Work Text:
When Gene thinks about his old life—which isn’t all that old, really, but it’s quickly being blotted out by the profound mediocrity he’s presently immersed in—what he misses the most is the way he could talk to people.
It wasn’t a big deal. He was free to monologue at will, no holds barred. Now he spends his days cowering and mortally fearful of every customer who comes into the Cinnabon, prepping and baking legions of monstrous, sticky pastries in utter silence, but he used to really connect with people. He used to network. He has no close friends, which isn’t exactly new, but now the number of people he can talk to has dropped from a handful to literally zero. He also has no self-respect—again, not exactly new, but discouraging nonetheless. And he hates the stupid moustache he has to have now. It looks like a disguise, which it is, of course, but like... a cartoon one. It’s embarrassing and creepy and he wants it off his face. Gene is the deposed leader of his own failed empire, endlessly wandering the wasteland of his exile, his clothes and even his skin perpetually smelling like a grandmother’s kitchen.
Today Gene is baking five dozen unfrosted cinnamon buns per a customer’s request—the woman must’ve said “frosting on the side” at least five times while placing her order, and to add to the insult she was speaking in a slow, heavily-enunciated tone that she probably reserved for service workers. He’s wondering how he hasn’t just spontaneously died yet, because he stopped having a clue as to what could possibly be propelling him forward several thousand Cinnabon Stix ago. Wishful thinking, maybe. But mostly he’s been trying to think as little as possible. He feels like he’s entered a state of deep hibernation. He’s cryogenically preserved here, like a mammoth or Walt Disney.
So it’s a pretty big change of pace when Howard Hamlin rounds the corner and pushes open the Cinnabon door.
When he sees the club-collared button-up, the stupidly expensive suit, the Spartacus hair, he wants to press the panic button under the register and report a false robbery, anything to get rid of this. It shouldn’t even be happening to begin with. I mean, for Christ’s sake, he’s in Omaha. Why the fuck is Howard Hamlin at a Cinnabon in Omaha? Go to someone else’s register, Gene thinks forcefully, projecting his command toward Hamlin and willing it to become a reality, but of course the bastard makes a beeline toward him and he freezes up. He’s just staring at Hamlin like a moron and he knows he should be averting his eyes, acting a little more casually invisible, but this is just so unreal that he blanks on what the appropriate course of action is. He feels overwhelmingly threatened, like he’s on a spaceship and someone asked if they could roll down a window.
Maybe it’s not too late—has Hamlin ever really looked at him carefully enough to pick him out of a lineup? But this is just more wishful thinking. Hamlin steps up to the register and gawks at him, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open. Gene might feel compelled to scoff if he wasn’t in crisis mode.
“Jim—“
Jimmy—Gene has to make him shut up. How can he make him shut up? Before he can think hard enough to talk himself out of it, Gene puts on a slightly manic smile, grabs Hamlin by the necktie, pulls him over the counter, and kisses him urgently. It wouldn’t have had to come to this if Howard could've just read his thoughts—he was really projecting them.
“I missed you,” Gene says, breaking away after a suitably uncomfortable handful of seconds and grinning pointedly. Hamlin reaches up and touches his mouth with his fingertips, wide-eyed and utterly terrified, and it looks like he’s about to say something again. Probably something completely, comprehensively cover-blowing, like “James M. McGill, Esquire, what are you doing working at a Cinnabon in Omaha when you were formerly a sleazy attorney named Saul Goodman practicing out of a strip mall in Albuquerque?” Or maybe just “Your moustache touched my face and it was SO creepy.” Anyways, he’s definitely blushing, which is sort of awesome.
“I’ll see you after work, okay?” Gene says loudly and winks, hoping Hamlin can take a hint, “I get off at six.” He puts his hand on Hamlin’s arm like he’s being flirty but really he’s lightly but insistently shoving him toward the exit.
Howard nods mutely and darts back into the mall without even ordering anything, and Gene finally manages to assess the situation for long enough to feel completely mortified by what just happened. Why does he always pick the most convoluted way to deal with his problems? It’s like he can’t do anything without totally embarrassing himself. But what’s one more humiliation in an endless string of humiliations, really? He’ll deal with it. He’s very adaptable. He’s been accused of being a sex offender in the past, and now he even looks like one. Assailing ex-coworkers is clearly the next logical step.
