It's almost overwhelming, because he's never imagined being able to do that to someone, even if he's thought about it before, imagined what it would be like to make someone else feel so good, wanted to have the opportunity to do so. Now he's done it, and it's even better than he'd thought it would be, enough so that he has to pull away from Ned's shoulder for a moment just to look at his face, to imprint the vision of that expression and those gasps in his mind forever.
And when Ned presses his face to his chest, he presses his own face into Ned's hair again, scattering kisses on top of his head, trying to communicate something, though even he's not sure what it is. As soon as Ned kisses him, he's reciprocating, warmly and just as fiercely, wanting to cling onto him, absurdly afraid that now that they're done, Ned's going to make him leave right away.
"I... thank you," he says, and he knows how stupid it sounds. It's not nearly enough to express what he wants to, but it'll just have to suffice.
Ned leaves their foreheads pressed together, but now he's smiling too widely to keep kissing Ginsberg, his whole body buzzing and humming with satiation. "Thank you," he replies, running a hand up and down Ginsberg's arm, just wanting to keep touching him, keep contact. He shuts his eyes a moment and lets out a long, happy sigh, inches closer to Ginsberg, even though the two of them are too hot and a little sweaty and maybe he wants some distance just now. Distance is the very last thing that Ned wants.
"Don't go anywhere," he murmurs, and it's probably rude of him to be so dictatorial, but in his post-coital glow, Ned's possessiveness and desire not to be alone outweighs his impulse not to be demanding.
He doesn't want distance at all -- far from it, he wants to be as humanly close to Ned as possible, and he's glad to see that Ned isn't pushing him away. When Ned says don't go anywhere, the smile that breaks onto his face is one that he might be ashamed of, in another situation, so full of happiness and excitement that it could be embarrassing, if Ned weren't being so kind to him.
So he moves a bit closer, too, lets their bodies touch in as many places as possible, stroking his fingers across Ned's cheek with that same, silly, reverent look in his eyes. "I won't go anywhere. I mean, I'd go if you wanted me to, but I don't want to go. I just want to stay here."
The proclivity to babble seems to have returned, but Ned hasn't seemed to mind so far. Ginsberg's hand moves from Ned's cheek to brush some of Ned's hair back off of his forehead, and smile at him.
The babbling doesn't bother him at all, but it's pretty clear that Ned is fighting off a wave of fatigue, blinking in increasingly slow intervals, a faint smile on his face. Most times and most places he isn't fond of having his face touched, but right now it isn't so bad at all.
"Good. Stay."
It's not a large bed, but there's room for the two of them, particularly when they are twined this close. Ned yawns, says in a bleary sort of way, "Sorry I'm one of those guys who can't keep his eyes open after." He notices Ginsberg moving his hair from his face, says, "'s nice." Then, seeming to return to his previous thought, he adds, "...know it's rude to go to sleep right after..."
"You can go to sleep," he says, and as he says it, he feels a rush of tiredness come over him, too, one that leaves him blinking back his own exhaustion. "I think I will, too. If you don't mind."
He doesn't think Ned will mind, but he feels compelled to offer Ned one more out in case he really wants him to leave and doesn't know how to phrase it. He'd like to stay, though, would like to sleep next to Ned, pressed up this close against him, in a kind of intimacy that he's never really had with anyone else. There's enough space, after all -- Ned may be tall, but Ginsberg certainly isn't, and pressed this close, they can both lie here in sleep companionship.
Maybe that's why he finally lets his eyes drift shut, thinking that, if Ned really wants to kick him out, he'll do so regardless of whether his eyes are open or not.
Ned wakes up later than he's accustomed to do. There are many reasons for that: the booze, the excitement, the fact that he's curled around a very warm and still-sleeping Ginsberg. He opens his eyes but doesn't move, afraid that in doing so he might wake the other man. They've shifted in their sleep so that Ginsberg's back is pressed to his chest, Ned's arm held close to his chest. It feels rather lovely, and he stays there for as long as he can.
