Chapter Text
Maddy had expected the diner to be shitty. The sun-bleached paint on the walls, most likely filled with lead, and the cracked faux leather of the booths weren’t promising, to say the least.
She knew from the moment she stepped foot in this town that she would have to grow used to things like that. Stranded, the area was only approached by outsiders when oil companies poked about the barren lands around it, only to leave disappointed. She knew to drop the idea of luxuries cities offered as soon as she passed the welcome sign on her way in.
So, restaurants that hadn’t seen a change in menus since Westeros was a monarchy, she had expected.
A cute employee that looked straight out of an indie shoegaze band burning her sandwich and flirting with her, that was certainly a surprise. A welcome one or not, it was hard for her to say.
Sure, the butterflies she’d felt in the moment were undeniable and warm. It was the kind of interaction that would make someone smile to themselves like an idiot hours later, only to realize they’d been staring creepily at a stranger on the bus while replaying it in their head.
But she was embarrassed that night when she laid in bed, after rewinding the scene in her head for the fifth time. She berated herself for idealizing this random man, arguing that she wouldn’t have batted an eye to him were she still in Gulltown. It was the lack of people her age in this town that made her feel this way towards him. Kind of like coworker hot. Pull yourself together, girl, she said before turning on some white noise on her phone and going to sleep.
Daeron dreamt of her that night. It wasn’t unusual, given that she was the only interesting thing that had happened to him that day. He was surprised by how easily he’d fallen asleep given that he’d run out of melatonin a few weeks ago. Another thing on his drugstore shopping list, if only he’d remember to stop by.
He didn’t know if she had been as beautiful in real life as she was in his dream. He didn’t think it was possible. She was pretty in a way you can only be in an illusion. The shifting light around her, her hair flowing and changing with the sun, smiling up at it with her eyes closed.
Once her gaze landed on him, he realized he didn’t remember the color of her eyes. They were blue one second, it looked right, and brown the next, which made even more sense, then hazel, by which point dream him could not focus on anything else but the light that reflected in them. All of the colors crowded his field of vision, swallowing him whole.
He could swear he felt her touch when the light recast back into her shape, this time in a different scene. Weirdly enough, it was at his old apartment back in King’s Landing. He tried not to dwell on that fact too much, knowing it was just what his subconscious was used to. The sight of her sitting on his kitchen counter made him forget every bad memory that space carried, as well as all the girls that had sat there in actuality.
She touched his arm when he approached her, triggering his phone alarm apparently.
It wasn’t even the annoying sound of Hotel Highgarden by The Hawks, which he would consider one of the best songs of all time on any other occasion, that woke him up. It was his annoyance at its attempt. He quickly swiped the alarm away, turning over to try and fall back asleep.
He buried his face in his pillow and groaned, bordering on a scream, when the dream slipped away from him. Rolling to the edge of the bed, he reached for the sketchbook on the floor. He had always had weird dreams, resulting to using them for inspiration as a way to cope. He’d sketch what he remembered before he forgot it, and would maybe paint it later.
He scribbled a few lines on the paper, before shame caught up to him and he dropped the pen in a, What are you doing, motion.
When he peeled out of bed to go to the bathroom, his reflection in the cracked mirror was judging him. He tried to wash the feeling away with cold water. He’s not responsible for whatever his subconsciousness chose to cook up.
It was 7:16. He had to leave for work in fifteen minutes.
A part of him felt like he might run into her on his walk to work. He was being stupid. Let it go, he told himself, but still chose to bring his work shirt and change at Papa’s. He put on a nice outfit, something he might’ve worn to his Advanced Macro class back at uni. He cringed at the look of the collared shirt, feeling every bit like the rich asshole he was. Or used to be. Whatever.
He didn’t run into her.
He arrived at the diner at 7:50. Just early enough for Louie not to tell him off. The old man was crouching in front of the restaurant sign, writing today’s special with chalk.
“Good morning, son! Looking sharp,” he placed a chalky hand on Daeron’s shoulder, leaving a white handprint on the sage shirt.
“Morning, sir. Thank you,” the employee replied through gritted teeth.
“You paint, Darren, if I remember correctly,” Louie asked, obviously not as small talk, making Daeron hesitant.
