Dec 22, 2017
Ship Pine 7
♡Autumn × Sami Jo♡
seen from China
seen from China
seen from South Korea
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Spain
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
Ship Pine 7
♡Autumn × Sami Jo♡
FIC: and other things that glow
The apocalypse started in June, when it was supposed to be sunny and… not the end of the world, or whatever. It’s December now, but Arizona December isn’t anything worth being scared of. It’s almost Christmas, James thinks. Maybe this is their Christmas vacation. He’ll have to run that by Steve later, see if it makes him laugh. (A zombie AU, part two. James/Steve, background Parker/Cib and Autumn/Sami Jo. 4.6k.)
AUcember || Ao3 || part one
#
There are cars broken down all over the highway the highway. Not as many as there used to be, probably, but enough that they have to drive slowly.
“I think we were the last ones to leave California,” Steve says, around the fifth time that they have to stop and push a car out of the way so they can keep driving. “Everyone else had this idea first.”
“Yeah,” Cib says, wringing the sweat out of his headband, “but that just means that there’s no traffic.”
Steve flings an arm at the rusty shell of a Nissan that they just pushed away. “This is our traffic!”
“At least the traffic doesn’t want to eat us,” James says, because he’s pretty sure he’d rather deal with old cars than with zombies. Old cars are a pain in the ass, sure, but they’re not going to actually kill them. Probably.
“There are ways to die that don’t involve being eaten,” Steve points out, and Cib… winces, a little, the way he does sometimes. They’ve all shot zombies at this point, but Cib’s the only one who’s had to do it point-blank, and that’s different.
Also, a zombie tried to eat Cib’s boyfriend. James has to assume that makes it different too.
“Let’s get back in the car,” James says, and they all do. The SUV isn’t the nicest car they’ve ever had, and they’ve been siphoning gasoline out of every empty car they find along the way because there’s an actual, real chance that they run out. But there’s enough room for all six of them, and for most of their things. Food, and guns. Cib’s guitar. Vodka. Walkie-talkies. James has grenades, not that anybody else knows about those. A dude’s gotta have his secrets.
Parker doesn’t quite wake up as Cib climbs into the backseat, just mumbles something unintelligible. Cib coos loudly at him. “Look at him, he’s asleep.”
“Thank god,” Steve mutters. James is inclined to agree, considering how Parker is about sleeping sometimes.
Sami Jo is also fast asleep, leaning against the window. Autumn is holding her hand, running her thumb across the backs of her fingers. She half-smiles at James when she notices him looking. “This road trip is really gonna fuck our sleep schedules, huh?”
“Nah,” James says. “We don’t really have… time, in the traditional sense anymore, right? We’re just guessing at everything.”
The clock in the SUV says that it’s just past four in the afternoon. It might be. But James doesn’t know how time zones work, or clocks for that matter, and he’s pretty sure that the only standards they have now are “morning,” “afternoon,” and “too dark to be safe.”
“Hey, navigator,” Steve says impatiently. “You got the map? Let’s go.”
“Right!” James picks up the map from where it’s spread across the dashboard. They crossed the Arizona border earlier that day, kind of by accident, and he’d picked the map up from a rest stop so they could find their way. It was meant for tourists in a world that doesn’t completely exist anymore, and he figures that it can help tourists through the world that does.
“Are we still going north?”
“Yeah, keep going north.”
“Fucking great,” Steve mumbles, and starts the car.
“One of us could drive,” James says, even though it’s more cursory than an actual offer.
And just like he expected, Steve shakes his head. “This is my happy place and you don’t get to take that away from me.”
“All yours, dude,” James answers, and Steve doesn’t quite smile, but his lips twitch as the SUV lurches forward.
#
It takes them two days to drive from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon. It’s supposed to take six hours, or something like that, but between car troubles and the fake traffic and Steve insisting that he’s the only one who drives, it takes way longer.
“This is nice,” James says, around the time they pass a sign that tells them the exit is five miles away. It’s late, and he’s the only passenger awake. Autumn and Sami Jo’s fingers are still tangled together, and Parker’s asleep with his head in Cib’s lap.
Steve glances at him. “Being in a car again?”
“Driving somewhere together.”
“So you mean the road trip?”
“Big apocalypse road trip,” James murmurs. It’s what Sami Jo calls it, every time, and it makes it seem… grander than it is, somehow. Like they’re going out on this adventure intentionally and not on a whim.
“Apocalypse road trip,” Steve echoes. “You think this was the right choice?”
“Of course.” He pauses. “Unless there are, like, zombies in the canyon.”
Steve makes a noise like an aborted laugh. “You think there are zombies in the canyon?”
“You think they’re smart enough to avoid falling off the edge?”
“That’s what we’ll do with them,” he says, and when James looks over he’s brimming with glee. “Just take all the zombies and dump them into the Grand Canyon so they eat each other. Quarantine it.”
“Put a giant dome over the top.”
“Plexiglass.”
“No, just glass. That way when it shatters they’ll get cut up.”
Steve laughs sharply, a little manic. He’s gripping the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles going white. “We solved the apocalypse.”
“Steve?”
“We solved it,” he repeats, and his thumbs are twitching against the wheel. “We can- it’ll all go back to normal now, right?”
“Steve-”
“We’re just having a normal road trip,” he continues, and James can’t do anything but stare. “Just a normal road trip, just six friends talking about trapping zombies in the- oh, god.”
“Are you okay?”
It takes Steve a minute, but he shakes his head, beaming fiercely. “No, I think I’m having a breakdown.”
“Okay, do you want me to drive?”
“No, man, this actually feels pretty good.”
“The nervous breakdown feels good?”
“No, I mean the part where I’m not pretending it’s normal anymore. Aren’t you tired of acting like this is all normal?”
James looks out the window, because he can’t look at Steve anymore. He can’t admit that it all feels normal now. “That was our exit.”
“I know.”
“Steve-”
“I’ll turn around in a minute,” he says. “I just don’t want to stop right now.”
“Okay,” James says. “If anyone wakes up I’ll just… I’ll say that I missed it. That I distracted you or something.”
“You don’t think I should tell them about the breakdown?”
“I think you’d freak them out.”
“Am I freaking you out?”
James wants to say yes, but honestly, he’s not all that freaked out. “I’m just glad you’re not… doing this alone, you know?”
“I know,” Steve says. James finally looks back, and one of Steve’s hands is resting on the gearshift. His eyes are fixed on the road. “Can you keep talking to me?”
“About what?”
“The weather. Where we’re going next. Anything.”
He keeps looking at Steven’s hand. He kind of wants to reach out and link his fingers, rest his hand on top. It’s stupid. He can already tell he’s going to be thinking about it for a long time.
“Of course, man,” he says, and Steve’s fingers twitch on the gearshift, and James knows then and there that he’s probably fucked.
