Chapter Text
The door chimes.
Red scarf, blue eyes, loosely styled brown hair with a matching neatly-kept beard, black military jacket, and thick, scuffed boots.
Too easy.
“Mango-pineapple smoothie,” he rattles off confidently as he puts pieces of the guy’s personality together with his outfit, the weather, the little tells he picks up from each customer. It’s dreary out, and he hasn’t seen the guy at the shop before, meaning he’s looking for a pick-me-up, something sunny.
“And ginseng,” he adds. The guy definitely looks like he could use the ginseng boost with those sleepy eyes.
Oh yeah.
“Small.” Because uh, he’s not exactly the biggest guy he’s ever seen.
“With a banana add-on,” he finishes, because bananas are delicious.
The guy looks over from the cheerfully bright menu board, the kind of board that looks like a unicorn puked a rainbow (John didn’t pick it), and raises an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s what you want.” He smiles, because even while he's working on dissecting the guy's personality and smoothie choice, it is not beyond John’s notice that the guy is pretty damn attractive. It’s also not beyond his notice that that is a pretty fucking big understatement. “I can just tell.”
“Uhm, no.”
John drops the smile. Uh-uh. He’s always right. He always gets it right the first time. It’s like a parlor trick. Sure, it’s kind of silly, but he’s kind of proud that he can read people like that. Clearly the guy is just choosing to be stubborn about it.
“Ok, fine." No big deal if the guy wants to be wrong. "What can I get for you?”
The guy glances at the menu again before he looks back at John. “I would like an extra-large, triple protein, apple-banana smoothie.”
John stares.
“To go, please.” The guy pulls out some carefully and completely wadded-up bills from one of his five thousand pants pockets and deposits them in a ball onto the counter. John twitches.
Yeah. Totally just going for the opposite of what he said out of spite. The extra-large? Really? It was bigger than the guy’s head. Jackass.
Jackass with a really, really nice ass, he decides when the guy pays for the ridiculously large smoothie and heads out of the shop. Shame he won’t be back. If he’d just LISTENED, he would be enjoying his smoothie right now and maybe John would be able to watch his pert ass a couple more times as he walks out the door. Aren’t cargo pants supposed to be baggy? Not this guy’s, they’re tight in every right place, God bless him.
And fuck him, as well, because, yeah, not seeing him again.
Except when he shows up a few hours later.
John is just about to close up shop and glances up at the door chime.
“Oh hey, uh, was something wrong with your smoothie?” Like maybe it wasn’t what you wanted after all, John thinks smugly.
The guy pauses, quirking an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned that you assume something was wrong with it?”
“What?” John flounders a bit, smoothly. “Wait, no. I was just surprised you’re back again so soon.”
“Ah, yes. I would like another.”
John spends the entire time scooping out the ingredients and blending them speculating if the guy is just doing this to piss him off. Maybe he’s taking this a little personally, but he doesn’t like to be wrong. He smacks the smoothie cup just a little harder onto the counter than intended and some of the mellow, yellow creamy concoction backsplashes up onto his wrist.
The guy does seem to notice. “I don’t suppose you have a wider straw?”
“Uh, yeah, we’ve got some for the bubble tea we’re selling.” He smears the gunk off onto his pant leg and grabs a thick straw from the jar, neon pink out of spite, and drops it onto the counter. “Here.”
At least this time he knows to be on the lookout for the guy’s ass the second he turns around. He licks sticky banana residue off his wrist and contemplates just how long it’s been since he got laid.
Way too long, he decides, if he’s contemplating just how great it’d feel to have this scrawny asshole bent over the counter and groaning for him. His cock twitches, it’s rude. He scolds it a bit as he closes up shop. He figures it’s the last he’ll really see of this guy, anyway, so he doesn’t feel too guilty about using him for masturbation fodder that night.
Then the guy has the audacity to just keep showing up, which is awkward and doesn’t even make sense. Twice a day, the same damn smoothie every time, and John sends him off with a neon pink straw every time because why break tradition? Seriously, though, where the fuck was the scruffy little fucker packing it all away? It’s sorting of plaguing him in a way that says he’s putting WAY too much thought into this.
