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Chapter Text

‘The Usual’

Synopsis: Scriddler Canadian Coffee Shop AU (partially suggested by @thatdysfunctionalkingdom)

Characters: Jonathan Crane, Edward Nygma

Note: Newfoundland is pronounced ‘newfnlan’.  Trust me, this is an important clarification.

There was a man who came in every day.  He was very tall, and very thin, and very, very unpleasant.  In fact, he was so much so that people would conveniently not notice when he walked up to the register.  He had perfected his glower to the point where the other cashiers would disappear to the back to retrieve sleeves of cups that didn’t need retrieving the second he opened the front door.  He had never made a complaint about the quality of his order – which was the same every single day, without variation – nor about the employees; in fact, he only ever spoke to place his order.  He had just perfected this aura of bitter disapproval that deflected everyone who got near him.  Edward was the exact opposite of this man.     

Edward adored him.

Every morning at nine the man would come in for his large black coffee in a mug, and he would sit in the same table in the corner that he would cover with books and papers, and he would sit there until about two in the afternoon and then he would leave.  Edward knew, from quite a lot of convenient trips over there to clean tables and wipe the windowsill and sweep the corner very thoroughly, that he was a psychology professor at one of the universities.  He never paid Edward any attention at these times, nor really at any other time either.  He was so tantalisingly steadfast in his manner.  Edward was going to crack him, one way or another.

So it was that the time came and that man walked into the store, and Edward’s partner on coffees conveniently had to go on break, not that Edward minded this at all.  It would be easier to do this with the man’s undivided attention, obviously.

“Good morning,” Edward said, as cheerfully as possible.  “What can I get for you today?”

“The usual,” the man said, already pouring a handful of change out of his wallet onto the counter in front of him.

“Have you ever gotten anything else?”  He poured the coffee as he said this, without looking and while he was preparing another basket of grinds for future use.  The man ignored him and continued to push dimes into a pile. 

“Honestly, I don’t know how you can drink this every day.  I never drink coffee.  And from here…”  He shook his head, placing the cup on the shelf above the machines for the man to retrieve.  “Well, let’s just say quality varies.”

The man merely handed him the pile of dimes, picked up his coffee, and walked off.  Edward’s partner mysteriously reappeared to snatch up the last cherry cheese Danish.

“Why do you even bother?” she asked, having to cover the thing in at least three waxies.  Edward draped his arm overtop of the POS.

“Why bother doing anything?  For the sake of doing, of course.”

That, and no one was to resist him.  No one.  In any way.  Ever.

The man actually had a toonie to pay for his coffee with the next morning – the change being the source of his habitual stack of dimes – which was a little disappointing, because it was a lot harder to drag out their interaction when he didn’t have to drop eighteen coins into the register one by one.  He pretended he was waiting for a pot to complete the brewing cycle, at which time he said conversationally, “You look tired.  Moreso than usual, I mean.  Those kids giving you a hard time?”

The man actually looked at him, but said nothing.

“Have a nice day,” Edward said, passing him his drink, and the man accepted it and walked over to his corner.

“He has kids?” his supervisor asked, as he made his way over to the Boston creams for a customer in the drive thru.

“Not like that,” Edward told him.  “He’s a teacher.  At one of the universities.”

“I can’t believe they let that guy become a teacher.”

Edward shrugged.  “You don’t know that he doesn’t know his stuff.”

“Are you talking about that guy who always sits in the corner?” asked the baker, returning from the kitchen with a basket of banana nut muffins.  Edward watched his progress to the showcase as he said,

“Yeah, why?”

“He’s my sister’s psychology professor.”  The baker stood back up, empty basket in hand.  “She complains about him all the time.  Says his assignments are too hard.”

He did look like the kind of man who was tough on education, Edward thought to himself.  Casually, he asked, “Your sister tell you anything else?”

The baker shrugged.   “She said he was from… St John’s, I think.  And everyone calls him Springheel, though not to his face.”

Hm.  He was certainly a ways from home.  Edward made a mental note.

“So,” Edward said, pleased he had something to actually talk about other than the same old black coffee, “what brought you here?”

The man looked up from counting his dimes, head tilted the slightest bit quizzically, but he said nothing.

“Not here here.  This city, I mean.  You’re from Newfoundland, right?”

The man frowned and pressed his change into Edward’s offered hand.  “And how would you know that.”

He’d mostly been ambivalent towards Edward before, but now… now Edward felt a bit cowed by him, a little threatened.  Scared, even.  He looked into the cash drawer with perhaps a bit too much attention.

“Uh… someone knows one of your students.  They mentioned it yesterday.”

“With a significant amount of prying from you, no doubt.”  Edward could feel the severity of his glare even with his head down and the man’s glasses something of a figurative shield.

“No!” Edward protested, for some reason looking up in earnest.  “They brought it up.  Not me.”

“I see.” 

When he had walked away, Edward turned around and pressed his face into one hand, his other wrapped around the counter behind him.  He had no idea what was going on, but he felt as though he’d made a terrible mistake. 

“I don’t know why you try,” said the order-taker in the drive thru, between cars he supposed.  “He doesn’t like you.  He doesn’t like anybody.  I wish he’d stop coming here.  Gives the place bad vibes.”  She turned back to her POS and touched her headset, and Edward looked into the direction of the man.  He had already spread his things out over the table and was frowning over a sheaf of paper, head braced with his hand.  Edward bit his lip.

He normally wasn’t the type to care about other people’s business farther than he could gossip about it, but he was getting a very, very sad picture of this man.  Solitary, disliked by everyone, called by a derogatory nickname… he couldn’t say the guy didn’t deserve it – he wasn’t rude, exactly, but he wasn’t pleasant either – and yet… he wasn’t sure.  Maybe it was just the fact Edward saw him every day and nothing ever changed.  He had never failed to develop a rapport with a regular before now. 

He sighed and walked to the back for a new creamer.

The machine was broken again.

He frowned at it, examining the pins that slotted into the containers that held the drink mixes.  One of them had broken clean off, causing the machine to generate cups of vaguely chocolate-flavoured hot water.  He decided he may as well clean out the powder that had gathered in the bottom of the cavity when he heard the very emphatic tap of a coin against the counter behind him.  He turned to find the man standing there, looking at him almost expectantly.

“Ah,” Edward said, moving over to the register and picking up a blue towel with which to whisk some of the powder off his shirt.  “Sorry.  I was trying to get that fixed before my break.  Gotta have my hot chocolate fix, you know.  The usual?”

The man reached over and put the toonie on Edward’s side of the counter, and Edward nodded and poured the drink without further pause.  He didn’t know how long the man had been waiting, and so speed was the best choice for now.  It was only after he’d left and Edward had turned back to the machine that he noticed one of his coworkers at the other register, straightening a stack of napkins.  He eyed the man’s corner thoughtfully.

That said a lot.  It really did.

Edward was rearranging the chairs in the storefront, mostly because he was bored and that made it look like he was doing something, when he decided to see if the man would be a bit prescient towards him, considering he’d been giving him his coffee five mornings a week for several months now.  He invited himself into one of the chairs nearest and looked at the closest paper on the table.  It was upside down, but he was able to read that it was a partially-marked essay on the big five personality traits.  It didn’t appear the person writing it had had any idea of what they were talking about.

“That must be exasperating,” Edward said.

The man frowned at him, his red pen clenched between wiry fingers. 

“This,” Edward clarified, gesturing at the paper in front of him.  “It must be exasperating, to have to read this drivel.  Seriously.  Any decent psych textbook outlines these.”

The man put his pen down and folded his hands together.  “I’m curious.  Have you ever been reprimanded for harassment?”

“Uh… no.”  He rubbed the side of his nose.  “For talking too much, a few times.  Why?”

“I was just wondering if you do this to anybody else, or if it’s just me.”

Edward felt himself becoming smaller, somehow, as though the man were able to shrink him with a disapproving word.  Why was he so damned hard to get to!  He stood up, trying to regain control of the situation.

“I didn’t realise trying to talk to someone qualified as harassment.  Especially when said someone never expressed a clear lack of interest.  I hope you don’t expect me to be apologetic for trying to offer some sympathy.”

“What?”  He had actually stopped frowning, looking up at Edward with a mildly bewildered expression.  Edward crossed his arms, pushing his chair back towards the proper table with the back of his shoe.

“You sit here every day with your cold coffee and your papers for five hours.  That’s the behaviour of someone with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to talk to.  Being devoted to your work is one thing.  But sitting in a low-quality coffee shop all morning is what old men do because their one joy in life is gossiping with their other old man friends over cheap coffee and stale bagels.  Only you’re worse, because you don’t have any friends.  So you’d think maybe a bit of politeness would go a long way with you.  But I guess there’s a reason you spend all your time in a corner by yourself, eh?”

The man’s waiting for him the other day, as opposed to just moving to his coworker’s register, hadn’t meant anything after all.  He just couldn’t be bothered to disrupt his precious routine.  Edward felt oddly hurt by this realisation.  He didn’t know why; this grumpy older man meant nothing to him.  Just another customer who saw him every day but didn’t see him at all.

He walked back behind the counter, told his supervisor he was going outside for a minute, and headed out the back door.  Once there he sat on one of the concrete markers in the parking lot and took his glasses off so he could rub his eyes.

He didn’t know why he was so shook up over this, nor why he was so disappointed.  That man didn’t owe him anything.  And he’d had a point.  Edward had… sort of been harassing him.  Though he’d never really stopped it, had he?  He’d never told Edward not to talk to him, or bother him, or requested someone else take his order.  Was that still harassment?  And why did this matter so much?  He felt sort of… attached to the man, as if they’d been a strange breed of friends.  He didn’t want to stop serving him in the mornings – it was, odd as it sounded, a highlight of his day – but it seemed like Edward had gone too far in attempting to get him to engage.  And if he was honest, it wasn’t the first time.

All right.  He’d leave him alone, starting tomorrow.  He’d find someone else’s entrance to look forward to.  Find another order he could feel satisfied knowing.  There were plenty of customers to choose from, and plenty a great deal more pleasant than that man was.

He still got the impression he was missing out.

Fresh out of a meeting with his manager, Edward took to the POS once more.  He was a little preoccupied, both with the talk he’d had and with clearing the line, so he almost didn’t register the person bringing up the end of it.  When he did, he made the drink without preamble and handed it over, tapping the order into the screen.

“No chatter today?” the man said, handing Edward his toonie.

“My manager doesn’t even want me serving you,” Edward said with what could have been a dose of bitterness, dropping the coin into the tray.  “I just got reprimanded for harassing you.  So thanks for that.”

He reached over to hand the man his change, but he didn’t even try to take it.  He instead looked at Edward with mild bafflement.

“I didn’t tell your manager you were harassing me.”

“I guess the magic coffee fairies that keep people coming back for this stuff told her then,” Edward said sarcastically, pressing the dimes into the countertop.  He was getting tired of holding out his arm.  The man looked down at the coins as though he hadn’t noticed them before now.

“If I were of the mind you were doing so, I would hardly frequent this register at this establishment every single day, would I.  Would I not find someplace else to be a lonely and pathetic old man?”

Edward held up a finger.  “… I didn’t say that.”

“Don’t split hairs over logistics,” the man said, picking up his coffee.  “You did say that.  And it was quite refreshing, I might add.”

So… he wasn’t mad.  He liked Edward.  And he liked what Edward had to say.  He drummed his fingers against the countertop.

