Chapter Text
chapter one | søren | espresso
“Could you please switch that shit off?”
Lost in pretty thoughts of the perfect pour, Søren looks up from the coffee machine to see a customer glaring at him.
This, in itself, is nothing out of the ordinary in St Moritz. If there’s one thing he’s learnt while living here—other than broken German and that he has an immense dislike for French tourists—it’s that one of the greatest pastimes of the aspiring super-rich is simply to seem thoroughly displeased at any moment in time.
This particular customer, however, is quite anything but ordinary, in Søren’s educated opinion. Rather, this man, with his increasingly large coffee orders to which his already-generous tips run parallel, is a flavour of eccentric that Søren rarely has the opportunity to observe: young, carelessly attractive with his loose curls and freckle-dusted features (which is, according to Søren’s colleagues, quite precisely his type), and only mildly rude. (A godsend, really. Mildly rude, by local standards, is equivalent to downright pleasant somewhere normal.)
“Oh, sure,” Søren says. “Not a fan of, er—” he glances at the offending TV screen, which is displaying the highlights of some recent, seemingly generic car race, a vaguely familiar driver taking up most of the screen. “Motorsport?”
“You might say that.”
The customer doesn’t say anything further, attention flicking back to the two ancient-looking laptops he seems to be working on simultaneously, so Søren takes this loss. The TV remote is long lost, so it takes him a second to try to work out which is quicker—find the app on his phone that sometimes works, or fiddle with the back of it until Brigitta comes out to ask him what the hell he’s doing—but he eventually manages to switch it to an hopefully inoffensive ski slalom competition.
It's a quiet day, so Søren looks around the floor for a few moments, fails to find anything to occupy himself with, and then tries to give the skiing some of his attention. He fails, and retreats to the kitchen.
“I’ve got a new drinking game,” he announces to Riikka and Feliciano, who both immediately abandon their work—organising the freezer and piping pistachio cream into yesterday’s unsold croissants, respectively—no further encouragement needed.
“Well, go on,” says Feli.
“Don't leave us hanging,” says Riikka.
Søren clears his throat. “Alright, so. Please take a shot for: every daddy’s girl college student who comes in.”
Without even pausing, his colleagues each immediately throw back two drinks, Riikka slapping the counter with a cheer.
“A shot for every lost, rich DILF looking for a caviar hors d'œuvre and panic-ordering a vegan bagel,” she continues.
Feli moans in appreciation. “A shot of what?”
Before Søren can even chastise him for being crude, Brigitta appears behind them, towering over Feli and Riikka. “Yes,” she says, “a shot of what, exactly?”
“Hot chocolate for me,” Søren tells her, waving his little chocolate-filled cup under her nose.
“Espresso,” Feliciano says quickly. Søren has a high caffeine tolerance left over from long nights of studying, but Feliciano’s ability to put away ten to twelve cups of espresso a day genuinely astounds him.
“Mine’s vodka,” Riikka announces. Brigitta almost looks like she's about to say something, but then Riikka gives her a pretty little smile, snakes a hand around her waist and says, “You don't mind, do you?”
Brigitta clears her throat, blush blooming across her cheeks. “Don't let it affect your work,” she says mildly. Her way of intimidating people into doing what she wants (which, to be fair, is usually just their job) is terrifying, but she's nothing on Riikka. “And one of you, get out there.”
Søren glances out at the floor. No one’s waiting, not a single new customer has appeared, but Brigitta, the world’s best barista but worst customer service worker, gets anxious at the very idea of having to speak to someone.
The four of them—five, occasionally, when Feli’s sibling deigns to join them—probably make up the smallest team of all the various establishments in the area, but honestly? They're all pretty happy as they are. Even in peak ski season, they’re not incredibly busy, and with the tips their clientèle likes to leave (on top of prices which honestly, Søren himself couldn’t bear to pay), they don’t need to be. Brigitta generally has her head buried in a spreadsheet or the coffee machine, Riikka goes between the till and being Feli’s right-hand woman, and Søren takes on whatever’s left over—and then leaves by three-thirty to catch a last few hours on the slopes. Beyond an intricate latte art pattern or administering first aid to someone’s stove burn, he’s mostly just going through the motions. It's the perfect contrast to the constant cutthroat chaos of his previous occupation, and he’s found a new hobby in gazing at the customers and trying to work out their backstory a little.
Recently, he’s decided that Blondie—his personal nickname for the only-a-little-rude caffeine addict who seems much too young to be so stressed over his work—might get Botox. It’s all in the shape of the cheekbone, and his—stunning as they are—seem a little too chiselled to be natural. This realisation sits entirely at odds with the rest of Søren’s understanding of him, despite the fact that he checks about ninety-nine percent of the boxes that define the average moneyed guest in the area.
