategically placed tables in between. Everything looks perfect.
He turns his back to the door and closes his eyes. “Holy shit,” he breathes out, putting his hands over his eyes.
“Uh, boss?” a soft female voice asks. He opens his eyes to see Mercedes Jones, the dark skinned brunette he’d hired to work weekday morning shifts--no, wait, hadn’t he hired her for the afternoon? But she’s here for the morning, so he must be mistaken. Oh, he feels like he’s going to be sick. “Are you okay?”
Kurt takes in another shaky breath, holding himself up by leaning against the counter. “I think I’ll be okay, Mercedes. And you can call me Kurt, not boss.”
“Okay,” Mercedes agrees, nodding. “It’s almost six.”
Kurt glances up at the clock situated over the break room door and nearly tosses his cookies right there. “Oh my God.”
“Are you--”
“Kurt!” Rachel’s voice rings out from behind him. “Do you want to turn on the open sign for the first time?”
Kurt does, but he can’t remember how to walk.
“I think he’s going to be sick,” Mercedes calls to Rachel.
“Oh no, he’s not,” Rachel says authoritatively. She’s suddenly right in front of him, holding her hands to his cheeks.
“Cold hands,” he chokes out.
“I forgot my gloves at home,” Rachel explains. “C’mon, hot stuff, let’s turn on the sign. You’re going to rock this, trust me.”
“Why do I not believe you,” Kurt groans even as he allows her to guide him to the front window.
Rachel shoves the cord into his hand. He breathes in. “It’s going to be fine,” he tells himself.
“It’s going to be great,” Rachel agrees.
He plugs in the sign and turns to the door to flip the lock open.
“Whoo hoo!” he hears Mercedes cheer from behind the counter.
“Let me have the honours of being your first customer,” Rachel demands.
Kurt laughs and walks back to the counter. He still feels a bit light headed, but the nausea has been replaced by a feeling of happiness. I just opened my very own tea house for the very first time, he thinks gleefully. I am living my dream.
“What can I get you?” he asks Rachel, smiling at her.
She grins back at him. “One medium sized green tea, please.”
“Coming right up.”
---
“Shop next door’s open,” Jesse St. James tells Blaine, “and there’s this hot chick I know from the theatre world sitting in there. I think we’re losing half our business to her pretty face in the window. I know where I’d go, in any case.”
“What do you suggest we do, then?” Blaine snaps, irritated. Hummel Tea and Love has only been open for a week, and it’s already becoming a serious pain in his ass. He’s fairly sure he’s lost at least five regulars, and he’s noticed the number of customers has been decreasing steadily.
That’s if he’s not making it up, but he’s a reasonable sort of guy. He doesn’t think he would imagine it.
Jesse seems to seriously consider the question. “Well, Santana’s a sight for sore eyes when she’s not talking. We could force her to sit by the window.”
“Over my dead body,” Santana says from her place leaning against the counter by the sink.
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re missing my point. I said force her. Which translates to dragging your sleeping ass over there and propping you up on a stool with your eyes forced open to make it look like you’re having a swell time.”
Santana wrinkles her nose and moves to make herself her sixth coffee of the morning. Blaine rolls his eyes. “We’re not forcing Santana to do anything.”
Jesse flips his brown curls dramatically out of his eyes. “Whatever. That doesn’t change the fact that I was serious about losing half our business to the Hummel place.”
Blaine sighs and presses his fingers to his temples. “I have noticed, thank you, Jesse.”
“So?” Jesse prompts, arranging his hair.
“So I’m taking my lunch break. Don’t screw anything up,” Blaine orders, grabbing his jacket off the rack just inside the break room.
Jesse spreads his arms out in a what? motion. “I’m offended. When have I ever screwed anything up?”
Blaine narrows his eyes at Jesse, who has been known to botch orders and put espresso machines out of business for at least a few hours, and shakes his head. “Keep him in line, Lopez.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Santana says, deadpan and studying her nails.
Blaine shoves his hands into his pockets and shoulders the door open. He ducks his head against the wind, sticking close to the buildings until he gets to the door to the tea shop and pulls it open, smoothing his hair down as he steps inside.
“Welcome!” a peppy blonde says from behind the counter, waving at Blaine, her ponytail bouncing. He lifts a hand to wave back as he gets in line (which in itself is just sad; the coffee shop is dead and this place has a line?) and starts studying the menu. There’s a section of tea concoctions that he skims through, then a price list for different types of pastries and baked goods.
By the time he gets to the counter, he’s changed his mind about what to order about three times total. “What can I get you?” the guy at the till, whose name tag reads ‘Kurt’ in ornate cursive with a smaller ‘Owner/Manager’ underneath, asks.
Blaine makes the mistake of studying Kurt too closely before saying anything. “I recognize you!” he blurts out.
Kurt smiles uncertainly. “Sorry, I don’t...?”