Of course, his current coworkers are dumbfounded, and for the rest of the day they shoot him furtive looks ranging in emotion from curious to totally weirded out. But at least they don’t know that his name is really Jimmy, and they likely won’t ever ask him about any of this—really, he set it up perfectly, it’d be way too awkward, especially since he doesn’t really talk to them anyways. And besides, this is probably the most excitement he’s had in months. He’s starting to feel a little like he’s broken out of the soul-crushingly predictable time loop he’s been in lately, cinnamon, frosting, extra frosting, large fountain drink, repeat. Hide your face, hide your past, try hard to react when someone says your new name. Preheated purgatory, nine-to-five method act of playing dumb and boring. For once he doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen.
Even so, he doesn’t actually expect Hamlin to come rounding the corner again at 6:00 p.m. sharp, wearing a tentative half-smile and holding out his hand for Gene to take. Gene, incredulous, does so, and gives his manager a somewhat flippant wave that’s almost a salute on his way out the door—he can’t resist. Hamlin’s hand feels warm and manicured. Gene suddenly feels nostalgic for his old office in the back of the nail salon, and has an odd craving for cucumber water. As soon as they get out to the parking lot, Gene quickly lets go of Hamlin’s hand and lights a cigarette.
“Sorry for all that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Hamlin. He’s got an odd, unplaceable look on his face and Gene can only assume it’s because he thought he was dead. Or rather, thought Jimmy was dead. Or Saul. Whatever.
“I’m supposed to be dead,” he explains preemptively. He's been anticipating a lot of tedious questions. “I didn’t want you blowing my cover. I guess my disguise must need some work.”
“But you're definitely... you. Also your name is Gene now,” Hamlin states numbly, gesturing at the nametag that's clipped to his apron.
“Yeah.”
“Jimmy…”
“Look, Howard, could you maybe not call me that?” Gene says, trying hard not to sound nervous, trying to avoid the whole people-out-there-are-probably-trying-to-kill-him thing, which he prefers not to think about let alone ever, ever mention out loud. “I’m trying to get used to the new name. And why are you even in Omaha?”
“My sister lives here,” Hamlin says, like he doesn’t even understand why that would be a question.
“Oh, well that… that makes sense,” Gene says lamely. He wishes Hamlin would stop staring like that. He flicks his cigarette to the ground, snuffs it out a tad excessively with the toe of his shoe, and realizes that he's a little angry. Maybe he’s a lot angry. This is stupid. He looks stupid and small and like he's hiding under a rock, and now someone else knows just how fucked his life is. And that someone is Howard Hamlin, who clearly still has his shit together, if his immaculately pressed suit is anything to go by. “Okay. It’s been fun," he says bitterly, "I’m going to go home now. Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone you saw me. And if you can’t bear to stay out of the mall for the remainder of your visit, at least try to stay out of the Cinnabon.”
Gene abruptly pivots toward what’s inevitably the most horrible car in the lot—it’s even worse than his old Esteem. It’s rusty, frankensteined together out of so many disparate parts that it’s hard to say what make and model it is. Suffice it to say that there are several rolls of duct tape at play here.
“Jimmy,” says Hamlin again, plaintively, and Gene looks over his shoulder, irritated.
“Fucking seriously? Didn’t I just explain to you—“
He’s interrupted when Hamlin—Howard—Hamlin grabs him by the arm and pulls him around, and suddenly they’re really really close. And Howard looks like he's maybe going to cry. Oh god.
For a minute they just sort of stand there, Jimmy's—Gene's heart's beating like a rabbit's, everything's collapsing and he thinks he might black out, Howard Hamlin's holding his arm so tight that it feels like he's trying to tattoo his fingerprints onto his skin. Gene reaches to unfasten Hamlin's grip, but stops when his hand closes over the other man's.
"Is that your car?" Howard says in a low voice, unfamiliar and hitched.
"Of course that's my car," Gene replies, trying to keep his own voice steady, because what the hell is going on? Before he knows it, Gene's scratching the paint trying to unlock the door with his shaking hands, Howard's shoving him roughly into the backseat, unfastening the knot on his ridiculous apron, he clearly doesn't give a fuck about the glasses or the receding hairline or the terrible, terrible moustache. Gene hits his head against the window, bites his lip and tastes blood. He grabs at Howard’s tie, somehow manages to undo the pin that holds it in place without jabbing his fingers, thinks he maybe pops off a few genuine mother-of-pearl buttons while he’s blindly clawing at his shirt. Then Howard bites his neck, he pulls Howard closer, knots his fingers in his hair—which is somehow still completely perfect—drags him into a clumsy kiss, and christ, he's glad he parked around back and it's a mid-October Sunday, so the mall is closed, the sun is setting early.
