It’s not that Yuuri is scared. He’s not a baby. Still, he’s lost and misses Mommy and he hasn’t had anything to eat in ages, so if tears well up in his eyes and if he feels like crying, he can’t really be blamed for it, can he?
Also, he’s starting to realize that treasures make a very bad seat for one’s butt. They aren’t comfortable at all.
“…so you see, mister dragon, it would be nice if you didn’t eat me,” Yuuri concludes, gaze firmly locked onto his own two feet waving back and forth, back and forth, over the edge of his perch. It still rankles a little that one of his shoes came off sometime between the screaming and the flying, leaving him with a wet sock and tiny must-be-teeth-shaped pinpricks over his big toe. He’d liked these shoes. A wave of renewed anger hits him at the thought, which is better than the crying he very much hasn’t been doing (if no one saw it, then it didn’t happen. Big, stupid dragons don’t count). And even if he did, well, it was quiet crying, very digni…di…very calm, so there.
It’s all the dragon’s fault, anyway.
Yuuri’s doesn’t feel like looking at him. He’s fairly confident that this one dragon is a ‘he’, because Nishigori said girl dragons are bigger and meaner than the boy ones.
Congrats on 500 kudos!! How about a magical coffeeshop viktuuri AU? With dragons 😁
My writing process: Uh-oh, a coffeeshop AU? I’ve worked enough customer service jobs to know it sucks, and domestic fluff isn’t really my wheelhouse.
…Wait did you say dragons?
Dark Roast
The best part of Yuuri’s job is the smell of coffee. He doesn’t understand the attraction, given his total lack of interest in drinking the beverage, but the roasted beans did smell amazing every morning.
He’s been doing this so long he hardly notices the attendants scrambling to run straps across his body. They’d been afraid of him at first, unaccompanied as he was, but they’d long since grown used to each other. They don’t hesitate to lean against his body or nudge him to move these days. Sometimes children even sneak in to hide behind his legs, much to their mother’s loud and ongoing disapproval.
The man in charge - or perhaps the woman, Yuuri finds it hard to differentiate when not given obvious cues like children calling “mother” - shoos the workers off him and gives him the signal that he’s clear. Yuuri rouses himself with a lurch, somnolent in the dawn’s early light, but ready to proceed with the second best part of his job. Flying.
He spreads his wings, revealing the dramatic red fans that are otherwise tucked away against the black of his body. He’s not really a daytime creature, but this is the industry. He knows the children must not be here today, they can never resist shouting their excitement when he unfurls his wings. He suspects all three of them will be dragon riders someday, no matter how much their mother shouts.
Sometimes, you can just tell when someone longs for the sky. For wind and speed and endless horizons. Yuuri can taste the feeling now, as he tests the currant beneath his wings then launches himself into the air with a great downward shove, insisting the earth release its hold on him.
He’s aloft and gaining altitude with the next few wingbeats, a very dark shadow against the rising sun, vanishing into the sky with incredible speed.
~
His first delivery is fine, it’s to the nearest coffee shop, built over the plantation for convenience’s sake when the whole idea had still been a mad plot. It hangs suspended between wispy clouds, the glinting spellwork lattice that holds it in place a true marvel.
The workers up here are largely cadet hopefuls, which counterintuitively makes them more uneasy around him. His refusal to carry a rider is only part of the problem, the other is turnover meaning there are often people unused to him. Nonetheless, the crew is entirely professional and all goes well.
He thinks some of the elder workers may give up on a dragon and pursue a more conventional career soon, perhaps even within the Air Corps. Most members were not dragonriders, but it was still a large organization that needed many hands at many tasks, though most of those tasks kept one’s feet firmly on the ground.
The man who built the coffeeshops had accepted not being a dragonrider, but refused to give up the sky. He’d studied the magic in dragon bone and breath with the Air Corps’ endorsement, and had unexpectedly devised the means to fix structures in the air. It could only be done above certain terrestrial points, and those were not easy to find, making floating cities unfeasible. The first structure, only accessible to those with wings, became a place to meet and rest for dragonriders, and shortly after a coffee shop. They’d developed as a strange sister institution to the Air Corps themselves, separate but entwined.
They aren’t conveniently located or easy to supply for the most part, and that’s where Yuuri comes in; he flys in fresh coffee everyday. Not carrying a rider means he can take that much more weight in supplies, and he has the stamina to make the entire circuit. He’d replaced several dragon and rider teams when he’d taken over this duty, allowing them to make themselves useful elsewhere.
It’s not glorious work; he doesn’t fly in full regalia like the honor guard. He’s doesn’t tell wild stories from patrolling the border, and he’s alone for the most part anyway. There are reasons he’d refused a life in the Air Corps though, and at least everyone is happy to see him when he shows up.
He’s in the air again before the sun has cleared the distant mountains, on the way to his next delivery, somewhat lighter than before.
~
It’s the second delivery where everything goes wrong, confirming his ongoing dislike of the Ashentop coffeehouse.
The problem with Ashentop is that it’s busy. It was erected very close to a towering butte that dominated the surrounding steppe, and the Air Corps had wasted no time in building across the gap and taking advantage of the extra space. There were barracks and an aviary for dragons to rest and recover here, as well as a small assortment of businesses geared towards the personnel passing through.
Yuuri doesn’t care for the crowds, but at least the bustling activity lets him go unnoticed for the most part. Perhaps people whisper about him as he wings past, or perhaps no one cares enough to notice; there’s no way to know and Yuuri endeavors not to care.
The entrance here is a bit tricky, tucked beneath the bridge, and Yuuri has to roll out of the way of traffic before he drops into the waiting gate. A less maneuverable dragon, or one who wasn’t familiar with the landing, might have had to circle back around. Yuuri does this every day though, in all sorts of traffic and weather, he could probably make the landing half asleep.
