Chapter Text
"The usual?" the red-head asks. Crimson eyes blink up at him. He's wearing his typical clips that pin his hair out his face; Aedric can see his soft smile and gorgeous features. A slight blush colors his cheeks. The elezen shyly averts his eyes, choosing instead to stare at his apron that reads 'The Last Stand' with his name tag pinned:
G'raha Tia.
Aedric's breath catches. His chest tightens. He can do this. He can ask him on a date.
This man who has served him coffee every single day for over a year. This miqo'te who knows his order by rote:
Medium-sized latte with soy milk, please.
This wonderful person who has stolen his heart. Between lingering gazes and small conversations about the weather; his schooling; the local news; anything and everything.
He thinks he's fallen in love.
*
"You're in love with the coffee boy?" Thancred had asked him. Last night, his three best friends had spent the evening at his apartment chatting over a couple of drinks and fighting game matches. Aedric had confessed that something had been weighing on his mind, and Thancred had so artfully pulled it out of him.
"For a year... yes."
"A whole year!?" Thancred almost choked around his sip of beer. "Ask him on a date, then." He scoffed. "I'd say you bloody well need to."
"Ah-ha! Thine tricks fooleth no one, O Avatar of Destruction!"
"Tell me that when you've mastered wave dashing."
Urianger and Y'shtola continued their one-on-one match in the background. Aedric absently heard the mashing of controller buttons, battle music, and the sounds of Urianger losing.
"H-how? I've never…" Aedric bit his lip and chewed it. He winced when a piece of skin broke. He really needed to use lip balm more often.
"GAME!" the announcer voice boomed from the television. Aedric glanced over to see Urianger's character fly off the side of the screen, while Y'shtola's was paused in the kick that had K.O.'d him.
"Never asked anyone on a date before?" Thancred set his beer down as Urianger dejectedly handed him the controller for his own one-on-one match.
"You know I haven't… all throughout college, I-I couldn't even speak to anyone I found attractive!" Aedric took the controller proffered by the victorious Y'shtola.
"Hey, you spoke to me on the first day of classes!" Thancred feigned hurt. They selected their characters on the screen, and soon the match commenced.
Aedric laughed. "Correction: you spoke to me first."
He landed a strike with his character's sword, sending Thancred's small mustached man across the arena. Aedric's character - green-clad and sprightly - chased after him.
"My hurt feelings aside," Thancred spoke as his character delivered a successful side kick. Aedric's was punted to a platform above. "Ask coffee boy on a date. What's the worst that could happen?"
"He's straight?" Aedric's character jumped, landing to the other side of Thancred's tiny man in overalls. "Or - worse - he does like men, but finds me unattractive." He struck again with his sword, whipping about in a circular movement.
"It would take someone mad to deny the affections of such an elezen." Thancred's character put a shield bubble up before Aedric could send him flying. The next moment, he flashed a yellow cape - sending Aedric's sword-wielding elf off the edge of the arena.
"You're just saying that because your own boyfriend is elezen," he smirked. His character performed an upward sword slash, giving him enough air to grip the ledge. "Not everyone has a type though."
He saw Thancred briefly glance over to where Urianger opened a bottle of hard cider in his apartment's small kitchen. The other elezen brought the dark glass bottle up to his lips; drank; swallowed. Urianger turned, then - grinning softly at Thancred. The hyur grinned back, no longer looking at the screen.
Thank you, Urianger.
Before Thancred could react, Aedric leapt up from the edge and delivered a low swipe of his sword. Thancred's red-clothed man went flying.
"GAME!"
Thancred's head whipped back to the television.
"H-hey!"
"Give me the controller, Thancred," Y'shtola's silken voice sounded from behind him. "Winners against each other now."
Thancred relinquished the controller. "I was distracted." He once again took his beer within his hand and sipped.
"Not my problem." Aedric laughed and once again selected the same character. He liked the green hat.
"Ask out the coffee cat and we'll call it even, hm?"
*
Aedric realizes he'd frozen at the question posed by G'raha the gorgeous barista. The café began to crowd before he knew it.
"Y-yes," he stutters out after a while, a little too loud this early in the morning.
He's holding up the line. There are at least five people behind him now.
The miqo'te grins up at him. "Coming right up, Aedric."
His heart clenches. The way his lips form his name; the casual way he says it… Aedric would faint if it were not for the imminent prospect of caffeine that kept him going.
"Th-thank you… G'raha," he tests his name out. Was this too familiar? Oh Fury, his heart was fit to burst right here and now.
"That'll be 10 gil," he says, opening the register with a too-loud chime.
Aedric hastily fishes out the gil from his pocket. He grabs too much.
G'raha holds out his hand; Aedric tries to drop the money into it as usual: no contact. But this time he allows his fingertips to gently brush the other man's hand as he deposits the coin. Feel the fleeting flicker of body heat coming from his palm.
He watches as G'raha Tia shudders at the slight touch. How his cheeks become redder, and he averts his shocked eyes. Did he find Aedric's fingers unpleasant?
"Keep t-the change," he manages, then leaves before G'raha can say another word to wait down at the end of the counter for his order.
He avoids eye contact by instead staring down at his phone. He doesn't have any notifications; he rarely does, besides the group text he shares with Thancred, Y'shtola, and Urianger. The last text is a photo of Urianger's pet rabbit.
He messages them.
Aedric: Oh my gods I touched his hand…
Thancred: intentionally?
Aedric: Of course not!
Thancred: F
Y'shtola: F
Aedric: wow okay
Urianger: Didst Thou Even See Mine Rabbit?
