Chapter Text
The first time Dinesh notices, it’s about a year after Pied Piper, and they’re in the early stages of developing their cyber security company together out of Dinesh’s new condo. They’re taking a break playing the newest Mortal Kombat, and Gilfoyle is unfortunately kicking his ass. He thinks for a moment it’s just the lighting of the living room, but then Gilfoyle catches him looking through the corner of his eye.
“Why are you staring at me?”
“You have grey hairs,” Dinesh responds flatly, “just there.”
As he moves to touch them mostly on instinct, Gilfoyle jerks away. “Fuck off.”
“Oh no,” Dinesh says with false concern, “are you sensitive about them?”
“No,” Gilfoyle deadpans. He doesn’t look away from the television.
“Oh my God,” Dinesh practically jumps out of his seat. “You are! You’re embarrassed about getting old! Have you been dyeing your hair?”
“No,” Gilfoyle snaps, a bit too earnest. “Distracting me won’t stop me from winning.”
Dinesh has stopped paying attention to the game long before now, and ignores the sound of Kung Lao falling to his death. He tosses his controller onto the couch.
“Yanno, I could’ve sworn your hair had been getting lighter! Tough to match your natural colour with box dye, huh?”
“I do not dye my hair,” he retorts more firmly, but Dinesh leans close to see how many more greys he can find in his roots. When Gilfoyle swats at him to get him away, Dinesh only swats back, undeterred.
“I see grey roots! You vain, lying dick!”
“I’m vain,” Gilfoyle huffs, knocking Dinesh with his elbow hard enough to finally push him back. “Says the guy who spent money on a fucking monthly gym membership.”
“So you noticed,” Dinesh says teasingly.
“I don’t know why you’re so smug about that,” Giifloyle answers, still not looking away from the television, even though the screen is idly blinking as it waits for Dinesh to join the new game. “You busting out of your dumb polo shirts is far easier to notice than a few grey hairs on my head. You’re clearly the one checking me out, here.”
Dinesh decides not to take that bait, if only because it might be a little more accurate than he wants to admit. “You’re still going grey before I am.”
“Yeah, you’re into that, huh?”
“Oh sure,” Dinesh deflects with a roll of his eyes. “I’ve always been into the idea of fucking an old man.”
“I’m three years younger than you,” Gilfoyle answers, and Dinesh can’t remember ever discussing exact ages with Gilfoyle before. He doesn’t think he even knows Gilfoyle’s birthday. Gilfoyle finally sets down his controller to take a swig of his beer. “Besides, Pakistan is just a nation of daddy issues, isn’t it?”
“My dad died when I was six, asshole,” Dinesh snaps.
He says it more to guilt Gilfoyle than anything. Despite the bite in his voice, they hadn’t been close, and it’s never actually been much of a sore spot. He supposes that’s probably a good thing, considering that after he says it, Gilfoyle doesn’t seem guilty in the least. Just raises his eyebrows and knowingly tips his beer at Dinesh.
“See? Daddy issues. You want me to go grey. Gives you something to masturbate to.”
With no rebuttal to that, Dinesh tries, “This isn’t disproving my assertion that you’re incredibly vain, by the way.”
“Just trying to get you to accept the truth, my friend,” Gilfoyle says as he sets down his beer. “One more round before we get back to work?”
Rolling his eyes, Dinesh picks his controller back up. “Fine. Asshole.”
Three months later, there’s enough salt and pepper to Gilfoyle’s hair that it’s impossible to deny he’d been dyeing it for at least a few years, and yet Gilfoyle does, anyway. Dinesh decides not to push it, if only because he doesn’t want to accidentally give any sort of ammo to Gilfoyle against himself. Because something about the fact that Gilfoyle lets his grey grow out after their conversation feels deeper than Dinesh wants it to be. Or maybe he does want it to be. Maybe he thinks Gilfoyle letting himself go grey after teasing Dinesh about having daddy issues seems almost romantic. For them, at least.
Or maybe Dinesh is just grappling for meaning in Gilfoyle letting himself go grey because Dinesh is embarrassed by how much it affects him. The silvery highlights frame his face well. He looks distinguished, even. Not that Dinesh would admit as much, even under threat of death.
One evening, he and Gilfoyle decide to go out for drinks after calling it a night. Wordlessly, Gilfoyle shakes his hair out from where it was tied back before they leave Dinesh’s condo, and Dinesh realizes — despite himself — that it’s pretty.