It’s not his fault, though. The guy clearly has some sort of crazy obsession. Does he even eat solid food? The guy fucking loves his smoothies, but then, after a few weeks of watching him walk away, John has kind of grown to love watching his ass as he leaves.
It’s sadly possibly the best relationship he’s had in years.
Three weeks in, he cracks.
“How the fuck do you drink two of these a day?” he blurts it out, needing to put the mystery to rest. “I mean, really, honestly, look at you.”
He maybe should have waited until there wasn’t a crowd of customers around. The guy looks surprised, blinks even, which is more emoting than he’s seen from him in three weeks.
“I never said they were for me.”
Oh. Mystery solved.
“I’m John!” he calls out to the guy’s ass, you know, in case the guy decides not to bring it or himself around anymore after John was just an idiot.
“I know. It’s on your nametag,” comes the calm response as the door chimes open. “Have a good morning, John.”
John secretly likes to think he sounds amused. John also kind of hopes that the guy will come back that night like usual so that John will be able to tell him to have a good evening.
Also, he totally would have had the smoothie thing right if the bastard had been playing fair.
The door chimes right around lock-up, and he grabs an extra-large cup.
“Good evening…” He purposefully lets his voice trail off questioningly.
The guy tilts his head at him before his lips curve slightly into an amused smirk. It makes his blue eyes twinkle a little and John decides he might like them even more than he likes seeing him walk away.
That’s probably just him lying to himself.
“Barsad.”
Score.
“Anything else for you tonight?” he finds himself asking now that he knows the guy isn’t packing away frozen fruit puree into a hollow leg or something.
Barsad pauses reaching for the cup, like he hasn’t really considered it, before he reaches into his pocket to dig out a few more dollars, placing them on the counter. “I suppose I will have what you first suggested to me.”
“Small?” He really, really tries to keep the smug tone out of his voice.
“Medium.”
Goddamn it.
It’s almost, almost worth being wrong when he’s kind of sort of positive Barsad’s fingers brushing over his was absolutely on purpose when he takes the next cup.
God. When did he turn back into a teenager?
“Have a pleasant evening, John.”
He asks about the smoothie the next day, purely for business’ sake.
“I enjoyed it.”
“Yeah, but did you finish it?” he can’t help asking.
“Of course it was finished,” Barsad answers. “I don’t believe in wasting food.”
Barsad starts ordering them once a day, usually at night. John chalks it up as a private victory, or at least half of one because he keeps getting the medium and he’s so positive that it’s just to fuck with him. The day he asks for blueberries in it he’s downright scandalized, and he gives him one spiteful look for each plump little berry he plops into the blender.
When Barsad leaves, John swears he’s never seen someone look so goddamn smug sucking on a smoothie in his life.
He also wonders if he’s good at sucking on anything else, purely for curiosity’s sake.
It’s sad when a few weeks later he realizes that Barsad has become the highlight of his day. It’s not that he doesn’t like his job, he kind of really does which he didn’t expect, but Barsad is funny and they’ve started teasing each other as he cashes out and John is pretty sure he knows flirting when he sees it.
Also he’s pretty much giving back as much as he’s getting and he hasn’t scared him off yet, so he’s either a really understanding straight guy or he might actually have a shot at this.
Honestly, if people could just start wearing nametags with their orientation preference it would save him a lot of hassle and ogling.
No, he’d still ogle, just without… intent.
“Just the apple-banana today,” Barsad says. He’s looking tired and a bit damp from the drizzle outside. He pulls his red scarf off and wipes his face while the blender is whirring.
“Careful, you’ll catch a cold out there.”
“Thank you for your interest in my health.” He’s smiling, though, and John smiles back a little, tosses him some napkins to dry off better.
“Well, who would come pester me twice a day for a smoothie?”
Barsad laughs and rubs a wad of napkins against the back of his neck. “I suppose I would have to send my husband out for his own smoothies, for once.”
