Chapter Text
Lillium had been awake well past the point where he felt capable of being productive. He wasn’t sure he was alert enough for anything more complex than dragging his exhausted butt home, but he had made a commitment to one last job this morning. At least it was only a courier job, so he wouldn’t be expected to make small talk.
At about the time he was lamenting over-booking himself, Lillium was passing a local coffee shop and decided screw it, time to put his faith in caffeine. He made a quick detour into the Bloom and Brew.
His first impression was of a homey atmosphere. There wasn’t a lot of room, but large front windows let in plenty of natural light and kept it from being claustrophobic. The playfully mismatched tables and chairs gave the room a unique feel, and seemed to invite customers to get comfortable and enjoy a pastry to go with their coffee.
The young man behind the counter was extremely cute. He had fluffy black hair and beautiful dark eyes. Under each eye he had a crescent-shaped tattoo. He gave Lillium a smile that somehow managed to look not like bid for polite customer service at the crack of dawn but like he was genuinely happy to be here.
There was something familiar about him, but it must have been Lillium’s imagination, brought on by sleep deprivation. He couldn’t remember meeting anyone with tattoos like that, and he didn’t think he would have forgotten that face.
“Do you need a minute to decide?” he asked, and Lillium realized he’d failed to respond to the standard ‘Good morning! What would you like?’ part of the conversation.
“Sorry. Tired,” Lillium excused, dragging one hand down his face. “I need a shot in the dark.”
“Of course. Can I get your name?”
“Lillium.” Lillium glanced down at the barista’s nametag at the same time. Iris. There was an intricate drawing of a black iris beside his name. The petals took on a three-dimensional quality as the picture escaped the rectangle of the nametag.
Iris managed to look even happier as he scribbled on a cup, and then, given that he was the only one behind the counter at the moment, hurried to start on the drink.
A shot in the dark was a shot of espresso added to black coffee. In Lillium’s opinion some places translated it as take your damn caffeine and go, not caring how the result tasted. Not so in this case. The two came together smoothly, until they became more than the sum of their parts. There was a bitterness on the back of his tongue which made the taste that much richer.
Iris had written his name as ‘Lilium,’ which he figured was close enough. More importantly, Lillium couldn’t stop being aware that he had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen still fixed on him, as if waiting for something.
“It’s really good,” he managed.
“I’m glad! I just started working here,” Iris confessed.
“It doesn’t show,” Lillium answered awkwardly. Here he had just been thinking he did not have the bandwidth for small talk, but maybe he could survive this much. The smile Iris gave him helped.
Fortified with coffee, Lillium went to get the rest of his day over with.
Iris was practically walking on air, right up until he turned and almost collided with Begonia as she returned from the kitchen with a tray of fresh cookies.
“Are you okay? I only left you to man the counter for two minutes–”
“Did you see him?” Iris interrupted, grabbing at his friend’s arm and pointing out the window. “Right there, with the pink hair!”
“Yes?” Begonia looked after Lillium, then looked at him in askance.
“That’s the guy I was telling you about! From the park.” Lillium. Iris still felt giddy. His name was Lillium.
“That’s your Prince Charming?”
“I never called him charming,” Iris argued, embarrassed. “I don’t think he even remembered me.”
“How could he not remember your cute face? Clearly that man has no taste.”
Iris put his hands to his cheeks as he felt them heat. Maybe he did look different enough. A lot had happened in the last few months. “He liked the coffee, at least. Do you think he’ll come back?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him here before,” Begonia said. Iris knew she was trying to be gentle with his feelings, but he felt himself droop. At least until she added in a teasing tone, “Maybe he’ll come back to see you!”
“I don’t think he’d come for me,” Iris protested, and yet now that he had seen Lillium once, he couldn’t help hoping to see him again.
Lillium didn’t generally bother to eat out, preferring his own cooking if he had the choice. Fast food and gas station coffee were for when he was in stretches of work hell. He didn’t have a habit of buying little treats for himself, either.
He couldn’t have said why, after the annoyance of being kept waiting past noon to pick up his latest paycheck, he decided that coffee would make him feel better. Maybe it was only because he happened to be near the shop he’d visited the other day.
