Work Text:
Neil Josten didn’t particularly like coffee.
He drank it because it was cheap and served a purpose—which, keeping him halfway conscious as he slogged through long days working, classes, and fending off school clubs and sport teams. And the refills were free with his student ID.
So, why he was here at The Fox Den at nine on a Saturday, he hadn't stopped to think about.
He shuffled up to the counter, glancing around the cafe for anyone he knew (no one really, a few familiar faces from classes maybe,) and more importantly anyone he didn’t. But the cafe looked as unassuming as ever. He turned back to face the barista, request for drip already started and—
--stuttered into nothing.
He didn’t know this barista.
Renee was significantly shorter, decidedly female, had lighter hair, and all around not Matt.
“Hello! Can I get something for you?” she chirped, taking his stumble in stride.
“Drip,” he mumbled. Fumbled for his wallet. Added, “Please.”
She smiled a little more amused than polite. “Not who you were expecting?” she guessed. “Room for cream?”
Neil shrugged, and then nodded. It didn’t really matter who the barista was—it was drip, they all brewed it the same. He didn’t have any need for favorites, but… it wasn’t that. It was familiar, Matt was familiar and Neil had deemed him safe enough when he’d come in late after classes and suck down as much caffeine as he could while he worked on homework endlessly.
She had a few pastel pins on her apron: a rainbow in shades of pink, a cartoonish fox with too big eyes, another that looked like a little plant. He focused on those instead of her face. Spotted a… well, that was a sparkly knife, wasn’t it, down at the corner of a lower pocket.
He thanked her with his head down and retreated to his usual table in the back corner, away from the window, clear view of the door and the counter and the lobby of the cafe. It was the safest spot and he felt a little more balanced to have his back to the wall, his books spread out in front of him like a trench. The coffee was awful as usual. Acidic and thin, it reminded him of long drives through the night, broken only by passing headlights, highway signs, and pinches to his thigh to keep him awake.
He buried it under sugar packets, generous splashes of half-and-half, and the cinnamon shaker set out by the straws, until it was unrecognizable. That too was familiar, and a comfort.
By the time the afternoon was starting to creep up Renee was relieved by another barista he’d never seen before, and he had almost all his homework done.
It didn’t make him feel as satisfied as it should.
The next Tuesday Neil dragged himself into the Fox Den, shoulder aching from his bag, brain swirling with numbers and theories, and was disproportionately relieved to see Matt cleaning something behind the counter. Good, things could go back to normal. Normal was safe. (Normal breeds complacency and mistakes, his mother reminded him, scornful.)
He swung by the counter before claiming his table, asked a little desperate, “Drip, please,” to drown out her voice. And then felt stupid because his hands were still full and he had to drop everything to reach his wallet.
Matt looked over from under the espresso machine. He beamed, flashed a set of dimple, and said, “Hey, Archimedes,” and Neil had that distinct sensation of warmth he had no business feeling. Or maybe it wasn’t warmth, maybe it was the opposite, maybe it was that shock of being pushed into a pool before he was ready, everything coming up over his head.
“Neil,” he said, as he always did, but couldn’t help his lips twitching up. He wasn’t sure how Matt knew so many dead mathematicians, or why he found it so funny to call him by their names. It was odd, but he didn’t mind it.
Matt only continued to grin as he threw the rag somewhere behind the counter and shook his head. “Right, right, my bad.”
Somewhere in the back of his thoughts his mother shrieked at him again. But Matt was still looking pleased to see him, was getting him a cup, was filling it without asking how he liked it, leaning on the counter and a little close like he was relaxed. Neil focused on that instead.
“You sure this is what you want?” Matt asked, even as he slid it across the counter and took Neil’s money.
Neil only tilted his head, but shrugged. Why would he?
“It’s just…” Matt hit a couple buttons, printed out his receipt, and shrugged himself. “Doesn’t seem like you like it very much. You always get this sort’ve…” He gestures at his own face, scrunching his nose theatrically, “little grimace. ’S cute, but you can try something else, y’know. Won’t charge you if you don’t like it.”