#
Nobody gives James more shit about the missed exit than Sami Jo, who berates him for about three minutes.
“Go easy on him,” Autumn says when she wakes up. But she’s smiling softly, and Sami Jo beams at her. “Or don’t, you know.”
“Don’t let her yell at me,” James complains. “I’m doing my best.”
“Oh, doing your best,” Sami Jo repeats mockingly, but she’s still smiling at Autumn, and her heart’s definitely not in the mocking anymore. “It’s the end of the world, James, when were you going to say we drove thirty miles past it?”
“When we hit thirty miles!”
“At least he figured it out before we hit sixty,” Steve says, which is completely, totally unfair. James tries to glare at him, but Steven just arches an eyebrow at him, unrepentant. And James knows that he could pull out his trump card of “it was actually Steve’s fault,” but it’d taken all thirty of those miles to talk Steve back into being steady. “And it’s not like we had to stop at all along the way.”
“Yeah, actually,” James says, because he’d been wondering about that. “You’d think there would be more abandoned cars near the Grand Canyon, right?”
Autumn frowns. “Why would you think that?”
“Because there’s no way we’re the only ones who decided to go to the Grand Canyon at the end of the world.”
“Everyone whose first instinct at the end of the world is to go to the Grand Canyon is a fucking idiot,” Steven announces. “It’s a zombie pit. It’s also in the middle of the desert, so it’s hot, and it probably smells terrible.”
Sami Jo makes a face. “Why are we going there again?”
“It was literally your idea.”
“Yeah, but you guys were the ones who said yes.”
“Grand Canyon’s a good idea,” Parker says from the back. He’s still lying with his head in Cib’s lap, which is fucking gross. “We need to see it. It’ll be good for us.”
Sami Jo turns to look at him. “Have you been before?”
“Not for a few years.”
“Who here has been to the Grand Canyon?”
Steve lifts a hand. Parker doesn’t raise a hand, but he does raise the stump of his right arm.
Sami Jo nods decisively. “This was a good idea.”
“You were just saying -”
“Three miles,” James says loudly. “Exit for the south rim in three miles! Isn’t that going to be great?”
“Is the south rim the tourist rim?” Sami Jo makes a face. “I mean, do we really want to be tourists?”
“I really, genuinely don’t think it matters at this point,” James says. “Unless anyone cares.”
“I care,” Cib says loudly. James twists around to look at him, and he’s glaring in no specific direction. But it’s definitely a glare. “I want to be a tourist.”
“You’re the worst kind of person,” Steve says. “Actually, all of you are the worst types of people, especially Parker.”
Cib brushes Parker’s hair back. “Don’t listen to him, I’m worse than you ever were.”
“Aw,” Parker says. “That’s sweet.”
“Jesus,” Steve mumbles. “Do we really want to reward this with the Grand Canyon?”
“Yes,” Autumn and Cib say in unison.
Steve shakes his head. “Okay,” he says dubiously, and takes the exit.
#
Sami Jo, for her part, insists on keeping her eyes closed so that the first thing she sees is the canyon. It would be endearing, or something, except it means she has trouble getting out of the car. And walking. It’s actually more of a pain than it is endearing. Autumn, thankfully, volunteers to herd her around.
Steve, for his part, insists on going through the big hotel resort that’s closest to the rim itself, so they have somewhere to stay. He also parks the car in the most inconvenient place possible so nobody can steal it.
Cib and Parker, for their part, announce that instead of helping with literally anything, they’re going to go find a quiet corner to make out.
So that leaves James, because Steve said that he could case the hotel alone. It’s just him, a walkie talkie, and the entire Grand Canyon. All the food has been raided, which isn’t a surprise, but there are things he can pick up along the way. Guns, ammo, clean clothes that people left behind. Bottled water. (He uses a bottle to rinse out his hair, because… okay, sure, bottled water is a hot commodity these days, but there’s something to be said about personal hygeine. He feels like more of a person when his hair is clean, who’s going to give him shit for that?)
“Hey, James,” Steve says, crackling over the walkie talkie. “You think we could stay the night here?”
“Uh, of course, why wouldn’t we?”
“Because of the whole apocalypse? I don’t know, what are we doing after this?”
“I don’t know, I can’t believe we made it this far. Did you find a hotel room?”
“Yeah, there’s a suite up here that got looted to hell, but we can steal pillows and whatever from other rooms. Definitely room for all of us for the night.”
“And no sign of anyone else?”
“No recent sign.”
“Should we check the canyon for zombies?”
Steve pauses. “Shit, do you think there are actually zombies in the canyon?”
“I can scope it out,” James offers. “I’ve got a stockpile in the lobby, so as long as someone picks that up I can go.”
“Got a gun with you?”
“Two.”
“Check in if it’s all clear.”
“Of course.”
“Over and out,” Steve says, and James stuffs the walkie talkie back in his pocket.
The apocalypse started in June, when it was supposed to be sunny and… not the end of the world, or whatever. It’s December now, but Arizona December isn’t anything worth being scared of. It’s almost Christmas, James thinks. Maybe this is their Christmas vacation. He’ll have to run that by Steve later, see if it makes him laugh.
He’s never been to the Grand Canyon before, but it takes his breath away when he looks out at it, like he always knew it would. There’s something strange about the expanse, about how broad and unstoppable it feels. And there are zombies milling around in the bottom of the canyon, sure, but not close enough that it’s going to be a problem.
James pulls his walkie talkie back out. “So there are definitely some undead hanging out in the bottom of the canyon.”
“Seriously?”
“Not enough that it’s going to be, like, a thing. But we should probably be aware of that.”
“Still safe?”
“Still safe. And I have my guns.” And grenades, not that he’s going to announce that. “You all set up in the suite?”
“Yeah, Autumn and Sami Jo brought your stuff up to the room.”
“You guys want to come down?”
Steve sighs, crackling full of static over the walkie. “Whose turn is it to get Parker and Cib?”
“I mean, I’m already out here, so…”
“I don’t understand them,” Steven complains. “Like, when Autumn and Sami Jo sneak off to bang or whatever, they’re tasteful about it. They do it when they have plenty of time. None of this rushed shit, when we’re in between things.”
“Parker and Cib are new at this whole dating thing,” James says mildly, and kicks a rock over the edge, follows it down with his eyes. “They don’t know how to do it right.”
“I’m going to an early grave because of them,” Steve says, and James can feel the exact moment he winces. Gallows humor is only funny, he thinks, when you’re not in line for the gallows.
“I’ll see you in a few,” James says, and pockets the walkie again. It’ll take a minute for them to get out there, so he takes a minute to stretch his arms and shoulders. You don’t realize how cramped it gets in an SUV till you’re not in that SUV anymore, and frankly, James is sick of being stuck in one place.