“Yes?”
“Great! I was thinking,” he started, motioning towards the glass facade of the restaurant, “We could freshen this up a bit. Maybe you can draw something on the glass. Nice big mural. I got some paints in the back. It’d get more people to sit outside, don’t you think?”
Daeron wanted to scoff at the notion of someone wanting to eat next to the road, imagining the smell of exhaust gas on the sandwiches. He nodded instead, kind of excited at the notion of not having to stand behind the counter his entire shift.
“Yeah, great idea, sir,” he sucked up, “I’m down to do it.”
“Great!” Louie exclaimed, patting his shoulder once. “You can stay after your shift for as long as you need to finish it,” he said as he walked inside. Fuck me, Daeron thought.
He changed into the uniform, wiping at the chalk on his nice shirt, all while grumbling at the unpaid labor he was tricked into doing. Maybe he’d get the employee of the month this way. It wouldn’t be hard, given there were only two other ones. He’d have to endure them later today.
When he started working at Papa’s, he thought that Rudy and Scarlett would become his closest friends in this town. The couple were, in his eyes, really cool. Members of a ska-punk band for a decade now, he immediately gravitated towards them with his love for anything alternative.
It got too much for him when they started sharing complaints about how it was impossible to get a show these days, with dornish bands dominating the punk scene. Or “robbing regular bands”, as they had called it. Combined with not wanting to be in the middle of their many heated arguments, it was enough for Daeron to keep his distance.
They seemed to not be talking to one another today, which he hoped would ease him from a headache.
With consultation from Louie, they agreed on him painting a simple plate with a sandwich and fries, likely to avoid accusations of false advertisement.
“And change out of the uniform. I don’t want any paint stains on it,” Louie warned when he set the paints down in front of the window. Daeron didn’t want any stains on his nice shirt either, so he turned to painting shirtless, one of his all-time favourite activities.
The design shouldn’t take that long, and he wasn’t keen on giving it his all anyway. An hour and a half at the most.
He played some music while he worked, a playlist of blues rock and jazz. Scarlett had come outside once to tell him to turn that garbage off and put on some real music. He ignored her, causing the couple to turn on what he could only guess was their own music in an attempt to drown his out. That’s when he put in earbuds.
He had only the linework left when he nearly fell from the chair he was standing on, startled at a reflection appearing in the window.
Behind him, the girl from his dream yesterday laughed at his slight jump.
“You good?”
“Yea-yeah, sorry,” he tried concealing a voice crack with a chuckle. “You just startled me.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to see what you were up to,” she explained herself with a smile, turning to look at what he was painting.
Fuck, she can’t think this was his regular level of artistry. He stuttered through his words.
“Oh, this? Pfff, don’t even look at it. Like seriously, don’t. It sucks. Well it doesn’t suck suck. It’s just, you know. Not what I would usually paint. I didn’t choose this, is what I m—”
“You paint?” she interrupted, kind of giddy at the new knowledge of the stranger.
He felt himself blush embarrassingly at the tilt of her head, while she assessed if the hobby fit him.
“Yeah, I do,” he decided to reply with certainty to convey just how serious it was for him.
She eyed him for a moment longer, seeming to have decided her opinion. “You look like a painter.”
He blanked at the paintbrush and jar of old paint in his hand, as if to say duh. She chuckled and corrected herself.
“I mean, you look like the artsy type, you know what I mean?”
If only you knew, he wanted to say. “Thank you,” he replied, sounding way too grateful and earnest. When he didn’t say anything else, which he would attribute to the sun hitting the back of his head for an hour straight, she just nodded in an Alright motion, and reached for the door handle.
“I can show you some of my paintings, if you’d like,” he panicked, ”Some time.”
She smiled slowly at that, shrugging, “Sure.” It seemed like lip service to him. Like she was just saying that to be nice. He thought about how he should dig himself out of that proposal while she was getting her food inside. He adjusted his pants, suddenly very aware of his love handles peeking out.
Maddy, meanwhile, stumbled through her order, her thoughts rerunning the conversation in her head. He was not just shirtless, she screamed to herself internally like a teenage girl. Was that a date proposal? Or was he just an arrogant artist? Gods, she felt like such a loser. Surely flirting wasn’t this difficult before. Was he even flirting?
