Coffee Shop AU

[antimonyschnuck]

Coffee Shop AU

fandom: The Witcher (kinda)

ship: Geralt/Emhyr (kinda)

rating: teen +

I thought I should do a coffee shop AU. I'm not even sorry :)

805 weird, weird words under the cut:

There was a new coffee shop in town.

Var Emreis stopped in his tracks, one corner of his mouth pulled down in contemplation. The other pedestrians parted around him like water flowing around a boulder in the middle of a river.

He felt around for the dim memory of the same building, but framed by shelves with potted flowers. It used to be a flower shop? He wasn't sure. Oh! Hadn't he once entered in order to buy a bouquet for his mother-in-law's birthday and exited with said flowers and an existential crisis because the shop attendant had smiled at him? What the fuck -- and what mother-in-law? He wasn't married!

Var Emreis pinched his eyes close for a few seconds and took a deep breath. A dream fragment he'd confused for a memory. Well, he would chase it away with a cup of coffee, then. He sometimes had these odd visions, flashes of other lives, it almost seemed like. One time he'd been convinced he knew how to ride a horse -- which lasted just long enough for him to nonchalantly swing into the saddle and ended when he immediately fell off the other side.

The new coffee shop didn't appear to be part of any of the big chains but its interior design was simple and aligned with the industry standards. A little door bell chimed when var Emreis entered, and he licked his lips, catching the enticing scent of coffee in the pleasantly hot air. Two customers were waiting in line before him, time enough to study the sign behind the counter and translate his order into coffee shop terminology. Then he looked down again and his breath caught.
The shop attendant behind the counter had just finished taking the other customer's order with a polite nod and a rakish little lift of his eye brow; the ridge on the left side of his face was cleft, the old scar's discolouration contrasting harshly with the man's extremely pale skin tone. He knew him. Did he know him? Where did he know him from?

"Good afternoon," said the shop attendant. "What can I get you?" His yellow eyes seemed to be smiling although his mien was neutral and he looked rather stern.

Var Emreis gasped but quickly turned it into a polite little cough. "One midi coffee, please, black, no supplements," he managed to place his order. "And my name is Peter." His name was not Peter but he always used it for coffee orders to minimise discussions and misunderstandings. He blinked with embarrassment. "For the cup. So you can label it. I was not trying to randomly introduce myself..."

The oddly handsome barista

(☕Geralt🦗 said his badge)

chuckled. "Yes, such is the custom of our trade, I am aware." He pointed at the various snacks, tastefully arranged in the glass casing of the counter. "Maybe a bite to eat with your coffee? The honey roasted crickets are our treat of the day. My personal favourites are the chocolate dipped mealworms."

Had he just winked at him with his nictitating membrane?! This was, indeed, his own favourite snack, but he nevertheless declined, a little stunned by the intensity of his sudden desire for that fiendishly attractive coffee shop attendant.

"Alright, you can wait for your coffee over there," Geralt said after having put the clawful of copper coins into his cash register. "See you," he added, with another wink. Maybe his eye was dry because of the old injury.

Var Emreis sauntered over to the tail end of the counter where a customer named ROB was just picking up his order. Shortly after, Geralt's harried colleague placed a cup neatly labelled with EMHYR on the counter and vanished again before var Emreis could even say "What...?!".

"Do we know each other?" he rudely interrupted another customer trying to give Geralt her order. This time the barista fully smiled at him and Emhyr remembered that smile, but from a time and place they had been some kind of naked monkeys. His cloaca twitched and he inhaled sharply.

"Not yet," Geralt said and slipped him his number, scribbled on a napkin.

---

What the fuck was that? :) Well, I took inspiration from this Tumblr post by Tossawary:

https://bittersweetbark.tumblr.com/post/793583820258574336/

Excerpt:

"Some fandoms are doing some very abstract AUs. Everyone is apparently playing with 10+ mods on the base game. Everyone is building their own personal canon out of the scrap pile of 5+ different continuities that all contradict each other wildly! Or at least everyone is very familiar with the usual fandom prompts, kinky or otherwise, and one shots that have no other plot or context. "In this coffee shop AU, the main character is also a lizard. I will not be taking questions," say the author's notes in some fandoms. Yeah. Okay. Sure."