A/N: Another oneshot. This is AU and uses many "real world" terms that don't fit the FFIV 'verse, but it was another writing prompt from…oh goodness, I don't even remember when. A WHILE back. I needed to take a short break from the 239809283748927364 projects that needed to get done. Anyway, this is what I think would happen if Edge were a barista in a café, assisted by my own life experiences, lol.
6/11: This piece was edited recently. Part of me wonders what I was on when I first wrote it, but then I recalled the Memorial Day debacle of 2010.
Ready, Aim, SPOON
There was a limit, a definite and wafer thin limit to Edge's patience. Why he had taken a position as a barista in one of Troia's cafes, he'd never know. Well, Rydia might. It was her fault, after all—wanting to become re-acquainted with "real people" and being part of a "community" again. Naturally, this meant he'd gone and gotten himself sucked in as well.
One day. It had only been one day and he'd already had enough. He no longer cared how the commoners of other kingdoms lived from day to day, he'd had enough of this field trip, but his shift didn't end for another five hours.
His insides were withering with dismay.
And there she was, glowing with youthful giddiness—smiling, laughing, chatting—she didn't need any more experience with people! She was a natural! Sure, her hair was green and it had taken her almost a year to get over the stares, but he was waiting for her to declare she was ready to move up in the world, to quit this job, and come back with him to Eblan.
She always had a way of ruining his plans.
He couldn't even get her attention while they were both on the floor because of the strict "the customer always comes first" motto their boss adhered to. To make matters worse, there were always customers present. In fact, it had reached the point where Edge's eye had taken to twitching every time the bell on the front door "dinged" with a new arrival.
The line was now forming to an uncomfortably long length.
Edge shifted his weight from one foot to the other and attempted to put on his most charming smile. Not wearing a mask, he had to remind himself that others could actually see his face, and in a coffee shop, appearance was everything. The first customer looked promising…
"Do you serve flavored soda tonics?"
Edge's ire flared to life again in that instant—so did his nostrils. "Get OUT !" he commanded while pointing at the door. "This is a COFFEE shop!"
The customer was baffled, eyes wide, and backed out of line.
The next customer approached. Edge neutralized his expression, gray eyes like storm clouds looming on the horizon, and attempted his second-best smile.
"What can we get for you today?" he asked, his expression tight as a drum.
"I'd like a thirteen pump vanilla latte with five shots of espresso, please," the customer rattled off.
Edge ignored the fact that the drink in question was comprised almost entirely of sugar and bound to cause organ failure of the pancreatic variety; but instead, his hand hovered over the cup receptacle, waiting to hear which one he was expected to mark. After thirty seconds of failed nonverbal communication, he gave the customer a deadpan look and held up a random cup.
"Size?"
"Small," the customer answered, as if it were the most obvious choice in the world.
The cup in Edge's hand was a medium, and he bit back an exasperated curse. The cup was then marked, and he called it off to Rydia who was waiting to make it. The loud sounds of steaming milk filled the shop as the customer paid. One murder averted, Edge thought acerbically to himself.
"I can help who's next," Edge called out to the next person in line, his enthusiasm waning.
This customer was a teenage girl. Edge narrowed his eyes at the garish make-up slathered on her face and the sheer vapidness of her expression.
"I'll take a…what do you serve again?" she drawled in the way some teenagers do.
Really? Edge thought to himself with his irritation rising. "We have coffee, tea, coffee mixed with milk, coffee and milk mixed with different flavors, we have shakes made with coffee…"
"I'll take a strawberry shake with extra whip cream on top."
Fabulous.
He quickly scanned the line and noticed three other teenage girls in line. He enjoyed efficiency when efficiency was possible and so he asked: "Is anyone else getting a strawberry shake today?"
All three of them shook their heads.
Good. That's settled.
"Size?" he asked.
"Medium," she said with a roll of her eyes.
Edge marked the cup and handed it to Rydia who hurried off to make it with a flourish of her
green hair. Her hair really did bounce delightfully when it was pulled up, but…customers. Right.
The girl paid, and the next girl stepped up to the counter.
