for reignfall | modern au

[nearamir]

Faramir has established himself pretty thoroughly, without entirely meaning to, as a regular here. It's the kind of place, after all, where a man like him can easily spend hours, either browsing the second-hand bookshelves or just sipping at a hot drink and watching the world go by. It's good, he's decided, to have places like that. Peaceful places, where people know you, and nobody asks anything of you besides good manners and a decent tip - both of which he is more than happy to provide.

Over the past few months, he's got into the habit of spending his Saturday afternoons at the coffee shop, settled into the nook by the window with a latte and a notebook, where he can either read whatever catches his eye, or scribble down poetry of his own. His therapist encourages this, but that isn't why he does it; he does it because he always has, because it puts his mind at ease, and because when his time is his own, he may as well indulge in softer interests.

And because nobody remains to push him towards manlier occupations. There's that, too. He has nothing to prove, because with his father gone, he has nobody to prove it to; and sometimes he doubts whether that's a good enough reason, but it isn't as though he can go back to the Army. The shrapnel lodged under his rib has seen to that. So he's free to grow out his hair, which is now well past his shoulders and a far cry from the regulation cut he had a couple of years ago; he's free to shift his focus from strategy to literature; and he's free to sit in coffee shops with a notebook of poetry and a fairtrade latte, if that's what he wants to do.

He has, however, been away for a couple of weeks. There's something rather gratifying in finding that his absence has been noticed - the barista exclaims when he comes in, says they were starting to worry; and his table is, thankfully, free. He settles back into his usual place, smiling a little, and reaches into his tote for his notebook and pen. It's nice to belong somewhere, after all.

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[reignfall]

It had been a one time thing, really. A picture in the quaint, sustainable coffee shop, something featuring the lovely latte art and a bookshelf in the background. It does not quite pull the numbers that she might receive in the shortest of her skirts, and if she bothered with a poolside picture now and again, preferably in a bikini so revealing movement becomes next to impossible –– But that is neither here nor there. She craves influence, the sort her father has over people, and she must leave some things to the imagination, if she wishes to be taken midway seriously.

There is money in a social media presence, though, especially in the swift-growing, ever changing online landscape of the digital age, and money reigns eternal.

Three years has it been since her brother went to university with her to follow, and the set-up her father had in mind was a simple one. Of course she needed to be educated, but it need not be a thing with true weight behind it. An art history degree would be just as well, after all, she is meant to marry someone – the son of a business parter, for instance, would be perfect. Except no amount of denying the existence of dyslexia makes her twin less affected, nor does no amount of pushing drive out of him a preference for (and excelling in) sports over duller studies.

In the end, it is her who talks her twin into signing the contract, into going pro, and it is her who strikes the ill deal with her father: his financial support, a different path at university, one more geared toward a role in his business, for a girl still beats his second son. And then: that marriage to the Baratheon boy, eventually, when she is finished.

She comes here, then, to study. She has her expensive notebook and her coffees, and the handsome regular who shows his face every Saturday, without fail. More often than not, she finds a reason to join him at his table, and more often than not, she spends plenty of time looking and less time on her note-taking, but what does it matter? There is no harm in looking. And if she has taken a stealthy picture of him before, then that is hardly a crime – she would know.

So, in her mind, it makes perfect sense to walk on over to him as soon as he is settled, because it is him who broke that quiet truce: they would share a table, or she would, at least, sit close by. They trade a polite greeting and a couple of sentences here and there, she asks him what he reads, he asks her if she is alright. It is the closest thing to a friendship she has managed to build in quite some time, not that it matters: she has followers who would die to be her friends, her lovers, her world.

"You could at least have said something." No polite greeting today, and no gentle request on whether the seat across from him is taken. "Someone might have worried."

