Work Text:
There were definitely times when Deborah enjoyed her job. Times when she was even enthusiastic about it. Not every college dropout her age was able to land a job that aligned so well with their personal values – no, she was absolutely aware how lucky she was to be working full hours at above minimum wage at the only fully vegan cafe in town. Most of the time, she was happy with her job.
Most of the time, when it wasn’t the last Saturday of the month and the night club across the street was having its regular black metal evening. Watching the steady stream of darkly dressed people moving into the club whilst serving an extra large oat caramel latte (oat milk produced out of locally grown oats, coffee imported from select plantations in Brazil committed to sustainable development… the origins of the caramel syrup she wasn’t sure about), she almost wished she was still unemployed and free to use her Saturday evenings as she wished.
On the outside, Deborah didn’t especially look like someone who enjoyed black metal. She’d dyed her hair black once in her teens and promptly discovered that it made her look pale in all the wrong and unattractive kinds of ways and made any skin imperfections stand out like someone had pointed a flashing neon sign at each of her pimples. After an arduous process of bleaching and trying to salvage what was left of her hair, she’d sworn never to dye her hair again. At work, she didn’t even wear so much as dark eyeliner, and while they had no uniform, the dress code was decidedly bland and inoffensive.
“You hear that, Deb?” her coworker Gemma said, making a disgusted face at the drink she was preparing.
For a while Deborah didn’t actually hear ‘that’ because the milk steamer was too loud. “What?” she said, raising her voice. Then the noise fell away, and at the same time the door opened as another customer came in, and she heard it. The buzzing, almost chainsaw-like sound of electric guitars, the blastbeat, the slightly anemic-sounding bass, the incomprehensible shrieking vocals… “Oh. Yeah, I… I hear it,” she said, slightly breathless as her heartbeat picked up in an attempt to keep up with the drummer.
Gemma, completely failing to read the room, went on in a disapproving voice, “That shit should be illegal, like, at least where there’s normal people to hear it.”
“Tell me about it,” the new customer, a lady with an offensively bright yellow cardigan, agreed.
Deborah made a noncommittal sound that went ignored by either her coworker or the customer, both having found someone to eagerly feed the flames of their disapproval of the ongoing disruption of peace across the street. Deborah ignored them right back and went to load the dishwasher.
Later in the evening, but a few minutes before closing time, Deborah was alone in the cafe. Gemma had finished her shift an hour ago and the last customers – unless somebody dashed in in the next three and a half minutes – had left almost half an hour ago. The music from across the street had changed, to something slightly slower and with deeper bass sound and a mix of clean vocals and guttural growls. It didn’t sound quite as good as the first band, at least filtered through the walls of two separate buildings, but still not bad.
The clock finally hit closing time, and she let out a sigh of relief. She quickly finished locking up and grabbed the box of blueberry muffins from the fridge; one of the perks of the job was that whoever was closing, could take home any muffins that were left unsold. There weren’t always any, because the blueberry muffin was the single most sold item in the cafe, but today there were three and she fully intended to eat them all.
“Excuse me,” a voice said just as she’d locked the door behind her and was turning to leave. “Sorry, am I late, did you just close?”
Deborah turned around with the carefully practiced politely apologetic smile on her lips. “Yes, I’m afraid we just–” And she cut off mid sentence when she saw who she was talking to.
He was tall, though not quite as tall as she’d always imagined. Long, black hair cascaded down past his shoulders, looking slightly tangled. Messy black-and-white make-up framed his deep brown eyes, and the matte black lip paint had worn off here and there revealing the natural colour underneath. He smiled, a little awkwardly, and those lips suddenly looked incredibly kissable.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I– I’m in a band, uh,” and he nodded in the general direction of the club across the street.
“Oh, no,” Deborah replied, blushing furiously, “I’m not scared. I mean. I know. I like your band.” She smiled, suddenly feeling shy. “Glothar, right?”
The man, Glothar, looked surprised for a second but recovered quickly and returned the smile. “Yeah,” he said. Then the smile turned a little sheepish. “Well, it’s Mike, actually, but…”
Deborah stifled a giggle. “Mind if I keep calling you Glothar?”
“No, that’s, uh. That’s perfectly fine,” he said quickly, “I prefer Glothar anyway.” There was a pause that didn’t quite stretch into an awkward silence. “What do I call you?”
Deborah smiled again, charmed by the way he didn’t demand her name but instead implied that he would accept whatever alias she chose to give. Later if anyone asked (not that anyone did, at least for another sixteen years) she would have pointed at this moment as the moment she fell in love with him. “My name is Deborah,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Deborah,” he said with a theatrical bow.
“Do you want a blueberry muffin?” Deborah asked, gesturing with the box of muffins in her hand. “They’re vegan.”
Glothar’s eyes brightened at her words. “Vegan, you say? That’s amazing, I’m a vegan… well, trying to be anyway, sometimes it’s difficult while touring…” He trailed off. “I’d offer to buy you a coffee but I guess the only vegan cafe in town just closed. Well. I’ve got beer in the bus, if you…”
“Beer is vegan,” Deborah said with a shrug and, on an impulse, took Glothar by the arm. “Lead the way.”
Glothar chuckled and began to lead her down the street. “So it is.”
It did not occur to her until much later to think about how well the muffins and beer would go together, and by then it didn’t matter anyway.