Noah (oilthewheels) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-02-04 20:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | jp allen, noah anderson |
Who: Noah Anderson & JP Allen
What: What kind of asshole eats the last slice of pie??
When: 4th Feb
Where: The canteen
Rating: G (swears, possibly)
It had been a long day. JP had spent a disgustingly long portion of it in the gym, working out to try and make sure that he at least was able to keep on top of the physical demands that being an agent meant and then some time in the Hologym practising construct creation under intense pressure. And then, obviously, a shower. He’d had a good time with the few people who’d joined him the night before sitting outside and watching the moon, sharing some food and - eventually when it wheedled down to just him and Julian under the stars - a few spliffs. He’d unwound, relaxed some and despite having had a long day, he was still topped up from the night and was generally feeling a little more satisfied with the world than he sometimes did on other, less weed-filled occasions.
He’d started smoking it not too long after he’d arrived at the holding facility. He’d been so stressed out and worked up that his powers had started malfunctioning, and it turned out that the best way to chill him out and stop him creating random gravity-wells that messed with the immediate area was to give him a spliff or two. Now he was a casual smoker with a little more of an intense need when he was particularly messed up.
So yeah, he was a little late getting to the canteen for food but there was normally more than enough of a supply to keep him going. And for the most part there was. The only problem was he knew for a fact that there was going to be apple pie today: Chef had told him as much last night. He’d even confirmed the specific time frame that the food would be available so that he could come and get some and when he’d joined the line there was definitely a piece left. Only one piece, for sure, but he hadn’t seen that many people in line in front of him and certainly none that looked the pie-stealing type. So imagine his surprise when he got to the front of the line to find that the last piece of pie had been taken and all that was left in its place was a measly bit of pastry and some filling that some heathen had left behind from their piece.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked aloud. No one was there to hear him, mind, since there was no one standing behind the counter of the self-serve facility. Just emptiness to complain to about the lack of pie.
Dejected, he grabbed some ice-cream and a couple of clementines from the bowl beside the dessert section - for people who wanted to be healthy - stubbornly deciding that he was going to snub the other options that were available because he’d set his mind on a particular dessert and now nothing else would suffice.
Stomping over to a table, he put his tray down and fell heavily onto the seat. Behind him was some red-head, he’d just seen the edge of the guy’s nicely defined arm and shock of red hair before sitting down, but he wasn’t much in the mood for making a good first impression on other agents so just sat down and then leaned forward until his head thumped against the table.
Dramatic, sure, but he was feeling a bit of melodrama today, he didn’t necessarily think that was a bad thing. His usual sardonic seriousness - peppered with deadpan humour and the occasional lapse into Python-esque absurdity - had to give way to something else every now and then.
“Stupid ice-cream,” he grumbled as he started eating his burger. At least the burger tasted good. He was just shovelling it into his face quickly because he really didn’t like eating melting ice-cream. Sometimes he wished he was on better terms with the cryokinetics. “Who takes the last slice anyway?”
Noah had been hard at work since his transfer and he'd spent so long with engines that he'd almost forgotten what it was like to have actual human interaction. He hadn't really seen anyone since Holly so it was at that point that he figured he needed to clean up and human for a while. Of course humaning seemed to consist of having a shower, putting on some fresh clothes and finding his way to food.
Lots of food in fact.
And he wasn't at all over exaggerating about that given his plate was nearly overspilling onto his tray and he was honestly a lucky sonofabitch because as he'd rounded on the desserts he had managed to snag the last and final piece of apple pie. Not his fault if somebody else wanted it because his logic was first come first served. You didn't mess with Noah when it came to apple pie not when it was his favourite dessert.
He'd once sat down and ate a whole apple pie in a whole serving with very little breaks inbetween mouthfuls. What? He'd been a growing boy. Not that much had changed, but he couldn't exactly blame the fact he was in the middle of a growth spurt to explain his unreasonably large appetite. Noah had secured a table and had began to dig into his collection of food when he heard rather than saw the stomping raincloud of a person who just so happened to sit behind him in what could only be described as a loud dramatic hissy fit.
Then it dawned on him, said raincloud was grumbling about the fact that Noah had been fortunate enough to secure the last piece of apple pie. "Would've been you I'm guessing if you'd got here sooner," he drawled with a smirk as he turned his head to regard the back of the other person's head.
JP gripped his fork until his knuckles turned white. Whoever had taken the pie also had the audacity to be the nice-armed red-head that he was sitting behind? What was the world coming to? He didn’t want to turn around because he wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t flick a spoonful of luke-warm mashed potato in the guy’s smug as hell face.
“Well some of us have handlers who make us work out extra hard in the gym until there’s almost no food left and-”
He was turning around as he spoke, despite his better intentions and the words died in his mouth as in his peripheral he caught sight of a face he recognised. It was a face that he hadn’t seen for a long time and the face had changed a little - sharpened, looked a little older - but it was still a face he knew.
Behind them, on the opposite side of the table that JP was sitting at, the gravity increased suddenly and the bench crumpled in on itself as if it had been sat on by a whole herd of elephants.
“Holy fuck,” he settled on finishing the trailed off sentence with. “Of course you would be the one to take the last piece of pie.”
Noah was mid eye roll when the person addressing him began to turn but it was aborted halfway through when he clocked the face. A face that was familiar or more importantly eyes that were- No, couldn’t be, right? What were the chances that he would be here of all places when Noah had been pretty convinced he would need to keep looking.
Of course JP looked different from what Noah remembered but then years had passed so that was inevitable, but it was still very much JP.
His mouth felt dry and it felt very much like he’d forgotten what it was to speak and form words but eventually he mustered, “Well, I did always love apple pie.”
