#Best Served Cold | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

noodyl-blasstal · 3 months ago

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The Good Lick Store - Best Served Cold Part 1

It's @tazsapphicweek!! Here's a story that started life last year when @ceilingfan5 and I plotted it out and meant to write it together but time happened and life happened. This year it was still rattling round my brain and they kindly gave me permission to go ham. So here's Best Served Cold!

You can read below or on Ao3

Raven wishes the bell on the door to Aw Beans! was slightly less cheerful. She’s not prepared for that level of peppy jingling this early in the morning, especially not when it’s coupled with the queue. The lines and noise are usually tempered by her desperate need for caffeine in the afternoon, but she knows Istus’ knee is playing up and Raven’s got some time before her next client so she’ll brave it. Early morning pep and crowds are worth it to please Istus, she’ll doubtless be putting a brave face on it, but Raven knows that a salted caramel green tea should help get her through the day. Aw Beans! is an institution at this point, nearly there as long as Raven and Istus, so when she finally makes it to the counter she smiles and idly chats to the new person on the till, takes her goods, and heads towards Istus, the same familiar route between their shops… although today it’s not so familiar.

Unit 12 has been empty for years, since Boyland’s accordion repair shop shut down no one else has stepped in, well, until now apparently. The sign for The Good Lick Store is big and gaudy with a series of light blubs around it to no doubt flash in terrible ways once it’s powered up. Raven hates it on sight. She hates the stupid font and the image of a tub with a swirl of what had better fucking not be ice cream in it over the ‘i’. She hates it even harder once she notices the smaller "It’s dewishis!" underneath. Istus makes the best ice cream, Istus is cutesy in the good way, the ‘that's my wife and I love her goofiness against my will’ way. How dare this place try and compete with anything she does?

Raven glares at the sign and turns away, she has tea to deliver.

–

Raven will never get tired of the way Istus lights up when she sees her, not that she’s never un-pleased to see Istus, but facial expressions are hard for Raven. It’s nice to see joy laid out so clearly.

“Raven! What a wonderful surprise, my love.” Raven pretends to roll her eyes at Istus’ attention, but presses a fond kiss to her sweet, delighted face before handing over the cup and a bag of fruit tarts that she couldn’t resist picking up. “For me? Thank you so much!”

After 30 odd years the novelty should probably have worn off, but it hasn’t. It's still just as much of a treat to roll into Istus’ shop and greet her… although Raven is grateful to no longer have to pretend that Aw Beans! ‘got her order wrong' and ask if there was any chance Istus might want it because it seems a shame to let it go to waste? It was only coincident the errors were always her favourites, honest.

But now she needs to focus. There’s bad news to deliver.

“There’s a new shop.” She says, as Istus takes her first sip, softening the blow with goodies is a happy coincidence at least, but thankfully she can be here for Istus too.

“It’s adorable isn’t it? "Dewishis!" So fun!” Istus sounds delighted.

Oh.

“You aren’t worried about competition?” Raven raises an eyebrow. “They’re pretty close to us… er, you, I mean.”

“We can be an us,” Istus says, taking Raven’s hand and kissing it. “With the amount of time I’m there I might as well be working part time at your shop.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing you tattoo somebody,” Raven says, laughing. “In fact, if I remember correctly, when I asked if you wanted to learn, you said ‘yuck’, right in front of the customer.”

“I maintain that it is yucky,” Istus says pleasantly. “But someone has to do it, and it may as well be my beautiful wife, who is worried about things beyond her control and projecting that concern on me.”

“You’re married??” Raven says, putting a hand to her chest, fake-aghast. “Oh lord, I’m a homewrecker.”

“I mean,” Killian interrupts from behind the point of sale machine. “Should we be worried?” She pauses… “...Not to get in the way of your smooching of course.”

“I am going to get in the way of the smooching, actually,” Carey says, whapping Killian with her cloth, and then gesturing pointedly to the mush jar.

