Work Text:
“I will never let you let me leave.”
The bustle of the diner slows as everyone not so subtly begins to turn their rapt attention towards booth number 5. It's the one straight in the middle of the dining room floor by the window, and it's currently where Jamil is being held hostage by a stranger in too-shiny penny loafers and a heather grey fedora. The stranger has one gloved hand placed upon the waiter's wrist, and Jamil doesn't know it, but he's looking at this guy the same way he looks at cockroaches.
With disgust, of course, but above all else, with complete terror.
It's times like this where Jamil is convinced he'd been totally abandoned by God– because it isn't enough to be paid peanuts at the most random pie diner in the midwest. It isn't enough that the other day he found mold in the corner of his dinky 200 square foot studio.
No. The powers that be decided that his life wasn't already miserable enough, and that he just had to match with Azul Ashengrotto.
In Jamil's defense: Azul was very good at cosplaying as a normal person on his profile.
His carousel of photos was carefully curated, well lit, and he knew his good angles at least. His bio was no-nonsense, with each short sentence beginning with a capital letter and ending with appropriate punctuation, no corny jokes, no Harry Potter house. Jamil appreciated that. He also appreciated that he wasn't greeted by a picture of his penis at the top of their DMs (but maybe that's his own fault for having his standards lower than federal minimum wage), and after becoming mostly confident that Azul wasn't a nicely dressed serial killer, they agreed to meet for a drink.
In his head, Jamil had planned for their date to be simple, quick, and painless, but God hates him and last night he was at Azul's mercy for two and a half hours.
This freak brought a binder to the bar. It contained a complete family medical and psychiatric history, a collection of testimonials and anecdotes attesting to his good nature and personality, and pictures of his extensive antique coin collection. There was even a graded quiz at the end.
He blinked an SOS at the bartender for maybe 10 minutes before he decided to take matters into his own hands and escape through the bathroom window.
Safe in his house and tucked into his full-sized twin to watch Dance Moms on his phone, he realized that in his futile attempt to make conversation, he had made the mistake of telling him where he works.
When he saw him stroll through the diner's front door, neatly arranged flowers in hand, he knew his life was completely over. In an attempt to avoid making a scene, he corralled him to sit at an empty table.
People are nosy in this town. It's small enough that everyone knows everyone, and people in small towns like this get bored. Gossip is the number one hobby in the county, and so Jamil is keenly aware everyone in the diner is listening in on their conversation. He has to proceed with caution.
“Please,” he says as calmly as possible, wresting his arm out of his grasp. “Please, just take your mixed bouquet and leave.” Before I call the cops.
“I cannot,” Azul declares as he thrusts said bouquet towards him. “Jamil, there is very little I wouldn't do to have you as my own. We are meant to be together, I'm certain of it.”
Jamil pointedly does not accept the flowers. “This is insane. You realize what you're saying is insane, right? You're insane.”
“I had a wonderful time last night,” he replies, irrelevantly.
“I love that for you.”
“I love you,” Azul says, and Jamil physically recoils.
“Calm down.”
“I love you, and that means you are never getting rid of me.”
Never. The word strikes a clashing chord in Jamil, and something snaps in his head. It’s almost audible, like if you listened hard enough you'd hear a sharp twang ringing through the diner.
“I need you to get out of my face before I hurt more than just your feelings, you creep. I don't want anything to do with you, your powder blue Prius, or your dumbass bowtie. You’re somehow not getting it, and I cannot make this clearer.” He brings up a hand, gesturing curtly towards the door to punctuate his point. “Fuck. Off.”
Well. There goes proceeding with caution.
He'd tried being polite. He'd tried gently changing subjects and he'd tried flat out ignoring him, and what did that get him? Now he has to go back to the bar after work to apologize for breaking their bathroom window screen as he fled the scene last night.
Now he's starring in a little freak show for everybody in the diner to enjoy along with their burgers and chocolate shakes. Now Azul's eyes are going wide and wet and Jesus Christ on a bike–
“Please for the love of God do not start crying. You're an adult.”
The dining room begins to buzz with the sound of incredulous whispering and Jamil could just feel all of his tips for the day turning to dust and scattering to the wind. The customers don't know about his disastrous date and how everyone on Azul's mama's side has asthma. Or that Azul at his big age refers to her as mama, for that matter. All they see is Jamil being a total dick to a fellow customer.
Azul sniffles. Loudly.