"And what are you getting today?" he asked off-handedly, more interested in Rydia at this point than on pre-pubescent divas.
"I'll take a strawberry shake, please!" she replied with a cheeriness that grated the nerves.
Edge's eyes quickly darted to the blender. Rydia had just poured the milk into it from the previous shake but she hadn't pressed the…too late. The deed was done. She would have to make them all separately after all.
"Is ANYONE ELSE getting a strawberry shake today?" he shouted into the café.
Everyone in line shook their heads.
The girl paid…the next girl stepped up to the counter. "How much is a small shake with chocolate chips in it?"
"Three gil and forty coppers."
"How much is a medium?"
"Three gil and eighty coppers."
"How much is a large?"
"Four gil and twenty coppers."
"I'll get a strawberry shake."
The pause that followed could have chronicled the beginning and ending of a world, it lasted so long. Edge's voice dropped down into a deceptively mild, eerily calm tone. "Size?"
"Small!"
Edge tried to subdue his twitching eye, but it was too much. Could people here really be THAT insufferable? Oh, but apparently they could. He watched in disbelief as the girl dug into her satchel and began plucking individual copper pieces out of it. His eyes widened with morbid amazement as she then dumped the whole bag on the counter and began counting. Was she really going to pay for the ENTIRE drink with coppers? There were twenty other people in line!
Everyone in line was watching the girl.
Edge was watching the girl.
The girl was obliviously counting her coppers.
Edge hadn't realized it, but when his boss tapped him on the shoulder and told him to take over on the bar for Rydia, his hand had been gripping part of the shelf under the counter…a shelf that had snapped in two and was no longer attached to the wall. He groaned. That was bound to come out of his paycheck…
Nonetheless he scooted to the left and took over at the bar, taking a deep breath in the process. Right. A change of pace. This is good.
Rydia took over the register with aplomb. She greeted everyone with her best smile, was patient with silly questions, helped the customers make more informed decisions, and Edge envied her ability to remain calm in the face of so much…stupidity.
The strawberry shakes had multiplied like rabbits in the five seconds it had taken him to get from the register to the bar, and he began to tackle them with all the fervor of a man out to take over the world. He made several at once; measuring everything out, blending, pouring, topping with cream, and handing them out.
He took great pride in his achievement. His drinks were perfect, but not two minutes later, the last customer returned declaring that their shake was too runny. Edge snatched the drink out of the man's hand and made it again.
He passed it off again, this time convinced it was beyond perfection.
"What do you call this?" the customer sniped, shaking the beverage in his face.
Edge bit back the words "your grave", and took a very deep meditative breath—the kind he usually reserved for life-or-death situations. "Would you like me to re-make it?"
"I want her to make it," the customer insisted, pointing at Rydia.
Spots began to appear in Edge's vision and he snapped. He grabbed the customer's collar and pulled him a bit over the counter. "She's busy," Edge snarled under his breath. "I suggest you take your beverage and leave."
He released the customer from his death grip and the customer quickly set about composing himself and backing up until he was out the door. Edge smiled with grim satisfaction and set to work on the remaining beverages.
There were several hot drinks waiting to be made and each was a different kind of milk and each a different temperature. Really? Edge wondered with growing frustration.
He began steaming the first pitcher of milk, taking care to make it extra foamy as the drink recipe required, and then started another pitcher of milk steaming on another steam wand. He finished the first drink and handed it off, returning his attention back to his steaming pitchers, but the day wasn't about to let him have a break.
"What is this?" he heard the customer at the end complain. "There's too much foam!"
Edge looked at the customer with a death glare. "The drink you ordered is mostly foam," he retorted. "It's been made correctly."
"I want a drink with less foam. Re-make this."
Edge snatched the cup back and smashed it down on the counter, causing a jet of hot milk to shoot straight out of the lid. His frustration at having to clean up the milk was stymied when he heard the steam wands for the half-fat milk click to a stop. Wasn't he supposed to have stopped the steaming at 150 degrees? Edge decided he didn't care. He had other preoccupations at the moment, and what was ten degrees difference anyhow?
