#I've had enough thinking. Glad to finally write Lottie; there's no way she'll ever turn up in the story.

[yvesdot]

Hi, yves.. It's me, yves.. I'd really like to write something in a coffee shop with Atlas (you know what I am talking about), so could you do me a favor and write it? And then tag it for the bingo, if you don't mind, and don't forget to update the bingo sheet! Thanks. (-yvesdot)

Well, yves., I sure can! You know, I just had this idea, and I knew absolutely nobody deserved to feel as though they had spawned it with an innocent request, and then here you come with this ask... sometimes it's like we're the same person.

Warnings for misgendering, deadnaming, and one count (two counts?) of female-presenting... well, you know, but it's really brief and the overall piece is not remotely sexual. It's just that Atlas is Atlas.

(THE ONE AND ONLY UNIVERSE OF KAY RAINIER)

ATLAS - COFFEE SHOP

Atlas feels like trying something fucked up and unfortunate, so he walks into the nearest coffee shop and looks for their seasonal menu.

There's something with cranberries. Something with cinnamon, and something with peppermint bark. Should he try to aim for a drink he might actually enjoy, or should he go for something he's certain he'll hate in hopes of really testing his limits? He doesn't even know whether he likes cranberries. For that matter, he's forgotten how this place measures their cups. He examines the cups at the register from a distance, hoping to ascertain something. As usual, the effort is hopeless and demoralizing. Atlas supposes it wouldn't be the same if he knew any of the words to use when ordering. He sets himself to memorizing the first drink name he sees, which has TMs and Rs all over it, including in places Atlas wouldn't expect corporations to interfere, like 'whipped cream' (TM) and 'cran' (R). He's wondering whether you can really do that or if they're just pretending when one of the straight white girls at the table by the door shushes the other one. Then, obviously, he gives both of the girls his full attention.

The shushing one is blonde, and wearing a white coat with real fur around the top. She has absolutely enormous brown eyes, almost comical; and thin, symmetrical red lips. She wears, incredibly, knit fingerless gloves; Atlas has only seen those in pictures of white women. Her friend is dark-haired and wearing that poser style of eyeshadow; the kind where it's dark and overly large but clearly working very hard to be purple or blue or something else peacock-associated and definitely not black, to remain fashionable and so extremely status quo. Atlas doesn't hold it against her, partially because he feels sympathy—she clearly wishes that her hair was curlier than it is, and it never will be. Atlas gets in line, conveniently right in front of them.

"He took me bowling two years ago," the blonde one is saying now. "I can't."

"You are so welcome to tell me about your better options," the dark-haired one says, and the blonde one scoffs and sits back in her chair. "Lottie."

Atlas takes another glance and decides that Lottie does not look like a Lottie. She looks like an Abigail or a Jane, maybe, something simple and modern and elegant. Atlas feels sympathy for her, too. And for himself, because the person in front of him in line is trying to make exact change.

"Okay. So...." Lottie draws out the so... in a perfect California drawl. Atlas grins. "What's your suggestion?"

"Call him up, say something nice. Say you've been thinking about him. His... Give me something to work with."

"Soulful eyes."

"Well, don't say that. I don't know. Is that what they say?"

"I have no idea what they say," Lottie says. "What we have in common is that both of our parents spend a lot of money on clothes. That's not true. We’re both pretty."

Atlas is living for this.

"It was so stupid. I mean, I was totally head over heels, ready to get engaged, you know, crazy stuff every day, clearly the best option I've ever had, and then he was giving me the break-up talk. And he so obviously cared about me, and he was trying to be nice to me. He's so nice." Lottie sighs in the way girls do in old black and white movies and leans her head on her hand, looking out the window. "Oh," she says wistfully, "Kay."

Atlas is not living for this.

He almost turns all the way around to be sure that that was actually what he heard. Specifically, he was under the impression that it was only him and Kay's mom who got to call Kay 'Kay'. Not that it matters. But this is a random blonde girl, and also, Atlas is remembering that Kay had that fiancée whom she insisted was out of the picture. And clearly she is out of the picture. Because Atlas has never met her. And Atlas would know. If she mattered. At all.

"Let's go back to the beginning," the dark-haired one is saying. "Bowling. You're on the date. Sell me the guy. Sell me the two-year pining."

"I'm not pining. He was very nice." Lottie giggles. "And every time he missed a pin, he looked embarrassed."

Atlas cannot imagine Kay looking embarrassed. Can't imagine her missing anything, either. It's somehow crushing—he can imagine himself insisting, no, really, it's somehow better that he's never seen her embarrassed, hasn't known her long enough to see her fail at anything; actually, it means... what? That he likes her more? That she likes him more? Either way it seems like a pretty weak argument. He's about to sink into total depression when he finally hears the cashier telling him to order something or get out of the line.

"Um," Atlas says, trying to keep the conversation in his ears while delivering output from his mouth. "The seasonal drink."

"There are seven."

"There are—really? I only saw three on the sign. Seven? You don't think that's excessive?"

"I don't think anything. I get paid $7.50 an hour." The cashier looks like they want to be holding a cup, so Atlas hands them one. This worsens things.

"Whichever," Atlas says, "and whatever size. Put whatever you feel like in it, too. Piss in it, for all I care."

