coffee shops and seasons | a.i
notes: so a couple of months ago @5-secondsofcolor had put forward an idea in the gay!sos gc and with Alma’s permission I took the idea and fuckin ran with it. Like I sprinted, then forgot about it and then carried on sprinting again. It’s a soft writer!ash concept and I’m very uwu over it. warnings: none word count: 2.1k!
also, i’ve got myself a ko-fi. i erred over this for a while before deciding to go with ko-fi as i fell this gives more freedom to the writer and those that donate, so feel free to donate.
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Ashton enjoyed having routine.
Routine was something that his chaotic life could not take away from him, no matter how close his deadlines were for the publishers.
If anyone studied him, he always went to the small coffee shop that was tucked away in the suburbs of the city.
It held a small garden that he never sat in, preferring the sounds of the coffee shop to become his soundtrack of his writing. However, he often stepped out under the canopy of vines, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of the moment, in any kind of weather.
It happened a year ago when the smallest change occurred in his routine.
You showed up, wrapped up in a jacket and scarf, the almost childlike glee in your face as you reached the barista, exclaiming softly how this was your first snowfall.
Your eyes met his, and the two of you shared gentle smiles as you sat on the table in the corner of the window, eyes watching the world pass by as your attention eventually slid to a book in your lap.
At first he only saw you twice that week, both of you sharing smiles with each other when you entered into the coffee shop. And for a few months that was all he saw of you.
Then the next change came when you walked in, your eyes red and face slightly swollen and a part of him wanted to ask you how you were. But he didn know how to ask you that question.
So instead of asking you, he listened to your order, and when he left, he quietly paid for another drink for you before heading out.
Had he waited, you would’ve gone to him to say thank you, but when you’d looked up as the barista explained that he’d paid for your drink, he’d already gone.
That week he’d had to give up his routine for the publishers and he had never felt so gutted to have missed something so pivotal as seeing you in the shop.
When he got back to routine, there was a coffee waiting for him at his usual table, but you weren’t in the shop. Glancing to the barista, they smiled slightly.
“She paid for it in advance and said to make sure you got it. I’ve wasted seven coffees on you.” Ashton laughed.
“I can pay for those.” And the barista shook their head.
“I’m kidding with you Ashton. I know that your deadline came up. I realised that every time you hit a deadline, you vanish for a week.” Ashton couldn’t stop the blush rising in his cheeks.
“It gives me a break. I get to write for me until they decide on book tours that I’ll refuse. It’s the same routine.” The barista chuckled before returning to work and Ashton found himself crafting a new world of characters.
There was a break in the routine four days later.
You hadn’t been in the coffee shop that week, and he found himself missing that small thing, and his mind started to craft up elaborate daydreams and ideas as to why you hadn’t come, but he left them as that, daydreams and ideas of a person he couldn’t quite have.
When you showed up, he glanced up and watched as your face lit up when you realised he was sat in his usual spot.
He heard you make your order and he expected you to be nestled in your little spot, people watching like you did every time, but it took a moment for him to realise that he hadn’t heard the scrape of the chair against the floor.
Lifting his head, he found you stood there, uncertainty shifting across your features before you finally spoke.
“Would you mind if I joined?” And it took him a second before a smile bloomed across his face and your shoulders relaxed.
“Please, take a seat.” He motioned to the chair sat opposite him, tilting the laptop screen down so that he could focus his attention on you.
“I figured that we’ve been dancing around like this for a while now. And you bought me a drink...” Your words trailed off and he could feel the warmth rushing to his cheeks as you acknowledged his small gesture of kindness.
“It was nothing, really. You looked so sad the day you came in, and I wanted to ask if you were okay but we’re two strangers who don’t know one another and I knew that it could’ve come off as strange if I just asked that.” He hesitated before a soft smile graced his lips. “I hope you’re better now, though.”
The chuckle that left your lips was void of any humour, it was dry and almost sarcastic in nature. And Ashton found himself being drawn into you, wanting to learn more.
“I wish I could say I am, but I’m not. I will be though.” You hadn’t elaborated and he didn’t push.
You were simply two strangers.
“I just realised that I hadn’t even introduced myself.” It was almost like the same thought had hit you both, but you’d vocalised it in such a way that had him grinning as you introduced yourself with a dramatic flourish, earning a small laugh from him.
“It’s not often that people willingly laugh at the dumb shit I do.” You muttered, earning a grin in return.
“Since you’re the dramatic one, I’ll be the calm one. I’m-”
“I know who you are.” He paused as you cut him off, your eyes refusing to lift off the table. He could feel the palpable of emotion rolling off your shoulders, the near embarrassment surrounding you as your eyes refused to meet his.
“I’m always curious about what other people think of me. Who am I?”
The silence that filled the space between you a your eyes finally lifted up from the table, meeting kind eyes and a gentle smile. He watched as you seemed to be gathering steam, your teeth sinking into the skin of your lips before you finally spoke.
