Chapter Text
“Is this seat taken?”
Laurent’s eyes flicked up for only the briefest second, an involuntary response to this unwanted interruption. The man standing in front of him was in his early forties, with a closely trimmed beard of pepper beginning to show the first signs of salt. Stuffy in that way that academics were, sometimes—not surprising, considering they were in a college town, eighty percent of the population here wore nothing except tweed and coats with leather elbow patches—but the glint of interest in his eye was anything but.
“Feel free,” Laurent said shortly. To take it was implied, he thought, although not spoken; he counted on his natural resting bitch face to get him the rest of the way there.
Counting on that would be the second mistake of the day for him, in a day that would prove to hold a record amount. The first being that he simply hadn’t told this interloper to fuck off and leave him alone without ever looking up from the book that he was currently—and very obviously—trying to read.
But Halvik had already reprimanded him once this week for being rude to her customers, and even though Laurent was a regular he knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to kick him out if he caused another scene or made someone else cry. Which was why he held his tongue as the man sat down in the chair rather than taking it back to his own table as Laurent had assumed he wanted to do, and he fixed his unwanted guest with a steely glare.
“If you’re here about my car’s extended warranty, I’m not interested. If you’re here about absolutely anything else, I can assure you I’m even more uninterested than that.”
“You looked lonely.”
“Really? I thought I looked like I was trying to read.”
“You looked like you wouldn’t mind some company, then.”
“Was it the notoriously communal act of book reading that made you think so? I would have worn headphones instead, but the last creep that hit on me thought I was wearing them because I was playing hard to get. I’d wear a giant neon sign that said ‘I’m not interested’ in flashing lights, but I have a feeling that your lot would somehow manage to misinterpret that as well.”
“Most people don’t try and do their heavy reading in public. They do it because they want to be seen,” the man said, cocking his head and peering at the cover. “Jane Austen. I wouldn’t have taken you for the type.”
Laurent closed his book with a snap and turned it face down on the table. “I find it rather easy to relate to the characters in her books. Many of them are pursued by men that they have absolutely no interest in.”
“If you don’t want me to sit here, you can just say so.”
“I do not want you to sit here,” Laurent said, enunciating each word. Halvik or no, he was done making mistakes today. “I do not want to talk to you. I do not want to go out with you. I would like to be left alone.”
“Okay, okay. I can take a hint,” the man said, smiling in a way that made it seem like this whole encounter was some kind of joke the two of them were in on together.
“It wasn’t a hint so much as it was blunt force trauma,” Laurent said. “There’s a difference. And it seems like one you should learn.”
The man put a hand over his heart, tipping his head forward. “Forgive me for wanting to become better acquainted with one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen. I’ll leave you to your book, then.”
Laurent didn’t answer, half convinced that any response would be seen as an invitation to continue the conversation. He picked up his book without another word and started reading from exactly where he had left off. The man wandered off, although Laurent didn’t watch him go; off to annoy some other poor diner, if he had to guess, and then banished the thought of him from his mind.
He got through an entire two pages of his book before raised voices from the other side of the cafe distracted him. He looked down at his watch. 9:30.
Right on time.
“Are you kidding me?” They’re the first words he could actually make out from his position on the opposite side of the cafe, delivered in a slightly hysterical tone. “You’re doing this here. Now.”
There was a pause while the other party—quieter, more discreet—said something.
“I can’t believe you. Just like that, like it’s so easy.” The pitch of the beleaguered man was rising, brushing off the pleas from the other party to quiet down. “No, I won’t be quiet. How can you do this to me?”
The couple sitting next to Laurent paused their conversation and turned around to watch. Laurent resisted the impulse to pelt them with the remainders of his breakfast, gave into the impulse to send them the best death glare he could conjure up, and turned back to his book, burying his nose into the pages.
“No, you know what? You don’t even know what you’re missing.” There’s the sound of something breaking, and shattering, and then the ensuing gasps from the curious crowd, which now encompassed nearly all of the diners present. “One of these days you’re going to look back on this and realize that you were never good enough for me, Jord. And when that day comes I’ll be hanging off the arm of someone worth something, and you’ll be sorry.”
A loud clang sounded against the floor of the cafe that could only be one of the chairs tipping over, either falling or being thrown, and the other diners turned back to each other to either resume their interrupted conversations or gossip about what they’d just heard. Laurent kept his eyes firmly on the words in front of him, barely comprehending anything.
When a shadow fell across his table and stayed there, he wasn’t surprised. He made a show of licking a finger and turning the page ever so slowly, rustling the paper as much as possible.
“I’m good on refills, thanks,” he said blandly, without looking up.
“Why am I not surprised to find you here?” A rhetorical question, followed by another. “You put him up to this, didn’t you?”
“Have you been practicing your crocodile tears in the mirror, Aimeric? You’re getting better at it, at least. The next victim you swindle probably won’t even be able to tell that they’re fake.”
“You had no right to interfere in our relationship, Laurent,” Aimeric spat at him. “Just because you can’t find anyone who wants to fuck you doesn’t mean you have to make the rest of us miserable.”