It’s while he’s stretching, one arm drawn across his chest, that he notices the tent.
It’s down a path, set up on a landing a few hundred feet down from the edge. It looks like a regular camping tent, except it looks like there’s something stuffed in the empty space between the tent and the rock. Like there’s a carpet, or sleeping bag, or something. Like someone’s living there.
James knows it’s a bad idea to investigate, but he can’t help himself. As soon as he notices it he’s halfway down the path, climbing down a cliff and jogging through the dust. It’ll only take a minute. He’s sure of it.
He stops a couple yards away. You can’t exactly knock on a tent, and even if he did there’s no guarantee that anyone would answer.
Slowly, James reaches out and pulls the corner of the tent aside.
“Freeze,” someone shouts from the inside.
James, for his part, does not freeze, and pulls one of the guns out of his hoodie pocket. Maybe the movement is enough to get him shot, but if it is, he’s glad that he’s at least going to die on his feet. And not because of a zombie.
“Wait,” the person in the tent says, and pushes the canvas back further. “James?”
It takes a second for James to blink through the haze of adrenaline, but when he does, he manages to focus on the person in the tent. She has a gun pointed at him, but she’s lowering it, staring at him wide-eyed. She’s short and blonde, but her dark roots are growing out. And he hasn’t seen her since well before the apocalypse.
James slides his gun back into his hoodie. “Reina?”
“Oh my god,” Reina sobs, and flings her arms around his neck. James squeezes her as tightly as he can. He and Reina were never close, but they knew each other - couldn’t help but know each other, as two of Steve’s best friends - and he knows Steve had been worried about her. And here she is, in the Grand Canyon. Alive.
“Hey,” James says, and he can feel his throat closing up. “Hey, oh my god, Reina, Reina-”
Reina says something into his chest, teary and incomprehensible. James smooths down her hair. “You’re gonna have to run that by me again.”
She sniffles and pulls back enough that he can hear her say, “I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone I knew again.”
“God,” James whispers. “We’re here, Reina. Holy shit, what are you doing here?”
“I was on vacation when- you know.” Reina sniffs. “There used to be a bunch of us, just tourists who were trying to make it work, but all the other ones left. I didn’t want to, though, because people - you know, they knew I was going to be here.”
It’s not sound logic. But it’s apocalypse logic, and James understands.
Reina sniffs one more time and pulls back to beam up at James. “It’s really good to see you.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“What about you, how did you end up here?”
“Uh.” James scratches the back of his head. It kind of sounds stupid, now that he has to say it to someone else. “Apocalypse road trip?”
“Sweet,” Reina says. “Solo?”
“Group.” He blinks. “Wait, holy shit, we need to-”
“James,” Steve says over the walkie talkie, and Reina claps both hands over her mouth. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Oh my god,” Reina whispers, muffled and more than a little teary. “Oh my god, that- is-”
James grins. “You wanna visit?”
Reina nods, and he lifts the walkie. “I found another survivor, dude.”
“Great,” Steve says, sounding not at all like he means it. “Super. Tell them they can’t join our club.”
“She can hear you.”
“Oh, okay. You can’t join our club.”
Reina reaches out and pulls the walkie talkie, and James’s hand, closer to her mouth. “I’m already in your club, you bitch.”
Steve goes silent for a long minute. Reina takes the opportunity to sling a backpack over her shoulder. “We gonna go up?”
“If you’re ready.”
Reina nods and follows James out of the tent. They’re already beginning the climb up out of the canyon when Steve says, tremulously, “Reina?”
“We gotta climb up out of the canyon, dude, we’ll be there in a minute.”
“Out of the zombie canyon?” Steve demands, but James slips the walkie into his pocket.
“Is it just you guys?” Reina asks.
“Nah, there’s six of us.”
“Six, really?”
“Me and Steve, Cib and Parker, and Autumn and Sami Jo, who I don’t think you’ve met.”
“I haven’t. You said Cib and Parker? How’re they?”
“Good.” James thinks about it. “I mean, Parker lost an arm, but good.”
“Lost an arm?” Reina repeats. “What the fuck happened?”
“There was a zombie, it was a whole thing.”
“Oh, great. That’s… I’m glad he’s okay.”
“We all are,” James admits. It was harder than any of them want to admit, watching Parker screaming and bleeding out. But he’s okay, and that’s worth being grateful for.
They make the rest of the trek in silence, and James offers Reina a hand to help pull her up the last bit of the way. When he turns around, the rest of the group is standing clustered together, watching them. And Steve is at the front of them all, staring, eyes wider than James has ever seen.
Reina grips James’s arm. “Whoa.”
“Told you they’re here,” James says, but Reina probably doesn’t hear him, because she breaks into a sprint. Steve runs right back at her, and they don’t embrace as much as collide with each other, arms flying everywhere, kicking up dust. The next thing James knows they’re both on the ground, kneeling, arms around each other. Reina’s shoulders are heaving, like she’s crying again, and James can see the tears in Steve’s eyes.
“You’re here,” Reina sobs, and Steven grabs her head and clutches her closer. “Oh my god, Suppy-”
“You’re here too,” Steven says, choked and awful and the best thing that James has ever heard. “Reina, Reina, Reina, Reina-”
James goes over to stand by the rest of the group and looks away. It feels too personal to watch.
His eyes land on Sami Jo, who’s also looking away, out at the canyon. “What do you think?”
“Grand Canyon was a good call,” she says quietly, and smiles at James. Not a flashy smile, or a jokey smile. A real smile.
“Yeah,” James agrees, looking out, over the edge. There are zombies at the bottom, and bloodstains on the rock. And a tent, left unzipped, down a trail.
#
They end up staying at the canyon for three nights. The first night, Steve and Reina go off in another hotel room by themselves, probably to catch up, or just to be with each other. The next day James and Cib spend exploring the canyon, while Parker, Autumn, and Sami Jo get into a weirdly intense argument about foraging. Steve and Reina don’t emerge from their room until the morning after that, and they both look fucking radiant.
“Reina’s coming with us,” Steve announces. “We’re going to make room in the SUV. We’ll make the supplies work.”
It’s not a question. It’s not a democratic decision. It’s a statement. James nods anyways. “Course. Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks,” Reina says, beaming.
Cib props his chin on James’s shoulder. “Hey, good to see you, Reina.”
“You too.”
“Steve, where’re we going next?”
Steven frowns. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I vote we keep road tripping,” Reina says. “There’s not a lot else to do.”
“True,” James says. “We can take turns picking.”
“Parker’s next,” Cib says instantly.
Steve raises his eyebrows. “Is that how this works?”
“I nominate him,” Cib says. “And none of you contested me in the official format, so I win, bitch. Which just means Parker wins.”
Reina elbows Steve, ignoring the way he yelps. “Why didn’t you contest him so I could pick?”