Oh.
His hand slips while he’s shaking out the protein powder and the triple protein becomes a septuple protein shake, the rest of the tub clattering down onto his foot sending a waft of whey protein up into the air.
“Shit!” He jerks his foot back and stares down into the pile of white powder in the blender being happily sucked up by yogurt and banana puree.
Barsad pauses and looks over the counter. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, fuck, just yeah,” he sighs, picking up the overturned container and salvaging what he can on the counter. “I’ll start it over.”
“I said are YOU ok?”
“Just fucking peachy,” he snaps, which isn’t really fair, but would it kill the guy to wear a wedding ring?
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, it’s just,” he laughs, he really has to, because frankly, it’s just his luck, “right orientation, wrong relationship status.”
If Barsad is surprised he doesn’t show it much, he only nods after a moment. “Ah.”
“You don’t wear a ring,” he can’t help but point out petulantly.
He feels like a jackass when Barsad tugs at the chain around his neck and a silver ring slides out from under his jacket.
“I work at a firing range,” he explains, and he really shouldn’t have to, John’s the one who made an ass of himself. “I learned to shoot without it; it feels to strange to have my grip change with it on, so I wear it around my neck.”
“Sorry,” he mutters and starts the smoothie over again.
“You have no reason to apologize.”
He actually does, because it’s really, really awkward to have been using a married man for wank material for the past month or two.
“Just… yeah, this one’s on me, ok?” It seems only fair, last night’s orgasm was courtesy of Barsad’s ass and the way his voice gets just a little lower sometimes when he’s teasing…
Goddamn it, John is really glad that an apron is part of the uniform. He’s already embarrassed himself enough for one night.
Barsad insists on paying, and there’s a finger brush again, a twinkle to his eyes and damnit, John has the decency to snatch his hand back like Barsad is made of fire because he is a decent human being.
Barsad laughs suddenly and John glares. He’s just trying to be a good person here, damnit. He doesn’t need to be teased.
“What’s so fucking funny?”
“I think you have made a misjudgment.”
“Yeah, I made quite a few.” He clears his throat. “I just uh, I didn’t know, and look, ok, I thought maybe you were flirting with me.”
“I was flirting with you.”
He clears his throat at that. “Well I uh, I think your husband might have something to say about that one.”
“You misunderstand.” Barsad sets the drink back onto the counter, tucking his ring away carefully. “My husband is from out of the country, I am sure you have heard of a green card.”
And there was good, old fashioned relief flooding him. Helping a friend get into the country and stay here, that is a noble cause. Barsad is just a good person helping someone out. He’s cautiously optimistic about this. He can possibly see hot, filthy sex in the near future.
“So, what, he’s your friend that you’re helping out?”
But then Barsad shakes his head quickly and his stomach sinks right back down.
“It is not that. We love each other very much,” Barsad considers his words a moment, “it is just that we have never considered ourselves… monogamous… and our wedding bands have scared others off before.”
“…Oh?” He can’t keep the interested tone out of his voice. and he gives not one fuck about that because he is interested, oh he is very interested.
Barsad nods and places his hands on the marble counter, leans closer like he’s going to whisper a secret when the damn store is empty.
Fuck if he doesn’t lean in close anyway and catch a whiff of cologne and a bit of sweat.
“We have always had a habit of… taking in strays.” Barsad’s voice dips low, seductive, definitely seductive, and oh fuck, is he serious because that is definitely working. Blood is racing to his cock at such a frightening pace that he backs up from the hard counter, because ow. Also, again, he’s never been more grateful for an apron.
“Y-yeah?” He’s stammering and that’s embarrassing as hell, but kind of worth it when Barsad flashes a hint of a grin.
“You make a very cute stray, John,” he says finally, pushing off the counter and snatching up the smoothie cup. The door chimes before John can even contemplate that.
“Hey, it’s rude to call people strays!”
He’s pretty sure he can hear the laugh even through the glass door. Fucker.