It seemed he’d just have to keep doing that, then.

The man still was not really one for conversation – most of it was one-sided on Edward’s part – but he would engage in just a little bit of small-talk during the daily exchange of money for cheap coffee.  His manager still kept a suspicious eye on him when the man came into the store, but the man showed no signs of being bothered at all and so she had nothing on him for it. 

“So what’s Newfoundland like?” Edward asked, waiting for the man to finish lining up his dimes.  He paused at the sixth one.

“Cold.  Wet.”  He slowly counted out another six dimes, though because he was being deliberate as usual or because he was dragging out the transaction Edward couldn’t tell.  “It’s a sad place to be if you don’t fit.”  He pressed the money into Edward’s hand, and he was suddenly, tangibly solemn.  “I… would rather not talk about it.”

“Sure,” Edward said, counting the dimes into the drawer one by one.  “I’ve just heard it’s quite a comparison to here, that’s all.  Most people find Toronto a bit too much, coming from those places.”

The man looked very tired for a moment.

“Every place gets to be too much.”

“When you take them on alone,” Edward said without thinking.  The other looked at him directly for the first time, and maybe he almost smiled.  Maybe.

//

There was a span of two weeks where the man did not come in at all, and after over half a year of uninterrupted daily visits this was cause for concern.  For Edward, that was.  The other employees were cheerful about his absence for the first couple of days, and then they forgot about him entirely.  As the days went by, Edward wished he knew how to find him.  But he didn’t know which university he taught at, or where he lived, or even what his name was.  He felt a bit silly to worry so much over a customer who had probably just decided not to frequent this establishment anymore, and maybe he should just get over it. 

But he’d thought, perhaps, he’d been getting through to that man.  And not just as an overly ambitious employee to a stubborn regular, either.  As… friends, maybe.

No.  That was Edward projecting again, because as snide as he’d been that day, the reality was just as true on the other side of the fence.  Edward was behaving in parallel with him, and he pretended his way was better just because he did it surrounded by people.  But that was his public self, the one he had this job to refine in the first place.  There was no better place to learn how to treat even the most unpleasant people with courtesy and charisma and also get paid for doing it.  Perhaps the old man was the more honourable, for not hiding himself as Edward did.

Ah, but that was done with now.  Or at least, it was time to allow completion.

He kept that in mind the next several days, and he thought he was doing a pretty good job at it until he looked up from where he was crouched in front of the showcase, cleaning the glass.  The man was there, looking down at him, and there was some inexplicable joy in Edward’s chest all of a sudden that brought him back to standing, the smile crossing his face more genuine than any in weeks.  He took a breath in an attempt to settle himself and said, “Welcome back.  Give me one second.”  He picked up the spray bottle and paper towels he had been using and moved back around the counter, pushing his coworker away from the register when he got there.  He grunted in annoyance but turned to the sink, shaking a good layer of cleaning powder over the stained metal.

“You seem pleased,” the man said, and he sounded tired as he looked.  He was paler than before, somehow. 

“Well,” Edward said, inspecting the pots to see which was timed last for expiry, “you kind of just vanished.  People wonder.”

“I was taken ill.”  He removed his wallet from his pocket, and Edward noticed that his hands were unsteady.

“Perhaps you should have… stayed at home another day or two.”

“I have work that cannot wait any longer, and my bed was too inviting.”  His voice wasn’t any stronger than the rest of him.

“The usual?”

The man nodded and gave Edward the requisite toonie.  When Edward gave him his cup he took it in both hands as though it were a comfort he’d lacked.

“Have a wonderful day,” Edward told him, softly and perhaps more genuinely than he ever had, and the man held his eyes for a long moment before nodding once and walking to the corner.  Edward for once did not make an excuse to go over there, though he did keep what might have been too close an eye on him.  He neither saw him drink the coffee nor do anything other than stare at the one book he’d taken out, fingers pressed into his hairline. 

The man left early that afternoon, and Edward hoped it was because his bed was too inviting even from this distance away.

He was late the next morning, and he didn’t look any better than before.  Edward was a little concerned about himself for caring so much.  He was being stupid over a customer.  But when he came up to the counter with a trembling handful of dimes, Edward shook his head and gave him his coffee without accepting them.

The man’s brow knit.  “What are you – “

“I’ll take care of this one,” Edward interrupted.  He wasn’t actually going to pay for it – in his opinion it wasn’t even really worth paying for – but it was the gesture that mattered, right?  “I’d give you a muffin too but I don’t think you’d eat it.”

The man’s curled hand slowly put the change into his pants pocket, and he stared at the drink in near bewilderment as he tucked his wallet away as well.

“’Thank you’ is a nice thing to say in these situations,” Edward told him, leaning up on the POS with folded arms.  “I know that’s a new saying for you, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it if you try.”

But he didn’t say anything.  He just picked up the coffee and sat down in the corner.

That left Edward a little disgruntled, but he couldn’t force the man to be grateful.

His supervisor sent him to clean tables a couple of hours later, and he left that corner for last.  When he got there, the man was in much the same position as he was the day before.  He looked up from beneath his brow when Edward placed one hand on the table.

“It’s none of my business,” Edward said, “but you need to go home.”

The man straightened, placing himself back in the chair.  Edward had of course never forgotten his height, but he had never realised that he wouldn’t be able to fit his legs neatly under the table.  Edward’s foot was almost touching one of his worn brown loafers.

“It’s too noisy there,” the man told him. 

“Noisier than here?”

“I live near the campus.  In one of those rooming houses.”  He took his glasses off and pressed his fingers into his eyes.  “Even the basement is not far enough away.”

“People generally live there because it’s cheap,” Edward ventured.  “Surely a professor at the university makes more than a student on loans.”

The man wrapped his hands around his drink.  “I have… expenditures.”

Edward shrugged.  “Fair enough.  But you’re not getting anything done here.  There maybe you’d be able to fall asleep during a lull in the cacophony.”

This was met with a shake of the man’s unkempt, rust-coloured hair.  “What stake have you in asking?”

“None,” Edward said.  “I have no stake in asking.  I only…”

He didn’t mean to meet the other’s eyes, but somehow he did.  They were intelligent, inquisitive.  They were…

Oh, no.

He picked up his towel and his sanitizer bottle and absconded to the back of the store.  Where he was going to help put the order away, and not think about how he had been about to think that the man had some of the clearest, brightest, most intelligent eyes he’d ever –

He squeezed his own eyes closed very hard, held his breath for a long minute, and continued to the stock room.  He was in need of a terrible, terrible distraction.

The man was gone the next two days, which Edward honestly did not mind.  He found himself in an odd space where he both desperately wanted the man to appear and deeply hoped that he would not.  And he hated, simply hated that there was some relief in his chest the third day, when he did appear.  Edward did not even have to fake his smile of greeting.

“You look better,” he said, and it was true.  The man’s pallor had lessened somewhat, and his hands were steady.  He nodded as he set them on the counter.

“I acquired some earplugs.  They were very helpful.”

“The usual?”

“Yes,” the man said, though with an odd hesitant edge.  Edward paused in his removal of the mug from the holding rack.

“What.”

“I never told you my name, did I.”

Edward removed the coffee pot from the warmer.  “Well, most people don’t.”

“It’s Jonathan.”

Edward, spying the line forming, placed the mug atop the retrieval stand and leaned over the cash register, hand extended.  “Pleased to meet you, Jonathan,” he said, and he didn’t understand it but there was some warm satisfaction when that long, pale hand firmly folded around his.  It was cold, and Edward was forming a thought about changing that which was enough for him to let go.  He swallowed and pressed the toonie he had been given into the drawer.  He didn’t look up until the next customer impatiently cleared their throat.

All right.  He didn’t know what was going on here, not quite, but he was going to be professional about it.  He wasn’t going to think of how to catch those eyes without the glasses, or of holding that hand until it became warm, or of how to get him to smile, dammit…

When Jonathan came up to his station he cleared his throat and handed the coffee over, without a word.  Which was difficult.  But he did it.

“The usual,” Edward said.

“Not today,” Jonathan told him.  Edward looked up by mistake.

“Okay.”  He reached over to take the cup back, but Jonathan shook his head once.

“That’s part of it.  I also need a second of the same and a hot chocolate.  But I don’t want them now.”

“Alright,” Edward said, having heard this sort of thing before and not being fazed by it.  “Can I get an idea of when you’re coming back for them?  In case I’m not here?”

“Actually,” Jonathan said, “I thought you could bring them when you’ve finished your shift.”

Edward stopped breathing for a good thirty seconds.

Jonathan had remembered the conversation about the hot chocolate machine.

“Is that so,” he managed, once he managed to get his tongue operating again.  “I guess I could do that.”

Jonathan deliberately counted out the requisite change, as usual, and when he pressed it into Edward’s hand he took perhaps a few seconds too long.  The customers behind him may have cared, but Edward definitely didn’t.  It seemed that, perhaps, that hand was his if he wanted it.  Maybe he was reading into this the wrong way, and Jonathan was just a very touchy friend.  He found himself not quite liking that idea, but he’d roll with it if that’s what it came to.

“I’ll see you later,” Jonathan said, and Edward nodded.

‘Later’ hardly came quickly enough, and Edward was beginning to feel a little like a college cliché as he watched the minutes drag by towards his after-shift meeting with a psychology professor.  He vanished to the back five minutes early under the guise of using the washroom, but what he really needed to do was comb his hair properly, make sure his clothes were flawless, and try to get rid of the sticky coffee smell that clung to one’s skin at this job.  Once he believed he’d done what he could he retrieved the drinks and sat down in the corner with Jonathan, for the first time because he’d been invited.

Jonathan didn’t take immediate notice of him; he seemed quite involved in a yellowing legal pad in front of him on which he was inscribing some notes in a sloppy cursive hand.  He looked up by mistake when pressing some of the hair out of his eyes, and he actually smiled.  It was almost unnoticeable, but it was definitely there.  Edward returned it, albeit more enthusiastically, and pushed the coffee towards him.

“I thought you might disappear,” Jonathan said, taking up the coffee.  “Your intentions seemed clear, but one is pressured to do everything in customer service these days and there are certainly better options in the world than I.”

Edward draped his arm over the back of the chair.  “True.  But not everyone is my favourite customer.”

“You are quite the charmer, aren’t you.”  He took a drink of his coffee.

Edward, however, was not quite certain what to say now that he was here, and he looked behind him to the rest of the store, eyes passing over the other people going about their lives.  After a minute or so of silence, Jonathan said,

“You don’t have to stay.”

He turned around again.  “That’s not it.  It’s… I work here, I don’t want to hang around here.  Can we go walk around at least?”

Jonathan nodded, mostly to himself.  “I feel like I should have thought of that.”

After Jonathan had put away his things and Edward had traded the mugs for paper cups, they went outside and made their way down the street a while.  Jonathan seemed to intentionally be walking slowly, though Edward couldn’t tell if he was trying to make it easier for Edward to keep pace or because he was trying to draw this out.  After a few minutes Jonathan said, “This is more awkward than I imagined it would be, but… fair warning, it has been a long time.”

“Since what,” Edward asked.  Jonathan glanced at him and stopped walking. 

“Since… any of this, honestly.”  He pressed on his glasses.  “I don’t usually talk to people for fun.”

