It's "bean" a while since we last had coffee
"Alright I'll have your drinks out in a couple of minutes! Please take a seat at one of the tables while we get to making your order."
It was another day of weirdness, annoyances, and surprisingly no work.
The cafe was a small, comfortable size, scented strongly by a different array of coffees, teas, and other desserts it offered.
It was worn down for sure, but I suppose the different houseplants that decorated the place along with the "unique" pieces of art displayed throughout the shop and on the wall definitely gave it a unique charm.
At the very least it was much warmer and comfortable than the freezin' cold outside.
The weather had shifted to autumn again, although based on the bone chilling air it felt like winter could creep up from behind like an adult tooth following the baby one.
"Thank you, please keep the change."
Irene said, handing the barista an additional three dollars ontop of what she had already paid for our drinks.
(I really don't see the point in tipping for a couple of drinks, let alone during a time when it was difficult to have the money to spend on little luxuries like this.)
Still, it was her money, and she was the one covering the bill this time, so who was I to complain?
I was visiting a local coffee shop with my "friend" Irene Oleander. Maybe "acquaintance" would be the better word, but I didn't really have any kind of friends outside of the guys from the bar.
Irene herself wasn't the worst to be around, I'd say she definitely was one of the least annoying people to be around.... usually at least.
Today to my surprise she was wearing a different outfit besides her usual "t shirt and jeans" look when she wasn't off work.
From what I could see, she was wearing some kind of high-low cut orange boho-chic dress with black tights and knee high brown boots. Layered over her upper body was a dorky dark orange oversized sweater. On said sweater there was a picture of a cat wearing a cowboy hat and cartoony mustache with the words "Meowdy Partner" knitted on it. Covering everything was a dark brown overcoat which reached to her mid calf.
To top it all off, she was wearing a black greek fisherman's cap, with a big golden cat shaped pin attached to it.
Besides her usual glasses and earrings I hardly recognized the woman in front of me.
(I'm surprised she looks so... nice today. It's rare to see her look so put together on one of her days off. It almost makes me regret wearin' my t-shirt, jeans, and jacket combo... almost.)
"Alright Yusuf, is there anywhere in particular you'd like to sit?" Irene asked.
"As long as we aren't sittin' anywhere near the door I'm happy wherever."
"Alright then, how about over there near the window?"
Before I had a chance to respond further Irene promptly walked over to a table nearby the counter and plopped herself down.
With that I followed suit and made myself comfortable as sat down and took off my jacket and gloves.
Irene took off her coat as well, although it did take her a couple of minutes to realize she was still wearing it.
"So... this is new for you. Is there any special reason why?"
"No, I've been wanting to try out different fashion styles lately. I'd have tried this sort of thing out sooner, but you know how work is for me."
(Boy did I ever know that, when she wasn't talking my ear off about how her work-life was, she was either talking about her cat or that weirdo patient of hers, Ford Pines.)
"What do you think about it by the way?"
(Honestly I'm surprised, Irene was really good at dressing professionally, but when it came to anything outside of that she usually struggled a lot to not look like a hot mess most of the time.)
"It's nice, it definitely fits you. Down to the cat stuff that I'm sure you couldn't live without" I teased.
"Well I'm glad my hard work paid off, and for your information the cat accessories was a personal touch of mine as they say. I read in many fashion magazines that doing that personalizes an outfit and makes you enjoy it even more, I'd definitely say there's truth to it!"
(It was really funny to catch her off guard sometimes, I enjoyed doin' it whenever I could.)
"Alright, alright, I get it. Ya look nice okay? I'm sure your "boyfriend" would say the same." I said with a snarky tone in my voice.
It took Irene a couple of seconds to realize who I was referencing. Her cheeks flushed a tomato red as her lips pursed together so tightly her lips almost disappeared.
"Shut it! He's NOT my boyfriend and you know it! I don't like him like that at all!"
(HA! I knew I'd get a reaction out of her with that comment.)
"How would you like it if I said Dr. Pines was YOUR boyfriend? He definitely seems to take a liking to you in a different way than me!"
