Work Text:
Elliot’s phone woke him up, buzzing right next to his pillow. He jolted awake. Was he supposed to be at work? What had he been doing before he fell asleep? He couldn’t even remember. He felt like he’d been run over by a train.
He checked the date on his phone. It was Saturday, so no work. And as he stared at the screen, the night before slowly filtered back into his memory. He’d stayed up late. He’d been hacking Ollie, and Krista’s new boyfriend. God, they were both such dirtbags. He’d been backing up everything he found, then messing around with a new program, and he’d ended up staying up super late. The last time he’d glanced at the clock, it had been 8 AM and he still hadn’t slept. Now it was noon, and Darlene was texting him. He’d passed out on top of the covers in his clothes.
Hey, asshole. I’m staying at a house in Williamsburg and it’s awesome. Come over and get drunk and watch movies with me. Wanna show you something on my computer, too.
Elliot sighed. Darlene had been making money by housesitting and petsitting, accompanied, he was pretty sure, by minor identity theft of her clients. She bounced back and forth between staying in ritzy apartments and begging him to let her use his shower and crash on his couch.
He didn’t really want to go over, but he’d blown off Darlene the last three times she’d contacted him, and he was feeling pretty guilty. Darlene was one of the only people he actually didn’t mind hanging out with. He just liked keeping his own space and his own schedule. He’d felt so busy and stressed lately, so tired, like he didn’t know where the time went.
OK, I’ll come over. Send me the address., he replied hesitantly.
Don’t take too long, I’m going out tonight., Darlene quickly answered.
Elliot rolled over and heaved himself off the bed. He could just head straight over without showering or changing, but Darlene would be blunt enough to tell him that he reeked.
By the time he’d showered, shaved, changed clothes, and fed Qwerty, it was after one. He rushed out the door without eating. He could always grab something later.
He arrived at the platform just as the train toward Brooklyn pulled up, perfect timing. The first stop was Chinatown. Soon he was surrounded by people speaking Mandarin and Cantonese. It flowed through his ears like white noise, comforting and incomprehensible, and he found himself yawning. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window, his hoodie cushioning his head from the cold glass. It was still several stops until Williamsburg, he could rest his eyes. The train rocked him in his seat, a soothing sway.
“Cuz. Hey, cuz.”
Elliot’s head felt fuzzy. Is someone calling me? But I’m not ‘cuz.’ Is this real? But someone was definitely nudging his arm. His eyes flew open.
“Huh?” he blurted out. The person nudging him was a black guy, younger than he was, with messy dreads held back by a bandana. He hadn’t been sitting there when the train stopped in Chinatown. He had a little half-smile on his face that Elliot couldn’t quite interpret.
“Hey, listen, I don’t mean to get in your business, but I noticed you’ve been asleep for, like, six stops. Where you trying to go?” the guy asked. He had a deep, smooth voice, hard to hear over the rattling of the train rails.
“Uhhh, Williamsburg?”
The guy chuckled, covering his mouth. “Bro, I hate to tell you this, but you’re deep in Bed-Stuy. You were supposed get off like six stops ago.”
“Shit,” Elliot sighed. He couldn’t believe he had so thoroughly missed his stop. His sleepless night must have really messed him up.
“Did you have a business meeting or something? Appointment you can’t miss?”
“Ah, no, I was just going to see my sister.”
“Well, you can text her and say you’ll be late, right?”
Oh, that would be the polite thing to do, wouldn’t it? “Sure,” Elliot answered aloud.
The train’s intercom loudly announced the next stop and Elliot winced. “Wow, how the fuck did I sleep through that so many times?”
The guy laughed. “I don’t know, man. You were out. Surprised you weren’t snoring.”
The train began to slowly brake to a stop. “Hey, so listen,” the guy said. “This is my stop, and I’m gonna go eat at a diner with the best damn pie you ever tasted. Wanna come?”
Elliot stared at him silently. He was a poor judge of normalcy, but was this normal? To invite a stranger from the subway to come eat with you? It wasn’t, right? What did this guy want?
“Uh, why?”
“For fun, cuz. I don’t like eating alone, and maybe some food will give you enough energy to ride the train back without passing out.” He did the half-smile again, just a little quirk of his mouth. His teeth had a little gap in them. His lazy voice made Elliot feel like he might still be in a dream. He looked at Elliot like he expected him to say yes.
