Chapter Text
The man came running through the glass doors, as he often did, completely out of breath, long perfect hair flying behind him and several folders and loose pieces of paper in hand.
“One Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot with Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Nutrasweet and Ice please.” The man gasped for breath at the end of his impossibly long order.
Across from the out of breath man with skin like Autumn leaves was another man, already with his order in hand. “You know, I’m starting to get worried about your coffee dependency Batman. You come in here every day at the exact same time, each day with a different name.”
The man who was just called Batman became noticeably redder in the cheeks and nose – it was obvious this was not due to his recent sprint. “Haha, well you know, whenever you get the chance to be Batman, you should take it.” He smiled awkwardly which showed teeth like a military cemetery.
“Did you use the same idea in being Mr Stark, The Secret Police and Lee Marvin?”
“Why not?” he said through an awkward smile, “Though I did upset the Secret Police for using their name when I am not actually one of them. Three came to my apartment to give me disapproving looks.”
“Haha, I’ve had that happen a couple of times as well,” said the man across the counter who could not help but notice how flustered the other man’s hair made him. The man across the counter had also been practicing what he was about to say next in the mirror before work. “So, I’m not usually this forward but I would really love to know your real name because, well, you’re cute and the Secret Police also gave me disproving looks since calling out ‘Secret Police’ startled many undercover cops in the shop.” The man stumbled on his words even though he had practiced them repeatedly all morning.
“Sorry about getting you in trouble with them…” The man with red cheeks looked at the other man’s chest in confusion, “…where’s your name tag?”
“I didn’t think it would be fair to let you know my name before I knew yours, so I took it off.”
“Oh, er, fair enough, I’m sorry again for-” The man with long dark hair jumped as the door opened and shut behind him. “Oh Nilanjana, there you are!” “Yeah Carlos?” “I need to talk to you about the experiment I’ve been working on! I was hoping you could help me with…” His voice became distant as he stumbled off absent mindedly, on a new tangent. The man behind the counter had often watched him skip from one task to another, unable to focus, before getting so engrossed in one subject he would sit there for hours before jumping up and running wherever he went whenever he ran off. The man knew what it was like not to be able to focus until he accidentally hyper focused on the something completely different to what he needed to get done and this characteristic had immediately endeared the man to him. The barista smiled as he realised, he had finally managed to catch his name…
Carlos.
How absolutely exceptional.
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Later that day…
A man with perfect hair stood in front of his whiteboard covered in numbers contemplating many science problems when it suddenly struck him that he never did tell the cute man with three eyes at the coffee shop his name! Carlos sat there with the feeling in his stomach that he had done something very very wrong. He had been meaning to compliment the barista on his tattoos every time he came into the café but had managed to get distracted or forget every time.
“Do you think that.. maybe… he was hitting on me?” thought Carlos. “No... no that couldn’t be the case.”
After half an hour of thoughts like this he finally decided that the barista was just being friendly.
Reaching to take another sip of now cold coffee he suddenly realised that where there was usually a ridiculous name scrawled in black pen was now a phone number. “Oh flaming beakers. I’m going to have to call him, now aren’t I?”
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The phone was slippery with sweat as Carlos ran through what he was going to say another couple of times. Calling people was a stressful experience for him but he really wanted to talk to the man with such gorgeous eyes. After taking a few deep breaths he began typing the numbers yet again. Carlos was never good at words. He was good at numbers. Numbers never changed in their meanings. The numbers that he dialled contained many of his personal favourites which made Carlos finally hit call. They were good numbers. They wouldn’t let him down.
Carlos’ heart thumped in his ears as the phone began to ring. “Ah hey, um, it’s er, the guy from the coffee shop… you know the one that does the funny names on the cups, I usually come in in the morning, sometimes-“
“Hey. I know who you are.” The barista’s voice was low and made Carlos feel both calm and extremely flustered.
“Ohh right well, I just thought you should know that, um my name is Carlos.”
“Nice to meet you Carlos. My name’s Cecil. Would you like to go out sometime?”
“Oh you mean for coffee or something?”
“No, not coffee. I was thinking maybe dinner?”
“Oh… I’d like that.”
Maybe he just wanted to be friends.
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The restaurant was nice. Very nice. There were waiters in uniform and tables with clothes and fish with hats and candles everywhere. Carlos quickly swore magnesium oxide under his breath as he regretted wearing his informal lab coat.
“Hey Carlos, over here!”
An arm covered in the most gorgeous tattoos gestured him over. He could have sworn that his right arm was covered in an octopus last time but now it seemed to be covered in eyes, some blinking, some not. They went through the normal pleasantries and Carlos felt comforted by the scripted beginning. He could have listened to Cecil talk forever. But the conversation soon began to lull, and Carlos began to panic.
“So, um, I want to tell a joke, but I only remember the punch line.” He felt compelled to curl into a ball after saying such an idiotic thing, but Cecil seemed unfazed.
“I don’t mind, go ahead.”
It wasn’t too late for him to change the subject, ask about anything but this, but Carlos’ mouth didn’t seem to be listening to his thoughts. “Tooth-hurty.”
The words ‘Idiot!’ spiralled around Carlos’ head but without missing a beat Cecil laughed casually and replied, “when is the best time to go to the dentist?”
Carlos had never heard anything more beautiful, “…you complete me,” he whispered.
“Huh?” Carlos sighed with relief realising that Cecil hadn’t heard him say that out loud.
He began to say, “Oh I just thought of a hypothesis about-”
Before Cecil interrupted with, “Don’t you mean your science headcanon?”
Carlos was confused by this for a moment but when Cecil repeated, “Science headcanon,” again Carlos began to realise something.
“My science headcanon, is that you are a pretty great person.”
Cecil smiled and Carlos felt his stomach turn to moths. One of Cecil’s tattoos winked at him.
“I think you’re a pretty great person too.”
“So, since you’re a scientist and all, I am always looking to learn more about that stuff. Because I am very into science.” He was. Cecil had dreamt about science quite vividly last night. “So like this,” Cecil picked up his glass, “what chemical is this?”
“…That’s a glass of water.”
“Oh.. neat!” Cecil began to inspect the glass with all three of his eyes in a way in which he thought looked Very Science-y.
“Oh hexenone!” Carlos exclaimed as Cecil accidently knocked the glass over.
“Oh blood stones I’m so clumsy, sorry.”
Cecil quickly used up all the napkins near him as he threw them at the puddle forming on the carpet.
“No it’s okay, I knock stuff over all the time, here.” Carlos dug through his bag until he found a towel that he handed to Cecil. But as he looked over at Cecil his face had changed. “What’s wrong?”
“You just pulled out three notepads and a candle stick before grabbing an entire towel out of your bag?”
“Oh yeah well, you never know when you’ll need things. I’d never leave my house without my towel.”
Cecil took the towel suspiciously and used to wipe up the remaining mess. When he was done, he inquired, “What else do you have in there?”
“Oh, er… you know, gunpowder, nitroglycerin, notepads, fuses, a button, glue, and… paper clips, big ones. A few different sizes of string. You know, just, uh, science supplies.”
The eyeball tattoos on Cecil’s wished it had eyebrows so it could raise them.
“You really are prepared for anything,” Cecil said.