Chapter Text
Felix snorted awake, hand fumbling in the dim light until he could find his phone and hit snooze on his alarm. Sitting up and scrubbing his hands over his face, Felix yawned and raised his arms to stretch, letting out a string of swears when his arms knocked against the roof of his car. His seats were laid all the way down, his dark blue Ford Escape doing some good with all its space, despite him being the only passenger. Sighing, he reached to the front of the car and checked his phone: six forty—one.
Flicking on the ceiling light in his car, Felix leaned forwards and twisted the ignition, feeling the car rumble to life beneath him. As the engine kicked in, his phone finally began charging, and he cringed to see it was only at 31%. Rolling back towards his boot, Felix retrieved one of the thrifted packing cubes that had his shirts and pulled one out at random—this one a White Stripes tee he’d snagged at a Goodwill last month, with all their tour dates on the back. He tugged it on over his head, before storing it back underneath his bedding and going to fold up his comforter, stuffing it in the trunk like he did every morning. By the time his car had finally warmed up, his phone read six fifty—three. Just like clockwork, the headlights of the Shell station manager, one of Felixs’ buddies from college, pulled into the lot.
Floundering rather embarrassingly in the cramped space, Felix tugged on black jeans and did up his belt, before grabbing his thickest green flannel off the passenger seat as well as his phone and keys. After doing a once—over to make sure everything was in its’ place, Felix shimmied into the front of the car and exited the drivers’ seat door. He locked his car behind him and stuffed his keys into his pocket, whistling as he headed towards the just—now—opened gas station.
As he approached the brightly lit convinience store, his mind suddenly flashed a different silhouette—Spudsy’s. He blinked, halting so sharply in the middle of the parking lot that he was lucky he didn’t get run over. Of course, there was no traffic this early, but still. Felix closed his eyes and counted to ten, breathing in as he did so, before exhaling along the same interval. He repeated his therapists’ words in his head: The memories are real, and the present is also real. This is okay, and I am safe. They grounded him, and a moment later, the vision passed. Shaking his shoulders against the morning chill and the vestiges of the memory, Felix resumed his whistling, and pushed open the door to the Shell station.
“Jacob!” he greeted, waving at the guy behind the counter. His friend glanced up from where he was fiddling with the cash register, and shot Felix a warm smile.
“Hey, Felix! Glad to see you this morning.”
“You see me every morning, man,” Felix laughed, heading for the Hot Beverages counter next to the hot dog roller machine.
“And I better keep seein’ ya,” was the good natured response, hollered from across the tiny space. Felix chuckled, grabbing two ‘Spicy Chili Tornadoes’ from the spinning heater (they were on a two for one deal) and filling up a large paper cup with piping hot coffee. After dumping an obscene amount of hazelnut creamer into it, Felix grabbed his cup and his paper bag of breakfast and brought it to the counter. Jacob smiled at him, Felixs’ total already flashing on the screen.
“$4.57”, he announced perfunctorily. Felix pushed his five dollars acorss the counter, and shot Jacob an extra wide grin when he added a pack of chewing gum.
“On the station,” Jacob said, winking at Felix. Felix held out his hand, and Jacob dapped him up.
“Ayy, mi amigo, thank you. You’re the man.” Jacob waved him off.
”It’s a present; you came stumbling back tripping balls or some shit three years ago, remember?”
Felix paused, giving his friend a stunned expression, but Jacob just made the ‘don’t worry about it’ motion again, and Felix worked to swallow back his emotions. To help in this endeavour, he drank half of his coffee and burned his throat, then shoved his gifted gum into his flannel before pushing open the front door with his back. “I owe you one!”
“You owe me a million,” Jacob laughed after him, and using the hand he held his coffee cup in, Felix shot him a mock salute.
When Felix had ‘dissappeared’ (read: gotten sucked into the Digital Nightmare) in the middle of his sophomore year of a technicians’ degree, Jacob was the only person from his class to even try and look for him. Thus, when Felix mysteriously reappeared four years later, extremely disoriented and not a little bit traumatized, Jacob had been the one there to help him back on his feet. Felix loved his friend more than almost anyone else in world, but it wasn’t until two years ago, after he’d been going to therapy and finally had landed a job, that he could finally admit to himself that that was okay.
Felix guzzled the rest of his coffee and inhaled the two Tornadoes, disposing of the evidence in a gas station dumpster, and opened his phone. He checked his email first, to see if his self—advertisement locksmith services had gotten any hits. He saw three new messages: one was a scam email for some ‘click here to renew your phone plan’ scheme, but the other two were legitimate. Two houses over on the western edge of the city needed their front doors rekeyed. Felix nodded to himself; this was an easy enough fix.