“Because we don’t have rules about contesting!” Steven glares at Cib. “You can’t just make up rules and act like they’re a thing!”
“That’s what you do!”
“Yeah, because I’m apocalypse leader, or whatever, remember?”
“No, dude, Parker’s in charge!”
“ What? ”
Reina looks at James and whispers, “You wanna stage a coup?”
“No coups,” Steve says loudly. “James, quit nodding, don’t- no coups! This is a democracy!”
“Bullshit,” Sami Jo calls from further in the suite.
“This is socialism,” Autumn adds. “We all make the choices together.”
“I like them,” Reina murmurs. “James, you still wanna stage a coup?”
“Maybe,” James says. “We’ll talk about it.”
“Great,” Steve mutters. But he meets James’s eyes, and he looks the happiest that James has seen since they decided to leave Los Angeles.
#
They spend the last night in their suite together, with vodka and some wine that Reina apparently stole from the hotel bar a long time ago. James doesn’t remember the night clearly, but he remembers Steven and Reina sitting side by side. He remembers Cib playing his guitar, even with Parker leaning against him. He remembers drinking a lot and feeling warm and happy, and trying to convince Parker to go to Nashville, not fucking Disney World.
(He loses that fight. But he has to admit, he’s kind of curious about what the zombie apocalypse did to the happiest place on earth.)
When James wakes up the next morning, it’s in the grey almost-light that means it’s too early for him to be awake. He considers going back to sleep, but when he opens his eyes the whole way, he can see Reina. And he can see the empty space where Steve was sleeping.
Carefully, quietly, he makes his way out of the suite, out of the hotel. He already knows where Steve is going to be before he even makes it to the canyon.
And there he is, standing at the edge. His hands are in his pockets. The sun is threatening to rise, off to one side, but it’s not quite peeking above the horizon yet.
James stops next to him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What’re you thinking?”
“We can do anything.”
James slants a look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean-” Steve gestures at the canyon. “This couldn’t stop zombies. Like, they’re all down there, just waiting for something. Nature didn’t do jack shit except contain them. But we can get rid of them. We can do… anything.”
“We can,” James says, and fishes a grenade out of his pocket. “You wanna do something dumb?”
Steve looks down at the grenade and up at James. “Where did you-”
“I raided Jeremy and Andrew’s place after they left,” he admits. “They had a lot of grenades.”
“Nice,” Steve says appreciatively, and takes it. “So how do you-”
“You just pull the pin and then throw.”
Steve looks down at the zombies, still in the bottom of the canyon, almost definitely too far for the grenade to reach. “Are you suggesting I blow up the Grand Canyon?”
“We can do anything,” James says, and Steve half-smiles at him. “Weren’t you just saying that?”
“I was just saying that.” Steve takes a deep breath, pulls the pin, and throws. It’s not a great throw, or even a good one, but it makes it down to the zombies before it explodes. James can’t see well, but he has to assume that it takes out at least a couple zombies.
“Nice,” James says, and Steve starts laughing. Not like the weird, manic laughter from the car, but like he’s happy. “Steve?”
“We did it,” he says, and turns to face James fully. The sun is coming up over the horizon, and it hurts to look at, and he can’t look away. “We- six months, James, we’re not dead, Reina’s not dead, we did it.”
“We did it,” James agrees, and he grins. Steven laughs all the harder and then leans forward, and then they’re kissing, messy and exuberant and alive. Steve is still laughing into James’s mouth.
James slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, and they stumble away from the edge together. “We’re alive,” Steve says breathlessly, and kisses James again, and again. “We’re alive.”
“And we’re gonna stay alive,” James says, and kisses Steve all the harder.
FIC: equivalency
A White Collar AU. 1.9k, Parker/Cib if you squint, background Autumn/Sami Jo. [AUcember]
#
On Parker’s fourth day on the white collar taskforce, he gets to work and everything is chaos. He barely has time to wonder what’s going on before Andrew grabs him by the shoulder and drags him into Jeremy’s office, looking grim. “We’ve got a problem.”
The problem is: Clayton James broke out of prison.
“It took us four years to catch him the first time,” Jeremy says, spitting mad. “Four years and we never caught his partner, how are we going to find them?”
Parker knows who this guy is. He wasn’t part of catching him, not like Jeremy or Andrew, but you can’t study white collar crime without studying James and Suptic. And this is a big problem.
“Has Suptic been visiting him?” he asks.
“Catch,” Jeremy says, and tosses him a binder. Parker nearly fumbles it, but he manages to catch it and open it. “Visitor logs for the prison, up to date as of four hours ago.”
“Going how far back?”
“Three months.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Andrew says. “He was two months away from getting out, what made him break out?”
“He’s an idiot,” Jeremy offers. He keeps talking, but Parker tunes it out to flip through the logs. He starts from the oldest pages, and Suptic’s a constant. Two days a week, same time every week. James has been in prison for nearly three years and if Parker had to guess, Suptic’s been visiting the whole time. Except-
“Coppins,” Andrew says, and Parker startles. “Talk to us.”
“Suptic stopped visiting.” Parker flips the logs around so they can see the binder. “This is his last visit, three weeks ago.”
“People give up on loved ones in prison all the time,” Jeremy says, but he’s already reaching for his phone.
“Not these people,” Parker says. And he already knows he’s right.
#
They find James in one of his old hideouts. Or, more specifically, they split up, and Parker gets his own tactical team to go to the least likely location. He goes in first, because he’s trained for this in ways that the rest of the team aren’t, and James is there, sitting slumped against a wall.
Parker tries to keep his gun pointed steadily at him, although his heart is suddenly pounding. “Clayton James?”
“Ugh, new guy,” James mumbles without looking up. “Cib. They call me Cib.”
“Who… what?”
“I like it better,” James - no, Cib - says. “You’re new.”
“Relatively.”
“What’s your name?”
Parker takes a step closer and, despite all his instincts and training, drops his gun a couple inches. “Coppins.”
“Coppins,” Cib repeats. “You good at your job?”
“I sure hope so.”
“You want to be better?”
“Better how?”
Cib looks up. He’s clutching something in his hand, just out of Parker’s line of sight. “What do you know about me?”
“That you’re an art thief,” Parker says, and he clutches the gun a little tighter, but he doesn’t try and aim it any better. “That you forge replacements for what you steal. That you’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” Cib repeats. “I’ve only killed a few people on purpose, you know.”
“That’s more than a lot of people.”
“Maybe.”
“What are you trying to do?”
Cib gets to his feet. Parker doesn’t bother pointing the gun at him. He already knows he wouldn’t shoot. “I’ll help you.”
“Help me?”
“The whole team. You guys need to know about stealing and forging, I know about stealing and forging on the inside. I’ll help you catch people.”
Parker takes a deep breath. Someone like this on their side, that’s an asset, but- “What’s the catch?”
