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“... in which case you should go choke. BUMPKIN.”
“Aaaand bingo.”
Max groaned. “God fucking damn it.”
“I told you he’s been going on about his son again these days.” Gideon drew a remarkably straight line over the second row of his bingo card: asshole, bumpkin, hillbilly, idiot and wanker. In comparison, Max’s performance was in the trenches today. Gideon had also crossed out bitch, fucker and (Max squinted)... yokel?
“How the fuck do you even know that?” Max asked, pointing at the last word. English wasn’t even Gideon’s first language.
“I’m taking this very seriously, unlike you,” Gideon said (this being their bingo sessions over their neighbour’s insults over the phone, for which their previously unused fire escape had proven particularly effective).
Max rolled his eyes. “No, you’ve just been hanging out with Nico too much.” English wasn’t Nico’s mother tongue either, but he was a big fan of curse words and insults in general.
“Or maybe I’m just taking this more seriously than you are.”
Max raised his notebook and bonked Gideon on the head with it. “Beating you at Insult Bingo is literally my singular life goal, you do not get to imply I’m not taking it seriously enough.”
From the window behind them came a “Please don’t—” simultaneously with their neighbour below going “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE—” and Gideon and Max immediately shushed Nico with an aggression they rarely used.
“—throw Gideon off the roof,” Nico muttered, shaking his head. “Or do, I’m starting to care slightly less.”
Max rolled his eyes. This was a lie, because Nico could go exactly two minutes without Gideon’s unwavering attention before he started acting like a king betrayed by his closest consultant. But Gideon shot him a small smile, and Nico’s face immediately softened, and Max rolled his eyes even harder.
“—SCUTTLEBUTT!”
“YES!” Max shouted, which meant it was his turn to be aggressively shushed. But he was a step closer to a diagonal bingo, so he didn’t care.
“And you said yokel was weird,” Gideon said as Nico slipped through the window and squeezed in the corner of the fire escape, one leg hanging from the edge and the other behind Gideon. “What does that even mean?”
“Not sure, but given his affinity for that genre of insults I knew he’d use it eventually,” Max explained giddily. “As I said, I’m taking Insult Bingo very seriously.”
Gideon pursed his lips. “I should invest in a dictionary.”
“I still have a French-to-English somewhere if that might help,” Nico chimed in.
“Oh, that’d be good if you have it around actually.”
“Come on,” Max whined. “That has to be cheating,”
“You’re literally a native English speaker and yet I’m cheating?” Gideon asked, feigning offence.
“I meant the fact that you’re teaming up against me,” Max muttered, though he wasn’t really mad. If anything… well.
Let’s just say he had a hunch.
“Two non-native English brains equal one native English brain, obviously.” Nico looked over to Gideon’s card, then over to Max’s. “You’re winning? Gideon’s winning? You’re really not taking this seriously, Maximilian.”
Max looked over at them scandalised as Gideon smiled brightly with triumph. “I’m throwing you both out of here if you keep this up.”
“Who paid this month’s rent this month, hm?”
“Well, next month is my turn—”
“Nope,” Gideon intervened, “next month is my turn.”
Max did the math in his head; last month had been him, before that Nico, before that…?
They had a system: Nico and Max, both rich and fully aware that Gideon wasn’t, paid interchangeably, and Gideon contributed about once every three or four months. Nico had insisted they let him despite the fact that neither he nor Max would have any issue paying it all by themselves, because Gideon had a tendency to feel like a deadweight despite their constant nagging that he was not , but ultimately nothing helped ease that feeling except for giving him some responsibility. So they’d compromised, even if Max couldn’t help a little guilt.
The point was—“Alright, off the roof you go then.”
“Dream on.” Nico rested his chin on Gideon’s shoulder to look over his card more attentively. “You’re doing pretty good!”
Gideon looked extra pleased with himself, and Max restricted both a smirk and the need to remark aloud that Nico couldn’t go five minutes without physical contact. It showed in their respective behaviours that Nico had grown up with parents that pampered him at every given opportunity and Gideon had been raised by a foster family who didn’t want him and a mother who treated him like her personal thief, but somehow they’d found a balance. Gideon still didn’t initiate physical contact almost ever, but he’d grown accustomed to accepting it when it came from his close friends (namely, mostly Nico).
Case in point: Gideon’s stupidly fond smile as Nico squinted over his messy handwriting. “Can’t believe he used yokel before—”
“YOU SON OF A BITCH—”
“LET’S GOOO!”
Max groaned again as Gideon burst into laughter at Nico’s mini celebration. “What the fuck.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t have this one,” Nico said, leaning all the way over Gideon to peer at Max’s notes.
