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Fenris orders his coffee black, because that's the only way to drink coffee; anything else is a bastardization. This is why he finds himself glaring at the blond with the ponytail in front of him whose order is like a soundtrack to all the things Fenris hates.
"…half-skinny, half one-percent, extra hot, split quad shot with whip."
Even Merrill the barista looks dazed. Fenris is a regular-—he catches her eye and shrugs as if to say, I know, right, what the fuck.
Merrill recovers before Fenris does. "For here or to go?" she asks, staring down at the cash register. Her fingers are still, hovering in the air like they have no idea how to even begin to ring that up. Fenris doesn't blame her.
"For here," the bane of Fenris's existence says. He elbows Fenris in the chest as he reaches behind him to pull out his wallet.
"Watch it," Fenris snaps-—snarls, really, because he has no patience for this today. He needs to curl up in a window seat with his Macbook and write two papers because he is a hopeless procrastinator and nobody has given a shit about Citizen Kane in like fifty years, no matter what his film professor says.
And then the bane of Fenris's existence turns around and Fenris can't breathe.
He is perfect. He has bangs and weekend stubble and straight white teeth. The fact that the front of his v-neck is covered in orange cat hair can be overlooked for the time being. The only thing ruining this moment is the way he's glaring at Fenris like he's a particularly disgusting pile of poo.
"Excuse you," he says, fantastic goldish-brown eyes narrowed in a way that pushes all of Fenris's yes buttons. "It was an accident."
Fenris's brain has lost the ability to function. Meanwhile, Merrill has finally figured out how to enter the blond's complicated order and is meekly trying to regain his attention.
"Sir? I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but if you don't mind, could I have your name?"
"Oh, yes, of course," the blond says, swirling back around. Fenris inches sideways so he can watch the way he smiles like a bombshell at Merrill and tucks two dollar bills in her tip jar. "It's Anders." And then he even winks.
Merrill turns pink all the way to her ears. Fenris would swoon if he weren't trying so hard to look like he didn't care. After Anders has paid and wandered off to a table to wait for his coffee, Fenris steps up to the counter and glares at her.
"What?" She blinks innocently.
He clips his Ray-Bans to the front of his shirt and taps his fingers on the counter. "Dibs."
"On who?"
"It's whom, and on him." He points to Anders with his eyes.
"The one you just made enemies with?" she asks. She pulls down a cup and slides it to him across the counter as she rings up his order: tall black coffee. Always the same.
"That's the one." Subtly—-or not-so-subtly, he doesn't give a fuck-—he leans back to examine Anders sitting at his table. He's fiddling with his iPhone with an adorably pouty expression. "Hate sex can be hot."
"I wouldn't know," she says in a wistful tone. Fenris looks shocked and she swiftly turns even pinker. "I mean, not that I would want hate sex. I think loving relationships are wonderful. Not that there's anything wrong with hate sex, either. You should just… do what you feel," she finishes lamely.
Fenris stares at her, amused.
"Two-fifty, please," she adds in an embarrassed squeak.
He hands her a five, smirking, and dumps the change in the tip jar, partially to show up that hot-ass Anders if he's watching. Then he carries his mug to the carafe station in the middle of the shop, fills his mug, and takes it to a table where he can make eyes at Anders and not write his papers.
Anders notices; he notices so hard that he does a double-take over the top of his iPhone. His eyes narrow in that sex-on-legs expression again, tinged with suspicion, and he looks around himself like Fenris might be staring at someone else.
Keep looking. Fenris sips his coffee and smirks. There's no one else.
When Anders has either a) received Fenris's telepathic message, or b) deduced that there is indeed no one else attractive enough for Fenris to stare at, he turns back to Fenris and raises his eyebrows. Those eyebrows say, What? What are you looking at?
And Fenris's eyebrows wiggle to say, You.
This is where eyebrow-talk gets complicated, because Fenris has no idea what Anders says with his next. That's when he decides, fuck it, he's going over there, and so he does. He takes his coffee and usurps the chair Anders was propping his feet on and settles in like he owns the place.
Which he kind of does. He doesn't think the management knows it yet, but this is his coffee shop. Here, he is king. This coffee shop doubles as his unofficial office hours, where hapless freshman seek out his advice on À bout de souffle and Ladri di biciclette and other classic films that don't suck as much as Citizen Kane, despite the fact that he's not a TA. Anders probably isn't aware of any of this, either, but Fenris is generous and willing to educate him.
"So you're hitting on me even though you were just snarling at me not two minutes ago," Anders says as he places his iPhone on the table like he's laying out all his cards.
