Chapter Text
Levi could kiss the tea guy.
The tea guy had a name and it was Eren, if the tag on his work apron was to be believed. His work apron also bore several pinback buttons. One was a blue Small Business Saturday button from last year. A gold one had the mysterious acronym AIBL. There was a little green one that said Equality Florida, though Levi wasn’t sure who or what the equality was for. The largest was a cheery shade of yellow that blared WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE.
Levi was also glad he was here. Since moving, he had searched up and down for a decent local tea room, but Google searches had only turned up two Teavana locations-- fuck Teavana -- and a musty place that smelled of mothballs and was drowning in doilies. It was on the opposite side of town to boot, much farther than Levi was willing to go for a cup of their shitty, stale tea.
He had asked around the office if anyone knew any good tea places in town, but the bastards were all coffee drinkers. “Can’t you just make your own tea?” Erwin said unhelpfully. And of course Levi could and he did , but it wasn’t the same.
Levi had just about given up when he spotted Starlings Tea. He saw it spelled out in delicate bronze letters that were dark with age, the tiny storefront crammed between a Boar’s Head deli and a CiCi’s Pizza buffet. Levi had driven past the strip several times now and missed it. He only noticed it this day because he was on foot, finishing up his usual weekend run. The windows were freshly washed and decorated with carefully painted birds, who informed Levi that there was a new tea in stock called Worry Not Warrior and it was 100% local.
Levi had been just a bit worried that if he went home and came back later, Starlings Tea would vanish into the ether from which it had emerged. That was why he walked in as he was, dressed in his sneakers, running shorts, and sweat-drenched tank top.
The tea guy, Eren, didn't seem to mind at all that Levi was all sweaty and gross in his shop. He smiled at him politely when he finished taking the order from the customer ahead of Levi and asked, “What can I get you?”
Sweat dripped down Levi’s face and his shirt was plastered to his back-- Levi still wasn't used to Florida’s high humidity index, probably never would be-- and Eren had a white smile that gleamed against his light brown face. About two day’s worth of stubble clung to Eren’s strong jaw and his shaggy hair curled just a bit by his ears. He looked about as tall and broad as Erwin, but he lacked Erwin’s polished, sharp edges.
Levi's skin felt grimy. He needed a shower desperately. His eyes darted away from the tea guy’s customer service smile and down to his arms. They were inked black with a twisting design that stretched from his wrists and up to where his shirt sleeves were rolled and cuffed at his elbows. Levi looked closer and saw that the tattoos were birds. Countless little birds silhouetted against Eren’s arms in swarms that soared around his muscles and bones.
“Like ‘em?” Eren asked.
Levi realized that he’d been staring and that he had completely forgotten what he’d planned to order. He hid the awkwardness of the moment behind a slow, deliberate blink. “Are those starlings?”
“Yep.”
“Like the shop? You like working here that much?”
Eren grinned and Levi thought it might be genuine this time, nothing customer service about it. “Well, it is my shop.”
“You like starlings so much that you named your tea room after them and tattooed them all over yourself?”
“It was my mom's first, she named it.” Eren nodded towards a framed newspaper clipping about Starlings Tea winning some local award many years ago. The paper had yellowed, but the woman pictured in the feature still bore a striking similarity to Eren. They had the same dark hair, brown skin, and large eyes. “But yeah, I like starlings,” Eren continued. "They aren't very big, but when they get together in a group they can fill up the entire sky.”
Levi had seen flocks of starlings before. He supposed there was something awe-inspiring about them all swooping together in unison, like one giant, powerful creature.
“Now,” Eren said, punctuating the word with a crack of his knuckles. “Did you come in here for conversation or tea? Though I’ve gotta tell you, you look like you use something iced and the only thing we sell with ice is water.”
Levi still couldn't remember what it was that he felt like drinking, so he asked the tea guy to surprise him. A little while later, Levi was walking home and drinking from a paper cup filled with the best jasmine tea he’d tasted in a long, long while. Somehow, miraculously, it tasted just like the tea his mother used to brew when he was upset and fuming. An oolong base. Just a hint of honey. Steeped just a little longer than usually recommended.