He doesn't notice the hushed conversation happening behind the counter between G'raha and the other barista - a lalafell wearing a yellow hoodie he can only assume is the manager here.
He doesn't notice the person striding toward him - not one but two cups of coffee in hand.
Doesn't notice the man standing in front of him before he clears his throat.
Aedric looks up from his phone and jumps.
"I'm on break now actually, so, well, if… I mean…"
G'raha Tia stands in front of him - apron removed to reveal a simple red T-shirt and blue jeans. He's never seen him on this side of the counter before. Never realized how short he was, either, which he now finds amusing. His tail thrashes to either side in what he can only assume to be nervousness; his feline ears are pinned back against his head.
Aedric forces himself to breathe.
"Would you like to sit and enjoy our coffee together for a while?" G'raha asks eventually, words coming out in a rush. Aedric sees him look briefly over to the lalafell manager, who gives him a thumbs up.
"Ye… yes!" he finally pushes out. "Absolutely."
He grabs the cup of coffee that G'raha holds out in one hand as they silently make their way over to a cozy table in the corner.
*
Oh gods, he's going to die. Straight up keel over.
Breathe, damn it, G'raha tells himself.
This tall, fidgety elezen had accepted his offer of sitting with him and sharing coffee. They'd been talking for the past bell. From how his classes were going, to what books they'd each been reading, to what games they'd been playing… Aedric might be awkward, G'raha thinks, but oddly charming.
He's so cute.
He'd gotten to know him over the past year of short conversations from the other side of the register. From what he could glean, Aedric worked at a local publishing house, but wrote his own short stories on the side in hopes of becoming a full-time writer, one day. But this was the first time they'd sat and talked at length.
"And then- haha," Aedric laughs, eyes crinkled at the corners behind his thick black glasses frames. "Then they get to the lair, and Thancred decides to seduce the dragon! To everyone's horror, he gets a nat twenty!"
Nat what now? He blinks. Aedric had been recounting some game he played with his friends on the weekends.
"I've never played this game before," G'raha admits. "You said it's all done with dice and paper?"
The elezen nods. By the Twelve, he's adorable. Blue eyes and freckles and shaggy dark hair. He wears a green checkered flannel over a shirt with a faded logo of some retro gaming console. His jeans are too short for his long legs; G'raha sees his colorful socks peek out from beneath the hem. They have corgis on them.
"I-if you'd like, you can… j-join us… next time… we can… make you a character…sheet…" Aedric's question fades as his face takes on a redder hue.
G'raha blinks.
Was Aedric asking him to spend time together outside of the café?
G'raha thinks back to Krile's words from earlier.
"Just ask him out already," she'd said as he stammered his objections.
"B-but what if he says no?" He'd wrung his hands over his arms, tail swishing nervously.
She’d shrugged. "Then he says no." Krile - his manager and best friend - handed him the two cups of coffee. "But what if he says yes?"
"O-of course, you don't… have to…" Aedric's shaking voice brings him back to the present. "D&D isn't for everyone."
"You…" G'raha swallows. "You said it was about adventures, right?"
The elezen's large blue eyes blink behind his glasses frames that sit somewhat askew on his face. "Yes! I-it is…"
"Then maybe… um…" He feels his ears pin back against his skull as they twitch. "I'd like that."
Aedric smiles - gods those lips. Full and lovely and very kissable, G'raha feels the need to physically restrain himself.
This is it. Ask him.
"Hey, so, what are you doing this Saturday?"
"S-so I was thinking, um, w-well, if you were free this Saturday, we could, um-"
They both look up at each other, blue meeting crimson. They'd spoken at the same time.
An awkward laugh; an exchange over now-empty coffee cups in this small corner of the café. Meandering guitar music plays from the speakers in the corner of the room - a gentle backdrop to this rare moment of silence.
"Yes, I'm free on Saturday," G'raha manages. Breathe. He forces a large gulp of air.
"Me, too," Aedric says gently, expression softening. He suddenly blinks in realization. "Ah, I-I mean, you already… knew that… b-because I asked."
G'raha has to laugh at that.
"Forgive me, but you're adorable," he speaks around fits of laughter. He feels his cheeks heat after admitting that, but doesn't retract his words.
The look Aedric gives him is akin to a deer in headlights.
"Y-you think I'm… I…" He watches his Adam's apple bob in his long neck. "Oh," he finishes.
"Yeah…"
"S-same, a-ah, for you, I… I mean…"
Both of them fidget, afraid but still longing to look each other in the eyes without looking away.
"Um, I-I'll pick you up then? Maybe we could get lunch? O-oh, um, we should… probably exchange numbers." Aedric nearly drops his phone on the floor with the way his hands are shaking. G'raha admires his hands, then, as he holds out the device; impossibly long fingers, tipped with chipped black nail polish and uneven cuticles.
"That would probably… be a good idea," G'raha chuckles. He fishes his own phone out of his pocket.
Their fingers brush as they exchange, and instead of recoiling, they both laugh lightly. A breathy sound, laced with giddiness and promises of Saturday.
G'raha looks down at Aedric's phone and types in his contact information. His screen is cracked. For good measure, he adds cat emoji next to his name.
He hands his phone back; hands brushing once more. They pause. Silence falls over them as they stare at one another - red-faced and grinning and eager.
"H-how does noon sound?" Aedric asks after he finally averts his gaze.
G'raha smiles even larger. Finally, he thinks. Finally I'll be able to spend time with him after I've been pining for so long.
"Noon sounds perfect."