All this, somehow, only adds to Søren’s ever-growing desire to get to know this man.
He beams at Bri, who gives him a filthy look (how typically Swedish of her!), dusts some of Feliciano’s stray flour off his apron, and heads back to hover in front of his favourite customer.
“Can I get you anything else, sir?” he asks.
Blondie raises an eyebrow.
“You’ve asked me that three times in the last hour. If you’re looking for tips, it’s overkill. If you’re looking for conversation, you’ve got the wrong man, I’m busy.”
“And if I’m looking for your phone number?”
Blondie nearly chokes on his espresso. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Søren grins. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Blondie opens his mouth to reply and then closes it again. “You’re a fucking menace,” he says. “Who the hell even gives their phone number out to strangers anymore?”
“Ah, well,” Søren flexes his biceps as he feigns rubbing his neck in embarrassment. No point in wasting time being shy; Blondie hasn't told him to fuck off quite yet, which is good going, really. In his current state—apron covered in coffee stains, hair full of dry shampoo, glasses so filthy that they're not exactly helping his eyesight much anymore—Søren’s not sure he’d tolerate himself. “What can I say? I’m a bit of an old soul.”
“What you are is a menace,” Blondie repeats, shaking his head and turning his attention back to his two laptops. Alright, Søren can take a hint.
But when Blondie’s eventually paid and left, and Søren’s clearing his table (a record six espresso shots today, and not a bite to eat. Oh, this man has issues), he realises he’s left his receipt tucked under one of the little cups.
SIGVE, all in caps and in messy, slanting handwriting, along with a phone number and an unfamiliar country code.
Søren can’t hold back his grin.
Today 15:57
Me: SIGVE, huh?
cute name.
;)
Apparently, +377 is the country code for Monaco, so that’s odd. But, then again, Feli’s sibling’s car is registered in Monaco for the purposes of tax avoidance (they’re very good at that), so maybe it’s not so strange.
In any case, once the last of the customers have trickled out, Søren heads home on a high. The little apartment he’s renting that has seemed so empty for so long suddenly feels cosy, and he sleeps easily tonight, drifting off to an old film. He even wakes happier the next morning, heading out to the slopes before the lifts even open, trekking up a hill with an energy he hasn’t managed to find in a while.
He wonders if it’s silly, a whole twenty-eight-year-old being so excited over a phone number, but decides it’s justified, thinking about Sigve. Sigve! Even his name feels ethereal. The little smirk of a smile he knew he wasn’t imagining was charming, and those eyes—steeped in mystery as the man continues to be, Søren is willing to stick around to get to know him for however long he’s staying in the area.
And then Søren grinds to a halt, halfway down a run. He’d assumed Sigve was a tourist; putting the odd combination of a Monégasque phone number, a Scandinavian name, and an almost perfect American accent aside for a moment, he appeared just as the good snow started to fall, and doesn’t seem to have any commitments keeping him away from overpriced coffee shops. Yet he spends almost as much time working from their little bakery as Søren himself does making coffee there. So when’s he getting the skiing part of his holiday done?
Today 08:57
SIGVE: You don’t have to capitalize it all. Surely you know it’s just Sigve
Me: GOOD MORNING
alright, just Sigve
got a surname to add to that?
SIGVE: Not one I’d particularly care to share with you
Me: mysterious. like it
go on king give us NOTHING hahahaha
you dropping by today? or got a big ski day ahead of you?
are you a skier? you seem like you ski. you dont have the snowboard vibes about you
SIGVE: I’ll drop by
“Sigve!” Søren exclaims as the man himself stalks—there’s really no better word for it, as much as Søren tries to find one—into the bakery.
Sigve nods in acknowledgment without really looking up from his phone. “You pronounce it surprisingly well.”
Søren grins and starts preparing the double espresso he knows Sigve is about to ask for. “You must be Scandinavian, right? I’ve gotta say—I was a little surprised, I had your accent down as a born and bred American—and by the looks of you, one of those little New York yuppies they make horror films about. But hey—baristas can’t be choosers, as they say.”
Sigve frowns. “No one says that.” One hand still gripping the phone that he’s still giving most of his attention to, he reaches into his bag for his wallet.
“Maybe, maybe not. So, Sigve,” he says over the sound of the coffee machine, “are you from around here?”
“No,” Sigve says. “I mean, no, I’m on a trip. Thanks for the coffee, er—what’s your name? I’m assuming it’s not Brigitta.”
Søren looks down at himself, patting his chest and—oh, fuck, right. He switched his apron with Bri’s a couple of weeks ago, to see if she’d notice that hers was suddenly in a much worse condition and sporting his own nametag, complete with cute little devil horns over the S.
He’s only realising now that Bri probably knew all along and was just hoping that it would blow up in his face somehow.
