Work Text:
A loud sneeze breaks Dan out of his reverie. Bunny flinches and stares at him from atop the counter, accusation deep in her sharp beady eyes. He shrugs at her apologetically. He doesn't know how to tell her that he just works here. As much as he loves his job and feels protective of the kitties, he's pretty sure he'd be told off if he asked one of their regulars to leave. Or tone it down. Or maybe pop a pill. Something. Didn't he know cats get nervous easily?
He continues to clean the coffee machine and glances at the booth near the door. Phil is holding out a feather wand towards a grey tabby sitting at the window enjoying the last few minutes of the evening sun. Chip doesn't seem very interested in playing. She's one of the older cats, prefers lounging and napping to any kind of exercise. But Phil seems determined.
He's going a bit red and watery around the eyes, more so than usual. The table in front of him is littered with napkins. Dan winces at the extra cleanup waiting for him at the end of his shift and wonders why the cafe doesn't carry antihistamines for idiots who do not value their lives and force unsuspecting bystanders to reckon with their truly thunderous sneezes. Maybe he should carry some himself.
He focuses on the book he's listening to and loses himself to it for a while. It's a murder mystery and he's just about to find out that the character he'd been screaming about being fishy in his head is indeed the source of the funk when there's another cough. It's much closer this time, artificial. He sighs and pauses his book.
Phil, his lone customer, looks apologetic.
"Could I have a refill?" A wonky looking ceramic cup is pushed towards him. It has red bloodshot eyes around one side of the rim. It's green. Lumpy.
"Sure, but last one, okay? I'm closing in twenty." Dan stares pointedly at the clock.
Technically he has to stay till six, but Diedre gives even less of a fuck about closing times than her mum. Ever since she'd taken over, Dan has had free reign over the kingdom and he's not going to sit here and watch Phil sneeze at the cats for another whole hour.
Phil nods and roots in his pockets for his phone to pay with.
Dan rolls his eyes and takes the abominable mug and fills it for him. Oat milk. Three pumps of syrup. Marshmallows. Sprinkles. Hardly any coffee. The whole shebang. The sprinkles give the mug a festive cheer but they can't do much about how utterly demented the eyeballs look. He eyes his creation with skepticism and slides it over.
Phil wraps his palms around the drink and stares at him. He makes a ridiculous picture. With his big blue eyes mimicking the ones on his insane mug. His jaw sharp and cheeks tinged red from sitting in the warm cafe. His lips plump and kissable. Like he said, ridiculous.
Bunny decides to make her presence known, interrupting whatever lurid scenario Dan was painting in his dome starring said lips. She meows loudly, hisses at Phil. She doesn't like customers. Unfortunate, seeing as her preferred spot is next to the counter. At a cat cafe. She tends to be a bit irony impaired.
Dan scratches her behind the ears and Phil looks on dolefully. Dan wonders which one of them he's more jealous of.
"Bunny doesn't like strangers." Dan takes pity on him.
"I'm hardly a stranger. ’Been here almost everyday for the last couple of months."
"You pissed her off with the sneezes today." Bunny stretches luxuriously under his ministrations and hops over to the window to catch the last of the dwindling sunlight. "Forget your pills?"
Phil goes red in the face. Redder than he's already been. Dan idly wonders how far the redness goes and if he'd ever find out.
Unlikely, considering the pace this is going at…
"Fun story. Turns out I'm allergic to them." Dan barely catches the last bit with how quietly it is mumbled.
"To the pills? You're allergic to the allergy pills?" He would normally be embarrassed at how high his voice goes but he feels like it's warranted.
"You don't have to scream about it." Phil looks around surreptitiously as if the cats are going to judge him for it.
They probably are, Denise always has a look in her eye like she understands everything perfectly but deigns none of their human matters important enough for feline consideration.
"The doctor said I have to lay off the pills for a while."
"And you thought it was a good idea to surround yourself with cats? The things you are primarily allergic to?"
"Doesn't seem very smart, huh."
"No Phil, it does not. Maybe there's another reason you're here?"
Phil scratches the back of his head. "Maybe."
"And what might that reason be?" Dan prompts. He feels a bit sick with how fast his heart is beating.
An interminable pause.
"Coffee. The reason is coffee." Phil sounds disappointed at himself.
"There are other places around that sell coffee, Phil. Ones without cats even." Dan says gently.
"I like cats." Phil stares forlornly at Bunny. Bunny stares back and licks her asshole. Phil takes that as a sign.
"Right then, I'll get out your way. Thanks for the coffee."
Dan decides not to needle him. "Sure."
One of these days.
Phil looks sad and defeated as he scoops up the napkins from his table and dumps them in the bin before leaving.
---
"God that's ugly." Diedre turns the mug over in her hands. It's fleshy pink with red pock marks on. Like pustules.
"He said they're polka dots." Dan volunteers. Phil's forgotten one of his mugs at the cafe and Diedre had taken it upon herself to inflict pain on Dan about it.
"Christ. Love truly is blind."
"Hey! I'm trying to fuck him, not his mugs."
"Are you even trying though? I've never seen you pine after someone for this long. Usually, you’ve already ghosted or been ghosted by now."
"Please don't call me a slut. That’s workplace sexual harassment."
"Pish posh. Seriously though, how long are you going to torture him for? He looks like a lovesick fool lmao."
"Did you just say that out loud? No, how did you say that out loud? What the hell?"
"I'm old. Let me live."
"You're literally only... you know what? Not important. Also, I'm not torturing him. How am I torturing him? If anyone's being tortured, it's me. And he's doing it to me!"
Deidre snorts.
"Shut up."