“Oh.” Neil maybe didn’t hear the rest of his sentence and he scrambled to figure it out from context. “I'm fine. Just need it to keep me awake.”
“Okay, if you’re sure. I can add a little syrup to it? Vanilla? Coconut? Sweeten it up a bit, if you don’t like the actual coffee taste.”
“I’m fine,” Neil said. Neither of them said anything for a long minute, Neil’s gut instinct not to allow anyone to tamper with his drink. But… “Okay. Vanilla.”
He dug in his pocket for spare change, freezing when Matt waved a hand at him. “No, no, don’t worry about it. It’s on me. I’m the one making you try something new.”
Neil nodded his thanks and gingerly passed his cup back.
It was better, by a lot, the flavor covered some of the bitterness, and he didn’t have to add as much sugar to it. It was nice, something different for his homework session, and Matt looked like he’d won something when Neil admitted he’d liked it as he was packing up to leave.
A couple days later he let Matt talk him into an americano with hazelnut and caramel, wordlessly leaving generous room for cream; called him Pythagorus. The drink was sweet, maybe too much so but at least he couldn’t taste the much darker espresso, and when Matt asked if he liked it better he just nodded and offered a slight smile. He handed over the extra dollar and told himself it was fine because he had money and no one could find him with cash anyway. He was safe (for now.)
He had so much else to focus on, but these were quiet little moments between everything where Matt would smile at him, try to make something he’d like better, try to joke with him or ask about his classes, always amazed he was majoring in math, of all things. And Neil felt seen. It was alarming in its own way, but something in him hungered for it. There was something yawning and dark nestled deep in him that shivered at the smiles, at the soft tone Matt used around him, at the way Matt was so much taller but the counter between them keep him from towering, at Matt sometimes leaning down to his level on crossed arms on the counter to talk to him about his coach or grueling practices or troublesome teammates.
Renee was one of them, Neil learned one Friday night as Matt started on his pre-closing tasks much earlier than usual, having a team dinner after his shift, and he liked her very much. Neil found himself liking her a little more himself, by the way Matt talked about her, and her girlfriend Allison, and Dan.
He never asked if Neil was interested in joining their Exy team, and Neil was relieved and disappointed in equal turns. He honestly didn’t know how he’d answer at this point.
One Monday early into the semester, Kevin Day walked into the cafe. He glanced around, already heading for Matt with familiarity and a very clear need for caffeine, and maybe slowed a little when his gaze slid over Neil.
Neil shoved all of his stuff into his bag and left.
For the most part Neil did his best not to stare at the old track marks on the inside of Matt’s arms; he had a lot of old wounds too, and he hardly ever noticed Matt looking at his. Like they weren’t odd, like they weren’t warning signs, like they were just another part of Neil.
He tried harder after Matt caught him looking once and told him about his past troubles with drug dependency without hesitation, unbothered by it and as if he didn’t mind Neil looking.
“Oh. No,” Neil had mumbled, shaking his head and taking a step back. “I wasn’t looking at… them.”
Matt raised an eyebrow, running a hand through his spikes. “Just looking, then?” he teased.
“No.” He thinks maybe he was. Neil slinked back to his table without another word.
There was nothing about this that his mother would’ve ever allowed, nothing that he himself should be allowing in sane preservation, but it’d been so long since things had been slow enough to entertain thoughts of anything other than survival; his body unthawing from the seasons of vigilance and fear.
But there wasn’t anything to it, he kept reminding himself. Matt was working. Matt was paid to be nice and make people feel special (right?) Matt treated everyone with kindness. And Neil was just lucky to have a place to study that wasn’t the library: too quiet, too open, the echo of every small sound prodding at the urge to run.
The first time Matt sat himself down across from Neil at his table, Neil wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. Matt brought him a refill and his own ceramic mug smelling of chocolate and topped with a mountain of whipped cream.