Edward laughed and put an arm around Jonathan’s waist.  He stiffened and looked down at Edward confusedly, but he didn’t really signal that he wanted Edward to let go.  “Not people, then.  Just me.”

“Maybe later,” Jonathan said.  “I have class soon.  I need to go.”  And to do that he would have had to turn around and go back the way they’d come, but he didn’t.  He just stood there.

“So you should… probably go.”

Jonathan looked down the street in the direction of the parking lot, as though he knew it was there but wasn’t quite sure where to find it, and Edward realised Jonathan had planned for all of this to go badly.  For Edward to not show up, or to say he had to leave.  Jonathan’s having to work had been his escape strategy. 

And he had realised he didn’t want to use it.

Edward chewed on his tongue a moment.  If it were him, he would have just skipped his shift and dealt with the fallout later, but then again he didn’t exactly have a career on the line.  Aha!  He’d just gotten an idea. 

“You have a phone?” he asked, and Jonathan looked at him sideways but said,

“Yes.  Why?”

“I’ll give you my number.” 

Jonathan had to kneel down and dig it out of the bottom of his briefcase, where it was nestled under a volume of papers, but when he did Edward flipped it open – because god, it was an ancient old flip phone ­­– and said as he typed, “Just call me when you have a free evening.”

“Why wouldn’t I just tell you that?” Jonathan said, accepting it back and literally throwing it into the case.  Edward reassessed the usefulness of a phone that old in this circumstance.  “I see you every day.”

“That was my clever way of giving you my number, that’s why,” Edward said, and arm behind Jonathan’s back again as they headed down the street.  “You’re not supposed to call me out on it.  You’re just supposed to call it.”

“Aha,” was all Jonathan had in answer to that.

When they returned to the parking lot Jonathan led him to an old rusting pickup truck, still tagged with Newfoundland plates, and for some reason Edward smiled to see this.  Jonathan put his case in the passenger seat and turned around.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said, but while carefully closing and inspecting the seal of the door.

“Of course,” Edward told him.  “Wouldn’t miss it.” 

But Jonathan did.

Jonathan didn’t appear the next morning, or the next; in fact, he was gone for over a week.  He didn’t call, either, and Edward thought several times of looking into the university directories to find him – there could only be so many psychology professors named Jonathan – but ultimately he thought better of it.  The more he turned it over in his mind, the more he thought that perhaps he’d pushed too hard.  Literally minutes after Jonathan had told him about how he not so much as talked to people, Edward had decided a good idea was to take his cellphone and give the man his number.  In retrospect, that was much too forward.  He almost regretted that, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now.

He was thinking all of this over for it seemed the millionth time while sitting on behind the store, on a smoke break he hadn’t given his supervisor a chance to say no to.  He saw out of the corner of his eye that someone had come up to him and, thinking it his supervisor out to chase him, said in annoyance, “I’ll only be another minute.”

“Your shift isn’t over for three more hours,” the other person said, and Edward looked up to see Jonathan.  He was so surprised he dropped his cigarette.

“And where have you been?” he said in an attempt at recovery.  Jonathan’s thumbs found their way into the belt loops of his jeans.

“Home, mostly.  I had to think.”

“Mmhm.”  He crushed the cigarette with the toe of his shoe. 

“You don’t know me, and you gave me your phone number.”

“That’s generally how you get to know a guy.  You talk to him.”  He was maybe being a bit more bitter than he deserved to be.

“You are a puzzle,” Jonathan said.  “I don’t know why I haven’t turned you away by now.”  Edward looked up at him, unimpressed.

“Do you have a point with all of this?  Because you need to get to it faster.  I’m at work.”

Jonathan was looking down at him solemnly.  “I don’t have any free evenings.”

Of course not.  This was the longest rejection speech Edward had ever gotten.  He stood up and opened his mouth, but was interrupted when Jonathan continued,

“It’s exams.  I have to live in my office for roughly the next month.  So I won’t be back for a while.”  He reached into his back pocket and removed a slip of paper.  “But if you have a free evening… it would be nice if you dropped by.”

He handed Edward the paper, and he looked down to see that it was a business card.  It held the number to Jonathan’s office at the larger of the universities, but it was a start.  The name on the card read Jonathan Crane, MD-PhD, and this inspired some sort of thrill in Edward’s stomach.  Jonathan had just become much, much more intriguing. 

Those papers he brought in all the time must have been, aside from schoolwork, some very high-tier research.  Only the very best were admitted and graduates of that program.  Jonathan must have realised Edward worked here for personal reasons; there was no other reason for a man that intelligent and highly educated to even go near him.  He thumbed the card thoughtfully.  Oh, he definitely wanted to get to know Jonathan now.

He pulled open the back door and stepped back into the establishment, putting the card into his bag and continuing into the storefront.  It seemed his months of persistence were about to pay off, because life was about to get a lot more interesting…

Author’s note

In case it wasn’t explained well enough here, Jonathan is from the province of Newfoundland and has an MD-PhD from the University of Toronto.  This program is very exclusive, the best in the country, and very hard to get into.  In this AU, they call him Springheel instead of Scarecrow because in Newfoundland there is a legend of a very tall man who could jump really long distances and basically just freaked people out. I’m not from Newfoundland, I just googled this to see if there was yet another Canadian thing I could put in this fic.  I hope you’re used to it by now.

Edward works at Tim Hortons, and if the details are a little too specific it’s because I used to work there.  A toonie is a two-dollar coin and it probably isn’t anymore but a large coffee was a dollar eighty when I worked there.

A side note for @thatdysfunctionalkingdom: this fic is fourteen pages and I did twelve yesterday and two today.  So this one is almost an example of me banging a fic out.  It would have been if I hadn’t dawdled yesterday.

The pickup truck originated with yellowcandy and I did not know an MD-PhD existed until waiting4codot used it.

Chapter Text

‘Part Two’

Note:  I didn’t originally intend this to be longer than one part and it’s been a really long time since the first half went up, so friendly reminder: they’re in Toronto and Jonathan is from Newfoundland (pronounced ‘newfnlan’).  They met at the Tim Hortons where Edward was working for funsies and when we closed off, Edward had just received the location of Jonathan’s office at the University of Toronto.  In the Canadian AU, Edward is five three pretending to be five four.

He waited three days before going to the location indicated by the card.  He didn't want to look too eager, too desperate.  He had options, and a job, and many, many personal projects to boot.  He didn't need to visit Jonathan anytime soon. 

Nonchalant as he was trying to be, he still spent all night thinking of what to say when he got there, of what he should do.  He'd have to make it clear he hadn't been waiting because he was nervous.  He wasn't nervous.  He'd done this before.  Many times.  With people far more breathtaking than Jonathan was.

That last part was only half true.

That last part was something Edward was having trouble with.  Usually Edward was wary of breathtaking people because they had very, very high standards.  One could afford to when so universally attractive.  Edward often had to work hard to overcome his height, as even smaller women needed convincing to merely begin consider a man shorter than six feet.  It wasn't really fair, as less than fifteen percent of men were even up there, but that's what other skills were for.  He didn't exactly get the impression Jonathan cared, but... Jonathan was very tall, and Edward was very... slightly below average. 

But none of that was even the most thought-inducing part.

Usually when Edward ran into a snag, he would outsmart it.  He would put his considerable intellect to work and think of another way.  Oftentimes, his intelligence was enough to impress, or at least distract.  But Jonathan was smart too.  He doubted Jonathan was as much so as he - he had never met anyone who even came close - but smart.  And in such a field that he might actually be able to hold an advantage over Edward. 

The thought was indeed breathtaking, both in a positive and a negative way.

So maybe he dawdled a bit on his way there.  Because he was realizing that going any farther with this meant getting to know Jonathan, whom he already knew was very hard to get to.  And that meant he would spend time redirecting any inquiries onto Edward himself, therefore forcing Edward to reveal more of himself than he wanted to.  Edward's relationships were usually very... superficial.  He was not quite so likeable on the inside.

The question, then, was whether or not Jonathan knew that already.  Did he know that the Edward presented to the public was different from who he actually was?

After Edward had made his way through the grounds of the university to Jonathan's office, he hesitated in front of the office door.  This was it.  This was where he made the decision: did he want this to go forward?  Did he really want to know Jonathan as more than a customer, as more even than a friend?  Did he really, really want to get into this?

He knocked.

"It's open," Jonathan said, with unveiled bitterness and annoyance.  He was definitely one of those professors.

Edward opened the door and stepped into the office, which... looked more like the reshelving room at a very disorganised library.  There were books everywhere.  There were shelves, yes, but they were overfilled and straining under the weight inflicted on them.  There were books stacked on the floor as well, and where there were no books there were instead massive piles of paper.  A good amount of it was in file folders of varying states of fray, but it was also just piled wherever Jonathan had been able to throw it.  There in the back of the room was Jonathan, seated at an old wood desk of the sort only seen in schools with very low budgets.  His face was set so severely into an angry scowl that Edward wondered whether he was as old as he looked, or if it was just a side effect of his habitual expression.  And the shadows under his eyes were darker still than Edward had yet seen.  Edward had stopped taking exams at the age of fourteen, so he didn't know firsthand, but it seemed they were taxing even for the teachers.  When Jonathan failed to notice him, Edward took a breath and said, "Hi."

Jonathan looked up, largely in an unpleasant way, until he saw it was Edward.  His face cleared somewhat, which went a long way to settling Edward's nerves.  He put his pen down.  "Ah.  It's you."

"Yeah."  He stepped hesitantly into the office, mostly because it was difficult not to step on anything.  "If you're busy I'll take off."

Jonathan grimaced.  "I'm always busy.  Such is the career I've chosen. No, I... had begun to think you weren't coming."

Suddenly, his decision to play things cool seemed silly and juvenile.  He shook his head.  "I... don't worry about it."  He didn't see anywhere to sit, so he just claimed a corner of Jonathan's desk.  He noted that Jonathan was wearing a different pair of glasses; they looked very heavy, and the mottled brown frames were thicker than any Edward would have worn.  He didn't even know they sold glasses like that anymore.  He touched his own a little unconsciously. 

"What brings you here, then?" Jonathan asked, folding his hands together.  "I know it was neither my sparkling personality nor my stunning good looks."  It was delivered in such a deadpan and self-aware way that Edward couldn't keep from laughing. 

"No, neither of those.  It was your education, actually.  Don't see a lot of MD-PhDs."

Jonathan seemed satisfied enough with this answer.  "And what would yours be?"

"My what?" Edward hedged.  Jonathan, as he already knew, was an extremely judgemental man and he did not think his answer to the question would be satisfactory.  Perhaps he could waylay it.

"Your education."  He had the most intense gaze Edward had ever seen; Jonathan was going to evaluate everything he said on an individual basis.  He had expected that, and yet he was not prepared.  Jonathan was, in a word, terrifying.

But he was so because he was smart.  Edward could live with that.

"Actually, I'm mostly self-educated," Edward started to explain, cut off when Jonathan rolled his eyes and looked back down at his papers with his mouth set in a disappointed grimace. 

"Of course you are."

Edward's grip on the edge of the desk tightened.  "I have reasoning -"

"You're a drop-out."

"I'm a genius," Edward said through clenched teeth.

"That's why you work at Tim Hortons, where the pay is competitive and the clientele of the finest stock."

"I work at Tim Hortons because there is no better place in this country to learn to be polite to some of the cheapest, rudest, most entitled assholes in existence."  He let himself off the desk and set for the door.  "I think you know who I'm talking about."

