Archive of Our Own

"So on a scale of one to blind-date-with-Murphy, how screwed are you guys?"

"You're in fifth place," Monty points out. He doesn't take his eyes off the screen. Years and long years of friendship with Jasper Jordan have taught him that there is no blow too low when it comes to video games. Whatever Jasper is talking about is probably made up or unimportant or both, and he is not going to let himself get distracted by it, least of all when there's a weapon box right in front of him. "I'm not the one getting screwed here."

"Oh, so, it doesn't bother you at all that there's a Starbucks opening in that empty building right across from your shop."

"What?" Monty only takes his eyes off the screen for a second, but it's long enough for his car to crash into a wall. And Jasper catches a power up and jumps into second place. "Not cool, Jasper."

"I think you mean, not cool, Starbucks," Jasper says.

"You're joking, right?"

"I would never joke about something so serious," Jasper protests, like a liar. "There was a sign in the window this afternoon. I just saved the news for a strategic time."

That's not much better, but Monty doesn't object. Partly because he's scrambling to catch up. Partly because he feels like he should have known about this before Jasper did. It's his work, how could he have missed this?

He's still biting his lip and thinking of something to say when the race ends -- Monty comes in an inglorious third place. Jasper takes first. Monty makes his Sackboy do a little crying face to express his emotions about that.

"Maya's in," Jasper sing-songs.

"I don't think it counts if you cheated," Maya tells him. "Monty can have my turn."

Monty hands her the controller. "I don't mind. You like Little Big Planet more than I do anyway."

"Thanks, Monty." Maya kisses to him on the cheek and sits on the couch next to him, leaving Monty sandwiched between her and Jasper.

"Yeah, thanks, Monty." Jasper leans over and presses a sloppier, wetter kiss on Monty's other cheek.

Monty wipes his cheek clean. "I love you, Jasper, but no homo."

"Love means never having to say no homo."

"I thought you hated that expression," Maya says to Monty. They both ignore Jasper, which is standard protocol when he starts quoting movies he knows they don't like.

"It's fine if I say it, we're taking that phrase back," Monty says. "Besides, I make exceptions for Jasper for everything else in life, why would this be any different?" He tries for a solemn tone of voice. It's not hard to manage; he's feeling a little trapped at the moment.

There are times when he loves being around his best friend and best friend's girlfriend, loves how they include him in their lives and their relationship to a degree that more than one outsider has characterized as "creepy", but right this second it's more than he can handle.

He stands up. "Does anyone want coffee? I'm going to go make some coffee."

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Maya asks, looking at the clock. It's already after ten p.m.

"Never too late for coffee!" Monty says, as he dashes for the kitchen.

Jasper yells after him, "Love means never having to say no coffee!"

"Love means stop quoting 70s movies at me!" Monty calls back.

"Star Wars is a 70s movie!"

"Star Wars transcends decades and you know it!" Now that Monty's in the kitchen, he doesn't really want coffee. It's not so much the time of night -- he can drink a pot of coffee and fall straight asleep afterwards, which is less something he's proud of and more something he hasn't gotten around to worrying about yet -- as it is the sense of restlessness that's creeping up over him.

Starbucks. Across the street from his coffee shop. That's -- bad. That's bad, right?

It's not good, anyway.

He starts some water boiling and grabs out the cocoa powder to make hot chocolate. That's a soothing drink. Supposedly. Mostly it makes Monty think of that camping trip when they were ten and Jasper tried to squirt hot chocolate out of his nose, and the resulting tears for both of them. Jasper's from pain, Monty's from hysterical laughter.

Maybe he should make some tea, instead.

Then Monty realizes he's standing in the kitchen, biting his thumbnail and debating which drink is the most relaxing, and he shakes his head at his own foolishness.

Starbucks is going to wipe them out of business, or it isn't. He's going to lose his job, or he isn't. Bellamy is going to end up homeless, or he isn't. None of those outcomes are going to be affected by what beverage Monty makes right now.

He spoons out cocoa powder and sugar into three mugs, because Maya likes chocolate better than tea, and summons up a smile before he rejoins his friends.

-

"Good morning," Monty calls when he enters the shop. They haven't officially opened for the day, so he had to use his key to unlock the door, even though Bellamy and Octavia are already in.

"Is it?" Bellamy mutters darkly from behind the counter.

"I'm guessing you heard about Starbucks."

"Don't speak that name in my house," Bellamy says, and flounces off to the back.

Monty supposes, if his boss-slash-friend has to be addicted to something, 'needlessly dramatic exits' is about as harmless as it gets.

Or at least, Bellamy tries to flounce off to the back. Octavia pops up in the doorway, blocking him, holding an enormous mixing bowl and stirring some kind of batter.

"Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks," Octavia chants, getting up in Bellamy's face without either slowing her stirring or spilling any batter. "STARBUCKS. Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself, god, have you ever even read Harry Potter?"

"I read Harry Potter to you," Bellamy says. "I did voices." These are not statements that anyone should manage to make sound forceful and angry, but Bellamy has his ways. Bellamy could make 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' sound like a threat; Monty can't even make that Liam Neeson monologue from Taken sound scary.

"Then you know that Voldemort dies in the end and justice and friendship reign for eternity, blah blah blah, stop freaking out about Starbucks."

"Honestly, 'stop freaking out about Starbucks' would have made a better epilogue to Harry Potter than the actual epilogue," Monty offers.

Octavia turns her glare toward him. "Both of you stop freaking out."

Monty raises his hands, the classic not armed, don't shoot gesture. "I just wanted to say good morning."

Octavia stares at him for a second longer before her face breaks out in a wide, warm smile. "Good morning to you too, Monty. Come have some strudel."

"Don't mind if I do."

Bellamy sulks. "Do I get strudel?"

"You get the croissants that turned out weird yesterday," Octavia tells him.

Bellamy sulks harder, and wanders off toward the chalkboard to write up the day's specials.

-

Blake and Brother Coffee Shop is like a -- well, okay, saying it's "like a family" is stupidly redundant. Blake and Brother Coffee Shop is an actual family business, founded by Bellamy and Octavia's mom, now owned and run by the pair of them. It's the classic American mom & pop shop, or as close as you can get without the pop and after the mom has passed away.

And it would sound sentimental or maybe just pathetic for Monty to say it out loud, but he feels like part of the family too. Like he's not just an employee they pay because Octavia's busy baking and Bellamy isn't as good at roasting beans as he claims to be. Maybe Monty's just a weird cousin or a stepson or something -- he can never aspire to the depths of codependency that Bellamy and Octavia have with each other, and honestly that's for the best.

But at this point in his life Monty feels at home in the coffee shop in a way that he doesn't anywhere else, and the thought that the shop could close is upsetting for deep, primal reasons that have nothing to do with whether he can cover his rent or make his student loan payments.

So much as he tries to mimic Octavia's attitude of indifference the next few weeks, he never quite manages it. Not as they watch construction going on across the street, watch the unmistakable Starbucks color scheme taking over, watch the big Starbucks sign go up outside what used to be a totally non-offensive adult toy store. Or, okay, it was an incredibly offensive adult toy store, the one time that Monty and Jasper and Maya had gone in the employees leered at Maya and all of them had felt super uncomfortable. But it wasn't actively trying to drive him out of business.

It's almost a relief, to go in to work on a Monday and have Bellamy tell them the Starbucks is opening at the end of the week. At least now Monty knows.

-

That Monday, Monty runs out during his lunch break to borrow some soothing aromatherapy candles from Maya and light them in the stock room.

Bellamy blows them all out and spends an hour triple checking the smoke detectors.

"Yeah, let's DRIVE ALL THE CUSTOMERS AWAY with LOUD, SHRILL BEEPING," Octavia yells at him.

On Tuesday, Monty brings in his world-famous-or-at-least-neighborhood-famous kimchi quesadillas.

Bellamy mutters something about having already eaten, but does nibble on one while taking stock.

"This is going to be harder than I thought," Monty admits.

"Depends what you're trying to do," Octavia replies. "Are you trying to make my day? Because that was achieved."

"That is a worthy goal and I am proud to have achieved it," Monty says solemnly. "But I know you're going to be fine. It's more Bellamy's impending aneurysm that I was trying to take care of."

Octavia waves a quesadilla at him. She's on her third, so his work really wasn't in vain. "Bellamy's always on the verge of an aneurysm. And trust me, trying to get him to relax? Does not help. You just need to redirect. Give him something else to focus on."

On Wednesday, Monty brings in a crossword puzzle and pops in on Bellamy at unexpected times asking him for help with 'tough' clues. As a strategy, it does at least serve to get Bellamy openly annoyed about something he has direct power to do something about; unfortunately, that something is Monty.

"What do I look like, a dictionary? That's it. I'm BANNING NEWSPAPERS from the coffee shop." Bellamy grabs the crossword puzzle out of Monty's hand and throws it in the recycling bin, then grabs a newspaper away from one of the customers and starts to do the same.

Octavia loudly clears her throat, and Bellamy hands the newspaper back. "Sorry."

Octavia loudly clears her throat again, and Bellamy sighs. "Free refill?"

On Thursday, they hit on a better strategy, unsurprisingly one of Octavia's making.

"Hey, Bell," she calls from the pastry counter, when Bellamy is grinding his teeth hard enough that Monty can hear him from the other side of the room. "What happened to that cute girl the other day?"

"What?" Bellamy scowls, but it's his everyday scowl, not a special occasion scowl.

"You said a cute girl came in the other day."

"I did not say that."

"Not directly. What you actually said was that a girl came in on Monday and borrowed I, Claudius. Then you didn't say anything else about her."

"Oh, yeah, clearly I'm in love with her since I can't stop talking about her." Bellamy rolls his eyes.

Octavia rolls her back. Monty isn't sure how either of them has made it this far in life without incurring serious ocular damage. "Clearly you are interested in her because you refrained from giving me any material to work with. If you weren't interested you would absolutely have made fun of the way she talked or what she ordered or something."

"So because I don't say anything about someone, she's cute? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, you're the one who came up with it, so whose fault is that?"

"Oh, hey, there was a customer on Monday morning," Monty says. "Blonde. Pretty. Is that the one you mean?"

"No," Bellamy confirms.

"Blonde. Pretty. Interested in Roman history. When's the wedding?" Octavia asks.

"You're both fired," Bellamy says, and takes off for the back. But he isn't grinding his teeth anymore.

See? Octavia mouths at him.

Monty nods. "Redirected."

-

The Friday the Starbucks opens is an early morning for Monty.

Well, he works for a coffee shop; all of his mornings are early mornings. But he wakes up an hour before his alarm from a dream where ninjas in green aprons had kidnapped Jasper and Maya and were lowering them, Bond-villain-style, into an enormous cauldron of boiling coffee, and if that's the kind of curve ball his sleeping mind is going to throw at him Monty figures he's better off just getting up and starting his day already.

At least if his subconscious is going to torture him, it's being straightforward about it.

"Yup, I'm worried Starbucks is going to ruin my life," Monty tells his reflection. "Figured that one out already, thanks."

But if Monty's worried, Bellamy's a wreck, all the more so because he isn't admitting it to himself yet.

"Good morning," Monty says as he lets himself in.