Cib lifts his hand. He’s holding a pair of glasses. One of the lenses is cracked. “You help me find Steve.”
Parker shakes his head. “I can’t-”
“Talk to your team. Ask Sauder, if he’s still around. That bitch owes me a favor anyways.”
“He-”
“Just try, Coppins,” Cib says, and something in Parker’s chest flashes cold, then hot. “All I’m asking is for you to try.”
Parker should say no. Parker should tell him to shut up, or that people who break out of prison don’t get to negotiate these things. Instead, he holsters his gun and holds out his hand. “They won’t let you take those when they take you into custody.”
Cib looks at him warily. “You gonna lose my things?”
“Of course not.”
He holds out the glasses. Parker takes them and slips him into his pocket, trying not to think of how many rules he just broke, and lifts his radio up to his mouth. “Subject detained.”
#
“I don’t buy it,” Andrew says. All three of them are standing outside the interrogation room, where Cib is handcuffed to a table, drumming his fingers incessantly on one leg. “He just didn’t want to get caught.”
Parker shakes his head. “No, I really think he’s being serious about this.”
“You think this guy would turn his back on the criminal underworld and help us?”
The glasses are still in Parker’s back pocket. They feel far too heavy. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t.”
Andrew scoffs. “Yeah, okay, but why would he? This feels fishy.”
“But he was looking for Suptic,” Parker argues. “It lines up, right? Suptic goes missing for three weeks, he breaks out of prison trying to find him, and he needs to stay out somehow.”
Jeremy turns to Parker. His eyes are piercing through his sunglasses. “You believe him.”
“I do,” Parker says, without hesitation.
And Jeremy nods. “Fine.”
“Jeremy,” Andrew says lowly, “you can’t- come on, you’re not serious.”
Jeremy holds up a hand, and Andrew stops. “You believe him, that’s fine. But he’s your responsibility, understand? You coordinate with him, you keep him out of trouble, and if he makes a break for it it’s your head on the chopping block. Agreed?”
Parker hazards a glance at Cib through the one-way glass. He’s still drumming on the table, but his eyes are sharp. He’s paying attention to… something.
“Yeah,” Parker says. “Agreed.”
#
Cib gets an ankle tracker for his troubles, and a two-mile radius from the FBI building.
“I can help you look at apartments or something,” Parker offers, a little stupidly. “If you want.”
“Nah,” Cib says. “I have a friend who lives in the area, I want to stop at her place first.”
“You think she still lives there?”
“Yes, dude. I can give you the address.”
The address is for an apartment complex teetering on the edge of the radius. It looks decent - not nice, but decent - and Cib is more or less out of the car before it’s parked. Parker has to run after him as he bounces up to a door and knocks.
“In a minute,” a woman calls from inside. Parker can hear movement from inside.
“I’ll give you two,” Cib calls back, and the movement stops for a second. And then there’s the sound of a door unlocking, and there’s a curly-haired woman in front of them both, staring up at Cib openmouthed.
“Surprise,” Cib says cheerfully, and then “ow, Sami Jo-”
Sami Jo doesn’t stop smacking Cib’s chest. “Prison! You should be in prison!”
“But I’m not,” Cib practically whines. “It’s fine!”
“You broke out of-”
“God, I missed you,” Cib says, and Sami Jo flings her arms around Cib’s neck. Parker has to look away. “Thought this was Autumn’s place.”
“It is,” Sami Jo says, muffled. “Moved in after the wedding. We wanted to tell you, but-”
“But you don’t want the feds to know where you live,” Cib agrees. “Also, sorry about bringing the feds literally to your front door.”
“About doing what?”
Parker looks back. Sami Jo is staring at him, and he can see inside the apartment there’s another woman and a taller man both glaring daggers in their general direction. He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. That’d be me.”
“You brought a fed?” the man from inside demands. “Cib, dude, what the fuck-”
“James!” Cib throws his arms wide open. “Autumn! Missed you guys!”
“Dude,” Autumn says, disappointed, and somehow, that’s the one that makes Cib wilt.
Sami Jo moves so she’s standing in front of the doorway, still keeping her eyes on Parker. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you can’t come in.”
“I might need to,” Parker says. “Depending.”
“Depending on what?”
Cib claps a hand on his shoulder. “This is Agent Coppins, and yes, his first name is probably Agent, I haven’t actually asked, but it seems reasonable. I’m gonna be working with him.”
“You’re kidding,” Sami Jo says flatly.
“Never a kid, never a lamb. Working on the white collar taskforce.”
“Why?”
“When’s the last time you saw Steve?”
Sami Jo shrugs. “Couple of months ago. Didn’t he visit?”
Cib cranes his neck. “What about you guys?”
“Same as Sami Jo,” Autumn says.
“Almost a month for me,” James says. Parker can hear the frown in his voice. “Where is he?”
“Don’t know,” Cib says. “He stopped visiting me about three weeks ago. Didn’t tell me he was going anywhere.”
“So you’re selling out for Steve,” Sami Jo guesses.
“Can’t look for him in prison,” Cib says. “Also, I need somewhere to stay.”
“Yo, Agent Toppings,” James says. “Is this legit? Like, never trust a fed, but is this for real?”
“That’s the agreement,” Parker says. “He helps me catch people, I help him track down Suptic. He can even help with rent, a little.”
Cib’s eyes go wide and pleading. “Guys, come on, please, it’s Steve.”
“I say yes,” Autumn says. “And it’s my name on the lease, so…”
Sami Jo points at Parker. “You’re never here if he’s not, understood?”
“Understood.”
“And you don’t know anything about us.”
Parker knows a thing or two about them. Sami Jo is a fence, allegedly, just like Autumn is allegedly a fence and a hacker, and James is allegedly a getaway driver. But he’s not going to tell them that. “Not a thing.”
Sami Jo finally moves out of the way. “You’re going to have to sleep on the-”
“Couch!” Cib jumps onto it, crash-landing on his back. “New home. Can we get takeout? Does takeout still exist, or do we just make the food appear now?”
“Jesus Christ,” Autumn mumbles, but she makes her way over and sits on the arm of the couch near Cib’s head. “Hey.”
Cib squeezes her hand. “Hey.”
“Hey, dude,” James says, and Parker looks away just before the two of them hug. He knows he has to be here, but he feels like he shouldn’t be here.
“I just have some paperwork,” he says, trying to radiate discomfort so people will pay attention to him. It’s a weird backwards-ass trick. “To make sure everything is legit.”
Autumn holds out her hand, and Parker hands over the file folder of paper she has to fill out. James and Sami Jo gravitate over towards her to read over her shoulders. Cib doesn’t move.
Parker takes the opportunity to fish the glasses out of his back pocket and hold them out. “Hey.”
Cib takes them and stares at Parker. “You kept them.”