Noah, it seemed, got a sudden case of I-wasn’t-expecting-to-see-you-here dry mouth. JP had much the same, except his reaction had meant that there was a nearby bench that had been destroyed. He didn’t turn around to look at the destruction he’d caused partly because he didn’t want to but also partly because he still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that Noah had actually turned up.
Here. Here of all places. What was he doing here? He knew there had been new people that joined - this place had a revolving door for agents coming and going. Had Noah developed abilities? Had he been kicked out of the military? He felt a crushing worry sweep over him because even though Noah looked okay at first glance, what if he wasn’t?
He meant to ask ‘are you okay?’ and ‘what happened that meant you ended up here’ and so many other questions. That was not what came out of his mouth. What he ended up saying was, “That’s no excuse.”
Noah half wondered if he’d dozed off in the jeep he’d been fixing up and this was some sort of fatigue induced dream because hell anything was possible especially as the reality of JP sitting just behind him was one he was still trying to wrap his head around.
Much like JP he had a million questions however none of those were forthcoming and instead he snorted quietly at JP’s ascertain that it was no excuse.
“First come first served,” he bit back with a smirk.
“That’s what assholes say,” JP retorted with a scowl, though even as he said it he could feel his mouth pulling into a small smirk that was significantly softer than his usual expressions. Concern moved into his eyes then, eyes finally moving from Noah’s face to look his friend over as best he could to make sure he wasn’t injured and didn’t have a mark anywhere that would indicate he’d had an implant forcibly inserted into him.
JP had a small scar on the back of his neck where it had gone in. His hand lifted to rub it gently before he cleared his throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment, levity gone for now. “What- you- I don’t understand. What’re you doing here?”
And in this brief fleeting moment it felt very much like no time had passed. It was almost too easy to forget where they were and what this place meant. “This asshole has the last piece of apple pie,” he threw back as his grin grew to bare his teeth.
Of course as the mood sombered his grin dimmed at the corners, a small nod being given a moment later. “Yeah, I’m good. Are you?” JP seemed to be okay, in one piece and not at all like Noah had imagined over the years. “I uh joined the regiment,” he offered after a few moments. He wondered if the to find you was better left unsaid, didn’t want to make things awkward or weird.
“I was the Everglades but got shipped here a little while ago.”
“No fucking way,” JP breathed, “I was in the Everglades until a couple of years ago. They shipped me here and… here I’ve been.” His fingers flexed and he rested them on his knees to stop him from reaching out to poke Noah, like he wanted to make sure that he was actually there. “I thought you’d joined the army? That- I mean- I- I wanted to stay in touch but I- They don’t let us email once you get enlisted into the Wraiths regiment.”
“I uh did,” Noah said with a nod of his head. “Marines to be exact.” He reached up to rub at his hair and then shrugged. “Apparently my superior officer thought I’d make a good addition to the regiment so put my name forward so when opportunity came knocking I went for it. I figured I dunno there was maybe a chance I’d run into you one day and actually find out what happened so uh yeah here I am.” Cue an uncomfortable clearing of the throat.
JP didn’t quite know what to say because the insinuation there was that Noah - his best friend of all time, the guy who had helped him learn to control his powers and never ratted him out - had joined the regiment to find him was a pretty intense insinuation. He cleared his own throat to avoid any possible chance of misty-eyed responses and just offered a half-smile.
“Pretty big gamble,” he said, not letting the silence last because unless Noah had had a huge personality shift in the past few years the guy was massively uncomfortable and feeling pretty vulnerable right now. JP wasn’t about to extend that for any longer than was strictly necessary. As they were facing each other, now, he knocked Noah’s boot with his own. “And here I was thinking that you’d just forget about me and move on with your life as they tossed me into this shit hole.”
There it was, vulnerability for vulnerability. JP had been so afraid that Noah would just forget about him and that when the SEA passed and he got - if he got - released from here he’d have to face the brutal truth of the lie ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, because in his experience and from what he’d observed, it was more accurate to say that absence made heart forgetful.
Noah snorted quietly as JP knocked his boot and rolled his eyes. "Such a drama queen." He smiled a moment later to show he was kidding.
"I mean hard to forget somebody who was your best friend," he said after a few moments of silence with a shrug of his shoulders. "And still is somebody you consider to be your best friend."
He turned back to what remained of his apple pie and then offered it to JP. "Here, it's not much but it's still warm."
JP’s fingertips glowed ever so slightly in reaction to Noah’s words and he rubbed them on his jeans like that would dispel the glow. It didn’t work. He felt the tips of his ears warm up and he ducked his head with a soft laugh.
“Definitely hard to forget. I- I’m glad you’re here.” He also couldn’t believe that Noah was the hot mechanic he and Julian had been talking about. He felt deeply embarrassed about that and suddenly more than a little territorial over whose eyes would be wandering all over Noah and his buffer-than-JP-remembered physique. “Circumstances of our reunion coulda been better though. Y’know… I could be free to leave and all but hey.”
When Noah offered him what was left of the pie, JP grabbed the ice-cream that he had and put it onto the plate, moving to sit on the bench next to Noah, pressed against him from elbow to shoulder when the red-head shifted back to sit properly against the table again. JP’s burger and fries were forgotten.
“If you promise to at least let me get a mouthful before you inhale the rest of it, I’d be happy to share.”
Noah smiled as JP moved to join him at his table and it honestly felt like they hadn’t spent any time apart even after all these years. He had been worried that if he found JP again that the other guy would be so changed by his experiences that Noah wouldn’t recognise him or be able to communicate with him. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.
“Okay, okay, I promise,” he said with a grin and a wink.
And just like that he very carefully made sure not to inhale the rest of the pie so JP could share it with him like they had when they were kids.