hold it right there [petra, axel, henrik]

Elias sat alone at a local cafe that he frequented, Moss, which provided a good coffee/teahouse atmosphere without all the hipsters. (Or maybe he just happened to be the 'type' of hipster that came here, but he didn't think so.) He sipped on an Adhbharicano, a dark brewed espresso with added hot water, at a table that seated four as he waited for his dad & co. to arrive.

Elias had suggested Moss as the meeting spot after surprisingly agreeing to join his dad and meet his friend and friend's kid. Part of him wanted to survey the damage since it was obvious that something sexual or romantic was happening between his dad and this woman (he had said in the phone call that his friend "was...erm...a woman," which had made both of them unbelievably uncomfortable), but the other part of him actually almost wanted to see his dad. He had been spending some time with his cousin Senna since the beginning of the school year and she was obviously getting into his head, or else he wouldn't be experiencing a desire to be around him.

Elias doodled in a pocket-sized black notebook as he waited. He'd intentionally arrived early so that he could spend some time away from his asshole of a roommate, and also to avoid the awkward exchange of his father offering to buy him a coffee. Any time his dad offered to do something for him, it felt forced as a way to make up for what happened to his mom. Elias couldn't stand it.

And realistically, he also needed this time to prepare himself for the emotional trainwreck that his father was bound to be. Senna suggested to him a couple days ago that his dad acted this way because of the way that Elias treated him, but he was the adult here, wasn't he? Shouldn't he be the bigger clio and get ahold of his damn emotions?

Rhiannon had suggested in that moment that perhaps Elias played a part in all of this too, and that it wasn't all his dad's fault. Rhiannon was ignored, as usual, just as she was now when she brought it back up.

Maybe try being, I don't know, cordial with your dad, she suggested from the bed she'd made under Elias' chair.

Whatever, Elias thought, possibly almost considering not being awful.

----

"There it is, the Moss!" Henri said with a smile. You'd think after every awful thing he'd been through, he wouldn't feel this nervous about anything, but wow was he nervous to see Elias. He still couldn't believe he'd even agreed to this whole arrangement.

He led the way into the cafe, immediately seeing Elias at a table with Rhiannon under his chair. And Elias was drawing!

"You still like some things, I see," Henri said with a chuckle. Elias looked up, a bit surprised and maybe embarrassed? And then back to his normal scorning self as he rolled his eyes and tucked his notebook in the pocket of his black jacket without saying anything.

"Well, this is Petra, the friend I told you about, and this is her son, Axel." Henri motioned to each clio as he introduced them. "Axel's your age. He used to go to Redfern, too."

Elias...didn't say anything.

It had been a minute since Axel had come to this part of Martha's Vineyard. Though he and his mom visited Aunt Pia as often as they could afford to, they usually went straight to her house. They also didn't usually come while school was in session, so there weren't usually all these students Axel's age and younger around. During off-school times, it was mostly just rich townies.

Though school definitely hadn't been Axel's thing, looking around, he was kinda bummed that he had missed out on the social aspect. Sure, he had some friends from work that he took smoke breaks with and occasionally went out with after, but looking around it seemed like it would be so easy to make friends here. (Although trying to make friends here was what had gotten him kicked out in the first place.)

Axel had surprisingly enjoyed talking to his mom's "friend" Henri the whole way here. Unlike literally every other guy she had brought around, he was actually really nice and friendly. Axel couldn't for the life of him picture this guy as part of the organization his parents had been in, but, well. He wasn't gonna complain about that.

Once they got to Moss, Axel could practically feel the tension appear in the air. He could tell Henri was trying to hide some nerves as they approached who could only be his son, Elias. Elias looked equally uncomfortable and didn't even say anything when his dad introduced them, and Axel's mom was already looking annoyed at the whole thing. Well fuck, this was awkward now. Axel wondered if he could maybe help diffuse some of the tension by being the only goddamned normal clio here. "Hey," he said, casually taking the seat next to Elias. "Nice to meet you. Maybe you could show me campus or something later, I haven't been there in like six years."

---

Petra could also sense the shift in the mood as they got to Moss. She couldn't decide if it was incredibly stupid or incredibly sad that Henri was clearly nervous to visit his own son so she settled on feeling a mixture of irritation and pity for him. It was a familiar feeling that she used to get more often around Nils and Henri. Fuck, why had she agreed to this?