"Humour me.  In which field exactly does your... genius present itself?"

"All of them," Edward answered, unable to resist a question.  "My interests mostly lie in engineering and computer science."

"That pays well."

"It does."  He turned to face Jonathan again.  "Better than a university professor."

The other man's face had smoothed into polite curiosity.  "I believe you make more at Tim Hortons than I do as a university professor."

Edward reapproached the desk.  "I really do have a day job, you know."

"And what would that be."

"I'm a software engineer.  I make security apps.  I sell a lot of licenses to businesses."  That was one of his legal avenues, anyway.  "Very lucrative if you know what you're doing."

"An entrepreneur," Jonathan said, voice humming with approval.  Edward was able to relax.  He hadn't blown it.

"I don't like having a boss.  As I said, working at Tim Hortons is more of a...  paid learning experience."

Jonathan sat back in his chair, putting his hands into his lap.  “Out of curiosity, where do you live?  This isn’t the easiest city to make it on one’s own.”

“I have a condo down in the financial district,” Edward answered.  “It’s worth what I pay for it.”

“A condo,” Jonathan repeated, somewhat to himself.  Edward shrugged.

“I’ve been asked why I don’t just buy a house, for that kind of money, but what would I do with an entire house?  The condo is in a well-maintained building and has plenty of space as it is.”

Jonathan picked up one of the papers on his desk and turned it around, sliding it towards Edward.  "Can you read this?"

Regaining the desk again, Edward skimmed the first two pages, part of a collection held together with a badly-placed staple.  He frowned.

"Looks like an analysis of Freud as pertaining to... relationships."  He flipped to the fourth page.  "They seem to have... gone out of their way to make this work."

"That's what I thought."  Jonathan held a hand out, and as Edward returned the essay he noted the skin barely seemed to stretch over the bones of his hand.  It was puckered with old scars and fading bruises.  That struck Edward a little too deeply and he looked away.

"Why would you need to ask me that, anyway?"  He watched as Jonathan inscribed an F and the phrase 'see me' on top of the paper, looking physically pained to be doing so.  "In what capacity would I ever need to be able to - wait."  It was suddenly occurring to him how odd some of these questions were, in this sort of context.

"Yes?" Jonathan said, without looking up from the next essay of which he had peeled up the front cover.

"Are you interviewing me?"

"I am."  Jonathan folded his hands together.  "And you might be thinking: that's a little picky, for someone who obviously can't afford to be."

He might have been thinking that.

"I value my time too much to accept whatever is thrown my way.  Hence the interview."

"Did I pass?"

Jonathan's eyes were deconstructing him in not a wholly unpleasant way.  "I have another question."

"Sure."  Edward had yet to encounter a question he did not have an excellent answer to.

"Why me?"

Well.  Except maybe that one.  "Why you?" he hedged.

"I know what I am.  I also know you're remarkably intelligent, very charismatic, and quite attractive.  I am mildly surprised you aren't someone else's partner already, sharing that condo of yours with some young attorney-to-be with curves in all the right places.  But you are single, you live alone, and you work one of the worst jobs in the country just for your own entertainment.  What could I, a lonely and pathetic old man with no money, no social skills, and no redeeming features whatsoever, possibly do for you?"

Edward got off the desk slowly.  The only thing that came across his tongue left his mouth bitter.  "I don't know."

It seemed he hadn't succeeded after all.  His hands were in his pockets and he was walking towards the door when Jonathan said, "Edward."

He looked over his shoulder.

Jonathan's voice was almost soft.  "You passed.  But I am not one of your projects.  Make sure this is what you want."

"Of course," Edward said, opening the door, and it was only when he was walking down the hallway towards the doors he'd entered the university through that he realised he didn't know what he'd been saying 'of course' to.

He did go back though, every afternoon when his shift was over, and Jonathan did not talk much but he never told Edward to leave.  Edward would bring his laptop and do his own actual money-making tasks while Jonathan frowned at his piles of essays to be marked.  Apparently Jonathan only assigned essays, and he hated marking them so much he always left it until the last minute.  For a couple of days Edward was helping him mark them, according to some very vague rubric he had not wanted to write but had been forced to by the university, until Jonathan had decided he was marking them too leniently and made him stop.  Edward was confident it had more to do with Jonathan being jealous of his reading comprehension, which was at least thirty percent better.

It was the third week of exams and Jonathan had graduated from not really talking to solely directing his signature glower in Edward's direction, which Edward discovered was not all that bad once you got used to it.  He was always angry and Edward was sure he hadn't actually left his office in the last three days.  He was so miserable Edward asked, "I don't get it.  Doesn't someone become a professor because they love teaching?"

"I hate teaching!" Jonathan snapped, and he pressed the pencil he was holding to the paper so hard it also snapped.  He threw it across the room in exasperation.  "I'm only here to do my research."

"There's no other way to do it?" Edward asked, moving his laptop aside.  Jonathan shook his head.

"You must be a part of a scientific institution to do research.  There are a lot of ethical hoops to be leapt through.  The field is severely over-saturated and I am overqualified.  This was all I could find."

"So... why do you assign essays if you hate teaching?  You could just give out Scantrons."

Jonathan somehow frowned even more severely.  "I could what?"

"Give out Scantrons.  They're cards with bubbles printed on them.  You write a multiple-choice exam and -"

Jonathan shook his head by way of interruption.  "If you give students multiple choice tests they will not study.  They will not even read the textbook.  They will just borrow the notes of the one student who gives a damn and the answers they don't know will be a wild guess."

"But you wouldn't have to mark them.  You'd just feed them into the machine and it would mark them for you."

"Edward," Jonathan said in exasperation, "I might hate my job but that doesn't mean I should do it badly.  I will assign them their essays, and I will wait as long as I possibly can to grade them, and I will hate every second of it.  That's the price of doing things properly."

Edward folded his hands together pensively.  "I can respect that," he said after a minute. 

Jonathan took a long breath.

"This cannot go on much longer, however.”  He spoke with a measured calm, as though he had a mental store of it he used for such occasions.  "Hating your life is no way to go about it."

"So what will you do?  Find a private lab?"

Jonathan tapped one finger on the desk.  "I would prefer that, yes.  But I have to get something else of note published.  Something that will prevent them from turning me down."  He put the pen in his other hand down.  “I’m getting there, but the nature of my research and the limited time in which I have to pursue it ensures that it is taking far longer than I ever thought it would.”

Given he had to be at the university to do his research, and that he did not appear for the next several days and made no indication as to why, Edward began to feel a little insulted.  Hadn’t he spent valuable time he could have used someplace else gracing Jonathan with his companionship?  Granted, Jonathan hadn’t really asked for him to show up there every day, and he had not really talked to Edward all that much, but he had accepted as a given that Jonathan just was not one for conversation.  He was a listener, a careful and meticulous listener, and Edward could respect that.  He had known few who had even pretended to listen to what he had to say.  So taking all of that into account, Edward certainly had the rights to feel slighted by Jonathan’s unexplained absence. 

Well.  He was trying to feel slighted, anyway.  He tried to be indignant over hurt as a general rule; life was a lot easier that way.  He didn’t want to be hurt that Jonathan didn’t seem to want him around anymore, though he couldn’t truthfully say he’d really indicated as such in the first place.  He’d tolerated Edward, that was for sure, but Edward was so tired of being tolerated.  He’d thought –

It didn’t matter what he’d thought.  He should have nipped said thought in the bud back when it had sprouted, and he’d known that, but he had ignored his quite excellent instincts on the matter and gone ahead with this recklessness anyway.

Well, this was that, then.  It was over.  He was done.  He didn’t care about Jonathan’s rare intelligence, or his seeming absorption of a great deal of what Edward had said, or the fact that maybe if he’d had a little longer he would have gotten through to the miserable old loner.  All of that was irrelevant and he was not going to give it a moment’s thought more.  Not even one. 

It had been three days since he had seen Jonathan last and it was on this fourth day he made this decision, and it was also on this fourth day that he made the entirely unrelated decision to take a bit of a roundabout route home from work that just so happened to pass by the staff parking for the psychology department.  There was no reason for him doing this, of course.  He just felt like it.  He could do that.  Feel like doing something entirely unrelated to something he was not at all thinking about.

Oh, but why did his breath have to catch when he saw that old blue pile of rust sitting in the lot?  And why did he find himself pulling into the parking nearest, and getting out of his car without hesitation, and… well, there was little use denying it at this point.  He was going to see Jonathan.  No, confront him!  He deserved a piece of Edward’s mind.  The nerve, disappearing without so much as a text message.

He marched himself down to Jonathan’s office and did not even give the ungrateful bastard a courtesy knock, just flung the door open and declared, “And where have you…”  The rest was in the back of his throat, somewhere, but Jonathan was staring up at him from beneath long fingers bracing his forehead, and for some reason Edward’s tongue dried up.  Jonathan looked as tired and pale as he had when he had disappeared from the Tim Hortons for…

He was having the sudden realisation that perhaps he had overreacted.  The saving grace here was that Jonathan did not know about it.  “Did you get sick again?” he ventured.  Jonathan took a long breath and sat back in his chair, removing his glasses.

“I did.”

“You could’ve… let me know.  So I could’ve… known.”  Well that was about the smoothest pair of sentences he’d ever constructed, wasn’t it!

“The thought crossed my mind once or twice.  But I reasoned you would figure it out, and besides that, I’ve lost my phone again and it probably shut off anyway.”

Jonathan did know Edward had overreacted!  Calisse.  How in the hell –

Oh, but that was part of what made him so alluring.  He should not have known, and yet he did, and Edward just had to know how he did it!  And more importantly, how could he possibly let slip from his sight a man who could outmanoeuvre him?  He couldn’t!  It would be an insult to them both!

Edward closed the door behind him and shoved aside the usual pile of things Jonathan was not using so he could claim the corner for himself, but before he could place himself there Jonathan shook his head.  He wasn’t even looking at Edward and he still felt compelled to stop.  Incredible. Edward needed that skill for his own.

“I’m not staying much longer.  I am very tired and have achieved very little.”

“Why did you come at all, then?”

Jonathan slowly slid the glasses back on.  They only marginally disguised his exhaustion.  “Wouldn’t you?”

“Wouldn’t I…  what.”

“If you had something to finish wouldn’t you make strides to complete it, no matter how you felt at the time?”

Edward put his hand on the edge of the desk, having the sudden, terrible urge to steady himself.  He didn’t want to answer.  How could Jonathan know that of him already?  It was unfair!  And unheard of!  And… and plenty of other negative premises he simply didn’t care to list at the moment!

Jonathan, of course, only nodded.  But instead of remarking on it he merely said, “It will happen again, and further after that.  I become ill approximately every other month.  I’m sure you can gather why on your own.”

“But why?” Edward found himself saying.  “Why would you not take preventative measures by now if you know – “

“Some people,” Jonathan interrupted, “find themselves at a place in their lives where certain things become unimportant.  Where a choice must be made between the now and the future.  Once such habits are lived for long enough, they are difficult to break.  Especially when there is no particular motivation to do so.”

That sounded… sad.  And that was not a sentiment Edward expressed lightly.  On the one hand, he understood it.  He’d been there, a long time ago.  But never coming back from such a destructive place?  One would have to almost… lose a part of themselves entirely.