Bellamy stares at him. "Yes, it is a good morning." It sounds more like a good morning to die. Monty blames the Gowron-level wild-eyes Bellamy has going on.

"So I guess today is the day." Monty edges toward the back of the shop, but to get there he has to get past the counter and Bellamy without --

Nope, there it is. Bellamy has grabbed Monty's shoulders, like Monty is a hysterical woman in a Victorian play who needs to be shaken out of the vapors. Oh well, Monty tried.

"Every day is the day, Monty," Bellamy says. "We will never stop fighting. We will do anything it takes. Anything."

Monty is a little bit worried about what Bellamy considers to fall under that "anything" umbrella. He has a vision of Bellamy sitting up all night watching the Starbucks through a pair of binoculars from his upstairs apartment. It probably isn't healthy for Bellamy to live above the shop anymore, but one problem at a time. First Monty needs to distract Bellamy from arson or kidnapping or whatever horrible misdeeds he's prepared to sanction as 'fighting Starbucks'.

"It's too bad we can't hold a protest," Monty says. Jasper made him watch You've Got Mail last night, because Jasper had a very sincere desire to cheer Monty up and a very poor memory of what happens in that movie. Which had cheered Monty up after all, because Jasper's horrified I didn't know the bookshop goes out of business! and his frantic attempts to turn the movie off had been hilarious.

But Bellamy breaks out into a grin. "Monty, you're a genius."

"Yes, but people only ever tell me that when they want something," Monty says. "It could give a guy a complex."

"No, this is good," Bellamy says, clapping his hands on Monty's shoulders again and squeezing them. It feels like being in a photo op with a politician. "We'll stage a protest. It'll be fantastic."

"Um. That's not actually what I -- "

"Maya's a hippie, right? Hippies protest stuff."

"I know that you're not actually ninety years old but sometimes it's very hard to believe that for sure. Like when you complain about the '60s as though you were there."

"Monty," Bellamy says, rolling his eyes. "It's not like the hippies went away."

There's no arguing with Bellamy when he's like this, so Monty just sighs. "They're probably asleep still," Monty says. "I'll send Jasper a text message."

"No, we need to get on this now," Bellamy says, pressing the call button on Monty's phone. "How long does it take to organize a protest, anyway?"

"This is outside the realm of my genius," Monty says.

Jasper picks up the phone and Bellamy sets it to speakerphone. "M'ny?" Jasper mumbles.

"Sorry to wake you," Monty starts.

Bellamy cuts in. "Jasper, we need you and Maya down at the coffee shop. Can you be here in twenty minutes?"

Jasper mumbles back "twenty minutes?" but Monty's pretty sure he's the only one who can actually understand the words, including Jasper.

More mumbling, and then Maya must take the phone from Jasper because the next thing Monty hears is, "What is it?"

"This is Bellamy," Bellamy says. "We need you at the coffee shop."

"Oh. Okay. Get up, Jasper, Monty needs us."

Monty's whole face is burning. "Only if it's no trouble!" he cuts in, but the phone call has already ended.

Monty spends the next twenty minutes hoping that Maya and Jasper will have just fallen back asleep and written the whole thing off as a weird dream, but he knows they won't. Jasper would under any other circumstances, and Maya might even have as well, but for better or worse the words 'Monty needs us' are always going to bring both of them running. It would be sweet, if it weren't so embarrassing and terrifying.

Bellamy spends the next twenty minutes honest to god whistling as he opens the registers and dusts the counters.

Jasper and Maya arrive, in pajamas with jackets and shoes thrown on over them, and Bellamy gets straight to work. Or what he clearly thinks is work.

"You know a lot of socialist weirdoes, right?"

"Hunh?" Jasper asks. Jasper's eyes are mostly shut. Monty thinks he might be sleepwalking. Monty also thinks Bellamy doesn't have the high ground on calling people 'weirdoes' right at the moment.

"This feels like a trick question." Maya is more diplomatic than any of them deserve.

That's about when Octavia gets wind of what is going on in the front of the shop.

"For the last time," she yells at Bellamy, thwacking him with an apron. Monty is just grateful that she wasn't holding a rolling pin when she emerged from her lair. "This is not You've Got Mail, Fox Books is not going to drive us out of business, and you all sound like nut jobs. Nobody buys coffee from nut jobs!"

"Actually -- " Monty starts. But Octavia glares him down. Just as well; he wasn't really sure where he was going with that.

"I still don't really get what's going on here," Maya whispers to Monty, as Octavia tries to hand Jasper a turnover as an apology for Bellamy dragging them out to the shop so early in the morning. It isn't going easily for her; Jasper in his current state lacks the motor control necessary to grasp and hold objects.

"Bellamy thought you guys could help start a protest in front of Starbucks."

"Oh." Maya blinks. "I guess that makes sense."

"How, exactly?"

"Compared to the alternatives." She bites her lip, thinking. "I'm not sure it would work. People talk a big game about supporting local shops but," she shrugs. "It's Starbucks. If I asked my MFA group to boycott Starbucks I think they'd throw me out of the program."

Monty sighs. "People do love Starbucks."

Maya bites her lip. "Is it treason if I admit that I'm one of them?"

Monty shakes his head. "Nope."

"It's just, frappuccinos."

"I get it. We're still good." He looks over at their friends, Bellamy standing in the open door with his arms crossed scowling at Starbucks across the street, Octavia fiercely beating the flour out of her apron, and Jasper -- the biggest coffee snob Monty has ever met, by far -- shoving the entire turnover in his mouth and sort of drooling around it. "Let's just keep that our secret though, okay?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

-

Monty hoped Bellamy's bad mood would clear up as the day went by and business stayed brisk.

It doesn't work out like that.

Monty isn't afraid of Bellamy, but it doesn't give him a lot of peace of mind when his boss is in a mood. Which is why he's sneaking bites out of a scone behind the counter when Bellamy's blonde customer from Monday walks into the shop.

Monty perks up. Now Bellamy will have something to be happy about and the shop can go back to being just the normal amount of small business stressful!

"Are you lost?" Bellamy demands.

Monty deflates.

"I'm looking for a decent cup of coffee," the woman says. "So, yeah, I guess I am lost."

Noooo, Monty's soul cries out to her. You were supposed to make things better, not worse.

"Well," Bellamy says, and that is absolutely Bellamy's plotting-something-sinister voice. Monty quavers a little in his sneakers; not that he expects it to blow back to him, just out of sympathy for this poor woman who has drawn Bellamy's wrath. Even if she's doing it deliberately. She doesn't know what she's getting herself into. "Let's see what we can do for you."

Bellamy writes something on a cup and hands it off to Monty.

Monty looks down and realizes that it is so much worse than he thought.

Bellamy wants him to give this woman a cup of Jasper's Special Brew.

In a funny, roundabout way, Jasper is the entire reason that Monty works at the coffee shop. Funny because Jasper would really rather that Monty didn't work at Blake and Brother's, though they've had that argument now enough times for even Jasper to catch on that he should stop saying as much out loud. But it was Jasper's desperate need for caffeinated stimulants when they were in undergrad together that had got Monty interested first in drinking coffee at all, then in roasting his own beans and trying to make better and better blends.

And then he'd hit on a blend that Jasper finally said was strong enough for him, and Monty's infamous secret menu item was born. A neighbor of theirs who was pre-med once claimed that Jasper's Special Brew was a health risk to anyone who drank it, and honestly, Monty half-believed him. Jasper's Special Brew tastes more like rocket fuel than coffee; it's the coffee equivalent of the moonshine that Monty used to make in his apartment in college, which had once eaten a hole through its container and ruined the porcelain in his kitchen sink.

And now Bellamy wants to serve an innocent, uninformed stranger a cup of this death-coffee without so much as a word of warning. Monty only gives Jasper's Special Brew to Jasper and to long-time customers who have signed a waiver acknowledging that he's informed them of the drink's 'strong flavor'.

There's a possibility that they are about to kill someone today, and Monty's not sure he can have that on his conscience.

He's about to object, but Bellamy gives him a tiny little nod and the hint of a smile -- and all of a sudden Monty believes, trusts Bellamy to know what he's doing. Because as improbable as it sounds, as much as Bellamy can grumble and dramatize and complain, he nearly always does know what he's doing.

So Monty slips off to the back to prepare a cup of Jasper's Special Brew, firm in his belief that this is going to end well. Bellamy knows this woman, at least a little. She's probably some kind of coffee fiend and Bellamy knows that about her. Right?

Still, he's careful not to spill any on his exposed skin.

He hands the cup off to Bellamy, who hands it off to the woman, and there's a moment of expectation as she takes a sip.

"I guess this isn't totally disgusting," she says, and stalks off to the exit.

Monty gapes. Jasper's Special Brew is totally disgusting to anyone who's taste buds aren't scalded off by severe coffee abuse, and those whose taste buds are love it. There is no in between. No one is indifferent about Jasper's Special Brew, just like no one is indifferent about its namesake.

From the shock on Bellamy's face, he wasn't expecting that reaction anymore than Monty was.

"We may be in over our heads," Monty says, because whatever they were attempting to accomplish, they clearly didn't.

-

'Whatever Bellamy is attempting to accomplish' becomes, if not clear over the next few days, then at least slightly better defined.

The blonde woman, it turns out, is a Starbucks barista, and Bellamy had bought an absolutely disgusting mocha from her earlier in the day. His refusal to admit it was disgusting, and her refusal to react properly to Jasper's Special Brew, had somehow made them nemeses.

And then it becomes a whole thing, the exchange of coffee beverages and fighting words.

Monty has mixed feelings about it. It's funny in a ridiculous way, of course, to watch how worked up Bellamy gets about trying to find the perfect drink to crack the Starbuck's barista's cool.

But then again, Bellamy's nemesis always talks shit when she comes in, and she looks like she could actually mess someone up if she wanted to, and if she doesn't want to mess them up yet then Bellamy's overt hostility is probably getting her there.

But then again again, she has this look sometimes like she's on the verge of smiling, either at Bellamy or the ridiculousness of the situation. Which probably means that she's not going to murder them all or sell them out to her Starbucks overlords or -- okay, Monty's not even sure what he's worried, specifically, the Starbucks barista could do if she was annoyed with them. But he's still worried she'd do something.

So he goes to Octavia, because even if Octavia doesn't have all the answers she usually has a totally different perspective on things than Monty does, and she's never conflicted about anything; she always just knows how she feels. Both of those are very valuable traits in a friend, Monty has found.

"I think I'm worried about Bellamy's coffee feud," he says, perching on a stool in Octavia's kitchen during a quiet moment. "But I'm not sure if I'm worried enough or worried too much."

"Wash your hands and slice those," Octavia says, pointing to a colander full of strawberries.

Monty hops up to wash his hands. "Is this a meditation thing? Keep busy so you can't worry? Focus on the motion of your body? Tai chi meets baking?"

"It's a 'I need to get the strawberries sliced and you're sitting right there' thing," Octavia answers. "But if you get some kind of fringe benefit off it, more power to you."

"Let's find out," Monty says. He eats the first strawberry, though.

Octavia rolls her eyes at him. "You're a menace."

"I'm fortifying myself," Monty answers. "An army marches on its stomach."