[nearamir]

He jumps a little, startled less by her approach - it is hardly the first time she has joined him at his table, after all, even when the place is less than full; he is not sure whether she is lonely or whether it's just that this is her favourite table, too - and more by the accusing tone of her voice. She sounds as though he's done her a personal wrong, and even Faramir, who quite often feels himself responsible for things he has not done, is moderately confident that is not so.

It is, therefore, a second or two before he can compose a response. "I suppose I didn't realise I had become quite so much a fixture." She isn't wrong, after all. Someone might have worried. Judging by the conversation he had with the barista at the counter, several someones had. That is, he supposes, the downside of belonging somewhere.

He didn't expect her to worry, though. He knows her by face, and he remembers her name - Cersei, she told him once, although he can't think that he knows the other part of it - but that is all, really. She is a beautiful stranger, to borrow a phrase; someone he occasionally, and a little guiltily, admires, but not someone he considers more than a passing acquaintance. They've passed a few words; he usually tries not to talk too much, since she said once that she came here to study, and he wouldn't like to distract her. He stopped wondering, fairly early on, why she keeps crossing his path, assuming that she is here more often than he is, and it would never occur to him that she would notice his absence when he has only missed one or two of his usual coffee breaks.

"If I worried you, I'm sorry. I was called away for a little while." There was a medal involved, an order of commendation to match the one they pinned to his brother's coffin. He has wondered several times, looking at it, whether it would have made any difference if his father had known it was coming.

[reignfall]

How could she be lonely? She has all she wants and all she needs, she has her admirers and a marriage awaiting her just a few far too short years away, she has her brother on some days, she has the sort of friends that fit next to her in pictures. This is simply the objectively nicest table, and he is simply the objectively most preferable regular here. And if she wonders if the poetry he writes occasionally features her, or if it would be too absurd to ask him to dinner sometime, that... that is not a thing borne from loneliness.

"I hope it wasn't too serious." Intent she is now on mellowing the initial upset with which she had approached him, and her eyes wander from him to the menu she had sampled drink by drink over the course of her visits. "It's just... Things happen. It could have been an accident or you simply could have moved elsewhere –"

Not a thought out speech, that. "It is good to see you well."

[nearamir]

It is strange. He can hear in her tone, in her words, that she was worried by his absence; and that is touching, in a way he cannot and will not deny, but it is also just strange. He will not dismiss it out of hand, will not say even to himself that she is foolish to be concerned; has he not himself had plenty of periods of worry when people unexpectedly are absent, when his mind flies to all that might have befallen them?

But friends, most often, and family. Not strangers in a coffee shop.

Still, it is hard to know what to say. He settles, after a moment, for the simple truth. "There was no accident, no seriousness. I had to attend a ceremony, that was all, and I thought I may as well make a holiday of it." He smiles. "It is good to see you well, too. How are your studies?"

[reignfall]

She does not bother to hide that flicker of curiosity at the mention of a ceremony, and her eyes dart, quite unsubtly in truth, to his ring finger. She has made no grand overtures for his attention, but there is, in her mind, a benefit to knowing when a handsome man might not have freshly made himself unavailable.

Besides, he inquired after her, too. "They are going quite well." In fact, she passed her most recent bout of exams, but she does not much wish to talk to him of university. She fancies him a poet, independent in some fashion, and she cannot fathom him being overly interested in the dull structures of law school. "I have a few weeks off now. Perhaps I should do something besides studying for a change." It isn't quite a hint, is it? "How is the writing?"

[nearamir]

He is not imagining that look, he is sure of it. It would be hard to imagine such an obvious glance towards his hand (and a finger which has never borne a ring of any kind), especially from someone for whom it is at least a little inappropriate. He clears his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable, and reaches for his coffee.

She asks after his writing, and it does not help with that slight discomfort, for he is still on some level a little embarrassed by it. He is not, after all, a poet or a novelist; he has had nothing published, or tried to, and there will always be some part of him that speaks in his father's voice, reminding him that it isn't a pastime for a real man. No matter how much he reminds himself that plenty of real - and great - men have found solace in the arts, that embarrassment lingers. He can find peace in it when he is alone in it; to be perceived in it is something else.

