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“Let me make you something else.” Basil isn’t pleading. He isn’t. It doesn’t destroy his soul every time to see Val drinking straight black coffee first thing in the morning like this, without even so much as a touch of spicing to make the flavors dance. It just damages it a little bit more every time.
Not that this coffee is terrible on its own, nothing like the tar Basil knows Val was drinking before he stepped foot in Conwell Coffee House, and not like the horror of a roast his brother had selected before Basil had intervened on the coffee front. But still. It’s principal. Basil could make him something amazing; he could make him whatever he wanted. Plus, he’s seen Val eyeing the cakes in the display case. He’s an artist after all; he notices things. And there’s no way the other doesn’t have a sweet tooth. But despite everything, Val persists.
“No.” Val’s arms are crossed in front of him, and his face is set in that grumpy line, the one which means he hasn’t yet fully emerged into the world. And it is early. No one else is around yet on the chilly spring morning. And it’s possible Basil has been opening up half an hour earlier than the time on the door for weeks now, because he’d gotten the impression the normal hour and its quickly forming line had bunched Val’s (very broad, not that Basil has been paying attention, not that his fingers itch for a pencil) shoulders with stress.
He doesn’t know the particulars of it. But it’s not like he sleeps all that much anyway. They never talked about it. Not exactly. Basil had just mentioned at some point that he’d be in around 5, and Val had shown up, and it’s been a morning routine since.
On the days Val isn’t missing anyway.
Basil isn’t a fan of those.
But he’s here today, in his full, rumpled, it’s-still-dark-out state, hoodie pulled over his slightly damp hair and glaring at Basil with a pout that might border on adorable, not that he’d ever say.
“Yes, come on, Val. This has gone on for too long. You can’t possibly like it like that. Or if you do, I mean, you’ll like what I give you more. You’re wasting all of my talents.” He gestures dramatically for effect, leaning forward against the counter, both palms flat against it. “I could make you anything. ”
Val huffs at him, a long-suffering sigh, and rolls his eyes. And his shoulders bunch, just a touch. “ ‘s stupid to pay that much for a coffee.” He drawls the words in perfectly casual derision. “Against all my principles.”
They also carefully don’t talk about how this is all optional for Basil. Being here, working. Putting on the green and gold apron. That the coffee is just a little side hustle for his family, propped up as they are by fortunes made of Syrup. That for Basil this is desire not need. They don’t talk about how that’s true, but the circles under Val’s eyes are darker every day.
Basil had offered exactly once to forget the charge. And Val had walked out and hadn’t walked back in for a week.
The coffee had gone cold on the counter.
He keeps quiet about it now.
“Well, it’d be a special favor to me.” He grouses now, not letting them skitter toward dangerous territory. Reflexively, because his body is always working ahead of his brain, he’s shifting even further forward as he speaks and pointing his finger at Val’s chest. “Since you’re literally causing me pain.” A hair closer and… fuck. The pad of his finger brushes the other’s solid chest… which hadn’t been his intention, not his direct intention. But he’s in it now. He forces in a breath---even though his heart skipped two beats---somehow gets out. “You know what, I don’t care, I’m making it for you.”
There’s a pregnant pause between them. A silence that stretches long wherein Basil’s finger is still on Val’s chest, and his eyes, tilting in almost slow mo, shift up and up and up until they meet the curious blue-grey ones that peer unreadably back at him. There’s a touch of almost amusement playing along Val’s mouth, though, as they exchange stares, and Basil feels his own lips smiling back, a little sheepish.
The other’s voice is low when it surfaces from his throat, a little sleep-rough from the hour still, and it radiates annoyingly through the cells of Basil’s body. “Are you telling me what to do?” Val rumbles, not quite laughing, but laughter studs through it, and what a fucking thing to say. The amusement seems to deepen in the taller man as the thought trembles its way over Basil’s face, and his annoying tendency to blush rears its ugly head. Immediate heat rises along his cheeks, curls pink and damning over the stretches of his skin. He can’t see himself, but it feels like a damn homing beacon. Val’s eyes don’t shift to it, though. Just stay locked.
Basil breaks the gaze first, another three ridiculous heartbeats later, and pulls his stupid finger away. Stupid finger. No one gave it any permission to do that. “Yes.” He mutters, turning his back to the other to face the coffee machines around him instead. Much safer. And thank god there’s actually something for him to do or he’d be wishing for a hole in the floor to come swallow him whole.