"You know, I always thought that expression meant when they were doing the obstacle course, you know, the crawling under barbed wire thing -- " Octavia mimes crawling along the ground on her stomach, which is a sight to see since she's standing upright with an oven mitt on one hand and an electric mixer dripping batter in the other. "It took me years to figure out what it really meant. Bellamy laughed at me. I punched him."

"You realize that all of your stories end Bellamy laughed at me and then I punched him."

"Only half of them. The other half end so then I laughed at Bellamy and he sulked and then I laughed some more." Octavia returns to her batter, the electric stirrer whirring away too loud for conversation.

Monty focuses on slicing up the strawberries. It is soothing, actually.

"Anyway, that's how this one is going to end," Octavia says. "So don't worry about it."

Monty has lost the thread of the conversation. "What's how what ends?"

"This whole Starbucks thing," Octavia says. "It ends with me laughing at Bellamy for being ridiculous. Because he is being ridiculous. He has a nemesis. Nobody has a nemesis except fictional characters."

"I don't know," Monty admits. "I'm pretty sure 'don't get involved in a coffee war with Starbucks' is the new 'don't go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line'."

Octavia shrugs. "There's not a lot we can do about that. Even if we moved, there'd just be another Starbucks out there somewhere. So there's no point in worrying about it."

"We could try not deliberately antagonizing the enemy."

"We could try," Octavia says. "But I think that's physically beyond Bellamy's capabilities."

Monty sighs. "There's going to be tears before this is all over, isn't there?"

"Oh yeah," Octavia agrees. "Tears. Blood. Fire. It's going to be like a Viking saga out there."

"You sound very excited about that," Monty observes.

"Have you met me? I was a badass Viking warrior in all of my past lives. Even the ones that didn't involve Vikings."

"Any tips?" Monty asks.

Octavia pats him on the cheek. "You're going to be just fine, Monty."

-

He tries to bring up the point with Bellamy one more time, because nothing good can possibly come of baiting Starbucks employees, especially not Starbucks employees who have that hyper-competent look Monty remembers from his most terrifying TAs in college.

"Maybe we should just try to co-exist," he mentions casually, after Bellamy's blonde barista has left with her complimentary beverage of the day.

He thinks it's a pretty low stakes comment to make, but Bellamy scowls at him like he's just suggested they sell Octavia's organs on the black market or add Twilight to the lending library or something equally horrific.

Monty smiles warmly back at him, because he figured out ages ago that staying friendly at Bellamy is the surest way to trip him up when he's angry. For someone who's so good at getting people to do what he wants, Bellamy is pretty clueless about his own easily exploitable spots.

"There's no co-existing with Starbucks, Monty." Bellamy picks up a rag and starts wiping down the counter, taking out his feelings on their innocent wood surfaces.

"We've never tried before," Monty says. "Maybe we'd be surprised."

"You know who gets surprised in war, Monty? The losers."

Monty forces his face into an appropriately grim expression, because if smiling at angry Bellamy is a good way to get him to calm down or at least redirect his anger, laughing at a serious Bellamy is a great way to set him off again. "Okay, so, maybe we don't try to co-exist with Starbucks. Maybe we could just try to co-exist with one Starbucks employee."

"What, her?" Bellamy asks, gesturing hugely at the door. Apparently the entire outdoors counts as a stand in for the blonde barista.

"Well, yeah. For starters."

Bellamy peers at Monty intensely. "She insulted your coffee, Monty."

"I know that you're saying that like I should be hugely offended and need retribution," Monty says, using the active listening skills he and Maya have developed for use on Jasper, "but honestly that's not as offensive to me as you clearly think it is? And by 'not as offensive' I mean, not at all. I am not offended, so, if you're really just trying to defend my honor, I appreciate the gesture but it's really not necessary."

Bellamy just looks at him. Monty isn't terribly surprised. The active listening skills never work on Jasper, either.

"But if you're just defending my honor because you want to pick a fight with her anyway and need an excuse, just, don't do anything too drastic, okay. Please."

Bellamy smiles. "Don't worry, Monty. I won't rest until I've gotten her to apologize to you."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."

-

About 90% of the time Bellamy is a smart, responsible leader, the kind of person Monty is proud to call both his boss and his friend, but he makes up for it with the other 10%.

Telling Monty to go to Starbucks to check if the girl he's been grudge-flirting with all week is there definitely falls under the 10%. Especially since he still hasn't managed to learn his nemesis' name.

But, per everything else in their relationship, Monty goes along with the 10% out of respect for the 90%.

There's no blonde girl in the Starbucks that Monty can see, though she might be in the back. The only people he spots are a customer hunched over her laptop, typing with an air of desperation, and the barista behind the counter, who isn't blonde or Bellamy's type.

He's not exactly Monty's type, either, but Monty is considering drastically redefining his type. Or leaving. Yeah, he should probably leave now and tell Bellamy to run his own pathetic errands in the future.

But then Hot Barista makes eye contact with him, and Monty figures he missed his opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

He doesn't mind too much. They're very nice eyes.

"On behalf of Blake and Brother Coffee Shop, I would like to welcome to the neighborhood," Monty says. He figures friendly is a good start, since he's basically here to ask for a weird, probably inappropriate favor. "Normally I'd bring you a housewarming basket, like, pastries and coffee beans and everything? But you're the Galactic Empire and we're the plucky little rebellion, so that didn't seem right. And Bellamy's been giving you guys too much of our shit for free anyway."

Hot Barista's right eyebrow ratchets up as Monty talks, and Monty has a flailing microsecond to regret all of his life choices before Hot Barista says, "Everyone hates on the Empire, everyone forgets it's what the people wanted."

Hot Barista joking back when Monty rambles is more disconcerting than Hot Barista being annoyed when he rambles.

Fortunately, a lifetime of arguing about science fiction with Jasper and anyone else they could drag into it has prepared him to respond, almost on autopilot.

"Okay, first of all, no citing the prequels, that's worse than citing Wikipedia. We do not speak of the prequels. They are not the canon you are looking for."

"You got a problem with the prequels?"

"Many," Monty says. "I mean, damn. Jar Jar Binks."

Hot Barista scowls -- which is still a good look for him, but is also terrifying, especially when he crosses his arms in front of his chest and, oh wow, those are some arms. "I like Jar Jar Binks."

That's a weird and jarring enough statement that Monty can actually tear his gaze away from Hot Barista's arms and look back at his face. He's still scowling, like the evil jock in some teen movie who wants to beat the hero up behind the bleachers after school, but there's...something else. Monty can't quite put his finger on it. But he knows he's being fucked with.

Monty grins and leans forward against the counter. "Do people really fall for that?"

Hot Barista keeps up the scowl for a second before it melts away, in a rush, into a smile that has Monty actively fighting to keep his cool. "All the time, man," he says. "It's great. You would not believe the shit that I can make people agree with."

"Like, say, that Jar Jar Binks is a good character."

"Fuck Jar Jar," Hot Barista says. Monty mentally crosses 'must not like the Star Wars prequels' off his list of deal breakers, for all the good it will do him. "What can I do for you, man?"

"Oh -- this is going to sound stupid, but I promise it's not my fault, it's my boss."

"Your boss is stupid?"

Monty sighs. "Sometimes, yeah. Other times, he's the best, you never know which Bellamy you're going to get."

"Okay, but stupid Bellamy is the one who sent you over here."

"Yeah, he wanted me to see if this girl is working here?" Monty straightens up. "Crap, maybe I am the stupid one too, because I am just now realizing I don't know her name, either. And I was just making fun of him for that three minutes ago."

Hot Barista holds a hand up to his chest, and says in a weird tone of voice, "Blonde girl, yea high, has a lot of terrible opinions about coffee?"

"That sounds right," Monty says.

"And your boss is, like, curls and freckles, right?"

Monty nods.

"Yeah, he came in yesterday looking for Clarke. I gave him the 'tell me you love Jar Jar Binks' face and he ran for his life."

Monty laughs, and falls in love. Just a little.

Hot Barista sort of grins back at him. His facial expressions are somehow deep without being big, he's smiling at Monty with just his eyes and the smallest upturn on one corner of his mouth, and wow, Monty is really falling too hard too fast.

Luckily Hot Barista does not seem to notice that Monty loses track of the conversation to stare at him. He's probably used to that. He probably gets it a lot.

"I didn't realize he was your boss, though," he adds, and Monty remembers what they were talking about.

"That would be really weird if you had," Monty points out, "since we hadn't met yet and all."

Okay, that is definitely a smile, even if it's just a tiny muscle movement in Hot Barista's cheek. Monty is getting pretty good at this. He feels like one of those fake psychics who just notices people's micro expressions and pretends they're reading their minds, except not sleazy.

Well, maybe a little sleazy.

"I mean, I figured he was, like, Clarke's douche ex-boyfriend. I guess he still could be. You aren't here stalking Clarke on behalf of her douche ex-boyfriend, are you?"

"Honestly that might be less terrible than the real reason," Monty says, but immediately feels bad. "No, I take that back, douches stalking their exes via proxy is about as terrible as it gets. That would be less weird than the real reason."

"Okay, now you have to tell me all about idiot Bellamy," Hot Barista says, but the door opens and they both turn to look at the customer who's just walked in, Monty straightening up away from the counter with a pang of something like guilt. He's distracted enough by that feeling that it takes him a second to recognize the customer in question.

"Oh, hey, Kyle," he calls out, doing an awkward little half-wave. "How you doing?"

"Uh," Kyle says, shifting from one foot to the other. "Pretty -- pretty good."

"How's your engineering class?" Monty asks, because he remembers enough from undergrad that he can usually keep up with Kyle's studies, and it's a more interesting or at least more varied form of small talk than he gets from most of their regulars.

"Good," Kyle says vaguely, shuffling back toward the door. "You know, I just realized that I have to go, goodbye."

Monty blinks after Kyle as he leaves. He was being friendly, right?

"Damn, that was cold," Hot Barista says. "And brilliant."

"What?" Monty asks, mystified. "I was just trying to make small talk."

Hot Barista gives him a long, appraising look. Monty has to deliberately restrain himself from fidgeting. "You just scared a guy out of my store by being nice to him."

Oh. Right. This is Starbucks.

"I didn't mean to!" Monty protests. He really didn't. How is he doing more for the destroy-Starbucks campaign on accident than Bellamy has managed with his stupidly complicated scheme -- okay, scratch that, obviously Bellamy's plan isn't going anywhere. But Monty still feels bad. "I could go talk to him -- "

Hot Barista waves him off. "Let him be. If he can't handle a touch of the sweevil we don't need him."

"Sweevil?"

"You know," he shrugs. "Sweet-evil. You've got it in spades."

That feels like a very weird compliment, which is really the only kind of compliment that Monty gets, given his peer group. It bolsters his courage enough for him to lean forward again on the counter. "You know," he says, dropping his voice, "I don't think anyone's ever called me evil before."

"Really?" Hot Barista raises an eyebrow. That's a good look for him, too. All of his looks are good looks. "Because here you've been making me wait this whole time, you are definitely evil."

Monty has a very distracting mental image of leaning forward and kissing the Hot Barista, so it takes a second for him to realize that what he's actually waiting for Monty to do is tell him about Bellamy.

