At ten o'clock on a Thursday morning, not a whole lot is happening.

Well. Maybe somewhere something is happening. But at Clio's - a small, fair-trade cafe on Elm Street - not much. The morning regulars have left, and the lunch break people aren't in yet. There are a couple cautious tourists lurking in one corner, and a police officer gulping down a latte. He's supposed to be working, but he likes the coffee here. Likes it enough to turn a blind eye to some of the cafe's less savoury practices.

Most people either love or hate Clio's. It has mixed clientèle - from lawyers to druggies, goths to hippies. It's tiny and cramped. It's badly lit - a couple failing light fixtures and a handful of faerie lights that reflect dully off the gloss black walls. Band posters and local artwork are hung haphazardly, and there are several shelves of books for taking and leaving. The smell of coffee drowns out all the other smells - people, perfume, baked goods, weed, whatever. The music is loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough that murmuring Italian of the tourists is audible, if not necessarily comprehensible. The style of music depends entirely one whose shift it is. This morning it's just Tatters. The girl who usaully comes in with him is out sick, he's told. He understands that this probably she's hungover, or in hospital again.

He drums his fingers on the dark stone counter top, absent-mindedly, to the beat of the music. It has been an even slower morning then usual. Probably because of the snow and the cold. No one in their right minds would go out in this weather. He hates it. Cold and snow and.... Just eurrgh. He's desperately homesick for anywhere where it's over zero degrees.

Half a cup of soy latte is on the counter beside him. He's been consuming coffee much faster then he's been selling it today. He was out too late last night, tarting it up at some club. There is still rainbow glitter clinging to his cheekbones, lurid against pale skin and dark smudges. His hair has had an accident with tinsel - G-d knows where he found it, this far from Christmas - and is a rat's nest of sea green silk and metallic silver. The tinsel sometimes escapes and trails down over the white shirt he's wearing.

Oddly enough, the five-o'clock shadow he's got is the same bright blue-green as his hair. Not something you see often.

He yawns and takes another sip of coffee.

This is possibly not the most exciting job in the world. But at least it's indoors.

To the innish, it was so obvious that Vanya was an elf. The way she moved belied a grace not often seen by humans or their non-elven mixed-breed counterparts. She was tall, but not too tall, and slender; yet her skinny frame, though it could not be seen at once, held enough muscle for her to possess an athletic build. Her ample cleavage could be seen and defined in the snug black vest the elf girl wore. Despite the cold, her open-foot high-heeled shoes bore only black stockings that reached up under her black miniskirt, the kind with the buttons on one side - the right, in this case. As she walked into the apparently dead or dying atmosphere of the small cafe, she noticed not the man or the other patrons. She didn't see the cop, for she was not paying attention. Perhaps her peripheral vision and her peripheral mind's eye caught what she did not consciously, but overall she was absorbed in a conversation on a small, flat cell phone as pink as the brightest cotton candy.

She sat down at a booth and waited for a waiter or waitress to tend to her.

"You need to practice, though; Alisha's really good, and her band is bound to win the upcoming Battle of the Bands if you don't get the timing down on Heartache and Heartbreak. It's our key song."

Pause.

"Right, I understand that, but this is just as important. Yeah, okay. I'll pick you up in the van come Saturday morning, then. Yeah, around eight. Yeah, okay; bye."

She hung up the phone, closing it, and slipped it into elastic wasteband of her otherwise satin skirt. It was snug enough to ensure positional security without being uncomfortable.

Out of all the people in the world, there are a couple types Tatters doesn't like. Celtic fans, Owls, and of course - people who can't work out that they're meant to order at the counter. Something about them gets under his skin.

He sighs, giving this newcomer an extremely bored look. Languidly, he takes another sip of his coffee. It's getting cold, so he should probably make some more. The cop will probably drink another couple cups before he gets back to his job anyway. It's one of those days.

Turning his attention back to the woman, he notes that she looks like a right whore. She also looks like she must be freezing her ass off. It's pretty cold out. Cold even for February in Ontario. Tatters appreciates vanity as much as the next guy - more so, even - but honestly. She's tempting frostbite.

He waits for her to finish her conversation, and he finishes his coffee.

"Hey," he calls, over the sound of Marianne Faithfull (inopportunely playing Sex With Strangers) and the tourists. "I can help you over here, sweetheart."

