Work Text:
The Comte de Saint Germain was a small coffee shop tucked between an office building and a laundromat. There was an ATM outside, though it hadn’t worked for months, and hardly anyone ever went inside, lending to the general impression of nearly everyone in town that it was part of a money-laundering scheme. This was even touted by a few people online (the Twitter account @70uis was particularly invested in accusing the Comte and its owner of nearly every crime possible), though most people didn’t dare risk pissing off the mysterious owner.
Inside the shop, the two workers spent the majority of the day messing around with the newspaper—the crosswords, mainly, though Dominique would scan the pages for juicy bits of gossip, which she would then regale her coworker and best (only) friend Noé with as they dicked around and waited for customers.
Very few customers ever came into the Comte.
Noé didn’t have a Twitter, and Domi tended to stay far away from the parts of the Internet that had anything to do with either her job or her family, so neither of them were aware of @70uis ’s smear campaign, and neither would have thought anything of it if they had. ‘Louis’ was not that uncommon a name, and though Noé would wince and Domi would turn away to read it anywhere outside of the quiet gravestone in the backyard of the house neither of them would have dreamed of visiting again, they wouldn’t have thought—
But none of that was important, because whoever was running the @70uis Twitter account was far away from the city and the Comte and had no intentions of ever running into the duo, and in fact the Comte was so low on his radar that it was highly unlikely he even knew that Noé Archiviste and Dominique de Sade spent nearly every day running the place, in hopes of someday buying it wholesale and renaming it The Louis. Noé worked there full-time, and Domi worked weekends and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons, and on their current schedule, they were sure they’d get it bought by the time Domi graduated high school.
Currently, Domi was perched on the counter, explaining the current teachers’ drama to Noé as if she was personally involved, though she really, really wasn’t; Noé thought Domi had friends other than him, and Domi hated to worry Noé, so she told him gossip and pretended to have friends.
They both turned in surprise when the door opened.
A couple came in—a young man with stunning blue eyes and a high ponytail, pulling a cute girl with short, fluffy blonde hair by the hand. The girl was blushing, and somehow familiar, and Domi immediately hopped off the counter to do what she did best: flirt with pretty girls.
Granted, it had never actually worked before, but that was mainly because Veronica was a bitch and scared off any romantic or friendly prospects before Domi could even meet them, but…
Well, it had flustered a few of her classmates and several girls she saw on the street, and it did just fine on this girl, too: she blushed and stammered as, unpredictably, Noé stared at the boy with parted lips and flushed cheeks.
“Vanitas!” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Domi whirled around to face Noé, her coat-tails flaring behind her with suitable drama for the youngest daughter of the de Sade family. “Noé, you know them?!”
Noé and the boy—Vanitas?—locked eyes. The boy shook his head.
“...No,” said Noé.
Domi crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. She and Noé had sworn never to lie to each other, over a grave dug by two children under an oak tree perfect for climbing, for napping in, for staying hidden when you didn’t want to be found.
“Not really?” Noé grimaced. “It’s complicated.”
“We’re strangers,” said the boy.
“We got arrested together,” said Noé.
“You got arrested?!” Domi shrieked.
“It wasn’t my fault, Vanitas said I was his accomplice when I was passed out,” Noé said quickly. “And then they arrested me. I barely know Vanitas, really, and I only met Jeanne once, when, uh. Uh.”
“What,” Domi said flatly.
“Please don’t hold it against her, Domi,” Noé said quickly, and Domi felt a flat spike of jealousy push its way into her heart, warring with her recognition of the name 'Jeanne': she looked like the girl Domi had crushed on for the entirety of her eighth grade year before the girl and her family moved away. But surely this wasn't Jeanne d'Apchier, right? That Jeanne's hair had been much longer, and anyway Domi had only known her when everything was blurred by grief.
“I manipulated her into trying to kill us,” Vanitas said with a quick grin.