When he does pull away he does it as carefully as possible, trying not to jostle Ginsberg too badly. He grabs a piece of paper from somewhere and scrawls a quick note, nothing more or less than Good morning! It's silly, really, and there's no need to do it, but Ned lets himself follow that impulse. He leaves it on the bedside table while he heads off for a shower.
He wakes up largely because it suddenly feels several degrees colder in the bed, and the reason for that is obvious as soon as he opens up his eyes and rolls over, finding that Ned is no longer in the bed. There's a second where he wonders whether Ned has just left entirely, but then he hears the shower running, and relaxes back into the mattress slightly. Ned hasn't left. Ned hasn't decided he's sick of him -- so far, at least.
Throughout the night, he knows, he'd been very cuddly, and there's another moment where he worries that perhaps he'd been too cuddly, but Ned would have shoved him aside if he had been, wouldn't he? Finally, he stops lolling around on the bed and sits up, which is when he notices the note on the bedside table. It puts another huge smile on his face, although there's no one to see it.
Fumbling under the bed, he comes up with his underwear and undershirt, and tosses them on, then heads towards the kitchen with the intention of making coffee for the both of them. That's the right thing to do, isn't it? Were he feeling more bold, he might surprise Ned in the shower, but he still feels somewhat shy, so coffee it is.
When Ned gets out of the shower, he comes into his bedroom expecting to see Ginsberg still asleep, but finds the bed empty. Judging by the smell of coffee filtering through the air, he has an idea what he might be up to. Ned smiles, likes having someone in the apartment in the morning, gets dressed quickly and heads out to the tiny kitchen to join him.
There's something quite cute about Ginsberg standing there in his undershirt and boxers. Ned is beaming when he slouches his way in, hands in his pockets, Digby trotting in a few paces behind him to curl up on a pillow in a corner of the kitchen that is clearly his.
"Hi," Ned says, and there's a touch of awkwardness to it, but also friendliness and humor. "I woke you up, didn't I?"
"Hi," he says, having explored Ned's kitchen well enough, at least, to make coffee and find coffee cups. He pours them both a cup of coffee, suddenly feeling a little underdressed, considering that Ned's got real clothes on now. Trying not to let any sense of awkwardness show, he holds Ned's cup out to him.
"I don't know how you like your coffee," he apologizes preemptively, "I mean, I don't really know a lot about you, actually. I'd like to. Know more, I mean. And yeah, you woke me up. Well, not exactly. I didn't wake up until I noticed you were gone, because I got cold. I guess I got used to you being there. But it's okay, it was time to get up anyway. Maybe I should go put some pants on."
It seems that the chattering tendency is still alive and well, even before he's had his morning coffee.
Ned listens to Ginsberg chattering, smile never diminishing, waiting for him to pause for a breath. When he does stop, Ned says, "Black's fine. As for pants, you can if you want to, but I don't think there's any particular hurry, unless you've got someplace you have to be."
Sipping at his mug, he eyes Ginsberg with appreciation. He's more awake, after his shower, and pleasant little memories from the night before are drifting through his head like a particularly dirty movie. Ned's glad he stayed the night, glad he's here this morning to have coffee and ramble at him in that nervous way of his. "I'd like to know more about you, too."
Because if Ginsberg had wanted this to be a one-off thing, Ned would be alright with that. Not happy, but... used to it. Resigned. The fact that he doesn't seem inclined in that direction, that he's not ashamed of himself or angry or condescending the next morning, are all marks in his favor.
"I don't need to be anywhere, I'm not in any hurry."
Which, apparently, has him deciding that that doesn't mean he needs to put pants on, either. Ned doesn't seem to be complaining, in any case, and there's something oddly comfortable about being in the kitchen with Ned, casual like this, drinking their coffee and talking to each other. He doesn't know how he'd imagined it, but he'd somehow always thought that, after a night like that, he'd be asked to leave. For Ned not to kick him out, and for Ned to offer him breakfast, that puts a smile on his face.
"Yeah, breakfast sounds great. Thanks. And truthfully, you already know a lot about me. You've probably noticed that I have the tendency to share more than I should."