“Okay!” Jamil reaches over and snatches the bouquet from him. “You're at an eleven, and I need you to bring it down to a two. If you can do that, we'll talk. Okay? Can you do that?”
And then, as if a switch is flipped in his weird little head, he smiles. The tears vanish near instantly as he folds his hands and places them neatly in his lap. He crosses one leg over the other and sits back in his red leather seat. “Yes, of course.”
Jamil's jaw goes slack with shock. He flounders for the words, mouth opening and closing uselessly around air. Slamming the bouquet back down, he settles on: “Oh, you manipulative son of a bitch.”
“Please,” Azul snorts, “as if you've never cried on command before.”
The tip of Jamil's tongue tellingly tucks itself between his upper lip and his teeth. He won't admit to that, of course, and expertly side steps this by arguing, “You don't even know me.”
“I know you like trash TV. I know you have a YouTube account where you post videos of yourself dancing to a very consistent audience of seventeen subscribers–”
“Hey.”
“And,” the man in the fedora continues to say. “You're two-faced.”
“Hey.”
“Yes! The way you've completely discarded your gratingly polite first date persona, the way you look at me now like you're sizing me up for a straightjacket– I like that the best about you.”
Jamil, now completely stupified, goes silent, charcoal eyes now narrowed warily.
At this point in the conversation, he vaguely thinks to look to his coworkers for help, but Cater's hiding in the bathroom. Again. Deuce probably couldn't think of anything to make this situation better even if he had the means to, tucked away in some long forgotten corner of his sweet, thick skull. Ace is definitely laughing behind the counter though, and Jamil will remember to take a rolling pin to his kneecaps when their shift is over. In any case, he's too embarrassed to even turn in their direction, so he's on his own.
“I knew this about you even before we met last night because I too am two-faced. We are very much alike, Jamil.”
Jamil's nose wrinkles at this indignantly, but Azul pays him no mind in favor of continuing his prattling soliloquy. He must have practiced it on the way here, because he doesn't stutter or stop through it all. Not once.
“I am pragmatic and I love numbers. I leave very little to chance and hold no fondness towards the chaos of grand romantic ideals. I am particular about my self-image and the way that others perceive me. I am cautious, I hate surprises, and I am tidy to a fault. And I am not usually like this–”
Jamil has a hard time believing that line in particular.
“–but I am a man who knows what he wants. I meant it when I said there is very little that I wouldn't do to call you mine. I've laid it all out on the table for you. My family tree, my employment and salary details, my vaccination records- I have laid all of my sides bare, and that is not something to be overlooked. I have done this all because it is what I would like when approached by a potential romantic partner, and it is my hope, that for all our similarities, that is what you'd want too: some honesty.”
Jamil blinks, not really recognizing that Azul is finally done with his monologue, but his stomach churns– churns?
No, it doesn’t churn. It… flutters. Something in his stomach is fluttering and that makes him a little nauseous. His brain is ringing all the alarm bells while his stomach is hatching butterflies, and he'd kick himself for it if he could but…
Azul is right.
He's right, and Jamil hates it.
The worst part of it all is that, in spite of his intense freakishness, Azul is still extremely attractive– they wouldn't have matched in the first place if Jamil thought otherwise. There's something so horrifically slimy to his entire character that it circles back to being charming. It's disarming. And Jamil can't even deny any of the things he's saying; he's self-aware enough to acknowledge that like attracts like. Two-faced, Azul called him, like a kettle and a pot, or however the saying goes. Two-faced, pragmatic, particular, cautious, tidy. These are good things to be; these are things he likes in people.
And maybe deep down he likes the attention.
And yes, he… maybe likes the honesty. He doesn’t necessarily appreciate knowing how much more money Azul makes than he does, amongst other things, but he likes knowing what he’s getting himself into.
He likes the desperation, and he loves being wanted for once, which is fucked up.
Not as fucked up as Azul, but perhaps they could balance each other out.
He watches as Azul takes back his stupid mixed bouquet— the daffodils, the sprigs of fern, and a few other flowers he can’t name all wrapped in craft paper— and meticulously pretends to rearrange them. He holds them back out again in offering when he’s satisfied.
Jamil eyes this with no small amount of hesitation. He says, “I still think you're a creep.”
“You'll get to know me better in time. You have no say in the matter.” Azul smiles. “I will pick you up tomorrow at seven.”
He finally rolls his eyes and takes his stupid bouquet.