Butter Pecan #4, Watermelon #12, Coffee #1
Author: winebabe
Title: Foam Hearts Are Love Letters, Too
Story: LNOVERKILL
Rating: PG
Flavor(s): Butter Pecan #4: smooth; Watermelon #12: just like (grand)mother used to make; Coffee #1: coffee
Word Count: 1776
Summary: Matthias makes a mean cup of coffee. Henry isn’t sure whether he’s flirting or not at this point.
Notes: Henry Avelar/Matthias Elizalde. Early October, set during canon. (Time to showcase some new characters, I think! Happy New Year, everyone!)
At half-past six in the morning, the cafe was already packed with the usual patrons that showed up to grab a coffee and a fresh-made pastry before they had to head off to work. Matthias watched from behind the counter, vaguely bitter as a middle-aged man in a suit slid $20 across the countertop instead of just handing it to him. The man went back to his conversation with whoever was on the other end of his cell call, and Matthias briefly considered giving him less change than he was due, keeping a good couple dollars to put into the tip jar for himself and his coworkers. The guy was barely paying attention, after all. But the surveillance cameras scattered throughout the establishment stopped him from putting his plan into action. He was too tired to execute it smoothly.
“Dude,” Matthias said, waving a few bills in the man’s direction, “your change.” The man, still distracted, only held out his hand for the change and then wandered off to the end of the counter where the drinks were picked up.
With the first morning rush finished, Matthias finally took a moment to just breathe, and then disappeared into the back for a moment to sip his styrofoam cup full of coffee and take a few bites from the cinnamon roll he’d claimed as breakfast. The morning shifts went by the quickest, because nearly every half hour there was another rush of people coming in to get their caffeine fix on the way to work, but that also meant there was barely a moment to rest the entire shift. If he wasn’t working the register, he was making coffee, and if he wasn’t making coffee, he was cleaning or restocking. Even when Matthias managed to get a full night’s sleep before coming in, it was exhausting.
That day, though, he’d pulled an all-nighter just to manage getting in on time, and had worked the night shift the day before. Exhausting didn’t begin to cover it.
The sound of the door jingling was audible even over the sounds of people talking and coffee machines hissing. “‘Matthias,” one of his coworkers called, jerking her head in the direction of the register.
“Got it, Paige,” he replied with a sigh, dropping his cinnamon roll back onto its napkin and taking another gulp of coffee for good measure. Wiping his hands on his apron to get the icing off, Matthias walked back to his register. “Oh, hey, Henry. What’re you doing here?”
Henry sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. “Quentin broke my French press.”
“You just replaced it like two months ago,” Matthias laughed, and Henry gave him a thin smile in response.
“I know.” Somehow, Henry managed to look even more sullen than usual as he sighed and squinted up at the menu overhead.
“Do you just want me to make you something?” Matthias prompted, lips curling into a faint smile at the memory of their first meeting. He could have done without Henry tripping over him on the sidewalk, but as far as beginnings went, the painful and awkward collision that morning had been worth it.
Henry didn’t seem to be transported back to more innocent times, though, as he pulled out his wallet and counted the bills inside. “Could you? I’m just…” He trailed off and waved his hand around near his head in a gesture that Matthias interpreted to mean he wasn’t all there that morning.
“Yep. Just give me five bucks and we’ll call it even.” Matthias took the bill Henry handed over and stuffed it into the cash register. “Go sit down, I’ll bring your drink out when it’s ready.”
Henry nodded, suddenly distracted by his phone, and wandered over to a table near the long, tinted windows.
“What did he order?” Paige asked, one hand hovering near the cups in preparation of starting a new order.
“He didn’t,” Matthias replied, and plucked the largest to-go cup they had from the rack. “I’ve got it, though. Can you take over at the register? I’m going on break in a minute.”
She sighed and folded her arms over her chest. “Matthias, you haven’t even been here an hour.”
“So?” A steady stream of espresso filled the bottom of the cup while Matthias turned around to face Paige. “I get lunch and two breaks. It doesn’t say when I have to take them, so I’m taking a break now. The rush is over for now, anyway.”
“Fine,” Paige huffed. “You know, you’re lucky we don’t have a drive-thru.”
Matthias just laughed and moved aside to pour some milk into a stainless steel pitcher. “I know, I’ve heard your Dunkin Donuts horror stories. It’s a miracle you survived your time there.” He situated the pitcher in the machine and hit the button to start steaming the milk. “If it starts getting busy, I’ll cut my break short.”
“Deal,” Paige replied, and stepped up to the counter to take the order of a woman who had just walked in the door.
