Chapter Text
There’s no real reason for Fit to be here.
It’s a nice restaurant. There’s soothing classical music playing in the background, comfortable chairs that Fit’s worried about dirtying, and the waiter even has a French accent. The staff are accommodating, the atmosphere is nice. Fit’s sat right next to the front entrance in case anything happens where he needs to make a quick escape. And though it’s a bit chilly, it does do a bit to settle his nerves on his date.
His date. She’s nice. Fit makes an educated guess that she’s an attractive woman. She’s tall, broad shouldered, with a sharp cut face and a wide grin that reminds him of someone. She’d enthusiastically introduced herself as “Bagi” when they met, with a Brazilian accent that immediately put him at ease.
But there’s no real reason for him to be there.
He could lie and say he’s finally looking for love after 32 years of loneliness and the occasional one night stand. He could say that Bagi finally awakened something in him that’s lay dormant his whole life. He could even make up some shit about how Mike knows him so well, and Fit trusts him to have set him up with the girl of his dreams. But he’d be lying.
Fit knows that Bagi won’t be the woman to wake up the overwhelming amount of love inside of him. He likes her as a person, don’t get him wrong. But there’s no sparks, no connection, and he knew there wouldn’t be since before he got there. Mike (God bless him) has been trying to set Fit up with just about every random girl he sees. And Mike has a partner, Mike’s fallen in love, Mike knows what to look for in women, and Fit has finally given into his attempts to set him up on blind dates. There’s no real reason to be here, but here he is anyway.
Still, over the course of the evening, Fit forces himself to be a normal guy for a night and talk to a woman. It’s actually not that bad. Bagi is actually a really interesting person. He learns about Bagi’s work as a private investigator (something Fit immediately thought was very cool), the trials and tribulations her and her best friend, Tina, have faced while buying an apartment together, and that her allegedly annoying older brother is getting married in a week.
“He’s like ‘Bagi, why don’t you have a boyfriend yet? I’m the ugly sibling and I’m getting married before you’!” She laughs, and Fit laughs along with her. “Anyway, I was talking to Mike, and he said he had a really great friend to set me up with, and well, here we are!”
“Here we are,” Fit agrees, and clinks their water glasses together.
So, although Fit doesn’t really have a reason to be here, Bagi most certainly does.
Bagi’s a normal woman, in ways that Fit finds it impossible to be a normal man. But there are certain similarities between them that make Fit feel just a little bit better about himself. He’s been told (mostly by Mike, but subtly through other people’s expressions) that he talks about Pac a bit too much. He can’t help it, really. Five years of best friendship and almost two years of living together in a dingy one bedroom apartment his made Pac the most important person in his life. He’s got so much love for him that it ends up spilling out at random people. But the way Bagi talks about her best friend, Tina, it seems to be the exact same for her .
“It was hard for us to find an apartment complex that allowed pets. But we did it! Now we own three cats and they’re the most adorable things in the whole world!” She says, taking a bite of her stake.
“Really now?” Fit responds, feeling… not awkward, at least, not any more than usual. In fact, this is probably one of the least awkward dates he’s ever been on.
Bagi starts listing the cats names (“We has Zeno- he’s mine from before we moved in. And one’s name is Garfunkel, because he’s orange, like Garfield, but Garfield sounds like Garfunkel so we call him Garfunkel. And we just adopted a kitten and her name is Balthazar, Destroyer of Worlds!”), and Fit tries to enjoy himself. Tries to find something to say and be interesting. Be as excited as Bagi is about this wonderful opportunity to finally find love after 32 years of being alone.
“Here, let me show you!” Bagi learns across the table, pulling out her phone to show Fit something.
Her lock screen is a picture of her and a girl with long black hair at a pride parade, holding pride and transgender flags. His heart skips a beat or two, he wonders if he should say something or try to be supportive. Just a quick “I am an ally” to reassure Bagi that he’s not an asshole. It feels almost like there’s something, pulling at him, telling him to congratulate her or something. Congratulate her on what? Going to a pride parade?
Fit, eloquent as ever, manages a, “Pride parade. That’s cool.”
While Fit is recovering from whatever massive failure that was, Bagi smiles at him. “Yeah! That’s me and Tina at last year’s pride, it was her first one after she transitioned so we decided to go together!”