“I told you I would.”
“You’re a weird one, Agent Coppins.”
“Yeah,” Parker says. “But we’re gonna find him. I know we will.”
A shadow of a grin flits across Cib’s face. “So when do I start work?”
“Nine o’clock sharp tomorrow.”
“And what’re we going to be doing?”
Parker shrugs. “Don’t know.”
“Cool,” Cib says, just as Sami Jo and James start arguing about something in the paperwork. “Does this happen often?”
“All the time,” Autumn says blandly.
“Take me back to prison,” Cib mutters, but he’s still clutching Suptic’s glasses, and Parker’s pretty sure that he doesn’t mean it. Not really.
FIC: cast my name to the wind
A tale from America’s golden age in which an heiress renounces her riches and becomes a vagrant in a quest to deserve her one true love, the Hobo Princess, in her home the fabled vagrant’s paradise Moonshine Holler. What woman cannot relate to that? Only a woman who has never loved. Sami Jo/Autumn, Sami Jo & Steve, 1.8k.
AUcember || title lyric
#
“So let me get this straight,” Steven says. “You threw a party last night.”
“Mhm,” Sami Jo says. “You were there.”
“I was there,” Steven agrees. “And at some point, when I lost track of you at this party, you met a woman who told you she was the hobo princess.”
“Yes.”
“As in, the princess of all hobos.”
“That’s right.”
“And the hobo princess gave you… a glove.”
Sami Jo holds up the glove. “She said it’s like the hobo equivalent of proposing.”
“That’s great,” Steve says, but that vein in his forehead is doing that pop-out thing that it does when he’s actually about to go apoplectic on her. “You’re engaged to the hobo princess.”
“She’s great,” Sami Jo sighs dreamily. The woman was beautiful, a little indelicate, unlike anyone Sami Jo has ever met. She’s smitten and she doesn’t even care.
“You’re already engaged!”
“Uh, I don’t want to be engaged to Parker, and I’m also pretty sure he doesn’t want to be engaged to me.”
Steve claps his hands together in front of his chest. “You can’t run away.”
“Why not? I’m an adult, I can do what I feel like.”
“Because people are going to notice if you go missing!”
Sami Jo is an heiress to a canned good empire. It’s the shittiest, worst sentence that defines her life, next to: Sami Jo is engaged to the heir of a different canned good empire. Like somehow, marrying off two canned good moguls is going to make some huge canned good conglomerate. She hates it. Steven knows she hates it. She’s pretty sure Parker knows she hates it, too, which she’d feel bad about if he didn’t also hate it.
“Barely anybody will really care, though,” she argues. “And I want to find her again.”
“Can’t you write her a letter?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll just leave it at a street corner. Dear hobo princess Autumn, please marry me, I’ll see you next Tuesday.” She glares at him. “Steve, come on, that’s crazy.”
“And the rest of this isn’t crazy?”
“I’m going to find her,” Sami Jo says stoutly.
“You’re not even in love with her!” Steven practically shouts. “You met her last night! You can’t run away from your responsibilities and go searching for a hobo by yourself because you think you might want to marry her!”
“Good point.” Sami Jo taps her chin thoughtfully. She doesn’t know enough - or anything - about the hobo lifestyle, certainly not enough to do this. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me. So I’m not alone.”
“I don’t-”
“You don’t want to be rich either,” Sami Jo says, as cajolingly as she can. Steve is her best rich friend, which means that they both agree that having money sucks. Financial security is one thing, but the isolation, the separation, the expectation is all too much. They’ve joked about running away before. Hopefully he can tell she’s not joking anymore.
Steven sighs. “But I don’t know how to be a hobo either.”
“We can figure it out together.”
“I can’t run away,” Steven says, but Sami Jo can feel him coming around. “I can’t - can I call it a business trip?”
“Call it what you want,” Sami Jo says. “But I’m going to call it what it is.”
“And what is it?”
“A jailbreak,” Sami Jo says, and just like she knew he would, Steve cracks a smile at that.
#
They’ve been on the run for a sum total of seven minutes when a guy quite literally pops out of a dumpster and says “Whuzzit?”
Steven shrieks and wheels back a few steps, dropping his bindle in the process. Sami Jo just tips her cap to the guy. “Uh, whuzzit to you too.”
“Whuzzit’s a dumb way to say hello,” the guy says reproachfully, adjusting his headband. “It’s an American hobo thing, but I am a Canadian hobo, and I am a hobo of distinguished taste.”
“You are literally in a dumpster,” Steven says. “You, right now, are in a dumpster.”
“Distinguished,” he repeats. And then he spits a glob of saliva and… well, hopefully just saliva into his hand and holds it out. “Name’s Cib.”
“No,” Steven whispers. “No, no, no-”
Sami Jo spits in her hand and smacks it against Cib’s. “They call me Sami Jo.”
Cib nods approvingly and wipes their joined spit off on his shirt. Steven, still standing decidedly behind Sami Jo, gags. Cib ignores him. “Haven’t seen you around these parts before.”
“We’re a bit new at this whole hobo thing.”
“Also, you’re Canadian,” Steven says, kind of unhelpfully. “So, you know, that might be why you don’t know us.”
Cib peers around Sami Jo to glare at him. “Or maybe I emigrated a few years ago and you came poking around my dumpster. Ever think about that, you bean-can string-bean string-along fuck?”
“What did you just say to me?”
“Bean-can string-bean string-along fuck, aren’t you listening?”
“I don’t think he’s being literal,” Sami Jo says. “He probably actually didn’t understand you.”
“His loss,” Cib says. “You said you’re new?”
Sami Jo wipes her own hand on the side of her jeans. “Yeah, maybe you can help me, actually. I got a glove from a hobo a while ago, I’m trying to track her down.”
Cib whistles. “Got gloved, huh? Next thing you know the wedding pies’ll be baking. Who’s it from?”
“Her name’s Autumn.”
Cib’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, and in one smooth motion he vaults the side of the dumpster and lands next to Sami Jo. “You got gloved by the hobo princess?”
“Is there only one hobo named Autumn?” Steven demands.
“Yeah, she got first name dibs on Autumn.” Cib shakes his head and leans over to Sami Jo. “Do we have to take him with us?”
“Take him with us?” Sami Jo repeats. “Where are we going?”
“To find the hobo princess, of course.”
“And how do we do that?”
“You ever been on a train before, Sami Jo?”
“I have.”
Cib grins. “Not like this, you haven’t.”
#
“When you want to get on a train, you need a running start.” He cranes his neck, looking down the eastbound tracks. “Makes it easier when you jump.”
“I’m going home,” Steven says. “I’m not going to jump on a moving train, what the fuck is-”
“How do you pick a car?” Sami Jo asks, curious though her heart’s pounding.
