A/N: So, after a (very interesting and hilarious) series of events, The (wonderful) Goliath Beetle and I decided to do a collab about Alfred opening a cafe/bar with a boatload of food puns. We will be alternating chapters. Since I wrote this chapter, the A/N will be in italics. Hers will be in bold. That way, everyone can tell who did what. Capisce? (: Also, because I'm from the States and she's from India, I will be writing in primarily American English. She will use British English.

Of course, I say I wrote this chapter, but since I'm bad at humor, you can safely assume that if you laugh aloud at something, my partner in crime wrote it. The way we're going about this, we wind up coming up with funny scenarios and writing dialogue at the same time, with one of us doing one person's dialogue and the other writing the other character's response. It's just a blast that way. It's like improv.

Human names will be used in this fic, of course. Romulus Vargas, Helena Karpusi, and Hatshepsut Hassan are Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Egypt, respectively.

We also played around with character ages. Although I usually write Matthew as older than Alfred, he is younger here: they are 17 and 21, respectively.

Finally, this fic is just hella fun. I find it incredibly important to point this out. I once woke up to 44 messages from GB full of food puns. That is what comes out of fics like this. :'D

Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, horrible food puns, and Shakesbeers. (I am actually serious about the abuse. Please read at your own risk.)

"You're fucking on, man."

Gilbert cackled and took another swig of his now-flat Radler.

"Yeah, and I'm the queen of England. There's no way in hell you can actually pull this off."

The grinning young man downing Kentucky bourbon from a chipped shotglass decorated with drawings of the New York skyline, complete with American flags surrounding the silver-plated rim, couldn't possibly plan to follow through with this. One minute, he was saying happiness consisted in having multiple chins in his most serious faux-intellectual voice; the next, he had decided to sell his apartment and go on a Mormon mission to southern Utah. ("You're not even a Mormon, man." "Yeah, but they have cool bikes 'n pamphlets 'n suits 'n stuff, like s'riously.")

But at Gilbert's challenge, Alfred had a fist on the table, stars in his eyes (too much bourbon for him, Gilbert figured), and a determined if downright obnoxious grin.

"This. sounds. so. awesome. I have to do this. You have no idea."

"If you want to be so broke your grandkids'll starve, sure."

"Are you drunk? I can totally pull this off."

"I want some of whatever you're smoking."

"I've got some—"—Alfred finished off his bourbon and set down his shotglass next to ones from Texas and Idaho that had earlier that night held tequila and vodka, respectively—"—Wilde weed. Get it? Like Oscar Wilde?"

Gilbert almost choked on his beer.

"Man." Alfred pushed back his chair and tried to stand, his legs wobbly and the world shakier. Gilbert's house seemed to be quaking, as if a giant had picked it up and decided to shake the two young men out of it. So Alfred thought, at least. He liked the idea of a giant messing with his friend's house. He put a hand on the sticky wooden table (a piece Gilbert's younger brother Ludwig had made by hand). "I am so excited. I'mma get started on this the second I get home."

Gilbert stared at him for a moment, his mind blank; then, he shook his head and cracked up. More glory for him, anyway, if little Alfie failed. Which he certainly would.

"Just one thing." Alfred tried to walk around the table, now covered with wet rings from their sweaty glasses, to Gilbert's chair but wound up plopping down in the one (probably Ludwig's) beside it. He put his hand back down on the table and leaned in toward the white-haired man.

"Sure. Go ahead, as long as it doesn't involve chins or missionaries."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. You get into my Wilde weed or something?" Alfred guffawed. "No, no, bu' really, man. If I get this thing to work. Which I totally will. No problemo, mi amigo. I got this whole damn thing in the bag. The whole fucking enchilada."

"Dude. Get to the point."

"This enchilada's takin' OFF. And when it does, you're gonna call me your superior for the rest of your life. And ever after."

