fandomtownies | The Perk - Saturday morning

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The Perk - Saturday morning

Fenris let his roommate head to the beach before dawn. He waited until a more reasonable hour to follow, but beforehand, he wanted to try his rectangle. Debit card, Peter had called it. Strange term.

He found his way to the coffee shop and went inside. He couldn't read the signs but plain coffee wasn't hard to order. He brazenly presented the ..debit..card.. for payment as though he knew what he was doing. Watching as the clerk swiped it through a machine and asked him for a signature. Fenris made an X on the screen with the stylus and his card was handed back to him.

Two paper cups of coffee were set on a table as he took a seat with an actual mug of the drink. He was here to people watch, have some coffee, and give his roommate a little bit of privacy.

[Open!]

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Rosa had been given a gift that morning: her dog, thoroughly exhausted from having gotten to spend several days playing with her best friend in the whole wide world Cheddar (it should be noted, of course, that the title of 'best friend in the whole wide world' was and always would be attributed to whichever other fuzzy creature was closest in vicinity at that time), was actually sleeping in that morning. Not wanting to spoil the rare peace by making coffee at home and risking awakening the cuddly beast, Rosa decided to get her caffeine fix at the Perk that morning.

Besides, it had been a while since she'd enjoyed some Asshole Watching, and Saturdays at the Perk were usually rife with plenty of that. Hadn't she actually met Seivarden Asshole Watching at the Perk? Huh. Yeah, that sounded just about right.

So she prepared herself to keep a tally of how many people complained that they wanted their drink iced, not hot, despite not having said anything remotely like that when they ordered and only after the barista had handed them their drink and they had watched her make it, and she wondered if Angry-Guy-Who-Threw-The-Cream-Pitcher-In-The-Trash-In-A-Fit-Of-Rage would come in today, because he was always fun, while she glanced around idly in the five seconds (they were clearly dragging their asses today) it took for them to get her oh-so-complicated order of a Large Black Coffee.

And of course the guy with ears and all the shit on his face was going to get a quirked brow, because 1) she was pretty sure she hadn't seen him before and because 2) ...Rosa. It was Rosa.

Fenris was also people watching, because that was what one did in a place without the reasonable sense to offer alcohol.

He saw the human woman come in and scan the room. When she quirked a brow at him, he quirked one mockingly right back at her.

See, now, that was a correct way to respond to an eyebrow quirk.

Rosa got her coffee, took a sip, and jerked her chin up. "You must have a fun time at airports," she said, fully aware that he probably didn't even know what airports were.

"I doubt I would," Fenris said back, being contrary because he had no idea what an airport was. He nodded his chin back at her, "Do you?"

"Oh, yeah," said Rosa. "Oodles."

As was clear by the dry as the Sahara tone of her voice.

She eyed the guy again for a moment before asking, "You new?"

Which, surely, he wasn't sick of hearing by now, but, in Rosa's case, it was pretty genuine. She didn't pay attention to half the people on the island, and didn't even remember some the names of the people who she did speak to regularly. It was really hit and miss.

He ignored the comment of 'oodles' but filed away that airports were apparently not fun places for people like her - or, to be honest, probably also him.

With a polite nod, he answered, "Fenris. And yes, I'm new. You're not?"

"Unfortunately," Rosa snorted, then shrugged, sipped her coffee. "But I guess there are worse places to be. So. What do you do around here, Fenris?"

It sounded like a fake name. Most of the names around here did. She..probably wouldn't remember it. Not when there were those ears to remember instead.

"You should try out the place I came from sometime, if you'd like to see what 'worse' looks like," Fenris said calmly, "What I do around here? Try to make sense of the place, for now. I'm thinking about working at the plant store. The owner offered me a job."

It was the only name he remembered having.

"Good luck with that first part," Rosa said. "I gave up on making sense of this place a long time ago. But plants. That sounds cool."

If you also thought watching paint dry was cool, maybe.

Fenris shrugged, "If he'll pay me, it's honest work." He thumbed at the sword hilt over his shoulder, "Apparently not much call for the work I normally do, around here."

Rosa made a point to eye that thumbing on that hilt for a moment before the quirked brow was back on Fenris.

"Circus performance?" she guessed.

She figured that wasn't it, but that would still explain a lot if it was.

Fenris considered that, "Unless you consider hunting slavers to be performance art, no." He sipped his coffee, "Though that's really more of a hobby."

"That's one helluva of hobby," Rosa said, brow wrinkling slightly, because that definitely wasn't something she'd have guessed in a million years even if she had tried, but it was...oddly interesting in a way. "But, yeah, you missed that one by about a hundred and sixty years, at least around here."