The thought sticks with Dinesh throughout the night as he tries not to watch Gilfoyle down his whiskey while they’re seated at the bar. He worries that Gilfoyle might notice him acting strange, but he doesn’t say anything. He can’t imagine that Gilfoyle wouldn’t say anything if he did notice, so he must just be drunk enough to not notice.
Before Dinesh can convince himself that he’s pulling off normalcy, Gilfoyle gets to his feet, shoulders into his jacket and asks, “Wanna split a cab back?”
“Sure,” Dinesh mutters hoarsely, clearing his throat.
It’ll be fine, he tells himself, Dinesh’s place isn’t far from the bar at all, so even though they’re going the same way, it won’t be for long. He doesn’t have to worry that Gilfoyle will notice anything. He’s too drunk and it’d be too quick and it doesn’t matter anyway because just thinking your asshole coworker’s hair is pretty doesn’t really mean jack shit.
But then they’re standing outside in the dark and Gilfoyle casually hails a cab while standing under a streetlight that catches his hair in a troublingly fantastic light, and maybe the one who is too drunk is Dinesh, because he suddenly can’t get out of his head that he wants to kiss him.
The cab stops at the curb. Without looking back, Gilfoyle crawls in first and Dinesh just stands there a moment, unsure if he should split a cab for ten minutes, after all.
The cab is moving for somehow an eternity and two fucking seconds all at once before Dinesh can no longer stand it and lunges, tangling his hands in Gilfoyle’s hair and dragging him into a kiss.
Before he can panic, Gilfoyle’s hands are on him, pulling Dinesh almost into his lap. He’s solid and warm and holding Dinesh still, kissing back for a moment before he pulls away, Dinesh’s hands still buried in his hair, and hisses smugly, “I knew you were fucking into it.”
Dinesh jolts awake in a cold sweat, and for a moment he can’t tell if it was a dream or if he actually made out with Gilfoyle in a fucking cab. He looks down at his bed, relieved to find himself alone in it. He tries to remember getting home from the bar, tries to remember the day around the dream, and is further relieved to realize he can’t.
A dream. Okay. Good. Sort of.
He is — unfortunately and undeniably — rock hard. Rock hard from a dream about Gilfoyle. Not even really a sex dream about Gilfoyle. He’s hard from a dream about just making out with Gilfoyle, like he’s fucking sixteen again. For a moment he sits in bed, trying to will down his erection, but it refuses to flag in the least. That’s not a great sign.
“I knew you were fucking into it.”
Even just the memory causes Dinesh’s cock to twitch. Fuck.
Swallowing, Dinesh swings his legs over the edge of the bed and gets to his feet. For a split second, the panic returns that Gilfoyle is somewhere in his condo, that they did get drunk and hook up and now Gilfoyle is just in his kitchen making coffee in the middle of the night. But as he walks down the dark hallway toward his bathroom, he lets out a sigh of relief. He’s alone. Thank fuck. He’s not sure he’d be able to handle being mocked for a hard-on right now. Especially not when the idea of it sends a hot thrill up Dinesh’s spine.
Standing over his toilet with his cock in hand, Dinesh tries desperately to think of other things to get him off. Playboy centerfolds, celebrities he managed to meet during the height of Pied Piper before the launch, he even makes an attempt at trying to remember what Mia looked like naked. But it doesn’t matter what he wants to think about. Gilfoyle continues forcing his way into Dinesh’s half-assed fantasy until Dinesh's desperation to come finally wins out over his stubbornness and he lets his dream unfold from where it left off.
“I knew you were fucking into it.”
What’s worse, it doesn’t take much at all to push him over the edge, in the end. The thought of Gilfoyle’s hands holding his hips still and his breath against his ear and that stupid fucking hair in his hands. He comes hard enough that he’s left shivering over the toilet, his heart racing in his ears and his mouth dry.
“Well, fuck.”
It’s fucking three in the morning and Dinesh cannot muster the energy it will take to have a suitable mental breakdown about the probability that he is not straight, least of all the probability that he perhaps wants to sleep with Gilfoyle of all people. He decides to save it for the morning and hopes that jacking off staves away any further dreams about him.