Darlene would tell me to do it, Elliot thought suddenly. Angela, too.They were always ragging on him for not having a social life. He just didn’t care about spending time with most people. He’d rather do his own things. Besides, usually no one asked him. But today, someone was asking. And this guy seemed okay. He could have just let Elliot sleep to the end of the train line. Wouldn’t it surprise Darlene and Angela if he actually said “yes” to something like this for once? And Krista would probably mark it down as some kind of personal progress.
“Uh, yeah, okay,” he answered, after a long pause that he realized too late was probably really awkward.
“Bro, don’t sound so excited,” the guy chuckled. He leaned over and bumped Elliot’s shoulder gently with his own as he stood up to leave the finally stopped train. “C’mon.”
“The diner’s only one block down,” the guy announced as they stepped onto the platform. “This way.” He paused, looking at Elliot over his shoulder. “Hey, by the way, I’m Leon. And you are…” He trailed off.
“Oh! I’m Elliot.” He should have introduced himself before this, right? Well, Leon hadn’t introduced himself before, either, so that cancelled out the weirdness.
“Nice to meet you. Now, listen, I’m telling you, this diner has the best pie you’ve ever tasted. I’ve personally tried the apple, blueberry, cherry, and peach. I haven’t ever gotten adventurous enough to try the key lime yet, but I’ve seen other people order it. And their coffee’s good, too, man. You take one drink and it’s like boom, you know?” Leon was somehow managing to walk really fast even though he looked like he was casually ambling. Elliot had to take quick steps to keep up. Maybe it was because Leon had really long legs. Elliot idly observed that he was wearing a black hoodie just like his own, although Leon’s was baggier and its hood was hanging down his back instead of covering his head.
“If you don’t like pie, they got good sandwiches, too.” Leon looked back over his shoulder again. “You’re kinda quiet. I like it. Makes me feel like you’re listening.”
“Uh, I am. Pie. Coffee. Sandwiches.” That was an accurate summary of the conversation, right?
Leon laughed quietly for some reason. “Here we go, Elliot.” Leon stopped in front of a tiny diner with a sign on the door that read OPEN 24 HOURS. Elliot loved 24-hour places. They were great for times like this, when his own schedule didn’t obey the usual rhythm of human society. Sometimes he wanted dinner at 3 AM.
It was getting to be mid-afternoon, so the diner was mostly empty. Leon led them to a table in the corner of the room. “Ah, good, my table’s free.”
“Your table?” It looked the same as all the other tables.
“I just like this one. You ever seen Seinfeld, cuz?”
“Yeah, like, a few reruns when I was a kid and I was home sick from school.” Seinfeld was vaguely associated with stomach flus and runny noses in Elliot’s mind. But sometimes it was kind of funny.
“You know how they always sit in that same booth in Monk’s Café? This is my spot like that. If someone else gets this table, I get very irate, bro.” For a minute, Leon looked dead serious and a little bit scary. “But hey, it’s a free country, so sometimes I have to sit somewhere else.”
A waitress brought over two laminated menus, and Elliot studied his. Sandwiches, milkshakes, pies by the slice. His stomach growled loudly.
“I heard that across the table. You must be hungry.”
“Yeah. I skipped breakfast.” And did I even have dinner last night?
“Like I said, the pies are killer. I think I’m getting blueberry today. A la mode.” Leon gave a slow, satisfied nod.
When the waitress sauntered back over, Elliot ordered a turkey sandwich and a vanilla milkshake, and Leon nodded approvingly again. “You seem like you need a real meal, Elliot. Are you broke, or are you one of those people who just forgets to eat?”
“Forget to eat, I guess. Sometimes it just seems like a waste of time.” How had Leon guessed so fast?
“That means you have a creative mind, right? You get so caught up in all the stuff going on in your brain that you forget about your body. What do you do when you’re not sleeping on the train?”
Elliot wasn’t sure if that last sentence was a diss or not. “Uh, I’m a cybersecurity engineer.”
“That’s cool. Do you like that?”
Elliot balked. Most people he talked to didn’t ask him outright if he liked his job or not. What was he supposed to say?
“Well, I mean, I’m good at it. It’s pretty easy. For me. And my friend works in the same office.”