Instead of feeling as though he had solved more of Jonathan’s puzzle, it seemed to him he had merely been handed a few dozen additional pieces.  He was unsure of what to do with them.  He was unsure he even wanted them.

But Jonathan had told him this was how it would be.  I’m not one of your projects.  Make sure this is what you want.  And he had decided that he wanted it, had decided that every day he continued opening this office door and sitting himself down on Jonathan’s desk.  Was he going to back out, now that things seemed more complicated than he’d predicted?  Of course not.  He wasn’t like that.  He was better than that.  He’d made this decision and he was going to stick by it.

Perhaps, though, it was time to provide a little proof of that.  Dropping by Jonathan’s office per diem was all very well, but it really meant nothing.  Even if Jonathan didn’t know that, Edward did.  He wasn’t there for Jonathan’s benefit.  He was there for his own.  Jonathan had probably expected Edward to get bored during the days he’d been gone and abandon this endeavour entirely, and he couldn’t say the thought hadn’t occurred to him.  It had.  Several times.  Jonathan would know that. 

In fact, if he were to do something Jonathan would not predict, it would indeed be something Edward did not have entirely selfish motivations for.  Somewhat selfish, obviously, but not entirely.

He breezed into Jonathan’s office the next afternoon and placed a four-litre storage container on Jonathan’s desk.  Jonathan initially eyed it with reluctant disinterest, as usual, but it caught his attention enough that he sat up to look at it fully.

“That’s for you,” Edward said, making room for himself on the desk.  Jonathan’s movement to look at him was unnervingly swift.

“What?”

“Any schmuck could tell,” Edward answered, removing his laptop from the bag he’d leant against the desk, “that one of those things you find unimportant is eating.  A poor diet is a contributor to poor health, both of which you have.  I decided to do you a favour and bring you something conducive to both problems: chicken soup.  You’re welcome.”

Jonathan returned to staring at the container as though he weren’t quite able to see it.  “You made that,” he said, a little dully.

“I did.”  He opened his computer and directly went to check his emails.

After Edward had done that and proceeded to some work that did not require quite so much of his attention, he spoke to a Jonathan whom, as usual, did not respond in the slightest.  He related the cold stare of the woman in the lobby who eyed him every time she passed him, and the broken lock in the foyer of his condo building the landlord refused to fix, and the man who sniffed the pineapples at the grocery store, and the entire time Jonathan stared at the paper in front of him.  Well, he was trying to.  His eye kept travelling to the container and snapping back.  Edward kept careful note of this, even as he outwardly did not acknowledge it.  It meant something.  Was Jonathan suspicious of the contents?  He trusted Edward, didn’t he?  There was no need to suspect him.  Well, there was, but Jonathan didn’t know that.  Probably.

Abruptly Jonathan picked up the paper and stuffed it into his briefcase, and Edward took that as his cue to leave.  As he was sliding his computer away Jonathan stood up and asked, “Have you anyplace to be?”

Edward looked up at him, frowning.  “Not really.  Why?”

Jonathan was very intently closing his case.  “You seem to have brought quite a lot of soup.”

What a stunning observation.  Edward zipped his own bag closed.  “Don’t try to eat it all at once.”

“I won’t have to, if I somehow locate someone to share it with.”

Ahhhh.  How clever!  Edward should have seen that coming, but had been too distracted with the seemingly ignorant comment about the amount.  He smirked up at Jonathan.  “I might know someone.  But I’ll need an address to pass along.”

Jonathan was trying very hard not to smile and not quite succeeding.  It was, somehow, adorable.

Edward accepted the post-it Jonathan handed him and headed out alone.  No doubt he drove faster than Jonathan did and arriving at Jonathan’s residence before he did would be distasteful.  He would take care of a few things in his car with his phone and then head to the address on the paper.

It was beginning to snow as he stepped out of the university, to which he grimaced; the stuff was one of the more unpleasant things about this country.  Well, at least now he had the added excuse of needing to wait for his car to warm up.  Jonathan, no doubt, would just take off with a cold engine.  How that truck was still running, Edward didn’t know.  He would have to look it up, but he was certain it was at least twenty years old.  It wouldn’t last much longer without diligent maintenance.

It took about five minutes before his own car was warmed to his satisfaction.  The roads were already streaked with slush, the plows diligently patrolling the major routes.  He frowned to himself.  Plows meant road salt.  He needed to get his car to Jonathan’s before there was too much of the stuff being flung around. 

Jonathan’s unit was not terribly far from the university – in fact, he could have walked there in about twenty minutes, and Edward made a mental note to ask why he didn’t do so – and thankfully he was already there before Edward pulled into the lot, looking for the visitor spaces.  The building itself was three storeys tall, built recently enough that it had not yet been marked in whatever way by drunken and disrespectful adolescent hoodlums, and five units wide.  A private owner looking to make an easy buck off lazy college students, then.  Edward wondered how Jonathan could even afford it, if he made less than Edward did at Tim Hortons.

The visitor parking was about five minutes’ walk from the occupant spaces, which were behind the building.  He stepped around as many piles of gathering snow as he could and, upon reaching the building itself, tried the doorhandle.  It was unlocked, due to Jonathan or to arrogant morons Edward didn’t know.

 This door led only into a foyer which was scattered with various paraphernalia relating to young adults who left their things wherever it was most convenient, and there were two more doors beyond the first, each at the other end of a staircase.  Edward took the stairs directed downward and was able to open that door as well.  Once he had done so, however, he felt as though he had made some grave mistake.  Not because he had chosen the wrong door.  But because what was beyond it was irrefutable evidence that it was the correct door, and he should have been prepared for what he saw but he most definitely was not.

Jonathan’s apartment was cluttered, badly lit, and unkempt.  The door opened onto a very open room with the main living area on Edward’s left and the boundary of the kitchen in the back right corner marked with a high marble counter.  There were books everywhere, and papers, and books full of papers.  Edward found his entrance a bit reluctant.  This was just… sad.  Incredibly, horrifically sad.  Why did a grown man live like this?  It was like a scene from one of those shows about people who just could not let go of their possessions, except that all Jonathan held onto was an endless array of books.  Edward just stood there and tried to comprehend what he was looking at.  It was ridiculous.  This was the man he had become so smitten with?

Jonathan had turned around, and he was holding what seemed to be a very old cast iron pot, and he looked from Edward to his general living space and back again.  “You can leave your shoes on,” he said finally.  It honestly had not occurred to Edward to take them off.  It didn’t look as though Jonathan had ever cleaned the floor since he’d moved in.  “This will only be a few minutes,” Jonathan continued, lighting the brand new stove he had obviously not taken care of.  Edward walked slowly into the apartment, wondering if perhaps he should just… turn around and leave.  He hadn’t counted on this.  This was too much.  How was he even to know if Jonathan’s dishes were clean?  He should just leave.

“You should probably leave.”

Edward’s head snapped up to look at him.  He knew again!  This was getting out of hand.  He attempted to swallow back his annoyance.  “Why is that?” he hedged.

Jonathan’s look over his shoulder was decidedly tired.  “I know what you’re thinking.  You’re not impressed.  You’re disgusted, in fact.  You’re wondering why you came here and how a person could live like this.”

Edward’s only answer was to fold his arms.  Jonathan was stirring the soup with a long wooden spoon.  God, even the kitchen counter was covered in books and papers, stuffed in between all the discarded dishes, that was.  The apartment also had its fair share of scattered coffee cups Jonathan must have wandered off from the university with.  “Do you have an answer?” he asked finally.  The strained silence, punctuated only by the grumbling of the idling coffee maker, was beginning to wear on him, not to mention the general uncomfortable atmosphere.  Jonathan paused.

“The place I come from is not much different from this,” he said.  “It may not be tasteful, but it’s what I’m used to.”

Edward stepped forward.  “But you came here to get away from that.  To be better than that.”  He was guessing, but people did not travel thousands of kilometres to a new beginning in a different province merely to act out the life they’d left behind.  Jonathan stopped stirring again.

“I did.”

Edward did his best to be patient as Jonathan turned off the stovetop and opened one of the cupboards, white but streaked with spills and scrapes.  It was mostly empty inside, with some dishes in the very back.  Jonathan removed a pair of bowls and looked at them cursorily.  They seemed to be clean, though of course Edward couldn’t be certain from this far away.  Jonathan poured out the soup and added a spoon to each bowl, then reached back into the cupboard again to remove two coffee cups.  “Do you drink coffee?” Jonathan asked, and Edward shook his head before realising Jonathan was not facing him and wouldn’t see.

“I don’t.”

“I don’t have anything else.”

Of course he didn’t.  “That’s fine.”

Edward accepted the bowl Jonathan handed him and they walked into the living room.  The couch, at least, was sloppily covered with a dark blue sheet that didn’t seem to have been there all that long.  It was a foot or so from a sturdy but chipped wood table, of course piled with books and magazines and papers.  Edward thinned his lips unintentionally as he pushed some of it out of the way, so as to make space for himself.  Jonathan did not bother, instead putting his own on top of what was in front of him.

The soup was good, obviously; Edward was very good at cooking, both out of necessity and because it was easy to impress the potential partners he invited over to his condo with a homecooked meal.  It was becoming a rare thing, for a young person to be able to actually cook, as opposed to softening ramen noodles with water from an electric kettle.  Jonathan did not remark on it, which left Edward miffed.

“Why did you stay?” Jonathan asked, suddenly.  Edward did not actually have an answer and busied himself with carefully placing his spoon back in the bowl.

“You told me not to,” was what he decided on, and Jonathan actually looked at him and smiled at the same time.  He had to look away himself because the gentle amusement in those damnable eyes was doing something to him it shouldn’t have been.  He should have left, and he should be leaving, right now, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do.  He wanted to do something else, all of a sudden, something that would be very bad if his future were to include going home and never coming back here again, as it so rightfully should have.  Why hadn’t he left?  Why wasn’t he leaving?  ‘You told me not to’, what kind of a reason was that?  Had he really just told Jonathan he was so easily manipulated?  Shameful.  This was becoming a real problem.

“That’s going to get you into trouble one day,” Jonathan said.

‘One day’ seemed to have come sooner than even Jonathan had been able to predict.

When Edward was finished he just left the bowl there on the table – Jonathan was unlikely to care, after all – and since Jonathan seemed to eat just as slowly as he marked papers, Edward had to entertain himself.  Which he did by talking.  He was discussing what he’d have to do in the spring to undo the damage of winter weather on his car when Jonathan put his coffee cup down and said, “Does anything in the world prevent you from talking?”

He looked at Jonathan out of the corner of his eye.  He still wanted to do it.  He wasn’t going to. 

Maybe he was.

He couldn’t.  It was a bad idea.

Or maybe it was a fantastic idea.  He wouldn’t know unless he did it, after all.

“Well,” he said slowly, still arguing with himself mentally, “there is one thing.”

“Pray tell, so I’m aware for the future.”

Oh, now he had to!

But wait.  That meant he wanted there to be a future.  He was really going to go through with this, even though he was still disgusted by his surroundings in the back of his mind.  They were deplorable.  He couldn’t live like this!

He couldn’t live like this?  Was he planning on moving in already?

No need to think that far ahead just now.  Besides.  He could still keep this casual.  He would stop before he went too far.  He’d know when that was, and he’d stop.