The next day, thankfully, is not a day they’re scheduled to work, so Dinesh spends it beating the CPU at Mortal Kombat and trying not to think about his dream still playing in the back of his mind or how he kind of wishes Gilfoyle were here. Maybe Gilfoyle would kick his ass at Mortal Kombat and laugh at him in that broken robot way he does. Then, Dinesh can just play it off as a random one-off sex dream about the person he spends the most with, because that happens. In the back of his mind, there’s the heavy realization that weighs him down, saying that isn’t the case at all, but for now Dinesh ignores it.
The next day, Dinesh can’t manage to look Gilfoyle in the eye, but it’s possible Gilfoyle doesn’t even notice, because he’s infuriatingly professional and does his stupid job with his stupid, beautiful greying hair tied back from his face.
After a while, Dinesh gets up to make himself a sandwich just to be in a different room for a fucking moment, and Gilfoyle reacts instantly because of course he does. Dinesh has barely stood up straight before Gilfoyle slips his headphones to his neck and asks casually, “What do you think about bringing on more?”
Dinesh freezes. “Huh? What? More what?”
Blinking, Gilfoyle specifies slowly, as if Dinesh is an idiot, “People.” He smirks a little hesitantly, as if he wants to make fun of Dinesh, but isn’t entirely sure what he misunderstands. “John’s been looking for a better job, and he’s pretty decent with server maintenance.”
Dinesh has no idea who John is, and the wash of relief that overtakes him is quickly overshadowed by a random stab of jealousy. Gilfoyle doesn’t have friends Dinesh doesn’t know. Who the fuck is John?
“Who?”
Dinesh doesn’t mean for it to come out so accusatory, but Gilfoyle cocks his head to the side, giving Dinesh a confused once-over.
“John Stafford. He was one of our technicians back at Pied Piper. From the server farm, remember?”
Embarrassment twists in Dinesh’s gut as he racks his memory for a John. Finally, it occurs to him.
“The old guy?”
“Yeah,” Gilfoyle says flatly. “I can’t be your only eye candy, after all.”
“Shut up,” Dinesh snaps shrilly.
Gilfoyle laughs, pulling his headphones back over his ears. “I’m serious,” he says, speaking loudly over the muffling of noise cancellation. “He does good work, and he could probably do some remote shit until we get an office.”
He put the headphones back on to show that he doesn’t care what Dinesh says. His opinion doesn’t matter. He’s going to hire John. Just what Dinesh needs. Another creepily perceptive quiet weirdo constantly hanging around.
“Fine,” he says, knowing Gilfoyle is no longer listening. “Hire your dumb boyfriend. Whatever.”
They don’t actually hire John until after they make a downpayment on an office, and by then Dinesh has decided to just put the sex dreams at the back of his mind and not think about them anymore. If that makes them more frequent, he wouldn’t know, because he doesn’t think about them. The office is far enough from Dinesh’s condo that he starts to consider moving. It goes from being a minor consideration to a necessity when his real estate agent shows him the house next door to Gilfoyle’s. But even then, he does an excellent job pretending he hasn’t thought about fucking his coworker almost every day for the past few months as he signs the mortgage.
Dinesh is still unpacking boxes when Gilfoyle gets his own key made for Dinesh’s front door. Before Dinesh can ask how he got in, Gilfoyle drops Dinesh’s key ring into his lap and grins.
“Hey, neighbor.”
“How — did you fucking steal my keys?”
“I borrowed them, obviously. You left them on your kitchen table while I was helping you unload the truck.”
Gilfoyle still hasn’t fully laid into Dinesh yet just how clingy and ridiculous he considers to be that Dinesh moved in next door, though he’s clearly enjoying it. His smile turns undeniably smug. “I think my favourite part of this situation is the fact that you clearly haven’t left the house in three days.”
“I’ve been unpacking, asshole.”
It becomes a humiliating necessity that Dinesh jack off in the morning before going to work. The few times he forgoes it, he spends the whole work day aggressively hard, plagued by the distraction of Gilfoyle’s soft hair and voice and relentless teasing, which only ever makes his hard-on worse. Most evenings Gilfoyle invites himself over to hang out at Dinesh’s place for a few hours, drink his beer and beat him at video games. Dinesh wishes he could muster the energy to deny him, but he likes it. That’s the most frustrating part of the whole thing. More than just the onslaught of sex dreams and boners, he just really would rather spend time with Gilfoyle than be alone in his house.
One afternoon, Dinesh sits and scrolls absently through his Instagram while Gilfoyle manspreads over the left side of his couch playing an old NES game of Battle Kid. They haven’t said much of anything to each other the past hour, but it’s comfortable. Dinesh stops scrolling at a photo posted by Jared that shows a picture of Richard struggling to eat a bowl of ramen with chopsticks.