"Evil, but also sweet," Monty says first, stalling for time. There's every chance in the world that telling the story of Bellamy's coffee-based-rivalry-slash-emotionally-stunted-flirtation is going to be the biggest mood ruiner of all time, and he's going to fish for one more compliment before he has to completely kill the moment. Even if the moment just exists in his head.

"Also sweet," Hot Barista answers without hesitation. "But the ratio is getting more evil by the second."

"Don't want that," Monty cheerfully admits. "Okay, so, obviously I work at Blake and Brother Coffee Shop across the street -- "

"Are you the Blake or the Brother?" Hot Barista asks.

"Neither. Technically, Octavia, who does all our baking? She's the Blake, and Bellamy is the Brother. Because he's actually her brother."

"And Blake's the last name," Hot Barista guesses. "They own the place?"

"Yup. I'm, like, their first officer. Or I guess second officer, if Bellamy is the captain and Octavia is the first officer? I do relate to Data more than Riker."

"Maybe if you grew out a beard," Hot Barista muses.

Monty's stomach does a flip. Hot Barista has now kept up with his referencing Star Wars and Star Trek. He makes a hasty mental note to make a Stargate joke and see what happens. Then he scratches that note. Nobody remembers Stargate. Probably the writers of Stargate don't remember Stargate. "I'll pass, thanks. I've tried the whole facial hair thing, it doesn't end well."

Hot Barista strokes his admittedly great goatee. "There's no shame in leaving it to the professionals."

"Oh, sorry, is this a beard-growing store? I thought it was a Starbucks. I guess I got confused because I have no idea what a beard-growing store would look like."

Monty flushes for a split second, but Hot Barista looks absolutely delighted to be picked on. Which just makes Monty flush all over again, for longer than a second. "See what I mean? Sweevil."

"The concept is getting clearer," Monty tells him. "Right, where was I? Oh, so obviously Bellamy, being one of the owners of the shop and also sometimes prone to overreacting -- "

"And also sometimes being an idiot."

" -- right, can't forget that -- he was really freaking out about you guys opening up here across the street from us? And then your friend came into our shop and he didn't know she was one of you, and he got a crush on her, and then his crush on her sort of melded with his total hatred of Starbucks, and now they have this weird nemesis thing going on where they insult each other and give each other free drinks."

Hot Barista fucking cackles, just for a second, before he turns his face away and catches himself, but Monty feels like it was a win. He got to see Hot Barista being less than cool.

"That's fucking amazing," Hot Barista says, after he takes a second and turns back to face Monty. "Next time Clarke tries to act all superhuman and almighty like she knows the best about everything, I'm going to know, okay, but you're actually so bad at this."

Monty smiles at him. "I mean, I think Bellamy gets most of the blame."

"Can't you let me have this?" Hot Barista asks, and his voice is so pleading that now Monty has to be the one to look away.

"Her name is Clarke?" he asks, trying to cover for his total lack of composure.

"Yeah," Hot Barista answers. "How long exactly has your boss had this weird thing going with her?"

"I don't know, a week?"

"And he doesn't know her name?"

"Well," Monty starts. He feels a little bit of that big-brother thing, that be-true-to-your-school thing, that I get to make fun of him because he's mine, you don't get to because you haven't earned it thing. Just a little bit. "It's not like you wear name tags. What's with that, anyway?"

Hot Barista shrugs. "Our manager is into some weird hippie self-actualization shit? I'm not going to complain if it means I don't have to wear a name tag and can take a break because of 'divine inspiration'."

"Does that really work?"

Hot Barista shrugs. "It's still the first week. Few more days and I'll give it a try."

"Well," Monty licks his lips, trying to sum up his courage. "You should tell me your name. In case I ever need to ask Clarke about you, you know, just in case."

"Wouldn't want you to be as hopeless as Bellamy." Hot Barista holds out a hand, and it takes a second for Monty to process -- oh, right, hand shake. Shaking hands. That's a thing humanoids do when introducing themselves. God, he really is Data sometimes. "Nate. Nathan Miller."

Monty takes his hand. "Monty Green."

There's this absolutely perfect second of Nate's palm, warm against his, and Nate's eyes, looking right into his, until an astonishingly beautiful and impressively pissed off woman storms out of the back of the shop and throws a sack of coffee beans at Nate's head.

Nate ducks just in time, possibly warned by Monty shocked expression, so that's good. But it does mean that they break off physical contact, so how bad would a high-velocity bag of beans to the back of the head really have been?

"Goddammit, Miller, do I have to do everything myself?" the woman fumes. "I ask you to do one thing while I'm on my lunch break, one thing -- "

"Slow your fucking roll, Reyes, I'll get to it," Nate yells back over his shoulder. He turns back to Monty, and it's like a switch flipping, annoyance draining off his face for something like regret. "Sorry, I gotta go, Raven is -- okay, I'm not scared of anything, but if I was? Raven would be terrifying."

"I get that," Monty says. "You should meet Octavia sometime."

Nate does another one of those not-smiles, just the corner of his mouth and his eyes. Monty does not swoon, but he does try to save the sight of it to his long-term memory. "Maybe. Catch you later, right?"

"Yeah," and then, some last minute self-preservation kicking in, "oh, shit, I was supposed to find out if Clarke was working today?"

Nate, already turning to the back to appease Raven's anger, turns back. "No, but she's in tomorrow for the closing shift." He pauses for a second. "So am I."

And then he's gone.

Monty's not really sure how he gets himself back across the street.

-

It turns out, despite tossing and turning until an unholy hour of the night analyzing every second of his interaction with Nate -- trying to distill pure meaning from it, trying to decide if that last comment meant what Monty hoped it meant, that Nate wanted him to come by during his shift, or if he just thought it meant that because he hoped it meant that, and now his thoughts were tangled, and so were his sheets, and now he fell out of the bed trying to straighten out his blankets, which is like some kind of horrible metaphor for his life -- that Monty's too busy all the next day to do any worrying about Nate, or Starbucks in general, because Bellamy has the plague and they have to make do without him.

It isn't like Monty and Octavia can't man the shop without Bellamy. They try to stack off-days so at least one of the three of them is in every day, but preferably two of the three, so Monty does actually know how to run the shop without Bellamy, and even without Octavia.

And it isn't the first time the schedule has gotten abruptly up-ended; just last month Jasper and Maya kidnapped Monty for an impromptu weekend getaway to Vegas. He hadn't minded, exactly, it had been a fun trip, but it would have made more sense if they'd eloped or something. Monty has had a best man/maid of honor speech written and memorized for months now. Going to Vegas and just losing a hundred dollars in quarters at the slots felt like a wasted opportunity.

So it's not a huge deal when he arrives for his opening shift and finds out Bellamy is too sick to come down, but it still makes for a busy, stressful day.

"Do we have a replacement?" is all he asks. You can't really replace Bellamy, but you can at least have a warm body manning the counter.

"Sterling's coming in at 7," Octavia answers, dashing from oven to register. That's less than ideal; they open at six, and with Octavia doing the baking for the day Monty will be handling the morning business crowd by himself. Still, it's a Thursday; not a Monday when people treat themselves as a reward for getting up, not a Friday when people are just trying to finish the week without killing someone and need an extra shot of caffeine to help them do that (really, Monty is providing a charitable service for the community). "Shout really loud if you need me to come disembowel someone, okay?" Octavia yells, darting for the back again, and Monty revises his mental image of homicidal weekday warriors to include Octavia.

"What if I just need you to lightly maim someone?"

"I don't know, whistle or something, do I have to do everything around here?"

Monty hears a sound that might, possibly, be a fire extinguisher, and decides to leave Octavia alone.

They do make it through the morning rush okay -- Monty will never, ever, ever admit to Bellamy, but on this one singular occasion it's something of a relief to know that Starbucks is taking some of the caffeine crunch off them. The faces he sees that morning are largely regulars, including a sheepish Kyle who stumbles over his order, and they cut him a lot of slack when he admits they're short handed.

Really, he thinks they're doing a remarkable job, until they get to one o'clock in the afternoon and Monty discovers they are out of non-fat milk. They're out at the milk/sugar island, they're out in the fridges, they're out in the warm stock room, in the janitor's closet, everywhere.

"Octavia," he whispers in her ear, while she grits her teeth at a frat boy holding his hand out for change. She holds her hand a good eighteen inches above his and lets the nickels and dimes fall where they may. "We're out of non-fat milk. How are we out of non-fat milk?"

"I don't know!" she hisses, while the bro's bros laugh and Instagram him scrambling for coins. "Maybe Bell thought he was Ron Fucking Swanson again and decided it didn't count as milk. But we are."

Monty bites his lip for a second. He could run out to the grocery store, even though they have no parking and so it's faster to literally run there than to drive, but he has a better idea. "Hold down the fort here for a minute, okay?"

Octavia shuts her eyes and breathes deeply. "Okay, Monty," she says, and one booted foot stomps down on a quarter, mere centimeters away from the frat boy's searching fingertips. Her eyes still closed, she continues, "We're stuck on this journey of life together. Do what you must do."

"Namaste?" Monty guesses, but Octavia's eyes open wide and then narrow into a scowl, and he ducks under the counter to get away from her, and to run under the frat bro's bros' arms. "Sorry!"

He doesn't stop running until he's into the Starbucks -- the pedestrian crosswalk sign was on his side -- and he comes to a panting halt right at the order counter. He has a second to be sad that it it's Raven at the register, not Nate, and then another second to be relieved. It's not like getting sweaty and out of breath from running half of a city block is going to sweep anyone off their feet.

So he puts those thoughts aside and smiles at Raven, and at Clarke, who was standing behind the espresso machine but has wandered over to see what the fuss is about. "Hey, so, speaking as your neighbor, I need to borrow a few gallons of non-fat milk."

"Aren't you one of the crazy guys from the indie coffee shop?" Raven asks.

"I'm one of the delightful guys from the indie coffee shop who is going to bring you fresh baked espresso brownies."

Raven and Clarke exchange a look before shrugging. "Sounds fair," Raven says. "But come around the back of the shop, I don't want to be seen with you while the hand off goes down."

"I sold pot to cheerleaders in high school, I know how this works."

Raven smirks at him, but Monty thinks it's a friendly smirk. He's kind of a connoisseur of smirks, after working with Bellamy and Octavia for so long. "I slashed the quarterback's tires in high school. Before you get the wrong idea about me."

"Well, now I have a lot of ideas about you and they're all terrifying," Monty says.

"Then they must be the right ideas."

She makes him walk around the outside of the building to get to the back alley, while she walks through the store, so it's no surprise she beats him out there. When he rounds the corner to see her again she's leaning against the wall, holding a toothpick like a cigarette and doing something with her face that can only be described as brooding.

"You got the goods?" he asks, trying to get into the spirit of the thing.

Raven shudders and stands up off the wall, tossing her prop/toothpick away. "God, don't, that's worse than if you just said 'hey howdy'."

"What? I'm trying."

"You're too cheery for noir. You're so cheery it comes back around the other side to being depressing."

"I'm...sorry?"

"Don't be, I know I'm fucked up." Raven bends to pick up two enormous cartons of milk. "It still feels like you should be passing me a manila envelope with sensitive documents or blackmail photos or something."

Monty sticks his hand in the pocket of his jacket and points his finger, mock gun style, at Raven. "Give me the goods, or I'll fill you full of lead, see?"

