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Percival Ignatius Weasley has discovered sarcasm. (analretentive) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-05-27 23:30:00

Who: Audrey and Percy
When: May 22
Where: Baxter Bakery
What: Congrats on your engagement!
Rating/Warnings: Low
Status: Complete!



When Percy came through the front door at Baxter Bakery, Audrey was ready for him. She had his vegetarian, grilled panini ready to go, along with a proper cup of tea. It’d taken a bit of finesse to make sure that the sandwich would be finished early enough that he wouldn’t have to wait, but not so early that it would get cold before he could enjoy it.

She waved him over to the side of the counter where she was fiddling around, avoiding the line at the register. Business was doing fairly well, so she had her girls running the cafe front while she was working on the panini design.

Percy was clearly on his lunch break -- wearing one of his grey suits and a cornflower blue tie (quite the change from the uninspired black ones he’d been wearing the week prior). He gave a tiny smile when Audrey greeted him with enthusiasm, tea and a sandwich. “Oh, goodness,” he murmured, “What have I done to deserve all this?”

“What? This? It’s nothing special.” Audrey was trying to keep herself distracted from what Nina had said to her about Merlin. How she and he were... not acting like best friends. Acting like more. It was true, wasn’t it? She didn’t exactly have tickle fights with percy. That would be... awkward.

“Come. Eat. Keep me company while I work on these Panini signs.” She gave him a bright smile.

Percy only gave an indulgent little smile, taking the panini and tea that was offered and following her to an out of the way seat and settling himself down across from her. “Thank you,” he murmured. “This looks quite good.”

"It's 'The Percy' so it better be good." Audrey gave him a wink. "I'm just finishing up some signs. I'm make these temporary ones, and if the sandwiches do well, I'll order some professional ones eventually." She had chalk boards and chalk board pens and was decorating the words around the panini names, ingredients and prices.

There was something inherently funny about having a sandwich named after him, and Percy went a bit pink about it. He hadn’t really expected her to seriously do it. But apparently she was, because that was written on one of the signs she was making. Instead of commenting on it, he nibbled at the panini that was apparently his namesake. It was, admittedly, quite good. “Oh,” he said, and what he really meant to say was ‘this is very good’.

Audrey was an incredible baker, and a damn good chef. She could translate the “oh”s of people enjoying her food, and knew exactly what it meant. It only made her smile brighten as she painted little flowers around the edges of the panini sign. She doodled a pair of glasses that looked remarkably like Percy’s next to his sandwich’s name.

“It’s okay, you go ahead and eat,” she said, feeling proud and happy that he enjoyed it. She gave him a grin. “I can wait.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” Percy said, quite prim, “I can multi task fairly well.” Not that he thought anyone who knew him wouldn’t think that in the first place. It wasn’t as if Percy wasn’t -- well. Percy.

He nibbled the sandwich a bit more, and then sipped his tea. Really, lunch did make things better; he was glad he’d thought to suggest it.

Audrey gave a little nod. “Well, I just hope you don’t distract me to the point where I make a mistake on this sign.” She’d named sandwiches after her closest friends; The Percy, The Nina, The Oliver, The Merlin. And there was a The Mavis for the girl who worked in her shop, too. And The House Special. She showed him the sign. “What do you think?”

Percy hadn’t really realized that Audrey and Oliver were that close, but he supposed he wasn’t surprised. Sometimes the world seemed like such a small place.

“I like it,” he murmured, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, as if the little drawing of them on the board had reminded him that he’d needed to do that. “Very inventive.”

He'd made quite the impression. Oliver's sandwich was probably the the most healthy, and Mavis' was vegan, while Percy's was vegetarian. Audrey thought she'd done a pretty good job with making the sandwiches match the personalities. They would have to see how well the things sold. "Hey thanks! I'm so glad you like it." It wasn't always that she came up with winners. Her peppermint, garlic bread was a huge disaster.

"You like the glasses?" She asked. Oliver had a soccer ball, Nina a stethoscope.

Peppermint garlic bread sounded disgusting. It was a no-brainer that one hadn’t done well. Percy gave another half smile. “They’re distinctive.” And that made sense, since the redhead supposed that that was exactly what his glasses were. He was, after all, the only Weasley who wore them. Finishing off his sandwich, he wiped his hands neatly and carefully on a napkin.