Ned pulls an apron from a hook on the wall, throws it on over his shirt without fuss and gets to work. Unsurprisingly, Ned is completely at his ease in the kitchen, starting preparing the ingredients for omelettes like he could make them blindfolded (which, truth be told, he probably could). That leaves him free to keep talking with Ginsberg.
"Come on, I don't know that much," he says, cracking eggs into a bowl and then setting to them with a whisk. "You live with your dad, you work in advertising and you love it, your coworkers are backstabbing neurotic alcoholics, you don't drink a lot, and you've had a lot of bad dates." He shrugs, starts dicing onions with quick, practiced strokes. "Hardly an overwhelming amount of information if you ask me."
"Well, those're really the important things. What else is there? I've
worked for a lot of companies for short periods of time, but I've been at
the one I'm at for nearly two years and don't intend to get fired any time
soon. I never went to college and never wanted to. My birthday's in
December, and I'll be 24. I'm Jewish. I was born in Germany. I'm relatively
convinced that I'm actually an alien, and that everything I know about my
past is a lie. I can't pick one favorite color because I like all colors,
but I guess I like pink and red the best. I've never owned a car, but I
know the subway like the back of my hand. I failed chemistry in high school
and had to retake it twice. I'm terrible at sports."
He grins at Ned, watching as Ned whisks the eggs and slices the onions,
shrugging. "How's that? That's the thirty second summary of my life.
Anything else you need to know about me?"
The information he provides is, as always, a strange combination of very
personal details, and completely irrelevant facts about things he likes.
It's hard, talking about himself to other people. People always stare at
him like he's crazy, when he divulges that much at once, but hey, Ned had
seemed curious.
Well that is just... a lot of information to take in, in thirty seconds. Ned's fairly certain that, at the rapid clip Ginsberg was speaking at, he might have missed an important detail here or there, but he's too busy trying to assimilate all the rest of it to go back and ask for clarifications - at least, not just yet. He'd already gotten the impression that Ginsberg's an open book, but this exuberance takes him aback a little. Not that he doesn't like hearing all of it, but some part of himself is nervous that now he'll be expected to reciprocate. He's not sure he can fill thirty seconds with details about his life, off the top of his head. At least, not details that he's willing to share just yet. Because it's one thing to agree that the two of them should talk and get to know each other better, and it's another to actually do it.
But he's managed to navigate the conversation nicely so that they're talking about Ginsberg and not him for now, and Ned's far more comfortable with that. He's known plenty of people who, in a conversation, would always chime in and make the topic personal or offer their own anecdote or one-up, but he's rather the opposite.
"Plenty of other things. I should write you a list. I think the most urgent one is going to be what do you want in your omelette?"
If he notices that Ned doesn't take the opportunity to divulge more about
himself, he doesn't mention it. That's not to say it escapes his attention
entirely. He often sees far more than he ever lets on, and he's under the
impression, somehow, that Ned isn't nearly as eager to share facts about
his life. It doesn't bother him -- people handle their private affairs in
different ways, and although he's curious about Ned's life, he's not going
to push it. Let him say what he wants in time, or say nothing at all. It's
his choice.
So he just offers up a smile at Ned's question, and shrugs. "Whatever
you're putting in yours. I'm not picky. Onions are good. Mushrooms are good
if you have them. Everyone likes cheese. That's the first question on your
list answered."
"Good choices," Ned says, adds bell pepper to the list, working in silence for a moment as he thinks what he should ask Ginsberg next. He settles on something related to his job, because he always seems to eager to talk about that, and because it's still quite interesting to Ned, who had never really thought about the people behind ads before he met Ginsberg.
"Next question, I guess, is if you could do an ad for any product in the entire world, what would it be?"
He puts a pan on the stove and puts a small dab of butter in it, assembling in his mind what he could say about himself, what he wouldn't mind saying, what will make him sound like an interesting and worthwhile person. Because he wants Ginsberg to like him, doesn't want to scare him off or make his curiosity turn into scorn.
It's a good question. He really has to think about it, combing his fingers
through his unruly hair as he does, then rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
People don't usually ask him things like that. They ask him whether he
likes his job, whether it's exciting to design ads for airlines or luxury
cars, but they don't ask him what he wants to do.