“Jord is a grown man,” Laurent replied, tight. He could feel the weight of the other diners’ eyes on him, and he hated Aimeric even more for causing yet another scene instead of just leaving with his tail between his legs like he should have done. “And I never interfered with anything. He asked me to come here today.”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Aimeric spat. “If you could just get your nose out of other people’s business for five seconds—”
“Why don’t you run on home, Aimeric,” Laurent said, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. “You can tell daddy you did your best. If you play it right, you might even hold his attention for the entire rest of the day.”
A low blow, maybe, but Laurent was tired of everything and everyone at the moment, and he knew just where to place the dagger to make sure it hit something vital. As if on cue, Aimeric’s eyes welled up even further.
“You’re such a bitch, you know that?” Aimeric whispered, but Laurent had already turned away.
To his credit, Aimeric didn’t push over any of Laurent’s silverware or plates as he stormed out of the cafe, which was honestly more than Laurent had been hoping for. He caught the couple sitting next to him staring, and gave them a look so full of ice that they simply turned to each other and finished the rest of their meal in silence.
A few minutes later another shadow fell over his table but this time, at least, it was someone Laurent was expecting.
“That went worse than I thought,” Jord muttered as he fell into the open seat opposite Laurent. He put his head in his hands and then continued on down, banging his head against the table.
“At least he didn’t throw anything.”
“Not yet. If my car is covered with eggs tomorrow though, I’ll know who did it.”
“Are you alright?” Laurent asked. He was fairly certain Jord wasn’t, but it was the kind of thing you were supposed to ask a friend after something like this, and he thought that Jord would appreciate the gesture, if nothing else.
“I always knew, in the back of my mind,” Jord said, which wasn’t an answer. “There had to be some reason he was with me. Some sort of…goal he had that I never knew about. I just wish I could have found out what it was.”
“The reason he was with you was because you’re a kind, generous person,” Laurent said, and the only reason he tempered his obvious annoyance was because of the slight sheen to Jord’s eyes. “And you’re too good for him by half. If he had any ulterior motives for wanting to be with you it says less about you and more about him.”
And just because Laurent had some ideas about what a few of those motives could be—namely, dating someone so far below his perceived station meant that daddy would pay more attention to him, even if it was the negative kind—it didn’t mean he should share them. With some time, clarity, and a little distance Jord would come to the same conclusion, and when he did Laurent would be there with a few choice words about what he thought about Aimeric’s ‘perceived station’.
“I should have listened to you,” Jord said. “When you said he was too good for me.”
“I never said that. I said he was too much for you. There’s a difference between those two things, and an important one.”
“Can we—I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Didn’t you say something about keeping me distracted with ice cream until this blows over?”
“Yeah,” Laurent said, and considered patting Jord’s hand before deciding that would be too much, and awkward besides. “I stocked the freezer just for you. Let’s go.”
“And movies?” Jord asked as they got up, a number of curious onlookers still staring at them. Laurent took great delight in shooting them his best bitchy glare, turning them away one by one.
“And movies,” Laurent confirmed. “Your choice.”
They started walking towards Laurent’s house. Jord knew the path well; he had been coming over to Laurent’s house since he was a boy, a friend of Auguste’s who had, over the years, grown closer to Laurent despite their age difference. There had never been anything more than friendship between them, and Jord’s obvious indifference towards Laurent in that way combined with being one of the few people who would call Laurent out when he was being a lot meant that he had stuck around when a lot of others had fallen away. Especially after the accident.
“Aimeric never let me watch Bloodspot 3: The Quickening,” Jord said, picking up a yellow leaf from the ground and twirling it in his hands as they walked. “Said it was too gross. But I always wanted to see it.”
One of the only good calls on Aimeric’s part, but Laurent was too good of a host to say it.
“Sure,” he said, mentally preparing himself to sit through what was likely going to be a terrible bloody slog. “If that’s really what you want to watch, we can rent it. I—oh shit, I forgot my book. Wait right here, I’ll be right back. It’ll only take a second.”
A brisk jog saw him back at the cafe in less than a minute, and he saw his book on the table, surrounded by dirty plates. Halvik would have recognized it and kept it safe for him, he knew, but he had plans today that didn’t involve watching copious amounts of blood pour out of gunshot wounds on the TV, and he would need it later.
He turned, ready to jog back to Jord—and his eye caught on the man who had hit on him earlier. The older man who had been unable to take a hint, unable to weather Laurent’s bitchiness with any amount of poise or grace. He was sitting at a table with a very friendly arm thrown around the person next to him, fingers tangled in the man’s blond curls. The young man—younger than Laurent, even, who was already nearly twenty years younger than the old guy—was looking up at the creep with something like adoration in his clear blue eyes.
Well. The old man had a type, Laurent could give him that.
Unfortunately that was the only thing that Laurent was willing to give him. Laurent hadn’t been noticed by either one of them, nor any of the staff, and so he took a moment to memorize the young man’s face, enough that he’d be able to recognize him in a crowd. He then slipped out the side door of the restaurant and returned to Jord, his book tucked safely under his arm.
“Did you get what you needed?” Jord asked him.
“I absolutely did,” Laurent said, and looped his arm through Jord’s as he pointed them towards home. “Now come on. We were out for blood, were we not?”