“Have you talked to Richard lately?” Dinesh asks, tapping on Jared’s profile photo to scroll through his recent photos. “It feels like Jared might be stalking him.”
“You’d know,” Gilfoyle teases flatly. “How long was this place on the market before you bought it? Two weeks?”
Swallowing, Dinesh looks over at him. Gilfoyle doesn’t seem to care what Dinesh’s response is, his focus entirely on the television screen in front of him. He shakes hair out of his face with a jerk of his head. Aside from the silver peppering in more what feels like every day, Dinesh notices it’s getting longer as well. Game Over flashes suddenly over the game and Gilfoyle gets up with a huff to check Dinesh’s router up on the bookshelf.
There’s a brief moment of déjà vu as he watches Gilfoyle reach over his head, his inverted cross tattoo turned right-side up as he fusses with the router where it sits on the top shelf. It could be the same moment, what feels like a lifetime earlier, if not for the streaks of grey starting to reach past his shoulders, and the extra weight that rests now on his hips. How long had it even been since they were first starting on Pied Piper in Erlich’s dilapidated house?
Dinesh’s throat is suddenly dry. He looks back down at his phone in his hand and scrolls past a photo of a beaming Jared with his arm around Richard, who, as always, looks cripplingly uncomfortable. These two fools were such a part of his life for six years and he can’t even remember the last time he’d seen either of them. He can’t even remember the last time he spent the day with another person who wasn’t Gilfoyle.
What’s worse, that doesn’t even bother him. Not like it should.
“I haven’t talked to him since he told me he bought a one-way ticket to Zurich,” Gilfoyle says as he sits back down beside Dinesh on the couch.
“Huh?”
“Richard,” Gilfoyle specifies. “That’s when I last talked to him. How long ago was that? Six months? Seven?”
“He’s in Thailand now, I think.”
“Fascinating,” Gilfoyle answers, taking another swig of beer before restarting the level. “Why are you so interested in what Richard’s up to? Are you wanting to hire him or something?”
“Oh, God no.”
Gilfoyle laughs, low and gravelly.
Dinesh doesn’t even care that he hasn’t seen Richard in six months. He cares less about Jared. Honestly he’s not sure he’d mind if he never sees either of them ever again. But he’d miss Gilfoyle. He lasted about a month before calling Gilfoyle and asking if he had any interest in cyber security. And now they’re neighbors, because Dinesh bought this house immediately after realizing it was on the market, because he knew he’d be close to Gilfoyle.
“Uh, fuck.”
Gilfoyle glances over at him. “What? Did Jared finally murder him and make a Richard skin suit? Not that I didn’t see it coming, but I didn’t expect he’d be bold enough to put that on Instagram.”
“What? No. Um. I’m getting a beer.”
He hopes that comes off casually enough that Gilfoyle doesn’t take notice. He shoves to his feet and flees to the kitchen. Fuck. He’s in love with Gilfoyle. Shit. This isn’t what he wanted for himself. Was it? Why hasn’t he dated anyone other than Mia in the past seven years? And fuck, all he ever talked about with her was Gilfoyle, anyway. How had he not noticed that before? But does it even matter? Isn’t Gilfoyle in a long-distance relationship with a weird goth girl coder in Boston? He did humiliate him once, making Dinesh think she was interested in him for a threesome or whatever. No, that wasn’t it. Fuck. He must be out of his fucking mind.
Apparently, Dinesh could only put off his breakdown for so long, and now it’s come screaming to the forefront of his mind right fucking now, with Gilfoyle sitting in his fucking living room playing fucking Battle Kid.
Dinesh paces from one end of his kitchen to the other, holding a beer bottle without opening it. This is fine. This could be fine. He’s probably just needy because he hasn’t gotten laid in a while. He’s not in love with anyone. He’s just horny. That’s fine, that’s normal. Surely totally straight people get horny enough to dream about fucking their same-sex coworkers all the time. He doesn’t have to panic about this.
“Hey.” Gilfoyle’s voice is so close so suddenly that Dinesh almost drops his beer. Watching passively, Gilfoyle cocks his head to the side. “What’s the matter with you?”
Poorly faking composure, Dinesh snaps, “I’m fine. Why? What?”