"I've always liked doing ads for food. There's something satisfying about
it, selling people something that'll actually make them happy and
not just make them think they're happy. And there're less moral concerns
with food than there are with luxury products. We do some ads for companies
owned by Dow Chemical, and I hate it, because they contribute directly to
making the war worse, but I still take the paycheck, so I'm not exactly
innocent, either."
He shrugs. "Anyway. Food of any kind. Or something futuristic that hasn't
even been invented yet. Time machines. Spaceships."
A tiny furrow forms on Ned's brow when Ginsberg mentions the war and his own scruples. It's not the kind of thing he can really offer advice for, or knows what to say to - what DOES one say? He never has to deal with situations like that. Pie is simple. Pie is, as far as he's concerned, never morally questionable. Ned is glad of that, and the certainty that comes with it.
Ned gives a little laugh at the 'time machines and spaceships' part of his answer, because who wouldn't want to write an ad for those? He likes Ginsberg's sense of imagination, thinks it sounds not incompatible with his own.
Which is why, even though he thinks of it as a calculated risk, Ned says, "I can't think of any more questions off the top of my head, so... I guess it's your turn."
He smiles and cracks his knuckles dramatically, like he's going to ask really tough questions, but in actuality, he's just curious about the basics. "Okay," he says, ruffling his hair one more time and finally giving up trying to fix it, "How old're you? Where're you from? What's your favorite color?"
Those seem like important things to know about someone. Those are just the building blocks to learning who they really are as a person. But there're other questions, too, things he wonders about Ned in a more deep and intimate sense, and he figures he might as well tack those questions on, too.
"What was the first pie you ever made? Why pie and not cake -- why'd you decide to be the pie guy? If you could serve pie to anyone in the world, living, dead, famous, or unheard of, who would it be?"
A small degree of the tension that crept into his shoulders after he made his offer abates. Nothing too bad, there. Nothing he can't answer. Some of them are even interesting questions, but he isn't surprised by that. Interesting people ask interesting questions.
"24, turning 25 in November, so I'm a year older than you. I'm from a tiny town called Coeur d'Coeurs, originally. Nowhere near here and nowhere you'd have heard of. Favorite color is... green, I suppose."
Here the answers get a bit stickier, and he conveniently has to tend to the omelettes closely for a few seconds while he settles on what he'll say, "I don't remember what the first pie I ever made was, it's too long ago. As for the cake thing, I'm assuming you're looking for an answer other than pie is infinitely superior cake, thanks very much?" He turns a quick grin on Ginsberg. "Besides, technically, it's not like I can't make cake. I can. I went to pastry school, so I can make pretty much anything."
Ned folds the first omelette over on itself, flips it in the pan with ease. His reasons for being the pie guy are, though there's no way Ginsberg could know it, deeply intimate, so he settles on a fraction of the truth. "Pie's my favourite, and it's what I was always used to."
He slides Ginsberg's omelette onto a plate, offers it to him with a look of playfully deep contemplation, "Anyone in the world?" He thinks of various celebrities, dignitaries, but none of them is really the truth. A faint blush creeps across his cheeks and he says, "You. Sometime in the future. Because it'd mean seeing you again. Which I'd like. A lot."
"You're right, I've never heard of Coeur d'Coeurs. Must not have been as good as New York -- I can't really imagine being anywhere else. I mean, I've been other places, it's not like I was born here or raised here my whole life, but now that I'm here, you know, you meet really interesting people. People like you."
Is that too forward of a comment? Well, it doesn't matter, does it? He's already said and done far more forward things in the time he's spent with Ned, and he hardly thinks that a little bit of flirtation is going to make Ned get uncomfortable now. He's never been good at flirting, but nevertheless, Ned's responded well to his somewhat offbeat comments throughout the hours they've spent together. He likes that.
"Well, pie is definitely better than cake. I'd have accepted that as an answer, too." He looks at the omelette, smiling, then looks back up at Ned, smile growing wider. "And I like your answer about who you'd serve pie to. Because I'd like that too. A lot."
