Chapter Text
It’s midnight. No, later. Nick doesn’t know. He’s a little drunk, and his watch has been dead for weeks, but he keeps wearing it and then cussing any time he looks at it and remembers it’s dead. Livio keeps telling him to just go to the store and get a new battery, and then Nick tells him he’ll get to it, but it’s been weeks, and now he’s drunk and doesn’t know what time it is.
The bar was getting too crowded for Nick’s taste; he just wanted to drink in peace, but people kept bumping into him and yelling and spilling shit. Eventually, it just wasn’t even worth it any more, so he figured he’d go grab a bite to eat and pass out on the couch. After all, that’s what Thursday night is for, right? But of course, it’s after midnight, and most places that aren’t bars are closed. Most places that are bars are as packed as the place Nick just left, so he starts walking—weaving—down the sidewalk.
At last, the beacon looms overhead, an oasis in the concrete desert: Waffle House.
Nick steps inside, and the smell slaps him in the face like a physical object: fried potatoes, eggs cooking, spilled syrup. Manna from heaven for an undeserving sinner. A server on her way past glances at him, sparing the smallest possible sliver of attention from the huge tray she’s carrying. “Sit wherever,” the server tells him. She’s heading for a gaggle of teenagers, all of whom seem to be engaged in sitting on each other’s laps, building structures from sugar packets, hooting over their phones, or some combination. Nick heads in the opposite direction and finds himself a booth on the other side of the restaurant. From here, he can see the cook dancing around the kitchen space on the other side of the counter. Promising.
The server drops a menu on the table with a promise that she’ll be over in a minute as she passes. There are a few occupied tables, and she seems to be holding them down by herself. Aside from the teenagers, there’s a couple of college kids, a few folks that look like they just got off of work, and some scattered loners like Nick. The radio is playing the kind of cheesy pop hits that make him want to hit something, but it’s quiet enough that he can tune it out as he peruses the menu.
"You ready to order?" the server asks. She has blue-black hair, cut short, which gives her a business-like air that contrasts against her height, which could be generously described as fun-sized. Her name tag identifies her as Meryl. The way her eyelid twitches when one of the teenagers squawk loudly identifies her as inches away from tossing them all out on their asses. Nick recognizes the resignation in her eyes; no way are those little assholes going to tip well.
"Cup of coffee, please, and the steak and eggs."
"Toast or biscuit?"
"Toast. And can I go with the hashbrowns?"
"You bet. And how do you want your eggs?"
"Over easy."
"You got it." Meryl jots something down on her notepad and takes his menu. "I'll have your coffee over in a minute."
"Thanks, appreciate it."
She strides away. Another aproned woman hurries in from the back, apologizing while she pulls her hair back into a ponytail. "Sorry, Meryl, sorry!" she wails.
"Milly, you're late again! What happened this time?"
"My car broke down! I had to call my dad to help me fix it, and then he had to call in my second oldest brother, and it won't happen again! I promise!"
"Never mind, it's fine. You take that side, okay?"
"Okay!"
The new server jumps in as instructed. Nick notices that the teenagers are not in the section Meryl ceded to her coworker, which seems an undeserved kindness on her part. Then again, he’s a spiteful shit, as anyone who’s known him more than five minutes can attest. He glances away, catches sight of the cook, who is now actually cooking but still doing a little shoulder dance in time with the music..
Meryl returns a minute later with a cup of coffee, as promised, which gives Nick something to do. He sips it and looks out the window, ignoring sobriety peeking over his shoulder, waiting for its chance to strike. It's gonna have to get a real run-up, even with the coffee.
"Here we go," Meryl announces. "Steak and eggs with toast and hashbrowns, eggs over easy."
"Perfect, thanks," Nick answers, grinning wide. This might genuinely be the best part of his whole day; he tries not to examine that thought too closely.
With food and coffee in front of him, Nick is briefly at peace. He cuts open the egg so he can get that good, runny yolk and sop it up with the toast…
"Excuse me, miss?" Wolfwood calls before Meryl gets too far away.
"Huh? What's up?"
"I'm real sorry, but my eggs are wrong. They're supposed to be over easy."
She frowns, though it looks more like confusion than annoyance; Nick's laid on the politeness and the accent about as thick as molasses, and anything is better than teenagers at this time of night. "Sorry," she says. "I'll get that fixed for you real quick."
