Chapter 1
It was exactly half past eight when Regulus had completely lost his mind. He looked over the counter at the lady, frowning at his non-existing latte-art, and thought to himself that oh my dear god he had never been so close to hitting a woman in his entire life. She curled her rose coloured lips in a sympathetic smile before slipping twenty cents into the tip-jar with “for a better therapist” written on it with Sirius’s perfect handwriting. Well, if all workdays of his pathetic brother were filled with people like those Regulus didn’t even question the need of a way better therapist that the one Sirius had already gotten himself.
Just one day, he kept telling himself, just ten hours more and he would go home and forget that any of this has ever happened. What did he think about accepting Sirius’s request? Should have sent him packing and let him deal with the consequences of his actions alone for god’s sake. But he didn’t. He didn’t and now he was stuck at this “job” with a silly apron, badge with his brother’s name and a plenty chores to do. Luckily Regulus didn’t care about them enough, so he reached for his phone and slid down on the floor next to the coffee-machine.
There were several messages from the groupchat, mostly Barty and Evan going crazy about Sirius rooming their university halls like he owned them, but nothing more. Pandora called him smart for that move, but Regulus didn’t find anything smart there at all. It was pure strategic planning, that’s all. He was hiding Remus fucking Lupin in his bedroom for half of Black’s family vacation, the least he could receive in return is Sirius passing some of his final exams for him. Nothing more than a barter between two people who couldn’t care about generosity when it came to each other at all.
“Oi, is someone home today?”
Regulus jumped at the voice, hitting his head on the table – how could he miss the doorbell? Trying to get up seamlessly he almost dropped his phone several times and knocked over a half-empty pitcher. “Good morning. What can I get for you?”
“A smile would be nice.”
When he finally looked up, he met cheeky grin and sparkling brown eyes right in front of himself. The guy leaned onto the counter taking half of the space there and almost knocking over some cups, and tilted his head slightly in wait of a response. His hair was fluffed in every direction and looked incredibly soft. Regulus caught himself wandering how it must feel to have these locks in-between his fingers-
“A shot in a head would be nice too, wouldn’t it?"
Any other typical customer would be taken aback by such a sharp tone, but it didn’t seem to bother the stranger at all. He chucked, sound light and pleasant to ears, and took another long turn scanning barista from head to toes. Regulus felt his gaze linger on a nametag with “Sirius” on it, but didn’t question it at all. They were indistinguishable for anyone but close people, looking so similar only the haircut could give the difference away. For that exact reason Regulus had his shorter hair clipped up in something messy with one of his brother’s hairclips – just the way Sirius usually did it for work – so there must be no problem in passing as him for another ten hours. It seemed to actually work since the guy smiled and started talking again.
“Hard morning, eh, Sirius, mate?”
“Could have been better.” Regulus shrugged. “So, what can I get for you today?”
The guy grinned, slipping back an effortless answer: “My usual.”
That’s all, Regulus thought to himself, that was the moment when he gives up, gets up, says “I fucking hate this place” and walks home with some deadly frustrated playlist in his headphones. With the edge of his eye he saw the message from Barty pop up on his phone. “Bet twenty he’s not gonna survive till noon” followed by a bunch of other betting messages from his friendgroup. These fucking assholes---
“My usual, Sirius.” The annoying one repeated. “I’m kind of in a hurry, but I believe you’ll do it just as fast as always.”
Regulus looked up from his phone, automatically sliding it on the other side of the table, getting rid of a distraction. Well, not like he had any other options, did he? Younger Black forced a wonky half-smile in return.
“Coming right up.”
He decided that most of people’s morning requests should have been black coffee, but intuition was whispering to him, that it probably was the false assumption. The fact that he would kill anyone for a cup of deathly-black portion of caffeine didn’t mean that everyone would do the same with only a blink of their eye. And also some people are really lactose-sensative, so it's unsafe to just put any milk, so... Without thinking, he poured some cold almond milk inside of a medium-sized americano cup full of coffee.
“That’s all?”
“Should be it.” The fact that Stranger hadn’t stopped smiling even for a second since he entered the store had Regulus balancing in-between being incredibly mad and being an incredible fucking simp. He didn’t like the second option at all, but despite all of his attempts to get rid of it, it was, in fact, still standing. “How’s family?”
It was a tricky question. Regulus didn’t know an appropriate answer for it too, so he just shrugged. What would Sirius say? “Shitty as usual, mate, hate them guts, hope this old witch dies?” If he thought about it for a second, it was almost sad – he was the part of the family in question, and he didn’t know the answer in a slightest.
Almost sad.
“Managing.” He answered simply.
Stranger tilted his head slowly. “Then I’m glad.”
They stayed in silence for a long moment. Stranger sipped his coffee and nodded with no readable emotion on his face. He probably was screaming in his head about “Sirius” fucking up his usual order, Regulus thought. What a shame for an actual Sirius then, what a shame.
(…and what a shame for Regulus, a cold-hearted Black prince who had every guy in his uni wrapped around his finger, to look at this golden person and think that oh shit, his eyes look really nice in this morning lighting, and his scarf is a perfect color to match his soft hair, and his smile is bright and honest and---)
“See you tomorrow, Sirius.” Stranger turned around, still smiling. “Hope the only shot you will get today is an espresso one.”
“What?”
“A shot in your head, mate. Your words, not mine.” he saluted with a cup halfway out of the door. “Take an espresso one. Save your head some troubles, it’s too pretty to be destroyed by a shitty day.”
And with that off he went, leaving Regulus behind. He stood there, alone, for quite some time, eyeing people passing by panoramic windows. It was something weird, something dreadful and delightful at the same time… He look away when his phone blew up with another couple of notifications. It was enough to pull Black out of his miserably gay thoughts back into cold wintry reality, and if he was completely honest, he didn’t fucking enjoy the change.
“You fuckers and Pandora will owe me a shitton of money.” he sent to a groupchat. Looked up to the window. Remembered warm brown eyes. Picked up the phone again.
“Sirius.”
“I have a lection with an oral exam tomorrow.”
“They are yours.”
“I take the shift.”
“next time tell me to never fucking owe you anything”
“I accept thank-yous in card payments.”