She blinked and raised her eyebrows as though to say, "You didn't REALLY just call me sweetheart...did you?" She wasn't in the mood, though, so she pushed thoughts of this man being a lazy bum away as she stood up and went over to the counter. She sat down. Every cafe she'd ever been to had waitresses, not people waiting at the bar to serve you. She'd picked this one only because she didn't have the energy to drive any further this morning.

"Black coffee, the strongest you've got and boiling, if you please."

Ah, hot coffee. She loved coffee. She couldn't live without it. She supposed it was a flaw of working eight hours a day and then practicing until one in the morning so she could keep her band going, but she didn't particularly care right at that moment.

Yes, he really just did call her sweetheart. She shouldn't make anything of it. It's an unconscious word he tacks onto sentences that are addressed at women, and it wouldn't make a difference if she was five, or eighty, or two hundred pounds. He's just a flirt - and completely harmless, except when he gets you pregnant.


Tatters smirks and raises his eyebrows right back at her. They're as blue as his hair.

"Anything else?"

Turning his back to her, he flips on the kettle and turns on the espresso machine. If she consulted the menu - which she probably hasn't - she would notice that they don't really serve coffee in the conventional sense. The idea wouldn't even occur to Tatters anyway. He's been British for too long. The closest to 'coffee' is an Americano, and that's what he automatically gives people who ask for coffee. They pretty much never noticed.

"No, thank you," she replied. "Just make it strong enough to wrestle."

She tossed down a five on the counter and waited for her Automatic Caffeined Delivery System to arrive before her. She was going to need lots of caffeine, she knew, if Alisha was really as good as she'd been said to be. Elven or not, illusions could only do so much - audible or visual, it didn't matter. They weren't a cure-all for competition.

Tatters waits, boredly, for the water to boil. It's ridiculous how long North American kettles take to boil. How did these people manage with such low voltage? It was probably that they didn't drink a lot of tea. High tea consumption paired with low voltage would lead to a slow-moving society.

"That's two-fifty," he tells her, getting out a mug - it is pink, and has a pattern of black daisies sprinkled across it - and tipping the espresso into it. The kettle iss making that funny whishing noise it makes when it wanted to trick you into believing that it was almost boiled.

"Awfully cold out today," he remarks, adding more coffee to the machine. This might be a slight jibe in the general direction of her outfit, but not necessarily.

Vanya could have cared less about the temperature. The black of her clothing absorbed any heat available to her, but the cold had never bothered her much at all. She said as much and stifled a small yawn as she stared lazily at nothing. She crossed one slender, very attractive (albeit black stocking-covered) leg over the other, making a couple of people nearby that just happened to be looking in her general direction gulp and shift their weight in their seats uncomfortably. Vanya hardly noticed, though her peripheral vision did pick it up as any elf's would, as she folded her arms upon the counter next to the semi-crumpled five-dollar bill that lay forlornly upon the none-too-clean counter. It wasn't filthy, though; it was just worn and colored as one touched often by the stains of food and drink over the years that it had seen service.

The kettle dings and Tatters pours its contents into the mug.

"Milk and sugar are just there," he tells Vanya, gesturing at a spot a foot or so down the counter. He takes her money, opens the till, hands her back the change. He's gotten used to the Canadian money, just recently. He doesn't seem to notice her at all, except in her capacity as a customer. He sees her legs, crossed with disturbing deliberation. She's wearing black stockings, which he hates. They look so cheap.

He turns his back to her again, taking the second cup of espresso and downing it like a shot of vodka. It's threatening to be a long day.

"Thanks," Vanya mumbled as she tossed the change carelessly into the small, black velvet neckpurse she wore.

It was on a leather cord and hung down between the top of the curve of her fine breasts. Apparently, someone noticed. They hesitated before standing and going over with a slight grin, carrying their coffee with them, their bacon and eggs all but forgotten and mostly eaten anyway. He sat down right next to her. Vanya glanced at him as she took a deep gulp of the hot coffee, but she didn't say anything. She looked away almost as quickly, her eyes the only thing moving in his direction at all.

"So...beautiful. Name's John. Want someone to play with?" he asked her with a sly smile, leaning over and speaking quietly.

"Depends," she replied as she finally put down the cup. She refused to look at him, though. "Do you ever want to have kids?"

She took another long drink of the coffee, which would have scalded most peoples' throats but didn't hers for some odd reason; she'd always chalked it up to part of being an elf in a human world. The guy didn't like her comment and leaned back into his typical sitting position with an angry scowl. She looked at him with a cold, flat stare as he opened his mouth again to say something probably none-too-intelligent or polite.

Do you have any kids?