"No problem. Thank you."
Meryl goes into the kitchen and taps the cook's shoulder. He turns, and she says something too low for Nick to hear over the music. The cook blinks a couple of times and tosses a glance Nick's way. Nick looks away again. It's okay, he figures, mistakes happen.
The replacement eggs are scrambled.
"You're making a face," Meryl says dryly.
"I hate scrambled eggs," Nick mutters. "No offense, but could you tell that guy to stop screwing around?"
The next time she brings him a fresh plate, it contains two hard boiled eggs. She's already wincing.
"Uh, hey, 'scuse me?" Nick calls out toward the kitchen.
"Sorry?" the cook asks. He comes over, and Nick gets a good look at spiky blonde hair and fathomless blue eyes framed by lashes like clock springs. "Was there something wrong?"
And okay. So Nick might have a thing for a tall blonde with a dancer's figure. A man likes what he likes. With an effort he usually reserves for life-and-death scenarios, he forces himself to smile and says, "Is this your first day?"
"No? Why do you ask?"
"I asked for my eggs over easy."
The cook glances at Nick's table, now holding six different eggs cooked three different, incorrect ways, and Nick can see in his eyes the exact moment he decides the next thing he'll say. His brow furrows into a faux quizzical expression. "I don't see the problem," he answers.
Right. Okay. So, he has the face of an angel and is either an idiot or an obnoxious pain in the ass, and Nick is drunk, and his watch is broken, and he just wants to eat his eggs, and someone is preventing that from happening. The smile falls from his face. "It ain't that hard to cook eggs."
Another glance towards the table, followed by a perfectly innocent, "Obviously."
"So why is it, then, that I asked for eggs over easy, and what I got was three different wrong kinds of eggs?"
The cook's eyes go wide in a pantomime of sudden comprehension. "Oh, you said you wanted them over easy!"
Nicholas D. Wolfwood takes a moment to remember that he is a grown man with a job and an apartment and a cat that he feeds when it comes around and meows on his fire escape. He is not going to start biting a complete stranger in a Waffle House, no matter how furious that stranger makes him. Instead, he growls, "Yes. I said three times."
"Five, if you count just now," Meryl interjects. She sounds deeply unimpressed, but she's looking at the cook, not Nick. "Vash, I think that's enough."
Vash the cook doesn't look away from Nick's face. He just smiles and says sweetly, "I understand. Let me try again, okay?"
The restaurant is very quiet, Nick realizes abruptly. He looks around to find all eyes on them. Dinner and a show. Well, it's about time to cut this performance short. "Don't worry about it," he grates out, trying to match Vash's smile and probably coming across as deeply unwell. He pulls out his wallet and very carefully lays a couple of bills on his table, enough to cover the full meal and a tip.
"Oh, no, you don't have to—" Meryl starts.
Nick looks at her and says slowly and deliberately, "Thank you for the coffee." And then he takes an untouched triangle of toast from his plate and walks out of the restaurant.
—
"And then he had the nerve to smile at me and ask me to let him try again! Can you believe this fucking guy?"
"Nico, I genuinely don't know what you were expecting," Livio tells him evenly.
"I'll tell you one thing for sure: I'm never going back there."
"Good, those places are awful anyway."
"The waffles are good though."
"Yeah, but you didn't order a waffle."
—
His vow to never go back lasts all of two weeks. The problem is that Nick is someone who likes being angry a little bit; it makes him feel alive. Livio is a normal man who doesn't go looking for trouble, but the world would be a very boring place indeed if all brothers were the same.
Another Thursday night, late. He's not so drunk this time, and this time, he doesn't wander his way in—Nick walks into that Waffle House with purpose. He has a split second to wonder if this is stupid, if maybe that Vash guy isn't even working tonight, if he's just overreacting to this whole situation by fixating so hard. And then he looks toward the kitchen, and there's that blonde son of a bitch, and Nick is annoyed all over again by the mere sight of his stupid broad shoulders.
"Oh, it's you," Meryl says, sounding surprised. Her gigantic counterpart is here on time tonight and is chatting with a table of college kids who look like they've been approached by a friendly moose: happy, having fun, maybe fearing for their lives a little, but trying not to show it.
"Hi," Nick answers, grinning his most charming grin.