Ned nods along with Ginsberg's little ramble about New York, though it leads him to qualify his answer, "It was very... small. I didn't spend my whole life there, either. I lived there 'til I was nine, then I lived in a place called North Thrush, then here. This is definitely the most interesting." He might not be born and raised a city boy, but he's certainly acclimated to it, gotten used to the way of life.
Ginsberg's smile is infectious, and all of a sudden Ned's heart seems to have decided to beat a bit faster. "Good."
He turns to start making his own omelette, pink-cheeked and grinning from ear to ear. All of this has gone so much better than he would have imagined. If he stopped to think about it, he'd start to worry, wonder when that other shoe is going to drop. But for now, just for now, he wants to enjoy his unfettered, uncomplicated happiness. It makes him bold.
He has to think, because Ned is offering him what he instinctively
recognizes the rare opportunity to ask him personal questions, and there
are so many things he wants to know about Ned that he doesn't even know
where to start. Ned isn't an open book like Ginsberg is, he can see that
much; they may have been very intimate the previous night, but that didn't
mean that Ned was inclined towards being intimate in discussing himself.
It's easy to worry, to think about all the ways this could still go wrong
-- he could still offend Ned, could still be kicked out and never see him
again, someone could find out about it somehow and it could get back to his
job or, worse, to his father, any number of things could happen -- but he
tries to put that worry aside as he asks one more question.
"Yeah," he says, picking up a fork and taking a bite of his omelette, even
though he knows it would be more polite to wait until Ned's eating, too.
"What's your favorite thing about yourself? And you can't say pie. That's
too easy."
It's such an unusual question, as far as Ned's concerned, that he isn't prepared for it. There's a telling moment, just a second or two, when he looks at Ginsberg and honestly cannot think of a single thing to say. It's not just, he thinks, the blankness of being put on the spot, though he hopes it comes off as that. Ned doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to thinking good things about himself, having good self-esteem, all that jazz.
But the silence stretches painfully and he has to say something, "That's a hard question," he muses out loud. And now, even though he can think what he wants to answer, it's difficult to come up with phrasing that doesn't sound painfully arrogant. "I think I'm- at least, I try to be..." No, he's messing it up. Ned tries again, "I think... kindness is very important." He doesn't say that he's kind, but the implication is there, that it's something he strives towards, if nothing else.
He's glad his own omelette is done, now, because it means he can sit down and poke at it with his fork rather than look at Ginsberg at that moment.
"If kindness is very important, then you're doing a great job of it."
It isn't meant to be a meaningless compliment, but he thinks it sounds a little glib, the way he phrases it. Anyone can tell someone else that they're kind, and of course, he'd be incredibly rude not to say it. Ned has probably already noticed that Ginsberg doesn't care a whole lot for social convention, but he very much wants to make sure that his compliment and acknowledgement of Ned's kindness comes off as genuine, so after taking a few more bites of his omelette and a few more sips of his coffee, he tries again.
"People aren't usually as kind to me as you were. I mean, usually, if someone saw me get pie thrown in my face, they'd laugh at me. You actually talked to me. You took interest in me. That's more than I can say for 99.9% of people. So thanks."
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And when Ned presses his face to his chest, he presses his own face into Ned's hair again, scattering kisses on top of his head, trying to communicate something, though even he's not sure what it is. As soon as Ned kisses him, he's reciprocating, warmly and just as fiercely, wanting to cling onto him, absurdly afraid that now that they're done, Ned's going to make him leave right away.
"I... thank you," he says, and he knows how stupid it sounds. It's not nearly enough to express what he wants to, but it'll just have to suffice.
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"Don't go anywhere," he murmurs, and it's probably rude of him to be so dictatorial, but in his post-coital glow, Ned's possessiveness and desire not to be alone outweighs his impulse not to be demanding.
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So he moves a bit closer, too, lets their bodies touch in as many places as possible, stroking his fingers across Ned's cheek with that same, silly, reverent look in his eyes. "I won't go anywhere. I mean, I'd go if you wanted me to, but I don't want to go. I just want to stay here."