So while Jonathan was still looking at him, expecting his answer, Edward leaned forward on the couch and placed one hand on the back of Jonathan’s head.  Before Jonathan had the time to move away from his touch, Edward kissed him.

He tasted strongly of coffee, which was not one of Edward’s favourite things, but it wasn’t so bad, really.  Even if it had been, most of his attention was focused on making this the best damned first kiss anyone had ever had.  Oh, Jonathan was lucky.  Edward was better practised at this than anyone else he ever would have met.  He lingered as long as he thought was safe – if Jonathan came to his senses and pulled away, it would be ruined – and then sat back in his place on the couch as though he had never moved. 

More quickly than Edward would have preferred, Jonathan stood up and collected the dishes.  This shortly became so irritating that Edward looked over the back of the couch, with the full intent of demonstrating his annoyance at Jonathan’s lack of a reaction, but before he opened his mouth he watched as Jonathan put the dishes into the sink.  He did it with confusing slowness, and with his other hand and with just as much delay he put his fingers to his lips.  He was staring into the sink as though it would tell him just what it was he was feeling, and why.  Edward smiled and turned around.  There!  Finally.  He’d done something Jonathan hadn’t seen ahead of time.

But he needed to remember that Jonathan was not one of his casual acquaintances.  Jonathan had interviewed him.  Jonathan wanted something that would last, and Edward was not entirely sure if he wanted to go that far just yet, but he did know Jonathan was not meant to be one of his flings.  This was a different game, and Edward had to keep the rules in mind.

When Jonathan returned to the living room Edward stood up.  “I should get going before the snow gets too deep,” he said.  Jonathan didn’t seem to understand what he’d said for a moment.

“Yes,” he said finally.  He sat back down on the couch and Edward walked to the front door.  Now he was a little confused.  Was Jonathan really that dazed, or –

Maybe he hadn’t been dazed at all.  Perhaps he’d merely hated it so much that he couldn’t believe it had been so bad.  That did make him feel hurt, but sometimes people just did not click physically.  Edward didn’t find Jonathan all that attractive.  He hadn’t even felt anything from the kiss himself, other than personal satisfaction at his skill that was, since there had been no reaction at all from Jonathan.

Jonathan probably wanted him to leave.  He’d hated it.  It would be the first time in history that had ever happened to Edward, but if anyone was going to break his streak it would be Jonathan.  He was trying to become angry but could only conjure more hurt.  This was unfair.  Why did it matter so much?  He should have just left.  He should never have sat down and never –

The front porch of the building was buried in snow, and the road in front of it had not been plowed.  Great.  He was going to have to shovel his way to his car, and hope it was able to get through the snow and out of the parking lot.  He closed the door and went back down the stairs, entering the apartment enough that he could see Jonathan but no more.  “Jonathan!”

“What.”

“Where’s your shovel?”

“I… don’t have one,” was Jonathan’s answer.  Edward realised he should have thought of that, given that Jonathan did not seem to own anything that had the ability to clean things up.  He sighed to himself.

“I’ll see if one of the other tenants has one.”  He was about to turn back to the stairs when he saw Jonathan lean over the side of the couch.

“How deep is it?”

Edward pursed his lips.  “Three feet or so.  It hasn’t stopped snowing yet.”

Jonathan was silent for a long moment. 

“You could stay here tonight.”

Edward’s head snapped up to look at Jonathan, who was studiously inspecting a book in his lap.  As though Edward would fall for that.  

“I have no problem with asking around for a shovel,” he said, to push Jonathan a little.  To get him to admit just why he was offering, hopefully.

“I’m going to Tim Hortons in the morning anyway,” Jonathan told him.  “They won’t have cleared all of the roads by the time you need to leave your condo.  You can save yourself and your car some trouble.”

“Fine,” Edward said, making pains to act as though it were a hassle to stay there.  It wasn’t, though he did hope Jonathan had something to put on the couch.  Something clean.  He sat himself back down on the couch and opened his laptop.  Jonathan stood.

“I have some sheets someplace,” he said, moving towards the room opposite the kitchen.  Edward decided to follow and almost instantly regretted it.  There was a small washroom next to the bedroom, and both of these were in a simply horrendous state.  How could such a clean and organised mind have produced this mess?  It simply didn’t make sense.

The bedroom itself held only a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand, all of which were covered with books and papers, of course.  This was punctuated by entirely random piles of clothes largely consisting of plaid flannel and jeans.  Jonathan was already leaning into the closet, and when he stepped back he had some sheets that were actually folded over one arm.

“They’ve been in here a while, but they are clean,” Jonathan said.  He handed them to Edward and began to walk away, but for some reason he glanced at Edward and then… closed the closet door.

How interesting!  What did it mean?  Was there something in there Edward wasn’t to see?  He had the sudden realisation that perhaps Jonathan made no effort to clear up this mess not solely because he was used to such an environment, but because such chaos was extremely effective camouflage.  There was a thrilled tingling in his stomach.  Fascinating.  Jonathan was fascinating.  He followed Jonathan out of the bedroom but took as much time as he dared, scanning the scattered paper with great interest.  What secrets were hidden, buried within the piles?

“What did you say your research was about again?” Edward asked, once he’d placed the bedding on the couch.  Jonathan put one hand on the back of it.

“I didn’t,” Jonathan answered.  Edward waited, but he didn’t continue.

“So what is it about?” he asked finally.  Jonathan looked back at the book he’d been reading.

“Fear,” he said.  Again, he did not elaborate.  Edward frowned.

“What about it?”  You couldn’t make theses out of just that.

“Everything,” Jonathan snapped, and the intensity of his stare at that moment stalled Edward’s breath.  Now he remembered.  Now he remembered why he was here.  He climbed onto the back of the couch and scooted over to where Jonathan was standing. 

“Tell me more.”

Jonathan studied him for a long moment.  To assess if it was worth the effort to tell him, maybe, or to decide if he was worth the knowledge.  He would pass this test too, of course. 

“Once you know fear, you know everything,” Jonathan said slowly.  “No motivation, no behaviour, no thought is beyond you.  I can know everyone and everything on this earth once I know fear.”

Now that was a philosophy Edward had never heard before.  He leaned forward as much as was safe.  “Are you sure about that?”

Jonathan did not so much as blink.  “Why are you here?”

Edward frowned.  “Because you told me to stay here.”  The narrowing of Jonathan’s eyes seemed somehow… predatory.

“You simply do as you’re told, Edward?”

“Of course not.”  He faced forward again, suddenly realising he wasn’t sure where this was going.

“But to my larger point.  Why are you here?  Why did you come at all?  Surely you knew what you were in for.”

He had.  He had prevented himself from thinking about it, but he wasn’t stupid.  He’d known.  He opened his mouth to provide an answer but could not think of one he liked.  Jonathan answered for him.

“Because you’re afraid.”

“Of what?” Edward snapped, which did not help his case whatsoever.  Jonathan’s smile was minute but even so it hollowed out his stomach.  He was trying to think of a discreet method of edging away, because it felt as though Jonathan were looming over him suddenly even though he was several inches away and not doing so at all, but whatever he did, Jonathan noticed.  He was so very intelligent and somehow Edward had forgotten.

“That no one will ever understand,” Jonathan told him, and his low voice might have been soothing if Edward’s teeth hadn’t been ground together.  “What’s the point of being a genius if you’ve no one to share it with?  No one to truly appreciate it in the way that you do?  And the people who do remark on it, well, they discard everything you do as effortless, don’t they?  Your achievements have no true worth, because you didn’t have to work for them, did you?”

“Of course I did!” Edward found himself saying, even as his fingers were gripping the back of the couch with force.  “I…”  Jonathan was good.  Too good, perhaps. 

How could there be a such thing as ‘too good’?  No, Jonathan knew things.  Things Edward needed to know.  Jonathan put a hand on his shoulder, and it… it felt nice.  It should have added tension to the situation, given the context, but Jonathan had never touched him before.  His hand was firm but… reassuring.  Jonathan had a mastery of physical cues the likes of which Edward had never dreamed.  He was becoming more convinced by the moment that Jonathan truly was disguising himself beneath all the clutter.  It was simple and common to overlook a person who seemingly did not have themselves together, but Jonathan did.  And he did in a far greater fashion than anyone Edward had ever known.

“I am not here to intimidate you,” Jonathan said, and just like that he seemed normal.  Relatively, anyway.  “There are doubtless several other reasons for anything a person does at any given time.  But rarely is anyone truly motivated by anything other than their own private fears.”

“Why did you ask me to stay?” Edward ventured.  He marvelled at the fact that Jonathan could convey so much with the barest motions; it was barely even there but his smile was at once gentle and scolding.

“Because I enjoy your company,” he said simply. 

It was such a clean reason.  Edward admired it.  He himself had a sort of… checklist, of the requirements a person must fulfill to even really be near him, but Jonathan’s answer… he envied it.  How clear and precise the mind that produced it must be!

“I cannot offer you anything you are used to,” Jonathan went on, “but you are welcome to what I have.”

Edward found that his hands were clasped together.  He didn’t really know why that was.  “Thank you,” he remembered to say.  Jonathan nodded and left for the bedroom, and Edward swung his legs back over the other side of the couch.  Standing up, he pulled the sheet off the couch and revealed a mismatched collection of cushions that clearly came from various other pieces.  He sighed and neatly arranged a clean sheet overtop.  The pile smelled a little musty but Edward wasn’t sure if that were because they’d been sitting in the closet for so long or because just about everything here carried the tint of old books.  He stripped to his underclothes and sat down on the couch.  As he pulled his laptop towards him he had the sudden thought that no one had ever simply enjoyed his company before.  He paused in his accessing one of the online engineering journals he read.

Thinking about it made him… happy.

But why?  He hadn’t done anything.  It wasn’t a reflection of effort.  Jonathan was content with his mere existence?  Why? 

How could anyone simply be content with Edward the way he was, without him even doing anything to earn it?  It was a nice notion, but an unrealistic one.  There would be a cost, and Edward would have to make a payment eventually.

He felt as though it would be nice, to allow himself to be deluded just for a little while and pretend it was all true and genuine and honest.  Just this once.  He settled himself into the arm of the couch and tucked the sheet around his waist and went on with his reading.

If he’d made a mistake, he would deal with it later.

Author’s note:

There is a part three.  Someday.  It’s started.

MD-PhD stolen from Codot.

Chapter Text

‘Part Three’

Edward woke to the sound of a reversing snowplow and someone yelling about being out of vegan butter.  Odd.  He lived on the seventh floor, why –

That was when he noticed the clutter, and the general aged atmosphere, and he got the impression he was in the house of grandparents he had never met.  It was oddly pleasant.  He fumbled for the glasses that had fallen off his face and into the space between his ribs and the back of the couch and sat up, managing to catch his laptop before he dumped it onto the floor.  Jonathan was sitting on the floor with his back against the front side of the couch, at his papers again.  His own glasses were most of the way down his nose and he looked very pale.  Edward rubbed his nose and sat up.

“What time is it?” he asked, as best he could thirty seconds after waking.  He generally preferred to spend more time easing himself into his day, but that simply wouldn’t be polite.  Jonathan shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

Edward pushed his glasses on and reached into the pocket of his discarded pants for his phone.  He had to be at work in an hour and a half.  He lay back down but not before catching sight of Jonathan’s face.  He had not slept at all that night.

