Work Text:
Why Marluxia keeps visiting this Starbucks in particular he isn't sure. Obviously the location plays a big part - it's only a ten minute walk from his flat, but there are at least four coffee shops within ten minutes of his flat. Maybe it's the comfortable couch over in the corner next to the alive-but-barely potted palm with a view of a posterboard close up of a sack coffee beans. Maybe it's irreverent, slightly bored service he receives as an obvious college student using the coffee shop as an excuse to get out of the house. Maybe it's the music, a lot of 80's and 90's pop rock that's just familiar enough to Marluxia to fade into the background noise as he studies. It's definitely not the coffee, which is exactly the same as every other coffee everywhere else, if not slightly worse because they never put in enough milk.
He tries not to go in every day. He doesn't want to be that kind of regular, especially since he takes up a whole couch and doesn't even buy any of the overpriced cake slices or paninis on offer at the bar. But regular enough to make good use of his loyalty card(s). He usually ends up there in the early afternoon just as he's beginning to flag and needs some peer pressure to keep working. Not that he actually has any peers to pressure him, but the fact that he's in public makes him just nervous enough to actually read his textbooks and take notes on them rather than, say, take a nap at his desk. It also helps that if his mom is going to call it will be around this time, and being in a cafe is a great way of making her keep the call brief.
The cafe closes at six. It's twenty to. The barista, a woman about Marluxia's age with a languid affectation and a way too short skirt, heads over with a tray to take his empty cup. Her name tag says LARXENE, which Marluxia isn't totally sure how to pronounce. As a person with a name that's stumped every English-speaking teacher, professor or doctor he's ever had, he feels a kind of kinship with her - but that's where the affection ends.
"Last orders, hun." She calls him hun every time she sees him now. Marluxia's kind of worried she's going to come onto him. He tries to act disinterested - well, he doesn't really have to try, he just makes a particular point of it.
"Just a cappucino to go, please."
"Sure thing."
When he was packing up to leave home for the first time, he entertained thoughts of self-reinvention, experimenting with more fashionable clothes, joining the university GSA, getting a boyfriend. But in reality he just ended up window shopping alone and buying more dirty magazines than he was brave enough to do at home with his mom always snooping. He's a little more toned, his hair a little longer, his shirts a little tighter. Less coming out of the closet, more peeping through the keyhole.
A group of friends over by the door finish their drinks and head out. At first Marluxia felt awkward about staying until close, but most of the people know him now and are happy to clean up around him while he finishes his chapter or page or notes or whatever he's doing. Or at least they don't care enough to actually throw him out. He makes a point of tipping well, which is probably what cinches it for them.
Larxene comes by with Marluxia's coffee and then a few minutes later a broom, smacking his ankles until he hooks his feet up onto the couch long enough for her to sweep under it. He's pretty sure she only bothers to sweep under the couch because he's sitting on it, although he hasn't tried sitting somewhere else when she's on shift to test this theory.
"What's that you're reading?" She ducks down to look at the cover at Marluxia's book, showing a line of cleavage that Marluxia only notices because she makes it pretty impossible not to notice it. "Macroeconomics and financial management? Sounds gripping."
"It sure is..." Marluxia searches for a word that's humourous without being flirtatious, "Uh, informative."
"Yeah, I bet." says Larxene. Her eyes flick over Marluxia's other books. "What's your major? Economics?"
"Business."
"Figures," says Larxene, "Explains why you don't have any friends." This makes Marluxia splutter with indignation, but before he can even protest that he does have friends - which is only kind of a lie - she laughs and punches him with surprising force on the shoulder. "Kidding, hun."
"Ten minutes," calls the manager. "Larxene, if you don't stop flirting and start sweeping I'm firing you."
Larxene groans and gets back to sweeping. Marluxia wonders whether he should leave now, but maybe that would make it too obvious that he couldn't take a joke. He doesn't want to go to a different coffee shop. It's definitely the couch, he decides. This couch is almost perfectly his-butt shaped. He decides to play it cool, focusing on the last few pages of his chapter while the staff clean up around him. He finishes at two minutes to six and starts to pack up his bag. Larxene comes back to rearrange some furniture, which Marluxia is pretty sure is an excuse to not do any actual work.