The was a young woman at the register today. She had dark skin with a generous splattering of freckles across her nose, pink hair tied back tightly, and eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man.
Lillium didn’t recognize many flowers, but he assumed the flower on Begonia’s nametag matched her name as well. It was a few shades darker than her bubblegum-pink hair, with layered petals.
“Welcome back, Lillium!” Iris leaned out from behind the espresso machine into Begonia’s space to greet him.
“Iris, focus. Caramel latte for the nice lady,” Begonia interrupted, waggling a cup at him until he took it and got to work. Then she gave Lillium a professional smile that didn’t quite cover the feeling that he was being carefully judged.
“Good afternoon! What would you like today?”
Lillium had to admit he was alert enough that he could probably dial the caffeine back by a drop or two.
“Just a small cappuccino to go,” Lillium requested.
He paid and automatically dumped his change in the tip jar as he moved out of the way. He found his attention inescapably drawn to Iris as the cheerful boy worked on his drink.
If anything, Iris was even cuter when Lillium wasn’t feeling like death warmed over and could appreciate the sight. When Iris passed him his coffee, it was with the brightest smile. Lillium found himself briefly transfixed. Iris’s eyes practically sparkled when he smiled like that.
Lillium forced himself to focus on his drink before he could embarrass himself.
“Is it good?”
“It’s fine.” It wasn’t bad. He didn’t like when the bitterness of the espresso was too suppressed or had to fight with other flavors. Cappuccinos were right on the line for him, so he just wouldn’t order one here again.
Iris snatched the cup out of his hand. “I’ll make another one. Tell me what’s wrong with it.”
“I said it was fine,” Lillium protested, but Iris had already dumped the offending drink down the drain.
“Tell me how to do it better,” Iris demanded, grabbing a fresh cup. His coworker was cracking up, but Iris acted like he didn’t notice. He only looked seriously into Lillium’s eyes and said, “Please.”
“You’re overreacting.” Well, Iris had already thrown out his drink so it wasn’t like arguing would get it back. “It’s just my preference. Less milk and more foam.”
“Did you want a dry cappuccino?” Iris asked.
“Not quite.” Super ‘dry’ foam was a texture nightmare in his opinion, and he didn’t think he deserved to be punished because Iris thought he wasn’t enjoying his stupid drink enough. Lillium was regretting his order now. It was a lot easier to make a mental note not to order that drink than to try to communicate. “Just not more milk than coffee.”
“Okay.” Iris nodded to himself and set to work.
To his surprise, Lillium found he couldn’t maintain his annoyance, even though the emotion usually came so easily to him. Iris’s serious face as he bent his full attention to the task was charming in a different way from his cheerful smile.
When Iris handed him the fresh drink Lillium stepped back, out of easy grabbing range.
“Better?” Iris asked as he tasted it.
“I would order this again.”
Iris brightened up as if he understood how sincere Lillium’s awkward praise was. He actually might, at least if Iris was the one making it.
Iris had learned a lot since he had started working at the Bloom and Brew. He found the work satisfying. It was one part meticulous attention to detail to keep everything consistent and one part adapting smoothly to each variable.
The customers were interesting, too. Some ordered black coffee (no cream, no sugar, no nothing) just as seriously as those who needed half a dozen specifications to communicate exactly what they wanted. (Iris felt like he’d learned a new dialect.) He wanted to be sure everyone came away happy. When he saw someone brighten up at the first hit of caffeine or sugar, or when someone lingered in the shop to savor their drink, Iris couldn’t help loving those moments.
Obviously there were a few people who were rude, cranky, or just generally unpleasant. It made him a little nervous not knowing when he might suddenly be confronted with one, especially at first. For the most part, Iris had learned to simply tell himself that he had done what he could do to make their day better, and they were usually gone quickly enough.
Iris didn’t mind people being picky about what they wanted. He didn’t mind Lillium being a little picky. It was just that the first time he’d made Lillium coffee, the other man had praised him, and now he wanted more. ‘Fine’ wasn’t enough. ‘Good’ was the minimum he would settle for.