The working crew at Ashentop is larger, and they unload what they need even faster than the Plantation coffeeshop. Considerably lighter now, he gives his wings a shake and prepares to be on his way. He jumps prematurely, back on his hind legs, startled when a long white neck arches around the corner into the recessed cubby, and he finds himself face to face with another dragon.
A lovely dragon, their pearlescent white scales shining and delicate across their face, leading to blue horns that darkened almost to black at the tips. The neck is strong but supple, the head gracefully dished. Yuuri is caught staring into bright cyan eyes, the pupils elegant slits.
Victor. Yuuri knows who Victor is, everyone knows who Victor is. There’s not a living dragon more famous for their exploits, and frankly the more storied dragons from the past are probably at least partly apocryphal. Why is Victor here?
‘That was a very good landing.’ The appreciation Victor pushes at his mind is so clear it’s almost like words, as if he had vocal chords running down his throat instead of acid sacks. Startled again, and already off balance, Yuuri has to dodge around Victor and push off into the air to stop himself from landing on either his face or the supplies he’s carrying.
Already aloft, he can’t bring himself to do anything but flee, winging away from the cliffside where Victor is spread wide and clinging to the rock face in his bid to disrupt Yuuri’s equilibrium.
‘Alright, bye.’ He feels Victor’s farewell only faintly due to the distance he’s put between them, and thinks himself even more the fool, clumsy and mean as he flys away.
~
He makes it almost a week without anymore foolish bungles on his part, and he’s starting to settle into his usual routine. Seastack may well be his favorite coffee shop, positioned over a lively reef where waves crash and there’s always food to be caught. He takes a rest here most days before making the final leg of his journey.
He’s roosting comfortably on the roof when Victor comes out of nowhere, more silent than is plausible for a dragon his size, and settles down beside him. The roof isn’t small enough to justify how close he perches, but he doesn’t bother explaining himself this time. Yuuri can’t bring himself to make contact, to apologize for his rudeness, despite the perfect opportunity.
He’s not as eloquent as Victor, doesn’t have the practice interacting with a squad and speaking mind to mind. All he’d be able to do was push his tangled confusion and anxiety at Victor, and he couldn’t bear compounding his shame that way. Instead they sit in silence, close but not quite together, until Yuuri can’t take it anymore. He ends his break prematurely, leaving Victor behind him once again.
~
It becomes a pattern. Every so often, once or twice a week, he’ll run into Victor during his rounds. If he’s busy, Victor will tilt that finely sculpted head in acknowledgement and that will be all. Yuuri nods back after the first few times, unable to be so purposefully discourteous as to not return the simple gesture.
If Victor manages to catch him while he’s resting at Seastack, he’ll join Yuuri on the roof. Yuuri is still too nervous to strike up a conversation, but the silence grows more companionable as he adjusts to Victor’s ongoing presence. He may even miss him a little, when he’s not there.
One day, just before he needs to leave, he thinks a little ‘farewell’ at Victor as he prepares to go. The other dragon responds by bumping his head against Yuuri’s cheek, a shockingly bold gesture, as if they were close friends or clutchmates instead of barely acquaintances.
Yuuri nearly spits fire he’s so surprised, and he feels that heat in his chest for the rest of the day, a bolster against the cold wind.
~
Victor continues his strange campaign, undeterred by Yuuri’s general confusion and frequently spastic responses. He edges closer on the roof every time they meet, until they’re almost leaning against one another. Yuuri’s starting to wonder if Victor is just cold up here, and glad to shelter against a warm fire-breather while he enjoys the view.
Just when he’s making peace with that hypothesis, Victor chooses to brush his tail against Yuuri’s, wrapping the tip across when Yuuri doesn’t object. He settles in with almost palpable contentment, pressed against Yuuri’s black body at shoulder and tail, lowering his head against his forearms so he can rest more deeply.
Yuuri, for his part, is so afraid to move he’s almost late to his next delivery.
~
Yuuri doesn’t get it until Victor brings him the fish. It’s an enormous tuna, and Victor carries it as if the weight doesn’t interfere with his balance at all, landing lightly on strong hind quarters. He drops the fish and noses it towards Yuuri, tail flicking happily against the roof.
Yuuri blinks, once, twice. Was Victor courting him?
He must have wondered loud enough for the pale dragon to hear, because he perks up immediately, head rising into the air. ‘Yes!’ He is, and he’s happy Yuuri noticed.
Yuuri feels cracked open, unable to stop projecting his confusion. ‘Why? Why? Why?’
‘I want babies.’ Their minds so open now, Victor pushes thoughts of a warm nest and mottled black and white eggs at him.
Yuuri does snort fire this time, and Victor cooes at him like he’s impressed. Maybe he is, it’s not an entirely common ability, but it only makes most bitter about his disinclination towards militant pursuits. Why would Victor want Yuuri, the dragon who choose not to be a warrior, when there were so many fiercer dragons among the ranks of the Corps?
‘You’re strong and you’re fast and you breath fire,’ Victor’s thoughts are clear in his head. ‘And I think knowing what you want is quite fierce.’
When Yuuri doesn’t interrupt, listening with rapt interest, Victor continues his ode. ‘You fly far and well, you have the dedication to make a good partner, and also…’ Victor leaves off, neck bending in an elegant arch so he can bump his snout against Yuuri’s shoulder. ‘You always smell like coffee.’
…There we go, domestic dragons and magical coffeeshops. Nailed it.
(This probably wasn’t what you were asking for, but I hope you like it anyway.)
That’s one prompt down, another 2 to go I think. I’ll probably get around to posting these drabbles to AO3 eventually, but I’ll worry about that later. Writing Moar now.