When they got to Elias' table, it became clear that the kid was going through some kind of tortured artist phase. She was so fucking glad Axel never went through anything like that. She'd take acting out and petty vandalism any day over the "my life is so dark and tragic" bullshit. The damn kid didn't even say anything to them, just rolled his eyes at his father. If he were her son she would have smacked him upside the head for that, but Henri apparently just let it slide. Whatever.

Her and Henri sat down as Axel took a seat and tried to engage Elias in conversation. He was good at that, salvaging these awkward moments. Petra didn't say 'nice to meet you' to Elias because he hadn't made it nice to meet him, but she did acknowledge him with a nod. "I knew your dad when we were teenagers," she explained, at least attempting to be conversational for Henri's sake. She didn't really know what Henri had told Elias about her, so she left it at that.

Elias looked at Axel somewhat suspiciously as he sat next to him, but he tried his hardest (or at least as hard as he was willing to try) to be civil and give him a chance. Just because he had come here with Elias' dad, that didn't mean he deserved to be treated poorly. He was probably just along for the ride like Elias was.

"Wish I could get out of here for six years," he said with a light laugh and another signature sarcastic Elias eyeroll. "It's nice to meet you too."

He looked to Petra, who seemed almost...cool? Like, badass, even? He wasn't expecting this, and wasn't sure how to react. He just nodded as she did, as a sort of "nice to meet you" gesture with a small smile. He couldn't imagine what his dad was like as a teenager. If he was anything like he was now, he wasn't sure why anyone would want to reconnect with him.

----

Henri's stomach turned as Elias acted rude toward Petra and Axel, something he'd kind of expected but hoped wouldn't happen, but his mood quickly changed as Axel seemingly effortlessly interacted with him with a positive result. Something about Elias seemed a little bit different, even if it wasn't necessarily toward Henri -- he was happy to see any sort of positive result.

Soon after sitting down, Henri stood back up. "Can I get anyone a drink? Coffee or tea, anything?" Elias glanced from his drink to his dad, which Henri understood as a solid 'no.' Henri looked hopefully to Petra and Axel, hoping he could grab something for them.

Elias just looked at Axel for a second, but then he actually laughed a little and replied to him. The uncomfortable tension dissipated, thankfully. "Ha ha, well break enough rules and they'll kick you out, too," he said, also laughing.

---

Well, he took his fucking time to do it, but Elias finally acknowledged that clio were talking to him and even managed to smile and nod at Petra. She was still unimpressed, but glad that he wasn't still being a little asshole. Axel was revealing his proud history of being expelled from school to Elias, and the two actually seemed like they might get along.

She looked over when Henri stood up. Oh, you're not leaving me alone with these two, she thought. "I'll come with you," she said, standing up too. "Axel, what do you want?"

"I'unno, just a coffee with sugar I guess," Axel replied.

So Henri and Petra went to go wait in line at the counter to order. "Well your son's a delight," she said once they were out of earshot.

Henri sighed, looking up at the menu board with all of the various types of complex coffees and teas. He didn't understand all these new types of drinks.

He looked over at Petra with a slight frown. "Yeah, he..." Henri looked back over at Elias, trying not to be inconsiderate toward his son. "...he doesn't exactly like me," he said. He bit his lip nervously, looking back to the overwhelming menu above him. "But it seems like he might be getting along with Axel, which is good."

When the barista was ready for them to order, he motioned for Petra to order for her and Axel first before stepping forward and ordering a black coffee for himself. The barista asked him what brew he preferred, and he didn't really understand the question.

"Light, medium, or dark brew?" the barista asked.

"I...don't know," he said with a chuckle. "Whatever has the most caffeine, I guess."

----

Elias watched his dad and Petra get up to go get some drinks, and immediately his tension seemed to go away. His dad was just the worst.

"Fortunately I've been pretty under the radar," Elias said in response to Axel's (probably?) sarcastic suggestion. "I just got here a couple years ago, so I might as well graduate," he said. "Otherwise this all seems like a waste. And if I got kicked out, I'd probably have to move in with him again on Nadar, which I do not want to do." He laughed in that sort of way that angsty kids do when talking about their annoying parents.

"Do you live with your mom now?" he asked bluntly.

