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Joel woke with a start to the sharp ring of a familiar bell.
It took him a moment of staring around their room to recognise that the sound had come from his dreams, not from the silver bell hanging above their café door. It took him another few moments to realise Lizzie had already woken up, and that the buzzing and whirring next door was probably her making herself coffee.
Trying in vain to flatten his messy hair, he rolled out of bed and stumbled next door, his movements sluggish with the remaining dust of sleep. Lizzie giggled when she saw him.
“Happy Monday, sleepy.”
“Ugh, don’t even. I feel blummin’ awful,” he groaned, grabbing one of the warm mugs sitting on the counter. Lizzie stared at him, biting her lip to hold back a laugh, but he didn’t realise why until he took a sip and his taste buds were assaulted by the bitter tang of caffeine. He spat it out with a sound that would be difficult to translate into words.
Lizzie giggled again, taking the mug from him and swapping it for one containing hot tea and milk. “Whoops, wrong one! I didn’t even notice, how odd…”
Death-staring her over the rim of his cup, he let the steam from his drink unstick his eyelids and wake him up some. “Do you not love me?” he whined, his voice muffled by the ceramic.
“Awh, of course I do,” said Lizzie, pecking him on the cheek before hopping onto the counter and swinging her legs as she drank her coffee (read: brew of the devil). “You just pull a really funny face when you accidentally take mine. And before you say it— I’m not adding more sugar. It’s barely even coffee then.”
“My wife doesn’t love me—”
“She’d love you more if you got ready for the day instead of standing around looking pathetic!” she said, drawing out the end in a sing-song tone.
“Alright, alright.” Joel threw back the rest of his drink like it was whisky instead of milky black tea that was still hot enough to burn his tongue, then gently placed the mug back on the counter. Lizzie, who had somehow already found the energy to shower, dress, and make breakfast, brought her coffee with her down the stairs connecting their apartment to their shop. Joel took Lizzie’s advice, climbing into the shower and letting the cold water run over his eyelids to wake himself up some more.
Back in their room, beyond the closed curtains, the night hadn’t quite lifted from the city, remnants of its shadows clinging to the cobblestones despite the hour hand of the clock inching its way towards eight. One of Joel’s least favourite parts of winter was the prolonged darkness; it made everything sluggish, sleepy.
Even his premonitions became more frequent and less useful with the longer nights, and movements when fighting slowed in the cold as if his muscles were frosted. Yesterday especially had drained him, mentally and physically. Lizzie was lucky she hadn’t been called in to help evacuate a collapsing building following a skulk infestation. Movement was harder when the ground was frozen over.
That was probably an important detail about Joel, actually: that he and his wife were both members of the Hero Commission, a division of Hermitopia’s military composed of super-powered individuals and responsible for dealing with the more… magical threats to the city. When he and Lizzie started living together, it had become harder and harder to disguise their double lives from each other, and their secrets had come out over an awkward dinner that Joel hoped never to repeat.
Now, though, they had settled comfortably into their coffee-shop, super-hero lives, with one change. The commission, privy to all secrets regarding their private lives, had refused to place them both on the battlefield at the same time in order to avoid ‘personal business’ interfering with their jobs. It hurt, flicking through news channels while he was off duty and seeing her up against something as huge as, say, last week's wither, but it was better this way.
As the clattering sounds of Lizzie fiddling with machinery floated up the stairs, Joel pulled on a yellow shirt with the Small Beans Café logo embroidered on the chest pocket and ran a hand through his hair, letting the green streak fall back into place over his eye.
“Joel, what’s taking so long? I’m sure your hair looks fine!” Lizzie shouted, her voice echoing off the walls of their small apartment. Joel pulled his hand from where it had been fixing his bangs, blushing at how easily she could read him even without eyes on him, and yelled back.
“On my way!”
At the top of the stairs, he encountered Cow, their cat, slinking between his legs and purring happily. She followed his footsteps, nearly tripping him as he walked, and halfway down the staircase he had to pause to pick her up and prevent them both from toppling to the floor.
“Lizzie, take your idiot.” He tried to hand Cow to her, which was admittedly a bit unfair since she was in the middle of wiping down the surface, but the furry creature was trying to bite him and he would struggle to lift the chairs from the tabletops while holding her.
Lizzie held up her cloth helplessly. “Sorry, Cow, my hands are full. Just stick her on the windowsill, she likes watching the people go by.”