"The writing is... much the same as it always was." He looks down at his notebook, still closed in front of him, and takes a sip of coffee to cover his discomfiture. "I don't believe I will ever be a Byron or a Shakespeare, but I like to think there's some merit to it."

[reignfall]

"I don't think Rilke woke up and knew he would be a household name." She shrugs, and pours some of her attention over to the menu. She has yet to order the same thing twice, in fact, she seems to be on some quest to make her way through every beverage and most of the snacks. There is a standee on the table advertising cinnamon rolls, and she would lie if she said those did not sound tempting. "Are you writing for yourself or are you working on getting published? Both?"

Now that she has begun this talk, it seems to net around him, as if she is a fisherman with little social graces – or no practice with the idea that someone might not be this interested in a conversation with her – and he is a dolphin merely trying to swim along.

[nearamir]

There's something oddly charming about it, he finds; awkward, perhaps, but charming nonetheless. He is a fairly private man, for the most part, if a friendly one, and it isn't all that often that people actually ask these kinds of questions.

"For myself." He has never even thought about publication, truthfully. His brother used to suggest it, when he was alive; but since Boromir's death, that's something he's pushed to the back of his mind all over again. "I can't imagine that what I have to offer is exciting enough to push anyone else off the shelves. Besides, it's..." Personal. That's what it boils down to, in the end. Some of what is in that notebook is, by his own assessment, neutral to the point of trite: musings on weather and landscapes and abstract thoughts. Most of it is rather more raw.

He clears his throat, and offers her a smile. "It isn't particularly polished, let's say."

[reignfall]

Cersei has been called arrogant before, though she disagrees with the assessment. She is not arrogant; she is skilled, more beautiful than any other woman alive, and more clever than anyone, including even her most decorated professor. These are simply truths, and she reckons it does her good to be aware of them. Perhaps that is what makes his understatements so great: no one would read him, his work is unpolished, he pays no mind to the glories he might reach if he as much as dared.

It is a rather startling thing to witness, seeing how pride runs from the roots to the leaves of her family shrub.

Still – his smile is catching, and she answers it in kind. "Well, I cannot judge it for myself –" Seeing how his notebook is safely guarded, and none of his careful words made him seem keen on yielding his treasures, "but I wonder if you might not deserve more praise than you are willing to grant yourself."

If he thinks he can dodge the subject, he is, unfortunately, mistaken. His absence has made her aware that she might never receive answers to her questions, and now that he has returned, she seems unwilling to hold them back. "What got you started?"

[nearamir]

He regards her for a moment, his grey eyes thoughtful and intent. There is nothing demanding in that look, but only a deep consideration - whether of her or of the question, who can say? Both seem to him, in the moment, equally strange, and equally hard to entirely respond to.

"I'm not sure I can say," he admits, at length. "As long as I can remember, I have written. As long as I could read, and even before, I have taken joy in poetry. I cannot imagine that there was ever a time that I did start, or a world in which I do not write, at least in my own head." There is a hint of sheepishness in his smile, this time. "You should not ask such questions of a poet. You may get a poetic lack of answer."

That he is a poet, he has never doubted. Whether he is a good one may, perhaps, be a matter for debate: but, as he has said, he has written poetry for as long as he could write, and read it for as long as he had the ability, and if that does not make him in some way a poet, then what could? Besides, it is one thing that has never been denied of him, even if it has been spoken more often as insult than praise by some. A poet: a man with his head in the clouds, a man who looks for beauty in a world where there may be none and who seeks to make of himself something that no man could be, a man whose head is too full of words to leave room for bitter, cynical truth. He has often thought, even when it was spat at him in that way, that there were worse things to be.

He sips his coffee, and looks down at the notebook on the tabletop, a small frown creasing his brow. "I have never understood," he says, quietly, "how people can bear to live in a world without poetry. It must be such a bleak place."