Gilbert rolled his eyes. Alfred, who had been leaning in closer and closer throughout his drunken monologue, now had his elbow digging into his side. If the kid couldn't turn a profit with this ridiculous clusterfuck of a scheme, he might be able to twist some old lady's arm into buying his stuff.

"Fine. I'll even kiss your shoes."

"Really? Sweet."

"That was a joke, asshole."

Alfred had already risen and snatched up the coat from the back of the chair. He shook like a runway model on too-high platform shoes as he walked, head held high, to the front door.

"Get ready to pucker up," he said, giggling at his own joke, before smirking and slamming the door.

Gilbert pulled back the blinds a little and watched the blond collapse to his knees beside the flickering sidewalk streetlights and puke up what looked like everything he'd ever eaten. The young man then stood back up; shrugged; and continued to strut back to his apartment along the dark street, deserted but for the few cars that passed the young man by (slowing to a putt-putt pace when their headlights shone on his stumbling figure).

The older man hardly heard his brother walk up the creaky back stairs and ask where in the world his coat had gotten to.

He had a bet to worry about.

"Alfred, mon chou, my darling, how are you? You must not be faring all that well, since you are completely unaware that it is currently three in the morning."

"Francis, I dunno how to make food."

"I'm glad you've finally seen the light." Francis yawned and rubbed one side of his face, his five o' clock shadow scratching his palm. "But why are you telling me this—no, Matthew, it's fine; go back to sleep."

"No, no, Francis, you don' get it." Alfred poured himself another cup of burned Folgers, spilling half of it on his couch (a Craigslist find), and downed it within seconds despite the spinning of his stomach. He then wiped the coffee on his hands off on his dirty sweatpants. "I dunno how to make Hemingway Hashbrowns."

"All this time I've known you, Alfred, and I've never realized you talk in your sleep."

"I'm wide awake." He groaned as he rubbed his head with ink-stained fingers. When he'd stumbled back into his second-floor apartment an hour ago, Alfred hadn't been able to muster the energy to walk back to his bedroom and work at his desk. Only his couch; a T-Mobile phone book (which someone had tossed on his American flag doormat one morning), generally used as a doorstop but now beneath a piece of crumpled cardstock; and an endless supply of coffee stood at his disposal. "But I need help. I can't figure out how to make Edgar Allan Poedding or Agatha Crispies."

"What." Francis turned on his bedside lamp and, sitting up, leaned against the headboard. His adopted son Matthew stood in the corner beside the door, but he tiptoed out of the room the moment the older man smiled and waved at him. Once his son's door had clicked shut, Francis's smile switched back to a frown. "Say that again. In English this time."

"Not French?"

"You speak French like a Spanish cow."

"And I'm the hungover one?" Alfred sniffed. "Maybe you need some of my coffee. It's fresh Folgers."

"It's an idiom, you—never mind." Francis didn't dare comment on Alfred's choice of "coffee." "What exactly did you do? Were you and Gilbert playing drinking games again?"

"Oh, come on, don't tell me you don't do shots every time Ludwig frowns and crosses his arms. You have to set them on fire whenever he starts muttering to himself in some weird aggressive language, too. I always win, of course."

Francis sighed and began to comb his fingers through his blond hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. His exhaustion had begun to tap on—no, assault—his shoulder. Fifty-hour workweeks at L'Inconnu just overwhelmed him these days, as did the bills that, no matter how much overtime he took on, he barely paid with two mouths to feed. And two bodies to clothe, of course.

"Come on, Alfred. I have to be up for work in two hours. What the hell did you do?"

"I made a bet that I would open a cafe based off books and writers. Just think of the puns, Francis. The puns. I have some great ones so far. Here, lemme read 'em to you—"

Matthew came running back into Francis's room at the sound of his phone crashing to the floor—and, much louder, his father clutching his sides and laughing his ass off.

"Hello? Francis? I know you're awestruck by my brilliance, but I need some, y'know, verbal praise here."

"You must be so drunk, Alfred. Machiavelli Mojitos? Dostowhisky?" Francis giggled. "No, no, they're perfect. Simply parfait. That's another one we could do, you know. Proust Parfaits."

