No matter how much Casper hated this job, it still got worse when the day closed. When the crowds died and night hung dusky over the sky.

Casper wiped over the machines with a fervour. One like maybe if this fucking nozzle shone so dazzling bright he couldn't look at it, it'd blind him to this empty hollow inside his chest. The monster inside his gut that wheezed with putrid breath. It hid behind the chaos of the rush, and each time Casper hit a pause, breathless with adrenaline and the hope, the eternal shitty misplaced hope, that this time the monster was gone, fucked off, left him alone and—

It never did. Its rotten teeth drooped from diseased gums and it opened its maw to welcome him home, and no amount of latte art or coffee beans jammed down his fucking throat would satisfy it.

Left him so he could hardly breathe.

Not even the hammer of the rain against the windows soothed it, a veil of downpour so thick and black it swallowed all light. The coffeeshop stood alone on the square, a little glass boat casting its weak light out to sea and begging for salvation.

None ever came. Not for him. Roach Boy oozed filth from between his yellowed teeth and poisoned anything that came close.

He was down on the floor when the bell rung, scrubbing some sour milk out of a cupboard that sure as fuck hadn't just been spilt that day. The stink of curdled dairy gutted the acrid chemical burn. It rooted itself inside the cavity to create a suited horror of the worst shit Casper had ever smelt. And he's smelt some bad stuff in his years. In fact, he'd go as far as to say his existence was just one big miasma of bad smells.

The sweet tinkle caught him mid-gag. The thundering rush of rain gusted in on howling wind. Hadn't he locked that? He sure as fuck thought he'd locked that because if he didn't lock it, then just like right now, one of these entitled corporate jackasses decided eight in the fucking evening was a great time to drag Casper away from the sweet siren call of home and oblivion for a soy cunting latte.

Well fuck that. The day that the Customer Service Smile covered breaking and entering was the day Casper hung himself with his goddamn apron. He clenched his fists, tracing the footsteps past the tinkling piano refrain until they stopped just in front of the counter.

Casper jerked to his feet. "We're not fucking—"

Mr Cutest Smile in the goddamn Universe looked just as cute with Casper's rubbery yellow finger jabbed inches from his eye. In fact, the way he went cross-eyed to look at it was downright adorable.

A convulsion spasmed through Casper's chest. Cain's lips, which had parted in surprise at the finger speared at his face, softened out. The smile that they shaped suffused his whole face with a sugar sweet syrupy dream.

No one Casper had ever seen smiled with as much of themselves as Cain did. When Cain smiled, it was in every inch of him, even down to the way his shoulders eased. His hand splayed across the counter and he leant in, ducking his head past Casper's drooping jab of accusation.

"Sorry." The creamy light drifted over Cain's hair, the glossy smoothness of it tousled a little by clutches of raindrops. Each one was a little diamond, but even that paled against his smile. "The door was unlocked."

At this point Casper's brain was nothing but a disco ball of sparkling lights scattered over Cain's features like his whole face was a toothpaste advert.

"I locked that," Casper said.

"Really? It seemed open to me."

Casper wanted to scowl, but he really couldn't make himself. "Just 'cause you got a nine-figure net worth doesn't mean you can break into my fucking shop past closing. I locked it."

"You caught me." His eyes danced as he said it, and it struck Casper that they were just the same colour as caramel syrup. "Although, I'm not sure anyone can blame me for breaking in on such a cold, rainy night while my favourite barista's all alone in the dark."

Oh.

Did he actually just...?

Cain let out a loud groan right at the same time as Casper said, "Dude, that's fucking creepy as shit."

"I know." Cain straightened up, the spell of his smile breaking behind the hand he rubbed over his face. "I know. That was bloody dreadful. Sorry."

"If you try to murder me, I'm shutting your face in that fucking panini machine." And at Cain's look of horror, Casper grinned. He leant his hip against the counter and crossed his arms. "Y'know, like hiss, then some screaming. Guess I'd better put it on now if I really want the effect."

Cain laughed, a genuine, rich sound that danced between the slow notes of jazz suffusing the air. "I promise I'll fail at escaping until the grill heats up should I decide to murder you. But I also promise not to attempt homicide either."

"Well..." Casper put on a look of consideration as he tugged the yellow gloves off his hands. Kinda made it easier to not smile. "I guess you can stay then."

Cain's long coat swayed about his ankles as he took a step closer and mimicked Casper's position leaning against the side of the counter. The low light caught like starshine in his thick silver ring as he spread his hand across the redwood. He had nice hands, Mr Super Cute Smile. Real long, elegant fingers that didn't look like they'd ever squeezed anything beside a pen and some fantasy image of a small, black-haired boy too ugly to deserve it.

Shame, 'cause Casper reckoned they'd fit so right around his waist it'd be like he'd found home.

