Warnings: none

Human au

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Logan took a sip from what might be his seventh cup of coffee, thinking that perhaps he had consumed enough coffee for today about three cups ago,while his eyes scanned the words on his computer screen for the hundredth time.

He had thought that once it calmed down in the coffee shop where he was then he'd be able to concentrate better and getting on with his writing, but that did not seem the case right now. He found himself stuck, only deleting sentences he felt were out of place instead of actually adding anything to his text.

He took another sip of his drink, hoping that the caffeine would spark ideas in his mind. Though the problem was not a lack of ideas, Logan had way too many already, his struggle lay in connecting it all together. 

Perhaps if he actually got up from his seat in this coffee shop and took a small walk or put his mind to something else then his focus would return, but Logan simply lacked the energy to do so. He was quite comfortable where he was, plus he worried that once he came back the shop would once again be busy with other people there for drinks.

He was actually the only person in right now, if the barista (who was currently wiping one of the tables where a particularly loud group of boys had been sat a while ago) wasn't counted. The barista who was partly why he came here on Wednesdays and Thursdays, it was always quite empty during the day while most people were working and it helped Logan's focus to get out of his apartment sometimes. Though there were other reasons too.

Logan put his cup down, stretched his arms high above his head and leaned his head back, sighing. Then he let his arms fall back down and he repeatedly tapped at the keyboard of his laptop, making a long line of h's.

"Can I take your cup?" A voice from behind him asked and Logan near jumped. He glanced at the barista, then at his cup which was empty yet again. 

"Yes, sure. Could I get another coffee?" Logan asked, disregarding the inner voice who asked him if he should consume more coffee. 

"Is that really wise? You're already way above the bar on how much coffee someone should drink in one day and I'm afraid I might have to cut you off soon." The barista said, keeping a healthy distance as if he was afraid of how Logan would respond. Logan didn't judge him by that, he knew exactly how customers could act. Any job having to do with customer service was hell.

"You are correct, I suppose." Logan admitted. The man looked down at Logan's computer screen and Logan fought the urge to cover up the screen so no one could look.

"You're writing a book? How old are you?" The man asked, then seemingly remembering that he was talking to a stranger because he muttered out a 'sorry' and looked like he wished to make a quick exit.

"I'm twenty four, and yes I am writing a book." Logan said, doing his best not to immediately launch into a detailed description of the plot, which he was always tempted to do whenever the conversation strayed the way of his books.

"Isn't that pretty young?" He asked and Logan shrugged.

"I wouldn't say so, people of all ages writes books. Though I am young to have had two books published as a survey found the average age an author publishes their first book is at the age of thirty six." Logan said, realizing towards the end of his sentence that these statistics were likely not terribly interesting for this stranger to hear.

"Damn. Written anything I've heard of?" He asked and Logan told him the name of his series, but the barista didn't seem to have heard of it before now.

"There's two parts so far, I'm working on the third one." Logan said, feeling pride swell in his chest at the thought of what he had accomplished.

"That's really impressive, how do you manage?" He asked, and Logan couldn't say he had a proper answer to that question. He had no idea how he'd gotten this far.

"I'm talented I suppose." Logan said, a tad ironically, and amusement glinted in the baristas eyes at his words.

"How modest of you." The man smiled, and Logan averted his eyes from that pretty smile and instead looked at his nametag. Virgil. The man's name was Virgil. Logan thought it was about time that he learned the staffs names as he kept coming here every week and was well accustomed to their faces by now.

Virgil he with ease recognized ever since the first time he saw him. The fact that his hair was colored purple made him stand out from most others, which made him memorable. Logan definitely hadn't spent a lot of time staring at the barista, but he still hadn't been able to not notice some things. 

Like the three piercings he had, one in his eyebrow, one in his nose and and one in his ear (accompanied with earrings), and his brilliantly brown eyes that somehow looked pretty even in the lamp light unlike Logan's own brown eyes which were always a fairly dull shade of brown. 