The worker currently at the register was attempting to make small talk with her, eliciting scoffs from the girl making her sandwich. Maddy figured out what was going on fairly quickly, even in her giddy state, and decided to reply as dryly as possible, not wanting to get poisoned today.
“You new around here?,” the guy with the mohawk continued, his eyes evaluating her up and down once, “I can show you ‘round.” The girl behind him just slammed the spatula she was holding down, leaving through the back door without a word. He raised his hands in annoyance, turning to her with a look that said, women, am I right, before picking up where she left off.
Maddy looked around the diner while waiting, her gaze accidentally falling back to the shirtless man at the window. From that distance, it took her a few seconds of ogling him to realise that he had been looking at her too. She instinctively brought up a hand in a little wave. Ewewew why did you just do that.
She saw him returning the wave with a confused smile before she turned back around. Aaahhh.
Once she’d picked up her order, she dreaded having to pass him on her way out. Should she say something? Or just a bye? Yeah that should work.
Daeron saw the girl approach, gathering any handsome arrogance he still had in him, hoping that his brain would come up with something to talk to her about. She got to the door quicker than he had hoped.
Maddy pretended to look for something in her purse on her way out as a defense mechanism. If he wanted to talk to her, it would give him enough time to do so, and she also appeared busy enough not to initiate. Perfect strategy.
“Sorry about burning your sandwich, by the way.” She smiled slightly at that. He cursed himself for that being the best he could do.
“Don’t worry about it. The sandwich was delicious.” The burnt bits were bitter as all hells, but he didn’t need to know that. He probably assumed.
He didn’t know what to say next, trying to think of something clever he could say about sandwiches. She wanted to stir the conversation away from that, still performatively digging through her bag.
“So you paint?”
“Yep.”
“Like what kinds of paintings?”
He chuckled slightly at that. Fuck, she was cute. She brought her arms up defensively.
“Well, I don’t know how to ask that! Like what do you paint? What brings you inspiration, other than cheese pulls and curly fries?”
He laughed louder at that, “What kinds of paintings,” he repeated. “I don’t know? Nice ones.”
She laughed at his joke, throwing her head back at his mocking of her question.
“I’d love to see them,” she gathered the courage to say. He blushed, looking down.
“I don’t have any photos of them.” A lie.
“Shame,” she tilted her head, moving a step further from him when she sensed the conversation dying down.
“You can see them in person, though,” he blurted out when he saw she was leaving, making her turn back around. He immediately retracted his words, “Fuck, sorry, no. That was weird, sorry.”
She smiled again, happy that he wasn’t being a genuine creep. Just an accidental one.
“Sorry, you don’t even know my name. That was creepy of me.”
“What is your name?” she asked in turn, sounding genuinely curious. He melted at the implications.
“I’m Daeron,” he stated, continuing to fill the millisecond of silence with his stuttering, “T—” he stopped himself. “Dayne. Daeron Dayne.”
She grinned up at him, not having caught his falter. “Nice to meet you Daeron Dayne,” her tone mocked the seriousness of him introducing himself with his full name. “I’m Maddy Stone.”
He sighed out, the weight of his lie seemingly heavy on his lungs, “Nice to meet you Maddy Stone.”
She decided to be brave upon sensing that she might be holding some cards.
“Well, Daeron,” she began with a coyness she didn’t know she had, “In the spirit of you not being creepy, how about I give you my number?” Daeron could swear his knees buckled. “And maybe you could send me some of your paintings?” There was an uncertainty in her last words.
He nodded way too quickly for his liking, immediately going to grab his phone from his back pocket as he got down from the chair.
“Yeah, of course.”
He seemed to forget where the phone app was located for a second, clicking on his notepad instead. He chuckled at his mistake when he noticed she saw, before opening the right one and giving her the phone.
He turned his head to the side as she typed her number in, as if he wasn’t supposed to see it. It took her a minute to save her number under ‘burnt sandwich lady’ before texting her number a dot and giving him his phone back. He didn’t even register the name, pocketing the device immediately.
