A most addictive substance (Verdy)

It was times like these one needed to spoil oneself. Confident that her essay had made its way into the email inbox of whoever marked and graded them unharmed she had decided to take a walk to clear her head, and reward herself with a coffee. She wasn’t particularly fond of the stuff, but after the night she had had today was an exception to the rule.

The familiar green logo promised speedy service and guilt free lounging in the area. Some of the smaller cafés seemed oddly possessive of their chairs once the coffee was finished. Starbucks on the other hand had such a high turnover that noone would notice if she parked herself in one of the complimentary couches and just veged for an hour or two. The mansion had couched, and a coffee machine too, but there was just something about being surrounded by adults and not having to make your own coffee that was appealing.

As she was waiting in line her eyes did rounds of the area, spotting different couches and observing their occupants and cleanliness. The person beside her seemed off in her own world as well, and although they moved in step the woman didn’t even make eye contact. Spying a promising looking couch she made her order and stepped to the side to wait for it to be called. Mind wandering she absentmindedly listened to the other drinks being ordered and those preceding her being called from further down the counter.

Her attention was drawn by the hesitancy of a customer, and the moan of impatience from someone behind him in the line. Glancing for the source of the moan she found her eyes meeting those of a teen, clearly still school age, muttering to his posse about the incompetence of the current customer.

“Oy, shutup. Everyone has to learn somehow.”

Sometimes people’s rudeness astounded her. If they had just let the guy ask his question, then the issue would have been cleared up and he would have known for next time, instead of delaying future lines as well. Contrary to popular belief not all teenagers drank coffee religiously, and even those who did didn’t necessarily know the difference in cup sizes and their respective names.

She glanced at him and cocked her head to the side. Not only did he have the stance of someone in trouble, but the look the barrista was giving him suggested something a little odd. She did a quick sweep, as far as she could tell there was nothing visibly different on this, his right side, but perhaps the server could see something she couldn’t. A visible mutation?

For some reason she felt compelled to speak to outwardly obvious mutants. Perhaps it came from the fact that she had struggled to find the mansion, that if someone had realised she was a mutant and spoken to her, she might have found her place in the world sooner. Whatever the reason, she watched him as he left the line for ordering, to wait in the line for picking up the coffee, trying to determine his age and if he was a mutant.

Shaking a mutant’s hand could be a dangerous thing, as could making eye contact, so to be safe she merely nodded in his direction as he approached the line where she stood.

“I don’t get it either, silly names if you ask me. I’m Verdy.”

It was up to him now to take the bait and speak to her, or to shy away and pretend he didn’t hear her in the bustle of the café.

She raised an eyebrow at him, it was New York, so abrupt, snobby behaviour was expected, but she suspected his reaction was due to the irritability that comes from being muttered at in the coffee line.

“Yeah, I know. It means green but I’m clearly pink. Nice to meet you, Iddy.”

For if he referred to himself as one, he must have been comfortable with the term. Besides, she was waiting for coffee, she wasn’t expected to have intelligent conversations.

“I’ve got a strict no-touching rule with people I don’t know (get zapped once and things are never the same) so forgive me for not shaking hands”

It was a bit of a risk, but she had noticed some people were beginning to warm to the idea of carriers of the X-gene. Even if he was neither mutant nor sympathiser, getting zapped by a mutant didn’t lable her as one, so she was fairly safe from detection. She swept her eyes over him again. A teen, possibly borderline adult. He did look a little different, but nothing that immediately identified him as a mutant unlike the man with gills and scales around his ears blinking at an ornamental fish tank. There was something about Iddy’s eyes, but his hair was scraped over to cover his left eye and she couldn’t tell quite what it was without pointedly staring. She thought she saw a flash of silvery skin as he semi-apologised, but she wasn’t certain.

“No problem, everyone’s crabby before they get their coffee.”

She nodded as he made his point about the naming and sizing… issue that Starbucks was known to have. It really was ridiculous. Why couldn’t a coffee with chocolate be called a coffee with chocolate, a tea a tea and who even knew what some of the more crazy names meant.

“Yeah, even the counter dudes can’t spit it out half the time.”

One day, when it wasn’t too busy (or alternatively when it was extremely busy) she planned to get one of the employees to read her all the names, and if they refused, demand to speak with a manager.

“The staff, rather. Before you get hired here they have to train you in tongue twisters.”

It was probably true.

She eyed the boy, he looked calm now, but who knew what kind words could accomplish, or something like that.

“You alright now?”

The teenagers who had been making a fuss had turned their attentions to something else, and soon his coffee would be finished, so there shouldn’t be too much to frazzle him out in the current situation. Still, kindness from a stranger sometimes let a person rant with no consequences. She had nowhere else to be.

As he turned his head to glance around she caught a clearer view of what before she saw only a glimpse. One of his eyes was scarred, badly. Humans had scars too, and problems. Not all issues in the world were based on genes. Not to say that he had issues, of course.

