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Angua was brushing her teeth when there was a knock at the door. She frowned at the basin and spat, wiping her face with the back of her hand before she went to answer it. It had better not be anyone summoning her up to Pseudopolis Yard, it was her day off.
When she opened the door Sally was standing there wearing a long sleeved dress and an apologetic expression, hat tucked under one arm. “I was going to wait outside,” she said, not moving to step past the threshold into Angua’s room, “but your landlady let me in.”
She looked as immaculate as always. Angua’s hackles rose just from looking at her. “Has there been a murder?” she asked brusquely instead of voicing any of the other things queuing up to roll off her tongue.
“I mean, probably, but not any that I know about,” said Sally, shrugging one shoulder and tucking her hair behind her ear. “I actually came to see if you’d like to go get coffee. There’s a new dwarvish cafe down on Broad Street.”
Angua narrowed her eyes at her and considered this for a moment. “This isn’t a date,” she said in a warning tone.
“Oh, of course not,” said Sally, twitching a corner of her mouth up, showing a hint of fang over her lip.
“Because regardless of certain things that may have happened I don’t like you.”
“I understand completely,” said Sally in a soothing tone.
“Are you making fun of me, Constable Humpeding?” said Angua sharply.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sergeant,” said Sally, openly grinning now. “Coffee?”
“...Okay,” said Angua, stepping out and shutting the door behind her. “This still isn’t a date.”
“I know,” said Sally, turning on one heel and walking in pace with Angua.
Angua’s landlady nodded approvingly at them as they passed, and Angua nodded back. Sally paused by the door and set her hat on her head, a wide brimmed thing that probably would have looked positively fetching if placed at an angle where it would offer little to no sun protection. Sally wore it normally and managed to make it work anyway. She looked like she’d just stepped out of someone’s garden party instead of the watch house at Pseudopolis Yard, and not for the first time Angua wondered what she was playing at, going for Angua like this. It was highly suspicious.
Totally oblivious to Angua’s internal monologue, or perhaps not, Sally looped her arm around Angua’s elbow. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” she said blithely.
It was warm, and they were a little too close to the Ankh for Angua’s complete nasal comfort, but it could have been worse, she supposed. “It’s Ankh Morpork,” she said instead. “It’s never ‘lovely’.”
“Well, no, but it’s better than usual,” said Sally,l squeezing her arm lightly.
“Yeah, all I can smell is vampire instead of dung,” said Angua, shaking her head.
Sally laughed, a delicate sound that Angua swore set her teeth on edge. “Isn’t it a much better smell?” she said, smugness ameliorating her entire tone of voice as she did so.
Angua’s nose twitched as she remembered the smell of sex and vampire under her fingernails. “Much worse,” she said, deadpan.
Sally laughed again, steering them onto Broad Street with a turn of her body. “Of course,” she said, nodding. “Even I can smell the Ankh, you know.”
“So?”
“Nothing, just making a point,” said Sally, shaking her head. “Come on, it’s down here.” She tugged Angua into an alley, past some cheerful looking stalls and towards a storefront with a complicated looking glass apparatus in the front window. Dark liquid was dripping slowly through the glass tubes from a circular bulb out of an overly large funnel at the end, through a piece of paper, and into a beaker. The sign over the door said ‘The Drip’ and Sally smiled, all teeth, ushering Angua inside.
It was largely empty save for one troll hunkered down in one corner and a young looking dwarf wiping down the counter. There was a handwritten menu on the chalkboard above her head -- Angua took in the heeled boots, the chainmail skirt, and the curled beard as a matter of a moment -- that said things like ‘All Day Cold Drip’ and ‘Ramtop’s Special Blend’. Nowhere did it say anything about ‘coffee’ as far as Angua could tell.
Sally’s grip was like steel on her arm; Angua couldn’t have backed out if she’d tried. The dwarf looked at them expectantly as they approached the counter, and Sally finally released Angua’s arm, leaning across the pitted wood on her elbows, fingernail tapping at her chin as the wide sleeve of her dress fell around her wrist. “I think I’ll try the Quirmian three day roast,” she said after a moment, then she looked at Angua. “You?”
“Uh,” said Angua, suddenly stymied. “A… regular coffee? With milk in it?”
The corners of Sally’s mouth twitched upwards, though she didn’t say anything, and the dwarf behind the counter nodded. “Of course, right up,” she said, accepting a couple of dollars off Sally and passing back some coins.
“What even is this place?” muttered Angua as Sally herded them over to a table by the window. The coffee went ‘plink!’ every time another droplet landed in the beaker, and Angua’s ear twitched.
“The best coffee house in the city,” said Sally, arranging herself in the seat across the table. “I thought you might like it.”
Angua sighed, rubbing at her temples in order to run off the headache she could feel already brewing. “This is about last week, isn’t it?”
“It’s not about anything. It’s only coffee,” said Sally simply.
“Right,” said Angua sharply. “And then it’s only dwarf bread museums and moonlit walks with the lead.”
“You like dwarf bread museums?” asked Sally, quirking an eyebrow at her.
Something from behind the counter hissed and gurgled, and Angua ignored it, keeping her gaze firmly on Sally. “You know what I mean.”
