by Alex Gabriel
~~~~~
“So,” Nick said. He was standing exactly where he’d been standing the very first time Pat had clapped eyes on him. He was wearing the exact same type of clothes, too: a faded pair of jeans and a rumpled t-shirt with grease stains on the front, right where an absent mad scientist would wipe his hands mid-inventing. At least the t-shirt wasn’t Ghost Matter merchandise this time.
He was staring at Pat just like then, too, as though trying to bore straight through his skull and into his brain, right to his innermost thoughts.
Nothing was the same.
Nick was still just as hot, of course, with the long legs, trim hips, and perfectly muscled chest and shoulders. Just as handsome, too, with the near-black eyes that stared too-intensely at Pat, the model-perfect cheekbones, the perfectly swung mouth (so surprisingly soft against Pat’s) and the strong-but-elegant jawline. Way more attractive, though, now that Pat knew the person inside the body.
“Hey,” Pat said, awkwardly. He doubted Nick was wondering what he thought about astronauts and cavemen, which was a shame, because that question had been easy to answer. He was a lot less confident about anything Nick might want to ask him now.
The moment stretched painfully, and Pat had no idea what to do. The awkwardness of the situation was compounded by how silly he felt, standing there holding his cake. He didn’t really know how to pull it off most naturally. Should he lift the cake up a bit so it wasn’t right in front of his crotch? Balance it casually on one hand? Put it down somewhere to casually brush back his hair and cross his arms?
“So you’re not evil, huh?”
Surprise and relief made Pat snort out a bark of laughter. Really? That was the dumbest conversation starter yet, and that was really saying something. “Duh times a thousand, dude. I can see why everyone’s always going on about how brilliant you are. What clued you in, genius?”
Nick shrugged, stepping a bit closer. “All of you.” He sounded calm and matter-of-fact; the flick of the hand that accompanied the words indicated Pat as a whole, from head to toe.
Was that a compliment or an insult? Pat couldn’t decide; either seemed equally probable.
“You’re such a freak, man,” he muttered, because it had to be said. Simple truth, after all.
“You care about buildings.” Nick was now right in front of him, so close that if Pat had reached out, he could have touched him. He wouldn’t (couldn’t) reach out, of course, but…
From this close, Nick looked tired and pale, the dark stubble starting to come in on his cheeks contrasting too much with his skin. He always worked too late and didn’t get enough sleep, the stupid fuck. Or maybe he’d been spending his nights hanging out with handsome, well-hung model clones.
It wasn’t a surprise that the thought rankled. It was a surprise that it rankled quite this much.
“Yeah,” Pat said, half a beat too late. “That’s why I’m studying urban design.” Of course, if that had been all there was to it, he’d have studied architecture, or learned how to restore old buildings or something. And he liked that Nick had asked, that he wanted to know more, so he only paused briefly to collect his thoughts before going on. “A city is more than the sum of its buildings and infrastructure and all that, but, yeah. It’s made up of those things all the same. There’s so much beauty and history and meaning wrapped up in places like the Nymph. And so much of it gets destroyed in fights between challengers and hoa— heroes. I can’t stop anyone from blowing shit up or crashing into stuff and reducing it to rubble. So I want to make sure it’s restored in a way that doesn’t make us all poorer for the lack of what was there before, you know? As much as possible, at least. And it’s not just about preserving and restoring stuff, either. Some things can be improved, too. In the end, it all comes down to quality of life. I mean, cities should be places to live well and be happy in.”
“That’s what I want too,” Nick said, quietly. He was so close now that Pat could hear the low earnest rumble of Nick’s voice in his throat, watch his chest lift with the breath he took to speak on. “I want everyone to be able to live well and in peace, not… mind-controlled by an artifact some villain dug out, or marching in the army of a crazy overlord, or —”
“That’s not what — look, you don’t get it.” Fuck it, this was going to be a discussion of principles and ideals and other such shit, wasn’t it. That was bound to blow up spectacularly in Pat’s face no matter what. And marching in the army of an overlord, was Nick serious? The last challenger who’d thought it would be a good idea to raise an actual army had been taken out by Jaguar and Dark Star before the hoagies even knew he existed. Some things were just not okay. “Sir Toby’s Mind Control Ray is only going to stop people from closing their minds. Help him get a foot in the door. And please, like the current mayor got elected all proper and above-board? She bribed and blackmailed so many people it’s a joke. Sir Toby will do much better, you’ll see.”