He doesn't have cash on him, so he can't even leave a worthwhile tip for the cashier getting paid $7.50 an hour and standing behind a counter too low to encourage peeing in cups. Whatever. Atlas will come back next week and make it rain. None of this is as important, though, as Lottie's opinions on Kay. Atlas loiters by the counter.

"...married to a Victorian for the rest of your life?" the dark-haired one is asking now, which is a very good question.

"Oh, I don't know. I don't want to marry some guy from the golf club, that's for sure." Lottie grips the table. "Look at me, Olivia! I'm a spinster!"

"By his standards? I bet. Who says he's not already married?"

"According to every other girl who's tried, he's a closet case." Lottie buries her face in her hands. "I'm telling you—he likes girls. I know it! I just feel it."

A tragedy! Atlas thinks. The first straight girl to have functioning gaydar, and she's cursed with no other brains at all.

"Call him," Olivia suggests, and when Lottie gives her a look, she adds, "or I'll call him. Give me your phone."

"I'm not giving you my phone. Olivia!" Lottie cries, as Olivia snatches her bag. "Liv! Give it—"

"Hm, hm, Sam From Class, Olivia Best Friend—oh, that's me—why am I scrolling like this. Look! Kay Rainier." She hits the big button in the middle of the flip phone's keyboard and holds it to her ear, humming quietly. The panda keychain on Lottie's phone swings in the air as Olivia takes a sip of her drink. Lottie herself hangs over the table in shock. Atlas picks up his drink and moves to sit across from them at an empty table, eavesdropping so closely he accidentally uses his magic and can hear the phone ringing on the other end. One sip of his drink and he nearly chokes to death, which is convenient, because the next thing Olivia says is, "Is Kay short for Constantine?" and Atlas would have had to disguise his laugh anyway.

"He has a house phone," Lottie stage-whispers, and Atlas presses his hands over his mouth to keep from making any sound.

"May I speak to Kay?" Olivia asks now. "Oh. I'm Charlotte’s friend. I'm like the operator. Is he there?" She nods thoughtfully, listening, then snaps the phone shut.

"...well???" asks Lottie.

"'Caelus,'" Olivia says, doing a terrible impression of Constantine's mopey voice, "'is out.'"

"Kay is what?" Atlas asks, whipping around, and both of the girls jump. Sometimes he forgets he is muscular. Or goth. Or the rest of it. "Out where?"

"How would I know?" Olivia asks. "Who are you?"

Atlas groans, burying his head in his hands.

"How fucking hard is it!" he asks the room. "How fucking hard is it to stay inside. Constantine says, watch Kay. I say, sure! Kay says, watch me walk out the fucking door and nearly get stabbed at the library. Where is Kay," he asks, and now his eyes go black and the coffee shop disappears. It's a good thing he doesn't think too much about how people perceive him.

Kay is not in the surrounding one mile she is not in the surrounding two miles she is not in—she is at home. Atlas blinks. Kay is at home. In fact—he focuses just a little bit—she is heading up the stairs. Back up the stairs, probably, after being downstairs. Constantine is in his office, and his pathing goes straight there from the phone.

"Kay is at home," Atlas says, in surprise. He looks at Olivia. "Constantine just lied to you. Why?"

"How do you know that?" Olivia asks, giving him her hardest straight-girl look, as Lottie collapses on the coffee shop table.

"Magic," Atlas says.

"You know Kay?" Olivia asks, crossing her arms.

Biblically, Atlas wants to tell her.

"Yes," he says, instead.

"Is he very pretty?" Olivia asks, and Lottie absolutely moans.

"Like you would not believe," Atlas says, and he takes another sip of his drink, and coughs. "Don't tell Kay I told you this," he says to Lottie—she brightens immediately—"but give up."

Lottie deflates like an air dancer.

"Sorry," Atlas says, but he isn't. He figures he does not even slightly look it, and that is fine with him. He would love to detail to this girl what each of Kay's nipples feel like in his mouth. He may not know what Kay looks like bowling, but hey, in bed with her he's yet to strike out...

"Not a totally lost cause," Olivia reassures Lottie. "Constantine is, what, his dad? How old can he be?"

Atlas spits some of his drink back into his cup.

"He's in his forties," Lottie mumbles.

"Me-ow," Olivia says, in a complete deadpan. Oh, how Atlas loves straight girls. He wipes at his face with a napkin. It's a shame they don't really love him back. Him and his bowling lesbian sex puns.

"I'm not going out with his dad," Lottie says, now maybe crying a little bit. Atlas composes himself and turns back around.

"I'll tell you this," he says. "You're blonde. You're wearing fur. You've been sitting in this coffee shop for, like, an hour, talking about dates from two years ago like you've never had a problem in your life. I was briefly jealous of you, and then it passed and will never return. Go out and find a guy."

"A guy?" Lottie echoes.

"A guy," Atlas confirms. "Literally any guy. It'll solve your problems, and also mine. Have this," he says, and he hands her the drink. "It's terrible."

And Lottie sits there, holding the drink with Atlas's spit in it in her little gloved hands, as he knocks the door open and walks out, ringing the coffeehouse bell in his wake. He's heading home now, to Kay in her room, and looking forward to seeing her naked. In the next half hour, probably. He spends the rest of the walk thinking of niche questions to ask Kay about bowling, and then imagining just when to say it, what position he should have her in, so he can shock her just enough that she'll lose control. So that he might see her embarrassed.

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