Thankfully Content

[hennessys]

Title: Thankfully Content
Rating: PG
Summary: A day in the life of Felix Alvarez.
Warnings: brief mention of homophobic culture.
Notes: I have a term paper due tomorrow, and instead I wrote this. PRIORITIES. Meme fill for Sara.


It was a good thing Felix had paused for a moment when the six-thirty alarm shrilled across his apartment, or he would have left an ugly smear of paint right in the middle of Charlotte's face.

He did leave a smear across his cheek, but that was all right, it was watercolors and the whole point of the six-thirty alarm was to give him time to shower before work. Felix shut the pan of watercolors and padded across his studio apartment to turn off the alarm, shucking off the sweatpants he painted in on the way. And why not? It was his apartment and he could walk around naked if he wanted to. It wasn't as if anyone was there to complain about it, or... other things.

But he wasn't thinking about that, it would just make him sad.

He took the brush with him into the shower to rinse—well, why not, it saved time—then toweled his hair off and got dressed just in time for the seven o'clock alarm to tell him it was time to go.

It really sucked being an essentially punctual person with a deeply inaccurate internal clock. Felix shut off the seven o'clock alarm too, before his downstairs neighbor started pounding on the ceiling again, and dialed Jack's number as he left his apartment.

Jack picked up just before he got to the front door. "What? Hello? What?"

"Good morning," Felix sang into the phone, not even bothering to hide the silly grin that Jack's voice always put on his face. "This is your daily wake-up call and welfare check. Are you alive?"

"Breathing," Jack said, his voice deepening into amusement. "I was even snoring."

"Well, it's a good thing I woke you up then. Did you make it home?"

"Um..." Jack paused, probably trying to figure out where he was. "No, but I appear to have crashed with Kenneth. You want me to say hi for you?"

"Please do." Actually, Felix hadn't seen Kenneth in a while. He should call, set up a time to hang out. He didn't have enough friends that he could afford to lose one to inattention. "Anyway, it's seven o'clock, so get up and get to work before Miranda sends a SWAT team. Kenneth doesn't need a new door that badly." He lifted a hand, flagged down a taxi.

"Seven o'clock is an unholy hour at which to conduct business," Jack said, his tone halfway between airy and disgruntled. "Hey, what are you doing tonight?"

Unease rose in the pit of Felix's stomach as he opened the back door of the taxi. He had to pause the conversation to give the driver directions, which at least gave him time to think. "I... don't know yet. Probably working on your birthday present. Why?"

"Bunch of us are going out," Jack said, casually—maybe too casually. Or maybe Felix was just reading way too much into his voice, as usual. "I thought you might want to come along."

Shit. "I don't know," Felix temporized. "I have a lot of work to get done. Your birthday present, that's only half done, and your mother commissioned me to do some paintings of your sisters, and..."

"...and you like to paint in the morning because the light is better," Jack said. Rustling noises in the background probably meant he was getting dressed, and wow, Felix didn't need that thought. "And you haven't been out at all recently, and I've missed you. Seriously, babe, you've been holed up in your apartment way too long. People are starting to wonder if you've died."

Don't call me babe. Felix swallowed the words back. If he said them, Jack would want to know why—after all, he called all of his friends babe, and his sisters, anyone for whom he felt a special affection—and that wasn't something Felix was ever going to be ready to explain. "Well, I haven't died."

"Please?" Jack was using That Voice now, the one that meant he was pouting and pleading with his eyes. "I'm bored, Felix. It's boring without you. Please come out with me and drink fruity drinks and hit on attractive people and talk about which celebrities we'd like to sleep with. Please."

Felix sighed sharply. It was unfair that Jack could still manipulate him so well, even when he knew exactly what his friend was doing. "Fine."

It must have come out a little more abruptly than he'd intended, because Jack made a hurt noise and said, "You don't have to if you really don't want to."

"No, it's not..." Felix bit his lip. "Seriously, I'd like to come. I miss you too. It's just that it's tax season, so I have a long day of work ahead, so... I don't know, I might be too tired."

"Sure," Jack said, giving in with more grace than he usually did. "Hey, I have to hang up, I need both hands to button my shirt. Call me at lunch and let me know what you decide, okay?"

"Yeah, I will," Felix said, already knowing what his answer was.

"Cool." Jack was smiling, Felix knew, that warm gentle smile that no one except his sisters and Felix ever got. "I hope you come. I miss seeing you, babe."

Fuck. Felix bit his lip again, hard. "I miss you too," he said, when he thought he could say it without letting everything slip. "Bye for now."

"Bye for now," Jack echoed, and hung up.

Felix let out a long breath, put the phone in his pocket, and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and letting his hands dangle forward.

He really needed to come up with a better way of dealing with this ridiculous crush on Jack. Or else someone was going to get their heart broken, and it would almost certainly be him.

--

"Morning, Felix!" Bruce chirped, as Felix walked into the office. "You look debauched."