[reignfall]

As long as he remembers, and yet he thinks his work unpolished and best hidden in his private notebook, where none may ever partake in it. His sheepish smile is contagious, however, and her own lips quirk upward when he catches himself before the monologue can get a hold of him properly. The waitress nearly startles her when she comes to take her order, and it is clear that Cersei gave the question no thought at all from the carelessness with which she points at a random drink from the coffee menu.

She looks ready to pose another question, or offer a gently teasing remark, even. Yet he goes on, and the time for a playful teasing is past them as quickly as it had come, and he cannot know his words would strike home – but they do. It is a waste in her father's eyes, any interest in a thing that could be fiction, and while she frequently rejoiced when this struck Tyrion, it did affect any natural inclination she might have had toward it. And that was ever present, from when she listened intently to the songs Rhaegar Targaryen wrote (and wept at the most touching parts when she was but a girl) to the present, where all must serve a purpose, and purpose is measured in numbers.

Oh, Tywin Lannister values reading, and his older, dyslexic son is a personal curse to him by his own estimation, but there is a difference between hard science and expressive arts, isn't there? "We had fireplaces at home. They brightened it up nice enough." An attempt at a joke.

[nearamir]

He recognises the joke, and smiles at it; but it is a smile clearly born of politeness more than anything else, and it is a fleeting thing. It is a relief, then, that the waitress is there; that he can look up, and ask her for another latte, please (although his current one is still half-full). It is mostly to make a break in the conversation, to make less of the awkward lack of laughter.

"I did not mean it as an insult," he says, after a moment, looking back at Cersei. His grey eyes are sincere, steady and cool in their regard. "Only that..." Again, that small crease between his brows, that slight look of distance. "Have you read any of Robert Graves' work? Or Sassoon's? They do not brighten very much; on the contrary, they are bleaker than most prose. But poetry gives shape to darkness, and makes it something that can be shared and lightened, and when I think of living without that, I start to understand why my father..."

He breaks off sharply, and looks away, clearing his throat. "It is not a world I would like to live in."

[reignfall]

"My mother liked to read the most. It was always something else. Poetry one night, something from a storybook the next." Only now does she note that his cup is still half-full, even though he has already ordered another. Somehow, that makes the subject less taxing: however strange the circumstances, he doesn't seem to be looking for a quick escape. "It makes it feel like something sacred now, no matter the subject. Even the dark things."

Perhaps especially those, because she cannot imagine her mother as a shining ray of golden sunlight, if she managed to capture her father's heart.

She smiles, not apologetic. "Maybe that is what got me so curious, when I saw you write."

[nearamir]

It is strange, that smile. There is something in it that sparks a warmth in him, almost a relief. "It is," he allows, with a little smile of his own, "as good a reason as any. I was trying not to ask."

Because it is strange, is it not, to be so fascinated by a man sitting alone in a coffee shop? It is strange to miss him when he is gone for a brief time, and strange to strike up such conversation with him, when he is not even entirely sure that he has ever given her his name. It is not unpleasant, not in the slightest, but it is strange; and this is the closest she has ever come to giving an explanation.

An explanation, he cannot help but notice, which is remarkably close to his own experience. He, too, remembers his mother reading night and day; it is one of the few things he does remember of her with any great clarity. He, too, finds in that a sacred wonder. Perhaps that is why, after a moment, he clears his throat and pushes the moleskine notebook across the table towards her. It is not something he makes a habit of, to share his poetry so freely with a stranger; but under the circumstances, it begins to feel churlish not to.

"If you would care to sate your curiosity." His smile lingers longer, this time; it is soft, if not entirely happy. "Only do not be disappointed, and remember: I did tell you it is unpolished."

[reignfall]

She had asked his first name, and given her own – though she never asked for his surname, nor did he strike her as the sort of man who would return home and use an online search engine of his choice to find hers out. The man writes his poetry into a notebook, for crying out loud, he is more likely than not the only person she sees on a regular basis who might be honestly surprised at the numbers on her instagram account.