(Oh she did not just say that. Sure, Ford Pines definitely did look handsome sometimes, and once in a blue moon I thought about him from the corner of my mind like an annoying tune from a commercial, but I did NOT like him like that! I hated his guts, it was just an unfortunate fact that he was the worst but was gifted with good looks and was occasionally, stupidly, charming.)
(I felt my face tingle with heat as I looked away from her. It was something a kid would probably do, but I'd be damned I'd let her see how well she used my own words against me.)
"Well I wouldn't say bein' gifted vermin is anything to be excited about Irene!"
(Wait a damn minute, FUCK we're TALKING WAY TOO LOUD RIGHT NOW.)
(Irene seemed to be on the same wavelength as I was because we both glanced around the room before turning back to facing each other with embarrassment.)
(Geez, we ended up arguin' like schoolgirls. Good one Yusuf... just hope it wasn't as embarrassing as it felt.)
It felt like ages before Irene cut the growing tension in the air.
"Haha, well I guess that was a bit childish of us both..."
(Ugh, there she goes again. She's taking responsibility for something that wasn't her fault.)
"Yeah... anyway I just want to get this outta the way but I'm sorry for teasin' too far."
"No, no. I know you don't mean it. I've just have a lot on my mind regarding that subject..."
Course it was, when it wasn't worrying about her cat lately Irene was working herself to the bone learning about that Stanford Pines.
(I really hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass...)
"What's been buggin' you lately?"
"Well... lately things have been going pretty well with you know who, but that's what's worrying me. During all of our sessions it's always kept a pattern to an extent. Mainly in the pattern of he'd have his ups before some pretty heavy downs. I'm worried about what kind of problems he'll be hit with when those patterns of good times eventually end for him."
(Bleedin' Heart Dr. Oleander is worrying about her patients to a personal level? You're kidding.)
"I think you're just bein' paranoid. Besides, it's been an ease off of both your shoulders and mine, you should really enjoy it while it lasts.
"That's true I suppose. I just really wish I wasn't hitting so many roadblocks when it came to him and just LEARNING about his background to begin with."
"Eh, you've gotten this far yeah? I doubt you'll be stuck forever. You're always persistent when it comes to work."
(It was one of your biggest strengths, and one of the things that was most annoying about you.)
Our conversation was soon interrupted by the barista from before.
"Sorry for the wait, I had to fight both the coffee machine AND the espresso machine to get your order done. Literally."
Saying this they held up their arm, showing some burn marks from presumably the machines themselves.
"It's been interesting working with living machines now, but I think it's been an interesting experience! Weirdly enough the drinks have been tasting even better now that the machines are sentient. Anyways, please enjoy!"
With that the barista happily placed down our drinks onto our table, afterwards heading back to the counter. From what I could see they were bandaging up their burn marks while chatting with the next customers in line.
(I... eh nevermind. It was easier to just accept that some weird things were going to happen and some people were just weird enough to adjust to it quickly.)
Placed onto our table was a tray carrying two cups. The first was an average cup of coffee, the beverage was poured into a rustic looking coffee cup adorned with a checked pattern.
The second was a much cuter looking cup filled with a pumpkin spice latte, the coffee cup had a thematically fitting pumpkin design to it, with whipped cream on top and a cinnamon stick stuck into it.
I took the pumpkin spice latte while Irene took the normal cup of joe.
Say what you want about me picking a girly drink at a coffee shop, but goddamnit I wasn't going to deny myself a treat when quite literally the end of the world could be tomorrow.
As we enjoyed our drinks, we heard the bell of the front door ring as some guy walked in.
He was a tall, weedy, lookin' fellow who looked like he'd seen more than his fair share of troubles. His clothes looked as old as he did, looking like somethin' you'd find a cowboy from the old west wearing.
I wasn't sure what kind of glasses he was wearing, I think they were called Windsor glasses? I don't know, I've always called em' the old grandma style glasses.
(Was that... A rifle on his back?? Eh... I'm not gonna worry about it. That sounded annoying, not to mention you didn't exactly go around askin' someone if they had a gun.)