“Fine.” Val’s calls from behind him freezes him again for another half second. But he can tell by the sound of it that the other is actually smiling now, and though the fluster is still there, something pleased comes to tangle with it. “Make me something.”
A smile of his own crosses his face again, and he reaches for a mug.
When he finally turns around, Val is leaned over, sprawling against the counter. His hood is pushed down, finally, and a well-worn paperback rests between his fingers. But when he looks up, a frown creases Basil’s face. He hadn’t noticed it before with the hoodie and the lowlight, but there’s something dark marring the expanses of Val’s face. It's obscured slightly by what looks like makeup, but not very well applied, and when he really looks, Basil can make out the edges of a massive purpling bruise, glinting beneath the other’s cheekbones.
“Val---” He starts, slow, not sure exactly what’s coming after the name, but a sudden ache catches him, wraps a hand around his throat, and squeezes the air from his lungs.
Another fucking bruise.
The gaze is back on him, heavy and steady, in an instant verging on stormy, his fingers clenching and unclenching into fists. “Don’t ruin the moment.” The words grind out slow, a warning note embedded through them. There’s anger somewhere, Basil can hear it, but Val holds it at bay, pushes it back. He forces his hand open, closes his book, and sets it aside, then, for the briefest hair of a second, wraps his fingers around Basil’s wrist instead, tugging him closer. There’s an inhale, long and deep, an exhale, and the voice sounds again, purposefully lighter, and Basil knows effort has been expended on his behalf to make it so. The smile comes back to dance along Val’s expression in coaxed inches. “Whatdya make me.”
Basil breathes into the touch. Breathes out of it. He wants to protest. Wants to demand. But he knows Val doesn’t want him to. And to do it. It would just be selfish. He knows that.
Stop hurting yourself. Stop letting yourself get hurt .
The words dance on his tongue, but he swallows them down. Smiles gamely back instead and pushes forward the mug full of froth and toasted marshmallows. He can at least do this. He can at least give Val this.
Val pulls it toward him, eyeing it suspiciously. And Basil doesn’t even bother to pretend like he’s not watching him pick it up and lift it to his lips. Even despite the lingering residue of gloom that wants to cling, smug pleasure sparks through him when he can pinpoint the exact moment his masterpiece hits Val’s tongue, rich and sweet and comforting. Chocolate, marshmallow, cinnamon, a few dashes of this and that, a little cayenne, a little sage. Not cloying. Not flat. Delicious till the end.
He may or may not be smirking at the way Val’s eyes widen a little at the taste and then shut, smoothing out.
Take that black coffee.
“There’s no caffeine in this.” Val is muttering a moment later, though, when he’s cracked an eye open again, despite the way he’s holding the hot chocolate almost protectively to his chest.
“Wow, Basil,” Basil parrots, in a voice pitched too high. “That was delicious, you were totally right that my taste is trash and I should always listen to you.” A grin tugs his cheeks wide. “Gee, thanks, Val. That’s so sweet of you to say.”
Val rolls his eyes again and takes another drink. “It’s good.”
The words are short, just a touch grousing. But Basil doesn’t care. Doesn’t actually need him to say anything about it at all. Because there’s a soft smile surfacing on Val’s face now. Just small. But it’s a rare one, pleased and earnest, walls lowered all the way down for the space of a sip, burdens set aside.
And fuck, Basil’s fingers, yearn for his pencil. Yearn for… something.
You’re beautiful .
The words dance on his tongue, but he swallows them down.
“I’ll make you your tar.” He hums instead, taking one last look at the graceful poetry of the other’s face, shadowy bruise, dark circles, and all. The way it eases into something transcendent when all the pain soothes away. He commits it to memory as the sun’s rays start to drift in through the windows. And it’s just him and Val and the fragile loveliness of the moment.
And then turns away to get the coffee.
Behind him, the bell chimes with a new customer, and the coffee shop starts to flood as the rush of the morning kicks in. He knows, when he turns back, it’ll be to something else. It twinges something in him to lose it, but he’s an artist after all, he knows the beauty of the fleeting. Knows it’s his job to capture it.
With a soft smile of his own, he pours the black coffee into a paper cup.
And so the day begins.