He sipped the tea slowly as his quick strides ate up the blocks, savoring it until finally he climbed the steps to his apartment. When his cup was empty, he was dearly tempted to turn around and ask Eren to surprise him again.
Levi could kiss the tea guy.
He’d gone back to Starlings Tea the next weekend-- this time at the beginning of his run, rather than the end-- intent on getting some caffeine into his body. It was busier than before, with a line stretching to the door. But the line moved quickly-- almost magically because Levi could only count three employees.
There was Eren, of course, working the register and quickly ringing up each customer with practiced ease and a warm grin. A bronze-skinned women with a long braid of brown hair was plating sandwiches and serving the few tables packed into the place. Rounding out the trio was a white woman with a handsome hook nose who was brewing too many different types of tea for Levi to count. They all worked with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine-- especially Eren, who did not seem to ever need to glance down at the register as he typed away. Levi watched his fingers fly, the tattooed birds appearing to flap along with every twitch of his arms.
When Levi got to the front of the line, Eren greeted him automatically and then did a visible double take. “Hi! You’re back! What’ll you have today?”
Levi was rather surprised Eren remembered him-- it’d been a week-- but he must’ve stood out with his awkward staring. “Yes. Hello. Something caffeinated. Surprise me.”
“To go again?” Eren asked, already reaching for a paper cup.
“For here.”
The woman with the braid brought him his tea in heavy mug emblazoned with the same delicate lettering from the shop sign. “Irish breakfast,” she said. Her name badge said Sasha. “Just a smidge of sugar. No milk though. You want milk? Or more sugar?”
Levi declined. It was strong-- rather bracing, actually-- but it was perfect.
He sipped at it steadily, watching Eren work the line until finally it dwindled down to a trickle. When his mug was nearly empty, Eren escaped from behind the register to bus some of the tables near Levi. The words slipped from Levi’s mouth before he fully registered them forming in his mind.
“You have zero web presence.”
Eren blinked, turning to look at Levi as he stacked mugs onto a tray. “Excuse me?”
“I looked online for tea rooms in town and yours never came up.” Well, perhaps it had, but Levi hadn’t gone past the third page of Google results. Everything past the third page was most likely useless anyway. Most people didn’t even look at the second. “Even when I Googled your shop specifically, there was nothing.” Okay, there had been a listing of the business address and a few sparse mentions on Facebook and Instagram, but other than that, nothing .
“Oh. Well, I’ve never gotten around to getting a site up. Never had any time. We did have a Facebook a few years ago, but it got hacked so I deleted it. People keep telling me to get on Yelp, but they are so shady.” Eren shrugged, unconcerned.
Levi supposed it wasn’t any cause for concern. The place seemed to be busy enough without the additional business a site could bring in. But it was the principle of the thing. It was 2016-- every moderately successful business should be online in some form, even if that form was just a simple social media page. Levi recognized that he was totally biased when it came to these matters since business sites were literally his bread and butter, but still .
“If you don’t have the time to make and manage it yourself, there are companies that will do it for you,” Levi told Eren. He thought for a moment that he should pull out a business card, but there was a reason why most of the clients for Erwin’s agency were lawyers and doctors. “Some of them are pretty expensive, but others aren’t so bad. It’s usually worth the money if your business is actually legit.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about those,” Eren said agreeably. “But it seems so… I don’t know, impersonal. It’s my business. I don’t want to trust my business’s image to someone one I don’t know. Especially if they’ve never even drank my tea.”
Levi could understand where he was coming from, but... “You could sell your tea leaves online. You could market to specific areas and expand your client base. You could build relationships with fans on social media, engage them--” Levi stopped because Eren was grinning widely, mouth twitching with the effort of holding in a laugh. “What?”
“Sorry, it’s just-- your accent sure comes out when you’re worked up. You sound kind of like those people in that movie Fargo. You’re really not from around here, huh?”
“...I moved down here for work about a month ago,” Levi admitted.
“Well then, welcome. I’ve lived ‘round these parts my entire life. You got any questions, just ask.”