"Kind of didn't think we'd see you again after that whole egg thing."
"Well, I believe in second chances."
"And sixth chances, apparently," Meryl replies dryly. She looks around at the tables and adds, "I guess you can sit wherever."
He takes the same table as last time. Meryl brings a menu over, but Nick shakes his head. "No need. I already know what I want."
"A waffle?" she asks hopefully.
"A cup of coffee, steak and eggs, please. With toast, hash browns, and eggs over easy."
He might be imagining it, but Nick thinks there's some dread in her eyes. Still, Meryl dutifully writes down his order and reclaims his neglected menu. Coffee is brought. Nick purposely doesn't look at the kitchen. Because yeah, he could look over the counter and see exactly what Vash is doing and whether he's cooking Nick's eggs wrong, but now it's about the principle. Will he do the right thing and atone for his previous misdeed?
He will not, as it turns out.
Meryl brings his plate over like she’s carrying a live bomb. She places it on Nick’s table with infinite care to reveal…technically steak and eggs. Except that some absolute monster (Vash) has cut a hole in the center of a slice of toast and cooked an egg in the middle. Nick would laugh if it was happening to anyone else. Instead, because it's happening to him, he picks up the egg toast and calls out, "Yo, needle noggin!"
Vash turns in his direction just in time to catch a flying egg toast right in the face. In observance of the universal laws of slapstick comedy, it falls off of his face and into his hands, perfectly intact, which allows Vash to throw it back at Wolfwood with a choked off yelp of, "You–!"
Wolfwood dodges the flying monstrosity, already crossing the restaurant. Rather than let the fight come to him, Vash actually jumps the counter to meet him in the middle. One of the college kids whoops, and someone else calls out, "Oh, shit!" They are summarily ignored as Vash and Wolfwood come together like thunderheads.
Wolfwood grabs the front of Vash's apron while Vash grabs the lapel of his jacket. It's not a particularly effective or graceful scuffle, especially not with both of them also using their free hands to try and push each other's faces away. Wolfwood growls around his smushed cheek, "I. Said. Over. Easy! How hard is that to understand?"
"You don't throw food!" Vash answers back, his righteous indignation equally muffled. "Who raised you? You could have broken the yolk!"
"Yeah, well, you definitely did, idiot. Serves you right!"
A firm voice interjects, "I think that's enough." Both men turn to find Milly standing before them, her eyes large and serious. God, she's really tall. They let go of each other. She continues, "You really shouldn't fight in the restaurant. Someone could get hurt."
"Someone will," Nick mutters out of the side of his mouth, cutting his eyes toward Vash.
"I heard that!" Milly informs him primly. "You should both apologize."
That is, without question or qualification, the worst idea Nick has ever heard. But Milly is staring them both down like she has all night, and there's no squirming out from under her scrutiny. Vash breaks first, mumbling without looking at Nick, "S'rry."
Nick scratches the back of his neck, feeling like he got called to the principal's office. "Yeah, sorry," he says, hoping his voice conveys how not sorry he is as much as Vash's did.
Milly smiles and claps once, sunny as a blue sky after a sudden rainstorm. "There! Now we're all friends!"
"I wouldn't go that far," Vash says cautiously, but Milly's already going back to her tables. He glances sideways at Nick one more time before slinking back to the flat top; apparently Nick isn't the only one feeling like a student in trouble.
Meryl approaches now that the danger has passed. She catches Nick staring after Milly and says, “Yeah, she has that effect on people.”
“What planet is she from?” Nick asks wonderingly.
“I’ll let you know when we find out. Did you want that waffle now?”
“Nah.” Nick pulls some cash from his wallet and holds it out.
“You really don’t have to do that. He cooked your eggs wrong on purpose and threw an egg toast at you.”
“I threw it at him first. Least I can do.”
“Well, thanks, I guess.”
Nick sketches a vague salute at Meryl and sees himself out.
—
“I don’t understand why you keep antagonizing him.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You cook eggs over easy all the time.”
“So, what?”
“So, you made him eggs over hard, scrambled, hard boiled, and that egg toast thing, which we don’t even offer.”
“Meryl, I’m having a hard time following your point.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Vash.”
“I would never. Anyway, those waffles won’t make themselves!”
“This isn’t over!”
“If you say so.”