Checking his iMessage history, Felix saw his manager had texted a reminder that he was set to wait tables at the Scarlet for the evening shift. By the time he’d left the Shell station parking lot, Felixs’ phone (now at 43%) dinged again, and he glanced down to see a new email. Pulling off to the side of the highway before he had to merge, he saw his handyman gig had also been hailed for the day. A corner store, over in the suburbs, had had their freezer fan break. That was also a simple fix. Despite the lingering horror of the Circus flashback, Felix felt himself relaxing, despite the flashback that morning.
Felix hummed to the radio as he drove, not really listening to the lyrics of the song. No, all of the things Jacob had reminded of him were flooding his consciousness. Every time, every day Felix fancied himself healed from that hypercoulored fever dream, life found some way to smack him upside the head with it. How many hours had he spent, scouring the depths of abandoned building YouTube trying to find a video that ‘Pomni’ had posted? He’d checked almost every tattoo parlour he could find in the surrounding area, hoping that ‘Zooble’ would be working there. He’d called real estate companies, in the hope that ‘Ragathas’ cheery voice would answer the phone. He’d even, in the cold, dark depths of desperation, made an account for some website called WebToon in the hopes of recognizing ‘Gangles’ art style. But no dice—he’d found no evidence of any of his friends anywhere. And they were his friends; rather, they had been his friends. Felix snorted to himself to think how proud they might all be of him for finally being able to admit such a thing.
All it took was losing all of them forever to get him there.
Checking the time and sighing at how early it still was, Felix drove to the neighborhood where his first locksmith client was and found a parking spot near some big public park. He cut the engine and sat in his car for a minute, resting his head against the steering wheel, then took a deep breath and stepped outside. With his phone in his pocket, Felix locked the car before finding one of those wide, twisting green metal benches. He sat down, fished his wired headphones from the depths of his flannel jacket, and plugged them in. As he waved at some early morning joggers, he opened his music library and found one of his favourite albums: Pablo Honey from Radiohead. He hit shuffle, resting his phone against his stomach and tapping his foot to the depressingly familiar songs.
*
At around nine, Felix went and knocked on the first clients’ door, and a sweet elderly lady answered.
“Good morning, ma’am,” Felix said, smiling at her and lifting up his lock picking materials. “I’m the locksmith you hired last evening, here about the front door? Name’s Felix.”
“Oh, thank you!” The lady said, nodding so fast her glasses started sliding up and down her nose. “Here, come on inside and you can get right to work! Me and Herbert have been awful nervous all night.”
“I don’t doubt it, ma’am,” said Felix, stepping inside and slipping his shoes off. Once she’d closed the door behind him, he knelt down to be at eye level with the keyhole. Pulling out a flashlight, he squinted, trying to peer at the tumblers, but the ancient keyhole was too small to really see anything.
“No worries; I should be done in about twenty minutes.”
“Oh, wonderful, thank you; I’ll go and put some coffee on for you.” Felix glanced up from where he was rummaging around in his tool chest and shot the lady a winning smile.
“Thank you! You’re very kind.” Sure enough, by the time twenty minutes had elapsed, the door was rekeyed and the locking mechanism had even gotten cleaned for the first time in years. Felix took the forty bucks, thanked the lady for the coffee, drank it and assured her of its’ superior taste, then went on to the next house. The following routine pretty much ensued, although this time it was their garage door that wouldn’t lock anymore. After some fiddling with the deadbolt, and some quick small talk about baseball highlights, Felix again collected his payment and was on his way.
By the time Felix pulled up to the Lekk Soow Boutique, he was feeling a bit tired, and not a bit grimy—he decided the next order of business would be to swing back by the Shell, give Jacob sixty dollars to put on pump four, and use the truck stops’ shower. Felix opened his trunk quickly and grabbed his repair box, before heading into the cute little corner store.
The owner greeted him as he pushed open the glass door, a cheery automated voice welcoming him in as well.
“Hey, you’re the repair guy, right?”
“That’s me, sir. Name’s Felix, nice to meet you.” Getting the sense this guy was a bit more old fashioned, Felix stuck his hand out over the counter. He was right; the toothy grin the guy gave him as he pumped his hand four times proved it.
“Our coolers are just back there; not sure what happened but all three of them are on the fritz.”
“Understood; let me go and see what I can do. Mind if I unplug them while I work so that I don’t get zapped?” The man chortled; “Go right ahead! Not like they’re working too hard right now anyways.” Felix smiled and nodded, then headed to the back of the store and got to work.