"You got plans tonight?" she asks in a tone so casual for a moment Marluxia questions her intentions. The answer is no, obviously, but the real question is whether he lies for a polite deflection or if he should be more specific about shutting her down. Marluxia has dealt with rejecting girls before, but that was more like being sidled up to after church service or having a note written in gel pen slipped into his locker. Explicitly romantic. Is he being too presumptuous to assume Larxene's intentions?
Whatever, the couch isn't that perfect.
"I'm sorry, I'm really not interested in you."
Larxene laughs, the sound high and nasal. "Yeah, I know, you're gay. I was just asking."
Marluxia, who was halfway through swinging his bag onto his back, drops it painfully on his shoulder. He just manages to avoid actually reacting to the weight of six entire textbooks jolting him, at least. It's not like he hasn't dodged questions about his sexuality before - even at school there were plenty of rumours he pretended he didn't know anything about - it's the barista's certainty that startles him. He scrambles for words, eventually managing with, "What gave it away?"
Larxene kicks a chair back under its table. "Oh, hun, where do I even begin." She opens her mouth to follow up with something else but her manager yells something at her about getting back to work with another threat of firing. "Ten minutes. Wait for me if you wanna." And she disappears into the kitchen, leaving a dumbfounded Marluxia to wrestle a plastic lid onto his coffee cup and be ushered outside by one of the other staff members.
Why did he wait for her? Was it because, like he tells himself, he just needed to finish his coffee before he headed home? Or was it because he wanted to know how she knew he was gay? Or was it because he'd been in college nearly six months and still hadn't made any real friends, least of all friends he could come out to? But he waited and is just draining the last of his drink when Larxene appears, shrugging a denim jacket over a black tee that says in loud white letters, BITCH!
"Oh, hey, you actually waited."
"Don't have anything better to do," says Marluxia, which is true.
"You drink?"
"Only nineteen," says Marluxia. At Larxene's look that clearly communicates "so what?" he adds, "So just soft drinks."
"Whatever, soft drinks are cheaper." Larxene beckons him to follow her. "A coworker who will remain nameless wanted to ask you out," she says, pulling a bill out of her pocket and waving it triumphantly in the air. "And I told her not to bother 'cause you're gay. I put twenty dollars on it. So for probably the first time in my life, drinks are on me."
"Is it really that obvious?"
Larxene looks Marluxia up and down. "You know what your exact style is? A gay guy trying to fly under the radar. And it works on the straights, astonishingly. Despite the fact that no heterosexual man has had a curly mullet like that since the eighties. Also the first thing you pull out of your bag every day is a pink organiser-"
"It's not pink," Marluxia interrupts, realising as the words leave his mouth that there's no way to finish that sentence without sounding really gay. And Larxene knows it. He sighs with defeat. "Actually I'm colourblind."
"Hey, me too!" says Larxene. "Red-green?"
"No, blue-yellow," says Marluxia. "It's a pretty rare type. It's really uncommon for women to have colourblindness." He kicks himself as he says this, because it always pisses him off when people comment on how rare blue-yellow colourblindness is as if he didn't already know more about the condition than they ever would.
Larxene shrugs. If she's irritated, she doesn't show it. "It's a werewolf thing."
Marluxia tries - and fails - to keep the astonishment out of his voice. "You're a werewolf?"
He thinks her expression is cold when she looks at him. It's hard to tell in the dim light between the streetlamps.
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna turn into a savage beast out to bite your head off." He voice becomes coy, flirtatious: "Unless you want me to."
"No, it's not that," says Marluxia quickly, "Although I don't." As if that needed clarifying. "It's just that I have it too. Lycanthropy, I mean."
Larxene actually stops in her tracks, laughing out loud. She seems to regard Marluxia with a new admiration. "No shit? That's awesome." Awesome is… definitely not a word Marluxia has heard anyone use to refer to his affliction. But Larxene doesn't even sound sarcastic, astonishingly, since almost everything she says sounds sarcastic. "What breed? No, let me guess. Curly hair, aloof and uptight… poodle. You're a poodle." Marluxia doesn't even say anything. "I'm right, aren't I?"
"I'm a standard," huffs Marluxia, irritated at having been read so easily by someone who doesn't even know his name. "They're actually the second most intelligent breed of dog after border collies."