Matthew blinked, a little horrified. Finally, finally, the man he was supposed to call his father had done it.

He'd gone completely mad.

And it got worse.

"But you know you can't do this without me. It's not like you can run a cafe, anyway." By this point, Francis had swung himself out of bed and was tying back his stressed-forged ponytail. "You don't know a thing about food, just drinks. You need me if you have any hope of seeing Gilbert make out with your shoes. Besides, my current job is just horrendous. The manager has me making burned potato chips and has the audacity to call them French fries. The audacity, Alfred."

Matthew could hear his friend's laughter on the other end of the line. In his excitement, Francis must have turned up the volume on his phone. That, or Alfred really had downed five too many Jack and Cokes.

Most likely both.

"So we're on?"

"But of course, Alfred. I want to see this happen. No, I need to. I've been dreaming of handing back the ridiculous uniform they make me wear at work, anyway. This is so exciting. Yes, I'll be over first thing after I take Matthew to school in the morning. Think, I have time to take my own son to school for once." Francis smiled at Matthew, who had long since fallen back in the small pink chair on the other side of the room, chin on his knees, trying to process everything and figure out just what in the world went into a Julius Caesar Salad.

"Okay then." The younger man nearly tripped over his chair on his way to the kitchen for another dose of caffeine. "I'll just be here coming up with more awesomeness. No rush or anything. I just bought the space beneath me that they've had open for the last, like, five years or whatever. Man, this is gonna be the best damn thing."

"You—wait. Never mind." Francis decided he probably didn't want to know how Alfred secured a building deal in the middle of the night. "But how exactly are you paying for this?"

Matthew twisted a few strands of hair in his fingers.

"Lemonade stands when I was seven, duh. Opening a bar or cafe thing is my dream. What I told all my kindergarten teachers I wanted to do, what I signed in people's yearbooks when I graduated from high school—I've been planning this shit for ages. Gilbert just kinda put the icing on the cake. Or the cherry on top of the sundae. The whipped cream on the shake. The Shakespeare Shake, I mean. Ooh, we could cross shakes and root beers and call them Shakesbeers. Whatcha think of that?"

Francis snorted and sat back down on his bed, shrugging and gesturing to his son that he'd be off the phone soon. Not that he wanted Alfred to shut up, of course. He spewed pure gold hungover, apparently.

He made a mental note of that (useful) quirk.

"Okay, then." Francis said after ten more minutes of scheming with his friend. "Don't give yourself a van Strokum coming up with more puns. À bientôt."

On one side of the street, father and son looked at each other. On the other, Alfred sat in his apartment, surrounded by home remedies for hangovers and the beginnings of a recipe for More than Peas.

Something, at any rate, was happening, though Francis and Matthew at least weren't quite sure what.

"I need two Franz Coffees at three near the bar with some Ketchup in the Rye to go at the counter—got that?"

"Yeah, no prob, and I have your Greene Beans and Holden Cauliflower."

Matthew shifted his heavy backpack as he pulled open the door. Even at the front of the room, he could hear Alfred and Francis shouting orders to the cooks in the back and to each other, one balancing plates of pastries and hearty dishes on round black trays and the other mixing drinks at the small bar in the middle of the cafe, which smelled of strawberries, potatoes, and other random foodstuffs, all overwhelmed by something even better.

The smell of freshly bought and opened books.

The shelves all along the cafe creaked beneath the tomes big and small, old and new, famous and indie. When he had first filled them with the volumes, Matthew had worried that the wooden shelves would collapse if he did so much as run his finger along them to remove some dust. For the whole month and a half that Nineteen-Eighty FOOD—Alfred's title, of course, given the unnecessary capitalization—had served all kinds of punny foods and lots of chuckles on the side for both the staff and the customers, everything had held together, physical and otherwise. Against all odds and despite all doubts (and he'd had several), the cafe drew in plenty of patrons, first-timers and regulars, and actually turned a profit, giving all of them decent money—including him.