Bagi smiles at the picture before putting in the passcode for her phone, and Fit, still tripping over himself to say more, concocts probably the weirdest possible series of sentences.
“My best friend likes men,” He blurts out. Then thinks for a second, and clarifies, “Like, he’s a guy and he likes men, I mean. So I’m an ally, don’t worry.”
Bagi looks back up at him. “Oh! It’s good you’re so supportive! Being an ally is important, I could never go out with someone who didn’t support equal rights.” she says, very passionately.
Fit’s a little confused, but he thinks he must have done something right if she’s this engaged in the conversation, so he just goes with it. “I 100% agree. It’s the 21st century, everyone should be free to love who they love.” He thinks he’s definitely scored some points with that.
Bagi puts her phone down, forgetting the cat pictures. “Tina,” she sighs, “just means the absolute world to me. I promised her I’d protect her from anything that would ever hurt her. And over the past few years since she transitioned it’s like she’s started glowing.” She smiles down at the table, thinking of some far off memory. “Everything about her just seems lighter and happier.” Bagi stops suddenly, her smile turning sadder in the low light of the restaurant. “I hope I can be that happy someday,” she says, very quietly, a confession she probably didn’t even mean for Fit to hear.
“I know what you mean,” Fit says, trying to cheer her up. “Honestly, Pac’s never down for long, he’s probably the strongest person I’ve ever met. I’ve never met someone like him before.”
“Yeah?” Bagi asks, taking a bite of her food.
“Uh, yeah,” he answers. After a moment’s hesitation he rolls up the sleeve of his white dress shirt, revealing his prosthetic arm. “He, uh, made my arm,” Fit says, stumbling over his words a little. Warmth swells in his chest remembering the nights he spent watching Pac work on his arm in the laboratory him and Mike had recently bought. Those long years of Fit’s pain and Pac’s hope. “We met like five years ago in physical therapy. I lost my arm and he lost his leg, and he looked at me and was like, ‘wow, together we make a whole person’!”
Fit laughs, and Bagi does too, and Fit feels accomplished.
“He made you that?” She asks. “Your whole arm?”
Fit flexes the fingers on his prosthesis as far as they can go. “Yeah, it took a really long time to make. But like I said, Pac is just incredible.” He recalls the way Pac’s long slender fingers fine tuned the bits and pieces that make up his prosthesis until they all clicked together. “His hands are amazing.”
Bagi looks at him strangely. “His… hands?”
Fit registers what he just said. His whole face flushes a bright red.
“I mean, the things he does with his hands,” he attempts to amend.
Bagi’s expression turns into a suggestive smirk. “The things he does with his hands?”
Fit’s face is burning now, trying to salvage the date and not think about Pac’s hands because thinking about Pac’s lovely hands while he’s on a date is weird. Fit’s not doing a good job at pretending to be a normal guy.
“No, no, not that way!” A choked laugh comes out of his throat. “Like, he’s just a really good engineer. He’s a good engineer.”
Bagi’s smiles softly at his prosthesis. “I can tell.” She looks up into Fit’s eyes. “Can I ask how that happened? Your arm.”
Ramon.
Fit’s heart constricts. His lungs feels a bit tighter.
“That’s probably a second date story,” he says apologetically.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bagi says.
Fit looks at his food. “It’s alright.”
After that, they eat in awkward silence. The stake is good. The broccoli is overdone.
There’s no real reason for Fit to be here.
They eat the rest of their dinner mostly between silence and awkward, stilted conversation after that. Fit’s just been thinking about Ramon the whole time. From what he’s seen of Bagi’s phone, she’s been texting Tina, giggling intermittently at something she’s said. It’s probably something about Fit, but he can’t blame her. Not after whatever the fuck that was.
He thinks he can count this blind date as an absolute bust. Spent half the time talking about Pac’s strong and elegant hands and the other half in shutdown mode, thinking about Ramon and that night five years ago. Fit MC of 2b2t: a total failure at pretending to be a normal guy.
He feels a bit nauseous and decides to ask the waiter to pack up the rest of his stake to-go. He packs it in a styrofoam box for him and Pac to eat tomorrow for breakfast. Bagi keeps eating and does not ask about it.