“You look like you’re about to piss yourself.” Irritatingly, Gilfoyle doesn’t sound the least bit troubled by that. He gestures vaguely to Dinesh’s beer. “Are you gonna stop pacing in front of the fridge, or can you get me another one?”
Taking a deep breath, Dinesh sets his unopened beer down on the counter and gets a second out of the fridge. He hands it to Gilfoyle without a word.
Gilfoyle looks down at the bottle cap firmly in place and probes, “These work better when they’re open.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Dinesh grumbles, stomping over to the drawer that has the bottle opener and cracking his own open before tossing it the short distance to Gilfoyle’s chest.
Fumbling to catch it, Gilfoyle nearly drops his bottle. “Man, what the fuck is with you all of a sudden?” he asks as he opens his beer. “You were coasting down memory lane two seconds ago and now you look like you’ve been randomly selected at the airport with a bomb in your pocket.”
“Hey, are you still dating Tara?”
That’s not really what Dinesh means to have come out of his mouth. It seems to take Gilfoyle by surprise, as well, because his eyes widen briefly before he takes a sip of beer.
“We ceased seeing eye-to-eye around the time Pied Piper fell through,” he answers finally. He sounds mildly bitter, like it wasn’t his idea. “Why? You want her number? I was pulling your leg about her being attracted to you, you know.”
“I don’t want her fucking number.”
Another casual pull from his beer. “Okay.”
Dinesh hates when he does that. Just says okay like he has no interest in a dialogue. How the fuck is he meant to respond to fucking okay?
“When was the last time you can remember us spending more than ten hours apart?” Dinesh asks finally.
Gilfoyle considers that a moment. He takes another sip of beer and then shrugs. “Probably back when you were living in that ugly condo. Why?"
"Does that not seem weird to you?" Dinesh asks wildly. He's fucking reaching his limit and Gilfoyle just looks bored. How is that fair?
"No. We lived together and worked together for like six years, so." Gilfoyle shrugs again, tucking a lock of his stupid fucking greying hair behind his ear. "No, not really."
"We lived and worked with Richard for six years, too. And Erlich. We never see them anymore."
Gilfoyle, much to Dinesh's chagrin, still doesn't seem too intrigued by any of these points. "Yeah, well… RIGBY. And fuck, no one's heard from Erlich since, like, 2015. He's probably dead in Tibet. What are you getting at, here? You’re the one who bought the house next door to me, dick. What now? Do you want me to quit?"
"No, fuck."
Gilfoyle at least has the decency to look honestly confused. "Should I… leave?"
Fuck him, but Dinesh doesn't want that, either. "No."
"Okay, then either clue me in on this little meltdown of yours or I'm going to do one or the other, anyway."
Well, fuck. "It's not a meltdown. I'm not having a meltdown."
"What's a better term for it? Hissy fit?"
There’s no way he’s in love with this asshole. "I think… I'm going to be sick."
“Seriously, should I be calling an ambulance? You look pale. Well, for you anyway.” He doesn’t actually sound too worried on Dinesh’s behalf. He hasn’t even moved from where he’s standing in the middle of the kitchen. What a dick.
Dinesh grabs the nearest kitchen chair and sits down with enough force that the legs scratch against the tile. He really wishes he could’ve timed this realization better. At least when Gilfoyle wasn’t here to watch him have it.
“I think I might be in love with you.”
Dinesh doesn’t realize he spoke aloud until Gilfoyle laughs at him, the sound immediately drenching Dinesh in a cold sweat.
“Right,” Gilfoyle says with a smirk in his voice. “Fuck you.”
For his own sanity, Dinesh doesn’t look up. It’s out there now, and Dinesh would rather pretend he doesn’t exist from here on out. Maybe if he doesn’t move or speak for long enough, he’ll vanish into thin air and all of this will stop happening. Silence drags on for long enough that for a moment, Dinesh thinks he may have succeeded.
“Shit,” Gilfoyle says finally. At least he doesn’t sound like he’s laughing anymore. Dinesh doesn’t answer, and Gilfoyle finally adds, “Sorry about all the gay jokes, then, I guess.”
Dinesh manages a hoarse wheeze of a laugh. “Are you?”
“Well,” Gilfoyle amends, letting the word hang between them as Dinesh listens to him finish off his beer, “I’m sorry for phrasing them as jokes.”
What a fucking asshole. “This doesn’t seem to bother you.”
