#i love getting hypercaffeinated for free

[auroranovaa]

thanks for the coffee hcs! any chance you could do la squadra as well? - 🍸

La Squadra Coffee HCs to match the others! Thank you tiny martini anon!

Risotto - Usually he's just a plain latte guy. Milk, espresso, foam. Then holiday drinks roll around. It doesn't matter if it's Starbucks or the tiniest mom and pop hole in the wall Italian cafe, if there is a Special Drink he will order it. This does result in the gang leader of La Squadra Esecuzioni ordering a Valentine's Day Dark Chocolate Raspberry Mocha, but is anyone gonna mention it? Is someone going to stop Risotto Nero from doing this? Illuso (carefully) asked about it once, after seeing Riz with a gingerbread latte with a tiny gingerbread man cookie on the rim of the mug. All he got for an answer was "Festive." Let the man have nice things.

Prosciutto - Pour overs. Slow, methodical, traditional. He's got his own pour over filter at home, and that's fine and all, but when the gang is on a schedule, they can't take time to pour hot water over ground beans for ten minutes. They're almost like a little comfort drink, a sign when they can take the time to rest and sit and think instead of being on alert. But only the best of coffees deserve a pour over - Kenya AA, Jamaican Blue Mountain, Kona, and similar high-end beans.

Pesci - No espresso for this guy, but that doesn't mean he gets left out! Steamers are his go-to, usually with something like vanilla or caramel, but he will occasionally indulge in the forbidden syrup flavors. Prosciutto tends to give him a hard time about it, steamers are on the "kids drinks" section after all, until Pesci makes him try one. Hazelnut steamer is Prosciutto's favorite if there's no good pour overs.

Illuso - Illuso usually opts for tea, but if he had to get coffee it has to be a light roast to minimize the dark bitter coffee taste. He low-key thinks he's 'better' than the others for not liking coffee and having a more ReFiNeD pAlLet than the others. This bothers exactly none of them.

Formaggio - He has the least refined pallet of La Squadra, and quite frankly doesn't really care. He gets whatever's cheapest on the menu and adds some sugar and milk. It's boring and he likes it that way.

Melone - I used to have a regular customer who worked across the street at a bookstore. He would order four quad shots with an inch of cream in each of them, every day. The moment we saw him crossing the street we would have to start pulling shots. The cream completely negated any sort of heat and complexity the shots had. After months of making these I asked him if he brings them to his coworkers, or (heaven forbid) puts them in a fridge for later, or what. This guy leans in, tips me a $20, says "wouldn't you like to know~?" and leaves. That's Melone.

Ghiacco - He knows way too much about coffee for his own good. Life would've been so much easier if he hadn't learned that French and Italian Roasts don't come from France and Italy. He loves the super dark oily Italian roasts though, which means he will bicker with the barista about it until he gets his drink. Ultimately this is all a good thing, because he'll be nursing that coffee for hours and can't very well shout and yell with something in his mouth.

[allofusandco]

Hypercaffeinated

with the-rebel-you-know

Violet meets Crowley.

Vi:

It makes no sense that a town so small that the high school closed down a year ago (before the ‘people keep killing us’ exodus even started) still has a Starbucks but hey, maybe God doesn’t take with both hands. And there is the pumpkin spice latte smell which tells Vi she could be literally anywh –––––

… oh, shiny.

“Sir? You dropped a coin, and I wouldn’t - I mean, I know nothing about coins, of course, but it looks rare.” Actually, super rare. Mesopotamia rare but she’s not one to judge. And her knowledge of coins is still faintly embarrassing.

Vi has lost a lot of arguments in the last decade, sure. But ‘friendly neighborhood slayer’ still feels like a good aim.

––––

Crowley:

“Good, I did my job.” Crowley turned, pocketed his phone, and took the coin from Vi with his free hand – the other being occupied with a raspberry mocha. He held it up so she could have a nice, long look at it. “It’s a denarius. I made it myself. Are you a local,miss…?”

–––––

Vi:

Oh, he was on the phone. Awkward moment. Still nice to know the cell towers were still working. A Denarius? Vi squinted. She was pretty sure that was a computer game reference, and it had been years since she’d had time.

Oh. Oh!

“Is that a raspberry mocha? That’s my favorite too!” She was safe enough, broad daylight, he wasn’t a vampire. Maybe the locals were still nice, despite the death rate being so alarming.

“No, here to meet up with… family,” she said. It was definitely a raspberry mocha day. Fuck pumpkin spice. “Call me Vi. Because… that’s my name.”

––––

Crowley:

“Well. Lovely to meet you, Vi. Shame you don’t live around here. I’m helming a small production out of Oxnard, thought I’d scout locations on my way.” He cast a quick look about himself, at the town. Squinting at the sunshine. “Not much, is it? But I hear the woods are lovely, dark and deep. You can call me Roderick…. Never mind why.”

–––––

Vi:

Vi nodded. “Sounds exciting. And Roderick – I like it, it has gravitas.” So, not a local. Nice guy like this didn’t deserve to die. “But you know, there are better towns. Just FYI. Not even that far. Kansas is…”

One of the few states she didn’t know a thing about.

“Full of surprises. Have you seen Esbon?” She’d passed it – but she’d blinked. “Or Burr Oak?” There had been a sign. Something. Maybe. She was probably saying it wrong.

––––

Crowley:

A sort of almost-smile came over Crowley. He felt like someone had just thrown their coat over a puddle for him. It was a rare feeling. “It’s not so much a matter of choice, as one of money. I’m shooting b-roll for a documentary, and there’s a bit on The Sacking of Lawrence. So I’m stuck,… unless you know of a town with a more authentic sack?”

–––––

Vi:

Lawrence was sacked? Vi knew she should have done some reading on the area before she showed up in her hero boots. Sacked! … what exactly was a sacking, again? High school history had been somewhat disrupted by fate showing up, and since then, she hadn’t bothered much with history prior to the Vietnam war. Unless there were battle tactics or vampires involved.

“Ah,” she said, “well, some towns that are more intact,” she said, “more historical looking. Guess I don’t know much what an authentic sack looks like.”

––––

Crowley:

For a moment Crowley thought about responding, but he decided to just smile and do the classy thing by leaving it alone. It was the holiday season, after all. But later on that day, he was going to have to yell the words ‘lord knows I do’ into a paper bag.

–––––

Vi:

Authentic sack. Vi had genuinely just said that. She didn’t know what an authentic sack looked like. It was definitely time for an early night and catching up on some sleep debt (and then maybe, possibly finding out something about the history of Lebanon, before it bit her in the ass, either literally or figuratively).

“Anyhoo,” she said. “Good luck. I’m sure you don’t need it. Probably very god at your job and everything, it’s really just a polite thing to say, you know. And be careful. I should…”           run and hide and stick to talking to people right when they were being murdered and appreciated the fact she was a little on the awkward side?

––––

Crowley:

“Careful? I’ve faced towns a lot tougher than Lebanon, don’t you worry about me. Vi, was it? Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime, when they finally get in those snowman cookies. Until then….”

~complete~