savetheearth | I really don't care, it's nothing I mind

L is early by four minutes. He debates knocking, ultimately deciding that flawless punctuality is preferable to getting to see Cesar several minutes earlier. In the meantime, he leans against the wall in a hallway so fragrant that even his crippled sense of smell picks up hints of the cuisine's aroma, toggling on his iPhone and watching the time.

The moment it is officially noon, he stows his phone and knocks three times, starting to smooth a hand through his hair. It gets stuck, and he gives up, shoving his hand into his pocket with his phone instead.

Something is put down in the kitchen. The TV is muted.

Cesar opens the door, and a cloud of savory smells spills out of the apartment around him. He smiles, salutes a comfortable hello, and beckons him inside with the door left open. He's too busy to leave the kitchen for long, but he turns as he goes. {Good timing. Food is ready.} He's proud of the job he's done, perhaps because he's paid somewhat more attention to it than usual.

All the burners in the kitchen have been freshly turned off. Cesar is opening cabinets and drawers, taking out plates and cutlery.

He turns to L. {Drink?} He opens the refrigerator door, pointing at its contents. First the pitcher of water, then the beer, then a soda... He looks up, waiting.

Judging from L's wide eyes as he shuffles in after Cesar, along with the way he tilts his head in the direction of those strong scents' origin, the additional effort has paid off substantially. He seems hesitant and perhaps mildly intimidated by all of it; though Cesar had told him ahead of time what he was preparing, L hadn't expected it to be so complete and welcoming. It looks the way Cesar made cooking in Argentina sound, and he's shrugging out of his jacket and draping it slowly over the back of a nearby chair without taking his eyes off the half-cleared dining room.

"This is really..."

He shakes his head, momentarily at a loss for words.

"I guess this wasn't what I was expecting at all. Water, please..."

He knows where Cesar keeps the glasses, and immediately goes for one, feeling strangely helpless surrounded by so much kindness and competence. People cook for him sometimes, well-meaning sorts like Tony who worry about him dropping dead, but it's rare for him to be offered a place at a table, the chance to actually share a meal in a social context.

Agape, much? It's not like you haven't shared other things by this point.

"You really went all-out. Is there anything at all I can do to help?"

Cesar's face warms with a grin. He hadn't expected this (modest, he thinks) setup to blow L away quite so much, and it's both humbling and gratifying. Maybe even a little odd, too. Would L be more comfortable with takeout? ... Maybe he should have gone even farther, and gone with a more elaborate meal?

{You can help me wash, after.} L is already getting his glass, so Cesar hands him a pitcher of water. He closes the fridge door, making enough room to go to the stove and divide the food across two plates. The silverware is distributed. He offers one plate to L, and then pours his own water. He leaves the kitchen.

His family is hospitable. This is the sort of entertainment he was raised with, if perhaps more elaborate than he would for a casual movie. It's what his brother always did for dates he wanted to impress. ("Girls love it when you cook for them, Mijo. En serio, one meal and they want you to meet their parents and cousins.") It's what Cesar did, back in his own relationships... Was this too much and too early, here? He hopes not. His eyes follow L, even as he starts cutting a bite to eat.

Edited 2015-02-09 06:19 (UTC)

He nods quickly, happy with the agreement. For someone who seems so frequently to be in need of general care and kindness, he has a surprisingly difficult time simply accepting it at face value when it's offered to him. Knowing that he'll be helping with the dishes makes it somehow more even and acceptable.

He pours himself some water, setting the pitcher back on the counter and accepting his plate and silverware, watching the process of dishing out the hot, finished food like someone who has actually never seen it before, or, more likely, has seen it so seldom that it's jarring every time. While L might have been more comfortable with takeout, that having been the go-to option for him and his uncle then and for himself since, he is overtly and obviously happier with this option, and he trails after Cesar and takes a seat at the table with him, setting his plate, silverware and glass all very carefully on their place mat before he takes a slow seat.

There's no way to be absolutely discreet about it when Cesar is watching him so closely, but he attempts to at least be quick about it. His phone comes out, and he takes a snapshot of his plate. People do this shit all the time at Espresso Yourself, and L has never understood it, but there's something about the way this second makes him feel that he wants to preserve, no Instagram account necessary. He's solemn and quiet throughout the process, stashing his phone again and going quickly for his fork and knife, aware that he's already behind.