“I did, but it was down here,” Max tapped angrily at the bottom left corner of his bingo, “and I haven’t crossed out anything else on this side.”
“Skill issue,” Nico and Gideon said simultaneously.
Dear god. If the Insult Bingo wasn’t this serious between him and Gideon he would’ve given up already. He couldn’t compromise his dignity, though. “Get fucked, both of you.”
“Avec plaisir,” Nico said, which made Gideon raise an eyebrow. To which Nico, for some fucking reason, winked. Which made Gideon blush and turn away. Which Nico, in typical Nico de Varona fashion, didn’t even seem to notice.
A little alarm went off in Max’s head. Not a bad one, just a curious little oh.
Again, he’d had a hunch for a while now. But now he was beginning to consider it a little more seriously.
“Do we have anything for dinner?” Nico asked, still seemingly clueless.
“Nope.”
“Alright, I’ll cook. Any preferences?”
“We only have pasta left,” Max said. “We should go get groceries at some point.”
“Pasta it is, then. And we should.” Nico slipped back inside the house through the window, whistling to himself as he made his way through their kitchen. Gideon was back to listening to their neighbour inform whoever he was cursing that he should go “fuck himself with a ten-foot pole, actually ”, but Max could sense his distraction from a mile away.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he said softly, pretending to look away but keeping the corner of his eye fixed on Gideon.
He didn’t miss Gideon’s shoulders stiffening, ever so noticeably. “Sure.”
Max chewed on the question a little before picking the words he hoped were right. “Is anything going on between you and…?”
Gideon blinked. “Me and who?”
“I fucking wonder,” Max said, temporarily forgetting that getting anything out of Gideon would be impossible like this. He needed to show empathy or whatever the fuck, because what others perceived as Gideon having a negative amount of emotions, Max and Nico had learnt by now to actually be an overly positive amount of concealed, very sensitive ones. “You and Nico.”
“What makes you say that?” Gideon said with that exaggeratedly diplomatic voice of his. Zero emotions betrayed, save for a wariness so vast it gave away everything. Max hadn’t even specified what he thought was going on.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just a hunch.”
Gideon raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I have fucking eyes, Gideon.”
To his credit, Gideon didn’t try to conceal his feelings this time—namely, his awkwardness and embarrassment. “Well.”
Max sighed. “Let me guess: you’ve convinced yourself it’s one-sided.”
“No, I just have fucking eyes, Max,” Gideon said. “And I know Nico as well as you do, which is to say we both know how much of a fumbler he can be with relationships. So, no thanks.”
“Now you’re being unfair to him,” Max said, even though Gideon wasn’t entirely incorrect. Libby’s poor friend, Mira, had been nurturing an obvious, massive crush on Nico for nearly a year now, and Nico clearly had no idea despite the amount of clues she, Max, Libby and Gideon had dropped over time. Nico leaned more towards one-time things than commitment, and to his credit he’d never pretended otherwise, but the transparency had been insufficient on multiple occasions regardless.
“I don’t mean it negatively,” Gideon mumbled. “You know I don’t. I’m just saying I don’t mind keeping this to myself. Or, well,” (cue a Gideon-typical eye roll) “between us.”
Max offered his pinky. “I’m silent as a grave. Promise.”
Exasperated but a little relieved too, Gideon gave in. “ Merci.”
“You’re welcome or whatever.” He was pretty sure their neighbour was off the phone by this point and thus there was no point sitting on the fire escape any longer, but he lingered anyway. Looking at Gideon like this, on the edge of a moment of such rare openness, did something to him. Reminded him that this was best friend and he loved him.
Disgusting.
“If it’s worth anything,” he said softly, carefully, as if the weight of his words might be too much for the fire escape to hold, “he loves you a lot. Even if it’s not exactly the type of love you want it to be.”
That being said, Max was ninety percent sure he was lying. His hunch hadn’t been just Gideon likes Nico.
He held his breath for the entire moment it took for Gideon to smile in response. “I’m aware he loves me, I guess. And there’s no particular way I want him to love me. I’m just glad he does.”
Oh. So it was bad bad. “Alright, that’s enough cheese for one day.”
“Never enough cheese,” came a voice from behind them, and they were both almost startled off the fire escape. Nico smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to ask if mayonnaise that expired almost a month ago can cause food poisoning.”
“Google it, you asshole,” Max said at the same time that Gideon said, “Is it still sealed?”
“Yup.”
“Then check how it smells, if it doesn’t stink it’s probably safe,” Gideon said, somehow sounding very calm in spite of the distinct possibility that Nico might’ve heard everything.