“I’m so bored, man,” Matt said, and dropped his chin down on his fists, making himself at home propped up on Neil’s intro to psych textbooks. “It’s been dead in here all afternoon. And I still got like,” he checked his phone, “two whole hours.”
“I’m sorry,” Neil said, for lack of anything better.
Matt only laughed at him, and asked how his job pushing papers in the admin offices was going. Neil talked, halting and unsure, careful with what information could be used against him and what was innocuous enough for Matt to know.
Matt never looked like he was losing interest and, when Neil finished his refill, casually switched it out for the peppermint hot chocolate.
Neil didn’t finish his paper, but he could’t quite find it in himself to care.
Some days Neil ignored his class work to listen to Matt’s stories about bitchy customers while he refilled grinders or did dishes or cleaned something in the cafe. Even if it meant hovering around the bar, even if it meant loitering in the most open space of the cafe. Matt always had a new interaction, a new story, a instance of he and his coworkers screwing up in disastrous ways; Matt breaking a jar of tea or one of the shot glasses, Nicky brewing a gallon of drip onto a closed pot lid, Renee spilling cinnamon all over a freshly mopped floor. They were amusing, even though they made Neil cringe and flinch somewhere small inside him he tried to avoid—he couldn’t understand how Matt recounted these stories so causally and without fear of sever punishment.
He mentioned it once, and Matt had looked at him so closely, thoughts visibly turning, that Neil didn’t bring it up again.
Sometimes, Matt’s teammates came in to bug him. More like constantly. Which was distracting at best, but mostly uncomfortable and alarming. Neil didn’t bother Matt when they were around, but that didn’t stop them from bothering him.
Neil recognized Renee, and Nicky, the bright boy who sometimes worked the morning shifts. But he didn’t know the set of blond twins, both with matching expressions promising violence when he caught their eyes staring.
Renee drifted over with a small to-go cup, smiling pleasantly, and her towering girlfriend, Allison, trailing behind her. Allison had a large coffee in one hand, her phone in the other, and snapped her bubble gum until a twin snapped at her. She grinned like a dog bearing its teeth.
“Long time no see,” Renee said, stopping a polite distance away. Allison came right up between them to hang off Renee and lean in to eye Neil considering.
“You’re Matt’s Neil?”
“No,” Neil said, sharper than was probably polite, if the way Renee blinked meant anything. “Just Neil.”
Allison pursed her lips at him. “Shame. Could always use another scrappy burn-out to fill out the team. You look flighty. Can you run?”
“Not interested,” Neil snapped. He relaxed some—made himself relax, forced his shoulders down for pretense sake. At least this was familiar. He stuck his headphones in, but didn’t turn any music on.
“Rude little shit,” Allison snorted.
“So were you,” Renee said. She offered Neil a parting smile and tugged Allison away.
If Matt looked disappointed over at the counter where he was ringing up Dan (or rather, doing something complicated so she ended up paying something like twenty-seven cents,) looked like maybe he was hoping this time they’d all get along a little better, Neil tried not to let it get to him.
(It did, a little, anyway.)
It’d been raining all week, and Neil wasn’t looking forward to another night walking to his dorm, shivering and soaked through.
“Coming’ down pretty hard,” Matt said, stepping up beside his table.
Neil jumped, pulling his bag tighter to him in his lap, but Matt didn’t act like he’d noticed, just readjusted his grip on the broom and dustpan. Neil watched him, and then looked out the front window again. The cafe was empty besides the two of them—it was closing soon, but Neil hadn’t managed to make himself pack up and leave, just yet.
“Yeah,” Neil said. “Was hoping it’d stop by now.”
“You walk, right?” Matt asked.
They were both silent for a too-long moment, Matt offering without offering, Neil so still he hoped Matt might forget about him and he could leave in peace.