Larxene laughs again, snorting this time. "I knew it. Okay, guess me."
"Uh, pit bull terrier."
"I wish, but no."
"I don't know," says Marluxia. He starts walking again. Larxene shoves him around a corner. "I don't really know about dog breeds."
"You know enough to know that poodles are smart. You had to prove it to someone, huh?"
Marluxia bristles. Instead of admitting that Larxene is absolutely right, he tries again: "Some kind of hound."
"Really doesn't narrow it down, hun."
"No, like a racing dog. Greyhound."
"You know what, close enough. I'm a whippet. And let me tell you, boofing is an absolute bitch."
Marluxia considers this. He's not sure how big whippets are but he guesses they're small. "Yeah, that sounds tough," he agrees finally. His transformations are excruciating enough and he's one of the larger breeds. Larxene hums in agreement.
"Pain. In. The. Dick. Should have been a mastiff or a husky or something. Something big. I know a guy who knows a full on wolf. He's basically the same size as a human as he is as a wolf. That's seriously unfair. Domestication's a bitch."
"I didn't know there were werewolves who were... actually wolves," says Marluxia in surprise. He thought he'd read up as much on the condition as he could, but Larxene talks like it's no big deal, just some kind of lifestyle choice or something.
"Oh, sure there are. You really didn't know that?" Larxene gestures them round another corner. "They're not exactly common. I've never met one. Knowingly, anyway. There's this one family of them that live near here. Living in the wild, running packs, very alpha male bullshit. I'd take normal life over having some purebred wolf telling me what to do any day." She considers this. "That's a damn lie, I consider running away to join a wolf pack every damn time a customer gives me shit for not giving them change only in dollars that were minted in the last six months or some new level of asswipery. I can see from your naive, self-satisfied countenance that you've never worked in customer service. It. Fucking. Sucks. But they wouldn't take me in a wolf pack anyway. They only like big dogs. It's basically racism."
"Oh," says Marluxia blandly. He doesn't really know what else to say. Larxene just talks about being a werewolf like it's… normal. No commiseration about the whole being-a-dog-four-days-a-month thing, no discussion of hope for treatments or cures. He doesn't want her to stop talking, but evidently she takes his speechlessness as a cue that the conversation is over, and says nothing else until they reach a bar with a flickering neon OPEN sign and stock photos of burgers and pizza on the menu boards. "You're probably used to better than this since you can afford to drink Starbucks every day without even having a real job, but take it or leave it."
"I'll take it," says Marluxia. Even now places like this aways seem slightly transgressive. What would his mother say if she saw him in a place like this with low lighting and sticky tables? Larxene is totally at home though, sliding her body over the bar to catch the attention of the bartender.
"Hey, hey, hey. Vodka and coke, give it to me in a pint glass and fill it with crushed ice. And just a coke for my underage friend."
"He's new," says the tender in a tone that suggests he's well familiar with Larxene bringing people to his establishment. He looks Marluxia up and down in a way that makes Marluxia feel very noticed. "You thinking of setting him up with someone?"
Larxene shrugs, handing over her twenty dollar bill. "Not yet. But he won me this in a bet so I thought I should at least take him out for a drink."
"He got a name?"
"Yeah, sure," says Larxene. She looks at Marluxia expectantly. He realises he never actually introduced himself to her.
"Marluxia."
Larxene nods sagely. "Yeah, I can see why you don't ask people to write that on your coffee cup."
"Hispanic?" asks the bartender. He slides over the rum and coke, which Larxene downs in three gulps before beginning to scoop the ice into her mouth; and the coke, which Marluxia sips cautiously. It takes like coke. He's not sure why he expected anything else.
"My dad's side of the family's from Spain," says Marluxia. "I grew up here though." He's spent several summers in Europe with his extended family, but he feels like this isn't the right place to mention that.
"You speak Spanish?"
"Sí, crecí en un familia bilingüe," says Marluxia. The bartender whistles.
"That is damn sexy."
Larxene nods in agreement. Marluxia feels very out of his depth. But he kind of likes it.