He poured the milk into the cup and passed it off, then set about steaming a fresh pitcher of milk for the customer who apparently had issues with a little gas. Or at least he tried to…
"This beverage is too hot!" the second customer declared.
Ten degrees? Edge's patience was now almost gone. All he could do was stare at the customer enraged, the kind of stare that could make children cry.
It was very fortunate for that customer and several others, that they kept their mouths shut, but even that didn't last.
Several minutes had passed and Edge had made a vanilla shake, poured it, and was about to pass it off when…
"Could you put chocolate and caramel drizzle on that?" the customer blithely asked.
Edge's eye twitched. "Take off the lid, please."
The customer did so and Edge added the condiments, regardless of whether or not he was technically supposed to. "The customer's always right" motto chimed away in his head and he gritted his teeth in defiance.
"Where is your cream?" another customer asked while all this was happening.
"It's in the jug clearly marked 'cream'," Edge snapped in a distracted way.
While Edge was trying to get a new lid to snap onto the vanilla shake cup, he noticed out of the corner of his eye, that the man had located the jug in question and was trying to pour it with little success. When the cream didn't come flowing out, the man became concerned, and again attracted Edge's attention with a plaintive look. It didn't matter that there were now ten beverages on the bar waiting to be made—it didn't matter that Edge was being defeated by a lid—the man needed his cream.
"This cream is empty," the customer pointed out, holding the jug in the air.
"It's NOT empty!" Edge snarled, passing off the vanilla shake, and then grabbing the jug out of the man's hands. He loosened the lid and handed it back to him.
But the man stood unmoving for several minutes, as if considering his coffee before doing anything to it. Edge sensed another question looming but couldn't help but flinch when it arrived. "Could you pour this for me?"
"Really?" Edge demanded, feeling overwhelmed by the number of drinks that were waiting to be made, and the overall stupidity of the day.
Nonetheless, he poured the cream into the man's coffee with malice, and resumed his duties on the bar.
Three drinks later, the man with the coffee was still standing at the end of the bar, pointing at his coffee with a frown. "A fly just landed in my coffee, could you make me another one?" he asked, clearly distressed.
Edge just stared and attempted to control his breathing. His hair was beginning to stand on end from static electricity, a bi-product of his rage. He struggled to find words.
"A fly got into the drink that you just had me waste three whole minutes on?" he nearly whispered.
The man nodded.
"GET OUT!" Edge roared, pointing at the door.
The look on Edge's face must have been terrifying indeed because the customer dropped a sugar cube into his coffee from shock, creating a puddle of tawny liquid on the counter before turning and nearly sprinting out the door.
The customer who had ordered the vanilla shake from earlier, however, had missed the entire exchange, and was unaware of the danger he faced when he returned to the counter to make one final request.
"Could I have a spoon?"
Edge, who had returned to making beverages, stopped everything he was doing, stomped over to where the spoons were kept and stomped back to the bar.
"You want a spoon?" Edge asked with menace dripping from his tone. "A spoon?"
It flew through the air with such speed and accuracy that few actually witnessed the incident. All anyone saw was the man sprawled unconscious on the floor with a spoon shaped welt on his forehead and vanilla shake all over his pants.
"Edge!" his boss screamed from across the café, finally interceding. "Remove your apron! YOU'RE FIRED!"
Edge threw down his apron with such zeal that it made a satisfying snap when it hit the floor. He jumped out from behind the bar counter and stalked toward the exit, stepping over the unconscious man on his way.
He was a king—a ninja. This life was beneath him.He gave Rydia one last look before he made his escape. His silver hair standing on end from the Blitz spell he had unintentionally set off was only the icing on the cake. The café was destroyed—the tables on fire—and when he stepped out the door, the glass pane in its center shattered to pieces and the clanging bell fell to the floor as a molten puddle of slag.
And then he was gone—a cloud of smoke, a peculiar cackle, and the distinct smell of burnt espresso wafting after him…
~fin
….
As a sidenote…I really DO love my job! But every once in a while…
As another sidenote, "what size?" is probably the most FREQUENTLY asked question as a barista. I'm not sure why it annoys me so much, but it does…