b a s k e t c a s e

           “I don’t mind documentary, I’m actually a big nerd for watching it for fun–especially the ones for murders or getting a little insight on the reason behind why they did it. But also I just finished binge watching the hell out of This Is Us, I bawled my eyes out.” Athena laughed, “Or I could also make you watch Sex and The City–then there’s Charmed or even Gossip Girl.” 

"Murders. Yeah, I think we could watch some of those, there are so many I haven't watched yet which reminds me that probably the only show I've 'binged' was Mindhunter," he said with a small smile. "I'm definitely not watching anything that seems as sad as that show." He had enough drama in his life. "God, no!" he groaned, shaking his head. "I might consider Charmed, but I'm not watching Sex and The City. Also, I already lived my own real version of Gossip Girl, it was called high school."

“One too many prank nine one one calls when I was twenty means I’m probably on their banned number list, so I’m sorry mate. I’m your best bet at life saving if your phone’s gone. And I didn’t think you might have been in any kind of danger, not really. It was on the back burner though, rest assured.” Noah tilted his head, smirking. “I asked Phoebe for it once and she sent me on a wild goose chase. So no thanks, I’d rather ask someone else for it. And also, bros before hoes, dude. I’m here to spend some time with you, dumbass. For a nerd, you really are dense.” 

"Somehow I'm not surprised you've been banned. Let's just hope you never have to rescue me," he laughed, before nodding. That did seem like something his sister would do. "Probably it was for the best. I'm so flattered you have chosen me over a top model if that's not friendship, I don't know what is. And I assume that hanging out in the library it's not really part of your plan, right?"

They laughed, pulling themselves up to perch on the counter above the dishwasher, poking buttons until it started beneath them. “A job for the great Axel Leclere?” They tilted their head. “You could be a model, you’re attractive enough. Or one of those people who are famous on the internet. Do we have a webcam? You could do livestreamed book readings and accept donations, maybe review stuff on Youtube. You’ve got a good voice for that sort of thing,” Sage offered, half-joking given they had no idea if there was a market for any of those things: they figured everything was available online. “Wait, the point was to get you out of the house — uh, do book readings on the subway?” They shook their head, kicking their feet absently. “Exactly. It’s impressive you’ve managed this long, given no one really taught you how to, you know. Run a household, or whatever it’s called. You can chuck the magazines in my room, if you want. She never goes in there.” Or, if Giselle did, Sage had never seen her, which — was actually sort of a creepy thought, come to think of it. They did not want their ex-boyfriend-slash-current-roommates mother poking around in their music and clothing. “I’m figuring dad’d finally have that heart attack he’s been threatening all my life if left alone with your charming mother,” Sage admitted, perhaps a little too cheerily considering the whole risk of tempting fate. “Or maybe that I’d die laughing at the end of that hour. Hey, maybe I’d finally find something awkward enough to make me back off, wouldn’t that be a change?” Sage drummed their fingers against the counter. “So, it’s decided, then? I’ll pay you to talk math to my dad, you’ll pay me to tell Giselle off.” They rolled their eyes. “This all sounds like a fantastic idea.”

Axel groaned and rolled his eyes at the idea of being a model, all his life he had tried to avoid being part of the fashion industry. "Yeah, that's a resounding no." Just the thought of it made him cringe, although he appreciated the compliment. "Webcam? Sage, it's 2018 everyone has one," he teased them before listening to the rest of their idea. "I doubt anyone would use YouTube for that." If he truly wanted a job, he could go and ask his father or any of his many friends to give him one, but that was the thing, he didn't want one. "Reading books in the subway. You really hate my mother and want to kill her, right?" She could barely fathom the idea of her son using the subway, let alone work there. "Also, I do go out of the house. I go to college and spend most of the day in the library and sometimes, on really rare occasions I go out with friends." As much as he loved the apartment, even him needed to go out once in a while. "There you go! That's one reason why people use YouTube, tutorials. That's how I learned to run this place and it doesn't look too bad, does it?" His scanned the living room, trying to find anything else his mother would find outrageous. "Nah, I think I'll leave them here. Maybe she can get entertained reading them." Although, she probably had read every issue already. "She's not that bad, I mean, sure she's a bit demanding and sometimes makes consider the thought she might have born without an empathy gene, but she can be pleasant." Sometimes, rarely, almost never. That's how he should have finished that sentence. "And let her win? I'm sure that even if I was the worst roommate in the world, you'd stay just to annoy her, which I kinda like," he chuckled. "Sounds like a fair deal."