“You came into the coffee shop a few weeks back. You were wearing that red and black Gucci scarf and you ordered a triple suicide.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt says, nodding. “Well, I won’t be back in there anytime soon.”
“Ah, right,” Blaine says awkwardly, his skin prickling in the face of Kurt’s condescending smile. “Some water and a cheese croissant, then.”
Kurt stares at him for a moment before pushing buttons on his till. “Coming right up,” he mumbles. “$3.25.”
Blaine shoves a five dollar bill at Kurt, who fumbles and nearly drops it. Blaine sighs audibly and receives a glare and his change shoved into his hand. “Pick up over there,” Kurt says icily, tilting his head to the right.
“Yes, you’re welcome for my patronage,” Blaine mutters to himself as he walks over to the pick up. “I won’t come again.”
“Here you go!” the blonde that had greeted him, Brittany as her name tag declares in obnoxiously swirly typeface, says. She hands him a bottle of water and a small paper bag. “Enjoy!”
Blaine snorts to himself and turns to leave. He was already annoyed about this stupid tea house just because it was stealing his business--he hadn’t really needed the owner to be an ass on top of that. Now he hates the place on principle.
He takes his croissant out of its bag and takes a bite (purely because he’d bought it and it wasn’t like he was going to throw it out just because he now hates where he got it).
It tastes like it came from God’s own bakery.
He chucks it in the closest garbage can.
---
“He’s such a douche,” Kurt says, waving his hands in Mercedes’ direction. She steps back, afraid of getting hit in the face by a stray hand. “He comes in yesterday afternoon and is all ‘I know you! You were in the coffee shop!’ and I just said that I wouldn’t be in there anytime soon on account of how I spend all my time here, and then he started acting like a jerk!”
“Acting like a jerk how?” Mercedes asks, frowning.
Kurt snorts dismissively. “He got all snappy and ungrateful. The snot.”
Mercedes rests her arms on top of the pastry case and taps her fingers on her chin. “So... you said what exactly?”
“I told you,” Kurt says. “I told him I wouldn’t be in the coffee shop again.”
“Did you actually mention why?” Mercedes asks, raising her eyebrows.
“It was implied,” Kurt says impatiently. “Can you get that customer that’s about to walk in?”
“Sure,” Mercedes says, standing up straight and waving to the redheaded girl that slips in the door right on cue. “Welcome to Hummel Tea and Love! Can I help you?”
The girl indicates that she’s checking out the menu, and Mercedes nods, content to wait. From what Kurt said, she’s fairly sure that the manager of the coffee shop had been offended when Kurt had told him he wouldn’t be back in the coffee shop--he had obviously taken it as a grave insult rather than the idle comment it had been meant as. She just had to make Kurt see that somehow.
By the time she’s finished making a medium raspberry vanilla tea for the girl, she has a pretty solid plan for how to get through to her boss. She may not have known him for very long, but she thinks she has a pretty good grasp on his psyche. After all, a lot of the time all they have to do is talk.
In fact, Kurt turns to her immediately after the girl has left with her tea and says, “You’ll never guess what Rachel saw, either.”
“Oh?”
“He threw out the cheese croissant he ordered after taking one bite. Not only is he a douche, he’s a douche who wastes good food, Mercedes.”
Mercedes sighs. This is going to be more difficult than she’d anticipated.
---
Sam fiddles with his fork. His stomach feels like it’s going to flip right out of his skin, and he’s pretty sure if he makes eye contact with the girl across the table again he’s going to break out into a sweat. He clears his throat. “So, uh, how’s your… chef salad?”
“Really good, actually,” Mercedes says. “How about your chicken?”
Sam blinks at his plate. “It’s great,” he says, chancing a smile across the table.
Mercedes raises an eyebrow. “You haven’t eaten any.”
“It looks great?”
Mercedes laughs. It makes butterflies flutter in Sam’s stomach. I am going to die before this date ends, he thinks.
“Look, Sam, this conversation is going pretty slowly. Why don’t we spice it up by actually talking about something?”
“Sure, sure, anything,” Sam agrees hastily, nodding. He pauses. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, let’s see... how’s work?”
“Work. Work is good. My boss is pretty easy going, so it’s not bad.”
Mercedes nods. “Same here. Actually, hey, I have a good story.”
Sam cuts a piece of chicken. “I’m listening,” he says.
“Kurt was telling me today about your boss coming into the tea house yesterday. Apparently he’s a total douche.”
Sam swallows his chicken almost whole. “Blaine was saying the same thing about Kurt today! It just sounded like a misunderstanding to me, but Blaine wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“Kurt wouldn’t, either,” Mercedes says. She puts a forkful of salad in her mouth and chews thoughtfully. “I have an idea,” she says after she’s swallowed.
Sam looks up from cutting his chicken into increasingly smaller pieces. “What’s that?”
“Is Blaine single?”
Sam frowns. “Uh, yeah. His father rides him pretty hard, so he’s never had time to find a guy. That’s what he says, anyway.”