Raven laughs. "Nope. Still not noir. But I appreciate the effort." She cocks her head. "You have a way with people, don't you?"

"Not really," Monty says, unnerved.

"Sure you don't," Raven says, clearly humoring him.

He takes the milk from her and dashes back to home base, feeling rattled.

But it's worth it for the bright, relieved smile on Octavia's face when he comes back, so he forgets about Raven's weird comment. Mostly.

-

He doesn't realize that he failed to explain his milk fetch quest until Clarke comes in for her daily cup of caffeine and verbal abuse. And since they didn't even ask him, the staff of his friendly neighborhood Starbucks are either the most generous people in the world or else they have no barometer whatsoever for weirdness.

Probably both.

"Where's the general?" Clarke asks Monty, watching Miles-the-new-kid prepare a latte with a heavy, judgmental look, the sort of look that would have made Monty mess up twice as badly when he was a newbie. Fortunately Miles has, if not an abundance of confidence or talent, a total lack of observational power, which in its own way is a job skill.

"We staged a coup," Monty tells her. "Are you going to launch an invasion if I don't give you a free drink like Bellamy would?"

"Normally a change in leadership would be the perfect time to stage an attack. While the enemy is unsettled and weakened. But honestly I think you guys are probably at your strongest when Bellamy isn't here."

"So you aren't going to stage a counter-coup?"

"You aren't going to rest until I say 'coup,' will you."

"Until you say coup or tell me what you want to drink," Monty says, grabbing a large cup off the stack. He's writes Clarke's name on it, because he's just petty enough to think it's funny that he knows it and Bellamy still doesn't.

Clarke blinks at him. "Coup."

"It's fun to say, right?"

"I guess," Clarke says, dubious. "You're a weird guy, Monty."

"Thanks. I guess."

"Sorry, you're just not -- what I expected," which throws Monty for a loop. What had Clarke expected of him? Why was she holding expectations for him one way or the other? Is she actually assessing the employees here for weaknesses?

She keeps going before he can ask. "And you've caught me off guard, I hate when people do that. Bellamy never asks me what I want to drink, he just guesses."

"I am secure enough in myself to admit that I do not psychically know what people want to drink," Monty says. "I would go so far as to say that's a normal part of my routine for taking a person's order, you know, the actual taking a person's order part. But I could take a wild stab in the dark if you want."

Clarke shakes her head. "No, just, get me whatever you have in a floral tea, I'm not actually a coffee person."

The smile slides off Monty's face. Hell, it feels like the face slides off Monty's face, a la the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He's left to just stare at Clarke in mute horror.

And stare.

And stare.

"Is there a problem?" Clarke asks slowly. "You guys have tea, right? I mean -- "

"You drank Jasper's special brew," Monty blurts.

"I'm...sorry?"

"You drank Jasper's special brew," Monty says ago. "How are you -- how are you not a coffee person?"

"Is that that first cup of coffee I got here?" Clarke asks. "That was pretty strong."

"Most actual coffee people can't even handle Jasper's special brew," Monty says. His brain refuses to process what's happening right now.

"It wasn't my favorite," Clarke shrugs. "But it's just a cup of coffee."

Monty shakes his head. He decides to wipe the last minute of interaction from his mind. "So, cup of tea today?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Monty writes the order on the cup in his hand then, seeing that Miles has somehow managed to get his apron strings caught on the fridge handle and is wildly flailing to break free, proceeds to fill the order himself. It isn't busy, anyway. Clarke is at least considerate in that she only ever comes to take up a huge chunk of Bellamy's time during the slow parts of the day.

"I should make another one of these," Monty thinks out loud. "Bring it up to Bellamy, maybe it would help."

"Can Bellamy really be helped?" Clarke asks.

Monty smiles. "On a global scale, who knows. I was thinking more about him having the plague."

Clarke doesn't respond for a long second. When she does, it's just to ask, "Bellamy's sick?"

"Yeah, he's spending the day napping on the couch and being pampered by Octavia, to the extent Octavia does pampering."

He half-expects that to set off a new round of mockery, but instead, Clarke is quiet until Monty offers her the cup of tea, and then she only says, "Thanks, Monty," and leaves.

It doesn't strike Monty as being that weird, relatively speaking, until she comes back. Maybe Clarke and Raven aren't the only ones with broken weirdness barometers.

"Here," she says, thrusting a travel mug at Monty. He blinks at it, willing it to explain itself to him. He works in a coffee shop, he is used to giving customers drinks, not the other way around -- oh. Then it makes sense. This is Bellamy's free Starbucks drink of the day.

"For Bellamy," Clarke says gruffly. "It's tea. Good tea, your tea is crap."

"You get what you pay for," Monty says.

"Trust me, this is good. It's not Starbucks tea, it's mine." She brushes some hair out of her face. "From my personal stash."

Monty takes pity on her and reaches for the mug. "You realize you're both being stupid, right?"

"Shut up."

"I speak as your friend, Clarke. I care about you."

"What happened to 'you're the enemy, go die on an elephant?'"

The elephant thing barely even fazes him. His weirdness barometer is definitely broken, was probably chucked overboard long ago. "No one ever really believed that except Bellamy."

"Right," Clarke huffs.

Monty makes a sad face. He's been told his sad face is a dangerous weapon, so he tries not to abuse its powers. He thinks it's called for here, though. "That's the problem, isn't it? That Bellamy thinks you're the enemy."

"Shut up, Monty."

"He doesn't really, though!" Monty assesses and revises his optimism. "I don't think."

Clarke groans. "Monty, I swear, if you want to be my friend, please stop talking."

Monty mimes zipping his lips closed.

Clarke sighs. "Now I feel like a monster. You can talk all you want, just stop with those sad puppy eyes."

Monty brightens up. "I should probably go give this to Octavia before it gets cold."

"Right." Clarke turns to go, but turns half back. "You aren't going to tell him my name, are you? Because I swear, the other day he was this close to asking me."

Monty remembers what Nate said, about getting to blame some of this mess on Clarke and not just Bellamy, and decides that he might have been onto something. "You're secret is safe with me, Doctor."

"Yeah, I don't get that and I'm going to go now," Clarke says drily. Monty wonders idly if Nate has any opinions about River Song.

His wondering becomes a lot less idle when Nate walks into the shop later, just as Monty is about to leave for the day. As 'end of a long day' rewards go, it's one of the best Monty has ever had, except maybe that time that Jasper found out that Mark Hamill had been spotted at the campus bookstore and hustled them over after their org chem final in time to get their textbooks autographed. And that had been a fluke. This -- this feels intentional.

It also feels like way more than Monty can handle after no sleep and the day he's just had. Miles had somehow set the sink on fire at one point. It was a long day.

Monty dredges up an exhausted smile for Nate, but there's a flicker on Nate's face, something dark and fast, and Monty doesn't think he's done enough. But he also knows he's done as much as he can.

"Clarke said you guys were short-handed today," Nate says, casual.

"Yup," Monty says, with the last of his positive energy. "If you were hoping to observe Bellamy in his natural habitat and do nature documentary narration about him, you'll have to come back."

"Well, that wasn't why I came over, but now I absolutely want to do that." Nate stops at the counter.

Monty knows there's things he wants to ask Nate -- why he did come over, if not to make fun of Bellamy; how does he feel about Stargate; who's his favorite Doctor; can he come back when Monty isn't so bone tired.

"Can I get you something?" is what he asks instead, and at the small frown on Nate's face, he adds, "No charge. If Clarke gets free drinks I feel like it's the least I can do for you."

"You know I work at a coffee shop, right? I get as much coffee as I want, I really don't get why either of our dumb coworkers hasn't figured out they can get coffee at their own shop."

"The coffee is just a pretext," Monty explains, and that feels dangerously honest.

"Monty, why the hell are you still here?" Octavia shouts, sticking her head out from the back of the store. She frowns at Nate. "I don't know who you are and I don't care, he can't take your order, he's been here since five in the morning."

"Shit, really?" Nate asks.

"I'm leaving, I swear," Monty says.

"You should be gone already," Octavia scolds, frowning at Monty and then Nate again. She's an equal opportunity scowler.

"Well, yeah, but Nate came in," Monty says, before he can think better of it.

But Nate doesn't recoil, or make fun of him, or demand any explanations that he is physically and mentally not capable of giving right now. "I can come back sometime. You okay to get home?"

"I'm tired, not drunk," Monty protests, but Nate just raises his eyebrows until he adds, "Yes, I'm fine, Maya's picking me up any minute now."

"Oh," Nate asks, and Monty thinks he might be about to add something else, but Octavia is still glaring at both of them from the back of the shop, as though she hasn't been here as long as Monty. She really should have left already, except Monty suspects that she's going to give terrifying, threatening instructions to Miles about closing up and wants to do it out of his earshot.

Whatever her reasons for being there, she does put a damper on what Nate was about to say, and he changes it to just, "have a good one," and leaves the shop again.

Maya arrives a minute later to give Monty a ride home in her '93 VW Bug with the bumper falling off. Monty, in return, hands her off a bag of Octavia's day-old pastries.

Maya inhales deeply the gluten- and sugar-thick scent of the bag. "You're a dangerous man to live with, Monty," she tells him.

"Well, no, I used to make the kitchen blow up on like a monthly basis. Now I just provide an excess of carbs and shoot myself in the foot in front of cute sci-fi nerds, I'm much safer."

Maya gives him a sympathetic look as she fights with the clutch. "Do you want to talk, or do you want to not talk?"

"I want to not talk," Monty says, and manages to fall asleep on the ride home.

-

Monty wakes up at 5 the next day. Okay, he pretty much always gets up at 5 these days -- if he slept in on his day off it would only throw off his whole sleep schedule, but he does sort of miss waking up when it's already light out. Everyone who writes poems and paints paintings and waxes philosophical about the beauty of sunrises has never worked in a coffee shop.

Or, for that matter, in a bakery. Monty's not sure exactly what time Octavia wakes up, but he'd guess it's ungodly early since her hair and makeup are always on point, especially on days Lincoln comes in to do the books. If Monty were Octavia, he would live in the upstairs apartment with Bellamy to have the shortest possible commute to work, but the one time he mentioned that to her she laughed in his face for a full-sustained minute and then, turning on a dime, said in an intense voice, "I am never living with Bellamy again for the rest of my days."

So she's already awake and at the shop when Monty calls and asks, "Has he risen from the grave?"

"Isn't that on the third day?" Octavia responds. "Even a heathen like me knows that's not until the third day. TV told me so."

"Are you saying your brother is Jesus?" If Octavia can answer a question with a question, so can Monty. "Because I don't really think his ego needs that kind of stroking."

"I went up and knocked on his door when I got in and he came all the way out to the hallway to tell me that he was dying and he wanted us to bury him in the basement and dedicate the entire building as a monument to him. So yeah, let's not boost his ego anymore than it already is."

"Pretty impressive that he could get himself to the front door while actively dying," Monty points out.

"You know Bell, nothing in the world can stop him from making a scene."

"Would you that say that's a family trait?"

"You're feeling cheeky today."

"That's just a Blake and Brother's trait."

"Can you come in?" Octavia asks. "I know you've been, like, a week without a day off -- "

"So have you," Monty points out.