The proclivity to babble seems to have returned, but Ned hasn't seemed to mind so far. Ginsberg's hand moves from Ned's cheek to brush some of Ned's hair back off of his forehead, and smile at him.
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"Good. Stay."
It's not a large bed, but there's room for the two of them, particularly when they are twined this close. Ned yawns, says in a bleary sort of way, "Sorry I'm one of those guys who can't keep his eyes open after." He notices Ginsberg moving his hair from his face, says, "'s nice." Then, seeming to return to his previous thought, he adds, "...know it's rude to go to sleep right after..."
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He doesn't think Ned will mind, but he feels compelled to offer Ned one more out in case he really wants him to leave and doesn't know how to phrase it. He'd like to stay, though, would like to sleep next to Ned, pressed up this close against him, in a kind of intimacy that he's never really had with anyone else. There's enough space, after all -- Ned may be tall, but Ginsberg certainly isn't, and pressed this close, they can both lie here in sleep companionship.
Maybe that's why he finally lets his eyes drift shut, thinking that, if Ned really wants to kick him out, he'll do so regardless of whether his eyes are open or not.
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When he does pull away he does it as carefully as possible, trying not to jostle Ginsberg too badly. He grabs a piece of paper from somewhere and scrawls a quick note, nothing more or less than Good morning! It's silly, really, and there's no need to do it, but Ned lets himself follow that impulse. He leaves it on the bedside table while he heads off for a shower.
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Throughout the night, he knows, he'd been very cuddly, and there's another moment where he worries that perhaps he'd been too cuddly, but Ned would have shoved him aside if he had been, wouldn't he? Finally, he stops lolling around on the bed and sits up, which is when he notices the note on the bedside table. It puts another huge smile on his face, although there's no one to see it.
Fumbling under the bed, he comes up with his underwear and undershirt, and tosses them on, then heads towards the kitchen with the intention of making coffee for the both of them. That's the right thing to do, isn't it? Were he feeling more bold, he might surprise Ned in the shower, but he still feels somewhat shy, so coffee it is.
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There's something quite cute about Ginsberg standing there in his undershirt and boxers. Ned is beaming when he slouches his way in, hands in his pockets, Digby trotting in a few paces behind him to curl up on a pillow in a corner of the kitchen that is clearly his.
"Hi," Ned says, and there's a touch of awkwardness to it, but also friendliness and humor. "I woke you up, didn't I?"
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"I don't know how you like your coffee," he apologizes preemptively, "I mean, I don't really know a lot about you, actually. I'd like to. Know more, I mean. And yeah, you woke me up. Well, not exactly. I didn't wake up until I noticed you were gone, because I got cold. I guess I got used to you being there. But it's okay, it was time to get up anyway. Maybe I should go put some pants on."
It seems that the chattering tendency is still alive and well, even before he's had his morning coffee.
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Sipping at his mug, he eyes Ginsberg with appreciation. He's more awake, after his shower, and pleasant little memories from the night before are drifting through his head like a particularly dirty movie. Ned's glad he stayed the night, glad he's here this morning to have coffee and ramble at him in that nervous way of his. "I'd like to know more about you, too."
Because if Ginsberg had wanted this to be a one-off thing, Ned would be alright with that. Not happy, but... used to it. Resigned. The fact that he doesn't seem inclined in that direction, that he's not ashamed of himself or angry or condescending the next morning, are all marks in his favor.
"Breakfast?"
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Which, apparently, has him deciding that that doesn't mean he needs to put pants on, either. Ned doesn't seem to be complaining, in any case, and there's something oddly comfortable about being in the kitchen with Ned, casual like this, drinking their coffee and talking to each other. He doesn't know how he'd imagined it, but he'd somehow always thought that, after a night like that, he'd be asked to leave. For Ned not to kick him out, and for Ned to offer him breakfast, that puts a smile on his face.
"Yeah, breakfast sounds great. Thanks. And truthfully, you already know a lot about me. You've probably noticed that I have the tendency to share more than I should."