No sooner has she thought the word 'notebook' and it is pushed toward her, a small smile still somewhere on his features, and she touches the cover as though to ask if he is certain. Not that she can voice the question, because she does not wish to be told no now. In some way, she feels as if she needs to know, as if it is vital to catch a glimpse of his mind when she has spent so long on watching, on tidbits of conversation. His smile is not enough to drive that shroud of darkness from him, but her own is all the light in the room. "It would not be real if it were overly polished."

The polishing sounds too much like censoring, cutting away at truths. She is gentle with his prized possession, opens the notebook carefully for a first, ravenous reading. She will only look up again – blinking, as if resurfacing – when the waitress comes with their orders.

[nearamir]

It is... uncomfortable, to sit there in silence and try not to wonder what she is thinking. Her smile is dazzling, but it is not enough to drive back thirty years of doubt, not enough - at least, not for more than a moment - to drown out the memory of his father's voice. Faramir clears his throat, rather awkwardly, and picks up his coffee with both hands, wrapping long fingers around the warm cup. Now he is the one fighting the urge to lean in and read over her shoulder, to see what she is looking at and what she thinks. Instead, because it seems slightly easier, he turns away from her, looking out of the window at the street outside; his eyes do still keep trying to wander over to her, though, to gauge her reaction.

It is not only poetry, it transpires, with which he has filled the pages of his notebook. There are small sketches, too, landscapes and small thumbnail portraits, drawn in black ink in the same sure, neat hand whose flowing script is woven between them. Her own face is among them - a fact which, if he had remembered it, might have made him altogether less likely to relinquish the book - but most of the faces sketched there are men; his father, his brother, his comrades-in-arms. Faces fixed to the page for fear of being forgotten. The landscapes vary: desert, forest, mountains.

But there is still no page that is without words. There are no dates on his work, nothing to indicate when or where the poems were written. Some are clearly unfinished: couplets and snippets, fragments of a whole that will never be pieced together. Others are more fully-realised, and some of these are several pages long: a musing on the silence that falls after gunfire; a long description of a storm in woodlands; a winding verse that follows the course of a river from source to sea. All have the ring of sincerity, and all, even the ones that muse on light and hope, carry with them a deeper melancholy.

Faramir jumps, uncharacteristically startled for the second time that afternoon, as the waitress places the fresh coffee down in front of him; his smile is brief and distracted as he murmurs a polite thank-you and allows himself, at last, to glance at Cersei again. He does not want to ask what she thinks; nor, he finds, can he bear not to know. After a moment, he clears his throat again.

"Well?"

[reignfall]

Hard to say what she expected. Pages of neat, unedited script, perhaps, or nothing but thoughtless, clumsy stanzas following some terrible rhyming scheme, something to kill her curiosity and bury it in disappointment's scorched earth. Instead, she holds in her hands a glimpse into his world, and she finds herself reading with a ravenous hunger, the awareness of how little time she has resting, excruciating, in every beat of her heart. Now and again, she sinks into a finished poem, and just as often, she turns a page, tongue bit between her teeth, hoping for another line, a follow-up, only to find that it is not yet finished, and that she will never know the next verse.

The art gives her more pause – men she has not seen, distant friends, perhaps, until she notes the occasional hint at a uniform, puzzling together, then, that he must have had another life indeed. On her own image, she pauses, enthralled as ever by her beauty, and excited, in a way, at knowing he must have stopped to capture it.

