Post by Castiel on Apr 25, 2012 23:16:41 GMT -5
[cas]It was, to all apparences, a perfectly ordinary afternoon at a Starbucks in Pierre, North Dakota. There were students and slackers and a handful of low-end hipsters who hadn't defected to an indie place yet. Two tables of retirees, a couple of suit-and-tie types doing terribly important things on their laptops, one homeless woman in the corner, enjoying the air conditioning and trying to make her iced tea last as long as humanly possible. And, quietly and without particular fanfare, an odd conversation started up at the counter.
"I do not want anything to drink." The man's voice was gravelly, rough, it sounded like it was low but actually wasn't, just the effect of that growl in it and the flatness of affect.
"Sir, if you don't want anything, why are you in the line?"
A beat. "I thought standing in line was customary."
The young woman licked her lips, trying to stay polite with it. "You mean 'for customers'?"
Castiel thought about that for a moment. "Possibly. What would you have of me?"
Seeming to feel that they'd reached some sort of accord, the barista smiled again. "Well, what's your order?"
"My orders? Those are not for one such as you to know." He scowled at her, the wrath of Heaven with just a touch of lost-and-confused.
The smile faded. "Your order. Your drink order. Do you want coffee, or tea, or a mocha, or a macchiato...?"
"Macchiato?" He seemed to be sounding it out phonetically, the way one strings together syllables from a traveler's phrasebook of Mandarin.
Either out of true misunderstanding or just a desperation to get this strange customer out of her hair, the girl asked, "Tall, Grande, or Venti? And plain, mocha, or caramel?"
At this point it was blazingly obvious that the man in the trench coat was just repeating words at random. "Grande? Caramel?"
"Sure thing!" There was a note of victory in the barista's voice. "That'll be three-eighty."
Castiel blinked at her, but then pulled a hand out of his coat pocket. What he was holding was actually the business card of a pediatric dentist from Canton, Ohio, but when he held it up against the RFID reader the computer beeped happily and the girl seemed satisfied, especially when he pushed the button for a dollar tip.
Two minutes later the Angel of Thursday was possessed of a paper cup full of steaming, frothy milk with caramel and espresso mixed in. Not knowing what else to do with it, he tried a sip. "This tastes like diabetes," he informed no one in particular. After a moment, he tried another sip. The taste was kind of growing on him.[/cas]
"I do not want anything to drink." The man's voice was gravelly, rough, it sounded like it was low but actually wasn't, just the effect of that growl in it and the flatness of affect.
"Sir, if you don't want anything, why are you in the line?"
A beat. "I thought standing in line was customary."
The young woman licked her lips, trying to stay polite with it. "You mean 'for customers'?"
Castiel thought about that for a moment. "Possibly. What would you have of me?"
Seeming to feel that they'd reached some sort of accord, the barista smiled again. "Well, what's your order?"
"My orders? Those are not for one such as you to know." He scowled at her, the wrath of Heaven with just a touch of lost-and-confused.
The smile faded. "Your order. Your drink order. Do you want coffee, or tea, or a mocha, or a macchiato...?"
"Macchiato?" He seemed to be sounding it out phonetically, the way one strings together syllables from a traveler's phrasebook of Mandarin.
Either out of true misunderstanding or just a desperation to get this strange customer out of her hair, the girl asked, "Tall, Grande, or Venti? And plain, mocha, or caramel?"
At this point it was blazingly obvious that the man in the trench coat was just repeating words at random. "Grande? Caramel?"
"Sure thing!" There was a note of victory in the barista's voice. "That'll be three-eighty."
Castiel blinked at her, but then pulled a hand out of his coat pocket. What he was holding was actually the business card of a pediatric dentist from Canton, Ohio, but when he held it up against the RFID reader the computer beeped happily and the girl seemed satisfied, especially when he pushed the button for a dollar tip.
Two minutes later the Angel of Thursday was possessed of a paper cup full of steaming, frothy milk with caramel and espresso mixed in. Not knowing what else to do with it, he tried a sip. "This tastes like diabetes," he informed no one in particular. After a moment, he tried another sip. The taste was kind of growing on him.[/cas]