His breath caught, a wet knot right at the bottom of his throat. Shit. Eyes pressed closed, Casper gave his head a shake and straightened up. What was he thinking? Fuck, it was by far about time to close up and go home. Cain was just charming his way into a coffee. Like that gleaming sunshine grin could persuade Casper to get himself stuck here for another half an hour just to make a goddamn latte.

Except when he opened his eyes again to caramel syrup and a frown softening Cain's brow, his mouth just went straight back on autopilot. Flip the switch, cadet, 'cause Captain Casper ain't fucking home.

"You want a coffee?"

"What?" Cain's lashes batted in slow, drizzly blinks. "Oh, ah... No! No, you've just cleaned up."

Christmas goddamn miracle that. Casper made himself look out the window instead of at those doe-eyes, but the rain fell so thick and dark, all he got was his own taut features looking back at him. A face all dark hollows and pits where his eyes should be – a ghoul haunting the empty husk behind his skin.

"What do you want then?"

'Cause if he didn't want the Customer Service Smile, Casper was out of options.

"I..."

Trailing off, Cain-reflected turned his head, and the moment their eyes met in the window, a jolt went through Casper's chest. One like electric. Like magnetism, and Casper couldn't look away. His hand found the edge of the counter, and he squeezed it like the polished edge digging into his palm might ground his mind.

The hitch of Cain's breath sounded in the moment the song faded to silence.

"I ... I'm not—" Another shaky breath, and the Cain in the window lifted his hand to rake back through his hair. Not the one on the counter. That one was still there, just ... inches away from Casper's.

A notch of tension gathered in his gut. Low, but it was almost nothing to the shock of heat that pulsed through his chest.

Just a couple of inches away.

"I'm not sure," Cain said. Even his voice shook, and something high and tight ran through the centre of his dulcet tone. "I—I suppose I saw you by yourself through the window and ... and just decided to—well, to come see you. I don't know why."

Oh. If Casper could bear to look away from the way the light across the cascading water cast Cain's features to drizzling gold, he'd close his eyes. Drown his outside senses in darkness just to revel in how this fucking ache in his chest consumed him. A heat spilled through his stomach, threatening to snap some want in his belly like twine pulled out too tight.

If he just lifted his fingers and straightened them out, he'd brush the side of Cain's hand.

Was it as smooth as it looked? Did it feel like silk and cream?

Casper's breath wouldn't quite come right. Kinda felt like all of the muscles in his body had tensed up and his lungs couldn't quite feed them. Both their faces were still turned to the window, and he couldn't look away. But he wasn't really seeing.

Was that warmth against his arm from Cain? The slightest tingle of something fresh and free on his tongue? What if he straightened his fingers? It wouldn't harm.

Probably wouldn't reach.

It was a little uncomfortable like this anyway, with the way the counter dug like a blunt knife into the back of them. Each breath Casper took made a gasp in the tightness through his chest. The counter scraped along the back of his finger as he drew it up out of the white-knuckle curl.

A crack of thunder rolled through the shop, thick and grumbling, but the darkness outside was absolute. The shop stood a ship of glass and thick china astride the rolling swell of the sea, one so vast that each heave of its shoulders passed unnoticed within the microscopic sanctuary lost to the storm.

Casper could taste coffee and pine on his lips as his nail knocked past the edge of the counter. His fingertip caught on the varnished surface.

And if the rain was the storm and the twinkling jazz within the shop was a sunshine day, then Cain's words, little more than a breath, were the first snowflakes kissing the tip of your nose as you turned your face to the sky.

"Do you ever wonder what it'd be like to tear all of this apart?" Cain's eyes didn't leave Casper's in the window as his spread hand panned before him, as if to encompass all that lay beyond the glass. Casper's finger stuttered as he pushed it along the counter. He couldn't breathe. "To be like the storm, Cas. To just ... cripple steel and dash concrete to sand. Flood the streets and drown all the rats as they scurry from their holes. Force roots through tarmac and worm vines between mortar and let flowers bloom from all the filth trickling through the veins of the place. Rip it all apart and just ... start again.

"I do sometimes." A fissure through those words. "A lot. Sometimes it consumes me so much I can't think of anything else."

Casper's finger jumped forward once more and knocked against the side of Cain's hand. Heat sparked through the tip of his finger, and Cain's finger nudged against Casper's knuckle in the same breath. His heart jolted, a gasp forced from his chest and he heard it echoed like some fucking symbiosis in Cain's throat.

"Yes." The words would hardly come out, a croak hoarse with want and desperation. "All the damn time."

Another thick sound from Cain. The finger against Casper's knuckle lifted, another joining the first to brush against the side of Casper's hand. It was like electric. Fuck, his heart was going to burst. This was it, an explosion of gore in his chest and blood spurting from between his lips and RIP Roach Boy. Biggest loss would probably be the morning rush closed to clean up his fucking corpse.