When Bagi’s done, Fit does offer to pay for her meal, because that’s what normal guys do. But her facial expression reads like she got a bit of an ick, so Fit drops it there. After paying for their own meals, they awkwardly make their way out to the parking lot, stopping at Bagi’s red Camry.
“Nice car,” Fit tries. “Is that a 2018?”
“2020” Bagi corrects. She turns to look back at Fit, smiling sadly, and he knows how bad he’s fucked up. “Bye, Fit,” Bagi says quietly, hopping into her car.
Fit halfheartedly waves back at her. “Bye.”
Fit walks to his Honda on the other side of the parking lot, the chilly early November air blowing through the hole in his heart. Maybe someday I won’t fuck this up, he thinks. Quesadilla City is massive. There’s bound to be some woman out there that Fit will want.
He opens the car door, getting in and turning the key in the ignition. Things will look up someday.
He puts the car in drive.
There’s traffic on the way home.
_____
Fit gets home around 9 after half an hour of trying to control his road raging, pulling into the parking garage underneath his and Pac’s apartment complex. He parks his Honda in the same parking spot he’s had for the past 3 years, right next to Pac’s beat up old Mazda.
As soon as he sees Pac’s car the aching in his heart eases. The blue paint peeling off after to many scrapes and borderline car accidents, the Polaroid of Fit and Mike lying on the dashboard, Pac’s winter hat sitting in the back seat. Pac’s presence everywhere. His lungs open back up and his hand stops shaking. Just a climb up the stairs and a turn of the key and he’ll be home.
He breathes in the gasoline filled air, taking the leftover steak in his hands and opening the car door just enough so he can get out without brushing against anyone else’s car. His large frame just fits between his car and the next. Fit walks quickly across the cold, damp parking lot, trying to reach the door to the inside of the apartment complex without spending too much time in the mid fall air. He swings open the door, warm air from the heaters blasting him, and approaches the stairs.
Almost home.
The walk up the stairwell is exhausting. It shouldn’t be for someone like Fit, who’s been training his body his whole life to withstand any sort of physical challenge. But it just leaves him drained. He thinks about Bagi texting Tina and laughing about him and he gets embarrassed. He thinks about the weird way he talks about Pac and feels absolutely mortified.
He thinks, like every day, about Ramon, and he feels an emotion too profoundly awful to even begin to explain.
Fit soon arrives at apartment 317, leaning against the door while he fiddles with the key.
He thinks, for a minute, about some woman having the key to his apartment the way Mike’s partner has the key to theirs. Then 4 people would be able to enter 317 at any time. Him, Pac, Mike, and some woman who is dating him. Some strange woman having access to this part of him, the place where he can collapse after a long day. She would have access to him at his lowest points, when he just wants to sit at home all day and let no one see or touch him but Pac. Some woman would see him, would touch him. Whenever she wanted to. And maybe it’s a good thing that his date with Bagi went horribly, because that just doesn’t sit right with him.
He fits the key in after some fumbling. The door unlocks and swings open to the main area of Fit’s apartment. He breathes in the smell of home. Home smells like eggs and bacon in the morning, like burnt pizza at night. Like the cleaning products Fit sprays the house down with, and the smell of city outside an open window. Home smells like Pac’s bedroom and drunken fofoca and-
“Fit?” He hears a small voice say.
Fit can’t stop himself from smiling. “Hey, Pac.”
He shuts the door behind him, hanging his coat up on the racks Pac had bolted to the cream coloured walls after moving in. He kicks off his dress shoes and places them next to Pac’s new sneakers on the hardwood floor.
Fit’s exhausted, and honestly he just wants to see Pac and then go to sleep, but when he turns to look at the main area, there is a situation afoot that Fit thinks may postpone the last part.
Pac is sitting on the side of Fit’s convertible couch-bed, lifting weights that are a just a little too ambitious for him. He’s grunting and sweating up a storm, doing bicep curls in some less than healthy form.
Shirtless. What the fuck is happening.
Fit feels his face heat up. “Hey, Pac,” he says, approaching his roommate like one would a stray kitten.
Pac’s face shoots up, and it’s just as red as Fit’s. He looks like he’s about to pop a blood vessel. “Ugh, hey, Fit. How was your date?” He asks, continuing to lift the weights (Fit’s weights).
“Bad,” he responds curtly. “Um, Pac, I know you said you wanted to start working on your health, but why are you lifting weights at 9 in the night?”
