OMG. THE CAPTION. AAAGHHH I’m so I love with thiiiiiissss

asdlkhjf YES, I am such a sucker for coffeeshop AUs. I’ve seen a couple in the PacRim fandom, but they always NEED MOAR HERC/STACKER. D:

also that pic of Max in the scarf with the little smile will always do Things to me.

(bffs Mako&Raleigh start their own little coffeeshop, the kind that’ll kick you out if you’re rude to the staff and has all these weird names for their stuff like Eureka Espresso and Cherno Cappuccino and Kaiju Blue Biscotti, and they’re doing so well that they need to hire extra staff, which appears in the form of Chuck Hansen, who’s kinda prickly and more than kinda irritating but he needs a job and turns out to be an ace in the kitchen, having learned how to cook/bake from his dad, who raised him mostly on his own—his dad, ex-military Herc Hansen who’s still a little fucked up in the head for all the stuff he did and saw while deployed, and who’s still trying to get it together but keeps feeling like the world is passing him by, that he’s stuck in stasis while everyone moves on around him [and don’t think he hasn’t noticed you getting friendly with your bosses, Chuck ((yeah I OT3 it))], except then Mako’s dad, a newly-retired ex-RAF officer, moves back into town to be with his little girl and possibly side-eye her co-workers, cept he also ends up eyeing Herc, and Herc eyes him back because here’s someone who understands, someone he can talk to without fear of alienating them with stories about the hell of war, and while they slowly warm up to each other they get to witness the epic bromance-turned-romance of Newt, the far too caffeinated college professor, and Hermann, the math professor who always orders tea and two pastries so he can shove one into Newt’s hand to make sure he isn’t drinking coffee on a COMPLETELY empty stomach, and the two of them bicker to high heaven but it’s obvious to pretty much everyone else on the planet that they’re perfect for each other, and they might inspire Herc and Stacker a lil bit to maybe try for an outing that doesn’t involve talking about the past, and they go to dinner and talk about themselves and even about the future, and everything is fluffy and happy and at some point Chuck finds a little floppy bulldog that Raleigh insists isn’t allowed in the shop because it’ll violate health codes except he always slips him bits of savory baked goods and draws him on the daily specials board and pretends he minds when the drooling little guy becomes the unofficial mascot of the shop, but after hours one night Chuck and Mako find him asleep in the back room with Max on his chest and they take pictures and blackmail him for forever afterward, but it’s all cool because it’s all family and happiness and love.

do not ask me how much research I did into coffee for this post. DO NOT.)