The first bite is a small one he chews slowly, glancing Cesar's way as he does so. "Have you... never worked for a restaurant?" he asks. "This is... really, really good." The second bite is quicker and larger.

The camera comes out, and Cesar's eyebrows shoot up. Really, L? He can't stop the smile before it forms, and he doesn't even try to hide it once it's there. He'd never pinned L for the Instagram type; it unexpectedly tickles him to see otherwise. Is this kind of thing reserved for meals instead of coffee? 'Just lunch with my friends, no biggie...'

He's glad he'd worried for nothing. As silly as all of this is, the food is apparently already a success.

L finally actually tries the food. He's surprised enough that Cesar gives a pleased, silent laugh, putting his fork down.

{Yes, for a few months. Waiter.}

Flattery. Either L is trying clumsily to flatter him, or he's never had a home cooked meal like this, and either way, Cesar knows his own standards are a little higher than this half-an-hour home cooked dish. Still, none of this knowledge stops the dumb smile from staying, or the fact that he's pretty sure he doesn't have to worry about whatever he serves him, since anything he has might be a new experience.

{Have you ever had anything like this, before?}

Edited 2015-02-10 06:14 (UTC)

L can't tell if Cesar's laughing at him for being such an apparent and incorrigible hipster, but what matters most is that he's not angry or disgusted, and that L has the picture. He thinks that he'll be able to look at it days from now and remember which parts contributed the most to the flavor which, while muted due to his nearly-destroyed sense of smell, still comes through more for him than most things. Even if he can't... it's a reminder that someone did something so frivolously and unnecessarily kind for him when it would have been so easy to just say "rain check" and leave it at that.

His brows raise at the revelation that Cesar did in fact work in a restaurant, which gets a nodded acknowledgment as he chews the tender and well-textured meat. He swallows with a sip of water, then answers, slightly self-consciously.

"I really haven't. When I lived with my uncle almost every meal was Chinese takeout, even when we weren't traveling, and when I lived with Belle, there was always food at home, but... not like this."

Their relationship had, for the most part, had started based on blackmail and ended on a somewhat awkward note, and everything in between had been more of a roommate dynamic than anything.

"Was it your plan to make this for dinner, before your work interfered?" He still seems pretty enamored with the idea of someone thinking so far ahead before making a meal.

Cesar nods, taking another bite of meat and fried bread. He's a little surprised that the answer is leaning closer to 'no, L hasn't had home-cooked meals before', and he knows it's something his brother would quietly pity, and probably go out of his way to change for a few meals. Cesar doesn't pity him, but he does make cautious plans to keep doing this sort of thing. That is, assuming any of this lasts beyond the next week.

{I had the materials,} he continues 'out loud'. One good thing about sign language is that you don't have to worry about talking with your mouth full. {They're better when they're more fresh, like now.}

L is the kind of person that many pity, but few want to have over for dinner. This is even true in his synagogue, where his attendance has been spotty over the years and most regard him as someone who struggles and whose name is spoken in countless prayers. Despite these kindnesses, his company makes too many too uncomfortable to reach out in more substantial ways. For many years, L realizes that it was probably easier to look through him than to stare directly at the mess he was turning his life into.

Is that getting better, now? Is that what actually sitting and sharing a meal with someone signifies?

He continues to go at his meal, glancing up as Cesar signs, clearly enjoying the much-needed meat portion of the dish the most. The body wants what it needs most, and in L's case, as a grown man with the physique of a stringy teenager, it is clearly protein. "Definitely better fresh," he agrees, knowing at least that much; he's squeamish about expired foods and has actually hallucinated odors before if the number on the container says the contents should be going sour, so this is extremely important to him.

He clears his throat. People talk during meals, about more than the meals themselves. "So, how long do you have before you need to go to work?" he inquires, picking up his fried bread and nibbling at it.

You look like a neurotic rodent. Bigger bites, chew more slowly.

{I'm leaving by seven, latest.} A little under an hour, then. He seems untroubled by L's eating habits or his inner thoughts, looking busy with his own meal. At least, he's busy until he pauses, trying to map things out mentally.