“No. At least he had the decency to wait for a request with that.” There was nothing that annoyed Aaron more than having to direct unsolicited materials down to legal to draft up a refusal letter. “I’m just trying to decide whether I ignore it, or respond with a strongly worded letter…” Aaron often had difficulty distinguishing when to let his own ego influence his actions, and he didn’t want to make matters any worse for himself here. 

"I was kinda interesting to see how his manuscript would have been like," he said, not able to hide the disappointment in his face. "I mean, you could just let it go but there's a huge chance that if you do that he will send you a new one. I doubt you'd like that." 

           “I can rest that curious mind of yours that it’s not what you think, nothing like going out to get some piercings or some type of matching tattoos.” Athena jokingly suggested the simple ideas she heard through friends or even entertainment growing up to think of a harmless idea. “Fine…I’ll suffer to whatever you think is….quality movie.” 

"That's a shame, I was already planning the design of our matching tattoos," he teased, pretending to be disappointed that was not her idea of crazy. "You are already being negative about it, but since I'd hate to see you suffering I won't pick this Finnish movie I saw the other day. Maybe I'll pick a documentary, the possibilities are endless."

“I agree, if you’re too normal and too boring I don’t think that something creative will come out from you” she agreed smiling “I own a fashion brand and a blog. What about you?“ she asked “Are you at university or are you a writer?” she added pointing at his books “If I can know it”

"That's interesting. Part of my family is also in that industry," he said with a smile. Despite coming from a family with tight bonds to fashion, Axel had never been too interested in part of it. "I'm in university and I'm just an avid reader, but definitely not a writer."

“Me, be less sarcastic? I want some of whatever you’re smoking,” they laughed, shaking their head and dumping their mug in the dishwasher. “You could actually, I don’t know, get a job, leave the house occasionally, you know. She can’t make an excuse to come over in that case unless she’s planning on doing the dishes, which, by the way, I would pay to see.” Sage could see it now: Giselle, hair pulled back, perfectly manicured hands carefully protected by designer dish gloves — if that was a thing, Giselle would know about it. “Oh, shit, sure, I’m going to have that talk. ‘Hey, daddy, remember that firm I said I worked for? Yeah, it’s a bar in Brooklyn. Come over sometime - you liked Axel, we live together now’. I think telling Giselle off would actually go better.” They scoffed. “You know, if I did do that he’d just talk math at you, and then we’d have two annoying parents around to glare at us.” Their dad hadn’t liked Axel  — they didn’t think he liked anyone except his wife and maybe Sage, in a distant way, when they weren’t being irritating — but he’d seen dating Axel as a good enough achievement to let Sage out of the house back in high school. They should probably have been more offended by that, but oh well. “I should invite my dad over next time Giselle invites herself over. She can disapprove of him for an hour instead, it’ll be fun.”

"I figured it'd be too much to ask." The corner of his mouth tilted into a soft, lopsided smile. A visible scoff at their next comment, Axel leaning back against the counter, as if their very statement had blown him away. "A job? Doing what?" Sure, in less than a year he'd get his degree and according to his father, that's when he should start looking for a job, not having a degree was stopping him from doing it now but the idea of getting a 9-to-5 job made him feel overwhelmed. "I've known the woman all my life and I'm pretty sure I've never seen her any housework." There was no doubt that his mother was... special, for a lack of a better word. He'd probably seen her cooking only a few times in his life, and he was grateful for that because she was not a good cook and he'd rather starve than eat her food. "Now, I'd pay to see that conversation happening," he teased as he moved to the living room to start organizing there. "I love math, so I wouldn't mind if that's all he starts talking about, in fact, I'd encourage him to do so." He smirked as he began to pile up all the issues of Vogue his sister had sent and he had failed to read or even leaf through. "One hour? You're being too optimistic if you think she'd only do it for an hour." His mother always had an opinion about everyone and in her mind, her opinions were the absolute truth and no one could tell her otherwise.

“I didn’t say it was your fault, I said she thinks you did something. Those are two different things. It can’t be your fault unless you called to invite her, and I’m fairly certain even you would look less like a headless chicken if that were the case.” They snorted into their coffee, a feeble attempt to hide their scepticism. Giselle, love them? Sure. The constant death glares would only have the woman on trial for murder if looks could kill, that was all. “Oh, sure, she loves me. The poor kid showing back up to take advantage of your kind soul? Every great decision you ever made is something your mom thanks me for, really.” They stretched out to poke at him with their foot, waiting ‘til he was looking to shoot him a look that said really? “You think I’m going to leave you to fend for yourself in the wilds of visits from your mother? No. Friends help friends convince their parents they don’t need to visit seven days a week.  Besides, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t bail if my dad showed up on the doorstep.” Which he wouldn’t, because he was under the impression she was still in California, fending off job offers. Who said Sage lied too much?