Nick hadn’t interrupted him, but it looked like it had been a close thing; his face had grown more thunderous with every word Pat spoke. It was clear it would take a Mind Control Ray to make him see reason. “Is that why you’re his minion? You believe people will be happier with him in charge?”
“No,” Pat said as casually as he could, and added a shrug for good measure. “Actually, it’s a family thing. You know.”
Improbably, Nick’s stare went up another degree in terms of intensity. That hadn’t even seemed possible. “A family thing?”
Pat so did not want to have this discussion right now. Or ever, really. “It really isn’t that big of a deal.”
“Not that big a —”
“Are you going to keep repeating everything I say? Cause I gotta tell you, bro, that’s gonna make for a pretty boring conversation.”
Nick tried to set him on fire with the power of his mind, as per usual, even going one further to scan Pat’s entire body with his searing gaze. It looked for all the world like he was doing the airport thing, scanning the suspect’s clothes for potential threats or something. Pat rolled his eyes at him demonstratively. Hey, Pat wasn’t the one who’d started this line of discussion.
It took Pat way too long to realize Nick was staring at his hands with actual intent, rather than just his normal creepy focus. Oh, right, the cake. Pat had almost forgotten he was holding it.
“What,” said Nick in his darkest, most foreboding tone of voice, “Is that?”
“It’s double chocolate. A cake. I baked it. It’s — you can have it, if… you know. If you want.” He guessed it did look a little odd if you didn’t know what it was. He’d arranged it on a foil-wrapped piece of cardboard (he didn’t have a cake plate) and covered it in another layer of foil for the journey, and liked to think it resembled a space shuttle.
Pat had baked the cake for Bart in security; a thank you for all the muffins Bart had shared with him, and also just because. But he would totally have baked a cake for Nick, if he’d thought he’d see Nick today… and if he’d thought Nick would like to have a cake Pat had baked.
Just, Nick deserved nice things. Pat had a feeling the man hadn’t had nearly enough nice things in his life, which was wrong in so many ways. Ideally, of course, his nice things would have been way nicer than Pat’s cake (he wasn’t exactly going to put the mansion’s pastry chef out of business). But that was life for you, right? Sometimes, all you had on hand to show your affection was lopsided double chocolate cake.
“It’s for you,” Pat said more firmly, and balanced the cake on one hand to peel back the foil cover. The improvised plate threatened to buckle, but Pat got his other hand back under it in time, lifting his now-revealed masterpiece enticingly towards Nick.
“You baked a cake,” Nick said blankly. He sounded as though he hadn’t understood the meaning of the words he was repeating any more than he would have if Pat had been speaking in Sanskrit.
Nick’s champagne zabaglione was served with elegant scribbles of scarlet fruit puree, chocolate biscuits like el
aborate ladies’ hats arranged on the side. His pralines might as well have been on display in some jeweler’s window. The petits fours in his stasis fresher were like tiny works of art, the fruit tartlets like the ethereal towers of an alien city, wreathed in caramel nets and dustings of exotic spices.
Pat’s cake was a ragged brown log that he’d had to scrape a bit to remove the burnt bits. It was also somewhat lopsided, because Pat’s oven got hotter on one side than the other. (Cat had suggested turning the cake mid-bake, but Pat had forgotten. Whatever, he’d simply decided the diagonal thing was a feature, not a bug. Not everyone could manage a cake like that.)
“Yep, I sure did.” He tried a tentative grin. This recipe had gotten five stars on Sir Toby’s favorite baking site. It was bound to be good, right? “You want to try it? You have a knife, right?”
They were in the middle of his freaking lab, of course he had a knife. But Nick made no move to get one, preferring to stare at the cake as though it were a baffling and utterly inexplicable foreign object he’d suddenly found himself confronted with.
