He's unemployed, and depressed, and alone.
That's how it starts.
“Dinner tonight?” Amir asks, peering at him over their boxes, the bullpen darkening around them, and he's not looked so genuinely hopeful that Jake might say yes in years.
He thinks about it. He actually thinks about it, looks around at their empty office like there's even anything here to miss. CollegeHumor is different now. They never really settled here; this office doesn't mean anything to them, or at least not to Jake. The only thing in LA that means anything to him is currently watching him across their desks, eyes soft with hope.
“Okay,” Jake says, and it feels like it means more than that.
Amir smiles at him, and he thinks maybe this whole thing isn't so bad as long as they're together. The thought isn't as unwelcome as he expected it to be.
That's fucking terrifying.
“Well, well, well, look who came crawling back,” Amir says, clapping slowly and looking around like anyone else in this ridiculous hipster coffee shop would even care.
“You called me, man,” Jake scoffs, even though he is absolutely crawling back. He's acting tough like he hasn't been waiting around for Amir to call him for the better part of six years.
“Long time,” he shouts instead of responding to what Jake actually said, “it's been a while, actually. I don't know if I remember you, Jake.”
“You obviously do. You said my name just now.”
He just shrugs like Jake is being ridiculous, and it's like no time has passed at all. Amir looks different; grey around the temples and wearing different glasses, has a slightly better haircut, but he's still exactly the same in all the ways that matter. Jake knows he looks different too, but he thinks maybe underneath it all he hasn't really changed either.
They hit the D's, because of course they do.
Jake gets a quarter pounder and Amir gets an absurd amount of nuggets and doesn't even yell at Jake when he asks for one.
“So,” Amir starts, mouth full of nuggets, dragging out the word, “what do we do now?”
“We?” He echoes, though he doesn't know why he even bothers still pretending to be surprised.
Amir just shrugs. “Yeah. Obviously.”
Five long years without hearing anything from him, and then he calls out of the blue.
Jake is mad, is the thing.
He's tried not to be. He shouldn't care. He doesn't want to care, but he does, and he didn't expect it but it hurts now, with Amir standing right in front of him, just as raw as it did every day for those five years. It might be Jake's fault, but Amir always came back. Obviously Jake expected him to come back.
He didn't. For five years.
He called with a fucking scroll, of all things, and when Jake hung up he didn't call him again for a full year.
“We don't do anything,” Jake says around sips of his sprite, “I am gonna get a new job. You are gonna get a new job. They're gonna be at different places, probably.”
“Yeah, right. Why would anyone hire you without me?”
“What?” He asks, brow furrowed. “I can get another job easy, man. Why would anyone hire you, period?”
“Uh, because we're a package deal?” Amir is looking at him with that look, with his eyes narrowed like he thinks Jake is missing the obvious point.
Jake shakes his head. “We don't have to be.”
He doesn't even want this. He doesn't know why he's arguing for it when he knows he'd be over if Amir ever actually left. He doesn't want it, but he has to push back. He has to. It's like he doesn't know how to not.
“What do you mean we don't have to be,” Amir repeats in a scarily perfect impression of Jake's voice, “we just are. Would you separate Bonnie and Clyde? Would you separate Romeo and Juliet?”
“They all died, man. They should have been separated.” He takes a deep breath, a long sip of his sprite, trying not to seem defensive about the implications. “Plus they were all— you know. Together.”
“Fine, like, fucking— Thelma and Louise, then. Would you separate them?”
“They also died,” Jake says, trying not to feel the weight of it.
Amir is always eager to take whatever Jake is willing to give. He waits patiently— or impatiently — for Jake to be ready, for Jake to offer out his hand, and then he runs with it, thankful and desperate. He always waits politely for Jake to offer his inch before he takes a mile.
He must have got tired of waiting, Jake thinks as he grabs their coffees, carefully walking them over to the table Amir has sat himself at, tucked away in the corner.
“Only a medium?” Amir mumbles as Jake sets the mug down in front of him. “I asked for a large.”
“It is a large.”
Amir has the audacity to look offended. “Not an extra large!”
“You didn't ask for an extra large!”
“I shouldn't have to ask, Jake. C’mon.”
“I'm not paying a whole five bucks more for an extra two ounces of coffee that you won't even drink.”
Amir laughs, high pitched and broken and unlike any other person's laugh Jake's ever heard. “Broke bitch.”
Against all odds, it's weirdly comforting.
Amir is quiet. It's out of character for him, especially here, in the D’s. He's never more alive with sound and movement than when they're here, but it seems like he's thinking a lot. That's not unheard of, but it is unusual.
“Hey, buddy,” Jake says, softly, nudging Amir's foot with his underneath the table, “you okay?”
He nods, but he doesn't look okay.
“Did you mean that?”
It's not what he was expecting Amir to say, even though he could tell it was weighing on him, for some reason.
