(no subject)

[bambae]

Who: Isaiah Covington and Christopher Park
What: Chris decides to pay Isaiah a visit tho
Where: Isaiah's apartment
When: Two years post graduation
Warnings: PGish?

It was difficult to know how Chris even found out Isaiah’s address. They're no longer living on the same campus. They weren’t even living on the side of the country. They hadn't spoken since graduation. They went off and did their own things, started their own lives, and Chris couldn't wait until school events to pester Isaiah.

So, it was difficult to know how much actually thought Chris had put into this. But here he was, sitting in Isaiah’s kitchen, feet propped up on his table, eating a sandwich he'd assembled out of bread and ham. There was a newspaper open on his lap and he was idly reading it while he slowly ate. Chris looked very much the same. He'd aged slow while in school, and he looked very much like he really ought to still be in high school. The only difference was that he had a bit more abdominal definition, from all of the quidditch training. He was too lean to have a six pack and probably always would be. He wore a loose Boston Bruins jersey and athletic shorts.

When the front door opened, Chris didn't even look up from the paper. It was a muggle newspaper. He'd borrowed it from Isaiah’s muggle neighbor.

Isaiah had just gotten off his shift at the coffee house where he worked part-time to make ends meet while he continued his studies, worked on his latest compositions, &c. Weirdly enough, he was in a pretty good mood, humming to himself as he tossed his keys at the hook, where they floated obligingly, and dropped the rest of his things on the table. A quick detour into the kitchen for a drink and then he could shower-

-or shriek like a banshee, whatever. It wasn't his fault that there was a person sitting there like he owned the place. Isaiah had his wand out and pointed at the stranger before he registered that nope, he wasn't a stranger after all.

“Christopher? ” he asked, incredulous. “What the- why are you in my kitchen?”

Chris didn't even look up from the paper when Isaiah shrieked like a girl. Once he was done screaming, Chris turned a page and glanced up. He lifted his half eaten sandwich, because that was obvious right? He was clearly eating. That's what he was clearly doing Isaiah’s kitche. But he couldn't hold a straight face the entire time. Halfway through it, he smiled. He'd never heard his full name said so incredulously before. It was downright adorable.

“I got bored,” he elaborated. His smile was slightly mischievous, but it wasn't fleeting. He looked tanner than he had in school, the bridge of his nose slightly sunburned, his hair streaked with more noticeable highlights from the sun. “So I decided to visit my good friend Isaiah and eat a late afternoon snack. Want some?” He asked, holding out the half eaten sandwich to Isaiah, without getting up from his position. “You know you screamed like a girl just then, though, right?” He added.

Isaiah stared at the sandwich like it was an alien creature that might bite him. And who knew? It could have been. This was all surreal enough to be a dream, but then, it wasn't like he hadn't had incredibly realistic dreams before. Or, just the one, really. And that had not involved Chris Park. So…

“Should I bother asking how you got in?” he asked, taking the sandwich and studying in minutely before he took a bite from the opposite end. “And don't lie, you're sitting in my kitchen just to make me scream like a girl. Or at least primarily.”

“Picked the lock,” Chris said casually. He was a wizard. He could have apparated, but that would've made him feel less badass.

He arched a suggestive eyebrow at Isaiah. “Make Isaiah scream is on my bucket list. But making you do anything like a girl would be an insult to why you're on my bucket list.” Chris folded up the newspaper neatly as if he wasn't aware that he'd just made a sexual reference and set it down on Isaiah’s table. “Nice uniform,” he added.

“I-” Isaiah started, and then the implications of that hit him, and he sputtered and stated at the other man. “What- you can't- Christopher Park. You cannot break into people's houses just to eat their food and make sexual innuendos at them!”

He realized abruptly that he was still wearing his coffee shop hat, and he snatched it off his head. The Polo shirt would have to wait. No way was he stripping in front of Chris now.

Chris’s smile was bright and unguarded. It lit up his whole face fleetingly before he caught himself. “If it makes you feel better, I didn't break into your house to eat your food. I broke into your neighbor's house. This is his food.” Why would that make Isaiah feel better, Christopher? “He buys the fancy sliced ham. The kind only rich people buy. I like it,” he continued conversationally, as if he wasn't fully aware that he'd just been called out for making sexual innuendos. But Isaiah was cute when he sputtered like that. It made him look distinctly ribbonfin.