But the teenager didn't think much about the money (aside from what it saved Francis; he couldn't let the man pay for everything, after all) he earned. He came for the books.

And because the cafe had, oddly enough, turned into his home.

Every afternoon, upon leaving school, Matthew arrived at the cafe an hour early for his shift, just so he could sit at his table right beside the bar and read. He liked to pick different things, perusing Waugh one day and Sinclair the next. At first, Francis had tried to talk to him about his day at school—did his calculus test go okay? would his history teacher ever leave his class alone? had the kids in his science class spoken to him yet?—but he'd soon learned to give Matthew his hour with his written words and leave out all spoken ones until his shift started.

"Are you sure you want to work?" Francis had asked when his son had first approached him. "You don't have to, you know. You could do more things at school, or you could take more time on your homework or go spend time with kids your own age."

Matthew had nodded. "I know. It's okay. It'd keep me busy. And it'd keep me from being trouble."

"Oh, Matthew." Francis tucked his son's hair behind his ear. "You're never any trouble. I don't want you to suggest that you are, okay?"

He nodded again. He nodded to Francis a lot. It saved him words that he figured he would have trouble saying.

"Whatcha got today, Mattie?"

Matthew looked up from his book into Alfred's grinning face.

"Calvino." He held up the thin paperback and showed it to his friend, who was putting a glass of something on his table. "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler."

"Hm. Any good?"

"I haven't gotten far enough yet. It's kinda weird, actually. All confusing and back-and-forth. I guess I just can't understand it."

"You've got a better chance than I do at getting that literature stuff. Anyway. You should try that." Alfred pointed to the glass in front of Matthew. "I just made it for fun. Tell me how awesome it is."

Matthew obeyed.

"Alfred, did you—did you put alcohol in this?" He held the glass to his nose, took a deep breath, and then made a face.

"Sh." The older of the two friends winked. "If anyone asks, it's a Jack London Fog."

"But that's not what it looks like at all, Al—or, okay, fine, you could just leave and let me sit here with contraband beverages. That's fine, too."

Matthew muttered the last half of his sentence to himself and, pushing the suspicious (but, he had to admit, delicious) drink to the other end of the table, picked up his book and continued to read. The chatter of customers at booths on the other side of the cafe providing reassuring background noise, he slipped into a dream, his mind wandering and his heart straying but always returning to where he was, safe in the home he'd made for himself for a few hours. Where he could watch people, but never have to speak to them. Where he could hear them and understand everything that ran through their minds and captured their hearts, without ever having to reveal any of himself as collateral for that intimacy.

Where everything had to be as brief as it was in reality—for within what seemed like ten minutes, Francis was tapping on his shoulder, and the dream ended just as quickly as he'd fallen asleep. Still, the one-sided friendships lingered in his thoughts as he closed the pages and followed the man to the backroom, wishing he could have just five more minutes in his literary bed. Wanting to hit the snooze button again and again, thinking that if he pressed it hard enough, it might just break the alarm clock altogether.

And then he could remain in the only world where people stayed and waited for him.

Alfred gave the bar one final swipe with his rag and waved to the last customer leaving the cafe. Beside him, Francis threw away a pair of plastic gloves he'd been wearing while making a batch of Agatha Crispies for the next morning, and Matthew cleared the back row of tables. Another busy day had gone and passed, leaving the three men exhausted but oddly rejuvenated, enriched and refreshed from their work. Something about leaving the cafe at night with sore feet, heavy eyelids, and tired voices made them want to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat, just without the monotony.