There’s the clink of Gilfoyle’s empty bottle hitting the table, and Dinesh startles. He looks up to see Gilfoyle standing directly in front of him. Dinesh didn’t hear him move at all.
“It’s kind of old news,” Gilfoyle tells him blankly. “I called this way back at TechCrunch, remember?”
“This really isn’t funny, asshole.”
At that, unfortunately, Gilfoyle smirks. “Maybe not from where you’re standing. Or crouched in the fetal position, is more accurate, I suppose.”
“I hate you.”
“Apparently not.”
Dinesh wants to jump up and shove him, but he doubts he can even stand. It’s easier to just stare at his feet. He hears Gilfoyle shuffling, but doesn’t bother to look and see what he’s doing until he hears the soft tap of a cardboard cigarette pack against the heel of Gilfoyle’s palm.
“Hey,” Dinesh grouses miserably, “Are you even going to ask?”
“No,” Gilfoyle answers around the cigarette clenched between his teeth. He lights it and takes a deep inhale before shoving it in Dinesh’s face. “You want?”
“I don’t even smoke weed.”
With an unimpressed snort, Gilfoyle puts the cigarette back to his own lips. Dinesh stares at him for a moment, and thankfully, neither of them have anything further to say. He tries to remember the last time he saw Gilfoyle smoking tobacco, but it’s been long enough that he second-guesses himself, even as he conjures the memory of Gilfoyle coming to find Dinesh on the roof after the launch failure. He really only smokes cigarettes when shit has already hit the fan. That’s vaguely alarming.
He looks relatively calm, and nothing he’s saying betrays that, but as Dinesh watches him exhale clouds of bitter smoke all over his kitchen, he wonders if maybe this shitty and unplanned confession might have actually freaked Gilfoyle out. Then he doesn’t know where he’ll be. Gilfoyle deserves it for being a prick, but Dinesh can’t ignore that he doesn’t want Gilfoyle to be uncomfortable enough to leave.
That’s a weird realization.
Apologizing makes this whole thing too serious, so instead Dinesh attempts to crack a joke about it. Maybe if he dangles some low-hanging fruit in front of Gilfoyle, they can pretend this didn’t happen at all.
“It’s probably just because I haven’t gotten laid in a while.”
Gilfoyle’s face remains stoic. “If that were true, you would’ve figured it out years ago.”
Okay, he’s joking back. That's a good sign. Snarking him is a good sign. Dinesh clears his throat. “Fuck you.”
“How did you come to this conclusion, anyway?” Gilfoyle asks around another puff of smoke. “Was it the stalking remark?”
“Uh, partly.” Dinesh doesn’t really want to have this half of the conversation.
Gilfoyle narrows his eyes and repeats dully, “Partly.”
Dinesh wonders if that’s an invitation to elaborate. He doesn’t want to take it. There’s a million other reasons that he’s not quite sure he wants Gilfoyle to know. The sex dreams are definitely off limits, but even the smaller things feel too earnest to admit to. He can’t admit this all started with admiring his fucking hair, that’d be asking for Gilfoyle to laugh in his face. But he also can’t admit to anything else. How, despite all the complaining about never being as rich as he wants or as famous as he wants or as popular with women as he wants, none of that really mattered much in the end. He could’ve stayed and watched Pied Piper fail at failing and been wealthy and famous and surrounded by women until the world ended in a fiery pit of war on itself. But he didn’t, because in that moment a short life of fame and riches seemed far less satisfying than a longer version of what he’d already been doing the past six years.
It would be suicide to admit to the fact that Gilfoyle’s opinion has always been the only one that really mattered. How anyone else mocking him never shook his resolve as solidly as when Gilfoyle saw through him. And how even after everyone else went their separate ways, Dinesh knew he wanted to keep in touch with Gilfoyle, because he was the only person Dinesh has ever even liked being around for longer than a week.
“You said you haven’t talked to Richard in seven months,” Dinesh says finally. He’s not sure how long they’ve been sitting in silence. “Yesterday while I was out doing errands, you texted me to tell me I was out of milk, that I should stop using so much cheap product in my hair, and that I forgot to lock my back door but it’s okay, since no one would steal from me because I look like a terrorist who boobytraps my house.”
“Are you going to seriously try and turn this around on me after just confessing your love to me mid-panic attack in your kitchen?”
That’s not really how he means it, but Dinesh files away Gilfoyle’s sudden defensiveness for later, when he can actually process it. “I’m just saying that you making a half-assed joke about me stalking you only partly brings to light how much of a fucking constant you are in my life.”