“Raven instigated it,” Istus says, throwing Raven under the bus without a thought. “I’m also out of cash.” She opens her hands and looks mournfully at the lack of cold hard cash in them.

So much for the vows they swore to each other. Raven mutters some things that are not actually as grumpy as they sound, fishes out a note to stuff in the jar, kisses Istus’ hand one more time, and deposits the money in the already very full jar. “In my own place of business, so cruel!”

“I thought you didn’t work here?” Istus’ mouth tilts up at the corner.

Raven gasps. “I thought we were an us! Is this how you tell me it’s over? Oh, oh woe is me!” Raven looks her very saddest, summoning the biggest pout she can muster.

Istus cups her face so fondly, strokes a thumb across her cheek, and whispers far too loudly, “I could never be without you my love, you're the wings of my heart, the spring in my step, the sand in my hourglass, but don’t let them hear me say that or you’ll have to chuck another fiver in.”

Carey and Killian both groan in tandem.

“That’s at least ten. Self awareness won't save you, and stop enjoying it! It defeats the point of the jar when you revel in it.” Carey spares a moment to point a warning finger at them before she returns to her perfect sprinkle mix. She maintains that no one else does it right, there’s a graph about the colour, shape, and texture ratios, but no one else has managed to interpret it correctly.

“Don’t make us find another way to punish you for, well, all of this.” Killian gestures at the pair of them making eyes at each other and sighs heavily. Then grins and turns to Carey. “Promise me we’ll be this gross when we’re old?” She bats her eyelashes dramatically.

Carey rolls her eyes. “I hate you all.”

“Fine, since being in love is apparently illegal, I suppose I’ll resort to asking the pair of you what you think of the sign?” Raven’s mouth draws into a thin line at the thought of the garish mess.

Killian hisses and Carey narrows her eyes.

The terse “uh huh,” and the grunt of acknowledgement are simultaneous and tell Raven everything she needs to know. At least she's not the only one.

"Stop it, the lot of you. I know it's because you care about me, but this will be fun! We can do cross promotions, work together! ‘Get stabbed and ice it’ was fun, wasn't it?"

"That was different!" Says Raven indignantly. Because it's not the same, that was cute, there were stickers, it was her and Istus, it was fun! This is some evil ice cream conglomerate coming for sweet Istus' unsuspecting throat, and Raven refused to let that happen. By the looks on their faces, Killian and Carey agree.

"It was.” Istus says with consideration, then bats her eyelashes at Raven. “You see, I'm not in love with them." She pulls Raven in for another kiss as Carey and Killian boo loudly. "Now, I believe you have an appointment to get to?"

"...and about twenty five quid to add to the jar!" Carey points.

Raven plants another kiss firmly on Istus' lips and Istus laughs into it, when she surfaces she grabs another wodge of notes. "There, I rounded it up to thirty."

Istus laughs happily and waves Raven off with a flurry of blown kisses. She’d marry that woman tomorrow if she hadn’t done it already… although maybe they could do another vow renewal? It had been a few years since the last one…

–

The shop is empty when Istus stops by later that day, but there's a poster tacked up in the window. Frozen yoghurt! At least she assumes that’s what ‘fro yo!’ means. How fun! She makes a note of the website in her planner. She can look it up later on. It's exciting though - fro yo friends! That rolls off the tongue nicely. Istus can definitely send some of her customers their way, it'll be nice for them to get to try some new things. Maybe the Good Lick management would be willing to get involved in the outreach programme with them, she makes a note to mention that when she visits too.

–

"Istus, are you sure about this?" Carey stands, arms crossed, in front of the shop door. She knows Istus is an adult, a successful business owner who’s perfectly capable of making her own decisions, but she also worries. Istus is so ready to see the good in everyone, expects them to be as unfailingly kind as she is, and that's just not the world they live in.

“I’m so sure I made a card!” Istus flourishes the sprinkle themed envelope she has stashed in one of her deep pockets.

“You make cards for everything.”

“Only when I’m sure I want to.”

