"Heeey, Prof! You in? I gotta talk to you about this assignment!"
Waver's lips thinned and twisted as his student burst through his office door. Flat didn't knock. Flat Eskardos never knocked. He'd put the boy's head through the door if he didn't think it would just dislodge all the other knowledge he'd worked so hard to wedge in.
"Would you shut up, you walking noisemaker? I'm busy." He picked up a cup in one hand and the long handle of the ibrik in the other. He didn't tell his student to go away-it would take more concentration than he had to spare-but did ignore Flat's chirpy inquiry about what he was brewing.
Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love. He remembered the proverb, let the rhythm of it linger in the corners of his mind, and poured.
The liquid was a satin ribbon the color of chocolate, shining and near soundless even as he lifted the brass pot further up in a practiced gesture. Glancing sidelong at Flat's curious expression, he huffed and set his cup down, reaching over and retrieving the second one from the serving tray before pouring again. Dark froth formed a layer at the surface and he eyeballed the level before letting the grounds slide smoothly into each cup.
To his annoyance, the second one ended up with more foam. He'd gotten very good at pouring it, but he wasn't used to serving two. He flipped off the burner and set down the ibrik, picking up the first cup and turning to lean against his window frame, staring out through the glass and over the city.
"Hey, so is that other one for me?"
Waver snorted. "Who else, idiot?" He sipped slowly, closing his eyes, letting the flavor of the drink fill his mouth, the aroma and warmth of it wash over his face. Like it always does, the taste took him back, straight back, to a little coffee shop in Thessaloniki, poring over maps and books with the weight of ages pressing in on him from all sides, radiating up from the streets with the heat of summer, ancient in the sea salt taste of the wind.
The loneliness is hell, and death and sweetness both are in the memories.
Flat stared at the faint, bitter smile on Lord El Melloi's face for a few seconds, then picked up the cup with a skeptical look. It was made of thin white ceramic, nestled in a brass holder with intricate detailing of flowering vines. The scent of coffee hung in the room like toffee loops. It certainly looked good, thick and rich, kind of hot-chocolaty. He tried a sip.
Waver opened his eyes with a sharp sigh and a glare when his student spit the coffee across the floor and wiped noisily at his mouth.
"It's scalding! And bitter! Prof, this is terrible! Why do you drink this stuff? You could have whatever you wanted-"
"Flat Eskardos." The tone, loud and hard, snapped him too attention-he wished he knew where the professor had learned to make his voice do that-that thing where every elongated syllable felt like a knife blade being pressed meaningfully against the listener's throat.
"Y-yeah, Prof?"
"If you say one more stupid word I swear I'm going to brew extra of this every morning specifically so I can come to your room and dump it over your thick head while you're still asleep. You started the cup, now finish it."
"But I-"
"Every. Morning."
"All right, all right..."
The young man nursed the cup reluctantly, making faces at it with every swallow. Waver enjoyed the silence for a few more long moments before commenting, more mildly, "In the Middle East, they tell fortunes with the grounds."
Flat smiled at him like he wasn't sure whether his teacher was joking or not. "Fortune telling? That's a little-I don't know, primitive, isn't it?"
The older man gave an aggrieved sigh. "Don't parrot-talk magus elitism at me, Eskardos; you know it ruins my whole day."
Lord El Melloi II dealt with magus elitism every day. Flat knew it, and didn't make a flippant comment about it because he was a little worried the professor actually would come and pour terrible coffee over him tomorrow morning.
"I learned a little in Greece years ago," the man said off-handedly, as if travelling the world and learning strange foreign magecraft was something magi did all the time. "Finish the coffee and I'll tell you your fortune."
"Will that really work here right in the middle of Clock Tower? Wouldn't the Thaumaturgical Theories be too different?"
That got him a Look from "Professor Charisma"-he was still frowning, but Flat recognized the shades of approval in his eyes and grinned, hurriedly drinking the last of the apparently-coffee-and-he-wouldn't-argue-because-now-he-was-curious-about-where-this-was-going. He handed the cup over.
The man took it, setting his own on the window frame, and turned his head down to examine the black sludge. His long hair slid over one shoulder as he ran a deft fingertip around the cup's rim; Flat thought, absurdly, of second-hand kisses. The boy squelched the image, watching the consideration moving through his teacher's narrowed grey-green eyes.
"I see..."
"Yeah? Yeah?" Excited, Flat scooted in a little closer, trying to get a better look at the dark rings clinging to the white walls of the ceramic.
"I see that you're going to get a good lesson in manual labor today," his teacher snapped, setting the cup down hard. "What the hell were you thinking, spittingTurkish coffee all over my rug?"
Flat opened his mouth to protest, but the professor rode right over it, voice just getting louder.
"Turkish! Coffee! If that stains there won't be any way to get it out but to unmake it and replace half the fibers! And since no one makes spells to clean carpets, you don't have very long to get it out! Get down to the kitchens and get back up here with some hot soapy water, or-"
The young man took to his heels and fled. Waver watched him go, wondering sourly if he was that completely intolerable at the same age, and if followers were always such a pain.
Ugh. I don't know how you put up with things like this at all, Rider.
Fingering the edge of his red coat, he turned back to the window, to memory and morning ritual. He remembered, staring abstractedly up at the outside walls, Rider at the bookstore showing off his video game and complaining about his Master's narrow worldview. Waver sighed. Though the last thing he needed was a caffeine-addled Flat underfoot, it wouldn't hurt to cultivate some open-mindedness around the place.
A milder batch, more sugar and cardamom, some ice water on the side... Maybe he would have some coffee sent to Flat's room tomorrow.
Just a short fic, written for a daily prompt. Watch me perpetuate the sad lack of fics about Lord El-Melloi II and Tohsaka Rin! Oh, well. What else are nebulously defined, pseudo-canonical fringe characters for?