Searching [fic]

[morriganfearn]

Title: Searching
Game: Blazing Sword (FE7) - Alternate Universe
Characters: Vaida, Karla
Rating: T
Genre: Romance
Prompt: Vaida/Karla - Coffee shop AU
Summary: Vaida was fired for having union sympathies--which she didn't, she just respected the law. Karla was searching for missing brother--but she couldn't because her car broke down. They met at their workplace and go from there.

 

There were worse ways to earn money. In the rush of Frappe Hour, tips came in quickly and no one was allowed to stay too long, which meant never having to interact with the customers for more than a few seconds. That was bareable.

Vaida never regretted standing up in the middle of a meeting about where to cut production costs, and told her boss to shove one of the company cars up his ass before cutting into union bargaining rights. There were reasons for unions to exist, after all, just as their were reasons that she had been the head of the legal division. Now there were reasons to make money, advance her law degree into professorship, or something that couldn't be refused at the best of Bern's law firms, no matter which senior partner had played golf with her former boss.

Enough money could get the label 'Black Fang sympathizer' expunged from her employment papers.

Right now, between the noon rush and university afternoon break, she finished glaring at the three students who had asked for chai cinnamon swirl caramels in superior voices, and then chatted with each other about how of course it wasn't actually as good as the real Sacaen tea that was sold three doors down. Vaida had almost snarled that they go there instead, but managed to hold her tongue.

The manager had made that one of her goals this week, in exchange for giving Vaida an opportunity to be a trainer. Her other goals were all customer service related. The manager sighed constantly over Vaida's customer service, but her numbers were acceptable, and she knew how to speak military. It baffled the young woman, but there had been an uptick in visits from the local base since Vaida had begun working at the store. New customers were new customers, and if Vaida wasn't the friendliest barista on the block she had not managed to actively chase any of the old customers away. Merely make them get their coffee and head out of the shop as fast as possible, instead of sitting down and taking up table space for the free wi-fi.

All in all, it was a good deal, and the soldiers who stayed to use the wi-fi always left at busy times with polite “thank you, ma'am”s and basically the manager couldn't complain. Vaida had used the lack of complaints to wrangle a new position with slightly better pay. Since no one new had been hired, she now used her free time to work on her application for a doctorate in law studies, and her resume. The job at Coffee Hut was only mentioned when some where asked about customer relations, and then only obliquely.

As the chattering students went to camp out, smooth white laptops in hand, despite the pointed glares, Vaida gave up, and brought out the mail from her knapsack. Luckily, her apartment was one of the first on the morning route, so she usually was able to bring her mail to work during the slow times, and read it. Today's mail contained more flowery rejection letters, and as she marked the passage of time on the back of an envelope, she decided that six months was too long to expect to hear anything back from two more firms. Even the district court had a polite missive telling her that her application to become a public defender was admirable, but at this time there were no suitable positions for a person with her special circumstances.

Vaida snarled at the polite note, and put reapplication on her to do list. 'Special circumstances' her ass. The timid letter oozed 'we see the word sympathizer and no proponent of the Black Fang can have any contact with the state beyond being on the other side of a set of bars.' If the little shits at the district court were any good they would be eager to be getting a public defender who actually cared if their defendants won or lost.

Still. It would be work, and work for the good of Bern. Work she could be proud of. She underlined reapplication on the envelope list, and flipped the rejection letter into the recycling bin. The last letter was a simple white envelope from Reed and Sons Construction. Vaida stared at it suspiciously. She hadn't seen any legal job listings from them, much less applied for any. She still had her pride, and ambition to get rid of the slanderous charge on her file. Maybe said company actually did construction work—between jobs agitating for workers rights by planting bombs in public squares and extorting money from people like her former boss—and were sending her notice that her building was due for demolition. It was only a step away from being condemned, after all, and it would be just like her asshole land lord to let the construction company deliver the bad news.

“Excuse me,” someone cleared their throat.

Vaida looked up to see that a customer had actually stepped into her sacred domain behind the counter. She put on her most threatening 'you are a health code violation, get out,' scowl. “Service happens on the other side of the counter. What do you want?”

The woman shrugged calmly. “You're the trainer?”

“And if I am?”

“I was told to report to you. Well, the lady in the office said to report to the heinous drill sergeant, but you're the only one here. Is it you?”

What a masterful way with words the manager had indeed. But Vaida had a sinking sensation that her recent promotion was not going to be the cake walk that she had imagined. “Report to me? Are you a new employee?”