Joel did as he was asked, letting Cow jump from his arms with far more care than needed; that cat has better reflexes than the entire commission combined. Curling up in a sunny spot, she closed her eyes and ignored him, letting her tail flick lazily through the air. Joel had to admit she was kind of cute. When she wasn’t inconveniencing him. Or attempting to kill him via stair-murder.
As he cleared the bar and set the chairs on the floor, Lizzie brought up what he hadn’t even realised he’d been avoiding.
“So…”
“So?”
“Did you See something last night? You were sleeping pretty deeply for eight in the morning, even after yesterday’s incident.”
The memory of the bell ringing in his ears had been lost in the haze of a bleary morning, but now that she mentioned it, pieces of the vision fell back into place.
Joel had a uniquely irritating ability that he’d dubbed “Magic Rubbish,’ though the commission file preferred the more professional-sounding ‘Déja Vu’. Essentially, he would dream of a potential future that could play out in the following day, but only if he was present for it. The catch? He would black out while the situation actually took place, making it… less than ideal for missions, even if he’d foreseen their victory.
Telling Lizzie had been more of a necessity than a choice. He didn’t regret it one bit though; he couldn’t imagine trying to go about his patchwork life without her there to help.
“Oh crap, yeah. Something to do with some reporters coming in to get coffee, I think? It ended with the bell ringing, so that must have been them leaving, but everything else is fuzzy.”
Lizzie put down her cloth, paying full attention. “Do you want me to stick you in the back room once it starts? It doesn’t seem super important to let it play out.”
Joel was tempted to accept her offer. Blacking out at work was almost worse than doing it on the commission’s time, with so many civilians around to keep unaware of his identity. And yet—
“I don’t know.” He hesitated mid-chair-carry, pausing as if frozen. “I can’t remember all the details and yet… I think it needs to happen.”
Shooting him a sceptical look, Lizzie leant against the counter, resting her chin in her hand. “Reporters grabbing coffee needs to happen?”
“It sounds dumb.”
“Not at all. I trust you. We’ll just… stick you under the counter.” A teasing smirk crept onto her face. “You’re definitely short enough to fit.”
“I am not short!” squawked Joel. “I’m a very tall man.”
“And handsome. Don’t forget handsome.”
“And handsome!”
Cow jumped off from her perch on the windowsill and slinked upstairs, glaring at Joel with the most offended expression he had ever seen a cat muster.
~•~
The morning glow of sunrise poured through the cafe’s windows, transitioning from orange to yellow to white like a stream shedding its debris as the hours passed. Similarly, there was a steady flow of customers, unfamiliar faces less common than those he recognised. Joel supposed, with cynicism, that one of the benefits to the more frequent monster attacks was less competition.
One might ask why Joel - a man who so disliked the smell of coffee - worked in a café, because surely even the persuasion of his beautiful wife couldn’t be enough for a man to make such a sacrifice. The answer? Joel covered up the gritty caffeine with warm dough, spending time between frantic rushes in the kitchen rolling out and baking the dough they prepared the night before. It was there, in the heated air of the kitchen, that he first felt the sense of deja vu roll over him: a sign that his foreseen future was close.
“Lizzie,” he muttered over the rattling of the coffee machine, where he wouldn’t be heard by the customers. “I’ve got a few minutes.”
She nodded, finishing her latte art with a well-practised flick of the wrist. “Enjoy!” she said, sliding the cup across the counter, her eyes flitting to the door where two familiar faces were entering. “Oh no. You didn’t tell me the reporters were Grian and Scar!”
Joel responded in a matching hiss as he rearranged the pastries in their case, trying very hard to mask the fact that he was slowly losing feeling in his fingertips. “Faces are weird in dreams!”
“But they’re going to want to chat with us!”
“Then just tell ‘em I’m— Hello, gentlemen!”
They’d gotten close enough to over hear him and Lizzie’s hushed conversation. Grian hung back, eyeing Joel with those birdish pupils so skilled at seeking out a story. Scar, on the other hand, seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that Joel had almost fumbled a croissant onto the floor, waving happily at Lizzie with a prize-winning grin.
“Good day, my favourite coffee people of the Beans variety. How’s it going?”
