Chapter Text
Alex groaned as his phone notifications vibrated through his pillow to smack right into his head. His annual sinus infection had knocked him flat — and just before New Year’s no less — but his need to rest and recuperate hadn’t kept Nora and June from bombarding the group chat. They had their own text stream, entirely separate from him. The fact that they weren’t using it was, in Alex’s opinion, an abuse of power and a grave violation of chat etiquette.
Alex just wanted to sniffle and wait for his ears to pop in peace, thank you very much.
The phone went off two more times before he caved. He flopped onto his side, shoving a hand under his pillow; all the intention to find the offending piece of tech and hurl it into a wall. His fingers collided with the edge, sending it tumbling over the side of the mattress to the floor. Alex grumbled and pulled himself to the side, fishing with aimless fingers.
When he pulled it back up, part of him still wanted to fling it out his dorm room window. The other part was bouncing around his brain, nagging curiosity. He wanted to ignore the other two, but he wanted to know the source of the key-smashing and fire emojis more. Besides, if he didn’t respond, Nora would contrive probable cause for a “Welfare Check” — i.e. picking the lock on his door and barging her way inside.
The others had been gushing about something long enough that it had devolved out of meaning. Alex muttered a weak string of curses as he scrolled past the array of capitalized letters, wild gifs, and obnoxious strings of exclamation points and even more emojis.
The chaos dead-ended in a linked TikTok video. By the looks of it, just a pasty-faced white dude in a tee shirt with a mug of… something. Why that would be interesting to anyone, Alex didn’t know and didn’t guess. He rolled his eyes and clicked on it anyway.
The video loaded to the same man, standing in a nice, modern kitchen with his blond head bent over a yellow-aged card. He held it with both hands, as if it were going to bite him. When he glanced up — at someone off camera, Alex guessed — he smirked, soft blonde bangs flopped over his forehead.
“ Are you serious ?” He asked, a second later dissolving into laughter. The video froze, a small banner appearing over a stagnant image reading Man Pleasing Appetizers 1971 .
The title was almost as jarring as the accent. Blondie was a Brit, and Alex wasn’t going to lay there and say that didn’t do something for him. He’d come to terms with his bisexuality enough to know that made the stranger hotter — even just the littlest bit. Especially when the video started rolling again.
“ So .” He grinned at the camera, card still in hand. “ One of you lovely miscreants sent this immaculate piece of kitsch to my P.O. Box .” He paused to control his laughter, then continued. “ I honestly don’t know whether to thank you or question why you enjoy seeing my pain .”
Someone said something behind the camera and Blondie let out a long suffering sigh. “ Yes, right. Well. Betty Crocker’s 1971 recipe library index cards strike again. If you’d like a copy for yourself, you can find one on the electronic bay for a whopping fifteen American dollars. I’d buy one myself, but you plagues seem keen to send it to me one piece at a time, so I’ll hold off.”
“ And yes. This card is called ‘man pleasing appetizers’. Something called pow and another thing called ‘rumaki’, which I hesitate to guess at the origins or inspirations for .” Blondie tapped the card against his palm, holding back a smile. He leaned into the camera, conspiratorial, winked, then stage whispered: “ Safe to say, we’re all about to find out exactly why I’m still single .”
Alex let out a snort that made his head ache.
It wasn’t the last time. The rest of the video went on in that fashion.
With biting, surprisingly funny dry humor…
A full shot of Blondie scowling at a small saucepan, something brown stirred with horseradish and dried dill weed. A wooden spoon was jammed up underneath his chin, his nose wrinkled in horror, the sleeves of his tee shirt stretched unfairly tight over his substantial biceps. “ This is going to summon something. Something horrible. Like the ghost of Queen Victoria.”
With teasing, damn-near-flirty winks and warm, full laughter…
“ Man pleasing appetizers… ” Blondie mused with a head shake. Wielding a knife and a package of bacon, he grinned come-hither at the camera. “ I could please a man without all this nonsense. Maybe I just need a beige leisure suit and a bad mustache to draw him in…” He snickered at the thought, then winked. “ Hello. Is it me, and this tray of sadness you’re looking for?”
With concerned asides to whoever else was in that kitchen, on just the other side of the camera…
Blondie, staring at a baking dish full of chicken livers topped with a water chestnut, psyching himself to wrap them in bacon. “ I don’t know what’s more objectionable — the reeking misogyny, the problematic interpretation of Asian culinary arts, or this wrapping them up in bacon chicanery .”
“ Perhaps it's the full combination, the trifecta of terrible, Haz .” A voice off camera sounded.
Blondie glanced over and snickered. “ Percy, I think you’ve put your finger on something there.”
In a final clip, Blondie is pouring the demon-summoning beef broth into mugs as another man with pink hair — the mysterious Percy behind the camera — looks on in disgust.
“ Christ, Haz, are you sure? ”
“ Have you already forgotten this was your pick?”
Percy sighed, picked up a mug and sniffed. “ Smells like boner medicine .”
Blondie — Haz, maybe, whatever kind of name that was — made a choking sound, collapsing forward onto the countertop, shoulders heaving with laughter.
Alex, too, was startled into a laugh that turned into a coughing fit. By the time he recovered — a full 30 seconds later — Blondie had both of the “man pleasers”, as they’d taken to calling them, completed and plated like the original card’s photo. Percy stood to the side, watching with dismay and humor.
Blondie let out another long sigh. “ You all are out for blood, I swear.” He shook his head, then glanced at his friend . “I set myself up for this, didn’t I? This is all my fault, isn’t it ?”
Percy shrugged, smirk tightening as they stifled laughter.
“ Right .” Blondie braced his hands on the counter and barreled the camera. “ I’m making something nice and normal next week. Send in nice, normal, non-health-hazard items, would you? Please? ”
“ Stop stalling, Hen. ”
“ I’m not— . Alright, I am. But I think with good reason. ” He let out another suffering sort of sigh, then picked up one of the two mugs, a celery stick sticking menacingly out of the top. “ Bottoms up, I suppose .”
Blondie wavered, clearly regretting his decision, then mustered some kind of resolve. He pinched his nose then took a healthy drink. He didn’t swallow. His nose curled, his lips pursed. He held it in his mouth for a few seconds longer, then discreetly spat it out back into the mug. A cut later, he’s swishing and spitting orange juice into the sink.
“ Ugh. ” He grimaced as his friend laughed. “ Just… Why? Why. Why, and how, and who in fucking hell is that for? I need answers.” He coughed into a closed fist, then recovered. “ Today is penance for something. I’m not sure what—.”
“The snow angels on the floor of the subway car at one in the morning! ” Percy shot back without missing a beat.
“ I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Blondie asked with a wry smile. “ Alright. Let’s try this fake-arse teriyaki abomination. ”
This time, Percy joined in, picking up the bacon-wrapped baked liver gingerly, narrowing eyes at it like it was going to bite them. Henry did the same, and they cheers-ed one another before taking bites. They both bit, chewed, winced, then glanced at one another and fell into fits of laughter. Percy, somehow, managed to swallow their mouthful and harassed Henry into doing the same.
“ Well, that was deeply upsetting ,” Henry concluded. He made a noise like a cat coughing up a hairball. “ Thank you, you horrible horrible people for handing down yet another culinary punishment. I’m going to go eat chocolate and think about my life choices. Clearly they need some evaluation. Bye all! ”
The video ended, then started back at the top. Alex paused it, letting his phone drop square in the middle of his chest. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then picked it back up again. He opened up the group chat again, then typed out a quick message before going right back to the video and Blondie’s whole account. This better not awaken anything in me .