"Somehow I still feel you are blaming me for her visits." Technically, it was his fault, after all, she was his mother. Sure, Sage wasn't probably Giselle's favorite person in the world, but then again no one really fit the unreal standards she held for people. The only people she somewhat approved were her children and Axel was pretty sure it was because she saw them as her accomplishments and anything she did was nothing less than perfect. "Okay, I understand but I'm going to need you to lower your sarcasm now." His eyes rolled in their direction, almost a natural gesture when his mother was mentioned in any conversation. "Like she is going to listen to you," he scoffed. "What are you going to tell her? 'Giselle, your son is not ten years old, give him a fucking break'. She listens to no one and if you try to talk her out of it, she's only going to come twice a week and we both know we would rather die than that happening." He flashed them a smile. "Of course I wouldn't, your dad is awesome. In fact, you should invite him over," he teased, knowing that their parents didn't know they were back in New York.

“Easy to say when you are a math genius,” she said, tucking a hair behind her ear as she flashed him a small smile. “At least you are reading it, I don’t think I’d be able of doing it. I still struggle with French, so, Russian sounds like ten times harder.” Lacey had been studying French since she was in high school and even after all those years she still didn’t feel comfortable enough to speak it, languages had never been her thing. What was really her thing? That was a question she couldn’t start thinking about right now. Her eyes widened when he mentioned Chomsky, shouldn’t have surprised him that he knew about him as Axel was probably one of the smartest people she had met. “Not entirely, no,” she said, leaning over the table. “But if I were, why shouldn’t I do it?” she asked, the tone of her voice bordering on a whisper. Lacey brought her hand to cover her mouth, suppressing a loud chuckle when he said the guy in their class was a jerk. “I don’t think anyone likes him in our class, he’s very obnoxious.” Lacey usually didn’t judge people, but this guy really knew how to annoy her. “Hmmm, yeah, it was good.” She really couldn’t say as she only took it because it was mandatory that she took an ethics class, but in a class where most of the students were philosophy students she couldn’t help but feel like the least smart there. “Then I guess I’ll see you there, if not I’m going to have to come to the library more often to talk to you.”

"Pfft," he scoffed, feeling a bit embarrassed by her comment. He didn't deal well with compliments in general. "It's not like I'm Leonhard Euler, now he was a genius." He said, biting his lip before he bored her to death talking about who he considered being the greatest mind of all time. "It has taken me a few years to even be able to comprehend a simple sentence," he admitted with a shrug. "Le français est difficile, mais je suis sûr que tu le parles bien," he said in perfect French, which shouldn't be surprising given he had spent most of his childhood between France and Australia. He glanced up to the ceiling as he thought of a way to word why she shouldn't base her entire essay based on him. "I mean don't get me wrong, he's one of the greatest intellectuals of our time, but let's be honest you won't be the only to use him, plus given the current political situation it might be a controversial choice. You can quote him here and there but find other sources. There are so many communication theories you can use, for example, the spiral of science it's one of my favorites," he explained, wincing slightly at how terribly dorky he must have sounded to her. "He is, but to be honest he makes the class interesting sometimes. I mean, you always need someone like him to spark a great debate." And that was something Axel enjoyed greatly, a good debate. "You know I'll be here, although I'm not sure why you'd want that unless you enjoy being bored."

           “I could be suggesting we go do something a little more wild if that’s what you want to do.” Athena raised her eyebrows, clearly joking since she seem to lack on that part of their friendship group where as the others would suggest something more spontaneous and she just tagged along. “Besides, I am determined to you liking the Office.” 

"Call me crazy, but it intrigues me what Athena Williams would consider as wild." For as long as he had known her, she had never struck him as the kind of person who did reckless things just for the sake of doing them, which he liked but he also wondered how crazy was Athena's crazy side. "Good luck with that, but I think it's fair that if I'm going to watch something you like, you do the same with something I like."

They’d thought they’d hallucinated the clattering they could hear, or maybe that the place was being robbed. That was Sage’s secondary motivation for venturing out of their room, bleary eyed in socks and an oversize sweatshirt. “Mm, hi, thanks,” they mumbled. Their primary motivation was coffee, and they reached for the machine to fumble their way to a caffeine hit. Sage watched as he loaded the dishwasher, tapping their fingers until the coffee did its’ job — and finally processing his greeting. They almost dropped their mug. “Wait, what? Wasn’t Giselle just here, like, two weeks ago?” It was entirely possible that they were exaggerating, but then, they’d never been dedicated to accuracy. “Why’s she coming back already? What does she think you did?”

