Almost two and a half hours later when Eridan finally left Equius' condo.

He'd spent some time with a very good friend, showered, and changed some of his own clothes –a pair of deep plum colored jeans and a blue and black button up shirt- that had been left behind at some point over the years. Equius had even made good on the promise of pancakes.

Now, Eridan was leaving, toeing his way into in bright purple shoes and exchanging goodbyes with Equius who just stood back, leaning against the wall. It was time to get a move on, Eridan had work in just over half an hour, it had warmed up quite a lot so Eridan opted to carry his jacket before draping it over the back of his seat, the borrowed pants folded and destined for the back seat.

As always, Eridan was 13 minutes early for his shift at a little hole in the wall café and book shop, it had started small but after the next door lot had been bought the café soon ended up being much larger than expected, sort of like the Tardis; it was much bigger inside than the front of the shop appeared to be.

The owner, Ariella, had opened a café, simply because she needed a place to read tarot cards –even though fortune telling was 100% fakey fake fake!- and enjoyed baking and liked making cookies and cakes based off of all sort of nerdy books and movies –things like Dragon Egg Macarons for 'Game of Thrones', Cookies of all sorts of characters from 'Star Trek' to 'Lord of the Rings', superhero cupcakes, Tri-Force Scones, even the Cauldron Cakes from 'Harry Potter'- then next logical step was to start filling the shelves with books and comics for people to read, the next thing anyone knew 'Tarot and Tea' had become well known with the more nerdy crowd and the witchy crowd.

The end result was a large Cafe that always smelled of fresh bread, the whole east wall by the door was one giant fireplace that never went out, and during convention season the shop made more money than it needed to keep open all year.

Despite having just eaten the smell of fresh cinnamon buns made Eridan's mouth water. Ariella always kept the shop's doors wide open, come sun, rain, or snow, and whenever people walked by their noses dragged them in.

Behind the café counter Vriska was already hard at work when Eridan showed up for his shift, and Ariella, was in the back baking up a storm. There was supposed to be some whole Starcraft tournament later in the week and Vriska was hosting a dorky D'n'D event tonight -Ariella was convinced both events needed cake- the owner always had some event or another lined up every week.

Eridan would have found it exhausting if he actually had to help set anything up; he mostly manned the cash register, made coffees, or cleaned. With free baked goods, it was a pretty sweet job for a student.

"Someone's all fresh and clean," Vriska sang out in greeting as Eridan walked in. "So I take it this means you found your way home?"

Laughing Eridan pulled on his black and purple 'Aquarius' apron, zodiac themed aprons were the closest Ariella ever got to assigning any sort of uniform. For the most part they were simple black aprons, with a large colorful zodiac sign on the chest overlaid with tiny dots of color that made the matching constellation, simple but different.

"No wway, just dropped by Eq's place, turns out I wwas at a dorm by the club."

Nodding sagely Vriska handed a customer their coffee.

"You're like, soooooooo stupidly lucky with your drunken hook-ups! It's not fair, I'm supposed to be the one with all the luck, me, I'm supposed to have all of the luck, all of it! Not you." Vriska pouted, cleaning the counter.

"Hardly lucky, I lost my pants."

At that Vriska lost it, doubling over, snorting and gasping with laughter.

Curious about all the ruckus Ariella poked her head of pink and purple hair covered with a black flour covered bandana out of the kitchen doorway. "What is so funny?"

"HE LOST HIS PANTS!" Vriska was still laughing.

Looking Eridan up a down Ariella took note of his pants."But he has pants?"

"I'll tell you later," Eridan promised his boss but she'd already gone back to stuffing pans full of cinnamon rolls.

Turning to help the next customer in line Eridan pushed back thoughts of stolen pants, lost pants, Equius, and the mysterious mess of dark brown hair. It was going to be a long enough day already, no need to dwell on such trivial things. Besides, he would be working late with Vriska hosting her stupid D'n'D thing and Feferi's birthday was coming up, so Eridan still had to find the perfect gift for his childhood best friend.


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