"I am working my ass off, aren't I," Octavia muses. "It's just Bellamy getting time off, that lazy bastard."

"Yeah, he just has to lie there and die peacefully while we do the hard work."

Octavia snorts. "I'm serious, though. I feel like I'm taking advantage of you. We should at least have a safeword or something."

"What, so if I really didn't want to come into work today I would say 'spinach' and you would get one of the part-timers in?"

"Why spinach?"

"It's unlikely to come up in casual conversation and it's deeply unsexy," Monty answers.

"I feel like you've thought about this before," Octavia says. "Like you already had a safeword lined up."

"Maybe I did." He didn't, but chances for him to come across as sexy-dangerous are few and far between, so he might as well make the most of it.

"I don't know if I want you to dish or not. Does it involve Jasper? Because if you and Jasper have a safeword I definitely don't want to know about it."

"Mum's the word," Monty says.

"I thought it was spinach."

"I'll see you in twenty, okay?"

"You're sure-sure? Because I could get Miles in here. He's literally too clueless to care it's an opening shift. He'd probably believe me if I told him he'd been scheduled for it all along."

"I'm sure," Monty says. "It's not a problem. I like to help out."

He does like to help out, and that's really all there is to it. Jasper and Maya will come running if they hear Monty needs them, and Monty will always turn up for Octavia and Bellamy.

There are worse things in life, than to give and to receive that kind of loyalty.

But karma's looking out for Monty anyway, because Nate sticks his head through the door around ten o'clock in the morning.

"Don't you ever get a day off?" he asks, before Monty has even said hello.

"Theoretically, but Bellamy's still sick."

"How dare he," Nate says, monotone, and Monty laughs.

"I know, right? It's like he's being sick at me at this point."

Nate shakes his head and, weirdly, picks up a napkin and an empty coffee cup off the table nearest to the door.

It takes Monty a few seconds to realize that Nate is bussing the dirty tables.

"You don't have to -- " he starts, but Nate looks back at him. It's less of a stare and more of a brick wall.

"You're shorthanded, right?"

"Technically no," Monty says, because Miles is around somewhere, possibly daydreaming about butterflies.

Nate snorts and picks up another piece of trash.

"Seriously," Monty says, "you aren't even getting paid."

"Yeah I am," he says. "The new shift lead thinks I'm in the back."

"You're -- on the clock?" Monty blinks.

"Technically, yes," Nate says. It's Monty's turn to snort; that's a terrible impression of him. "I am being paid right now to work in a coffee shop, and I'm working in a coffee shop. What's the problem?"

Monty shakes his head. "Is Raven going to assassinate you for this?"

"Since she's not working today and hates our new shift lead, probably not." Nate gives Monty a sideways glance. "You get home okay yesterday?"

"Yeah," Monty says, worrying at his lower lip for a second before adding, "My roommate picked me up, she and her boyfriend made sure I got fed and everything."

"Cool." Is that a smile on Nate's face? He turns away from Monty too fast for Monty to be sure, then grabs at the broom Monty had left propped up by the trash can.

Monty dashes around the counter. "Okay, seriously, I can't let you do the sweeping up for us."

"I'm flexible," Nate shrugs, and that's a mental image Monty didn't need right now. "Sweeping, brewing, heavy lifting, I can do it all."

"Actually -- " Monty says, before he can stop himself. Nate looks at him intently, and Monty realizes they're both holding the broom, his hand an inch away from Nate's.

He officially gives up.

"We just got a bunch of stock in, in the back," he finishes. "It's not that I can't move it all to the stockroom on my own, it's just that I'd rather not."

"Cool, I can move your inventory," Nate says. "Is the tiny murder girl going to kill you if you let me in the back of the shop?"

Monty takes a second. He can't decide if he needs to immediately tell Octavia that Nate thinks of her as tiny murder girl, or if she must never ever know. It is, unquestionably, the best description of her that he's heard in a long time. "Probably not," is all he says to Nate. "She likes me a lot. I can't vouch for your safety but I will try to put in a good word."

"All right, at least make sure I get a badass tombstone."

"Done," Monty says, "skull and crossbones and everything," and before he knows it and against his better judgment, he's showing Nate the inventory they got in this morning off the delivery truck, still stacked up haphazardly by the back door.

Nate sets off to work immediately, picking up the largest, heaviest box as though he's barely aware of it.

He's wearing short sleeves, and his muscles flex with every movement. Karma is definitely paying out for Monty today.

"This way," Monty says, picking up a smaller box to feel like he's helping, and leading Nate to the stock room and pointing out where everything goes.

They get the inventory moved a lot faster than Monty would have expected, and that leaves them just sitting in the dim light of the stock room laughing about Miles coming and asking Monty what a cafe au lait is.

"You guys have the weirdest fucking employees, I swear," Nate says.

"They don't go work for the competitors while they're on the clock, though," Monty says, and Nate grimaces. "Did I say thank you for that yet? I feel like I need to say thank you, like, a thousand times. And probably stuff you full of Octavia's baked goods."

"I don't trust any food that woman prepares for me."

Monty nudges his foot against Nate's foot. "She bakes in batches, she didn't prepare them knowing they were for you."

"She knows, she's the type," Nate mutters darkly.

Monty laughs. "I give up. What's your deal?"

"My deal?"

"You know." Monty gestures with his hands in a way that is probably more confusing than explanatory. "You work at the Starbucks but come help out at the locally owned coffee shop, you get all my sci-fi references -- "

"Is that really that weird?" Nate interrupts. "It's not like you're throwing down jokes about Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda."

Monty gapes at him. "You have not watched Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda."

"You're right, I haven't. I respect myself too much," Nate says, grinning lopsidedly at him. "I watched a lot of TV as a kid. I think people thought I was a badass, which meant no one fucked with me, so it could have been worse. But it meant." He shrugs. "People didn't really try to be my friends, either. Hence, TV."

Monty nods. "I get that," he says. "Jasper and I -- my best friends since, like, diapers, he's incredibly embarrassing, whatever. We had friends growing up, but we were scrawny little D&D nerds, so TV was a big source of comfort."

"And now?" Nate prompts.

"Now?"

"How'd you end up here with Bellamy the Idiot?"

Monty looks away again, studying the shelves opposite them intensely. He feels like he's done a disservice, to both Bellamy and Nate, by playing up Bellamy's more...easily mockable antics. Bellamy deserves more respect than that -- not as much respect as he thinks he deserves, but more than that. And Nate would probably actually like Bellamy a lot, if he knew the real Bellamy.

So Monty takes a second to rearrange his thoughts. There's a chance that this goes really badly. But he thinks -- he thinks there's a chance that it doesn't.

"I used to work here part-time," he says. "When Bellamy and Octavia's mom owned the place." He hesitates, but Nate's watching him with this calm, even look, and that ever-present pressure to be cool, to not say the awkward thing, to smooth everything over for everyone, Monty can feel it melt away in a rush. "She died the same week that my dad did."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah." Monty gives a little half-laugh and ruffles the back of his hair. "Not, like, because he died, it was totally unrelated. Just -- it was a crappy week."

"No kidding." Nate licks his lips and looks away for a second, like he's trying to think of the perfect thing to say. "I'm really sorry you had to go through that."

"It really helped to have Bellamy and Octavia," Monty says. "I mean, it sucked that Aurora died, I didn't want -- " he makes a noise and shakes his head.

"But it helps, knowing someone else gets it," Nate finishes for him.

"Yeah," Monty says. "We all sort of got each other through it."

Nate nods. "My mom died when I was ten. So. I know it never really sounds like people get it when they say that they get it." His smile is crooked. "But I get it."

And Monty feels like Nate really does get it. Like he could tell Nate about everything else: about losing time, losing track of what day of the week it was, failing every class he took that semester because he couldn't focus enough to get any of his assignments done, because he kept missing lectures and labs and finals.

About failing his classes the next semester, too, when everyone's patience had worn out because he was supposed to be over this already.

About watching his mother become closed off and hateful and paranoid, seeing her turn into the kind of person he'd block on Facebook and forget about, but not knowing what to do because she was his mother and the only parent he had left.

About going in to work one day and finding Bellamy sitting in the back with the lights off, sitting next to him and finally admitting, "I'm failing out of college," and Bellamy saying, "I'm failing out of life."

About coming on full time, so glad to have something to do, somewhere to go, somewhere he could have a breakdown in the backroom and no one would judge him because they'd done the same thing the day before.

About how things got weird with Jasper, about how things never went all the way back to the way they were, because they'd always done everything together, their whole lives, and now Jasper's getting his PhD and Monty, well. Monty makes coffee.

He thinks, if he said all of that, Nate would actually listen.

But he also thinks, if he has a choice right now, he chooses to be happy.

So instead he says, "Thanks," and smiles at Nate like he has all the time in the world. "For letting me go all You're an orphan? I'm an orphan, I wish there was a war."

"There is a war," Nate says. "Haven't you been listening to that weird boss of yours?"

"It's not healthy to listen to everything Bellamy says."

"Then I hate to break it to you," Nate says, voice low and leaning in closer like they're being watched. "But there's a war."

"Oh, damn. I guess that makes you a spy, huh."

"Yup," Nate admits. "But am I spying on you or for you? I could be a double agent, you know."

"Oh, but that always ends badly. And you'd have to really convince me that you were on my side."

Nate looks thoughtful. "I could do that."

"You know my side is also Bellamy's side."

"Oh, fuck that noise, no, I'm not on your side."

Monty laughs. "We also have Octavia."

"I guess she's all right," Nate says, like Octavia's greatness is somehow up for debate and not a fundamental truth of the universe.

"So, you know." Monty knocks his elbow against Nate's, wonders if that's too forward, and just smiles at the wall across from him to cover up his stomach butterflies. "Two out of three's not bad."

-

Saturday morning Monty doesn't even bother to call Octavia, just shows up for work, on the assumption that if Bellamy was as sick as he claimed to be yesterday he isn't going to be ready to come back to work yet.

So, naturally, Bellamy is up on his feet and back at work again.

"Octavia said you were dying," Monty says, which in the land of Blake and Brother's counts as hello.

Bellamy rolls his eyes. "She was being dramatic."

"I don't know what to believe anymore. Was she being dramatic? Or were you being dramatic? Was she being dramatic about the extent to which you were dramatic? Were you -- "

"Yeah, I'm not up to this," Bellamy says, and finds things in the back of the store to keep him busy until they open, which means that Monty has plenty of time to draw an enormous Venn diagram on the chalkboard, under the day's specials. Two circles, Bellamy's drama, Octavia's drama, and where they overlap, thank god for Monty.

Bellamy joins him up front again for the morning rush, such as it is. Saturday mornings are always a little slow, though this particular Saturday they still do a good business, which Monty takes as further proof that Starbucks isn't going to pull off the whole 'crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women' thing any time soon.

But Bellamy's twitchy the whole time, and doesn't react to Monty's observation about their business, either to be cheered or to make gloomy prognostications. He doesn't grin at Monty's comment that, "of course, anyone waiting to hear Octavia's lamentations is going to be waiting a really long time," and usually people complimenting Octavia for being a badass is Bellamy's favorite thing.

He doesn't even get annoyed about the Venn diagram, which alarms Monty enough that he runs back to the kitchen first chance he gets.

