Work Text:
Sketsa only opened at night. It was a strange little coffee shop, tucked away on a busy street in a spot that made it hard to notice unless you were looking. It wasn’t ever full or crowded inside, but its owner and patrons liked it that way; it was a quiet place, for the people who thrived at nighttime.
Jean stumbled across it one night while on a walk, searching for inspiration. The long, dreary hours of his office job sucked every ounce of creativity from him - whenever he got the opportunity to draw, he just sat there staring at the blank pages, paralysed. A few sketches, vague shapes… that was a good day, and even then, he found himself hating whatever he’d done. What came out onto the paper never looked quite right. Years before, Jean would spend countless hours drawing without a break, never seeing the need or having the desire to stop, just creating and creating without the thought of slowing down. But adult life was getting to him - the passion that once seemed unlimited was now hard to come by, and Jean missed it dearly.
He’d lived in the city his whole life, but that night while walking down the busy streets was the first time he noticed the little coffee shop with its name in flickering lights. There was a warm glow coming from the windows. Jean was just looking for a place to shelter from the rain, but that soft orange, finally seen, would have drawn him in no matter the weather. With his sketchbook tucked away in his satchel, Jean headed inside.
A chime rang as he pushed open the door. It was gorgeous inside, all light wood contrasted once by metal details and again by mismatched vintage armchairs. It was colourful but not overwhelming, everything pulled together by the sheer charm of it all. Along one brick wall was a huge bookcase lined with tattered, old books of various sizes, with a sign next to it which read ‘ take one, leave one’. A hanging plant sat atop it, trailing ivy down one side. In fact, there were plants everywhere - in beautiful, detailed pots, hanging from the ceiling, and on each table, too, next to lit tealights. All looked well taken care of, thriving. It made the place feel clean, the air easy to breathe - it smelled like earth and coffee beans. Everything about it was so charming, so honest, somehow. Jean would have bet that the owner dug at least a few of those old, pretty armchairs out of the trash themself and repurposed them.
There were only a few people inside. In the far corner sat a beautiful, dark-haired girl, smiling at her phone. She looked like she was texting someone she liked, and Jean ached for that feeling. A few tables over, a couple leaned against each other, murmuring quietly. Jean yearned for that too. He stood and took in the atmosphere for a few moments, just looking around. The noise and chaos of the busy street outside was just a murmur in the background, now, drowned out by the sound of the rain hitting the windows and the gentle music playing from an actual record player towards the back of the room.
“Can I help you with anything?” A soft voice spoke, coming from the counter. Jean hadn’t even noticed the owner standing there, but as soon as he lay eyes on him, he felt something stir in his chest, the realisation that god, that man was pretty. He was short in that cute way Jean had always liked, with blonde hair tied back and thin, round glasses that sat in front of his blue eyes. Jean didn’t know if he wanted to sketch him or kiss him. Probably both. He’d always had a hard time distinguishing between the two… that quirk of his had gotten him into a lot of trouble in the past.
“Hey,” Jean said, keeping his cool expression even though his cheeks were turning pink. “Are you open for much longer?”
“All night,” the man replied. “We close during the day.”
“Oh,” Jean hummed. “That’s strange.”
“Maybe to some.”
“I guess so,” Jean said. He sat at one of the stools in front of the counter, noticing that it wobbled a little but not minding. He looked up at the menu. “You sure like tea.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m more of a coffee kind of person.”
“Coffee it is, then. How do you take it?”
“Just black.”
“Do you favour any particular blend…? Any sugar?”
“What? No, I don’t know. Just whatever you think is best. And no sugar.”
“The house blend, then,” the man nodded, turning his back to get started making the drink. Jean found it impossible to take his eyes off him. His blonde hair looked so soft and fine. Even the curve of his neck as it disappeared under his collar was graceful somehow, just like his perfectly tied apron. There was something about him that made Jean’s hands itch to draw. He really was cute, just Jean’s type. Maybe it was a combination of him, this place and its atmosphere, or just the break from the rain. Either way, Jean hadn’t felt so motivated in a long time.