“Awesome, thanks.” And he trotted happily back to the kitchen, Gideon’s gaze lingering for a second too long before turning back to the city.
The sun had begun setting, the window panes of the buildings surrounding them reflecting the orange and pink hues of the sky. The world was still, peaceful. Max glanced at his friend, who didn’t seem particularly worried, and couldn’t help but wonder if Gideon had a hunch too and was just too scared to say it out loud—a bit like how you’re not supposed to say your birthday wish aloud or it won’t come true.
“Consider maybe talking to him eventually,” he suggested, even if it was pointless; once Gideon dug in, there was no way out. “You know Nicky. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Gideon blinked, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that Nico would genuinely not mind, even if it turned out his feelings for Gideon were entirely platonic (which, again, just a hunch, but Max doubted). Maybe his crush was even worse than Mira’s, which was both impressive and horrific. “You have a point.”
Max finally turned to drag the window open wider with his foot. “Last question,” he said, his curiosity getting the best of him. “How long have you—”
Gideon’s ears were bright red. “Fuck off.”
Which Max knew to mean in Gideon language: roughly the entire time I’ve known him.
“God, even Mira is not that unfortunate,” he commented, sliding back into the apartment. He could tell Nico had begun pan-frying vegetables in the kitchen. He caught Gideon’s hopeless smile with the corner of his eye and wondered how it’d been simply a hunch this entire time.
“I repeat, fuck off. Also,” he held his bingo up, and Max grunted, “Don’t think I didn’t notice I won again.”
“ You fuck off. I’m winning five to zero next time.”
“Dream on,” Gideon called behind him as Nico shouted “SANDMAAAN” from the kitchen.
“The love of your life is probably struggling to get something from the top shelf again,” Max said with a sardonic grin, because Gideon had never had a crush as long as they’d known him (for obvious reasons, at last) and the realisation that he finally had one that Max could tease him about was delightful.
It got him a rare Gideon Drake middle finger in response, which was exactly as joyous as Max had expected. “Because you’re so tall yourself.”
“The Statue of Liberty cowers before me,” Max shouted dramatically before collapsing on the couch, a little smile plastered on his face as he watched Nico point to something on the top shelf with a spatula. They should start playing bingo with Nico de Varona mannerisms, Max thought. He’d have slim chances compared to Gideon Heart-Eyes-For-Nicolás Drake, but Max always liked a challenge.
He also very maturely held his tongue back and didn’t point out that Gideon was not even that much taller than Nico. If Nico also had a massive, incurable crush that he expressed mainly through excessive amounts of affection, accidental declarations of fondness that were infinitely more romantic than anything he’d probably ever said to his actual partners, and making Gideon stretch just to stare at his arms for three seconds—yeah, well, Max would let him keep that secret for a little longer, solely because it was funny. Gideon would kill him if he intervened, so he wouldn’t—but that didn’t mean witnessing his stupid best friends being unknowingly lovesick for each other wasn’t going to be entertaining as hell, even if it meant subjecting himself to being the most uselessly unintentional third-wheel of all time.
Not a problem for Max if the friends in question were going to be this disgustingly endearing in the process. It contributed to his personal entertainment, after all.
He got off the couch and walked to the kitchen to find them arguing about how much salt was too much salt. A classic argument in the Wolfe-Varona-Drake house: Nico “Gideon, you’re getting too pale, I’m telling you your blood pressure must’ve dropped all the way to hell, you need salt” de Varona versus Gideon “well, your blood pressure had skyrocketed last time you had a blood test, so maybe consider cutting out instead of insisting I’m dying” Drake.
Unstoppable force versus immovable object, the two of them.
Gideon hadn’t said anything about banning teasing, and anyway, it wasn’t the first time Max was making this joke, so whatever. “I’ve seen elderly couples act less domestically than this.”
Gideon looked like he was going to strangle him, but naturally Nico missed the cue. “Are you implying you regularly spend time in elderly people’s homes, Max?”
“No, but I regularly spend time with you two, which I imagine is the same if not worse. And for the record, Gideon’s right, but I like salt, so indulge yourself.”
Nico ruffled Max’s hair delightfully before beaming at Gideon. “Next time, Sandman.”
Neither of them missed the way Gideon rolled his eyes in surrender—but Nico did miss Gideon’s fond, helpless grin when he turned to reach for the saltshaker, and Max didn’t. Nico also missed the exasperated but loving shake of Max’s head, which Gideon didn’t.
What mattered most, Max thought as he leaned against the counter, was that he loved Nico and Gideon and they loved him back and also each other, and he wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.
Also, they were idiots. Which meant guaranteed fun for Max.