“My name is Karla,” the calm smile told Vaida that customer service was not going to be Karla's problem.

Karla's problem was, as far as Vaida could tell, after teaching her the secrets to every order, drilling her on memorization of sixteen different orders at once, and going over cleaning and maintainace, was a head-in-the-clouds vagueness that made Vaida grind her teeth. Otherwise, Karla was a stunning employee. She didn't bring in new customers, but she treated the ones they had with grace and elegance, and everything that the manager had been trying to drill into Vaida for two years without success. After the first three days Vaida saw promotion threatening for Karla, and nothing for her. She buckled down to job applications with a renewed sense of urgency.

As she finished listing her qualifications on a napkin for typing at the public library later on, she felt an interested gaze on the back of her neck. Turning to look, she caught Karla's gray eyes. The new employee smiled, and waved, but then went back to cleaning out the espresso machine.

The next day, Karla paused in mopping while Vaida toyed with the still unopened envelope from Reed and Sons. “Who is that from?”

Vaida brought the edge of the envelope down on the counter with a solid thud. “No one.”

“Oh? You're always playing with it.”

“I think it's a subtle message from my landlord, if you must know. I've interrogated the little asshole, and he swears he's not doing anything that's going to cost him money, but there's no other reason for a construction company to contact me.”

“Ah,” Karla went back to mopping.

Vaida decided to take the results of her earlier sweep with the broom out to the rubbish bins. Zamboni day was the night after tomorrow, and she didn't even close then. She came back to the counter, and waited for Karla to finish under the falsely welcoming glow of the lamps the boss had installed. The envelope made revolution after revolution between her fingers, tapping onto the counter at each quarter turn.

“Is it nice?”

“What?”

Karla wrung out the mop in the squeeze bucket. “Your apartment. Is it nice?”

“It's a roach motel with funny little creaks in the floorboards. Funny in the sense that I'm sure for a joke the third floor is going to come crashing down on me one night, while I visit the first floor by way of the ceiling.”

“Oh. Well, good to know.”

Vaida glanced at the new girl. “Were you looking for a new place?”

“Yes. I've been able to discover that family of mine is up in this area, but finding him is taking longer than I thought. It would be nice to have somewhere more permanent.”

“Where are you now? There's a youth hostel down the road. It's mostly for kids taking time before or after their service years, but they shouldn't object to another few GM a week.”

“I'm in the old station wagon in the parking lot,” Karla's eyes twinkled as Vaida's mouth dropped open. “It broke down when I was crossing the pass, and this is where the tow guy left it. That's why your manager hired me. Part of my pay is rent for the space. I don't suppose you have a couple of thousand on you for a transmission rebuild?”

Well. Vaida managed to close her mouth. Then she frowned. “What kind of station wagon? Is it a Rover?”

“Valorstream 1982, actually.”

“So, a standard Sacaen model, then. I'll take a look at it tomorrow after my shift.”

Karla's skepticism was evident, even as she took off her apron, and hung it on the hook. “Are you a mechanic in your spare time?”

“I did my time when I worked for Mountain Motors,” no need to add that she had gained a reputation for being a unhelpfully too hands on when a company mechanic got sued. “And my service years were to the air force. No Sacaen POS can be more finicky than keeping a fully equipped wyvern bomber in the air,” alright, so she hadn't taken more technical training than any average schmuck on the officership ladder. Damn, if she'd stayed, she wouldn't be in this shitty franchise cafe now, waiting for her chance to lock up, now that counting was done, and clean up had been managed.

There was resistance in Karla's back, but when she turned to face Vaida once more, the calm smile was in place again. “Don't take anything apart if I'm not there.”

Despite the clear distrust on the part of Karla as far as Vaida rummaging around anything where she was living, Vaida had brought her tool box from her service days. In deference to the request, Vaida waited for two hours in the shade of a tree for Karla to end her shift the next day. She had finally tossed the Reed and Sons letter without opening it, but she wished she hadn't now. It would have been something to read. Instead, she had to content herself with examining the car.

Other than the fact that the back seat had been converted to accommodate a mattress, neatly hidden under one of those Sacaen blankets, all meaningful colors and indecipherable patterns on hard wool, Vaida wouldn't have assumed this was someone's home. Even with the mattress and blanket, it still looked more like a respectable mother's car, rather than something for a vagabond in the rough. She kicked at one sagging tire thoughtfully. Well, that was the first thing to go. Lifting up the hood revealed more mess than outward looks would lead anyone to believe, but basically she could probably fix some of it with the right parts and time.

