Work Text:
His omni-tool flashes at Decan to notify him that he's got a new message, but it's right in the middle of the rush and he's still learning the really complicated asari drink recipes and everyone has at least one substitution, and two of them keep discovering new things on the menu and then changing their orders which makes him have to ring them up all over again, so Decan doesn't get the chance to check his messages for another hour after that.
His feet are killing him.
"Break time," Lianna informs him brusquely.
Decan doesn't stop to ask questions.
He pours himself a tall cup of the dextro substitute base that tastes like shit and hides in the back room, stretching his back, cracking his neck, until he feels less like he's been pounded into the ground by an entire battalion of krogan, and only then does he remember his omni-tool message.
It's not from a number he recognizes.
Do you think cactus get lonely? it reads.
He blinks.
He rereads the message, and then again, but it still doesn't make sense.
What's a cactus?
After some hasty extranet trawling, Decan's left bewildered, wondering how the hell humans have survived on a planet that sounds like it's trying to kill them every step.
And still no closer to answering the question he'd gotten.
Maybe it was spam?
Still, Decan's curious enough that he actually answers it. He's got ten minutes left in his break and nothing to do. Why not?
What's a cactus? he writes, and hesitates for only a moment before he sends it.
The answer comes immediately.
What do you mean what's a cactus?? You literally have one on your desk, I'm staring at it right now
Are you okay?
Are you having a stroke?
Should I contact med-service?
Babe this is the part where you answer me
The messages come rapid-fire enough that Decan's eyes go wide.
At least he's sure that this is an actual person now.
Are you always this melodramatic? he replies.
There's a pause before he gets the next message.
Oh my god
I am
So sorry
My coworker is out sick and I thought this was her commcode and
Clearly it is not
Decan laughs.
Yeah, but now I want to know what a cactus is, and why it could be lonely, he answers.
I will pay you to forget that, the other person shoots back immediately.
I can be bribed, he says, laughing to himself. I'll warn you that I'm not cheap.
Never mind
I'm buying you a cactus and you can sit on it
Decan's still laughing when it's time for him to go back on the register, and even though there's an afternoon rush that's even worse than the morning, he still finds time to reply to her messages. Her name is Celia and she's some kind of office worker in one of the nearby towers. "Pushing numbers around until they're sanitized," she calls it, which sounds like every middle management job he's ever heard of. She must be human, with a name like that. She's wickedly funny, too, and Decan finds himself talking to her on his commute home to his cramped apartment at the edge of Kithoi Ward, and thinking of a story she told him during dinner with his roommates, which he tells the whole table and the general laughter makes him glow inside.
He collapses back onto his narrow bed, bringing up his omni-tool and holding it up above him to message her again, only to realize that Celia's already there. They talk long into the night.
Decan doesn't expect her to want to keep chatting with him. Why would she? He's a stranger to her, and she to him, but over the next few days, she keeps replying to his messages every time. Sometimes Celia even contacts him first; she tells him about a hanar concert she'd passed and what it sounded like to her human ears, and the pack of vorcha at her transit stop that were juggling each other, and she asks him charmingly naive questions about turian circadian rhythms that she could have found on the extranet. It's clear that she just wants to talk.
He doesn't mind. He likes her, as much as he can when he only knows her as a name on the other side of an omni-tool message, and he's always had the gift of talking to people, no matter how different they are from him.
They know some of the same people, though no one he's very close to; mostly acquaintances from this party or that group of protesters, the quarian who sells some kind of herb to the levos and cortilose to the dextros.
Janain doesn't count, though. Everyone knows Janain.
When he thinks about the people they have in common, Decan realizes that she must live in one of the slightly nicer complexes closer to the hub, which makes sense if she works a boring office job. They make the kind of money he'll never see in his life. He's much more comfortable in the service jobs that other turians look down on – but someone's got to do them, and Decan would much rather talk to people than fight them.
Decan doesn't tell Celia that in so many words, but he knows that he's not very much like other turians, so he's not surprised that one day she asks him about it.
[Celia]
Why are you so chill
Every other turian I've met so far has had a stick up their ass the size of their favorite rifle
But not you
[Decan]
Have you ever sold noodles to hanar?
[Celia]
No
Wait is that a thing??
I'm on the extranet right now, Decan
Hanar don't eat noodles
How could you lie to me like this
[Decan]
I'm serious! Try to imagine a hanar eating noodles
[Celia]
I don't even know how hanar eat
At this point I'm afraid to look it up
[Decan]
I will admit that they don't generally eat noodles, so maybe the extranet is more right than usual
So selling them ramen was an exercise in patience.
But hanar are where the big money was in Zakera so I had to make it work somehow
So every night I was out at the hovercar stops, hawking this ramen stuff, right?
I can't even eat it, I have no idea what it tastes like.
Eventually I just started making up whatever I thought would work
And it turns out that hanar will eat noodles if you tell them it tastes like despair.