“You look tired,” he said.  Jonathan looked at him with the smallest motion of his head possible, but said nothing.  There was a cup of coffee on the floor next to him.  His legs were crossed and the span of his knees must have been at least a foot and a half.  “You drink coffee here and then go to Tim Hortons?”

Jonathan eyed the cup for a moment.  “I drink a lot of coffee.”

Edward sat up and pushed himself onto the floor next to Jonathan, the sheet still tangled around his legs.  He couldn’t get all that close because of Jonathan and his general mess, but that didn’t really matter.  He was just trying to get on his level.  “It’s not good for your skin, you know.”

Jonathan almost smiled.  “I don’t believe that anything I do is.”

Edward folded his arms.  “You don’t plan on living very long, do you.”

“I will live as long as I need and no longer.”

After that Jonathan took Edward to work, bought his coffee, and left, without speaking a word the entire time, which meant Edward had to stand there all day and think about that statement.  It had such fascinating implications!  How long would that be?  How long did one know they needed to live for?  How did Jonathan even know what it was he was alive to do?  That was certainly something Edward hadn’t figured out yet, but Jonathan had.  No, of course he had!  He was so clever and he knew himself so well…

He impatiently awaited the end of his day, in which he commandeered a coworker to drop him off at the university, coffee for Jonathan in hand.  Jonathan barely looked at him when Edward closed the door to his office, and he frowned and put the coffee on the desk.  “Did you sleep last night at all?”

Jonathan took a long breath and sat back in his chair, removing his glasses.  “I did not.”

“Is that… normal?” Edward ventured, folding his arms onto the desktop and leaning on them.  Jonathan straightened the glasses so they were more parallel with the edge of the desk.

“Somewhat.”

Edward found himself biting the inside of his cheek and forced himself to stop.  He hadn’t been able to sleep because of Edward.  That was the reason, wasn’t it.  But he wasn’t saying it because he was trying to be polite.

Now when had Jonathan ever cared about being polite?

“Is it a bad time to mention I left my laptop at your place?”

Jonathan actually smiled and slid his glasses back on.  “I noticed, and it was quite clever of you.  But I have to take you back there anyway so you can pick up your car.”

Maybe Edward was overreacting again.  Jonathan didn’t seem disinclined to have him over again at all.  “I may have wanted to ensure I was invited back inside.”

Jonathan yawned and used one hand to further disarrange his hair.  He had crooked teeth.  “You were so unimpressed yesterday I’ll admit I couldn’t be sure that was the case.”  He stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum.  Edward straightened.

“I’m still deciding on that.”

Jonathan gave him one startling, appraising look, then proceeded to packing things into his briefcase as per usual.  Edward tried to figure out what it meant as he followed Jonathan into the lot to his truck, and had decided by the time he climbed into it that Jonathan must not have expected that answer.  It further implied he was using the mess as camouflage.  Jonathan started the engine with one naked key and flicked on the wipers.  They cut something of a swath through the snow on the windshield, but they seemed as old as the truck itself and smeared the stuff across the very section they were supposed to clear.  Edward looked at Jonathan for a long moment, who was far more interested in his coffee.

“Do you want me to brush off the windshield?” he asked after a moment and before realising he didn’t actually see such a tool anywhere.  Jonathan shook his head. 

“I don’t have a brush to do that with.”

“Does it not snow in Newfoundland?”

He thought that Jonathan almost laughed.  He seemed genuinely amused, at least.  “It snows a great deal more there than it does here.”

“But you own neither a shovel nor a brush?”

Jonathan shrugged.  “Someone else always does.”

They didn’t speak again until Edward had followed Jonathan back into his apartment, and Edward had walked as slowly as he could towards his laptop while Jonathan looked at the half-full coffeepot and apparently decided he was going to make a new one instead.  As Edward was neatly gathering the cord Jonathan asked, “Are you from here?”

Edward froze.  Jonathan was actually asking him a question about himself?  “…Yes.”

Jonathan opened the top-situated freezer and frowned into it, removing a block of some yellowish substance covered in saran wrap.  “Do you know what that is?” Edward asked, abandoning his laptop in favour of entering the kitchen.  Jonathan shook his head and put the block back into the freezer.

“Then why did you – “

“Perhaps I’ll remember later.”  He pulled open the refrigerator.  “Do you mind bologna?”

It took him a moment to remember what it was.  He hadn’t eaten it in years.  “Uh… no.”

“If you’re staying, that’s what I’m having for supper.”

He was having a bologna sandwich.  For dinner.

They should have gone to Edward’s condo instead.

Edward was disturbed to find that Jonathan had not meant a bologna sandwich at all; in fact, he simply stood at the kitchen counter and folded a small quantity of potato chips inside of a slice of meat and ate it like that.  Edward eyed him uneasily, wondering if he was expected to just join in on this strange behaviour, before Jonathan looked over at him suddenly.

"You're going to need bread, aren't you," he said, without really asking.

"If you have some," Edward answered, somewhat relieved when Jonathan did produce the end of a loaf.  It was a little old, but not so much he was willing to forgo it for... whatever Jonathan was eating.

“And your parents?” Jonathan asked after they were done and they'd been sitting in the other room for a few minutes.  Edward grimaced.

“My mother disappeared when I was eight.  I have no idea where she went.  As for my father… after I left, he returned to la belle province, since he no longer had his kid tying him to Toronto.”  Only out of habit did he properly accent the French.  He’d been trying not to for years, but it had been ingrained in him too early to shake.  Jonathan looked at him with lowered brows.

“To where?”

“Québec.”

“Ah.”  Jonathan took a drink of his coffee.  “Montreal is… interesting.  Dignified.”

“I’ve never been.”  And he never planned to go, either.

“Because your father is from there and you dislike him?”

‘Disliked’ was a severe understatement.  “That would be why.”

Jonathan shook his head.  “You shouldn’t eschew your heritage because of one man.  If anything, you should embrace it.  He would probably be extremely angry for you to lay claim to something so important to him.”

Edward found himself staring at the back of his laptop in amazement.  It was true!  His father would be furious!  He should have thought of that years ago!

“Was your family upset you moved so far away?”

Jonathan put aside the cup of coffee.  “I have no family.”

Edward tried to feel empathetic, but failed.  He found himself saying, somewhat bitterly, “I often wonder if that would have been easier.”

Jonathan appraised him briefly.  “It may have been.  In some ways.”

Edward would have loved an explanation for that, but Jonathan for some reason decided to turn the television set on just then, which entirely discouraged further inquiring on the matter.  

Jonathan then largely ignored Edward for the next few hours, except for the time Edward got up to inspect the cups in the back of the cupboard to see if there was an actual clean one in there he could use.  Jonathan was probably mostly interested in the fact Edward had to climb up on the counter to actually reach up there.

He had the passing thought that would be useful one day, when they both had their own things in the cupboards and each were more comfortable reaching into shelves at different heights, and when he actually realised he’d had this thought he almost dropped the cup he was holding.  Not this again!  He wasn’t going to move in with Jonathan.  He’d only known him a few months, and not very well at that.  Jonathan was far too interested in keeping everything very close to the chest.

Because he knew he had few redeeming qualities.  He knew he had only one way to get Edward to stick around long enough to become attached.

That was a little manipulative.  But… clever.  Very clever.  And if Edward had said he’d never been manipulative towards a prospective partner before, he would have been lying.  Which was another thing he’d done for that reason.

He sat back down on the couch with his drink, realising belatedly that he had put his laptop down on his original spot and he had now had to move to the left.  That was, closer to Jonathan.  Jonathan was going to think he’d done it on purpose.  He was going to analyse it and come to the conclusion Edward was making a move on him.  He wasn’t.

He could be.

Yes.  Why take this opportunity away from himself!  He could pick his laptop up and slide back over to the right, but he wasn’t going to.  He was just going to pick it up, and put his feet on the table like so, and he was just going to stay right there.  As though he’d done it on purpose.

Oh, but Edward was having to make all the moves!  It wasn’t fair.  Would it have killed Jonathan to have tried to seduce him, just once?

He doesn’t know how, Edward reminded himself. 

He could have learned through observation by now!  He’s… observant!

“Have you ever wanted to do something that isn’t quite right, but even so you cannot put it out of mind?”

If that was Jonathan’s attempt at seduction, he needed to be a lot more observant.  Edward rubbed at his nose, where his glasses pressed into the bridge.

“I do things like that all the time,” he said, before remembering he hadn’t actually told Jonathan about his… side jobs.  “If you want something, take it.  Just make sure you won’t get caught.”

“You aren’t big on morals, are you,” Jonathan said, with an incredibly straight face.

“Wasn’t raised with any,” Edward responded with nonchalance, and they each went back to what they’d been doing.

//

It was only when Edward became supremely irritated by the impression of his glasses digging into the left side of his face that he realised he’d fallen asleep, and someplace very uncomfortable.  He was about to sit up and figure out just where he was when he realised there was something on top of his head.  It wasn’t heavy, or bearing overt pressure, in fact… it was –

It was Jonathan’s hand!

Now that was a new development.  Now that he had been startled awake enough to realise it, it could have been nothing else but.  Jonathan’s lap was amazingly hard, and he was going to have a bruise in the morning from the ear of his glasses pressing into his skin.  But Jonathan’s hand was too fascinating for him to move.  He was stroking Edward’s hair, but hesitantly, even… shyly.  As though someone were in the other room and he was prepared to stop as soon as they appeared.  It was nice.  It made Edward feel… cared-for.

He’d gone and made himself upset with that one.  Nothing new, but for the joy at Jonathan’s behaviour – finally! – aggressively replaced with the thought that this really should be nothing new to him was sobering.  He almost wished he’d never woken up in the first place.  He always broke up with people before they could make him feel this way.

Except this time, he supposed.

He reached up to remove his glasses and Jonathan immediately pulled his hand back.  Edward managed to toss the glasses onto the table and put the now-empty hand onto Jonathan’s leg with a hesitance of his own that surprised him.  He’d gone too far.  He didn’t know what to do now.  He wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

“Don’t stop,” Edward said, without really wanting to.  He stared at the television across the room, which was muted and hard to see lying sideways, but it was better than acknowledging that he wasn’t really in control of this anymore.

It took some minutes, but Jonathan continued albeit with a little more surety, and only then did Edward feel comfortable enough to close his eyes.

//

When Edward woke up Jonathan hadn’t moved.  His head was tilted back against the couch and the shadows beneath his eyes had deepened considerably.  Edward didn’t usually make an effort to get up as soon as he realised he was conscious, but the man looked terrible.  He had the feeling he should probably ask about that.  He wasn’t sure what the feeling was, exactly, but it might have been concern.  He had only ever known that rarely before, so he had no real way of knowing.  He sat up, rubbing at the corners of his eyes and focusing on getting his mouth moist enough that he could talk without embarrassing himself.  Jonathan remained still, but Edward could feel those eyes on him and it created a thrill in his stomach.  He maybe took a little longer than he needed in order to savour it.

“I’d ask how you slept, but it seems self-evident,” Edward said, pleased that his voice seemed more or less normal.  He crossed his legs, parallel with the edge of the couch cushions, and smoothed out the sheet absentmindedly.  He realised Jonathan hadn’t answered the question he hadn’t really asked and looked over at him.  Jonathan had turned his eyes to the other side of the room, unfocused on a sagging bookcase both collapsing with and being held up by his endless collection of books.  “Jonathan?”

