Smells Like Coffee ~ (Etho x Bdubs)

Chapter 7 - Gem is Great!

Light peeked through the curtain, waking up a certain idiot after a well half-day plus night's rest.

Etho groaned silently, and lifted himself upright with a sigh. His hair covered his eyes uncomfortably and blurred his visions with streaks of white. He could easily spend a minute with his headband to fix the problem, but doing anything before caffeine was out of the question.

He popped his back with a stretch as he flipped his legs over his bedside and cringed at the sound. It had clearly been a well needed rest.

"I feel like an old man who sleeps past 2pm." He thought and frowned, and trudged out of his room, combing his hair out of his face with his hands.

Doc was already up when he got there, dressed, with a cup of coffee in his hand.

"Sleeping beauty finally up, ay?" A gruff voice spoke up. "Didn't need a kiss from a prince to wake up?"

Etho looked up and rolled his eyes, before smirking under his mask. "Are you offering?"

"Maybe." Doc shrugged, making eye contact with a sideways glance. In the mornings, his voice was even lower than normal and scratchier, and the two, along with Beef when he spent the night, liked to joke and tease him about it. Ren had called the voice hot once, and that was a moment that Doc consistently brushed off, but would never forget either.

"Damn Doc, tryna seduce me with that morning voice before I've even had coffee?" Etho chuckled. "Grian told me you had your eye on someone else."

"Don't listen to that gremlin child." Doc said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

Etho noticed the shift in tone and dropped it. He strided up the coffee maker and turned it on. A loose thought connected the coffee he was having now, to the coffee from that cafe, to the conversation with bdubs tha had floated in his mind for a solid day. Morning thoughts were so drowsy and floaty Etho swore if he saw Jellie the size of a horse break down the door, he wouldn't be fazed at the moment.

"Also, Bdubs says hi."

"Huh?" Etho turned towards Doc, and something in a paper bag slid over the counter to him. Even with his lacking morning reflexes, he caught it effortlessly before it fell off the counter. Looking inside, it was a cookie, one he recognized from the display case.

"Oh uh, thanks for this." Etho pulled down his mask and took a bite, and wow, "That's way better than I expected for a day-old cookie."

"Bdubs said you two had a nice conversation, but if I remember correctly, you said you just did coding work while you waited for the machine to be fixed?" Doc said, with an accusing tone lining the words.

"Well to be fair I did do coding work, he just talked to me while I did it." Etho lied again, the memory of a closed laptop in the corner of his vision popping up in his mind.

Bdubs's phone was on and the two were side by side, laughing at some photos of the friends they both knew, while Bdubs chatted about something or other. He liked the memory, but he was quickly snapped out of his train of thought from his roommate who scoffed.

Doc rolled his eyes, "If you've made a new friend you don't need to hide it. Bdubs is a talkative guy, everyone gets along with him. Even a closed off guy like you."

And now it was Etho's turn to scoff. He didn't regard the last statement, and diverted the conversation. "When does class start again? It's too early to start remembering specific stuff like that."