Every day, new customers came in, taken aback by the puns and requesting in quiet, shy whispers the "denouement" when they wanted to pay and leave. Despite their confusion, they returned within a week (whether for the food, the humor, or the atmosphere, no one ever knew; Francis claimed the former, Alfred the second, and Matthew the lattermost), and Alfred began to befriend many of them, especially the elderly trio of Romulus Vargas, Helena Karpusi, and Hatshepsut Hassan. When he didn't have an overflowing pile of drink orders, he sat with them at their table by the window. Their favorite cafe, he found out, had been closed after some guy named Sadık Adnan had bought it, leading them to find a replacement. Helena and Hatshepsut had been worrying that Romulus would make them hang out in his living room every afternoon for the rest of their lives, when they'd walked past Nineteen-Eighty FOOD just days after it'd opened.

After raising their eyebrows at the bright sign, American flags hanging in the windows, and groan-inducing menu, they'd taken a single bite of Francis's food and had one chat with Alfred. They never turned back (although Romulus still kept his living room clean and ready just in case. He liked to have people over), even when Alfred begged Romulus for more war stories, Hatshepsut for old mummy movies, and Helena for her medical advice.

"I don't want my doctor to be a hypocrite, you know. Can you help me find one who hasn't taken the oath?"

"Hippocrates, Alfred. They all take the Hippocrates Oath." She'd smile at him. "Believe me, you don't want a doctor who hasn't."

"Wait, why is it plural?"

One day, when they'd finally sorted out Alfred's problems with homophones, the young man had decided to pull out the coolest looking book on the shelf and show it to Helena.

"See, the cover is all worn and the writing's faded and it looks so cool and stuff. It's old, so you'd totally know something about it, right?"

Helena would take it and make a face—and not at Alfred's quip about her age.

"Why do you have Aristotle in your cafe?"

"Oh, I didn't know that was Aristotle. I just thought it was a cool book that I couldn't read."

"If you're going to have Greek philosophy, you want Plato."

"Why'sat?"

She'd wrinkle her nose. "Because Aristotle wasn't even Greek. He was Macedonian."

"Macewhatian?"

Still, the three elderly customers visited the cafe regularly and even complained if Alfred didn't drop by their table at least once. To miss the rush and have more time with their newfound, naive friend, they'd stop by around three-thirty, right when Matthew came in from school, sometimes arriving at the same time as the teenager. He'd hold the door for them and smile and tell them that yes, his day had been fine and Alfred wasn't too busy and weren't they just having nice weather that week. No matter how quickly he'd scuttle off to his booth with his books, however, Matthew still found the three fascinating and often peered at them over the top of his tome. Not talking. Not even listening most of the time. Just watching.

As he did now with the strange man that had appeared at the front window.

Arthur Kirkland sighed, his breath turning white in front of his face as he swaddled himself in his coat. Adjusting the tight strap of his leather bag, he trudged down the dreary street, his feet soaked through his shoes from walking through deep puddles. Typical. Whenever he wanted to stay inside to work, the sun would shine through his window and the weather would be perfect for an inspirational walk through the park near his house. The rare times he decided to leave for a change of scenery, however, the rain always came down. In sheets, of course. Veritable cats and dogs pouring down yowling on his head.

Normally, Arthur preferred clouds and light drizzle. Even a little breeze with fog or mist in the morning pleased him. He worked best in what most people called gloom. Thrived in it.

Except when he got caught right in the middle of it.

The man struggled in vain to keep his umbrella under control in the wind. Every few seconds, it inverted, splattering cold water all over his face, until the metal cobweb-like frame inside snapped. Arthur swore and threw the useless umbrella behind him on the street near all the others that his fellow rain-soaked souls had abandoned either on the sidewalk or in the overflowing trashcans.

If only he'd been smarter and worn his waterproof jacket. But, as usual when he was struggling with his work, his head was in the clouds—literally and metaphorically—and he had only a flimsy hood to shield himself from the rain.

Time to find somewhere to take shelter.

Arthur turned left at the next intersection and hurried beneath the overhang of the apartment complex on his right. If he had to, he could walk home, of course, but the idea of spending ten more minutes in the storm without an umbrella hardly enticed him to turn around and head for his secluded neighborhood. If he could just spend an hour working and drying off—but all of the businesses on this street had closed within the past 20 minutes.

Just his fucking luck.