Vaida put the hood down, and went back to her tree, waiting in silence for four PM. When it did arrive she then had to wait several extra minutes before Karla emerged. She was still in the white blouse and skirt from work, but today she was letting down that long dark hair of hers as she walked. Vaida realized with a start that she had never seen Karla with her hair down before. Health codes flashed in her head, and a small piece of admiration, from one woman who had gotten constant demerits for keeping her hair “faddishly short, in blatant disrespect of authority, and convention,” to another with the patience to keep her hair long.

Karla stopped short of the car, peering under the tree, and then smiled that calm smile, and went to lean against the hood. “So, what do you think you can do?”

“Well, change out the flat tire, fix the wiring, and get you new oil. You're still up shit creek on the major stuff, but I can fix the minor stuff. And with enough parts and time I might be able to do something about everything else. I'd still say you've got to pony up for either another car, or that transmission rebuild you were talking about.”

“Ah,” Karla did look a little crestfallen at that. “Things I wish were not happening. I don't suppose you have a magical car hidden up your sleeve.”

“I bike,” Vaida shrugged. “You could get one too, but if you're sleeping here, there's not exactly a secure storage shed at night.”

“Mmm. So, find somewhere to live, save up the money for the fix,” Karla ticked everything off on her fingers. “Well, at my current pay grade and hours, I can probably afford to do one, but not the other.”

“We'll see,” Vaida shrugged again, struggling to rise. “First thing, though, I'm going to change that tire. That shit just offends me looking at it. Have you got a spare?”

“Yes, though it's actually a winter tire. You know, with studs for the ice.”

Well, that wasn't great, but it could be worse. Vaida grunted and opened her tool kit.

They worked through the rest of the evening. Not that the car was hard to jack up, or the tire difficult to change, but Vaida decided now was as good time as ever to make sure Karla at least knew the basics of handling her own car. There was something calming in getting down into the belly of the beast, as it were, and showing Karla with grease stained hands exactly where her break fluid lines went. As they closed up the hood, Karla's hand caught Vaida's turning a resolute slam into a gentle closing.

Vaida noticed Karla's hands had managed to get just as dirty. She knew color from the heat of the day was riding high on her face, and the area between her shoulder blades was slick with sweat. She felt Karla's calm eyes upon her, and tried to match her stoic co-worker stare for stare.

“If you want to come back to my place, I'm fine with that. I don't have a spare bedroom, but there's a couch you could use. And I've got the opening shift. I can wake you up.”

“That would be nice. Thanks.”

They took the blanket and mattress back to the crummy apartment in the end. Vaida knew she should put up some protest, because a relative stranger shouldn't get invited to stay so permanently, and Karla did protest, because she was only staying for the evening.

“It's going to be easier if you're not worried about your shit getting stolen.”

That was how they ended up walking a mattress on their shoulders over sixteen city blocks, Vaida trying to manage her bicycle, and Karla lugging her blanket and other worldly possessions in a bag.

Having the relative stranger in her house didn't change much. Karla woke at four AM every day, no matter her work schedule. Vaida got used to making coffee while Karla did some sort of yoga on the living room carpet. Occasionally, Vaida was awake enough to join her, mostly she was not. She was always awake enough to appreciate the solid lines of the bending body, however.

Karla watched her brushing her teeth and putting in her earrings every morning with amused interest. Everything about Vaida's personal beauty routines became interesting in Karla's eyes, from what Vaida could observe in the mirror. Blood bright lipstick and foundation fascinated Karla in equal measures, though she never used any herself. One night, one of Karla's days off, when she had returned from her mysterious quest dusty and on the verge of tears, Karla drank some of the not so secret stash, and drew diamonds up Vaida's arms in the lipstick.

Sometimes her arts were subtle. She once traced the raised lines of skin from Vaida's spinal tattoo with a delicate finger.

“If the master sergeant can't see it, he's not going to report it,” Vaida's grin was feral as she related her service years. It had still been the best time of her life, yet for some reason she had thought that it would be better to go to university and study law than continuing that path.

“I remember we used to do that in school,” Karla sighed, her finger leaving its contemplations. “The uniforms were terrible and uniform. The elders were trying to keep the difference between the tribal children and the settled children to a dull roar, of course, but they were aggravating. And I actually looked good in them.”

