The Last Drop
Caitlyn Kiramman was desperate when she arrived at The Last Drop. The deadline for her dissertation proposal was rapidly approaching, and she couldn’t, simply couldn’t, get herself to sit down and work on the edits that she severely needed to work on. She’d tried everything, everything, to make herself focus. None of her usual study spots worked, none of her self-bribing tricks worked, none of her playlists worked—not even the ones that she dug up from her most horrendous finals week during undergrad.
It was the dread, she knew, eating her up. What if it didn’t work out? What if, when she turned it in, it turned out to be so horrendous that the committee couldn’t even avoid laughing at her while they delivered the news of its rejection? She knew that that would never happen—her proposal was good, it was great, as everyone who knew about it told her, over and over again—but she also didn’t know know.
Anxiety truly was a horrendous bitch.
And so she found herself doing something she rarely did—leaving her well-worn academic routines—to try out this spot that Viktor, Jayce’s partner and a fellow PhD soldier, swore by.
“Sometimes, all of this clean, pompous grandiosity,” he’d gestured around to the vaulted ceilings and gold-rimmed arched windows of the university’s research library, “is a prison to the mind. Sometimes you need the opposite of it to let it breathe enough to power through.”
And, The Last Drop was certainly the opposite of the Academy’s white-and-gold gothic majesty. It was deep in the belly of Zaun’s fissures, and, while great effort had been made throughout her lifetime to make the undercity a place befitting of human dignity, the fact still stood that full sunlight did not make it so far down. Just from the outside, the minimal windows drew a sharp contrast with the absolute obsession with maximizing windows and balcony space that was so characteristic of Piltover’s architectural sensibilities. And, while Piltover prided itself in trim landscaping that showed mankind’s dominance upon nature, this level of the undercity was almost swallowed by the lush flora that had been just recently engineered to withstand the dark conditions and help with the air quality of the fissures.
It was, however, by no means a dark or unruly place. The street was awash with the warm light of bio-globes strung to the trees, and she couldn’t help but notice how warmly the people she walked by on the street smiled and laughed. It was earlier in the morning, and she passed groups of people obviously heading to work or school, a certain hopeful gleam in their eye.
She’d heard of the slow revival of Zaun during her lifetime, and had visited a handful of times with her mother to oversee the progress of council-sponsored projects or events, and later on for interviews for various research projects, but she’d never been this deep down. And she wanted to kick herself for it, because she knew well that it was her privileged position that made her hesitate to visit without a particular purpose. Zaun was still sharp around the edges, sure, as any place that had seen as much suffering as the city had seen in its recent history would be, but it was a far cry from the poverty-stricken, crime-laden slums that it had once been.
A sigh left her lips as she pulled the door to the café open. It was busy inside, a decently long line of people waiting for their morning coffee stretching from the counter. But she immediately understood why Viktor recommended the place. It was incredibly comforting, well-lit by sun-lamps but not clinically bright, wooden tables and leather booths aplenty, awash in well-cared-for houseplants and walls covered in the work of local artists. It was warm and it was homey, and god, it smelled so good.
She found an open table by a corner and set down her pack, intending to join the line at the counter before something stopped her on her tracks.
A massive, shaggy brown dog had appeared out of nowhere behind her, and it was staring pointedly at her, ears perked up in attention. She was frozen, unsure of what to do.
“That’s Warwick, don’t mind him. He’s just curious about new customers.” A tall man, broad in the shoulders, grey in the hair, and warm in his mannerisms, walked up to her, scratched the dog behind his ears. “And I bet he knows you are not from around here. I’m Vander, I run this place.”
There was not a single hint of malice in his voice, and yet Caitlyn felt singled out in a way that made her back tense. He must have noticed, because he let out a hearty laugh that reached his eyes.
“Relax, kiddo. I just have a habit of greeting all my new customers, a bit like him.” He gestured to the dog, who had inched closer to sniff at Caitlyn’s hands. “Give him a rub behind the ears and he’ll be content. Call it Zaunite hospitality.”
Caitlyn chuckled awkwardly and did as she was told. The dog was very fluffy.
“I-uh-I’m Caitlyn. My friend Viktor recommended this place, said it was a good place to work at.”
“Ah, Viktor. Great lad, pride of the Undercity.” The dog, content, jumped on one of the booths on her table and seemed to settle down for a nap. “I take it you are from the Academy, then. Well, welcome to The Last Drop. Coffee or tea?”
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Viktor was right. All that Caitlyn needed was an escape from the clean, pompous grandiosity of the Academy’s halls.
Or, maybe, all that she needed was a straight-shot view of the hottest barista the world had ever seen to keep her firmly locked into her work. After all, she would not be caught dead staring, which was the alternative. And oh, what an alternative it was—sporting the gayest haircut in a couple square miles and a black button up with sleeves rolled up to reveal undeniably muscular forearms, all delectably adorned with black ink.
Nothing was better for focus than absolute necessity.
And so, two of the most productive hours she’d had in months flashed by, as the morning rush waxed and waned. As the chatter of the morning crowd gave way to the relaxing guitar ambient that poured out of the record player nearby, Caitlyn sank deeper and deeper into her work. She had almost, almost, forgotten about the smoking hot barista when—
“Need a top-up?”
Caitlyn’s soul almost jumped out of her body, and she most definitely choked a little bit when her head swiveled up and her eyes met steely grey.
She, Caitlyn Kiramman, had not felt gay panic like this in quite a while. She blinked at the red-head blankly, all of her mental capacities apparently all flooding to the effort of keeping a straight face instead of remembering how to reply to a completely mundane question.
“-um.”
The source of her panic blinked back, glanced at the table littered with papers and books and notebooks, all covered in scribbles and marked with highlighter ink. She let out a low whistle.
“You really are going at it, huh, genius?” She picked up her empty mug and teapot, flashed her a smile. “Here, I will get you a top-up. On the house. Do you want any sugary fuel with that? Claggor’s baked goods are as good as you get down here.” The smile turned smug, “which, if I may add, Piltie, are very good.”
This time around, Caitlyn managed to craft a response:
“—yeah, that would be great, thanks.” She scrambled for more words, scratching the bottom of the barrel. “Uh, do you have any…” it was like she had never learned the name of any baked good, let alone one that you’d typically find at a coffee shop, “…cupcakes?”
The barista snorted a short laugh, shook her head. “So that’s what you have at your fancy cafés up there? No cupcakes here, but I can get you a blueberry muffin, if that’s close enough.”
Caitlyn fought back a blush. She bit down the incriminating confession that coffee shops in Piltover did not tend to carry cupcakes either.
“A blueberry muffin sounds good, thank you.” She, somehow, managed to squeeze out a normal smile out of herself.
Satisfied, the barista gave a nod, scratched the still-napping dog behind the ears, and turned to walk back towards the counter. And as she walked, this time around, Caitlyn failed to avoid staring at her retreating form.
She was most certainly going to return to this place sometime in the future.
To get work done, of course.