It was probably not the kind of news Sage would want to hear first thing in the morning, but the polite thing was to warn her. Axel chuckled, he still found it so amusing that they called his mother by her name. "Actually less than two weeks," he corrected them. Impromptu visits of his mother were not rare, but at least now she was developing the decency of alert him and giving him a few hours to try to pull himself together. He furrowed, stopping what he was doing to look at Sage with a puzzling expression. "Why do you assume it's my fault?" he asked, turning to start cleaning the counter. "I mean, as far as I'm concerned, she could be coming to visit you. You know, how much she loves you," he teased. "You don't have to be here when she's here, I'll try to send her home as soon as I can."

The blonde offered a sharp breath through her nose. Aurelia often times forgot that despite her mind always viewing Axel as her baby brother, something that would never change no matter how old either of them got, he was an adult and capable of making his own choices. “I’m pretty sure ‘smartest in the family’ would go to either you or Phoebe,” the blonde turned and leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest as a smile curled up on her lips. “Look, you and I both know I could talk to Mom until I’m blue in the face, but it’s not going to change anything.” Stubbornness; it was trait that damn near every member of the Leclere family possessed, the matriarch the worst of all. “I will tell you, not answering her calls is just going to make it worse for when you do finally have to talk to her.” A part of Aurelia always thought their mother’s need to want to know everything going on with her children was more about image and less about maternal tenderness, not that she’d ever express those sorts of feelings out loud. “Aw, you missed me,” Aurelia immediately walked over and gave Axel a tight squeeze. “You missed your big sister being around all the time.”

"Technically since you and Phoebe are twins you both have similar IQs, which would make me the smartest," he rebutted simply as he let out a chuckle. Aurelia was right, trying to convince their mother to stop doing something would only end up making her want to do it more. So, why waste energy trying to change the woman? He rolled his eyes and sighed in defeat. "I guess I could make the effort of answering her calls or her texts, but not more than twice a day." Axel looked at Aurelia with a tender smile on his face. "When did you become so wise and start to give good advice? I don't like it, stop it," he teased, though there was some truth to those words for Axel often needed people to give him advice rarely he dared to ask for them. He groaned jokingly when she hugged him, physical contact was not his thing but he would never deny a hug to his sister, especially after not seeing her for so long. "This is why I never tell you I miss you because you do this," he said, a small smile playing upon his lips. "In all seriousness, I did miss you," he reassured her. "So, before you get too sentimental I'm gonna change the subject and why don't we talk about you instead? What are you planning to do now that you are back?"

“Well there you go, now you’ll be like one of those snickers commercials. Except it’ll be ‘you’re not you when you’re crying in front of me,” he joked, laughing a bit more at his own joke than he probably should. “I mean it’s never too late to pick something else at some point but I feel like it’d be worth it just to be able to say you do. And also surprise the hell out of some Russians some time. Yeah I mean, Spanish is my first language so it was pretty easy to learn and I have some students who study abroad in Brazil so it’s been helpful for them as well. Oh my french is not good looking at all,” he said and let out another laugh as he thought about it. “I mean I understand it much better than I can speak it.” He smiled at his comment about being bad at football and nodded. “I hear you there. All of my friends are great at football and the only sport I’ve ever really been good at is baseball. I was never fast enough for soccer. But I can wear the fuck out of a soccer jersey, that’s for sure. My family always has a pretty huge world cup party.”

"You should pitch that idea to the marketing department of snickers." He laughed. "Plus think of all the wasted years if I decide to change languages, but I do agree that saying I speak Russian would sound pretty badass, although I'm not sure my Russian would ever get to a good level for me to try to speak it with actual people from Russia." Axel chuckled when he talked about his French. "You already speak Spanish, that's pretty much the only language you need unless you'd like to learn some Mandarin, now that would be pretty awesome." Football was nice to watch, but it was the kind of sport that made you think you could easily do it until you tried and failed miserably. "Baseball is cool, and it's the ultimate American sport. The only sport I did was back in high school and that was lacrosse," he said with a shrug. "I feel you, my family lives for the World Cup, especially now that France won. Who did you root for?"

“Noted.” And Seth would never let that tidbit go. He offered a smile and put his phone back in his pocket, standing up to hold his arm out for the other man. “Which pizza place am I whisking you off to?”

"I don't know," he said as he began putting all the stuff back into the backpack. "You are the one that came up with this plan, so let's see if you have a good taste in pizza."