Third Time’s the Charm: Rediscovering Hobbies
Cade's turn with Khaled again, since Vik and Eric have had plenty of one-on-one moments with him so far
Thank you beta reading team @whumped-by-glitter and @generic-whumperz
TW/CW: none? Okay, cool. I mean, there are some tense moments and some emotional strain due to whump aftermath/recovery stuff, but nothing too terribly triggering, I think.
Cade slipped through the door on an early spring morning, closing it to the cold while toeing off his sneakers. He hung up his coat in the closet, then upturned his shirt collar. Finally, he let his loose hair fall over his shoulders to cover the hickeys his date gave him last night. He smelled pancakes–burnt pancakes, maybe, but nonetheless a sign that at least one of the guys was already up, and he did not need any juvenile teasing about his hickeys this morning.
Cade’s mouth began salivating at the idea of a plate of pancakes with a couple vegan sausage patties. He hoped whoever was up so early was willing to share.
He rounded the corner to find Khaled, standing at the stove, silently cursing as he chucked something resembling a carbonized hockey puck into the trash. Pancake batter encrusted the stove. The fumigation hood hummed, its fan cranked to max. Cade shook his head fondly.
“I hope you didn’t go through all that trouble on my account!” he commented.
Khaled whipped around, then, once he saw it was Cade, let his defensive posture deflate. “Thought I’d try making pancakes,” he sighed.
Cade reached for the hair tie at his wrist, hickeys be damned. “Need any help?” he asked, already tying back his hair.
“No, it’s fine,” Khaled said.
This reminded Cade of that story Vikash told him of the last time Khaled tried to make breakfast in secret. “Seriously, I could even just clean up as you go?” he offered helpfully.
“It’s okay, really!” Khaled insisted.
Cade reminded himself of what Vikash and Eric had told him. “Wait…” He crossed his arms, leaning against the counter as he looked at Khaled questioningly. “You’re not doing this to ‘earn your keep’ or anything like that, right?”
Khaled’s eyes drifted down to his spatula. “…no…”
“Because, you don’t have to, you know.” Cade thought maybe offering a concrete example would help make his point. He rubbed awkwardly at his neck, readying himself to confess a detail from his personal life. “Not like our situations are similar in any way,” he acknowledged, “but when I first moved in here, I felt like I had to repay Eric and Vik’s hospitality, too–”
“Yeah, well, it’s like you said, our situations aren’t similar in any way! Maybe you got over your obligation to repay their favor, but I’m never going to, because this is all I know how to do, and I don’t know how to stop!” Khaled snapped. An acrid smell wafted between the two. The butter in the pan had burnt. “Why am I like this?!” Khaled groaned. He took the pan off the heat and tossed it in the sink to cool.
“Hey, calm down, calm down,” Cade said soothingly, reaching over to turn off the burner. “You’re okay. Really. Now, what do you mean you don’t know how to stop?” he asked.
Khaled leaned on the counter on the other side of the stove, turning his head to look at Cade. “I mean, part of it is the feeling that I can never ever hope to make it up to you guys for what you’ve done for me. The other part is that, honestly, I don’t have anything else to do,” Khaled confessed. “No job, no school, no friends to visit. I wake up, I eat breakfast and dinner with you guys, Vik maybe takes me to the gym if I’m up on time, and you or Eric take me to therapy. Aside from that?” Khaled shrugged. “It’s either doing random shit around the house like I was trained to do, or slowly going crazy as I wait for you to come home.”
Cade furrowed his brow. “Don’t you have any hobbies or something? Any fun ways to pass the time?” He remembered what Eric had told him when he intercepted Khaled cleaning the stove. “And bleaching the grout in our shower does not count,” he clarified.
Khaled took an uncomfortably long time to respond. Cade was worried he wouldn’t respond at all, until he mutely shook his head.
Cade gawked at him. No hobbies? As a man who was involved in several hobbies and the communities that surrounded them (music, aquariums, crystal collecting, marijuana), he could not imagine such a bleak existence without the little things that bring a person joy.
Although, maybe Khaled did have hobbies like that, before everything that happened to him. Cade scrunched his brows and narrowed his eyes, deep in thought. Yeah, Khaled probably had hobbies before, hobbies that were lost, and that could be regained, if we just found the right stimuli...
“Okay!” he said decisively. Khaled cocked his head to the side, confused by this random outburst. Cade stooped over to open the refrigerator and got out a carton of oat milk. “Once we finish breakfast, I’m taking you to Paragon!”
“Paragon! It’s the coolest strip mall around, cause it’s all niche shops that cater to different hobbies! I’ll take you!”
Khaled raised his hands. “Oh, no, you don’t have to–” he said.
“I want to! Besides, I have to go and buy new guitar strings anyway, the only difference is you’re coming with me,” Cade rationalized. He got on his tiptoes to reach the box of cereal on top of the fridge, then walked to the cupboard to get two bowls. “Come get us some spoons and join me,” he invited. Khaled glanced briefly at the abandoned pancake project, then fetched the spoons.
They took two buses to Paragon Plaza, the unique strip mall full of niche shops Cade had mentioned. The musician made his first stop for guitar strings, but took his time browsing the guitar straps and shiny new picks. Whenever he’d occasionally glance at Khaled, the man didn’t seem interested in anything at the music store.
The next store didn’t seem to grab his attention either, as Khaled aimlessly wandered the rows upon rows of boxed mini figures and tiny bottles of expensive paint. Nor did he seem interested in the next store, with its colorful beads and glittering gems hanging from strings on a wall. At least the paper goods store seemed to interest him a little, Cade noticed. He spotted Khaled going through roll upon roll of patterned washi tape, presumably for his dream journal.
They’d spend an hour and a half at almost all the stores at Paragon, and Cade was about to call it quits on discovering Khaled’s hobby. He noticed his friend break away from his side as they were about to head to the bus stop. He followed him to a large window display modeling tennis rackets, volleyballs, soccer cleats, and other sports paraphernalia underneath a banner that read ‘SPRING IS HERE!’ He followed Khaled’s eyes to the soccer cleats, noticing something akin to mournful longing in the man’s deep dark eyes. “See something you like?” he asked.
“I… um, I used to play soccer,” Khaled said quietly, staring longingly into the window display.
“Would you like to come in?” Cade suggested. “We’ve got plenty of time!” And no other store seems to have grabbed your attention like this one, he noticed.
While Cade himself was not a sporty person (anymore, that is), he did find some of the things in the store familiar, and felt similar waves of nostalgia and mourning as they walked through the store. He wholeheartedly encouraged Khaled to buy some cleats and a soccer ball. At the register was a flyer advertising adult leagues, saying that they looking for new players for the season and that auditions were next weekend. It didn’t take much needling to convince Khaled to go and give it a try, although the concept that he could leave the house without one of them had yet to sink in.
“And if I make the team, I can leave for practice whenever?” Khaled asked again on the bus ride home.
“Oh my god, dude, yes!” Cade laughed, answering yet again. “Look, you’re not a prisoner in our house or anything, I promise! When you make the team, you can come and go as you like.”
Khaled hugged the soccer ball in his lap. “Okay.” He looked down at the cleats in the bag in his hand. “Thank you,” he murmured shyly.
“Any time.” He fished around for his pockets and popped out his Bluetooth headphones. He offered one to Khaled, who took it gratefully with a small smile. “Here’s this song I’m trying to learn,” Cade introduced as he opened his music app. “It doesn’t sound too hard, but it still sounds really good…” The two friends listened to the acoustic guitar cover of Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow” the rest of the ride home.
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