“You normally shoot for one of the last ones. And you can tell a cargo car from the outside.”
“And when do you start running?”
The engine of the train pases them “Now,” Cib says, and takes off.
Sami Jo sprints after him without hesitation. She can hear Steven shriek “Samantha!”, the way he only does when he’s actually pissed at her, but she knows that he’s running after her. Or at least, he hopes that she is. It’s hard to hear anything over the train.
“Okay,” Cib shouts. “The last car is coming up, so you’re going to need to jump and grab on. If you have strong arms, this will not be as hard for you as it will be for me!”
“We’re going to die,” Steve screams back, which is about what she expected from him.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Sami Jo yells back.
Cib changes angles so he’s running towards the train. Sami Jo follows him, and he jumps on the back of the last train car, clinging to the back. “Go,” he shouts.
Sami Jo takes a second to cast a prayer up to whatever’s listening, and then jumps, grabbing onto a handle on the far back. She barely manages to shimmy over before Steven flings himself upward next to her, gasping for air.
“Oh my god,” Sami Jo says, exhilarated. “Oh, my god, we got on the train.”
“Please tell me we can also get in the train,” Steven says, although it’s still hard to hear him. “Why are we doing this?”
“Because you love me?”
“Why are you doing this?”
Sami Jo grins at him. “Glove!”
“I’m going home!”
“Got it,” Cib shouts, and the door to the train compartment goes flying open. “Everyone in, quick quick quick, gotta go!” And with that he swings himself into the train compartment.
Steven stares. “Uh, do you want-”
“After you,” Sami Jo says. Steven glares at her, but he shimmies to the side and, with a loud yelp, more or less throws himself into the train compartment. She doesn’t allow herself to think twice before following suit, stumbling but landing on her feet. Which seems to be more than Steven can say, from where he’s sprawled out on the floor.
“Nice,” Cib says approvingly. “You have mastered the second most important lesson of hoboism. I’m proud of you already.”
“What’s the first?” Steven groans, pushing himself up to a sitting position.
“Getting off the train,” Cib says cheerfully, and goes to shut the compartment door. The last thing Sami Jo sees before the compartment goes dark is Steven’s face going pale.
#
Cib snores. They find this out about two hours into the train ride, by Sami Jo’s estimate.
“Hey,” she says quietly, looking at where she’s pretty sure Steven is. It’s hard to see. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Steven answers. “Hold on.” She can hear shuffling, like he’s getting to his feet, and then he plops down next to her in the dark. “You good?”
“I’m good.” Sami Jo tips her head back to look at the ceiling. “I think.”
“I think I lied.”
“I might be lying too.”
“We’re both rich and we’re in a cargo car of a train, heading somewhere unspecified east of here, with a homeless man we met in a dumpster.”
“Looking for a hobo princess in a mythical city.”
“Mythical city?”
“Oh, I forgot that part.” She grins despite herself. “There’s apparently a hobo paradise called Moonshine Holler. It’s like their version of… I dunno, New York or Los Angeles.”
“Where is it?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t say,” Steven mumbles. “Fantastic. What are we doing here?”
“Looking for the hobo princess.”
“The hobo princess,” he repeats, a little higher pitched than before. “The hobo princess who you met, last night, at a party. Was she worth throwing everything away for?”
Sami Jo shrugs and lets her head fall onto Steven’s shoulder. “I think I was ready to throw everything away,” she admits. “This is just an excuse. But she’s a pretty excuse.”
Steven claps a hand on her knee. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Thanks for coming on an impossible quest with me.”
“Thanks for getting me out of that shitty, stuffy life.”
Sami Jo smiles in the dark. Somewhere out there, her parents are searching for their daughter, and her fiance is probably worried about her. And somewhere out there, there’s a woman with a bright smile and one glove, waiting for her. She knows which one she’d rather run towards.
#
bonus info about this au
FIC: if i had all my yesterdays
There’s a bakery, off Grand and Fifth, that doesn’t have a name, or a sign out front. Autumn/Sami Jo, 1.9k.
AUcember || title lyric
#
There’s no sign for the bakery, no name or label or anything. Sami Jo isn’t even sure how she sees it the first time, considering that there’s no way to tell it apart from the rest of the stores. And she’s not sure what makes her stop and look in the empty windows and see the tiniest, sparsest bakery in the world. And she’s certainly not sure why she decides to go inside, but she pushes the door open.
There’s no bell that chimes or nobody who greets her. In fact, it looks empty except for a case of pastries and a coffee machine on the back counter. It’s the tiniest bakery Sami Jo has ever been in. There aren’t any tables or anything, just a case and the walls.
Sami Jo goes over to the pastry case and looks inside. Most everything looks like it’s some kind of pumpkin or cinnamon, which is the kind of thing that happens in the end of September. There’s no menu, and there are no prices, but she skipped breakfast this morning, and so-
“Did you want anything?” a new voice says.
Sami Jo wheels backwards, startled. There’s a woman standing behind the counter, and wow, it doesn’t help that she’s fucking gorgeous. She’s petite, with dark eyes and long hair, and she’s not smiling. Sami Jo gets the impression that if she smiled, she would look… ethereal.
“For breakfast,” the woman says, and Sami Jo remembers sharply that she’s starving.
“Uh, yeah,” she says, tossing her hair to one side. “Yeah, can I get one of those pumpkin muffins and- coffee?”
Sami Jo expects the woman to have more questions about the coffee, but instead she just nods and goes over to the coffee machine. She moves almost silently, hitting a couple of buttons and putting a cup underneath. The machine starts humming, so loudly that Sami Jo suddenly realizes how eerily silent it is in the rest of the bakery. The woman doesn’t seem to notice, just gets a muffin out of the pastry display and putting it in a bag. The coffee maker dings, and the woman grabs the cup and goes to the register. “Five dollars.”
“For the muffin and the coffee?”
The woman looks at her, a little blankly. “Yes?”
“That’s a good deal,” Sami Jo murmurs, a little blindsided by the full force of this gorgeous woman’s eyes on her. “Uh. You take- Visa? You do that?”
The woman nods, and Sami Jo hands over her credit card. The woman swipes it and picks up the muffin and coffee, holding them out. “Come again.”
“I will,” Sami Jo says softly. And maybe it’s her imagination, but when she takes her breakfast and her fingers brush up against the woman’s, it looks like something sparks off the woman’s fingertips. “Have a good day.”
The woman just nods at her, not quite smiling, and Sami Jo leaves, heart pounding in her chest for some reason.
#
When she gets to work, she tracks down Cib’s desk and shoves her coffee at him. “Taste this.”
“Whoa!” Cib takes the cup, raising his eyebrows at her. “You good, Sami J?”
“Drink my coffee,” she says impatiently. “Come on.”
Cib squints at her and takes a sip. She can tell the exact moment the taste hits him, because his eyes widen. “What the hell is in this?”
