Title: Figurati, Signore
Character/Pairing/Group: Rex, Martha, and Rudger; written for Rex/Martha
Prompt: 87: Afternoon Meal
Rating: PG
Genre: General? Very very light romance?
Pairing: Rex/Martha (kinda)
Summary: When two paths collide, the people walking them will never be the same . . . the server and the student meet in a small cafe in Trieste, Italy.
Notes: The title and Martha's last line in the story both mean "You're welcome, sir," in Italian and German, respectively. Rudger's comment at the beginning is "Kindly don't cloud the matter with facts, Brother," in German.
"Sei so nett und trüb die Angelenheit nicht mit Fakten, Brüderchen," the taller one says, as they come in through the door. Martha looks up from the table she's wiping and smiles, absently stacking glasses and coffee cups on her tray, watching as they take their usual table by the window in the corner. She doesn't know where they are from, these two; Lucia, who is tall and thin and wears high heels to work, says they're Japs, in Trieste as some kind of spies, and Giuliana, who is popular with the Americans because of her blonde hair and pretty smile, says they are students from England, studying at the university. Martha would believe British; the bigger one, with his prominent nose and blonde hair, looks every inch as though he belongs to the country whose language he teases in – but the smaller one – the younger one, she thinks – with his dark hair swept back from high cheekbones, looks very much like she would imagine a Viking warrior coming ashore on a mission to seek treasure and glory. They speak a curious mix of German, English, and some Asian language, but the older one is also fluent in Italian, and the younger can get by in it.
She wants to hurry to get their table – they prefer to split the cost along you-take-the-bill-and-I'll-take-the-tip lines, and the dark-haired one tips very well indeed – but before she can deposit her tray behind the counter and return they have already been taken by Angela, the wide-eyed summer hire incapable of correctly serving anything more complicated than a sandwich. Martha sighs almost imperceptibly – it is her lot to consistently get the cantankerous old women whose tea is never right no matter how many times she remakes it and the idiosyncratic men who tip poorly because they have never in their lives had to survive on tips.
She returns to the kitchen, almost mentally counting minutes before Angela drops a tray or leaves something out of the cold storage until it's no good, startled all the same when Francesca, the manager, taps her on the shoulder hard enough to make her jump and drop a dish back in the sink. She listens carefully, nods in the right places, then slides through the kitchen. She is neither tall nor thin, and by conventional standards she is not what anyone would call pretty, but she is competent. It is not her place to ask questions about why she is taking Angela's tables for the rest of the afternoon; it is simply her job to take coffee and bread to the brothers in the corner, to hear their strange Asian-speak and decipher their strange nowhere-everywhere accents enough to order their food. It isn't as hard as Angela makes it. Some of the foreigners who come through, mostly tourists, expect the girls in the café to know precisely what they say even when their accents are thick and their Italian bad but rapidly spoken, but these men are aware of their strange accents, and the younger one knows that his Italian is passable at best, preferring to substitute an English word he knows is right for an Italian one that may be wrong. Martha's English is good, and she wishes more of the foreigners she serves would use it instead of hacking their way through unfamiliar verb conjugations.
She prepares and brings out their meals, serves a second round of coffee, brings a glass of wine for the older, and then sits behind the counter to wrap silverware, listening carefully in case they should need something. Most of their conversation is in that Asian language she does not know (although she is slowly starting to pick up a word or two, here and there, from this pair), but enough of it is in their hybrid mix of German and English – a sibling-language, she thinks – that she is able to follow. It isn't really necessary; they are confident that they will not be understood, but even so they are discussing innocuous topics – their classes, the thesis the older one is writing, and, of course, the fact that Katsuya Jyonouchi, the Japanese professional duelist, is in a tournament in Trieste next week. The younger one says he saw the duel in the Battle City tournament that put Jyonouchi on the professional map, and Martha thinks maybe that answers that question.
They finish their chicken and pasta primavera, discuss (at least, she thinks they are discussing) whether or not to order gelato, and then ask for the bill and a refill on coffee, which she brings.
The younger one looks up and smiles at her in that slightly perfunctory way that people smile at server girls in cafés as she pours fresh coffee into his cup.
"Grazie, signorina," he murmurs.
She shouldn't – she knows she shouldn't – shouldn't dare –
"Bitte, mein herr," she answers, turning away quickly, not daring to stay and relish the dumbfounded expression on his face, smiling as she returns to the kitchen, not quite able to restrain herself from an impish chuckle when she hears the older one laughing behind her.
The expression, she thinks, as she puts more plates in the sink to wash, may be even better than the tip.
Status: 1/100