In all honesty, the last job Casper had ever expected to get was making coffee at some artsy Wall Street. Not 'cause he was bad at making coffee. He was a barista of absolutely mediocre standard, and most of these stuck-up jackasses who slid by his counter sneered at the latte splodge before strutting out with their—

So okay, maybe 'cause he was kind of bad at making coffee. But it tasted nice, give him that. Mainly it was 'cause he figured these corporate children wanted some pretty giggling thing to leer at while he bustled about in an apron yanking levers and steaming milk. And pretty and giggling? The day someone called him pretty and giggling was the day he wholeheartedly splooged a heart on one of these yuppie fuckers' lattes.

Never gonna goddamn happen.

So pretty and giggling? Cross. Chipper demeanour? Cross. A passion and drive for serving coffee to America's aspiring one percent? Cross that one out so hard the pen rips through the paper.

After about two months slouching around behind the bar and pulling faces at coffee runners and rogue execs while their backs were turned, Casper had it narrowed down to the fact that they literally just did not care. The barista that served these high-flyers their coffee remained a faceless entity, a background NPC in their balls-to-the-wall business extravaganza. Casper usually went a whole day without a single one of these fucks looking him in the face – and hey, he'd give them his face was kinda hard to look at with these scars turning it to a grimace, but they didn't even grimace. None of them cared. Sometimes they dipped their phone from their ear to mutter a thanks, but their eyes slid over him as if he wasn't there.

All of them apart from this guy.

Well, he said this guy. Casper knew his name – he knew all their names from the over-and-over, endless "Can I take a name, please? Yes ma'am, that'll be five dollars forty and maybe if you punch me in the fucking face hard enough, I'll give you that sugar-sweet smile." But this guy, Casper remembered his name.

This guy was Cain. In fact, he was, "Yes, Cain—No, not with a bloody 'K', do I look like someone with a mother embroiled in the bloody Beverly Hills fantasy? Spell it the normal way." Casper had snickered and regretted it the second the mutter of laughter chuffed past his lips and scowled while he scrawled out Cain, because seriously, did this guy actually think he didn't just look like another posh prick whose mom thought unique meant how many 'ai's she could fit in the name?

And the proper way was tonnes worse, so fuck that yuppie.

Latte, no frills – that had been his order. That day, Casper hadn't been splooging out any latte art, so it was the last he saw of the guy.

Until he came back. Again.

And again.

And again.

Shouldn't have been a surprise, really, seeing as he probably worked scratching at the ceiling in one of them soaring skyscrapers, but Casper just wished he wouldn't. Because every time the guy came in, he saw Casper. He looked at him. He smiled. His eyes went kinda doey and seriously, that hard-edged face shouldn't have been made for doey eyes, but they were adorable.

See the problem? Adorable. Casper didn't do adorable.

Today, Casper slouched against the long bar that ran across the back of the coffee shop, arms folded and his head cradled in his hand. Slow day, but weekends got him that. Only a few mumbling souls slumped across well-stuffed sofas or perched behind laptops at the tables, gifting their souls up to the caffeine gods for please just another bit of spark slammed into my dissolving brain.

And while Casper slouched, he scowled, eyes pinned out through the slick glass front of the coffee store. A brusque wind gusted across the vast plaza beyond, slick grey flagstones circled by skyscrapers scratching at the sky. Casper's maybe-favourite-maybe-least-favourite customer made a beacon strolling across it, some thin drip of sunlight casting the white of his shirt into heavenly illumination while his long wool coat caught like an unnecessarily well-tailored sail in the wind.

Like seriously, did he really need his clothes to fit that well? Casper's stuff hung all wrong even when it was his actual stuff, and this stuffy shirt he had—

The bell rung as Cain shouldered the door open, a gasp on his lips and in the brusque colour lifted in his cheeks by the wind. He paused for a moment in the entrance, fingers flitting over his hair to ease it back in place, and while he did, his gaze trailed over the shop.

The moment his eyes met Casper's glower, a smile bloomed across his whole face.

Casper's heart skipped, jumping in his chest to lodge up in his throat, and hissing, he straightened up from the counter and busied himself jabbing the cost of a latte into the register. A little heat had risen in his cheeks but pray to the sour-faced gods that it didn't show.

Shit. If Mr. Cutest Smile of the Damn Universe caught him staring like that, he'd never go back to getting ignored in peace.

Cutest fucking... Casper rubbed his fingers against his temples and groaned.

"Everything alright?"

Casper started, hand coming up to his chest and eyes flying wide. The English lilt came from too close – and seriously, had Casper been staring at nothing that long? – and now Cain was right there the other side of the counter, big brown eyes wide with concern and Casper's heart was having some serious issues.