“None of that means you like it.” Leon tilted his head to the side, like a Zen master.
Did he actually want an honest answer? “I tolerate it.”
“That’s about all I can say for any job I’ve had, too, bro.”
He was supposed to ask what Leon did now, too, right? But that was such a stupid question. What do you do? But if he didn’t ask it, he’d seem rude. If only he were at home by himself and he could just pull up anything he wanted to know about Leon on the computer. He wanted Facebook and LinkedIn.
“Uh, you, what do you do?” Elliot managed to blurt out.
“I work at a 24-hour souvenir shop. Night shift. Fascinating, huh?” There probably wasn’t actually an online trail for that kind of job. “But it’s actually okay,” Leon continued. “The tourists are usually so happy. The happiest people in New York are the people who have somewhere else go to home to, right? It’s kinda sweet. The pay’s shit, though.”
Their food arrived then, so quickly that Elliot was suspicious that his sandwich must have been premade. It looked decent enough, though. And the milkshake, when he took a sip, was amazing. He had to hold himself back from scarfing it down and try to retain normal table manners.
Leon took big bites composed exactly equally of pie and ice cream. “I take some classes at Kingsborough, too,” he added between bites.
Elliot nodded as he chewed. He idly wondered if Leon got online much. He didn’t have a lot to talk about that didn’t involve computers, and a lot of what he did on his computer was secret, anyway.
Then, miraculously, Leon brought up the very topic on his mind. “So, you’re a computer guy. What would you say is the best processor? I’m saving up for a new one.”
“Did you build your own machine?” Elliot asked, feeling a little rush of hope at the idea of actually finding common ground in a casual conversation.
“Yeah, sure. It’s just screwing shit together, right? It was easy to learn. And you can get way better performance for a better price. Pre-made desktops are ripoffs.”
“I completely agree!” Oops, maybe that was a little too enthusiastic. But Leon just smiled.
“I feel you, man. So c’mon, what processor should I get?”
“Well, what’s your price range?”
“As dirt cheap as possible, bro.”
“Um, I hear that an Intel Core i-3 is pretty good. It’s around a hundred dollars. It’s dual-core.”
“I mean, sounds better than what I have now,” Leon said noncommittally.
“I know that you’re just going to go home and Google it, and you’ll see that I’m right.” Elliot knew the I don’t believe you so I’m going to go home and Google it voice. He’d used it himself plenty of times.
Leon laughed again. “I was actually gonna go home now and smoke. You wanna come?”
Did he mean cigarettes or weed? But it would sound dorky to ask for clarification, wouldn’t it? The confusion paralyzed his mind, and he blurted out “Uh, yeah, sure” to prevent an uncomfortable silence.
“Nice.” Leon devoured the last bite of his pie. “Wait, will your sister be mad?”
“Oh, shit! I didn’t text her yet.” Elliot pulled out his phone and tapped on his messages. Sorry, I’m running late. I fell asleep on the train. You still there? he typed out to Darlene, then quickly hit Send. He didn’t expect that she’d be too angry. Darlene was the queen of flaking out, so it would be very hypocritical if she was.
She texted back by the time he’d eaten his last bite of sandwich.
I bet you looked like a homeless weirdo. Yeah, I’m still here. Watching trashy TV and eating all their food. Where are you now?
Elliot felt a sudden desire to blow Darlene’s mind.
I’m just hanging out with a friend.
She answered in less than thirty seconds.
Oh, tell Angela hi from me, then get your ass over here.
Of course, she’d assumed he had only one friend. She was so smug. So what if she was right? He could still read the condescension in the text. Elliot made a little “hrmph” sound that he realized too late was totally audible.
“What’s wrong? Your sister messing with you?” Leon guessed correctly.
“Yeah. Hey, can I take a picture with you? That will really fuck with her.”
“A picture of me will fuck with her?” Leon responded skeptically. Elliot suddenly realized that maybe that was rude to say out loud.
“She didn’t believe that I was hanging out with…a friend. God. Forget I just said that.”
Leon snorted. “Hey, it’s okay. I get you. We can be friends. C’mere, let’s take a selfie.”
Elliot hated when people said “selfie.” He went and sat on Leon’s side of the booth, anyway.