So Iris was practicing as ardently as when he first started training. Dry foam, microfoam... he wouldn’t be satisfied until he could get exactly what he wanted every time. He practiced getting ratios perfect for each drink.
Rosalie was happy to help him. She was kind, yet never failed to give him honest advice. Iris didn’t know what he would have done without her, and it wasn't just that she had given him a job when he had no real skills. He'd never had someone be so patient with him before.
Begonia was supportive of his progress, but she wasn’t above teasing him. At least she never poked fun at him when he already felt bad about his mistakes. It was his well-meaning awkwardness dealing with people that she couldn't resist teasing him about.
“You realize he was flirting with you, right?”
“What? Who?” They had just had a small run of customers, and none had stood out to Iris.
“Mr. ‘Leave a little room for cream.’”
Iris felt his face start to heat. It hadn’t sounded suggestive when the man had said it, but Begonia’s tone as she teased him made it sound different.
“It’s a normal request,” Iris protested.
Begonia grinned at his flustered reaction. “I don't know, after the way he tried to chat you up.”
“But he didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything.” Iris was pretty sure it had all been just the standard social chatter one made with a stranger. ‘What a great day to exist and weather sure is happening,’ level.
“Well, I’m obviously not going to encourage you to give some random guy you don’t know a second look. But then, what’s so special about Lillium?”
“He’s hot,” Iris answered, a little too quickly. It was true, though, and given her complete disinterest in men, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t pretend to be an expert and argue.
From the way Begonia rolled her eyes at him, Iris could guess she knew exactly what he was doing. She knew him too well to believe his infatuation began and ended with Lillium’s looks. “If you say so, but he’s kind of rude. I think you deserve better.”
“He’s not rude.” They were used to occasionally getting people who were not their best selves pre-coffee. Lillium was blunt at worst.
“Tell me one nice thing he’s done the whole time he’s been coming in.”
“He listened to me.” It might have been a silly thing to develop a crush over, but the seed of that crush had already been planted. Each time he spoke to Lilllium only fed it.
Rosalie had told him at one point that it didn’t matter if he thought someone was insisting on something weird or gross. He wasn’t the one drinking it. (She wouldn’t have let anyone harass her people, but she certainly wouldn’t put up with him being rude, either.)
So maybe it was against the whole ‘the customer is always right in matters of taste’ thing when he’d leveled a look at Lillium and told him, “What you want is an espresso macchiato.” He might have gotten a bit huffy at Lillium’s attempt to argue, because he was not going to make that Starbucks thing with three layers of sweeteners. (Normally Iris wouldn’t have cared much, but he knew that was the literal opposite of what Lillium liked and how dare Lillium think he wasn’t paying attention.)
What he had made Lillium was double espresso with a ‘spot’ of foamed milk, just enough to gentle it. He made a point to serve it in a glass so that Lillium would have to stay to drink it, so Iris could be sure he was right.
He would have made Lillium something else on the house if he’d been wrong, but Lillium had actually agreed with him. It had become his usual order if he was going to stay and sit down for a few minutes.
It was unreasonable to feel so fond and happy when someone made a coffee order, but it wasn’t just that he’d been right. It meant Lillium was going to stay for a minute or two and savor his drink.
Begonia interrupted this line of thought by announcing, “You know what he did the other day? I swear to God he locked eyes with me through the main window and then turned around and left.”
“Oh?” If Iris had felt his cheeks starting to flush at the idea of a stranger flirting with him, they were burning now. He tried very hard not to make any leaps of logic from that which would just be wishful thinking.
“Almost as if he didn’t feel like coming in if a certain someone wasn’t behind the counter,” Begonia continued, helpfully making the leap for him.
“When were you planning on telling me this?”
“I was saving it for a special occasion, like if you’d admit you’re crushing so hard it makes you look ridiculous.”
“I don’t care if I look ridiculous. I like seeing him.”
What he really wanted was to see Lillium’s expression of enjoyment. That was better than words. That fleeting hint of a smile, the way the muscles around his eyes relaxed, Iris wanted to see that over and over. He wanted to be the one who made it happen.