Cain's lips crooked, a smile a promise lingering in the gentlest of curves. The warm lights dangling from the coffeeshop ceiling seemed to gather above him, casting highlights of polished teak in the silken wave of his hair.

"Casper? Are you alright?"

Another lurch went through Casper's chest. Oh shit. Staring. Great. Now posh boy's lips were more of a grimace, a flash of teeth showing between them. The heat creeping up Casper's throat pushed the first thing that he thought of blurting from his lips.

"How the fuck do you know my name?"

Cain's face dropped to parted lips and blinking eyes, and Casper almost groaned again. Shit. Why was he like this?

"I—" Cain's fingers fidgeted with the sleeve of his coat. For once, he didn't quite seem to be able to focus on Casper, his eyes half drifting off to the blocky machine beside them and the takeaway cups stacked atop it. "You—Ah, your name tag. It's—"

"Right." The dead-drop rasp of the word cut off Cain off like a slap. Of course. Right there on his chest. Hi, my name's Casper and I want to jam my head beneath this steamed milk machine and drown on foamed dairy. Shit, and there weren't even any other customers to hurry this total trainwreck of an interaction along. The patrons lingered like part of a background, and not a single set of eyes from the sparse crowds outside lingered on the storefront.

Because seriously, who was in work at six on a Saturday buying a latte?

"That's three dollars then," Casper said to the till, because the sooner this guy left, the sooner Casper could bury himself in a shallow grave of coffee beans or something.

"I didn't tell you what I wanted."

Casper glanced up, and fuck off had the guy started smiling again. Just a little one, crooked with his cheek drawn into a dimple on one side. His eyes danced, but that was probably just the weird, glimmering lights wobbling about in mid-air.

Seriously, who looked that good?

"Latte," Casper bit out. "Large. Same as always. Like I'd forget someone with such a boring taste in coffee."

A flicker went through Cain's features, and for a moment, it seemed as if Casper had finally slapped the smile off his face. Right up until he laughed. A burst of bright, rich laughter cutting above the generic coffeeshop-jazz. Cain kind of tossed his head back when he laughed, just short of where it turned maniacal evil villain and just past the point where it drew the skin on his throat taut enough to dry Casper's mouth.

Cain grinned at him, one that twitched a little at the edges as if he struggled to contain it. A close smirk to fit that smug touch of slyness in his eyes. He leant his elbow on the raised part of the counter, cheek resting on the heel of his hand and a little drift of hair falling across his forehead. The side of his coat fell away, and Casper couldn't quite decide whether to look at the lines of his body beneath those expensive clothes or the laughter still echoing in his acorn eyes.

"So what coffee do you drink, Casper?" And shit, he didn't ask that like he asked about coffee. His tongue curled around Casper's name like it ran up the underside of his cock.

But 'cause Casper was a surly git and flirting just got him uncomfortable, his answer came jammed with crunching teeth. "It's three dollars for the latte."

Cain's smile dropped, and Casper's heart kind of wallowed off down to the floor with it. With a sharp, stiff movement, he straightened up and stuck his hand in his pocket, digging around for his wallet. His arm kept the coat pushed back, but the ends, rather than the brilliant flare they'd made in the wind, seemed to droop desultorily around his ankles.

Seriously, Roach, are you personifying his coat now?

"Macchiato." His voice came tart, almost with a petulant edge to it, and he didn't look at Casper as he whipped a ten dollar note out of his wallet and slapped it on the counter. "Venti. Triple, with soy milk. Caramel syrup, ten pumps. And put whipped cream on it."

Casper stared at him, his lip drawing back from his teeth and his finger hovering above the buttons on the register. "The whipped cream isn't soy."

"I don't care."

For fuck's sake. Gritting his teeth, Casper put on his most saccharine smile, all the scars on his cheek twisting grotesquely into it just the way he saw them curl in the mirror when he tried to make himself look normal. "Yes, sir. I'll get right on it." Casper plucked a cup from atop the machine and brandished his pen above the side, batting his eyelashes. "Can I take a name?"

Cain's lips pursed. "Cain."

Casper wrote Kane and slapped together the shoddiest coffee he'd made his entire barista career. Cain glowered out the window the whole time, tapping his foot while Casper smacked at the caramel syrup pump. Cain took it at the end with only the most bitter and grudging of thank yous before stalking out the shop.

The door slammed behind him in the wind, and Casper saw him shove the coffee into a passing stranger's hands barely outside. His coat swirled in the wind like the mourning cloth to all Casper's hopes of making a vaguely good impression on Mr goddamn fucking Cutest Smile in the Universe.

Shit.