“So he is gay, good.”
“Good for what?” Sam asks, confused.
“My dear boss Kurt is also gay and also single.” Mercedes quirks an eyebrow.
Sam blinks at her. “Are you suggesting we set them up?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“It would never work,” Sam protests. “They hate each other already. They would mutually ditch a blind date in seconds.”
Mercedes’ face falls. “Fair point.”
Sam frowns. “Wait, though. Maybe there’s another way.”
“Like what?” Mercedes asks.
“Well, it’s the age of technology, right? We could give them each others’ email addresses and--what?”
Mercedes is shaking her head. “Kurt’s email address has his name in it. Blaine would know who he was talking to.”
Sam sighs. “So we have them send notes. You can tell Kurt you have someone you think would be great for him, and they can send each other anonymous love letters through us. That’s romantic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince him,” Mercedes says doubtfully.
“It’s worth a shot, though, right? I’ve known Blaine since I moved to the city, and he’s never once seemed really happy to me. This could be his chance.”
Mercedes purses her lips. “Kurt has been saying that the only thing his life is lacking is that perfect boyfriend. Who’s to say it can’t be Blaine?”
“So we’ll try it?” Sam asks.
“We’ll try it,” Mercedes agrees. “Now, why don’t we talk about ourselves. This is our date, you know.”
Sam laughs. “Of course. What would you like to know?”
---
January
Mysterious Guy that my co-worker says is cool,
Hi. I would normally tell you my name about here, but I’m told that would ruin the whole anonymous thing. Kind of annoying, but I’m told it’s necessary (and romantic or something?), so I won’t complain too much.
I had my family come to the city for the holidays--my roommate (and best friend, so help me) somehow convinced me that it would be just fabulous to have Chrismukkah with her dads, my parents, and my brother all crammed into our tiny apartment. It was not fabulous, to be sure, but we managed to have a good time. It might have actually been a good idea, but don’t tell her I said that.
I missed the New Year’s Eve ball drop because I had to escort my family to the airport, which I am a little bitter about, as I’ve lived in the city for four previous January firsts and never managed to attend. I was hoping year five would be the lucky one, but it seems not. Sixth time is the charm, maybe?
Even if I didn’t ring in the New Year the way I wanted, I still have a few resolutions--things that I hope will make this calendar year a good one. I think I’ll keep those to myself, though. I wouldn’t want to spill my guts to a guy who hasn’t even written me back yet.
Signed,
Porcelain (Which is a nickname my cheerleading coach bestowed upon me back in high school, not something I came up with myself. She had an odd sense of humour.)
---
“What?” Blaine asks, staring at Sam blankly.
“It’s from a guy I know. Mercedes and I thought you two might like each other.”
“So why not introduce us?”
Sam shrugs. “Don’t you think this a cool way to get to know someone?”
“Maybe, but it’s a lot more inconvenient than actually meeting him.”
“Oh, shut up,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “Just give it a chance.”
“I can fire you,” Blaine warns, unfolding the letter Sam had handed to him and reading it.
“You wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t...” Blaine mutters, distracted by the letter. “So, what do I do to reply?”
“Write up a note and give it to me. I’ll make sure it gets to him.”
“This is stupid,” Blaine says.
“But you’re getting out a pen,” Sam says triumphantly.
Blaine glares at him. “He sounds nice,” he mutters.
---
Porcelain,
Your holiday celebration sounds exciting. Mine consisted of an awkward dinner and gift exchange with my oh-so-loving father before I went home to drown my daddy issues in whiskey, so you might say I’m a little jealous of you.
Despite having lived my entire life in New York City, I too have never attended the ball drop. It never seemed worth it to me--too cold, too many people, you know, those excuses.
My co-worker says we might like each other. I’m not so sure, but you’ve intrigued me with your talk of resolutions. I figure if I tell you mine, you’ll tell me yours, right?
Well, I only have one. It’s to start living my life.
Yours,
Cliched
---
“He replied already?” Kurt asks, looking from the paper folded in Mercedes’ hand to her face and back again.
“Sure did.” Mercedes puts the paper down on the counter. “My boyfriend says he likes you already.”
“Oh, so he’s your boyfriend now,” Kurt says. “An interesting development.” He picks up the letter and unfolds it.
“It is, isn’t it?” Mercedes issues a love sickened sigh.
Kurt snorts. Mercedes isn’t sure if it’s at her or the letter.
---
Cliched,
An apt nickname, as your resolution is indeed cliche, as well as vague and quite frankly boring. I’m not sure it’s worth my own resolutions.
I would tell you not to be jealous of me, but I don’t envy your daddy issues, so I won’t bother. My own father generally deserves Father of the Year every single year, so I can’t talk.
What is it like having lived your entire life here in NYC? I’m from small town Ohio, so it’s a foreign concept to me. Did you go to university here, too?
Still not spilling my guts,
Porcelain
---
Part Two