“Thank you. Um… I’m– I’ll text you,” he nodded, confirming his words to himself. “The paintings, I mean.”
“Okay,” she simply said, a shy smile on her face as she turned to leave. She gave him an identical wave to the one before, “See you.”
“See you, yeah,” he repeated mindlessly, barely raising his hand as she walked away.
She turned around once, curiosity working faster than her brain, to find him still looking at her, before she rounded the block. He sighed very loudly, all but falling to the chair next to him.
The quest to find the perfect paintings that night was long and intense. Granted, he had only made six full paintings while living here. Turns out supplies cost money. Who knew.
He flipped through drawings before scolding himself, because she asked for paintings. He picked out the best out of the six, but the sun had gone down and the lighting was shit. He was never more grateful for backing up all the photos from his last phone as he swiped through some of his old work. He left some nice ones behind, he thought as he favourited the best ones.
Then he realised that these were on the internet, having been photographed at an art show he got to have at one of the galleries his grandma sponsored. Fuck, what if she puts them into reverse image search? Back to photographing the six ones he had.
He was setting up a lamp next to one of the paintings when he suddenly stopped, a realisation dawning on him. He face-palmed. Why the fuck would she want me to send her my fucking paintings? Idiot.
He abandoned the setup, focusing on what to text her. He thought about waiting a day or two, but the weekend was coming up, so she probably wouldn’t be stopping by the diner.
daeron from papas
heyy, it’s daeron
Yeah, that was fine.
burnt sandwich lady
hii daeron, whats up?
He paced around the room as he tried to come up with something interesting to say.
daeron from papas
not much
trying to be productive
burnt sandwich lady
is it working?
daeron from papas
not really haha
Why the haha, stupid.
burnt sandwich lady
can’t find painting inspo?
daeron from papas
can’t find inspo for anything
but mainly painting, yeah
burnt sandwich lady
damn, i wish i could help
You could very much help, he thought before slapping himself for it internally.
burnt sandwich lady
if only i knew what kind of paintings you made…
He smiled at that, fingers overlapping as he typed.
daeron from papas
i’d send you, but they just don’t look as good on camera :/
burnt sandwich lady
man that sucks
guess i’ll never know :(
She bit her lip on her end.
burnt sandwich lady
unless that creepy offer’s still up?
Now you sound creepy, she chastised herself. Idiot, why do you text like you’re ovulating 24/7?
Daeron was all but kicking his feet and giggling at the text, having had to sit down once he read it.
daeron from papas
it’s up if you’re down
Great, now you sound like Rudy. He tried to save himself.
daeron from papas
i’d love to hangout with you
you seem really cool
He got nervous when she didn’t start typing immediately when she read it, turning his screen off so he didn’t have to watch. Unbeknownst to him, she was screeching in her pillow. Embarrassing, she thought as she did it.
burnt sandwich lady
thank you <3 that sounds nice
He wanted to jump from excitement, channeling that energy into uncharacteristically punching the air instead.
burnt sandwich lady
i’m free all weekend
daeron from papas
i can do sunday
She liked the message.
daeron from papas
do you wanna meet up somewhere orrr?
burnt sandwich lady
yeah that’s fine
like at the square
and then we can take a walk from there
if that’s okay with you
daeron from papas
yeah sounds perfect :)
burnt sandwich lady
and then if it goes well maybe you can show me some of your paintings
He felt air leave his lungs all at once, scrambling to reply something. He decided to just react to it, being at a loss for words. First he put a thumbs up, before deleting it and reacting with just a heart.
burnt sandwich lady
sunday at 2pm work for you?
daeron from papas
absolutely perfect
He replied way too quickly.
burnt sandwich lady
great, i’ll see you then :)
daeron from papas
see you :)
“Holy fuck,” he threw his phone down, breathing out as if he had just finished a run. He smiled widely, then tried to suppress it, before going back to smiling again. He lifted his phone to check if she’d said anything else. She hadn’t, so he set it down again. He melted back into the sofa, scanning the apartment that needed cleaning before Sunday. Hopefully it wouldn’t be futile.
She breathed out, setting her phone next to her bed and turning to hug her pillow. It was late, she would think about this tomorrow. She smiled.