They posed for the picture, which might have been the awkwardest moment of Elliot’s life, and that was saying something. Elliot ended up doing a dorky little smile, while Leon went for that “staring down the camera like a badass” look. Elliot sent it to Darlene. The response was quick.
LMAO, who’s that? He’s cute. You look like a dork.
He was still sitting next to Leon, who saw the text over his shoulder and laughed. “Hey, look at that, I’m cute!” He did a little shrug of fake embarrassment. “Hey, gimme your phone.”
Elliot’s hacking activities had given him innate protectiveness over any piece of technology he used. What did Leon want with his phone, anyway? He barely knew the dude, even if they’d just selfied. “Uh…no.”
“Oh my god, bro. Okay, here. Take my phone. Put your number in it.” Leon talked to him mock-slowly, like explaining something to a little kid, as he held his own cell phone out. It was an Android. Nice.
“But…why?”
“So we could hang out or whatever. Fine, if you don’t want to…” Leon started to pull his phone back.
“No!” Elliot grabbed the phone before he could put it away, accidentally grabbing hold of Leon’s fingers as well. When is the last time I actually touched another person’s skin? Weird. “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. Here.” Elliot quickly typed his work cell phone number into the phone and handed it back. That phone and number were clean of hacking activities.
“Thanks. And here.” Leon typed something quickly, and then Elliot’s phone buzzed in his hand.
Hey cuz, it’s Leon. And then a little emoji of a burning cigarette. Elliot smiled.
“Now you have my number. C’mon, let’s get out of here. We pay at the counter.” He nudged Elliot’s elbow, and Elliot realized that Leon couldn’t get out until he did now that they were sitting in same booth.
“Oh. Sorry.” Elliot scooted out and Leon followed.
“Your back here again?” the waitress behind the counter asked Leon as they paid.
“What can I say?” Leon smiled, and she smiled back. Elliot wondered if it was casual small talk or flirting. He wasn’t very good at telling the difference.
“My apartment’s a couple blocks this way. It’s pretty shitty, if I’m being honest with you, but at least we should have it to ourselves. My roommates work during the day,” Leon said as he led the way out of the diner and down the block. “It’s so relaxing, bro. That’s why I watch so many reruns. Not much else to do in the middle of the day. Smoke up and watch some 90’s TV, man. I love it.” He was doing that fast walking that looked slow and casual again. “’Course, I have to go to bed by five or six, since I work at midnight. It sucks. But what can you do? So, what’s your excuse for staying up late?”
Elliot was dizzied by Leon’s sudden change to actually expecting an answer. “Oh, just computer stuff.”
“What stuff? Work? Online classes? Porn? Message boards about how lizard people control the government?”
Elliot smiled tightly. “All of the above.” Those things were all a lot less incriminating than what he really did, embarrassing as the last two suggestions were.
“You’re kinda mysterious, Elliot. I like that.”
Elliot had never had anyone treat him like this. Like they just liked him right away, the way he was, no disappointments, no expectations. Well, no one except Shayla, but things had gotten really awkward with her lately. He could tell that she had a crush on him, and if he could tell, that mean she was being obvious and desperate as fuck. It wasn’t even that he didn’t like her. She was pretty, sweet, and nice. She always smelled really good, too. He just didn’t want to date anyone. How could have a real relationship with someone if he could never tell them anything about how he spent all of his free time? And beyond that, he didn’t want to complicate their whole dealer-client relationship. If he blew his one connection to morphine and suboxone, he didn’t know how he’d find another one.
He was going to hack Leon as soon as he got home. He wanted to know everything. There must be something weird about this guy for him to be so friendly.
“Here we are, bro,” Leon announced as they stepped up to a moderately rundown apartment building. Elliot noted the address so he could look it up later, and then realized that he had been walking in completely silent introspection. Leon hadn’t seemed to mind.
Leon lived on the fifth floor. His apartment was a two-bedroom, cluttered by so much stuff that Elliot could tell at least three other guys lived there. But as Leon had promised, it was deserted, for now. There was a desktop computer in the corner, but its monitor was off and it had a solid, nondescript black case that revealed nothing. Elliot’s fingers itched to turn it on or open it up.
“Make yourself comfortable.” Leon flopped down easily onto the sofa in the middle of the room. Elliot sat next to him tentatively. “You good at rolling joints?” Leon asked.