Jean paid and took in the deep, rich scent of coffee that made him almost nostalgic. It reminded him of his mother’s kitchen. Maybe that was the goal of this place - to feel homey, comfortable. It was working. Jean felt the weight of his sketchbook in his bag and wanted to take it out.
“Here,” the barista said, handing Jean his order. He seemed to have no reservations about looking at him; Jean could feel his gaze even when he looked away and it made him even more curious. “So what’s your name? Ah - you don’t have to tell me. Just say if you’d rather drink in peace.”
“My name’s Jean,” he chuckled, and took a sip of his still much-too-hot coffee. “What’s yours?”
“Armin.”
“Interesting place you’ve got here.”
“It was my grandfathers!” Armin said brightly, leaning on the counter. “He left it to me.”
“I never noticed it before.”
“Like I said, we only open at night.”
“Do you get a lot of business doing that?”
“My regulars are loyal. We get by.”
“I see,” Jean replied, a little skeptical.
There was a brief silence.
“It’s not about how much I make though.”
“Oh? And here I thought that was the point of a business.”
“If I wanted to make a lot of money, I’d do something else,” Armin chuckled. “No, it’s good to have a place like this for the people who need it at night. It’s something I’m passionate about.”
“Right.” Jean wasn’t completely convinced, but he sure was intrigued.
“Come on, don’t tell me you don’t have anything like that.”
Jean glanced down at his bag. Of course he did. Who didn’t? He just… had trouble holding on to his passion sometimes. Or a lot of the time.
“Yeah, I do,” he told Armin. “But it’s just a hobby.”
“What is it?” Armin asked. He looked so genuinely curious that Jean was taken aback. “Are you a musician? A writer?”
“No. I’m an artist. Well. Barely.”
“Struggling for inspiration?”
Jean blinked. “How did you know?”
“You walked in here in the middle of the night looking lost. I could see it in your eyes. People searching for something usually end up here.”
“Guess I’m that obvious,” Jean sighed, finally pulling out his sketchbook. He sat it on the counter next to his cup of coffee but didn’t open it.
“I won’t pry,” Armin smiled. Jean looked up at him and saw a spark of curiosity in his eyes. “But I am intrigued.”
“You can look if you want to. None of it’s any good, though. I’ve been in a slump.”
“Art is just a form of expression, right? It doesn’t need to be good . You just have to enjoy doing it.”
Jean stared at him, dumbstruck for a second. In all his stress, he had forgotten about that completely. Art was fun - that’s why he started doing it all those years ago. Because he enjoyed it. That was why it was so easy back then. A blush stung his cheeks as he pushed the sketchbook over to let Armin flip through it. If it hadn’t been for the strange atmosphere in this place, he would never have just let someone look into his soul like that - but he felt at ease. There was some part of him that was sure Armin wouldn’t laugh at him.
“There’s not much in there,” he mumbled, unable to even look at Armin’s face.
“You’re very talented,” the barista murmured after a few long moments that felt like they stretched on forever. Jean dared to look up at his face. Armin was gazing at the paper with a softness Jean wanted. He didn’t quite know what that meant. Did he want Armin to look at him that way? Or did he simply want to capture his image on paper? “You’re frustrated, aren’t you?”
Jean decided to stop questioning why this stranger could read his mind.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Why?”
“Life?” Jean laughed a little. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t feel inspired. Do you have a solution for that, know-it-all?”
“Well, if I had to give advice, I’d say… it’s best to cling on to whatever makes you feel something, no matter what it is. Anger, happiness, excitement, adoration… anything at all. Take that and run with it, no questions asked.”
Jean thought for a moment, hummed, and looked up at the barista. He felt something when he looked at him, that much was clear from the moment he lay eyes on him.
“Would you let me draw you?” he asked. He felt it, sure enough. That urge was blossoming there in his chest where it used to live, telling him to draw - and he wanted to draw Armin, even if they had only just met. It was harder to capture the likeness of a stranger, and Jean was finally craving the challenge.