Matthias finished mixing in the syrups and milk just in time for Paige to ask if he could ring the woman up. With Henry’s drink on the counter next to him, he swiped the woman’s debit card and handed it back to her before logging out of the register. “All yours, Paige,” he called as he pulled his apron over his head.
Henry was sitting at one of the small, two-person tables near the window, his elbows propped up on the top and his phone in his hands. He looked tired, more so than usual, and he only looked up when Matthias set the coffee down in front of him. “This has to be more than five dollars,” he commented, but set his phone down and wrapped his hands around the cardboard cup.
“I get a nice employee discount,” Matthias grinned, gracelessly dropping into the seat across from him. “So, what’re you doing up so early, anyway?”
“Quentin woke me up by knocking my French press off the counter, and he was so tired that I had to clean up the glass for him.” Henry sighed. “And I have a paper due today, so I figured since I was up, I might as well stay up.”
“Bold-faced lies,” Matthias said. “You got up early to come see me.”
Henry ducked his head but Matthias still caught a glimpse of the embarrassed smile on his face. When he straightened, though, the smile was gone. “Well, yeah, because I knew you’d give me a discount.”
“You did not.” Matthias grinned and shook his head. “I never give you discounts.”
“Right.” Henry picked up the cup, but didn’t drink from it. “So, I figured it was about time you did.”
“Real smooth, Avelar,” Matthias said, punctuating the comment with a dramatic eyeroll. “As if you come here for the coffee.”
“I come here for your coffee,” Henry corrected. The lid of the cup was blocking his mouth from view, but Matthias could just see the corners of his lips lifting.
“Well, I’m honored.” Matthias suddenly wished he’d grabbed his own cup of coffee so he’d have something to occupy himself with as well.
“So,” Henry finally said after a tentative sip of his coffee, “this is great. As usual.”
Matthias laughed. “Wow, don’t sound so pained to say it.”
“What?” Henry took another sip. “I was being sincere.”
“I know, but you just--it was the way you said it. Like when you’re reluctantly paying a compliment to someone you don’t like.” Matthias was just teasing at that point; most days, Henry had an air of sullenness about him that tended to color his interactions, but he’d grown used to it by then.
Henry, however, didn’t seem to be aware that he was teasing, and looked shocked and mildly embarrassed. “Matthias--I didn’t--”
“I’m joking,” Matthias assured him, reaching across the table to gently run his thumb over the back of Henry’s hand in a decidedly not-platonic gesture. Henry immediately dropped his gaze, his cheeks the faintest shade of pink as he turned to look out the window, and Matthias pulled away. “So, what’s the paper on?”
“What?” Henry asked, startled by the sudden change in topic, and turned back to Matthias.
“You said you had a paper due. What’s it about?” Matthias stole a sip from Henry’s coffee and set it down with a satisfied smirk.
“It’s for my Literature course,” Henry explained, “and it’s an essay contrasting the portrayal of marriage in Victorian literature and the realities of married life in that time period.” If he cared that Matthias had taken a drink from his cup, he didn’t show it, and took another sip himself.
“That sounds...boring.”
“Somewhat,” Henry replied with a faint smile. “The research is interesting enough.”
“I just don’t get you academics,” Matthias said. “All your papers about, what, like ‘the role of women’s bonnets in 18th century literature’ or whatever.”
That got a laugh out of Henry, who rolled his eyes. “Because throwing paint at a canvas is so much better.”
Matthias frowned. “I don’t throw paint at my canvases--usually.”
“No, because sometimes you throw paint at people.” Henry was grinning then, and Matthias couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That was once! One time! I don’t generally go around wasting expensive art supplies, Henry. I don’t have that kind of money.”
“If I’d known it was such a big deal,” Henry replied, still smirking, “I would have reimbursed you. But I thought we were having fun.”
“I never said we weren’t,” Matthias replied, folding his hands on top of the table and smiling.
There were a few beats of silence between them before Henry finally cleared his throat. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but the jingling of the door behind him stole Matthias’s attention away.
“I promised Paige I’d come back if it got busy,” Matthias explained as he rose from his seat. A group of four people in business attire were making their way to the counter, and he would have bet a week’s paycheck that at least one person would be ordering for the office. “You know, you don’t have to stalk me at work to talk to me. You have my number. And my Skype name.”
Henry didn’t respond; instead, he raised his coffee cup to take another sip, all the while trying to hide the faint blush coloring his cheeks. Matthias, ever gregarious, loudly greeted the customers as pulled his apron over his head, but he did take a second to shoot a final grin back at Henry, who was already gathering up his things.