“Mm, I'll bet,” Vaida tugged down her shirt, deciding not to tell Karla about the dragon wings cupping the underside of her breasts.

The mail came, mostly with rejection letters. The last universities were getting around to sending those out, and they came in a clump. Karla made dinner, while Vaida opened envelope after envelope, swore perfunctorily, and tossed each and every one of them in the paper trash. She went to the not terribly secret stash of the good drinks from her old place hidden behind Karla's sofa, and poured herself a glass.

“What did you want to do with yourself?” she growled, pitching herself backward over the arm of the sofa Karla used, and pleased with the fact not a drop of her liquid fire spilled. She still had some talents.

The sound of frozen vegetables popping and crisping in soy sauce filled the little apartment. Karla turned to her, biting the wooden spoon she was using thoughtfully. “What did I want to do with myself?”

“Yeah. When I was a kid, I grew up dreaming of becoming legal council to the royal family. Then I learned you had to make your name being legal council to friends of the royal family. Then I made my name being legal council to friends of the royal family. That name I made was Anti-Social Agitator, by the way, in case you were curious.”

“Well, that's alliterative, at least,” Karla suggested. Her eyebrows knotted in thought for a moment. “I—I think I wanted to be a poet. One of my older brothers liked poetry, and I wanted to write things that he would want to read. And then things went,” she paused, and shrugged. “He was gone, and they put the rest of us in state housing. ”

“Is he dead?” Vaida hated it when people were vague, and her first gulp of brandy was putting fire in he veins.

“No. Just left. I don't think it was easy living with our parents. He always was what you'd call,” Karla stirred the vegetables reflectively, still facing Vaida, and then frowning, as though she realized something. “Or you wouldn't call—you know I don't think it's a phrase Bernian's have? I'd say he was spirit open. You know, someone quick to pick up on the atmosphere. They listen to the spirit of things above the reality of them. Or, that's not really it. But, he had a way of, of, absorbing the meaning and intent of things. Reflecting them.”

“We call that being pansy ass sensitive.”

Karla chuckled. “I'd be interested in what you had to say on that score if you actually knew him. But since you don't, I'm not sure if I'll take what you say to heart.”

Vaida toasted the statement. “Good.”

“Though you know,” Karla continued dryly, “If he got letters from his enemies, he would never open them either.”

“Hey!”

“I saw another one go in the paper trash two days ago,” Karla turned back to the cooking, tucking back her lovely hair. “Or are they not your enemies?”

Vaida growled, putting her drink on the floor. “Have I ever mentioned how much you annoy me?”

“Not when I'm making you food, generally.”

“Tomorrow morning, I'm making breakfast. I'll remind you then.”

“Oh, of course,” Karla walked across the creaking floor, her hand cupped around the wooden spoon. “Here, taste.”

It was a piece of broccoli, and nothing bad or good could really be said about it, one way other other. “Tastes of sauce,” Vaida said.

“It's supposed to,” Karla, slid onto the couch, licking off the remainder of the spoon. “Well, dinner is ready, whenever you want.”

Karla was solid, and Vaida curled an arm around a slim Sacaen waist as she sat up. Her eyes darted to the side, and then down to her drink. It was nice, curled half around another person, enjoying real company for the first time in years. “Want a sip before you eat?”

Karla leaned her head back against Vaida's shoulder. “No. Would you mind a kiss before you eat?”

“Mm. Definitely not,” Vaida mumbled, before realizing that she was being vague and imprecise and all of the things she accused other people of doing. “I wouldn't mind the kiss, that is.”

Unsurprisingly, Karla learned about her other set of tattoos that evening. More surprisingly, she left the mail on the bed when she went to her shift that morning, and didn't wait for the ritual of the mirror and make up. Vaida sorted through the bills, constantly glaring at the envelope that could not be a construction notice. Well, she hadn't ever backed down from a fight, and if this was Karla's way of challenging her, she would accept. With great resolve she tore open the envelope, and considered the job offer inside.

Karla removed her apron as Vaida came in the door of the coffee hut. “Trainer, is there—”

“Tell the manager I have a job interview next week,” Vaida hung her bag on the back coat rack, and put on her apron. “Now, unless you're clocking out, I want to see that apron back on, and your hair up, or I'm reporting you for a health code violation.”

She thought she heard Karla mutter something about Vaida being too predictable, but Karla's soft knowing smile was obstructing most of the words, and Vaida was fine with her girlfriend keeping all cheek at a respectable level in the workplace.