Pat sighed in exasperation. “Dude. It’s double chocolate. You love chocolate, don’t front. I’ve seen your dessert preference manual. Get a knife already.”
With an impatient shake of the head, Nick woke from his fugue and stepped to the nearest work bench to rummage through a tool drawer. He found a laser cutter and a flat, slightly concave object that looked suspiciously like a piece of armor; when Pat had set the cake down on the bench, Nick sliced a paper-thin sliver from the taller end, toppling it onto the armor piece without touching it.
“Why did you quit?” he asked abruptly, with no lead-in whatsoever. He wasn’t looking at Pat; was instead watching the slice of cake as though it might explode in his hand any second.
Anyone else wouldn’t have had to ask. But Pat was glad that Nick had — there’d been enough misunderstandings between them. “It just wouldn’t have felt right anymore. I used to like being night manager a lot, you know? There’s plenty of stuff to do, but there’s usually also enough downtime to study and whatever. But now I’d just be feeling anxious and guilty all the time. And whenever you ordered something I’d tie myself up in knots wondering if you were thinking of me and — and just, you know. That’s not healthy.” Whoa, close save there. Pat had almost started babbling again, and he’d done enough of that with Nick recently, thanks. “I don’t even know why you didn’t fire me right away when you found out about Padraig. Or rather, when you found out about Patrick. The real me. Not that I wasn’t ever not the real me, just. You know.”
Nick had transferred his attention to Pat again, but made no reply beyond a curt nod.
“And speaking of,” Pat said, when it became apparent that Nick wasn’t going to speak. “I hope you can still enjoy pizza the way you used to. Just try not to overthink everything the way you always do, okay? I’m sorry I —”
“I’m not sorry.” Nick didn’t miss a beat; didn’t pause for a second to ponder the right words, the way he often did. “It’s always better to know the truth, Patrick. Always, even if it hurts. No… especially then. Especially when the lie is pretty and easy and comfortable.”
Pat wasn’t so sure about that, even if it wasn’t something he was prepared to argue about with Nick. But really, what was wrong with a pretty lie, if it made things easier and didn’t hurt anyone? You just had to make sure it didn’t get out, ever, so that it kept on not hurting anyone right to the end.
“Okay,” he muttered at last, nonsensically. “Guess I’ll be going then. You, uhm. I hope you enjoy the cake. Take care of yourself, okay?”
“You too,” Nick said, trying his best to incinerate Pat’s eyeballs.
Pat’s eyes burned and teared all the way through the elevator ride to the ground floor. Clearly, Nick was getting better at the whole pyrokinetic thing.
Chapter Twelve
Better to rule the world than to serve coffee.
Pat got a job working the graveyard shift at Happy Beans, a 24-hour coffee place down the block from his place. The pay was bad, and the coffee was worse, but it was the best he could do on short notice. On the plus side, he did get a couple of hours to study each night; only a small handful of caffeine addicts dropped in for Happy Beans’ swill between 2 and 4 o’clock in the morning, and the guy Pat shared the shift with (Marcel, or Malvolio, or something) never talked to him, preferring to clean furiously in every customer-free minute.
There was definitely a serving heart involved there. Nobody scrubbed the floor with such passion merely because it was on the list of night shift duties. Especially since the one time Pat tried to help, Marbinian (whatever) nearly had a conniption and insisted he be the only one on cleaning duty from now until the universe collapsed into a ball of super-compressed dark matter, thanks.
So, really. Life wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty good, when you thought about it. After all, Pat regularly got free cupcakes and chicken curry wraps in the morning, because Happy Beans couldn’t afford fancy stasis display cases and just swapped out the unsold perishables for fresh ones every day. Pretty neat, right?
Life got even less bad after week two, when Maldonado decided he could no longer cope with Pat’s existence and transfered to a Happy Beans halfway across town. Pat promptly recruited Cat to join the poorly paid ranks of coffee slaves. She was naturally nocturnal, and she had time to kill right now, like all of Sir Toby’s full-time minions. (Their dread master was busy securing an alternate power source, since Butterfly had managed to play the Crystal of Power right into the Corny Corps’s hands. Honestly, though, Pat couldn’t be sorry he was no longer sharing a scheme with that thing. Crystals shouldn’t be trying to take over people’s heads, no matter how eldritch. That was just creepy.)