“Yes, they are.” Audrey said, giving him a smirk. She wasn’t really flirting. Not seriously. Just playfully. A little. Because she was like that. Besides, she had a thing for gay men. “Have I mentioned that I think they’re great? I mean, I love glasses. I wish I had glasses.” She added, almost sheepishly. It was a silly thing to think. One of the first girls she’d ever kissed had glasses, and she loved them.

“You could get some,” Percy said, rather pointedly. If he was aware she was even playfully flirting with him, he didn’t let on to it. And well, honestly, he wasn’t aware. He never really was for things like that. “They make plastic or just plain glass lenses.”

“...really? Think I should? Wouldn’t that make me... like, a hipster, or something?” She asked, cocking her head to the side and wrinkling her nose up. “Maybe I’ll just get some for Merlin. I’d much rather look at people wearing them than wear them myself.”

Percy took a moment to consider that. Did she just want all of her friends to have glasses? He had them. Oliver had some, too, although he hid that fact more often than not. Maybe this Merlin fellow was the only one without. “Whichever you prefer,” he said, blinking. “I don’t think it’s exceptionally “hipster”, but then, I wouldn’t really know. I’ve been wearing glasses since before I was old enough to read.”

Maybe she just liked thinking about Merlin. Maybe she liked looking at the glasses more than wearing them? Either way, she couldn’t help but smirk a bit at his explanation. “Are there a lot of people in your family who wear glasses?”

He shook his head at that. “Just myself, actually. Perhaps I was always destined to be the nerdy one.” He didn’t seem bothered or offended by that -- in fact, was possibly pleased. “You get used to it in any case.” He sipped his tea again, wondering over that look she gave when she spoke of Merlin.

Oh.

Oh, there it was. Something clicked in his mind, and he supposed that really had just taken a while. “Are you two dating?”

“What?” Audrey asked going rather pink. “No! He’s my best friend!” So she kept telling herself. How was it that Percy noticed something about her that she wasn’t willing to admit to herself? Maybe there was something more there than meets the eye. It was like they knew each other better than they knew. Or something.


“I mean... sure, he’s fantastic. And he’s smart and charming, and very handsome... he just doesn’t swing my way.” She sounded more disappointed than she wanted to admit.

More than meets the eye? Like a Transformer?

“Oh,” Percy said, going a little pink himself. Perhaps he shouldn’t have assumed. She just -- well. Spoke about him a lot. A crush, then. He understood that. He’d spent a good portion of time wishing that his best friend swung a particular way that he didn’t, as well. “I’m sorry,” he said, a bit abashed. “I didn’t mean to imply anything.” Let’s just backpedal, here.

Yeah, that was it. That was definitely it. Audrey had a crush on Merlin. Though she didn’t want to, she was terrified it was going to break her heart. It was completely unrequited. “It’s okay, I just... please don’t tell him.” She said. As if Percy and Merlin came face to face all the time and had heart-to-heart conversations.

Yes, because that would definitely be something that Percy did. He shook his head, bemused. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “And you know I’d never.” Because he didn’t really... talk to many people in the first place, anyway. Also because he was just ridiculously polite.

Audrey shrugged. "He may not be interested in me that way, but he's me best friend, and that's good enough for me." The poor thing. Audrey wasn't really thinking about romance right now, as much as she wanted some. She was pretty busy with the shop, so she kept telling herself. "And I know. That's why you're my favorite." Grin.

“I can’t possibly be your favorite if you just said Merlin was,” Percy pointed out. Every once in a while (usually directly after embarrassing himself), he forgot what humor was and just leaned heavily on logic instead. “But it’s good to have friends. And you never know. Sexuality is a strange thing, isn’t it?” He was, after all, dating a man who’d been married to three different women.

“Well, you’re my favorite who I don’t have a super secret crush on. How about that?” Audrey felt like she was turning into a fag hag. Surrounded by so many gay dudes! She should just start watching Margaret Cho and hitting the gay bars at night. “And yes, it is.” She herself flip flopped across the border many times in her life. She’d definitely been with more women than Merlin had. Quite possibly more than Percy, too.

Probably more than quite possibly. Percy couldn’t say he’d never slept with women, but he could say he’d enjoyed it so little it had happened a very, very small number of times. Not that this was something he admitted. “This seems fair,” he said instead, and gave something that was probably meant to be a smile.