“You’re Ashton Irwin. You’ve written some really good stuff, but that’s not really important to me.” You paused and he raised an eyebrow, a silent question at your statement.
Somehow his silence seemed to make your words that much louder.
“Y-you’re the man in the coffee shop who was kind to me on one of the worst days of my life. You’re the writer that sits and taps his feet to the beat of the song playing in the shop. You’re the man who types something, laughs just once and then carries on as if you hadn’t done a single thing.” You kept your words calm despite the slight stumble.
Yet the smile on his face continued to grow and it set something in your heart on fire at the joy in his features, his eyes lighting up.
“You’re observant, but then I guess you’d have to be for someone who people watches.” At this, you grinned at the playful accusation.
“To come in and shut away from the world, it’s a small relief in a life of stress.” He understood your words, knowing how important it was to shut away from time to time and just allow yourself to be. He did it often enough.
“Not many people understand that need. It’s why I like finding places like this coffee shop is a dream because people don’t come out of their way for something like this. It’s hidden enough that the only people who find it are the ones who need it.”
A smile blossomed across your face as the two of you continued to talk until you had to go.
For the rest of the day, Ashton had the biggest smile on his face.
The following day, he decided to sit in your seat, to try and understand your fascination with people watching. The people who did walk by, seemed to distract his mind, but it opened new avenues to explore.
And when you arrived, sitting in your customary seat, he spoke up.
“So many lives walk past and you never know what’s going on in them. The little old lady across the street, I’ve decided has been waiting for a bus that changed the route and she never found out.”
He hadn’t expected the bubble of laughter to escape your lips as you realised the small game he’d fallen into.
“The biker that’s sat on his bike is waiting to hear from a job interview. He’s a baker that only bakes cakes for birthday parties. This interview was for a bakery that only specialises in weddings.”
More laughter.
You kept up a quiet commentary for him whilst he continued to write, pausing and chipping in his own two cents which you thoroughly enjoyed.
And slowly this became normal for the two of you. He found more enjoyment writing with you sat beside him, crafting up little stories about the people that walked by the coffee shop, oblivious to the pair of fast made friends creating absurd stories to pass the time.
He stopped dreading his deadlines and began to enjoy the moments of peace and joy you gifted him with those small stories.
Some days you were quiet, and he never pushed you to open up to him. Instead he told you elaborate tales of the characters he’d created, some of them over the top and others just entirely out of character from the character’s you knew. It always got a giggle.
That was when he told you about how he started writing when he was younger because he always told his siblings stories. Even as a child, his imagination was one which made elaborate stories about a prince who ran to save his life, teaming up with bandits to save his kingdom or ones of a princess running from her home and boarding a pirate ship to escape from her life.
And so you told him the tales of how you used to sit in cafes after school, waiting for your mom to finish her shifts. You’d make up stories of the groups of people as a child and it was something you continued to do as an adult. It was a moment of comfort and he understood that entirely.
Suddenly his routine had been changed in the best ways. He enjoyed the moments with you, and he realised that if he kept it up, he knew that he was heading down the route that he so often wrote it was like an old friend, that familiar feeling of comfort.
The two of you had become so comfortable in your friendship and part of him wanted to push it to the next step. You’d been apart of his life for so long. The first few months was simply ships passing in the night, seeing each other but never really meeting. And then you collided and he enjoyed every second of the following year.
Seasons came and went, as did the staff. But you two were constantly sat together, talking. He still took his week off after a deadline and you still took days away. Both of you went on holidays and lived lives separately, but found a way to tell each other about those things you both got to enjoy.
Ashton knew he was falling in love, in one of the more cliche ways that he’d written often enough. Yet for all the words that he could write, the words that flowed from his fingertips to paper-or at least fingertips to keyboard-he could not find the words to tell you, or to even invite a discussion for him to admit that he had feelings for you.
After weeks of agonising over how to ask you out on a date, you took the problem from his hands and gifted him with a solution that had him laughing.
“So with all of those days that we’ve been meeting up for these drinks, do they count as dates or are we beyond that?” And it caught him so off guard that he laughed.
“Would you turn down my question for a dinner date with you?” He braved the question now that he had an idea of where your thoughts about the two of you lay.
He watched as the shyness that he first witnessed when you stood at his table, waiting for his attention before asking to sit down, reared up.
“I’d never turn down that kind of date with you Ash. All you have to do is ask.” You finally murmured, a hand reaching over to take his. And his heart sped up, a blush building on his cheeks.
“Please may I take you to dinner tonight, say 7?”
“I’d love that.” His heart exploded with excitement mixed with relief as he shifted the hold of your hand, bringing your knuckles to his lips gently.
“Then I do believe it's a date.” The blinding smile you gave him told the butterflies in his heart and stomach that you were definitely worth it.
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