{I'll probably be there all night, depending on how this goes. It's not exciting, but it takes monitoring.}

He doesn't notice this, either, but he's not even the slightest concerned that L is going to push him for information. No worries that L might take the urgency of making up for an equipment malfunction and pry into its importance to the Network overall; no worries that the slightest unfamiliar quirk is hiding precious personal clues in their depths.

Without that defensiveness, it's a lot easier for him to step forward on his own. There's no way to dig heels in, if nothing's pulling in the first place.

"All night...?" he echoes, sounding something like sympathetic, though his monotone has difficulty conveying it to the full effect he feels. Even though he stays up all night very frequently, himself, it's somehow different when it's someone who's nice enough to cook for him. "I guess that's how it is when your work is very important, whether or not it's exciting. Do you have tomorrow off, at least, so you can catch up on sleep?"

There's certainly a type of information L's pushing for, but it's probably not the kind that Cesar might have feared at some point.

"I've got a dark room at the school, specifically for sleeping during the day. If you need to use it, you're welcome to..."

Cesar shakes his head, smiling a little.

{Thanks, but we'll probably leave early on Monday, after the morning meeting. Until then there's a couch for anyone who needs a power nap, and two coffee makers in the lab alone.}

It's probably not the answer L was looking for, but there's a different answer folded up inside of it: Cesar is completely unworried. As tedious as the task ahead might be, it's nothing severely out of the ordinary, and it seems that he's done this before.

It's not the answer he was looking for, and definitely not the one he wanted, but it's satisfactory nonetheless. If he's happy about it, it will make him look like he cares, like he isn't selfish, and like he respects and understands boundaries. Even if all of those are ultimately pale lies, he thinks he can be convincing enough with his overbright smile before he takes another small bite of steak.

"It's better than nothing, I suppose. You must be working on something really spectacular for you to not mind pulling hours like that on a semi-regular basis... are you curing cancer, or something?"

He tries to make it sound like a joke, but if Cesar is working in pharmaceuticals now, it's not that far-out, is it?

Cesar laughs silently, smile big and remaining while he signs.

{Nothing like that, yet. I can't talk about the details right now, but it should be alright to say that further down the line, that might be a possibility.}

Hubris? Maybe. He doesn't really care, at this point; he loves his work in ways he never did at Thunder Corp, and life's looking far better than it did towards the end of last year. Even the overbrightness of L's smile is weirdly cheering, because he can guess at its cause, and it's kind of nice to have someone who cares about these little things, even if it's largely unnecessary.

The smile gets an answering one from L; it is genuine enough to put him more at ease, and he makes a mental note to court these topics more in the future. They are apparently safe enough, even if Cesar admits that he can't talk much about the details. It's clear that the man is joyously passionate about his work, which L can certainly relate to.

Maybe he's really that capable. Maybe not. Something twists at the base of L's neck, a primal alarm, but he suppresses it. It's inconvenient and uncomfortable, and who wouldn't want to believe in such capability?

"Don't feel pressured," he's quick to reassure him, setting down his fork for a moment to take a bite of bread. "I know that I can be curious, to... a definite fault, but I'm truly happy for you. It sounds like you've found work that is your calling, and that's the best possible reward anyone can have in this life, isn't it?"

Part of him wonders if L has thought about family, or brothers, or a happy life outside of his own work. He'd rather have his brother alive and have never discovered his true calling than he would want to know it and not have him alive, personally. It's far too cruel a thing to say here and now, and Cesar doesn't want this good mood spoiled, so he just smiles some more, nodding.

{I would never have known without my echoes. Of course, my echoes might be responsible for it.}

That's... Still not exactly what he wants to say. {Everything is better this way.} Closer? {Very rewarding.} Closer. It's the best he can do, for now.

L has absolutely thought about it, usually framed in the context of what he imagines to be a totally idyllic existence in the Sanchez-Ortiz clan. He's spent his entire life on the outside of happy families occasionally getting glimpses into them, but never belonging or remaining longer than a rare token invitation permits. He's just not the family sort; he makes others too uncomfortable to be around him for extended periods of time.