Gilfoyle cocks his head to the side, but doesn’t seem to have a response to that. He takes another drag of his cigarette and exhales.
“I think, as fucking pathetic as it is,” Dinesh says with a sigh, “that you might be the only thing that actually, for whatever stupid reason, makes me happy.”
Somehow, after everything else Dinesh has said, that is what stuns Gilfoyle The shock is plain on his face for long enough that it’s useless when he finally does mask it back to his neutral expression. Burnt down to the filter, he stubs out the cigarette between his fingers and lights another.
“Okay,” Gilfoyle says finally.
Dinesh rolls his eyes. Great.
“So now what?” Gilfoyle asks, and Dinesh notes a touch of emotion in his voice, however hard it is to place. “You love me. What happens with that? Is it going to be impossible to work together? You just signed a mortgage on the house next to mine.”
A heavy weight drops in Dinesh’s stomach at the realization. “Are you — shit, I didn’t even think about that. Is it going to be hard to work with me now?”
Gilfoyle snorts. “I’ve lasted this long.”
Dinesh decides not to argue that. Maybe Gilfoyle has known the whole time, it wouldn’t be surprising. “Okay, then what’re you talking about? What do you mean what happens?”
Smoke leaves Gilfoyle’s mouth in a wash. “I mean, what do you want? You just confessed your deepest darkest secret to me. Now what?”
“Uh…” Dinesh isn’t sure. He has no idea what he expected to happen from this. It’s not like he planned to say it in the first place. He doesn’t expect anything. After a moment, he admits. “I don’t know. I don’t really expect anything different.”
Gilfoyle considers that for a second. “So, nothing,” he says, taking another long drag of his cigarette. “You love me, and nothing happens.”
Why does he sound irritated by that? Dinesh shrugs. “I mean, I’m sure you’re never going to let me live this down —”
“Absolutely not,” Gilfoyle interrupts with a grin.
“ — but more or less, I dunno. I already just feel better having said it.”
“Now that it’s someone else’s problem,” Gilfoyle says around another cloud of smoke. “Typical.”
Dinesh rolls his eyes. “Maybe now you can just be an extra shitty dick so I can get over it.”
“No way,” Gilfoyle answers, “I’m going to exploit this until you drop dead. Get me another beer, since you love me.”
“Get it yourself,” Dinesh snaps, “it’s already my beer I’m letting you drink.”
That seems to impress Gilfoyle, it at least makes him scoff. With another drag of his cigarette he mutters, “Well, that’s useless.”
He doesn’t even seem to consider leaving. He cracks open his third beer and wanders back into the living room. He stays another three hours to finish Battle Kid, and then when he gets up to leave he asks teasingly, “So am I going to have to start kissing you goodnight?”
“Fuck you.”
“You wish.”
Dinesh flips him off as he leaves, and the tense, solid ball of panic that had been making it difficult to breathe dissipates in an instant. Is that it? All his worrying and stressing that everything was going to be so much worse, but in less than half an hour it was over, and nothing changed. This could actually be fine after all.
The next day at work, it’s as if the night before didn’t even happen. Gilfoyle doesn’t even mention anything out of the ordinary. At first, Dinesh wonders if perhaps it’s a threat, in some way. That Gilfoyle may use this against him to their employees in some way. But then, they’re arguing in the kitchen about which coffee they usually order, and Gilfoyle tells him to chortle his balls.
“Oh, wait,” he says before Dinesh can respond, propping the pen in his hand against his teeth. “I guess you’d like that, wouldn’t you? I’m going to have to come up with a new threat for you.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Gilfoyle smirks at him, and the back of Dinesh’s neck gets hot. For a moment, he almost expects Gilfoyle to wink.
“Get your stupid blonde roast,” Gilfoyle says instead, scribbling something on the pad of paper on the table. “The fuck do I care. It all tastes the same with bourbon in it, anyway.”
And really, that’s the extent of it. Dinesh doesn’t even think their employees notice a difference with the slight increase in sexually derogatory jokes, because they’d always been there in the first place. Dinesh had thought this would be easier said than done, but as the days pass, the only difference is, Dinesh doesn’t feel ready to vomit in the bathroom every five minutes from the fear that Gilfoyle may have found him out.
That, and Gilfoyle hacked his phone to change his own name in it to You Wish
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