For the- second? Third? Thousandth? Hard to keep track- time in this conversation, Isaiah's jaw dropped. So did the sandwich, like it suddenly burned. “that's criminal,” he hissed, eyes wide and the abruptly narrowed. “You can't do that, Chris! I like this apartment! And not being arrested! ”

Chris frowned as the sandwich dropped. That was just a waste of a good sandwich. “What the hell, Covington, I wasn't done with that,” Chris said, his gaze on the discarded sandwich. “It's not fucking criminal. You don't go to prison over twenty bucks. Don't be dramatic. He probably won't even notice it's gone. He'll probably notice his newspaper’s gone though. You should probably return this.”

“Oh, you weren't done with your stolen meal? So sorry,” Isaiah said, glaring. “Breaking and entering is something people go to jail for.”

He glared balefully at the newspaper. Honestly. The things Chris got up to.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, anyway?” Might as well find out, since Chris was here and making himself at home.

Chris looks very briefly startled because Isaiah being sassy as fuck throws him off, for like a second. Because that's attractive.

“Just wanted to make sure you're still breathing,” Chris said, recovering. “It's been a couple years. You could've died.” Which is really the only way Chris knows how to admit that he kinda missed Isaiah and decided to look him up. It's not even remotely close to actually admitting that, which is why it works for him.

“Your concern is touching,” Isaiah replied, tone desert-dry. “I thought it was Ravi who would find my cat-eaten corpse if I ever died in my flat, but this evens the odds.”

He actually was hungry, he decided after a minute, so he got up to figure out something to eat that he actually owned. “I’d ask if you want anything, but you’re obviously cool with helping yourself, so.”

Chris made a face at the insinuation that he was capable of feeling concern. “You have a cat?” Was what he chose to focus on there. He should've probably noticed a cat, right?

Chris stretched out. In comparison to where he'd been living for the last two years with Youngblood, Isaiah was doing pretty good for himself.

“I see that you've been letting your sassy pants out of its cage, but I choose to read all of this as you expressing how much you've missed me. Thank you for your concern,” he added, finally taking his feet off of Isaiah's table and sitting upright. “But I'm watching what I eat and judging from the contents of your fridge, you're not.” If Isaiah actually opened his fridge, he might notice that Chris took the whole package of fancy from his neighbor and stored it in Isaiah’s fridge - as if he fucking lives here. But it was supposed to be refrigerator - he was just obeying the instructions on the package.

“Her name is Tirzah, I’ve had her since freshman year, and if you haven’t met her it’s because she, unlike me, is smart enough to shun you,” Isaiah said, coming upon the package of ham right on time. With a huff, he tossed it at Chris’s head, with the understanding that Chris was a much better athlete than him and would be able to deflect it even if he’d aimed properly. “And there’s no call to be insulting my diet. I didn’t ask you to root through my fridge.”

He found the container of leftover Thai he’d been looking for and smiled triumphantly at it.

Chris had been spending a lot of time dodging hard objects aimed at his head, so naturally, he ducked, and the ham sailed over his head and smacked wetly against the floor. Belatedly, Chris considered that he could've probably caught that, but he wasn't a chaser. Catching wasn't really his forte.

“You have a cat,” he repeated, frowning. A cat he'd never met. No. If he thought about it - he'd never been inside of Isaiah’s cabin while they'd been at Gooseberry. Isaiah had been inside of his. “What a shitty guard cat, she didn't even attack me. I could've robbed you.”

Chris rose to his feet and moved the couple feet to retrieve the ham from the floor. He dropped it back onto the table. “You should get a dog. Somebody less partial to you could rob you. I'll see if your neighbor has a dog he won't miss for you.”

“You would know all about robbing people,” Isaiah said pointedly as he heated his leftovers up. The smell of curry permeated the kitchen. Hopefully, Chris could deal with that. Isaiah wasn't in the mood to worry about his scent preferences.

He forgot about the food, though, in favor of turning to give Chris a horrified look. “Don't you dare steal the neighbor's dog!” he hissed. “I don't want to go to jail! And I don't even like dogs!”

Chris laughed. It wasn’t a malicious, but it wasn’t really a cool laugh. He sounded young. Even though Isaiah gave him the exact reaction he expected. “Your neighbor doesn’t have a dog, buddy, it’s fine. You should’ve seen your face. But seriously, you doing okay? You not getting mugged or anything, right?” His accent helped eliminate what might have passed for concern or a desire to check up on his friend.

“I might be getting mugged right this second,” Isaiah said with a scowl. “jury's out. Other than this break in, I've been great, thanks. You? Lonely? Or just bored?”