“Little inside joke,” he says, putting Sigve’s espresso shots onto a tray and wrapping up an especially spectacular-looking pistachio croissant to go with it. He’s seen him devour them before—well, who wouldn’t, Feliciano is a genius with them—and Søren can’t on his own conscience keep letting him throw back espresso after espresso on an empty stomach. “My bad. Søren Andersen, but you may call me anytime. Or Søren, that works too.”
Sigve narrows his eyes, and then just sighs quietly. His exasperation is almost endearing—or perhaps Søren’s just been in Switzerland too long. “I didn’t order a croissant,” he says. “I thought you were British.”
“God, no. Absolutely fucking not. My goodness, Sigve, how could you think that? Centuries of Danish pride run through these veins. Born, raised, and only truly at home in Copenhagen.” Well, close enough, anyway. He can hear Riikka laughing at him from the kitchen and chooses to ignore her. “And I’m not letting you drink this amount of caffeine without eating anything.”
“Right.” Sigve nods his thanks for the croissant and unpacks his laptop at a table in the window.
It's a weak, fragile, one-sided conversation, and Søren is rapidly losing it. He can do better than this, he knows he can—why, just a couple of days ago, he managed to squeeze half a smile out of him with an especially good coffee and a sarcastic remark about insufferable German tourists—but, if anything, Sigve’s even more out of it than usual today.
He gives the floor a quick glance, checking that there aren’t any other customers vying for his attention, and then busies himself with cleaning the table next to Sigve’s. It’s already sanitised better than most food prep surfaces, but no one needs to know that.
“So, what are you doing cooped up in here, Siggy? Are the snowy slopes of the Swiss Alps beneath you?”
It's not just annoyance that flickers over Sigve’s face now. His obvious exasperation with Søren is still there but, for a brief moment, he seems to suppress a flinch, a wince of pain. Søren's hit a nerve without even meaning to.
But it's gone in a flash, and he gestures at his laptop. “Don’t call me that. I have to work.”
Søren raises an eyebrow. “On a ski holiday?”
“A corporate ski holiday. My fa—my colleagues may not feel the need to keep the company running while they enjoy their mountainside champagne, but I personally would rather not lose clients weeks before the end of the quarter simply because of a ski holiday.”
“Oh yeah? And all that rests on you, does it, the twenty-something—what are you, an accountant?”
Sigve wrinkles his nose. “Actually, I’m in executive financial management.”
Isn’t that just fancy accounting? “Right, of course. Can’t you get an assistant or something? It doesn’t seem fair, you stuck inside working while your colleagues are skiing.”
He shrugs. “I’m fine with it.”
“Sure you are. Not trying to prove yourself to someone, are you?”
“Of course not, that’s not—look, who exactly do you think you are? I give you my phone number and suddenly you think you can get the measure of me? I don’t owe you any sort of explanation for my decisions. You’re out of line—and way off.”
Surprisingly, Sigve’s words play a stark contrast to his tone—there’s no bite to them whatsoever. They're more weary than anything else. Søren pushes it.
“Way off?”
“Way off.”
Søren grins. “So, what, you just fancied skipping out on what I assume is your usual winter of sun, snow, and Swiss après ski with all its associated airs and graces because—let's see—you couldn't resist the siren call of soy milk?”
“I—”
“Søren, for the love of all things good, true, and beautiful, would you please stop flirting and get back on the till before my girlfriend has to speak to another human being?”
At Riikka’s cry for help, he looks up to see Brigitta with a complexion paler than Sigve’s own overstressed pallor as she counts out change for a customer who has appeared out of nowhere.
“Oh, fuck, she might actually die over there,” he says, more to himself than to Sigve. Yet, in another surprise for the day, Sigve gives an amused snort.
“You're interfering with my work, as well,” he says. “Got a talent for that?”
Søren will eagerly take any sort of back-and-forth he can get. “Don't you know it,” he says, even allowing himself a wink. “I’ll interfere with you later.”
Sigve doesn’t reply but rather waves him away. There’s a twenty franc tip nestled under his plate when he leaves—four times the price of the croissant Søren didn’t charge him for.
Monday, 18:31
Me: Attachment: 1 image
Attachment: 2 images
Attachment: 1 image
Attachment: 5 images
Me: if SIGVE can’t get to the slopes
i’ll bring the slopes to sigve
STELLAR conditions this year
Sigve: That does look good. Enjoy it for me
Me: i will
Tuesday, 00.32
Me: i’ll do you one better - enjoy it with me one day? even if youve not got the time for a run, grab a drink with me?
id like to get to know you better
you know. just something casual. no pressure if you don’t want to
Yesterday, 18.23
Me: but don’t worry if you’re busy.