But shit, there were worse ways to die than this. Cain's fingers curled around to press against his palm. His eyes shone in the window like they'd been painted golden and left in the rain to run. His lips were parted, the bright colour of them a watercolour bloom against his pale skin, and they'd feel so fucking good sliding against his own.

Casper's heart clutched tighter when Cain spoke again. Cain's thumb joined his fingers, smoothing over the back of Casper's hand all hot and dry and so soft Casper might cry.

"And—" Cain's voice had never been that shaky. So thick and tight and ragged. "A—And do you ever ... do you ever wish you could find someone who'd just make it all stop? Make you like summer and sweetness and—"

"And snow."

Cain turned to him so slowly that Casper thought his knees might give out while he waited. Another roll of thunder trawled over the shop, a growl of nature that Casper felt in his bones. But it was nothing to the way his chest just burst when Cain's eyes met his. The cappuccino cream of his hair and caramel syrup drizzling above the most heart-rending smile Casper had ever seen.

"Yes." Casper squeezed his hand around Cain's fingers, relishing the way the gasp lifted all of Cain's features to liquid gold. "Like ... yeah. Yeah. All the fucking time."

"Casper?"

A knock hammered through the shop, deep booms ringing above the chaos of the downpour. Casper jerked back from the counter, a yelp bursting from his lips, and Cain spun around, his grip on Casper's hand tearing free. Cain's curse came harsh and low as Casper sought the—

"What the—"

Another series of knocks. Just outside the glass door, a man in a suit with an overcoat over his head gave a wave as soon as Casper caught his eyes. The guy jabbed his finger at the handle and his mouth made the exact shapes that haunted Casper's dreams.

Are you open?

Casper gaped at him. Shit, his heart was still thundering against his ribs. His hand—just like his cheeks, it was aflame.

And this guy fucking ruined it.

"No, we're not fucking open!" With great, exaggerated motions, Casper made a shooing gesture in the air. "Go on, fuck off!"

Except the guy was looking entirely at Cain when his face paled, hand dropping like a limp fish to his side. Like a ghost, he spun on his heel and vanished into the night.

'Cause there was that look again, haunting Cain's face like the heathen god of coffee as black as night, and this time it didn't come with the devil beckoning Casper to his knees.

That look would make the storm outside tremble.

As the last shadow of the stranger faded into the downpour, Cain gave a hiss tight between his teeth and jerked his head away from the door. The darkness ebbed out in the space as he lifted his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Bollocks." Cain planted his elbow on the top of the coffee machine, the rest of his hand spreading across his face like a cradle. "These bloody imbeciles, I swear to god."

A really bad joke came dangerously close to skipping off Casper's tongue. To yourself? And credit the pressing need to wheeze oxygen back into his brain that he didn't make it.

Fuck, had that just happened? The way Cain had choked on honesty. And his touch, his fingers curled around Casper's hand...

It was still there, the heat tingling against his palm. Casper pressed his eyes closed and let out a shuddering breath. Thank fuck for this apron, because otherwise he'd be showing exactly how shook that just got him.

What now? Cain still wasn't looking at him, taking short, harsh breaths that sounded clear above the low music. He...

Casper swallowed hard and took a slow, silent step back. What now was nothing now. There was no way that had been what Casper had thought it'd been. Not with a guy like Cain. Not Mr Smile So Cute Casper's Heart Might Break. None of that fucking perfection belonged to Casper.

He wasn't done closing up but fuck it. Wasn't like that nameless girl ever did any better. The dusk in the corners pressed like demons against the light, and a more insidious darkness suffocated Casper's skull.

His heart still beat so hard. It'd been years since he felt this alive.

"Casper?"

Only the slightest hint of a tremor ran through Cain's voice, and it sounded nothing like the last hoarse, desperate way he'd said Casper's name. So little that it was more like imagination than reality. Casper shook his head, scratching at the sides of his hair, and took a step back. He didn't look at Cain, only the way the nozzles of the machine didn't get anywhere near shining so bright they blinded him.

"I—I, uh—I've really gotta shut up the shop. You should probably go."

"What?" A clatter drew Casper's eyes, just quick enough to catch Cain fumbling to straighten a pot full of over-priced biscuits. His eyes were wide, the whites like the rim of a mug circling coffee with caramel cream. "No, Cas, don't—"

The words burst out louder than Casper wanted. Way, way louder. "I don't think you get to fucking tell me whether I can close my fucking shop or not!"

The glossy silver of the machines was polished just bright enough to see the way his own features were little more than shattered glass.

"Fine," Cain said. Bitter, that word. Casper could taste it in his mouth. Tears stung his eyes as Cain kept talking. "I'll piss off then, shall I?"

No. Please, no. Just stay. Stay. "Yeah, that'd be good."

"Fine."

It took so long that Casper thought he wasn't going to, but just when he was about to look away from his own face falling apart, footsteps. Stamps across the tiles and Casper didn't move, didn't breathe, until he heard the wet rustle as Cain picked up his umbrella.