About half an hour later, he wiped his sleeve over his face and finally stood up, before approaching the counter and saying, “Alright, sir, they should be working just fine now; would you like to do the honours?”
“What? Oh! You meant plug them back in? Sure thing. Open, sesame!” The man laughed a bit at his own joke, and Felix gave him a little chuckle too, before waiting and tapping his foot on the ground. His worry was unwarranted, however; just as he’d fixed them to, all three of the coolers started working as soon as electricity hit their systems.
“Thank you so much! I was worried I’d have to throw out all my yogurt.”
“No problem, sir,” said Felix, as he got to work rearranging his tools back in his toolbox.
“Oh, please, call me Mr. Diop; sir is too formal. You’ve done me a great service! How much do I owe you again?”
“Sixty dollars,” said Felix, standing and walking back towards the counter. He cringed for a moment, wondering if Mr. Diop would try and skimp him, but nope—three twenties landed in his outstretched palm, and Felix all but beamed at the man.
“Thank you, Felix,” the man said, holding out his hand for another handshake. Felix obliged, saying, “Oh, happy to help,” before waving one last time and heading back out to his car. He wasn’t on shift at the Scarlet for a few more hours, meaning he still had a bit of time to swing back by the Shell, take a shower, and maybe find some lunch before he had to find a new parking lot for the night and change into his work uniform.
Felix did just that; Jacob barely batted an eye when Felix all but ran into the convenience store, throwing change at the counter and shouting instructions to put some on pump four, then went through the showers like a whirlwind, even throwing some clothing articles in the washer there that he could swing by to pick up later. Gritting his teeth against the cold water, Felix scrubbed his whole body and tousled some suds in his hair, before thoroughly drying himself. He even tried and shaved, making sure to unscrew his snakebites before doing so, and put his clothes back on. He’d have to change again for his shift tonight, anyways.
“I’m off, Jacob! See you tomorrow,” Felix threw over his shoulder, as he grabbed the clothes he’d left in the dryer yesterday and ran out the door.
Finding himself with about two hours until he had to clock in, Felix decided to go on a little drive. Maybe there’d be some cute café he could stop into, get something to eat. After about thirty minutes of scrolling on Google Maps, he found a good looking area a little ways away, that sported a chic—sounding café called the Coffee Loft. The menu didn’t seem too expensive, so he decided to go and check it out. Finding parking outside was relatively easy, and Felix only gave his hair a cursory once—over in the rear view mirror before heading inside. A bell dinged over his head as he walked in the door, and he was checking out if there was any seating available when a voice greeted him.
“Welcome to the Coffee Loft!” Felixs’ head snapped up and his brain stopped working. The barista who had greeted him as stunning. She was also short, which was the second thing he noticed, so much so her head was level with the boxes of coffee they were selling on the upper shelf next to the register. This only made her more adorable in Felixs’ eyes, however, and he indulged in a long second to just look at her. Wavy black hair, a heart shaped face and kind, almond shaped black eyes, which stared at him expectantly from behind the counter. She was wearing a red long sleeved shirt that hugged her body, and Felix had to stop himself from staring. He’d thought her face was gorgeous, but her body was giving it a run for its’ money. The confidence and peace he’d been feeling throughout the day shattered somewhat, because he was aware he wasn’t exactly looking like a million dollars. But hey, Felix thought to himself, he was having a pretty good day today. Might as well see how far his good luck could take him.
“Good morning, gorgeous. What do you recommend?” he said to her, winking as he leaned agains the counter to place an order. God, even leaning against the counter, he was so much taller than her. And he had a view right into her—nope. He wasn’t a creep. He distracted himself by staring up at the chalkboard menu, eyes scanning wildly for some sort of sandwich option.
“Well, I like the lemonades we make,” the barista said, and Felix risked a glance down at her face to see she was already staring up at him. She wrinkled her nose as she thought, and didn’t even seem to realize, and God she was cute. “But our iced coffees are pretty good too. I can make them it sweet as you want.”
“I like the sound of that,” Felix said, standing up to fish around for his wallet, praying it was still in his jacket pocket. “Get me an iced hazelnut cold brew…thing, with one of those ham and cheese pastries. Please.”
“Coming right up,” the girl said, hands reaching for a cup. “Can I get a name for that order?”
“Did you want my number, too?” Felix regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The girl flicked her eyes to his in a silent question, and Felix felt his face flushing. Damnit, no, he’d ruined it. Might have to never come here to order again. Still, the flirting had been fun; Felix decided to add one more stupid joke before he left, just in case. “Felix. And don’t forget the whipped cream on top of that iced coffee.”