Tatter has his back to the situation, messing around with something on the back counter, but he overhears Vanya's question and it throws him. A sudden image of Jessie brands itself across his mind.

He blinks it away and turns back to the customers.

"Yeah," he drawls, pale eyes flicking over Vanya and then John. "He's already got three. What are their names again?" John had shown him their pictures last week. Cute little buggers. "Tammy and...." he can't remember the other two, the boys.

"Leave her alone," he warns John, "or I'll tell your wife."

Glancing back to Vanya, Tatters smiles apologetically. "Sorry about him."

Mind, the girl is asking for it, dressing like that.

"Not a problem. I can handle greaseballs like him easy."

She continued drinking her coffee. That was really sick...the guy had a wife and kids and he was asking her if she wanted to fuck? Granted, he wasn't exactly coming right out and saying it - but he might as well have been, the pervert. She knew she was dressed to kill, but it wasn't her fault men were stupid. Anyway, she wasn't about to get involved with someone that could have easily been her father.

Tatters shrugs, pulling back his shoulder-blades. He's not one to judge other people's actions. He can't talk anyway. "He's harmless," he tells the woman. "Some people are just easily pleased, I guess."

The jibe is accompanied with the slightest smirk, but it's not particularly malicious. Some people are easily pleased. Show them a little skin and they're happy. Tatters is maybe a bit more picky, or maybe it's just one of those homosexual days.

Vanya rolled her eyes. She doubted the man was being malicious in any way, but it was still a jibe nonetheless. It was too high-schoolish in her opinion. She didn't really care, though. Her only problem right now was that she had stayed up for far too long last night practicing on her guitar. They could really use the prize this time around: ten thousand dollars to the winner? She'd take that in a heartbeat. With that, they could buy the vacant studio just down the road from them and some better equipment and instruments to boot. They needed new recording equipment anyway, and Vanya herself wanted a new guitar. She'd had this one for almost eight years and it had never let her down before, but it was starting to sound strained.

Kind of like me before I've had my coffee, she thought to herself.

That prompted a glance at her cup, though, which she immediately noticed was now almost gone.

"Refill?"

She tossed the price of the refill on the counter from what was left over of her first payment of the morning.

"Sure."

Palming the change - and disappearing it in a subtle, understated way - Tatters wonders if it would really kill them to get a normal coffee machine. Constantly having to make americanos for people who couldn't care less and would probably be just as happy popping by Tim's irks him slightly.

Nonetheless, he complies, and a moment later presents Vanya with another cup of coffee. He is nothing if not efficient. Slight of hand makes for general quickness. He wishes this weather would give up and go away. He wants it to be spring, to be warm and pleasant. Weather that will bring people out of their houses, so he can go back to busking in the park.

Vanya picked up the coffee and took a big swallow of it. Ah, caffeine-enriched boiling-hot wake-up goodness. She happened to notice a newspaper someone had left on the bar near her, so she picked it up and started flipping through it. She wanted to see if there were any interesting articles. Plus, Dilbert was a hoot. Unfortunately, the comics were missing. Figured.

After a few moments, she was reading an article or two here and there.

"Bullshit," she muttered at one article she was looking at.

Finally, she sighed as she put it down and finished her coffee.

A couple of girls come in - giggling teenage things that really should be in school - and Tatters is busy concocting potions of milks and syrups with this much espresso and that much sugar for them. His attention is distracted from the woman he has previously been talking to. He notices the girls looking at her from the corners of their eyes, though. They are shifty and nervous about it, not willing to accept the obvious.

"You want some more coffee," he asks Vanya. There's a spare shot left over from making the girls' coffees, and no point in letting go to waste.

"Yeah, sure," Vanya responded half-absently. "Always room for more caffiene," she said with raised brows as she finished an article and began shifting the paper around to another page.

Mos of what she was reading was local news about the upcoming Battle of the Bands, it seemed. Everything was revolving around it, and why not? It was the biggest musical celebration in a hundred years. Supposedly, even some really famous rock stars and such were going to be there. It was rumored Ozzy Osbourne himself was going to be there with his wife and kids. She would absolutely die if she didn't meet him.

Tatters can vaguely remember being fifteen, utterly dependent on coffee, and having to do a health project on the dangers of caffienne. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that there weren't any. The worst it could be said to cause was "sleeplessness". Which was really the point, of course.

He murmurs something agreeable, adding hot water to the espresso and bringing her the mug. He's feeling that nice. He actually comes out from behind the counter and sets the hefty ceramic cup down in front of her.