She falls into a fit of laughter.
Dan sniffs haughtily. "Facetiousness doesn't suit you."
Diedre flips him off and stares at her sandwich. "This tastes like ass. How old is it?"
Dan inspects his and pulls out a wilted brown piece of lettuce. He flicks it onto his plate.
"Judging by the smell, atleast yesterday's. We aren't exactly known for our sandwiches. Stop that! That's..." He stops mid sentence and stares in fascination and horror as Diedre shoves two fingers up her throat and barfs out half a sandwich, deeply reminiscent of a cat.
She wipes her mouth with a napkin nonchalantly and stares at him, daring him to say something.
"As I was saying...", he values his life too much, "if he wants to ask me out, he should just do it and stop expecting me to do it for him."
"The guy is raw dogging a cat cafe while being deathly allergic to cats." Dan rolls his eyes.
"Man's fighting for his life." She tries again. Dan pretends to ignore her.
"He's a valued customer." Diedre shakes a finger at him.
"Is this what it's come to? First you pimp out your mum's cats and now me? Your oldest friend?"
"God, you're so dramatic. Pity the Phil who..."
"It's fool, not Phil."
"Right. Pity Phil the fool. Wonder if he knows how shrieky you get when..."
"Shut up, oh my god. You're actually the worst. You know what, that's it. You've come here, insulted my decor choices, thrown up a full sandwich, berated me about my love life and alluded to the one unfortunate time I've begged you not to speak of. All of that in less than half an hour. Your owner duties are done for the month. You can leave now."
"That poster really is atrocious though." Diedre looks relieved to be permitted to leave. "The cat looks sick. Sick of being here."
Dan throws the door open and stares pointedly at her. She envelopes him in a big hug and forces him to participate for ten full seconds till he relaxes and kisses the top of her head. "You're horrible."
"Hmm, you too. Let me know how it goes with Phil the fool."
Dan throws her out and takes his place behind the counter. He stares at the clock as he clears the plates. Phil will be here any second now.
---
"What does she look like to you?" Dan points at the poster above the counter.
Phil tilts his head thoughtfully.
"Constipated?"
Dan throws the rag he was cleaning the counter with at his head.
"Clearly not the right answer." Phil returns the rag to him. Unfortunately, he comes too close to Bunny who does the old song and dance of hiss and retreat.
"If anyone's constipated, it's probably her." Dan points to Bunny who stares at him in betrayal. He wonders not for the first time if the cats understand him.
"Good to know." Phil clears his throat. He looks red again.
Oh. Oh well. In for a penny.
"I'm not constipated." Dan pauses.
"I apologise if I implied you were." Phil coughs again. Maybe he's forgotten his medication again.
"The cat. It looks grumpy. In an adorable way."
Phil regards the poster again. "If you say so."
"Ugh. Like you understand anything about art anyway." Dan waves a dismissive rag at him.
"Excuse you. I took art in school. Can't you tell by the mugs I make?"
"You make those?" Dan is surprised by the fact that he manages not to shriek.
Phil nods proudly.
Dan is terrified. He hands Phil his coffee and stares at him in horror for the rest of the evening.
---
Phil looks particularly ravishing today. He's wearing a mint green cardigan and has glasses on. Big chunky ones. They look prescription. It does things to Dan. The mug he's brought is bad, probably worse than all the ones before. It looks like a fleshy mound someone punched a hole into, very vulgar. If not for the context of it being pushed towards him for the express purpose of being filled with what Phil refers to as coffee, Dan doubts he'd in a million years guess the monstrosity in front of him to be a mug.
Dan can feel his eyes boring into his neck as he makes the coffee. Diedre screams in his head. He sighs.
"So, are the mugs a wooing thing? Like penguins?"
Phil gapes at him.
"You know, I'm patient but not that patient." He decides to let that stew and turns away to froth the milk.
When he comes back, Phil is still a bit red around the ears but he seems to have gained some composure.
"More like a conversation starter really. Like, maybe you ask me where I get so many artisan mugs from."
Dan decides to let the artisan comment slide. He'll come back to it.
"And the allergies? You know if you just asked me out we could go somewhere not surrounded by cats? Wheeziness isn't exactly a quality one looks for in a partner. Also, you call these artisan?" Apparently, he's come back to it.
"What's wrong with the mugs?" He looks genuinely confused.
"What's right with them? I have dreams about them, Phil. Nightmares. Lovecraftian ones."
"I take a class. Weekly." Phil sniffs. "I'll let the teacher know they're Lovecraftian."
Dan nods emphatically, "I doubt it's the teacher's fault."
Phil frowns but recovers quickly.
"So, do you wanna...maybe...come to the class with me? There's no cats there."
"Hm. Smooth, but no. I'd rather not be subjected to your unbridled artistry on the first date." Dan stares pointedly at the mug as he hands it over.
"But..." Dan can practically see the Ghost fantasies slipping out of Phil's head in real time. He smirks to himself.
"It's taken you three months to ask me out. I'd rather not wait around for years till you work up the courage to ask me over. How about your place, pick me up at six?"
Phil nods vigorously. He looks terrified. Good, at least he's not the only one scared out of his wits.
"Good. Now, go drink your coffee." Dan shoos him away, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.
He considers Phil as he settles into the booth and tries to lure Chip with a little piece of cracker. He texts Diedre.
How mad would you be if I were to close a bit early today?
Is this to do with Phil the fool?
Maybe.
I'll sic the cats on you if you don't leave now.
You can't sic the cats on people.
Cats don't listen to people.
They're not dogs.
Dan. Leave.
Now.
Fine, but only because you insist.
Asshole.