Pac finally sets the weights down on the floor— nearly dropping them on his feet from the weight— his newly developing muscles flexing. Sweat drips down the crevices of his tanned torso, and he runs an elegant hand through his shaggy black hair, pushing it away from his flushing face.
He dramatically flops backwards on Fit’s bed. “I was struck by inspiration,” he bullshits in such an endearing way that Fit can’t really give a shit what the real reason is.
“Uh huh,” Fit says, unbuttoning his dress shirt. “Is that what you’ve been doing while I was gone?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Pac says, lounging on Fit’s bed. He’s still breathing hard and heavy, a sound that should be soothing but just makes Fit’s face feel really really hot for some reason as he shrugs off his shirt.
Fit tosses the dress shirt in the laundry hamper along with all the other sweaty and smelly clothes they’ve yet to wash. He loosens his belt and unbuttons his dress pants, shoving them down until he’s just in his boxers.
When he turns back to Pac, he’s propped up on his elbows, staring bewilderedly at Fit.
“What is this?” Pac laughs. “You get home from a date and now you’re propositioning me?”
Fit takes an old t shirt from his clothing drawer and whips Pac with it. “Yeah, you know me, Quesadilla Island’s #1 Man-whore.”
They laugh, and Fit throws on the t shirt. It’s blue and way too small for him, and he realizes about halfway through that the shirt is Pac’s. He leaves it on anyway, finally getting to lay back on his bed next to his favourite human being in the whole world.
“That’s mine,” Pac says softly, but he’s smiling.
“I know,” Fit tries to be just as soft, but his big booming voice prevents that. He smiles back anyway and tried to calm down for the night, reminding himself that Pac’s here, he’s okay.
“Why’d the date go bad?” Pac asks, not smiling anymore.
Fit wonders if he should tell him about Bagi, about how he knows he should be looking for something in women but he doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t think Pac would understand, since he obviously knows what he’s looking for in guys. But he does know Pac would listen, watching him intently with warm brown eyes.
“Oh, you know me,” Fit starts. “I’ve got no idea what I want.”
Pac hums. “There’s plenty of time to figure it out.”
“Easy for you to say, you already got everything you want,” Fit sighs.
“Well, I don’t have a boyfriend.”
You have me, Fit almost says, but that is fucking weird. He’s not Pac’s boyfriend, he’s not even close. The thought makes him feel weird, like the rush of falling before hitting the ground.
“Besides a boyfriend,” he says instead. And, because he wants to change the subject so fucking badly, “And she asked about Ramon.”
Pac looks confused at that. “How did she know about Ramon?”
“Like, not about Ramon, but about my arm,” Fit explains, which really doesn’t make any sense.
Pac patiently bridges together the gaps for him. “Did she ask how you lost it?”
Fit rubs the metal of his prosthesis with his other hand. “Yeah.”
“And what’d you say?”
“I shut down, Pac,” Fit sighs.
Pac’s hand slowly joins his, stroking up the metal of his arm until he reaches the robotic hand. Fit tries to intertwine their fingers as best as possible, and Pac reaches him halfway.
“I think you should see someone,” Pac sighs.
“I went out with a girl tonight man, I’m trying,” Fit chuckles. He watches Pac squeeze his hand, wishing he could feel the soft warm skin against his.
He looks over, but Pac’s not laughing. “I mean a therapist.”
Pac started seeing a therapist around two years ago and he swears up and down that it was the best decision he’s made since befriending Fit. Fit thinks it’s great that Pac has found so much support in this, but he’s different. Pac is lovely and kind but very sensitive. Fit could never fault him for that, but Fit’s all ragged edges and hardened heart. He doesn’t really think he’d get anything out of therapy. He’s gotten very far just by moving on from his past by himself. The only roadblock he’s really hit is getting close to anyone but Pac and Mike, but it hasn’t had that much of an effect on his life. Honest. He’s doing fine.
“I’m doing fine, Pac,” Fit insists, again. Probably for the thousandth time.
Pac doesn’t say anything back to that, knows better than to argue with a brick wall.
“Listen, Pac, I’m really tired-“
“I love you, Fit.”
It comes spilling out from his mouth, leaving Fit a little bit surprised. But a good surprised. It was weird the first year or so Pac started saying it, but now it just feels really good.
