Chapter Text
“What on Earth do you think you’re doing?”
Wizardmon glanced up from what he was doing to find the slightly disgusted face of his manager staring down at him.
“Well you see,” he said, in the most innocent voice he could muster, “I’m just mixing a drink for a customer.”
Gatomon’s look of displeasure stretched. “No-one’s been in here for over 20 minutes.”
She wasn’t wrong. It was far too snowy outside for anyone to be making the trip to Cup of Coffin or anywhere at all, really. As it was the only reason he’d bothered coming into work was because he knew Gatomon would still be there regardless of the weather, and he wasn’t going to leave her alone.
Wizardmon shrugged, moving to continue pouring before Gatomon snatched the bottle out of his hands.
“My experiment!”
“What have we discussed about your consumption of hot sauce while in my building?”
“I don’t recall.”
Gatomon reached into the pocket of her suit before pulling out a piece of paper, which she brandished at him. He didn’t need more than a glance to know its contents- a contract to stop drinking hot sauce bottles at work which he’d been, frankly, forced to sign.
“I wasn’t drinking it out of the bottle,” he said, shaking his cup of coffee concoction pointedly. “This is perfectly acceptable by the standards of what you made me agree to.”
Gatomon’s ear twitched.
“Please tell me you don’t plan on drinking that.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You just called it an experiment.”
“It’s for science,” he responded happily.
Gatomon glared at him, before sighing in defeat at his actions. “I’m not calling an ambulance for you,” she said, before retreating to the back of the shop, still poised where she could watch the fallout of his decision-making skills.
Disappointing for her, because Pumpkin Spice had some of the best results of any of his projects thus far. Wonderful.
They mostly sat quietly throughout the rest of the day. He almost missed when they’d been working through college, because then at least on slow days he could occupy himself with studying. Almost missed, because classes were simply unnecessary for studying. Nothing could stop him from studying on the job.
He was burying himself in tips for making sprites, closing soon approaching, when someone entered the store. He straightened up to face the door, adjusting his mask over his mouth.
Ah. This guy.
Wizardmon was already making the drink by the time Gennai made it to the counter to order, both flabbergasted and not at all surprised the man still made it out to the coffee shop with the amount of snow outside. The man in question only raised his eyebrows happily when he saw that his order was already swiftly in the process of being made.
“Some weather, huh?”
Wizardmon glanced to the door, where the snow was steadily trying to trap them in the building. “Seems to be.”
“Yes, yes,” Gennai said, swiftly paying for and taking his drink, “couldn’t be avoided. You young folks get home safe.”
With that he was out the door.
Gatomon leaned her head out from the back office.
“Is the old man gone?”
“You should respect your elders, Gatomon.”
“I’d respect him more if he wasn’t as observant as a brick, Wizardmon. If he had any competency at his job he would have shut us down months ago.”
Wizardmon shifted, “surely he knows Cup of Coffin is what it is. Our bosses aren’t particularly… subtle.”
Which is to say the Cup of Coffin chain was super a money laundering front for the mob, which always made it a little awkward that one of their regulars was a police detective.
“Perhaps he just considers himself off duty when he visits us.”
Gatomon laughed. “Ha! More like I just run this place better than any of Myotismon’s other stupid cronies. It’s like they don’t even care about running a good coffee location.”
“They care about what the coffee hides, Gatomon.”
“Well I don’t,” she scoffed. “Besides, you worry too much. That old man couldn't recognize his own hand if he waved it in front of his face. Remember what he said on Halloween?”
Wizardmon huffed. He’d switched out his usual mask for one with a stitched mouth on it. Gennai told him he was glad to see him smile for once. It wasn’t a joke.
He moved on from that subject. “Did you need something? Want me to look over accounting again?”
Gatomon’s eyes drifted to the front door. “I was thinking we should go home, actually,” she drawled. “It’s far too cold to be continuing this nonsense, no one else should be stupid enough to try to visit us in what little time we would usually have left, and I want to be in bed.”
Wizardmon couldn’t really disagree with that, not that he ever argued with her much when he did. The snow was already going to be a pain to walk in. He started closing.
By the time they both made it to the door from their duties to lock up, Gatomon had changed into a heavier coat, pink scarf pulled from where she usually wore it loose around her shoulders to actually being wrapped around her neck. She surveyed him with a scrutinizing look.
“Do you want a ride?”
“I can walk just fine.”
“Don’t tell me you plan on doing so in that.”
He looked down at his jacket, worn enough that the collar no longer reached his chin, hanging loose over pants that were long but meant more for cargo than warmth. His boots were decent enough at least. He pulled up his hood to rest under his hat. “It was fine on the way here.”
“You’ll catch your death like this, y’know.”
“Good, “ he grinned, “better than it catching me.”
Gatomon sighed, rolling her eyes as she walked to her car. “Don’t come crying to me when you regret it.”
With that they waved goodbye, and she was off in a pink blur into the night.
Wizardmon took a minute to watch his coworker disappear before starting his own journey home. It really wasn’t that far, if made a bit harder to traverse by the snow, needing to use his walking stick once or twice to keep him balanced on ice. He shook himself off as he entered his building, snow falling from his shoulders as he went up to his apartment.
As he opened his door he heard movement in the shadows, then a blur of white that surveyed him before dipping back into the darkness. He smiled, finally removing his mask for the night. Even if she did it every time he came home, it was comforting to see Tailmon checking in, though she pretended to be aloof. It was also reassurance that his little rescue cat hadn’t spontaneously decided she was ready to return to her old life of danger out on the streets. It wasn’t likely given how much she enjoyed napping in luxury and also doors, but sometimes she would get a glint in her eye while watching birds out the window and he worried. What if she learned how to operate doorknobs? She was a smart cat!
After setting his things down by the door Wizardmon drifted around his place. First food for Tailmon, brushing up against his legs impatiently as he poured it. Then food for himself, idly heating up a can of soup and pouring it into a bowl. He studied on his computer as he ate, pulling up articles on ghosts and different spooky figures, looking for ones that were currently hot topics of discussion. As usual, he didn’t notice how long he spent making notes after his bowl was empty until Tailmon was yelling at him.
“Of course,” he told his cat, finally getting up to stretch and move dishes to the sink, “what would I do without you?”
She followed him around impatiently as he got ready for the night, plugging in his computer and brushing his teeth. He felt like she was judging him as he changed out of his still damp clothing into warm pajamas, something he probably should have done right when he got home. Tailmon wove around him as he shook his hair loose from the tie that sat low in it until he finally got into bed and she was able to jump on top of his legs, pinning him for the night. He took a minute to tell her about his day- an important ritual. It helped Tailmon sleep, as well as giving him a similar essence to reading a book before bed without the risk of distraction. Then finally, he turned off his lamp and settled back to sleep.