“Me?” Armin asked. He looked behind him like there was any chance Jean was talking to someone else.
“Yeah,” Jean said. He took another sip of his coffee and looked at Armin over the rim. “I won’t make you pose or anything like that, don’t worry.”
“But why?”
“Huh? Because of what you just said.” Jean watched as the barista’s cheeks flushed pink, and felt a small sense of satisfaction. He seemed to think for a moment before nodding.
“Well… well alright, then.”
“Really?”
“As long as I can still work, I don’t see why not.”
“You don’t think I’m a creep, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Armin chuckled. “I’d have no problem forcing you to leave if that was the case.”
Jean let his eyes drift over the barista’s skinny frame and raised his eyebrows, wondering how on earth he’d manage to do that. Not that Jean was going to cause any trouble. Maybe Armin knew that.
“It’s that so?” he asked, watching as Armin blushed again, but before he could speak his attention was taken by a customer coming to order another drink.
As Armin spoke to the pretty girl from before, Jean reached into his bag for his pencils. He always carried them around with his sketchbook, just in case the urge to draw came over him. With the way things had been recently, Jean had started thinking it was pointless to bring his equipment out of the house, but now he finally felt like sketching he was glad for always being so prepared.
Taking a deep breath, Jean looked from Armin to the empty page below him. This was always the part where any fleeting inspiration made itself scarce. When he was younger, looking at a plain piece of paper made Jean want to fill it with anything at all, but as he grew older the expectation of it being good, of it being something special and not just for the joy of it made him freeze up. But that wasn’t now. He was just going to draw.
There was something comforting in how natural the pencil felt in his hand. The first few faint lines were right. It didn’t matter how it turned out, it didn’t matter what it looked like - Armin was in front of him, and the urge felt to capture his image in this little, cluttered coffee shop was more powerful than the accumulation of all his doubts.
After the brief outline was done, Jean took his time to really study Armin’s face and his expressions, his movements, his method while he was making a drink for the customer. It reminded Jean of people-watching, but now, his attentions were solely focused on Armin. His nose turned up a little at the end, and his hair looked silky-smooth and soft, tied back perfectly save for his bangs the few loose strands that framed the sides of his face. He had a small mark above his eyelid and he kept looking over, his big blue eyes meeting Jean’s, so obviously nervous.
“I’m not used to being looked at like this,” he said quietly when the customer had gone to sit down with her drink.
“Like what?” Jean asked. “Just relax. Do what you usually do.”
“Like - like anyone looking at me,” Armin whispered.
“Don’t you talk to your customers a lot?”
“Yes, but - normally they don’t pull out a notepad and -”
“Do you want me to stop?” Jean interrupted.
“No, but-”
“Then relax. Or I’ll just end up drawing you looking all nervous. What do you normally do when it’s quiet in here?”
“I read,” Armin told him. Jean followed his gaze over to the bookshelves and nodded.
“Go ahead.”
It was much easier after that. Jean continued with the sketch from before, one of Armin’s side profile as he stood making coffee. He was smiling as he drew, absolutely entranced by how it felt to create after days and weeks and months of the monotony of his job and his routine. Of course, it had been hard before - all he thought about was work and cleaning his apartment and making dinner and money and all sorts of things he never had to think about when he was younger. He forgot that this was fun, that it was for himself purely for the love of it and nothing else.
After he filled in the messy details of the open shelving behind Armin in the first sketch, Jean moved onto the second. It was perfectly still now; Jean could have heard a pin drop. He looked at Armin standing there, leaning over the counter, already engrossed in what he was reading, moving only to turn the old pages. His fingers were so pretty and slender. His features, too… so soft-looking that Jean was distracted from his art by the thought of brushing his thumb over Armin’s bottom lip. He stared, just for a little while, swept away in the moment, letting his thoughts fill him with emotions he’d turn into art when he could stand to look down again.
The sound of the pencil when it touched the paper was so nostalgic, Jean thought, as he shaded Armin’s collar and the perfect angle of his neck. How had he ever forgotten? He loved this. He loved every part of it, creating something new from what was in front of him, capturing a moment in time, a person on paper, just like people had been doing for thousands of years before him.