Chris made a face. Clearly mugging and breaking and entering were two different things. Chris hadn’t even committed burglary against Isaiah. He shrugged. Neither of those were accurate. He wasn't lonely or bored but he was kind of listless. Since graduation he'd moved to magical DC and in with Robin and Ryan. He didn't go to Auror training because he chose quidditch and they were just now starting the drafting process. He was exercising and training a lot more while cycling through endless dead end jobs to pay his portion of rent. He had a lot of time on his hands while not having much time on his hand. He'd already worked a shift at some bullshit tourist attraction in DC today and his daily work out. The rest of his day was empty.

And he'd had a fleeting thought about Isaiah and that was really all this took. “Nah, I missed you,” he said and he didn't elaborate on any of what that actually meant.

Mostly to annoy Isaiah.

“You missed me,” Isaiah repeated, not quite hia question but questioning all the same. “That seems unlikely.”

The cat emerged from his bedroom, coming to wind around his legs and make a discontent little noise at Chris.

Chris arched an eyebrow at Isaiah. “Why?” He asked. And then his gaze shifted to the cat. The cat clearly had an opinion of him. And Chris was pretty sure that opinion was shit, nobody cares about your opinion cat.

“Because it's been two years since Gooseberry and this just came up now?” Isaiah hazarded, reaching down to scratch Tirzah’s head. “Don't worry. He's harmless. Mostly.”

“Getting attacked by a cat isn’t a concern I have,” Chris assured him. “But uh, yes. It’s been two years, this just came up now. I had some free time, figured I’d check on you. This would’ve been especially awkward if you were married with a child by now. But I’m assuming you’re not. Me neither,” he added. “I just fucking missed you, you don’t gotta analyze it,” he said, even though he was doing more of the talking and there was very little analysis actually happening.

“I was talking to Tirzah,” Isaiah pointed out very, very dryly. The mention of marriage and children took him by surprise. They were twenty. We're any of their classmates actually married with kids already?

“You're aware I'm gay, right?” He asked, eyebrows high. “It'd be pretty hard to have kids already.”

Chris snorted. Yeah okay, that made sense. “I assume you're gonna adopt or inherit a… I don't know what a group of orphans are called so I'm gonna call them a gaggle. A gaggle of orphans. Like Batman. Eventually. Half of our class is homo right now. Ramirez, Ravi, Diego, Levi, Fiori, Honeychurch, me half the time. Actually most of us half the time. That's a weirdly disproportionate amount of bisexuals for such a small graduating class. That's not even counting the bisexuals hooking up with chicks like Eldercreech. Where are they outsourcing these kids from? I lost where I was going with this,” he admitted.

“You know mostly harmless is what hitchhikers guide to the galaxy refers to earth as. I dig it.” Chris nodded deeply and took a sip from his coffee.

There was a lot to parse in that. Isaiah stared at Chris while he did.

“One, how does one ‘inherit’ orphans? Much less a gaggle. Two, isn't Damon Evercreech...not a ‘chick?’ And three...oh, why am I bothering?”

“If Eldercreech was a ‘chick’, he wouldn't count as bisexual for hooking up with ‘chicks’, Isaiah, keep up.”

Chris spread his hands out in front of him. “Now that you're off working, looking adorable in your uniform, what d’you wanna do today?” Chris looked very much like a child that needed to be entertained. It was hard telling why he'd come to Isaiah for that but here he was.

Isaiah sighed and refrained from rolling his eyes. Barely. “I need to shower. And I was going to work on my composition, but I don't think you'd like that much, so. Uh. We could go catch a movie or something?”

Clearly, he'd decided not to fight this.

Chris smiled brightly up at Isaiah. “Awesome,” Isaiah had clearly decided against trying to pretend to be prickly and not secretly love Chris’s attention. Good man. “I'll find a show time. And I can cover you. With money I definitely did not borrow from your neighbor.” Which sounded sketchy but Chris really hadn't actually stolen money from Isaiah’s neighbor. Money was a bit different than bread for everybody but the cops in les miserables.

Isaiah gave Chris a suspicious look. “I'm going to choose to believe you mean that,” he decided, getting up to put his dishes in the sink. “Do not come in the bathroom while I'm in the shower, Christopher. Understood?”

Chris made a face. Barging in on people was not actually something Chris spent a lot of time doing. “Yes, sir, don't creep on you in the shower, I think I can manage that. I'll just devote my time to making your cat love me. Now that I'm aware of his existence, we've got a lot of catching up to do.”

It seemed worth saying, given that Isaiah hadn't expected company at all today and yet had come home to Chris in his home eating someone else's food. Better safe than sorry.

“Be nice to each other,” he admonished before disappearing down the hall.