or say we're only dreaming;

[melocoton]

O P E N P O S T
❝ don't you dare close your eyes❞
♥ comment to this post with a prompt of any kind--song lyrics, pictures, music, or even just an idea for a plot.
♥ request one of my muses from my desperately needing an update muselist
♥ i'll respond to it and we can thread some stuff and things.
♥ post is NOT nsfw sorry ;A;

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[toolbelt]

[ working in a cafe sucks. there is no other word for how much it sucky-suck-sucks, but leo does it because it helps support his side projects--and by side projects, we mean "hopefully main projects when he can scrape together enough money to quit." so, he makes his living in buenos aires, a bustling city full of bustling people, making them cafe con leche for their hour long sits at cafe tables, from three pm every afternoon to midnight, or, occasionally, the early morning shift, where he deals with a lot of drunk porteños celebrating the "end" of their night out, aka seven in the morning.

he's almost got enough to open his own garage, though. before he is a barista, leo is a mechanic--he itches to fix things, make things better. the coffee machines here gleam and work with a proficiency that something as old as they are shouldn't; one of them even makes kool-aid as well as coffee. he finds himself tinkering at work more often than he should (and gets in trouble quite a bit for it) but leo just can't help it--he's got a mechanic's heart, and brain, and hands.

he's been here long enough, though, he's got a favorite customer. she's a girl, with beautiful, cinnamon colored hair, creamy skin, looking for all the world like a rose in a garden full of posies (or, in a more leo metaphor: a bolt in a bin of nuts) and she doesn't speak a lick of spanish. she's french--that much he can easily ascertain--maybe studying abroad, or something? who knows. he can't really tell.

what he can tell is that he makes her a "cafe au lait" (as she insists, and he rolls his eyes) every morning, at 8:30 on the dot, and though she initially started out being an annoying pain in the ass (too much milk? too little milk? she was picky, and you really didn't have much of a choice in being picky when you didn't speak the freaking language, but that's leo's opinion), she's...

well, leo grins a little dumbly behind his espresso machines when calypso walks in the door.

it's a sunday, farmer's market today, which means lots of porteña housewives will be chattering their way in here any second, but leo's completely fixated on tinkering with the coffee machine when he hears the bell ring on the front counter. popping his head up, a mass of black curls bouncing on his head, leo looks up and is met with that pretty, pretty face--he smirks a little and lifts his eyebrows. ] Solecita.

[ sunshine. ]

[gardeners]

[ It's a Sunday which is one of her off days from school, but Calypso still gathers herself up earlier in the morning than what seems necessary, to get her usual cup of coffee. ( It's not to see the barista, she reminds herself, it's not because she misses him when he isn't work. ) She has a paper on indigenous plants in the Buenos Aires area due next week, anyway, and if she can bother Leo a bit when she gets bored of typing away on her laptop, she'll consider it a valuable waste of her time. A good distraction.

Not that she won't leave as soon as his shift is over, but. ]

Ah, Calypso. [ She gestures to herself, as she does mainly everyday, not sure how he can still get her name wrong after all this time. Unaware that the nickname actually means anything, she rolls her eyes playfully, ignoring the fact that her heart beats a little bit faster when he smiles at her. She's really excited for his crappy coffee that he always manages to mess up, is all. She tells herself, repeats, repeats, again and again. ]

Bonjour, petit lion. [ She thought he was joking with his name at first -- Leo, the lion, the joke stuck. He's really more of a house cat, Calypso finds herself thinking, walking to the front counter to -- order her drink that never changes, not to get a better view of Leo. Before she says anything, she pulls out a small bowl of crème brûlée from her bag, saran wrapped with care ( not that she cares ), and slides it over the counter, pretending she's not blushing. It's not the first time she's made him something, but it's a rare enough occurrence that Calypso has butterflies pitter-pattering against her stomach, saying what are you doing and an Argentinian will never appreciate French cuisine. ]

Vous êtes trop maigre. [ Because that's a much much better explanation than the truth. Quickly, she clears her throat, rasping her fingers on the counter top. ] Cafe au lait, por favor.

[toolbelt]

Cafe au lait. [ leo totally bombs the french--when he says it, he's making fun of her, a high pitched imitation. ] Café con leche, solecita. Cafe con leche.

[ it's not like leo thinks that it's cute, or anything. why would he think that? it's not like leo likes the way her mouth sounds when it forms the phrase, the way it looks coming off of her cute, pink lips, the way her cheeks flush from the cold when she's just come in from the chill of the fall outside.

but he smiles, anyway, and reaches for the espresso machine--leo had already started making her drink, from the moment she walked in the door, when leo's stopped by the cake. his brown eyes get wide, and he looks down at it, and then back up at calypso. ] Whoa--¿en serio? ¿Por mi? [ the childish delight shows on his face clear as daylight, for just a moment, then leo pauses, reigns it back in--his tanned cheeks flush just a little. ] Ahm--no puedo comer eso, sabés que vender nuestros dulces propios.

Pero, lo comeré, sí no estás metido en lío. [ because leo is a kind soul, really, that's all. it's not because he thinks calypso's cute. he stares at the dessert for a minute...because he doesn't really know how to eat it, it looks so good. holding up a finger-- ] Un ratito. [ before going to make her coffee, trying to calm the thrumming of his heart in his chest by focusing on his work, jittering just a little bit. leo's always liked pretty girls, but calypso...calypso is so different.

he presents her with her coffee in a pretty white cup a moment later, pulling out a spoon and staring at the creme brulee. it becomes very, very obvious that he has no idea how to eat this properly. ]

[gardeners]

[ Rolling her eyes at the imitation, Calypso moves to set her bag down at a nearby table -- at the window, but not too far away from the counter. She just didn't want to spill her coffee on the walk to her table, okay, that's all. It has nothing to do with being closer to Leo.

She can pick up small words that Leo sometimes says -- she isn't as blind in Spanish as she pretends to be with Leo, but only because she know tiny things, enough to make conversation with her professors, ask when papers are due, things like that. She couldn't really talk to Leo if she tried, other than the most basic of basic Spanish sentences. She does pick up comer -- eat -- and dulces -- sweets -- so she nods her head. Yes, eat it.

Seeing him baffled by how to eat it makes Calypso giggle, just a little bit. It's understandable, really, but it's Leo, so he must be teased relentlessly. Taking the spoon from his hand ( not feeling her heart skip a beat on contact ), she thwacks the caramel top with the back of the spoon, crackling the hard candy with one hit. Scooping up half a spoonful of custard and caramel, Calypso holds it out to him, raising an eyebrow. ]

Dire "ahhh". [ Yes, she's going to feed him, or she's going to mash it into his face if he doesn't open his mouth. Before she does, though, she frowns a little bit, knitting her eyebrows. ]

Yo... co-- como en... France. Très -- ah, muy, muy bien. Sí, ¿verdad?

[ with the Spanish berdad accent. ]