“No,” he said. Thought about being in the passenger seat of Matt’s truck, thought about having no escape, thought about if he’d even want to, what it might be like with the heaters going full blast and rain pelting the windows, his bag clutched tight in his lap and neither of them saying a word like they weren’t now. Thought about how often he used to hitchhike like that—if Matt’s hand would drift over to his knee, his thigh, like some drivers did. “I mean, yes, but I’m fine.” He doesn’t think Matt would.
Matt exhaled something soft, maybe a laugh. Neil glanced over at him and, yeah, that was definitely a laugh.
“You say that a lot.”
Neil shrugged. “S’true. I’m fine, don’t need a ride.”
“Maybe I wasn’t offering,” Matt teased. He wandered away, sweeping the floors and keeping an eye on Neil—Neil could feel it, it made him want to shift in the hard wooden chair. He stayed still like he was trained to.
Finally Matt flipped off the open sign; finally Neil sighed and flipped his state hood up, and trudged for the door.
“Here,” Matt said, and dropped something with weight onto Neil’s head.
The rain jacket crinkled when Neil moved, when he slid it down so he could see. He could already tell it was going to be too big.
“I’m—“
“Fine, yeah, I know,” Matt said, his smile audible. “But, y’know, I’m fine too, in my truck. And I’ll probably see you tomorrow night, right?”
Neil’s chest tightened in either alarm or contentment—he wasn’t sure which and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He said nothing.
Matt, for some reason, found this as cause to smile brighter, dimpling at him when Neil could make himself look over.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow night, and you can give it back then, and that’s like, totally fine,” Matt finished.
He was far too pleased with himself, and Neil couldn’t find any sane fault in the simple logic.
“Fine,” he said, and slipped the jacket on. It was too big, the cuffs falling over his hands, the zipper hitting around his thighs when he wrestled it up. It swished and crinkled every time he moved.
“Fine,” Matt echoed, and made a big show about sweeping him out, quite literally, and fussing about having to lock up.
Neil was pretty sure it was so he couldn’t give the jacket back.
He wasn’t about to wait around in the rain, so he turned and headed back to the dorms, and was pleased with how far the hood came down over his face, obscuring him from anyone walking by.
Neil tried not to swing through the Fox Den in the morning between work and morning classes, if he could help it. Nicky usually worked the opening shifts, and was overly friendly to the point of reaching over the counter to touch him, to flirt at him, and it made Neil’s skin crawl.
But some days classes were too much, his own paranoia keeping him awake through the night and his nerves overworked until he felt brittle and fried. Some days he needed some shitty coffee to get him through the day until Matt could make him something palatable and dimple at him.
Still, no matter how uninterested Neil was, Nicky always tried. He was starting to think Nicky liked flirting more than he liked the people he was flirting at; more so when Renee recently told him Nicky was technically seeing someone.
But this morning Nicky kept his hands to himself, kept his comments to himself, but didn’t keep his eyes away. He watched Neil, considering enough to almost be a parody. He charged him for drip, and the proceeded to drizzle some caramel into a taller cup and pull a double shot for an americano.
Neil thought about protesting, but he was surprised enough to not know what to say about it. Nicky might take a simple, that’s wrong, as an invitation. Neil was too tired, too strung out, for that.
“You know,” Nicky started anyway, not actually needing an invitation, “Boyd’s like, super into you. It’s kinda mean that you keep teasing him. You could at least let him down easy instead of letting him pant after you all the time.”
Neil blinked. “What.”
Nicky frowned at him, passing the cup over. “Boyd. Matt. Yay tall,” as he lifted his hand comically high over his head, “good skin and dumb hair and criminally cute mouth and like, stupid into you. He’s like a puppy.”
“What,” Neil said again, dumbly.
Nicky leans forward to tap the coffee’s lid. “Matt who made sure to tell me and Renee that you don’t actually like coffee so if you came in we could make you something better. Which… Neil, if you don’t like coffee what the hell are you doing in here all the time?”
“Homework.” Neil’s head was spinning, his balance lilting a little to the side.
