Dungeons & Daddies fic 2/∞ (season 1&2 spoilers)
I see there are a whopping 2 likes on my previous post, which is honestly 2 more than I thought I'd see. To celebrate that, here's part two of my silly Grant&Marco fic. Thanks for the brilliant people in DnDads discord who gave me the inspiration for this one! <3
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I have a weird feeling about this. To start with, it’s ludicrous I agreed to go on a date. After pulling an all-nighter no less. I had to stop Lark from setting the shooting range on fire on two different occasions. One might think you wouldn’t need to babysit an adult man at his own company. One would be wrong.
Marco smiles at me from the driver’s seat. I do feel a little bad about how I make him work for it. His words, repeated just a minute ago. He talks, I answer. I should be asking questions, and holding up my part of the conversation. It’s just, I’m fucking tired. Literally and figuratively.
He drives well, the acceleration is smooth and I can feel him releasing his foot off the gas way before he needs to start braking. Dad would be impressed. Not that he’ll learn about this, date, thing. There’s no reason to get his hopes up over nothing, this thing will crash and burn before we finish the pancakes Marco keeps talking about.
“This is it,” Marco says, pointing a little ways ahead of us. I see the blue text on a white background and scoff loudly before I can reign my reaction in.
“IHOP, really?” I seriously doubt we’ll even see the menu before this is over. I could be palming a handful of melatonin and crashing on my mattress to the sounds of my rainfall soundtrack right now.
Marco’s hand settles behind the back of my chair as he parallel parks to a spot right in front of the diner. “It’s not IHOP, not as in International House of Pancakes. The letters stand for something else,” he says. “I forget what they stand for, but I’ve heard this place is all the rage. My friend has been raving about it for weeks.”
Somehow that rings a bell in my mind. I’m not sure why Marco’s explanation is familiar, I do not follow social media. I shrug off the thought and step out of Marco’s car. From the outside, it looks exactly like an IHOP. Maybe I’m being scammed? Now that I think of it, I can’t even recall what Marco’s position is at D.A.D.D.I.E.S. It has to be something important if he has clearance to my floor. Unless he stole a badge, twice since I saw him on Monday too.
The inside of the restaurant is somehow the opposite of IHOP if that’s possible. Instead of faux leather seats and cheap laminate tables, nearly everything is made of warm, amber-colored wood. Marco greets the host behind a counter covered in moss and greenery. The space smells like fresh air and fruits, a vast difference to my memories of burner grease and lemon-scented cleaning spray. I swear I hear birds singing behind the greenery fixture that covers the whole back wall.
“Li for two? Right this way,” the host says and takes two wooden menus from the counter. This place is ridiculous. Just the sort of place my uncle-.
“Grant? Is that you?”
I turn in slow motion towards the familiar voice. For a fraction of a second, I consider just leaving Marco here and bolting out of the door. Alas, however bad my reputation is, ditching a perfectly kind man without explanation is where I draw the line.
“Uncle Henry,” I notice my pitch is higher than usual. Clearing my throat I continue, “What are you doing here?”
Henry wipes his hands on an apron and steps out of the open-concept kitchen. I see he hasn’t gotten rid of his Birkenstocks still. He looks good, not only because he is ridiculously healthy and doesn’t seem to age. He looks happy, too. Content.
“What am I doing here, you ask?” His voice is bright and a little too loud, like always. “This is my restaurant, I Heart Our Planet. IHOP".” Uncle Henry sounds so proud as he gestures around him. There’s a diminishing, hidden part of me, that feels some kind of way seeing that.
“That’s what it was!” Marco says behind me.
Henry’s eyes fixate over my shoulder. I try to think of ways to lie myself out of this. Henry is not known to be subtle, and asking him to keep this a secret feels shitty.
“Now now, who’s this gentleman?” he asks, with a smirk so wide it should be illegal.
“Marco Li, a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he answers and offers his hand to my uncle. “I’ve heard amazing things about this place, it seems you have something great going on here,” he continues.
“I like this one,” Henry stage-whispers to me and I want to sink underground. He wraps an arm around both of our shoulders and ushers us towards a booth set up against the greenery wall. The table is unadorned, set with cloth napkins, sturdy-looking silverware and glasses that look like they’ve been made out of the bases of glass bottles.
“I’ll leave you to peruse the menu,” Henry says as the host hands them over to us. “My favourite is the sunrise,” he points to the top of the menu, “but you boys order whatever you like. It’s on the house! And all plant-based, and very healthy for you of course.”
Uncle Henry likes to ramble on, I let him. When he finally takes his leave, Marco turns to me and says, “What a funny coincidence this is your uncle’s place.”
“Yeah, funny,” I say.
Marco orders oat-banana pancakes with banana-peanut butter nice-cream and rooibos tea. I might get full on the hyphenations on that order alone. Instead of figuring out something to order for myself, I ask for the same.
“How was the night shift?” Marco asks when the waiter pours us both a glass of water and takes away our menus.
“It was fine.”
“Don’t want to hear how my night was?” he asks.
“I assume you were sleeping.”
Marco rolls his eyes at me and for some god-forbidden reason, I find that attractive. This must be sleep deprivation. He takes off his glasses to clean them with the hem of his shirt and I see a peek of his stomach over the low table. Now, that is a whole other thing.
Settling the glasses back on, Marco continues. “Is there something you’d like to talk about? I was never very good at racket sports and this solo tabletop tennis I’m playing is getting a little tiring.”
I huff out an uncomfortable laugh and scratch my neck. The image he is painting of me is not very pretty. “Why did you ask me out then if I’m that insufferable?” I ask. There is no heat to my words, even though the sentiment is there.
Marco tilts his head and there’s a soft smile forming on his lips. I kind of want to get lost in it. I shouldn’t, but I want to. Everything about this man feels different. He seems sincere, but I can’t quite put a finger on why that is.
“The things I’ve heard about you are not flattering,” he starts. I think my original guess that this date thing will be done before we even get to the pancakes is not that far off.
He continues, “Still, I can’t help but think there must be more to you than that. I want to get to know the man behind the rough reputation and short surly sentences.” Marco takes a sip of his water and smiles mischievously. “Also, I think you are really fucking cute.”
“Here are your pancakes,” Henry singsongs right next to us, handing over the plates. His voice is even louder than usual if that’s possible. My uncle’s smile is so big it’s a surprise there are no tears at the corners of his lips. As I lift the cloth napkin off the table to make space for the plate, I can’t help but think he must have heard what Marco just said.