"Hi, Bruce, thanks for the compliment." Felix dumped his briefcase on his cubicle desk and shot a wry look at his coworker. "For the record, I'm not hungover. Or high."

"Of course not," Bruce said. "You're the most sober person in this office. Up late or early?"

Felix stretched, worked the kinks out of his neck. "Early. I was painting. Speaking of, you still owe me a hundred and fifty dollars for that portrait of your kids."

Bruce grinned, smug. "In that brown paper envelope on your desk. Man, I'm good."

"Shut up," Felix said, amiably, and put the envelope in his briefcase without opening it. Bruce could be trusted to always pay his debts—he just took a very long time about it. "What's on the plate today?"

"Many and terrible things." Bruce spun around in his chair, back to his desk and began typing at a rapid pace. "Our overlords wish to know why we are receiving so many customer complaints."

Felix shook his head, booted up his computer, and sat down while it thought about waking up. "By so many, they mean...?"

"Twelve," Bruce said. "In the past two months. I don't know, overlords, man. Anyway, the customers want to know why we won't post them anything when they gave us their email address and everything."

Felix rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. "Oh, wow, really?"

"Yes, wow, really." Bruce shook his head. "And you wonder why I come to work high."

"No, I never said that. I said I had no idea how you were still employed." The computer woke up finally. Felix logged in and began scrolling through his email—yep, there was the announcement from the overlords about excessive customer complaints, and a number of people asking why their tax returns were so low. Alas, neither overlords nor customers took kindly to suggestions that their expectations were perhaps a smidge high.

"Magic," Bruce said, and cracked his knuckles. "Also, unlike almost everyone else, I've never cussed out a customer."

"That would do it," Felix said, staring resigned at his email. This was going to be a fun day.

--

It might have been tax season, but it wasn't crunch time yet, and neither Felix nor Bruce was bucking for a promotion. They both knocked off at five-thirty and walked outside together, Bruce to his car, Felix to a cab.

"You've got your crush face on," Bruce observed, in the stairs down. They both shared a paranoia of the old, small, and excessively rickety elevator in the building, and refused to use it. "Want to talk about it?"

"No," Felix said, as dampeningly as he could. Not that it ever stopped Bruce, who just grinned.

"Got it, must be Jack. You should really ask him out some time, kid. Pining never did anyone any good."

"I'm not pining," Felix said, "and you're an asshole who gives bad advice."

Bruce grinned wider. "I'm an asshole," he agreed, "and you are completely pining. Either ask the guy out or go fuck someone who looks like him until you've got it out of your system."

Felix stared at him. "What the hell, Bruce."

"Just saying," Bruce said, "it worked for me. Of course, now I'm married to the lookalike, so, you know, just saying."

Felix closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Does Susan know why you slept with her the first time?"

"She agreed to marry me after three one-night stands that we both swore would never happen again." Bruce buffed his fingernails on his sleeve. "Susie doesn't really have space to complain."

The mysteries of straight people.

Not, of course, that gay people were any better; witness Felix's hopeless ten-year-old crush on his best friend. "See, this only proves my point. You are horrible at romance, and I am not going to listen to your horrible advice."

"But seriously—" Bruce began, just as they arrived at the lobby level.

Felix gave thanks to whoever was responsible for that particular miracle and scurried out of the stairwell like his heels were on fire. "See you tomorrow, Bruce," he shouted, and let the door fall shut on Bruce's returning gesture.

It wasn't that he didn't like Bruce—he did, he really did, they were very good friends and had been ever since Bruce had actually listened to him and realized homophobic jokes weren't funny—it was just that oh boy could Bruce ever not give romantic advice.

Anyway, Bruce didn't get it. Felix and Jack had been friends for over a decade. Just because Felix had spent most of that time being in love with Jack did not mean he was willing to throw away such a long-standing and necessary friendship for a pipe dream. Even if it hurt sometimes.

He'd rather have a piece of Jack than nothing at all.

--

At home he showered again and changed, this time into a loose white shirt and jeans. Nothing fancy—he wasn't trolling for guys tonight, even if Jack was. Felix didn't even bother gelling his hair, he just brushed it out and went out the door again. No point getting dressed up, because really, he was just going for Jack, and he knew it even if no one else did.

The club was rocking, people in and out and grinding on the dance floor, people leaning on the bar and talking, men and women eying each other across the floor and occasionally approaching. Felix scanned it briefly, and caught sight of Jack at the very end of the bar, talking—flirting, actually, Felix knew that body language—with a curvy brunette in an abbreviated pink top and skirt.

He hesitated on the threshold—if Jack was busy, he really didn't want to be there—but Jack spotted him before he could turn away, and lit up with a smile so bright it froze Felix in place.

Jack said something to the brunette, chucked her chin, then moved away from her, towards Felix, swimming effortlessly through the crowd of humans to his side.

"Hey," Jack said, putting his mouth right up against Felix's ear, and laying one hand on his arm. "I'm so glad you came!"

And right then, so was Felix.