[Celia]
Oh my god
I
don't even know what to say to that
Decan, how could you
words mean things, Decan
I'm professionally offended that you said that about ramen, it is completely inaccurate
also
Now I want ramen
Fuck you
[Decan]
You're welcome
I hear there's a great ramen place in Zakera Ward
[Celia]
maybe I want ramen that doesn't taste of despair
[Decan]
I think you might have to go back to Earth for that
[Celia]
I can't go back to Earth just for ramen, Decan
Well
Actually, I can
And I've done it for worse reasons
But I don't want to
[Decan]
Yeah?
[Celia]
Yeah
This is home now
The thought makes him stupidly happy. Decan goes to sleep with a smile on his face.
He has to open the next morning, but even the early hours don't put a dent in his mood. He greets each customer cheerfully, spending a little extra time and effort to put a smile on their faces, to make them laugh. It's not a hardship. After a while, the mood in the shop is buzzing, full of people talking and laughter, and it keeps the people in line happy enough that Decan doesn't have to work very hard at each individual interaction; they're already inclined to smile.
"What's gotten into you?" his shift lead hisses at Decan when she passes behind him for the next round of cups.
Decan grins at the register. "I had a good night," he says.
Lianna makes a rude noise and whirls around to go back to the brewing stations. "I don't want to hear about your conquests," she tosses over her shoulder.
He doesn't bother to correct her. He's hoping that she's got the right idea.
Decan's got it down to a science by the time that he rings up the two human women who are next in line. One coffee with cinnamon-sugar, one jelly tea with agar cubes. "Better drink this one while it's warm," he says, grinning. "I hear it gels up when it gets cold."
The one who'd ordered the tea groans, a reluctant smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, but the short woman who'd ordered coffee snorts loudly and then immediately slaps both of her hands over her mouth, like she's embarrassed herself.
But Decan thinks she's still laughing, from the way that her shoulders are shaking.
He tallies that one on the win side and asks for their names for the cups. Jelly tea is Mariko; coffee is Celia.
Decan's halfway through writing it down before it registers.
His eyes fly up to look at her. She's short, with curly blue hair and bluer eyes, and she's biting her lip, like she's still holding in laughter.
She's adorable.
It could be her – his Celia. She works around here somewhere; why shouldn't she come to his shop to get coffee over lunch? Should he ask her? But what if she's not?
Decan swallows and accepts their credits, and then they turn away, chatting with such friendly, unconcerned voices that he knows she doesn't recognize him. Then again, how could she? The employees don't wear name tags, not at this place. And without his name, Decan's clearly just another turian to her.
Swallowing hard, Decan looks down at the cup in his hand. Before he can think too hard about what he's doing, he draws a lopsided little cactus in a pot under her name. Then he passes both cups off to Lianna and glances once at the two human women before he forces himself to turn back to the next customers in line with as friendly a smile as he can muster when his stomach feels like a hollow pit. "What can I get for you?"
Despite his best efforts, he doesn't see the women pick up their drinks; the shop is too busy, and he's swamped with people who want to think at the register instead of before it, or change their orders midway through so he has to void the register and start over, and then one of his coworkers spills matea juice down Decan's shoulder and arm when he turns too fast and bumps into them, so overall, his day has gone to shit.
The women are long gone by the time his break comes around. Decan sighs, hanging up his apron, and decides to get some air.
The second he walks out of the doors, he stops dead. Celia is there, just straightening up from where she'd clearly been leaning against the wall, waiting –
Waiting for him.
A wide, helpless smile spreads over his face. His mood turns around just that fast. "It is you," Decan says, going over to her slowly; he's afraid to get too close, terrified that he might scare her away, but he can't help it. She draws him in like no one he's ever met before.
"So you draw cactuses on everyone's cup?" Celia says, laughing. "I didn't realize you worked here, or I would have come earlier." She bites her lip, and Decan watches, fascinated. He hadn't realized humans were so soft. What must that feel like? He wants to find out.
She looks up at him from under her lashes. "I had this whole plan, you know? I was going to invite you to a party, and then I was going to be all sophisticated and awesome and impress the hell out of you, and then later, I'd ask if you wanted to make out."
The rush of excitement that surges through him makes Decan grin like an idiot. "Yeah?" He edges a little closer, and Celia shows no signs of wanting him to back off; instead, she leans into his personal space and smiles up at him with considerable mischief. She's cute, and getting cuter all the time as he discovers new and tantalizing things in her face, like the little divot next to her mouth that grows deeper as her smile widens.
Yeah. He'd been worrying that he wouldn't like her as much in person, but this is perfect. She's perfect.
Decan crowds into her body, thrilled that she lets him, and sets his hands on Celia's hips, smiling down at her. "Why don't you show me what making out is, so I can say yes later?"
Celia laughs, delighted, and pulls him down to meet her.