“It doesn’t have to be that if you don’t want it to be, you know?”
The dwarf from behind the counter came over and deposited two cups of coffee in front of them. Sally’s came in a delicate looking glass tumbler, black with the water foaming slightly at the top. Angua’s own coffee came in a mug that looked like it belonged somewhere a touch more upper class than the watchhouse or Angua’s own motley collection of crockery.
It didn’t smell like the coffee Angua was used to, drunk in the dead of night before she went on the night watch, or first thing in the morning when she wasn’t fully awake, downed with a grimace on her face. It smelled like how you imagined coffee should smell; like the idea of coffee distilled into a cup. Angua’s mouth watered despite herself.
Sally picked up her cup delicately and took a sip. “Mm. It’s quite good here.”
Angua compelled herself to pick up the mug and take a sip. The ceramic was warm under her fingers and the smell only got stronger as she brought it up to her lips. The creamy taste of the fresh milk exploded on her tongue, combined with the best coffee she’d ever tasted, and Angua sighed, closing her eyes and taking another sip.
“So-” began Sally.
“Don’t,” Angua cut her off. “I’m having a moment.”
“So I see,” said Sally, sounding amused.
Angua opened her eyes and scowled at Sally, holding her mug close. “What do you want out of this anyway?”
“To drink coffee with you,” said Sally, smiling. “Looks like this place lives up to its reputation.”
Angua gave her a suspicious look over her mug. “You don’t want to talk about last week?”
“Only if you do,” said Sally, leaning forward on one elbow. “Do you? Want to talk about last week?”
“Absolutely not,” said Angua, taking another sip of her coffee. “How many more times do you want me to say it?”
“Oh at least a dozen more,” said Sally easily, grinning at her.
Angua grunted, burying her nose in her mug. The urge to lick the foam from the sides of her mug was high, and she quashed it as best as she could. Not for the first time she wished Sally was less… Vampy , at least in the ways that made her feel like a shambling beast.
“Have you seen Visit’s new pamphlets?” asked Sally before Angua could sink much further into her mood and her chair. “‘Om sees all the you have acted on’ that’s a little much, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know, the same could be said of black ribboners,” said Angua with a dangerous dose of snark. “That you’re all a ‘bit much’.”
“We don’t wish down the wrath of pamphlets, or gods, on anyone though,” Sally pointed out, leaning back in her chair.
“No, you just inflict yourselves on the general public,” said Angua, taking another long drink of her coffee. She was sad to see the mug was almost empty.
Sally fidgeted, her fingers clasped around her glass. “Is that what I’m doing to you?” she asked, tone curious.
“No, we’re coworkers getting coffee,” said Angua, nursing the last bits of her coffee. “I could have said no.”
“You could have,” Sally mused. “Coworkers?”
“Do you think we’re friends or something?” said Angua dryly.
“Oh no, you’re quite clear we’re not friends,” said Sally, the corner of her mouth twitching up.
“Good,” said Angua aggressively, finishing her coffee. “I’m glad you understand.”
Sally was still sipping at hers, hot dark liquid slipping between polished white teeth with an occasional flash of tongue. Angua dragged her eyes away from her lips and folded her hands in front of her, ignoring her empty mug and the fact that she wanted another one.
“You know we don’t have to ‘be’ anything,” said Sally eventually, shading her eyes to look at the apparatus in the window, politely ignoring Angua’s staring. “If you’d prefer.”
“I’ll think about it.”
That seemed to get her, the curve of her cheek dimpling a little before she turned back and blinked rapidly, her eyes adjusting to the shadowed corner again. Angua felt smug at that; Sally had been holding the conversational upper hand for just a little too long this week.
“Terrible day for it, isn’t it?”
Sally sagged in her chair and laughed. “Yes. God, I thought it looked so nice out this morning.”
“Should’ve let me ask Mrs Cake for a dustpan to bring with us,” said Angua, reaching over the table and picking up her cup, taking a small sip. It was black coffee, harsh, but not as bitter as she might expect. It didn’t taste particularly Quirmian.
Sally’s mouth twitched, and she pulled back one of her long, flowy sleeves to reveal a vial of blood and a folded up brush. “I’ve got a silk cloak in the other one.”
Angua snorted and passed the cup back, their fingers brushing against each other. “I’ll try to sweep you into an alley in case we give anyone ideas, then.”
“‘Mad vampire attacks off duty Sergeant’?” suggested Sally with a smirk.
“You didn’t have to bring a silk cloak,” said Angua, watching her press her lips to the rim of the mug where she had just a moment before.
“It’s the biggest cover I have that wasn’t my blanket, and I can’t fit that in my sleeve.” Sally was grinning openly now. “You could come back to mine and I could show you if you like?”
“Might take a lot of effort to fold it that small.”
“I might have to take my shirt off to make it fit.”
“We’d have to finish our walk after the sun went down.”
“It’s a new moon tonight, it might be dark out.”
“Think we’ll run into trouble?” Angua asked, unable to keep much of a straight face. Sally didn’t much look like she cared, open amusement on her features.
“It’s a risk,” she said, nodding while holding Angua’s gaze. “Maybe we should get your cuffs, just in case.”
Sally didn’t bother finishing her coffee.