Work Text:
“Are you- No! Jon, I-. Would you just-! Jon- Jon-! Listen to- No! No, you know what?! I can’t listen to you when you’re like this! Call me back when you’ve cooled off!” A young-ish man argues over his phone. The voice on the other end seemed irritated, yet tinged with much worry.
The stranger slams the face of the device onto his booth’s table, laying himself over it and tucking his head into the crook of his elbow. His raggedy mop of blonde hair stuck out over the edge of his arm. He was heavyset, though not terribly overweight. He seemed a nervous sort; actually having apologized to many people simply for what appeared to be having come to the café in the first place as he was walking in. He’d even waited until he was told it was ok to take any seat he’d liked.
There were occasional whispers of tears through that thick fabric of his grey sweater as he lay there relatively motionless.
Sometimes having incredibly powerful hearing sucked. He lay there for hours, and if it weren’t for the constant sound of crying, Jenna Haravy would have thought him asleep. She was sure all the others believed so.
It wasn’t uncommon, per se, for someone to accidentally find themselves asleep in the little café at such a late hour. To be completely honest, Jenna was feeling quite tired herself. It had been such a long morning at work…
Either way, she cursed herself for both her curiosity and her social anxiety. As the hours passed, the patrons of the establishment came and went until it seemed to be just them around six in the afternoon. Jenna didn’t think much on the weirdness of it all, or even the fact that the staff, too, seemed to have disappeared.
She took some time to steel herself, then slipped out of her stool at the counter. She carried her long-cold black coffee over to the strange man’s booth and slips into the seat opposite easily.
“Um… Sir? Are you… ok?” She asks. She curses herself at the sudden rush of dread and nervousness that fills her the moment he lifted his tear-streaked face toward her. She had always hated her anxiety attacks. Logically, she knew there was no reason for them, but they came to her anyway. However… This one felt… a bit different.
She chalked it up to the caffeine.
“Hm?” Was all he said, and Jenna suddenly felt a wave of terrible lonely sadness crash into her like a tidal wave. It buried her where she sat, and she choked on nothing but the aching memories of happier times of a past that was thoroughly gone, yet so close it was just barely out of reach.
Jenna bites her tongue hard enough to taste a hint of blood, using all her might to not begin crying herself. She wasn’t sure when she’d avoided his gaze, but she forces herself to look back up into his eyes. They were still focused on her in what seemed like concern, but the crushing weight of loneliness only increased tenfold.
His eyes were such a beautiful cloudy grey-blue; like storm clouds before a heavy downpour. They seemed to fit his downcast features perfectly.
Then he sniffles. He gasps in what sounded more like realization as that terrible feeling disappears all at once. He wipes his tears on his sleeves and apologize, but… For the life of her, Jenna didn’t understand why. All he’d done was respond to her call. What was there to be sorry about?
A familiar nagging feeling tugs at Jenna and she indulges a glance at her watch. The time reads ten ‘o clock in the evening. Sure enough, the world outside those big glass windows was now dark; lit only by the street lamps lining the roads.
Jenna blinks hard. She pinches the inside of her elbow, wincing at the shock of it. When she’d sat down in this booth seat with this… man… She was sure it had been six ‘o three! Had she seriously been staring at this stranger for four hours?
Turning her attention back to the man across from her, a surge of panic makes her heart skip a beat. There was no one there! The seat across from her was completely and utterly empty.
Jenna slams her hands on the table as she flies to her feet, backing away from that now-empty booth in fear. Her breath quickens as she looks about wildly for the stranger. Surely there had to be someone still working the late shift; the café just closed!
Jenna storms the back of the house. She finds machines and cooking supplies still on, but no one around to use them. Turning them off did nothing since they flicked back on seconds later anyway. She checked the bathrooms, the break room- Even the manager’s office. Nothing. It was like everyone in that tiny little world around her was just… gone.
Or was it her that was gone? Had she… accidentally sent herself to another universe where it was just her, and her alone? No… No, it had to be him. The crying man in the booth; this was his fault!
“Hey! Hey! Where are you? I know you’re there! Show yourself! This isn’t fair!” Jenna yells into the deafening silence. And it wasn’t. She’d just wanted to help. That’s it. That’s all she’d wanted to do. And now she was stuck in this lonely abyss of silence that threatened to leave her nothing but a husk much like the old, dilapidated building that surrounded her.
“Hello?” She whimpers, finding herself standing beside that same booth that started all of this.
“I want to go home… Please?” She begs, slipping back into that seat. She crosses her arms upon the grey-speckled surface, slowly settling her head atop them like a pillow. Her breath shivers and her nose begins to run. A pressure builds behind her eyes until she can no longer hold it back; tears trickling forth. She closes her eyes and sniffles harshly.
…
Jenna wasn’t sure how long she lay there, but when next she opens her eyes, she’s met with that man’s face in hers. He seems downright terrified, his hand on her shoulder as though she’d passed out in front of him and he was trying to wake her back up. The workers would occasionally glance over with worry themselves.
Perhaps maybe she had passed out. Perhaps it was all just a horrid nightmare from not sleeping enough and supplementing those precious hours of sleep with coffee instead.
But no. There was a mist about the man that she couldn’t blink away, no matter how much she tried. The same sort of fog that gently drifted along the floor of that strange silent world she’d found herself in.
“What are you…?” She whispers to him, and him alone. His lips flatten into a thin line. His deep, soulful eyes once again turn cloudy and distant.
“I am Martin Blackwood. Archival assistant of- No… Co-owner of the new Blackwood Archives alongside Jonathan Si- Blackwood! Blackwood… It’s nice to meet you.” He answers airily. Jenna stares at him for a solid minute.
What the fuck?! Is the only thing on her mind that drowns out everything else in it’s wake.