“I don’t know,” Sami Jo says. She feels a little manic, but there’s no name on the cup, or the bag for the muffin, and she’s not even sure the woman was wearing a nametag. “I was- there was this tiny bakery off Grand and Fifth-”
“Grand and Fifth?”
“I know! And I just stopped by, because-” she pauses, trying to remember. “Because I needed breakfast, but there wasn’t a name on it or a menu, but this is the best coffee I’ve had in my life.”
“Is that pumpkin something?”
“It kind of tastes like pumpkin something, doesn’t it?”
“And you said this place didn’t have a name?”
“No name, it was tiny, just one employee.”
Cib nods and hands the coffee back. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure you got coffee from a mafia front.”
Sami Jo scoffs. “Come on, they wouldn’t have coffee this good.”
“I dunno, the mafia takes their fronts pretty seriously.”
“You think?”
“Come on, a tiny mystery place with good food?” Cib pats Sami Jo’s shoulder. “Make friends with the baristas and they’ll keep you safe.”
Sami Jo considers saying something about how she wants to do more than make friends with that barista, but changes her mind at the last second. “You think I should go back?”
“If you want to.”
“I think I want to.”
“The baristas will keep you safe,” Cib says again, like some kind of prophecy.
#
She goes back a couple days later, because Starbucks just doesn’t measure up to this hole in the wall. There’s nobody behind the counter when she gets there, and she tilts her head. “Hello?”
“You’re back,” the woman says. Sami Jo doesn’t know where the fuck she came from, but one second she’s not there and the next she’s behind the counter, looking at Sami Jo with something approaching wonder.
“That coffee was amazing,” Sami Jo admits. “And the muffin wasn’t bad either. Could I get both again?”
The woman nods and goes to the coffee machine again. Sami Jo cranes her neck, trying to get a look at the controls on the machine, but it doesn’t look like there are any. The whole thing is just dark brown and a little old-looking. There don’t seem to be any bottles of flavored syrup or anything, and she’s pretty sure she would’ve noticed the woman pumping things into her coffee. “What do you put in the coffee?”
The woman, in the process of bagging the muffin, glances up. “House blend.”
“What’s this place called?”
“It doesn’t really have a name.”
“Is that legal?”
She shrugs. “I mean, nobody’s thrown me out yet.”
Definitely mafia, Sami Jo decides. They have to be mafia. “Well, I hope they don’t, because this is my new favorite caffeine fix.”
“Thanks,” the woman says. She doesn’t actually smile, but Sami Jo can kind of feel the smile radiating off her. “That’s-”
Sami Jo pulls a five dollar bill out of her purse and hands it over. “Do you have a tip jar?”
The woman shakes her head. “Don’t really need any.”
“Your business model seems a little weird.”
“Nobody’s thrown me out yet,” she repeats, and holds out Sami Jo’s breakfast again.
Sami Jo watches for it this time, makes a point of reaching out far enough that her fingers brush against the barista’s. And it honest to god looks like sparks fly out again.
“Have a good one,” she says, and flees the scene, because the mafia might explain the rest of this, but they probably can’t explain that.
#
Two days ago, the trees outside the office were green. Today, every leaf is a brilliant, gorgeous red, the kind that makes her stop short and stare for a few minutes. It almost looks unreal, like something out of a movie. Not like something that belongs in Santa Monica.
“Looks like fall came early,” Cib says, when she stops by his desk. He has a four-foot tall tower made out of paperclips peeking over the edge of his cubicle. Sami Jo wants to knock it over more than she’s ever wanted to do anything. “You go back to the mafia front?”
“Yup.” She takes a drink of the coffee. “Still great.”
“Still a front?”
“Yup,” she says, and doesn’t think about the literal sparks flying.
#
“What’s your name?” Sami Jo finally asks, the fourth or fifth time she goes back.
The woman tilts her head and looks at Sami Jo. “You know.”
“What?”
“You’ll figure it out,” she amends, swiping Sami Jo’s card. “You’re smart.”
“Thanks,” Sami Jo says, as suspiciously as she can manage. “What does that mean?”
The woman… doesn’t smile, exactly, but one corner of her mouth ticks up. “Have a good day, Sami Jo,” she says, and holds out the breakfast.
“How-” Sami Jo shakes her head. It’s on her card. She got it from her card. “Okay. Thank you, mystery caffeine witch.”
“Caffeine witch,” the woman repeats. Sparks fly off her fingers as Sami Jo takes her breakfast, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “I like that.”
“I like you,” Sami Jo very nearly says. But she catches herself at the last minute and leaves before she can embarrass herself.
#
“You’re still drinking that?” Cib leans over the edge of Sami Jo’s cubicle, fingers dangling dangerously close to her coffee. “Isn’t it gross?”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh, you got here five hours ago.”
Sami Jo frowns and looks at the clock. Sure enough, she’s been there for almost five hours. “The coffee’s still hot.”
Cib snorts. “Uh, sure, you have magic coffee.”
“I’m serious!” She holds up the cup, and Cib takes it. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Cib takes a swig and slowly raises his eyebrows. “This is hot.”
“I know.”
“And it’s full.”
“I’ve been drinking this coffee for five hours,” Sami Jo says. “And it’s not getting any less empty.”
Cib looks down at the coffee and hands it back to Sami Jo. “I don’t want to die from magic coffee.”
“If anyone’s dying from this, it’s me,” she mutters, setting the cup back on her desk. “I don’t get it, I don’t know how she did that.”
“Do you think you really have magic coffee?”
“I don’t know.” She frowns at the cup. Everything since she found the bakery has been a little more magical, sure, but she thought it was in the way that things always get more magical when you meet a beautiful new person. But there was the coffee that tasted like pumpkin somehow, and that didn’t get cold, and the trees turning red, and-
“It’s fall,” she says. It feels like something is clanging in the back of her mind. Like this is important. “Oh my god.”
“What?” Cib says. “Sami Jo-”
“I figured it out!” She jumps to her feet. “I have to- do you want my coffee? I have to go, I’ll be right back-”
“Of course I want your coffee,” he says exasperatedly, “but what’s falling?”
“I understand,” Sami Jo says, and nearly runs out of the office.
#
The woman is already behind the counter when Sami Jo slams the door to the bakery open. She looks up expectantly, like she already knows what’s about to happen.
“Autumn,” Sami Jo says, breathlessly, like the triumph it is. “You’re Autumn.”
From outside, there’s a loud rustling, like wind through trees. Sami Jo doesn’t have to look to know that the leaves are falling, that the grass is a little brown but only in the way that makes it crunchy and kind of charming. The way that means that fall is here. She’s always loved fall.
“I knew you’d figure it out,” Autumn says, and her face breaks into the most incandescent smile Sami Jo has ever seen.