“Dude,” Nicky said on a heavy, tortured exhale. “You… you didn’t know?”
“I have to get to class,” Neil said, turning on his heel. He burned his tongue on his drink, not even tasting it.
Neil didn’t go to the Fox Den that night, or the next, or all that weekend.
He went to the library, the shared common room on his dorm’s floor, the chain coffee shop an extra four minute walk away.
He didn’t get much done. The library was too quiet, the common room too loud, and the other cafe unknown and putting him on edge.
Neil didn’t go back to the Fox Den until late the next week, and maybe shuffled in, pulling himself in small in the hopes that Matt wouldn’t notice him. He was small, there was a good chance.
But Matt’s face lit up to spot him, even when he was helping another customer. It was stupid to think he might not; the cafe wasn’t that big.
“Hey, Turing,” Matt said. He was already reaching for a cup, snagging two syrup bottles by one hand from under the counter. “I’ve got a new drink for you, been waiting to try it out.” Which was as far as Matt had ever gone to say that he was disappointed Neil hadn’t been around.
“Oh. Uh, sure.” Neil pulled out three dollars quietly, wondering if maybe Nicky was just being obnoxious.
Matt grinned and pushed his money away, pressing his hand down on his for several seconds too long. “No, no, you know the rules. Don’t have to pay for experiments. Thought you were smart or something?”
Matt had never touched him like this before, and Neil choked down the jolting urge to yank his hand away. He already knew the sad face Matt would make and that… that wasn’t worth any discomfort.
“Apparently not,” Neil said, a little slow, a little careful. “Heard I’ve been pretty stupid.”
Matt cocked an eyebrow at him as he went about making his coffee, focused but keeping an eye on him. “Who said that? That doesn’t sound right.”
Neil shrugged. He watched Matt’s hands work—looked everywhere but at Matt. He’d never done this before, wasn’t even sure what he was trying to do. Maybe he just wanted to know, one way or another.
“Nicky.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Nicky talks a lot of shit, don’t listen to him. Clearly he doesn’t know you.”
Neil chewed on his lip, considering. “Like you?”
“What?”
“Nicky doesn’t know me… like you do you?”
Matt flicked his eyes away, shrugging and forcing a relaxed facade over his tense shoulders. “Well, yeah. You’re a math major, and you’re always doing homework. You’re here on scholarship—“
“Partial,” Neil corrected, and Matt only nodded like he knew that but it wasn’t important.
“And I see you the most. Course you’re smart. Nicky’s just messing with you.” He slid over Neil’s cup, a hopeful little half-smile tugging at his mouth. “Let me know what you think, but wait a minute. It’s hot.”
Neil wrapped his hands around the cup, leeching the warmth, but didn’t step away from the bar pick-up. “I think Nicky was right.”
“You’re not—“
“I think you do, like me.” It felt foreign to say it, the words not making much sense—it couldn’t be right, no one had… at least, not that he’d ever known, not about him. But Matt was pink along his cheeks, his eyes a little wide and caught.
“Course I like you,” Matt said, shifting and making it sound casual. “You’re like, the easiest customer I ever have. And you’re interesting.”
“And you think my distaste for plain coffee is, is cute,” Neil reminded him, only really remembering that himself as he pointed it out.
Matt frowned, grabbing a rag and looking for something to wipe down, and then wringing it between his hands and ended up putting it back down. “Okay. Yeah. Is that a problem?”
Neil thought about that for a too-long moment—he only knew it was by the way Matt’s expression started to fall little by little—and twisted the paper cup between his hands. “No. That’s… that’s fine.”
Matt exhaled in a rush like he’d been holding his breath ever since they met, and beamed. Matt had a really nice smile, uncomplicated and sincere, and Neil couldn’t help smiling back—carefully, cautiously.
Neil Josten still didn’t particularly like coffee.
Neil Josten, maybe, liked the evening barista.
But that was fine, because the evening barista really liked him.