Eren topped off his dish bin with the last two mugs from the table next to Levi’s. Before he could pick up the bin and leave, Levi said, “Actually, do you know any good places to run?” The routes he had been taking weren’t too shitty, but they weren’t ideal either. Too much traffic, not enough shade, too dull. Besides, when you ran five days out of the week, it was nice to change things up.
Eren’s hands stilled and he stood up straight to think. “Well, I’m not a runner myself. But when my sister still lived here, she used to go down this one trail. I think it's actually a dirt road? But a quiet one, not many cars or people out. It goes parallel to an orange grove, so she always said it was real pretty.” Eren pulled a pen from his apron pocket, took a napkin from Levi’s dispenser, and sketched out a little map, explaining how to get there as he did. He handed it to Levi with a smile when he finished, then got back to work.
That day, Levi planned to follow the same route he’d taken the previous weekend. But Eren’s tip piqued his interest enough for him to walk back home, get in his car, and follow Eren’s napkin map. It wasn’t too far out. He hadn’t realized how quickly the city became long stretches of agricultural land, but he supposed it made sense considering how massive the local citrus industry was. When Levi found the dirt road, he pulled over, scribbled a note on the back of Eren’s napkin to stick by his windshield in case someone got concerned, and got out.
He could smell the oranges. The dirt road was separated from the grove by a narrow strip of land and a low wooden fence. Levi could easily hop the fence and pick his share of fruit. They were probably Valencia oranges, since that was what the area was most famous for. According to Mike (who could always been trusted when it came to food trivia), they were mostly used for orange juice and were one of the few oranges that had a spring/summer harvest. The row of trees nearest Levi were heavy with the oranges, so apparently it wasn’t quite time to harvest.
Levi set off at a light jog, steadily working his way up to his usual pace. The dirt road reached out as far as Levi could see. When he turned his head, the grove alongside him did the same.
He went for ten miles, turning around halfway to doubleback. At various points, the fencing and style of planting changed as he passed one grove and entered another. But it remained just him, the road, and the oranges the whole way through.
When Levi’s car finally came back into sight, undisturbed, Levi’s sneakers were dusty, his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and exhilaration pounded through his veins. He climbed into his car, slumping down in his seat to rest, and pulled Eren’s napkin down from the windshield to examine the map again.
Levi could kiss the tea guy.
He’d told Erwin that he would have the site done by Monday morning. By all rights, he should’ve been able to finish it by Friday afternoon. But the site was for business consulting tailored for oil and gas companies-- two of Levi’s least favorite industries combined into one terrible beast. The client had provided a fair amount of information, but most of it was either the doublespeak that made Levi detest consultant sites so intensely or niche technical jargon about oil drilling that Google shone little light on.
He’d spent most of Wednesday going over the information for the site and writing out a long list of questions for the client, who he called up himself, not trusting anyone else to get the detailed notes he needed. Thursday had been little more than slow, hesitant writing, typing out trite shit that Levi knew he wouldn’t be able to use because it was too far off from the target audience. By Friday he had a little better handle on the subject matter, but progress had still been too slow. The end result was that he took the work home with him over the weekend and spent all of Saturday mumbling curses to himself as he poked at his laptop keys, trying to revise what he’d already written so that it was at least marginally acceptable.
By Sunday morning, he still had four interior pages to write and the home page. Levi would have preferred to claw out his eyes than stare at a computer screen a moment longer. But this was his job and there was no fucking way he was going to ask Erwin about an extension. It was entirely possible for him to finish it by Monday morning. He just had to keep a grip on his sanity until then.
After spending all of Saturday in his home office working, Levi was completely blocked there. He wasted the early morning hours of Sunday futilely trying to unblock himself before giving in and pulling on something comfortable to wear. A change in location would make things easier and it’d been a week since he’d last drank decent tea. So he packed up his laptop and notes and headed down to Starlings Tea, intent on working there for the remaining four hours that they’d be open.