Today, 23.55
Sigve: Søren, sorry, long couple of days
A drink would be nice.
I’ll get back to you on that ASAP
Me: YAY!!!! Siiiiigve I CANT WAIT 😘🤩🥳🙌🥂🍷🥃🍸🍻🎉🎊👯♂️
Between his WhatsApp messages going unread and a Sigve-shaped absence in the coffee shop, Søren starts to wonder, after a few days, whether he’s returned to whichever financial hub he came from (he’s thinking Zürich. His senses are telling him Zūrich, or maybe London. Because that’s where all fancy accountants must work, right?) and is done for the season. He even catches Feli and Riikka shooting him pitying glances when they think he can’t see them, and Brigitta is almost nice with him by the fourth day of no-show.
Damn. He hadn’t realised how obvious his little infatuation is becoming.
But the message comes in late on a Thursday evening, almost Friday, and Søren reads it aloud—well, more like shouts it—to Feliciano as they’re throwing back shots in a bar. Feli screams and hugs him and it’s all much too much celebration for a vague text about a drink and his reply is certainly not going to look so slick in the morning, but the vodka and the adrenaline and the tequila and the excitement all mingle in his system and it feels like a celebration.
And Sigve’s there, the next morning. He’s there—and it’s only been a few days, but Søren has missed those unruly curls—and the anxiety that has been threatening to eat Søren alive begins to dissipate.
There’s something off, though. Søren can’t place it at first, because Sigve has, each and every time he’s come into the coffee shop, looked a little worse for wear, but this seems… different from his usual air of weary disdain. His signature haughty stalk is more of an exhausted shuffle. Each movement seems to take an enormous amount of energy. In fact, he doesn’t look too dissimilar to how Søren feels, but Søren was drinking an unholy mix of wine, beer, and spirits until three in the morning, and Sigve—especially in his current state—doesn't quite seem like the partying type.
Alarm bells start ringing in Søren’s head.
“Espresso?” he offers tentatively, with no intention of charging him for it, well-paid (if ambiguous) finance job or not. To his surprise (and, honestly, further worry), though, Sigve goes a shade paler still and shakes his head.
“No. No caffeine, thanks, I think—I’m not sure it's really helping the whole work-stress thing. Just a—I don't know. A San Pellegrino, please.”
Søren puts it through and Sigve slinks back to his regular little table, opens just one laptop, and simply sits there staring at it. Søren makes sure that Feli is free enough to save Brigitta from having to speak to anyone should the occasion arise, and then grabs Sigve’s water and a glass and slides into the seat next to him.
Sigve nods in thanks and wordlessly takes a sip straight from the bottle, gaze still not really focused on his laptop. His hands are shaking.
“Everything alright?” he asks gently. Sigve barely even seems to realise that he's there.
“Fine,” he says. “Just fine.”
“Respectfully, I don't think you are, Sigve, I—”
“I'm fine,” Sigve snaps. “And respectfully, even if I wasn't, I wouldn't be telling some— flirtatious barista about it.”
“Okay, well, first of all, if flirtatious barista is the best insult you can manage, something is really up.”
Sigve shakes his head. “Look, it's a work thing. You wouldn't understand.”
“Probably not, but—”
“I need to go,” he announces abruptly as the laptop and phone start simultaneously pinging at him. He snaps the laptop shut and stands up, his eyes unfocused and his face turning a pale shade of grey with the sudden movement.
Søren shoots out of his seat to help him, and in that second, he’s almost certain he knows what’s happening; he hopes desperately, however, that he’s mistaken.
Sigve crumples in Søren’s arms. “Someone, fucking anyone,” he yells in the direction of Brigitta, “call a medic, now.”
Gently, he lowers Sigve to the floor, pressing two fingers to his neck; at the very fucking least he has a pulse, for now, but it’s erratic, fluttering beneath his fingertips, and Søren wants to fucking scream. Years of studying, and he didn’t notice that Sigve was unwell? What kind of a fucking doctor is he meant to be? From his pale, drawn appearance to the fact that he’s not fucking skiing in a ski resort, it’s been pretty fucking clear the whole time Sigve isn’t at all well. And for all the attention he's been giving him, Søren has somehow fucking missed that—hell, by the looks of things, he’s been adding to it with each espresso served.
Someone tells him an ambulance is on its way. Someone else has found Sigve’s wallet; there’s a patient alert card in there, and they yell out a desperately condensed version of Sigve Valtersen's (male, twenty-nine, Norwegian-born) medical history.
Søren’s own heart sinks; he isn't equipped to deal with this here. Sigve isn't waking, his pulse isn't stabilising; like this, he can't last much longer. Søren starts CPR; he feels Sigve’s ribs crack and has to bite back a frustrated scream, hoping desperately that he can hang on.