As the cowboy ordered something at the counter, I found myself looking torwards Irene with a smile.
"I didn't know pioneer day was so soon." I joked to her.
"Yusuf Ibis you cut that out!" Irene scolded in response, although I could tell by the tone of her voice she was muffling a chuckle.
(It was it's own reward to see Irene struggle to keep her usual professionalism.)
I'm not sure why, but after I pointed out that particular man, Irene couldn't help but look in his direction for a minute.
"What's up Irene? You know the guy or somethin'?"
"No... But I can't help but feel like I've seen him before... No, it's probably nothing."
With that we enjoyed our drinks and sat at the table afterwards. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after Irene and I's little coffee run.
A phone ringtone consisting of cat meows rang out, Irene immediately reached into her coat pocket to pull out her flipphone. She flipped it open and checked something for a good minute before closing it with a sigh.
"Just a surge of emails I recently got from a bunch of different people regarding my Cat and Dr.Pines."
"Really? Your cat AND Mr.Pines have gotten people interested in you?"
"Yes, it's strange. I'm getting quite a few requests from one blog in particular about talking with them about my dear little Calamari in particular."
"I think so, at the very least I'll thoroughly check the emails later. Although I can't shake the feeling that something bad might come from it."
"Heh like what? It's not like you'll be playing a part in starting a war or somethin!"
"I suppose that's true..."
With that, after some awkward chatter Irene and I parted ways. It was nice having some time off from working or talkin' about our certain little patient.
As I began to walk down the sidewalk from the coffee shop, my mind began to wander. Aside from the usual dread of returning to work, figuring out what I was goinf to do when I wasn't AT work, I couldn't help but worry a bit about Irene.
(She was so concerned about that one six fingered weirdo, but I didn't really get why she was aside from her usual bleedin' heart thing. She really needed to take a page from my book and stop involving yourself so personally with your work.
But convincing her of that would be like convincing a certain someone to NOT be obsessed with a certain demonic triangle.)
*Sigh* (I just hope that besides not dragging me down with her she knows when to quit.
Because after all, as the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat.)
(I hope this more fluffy focused fanfic turned out well! I had a lot of fun writing the more angsty Stan one I rushed to write, but I'm just a sucker for hurt/comfort or pure fluff fics personally!
Hopefully the winging I did with Irene and Yusuf was fun as well! I may or may not be having a lot of fun writing blunt opinions of different characters from the viewpoints of our lovely sour apple Dr.Ibis!
(Is he too mean though or not mean enough? I'm worried about him being too "mean girl esque" without the sweet side to balance it out as the Tsundere I'm headcanoning him to be lmaoo.)
I'm seriously excited that another anon was super inspired to write angsty fanfiction as well! That Ford fanfiction they wrote that was like a counterpart to my Stan one was HEARTBREAKING and I knew I had to try and tie it into this silly little fanfiction side-story thing I've been having a ton of fun writing for Jellyskink!
(Girl by the way in case I didn't mention it before I'm totally blown away from the love you had for my stan fanfic, I absolutely laughed my a** off when I saw the silly little doodle you drew for it! Would you be alright it I used it for a profile picture? I'll be sure to credit you if it's okay!)
That fake Internet flamewar you're having with is-it-cute-gf-au-edtion is totally hilarious and I'm definitely keeping a close eye on it while sending in some hopefully fun asks for it. (Personally I'm also a #TeamCalimari person. Sorry #TeamFord, I just think Calimari is my favorite option between the two.)
(Did Fiddleford do the very healthy, very normal thing of stalking and investigating these two doctor's after getting his coffee order? Will Calimari still continue to be an adorable menace to society? (Spoiler alert for that, most definitely.) Will the anons eventually team up to write more random fanfiction for Jellyskink?
Who knows? But tune in next time anyway for whoever's post follows this!
Yusuf is a sour apple Tsundere, for sure!! And of course, feel free to use that Stan pic! :D
I'M A FORD PINES BELIEVER! HE CAN WIN ONE SINGLE PET SHOW! I BELIEVE IN HIM!!!
Thank you so much for writing again!! 💕