"What's up with your brother today?" Monty asks.

Octavia shrugs. "He hates being sick."

"But he isn't sick anymore."

"Yeah, which means he's got enough energy now to be mad about being sick."

"Are you saying Bellamy strategizes about when to be upset about things?" At Octavia's sardonically raised eyebrow, Monty replies, "Of course he does."

"Look, has his little buddy come in today yet?"

Monty chokes at the thought of Octavia calling Clarke Bellamy's little buddy to her face. He's getting less and less sure that Octavia and Clarke having a real conversation is a good idea, even as he becomes more and more sure that it's going to happen. "No."

"So, that'll probably cheer him up. Or get him back to his usual kind of grumpy, which is basically the same thing."

By the time Clarke does come in, Monty's managed to shake off his worries. The shop is running along as it should be, his favorite coffee shop owners back where they belong, and now Clarke is here to fix the last piece that's out of place.

"Morning," he says, stopping himself from greeting her by name. Bellamy's in the stockroom, but there's a chance he could come out and it would be a shame to ruin the game at this late of a date. "Want me to fetch the general?"

"Actually -- " Clarke starts, than frowns. "You guys are the worst foot soldiers ever. If I were your commanding officer I'd have you all flogged."

The Venn diagram has, by now, mutated. Bellamy's drama is still labeled as such, but Octavia crossed out thank god for Monty in the center, leaving the words mostly legible, and wrote OCTAVIA DOES EVERYTHING, SAVES EVERYONE instead. She also struck out Octavia's drama and wrote in beside it MONTY IS A FILTHY LIAR AND DON'T LET HIS CUTE INNOCENT ACT FOOL YOU. Monty had added to that love you, Octavia followed by a heart and a kissy face emoticon; Octavia had responded THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. Which had made Monty think, sweevil, but he'd kept that last part to himself.

"We aren't foot soldiers," he said. "Octavia's at least a squadron commander."

"What does that make you?" Clarke asks.

Monty thinks about it for a second. "I don't know. Mascot, maybe? I watch a lot of tv shows with military command structures, but they all fall apart in my head when I try to put myself in one."

Clarke shakes her head. "I keep waiting for you to say something terrible, and you keep not delivering."

Monty has no idea how anyone is expected to respond to that. "I'm...sorry?"

"You realize that Raven and I have been talking about you non-stop for like three days now, right?"

Monty gapes. "What? No. What?"

"Oh, yeah. We're determined to figure out if you have some secret hidden dark side we need to know about." She snaps her fingers, an aw, rats gesture. "So far, no dice."

That makes even less sense than before she said anything. "What? Why?"

"Because Miller used to be a pretty cool guy to work with and now he just spends all his time over here talking to you, or over at Starbucks brooding and really aggressively not talking about you, and honestly, it's getting old."

Apparently, Monty is not going to stop gaping at Clarke anytime soon, but there's a light beginning to break through the clouds, the dawn of realization, and he thinks he likes what he can see.

Clarke keeps talking, which is just as well. "I mean, it was kind of funny at first, the whole 'tragic little barista boy with a crush' thing."

"You think Nate has a -- a crush on me?" The last few words come out as more of a squeak than anything, but Monty can't even bring himself to be embarrassed.

Clarke gives him a heavy, patronizing look, and this must be karma too, because Monty's pretty sure it's the same look he gave her just the other day. "You know he told you to call him Nate, right? Nobody calls him Nate. I've known him for years and he's never told me to call him Nate."

"He never really told me to," Monty protests, even as some other part of his brain is yelling at him, why are you arguing with this. Because there's another part of his brain that still can't believe this could be real, that's still looking for the catch.

"If he didn't like you calling him Nate, he'd let you know," Clarke said. "Trust me, I've known him a long time, he really likes you."

Monty can feel his whole face heating up, ducks his head out of some instinct to hide. "You think?"

"I know. And I also know that he's really bad at letting people know he likes them. So please, just ask him out already. If not for yourself, for me and Raven. It was funny at first, him mooning about but pretending he's all 'tough' and 'stoic'." She shakes her head. "But at this point it's just pathetic."

"I don't know," Monty says. This feels like the most amazing thing that's happened to him in months, and Clarke is over here grumping and complaining about it, and yeah, they're definitely going to be friends, because that's about on par with his emotional interactions with all of his friends. "It's kind of sweet?"

"It's pathetic and it needs to stop." A smile breaks through Clarke's angry face. "I'd really like for him to be happy, okay?"

"I'd like that too," Monty admits, and Clarke's smile, if anything, grows wider. It's a perfect moment; she's not expecting an ambush. Maybe he does have a touch of sweevil about him, after all. "Speaking of just coming out and asking someone on a date -- "

Clarke groans and buries her face in her hands. "Oh my God, I know," she moans. "I really, really need to. Before he seriously hurts himself on my stupid coffee. I think I might have actually poisoned him the other day."

"Let's keep that part to ourselves," Monty says. "Bellamy really hates being sick."

"I can tell him on our Golden Anniversary or something," Clarke says, then buries her face deeper in her hands. "How is this my life? I swear, I'm really good at most things."

Monty pulls her into a hug, awkward over the counter, but she just laughs and hugs him back as best she can. "It's okay. It's better than okay, it's going to be awesome."

"Yeah." Clarke breaks free with a ghost of a laugh. "You probably think I'm such a mess, huh?"

"Compared to me and everyone I know?" Monty does a so-so gesture with his hand. "I've seen bigger."

Clarke laughs again, a real laugh, and then straightens up, still smiling, but with something of an edge to her expression.

Monty looks over his shoulder to confirm what he'd already guessed: Bellamy has come out of the stock room.

But he hadn't guessed that Bellamy would have that pinched, 'dealing with unpleasant customers' look on his face.

Monty's spirits, high already and bolstered by Clarke's comments about Nate, sink a little bit.

And then sink all the way through the floor as Bellamy proceeds to be a complete and total jackass to Clarke, and run her out of the store in under a minute.

"Um," Monty says, after Clarke has all but stormed out. For all that he finds Bellamy's war metaphors over the top, he does feel the teeniest bit shell-shocked.

"What." Bellamy glares at him. Bellamy has never glared at Monty like that before, like he really meant it, like he really wanted Monty to go away. Bellamy always had his back, since his first day at the shop, nineteen and nervous to start his first, what he thought would be short term, job.

Monty looks away and tries to keep himself busy. Tries not to be relieved when Bellamy sulks off back to the stockroom.

-

Bellamy spends the day ignoring Monty and finding busy work to stay as far away from him as possible. He doesn't say that's what he's doing, but it's obvious; Monty's pretty sure that the building doesn't even have gutters, and even if it does it's not like they need to be cleaned right this second.

"Okay, so I know I said earlier that there's something wrong with your brother, but now there's really something really wrong with your brother and I don't know what to do about it and it's kind of bringing me down," Monty tells Octavia in one long rush.

"So there's an actual problem?"

"Actual problem. I just don't know what it is."

"Well, he never admits to me what's bugging him."

Monty sighs. "I don't think he wants to tell me, either."

Octavia pulls him into a hug that borders on being a headlock. "Aw, it's okay. It's not you, it's him."

There's some weird thumping, scraping noises above them.

"What is he doing up there?" Octavia wonders.

"He said something about going up on the roof, and then he pretended he didn't hear me ask if that was really a good idea."

"Why the hell is my idiot brother going up on the roof?"

Monty worries at his lip, uncertain about what to say, but ultimately it's just silly to not say what's bothering him. "I think he's avoiding me."

"What the hell, Bell," Octavia mutters. "You want me to go shut the window in his apartment so he's stuck on the roof?"

Monty forces a laugh. "No. I just want him to feel better, instead of shutting down and refusing to process anything."

Octavia ruffles his hair. "You're a good kid, Monty."

"I'm older than you."

"You're a good decrepit old man," Octavia says again. "Let me worry about Bell, okay?"

"Okay." It's not that simple, it's never that simple, to just turn off worry, but it helps, to know that Octavia is on the case. She looks after Bellamy and he looks after her, and all will be right with the world again someday.

The bell over the door jangles, and Monty looks up to see Nate entering. Nate slows a little, taking in the sight of Octavia violently hugging Monty, and stops short of the counter.

"Ugh, Starbucks goon," Octavia mutters, at what is not actually a quiet enough volume given her proximity to said goon. "Flip you for dealing with him versus Bellamy?"

Monty smiles. "I got this. You take Bellamy."

"I take him whether I want him or not," Octavia agrees. "I'll be in the back if you need reinforcements."

"I think I got this," Monty says, extracting himself from her and stepping up to the counter.

Nate closes the distance, apparently reassured he isn't interrupting anything personal. "You realize your idiot boss is climbing out the second story window, right?"

"He's experiencing an emotion."

"What emotion is that? Fuck you, gravity?"

"I assume fuck gravity would be expressed by levitation, not climbing."

"If it were possible to be so spiteful you levitated, I would know, trust me."

"Why would I trust you?" Monty asks. "You're an admitted spy."

Nate scowls. "Fine, don't trust me. But don't come crying to me when Bellamy falls and breaks something, I don't really have time to do his job today. The new shift lead is being a total asshole."

"Wow, making you do your job instead of going to help the competitor, what's that guy's problem."

"You laugh, but I'm seriously this close to killing Murphy."

Monty's been trying to steer the conversation to a place where he can ask Nate out, because while making fun of Bellamy is kind of their thing at this point he doesn't really know how to get from Bellamy's a dork to wanna go out, but Nate's last comment throws a wrench in his plan. Maybe a couple of wrenches. Or just the whole toolbox.

"Wait, your new shift lead is Murphy? John Murphy? Has the -- " Monty gestures around his face in what he hopes is an expressive way, " -- whole floppy hair thing, touches his nose a lot?"

"You know him?" Nate demands. "Okay, you have to be honest with me. This is one of those Enemy Mine, banding together against a common foe thing. Exactly how terrible is Murphy, really?"

Monty hesitates, settles on, "He's a very difficult person to get along with."

"Fuck. If you can't say something nice about him then I am definitely going to murder him."

"Please don't," Monty says. "Because I'm going to ask you out in a minute and if you go to jail for homicide that's really going to impact our ability to go on a date."

"No jury in the world would convict me, my entire defense could just be his Facebook page and I would be -- " Nate pauses, and Monty can practically see it sinking into his brain, the rest of what Monty had said.

Monty spends on very long, very nervous second trying not to flail and take back his words, and also thinking that yeah, the guy he asked out would hear the part about not killing Murphy before he heard the part about going on a date, that's pretty much where Monty's social life is at.

" -- fine," Nate continues, looking a little dazed but also like he's trying to cover up for being a little dazed. It's endearing. "So, you know." He shrugs. It is the least casual thing that Monty has ever seen, and Monty works with the Blake siblings on a daily basis. "If you ask me out, we'll be fine."

"When I ask you out," Monty corrects him.

"When you ask me out. Any idea when that's going to be? I'd hate to miss it."

"I haven't decided. I thought I should consult an expert so I googled what's the best way to ask a spy out on a date, but I just got a bunch of James Bond fanfic."

"I am an expert on my own dating habits and I can safely say, the sooner the better."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

"So, do you want to get coffee tonight?"