He also wore make up, not much (at least Logan didn't think so, but what did he know), but he had what Logan thought was eyeliner around his eyes (Logan really did not know a thing about make up). Maybe Logan had been looking more at the barista than he had realized.

There was simply something captivating about his face, he'd admit that. Perhaps Logan found him a bit attractive. Perhaps he even had what might be a small crush on Virgil. Though Logan was not impressively good at recognizing feelings as such so how could he ever be sure? Logan forcibly removed his thoughts from such paths.

"How about that cup of coffee?" Logan tried, hoping that their small conversation had made the barista forget about how he wasn't going to bring him any more caffeinated drinks.

"How about instead of me assisting you in your attempt to die from caffeine poisoning I'll bring you a glass of water, or maybe some hot chocolate." Virgil said, clearly not having forgotten anything.

"I suppose a hot chocolate would be nice." Logan said. He had not had hot chocolate in many months, maybe even a year.

"Coming right up." Virgil said with a nod, leaving with Logan's empty cup and Logan turned back towards his computer, fixing his eyes on the screen to not watch Virgil as he walked away, even though it was ever so tempting to let his eyes stray towards him. Virgil stole his focus with ease when he was this unfocused.

Logan deleted the row of h's and typed some new words into his document, one sentence, two. He may work slowly at times but at least he got somewhere.

"Here you go." Virgil said a minute or so later and a cup of steaming hot chocolate was set down before him. Logan smiled at him, a genuine smile that came easier than it usually did.

"Thank you." He said and Virgil smile quickly, nervously, and then went back to his place behind the counter. Logan thought that as slightly odd, he'd never looked nervous like that when serving Logan his coffee (or in this case hot chocolate) before. He disregarded that, blaming his inability to read people's feelings, and reached for his cup instead.

Logan took a sip, then putting the cup down again ever so hastily since a drop or two of the drink ran down his jaw. How very graceful of him. He reached for the accompanied napkin, stopping short after having lifted it up. A phone number was scribbled on the napkin and Logan felt his heart do a flip in his chest at the sight of it, especially because of Virgil's name written beneath.

Logan glanced around the coffee shop, not seeing Virgil anywhere near and concluding that he must be in the back of the shop. He wiped his jaw with his sleeve instead (he was wearing a black button up, it wouldn't be visible anyway) and put the napkin in his pocket. Logan much suspected that all the warm drinks he had had were not the cause of his burning face.

The bell above the door sounded as another customer entered and Logan tried to look like he wasn't sitting there smiling at nothing. He hid his face in his hands for a moment, glasses pushed up, and then dragged his hands down his face to wipe the smile away. Perhaps Virgil had noticed him just like Logan had noticed Virgil all the times he'd come here.

The other customer dinged the bell by the counter and Virgil appeared a moment later, a bit red in the face and not looking Logan's way. Logan leaned his head in his hand and checked the time on his computer, concluding that it was sadly time to leave soon.

He packed away his things fairly quickly after having finished his drink, then going up to the counter where the barista was still stood even if that one customer had went and sat down at a table across the shop.

"Hello." He said, getting his attention quickly and that nervous look returned to his eyes for just a moment and Logan swore Virgil looked a bit flustered.

"Hey, you leaving?" He asked and Logan nodded, then complimenting him on the coffee and the hot chocolate as he paid for all the drinks he had had, Virgil smiling politely and a bit shyly.

"I wll text you." Logan said as he put his wallet away, watching how Virgil's cheeks went a brighter shade of pink as he nodded.

"Okay, cool." He said and Logan wanted to smile at how (for lack of a better expression) cute Virgil looked when he was blushing.

"Great, I'll see you soon I suppose." Logan said, and turned around to leave, already working on what he should say in his first text to Virgil.

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Written: 25th, 26th & 27th November 2019
Published: 7th January 2020
Words: 1674

school starts tomorrow god save me :')

i'm terrified that school will give me writers block because school makes me so unmotivated and tired and i dont want it to affect my writing more than it already does