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"Come on, I don't know that much," he says, cracking eggs into a bowl and then setting to them with a whisk. "You live with your dad, you work in advertising and you love it, your coworkers are backstabbing neurotic alcoholics, you don't drink a lot, and you've had a lot of bad dates." He shrugs, starts dicing onions with quick, practiced strokes. "Hardly an overwhelming amount of information if you ask me."
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"Well, those're really the important things. What else is there? I've worked for a lot of companies for short periods of time, but I've been at the one I'm at for nearly two years and don't intend to get fired any time soon. I never went to college and never wanted to. My birthday's in December, and I'll be 24. I'm Jewish. I was born in Germany. I'm relatively convinced that I'm actually an alien, and that everything I know about my past is a lie. I can't pick one favorite color because I like all colors, but I guess I like pink and red the best. I've never owned a car, but I know the subway like the back of my hand. I failed chemistry in high school and had to retake it twice. I'm terrible at sports."
He grins at Ned, watching as Ned whisks the eggs and slices the onions, shrugging. "How's that? That's the thirty second summary of my life. Anything else you need to know about me?"
The information he provides is, as always, a strange combination of very personal details, and completely irrelevant facts about things he likes. It's hard, talking about himself to other people. People always stare at him like he's crazy, when he divulges that much at once, but hey, Ned had seemed curious.
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But he's managed to navigate the conversation nicely so that they're talking about Ginsberg and not him for now, and Ned's far more comfortable with that. He's known plenty of people who, in a conversation, would always chime in and make the topic personal or offer their own anecdote or one-up, but he's rather the opposite.
"Plenty of other things. I should write you a list. I think the most urgent one is going to be what do you want in your omelette?"
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If he notices that Ned doesn't take the opportunity to divulge more about himself, he doesn't mention it. That's not to say it escapes his attention entirely. He often sees far more than he ever lets on, and he's under the impression, somehow, that Ned isn't nearly as eager to share facts about his life. It doesn't bother him -- people handle their private affairs in different ways, and although he's curious about Ned's life, he's not going to push it. Let him say what he wants in time, or say nothing at all. It's his choice.
So he just offers up a smile at Ned's question, and shrugs. "Whatever you're putting in yours. I'm not picky. Onions are good. Mushrooms are good if you have them. Everyone likes cheese. That's the first question on your list answered."
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"Next question, I guess, is if you could do an ad for any product in the entire world, what would it be?"
He puts a pan on the stove and puts a small dab of butter in it, assembling in his mind what he could say about himself, what he wouldn't mind saying, what will make him sound like an interesting and worthwhile person. Because he wants Ginsberg to like him, doesn't want to scare him off or make his curiosity turn into scorn.
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"Any product in the world..."
It's a good question. He really has to think about it, combing his fingers through his unruly hair as he does, then rubbing his chin thoughtfully. People don't usually ask him things like that. They ask him whether he likes his job, whether it's exciting to design ads for airlines or luxury cars, but they don't ask him what he wants to do.
"I've always liked doing ads for food. There's something satisfying about it, selling people something that'll actually make them happy and not just make them think they're happy. And there're less moral concerns with food than there are with luxury products. We do some ads for companies owned by Dow Chemical, and I hate it, because they contribute directly to making the war worse, but I still take the paycheck, so I'm not exactly innocent, either."
He shrugs. "Anyway. Food of any kind. Or something futuristic that hasn't even been invented yet. Time machines. Spaceships."
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Ned gives a little laugh at the 'time machines and spaceships' part of his answer, because who wouldn't want to write an ad for those? He likes Ginsberg's sense of imagination, thinks it sounds not incompatible with his own.
Which is why, even though he thinks of it as a calculated risk, Ned says, "I can't think of any more questions off the top of my head, so... I guess it's your turn."
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Those seem like important things to know about someone. Those are just the building blocks to learning who they really are as a person. But there're other questions, too, things he wonders about Ned in a more deep and intimate sense, and he figures he might as well tack those questions on, too.
"What was the first pie you ever made? Why pie and not cake -- why'd you decide to be the pie guy? If you could serve pie to anyone in the world, living, dead, famous, or unheard of, who would it be?"
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"24, turning 25 in November, so I'm a year older than you. I'm from a tiny town called Coeur d'Coeurs, originally. Nowhere near here and nowhere you'd have heard of. Favorite color is... green, I suppose."
