Survival Of The Fittest

Niall’s head rested pensive, chin on the knuckles of his left hand, watching the other dance. His right hand, cradling the pen in a gentle thumb-and-finger embrace, waltzed left-right, left-right, left-right across the page in neat, cursive movements, its dance partner leaving a fine blue-black line in their wake. Slowly, but ever surely, the words filled the page, flowing one into the next, as natural as if they’d always been there, before the ink even dried, as if the paper itself had been placed under them, as if there was no separating word from word nor word from page. Like a fortune told as fate, letters fell inevitably, inexorably into place, marching unto their-

With a sigh, Niall screwed the sheet of paper up, and tossed it in the wastepaper basket by his desk.

((NIALL HARRIS – PREGAME START))

Niall checked the clock. Ordinarily, he would be eating dinner at this hour, and hunger pangs were starting to set in. There was a comfort in routine, a comfort that didn’t like to be spurned in favour of new mistresses, however enticing, however exciting. And yet, Niall was excited. It was an emotion he didn’t allow himself often, but he’d been looking forward to tonight. Good food, good drink, a good friend, it was worth waiting for. There was of course bread downstairs, and fruit, and cans of soup; but there was not Finn, not yet, and so eating could wait. Why ruin an appetite that could be put to good use on better food? To settle for the mediocre now when one could await perfection was an empty way to live.

Anticipation did, however, make it difficult to concentrate on his writing, and a hunger left unsatisfied did no favours for those efforts. The basket was nearly full with balls of crumpled paper, and he’d emptied it only that morning. It was time to accept he would make no further progress tonight. Niall placed his trusty fountain pen down by an inkpot as a reminder to refill it later, and stood up from his chair, stretching. His muscles had grown tense over the course of the afternoon, spent as it was sat at his desk, almost motionless save for the back and forth of his writing hand and the occasional football-trained-throw of discarded work. Niall ran through a well-worn warm-up routine on the widest span of empty floor his bedroom had to offer. After he had worked each muscle from stiff to supple, he checked the clock again. Finn might arrive any moment. Niall plucked a shirt from his wardrobe and buttoned it up, smoothed it down, tucked it in. He was checking the mirror on the back of his door when he heard the doorbell ring.

((Finn Cooper continued from Death by Glamour.))

If Niall had been really straining his ears, he might have heard loud footsteps and ingredients clattering as Finn half-jogged towards the door with a bag of groceries that he’d needed to get last minute. Otherwise he ran the risk of Donal using the fancy cheese on the sandwiches he subsisted on the majority of the time.

He was running late. Guanciale had not been at his usual grocery store. According to the internet, he could make a decent carbonara with parmesan and bacon instead of parmigiano reggiano and guanciale. But he wanted to make a good dinner, and Niall was sophisticated. He’d probably taste the difference.

Also Marcy’s family would skin him if he made carbonara wrong.

He shuffled the bag into one hand and knocked on the door. Three clear knocks. He’d knocked on this door countless times since he was a kid, the house almost as familiar as his own and much more welcoming.

Niall picked his gramophone off one of his bookshelves and thumbed through the shelf above for a few records to play over dinner. You ate with your ears as much as your eyes, after all, and Niall didn’t like to do things by halves. Softly closing the bedroom door behind him, Niall carried the record player and vinyls downstairs, placing them on the kitchen counter and making his way to the front door. He'd kept his best friend waiting long enough.

Finn stood on the doorstep, clutching a bag of groceries. He looked slightly out of breath, as if he’d been in a rush, and strands of red-brown hair caught the setting sun and fell like errant flames where the Vegas wind had blown them out of place. Each freckle was an ember thrown against his cheeks. One glowing strand lay across a bright green eye like fire in a forest, threatening to catch, threatening to burn everything down. Niall wondered if Marcy ever noticed that, when she brushed his hair off his face. In just a split-second, the opening of a door, the time it took to talk, Niall could see worlds in Finn’s face. Did she ever see the same?

“You didn’t have to rush...”

Niall grinned, took the bag out of Finn’s hands, and clapped Finn on the back as he ushered him into his home.

“…but I appreciate the enthusiasm. Let’s go through to the kitchen.”

“Sure I did,” Finn said as he was gently pushed into the house.

Why keep Niall waiting? His patience seemed endless, but Finn figured he’d been tapping into it since elementary school and it had to run out one day. Even if it didn’t, it’d be rude. Finn saved rudeness for those who deserved it.

Finn let himself be pushed along until they entered the kitchen, at which point he took a step out of Niall’s reach to start rummaging through the cabinets, zoning in on where each pan, bowl and utensil he needed was.

“Anything new?” he asked as he located the proper knife, and reached out to the bag in Niall’s hands to find the guanciale. While waiting for a response, Finn started unwrapping the meat so he could slice it into batons.

He didn’t really know what Niall got up to as well as he should. Different crowds, and Niall wasn’t the sort to join him at the races or meet up with his crew if they were hanging out at the park. Too sophisicated. Respectable. Not a bad thing. At least not when it was Niall.