Chapter Text
New York weather makes anyone ugly, Adam tells himself. It’s not his fault he’s windburned near the Lorimer Street L stop. In fact, it might even be Nick’s fault. That would make everything easier. He’d insisted on a cheap coffee rather than a good one, shoving him off the train barreling its usual way to Stav’s. Nick’s apartment had been full of people. Apparently Amber had a few friends over, who’d invited their friends, and so-on and so forth until it would be nearly impossible to record without those high ceilings catching every mumble of the guests.
So he acquiesced, telling Nick sure man, I’m sure a $1.50 coffee is worth getting off the train for, and scrounged in his pocket for maybe enough coins to cover it. Adam had been careless recently. He’d left his new card on his entryway table without putting into Apple Wallet, and fuck was he regretting it.
He’d already hopped the turnstile. The concept of having to ask Nick for a dollar and fifty cents for a subpar cup of deli coffee — and it’s a deli, not a bodega, thank you very much, it has sliced meat behind the counter — wakes Adam up more than the coffee ever could. He’s waiting outside, leaning on a piss-stained wall as Nick chats up whoever’s behind the counter, asking him to maybe slide an extra cup of black for a sweet discount. It’s a dance they’ve done many times.
Shaggy-mustache long-hair white gets more coffee than scraggly-beard curly-hair jew. Sometimes Nick even manages to get the second cup free. That’s what Adam’s praying for this time, that Nick will be so full of the win, full enough of the ‘I got him to pour an extra cup, sure it’s the dregs man but hey! Free coffee!” that he won’t notice the unflattering red spreading across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, Or even that he’ll forget to ask Adam for the coins he’s jangling in his front hoodie pocket.
Nick doesn’t forget. He jostles against Adam with his shoulder, laughing too-big and too-loud about something both of them know isn’t that serious. It’s a good morning. Nick swears Adam owes him on a penalty of a serious IOU blowjob coupon.
“From a dame like me?” Adam pretends to be shocked, putting on a shitty southern and transatlantic accent, somehow at the same time. “A suck? From an ugly little thing like me? Worth one-hundred-and-fifty whole cents?”
Nick just laughs, pushing the foam cup into his hand and motioning back towards the train station. Fuck, Adam’s going to have to jump it again.
*******
The smoke in Stav’s apartment is oppressive. It hangs down below the window-line, mingling in with the slats of the blinds and dancing around the sunlight eeking through.
They’re all taking turns pulling hits of tobacco and weed through one of Nick’s refurbished long-neck pipes, blowing it into each other’s faces and trying to avoid it seeping into the blankets littered atop Stav’s couch. Despite being halfway through an episode there’s no rush to laugh, no rush to talk. Instead they’re happy, high and heady as they take turns throwing ideas out.
“Chinese doorman,” Nick coughs, “we need to do Chinese doorman. I mean, think about it! Holy fucking shit, not knowing if he’s asleep or bored when you want your mail.” Stav hits the pipe through his gap tooth to everyone’s chagrin. He blows out the same hole, never once opening his mouth. It’s disgusting, and Adam thinks about how hard it would be to move his body to a hiding spot if he killed him. Obviously Nick is thinking the same thing, and he breaks his ‘Chinese doorman’ monologue to reach forward and grab at the pipe.
“Fuck no, you can’t smoke my shit if you’re doing that,” he complains, his face dropping out of the joke. Nick’s arms are too short to reach all the way across the table to where Stav’s sitting with the pipe, and he refuses to get up out of his chair. It’s a funny stalemate they’re stuck in, with Nick reaching for Stav and Stav leaning back in his chair far enough he runs the risk of breaking it. Then suddenly Nick’s launching forward, startling Adam back and snatching at his pipe. It was a fools’ mission. The open foam cup of shitty deli-coffee is all over the front of Nick’s shirt and pants, soaking the fabric and scalding skin where it can find it.
At first Nick doesn’t react. He just readjusts his grip on the pipe and looks down. It’s obvious that he’s trying to calm himself down as he stares, chest heaving and hands thrown in the air.
“MotherFUCKER!”
Stav’s wheezing through that same fuckin’ hole and Adam wonders if he’s ever going to have a heart attack from laughing. It would be a funny way to go, cackling at his best friend spilling coffee on his lap. Adam chooses not to dwell on it. Instead he leans forward on his spindly elbows, biting his cheek as he watches Nick try to pluck the wet denim from his quads. It’s clear he’s trying to wait it out, think maybe, maybe it’s not bad enough I have to change, but the stain and heat spreading across his body is undeniable.
