Chapter Text
Nasir takes another sip of his lukewarm coffee, cringing at the familiar awful taste, and peers out the window. It has started snowing again in the last hour, and the back alley is slowly getting covered in white. A small black figure scurries over the fresh snow, disappearing behind the dumpsters, and Nasir turns back to the room with a sigh.
He looks around the cramped space, drinking his undrinkable coffee and takes in the chipped plaster on the walls, the grills on the windows, the old linoleum floors, the crooked shelving, the computer that is always a few years older than it should be.
It isn’t quite the life he had dreamed of back in medical school. Back when he had thought he still had everything figured out and his whole life mapped out as carefully as the structure of his dissertation: He would get his degree with honors, become a partner at his father’s practice, buy a Lexus and a house in Brookmont and marry one of those politely smiling girls his well-meaning mother was pushing at him whenever he went back home for Sunday lunch.
“...And that is all for the weather. Now to wrap up the hour, a holiday classic from The Carpenters. This is for all of our listeners out there who are missing a loved one on this spe–”
The radio goes flying from its perch on the shelf and crashes down on the floor, leaving Nasir watching after its demise at the same time both fascinated and a little embarrassed. It has to be said, throwing around appliances is a little extreme, even for him.
In his defense, though, it has been one of those days.
Those weeks.
Those months...
He slumps down on the flimsy kitchen chair by the table and reaches out for the pile of folders and slides them over. The heavy silver ring that today has found its way on his thumb scrapes lightly against the laminate table top. He twists it around his finger a few times, following the subtle pattern on the side with his nail.
No, definitely not the life he dreamed of.
And despite everything, he cannot help but smile briefly at the thought before taking a pen out of his front pocket and flipping open the first chart.
*** *** ***
“This is it?”
Nasir still has his head too far inside a cupboard to see the look on Agron’s face, so he can only assume it includes a doubtful frown and some heavy eye-rolling. But he is too excited to care.
“Yeah, isn’t it great?”
“Uh, well...sure...Are you sure that’s not asbestos?”
When Nasir finally turns around, he offers the other man what he hopes is a disarming smile. He seems to be good at those – at least when it comes to Agron.
“Come on, please. Can we just have this one day when I can pretend to be the amazing, all-knowing doctor who comes into town and saves the day and who definitely is not scared shitless about anything?”
Agron’s feet come to a stop in the middle of the floor and he puts the cardboard box in his hands down on the table.
“You are amazing and all-knowing, so there’s no need to pretend.”
“And the scared-shitless-part?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he says and walks up to Nasir still standing by the window.
“And your qualifications for this position are what exactly?”
Agron shrugs. “Don’t need’em. I’m sleeping with the boss.”
And Nasir would really like nothing more than to hate the man for his stupid grin and stupid dimples and stupid lines around his eyes. But, alas, the flesh is weak, so he winds his arms around the man’s waist with a resigned sigh.
“And you’re really sure about this?” Agron asks, picking up flecks of dry paint from Nasir’s hair. “I mean, what about your parents–”
“To hell with my parents.”
“Wow.” Agron’s eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly reach his hairline.
“This is not their dream, but it is mine. It’s dingy and cramped and it won’t make me rich but I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
“Well, then I’m glad,” Agron replies and then gives a mock frown and squints his eyes, “And also a little jealous, I’m not gonna lie.”
“I’ve never wanted anything more...professionally. How’s that?”
“Better.”
Nasir keeps smiling like the idiot that he is for a moment longer, until he finally pulls himself together and cringes appropriately.
“Too much cheese or way too much cheese?”
“Fuck it. I’ll be here only so much longer, I have to cram in as much cheese as I can now.”
Nasir presses down the dawning sense of gloom at the words and forces on a smile instead. “Speaking of cramming it in...maybe we should think about getting out of here.”
Agron shakes his head. “You know, if I wanted to subject myself to horrible innuendos, I would’ve just stayed on the base.”
“You love my innuendos,” Nasir replies as he walks out the door, Agron close behind.
“I love you. I tolerate the innuendos.”
Nasir fishes the keys out of his pocket as they make it out into the corridor and looks back at the other man over his shoulder. “Should I take that as a no?”
And this time, Nasir is rewarded with the whole show: the headshake, the eye-roll and even the groan.
“Fine. Your place or mine?”
Nasir is half-successful in stifling his smirk and starts towards the front door. “Yours is closer.”
“Yeah, about that...Actually, I was thinking if maybe we should...”
“What?”
He hears Agron take a deep breath behind his back, but before he has time to turn around, there’s a hand on his shoulder ushering him to move.
“Not here, babe. I’ll tell you later.