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It happened.

 

Mystic Knights Coffee Shop AU.

Where Cathbad owns a super gentrified coffee shop and Rohan's his employee who cannot figure out how any of the drinks are put together, but at least he's great at taking out the trash and wiping down tables and using the blender, and he'll catch any birds that fly in.

Angus is still his best friend, and he's living on Rohan's couch. Instead of getting his own job, he just goes to this café when Cathbad's not there and makes all the drinks during Rohan's shift. Literally none of these drinks are what the customer ordered or are even on the menu, but he's really good at coming up with something they like. He has broken every machine in this café so Rohan doesn't let him use those anymore, but it's fine, 'cause Angus can do it all by hand, which just makes these random drinks look even fancier to customers.

Note: the drinks Angus make do not taste good, but he convinces everyone they're for an exceptionally refined palette, Emperor's New Clothes-style. Also Rohan has to turn around sooner or later, and that's when Angus strikes at the milk steamer again. >:3 He scatters out like a racoon whenever Cathbad comes back to the store.

 

Conchobar's a real estate investor that owns the building. So he's their apartment's landlord and the café's landlord. But he himself is on great terms with Cathbad, and refuses to go anywhere else for coffee.

Deirdre's studying to take over the business, and also stops by to get decaf frappuccinos. Rohan has never once remembered to put the blender lid on properly when he makes the drinks for her, and she has - in fact - lost two very expensive blouses to his shenanigans. She was extremely pissed off, and his response that, "But at least your shirt probably tastes better than the last time it happened," was roughly the worst thing he could said to smooth the situation over.

Angus had popped up from behind the counter to offer her some random replacement drink. He'd almost silver-tongued her into accepting it as a peace offering instead of tattling to her dad about the Blender Blunder. Almost, because when she remembered to ask at the last moment if it was decaf, Angus' answer was, "Uhhhhh." And when she told him to remake it as decaf, his answer was a louder, "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh."

Then, after she tattled and found out Angus doesn't even work there, Rohan just keeps sneaking his friend in to do his job for him with slightly more competence, Cathbad made Rohan promise to never let Angus step foot in the café again.

This decision was reversed when a surprising number of regular customers also stopped returning, no longer able to get their Refined Drinks™. But Rohan's still responsible for everything Angus breaks, and Cathbad's not paying them both when they're only managing the one job between them. Rohan is fine with this, because he hates ringing up overly complicated orders, and Angus'll just talk people into loving whatever happens to be in their cup. Angus is fine with this too, because he still gets to eat all the pastries they don't sell by the end of the day.

 

Temra's a competing investment company, who recently opened a gastropub to compete with this fancy café down the block. Mider's great at making these creepy drinks that are perfectly Instagrammable, even if they taste kind of like nothing. His secret ingredient is a prototype for a silver tumbler that's gone bananas-viral on TikTok, because of its glass jewels to let you see your drink, and to keep the permanent temperature of any drink it holds.

Unfortunately, this special tumbler design was stolen from Ivar's family business. Ivar's in town to find the evidence he needs to prove this was intentional patent infringement. He knows someone stole the design from their servers, and by scouring various TikTok backgrounds, he's tracked the source of the theft to this town and this block. He is exceptional at GeoGuesser.

 

Maeve's firm is threatening a corporate takeover of Conchobar's, which will immediately close Cathbad's café and put all of Conchobar's properties under vicious new management. She wasn't anywhere near this powerful before Mider's gastropub moved in, but the attention it's getting has caused her flagship building's value to spike - especially as every other week, there's a brand-new influencer to pose with those drinks.

Concchobar's close to giving up, which horrifies Deirdre, who's planning to take this company over. And it horrifies Rohan to hear about this from Cathbad, because he needs this job to pay for his apartment and for his bearded dragon's heat lamp. Angus isn't overly fussed, 'cause he's got a crypto coin he's about to rug, but when it gets sniped before he can snipe it, he suddenly starts to panic.

Rohan insists that he be allowed to follow his destiny and find Tir Na Nog - the legendary pop-up bakery that has mastered word-of-mouth marketing, and that's so reknown for its one-of-a-kind cinnamon rolls that a partnership with Cathbad's café would be enough to rebalance Conchobar's real estate ROI. After much convincing, Conchobar agrees.

He can't go alone, and since Angus' gonna get the crap kicked out of him by the people he was trying to scam before he could finish scamming them, Rohan's able to convince him to come along and find this damn pop-up bakery. Thank God they actually find Ivar, who can put the trend together and pinpoint the ring of locations the bakery circles through according to a pattern. Not before they have to prove they're not the ones who stole his family's prototype design, though. Rohan obviously didn't, and Angus only steals money, so Ivar's eventually convinced. And Angus even claims to know how stocks work, which means he can totally pinpoint which company is gearing up for a massive public release of some new product (lying).

 

And who should've followed them here in her car but Deirdre, even though she was supposed to be in class, focusing on her degree. But with the four of them gathered inside this dusty looking garage, just in front of a big, bright, red lens above an intercom, the door they walked in through slams shut like it'd been drenched in WD-40.

The lights take their time to switch back on.

But when they do, they're led further inside...

 

... to their destinies.

 

And then I figure I'll make 'em all learn how to cook or bake a certain type of food or manage a certain part of the business and use that to pull the crowds back to their side lmao

 

🥲 they said it couldn't be done, but they meant it shouldn't 🥲 what have i created