Chapter Text
“Earl Gray, Cupcake?”
The customer looks up at Vi, and she is delighted to see horror and disdain in her beautiful blue eyes.
Vi stops herself from smirking, keeping a straight face while the woman processes.
“Hmm,” She finally says, her accent seeming a bit more pronounced today, “Do you always make a habit of calling customers by inappropriate pet names?”
Vi props her chin up on her hands, elbows resting on the counter. “Only the hot ones,” she says, punctuating this with a wink.
The customer’s lips curl, and Vi watches in fascination as her bottom lip practically disappears.
“I can go to any other coffee shop, you know,” she says, “There’s one on every corner.”
“Yet you’ve come here every day for the past week. Interesting.”
There’s something unreadable in the customer’s eyes, but in the end, she just sighs and says “Yes. Earl Gray, please.”
“Coming right up,” Vi says, waggling her eyebrows as she twirls around to get the tea.
“Jesus Christ,” she hears the customer sigh, and Vi grins. It’s true, she really does only give the pet names to the hot customers.
It never leads anywhere, nor does she want or expect it to. She just likes seeing pretty girls get flustered. This one, however, has been a tough nut to crack. She always seems serious, or pissed, and to Vi’s knowledge she hasn’t even so much as blushed in Vi’s presence yet.
A project, then.
“Earl Gray tea, and a chocolate cupcake,” Vi announces, presenting the spread for the customer.
“I didn’t order a-”
“It’s on the house.”
Vi studies the woman’s face as she thinks about this. Her features can only be described as chiseled, and, though this really is just for fun, Vi can’t help but be mesmerized by stupid details, like the sharpness of her nose.
At last, the customer huffs in annoyance. “I don’t like chocolate,” she says. She picks up her cup, leaving the pastry on the counter.
“Thanks for the tea,” she says, and walks away to sit by the window.
“What kind of freak of nature doesn’t like chocolate?” Vi calls after her, but she isn’t surprised when she’s ignored.
She can’t help but chuckle. She loves this part of her job.
As long as she doesn’t delve into actual harassment, she can do literally whatever she wants. Who’s going to tell her no? She owns the place.
She feels a pang in her chest despite it all, and can’t help but glance at the framed photo of Vander that hangs above the espresso machine.
You should still be here.
Vi grunts in frustration and pulls out her phone, staring at the preview of Jinx’s message from three days ago. She still hasn’t opened it, but she’s memorized what the beginning says, at least.
“ Hey Vi, next month is five years. Crazy, right? I know you’re, like, mad, but I was hoping we could-”
That’s all Vi can see.
She can’t bring herself to open the actual message. She knows Jinx will get the notification that she read it, and she doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
“You look stupid when you pout.”
Vi snorts and shoves the phone as deeply into her pocket as she can.
“You look stupid all the time,” she retorts. She turns around and crosses her arms as she stares Ekko down.
He rolls his eyes. “Wow, Vi! A super grown up response from someone in their literal 30s.”
Vi leans back against the counter. “Anytime I talk to you I feel like I’m fourteen again. I think I’m just shoving my brain cells to the back of my head to make you feel better about having so few of them.”
“That is so kind of you.”
“I do what I can.”
Ekko doesn’t take the bait, though. He just continues to look at Vi with a knowing look on his face.
“What?” She asks, as though she doesn’t know.
“You should answer her message.”
Vi pinches the bridge of her nose. “God, I regret telling you about that.”
“You have said that so many times over the course of our lives that it has no meaning anymore.”
Ekko hoists himself on to the counter and turns his head to survey their crowd for the day.
Aside from the hot girl with the blue hair, there’s only three other customers in the shop. It’s slow, as it usually is at 2pm on a weekday.
“Get off the counter, Ekko,” Vi says, but it rings hollow. She doesn’t really mean it, and they both know it. She just knows that it’s what Vander would have said.
Vander would have said a lot of things.
“It really is almost five years soon, though,” Ekko says without turning around, “Maybe we should do something for it.”
“Are you saying that because Jinx asked you to?”
“You are so fucking paranoid.”
“Are you?”
“....Maybe.”
Vi wants to sink to the floor and disappear. It doesn’t help that Ekko and Jinx are still close.
“So you think, what, we should invite her here with open arms?”
Ekko kicks his feet in the air like a child.
“Why not?”
Vi balls her hands into fists. She doesn’t want to have this conversation again.
Luckily, she doesn’t have to, because a piercing scream from the lobby area interrupts their conversation pretty effectively.
Vi rolls her eyes. There’s always something going on.
It’s probably the older lady who always asks for half a cup of oat milk and half a cup of almond milk. She’s screamed about less, honestly.
Vi sighs and walks up to the counter to survey the scene. She hasn’t noticed yet that Ekko has dropped to the floor, or that he’s trying to get her to join him.
“Vi. Vi, holy shit, get down!”
“Why? It’s just-”
Her voice trails off as she finally gets a good look at the lobby.
Things she was correct about: The one who screamed is actually the half and half lady.
Things she was wrong about: It’s definitely not about the milk.
The woman, like Ekko, is cowering on the floor, covering her head like she’s afraid the ceiling will fall on top of her.
Vi turns her attention to the other three customers.
She doesn’t recognize the two burly men standing in the middle of the room. They’re both wearing heavy coats, which is weird considering it’s only October, but she’s less focused on that fact and more focused on the fact that they look scared shitless.
They’re both standing there with their hands up in surrender, and when Vi realizes why she has a mixture of very confusing feelings.
The Cupcake Customer is standing tall by a toppled chair, facing the two men with a blazing look of fury on her face.
In her hands are two honest to god Uzi submachine guns.
Vi is so beyond flabbergasted at the fact that this woman has been casually carrying around a couple of Uzis that the reality of the situation takes a second to hit her.
But it finally does when the woman turns the guns on Vi.
As she stares down the barrels of the guns, facing her own mortality, as the woman glares at her with unrestrained fury, as her life flashes before her eyes, as she realizes belatedly that the customer she has been flirting with all week is now trying to hold up her store with a couple of submachine guns, her thoughts turn jumbled and messy.
But one single sentence manages to surface to the tip of her tongue, and before she even knows what’s happening, she’s said it out loud.
“Fuck,” Vi says, as she’s certain she’s about to be killed, “That is
so
hot.”