She does not notice the waitress' approach nor departure, and only the clearing of his throat forces her to resurface, a finger on a line as though she fears losing it. It cannot have been so long since she began; it was not long enough. The wonder on her face is quite real, until she realises it and means to pull herself together again, the slightest hint of a blush on her cheeks at having been so intimately watched. She had not noticed his looking away any more than she'd noticed the appearance of her drink. "I'm –"

Now it is for her to clear her throat, to gather herself together. "Thank you. I liked the portrait." It feels hollow, though, to only speak of that one thing, when she had sunken far more deeply into all of the rest. Such honesty, however, seems to trouble her, so it takes another moment before she finds something resembling the words for it. It had been a more intimate experience than she has had in quite some time. "I would read it again and again, if it were something I could place on my shelf. You've made me feel –" For a moment, it looks as though she wishes to add something there, but then she stops. He has made her feel quite a few things, in fact, more than she permits herself during the average week.

[nearamir]

You've made me feel is, in a strange way, enough. After all, what is poetry for, if not to make one feel? And she does not seem insulted - despite the sudden surge of anxiety he feels when he realises which portrait she means - and she does not seem to be stumbling to hide her distaste; in other words, better than he might have feared, and more than enough to be complimentary. He relaxes a little, his shoulders visibly losing some of their tension, and smiles.

"I am flattered," he says warmly, honestly. What else is there to say but that? It is a strange feeling; he has never shown his work so freely to anyone since Boromir died. Beregond has had sight of it a few times, and Faramir is in writing groups and classes who have, of course, seen some of his work - but to let it entirely out of his hands has become a foreign thing, and it is, above all, a huge relief to see it well-received, without disappointment. He wonders, too, at the blush that has appeared rose-pink on her cheeks. He cannot help but note how it warms her whole expression, and makes her prettier still. "And relieved. I would hate to feel I had insulted you by mistake." With the portrait, he means, of course; sketching is something he is far less comfortable with than words, and it has none of the anonymous abstraction of poetry.

[reignfall]

He meant it in truth, she realises, this fear of a harsh judgement and the thought that his work might not be as worthwhile as that of older masters. He sits less strained, then, but it is the smile that captures her, in a way that she does not usually feel drawn to near-strangers. It reminds her also that she still holds onto his notebook, and that she should, at least, place it back upon the table for him to take, even though she would rather finish her reading. It would be a risk to take too much now; it might rob her of a future chance at another glimpse.

"I came across three already that I cannot wait for you to finish one day." And that just from her hasty, starved read. "Though I do wish you would consider some form of publishing." If only so she could have his words for herself, on her shelf, to be read when she felt like it, until she knew every last one.

Almost sheepish, she takes a sip of her coffee – a sweet concoction with a hint of caffeine, really. "I never noticed your sketching. Sitting with you is comfortable, I don't feel particularly concerned in your presence. It must have made it easy to miss." She does not sound offended in the slightest, more as though she is musing out loud.

[nearamir]

He does not, to his own surprise, hasten to take the book back. It no longer feels important to do so: the seal broken, the secrecy dispelled. It is not as though he has it in him, in this jumbled and admittedly awkward moment, to calmly sink back into writing; nor does he entirely wish to, when this strange conversation has taken so interesting and flattering a turn. This is not at all what he expected from this day, and yet it is a pleasant surprise, enough so that it has a certain unreality to the whole thing.

Comfortable. It is, in a humble way, the highest praise that she might have given. To be safe, to be comfortable, to be a presence which does not inspire fear unless intended... that is small praise, perhaps, but it seems to him the most important thing a man could aspire to, at least in peacetime. His smile strengthens a little, and he sips his own coffee, settling back in his seat.

"It is a bad habit, I'm afraid." The sketching. It feels intrusive, at times, if he thinks about it too long. "I cannot promise anything as far as publishing goes - but I can promise that I will consider it, at least. And try to show you, if I finish anything already begun." It seems the least he can offer, really, for how kind she is being.

[reignfall]

"Does this mean I will regularly see you here again?" She means to snuff out the hopefulness in her voice - it feels girlish, and weak for that same reason, and why should she, of all people, be so desperate for casual company? If she posted a request in one of her stories on social media, she would receive messages for days – and perhaps that is the appeal, in this moment. He has, presumably, not jerked off to her last three bikini pictures.