“I love you too, Pac,” he whispers back, softer than he means to.
Pac shifts over towards him, letting go of his hand. He wraps a strong hand around Fit’s waist and Fit just lays there. No one else in the whole world can do this.
“Do you want me to sleep here tonight?” Pac asks, which isn’t particularly unusual, but Fit really wasn’t expecting this level of affection tonight. He shifts in Pac’s hold, not uncomfortable, but…
“You have your own bed and you want to sleep on the pullout couch?” Fit asks. Not unkindly. Not a no.
Pac buries his head in Fit’s shoulder. “I want to sleep with you.”
Fit turns a bright red, and remembers that Pac is very very shirtless right now and warm and very sweaty. So he laughs, and pulls Pac in close next to him with the cold metal of his arm. “So you were actually the one trying to proposition me.”
When Pac looks up from his shoulder he looks mortified. “You bitch. You know what I mean.”
Fit rubs his sweaty, warm back. “You can totally not have sex with me if you put a shirt on, okay?”
Pac agrees, untangling himself from Fit’s arms, and Fit turns to take his leftover stake to the kitchenette.
The apartment’s not a particularly small one bedroom. In fact, the kitchenette is something Fit’s quite proud of. it’s got a fridge and a stove and a sink, and it used to have a microwave before Pac dismantled it to get new parts for his and Mike’s projects. There’s limited space in the cupboards, but enough for pasta and tomato sauce. Little reminders get hung up with magnets on the fridge. It’s small, but it’s enough for Fit, and he hopes it’s enough for Pac.
He opens the door of the small fridge, kneeling down to shove the leftover stake in between the jar of pickles and the empty bottle of ketchup that they pretend they can still squeeze some more out of. He exhales into the cold air of the fridge, and smells his rancid breath on the inhale. Jesus, he’s not torturing Pac which that tonight.
So he heads to the bathroom. And just like everything else in the apartment, it’s small, but it has a bath that’s perfect for Pac to sit down in and a sink cluttered with medications and soap and toothbrushes. Fit’s is white, and on the right side. He picks it up, squeezes toothpaste onto it. The routine is calming.
Fit stands in front of the mirror, looking just as dishevelled as he feels. He wonders, as he brushes his teeth, how differently tonight would’ve been if he’d just stayed home with Pac. They probably just would’ve watched TV or engaged in some other form of loafing around all night. And Bagi’s great, don’t get him wrong, but something in Fit’s gut tells him that he probably would’ve been better off at home.
That should be a problem to Fit, that he’d rather stay in than go out with a girl. That should be a problem in his life.
Pac is waiting for him when he comes back out, splayed out on the bed on top of the covers like a starfish. He’s wearing fleece pyjama pants and a massive sweater, and he looks extremely cozy.
“Cold?” Fit asks, leaning against the bathroom doorway.
“It’s November!”
Fit rolls his eyes and walks over to the bed, getting under the covers. The bed creaks as he settles in, a staple of Fit’s life for the last two years. His life with Pac.
“Can you get the lights?” He asks.
“Do you want to go to sleep already?” Pac asks, but gets up to turn them off anyway.
“I figured you’d be tired after all that exercise.”
Pac rolls his eyes before flicking the lights off. “No one gets tired around 9:30 but you, grandpa.”
Fit laughs at that, and so does Pac.
“You can stay up,” Fit says. “I trust you.”
“Okay.” Even in the dark, Fit knows Pac is smiling.
Pac shuffles in on the other side of the bed, pulling the covers up over himself. There’s just enough space for them to sleep comfortably side by side without touching.
“I’m gonna take my leg off, ok?” Pac says in the dark.
“Need any help with that?”
“No, I got it.”
The sounds of springs creaking and metal and plastic clicking together fill the room. Fit’s familiar with the sound of Tazercraft prosthetics being taken off, though he usually doesn’t remove his arm to sleep. It’s only mildly uncomfortable, and they don’t live in the nicest part of town, so something in Fit’s gut tells him to be on guard. What are one and a half men going to do against an armed intruder?
But Fit knows as long as he’s on guard, Pac can rest. And he knows that he can trust Pac to be on guard for him, too.
Fit falls asleep in a few minutes, next to Pac’s soft breathing and the dim light of his phone, exactly where he wants to be.