Istus smiles so beautifically, so confidently, that Carey doesn’t even know how to begin to challenge it. “But…” She tails off.

Istus just pats her on the shoulder. “I don’t want you to worry about work, Carey, there’s always a place for you here, it doesn’t matter if the new spot picks up some of our business, we’re absolutely fine.”

That hadn’t been what Carey was worried about, actually, but now she was going to cry about feeling so valued. Istus was hugging her, and she smelled so sweet and comforting, like the caramel popcorn she’d been mixing a batch of today, but then she wasn’t hugging her anymore and she was outside the shop waving… fuck. Fine. Maybe the people would be nice, and if they weren’t, the rest of them would deal with it.

–

Istus only feels slightly guilty for how she escaped the shop. It wasn’t a lie, she means it, Carey and Killian will always have work with her. They turn a good profit, and between her and Raven there’s plenty of money to keep things going regardless. Honestly, they could have retired years ago, but the community events need a place to happen and their friends need a place to work. Therefore the shop stays open no matter what.

It’s nice to see the way the shop looks, warm and bright. The old unit had been empty for ages, but there was finally going to be some life in it again! Boyland always used to keep it so neat, since he passed they’d taken turns to keep the weeds at bay and repaint the window and door frames, but they couldn’t get inside to do anything about the dust or the spiderwebs.

She peers in the large windowed portion of the door, knocks loudly, then waits… and waits. She could swear someone was inside, there was an unfamiliar car in the staff lot earlier and the lights are on, but she can’t see anyone. Maybe if she just puts the card under the door? She’s about to stoop down to try when two almost identical faces pop out from either side of the window. It’s startling, but Istus tries to recover herself as quickly as possible, afterall, she doesn’t want to be rude, they just need to be careful with jumping out at people like that.

“Hello!” She says through the door.

It creaks open and they step back in tandem. Their outfits are absolutely wonderful - white with colourful stripes and little matching hats.

“Oh, your uniforms are darling!” There’s still no real response. “Sorry, I sometimes get things a bit out of order. Let me try again.” Istus waves pleasantly. “Hello, I’m Istus, I work at Happy Scoops.” She stays in the doorway unsure if she’s allowed to enter, no matter how excited she is to see what they’ve done with the place.

“How charming.” Says the one on the left, that even with Istus’ disposition to believe the best in people, comes off as anything but sincere.

“I’m Lydia, and this is my brother, Edward.” Lydia’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Istus powers through regardless, she came here with a job to do. “I brought you this to welcome you.” Istus holds out the card. “We’re all about community here, you know, cross promotions, helping each other out. I’m looking forward to being able to tell my customers about you. I’m sure they’d love to try something different.” She smiles encouragingly in case they’re anxious about meeting new people.

Edward plucks the card from her hand and it slides through his fingers to the ground.

“Oops.” He says without making any move to pick it up. “I can be so clumsy.”

It’s fine. It is. They might be embarrassed about opening it in front of her, this is probably just a clever way to allow them to savour it later.

“So you’re from the ice cream shop?” Lydia’s voice sounds warmer than before. See, it’s fine.

“I am, we’ve been here for years. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s a joy! There’s lots of regular customers too, it’s good for that here.”

“Yes, well, it’s lovely that someone can cater to people with simple tastes.” Edward says it so kindly that it takes Istus a moment to realise it isn’t a compliment.

“Anyway, I suppose you’re probably very busy, with the… churning. Don’t let us keep you.” Edward smiles his broadest smile yet.

“Ta ta!” Lydia waves brightly.

The door shuts slowly enough for Istus to see Edward retrieve the card and drop it straight into the bin; she has a horrible feeling she was meant to.

I hope you enjoyed! If you want to keep reading you can find part two here.

#TAZ Sapphic Week 2024 #Best Served Cold #Noodyl Writes #Istus/Raven #Istus #The Raven Queen #TAZ fic #TAZ Balance #TAZ Sapphic Week

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