“I say that shit to you all the time, man.” He knows it's not an answer to the question, but it feels like— a lot. Loaded, somehow, even though it should be easy to answer. No, obviously. I need you.
He's never been able to say that, though.
“Yeah, yeah, you do,” Amir says, and he sounds emotional but Jake isn't exactly sure why, “do you mean it, though?”
“Did you ever notice how if you say coffee over and over it starts to sound like gibberish?”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Why did you call me?”
“You know, coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee—”
“Amir—”
Amir laughs. “It's more like the word loses its meaning, or something.”
“That happens with literally any word,” Jake says, feeling the old familiar feeling of creeping frustration making its way up his spine. Just like old times. “Why did you call me, man?”
“Why wouldn't I call you?”
“Because you didn't,” he doesn't mean it to sound so bitter, but it does, “you didn't, Amir. For years.”
He shrugs. “I was busy.”
“For five years?”
“I had deadlines!” He says, like that even makes sense. “I had deadlines, and I had projects, and the projects had deadlines. Sorry for being real.”
“You're not being real,” Jake mumbles into his coffee, and he can't tell if Amir catches it or not.
Jake shrugs, trying desperately to think of a way to change the subject. “Why does that matter now?”
“Because things are different now,” he says, and it scares Jake that he can't read the expression on his face.
“Don't be a diva, okay? You're the one who insisted on coming to this shitty coffee shop.”
He did, mostly because he didn't want Amir in his house. He wasn't entirely sure how this would go, and he was— it's good to have the buffer of being in public. Not that Amir has ever cared about being in public. It's not really for him, though. It's mostly to keep Jake in check.
They've been— talking. Ever since Amir got back in touch with him a few months ago, they've been talking. This is the first time Jake has seen him, though, in person. The first time he's gotten to be around him and lean into their dynamic like no time has passed and nothing has changed.
Time has passed though, even if Jake does feel like nothing has changed.
“Do you mean it?” Amir asks, and Jake's breath catches in his throat.
“Do I mean what?”
“Do you want us to be— or, to go— to not go—”
“Oh my god—”
“Do you want us to not be together anymore?”
“So— podcasting.”
“Okay?”
“Ever heard of it?” Amir leans forward in his seat, like he's riveted to hear Jake's answer.
Jake nods. “Obviously.”
“Really?” He looks shocked, and Jake should know better than to expect a conversation with Amir to take a normal trajectory. “Could you explain it to me?”
“Why did you ask me about podcasting if you don't know what it is?”
“I figured we would start one.”
“A podcast? About what?”
“We'd figure that out later,” he flips his hand dismissively, and Jake should take that as the red flag it obviously is, but he's too busy trying to keep a lid of the hope burning up through his chest, “I'm thinking something like Joe Rogan meets This American Life.”
“Yeah, we're not doing that,” Jake says, and there's a thrill he refuses to acknowledge to them being a we again.
“Don't say it like that, man, it sounds like we're—”
He cuts himself off because it feels too big to say, but he knows Amir knows. It's not even true, really. They're not, but they're also not not. They never have been, but they also have, from the very beginning.
Jake can see the way Amir's jaw shifts, the way he grinds his teeth as he thinks.
He wants to kiss him.
He doesn't.
Amir is grinning at him because he knows he's got Jake in his fucking grasp now. Jake's lost this fight. Amir's got him right where he wants him, and unfortunately, it's right where Jake wants to be.
He's watching him with that fucking glint in his eyes, like he's maybe got more insane in the time they've been apart. Watching Jake like he's a prey animal and Amir's getting ready to strike.
He wants to kiss him.
Maybe he will. There's nothing left to lose now.
He sips his coffee and tries not to be surprised that he still craves Amir's lips on his after all this time.
“Jake,” he says, voice cracking under the weight of emotion, “CollegeHumor is gone. We jumped the fricken carp and now it's gone and things are different. Do you want to be with me?”
“Well? Whatdya say we start a podcast empire of our own?” He's grinning at Jake across the table, and as much as Jake's gut is telling him that this is just some more patented Amir bullshit, he can't seem to stop listening.
“Be with you, I'm— What does that even mean?”
Amir looks disappointed, like he's already answered, and Jake feels like he's trapped sliding down a hill that he can't scramble back up. “You know what it means, Jake. It means whatever you want it to mean.”
“A podcast empire?”
“Absolutely.”
“We should probably just start with one podcast, right?”
“Sure, yeah, absolutely. One podcast. Number one on fricken iTunes, I swear to god. Me and you. You in?”
“No,” he sighs, because he can't bring himself to say yes. Across from him, Amir crumbles.
It feels like the end of something. Something good.
“Okay,” he says, because he can't bring himself to say no. Across from him, Amir smiles.
It feels like the start of something.
Something good.