“Oh, uh, not really.” Leon pulled a little bag of weed and some papers out from under a sofa cushion. “Do you want me to pay you or anything?” Elliot asked.
“Nah, cuz, let’s just share one. Hey, turn the TV on,” he ordered as he rolled with expert precision. Elliot spotted the remote on the sofa arm closest to him and clicked the TV on.
“Oh, Mad About You. This show always makes me think about marriage, you know? Like, what’s the real point of it? Is it just a stupid piece of paper, or something more?” Elliot had never watched Mad About You in his life, so he kept quiet.
Leon licked the rolling paper carefully and grabbed a lighter off the coffee table. He lit the joint and offered the first puff to Elliot.
“Thanks.” Elliot took a big inhale. Pot helped with his social anxiety. All his anxieties. It just wasn’t as efficient as morphine.
Leon accepted the joint back and took a big puff of his own. Elliot thought about Leon’s lips, pressed right where his own had been. They were probably sharing germs. Leon’s lips were pretty. It seemed funny to describe any part of such a tough-looking dude as pretty, but Leon’s full lips on that joint were pretty.
Leon handed the joint and whatever germs he had added to it back. Elliot let himself relax on the sofa a little, lean back and pay attention to Mad About You, which Leon was watching with apparent concentration. They passed the joint back and forth silently.
“That guy’s annoying. I wouldn’t marry him,” Elliot said after a few minutes of the show.
Leon exhaled a little laugh with his smoke. “I don’t see his appeal as a husband, but he’s funny, though. And the chick on this show, Jamie, she can be annoying, too. She’s pretty neurotic. That seems to be a major theme of 90’s TV shows, man. ‘White people be neurotic.’” He glanced over at Elliot. “No offense.”
“Hey! I’m not all that…white or neurotic.” It must be the sleep deprivation or the pot, but this whole conversation suddenly struck Elliot as incredibly funny and ironic. He heard himself let out a little giggle that he didn’t recognize, and Leon laughed, too.
Leon stared at him as he passed the joint back to his hand. His eyes were dark and shiny, like black holes that went on forever. He had a bead in his hair. He smelled like pot and fabric softener. Elliot wanted to stare back at him, but it was hard to. He dropped his gaze to his lap as he inhaled.
They were interrupted by Elliot’s phone buzzing. It felt like an interruption. It buzzed in his pocket, and it made them both jump.
I’m leaving in a couple hours, Elliot. Get over here if you’re coming.
Leon saw the text from Darlene. “I guess you need to go, huh?”
“Yeah.” Elliot passed the joint back slowly, surprising himself by feeling a little reluctant to leave.
“Let me give you this first.” Leon stuck the joint in his mouth and took a drag handsfree as he grabbed a spare rolling paper and a capless pen off the table and scribbled something down. He passed the little empty paper to Elliot.
MonksBlueberryPi, the rolling paper read, with an IRC network and channel that he’d never heard of scribbled below.
“What is this?” Elliot asked, trying to stifle the wave of hope cresting in his chest.
“My IRC handle. You better contact me, bro. I know you’ll be on.” Leon smiled, and despite what he had said about Elliot, he was definitely the mysterious one.
“Leon…you…” His eyes darted over to the lifeless computer. He couldn’t finish his sentence. You use IRC? You make puns about Raspberry Pi? You might actually know what the fuck I’m talking about if I were honest with you? You really want to talk to me again?
“Whatever you’re about to say, the answer’s probably ‘yeah.’ Here. Finish it off.” Leon took the almost dead joint out of his own mouth and turned it between his long fingers. He held it up to Elliot’s lips, and Elliot parted them. He sucked the last life out of the joint with Leon’s fingers pressed against his lower lip and his dark, shiny eyes looking into his, and it felt strange, and more personal than the last few times he’d had sex.
“You better get going,” Leon said, stepping back and breaking the spell he’d cast. “And hey, send me that picture?”
“Picture?” Elliot repeated dumbly.
“Y’know, our selfie? I liked it.”
Elliot meandered toward the door. “But I look stupid.”
“Yeah, but I look smooth as fuck.” Leon winked as Elliot stepped out the door. “See you online, cuz.”
The door closed, and Elliot stayed awake the whole ride back to Williamsburg and Darlene, thinking about all the things he might tell Leon someday.