Joel’s vision was blurring at the edges as his dream played out in real time, and he guessed he had less than a minute before he fully blacked out. He tapped Lizzie twice under the counter, meeting her concerned gaze when she glanced over, then answered,
“Great, thanks! What can we get started for you?”
Scar took his time studying the menu, rolling backwards in his wheelchair to get a better look, and Joel tightened his grip on the bar, trying to hold onto consciousness until he at least had a reason to disappear.
“Ooh, I think I’ll try something new today.”
Of course he would. And Joel had served Scar coffee enough times to know that he wasn’t a fast decision maker.
“What about you, Grian?” Lizzie asked, trying to find Joel an out, but Grian, ever the trouble-maker, just gave a cheeky smirk and shrugged.
“I’ll let him decide before I order. Come on, Scar, we haven’t got all day for our lunch break.”
The numbness had diffused to Joel’s legs, and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. There was no chance he would be able to wait for Scar to choose a drink. With a slow blink, he tried to form his mouth around an excuse.
“I’m just gonna pop down here to… uh— check on the syrups. One moment, please!”
He disappeared beneath the counter and curled up beside their humming fridge just as the world faded to black.
Passing out always felt instantaneous, but a quick glance at his watch told him he’d been gone for nearly ten minutes. Thankfully, the ringing bell he’d heard at the end of his dream seemed to be signalling Grian and Scar’s departure, not another customer’s entrance.
He looked around blearily, spotting Lizzie’s shoes at the other side of the counter where she was mopping up — spilt coffee? — and tapped the floor to get her attention. The shop was mostly empty, the lunch rush having finished before Grian and Scar got their break, and she heard him over the gentle rustle of a couple people finishing their drinks.
“You back with us?”
Nodding, he scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Yep. All good. Anything exciting happen while I was out?”
Lizzie bit her lip, glancing around the shop at the few remaining customers. “I’ll tell you once everyone’s left. Do you want me to close up early?”
Joel shook his head, frustrated. There was little point in sacrificing the rest of the day just because his power left him distracted after it faded. And as eager as he was to hear what had gone down while he’d been crouched under the counter, Lizzie was right. It made more sense to wait until they had the place to themselves.
“I’ll go hang out in the kitchen until I’m feeling better. You’ll be okay by yourself?”
Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Well, I seemed to cope the past few minutes. And every day while you’re back there baking. I think I’ll manage.” She pressed a quick kiss to his forehead before holding out a hand to help him stumble to his feet. He couldn’t stop the blush that spread across his cheeks, even after all this time.
“Alright, sarcasm – I was being nice!”
“Watch the slippery spot on your way out!”
~•~
She told him later about the unexciting events that had unfolded in his absence. It was almost certainly not worth the neck pain he had earned from being curled up between their fridge and boxes of coffee cups.
(And hey, no! He was not getting old. Anyone would get neck pain from that, thank you very much.)
The two reporters had ordered their drinks – tea for Grian, something Joel could respect about him, and the most complicated concoction on their menu for Scar, because why not. Small talk had been exchanged while Lizzie prepared them, brief mentions of the stories they were investigating, but Scar had cut Grian off with a louder tale about his cats after he mentioned a cultish villain group that was emerging.
Lizzie agreed that it was strange to hear such news from customers and not the commission, but Joel had assured her it was probably just being dealt with by the higher ups. They didn’t acknowledge that they and their peers were probably the most senior heroes in the organisation.
And one final detail that made Lizzie flush with annoyance as she recounted it: having made Scar his drink, he proceeded to spill it over the counter. Usually, this could be put down to the clumsy nature of the man – a misplaced grandiose gesture, a misjudged distance between objects – but Lizzie swore that it was purposeful. And then he’d just left!
Joel would always take her word, and her annoyance at Scar leaked into his mood. Next time he served him, maybe he’d happen to mistake the salt for sugar.
Yet despite the mess and mentioned cult, the situation hardly merited the instinctual importance he’d sensed surrounding his dream. He almost wished he’d just hidden in the store cupboard and avoided the whole thing, resolving to put the whole thing out of his mind as they closed up shop and Lizzie left for her patrol as Shadow.
~•~
A few days later, the Hermit Daily printed a small missing poster on its back page.
MISSING! Investigative Journalist Scar GoodTimes. LAST KNOWN LOCATION: Hermit Daily HQ, approximately 18:30 on Monday 19th November. Please call the number below with any information.