Here the answers get a bit stickier, and he conveniently has to tend to the omelettes closely for a few seconds while he settles on what he'll say, "I don't remember what the first pie I ever made was, it's too long ago. As for the cake thing, I'm assuming you're looking for an answer other than pie is infinitely superior cake, thanks very much?" He turns a quick grin on Ginsberg. "Besides, technically, it's not like I can't make cake. I can. I went to pastry school, so I can make pretty much anything."
Ned folds the first omelette over on itself, flips it in the pan with ease. His reasons for being the pie guy are, though there's no way Ginsberg could know it, deeply intimate, so he settles on a fraction of the truth. "Pie's my favourite, and it's what I was always used to."
He slides Ginsberg's omelette onto a plate, offers it to him with a look of playfully deep contemplation, "Anyone in the world?" He thinks of various celebrities, dignitaries, but none of them is really the truth. A faint blush creeps across his cheeks and he says, "You. Sometime in the future. Because it'd mean seeing you again. Which I'd like. A lot."
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Is that too forward of a comment? Well, it doesn't matter, does it? He's already said and done far more forward things in the time he's spent with Ned, and he hardly thinks that a little bit of flirtation is going to make Ned get uncomfortable now. He's never been good at flirting, but nevertheless, Ned's responded well to his somewhat offbeat comments throughout the hours they've spent together. He likes that.
"Well, pie is definitely better than cake. I'd have accepted that as an answer, too." He looks at the omelette, smiling, then looks back up at Ned, smile growing wider. "And I like your answer about who you'd serve pie to. Because I'd like that too. A lot."
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Ginsberg's smile is infectious, and all of a sudden Ned's heart seems to have decided to beat a bit faster. "Good."
He turns to start making his own omelette, pink-cheeked and grinning from ear to ear. All of this has gone so much better than he would have imagined. If he stopped to think about it, he'd start to worry, wonder when that other shoe is going to drop. But for now, just for now, he wants to enjoy his unfettered, uncomplicated happiness. It makes him bold.
"Anything else?"
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He has to think, because Ned is offering him what he instinctively recognizes the rare opportunity to ask him personal questions, and there are so many things he wants to know about Ned that he doesn't even know where to start. Ned isn't an open book like Ginsberg is, he can see that much; they may have been very intimate the previous night, but that didn't mean that Ned was inclined towards being intimate in discussing himself.
It's easy to worry, to think about all the ways this could still go wrong -- he could still offend Ned, could still be kicked out and never see him again, someone could find out about it somehow and it could get back to his job or, worse, to his father, any number of things could happen -- but he tries to put that worry aside as he asks one more question.
"Yeah," he says, picking up a fork and taking a bite of his omelette, even though he knows it would be more polite to wait until Ned's eating, too. "What's your favorite thing about yourself? And you can't say pie. That's too easy."
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But the silence stretches painfully and he has to say something, "That's a hard question," he muses out loud. And now, even though he can think what he wants to answer, it's difficult to come up with phrasing that doesn't sound painfully arrogant. "I think I'm- at least, I try to be..." No, he's messing it up. Ned tries again, "I think... kindness is very important." He doesn't say that he's kind, but the implication is there, that it's something he strives towards, if nothing else.
He's glad his own omelette is done, now, because it means he can sit down and poke at it with his fork rather than look at Ginsberg at that moment.
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It isn't meant to be a meaningless compliment, but he thinks it sounds a little glib, the way he phrases it. Anyone can tell someone else that they're kind, and of course, he'd be incredibly rude not to say it. Ned has probably already noticed that Ginsberg doesn't care a whole lot for social convention, but he very much wants to make sure that his compliment and acknowledgement of Ned's kindness comes off as genuine, so after taking a few more bites of his omelette and a few more sips of his coffee, he tries again.
"People aren't usually as kind to me as you were. I mean, usually, if someone saw me get pie thrown in my face, they'd laugh at me. You actually talked to me. You took interest in me. That's more than I can say for 99.9% of people. So thanks."
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