#ct elliott

Kai walked behind the counter and grabbed one of the aprons. No one was in the shop, so he was in no rush. There was one other person behind the counter with him.

They were dressed in black with a green apron on. Their make up looked like they were half asleep when they put it on.

“Are you Kai?” they asked, walking over.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Elliott, they/them, I was told you’re training me.”

“Apparently.” Kai tied his apron. “Turn on the coffeemaker.”

Elliott walked over to the coffeemaker, looking it over. “How?”

Kai sighed. This wasn’t what he wanted to be doing with his day. He quickly went through the abridged version of how everything worked. As he finished up, a customer walked in.

“If you have any questions, ask literally anyone else,” he told Elliott.

Elliott looked around. “You’re the only other person here.”

“Good morning, what can I get you?” Kai said, switching to his customer service voice.

“Small coffee, black,” the customer said, not looking up from his phone.

“Coming right up.”

Elliott watched as Kai poured the coffee.

The day went about as smoothly as a Monday with a new hire could. Which is to say, it sucked. Kai constantly had to stop what he was doing to help Elliott. The line got long and the customers got frustrated, often taking that frustration out on Kai and Elliott.

“I’m taking my lunch,” Elliott told Kai.

“Good,” Kai said.

Just as Elliott started walking to the break room, a man walked up to the counter, cutting the line.

“So this was the best you could do.”

“Mitchell...”

“No, no, it’s fine, my help isn’t good enough for you anymore, even though you were okay with it for years,” Mitchell said. “But no, this is so much better, right.”

“I-“

“A couple secessions with that stupid wannabe doctor and you think you’re too good for me now.”

“Mit-”

“You aren’t.” He picked up the bobble head dog that stood in front of the animal shelter donation box. “So when do you think you’ll stop with this little act for attention this time because they’re getting really annoying.”

Kai stepped forward, subconsciously putting himself partially in front of Elliott.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or what’s going on here, but I have a line of customers who want their coffee, so order something or leave because this little act for attention.” Kai gestured to Mitchell. “Is getting on my nerves.”

Mitchell looked angry. “And if I don’t want to leave?”

“I’ll remove you myself,” Kai said.

He looked Kai over. “Heh, you?”

“You wanna go.” Kai rolled up his sleeves.

It was clear Mitchell hadn’t thought Kai would go through on his threat by the step back he took. He looked over at Elliott.

“I’ll see you at home.” He set down the bobble head and left the shop.

“Now, what can I get you,” Kai said to the next person in line.

“Oh, um, uh, a medium mocha caramel latte please.”

“You got it.” Kai got started on the order.

Elliott followed him.

“Thanks,” they said.

“No problem,” Kai said. “Do you need somewhere to stay tonight?”

“I’m fine, I’ve been crashing at my sister’s the past couple days.”

“Good,” Kai said, handing the latte to the customer.

“Mitchell...he isn’t that bad usually,” Elliott said. “he’s been having a rough few days.”

Kai got to work on the next order. “Don’t make excuses for him, moving out was the right thing.”

“Except I didn’t, all my stuff is still there, I’m just staying with my sister until he calms down.”

“Elliott-”

“I have a lunch break to take,” Elliott said, walking to the back.

They knew they should leave Mitchell, but it was a hard step to take. The scene he made at their work today, though, was making the decision a little easier.

***

Click! Click! Click!

Emile rapidly clicked his pen, scanning over the pages of the book. None of it made since to Emile and he was pretty smart for a 16 year old. The current book Emile was reading was about spiders, both poisonous ones and not poisonous ones, and it told him nothing about the one that had bit him earlier that week and gave him his new, yet strange, abilities.

He closed the book and pushed it away from him, letting out a sigh of defeat. He rubbed the temples of his forehead before removing his glasses, feeling a bad headache growing. At this point, Emile had noted that he only got bad headaches like this one when his enhanced senses were in use.

"Wow, I never thought I would see Emile Picani push away a book," A voice commented from behind Emile. He didn't even show a sign of surprise when the voice spoke, all he did was turn around and faced the owner of the voice.

"Hey Elliott, what brings you to library?" Emile asked, watching the middle schooler sit down across from him.