Then, like an angel descending into the late-night darkness—no, no, he couldn't stand cheesy, overused similes like that—a neon sign just before the next corner caught his eye. Arthur looked at the sign in the window beside him. The Starbucks had just closed.

No other choice, then.

He squinted at the foggy window of the last building he wanted to be standing in front of. Neon signs weren't exactly his thing, nor were the bright blue words flickering (the sign must have been going out, he figured) above his head. Nineteen-Eighty FOOD? Like 1984, the novel? What kind of a joke was the owner playing?

Arthur shivered. The inside of the cafe—he assumed that was what it was—shone with soft, quaint lights. The entire place seemed to radiate warmth. Or maybe he was just that cold. Yes, definitely just cold.

Home looked increasingly inviting with every moment he lingered outside the cafe. Surely the mad dash home wouldn't kill him. Perhaps it would slaughter his dignity, but so would sitting in such a tacky place.

He was just turning on his heel when a quiet voice came from the door.

"Um, hi there."

Arthur glanced over his shoulder and wished right away that he hadn't. Not because the boy—or young man?—standing on the threshold repulsed him in any way. The blond didn't have a broken nose or twisted mouth or anything of the sort. In reality, he looked just about average for a teenager, though more awkward than usual with his red face and uncertain eyes and messy short ponytail.

That awkwardness killed Arthur.

He couldn't help but pity him.

Damn it.

"Hello."

In response to Arthur's greeting, the teenager opened the door a little more.

"I—we—well, they thought you might want to come inside because it's so rainy out. Francis and Alfred, I mean. Not that you know who they are or anything." His face turned even redder, the color spreading to his ears. "Well, yeah. You can come in if you want. It is raining pretty hard."

Shit.

"I guess." Arthur thought about asking if they would close soon but thought better of it. Might as well keep them as late as he could. He followed the youth inside and looked around for somewhere quiet and alone to sit.

There. A big booth in the very back.

Without waiting for someone to try to force him to sit elsewhere, Arthur hurried to the booth as quickly as he could while remaining dignified, removed his jacket, and sat down with his bag beside him. As he was removing his Macbook, a positively horrific man with his curly hair tied back with a blue ribbon appeared beside him with a menu.

"Look what the rain dragged in," he said, sliding the menu in front of Arthur, who was dripping water all over the table. "You look absolutely miserable."

"Go away."

"And perfectly friendly, too." He laughed. "Are you certain I can't get you anything warm to drink? I'm almost tempted to put it on the house, you look so awful."

Arthur glared at him, thinking he could frown the man away. Unfortunately, the opposite seemed to be true. The longer and harder he stared at him, the wider the strange, catlike man smiled.

"Let me see what you have first," Arthur said, waving the other man away. "Go away for now."

"But of course. My name's Francis, if you need anything. Or you can ask Alfred. I'm not willing to abandon poor Matthew to that terrible stare of yours."

The ponytailed teenager—Arthur assumed he was Matthew—stared from the other side of the cafe. Then, he dropped his gaze and clenched his hands into fists when Francis had his back turned to them both.

Arthur raised an eyebrow but said nothing, more concerned with warming himself and getting some work done. Inside, the cafe aroused a kind of wonder in him, with its dusty books and quill pens scattered throughout the shelves sagging beneath the weight of the volumes, thick and thin alike. When he took a deep breath, his heart beat faster at the smell of brand-new pages and ink. He put one hand down on the grey table and found it clean, without a trace of fingerprints or crumbs. Even the small lamp swinging above his head, its blue glass shade decorated with etchings of typewriter keys, cast the perfect light: not too bright as to blind him, but not too dim as to keep him fumbling around in the dark.

The neon sign and creepy waiter aside, he had stumbled upon heaven. A cozy paradise with everything he needed to thrive, even rain pelting the windows with him inside, snug and safe.

He turned on his computer, sentences and phrases already queuing in his head and falling into place by themselves too fast for him to control.