Jonathan looked at him slowly, as though it required a great deal of energy he didn’t have.  “Mm.”

“Did you… sleep at all?”

Jonathan took a long breath.  “I’m afraid you rendered me incapable.”

Edward was about to open his mouth to argue – everyone always brought up the snoring, as if he could help the fact he had a deviated septum! – when Jonathan continued, “It’s not what you think.”

He chewed on his tongue a moment.  “What is it, then?”

Jonathan pressed his hands against his knees and stood up.  The raised blue veins there were shocking against the pale skin.  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

For some odd reason, Edward discovered he was worried about it anyway.  He had no idea why.  If Jonathan said he didn’t need to, why bother?

Because that’s what you do when you care, he found himself thinking.

He usually tried not to.  It was easier that way.  But Jonathan had certainly done his fair share of it, right up to and including allowing Edward to sleep all night in his lap.  Given the size of his legs, it could not have been that comfortable nor that pleasant for him.  Maybe it had even put his legs right to sleep and he was just very good at hiding it.

“Make sure you take your laptop with you,” Jonathan called to him.  Startled, Edward looked behind him to see that Jonathan had left to change his shirt.  Soft blue plaid.  It enhanced his eyes a little.  When Edward realised he was staring he snapped his eyes back to the computer in front of him.

“Oh,” was all Edward came up with.  There was a watery unpleasantness in his gut.  He’d done something wrong.  He’d ruined everything, somehow.  It was the not knowing that bothered him more than anything.  It always had been and always would be.

Jonathan said nothing else to him as he made his preparations to return to the university.  When Edward told him he was leaving first, because if they arrived at the Tim Hortons simultaneously it would be quite awkward – not to mention it would leave Edward with a  great deal of explaining to do – he only nodded vaguely.  Edward swallowed against his dry throat.  All signs pointed to him having done something terribly wrong.  He tried to convince himself it was because Jonathan was exhausted.  He looked it. 

He didn’t show up at the store until about half an hour after Edward had already clocked in, and Edward almost asked him if he was all right.  He looked almost as ill as he had when he’d actually been sick.  But his tongue locked up for some reason and they made their daily exchange in silence.  Edward kept away from him as much as he could.  During an accidental look over to that corner, he saw Jonathan hunched over the table with his eyes closed, one hand pressed against his forehead and his other arm draped on the edge of the table.  Edward took a short breath.  Jonathan seemed almost… despondent.  If Edward knew what he’d done, he would have apologised.

Edward never apologised for anything.  The fact that he wanted to do so for something he wasn’t even sure he’d done was a bit… terrifying.  It reminded him a little too much of things he was ready to forget.  It was nearly the same: he was being given the impression he’d done something terrible, and this uneasy silence was his punishment before the real outcome was revealed.  Apologising early never really helped, but he still had the urge to do it each and every time regardless.

Jonathan left at the usual time without looking at him and Edward’s stomach continued to sink.  He hated not knowing.  Hated it.

And then, for a second time, Jonathan went silent on him.

He didn’t come to the store.  His office was dark and so was Edward’s phone on that front.  One day went by, and another, and another… going on two weeks in all.  He spent hours every day going over all of the time they’d spent together, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.  What was it he’d said?  What had he done?  He should have been used to it by now.  When he bothered to stick around, the other person left.

When Edward looked up one morning and saw him, he was almost certain he was hallucinating.  He wasn’t in the habit of doing that, but there was scarcely any other explanation.  He’d never seen anyone that looked like Jonathan, therefore this Jonathan he was seeing clearly was not real.

“Good morning,” Jonathan said.  Edward licked his lips.  All right.  Maybe he was real.  He wished he wasn’t so excited about it.  Tenuously so, but he had… missed him.  A lot.

“Good…”  No.  No, he wasn’t going to do this.  He straightened his spine.  He opened his mouth to speak but Jonathan beat him to it.

“You have every right to be upset about what I did.”

He closed his mouth.

“I had some thinking to do,” Jonathan continued.  “But it had to be… solitary.  Without exterior influence.  And hopefully you can believe me when I say you were very influential even so.”

Oh.  Well, that wasn’t so bad.  He poured out Jonathan’s coffee with deliberation, hoping there would be more.  Of an explanation or flattery, he didn’t know.  Either would do.  He was leaning more towards the explanation, though.

“And so that is why I’ve come to tell you that I’m leaving.”

Edward accidentally poured coffee over his hand and had to bite his tongue to keep quiet about it.  He stuck his hand underneath the nearby faucet as casually as possible.

“Oh.”

Nice one, Eddie.

“I don’t know when I’ll be returning.  There’s something in Newfoundland I must do and I can wait no longer.”

Edward nodded and passed over his coffee.  He had no intention of putting it into the computer.  Jonathan did not take it immediately, nor did he withdraw his wallet.  He seemed uncertain.  Edward had to ask.

“What?”

Jonathan took another moment.

“I don’t wish to pose an ultimatum.  But I am faced with the need to tell you the truth: I have no intentions of returning here.”

Edward put his hands flat on the counter and stared studiously at the cream machine.  He didn’t like the sound of that.

“If you do not come with me,” Jonathan continued, more quietly, “we shall never meet again.”

Edward looked up at him without immediately realising what he’d done.  Go with Jonathan?  To Newfoundland?  To do… something?

He knew nothing about Jonathan.  But he had the distinct feeling this trip would tell him everything.  He had no idea what he was going there to do, but it must be something either great or terrible.  And it would be indicative of his true self.  A self that no one else knew, and that no one else had ever seen.  And perhaps no one ever would, if Edward let this chance disappear.  He was no longer upset about Jonathan’s absence.  It lined up with his previous actions, with the way he seemed to think.  Jonathan was not used to explaining himself to other people.  It was all right.  Edward would be glad to teach him.

He was going to do it.

He had no idea what was going to happen.  He didn’t even know where he was going.  But Jonathan was the most interesting, most intriguing thing he’d known in a long time.  And all of that was on top of the need to place his head in Jonathan’s lap again, to speak to him.  To hold his hand.  To kiss him.

There was a man beneath the mess, somewhere.  Edward needed to find it.  He had to know Jonathan.  He needed to –

Jonathan had turned around.  He was leaving.  Edward leaned over the counter as far as he could.  “Jonathan!”

Jonathan looked behind him.

“Wait there.”  And he ran into the back of the store to retrieve his things.  His mind raced through what he needed to do, at a bare minimum, to leave this life behind and start a new one somewhere else.  Anywhere else.  He would have to ask Jonathan to stop at his condo, if only for his citizenship documents.  He couldn’t leave them. 

His heart almost thrust through his ribs when he did not see Jonathan in the foyer.  He pushed the doors open and had to exhale in relief when he saw that Jonathan was standing beside the driver’s side door of his truck, arms folded across his chest.  He was looking at the road.  Edward smiled in relief and walked over to him, putting his bag on the ground.  “I’ll need you to stop by my condo for about five minutes,” he said, and Jonathan looked over at him as though he’d forgotten he even existed.  “I need some things.  And I don’t want to go on a road trip wearing this.”  He pinched at his pocketless waist. 

Jonathan returned his gaze to the road.  “Are you certain this is what you want?”

Edward frowned.  Why would he ask such a thing?  On the one hand, it did sound a bit bizarre… but on the other, Jonathan really did not know him that much better than Edward knew Jonathan.  Neither of them really knew anything, except… except that there was something.  Something that had caused Jonathan to make the suggestion in the first place, and something that made Edward think it was a good idea.  But how to demonstrate it?

Ah.  Of course.

Edward opened the door of the truck and swung his laptop bag onto the bench, pushing it in the direction of the gearshift.  He’d move it later.  He then stuck his left foot into the corner of the doorframe and stood up there, his hand secure around a position higher there.  Before Jonathan could react to any of this Edward used his free hand to press his shoulder against the truck and kissed him, long and hard.  After this he let go and Jonathan just looked at him, seeming vaguely dazed.  It was hard to tell, honestly.  Edward couldn’t help smiling at his naïveté.  It was so out of place on a man like him.  But it was also… cute.  Imagine that.

“Did you feel that?” Edward asked.  He had.  A thrill that ran far deeper than that of abandoning his life spontaneously.  Jonathan hesitated before nodding.

“I believe so.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Jonathan turned his head sideways, towards him.  “… no.”  The one word was the most hesitant Edward had ever heard out of him.

Edward brought his other foot into the truck.  “Me neither.  But I want to find out.”  He climbed into the driver’s side and slid himself along the bench, pushing his laptop bag onto the floor before raising his legs over the console, careful not to collide with the gearshift.  He smiled to himself at how quaint it was Jonathan owned a manual.  By the time he’d gotten arranged Jonathan had seated himself, but then he’d gone stationary again.  Both of his hands were in his lap and he was staring through the storefront ahead of them.

“So would I,” he said, finally.  His glance at Edward was nearly nonexistent.  “I am glad you agreed to accompany me despite a… significant lack of information.”

Jonathan seemed perturbed yet about this whole thing, so Edward did not push him to talk.  He took a little longer than five minutes getting changed and gathering what he needed from his condo, but Jonathan did not remark on the extra time taken.  And he shouldn’t have.  Edward’s need to find the proper outfit was to both of their benefits.  When he climbed back into the truck and saw where Jonathan’s hand was, he had an idea that would hopefully ease Jonathan’s mind a bit.  Edward hadn’t figured out just yet why he seemed so discomfited, but this would help.  Probably.

His plan was thwarted when, upon feeling Edward’s hand atop his, Jonathan yanked his hand away from the gearshift.  “What are you doing?” he asked, startled.  It crossed Edward’s mind that he might think Edward about to sabotage him somehow.  Well, he was about to learn how very wrong he was.  And not only because Edward didn’t know how to drive stick.

He shrugged.  “I’ve always wanted to do that.  Unfortunately, usually only cranky old men drive cars with stick shifts and they’re in lamentably short supply these days.”

Jonathan laughed.  Edward was surprised at his own reaction to this – that of some warm, comforting excitement – until he realised it was because he’d never heard Jonathan laugh before.  It was quiet, and husky.  You’d have to be paying attention to even know it was there.  But Edward liked it.  He wanted to hear it again, as many times as possible

It helped to convince him that he’d made the right decision.  By all accounts, what he was doing was very, very stupid.  For all he knew Jonathan just wanted to throw him in a ditch somewhere.  But on the off chance he wasn’t, this was going to result in something that one only came upon once.  It would be far beyond worth the risk.

When Jonathan put his hand on the stick again, it was cold enough that it sent a chill up Edward’s arm.  But that wasn’t the only reason for it: Jonathan’s long fingers enclosed his entirely.  He liked that.  He also liked how Jonathan seemed to be applying more pressure to the gearshift than was probably necessary.  And the way Jonathan was quite obviously not looking at him, and how he quite negligently only had two fingers on the steering wheel because he was resting his elbow on the windowframe, and how he actually seemed relaxed for the first time, and…

He didn’t know where he was going.  He didn’t really know who this man was, or what he wanted to do.  Edward didn’t know what was going to happen, or even what he himself was really doing.  But he did know one thing: it sure beat working at Tim Hortons.

Author’s note

That last part would’ve gone a lot better if this make and model of truck had running boards.

There’s another part where they go Do the Thing in Newfoundland but IDK if I should put it as a fourth part yet or just put it as its own thing.