Stav’s apologizing through his laughter, saying “man, none of my shit’s clean. I’m sorry, you can’t borrow anything. Wouldn’t fit you, anyway,” and he’s falling into another cackling fit, curling over his stomach where he’s sitting. Nick just nods stiffly.
The room is still smoky but it’s much less manageable now. Adam blinks through it and catches Nick’s eye as he desperately searches for something to dry himself with.
“Look,” Adam dips his head forward to stifle a laugh, “I’m wearing a shirt under my hoodie right now. If you stop giving me shit for not buying the coffee that you just spilled, by the way, I’ll be nice and let you borrow it.”
Nick doesn’t even look up to acknowledge his offer, choosing to rub at the middle of his jeans where the worst of the stain was. It’s an obscene gesture as he palms his crotch, moving the zipper this way and that as if to see how far the coffee had permeated. Because it’s just Nick’s luck, it permeated real far. Tinting the denim of his jeans and the red of his tank top with a horrible greasy brown and souring his face like a lemon. Bad, bad fuckin’ cheap coffee. And to top it all off, he looks like he’s gone and pissed himself.
“Fine,” Nick hisses, stretching his shirt away from his chest. “Fine, fuck. Pass it to me quick, I fucking hate wet clothes”. He shimmies out of the shirt first, shirking the red tank top over his head and past his — well built, maybe, Adam thinks — shoulders. They’re not too lean, with more than just a hint of bicep to them. Also, Adam doesn’t admire men like that. Nick’s shoulders are just big, and he hasn’t noticed before.
He’s also staring at Adam, which is a total minus in his book. Adam drops his eyes, avoids the warmth of his gaze and the look of his exposed chest. Usually it wouldn’t be indecent, but for some reason it is. When Adam finally looks back up, he can’t help but groan at the look on Nick’s face. It’s a self-righteous, satisfied sort of grin that Nick pins Adam with after winning their little game. A ‘see, I’ve lifted more heavy things than you, and you’ve noticed’. Proof as well that Nick’ll take any excuse to get naked, Adam can’t help but bite.
Despite being the tallest out of the three, Adam still has a bit of a complex about his looks. He’ll admit he likes to look nice, look put together when they’re filmed. It’s nothing crazy to slick back your hair or wash your face, but according to Nick he’s a goddamn narcissist for even trying it. So when Adam’s watching Nick pull his hoodie over his larger frame, it’s a real satisfaction to see it dwarf him.
Coughing through the fresh batch of smoke Stav’s just shot into the room, Adam tries to tell Nick how ridiculous he looks. But his lungs aren’t made of strong enough stuff and he ends up coughing into his lap with his full body. When he finally straightens out and really looks at Nick, he almost has another coughing fit. The shorter man’s already peeled off his stained clothes and has opted to just wear Adam’s hoodie instead of using it as a wipe. It’s the little things, Adam tells himself, he didn’t wipe the coffee with your hoodie. It’s a shitty black giant Yankees hoodie that Adam tells everyone he wears ironically but really puts it on when he wants to feel like a Native New Yorker! on the MTA. On him it fits normally, a little on the larger size but nothing obscene.
On Nick? It’s obscene.
Stav’s background babbling turns into white noise as Adam’s eyes lock onto Nick’s bare quads for the first time. He can’t peel them away, can’t stop staring at the tiny expanse of thigh shown above-the-knee-below-the-hem. It’s a tantalizing strip of skin; all muscular and tan? Really? Adam’s brain is making up things now.
But of course Nick had chosen to be one of God’s favorite twinks and wore high white jock-ish socks with some sort of sports label that nobody outside the Chinese factory could name. They even had the stripes. All together he looked fucking obscene sitting there in his boxers, high socks and Adam’s oversized Yankees hoodie across the table from him. He was fucking with the sleeves, flopping them around to test how much room he had, and Fuck, Adam thinks, he’s doing this to me on purpose.
It briefly occurs to him that they’re meant to be recording a podcast. After Nick tucks his knees to his chest on the chair, Adam doesn’t fucking care anymore. His stupid socked feet are intertwined, thick thighs pressed against his chest and his chin resting right against his knees. Even though his torso and arms are covered by the insane amount of hoodie, his legs are still bare and just a peek of the blue-grey boxers under the hoodie shows.
Enough to make Adam sick. Enough skin to fuck up his plans for the day. Now he’s not the hottest in the room. His beautiful boy-waifishness has been overtaken by a mustached hunk flexing his bare quads. It’s just so resoundingly unfair. Even worse, Nick’s being fucking funnier than him. Adam wants to throw up into the microphone, lunge forward and bite at the physical tapes of the recording. Instead, he settles for crossing his legs awkwardly and watching the ball of irony that looks like Nick’s performance.