How the hell had he never found this place before? No more than fifteen minutes from his house at a Sunday-morning-stroll pace, and he'd never seen it. The thought of all the trouble working in here could have saved him made him a little queasy. No matter, Arthur supposed. He'd make up for it with a long night of work, business hours be damned. They couldn't possibly throw him out.

As his laptop booted up, Arthur peered around the corner to make sure Francis wasn't watching him; then, he peered at the menu he had left in the middle of the table.

And opened his eyes wide in horror.

"All righty then, sir." Another man—where were they all coming from?—popped up at his elbow. "Can I get you something to drink? Not that you need anything, considering how much you're dripping all over the place, but anyway."

When Arthur didn't respond, Alfred shrugged and pointed to a long list on the menu marked "Beverages."

"I'm still making stuff at the bar if you really need some help with work. E.B. White Russians don't take me too long to throw together."

Still no response. At some point, Francis returned and started pointing to other things on the menu, which was shaking in Arthur's hands.

"You still look miserable. Try a Franz coffee. Franz coffees solve problems."

"They'll give you a new outlook on life." Alfred nodded. "Literally."

When Arthur finally looked up at them, Alfred took a step back.

"Do you mean to tell me," Arthur said, his voice clipped, "that these are all a bunch of stupid, childish jokes?"

"They're not stupid. They're genius. Just look at these. James and the Giant Peach Joyce, like James Joyce and James and the Giant Peach. It's two puns in one. And it's peach juice. That, too."

"And there's the Midsummer Night's Drink," said Francis with a giggle.

Arthur took a deep breath. It couldn't be that bad. Not everything on this menu could be a joke. Just look at—

"But what about Baked Alaska? That's pretty normal." He folded his arms, satisfied.

"That one is pretty hard for most people." Alfred preened. "But check it out—it's for Alaska Young. Y'know, from the John Green book?"

Arthur sat in silence for a second too long. Then, he slammed his Macbook shut. Idyllic and inspirational or not, this place wouldn't work.

"Thank you very much for absolutely nothing."

Alfred snorted and elbowed Francis, who kept grinning at Arthur as he put on his jacket, picked up his bag, and pushed past the two on his way to the door.

Until he slipped and nearly fell on his face, Arthur hadn't realized two things.

One, just how much water he had tracked into the cafe, and, by extension, just how wet the streets had gotten.

Two, that Matthew had stayed in the room the entire time and had strong enough arms to catch him and keep him from kissing the carpet.

"Are you all right?"

Arthur regained his poise faster than he comprehended what had happened, still confused though he was on his feet and standing up straight by the door.

"Erm, yes, yes, of course." He brushed off his shoulders, adjusted his tie, and straightened his jacket. Beside him, Matthew stood with wide eyes behind his smudged glasses; on the other side of the cafe, Alfred snickered. "Thank you."

He waited for Matthew to respond, but the teenager stood at his elbow, as if expecting something himself.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, um, nothing. I just didn't know if you were leaving."

Arthur sighed. Idiots on every side. At least this one proved more courteous than the two imbeciles tripping each other as they mopped up the water all over the tile floor.

Still, he couldn't shake the atmosphere. Something about the dog-eared pages of the older, clearly used books and the warm glow of the soft lights awakened the deep romanticism he usually kept locked away, only brought out whenever he desperately needed to work.

Now, unfortunately, was one of those times. His inner starry-eyed child was tugging at the bars of his cage, ready to escape and run wild all over the pages.

And he needed it to run as free as it wanted to.

He sighed.

Stupid demanding editors. This was their fault.

"Is there any way," he said, turning back to Matthew, "that I can just sit by myself in that corner over there without either of those oafs coming to bother me? I don't need anything. I don't want anything. Just let me sit there and leave me alone."

Matthew looked up, seeming to consider this unusual request.

"Um, I guess that's okay."

Arthur didn't wait for him to decide otherwise or think further. He glared over his shoulder at Alfred and Francis before making a point of sitting as far away from them as possible while remaining in the back of the cafe.