She stirs around in her mug, her free hand tracing the simple, patternless cover of his notebook. Perhaps she should have used a silent moment to scribble her number on one of the pages, but that is cowardly, and she is a lioness. A lioness, which means she has her pride, and no reason to dwell on that odd sense of loneliness she had felt without her silent, steadfast study-companion.

[nearamir]

"I see no reason you should not." There is, perhaps, a small note of amusement in his voice - but there is genuine warmth, too, and if he means to mock her earnestness, then he has little chance of it being effective, for his own earnestness shines through too much. He smiles, and there is a hint of colour in his cheeks that was not there before. "I have no other travel on the horizon, and I do not mean to change my habits overmuch. If you would like to see me here again, then you may always seek me out."

He wraps both hands, again, around his drink, resting his lips against the rim of the cup. For a moment, he considers her, trying not to wonder whether he may have overstepped. This is, it must be said, outside his realm of expertise.

[reignfall]

"I will be sure to do so." It is not the impulse itself which confuses her. He is handsome, almost unfairly so, his presence feels comfortable to her, and now, after this glimpse into his inner world, she must also suffer from the knowledge that she finds his mind as appealing as his body. So, this wish to spend time with him makes sense – she would, in fact, quite like to spend a number of hours in his bed, if at all possible.

What bothers her is that the impulse persists, even after she cannot find a proper reason for it. He will not elevate her brand, he is neither useful to her father's business, nor does he stand in direct competition with it. He is no equally aspiring classmate, either – in short, she cannot think of a thing she could gain her.

Except, of course, his company, which seems to be a goal onto itself. That slight blush to his cheeks is appealing as well – dear god, what is in this coffee? Either way, she ignores her own cup and waits until his at least has left his lips. "In fact, I was wondering if you would like to go out for dinner with me sometime."

[nearamir]

He starts at that, sharply enough that a little of his coffee spills over the edge of the cup onto the slender brown hands that clasp it - and he may be glad to have ordered a latte, in this case, for at least it only scalds a little. Flushing, he sets his cup down and reaches for a napkin.

He should, he realises, have seen that coming. He should have seen it coming as soon as she sat down with him. He can almost hear his brother's good-natured laughter from beyond the grave - a thought tinged with both fondness and sharp, bitter grief. Boromir would have known at once; would have teased him ceaselessly for not realising her intentions; and he feels a fresh sorrow at the knowledge of that, but he will not dwell on it. He has a moment to gather himself, at least, under the guise of wiping up the spilled coffee. When he looks up, his cheeks are still a touch darker than they should be, but he smiles, nonetheless.

She is, it strikes him, quite a lot younger than him, and he knows her hardly at all. There is a part of him, then, which is doubtful; which feels that it would not be fair or proper to accept. But if it is only one date...

"I would." He clears his throat, and smiles a little more certainly. "Of course. It would be good to get to know you better."

[reignfall]

She offers him a napkin, and watches him clean his hands, the table, the cup that is now coffee-stained at its side. More keenly does she watch the rising flush in his cheeks, though she wonders at it, too – he is so handsome it almost pains her, he is well-spoken and clever, he is a poet and he has a gentle, kind air about him. Surely to be asked on dates is a thing that must be second nature to him, as average a part of his day as brushing his hair or cleaning his teeth.

Still, that boyish blush is strangely nice to see, and gods, she must be in some deeper trouble here. Perhaps this is the right course of action, then: to ask him out, and to see if he might join her for a cup of coffee at her place after, and then they might unceremoniously fuck on her kitchen counter, and she will have it out of her system by the next morning.

The next week, tops.

Yeah, because getting him out of her system has worked really well so far.

There's a good hint at how far gone she is when her own smile turns more honest in answer to his. "There is a nice place down by the river. It's not far from here at all, less than fifteen minutes by foot." So, assuming he doesn't live terribly far from the café... "Could I trouble you for your number?"