“Oh, I’d never forget to cream,” she said, turning back into the kitchen to make his order.
Wait…
Felix paused, halfway back to find a seat to wait at, as he replayed her response in his head. There’s no way she’d said what he thought he heard, right? Because that would almost sound like…flirting back. Which could mean that, in theory, she thought he was attractive too. Felix felt something rising in his chest at the idea, and decided to try and keep up the rapport with her when it was time for him to pick up his order. If she flirted back he’d ask for her number, and see where it went. Yeah, that was a good plan.
“Order for Felix?”
Deep breath. Here we go. Say something normal, something cute, something neutral.
“Damn, you finish fast,” said Felix, as he returned to the coutner. “I should have known.” Dude, what the hell is wrong with you!?
“Only for someone special,” The barista replied, giving him a cheeky smile out of the corner of her eye. Felix paused, amazement washing over his at his turn of good luck. He chuckled out loud, half turning away in embarrassment. The feeling of torture tripled as he did so, because he glanced down at the cup he’d given her. Written along the bottom was her name, Christine, along with a phone number. His stomach imploded. Oh, hell yeah.
“It’s not every day I meet someone as cute as you that can match me zinger for zinger.”
“It’s not every day I meet someone who’s so cute and so forward.” Felix laughed, a much richer sound than his chuckle from a few moments before, and replied, “Christine, when I come onto you outright, you’ll know.”
“Well, I’ll look forward to that then, Felix,” Said Christine, smiling up at him. Felix felt his heart already melting, as he accidentally stared at her face with an undoubtedly stupid expression on his.
“I’ll call you later, yeah?” he asked. She lifted her face and met his eyes, smiling softly and saying, “Talk to you then.” With no cheeky replies left in the tank, he just waved at the girl and left the café, heading back towards his car.
As soon as he was certain he was out of the sight lines of the café, Felix all but sprinted into his vehicle, fumbling with the keys and slamming the door behind him before pumping both of his fists straight into the roof of his car.
“WOOHOOO!” He cheered for himself. Then, suddenly remembering that her number was still written on the bottom of his cup, he fumbled to get his phone out, hands sweating as he carefully typed her number in. He took a sip of the coffee and hummed in satisfaction; it was actually delicious. He stared at the New Contact screen on his phone, humming to himself for a moment before typing in, carefully, ‘Christine’ into the subject line. That’s too formal, though, right? So he deleted it, and replaced it with ‘Chrissy’. There, much better. All cutesy nickname sounding. This accomplished, he was about to click Save Contact, when an augmentation came to him. Clicking open the emoji keyboard, his thumb scrolled them for a second before adding a ‘ ❤️’ after her name.
Satisfied, he saved the contact, then set his phone in the passenger seat and turned on the radio. He sang along badly to the chorus of Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves while he ate his sandwich, and it was only when the song was finished that he began to worry about when he should actually text this girl. Would right now be too soon? Was she still on her shift, could she even check her phone?
What if this wasn’t even her number, and she’d given him a different one to throw him off? No, whatever, it was fine; Felix decided he’d text her in, like, an hour, or at least a bit before his shift started. There, that made sense. That was normal.
*
so are you free this week? would love to get to know u better
As soon as Felix hit send, he face-palmed; what if this really wasn’t Christines’ number, and he’d just sent a really bad pick up line to a stranger? He tried to backpedal, freaking out and typing a follow up message, not even waiting to see if she’d read the first one before clicking Send.
this is felix; i’m really hoping this is that gorgeous barista christine
The messages marianted there for a moment, and then, a repsonse bubble. Without meaning to, Felix clutched at his screen, willing the message to come faster.
i’m off thursday evening. does that work for you?
Felix pumped his fist in the air. What luck! He was working afternoon but not closing that day. Perfect.
thursday evening it is. can i text you again later?
would love to hear form u later
Felix smiled at the reply, not even noticing the womans’ little spelling error. Thinking about getting to see her again, he felt a smile clawing its’ way onto his face. This might be a bad idea, he reflected, but he didn’t care. Felix has just met her, but something, something deep in his gut or his brain or whatever was absolutely smitten with her. His abuelita always used to make fun of him when he was little for thinking with his heart too fast, but he didn’t care. Plus, he had seen what putting up a front of apathy had done for him in the Circus. He’d be damned if he let those nightmares win, and those years of state—mandated therapy go to waste. He was going to go after this girl, no matter how hard it might feel for him. He got the feeling that this girl was worth anything.
Christine.