He nods earnestly. "I think my echoes changed everything for me for the better, too," he says. "Before I got my Numbers, forget purpose... I knew I'd peaked and that there was nowhere to go but down, and when you know that, I guess... you can swim harder, or sink, and sinking was the easier option. It suited who I was a year ago. But I don't think it suited him, and he's who I want to die as. He's the person who can make this world better before leaving it."

He says so in a tone that could be described, accurately, as "reverent."

"Echoes saved my life. Everything is better, or at least moving in that direction."

It's an unusual topic, and it makes for pensive moods. Cesar notices the way L talks about his Other, but he can't think of anything to say about it specifically.

He cleans some sauce off the plate while he thinks, and his signs aren't as fast as they often are.

{If you could do this all over again, you would still choose to receive a number.}

It's not a question.

L's always been quick to put his Other on a pedestal. For someone who practices the faith he was raised with in fractured patches, he is actually very religious in a pointedly different direction.

He is fallible, weak and flawed, but if he's a vessel for someone like his Other, he can find reasons to work at being deserving of that role.

"Of course," he says, unblinking. "You didn't know me before all of this, and that's a good thing. Believe me."

He turns his fork over in his fingers, adjusting his sleeve with his free hand before using the tongs to draw a neat line in his food, separating two courses from each other, before continuing his small, neat bites.

Cesar looks up, and he has a rare moment of clarity: L doesn't like who he was. L is trying very, very hard to be someone else, and Cesar thinks he can catch a glimpse of something in him that the man doesn't want people to see. Like a shivering, starved dog pressed against the lonely outside of a warm house--He stares for a second or so longer than an ordinarily look would have, before looking down at the neat divisions across the far plate. The image stays with him.

Everything about both of them is messed up. Cesar's done enough horrible things that he's a dead man walking, probably like scum of the earth that's just waiting for some kind of justice-guillotine to find his neck. L is a prodigy has-been who sees no value left in who he was, and now embraces being someone else strongly enough that he'd risk his life doing the things he thinks his Other would do.

It can't last forever. L's situation especially; no matter how hard he tries, he'll still always have who he was riding around in the center of his mind, and he'll never be rid of it completely. Cesar's no psychologist, but even he knows this isn't healthy. What can he do? Not that he has a very good track record of doing nice things for L, but can't he do anything at all?

Likely not.

{I doubt you were as bad as you think.}

The words come by impulse. He doesn't think through how stupid it is to argue with L so directly over this, or anything else that he probably should have considered. By the time common sense catches up to him, it's too late.

It's an exhausting balancing act, to walk the tightrope L had when he was younger. On one side was the pressure of fighting to be the best and remain there at any cost. On the other was the worthlessness that came with slipping and gracelessly outgrowing the novelty of being a child prodigy. Either way, it had been a long way down, and a painful impact sans any sort of safety net. And when it came to it, L hadn't even fallen from that tightrope; he'd jumped, motivated by perhaps the first personal conviction he'd ever actually felt.

It's different, now. Conviction is no longer something he mistook desperation for once upon a time, it's real and staggering and guides his actions every day. It puts a light in eyes that were lifeless, blank pits for years. If it's unhealthy, toxic, or damaging, the irony is that it's keeping him alive, sustaining him more effectively than food, sleep, and medicine combined. It's very different from what's eating uneasily at Cesar's insides and the guilty knowledge picking at his brain, but what's sure is that the day those two manifestations of "messed up" mix is the day this pleasant, fledgling relationship will stop being sustainable.

"You weren't there," L says with a twisted smile, as if to gently point out that Cesar's reassurance is kind but misguided. "In truth I was probably worse. If you name it, then I can pretty much guarantee I turned failing at it into an art form, and it was usually no one's fault but my own. Now... even if I can't change the past, it feels like there's some kind of future. I don't want to lose that."

Cesar's eyes slide down to his own plate, and he finds he really can't argue with this counter. He doesn't know who L was. Not that it should make a difference when it comes to someone's worth, but he'd feel more comfortable if he actually knew enough to give a solid example of why he's wrong.

Instead he takes a much more vague, and significantly more trite route of answers. {That's all anyone has. The future.}

It feels hollow, and if L could read expressions, he'd see it in the strain around his eyes.

I really don't care, it's nothing I mind

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