He suggested that they find a table and she nodded her agreement with this question. The couch she had been eyeing had been nabbed by what seemed to be the girlfriend of one of the teens who made fun of the scarred boy in the first place, not a good place to seat themselves. She scanned the coffee shop again and spied a booth, relatively out of the way that was both empty and near to the door. Receiving her drink from the staff member she nodded towards it.

“I’ll go nab us that one while you wait for yours.”

That would give him a chance to consider his options, sometimes it was nice to chat, and sometimes flight instinct kicked in and all that was needed was a sliver of an opportunity and the party that felt vulnerable would flee. She had been the vulnerable, she saw some of the same characteristics in this boy. Maybe that was what made her speak up when she could have just let it slide, maybe not. Whatever the reason she did not want to come across all creeper-like, he was somewhat younger than her and in a big city everyone has the potential to be predator.

She swept the empty cup up off of the table and tossed it into a trashbin before settling herself comfortably into the booth and sipping slowly, the booth had a view onto the street and she idly watched the cars pass by. If he hadn’t arrived at the booth by the time she had counted to one hundred, then she would look back. For now, she was determined to give him his space.

‘Careful, I’m hot.’ The lid warned. Well, one would hope so, at a price like that if she had finally received her coffee and it be cold it would have been rather disappointing. Removing the lid warning and all she stirred in her sugars and began to scoop off the foam, or in this case bubbles, and let them dissolve against her tongue.

Was it training day today? Or unusually busy? Perhaps it was merely the fact that with such a well-known brand people were paying for the label on the cup, and didn’t care too much about what was on the inside, a physical manifestation of the world’s mentality. Whatever the reason, the coffee was nowhere near as lovingly crafted as those at the little café she usually stopped in if she was going on a caffeine binge. This was close, however, and guilt free if she simply wanted to zone out.

She glanced up as he joined her at the table (before she had even reached the 80s in her silent counting) and smiled. He had chosen to sit with her, rather than make a convenient exit through the door and out of her life. It would have been easy, in an effort to streamline, and lessen the amount that the staff had to clean, all orders take away and sit-in were served in take-out cups, it gave that papery taste to all the coffee that just wasn’t achievable with china or porcelain.

“Amen. And to be honest, the Holy Grail would probably taste better too.”

Less likely to have booths or couches though, and probably not easy to get to via public transport or walking. She pushed herself back against the backrest and eyed the boy more slowly now, taking in his slightly grubby and tousled appearance whilst sipping her drink silently.

“So, Iddy, what do you do with yourself when you’re not drinking coffee?”

Which guessing from the mix up in line was most of the time.

She chuckled at his description of the coffee ad, it would indeed appeal to somewhere upholding the tradition of calling sizes what the actually were. Who was supposed to know what a Grande was anyway?

“Religious nuts will be offended no matter what.”

It was true, if they weren’t protesting ads for safe sex, or mutant rights, they were complaining that Jesus’ hair was quite the right shade of brunette in a certain painting. Ignoring the fact that said son of god would have been an Arab and probably looked somewhat like those they discriminated against as they hopped off airplanes across the country. Eh, some people just refused to be content.

He gave a little information about himself and she politely nodded. Soccer she had used to be interested, back in the days of innocence before she ran away, but she hadn’t gone back to it in years. Perhaps it was time she did so.

“Heh, we seem to be doing a lot of the same. No soccer for me though, a pity. And I hope to pass my classes, I’ve been working quite hard on them.”

Of course she had. No surfing the internet for hours at a time, no indeed.

“I work as well, sometimes, and I have a dog who likes to go on walks.”

But only when it suited him.

She sipped her drink, now devoid of foam or anything slightly resembling it, and smiled as the warmth spread through her. With that essay submitted she was free, free as a bird, or a rock, or a tree, or some other free thing.

The young man made a cover-all observation on religion and she nodded sagely. It seemed the sort of explanation that one nodded sagely about, and at that moment her mouth was occupied with sipping her delicious hot beverage. Although, her belief in the unusual or unnatural had been somewhat reinforced by meeting Hunter, the origin of all vampire myths, and she was certain that there were other mutants out there who’s abilities were nothing short of miraculous, but still, religion itself she could see where the issue was.

He wasn’t a dog person, which was cool, after all she was. Differences make the world go round and all that. Although who wouldn’t love her little pirate captain once they met him she couldn’t say. Perhaps his previous owner, who had used and abused him, but surely not a rational, normal person. She decided to test this some other time when she was bored and wanted to theorise on the nature of humanity as a whole.

After a time of silence, respectful not awkward, he asked about her job. She had to think about it before she answered, it was difficult to explain exactly what her purpose was in the company, all she knew was that Slate had taken pity on her lack of employment and organised for her to work for him, earning a salary that probably wasn’t quite average.

“I guess I’m mostly a receptionist. I do paper-worky things like sort files-”

Alphabetically and numerically

“and send letters, sometimes emails. The pay is good though, and the people I work with are pleasant.”

When they weren’t too busy keeping an eye on her, whispering behind her back or in other words behaving just a little odd. Still, she worked for Slate and he was the one who mattered as far as workplace relations were concerned. She smiled at the boy and took another sip of her coffee.

“How about you, are you working?”