out_there | I am this close to sending you to your room without desert, fandom.

Oh my freakin' god, fandom. Why, oh, why, do people have to be so damn pigheaded about possibly *not knowing everything* and maybe, just maybe, getting things wrong? Seriously?

I'm assuming that everyone's heard about the "miscegenation" prompt at

dailydeviant by now. Really, if it's hit my teeny-tiny filtered reading list enough for me to be aware of a thing happening on the edges of HP fandom, it's probably all over FLists by now. (If not,

liviapenn has compiled links that truly point out the insulting level of stupidity occuring.

witchqueen's post is well worth reading, but some of the responses will leave you amazed, in the bad way.)

This is *insulting* levels of stupidity, fandom.

And the mods' response? Leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.

*grrrrrr*

However, instead of spending too many hours being horrified and appalled by some of the people that share my internets, I'm going to post a bit more of that "Ripples and Stones" wip and say that the idea of uni-studying-Ianto working part time as a barista makes me so happy it should be outlawed.

By lunchtime, Ianto realises an important thing: nobody cares about the filing but everybody cares about the coffee.

“It’s an ongoing dispute,” Toshiko says, pausing paused stopped at the tiny, serviceable kitchen. After the introduction, Jack had had to take a call, Suzie Costello and Owen Harper had gone back to doing whatever they’d had planned for the morning, and Toshiko had shot a longing gaze towards a workstation crowded with computer monitors and then offered to show him around the hub.

It’s a pity. Under different circumstances, Ianto would really like Toshiko with her detailed descriptions and sweet sense of humour.

But he can’t change circumstances. He can’t think of these people as possible friends. At best, he can consider them indifferent co-workers; at worst, he needs to be able to think of them as obstacles to be overcome.

He can, and does, smile when Toshiko tells an exhaustive tale of the coffee machine spraying coffee all over Jack after Suzie’s attempt to install a timed shut-off switch (caused in part, she admits, by her own habit of turning the machine on and getting so absorbed in her work that she completely forgets to turn it off).

“Owen refuses to make coffee, since it’s not directly stated in his job description,” she says, “and Jack’s banned Suzie from the machine. But if Jack ever offers you a cup of coffee, don’t take it. He likes it strong enough to eat through concrete.”

Toshiko turns to the machine, pouring a cup for each of them. Then Ianto hears it. Behind them, there’s a clunk-clunk-clunk of metallic, thumping footsteps. Frozen still and terrified, it takes a moment to separate facts from memories, to focus on the present instead of screams and fire and lumbering metal men. To hear the inconsistencies in the tread, the tapping of fingernails against a railing, the very human sound of humming.

When he turns to look behind him -- turns slowly, smile firmly in place -- Owen Harper is climbing the last few steel steps and walking into the room. “There’d better be enough there for another cup, Tosh.”

Toshiko turns around, brows high in a look of almost comical distress as she looks at the empty jug in her hands. “You wanted a cup?”

“No,” Owen replies sarcastically. From what Ianto’s overheard so far, sarcastic is Harper’s default tone. “I was asking for my own amusement.”

“Oh,” Toshiko says, looking from Owen to the two poured cups and back again.

“You’re welcome to have mine,” Ianto offers. “I can make another pot.”

Owen doesn’t thank anyone, but he reaches for the cup.

Ianto takes a moment to study the machine and then opens the cupboard below. It’s a chaotic mess with plastic plates stacked on top of bags of sugar, tea-towels, kitchen cloths and a stack of printed emails dated last month. But eventually Ianto finds the coffee beans and filters.

He starts by emptying out the old grinds and cleaning the machine thoroughly.

“The secretary makes coffee,” Owen says, default tone mixed with smug superiority. “Why am I not surprised?”

Toshiko’s question is far more friendly. “You’ve done this before?”

“In university, I had a part-time job as a barista. It’s a little like riding a bike.”

“What? You fall off and scrape your knees?” Owen asks.

Ianto blinks. He doesn’t say something sarcastic, he doesn’t bite back. He needs these people to take him for granted, to accept and dismiss him. He needs them to ignore him. He can’t afford to be rude or get anyone off-side.

Calmly he says, “I meant that it’s hard to forget,” and Owen rolls his eyes.

***

Lisa loved his coffee. After bleary, too-late nights at loud discos (her choice) or quieter, but no less alcoholic, nights at the pub (his choice), he’d wake up first and make her coffee.

“You’re an angel,” she’d say, eyes closed in caffeine-laden bliss and her full, sensuous lips lightly pursed. That expression -- that expression on his Lisa, still warm and relaxed from sleep, still naked under the rumpled covers -- inspired thoughts that were far less than angelic.

“Nice to be appreciated.”

“Oh, I always appreciate you,” she said as he walked over to his side of the bed and sat down. He wasted no time in getting his cold feet back under the covers. “In fact, since it’s Sunday morning and we’re not expected at Dave’s until three, I plan to spend most of this morning ‘appreciating’ you.”

“Really?” he asked nonchalantly, maintaining a façade of disinterest until she waggled her perfectly arched eyebrows at him. Then he laughed.

***