"I gotta do some bogus book report for my English class but that isn't important. You look like hell, Emile. What's got you rattled?" Elliott asked back, hanging their backpack on the back of their chair. Emile ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath, telling Elliott the first lie that had popped in his head, "I, too, am doing a report but for my Science class."

"On spiders?" Elliott questioned, raising an eyebrow as they rested their elbows on the table. Emile only nodded as a reply. Elliott let out a small hum, grabbing the book from Emile's side of the table and opened it up, reading the title page, "The Index of Spider Species in the Americas. Sounds boring."

"Would it surprise you if I said it was?" Emile joked, making Elliott laugh. The two talked for awhile, cracking jokes quietly and sharing their plans with one another for the upcoming fall break.

It was almost nine o'clock when the library closed and when Elliott and Emile were walking out. "You sure you don't wanna ride? My mom won't mind giving you one," Elliott suggested, motioning towards the car parked at the curb.

"I'm good. Thanks for the offer,  tell your mother I said 'Hi', and I will see you tomorrow for your usual tutoring session," Emile said. Elliott did finger guns at Emile as a form of good-bye before actually waving to him and running over to their mom's car. Emile said bye to Elliott as he turned around on his heels and began to walk the opposite way of Elliott, humming the Steven Universe theme song.

Emile was half way home when he decided to take a shortcut through an alleyway, despite his mother's warnings in the past. He hopped over the small piles of garbage that littered the ground like a child jumping over puddles in the rain. That's when Emile got another bad headache. He stopped in his tracks, completely frozen.

Then that's when he heard a crash.

Emile ran and hid behind a dumpster, hearing his heartbeat in his ears. He also heard a grunt from the other side of the dumpster, as if someone was in pain.

"God dammit!" Someone shouted loudly, making Emile jump. There was more crashing sounds after that, only less lighter than the first one. He peaked around the corner of the dumpster and saw four men in interesting costumes.

"Oh gosh Roman, are you okay?!" One of them asked, rushing over to the man in the red costume.

"I'm alright, Padre. I'm still alive and breathing," The first man(who Emile presumed was Roman) answered, standing up and brushing himself off.

"Great, now that we all see that Princey is alive and well, we got a bad guy to stop," The one in the white and purple costume commented, starting to walk to the entrance of the alley way. Emile saw the tallest one with four robot legs coming from his back stop the white and purple one, motioning back to the pink guy and Roman.

"Virgil, as much as we all want to leave and catch this guy, we can't," The tall one said, making Virgil let out a groan of frustration.

"And why the hell not, Logan? We got better things to do than sit in this alleyway!" Virgil exclaimed. Emile decided this was great time to go home, knowing his mother would be angry if he came home late. He began to walk away, stepping quietly as possible as he could but Emile knew he could get away with no trouble. The four men(well, three of the four men were, the pink man was trying to keep the three calm) on the other side of the dumpster.

"Guys, we're not alone here," The last guy said, making the other three go quiet and making Emile stop dead in his tracks once more.

"Well, obviously, Patton. There's multiple species of bugs in the alley way and there many people out in the streets," Logan added, making hand gestures as he spoke. Patton shook his head, beginning to speak once more, "No, I mean in this alley way. There's another person in here who is just like us."

That's when Emile made a run for the fire escape on the right building, his running up the stairs catching the attention of the four men below. He could hear their voices behind him as he ran across the roof before climbing down the fire escape on the other side. After Emile made sure the four hadn't followed him, he leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

He could hear the four talking above him, still on the roof and he heard all of them leave or at least he thought he did.

"You, kid, are one hella fast runner," A voice commented next to him. Emile didn't waste any time to scurry away from the wall, seeing Virgil sitting on the wall. "Hey, hey, take it easy, Emile. I'm not gonn-,"

"How do know my name?!" Emile asked, sounding scared.

"Because it's Virgil from Geometry class," Virgil explained, taking off his mask. Emile only nodded, feeling a bit calmer than before. The two just sat there for a few moments in complete silence, minus Emile's heavy breathing, he was still catching his breath. "So, you're a superhero with those three other people?" Emile questioned, looking at Virgil.

"Yup," Virgil responded, his voice sounding bland. Emile nodded again, sighing before talking again. "Well, I should get home before my mom calls, panicking. Should we talk about this tomorrow?"

"That works and you are just like us, by the way. My buddy could tell when you were hiding," Virgil stated.