And she would have left it at that, but, again, it just stuck with her. "What the hell is someone who hunts slavers doing in a place like this?"

Maybe it was just a profound offense that if he was here, then there were slavers...somewhere.

"I don't know. I've been told that slavery is illegal here," Fenris said dryly. "So I suppose I'll need to find a new hobby."

"It is," said Rosa, who looked confused for a second because something wasn't adding up quite right, and then it clicked, and she was almost personally affronted. "Wait, are you saying that it isn't where you're from?" You don't need a new hobby, buddy, you need a flame-thrower so you can go back and torch that place to the ground."

Fenris thumbed up at his sword again, "I have a sword and a personal enjoyment of chasing down slavers and relieving them of the need to breathe. No, slavery is not illegal where I'm from. It's a very large industry that has eclipsed several races."

He took a sip of his coffee and said calmly, "Including mine."

"That's messed up."

And may have even made him actual name-worthy.

Maybe. It's not like she controlled that sort of thing, but it was hard to think That Slave Guy was a catchy nickname.

"You ever need another sword...or knife...or axe...or gun...or semi-automatic," she said, "let me know. Name's Rosa Diaz, I'm the detective around here, but that doesn't usually mean balls in a place like this. But I, too, get a lot of personal enjoyment out of beating the crap out of pieces of shit who deserve it."

And...usually she wasn't allowed to...so...

"Nice to meet you, Rosa Diaz. If I ever find pieces of shit who deserve the crap kicked out of them, I'd be happy to invite you to the party." He took another sip, "Especially if you bring an axe." Another sip. "More than one."

It was always so nice to have another person who appreciated a woman with a damn axe around here.

Or several.

"I'm sure it could be arranged."

"I had a friend, back home. You remind me of her, a little," Fenris smiled a little, "Aveline. Guard captain. Carried a really big axe. She also had no tolerance for the kind of two-legged trash that would deserve to see the sharp side of that axe, either."

Miguel grinned as he saw who else was here. "Officer Diaz."

To his credit, Rosa actually did have to work a little bit to not smirk back. Not a lot. But a little.

She nodded. "Captain Tightpants."

Since they were being so formal and all.

"I'd say you can call me Miguel, but you'd probably forget again," Miguel said. "And if I let you shorten Tightpants, I'd probably just end up T.P., so I'll take it."

He picked up his coffee and saluted her with it. "How's your week going?"

"See, that's why I like you, T.P," Rosa said, because he pretty much just plopped that one straight into her hand, "you get it."

That second question required some coffee before she knew what to answer, though. "And it's been...fine. Was back home for most of it."

A statement just about as loaded as her gun, really.

"Yours?"

"We watched a scene from a terrible movie in class and then tried to create live people using dolls and computer programming," Miguel said. "Unfortunately, nobody opted to wear bras on their heads." Because he would've gotten pics of that for posterity.

"And I've been ordered to make a man-eating flower for a friend's birthday."

That was his week.

"Your class is dumber than mine," Rosa noted, matter-of-fact, "and you have weird friends."

Rosa also liked stating the obvious.

"Did you friend order this, or someone who hates your friend?"

"No arguments there," Miguel said. "My friend ordered it, so. If people start going missing, just look for a big, well-fed flower."

And, hey, here she'd just met a dude with a sword who might start getting into horticulture, imagine that. Full circle.

"Why?"

"I have no shocking clue," Miguel confessed. "I think I talked her down to a carnivore, maybe something more like a fancy flytrap. I still need to get her back for signing me up for this class, and I'm not that stupid."

Getting eaten by his own plant would be a really dumb way to go.

On a break from work (there were only so many waffles he could take), Miguel wandered over to get coffee without a side of grumbling.

He nodded to the guy in the armor and ordered something with a lot of espresso and spices in it.

Fenris nodded politely back to the guy in the smoked glasses.

"You're new," Miguel noted. Hey, at least it wasn't a question; that was a step up, right? "Where're you from?"

Fenris arched an eyebrow. "The Tevinter Imperium, originally, but lately from Kirkwall in Ferelden. Which probably means nothing to you other than 'not here'."

"Nope, never heard of it," Miguel confirmed. "Welcome to Fandom. Had your brain broken yet?"

"This entire island is clear evidence that my brain has indeed broken," Fenris said wryly.

"That's a great way of starting out." Miguel toasted him with his coffee. "It's only up from here."

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The Perk - Saturday morning

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