Chapter Text
For once, Dan was grateful there was a light rainfall. He could pull his hood up over his easily distinguishable mess of hair and wouldn’t look suspicious to the people he passed on the street. Some of them may still recognise him if they were looking hard enough, but thankfully the youngest people walking past him were at least in their late twenties and they weren’t the ones who were in Dan’s audience, let alone middle-aged balding businessmen (unless some of them listened to pop music, it wasn’t impossible ).
He wasn’t too sure of why he left his flat. It was spacious and perfect for his wants and needs (which was surprising, as he left all the decorating to an interior designer, feeling hopeless about designing himself) and he felt as if he could stay there for weeks on end. Sadly, his job forbade him from doing so, but every once in a while he would try.
Today was different, though. He wanted to get up and moving, maybe even get a coffee that wasn’t the same as every single other day and brought to his bed for him by his assistant, of whom decided to get a key for his flat without considering Dan’s privacy. He dismissed her every morning, just wanting privacy in his own home but she was back an hour or so later, cleaning his kitchen or doing his laundry. Dan would be lying if he said he didn’t mind her doing all his work for him; not that he was ungrateful for the service, he just wanted to do his own thing sometimes. That’s all. Especially as everyone else treated him like royalty (at least, that’s what it felt like to him and he couldn’t be more sick of it).
The rain fell softly and Dan watched as spots began to litter the path in front of him as he walked along. It was quite warm, despite it being mid-October and drizzling, but it was a refreshing change from the typical freezing weather he decided to always take on in the safety of his home where he could control the heating and lie under blankets while watching Netflix and nibbling on pizza or noodles.
Dan was brought out of his daydream of deciding where to go when the rain started hitting the ground harder, and the raindrops got heavier. Dan cursed in his mind, knowing he shouldn’t have trusted the rain to let up long enough for him to find a nice enough place to take cover.
He looked up from the ground and considered the cafe he was standing outside of. It was nicely decorated and looked homely and local, so he pushed through the door and into the warm aromas of fresh espresso and the sound of a familiar sounding playlist playing over the speakers softly.
Dan pulled his hood down and pushed his curls back off his forehead, silently praying he didn’t look like he had a wet mop head on his head before looking at the menu.
There were all sorts of crazy-sounding things that felt too adventurous and would definitely make Dan feel stupid if he tried ordering it by the displayed names, so he just decided on something simple and walked up to the register, waiting for service.
While he did so, he looked around at the cute details of the pastel coloured shop -- the walls were all white as were the chairs, and different coloured pastel cushions sat on them as well as on the couch (that was made out of a number of different fabrics and was somehow not hideous, but homely). There were Moroccan rugs under the chairs that were facing around the couch, and a smaller one at the foot of the fireplace that, rather than having an actual fire, had a tv that was rolling some sort of film of a real fireplace. Art of abstract and/or strange coloured animals were adorned on the walls of watercolour lions to oil-paintings of parrots. It was the perfect little place for escaping the public, as no one would suspect him being here . It was too bright and colourful for his branding, which worked perfect for him in this case.
He was brought out of his thoughts by a man -- about the same age and height as him -- emerging from behind a portière that blended right in with the decoration so that you’d barely recognise it was there.
His smile was crooked but friendly and his blue-yellow eyes sparkled behind clear-framed glasses. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with nyan-cat on it and a white apron that was covered in flour and some kind of chocolate sauce.
“Hello! What can I get for you?” he asked, his voice bright and uplifting.
“Just a mocha latte, please,” Dan replied.
He smiled and nodded, turning and getting to work. He didn’t mean to, but Dan’s eyes fell to his ass and he had to bite back a laugh, as there were two floury handprints over the pockets of the barista’s black skinny jeans.
Dan pulled his eyes away out of fear of bursting out laughing and studied the pastries in the glass displays. The gingerbread men had derpy faces on them and there were cookies with all sorts of candy mixed into them. Dan was almost drooling over the chocolate muffins but was pulled out of his daze as the cute barista turned and placed his coffee in front of him. The latte art was a ghost and Dan smiled.
“Already getting into Halloween?” Dan asked and the barista smiled.
“Well of course! It’s already mid-October,” he said. “I still need to hang decorations but none of it really goes with the rest of the… colour scheme.”
He gestured around the shop and Dan giggled.