Domi grimaced, and Jeanne blushed and looked away. Jeanne did not look like the sort of person who would try to kill anyone (and the Jeanne Domi had known definitely wasn't that sort)—she was shorter than Domi, and had the same air of innocence about her that Domi had bloodied her hands throughout every grade since she was thirteen to try and protect in Noé. Her twin had once tried to protect both Dominique and Noé, but Domi’s innocence had died with him, and so she had decided to devote herself to protecting Noé. It had become far easier once he’d dropped out of school and stopped interacting with anyone but her, but…
Domi folded her arms and glared at Vanitas. “Why.”
Vanitas smirked.
“It’s not important, Domi,” Noé said quickly, glancing blushingly over at the pair. “We’re all friends now, so—”
“Hmph,” said Domi, scowling at Vanitas. Clearly, he was the bad influence of the pair—definitely not a trio, no matter what her insecurities were whispering. For one, despite Noé’s blushes, he’d remained behind the counter, near Domi; for another, the story of how they all met made it quite clear Noé didn’t know either one very well.
Vanitas, for his part, ignored her, letting go of Jeanne’s hand in order to wander around the shop. “So this is one of the Shapeless One’s properties…”
“Not for long,” Noé said quickly. “Domi and I are saving up to buy it for ourselves.”
Vanitas whirled around sharply, his coat flying out behind him. “Hush money?” he said sharply.
Noé looked at Domi, who shrugged; as far as she knew, they’d never seen her grandfather do anything even remotely illegal, and everything that had involved Louis had been hearsay that nobody could prove.
“Nope,” Domi said. “At least, nothing on paper. I’m his granddaughter and Noé’s his ward—I expect it’s for tax purposes.” She smirked, letting her teeth catch on her lower lip. Cute Jeanne with her fluffy hair blushed, and for a moment, Domi thought about how funny it would be, if she and Noé both went after the same girl. Jeanne was, after all, very cute, and didn’t look like she’d met Domi’s sister, ever, at all, which was always a plus. “Why do you ask?”
“Perfect!” said Vanitas. “This can be our base of operations.”
“Base of—!” Noé looked as shocked as Domi felt. “No, it can’t.”
Vanitas smirked at him. “What, you don’t want to investigate that string of disappearances?” he said. “But you were so impressed when I managed to rescue Amelia Ruth…”
Noé flushed, looking down and away. “That—that’s different,” he managed. “The events where people grow violent and vanish without a trace…”
Suddenly, Domi thought of Louis—of the last time she and Noé had seen him—of his mangled little body after her grandfather had finished with him. He had been a child—thirteen only, sharp for his age but so, so young—and wondered again at the fates of the others who fell victim to the same thing Louis had.
“...they don’t touch this place,” he said. “It’s ours, and it’s safe. Or—it will be.”
Vanitas pranced over to the counter and leaned forward beside Domi’s perch, getting right up into Noé’s personal space. “Wouldn’t more places be safe if we used this as our base of operations to investigate the cause of those disappearances?” he said. “Amelia Ruth would have been in far less danger if she had a place like the Comte to come to, you know.”
Noé looked over at Domi, and she realized that he wasn’t going to volunteer their coffee shop without her explicit consent.
She slipped off the counter, headed into the office in the back, and emerged with their tally sheet of the amount of money they would need to buy the Comte off of her grandfather, slapping it in front of Vanitas.
“If you can come up with this much money and give it to us,” she said, “you can use our shop for whatever you please, so long as it’s involved with those disappearances.”
Noé looked at her gratefully; Domi wondered what would have happened, had Louis had somewhere to run. Maybe he would have lived. Maybe they would be happy, today.
“But until then, this is my grandfather’s property, and it will be treated as such. Understand?”
Vanitas smirked. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “Hey, Noé. What time do you get off?”
Blinkingly, Noé told him him; Vanitas’s smile widened.
“I’ll see you then~!” he sang out. “Miss Dominique, we’ll come up with your money soon enough.” He leaned over the counter. “I’ll have a blueberry frappe with six shots of espresso and double whipped cream, please.”
And that, Domi would think later, was how it all had begun.