"You shouldn't worry about it," Petra said as they went over to the other little counter where their drinks would be dropped off. She put her hand on Henri's shoulder and rubbed it a little, not trying to be flirtatious, she genuinely wanted him to loosen up a little. He was the one who had wanted to have fun on this trip. "Kids are just assholes. Sometimes they just need a good smack." She figured part of the reason Elias was such a dick to Henri was that Henri just stood their and took it.

----

"Really?" Axel asked, glancing over at their parents. His mom looked like she was getting pretty close with her 'old friend.' "He seems pretty nice to me. And yeah, I live with her in Ughdarras." He helped pay the bills, which let them live in a nicer place than when they had first moved there when he was a kid.

Elias looked over at his dad and Petra when Axel did, which happened to be right as Petra touched his dad's shoulder...intimately. Gross. He looked back to Axel, who was complimenting his dad. "He's only nice because he couldn't save my mom," he said bluntly. After the words came out, he realized how uncomfortable that might make Axel -- he was just so used to talking openly about it with Finley, and now Senna.

"Sorry," he said quietly, looking down at his drink. He wanted to quickly move on from this. "I've never been to Ughdarras," he said, looking back up to Axel. "Do you like it there?"

----

Henri nodded as Petra gave him a nice little pep talk. "I've definitely thought of that, heh." He smiled at her, glad she was there and that they had decided to do this together. "Thank you." He wanted to lean in and kiss her, but not only was this definitely not the time since both of their kids were sitting nearby and obviously glancing over at them, their drinks also happened to arrive right then.

He picked up his drink and looked over at Axel and Elias, who seemed to be conversing with each other. That was a good sign.

Axel stared at Elias. His response was so out-of-left-field and blunt that Axel almost started laughing just out of pure wtf-ness. It wasn't that he found the response funny in any way, it was just one of the ways Axel reacted to uncomfortable or shocking moments. Elias himself seemed to realize that what he'd just said was a little bit much, because he immediately apologized and changed the subject.

A part of Axel actually wanted to press and ask what Elias had meant, but Elias was clearly embarrassed and their parents were returning just now anyways. "Uhm, yeah. Yeah, I like it there. I've never been to Nadar." He'd ask Elias if he had liked it in Nadar, but he got the impression that Elias didn't like anything.

---

Petra looked up at Henri and it almost seemed like they were having a moment or something, just as their drinks arrived. She hoped at some point during this trip they'd have a chance to hang out without the annoying brats around. "Don't mention it," she said as they returned to the table with their coffees.

They got there in time to hear the tail-end of a conversation about Nadar or something. Ugh, fucking Nadar. "Here," she said shortly to Axel, putting his drink in front of him.

As Henri and Petra walked over, Elias' conversation seemed to end abruptly (even though the conversation was actually coming to an end regardless), which Henri interpreted as an unwillingness to have a good time as a way of rebelling against him.

Smack him, Rian jokingly suggested, settling under Henri's chair much like Elias' daemon.

You know I won't, Henri replied, but I'm not going to let him do this the entire trip.

"Why don't you boys go explore the island?" he suggested, looking directly at Elias with a sort of 'you better do this' look, something he wasn't used to doing. Elias looked right back at him, a bit of his attitude showing, but didn't say anything in rebuttal -- he was mostly just surprised that his dad had almost been stern with him.

"Yeah, okay," Elias said shortly. Axel seemed alright, and that meant that he didn't have to deal with this awkward interaction with his dad and this woman. His pride stung a bit from doing something that his dad wanted him to do, but he wasn't about to fight to stay with him.

Axel almost made a joke about how coming here was supposed to be about ~family time~ just to annoy his mom, but decided not to. He didn't mind the idea of exploring the island with Elias, and it seemed like the fact that Elias had agreed so quickly had surprised everyone.

Elias was prickly, but Axel thought he could probably continue to get along with him. He could get along with almost anyone. "You should show me where all the cool kids hang out," he said jokingly to Elias instead, as the two of them grabbed their drinks and got up from the table. To his mom and Henri, "Don't stay out too late, you crazy kids."

---

Petra probably would have flipped her son off if they weren't in such a public place, but she let his stupid joke slide as he and Elias headed out to go do whatever it was teenagers did for fun. She was glad that Henri had gotten rid of them for the time being so that they could have some alone time.

They stayed at the cafe a little while longer, talking about the things they should do while they were here, and then eventually headed out to go do some of those things.