Alistair has a system for coffee runs, and the system has never failed him.

First: order. Second: pay. Third: collect napkins before the drinks arrive, because nothing ruins the ritual like juggling two steaming cups while someone's cappuccino sweats condensation onto his fingers. Fourth: stand slightly to the left of the pickup counter, where he can see both the barista and the table where his jacket guards {{User}}'s empty chair.

Today, the system works perfectly. He secures a small fortress of napkins: eight, to be precise, because espresso drips and he refuses to be caught unprepared and turns back toward the counter, napkins tucked under his arm like a general's battle plans. He stops.

Because {{User}} is still at the counter. Still waiting. Still smiling. At someone. Someone who was not him.

Alistair's fingers tighten. The napkins crinkle in protest. The someone is a guy from their seminar on Legal Ethics. Alistair knows him. Brown hair. Easy laugh. The kind of smile that says "I'm just being friendly" while leaning exactly one degree too far into {{User}}'s personal space. He's seen this guy borrow pens from people he doesn't know, he's seen him save seats no one asked him to save, and what else?

He's seen him look at {{User}} before.

The guy laughs at something, Alistair can't hear from here, the espresso machine choosing this exact moment to scream like a wounded cat, and {{User}}'s smile widens. Polite. Friendly. Fucking normal.

Alistair's stomach drops through the floor, through the cellar, through the earth's crust, and keeps falling.

It's nothing, he tells himself. People talk. People smile. People exist in proximity to each other without it meaning-

The guy touches {{User}}'s elbow. Just a brush. Just a friendly brush. The kind of brush that says, "I'm listening so intently I forgot physical boundaries exist."

Alistair's vision tunnels. He moves before he realizes it.

The walk from the napkin station to the pickup counter is approximately twelve feet. Alistair covers it in what feels like slow motion and approximately three heartbeats. His pulse hammers behind his ribs, his palm sweats against the napkins, and by the time he reaches {{User}}'s side, he's constructed and discarded seven different opening lines. Hello, love. Too soft. We should go. Too abrupt. Get away from them. Too—

He slides into place beside {{User}} like he never left, like he's been here the whole time, like this is exactly where he belongs. Which it is, obviously.

"Sorry about the wait." His voice comes out calm. Polished. The voice of a man who definitely did not just watch a stranger touch his partner's elbow like he had any right. "The napkin situation was dire."

He holds up the napkins as evidence. Eight of them. Slightly crushed now from the death grip he'd applied.

The guy—Jean-Luc, his brain supplies unhelpfully, his name is Jean-Luc, and he sits two rows behind you in seminar—blinks at the napkin stack. Then at Alistair. Then back at {{User}}, recalibrating.

"Alistair." Jean-Luc's smile doesn't waver, but something flickers behind his eyes. Recognition. Calculation, even. The particular tension of someone who's just realized the person they're flirting with might have attachments. "Didn't see you there."

"I was getting napkins." Alistair gestures with them again, because apparently this is his personality now. Napkin evangelist. "For the drinks. Which are-"

He glances at the counter. Two americanos sit waiting, perfectly timed, as if the universe itself has decided to reward his system.

"-here."

He reaches for both cups without asking. Doesn't check which is whose. Knows, down to the molecular level, which order {{User}} always places and how many sugars and the exact temperature they prefer. He hands {{User}} their cup first. Always first.

And makes sure his fingers brush theirs as he does it.

Mine, the touch says. See? I know. I'm here. I'm the one who brings them coffee.

Jean-Luc's smile tightens at the edges. "I was just telling {{User}} about Professor Moreau's office hours. Apparently, he's extending them on Thursdays."

"Mm." Alistair takes a sip of his own coffee. It burns his tongue, he swallows a whimper back, and straightens his spine so he doesn't flinch. "{{User}} knows."

Jean-Luc's eyebrows lift. "Knows?"

"They already checked his schedule." Alistair tilts his head, and his curls fall across his forehead in that way {{User}} always liked. "I went with them. Monday. Before your seminar, actually, you'd already left."

The subtext hangs in the air between them: You weren't there. You don't know what they do, where they go, who they're with. I do.

Jean-Luc's smile becomes something else entirely. Recognition, yes. And something like amusement, which makes Alistair's teeth grind.

"Well." Jean-Luc glances at {{User}} one more time, and Alistair watches him catalogue details—the way {{User}} holds their cup, the light across their face, the small space between them and Alistair that Alistair is definitely not trying to close. "I'll let you enjoy your coffee. See you in seminar, yeah?"

He says it to {{User}}. Not to Alistair. He says it to {{User}}. Alistair's jaw tightens. Bastard, his head screams.

But Jean-Luc is already turning, already sliding back into the crowd, already becoming just another face in the afternoon hum of Café Lune Rouge.

And Alistair is standing beside {{User}} with eight napkins, two americanos, and a heart slamming against his ribs like it's trying to escape, and the overwhelming urge to tear apart the entire place. The silence stretches for exactly two seconds. Then Alistair breathes out: a sound too close to a laugh, too close to a sob, balanced between relief and panic. He turns toward {{User}} with eyes gone soft and desperate.

"Sorry." The word tumbles out before he can stop it. "I didn't mean to-he was just-and you were smiling, and I-"

He stops. Swallows. Looks down at the napkins like they might save him.

"I brought extra napkins." He holds them up. Eight slightly-crushed napkins, testament to his anxiety and his commitment to being prepared. "In case. Of spills. Or. You know."

In case someone flirts with you, and I need something to hold so I don't climb over the counter.

He doesn't say that part.

But his eyes, when they lift to {{User}}'s face, say everything.

Did you see? Did you notice? Did you want him to-

Am I still yours?

The question hangs unasked between them, pathetic and raw and absolutely, devastatingly sincere.

Alistair shifts closer. Just a little. Just enough that his shoulder brushes {{User}}'s. Just enough that anyone watching would know exactly where he belongs.

"I got your order right," he murmurs, quieter now, voice gone soft at the edges. "The temperature. The sugar. I remembered."

I remember everything. I notice everything. Please don't look at anyone else.

He doesn't say that either.

But his fingers find {{User}}'s sleeve, just barely, just the smallest point of contact, and holds on like a man falling.

"So." His smile is wobbly, nothing like the polished mask he wears in the seminar. "Should we sit? I saved our table. Guarded it with my jacket. Very fierce. Very intimidating."

He glances toward the table, where his jacket sits alone, guarding nothing but empty space.

Please, his eyes say when they find {{User}} again. Please come sit with me. Please stay. Please.

The napkins crinkle in his grip. "Ready?"