Nate scowls at him. "No, I do not want to get coffee. I want to do literally anything but get coffee."

"But I love coffee."

"We work in coffee shops," Nate starts.

"I know," Monty says, bright and excited. "It's so convenient!"

Nate squints, tilting his head and back like Monty is a bit of illegible handwriting he's trying to decipher. "Are you actually a very cute ghost who is stuck haunting this building? Because that would explain a lot."

"Name one thing that that would explain."

There's another loud thump from the upstairs, and indistinct vocalizations that Monty knows, deep in his soul, are Bellamy swearing.

Nate spreads his hands in a 'I rest my case' gestures. "You really want that hanging around when we're on a date?"

"He's very important to me," Monty says. "I can't date you if he doesn't give you his blessing."

Miller stares at him for another one of those long seconds, but this time Monty is desperately trying to contain his mirth, rather than his nerves. It's amazing what a difference a minute can make.

"Okay, now you're fucking with me," Nate says. "Right?"

"100%. Except about the part where I'm asking you out. So, I don't know, I'm 93% messing with you."

"That innocent act of yours is even better than my Jar Jar face."

"No one ever sees it coming," Monty says very solemnly. "For the record, I don't ask my friends to tell me what they think of my dates, they just do it anyway. I'm not going to make you win Bellamy's favor or anything."

"Thank god," Nate says, leaning up against the counter like he needs it to support his weight. "I was going to ask if I couldn't just beat up all your exes instead."

"See, now we're back to things I'd rather you didn't do because jail."

"I guess if you don't want me to go to jail I can not go to jail."

"I want you to want to not go to jail."

"Can't help it. I have a very dangerous job."

"Yeah, I'm not buying that. You're a barista."

"You used to think I was intimidating."

"For about twenty seconds," Monty tells him. "Can I see your phone?"

"Am I going to regret it?" but Nate is already unlocking the screen and handing it over to him.

"If you do then you and I have very different and fundamentally incompatible ideas of what dating constitutes." Monty punches in his own phone number and saves it in Nate's contacts. "Here, lean in," he says, pulling up the camera to take a contact picture of himself.

Nate leans over the counter to get his face into frame, and just as Monty goes to take the picture Nate turns and kisses him on the cheek.

Monty's so flustered that it doesn't even occur to him to check if it's a good picture or not; he just saves his info and hands the phone back to Nate, who is grinning as much as Monty has ever seen. It's the Nate equivalent of a Disney character bursting into song, which is to say, a half smile and an inability to hold eye contact.

"Okay, I really got to get back to the Starbucks now, I think Murphy is probably burning an effigy of me over there."

"Oh, no, he's much more of a voodoo doll kind of guy."

Nate gives him another one of those long, studious looks, and Monty feels a curl of warmth in his stomach at the attention. "Joking?"

"Joking," Monty confirms. "As far as I know."

Nate nods. "I'll see you tonight," he says, and looks over his shoulder three times between the counter and the door, which makes Monty feel better about waving at him.

All of five minutes later, Monty gets a text: murphy is the worst but i am stoically not murdering him

my hero, he sends back.

yup, Nate replies, and then, turns out thinking about you makes even murphy tolerable

Monty does not screen cap the conversation and save it as his phone's wallpaper, because that would be madness, but he does think about doing so for a few seconds, which is probably not much better.

Instead, he sends Jasper and Maya seventeen exclamation points. Maya responds back with exactly seventeen exclamation points of her own, and Jasper sends him that creepy cat person emoji that he knows Monty hates. But he also sends a bunch of thumbs up and an all caps GOOD SHIT?

best shit, Monty writes back. hot date.

That gets him ten more creepy cat people emojis, and he doesn't even mind.

-

Monty's good mood is too big to contain within himself. He whistles as he works, smiles at customers so brightly they can't help but smile back, twirls Octavia and surprises a laugh out of her.

He even gets a sheepish grin from Bellamy, who is wearing a wet t-shirt for reasons that probably don't bear scrutinizing and, more importantly, is actually looking at Monty and speaking to him. "O says I need to apologize."

Monty manages to hold a serious expression, somehow, but it's a close thing. "You know, some people would say that it undercuts an apology, if you say it like you're being coerced into it and also don't actually say the words 'I'm sorry'."

"Yeah? What do you say?"

Bellamy looks like he's honestly worried about what Monty is going to say, so Monty decides to let him off the hook. "I say we're fine. I can't hold a grudge right now, anyway. I'm too happy."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"I have a date," Monty says. It sounds better ever time he says it, and still a little surreal, like maybe he dreamed that part. He's maybe pulled up his messages app a few dozen times today to prove to himself, no, that really happened. "With Nate."

Bellamy does his 'wise old man' chin stroke. "Also you're a poet, and you didn't even know it." Monty stifles a groan, because this is at least a step above that time Bellamy spent an entire week doing dad jokes, and Monty believes in positive reinforcement, even if the best they'll ever manage is incremental behavioral improvements. "This is the angry dude in the beanie, right? Are angry dudes your thing? Because if I should admit that I'm secretly in love with you so we can ride off into the sunset together, let me know."

Monty rolls his eyes. Maybe the dad jokes weren't that bad, after all. "Yeah, I'll get right on that."

"Cool." Bellamy nudges Monty with his elbow. Bellamy's good with words, good at making speeches that stir people up but don't, actually, mean anything. This feels like the real apology, the real communication.

"Thanks," Monty says. "Really, though, he's not scary at all, I don't know what you and -- " Oh, shit. He almost just slipped and told Bellamy Clarke's name. Though maybe that doesn't matter, maybe he doesn't need to keep that secret any longer. But if that's the case that only makes it worse, that he brought her up at all. "Um." Some people would have the ability to quickly and smoothly change the subject, without even letting Bellamy know they were doing it. Monty is not one of those people. "Sorry. About, um, the whole thing earlier today."

"It's fine." It is patently not fine. "I mean, it's not fine at all, why are you on first name terms with the enemy, treason, all of that still applies. But I'm not actually mad at you."

"Oh. Okay."

"I mean, if my nemesis and I both agree that Nate is scary, you can at least concede that he's a scary dude. It's the one thing we agree on."

"I'm not convinced she's really afraid of him," Monty says. As long as they're actually, miraculously going to talk about Bellamy's problems, he figures they might as well do it right. "Or not after the way she was talking about him today. Unless 'it's so funny that he's pathetically into you' means something completely different in your weird 'over-invested in coffee rivalries' language."

Bellamy did his best impression of a deer staring down the highway at a car. "She said that? About Nate?"

Monty cannot fathom why that's the part of the day that's tripping Bellamy up, seriously, he does not respond in an appropriate way to anything. "Yeah? She came over here to play matchmaker. Not to brag or anything. But apparently he has kind of an obvious crush, so she got tired of watching and decided to intervene."

"Oh fuck," Bellamy says, smacking his head down against the counter and promptly spilling an entire carton of milk.

Monty dives for the milk, rescuing it when it's spilled no more than half its contents, and looks around for a dry spot to put it while he starts cleaning up the mess. Starting with the biggest mess, so, Bellamy's weird fit, and then he'll clean up the milk.

"Okay, I really need you to just say what's going on," Monty says, pulling out his rare stern voice and crossing his arms. "This is getting ridiculous. What's wrong with you today?"

Bellamy's eyes flick over to the milk carton, and Monty can actually see him thinking about knocking it over again to cause a distraction.

Monty grabs the milk carton and puts it on the other side of the puddle, far out of Bellamy's reach.

Bellamy sighs. He does always think his ruses are less predictable than they are.

"So," he starts, "um, when she said that the tragic little barista boy was pretending to be stoic -- "

"You heard that?" Monty blinks, confused. "How -- why -- " a terrible kind of reason dawns on him. "No."

"This needs to be a safe space for embarrassing personal mistakes," Bellamy says, which is an enormous lie. Blake and Brother's is a safe place for real moments of weakness. Stupid bullshit has always been fair game, and if what Monty thinks is happening is what is happening, this definitely falls into the 'stupid bullshit' category. "Or else I'm going to keep knocking over milk jugs and that is going to come out of your paycheck."

Monty does not let himself get distracted arguing about damage costs. "So, when she said that she was sick of Nate's moping and I should ask him out so she didn't have to deal with it anymore -- "

Bellamy sighs. "I just heard the part about her being sick of pathetic boys with crushes."

Be a good friend, Monty tells himself, don't be a jerk, be a good friend. It's harder than it ought to be. "I'm trying to think of literally a single thing to say that is both true to my feelings and appropriate to say to my employer."

"How about, 'Sorry you shot yourself in the foot, can I buy you five drinks?'"

Monty gives Bellamy a 'nice try' look. "Yeah, no, that's not going to cut it."

"What was I supposed to think?" Bellamy rants. The healing process must have begun, if Bellamy is ranting. It's like the five stages of dealing with death, but for Bellamy dealing with emotions: ignoring them, acting surly, ranting, something, something, profit. "That the death glare in the beanie needs someone to ask people out for him?"

There's going to come a day, probably soon, when Monty lets Bellamy make fun of Nate; turnabout is fair play, after all. But today is not that day. "He's shy. It's sweet. And you have exactly zero right to make fun of anyone's courtship rituals, ever."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Bellamy mutters.

"Tiramisu latte?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Monty pats him on the shoulder. "You should go to her."

"I know what I gotta do."

"And grovel."

"I know, just, can we never talk about this again?"

"Nope," Monty denies, cheerfully. "But if you're lucky I won't post the entire thing on Facebook."

-

"Your stupid boss asked out my stupid coworker," Nate announces as soon as he's through the door. That feels like maybe that's his thing, the dramatic entrance. Monty wonders if he's ever done any acting, or maybe he just aspires to live like he's on a tv show, which Monty is not opposed to. "Is this a plot to takeover Starbucks?"

"Totally. Victory through assimilation. You thought you were the spy and I was the spy all along." Monty ducks out from under the counter. He is not working late today, even if Bellamy has just up and abandoned the shop to hang out with Clarke.

"I can't believe Bellamy got his shit together before I did," Nate complains.

"He had a head start," Monty points out. "You still win in an absolute value way."

"I'm not even mad at myself," Nate grumbles. "Just disappointed."

"Fine, I'll be happy for both of us." Monty stands next to Nate and takes his hand. "Or do you really want to spend our first date thinking about Bellamy?"

"Jesus Christ, no," Nate says, and twines his fingers through Monty's. "I propose a total ban on talking about Bellamy." Softer, he adds, "I want to be thinking about you."

"I second the motion, motion carries. I will also be thinking about myself."

Nate shakes his head. "You're trouble."

"The worst," Monty agrees, then pulls his toward the door. "Come on, I want to show you something."

Everything goes according to plan for about ten minutes, which is enough time to walk to Monty's favorite little park in the city that Nate has never been to, enough time for Monty to discover that Nate was the lead in his high school's drama productions three years in a row, enough time to earn another one of those micro-smiles that warms Monty down to his core.

Then they round a corner on the walking path and find Bellamy and Clarke sitting under a tree, Clarke laughing as Bellamy brushes leaves and dirt out of his hair.

"You know what," Nate says. "Let's just go get coffee."

Monty nods. "Yeah, coffee's good."

Coffee is good. But with Nate, it's even better.