"Anyway, I'll catch you later babe," she says to the bartender, leading Marluxia over to a table by the window. Not that it really affords much of a view onto the street, or that the street is much of a view to begin with. Marluxia takes in the bar, the flyers for local bands taped to the walls, the slightly - significantly - out of date posters, the graffiti etched into the table. It doesn't look like anything other than a normal bar, not that Marluxia has a huge amount of experience with these kinds of places. But the bartender had called him sexy.
"Is this a gay bar?"
Larxene lets out another laugh. "Oh, hun. No. Not officially. Let's say it's gay friendly though. Nobody here gives a shit, so us queers like the place. Personally it's my preferred haunt because the owner's a werewolf too. You have to support your own, you know?"
Marluxia didn't know, but he nods anyway. "Sure." He wonders how many werewolves Larxene knows. How many are out there.
"So, Marluxia. Marluxia." Larxene repeats his name like she's considering the way it tastes. "Business major, rich boy, coffee addict, dresses like he's a stock market broker balls deep in a midlife crisis. So what's your story?"
Marluxia sits there in this dingy bar sipping at a lukewarm soda with a barista he barely knows but who already knows more about him than any of the people he's shared lectures with every day for nearly a full semester.
"Well, I'm planning on going into the charity sector." That's what he starts off with. It's not what he was expecting to say. Is it because he's trying to impress her? A near total stranger who works in Starbucks and chews ice with her mouth open? Or is it because after spending six months alongside other rich boy coffee addicts who dress like they're middle aged stock market brokers he's finally ready to admit he's sick to death of them?
"Very altruistic," says Larxene with a pointed insincerity. "You're gonna singlehandedly save the world with your expert knowledge of macroeconomics and financial management."
"Nobody can save the world singlehandedly," preens Marluxia, despite himself. "I was very involved in my school's volunteering and fundraising group-"
"The fact that your school had a volunteering and fundraising group says a lot about you," interrupts Larxene. She sounds amused. In her element here, leaning back with her arm hooked casually over her chair, swishing her crushed ice around in her glass. She's... kind of pretty, Marluxia supposes, with a round face and large, slightly down turned eyes that don't suit her shock of blonde hair or clearly acerbic personality. Marluxia has spent a lot of time studying women, trying to find them pretty. It's almost a reflex now. Still doesn't work. "So you got a special cause?"
"Well, I've done a lot of fundraising for medical charities," says Marluxia, "And international development, but lately I've been focusing more on things closer to home. City homelessness, education access, that kind of thing."
"I've got a good charity for you to support. My tip jar."
Marluxia is half regretting it as he pulls two dollar bills out of the front pocket of his bag, but he follows through with what he hopes is a casual enough air, placing them in front of Larxene. She doesn't demur at all, taking the bills up with a laugh and tucking them into her bra.
"Rich boys. Love them." She tips more ice into her mouth, crunching away like it's peanuts. Marluxia can't believe she isn't getting brain freeze.
"So what's your story?"
Larxene laughs. "You really wanna know?"
"Yeah."
"All right. I'm twenty two, dropped out of high school, spent nine months in juvie for trespassing and vandalism, fucking hate working in Starbucks but they're the only company this side of the city with a felon hiring program." She leans forwards, judging Marluxia's response. He raises his eyebrows at her.
"What, you're expecting me to be shocked?"
"Colour me impressed," says Larxene. "Pretty boys like you are usually more delicate."
"I'm not going to deny being delicate," says Marluxia in a burst of honesty he didn't know he was capable of, "But I'm not that sheltered at least."
Larxene pulls a face, eyes flicking over Marluxia again. "I'd argue any person who buys Starbucks every day is sheltered. What's your family like?"
Marluxia thinks about his parents. He's inherited his flair for charity from them - he was collecting money for sponsored events and running fundraising stalls at church before he even started high school - but their giving always takes the form of a cheque. Clean and tidy. Someone else doing the dirty work.
"Distant," he says eventually, still wondering how to elaborate.
"Mine too," says Larxene, "My mom's in prison for dealing drugs. And she's white, so you know she really fucked up there."
"You ever visit her?" asks Marluxia, definitely deciding not to say more about his parents. In comparison his upbringing has been positively sunny.
"Nah, it's like three hours by bus. Who has time for that when she's just gonna cuss me out for an hour and demand money I don't have?" Larxene catches Marluxia's expression and adds, "I don't need your pity, babe. She's a total cunt. Always was, always will be. Gotta get it from somewhere, right?"