Minutes passed by slowly. Armin stood to say his thanks when a few customers left, making their way out into the rain, but went right back to reading when they were gone. Savouring every second, Jean took his time, working on the few sketches until he was happy with them. His coffee cup was empty, mind racing, but his hands remained steady. He looked up once and saw Armin looking back at him, and he smiled sheepishly like he’d been caught. It made Jean’s stomach tighten up, but he just smiled back and continued.
Jean had a tendency to overcomplicate things while trying to perfect them, but this time, he was content to leave the sketch as a sketch, messy edges and all. Underneath, in his large, loopy handwriting, he wrote the date, and Armin’s name, too. He put his pencil down, picked up the sketchpad, and took a moment to look at the work as a whole, taking it all in as one. It was too easy to miss mistakes when focusing solely on one part. Looking at his completed work gave Jean a sense of satisfaction he’d been missing for a long time. He liked the way it looked, really liked it - but maybe that was mostly due to how beautiful his model was.
“Is it done?” Armin asked.
“Are you that excited?” Jean smiled, though he was feeling it too, that anticipation he always felt when showing someone a piece he was proud of.
“Would it be so wrong if I was?”
“I guess not,” Jean said. “Here.”
When Armin took the sketchbook from him, Jean studied his face like he was about to draw him for a third time. It wasn’t that he was nervous - not at all - he just wanted to see his reaction.
Slowly, a smile blossomed on Armin’s face until he was absolutely beaming, his eyes darting around the page. Seeing his happiness made Jean feel the same emotion, warmth shining in his chest. Armin lit up the room, laughing in disbelief as he looked from the page to Jean and back to the page again.
“Are you kidding,” he murmured. “I… I can’t believe this.”
“You watched me do it.”
“I know but… I - just look at it! How did you manage to draw so quickly? I’ve never… I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“You can see your joy in each line,” Armin breathed. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah. I really did.”
“I can feel it.”
Jean was almost close to tearing up when he said that, and it was all he could do to speak without his voice cracking. “Thank you.”
“Your style is beautiful,” Armin said, placing the sketchbook down on the counter, his eyes still on it as he pushed it back towards Jean. “I’m honoured.”
“There’s no need to flatter me,” Jean rolled his eyes, smiling right back at the barista. “I told you, it was fun. I should be the one thanking you.”
“Can I make you a drink? On the house.”
“No, there’s no need for that,” Jean said. “I should be going soon. I have work in the morning.”
“Okay,” Armin said. Was that disappointment Jean could see on his face, or was he imagining it? “What do you do?”
“I work in HR at an office.”
“I can see why you’re lacking in inspiration,” Armin teased gently.
“Then it was a good thing I met you, wasn’t it?” Jean asked, raising an eyebrow, and he watched that same pretty blush from before spread over Armin’s cheeks.
“I suppose so,” he murmured, his voice soft.
Carefully, Jean tore the piece of paper out, making sure not to rip his art, and slid it over to Armin. “Here. Keep it, if you want.”
“I couldn’t do that!”
“Sure you can.”
“But-”
“Consider it a thank-you.” Jean closed his sketchbook and put it back in his bag, looking out of the small, paned window. The rain had stopped, now, and the traffic had slowed.
Armin picked up his art and looked at it again, biting his lower lip. “Have a safe journey home.”
“I will.” Jean stood and nodded. He didn’t want to go, not really, but he had to. “Thank you for the coffee.”
Armin was still glancing between Jean and his art. “You’re welcome. Come back soon, will you?”
Jean smiled, putting his hand on his bag, feeling his sketchbook inside.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I will.”
Jean took one last look at Armin and gave him a grin before stepping back out into the night. The air felt easy to breathe again, the joy of inspiration still humming inside of him. It was the beginning of something, Jean was sure - and he hoped that tomorrow night wasn’t too soon to return to that strange little coffee shop and its equally enchanting owner.