"Yes," Fenris admits readily. Mentally, he gives Anders props for recognizing that he had indeed snarled. "I hadn't seen your face yet and I thought your order was terribly pretentious and annoying."
Anders looks torn between being annoyed and amused. "Your flirting could use some work."
He shrugs. "I don't usually have to work to get people to notice me."
Anders seems to contemplate this, openly letting his eyes rove over the points of Fenris's ears and the white tattoos that travel from his chin down into the dip of his worn t-shirt. Fenris's Ray-Bans are still clipped to the collar; Anders reaches over and plucks them off.
"Are these just for show, then?" he asks, putting them on. The lenses are clear and prescription-less.
"Yes. They make me look intelligent." Fenris isn't bothered by this at all.
Anders hands them back. "They make you look like an asshole."
Somehow, he finds himself smiling at this. "That, too. Are you suitably charmed yet, or do I have to keep going before you'll go on a date with me?"
"I was actually planning on asking out the cute barista over there." Anders points to Merrill, who is still blushing and studiously not looking their way. He waves anyway.
"Unfortunately, she'll say no, because I have already informed her that I have dibs." He drinks some more coffee while Anders gets his offended look out of the way. "So really, in order to go on a date with her, you have to go on one with me first."
"You're extremely full of yourself."
He grins. "Aren't you curious to find out if it's justified?"
"Not particularly, no," Anders drawls, but his eyes are drawn back down to the hollow of his throat.
"Are you sure?" Fenris knows how attractive his collarbones are and sits up straighter to show them off.
Groaning, Anders thunks his head on the table. "This would be a lot easier if you didn't have the sexy tattoo thing going on."
"You don't even know." Fenris is grinning broadly now, leaning back to unzip and strip off his orange hoodie. Underneath, his arms are covered by the same tattoo that starts above his throat. Anders' pupils rapidly grow to the size of dinner plates.
"That's…impressive," he says gruffly, like he's having trouble getting his vocal chords to cooperate in the face of the intense sexiness displayed before him.
Fenris leans forward and whispers, "They don't stop there."
There's a crash from the counter; Merrill, no doubt eavesdropping, has dropped a cup.
Anders looks like he needs to either fan himself or find a private place to discover exactly how far Fenris's tattoos go. "I see." His eyes flash towards Merrill. "You know, the barista has tattoos, too. What makes yours better?"
He shrugs back into his hoodie and traces the rim of his mug with his fingertip, staring pointedly into Anders's face. "Because I said so."
Anders swallows visibly. His Adam's apple bobs up and down and Fenris has the almost undeniable urge to reach over and bite it. But he is cool under pressure, so he reigns himself in and arches his eyebrow at Anders expectantly, knowing that he's got him hooked.
"One date," Anders says like he's the one doing Fenris the favor. From the counter, Merrill meekly calls his name and puts his bastardization of coffee on the ledge.
Fenris's lip upturns. "How very kind of you." Uninvited, he spins Anders's iPhone around, unlocks it—really, who's naïve enough these days to use 1234 as their password?—and enters his phone number. Then he reaches over and presses it into Anders's palm, warm and lingering, and gets up.
Anders blinks at him. "Where are you going?"
"I have to bullshit two papers and help some idiots understand Italian neorealism," he says. And pick out a shirt that shows off his tattoos, but he'd rather let that be a surprise.
"And I'm supposed to call you?" Anders says incredulously.
"Yes. My best guess is you won't last more than three days."
Anders sputters.
Fenris smirks, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder and sliding his Ray-Bans onto the bridge of his nose. He nods casually towards the counter. "Your drink's getting cold," he says, and then sweeps out of the café. He vaguely regrets not getting to finish his coffee, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices for dramatic exits.
* * *
Anders lasts four days, which is equal parts annoying and impressive. Hate sex, he is delighted to report to Merrill on Monday morning, is as fantastic as he'd imagined. He's swiping orange cat hair off his V-necks for days, but he can't wipe the smile off his face when Anders swaggers in at half past ten. He orders some needlessly complicated and heathenish drink, plops down in the seat next to his, and puts his feet in Fenris's lap like he owns the place.
"This is a change," Fenris says. He squeezes Anders's delicate ankle bone and smothers a grin.
"So I was thinking," Anders says, completely ignoring what Fenris said. He shifts, wiggles in his chair, and blows on his drink. "Date two. Actual conversation before we tear each others' clothes off?"
"Conversation is overrated," Fenris says, curling his lip as Anders takes a drink of his nasty, sugary concoction. He's already planning on taking Anders to the classic film festival this weekend, where he can converse the crap out of him on the subject of cinematography and silent films.
It's enough to get him more hate sex and date number three.
They stop keeping count after that.