Marluxia shrugs noncommitally, not feeling qualified to make a judgement on Larxene's personality one way or another.
"Siblings?" he asks.
"Not that I know of," says Larxene, "You?"
"No, I'm pretty sure giving birth to a dog put my mom off having any more," says Marluxia, which is the first time he's ever actually made a joke about having lycanthropy. It feels… good. His mom was always careful not to make any judgements about the whole having-a-werewolf-son thing in front of Marluxia - when he was human. But the things he overheard while trapped in a poodle made it pretty clear how his parents felt about the whole situation.
"You know what? Same. My mom had no idea what to expect. I sure don't get it from her."
"There was someone with lycanthropy somewhere on the Spanish side of my dad's family, but my parents didn't know until they found out about me. That kind of thing gets covered up."
Larxene laughs. "Yeah. Total bullshit. It's not like it's even a real disease."
"Well, it can be debilitating."
"Marluxia," says Larxene, "I'm going to assume you don't know this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but periods are way worse. At least when I'm a dog it's socially acceptable for me to lounge around naked and eat whatever I want."
Marluxia surprises himself with his laughter. "Okay, yeah, that's a point."
"Man, I can't believe you're a werewolf. I gotta tell Saix about this. Maybe he'd be interested in hooking up with you."
Marluxia flushes. "I'm not really a hook up kind of guy."
"Do you wanna be?"
Marluxia looks at his coke. He hasn't dated anyone before. Not that he hasn't thought about it. A lot. Every single time he pretended like he was too absorbed in his schoolwork - making up for being a dog four days a month - to care about girls. He thinks about how much he fought with his parents to be able to move out for college. They didn't think he could take care of himself. But he wanted the freedom so, so badly. And what's he doing with it? Still dressing like the kind of guy who runs a church youth group, failing to make any friends and skirting around his sexuality like he's still stuck in high school.
"Uh, I think I want to start off with being a dating kind of guy first."
This time Larxene's laughter is softer somehow, more forgiving. She runs her finger over the rim of her glass, carelessly. She doesn't seem capable of stillness.
"I'll keep an eye out for you, hun. You only interested in gay guys, or are bi guys good for you too?"
"I don't know," Marluxia admits honestly. "Both, I guess."
Larxene hums in acknowledgement. The conversation lulls. She finishes her ice, casts her eye over Marluxia again appraisingly.
"So," says Marluxia awkwardly, "What do you do outside of Starbucks?"
Larxene shrugs. "Get drunk mostly. Work behind the bar in a couple places. Do a bit of security for a club across town. I'm stronger than I look."
"With all due respect, that's not difficult." Marluxia believes it, not just because she punched him surprisingly hard earlier. She has an air of tenacity to her. Marluxia, who works out three times a week, wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of her. He'd probably win in a fight against her, but not without losing several fingers or an earlobe at the very least.
"Hah! I like you. And what about you? What are your hobbies?" She asks this question with a formal air, like she's reading off a script, humouring Marluxia's paltry attempts at small talk.
"We've pretty much already covered them," he admits. "I go to the gym. But mostly I spend my free time doing charity work. Mostly organisation - event planning, admin, finances. But I also cook for the kitchen on South Street. I do really like to cook."
Larxene nods, pulls a face that's a mockery of admiration. "Very impressive." Suddenly she goes for his hand, startling him, but it's only to turn his wrist towards her, reading off his watch. "Six forty. Aight. Got a couple more minutes before I gotta head off."
"Where are you going?" Marluxia asks, adding as he remembers Larxene's earlier comments about her jobs, "Work or leisure?"
"Work," says Larxene sourly. Marluxia opens his mouth to speak but she presses her fingers against his lips. "You were about to say you were sorry. Don't. I already told you, I don't want your pity." Considering Marluxia suitably chastened, she barks another laugh.
"So," says Marluxia, figuring the pause in conversation is the best opportunity he's going to get to ask a question that's been rattling around his head for a while, "How many other werewolves do you know? I've never met one before that I knew of."
