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It started out as simply as it was confusing. Not even really something Steven would have thought twice of, usually. Just some guy greeting him with a nod when he found this new café to try out. And there was always that guy sitting, greeting him with a nod before turning back to his newspaper. And Steven had maybe watched him a bit and realized after the third time that the man didn’t greet anyone else coming into the café.
This was strange enough already to ignore the small frown the barista gave him when he ordered his soy chai latte. To be fair, he hadn’t really realized it either until the third time.
He still came back because they had lots of different vegan stuff to try and their cupcakes were to die for. And it wasn’t as if something was wrong, after all. Just some weird interactions, right? He was a weird guy. Got told that more than once. His boss would probably sign that with a glittering pen if he asked her.
Steven wouldn’t really had thought twice about it if it wouldn’t have been one day for that girl coming up to him while he was waiting for his blueberry lemon cupcake and soy latte and slapped him across the face.
“For God’s sake, if you just want to fuck say so, but don’t pretend the world, Marc.”
Then she was gone and the cupcake was sat down while the barista chuckled.
“To be fair, you had that coming for a while.”
And Steven tipped as usually, collecting his drink and cupcake before he finally found his words again.
“I’m not Marc? Who is Marc?”
He saw the frown the barista gave him, the guy behind his newspaper having a raised eyebrow. Neither of them answered him, though the barista looked at Steven as if he thought that he was the crazy one here.
Steven shouldn’t go back. Whoever Marc was, he really didn’t have the desire to get slapped again for something the guy had done.
He still came back a day later because the café was on his way home and still open after Donna had volunteered him again for inventory and they also had delicious sandwiches. Gladly, in the evening, there was also no one who read the newspaper and, even better, a different barista who smiled at him brightly and offered him tips which drinks she could still make vegan without a problem while swapping usual ingredients.
And Steven would certainly come back. Though only in the evenings. Just to make sure.
~*~*~
Marc knew something was wrong the day he went to that coffee shop and the clerk gave him something that looked suspiciously like tea. With milk. Sure, they might be in fucking London, but when the heck gave he ever the impression in here that he wanted to try that abnormity?
“Coffee, black.”
The clerk raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Seriously, you can never decide right? Sometimes I think there’s two of you.”
Marc frowned and took his coffee, nodding at Greg and disappeared out of the shop, ignoring the old woman in the flower shop calling him Jake and waving at him.
His day was already shitty enough without trying to understand her Spanish nor to explain to her in very broken Spanish that he couldn’t understand her and that she needed glasses. Desperately.
It didn’t help that the clerk at the coffee shop fucked up his order twice after that, that some other dude called him Jake and asked how his mother was doing (Marc couldn’t help but laugh out at that before he told the guy that he certainly had the wrong guy) and that some girl late in the evening called him Steven at the coffee shop and laughed nice and bright when he stared at her as if she lost his mind and gave him his coffee black with a quip with trying the normal. Wouldn’t he have been so confused, he would have probably asked her out. She seemed nice and not to be one who would mind some fun.
But he was and he was also tired and probably had a broken rib. He just wanted to go home to his shitty apartment and pretend that everything was fine. That he wasn’t short of eviction because some other people complained about more blood stains in the complex, that for some reason it was difficult at the moment to score a good contract at the moment and that overall his life was slowly turning even shittier than it had been before.
~*~*~
He was used to strange reactions towards him. He didn’t look like he cared, he looked more like one of the people you hire to beat someone else up. He was used to the surprise people had written on their face when he turned on the charming smile. He was used to it.
What Jake wasn’t used to it how Camila asked him if his head had been somewhere else lately, never to greet her back when she greeted him, laughing when he told her he hadn’t been in the neighborhood lately.
What Jake wasn’t used to was how some server in a coffee shop had murmured that he now lost his mind completely, seemingly.
What Jake wasn’t used to was getting yelled at in the museum for looking at some Egypt sculpture.
He certainly wasn’t used to the fact that when he drove down the street, to see a man looking like himself walking on the street, looking at something else like he had seen a ghost before he hit the lamppost. And it would have been funny if there wasn’t the fact that there was suddenly another him right in front of his car and that he barely was able to hit the brakes, though not fast enough that he stopped in time.
Jake Lockley wasn’t used to see a doppelganger of himself, even less to run another one over with his car.
“Santa Madre de Dios, ahora me estoy volviendo loco...” Jake murmured before he got out of the car at the same when the other man who had run into the lamp ran other to them.