Title: Louche
Author: Lucia de’Medici
Fandom: Ironside/Tithe/Valiant (Blackverse Faerie)
Pairing: Corny/Luis, ensemble
Summary: Sometimes, the things that seem the least appealing are really what we wanted all along.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Language
Word Count: 1,177 words
Notes: Written at the request of LithiumAddict, for the music meme that's been circulating around livejournal lately (where folks give you a prompt and a number between one and whatever, according to your iTunes playlist. You then write a fic based on or inspired by that song.) This story is inspired by Blink 182's "Feeling This", which is ironically one of my favourite "theme songs" for "The Ante". (It, ironically, defines the Rogue/Gambit pairing for me, but here it works equally well.) I had to slash ‘em: Corny’s great on his own, but I was immensely happy at the end of “Ironside” when Corny/Luis became canon.

--
Louche
--

“See, if it doesn’t have exactly that much foamy stuff on top, it’s not perfect,” Val was explaining to Kaye, as if inspecting the espresso for the right amount of brown froth was an exact science and not just an easy distraction for those wondering why the first floor of their Soho premises was so small.

Corny, looking over his armload-full of wilting cardboard, sagging in the bottom and bleeding IDE cables and USB connectors out the sides, stood by only long enough to hear Kaye complain,

“It’d taste just as good if I charmed a cup of mud to look like coffee. No one would know the difference.”

He had to agree: but the brown sludge Val had concocted looked like it could be used to mortar the holes in the walls. That shit stuck to your ribs; put you on par with kindergarteners who still thought grass was a delicacy.

Simply put: the coffee, like the premises, needed work.

“Your boy toy would know,” he interjected, ducking beneath the folding countertop and setting the box down.

“’Consort,’” Ravus corrected, passing through the back hallway and disappearing just as quickly into the storage room. They really needed to put a door up there, Corny thought. Three floors worth of painting, repairs, and fixing faulty wiring, and there was still no security for the real operation they’d set up behind the coffee shop: the fey library and the apartments on the second and third floors of the old firehouse.

It was a shade over uninhabitable, but Luis and Val swore they’d lived in worse conditions. At least the wainscoting they’d put up yesterday in the café hadn’t fallen down yet. Bonus. It looked good against the mottled green walls. (Roiben’s idea: it felt almost like a forest if you stood far back enough… or the underside of a fairy brugh, he thought to himself wryly. All they needed was tree roots dangling from the ceiling. Corny decided it was best not to give Kaye any ideas along those lines.)

Pleased to have a distraction, Kaye wandered over and draped herself across the countertop. Val attempted to follow, lingering only to contemplate forcing the espresso back under Kaye’s nose. She was wearing an expression that guaranteed Kaye would develop affection for the chemistry of coffee if it killed her before the evening was over.

“Luis here yet?” he asked, forcing a casual thread into his tone. Kaye plucked at his electronics, eyes slanting knowingly with a look that hinted entirely too much at her natural appearance.

“Why?” she asked. “Got plans?”

Corny gave her a blank look – a tremulous thing that wouldn’t hold long under Kaye’s direct scrutiny.

“You’re so going to spill that,” he said instead to Val.

Kaye’s eyes narrowed.

“I thought you were going to set up today,” Val said, her attentions still fixed on the shot. She held the egg-sized cup with surprising delicacy between reddened fingertips. It sloshed as she edged forwards.

“Actually,” said a voice from the entryway, fingers silencing the jangling doorbell that would have otherwise announced his entrance. “I was promised a full tour of the ‘Moon in a Cup’ cafe. Apparently, I get my own office?” Luis grinned.

--

“So,” he said for the second time, echoed by the faint crack in his voice that acted like an agonizing reminder of pre-pubescence. Luis wasn’t laughing, so Corny figured his nerves were just as easily cloaked with a bit of awkward banter. “This is the bathroom,” he said unnecessarily.

Like the toilet sitting in the middle of the cracked tile floor and the claw-footed tub turned on its side weren’t indicators.

Just call me Captain Obvious, he thought.

Luis brushed past him – deliberate contact, probably. That sort of thing was usually a welcome invitation. Luis toyed with his lip ring, unspeaking, as he stared into the cracked mirror hanging on the wall.

For a fleeting second, Corny felt some of the old tension just being around him inspired. Luis, who had a handle on mostly everything, who hadn’t been around for a couple of weeks as they set up shop, who he was suddenly sharing breathing space with, and Corny still managed to find himself transported: it was a miracle he didn’t bark out something scathing just to splinter the tension.

“Nice,” Luis said at last, his cloudy eye the closest and therefore the most effectively unsettling thing to disarm him further.

“Could use a coat of paint.”

Luis raised an eyebrow. Shit, it could use a wrecking ball.

This was it, Corny thought: now or never. He’d shown him the Library, the server space where he’d been working on the database, crunching folklore and turning basic data-entry into something usable to help the fae living Ironside, and he’d even shown Luis the room Kaye had set aside for Luis to continue curse-breaking, and now all that was left was the last room on the left side of the third floor hallway – the one with the scrawled “Keep Out” in drippy orange latex decorating the door. (It had to be painted anyway, he’d reasoned.)

“It’s a fixer-upper,” Luis volunteered solemnly.

Corny didn’t even crack a smile. How could he, around the doughy wad of “this-is-such-a-bad-idea” in his throat? Now that he was into it, he wanted out. Shit. What if it was too soon, or he’d misjudged, or…

Someone downstairs shouted over a crash of ceramic against hardwood. Val had finally spilled her coffee – and by the sounds of it, some of it had hit Kaye. Pixies, he’d learned, could get rid of the stains – but espresso burns hurt like a bitch.

Perfect louche, my ass, he thought.

“One more. Come on,” he said to Luis, grateful that his tone stayed steady.

Luis nodded, ambling after him as Corny escaped into the hall. He checked to make sure the boy followed only once, before he reached the door and had his hand on the knob.

“What’s behind door number thirty two?” Luis asked, his breath surprisingly hot against the back of Corny’s neck. It surprised him: setting off a delicious, molten simmer at the base of his spine. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten so close in such a short amount of time.

Corny swallowed.

“Um.”

Wrapped around his hand, wrapped around the knob, Luis’ warm skin blanketed the immediate knowledge of his clammy nervousness.

The door swung open, sending a column of light spilling across worn floorboards to hit a mattress set atop cement blocks in the middle of the floor. Despite the lack of furnishings, the raw scuff to the walls, exposing both brickwork and plaster, the sheets and blankets were clean.

The closet stood open, hangers pushed all the way to the left, leaving half the space available for the room’s newest occupant – presuming he wanted it.

“Our room,” Corny mumbled, feeling instantaneously stupider for having to give it a name.

At his back, Luis stiffened.

“I knew this was a bad idea –” Corny started.

But Luis cut him off, his tone marked with quiet appreciation: “It’s perfect.”

-fin-