Larxene shrugs. "I dunno, half a dozen maybe? It's not like we're a pack or anything. But we keep an eye out for each other." She leans back in her chair, watching a gaggle of people outside eyeing up the menu and special offers on drinks, debating whether to go outside. "S'not like anyone else is, right?"
"You can say that again." Marluxia remembers his mother. Three missed calls on his phone. Whatever. He doesn't feel like talking to her. He flips his phone closed and returns it to his bag.
"I'll introduce you to them some time if you wanna," Larxene offers. She stands, stretches to reveal a sliver of skin across her stomach. Marluxia spots a tattoo of a crescent moon on her angular hip. Catching him looking, Larxene pulls up her shirt to reveal a trail of stars up her side. "Like it? This was my first. A friend did it for me. Keeps promising he'll touch it up next time he's in town."
Outside the air is cooling, a breeze bringing the smell of exhaust fumes and the promise of rain. Larxene walks Marluxia to the next block then waves a casual goodbye and disappears into the gloom of a cut-through. Marluxia wanders home on autopilot, barely noticing the first specks of drizzle settling in his hair. He imagines a conversation with his mother, starting with the sentence he knows she's always wanted to hear from him: "Hey mom, so I met a girl..."
Well, he thinks, if you wanted me to have friends you shouldn't have been so ashamed of me I grew up to be a social recluse. And if you wanted me to have a girlfriend… Well, there's probably nothing Marluxia's parents could have done to make that a reality. He knew he was gay before he really understood what gay was.
He really should go along to one of the GSA meetings. It's not like he's got a reputation to worry about, and he specifically chose this college because it was the furthest from his home town without actually being out of state, guaranteeing that nobody from his school would bother applying. His flat is quiet and orderly. Marluxia tosses his keys across the kitchen counter, flicks the TV on and stares into the vegetable crisper, wondering what to cook. Would it be weird to invite Larxene over for dinner? It's probably too much until they've met up at least a few other times. He doesn't even know if she wants to be friends with him. It's not like they have much in common other than a rare genetic condition. A girl like her probably has a ton of friends a lot more interesting than Marluxia. Bartenders and tattoo artists and werewolves.
She probably thinks you're totally pathetic.
Chopping onions and peppers with a quick, practiced hand. Deboning chicken thighs. Tapping his foot to the music from the TV.
Don't kid yourself. She definitely thinks you're pathetic.
Marluxia waits a couple of days before going back to the Starbucks, pretending he's just busy and not nervous. He half expects Larxene to treat him like a stranger at the counter but when he passes over a sandwich and asks for a coffee she cracks a grin and calls him hun, spelling his name wrong on the coffee cup. Later she actually volunteers to sweep up, probably in order to smack Marluxia's ankles with the broom. Lifting his legs up onto the couch he takes the plunge: "You got plans tonight?"
Larxene laughs. "That's my line. Gimme ten minutes."
Marluxia waits outside, rocking back and forth on his feet. When Larxene comes out she links her arm with his, which is honestly the first time a girl has ever linked arms with Marluxia.
"I thought we could get something to eat. I can pay."
"Oh, Marluxia, you understand that the way to a woman's heart is through free food."
"In that case you can pay for yourself," Marluxia sniffs, making Larxene cackle. Marluxia feels a smile tug at his lips. Joking about being gay feels good.
"Take that back. I promise not to be smitten."
They head across town, Marluxia not actually sure where they're going. Larxene says, "You know, I've been thinking about this. I'm red-green colourblind and you're blue-yellow colourblind, right? That means between us we're practically one normally functioning human. I'm getting my paycheck tomorrow and I need new clothes, so you should come with me. That way we've got the whole spectrum covered. You could use a new look too. You look like your mommy picked out your outfits."
"That's because she did," says Marluxia. He doesn't mention that if Larxene wanted colour guidance she probably could have found any other person who wasn't colourblind rather than resorting to everything-looks-like-some-shade-of-pink-or-blue Marluxia. If she realises how flimsy her excuse is she might change her mind.
"Yeah, exactly. You're a cute guy. With a bit of tweaking and less of this-" she lifts up Marluxia's curls- "You could actually be hot. How do you feel about pleather?"
"Oh, I see where this is going. You just want to give me a makeover."
"Believe me, babe," Larxene laughs, suddenly pulling Marluxia around a corner with surprising strength. "You need it."