Then, he took his laptop out again.

And began to type.

Despite his promise, half-hearted—and maybe reluctant—as it was, Matthew didn't keep the two owners (Arthur had settled on that conclusion as he waited for his laptop to come back to life for the second time, considering how they stayed late and spent their time alternating between setting up the cafe for the next morning and making faces at him) from disturbing Arthur's peace. As he typed his first sentence of the night, beginning chapter ten, Alfred slid up next to him, mop in hand, and asked, "Are you writing something? Oh, lemme guess. 'It was a dark and stormy night.' Because it is, y'know."

"Get out of here, arsehole."

By the time he had reached chapter thirteen, two hours after he'd arrived, Francis was asking if he maybe wanted an Old Man and the Tea.

"It might help you win a Nobel Peas Prize," said Alfred, who had already mopped the cafe floor three times and probably just wanted something to do.

"We. are. not. doing. this." Arthur slammed his laptop shut. "Go away. And Hemingway didn't win a Nobel Peace Prize, you idiot."

"Geez. Touchy, touchy. So defensive."

"Well—he is right, though."

Once again, the awkward teenager had come to his defense. Stumbling over himself as he did so, of course.

"What, him right about anything, Mattie?" Alfred laughed and threw an arm around Matthew's shoulders.

"But Hemingway didn't actually win a Nobel Peace Prize. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature."

"Oh, I know that. I was just testing you." Alfred grinned and struck a pose. "And I really wanted to make that pun."

Arthur facepalmed.

"Didn't he win it for For Whom the Bells Toll or something? The book about the Spanish Civil War?" Matthew looked back and forth between Alfred and Arthur, apparently ignoring Francis, who was leaning over the edge of the booth and looking at Arthur's scrawl-covered notebook.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls," Arthur said, swatting Francis's hands away from his pen. "And he won it after he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. But you are right: he did write about the Spanish Civil War. Do you enjoy reading Hemingway?"

Matthew nodded and curled his fists again, squeezing them so tight his hands shook. Francis looked back at him and threw down Arthur's pen. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur watched him stare at Matthew's fists as he moved to his side, his hands twitching a little as if ready to reach for the teenager. But he hesitated, and in that pause, Matthew shifted away from the three men.

Arthur recorded every tiny movement in his mind.

"I'm glad at least one of you has taste," he said, returning to the (more obvious) matter at hand. "And get away from me, you hairy freak."

Said hairy freak returned an hour later to tell him the cafe had closed hours ago and he really needed to go home, and, with Matthew asleep, glasses still on and face pressed into a book, Arthur only had one defense left.

He slammed down a crumpled $100 bill on the table.

Francis let him stay all night after that. At some point around page 250, Francis shook a startled (almost frightened, Arthur noted) Matthew awake and left the cafe with him, presumably to go home. When Alfred fell asleep at the bar in the middle of page 300, Arthur put in headphones to drown out the sound of his snoring. But finally, finally, when the sun rose just after seven in the morning, Arthur rubbed his eyes, packed up his computer, and headed home, ready to curl up in bed and get some sleep himself.

But only for a little while. Then, he had to email his agent.

Somehow, overnight, he'd produced a masterpiece.

With one hell of a backstory to accompany it.

Francis didn't sleep that night.

Matthew did. He'd made sure of that. An hour after he'd sent his son to bed, he'd sneaked into his room to check on him and found him tightly wrapped in his blankets, facing the wall and breathing in a comforting rhythm.

But Francis found no reassurance in Matthew's pleasant sleep. In fact, the calm made him wring his hands and shift in his chair at the table, where he sat with the worn copy of Alice in Wonderland that Matthew had fallen asleep on earlier and prayed with all he had that the underlining and writing in the margins were not his son's.

He ran his fingers through his hair unconsciously upon realizing that the handwriting looked just like Matthew's.

Something—someone—was cannibalizing their peace.

If it had ever been more than a façade at all.