Because now Howard's unbuckling Gene’s belt, Howard's impatiently pulling down his powdered-sugar dusted black work pants, he hasn't been touched in months, maybe years—he's not even counting anymore, it's too depressing—by someone other than himself.
"Howard..." he pleads—this is going to take like thirty seconds, he needs to slow down.
"Jimmy," Howard acknowledges, a hoarse whisper, blown-out pupils inches from Gene’s and looking at him like he understands everything he’s been through, like he can see every stupid, awful thing he’s done to get to this point, and somehow he accepts all of it.
And that’s enough to set him over the edge. That and the manicured hand that’s wrapped around his cock. He comes with an unabashed yelp, and the whole world shuts off for a moment. His vision floods with constellations on a backdrop of dark matter; he feels fundamentally altered.
And he still can’t talk. He tells himself it’s because he’s out of practice with that too, not because he’s stumbling through some velveteen haze of total handjob-catharsis.
He gives himself a few decades to even out his breathing before he props himself up a bit to let Howard sit beside him on the peeled faux-leather seat.
“Wow. Howard. That was… I didn’t even know you were... I always figured you were married to your work or something,” Gene rambles, grinning like an idiot, he doesn't even care that Howard is calling him Jimmy anymore or that with his luck this will probably end up ruining his life even more than it's ever been ruined before. Howard looks at him gravely.
“Actually, I’m married to my wife.”
“I’m joking,” he says quickly, raising his hands like he’s prepared to fend off a punch, but thankfully Gene can tell right away that he’s not being serious, which is also pretty surreal.
“Fuck you,” says Gene, teetering on the verge of hysterical laughter, “you make jokes now?”
Howard smiles modestly. "On occasion.”
But then his expression darkens. “I really did think you were dead, Jimmy."
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not,” he says, and he’s amazed to find that he really means it, “I would’ve missed out.”
“I haven’t done this in a while,” says Howard apologetically, looking down at a darkened spot on his suit pants that Gene didn’t notice before. He’s not sure if he should feel like a dick for not immediately offering to reciprocate, or if he should just accept the ego boost that comes with apparently not needing to. He decides to go with the latter option—he’s ruined the famously well put-together Howard Hamlin costume, at least for the time being. And he’s definitely spent enough time feeling like shit. Anyways, Howard clearly thinks Gene was being flippant with the compliment, a misconception he needs to set straight ASAP.
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, Howard, seriously.”
“You’re weren’t.” It’s a statement, not a question, and it’s tinged with worryingly ambiguous notes of dawning comprehension.
“No way.”
There’s a lengthy, introspective pause and Gene wishes that everything would just be straightforward for once.
“Look, this doesn’t have to be… you know, a thing,” stammers Gene, then mentally kicks himself over how needy he sounds. “I mean, not to assume you felt like it could be a thing to begin with. Or that it should be a thing. Or that I wanted it to be. It’d probably be too hard to pull off anyways.” He tries to pass the latter comment off as nonchalant, but really he’s alarmingly invested. He doesn’t know when he started caring so much about this, but he will admit that he’s always been kind of obsessed with Howard Hamlin.
“It shouldn’t be that hard, I don’t think,” Howard says serenely, fastening what’s left of the buttons on his shirt and somehow managing to look professional while doing so. He reaches into a pocket in his suit jacket, which is all crumpled up on the backseat floor, and solemnly hands Gene a business card.
“I’ll be in town for a few more days, but I can probably stretch that to a week or so,” he says, “My cell number is on there. If you're interested.”
Gene takes the card and stares at the Hamlindigo blue lettering of the tastefully embossed HHM logo. His life is hilarious. He laughs disbelievingly, turning the card over in his hands as Howard crosses the parking lot toward his much nicer car—he was supposed to meet his sister for dinner an hour ago. Gene rolls down his window, shouts in Howard's direction.
“Okay.”
And just maybe it's all going to get a little better.