who: Kylo Ren & Quentin Coldwater when: May the Fourth. where: Physical Cottage Kitchen. What: Q wishes Kylo happy May the Fourth. Kylo is confused. warnings: Nerdiness and general ridiculousness. status: COMPLETE.
Being a teacher meant getting up at a reasonable hour. It was kind of weird, but he only had two students. It was kind of weird only having the two, but he really wanted to make things good and he’d tried very hard not to ramble on like a crazy person. He wasn’t always so good about it when he was excited about something or when he’d had too much coffee that day. Mostly the iced coffee, though. Or something else. It was hot here.
Today, he was trying very hard to stay awake, but he wasn’t supposed to touch the coffee maker. He wasn’t sure if it was a joke rule or an actual rule. All the same, he didn’t touch the coffee maker and just sat at the table, waiting for someone else to wake up.
Kylo had always been awake at odd times. Prior to Tumbleweed he hadn't always slept well - something that being with Eliot seemed to improve - but now he still had to be up early because of the Espresso Pump. He enjoyed the work, as much as one could enjoy service work maybe but he had gotten used to it. However, he didn't always appreciate the early hours and today was certainly one of those days, as he stumbled into the kitchen, still in dark pajama pants, and a dark t-shirt, to make coffee before he went to make other people coffee.
Q was there, but Kylo didn't much more than shrug his direction before heading to the coffee. Coffee, then talking.
Q looked up quietly as Kylo shuffled into the room and tried to blink the sleep from his eyes and think of something to say. Nothing came right away, so he just picked his phone up off the table and looked at the time. It took his mind a minute to register the date and even then, it took his brain a few minutes to realize what the date meant.
Once he caught up, he could feel himself starting to wake up a little more. He peered at Kylo for a minute, wondering how likely his possible murder was if he said anything about it in that moment. Maybe after coffee. Maybe never. Probably never. Never was probably best.
Kylo pulled out the beans he'd ground up the night before. If he were being really good about things, he ought to grind them in the morning, but that was always so much work, and he hated the noise the grinder made, so he tended to grind them before bed and have them ready the next day. He measured things, mostly rote, poured water in, pondered again the pros of figuring out how to program a timer on the machine. He always thought he'd make espresso, but then it always ended up being just normal coffee. All of these thoughts happened as he set up the coffee, and as he finished, he turned around, leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.
He could say good morning. Or he could wait for coffee.
The silence seemed a lot more present and obvious when he was trying to avoid saying something. He rubbed at his eyes, pretending he needed to rub the sleep from them, and mumbled something vaguely incomprehensible. He shifted in his seat, squatting on the seat more than actually sitting on it. He didn’t know why he sat like this except that sometimes it just felt better. He liked to be scrunched up and close. It felt safer that way.
Once again, his gaze shifted to Kylo and he considered very much how he shouldn’t even voice his thoughts. Plus, no one had had any coffee. “Sooo…”
Kylo turned his head in Q's direction and nodded. "Hey," he said. It was too much work to actually say good morning, but he did manage to follow it up with: "Coffee?"
As he turned away and reached for a mug for himself. Almost in anticipation that Quentin might want some, he pulled a second one out. If Quentin didn't, then he could take some into El even if it might turn cold before Eliot was ready to drink it.
Quentin did want coffee. He really, really wanted coffee. “Yes. Coffee sounds good.” He looked around for a moment, trying once more to stifle the urge to say anything. “Did you notice the date?” Like that was a normal question to ask. “It’s May the Fourth.” A pause. He really was trying not to say it, but, he wasn’t sure how long he was going to make it before it slipped out. So he tried it the very, quiet way. Or he meant it to be a very silent, almost imperceptible whisper when he said, “Like May the Fourth be with you.” But it was somehow not as super silent as he meant it to be.
Kylo put both mugs down on the counter, and reached for a third for Eliot. He hadn't really thought about the date at all, and he was mid-way through the process of mentally running down his calendar trying to figure out if there was a significance to the date - a birthday? It wasn't Eliot's birthday - when Quentin's final sentence clicked into place.
He turned around, the third mug in his hand as he stared at Quentin, eyebrow raised. "May the Fourth be with you?"
Quentin felt himself wince just slightly and he looked down at the table. “Yep. That is...what I just said…” He tucked his hair behind his ear, something of a nervous reaction. “I...didn’t mean to say it?” Except he sort of had. He glanced up then, trying to gauge Kylo’s reaction. “But like...it’s May the Fourth…”
Kylo just stared at him. It was too early in the morning and he had not had enough coffee for this Quentin nonsense. It was the fourth of May, and it wasn't someone's birthday, or a party he'd forgotten, it was just… He shook his head. "Huh," he said, sounding more like his father than he'd ever want to hear that he did.
Quentin resisted the urge to sigh and just leaned forward on his feet a little, knees keeping him from falling. “May the Fourth. May the Force. You get it?” He hadn’t really expected to have to explain himself. “They made a day about it and it’s you know...a thing. Like tomorrow, they did Revenge of the Fifth. Like Revenge of the Sith? It’s the title for one of the movies.” He could probably go on, but it seemed like a fairly adequate explanation. If Kylo was still too tired to understand, then he’d wait for him to drink some coffee and try again.
May the Fourth. Revenge of the Fifth. Kylo knew the name of the movie, obviously, but it occurred to him that he would never understand entirely how this world treated his life, or the life of his parents, or his grandparents… as - he didn't even know what this was. A Joke? It felt like a joke, but also not? Like some sort of weird holiday remembrance things.
"Huh," he said again, still not really sure what to add to this. Coffee. He obviously needed to add coffee. He turned back around, poured some into one of the mugs and risked burning his tongue to take a sip. It burned, but that was honestly better than not having had any.
He poured two more mugs, and put one of them in front of Quentin. He couldn't remember if Quentin put milk and sugar in his coffee. He probably should know this by now. He returned for his own, reached for the cream, and poured in the proper amount. He slid Eliot's unadulterated black coffee to the side, as ready to go and held out the cream out to Quentin in a question. He took another sip of out of his own cup, trying to wake up a bit more.
Quentin happily took his coffee, accepting the cream. He poured just a little bit in it and only a little sugar. He remembered drinking coffee with Alice in that moment, the way she just poured sugar into her coffee. “What part aren’t you understanding? So I know where to elaborate.” He took a sip of his coffee and let himself lean back just a little.
Kylo took another sip out of his own coffee. "I'm just not sure... why?" Kylo shook his head, not particularly bothered, just determined that yes, this world was bizarre. "You know, never mind," he told Q. "I think if you have to explain it, it's not… um." He tilted his head. Was he going to hear this all day at the coffee shop? Instead he took a sip of coffee and then bowed his head slightly at Q. "May the Fourth be with you," he told the other man, before he shook his head, and made his way back towards his bedroom to get dressed.