Anyhow, with Cat around, night shift at Happy Beans was pretty awesome. Pat did have to do his share of the cleaning, but the trade-off was that he and Cat got to swap anecdotes about Serpentissima and Jaguar, discuss the latest Were Lovers book and how much the hero fell short of the standards Rock Nighthawk had set, plan out Cat’s future career as Catalina the Great, and do all manner of other cool stuff, including lots of giggling.
Around this time, winter finally stopped dicking around and committed. It got horribly cold, and Pat had plenty of occasion to be glad of his toasty, expensive new coat. He also studied hard, started an awesome new paper (on socio-spatial transformations in the historical riverside quarter) that sucked up a lot of his time and brain space, trained a lot, and competed in several swim meets, where he clocked in respectable times and even placed third, once. Life was fairly okay.
And then life got way better, because Nick started coming in for coffee.
The first time, Pat was so startled he burned himself on the coffee machine, which hadn’t happened since his second day on the job. Nick ignored his pained curses, took the coffee, and found a table in the corner to drink it, attention entirely fixated on his datapad. He didn’t look at Pat once, and when he left, he slipped out with no fanfare, just as though he’d honestly come in for the Happy Beans’ sub-par coffee.
He only drank a fancy hand-roasted special blend that Pat had never been allowed to touch. The AI brewed it directly in the lab, no doubt according to a complex and entirely symmetrical coffee algorithm.
Nick dropped by again two nights later, and then the night after that, always between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning. The exact time he should have been ensconced in his lab, calling down to the kitchens for something to eat.
Next time he came in, Pat added a squirt of caramel syrup and plenty of foamed milk to Nick’s cup. He’d ordered the macho black version, but Pat knew what that shit tasted like, and he wasn’t a sadist — watching people suffer didn’t do anything for him.
“This isn’t right,” Nick said, when he made to pick up his cup. “I didn’t order this.”
“No, but you’ll like this much better,” Pat said firmly, and then added, “Are you stalking me?”
“Yes
,” Nick said, bland as anything. Then, he calmly picked up his caramel latte and took it off to his usual corner.
“Oh,” Pat said to the counter.
When he turned aimlessly to mop at a non-existent coffee spill, Cat was watching him narrowly.
“You make bad coffee,” Nick said the next night. It wasn’t a complaint, though; it was clear he was merely stating a generally known fact in order to make conversation, the way other people would say things like “it’s freezing out there” or “the forecast says there’ll be more snow”.
Pat smiled, aiming for pleasant insincerity. “Maybe you’re just spoiled.”
He got an unimpressed eyebrow and a several-second stare. “Considering that your prices are considerably above the market average, I should be being spoiled here.”
Hard to argue with that, so Pat simply shrugged and reached to take back the cup he’d plonked down on the counter. “Fine, give it back, then. We’ll be sure to have some free-range kopi luwak waiting for you next time you come in.”
In a move so fast and smooth Pat could hardly follow it with his eyes, Nick swept up the cup, whisking it out of reach. “That won’t be necessary.”
Pat had no idea whether Nick had taken the joking offer of kopi luwak seriously. It was exactly the sort of thing that AHM Suze and her merry band would do, after all.
The next night, Pat brought some of the cookies Bart had pressed on him the last time Pat had dropped by the mansion’s security checkpoint after work to catch up (Bart’s wife had really liked Pat’s cake, and would like to borrow Pat’s copy of Lord Hawk’s Elven Folly).
When Nick came in at exactly 2 o’clock, Pat fixed him a large cup of cocoa and slid one of the cookies on the saucer. Nick left a ridiculous tip next to his empty mug that night.
“That guy’s trying to flirt with you, you know,” Cat told him.
“Really?” Pat tried not to sound too eager and/or hopeful, but he could tell he was doing a crap job. The thing was, his flirting instincts had never been worth a damn, and when he assumed things, he generally ended up with someone’s drink in his face. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to risk, with Happy Beans coffee involved. “You really think so?”