Eren greeted him with the same perfect customer service smile, which only brightened when Levi told him he’d be dining in again and to please give him one of those chicken salad croissants along with his surprise tea. The tea turned out to be a bold assam with copious amounts of honey. Levi usually didn’t like the predominant flavor of his tea to be sweet, but as he let the taste of it settle on his tongue, he suddenly found his second wind. He booted up his laptop, opened the trouble document, and began typing.
The site came together. It was far from his best work, but it was perfectly readable, worked for the target audience, and all the information the client wanted on it was there. As Levi put the finishing touches on the home page, he leaned back in his seat and reached for his mug of tea.
The mug was strangely heavy. Levi looked away from the screen and down into the cup. He could’ve sworn he’d drank more than this. And the tea was still hot, which just couldn’t be right because Levi had been here for---
Hours.
Levi blinked, looking around himself. His croissant plate had been cleared away. More alarmingly, all of the other tables had been completely cleared. There wasn’t a single other customer in sight. The placard on the door had been turned so that SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED faced outwards. Even the two other employees were gone. It was just Levi and Eren, who was closing out the register.
“Um,” Levi said.
Eren glanced up at him and smiled. His teeth looked unfairly white against his bronze skin. Levi was becoming all too familiar with the sight. “Are you done? You were really writing away over there. Didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I-- yes, I just need to do a little more revision and it’ll be ready. Fucking finally, I’ve been working on it for days and--” Levi made himself stop before he wound up complaining for the next five minutes. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”
“Nah, I’ve always got plenty to do after hours; it’s the burden of being your own boss. Besides,” he said with a little chuckle. “You reminded me of my sister. When she gets to studying, you could shatter a glass on the floor and she wouldn’t even look up from her books.”
“What does your sister study?”
“She’s studying to be a surgeon. Actually, she’s nearly done with her residency, so soon she really will be a surgeon.”
Levi picked up his mug again and drank from it. He might as well finish it since Eren had been kindly topping him off. “That’s impressive.”
“Yeah, I’m really proud of her. And glad she took the heat off me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Eren sighed. His breath dragged the word out in a long drawl. “Mom wanted both of us to go into medicine, like my dad. But school isn’t really for me. I knew someone would have to take over this place someday, so I just took some business classes to make Mom happy.”
Levi could relate somewhat, though his experience had been just the opposite. His mother had wanted him to take over her restaurant, but Levi had no interest in spending the rest of his life serving phở to the white folks of suburban Minnesota. He’d gone off to college instead and dove into the world of cubicle farms-- at least until Erwin called him up with a business plan and a proposition.
His mother understood. She ran the restaurant until she was almost at death’s door, only then selling the place to a stranger. Levi visited the restaurant after her funeral and barely recognized the place. He’d never regretted his decision-- he’d hated working in the restaurant growing up-- but it made him sad to think of all his mother’s hard work ending just like that.
“Is this what you’ve always wanted to do then?” he asked Eren.
“Pretty much. It keeps me busy, I get to make people’s days a little better, and no one tells me what to do. What’s not to like? I would like to expand eventually though, maybe have a small chain in the area.”
The fingers of one hand drummed on the side of the register even as Eren’s other hand continued to work. Levi stared at the bones and muscles playing under his skin, then the sharp lines of Eren’s forearms and their dark clouds of starlings. “I’ve been looking at some spaces downtown, kind of keeping my eye on the market there. I’d want to see business here pick up just a little more before I get that ball rolling though. Not that we’re not doing well, we’re fine, but-- god, I’m rambling, sorry.” Eren cut himself off with a short laugh a shake of his head. “I’m sure you’ve still got plenty to do, so I’ll let you go.”
“I don’t mind,” Levi said automatically. Eren had let him write interrupted for hours; he was more than happy to let him ramble in return.
But Eren grinned wryly. “No, I think you’d better get back to work so you can finish up. Procrastination is no one’s friend.
That was true. Besides, Levi had long overstayed his welcome. He downed the rest of his tea and began packing up his laptop and not. “I’ll head out then. Thank you. And-- sorry for hanging around so long.”
“Ain’t no sorry,” Eren assured him. “You’re welcome anytime.”
Levi could kiss the tea guy.