“I also ordered a lot and I can’t be bothered,” he laughed at himself.
Dan thought for a second then hummed. “I’ve got nothing to do, want some help?”
The barista looked him up and down in a facetious manner, then smiled. “You could reach high. Some muscle, that’s a plus…”
Dan smiled, suddenly self-conscious but masking it.
“You’re perfect for the job,” the man smiled and stuck out his hand, Dan taking it and shaking it.
“You won’t regret this choice,” Dan gushed and they both laughed.
The barista reached under the bench that separated them and brought out a large box that had fairy lights and various pastel-coloured decorations to put around the shop. Dan looked at the box with wide eyes and a grin.
“You don’t mess around when it comes to decorating, do you?” he smiled.
“Oh, you haven’t seen the Christmas box,” he replied and they erupted into another fit of laughter. “Take whatever and just put it where it looks best, I’ll be out with the tablecloths.”
“Yes boss,” Dan said and with one final smile, the barista left behind the portière in search of the pastel orange tablecloths.
Dan took off his sunglasses but put them back on again, not wanting people to walk past and recognise him and cause chaos in the peaceful atmosphere the cafe possessed. He walked around, hanging up fairy lights and putting the cute little plastic figures around where they fit best. The barista was correct, they didn’t fit it, but they were cute enough to get away with it.
He was just angling a witch and a ghost so they looked at the door when the barista was back with another box in his arms. Blankets and seat cushions spilled out over the top and Dan couldn’t help the smile that stretched across his face.
“Are you sure you don’t need to be anywhere?” he asked Dan after he put the box down on a table.
I mean, my manager might murder me. “Yeah. I’ve got nowhere to be,” Dan said.
The barista smiled and nodded before ruffling through the box and grabbing some tablecloths. They were the same pastel colours as the chair cushions but had a white cobweb design on them. They then worked together to fold up the tablecloths and replace them with ‘spookier’ ones.
“So what do you do for work?” the barista asked politely.
Dan was wondering if the barista had recognised him, and he was kind of thankful he didn’t.
But now there was the issue of saying what he did.
“Oh, uh... Nothing too big. Just a musician,” he said. Not a lie but not entirely the truth, either.
“Oh! I thought you looked somewhat familiar. I must have seen you performing at a bar.”
“Something like that,” Dan said quietly. “So, is this your shop?”
The barista nodded. “I started working here after I was out of Uni and didn’t know what to do with my bachelors degree. My boss was pretty old and retired a few years later, leaving the shop for me.”
“Are you still in contact with him?” Dan asked as they moved to the next table and he folded up the tablecloth while he laid the pastel purple one down.
“Of course, we were really close. I never really see my family much so he was and still is a father figure to me.”
“That’s amazing,” Dan smiled. He was mildly jealous that this guy had someone close to him here. The only person Dan really had was his grandma, and she lived too far for frequent trips that had put a dampener on Dan’s mood more than once. He shook the negativity out of his head and they made small-talk while they continued.
Once all the tablecloths and seat cushions were replaced, Dan went back to his coffee to find it cold.
“Oh gosh, sorry!” the barista said sincerely. “I’ll make another one. Just dump that if you want.”
“No, it’s all fine,” Dan said but the barista still looked uneasy.
“How about I make it into a frappe?” he suggested.
Dan took one obvious glance to the window that was sheltering them from the buckets of rain to indicate why that was a bad idea and they laughed. “It’s really okay, I wouldn’t have started drinking it until it was this cold anyway.”
“Okay,” was the barista’s reply.
Dan really wanted to get his name, maybe his number, but his anxiety rose up high enough even at the thought of getting this guy’s number, so he bailed. Instead, he said, “I should get going now.”
“Yes, I’ve kept you long enough. Thanks for the help,” he smiled and Dan could have sworn his eyes were twinkling.
“No worries,” Dan smiled and waved slightly.
They said their goodbyes and Dan said he’d visit again, which received a large grin from the man. Dan felt a bounce in his step on his way back to his apartment, even if the rain was drenching him.
He filled up a hot bath and threw in a bath-bomb, making an Instagram story of it and adding some sort of witty comment he immediately forgot about before hopping in and letting the boiling water warm him up and relax his muscles (something he knew he’d need before he faced the many missed calls he got from his manager, asking about some insignificant thing about his new album).