It was 3:30 AM on the Tuesday following the anniversary party for Scott's parents, and Mitch was not asleep. Scott knew that Mitch was not asleep because he himself was trying to sleep, and he hadn't been able to hear anything but the sound of Mitch's voice shouting unintelligibly through his wall for the past hour. He groaned for what felt like the millionth time, shoving his pillow over his head in an attempt to block out the noises, but it didn't work. What on earth could Mitch possibly be doing to make so much noise before the break of dawn on a Tuesday morning? With a resigned sigh, Scott threw his pillow to the side and sat up, rubbing his eyes sleepily and grabbing his phone from his nightstand.
Scotty: What are you doing?
Scotty: Go to sleep.
Mitchy: y r u up?
Scott furrowed his eyebrows at Mitch's clear avoidance of his question, but was distracted from his thoughts as Mitch's voice rose once again, louder than Scott had ever heard him speak. He groaned in annoyance. As much as he was infatuated with Mitch, Scott was grumpy, tired, and running dangerously low on the patience required to deal with this sort of situation so early in the morning.
Scotty: Can't sleep because it's 3 in the morning and my neighbor apparently decided this was a good time to be the world's loudest conversationalist.
It took a moment, but the silence rang out abruptly as, Scott assumed, Mitch read his text. He pushed himself to stay awake for a few minutes, awaiting the sassy response or joke that he knew was to come; Mitch may have quieted down at Scott's--okay, sort of shady--request, but he wouldn't let the conversation end on a negative note like that. So when, almost ten full minutes later, it was still silent next door and Scott still hadn't received a response, he was fully awake and fully panicking. Had he been too mean? Sure, he was grumpy and it was the middle of the night, but maybe Mitch had a good excuse for being so loud. Maybe he shouldn't have said it in such a shady way. D*mn it, of course he had been too mean. What was he thinking? He had to fix it, somehow. The relationship was so new, but Scott liked Mitch so much, and he was so determined to make it work. There was no way he could f*ck it up this early on.
Scotty: Sorry, that was mean. I was just grumpy. Forgive me?
Scott sighed pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in hope of some respite as he anxiously awaited Mitch's response. He was almost asleep again when his phone buzzed on his chest, the vibration tearing through his entire body.
Mitchy: no no no don't apologize i'm so so sorry
Scott waited for a follow-up, for some sort of explanation, but nothing came. With a sigh, he placed his phone back on the nightstand and allowed himself to drift back to sleep, making a mental note to talk to Mitch about it in the morning.
Unfortunately for Scott, the morning turned out to be a whirlwind of hurry up and sh*t I'm late and where the f*ck are my shoes? that left him no opportunity to knock on Mitch's door with a cup of coffee and an apology, as he'd planned. Instead, he was frantically running out the door of the building almost a half hour after class was supposed to begin; it was uncannily similar to the day he'd met Mitch, but today, the brunette was nowhere to be seen.
The rest of his day was equally messy and disaster-filled, beginning with an uncontrollable riot in his 9 AM lecture at the announcement of a pop quiz and ending with a spilled coffee, a stained shirt, and a very angry businessman. By the time Scott was collapsing on his couch, coffee-stained shirt discarded on the ground, it was already past 7 and all Scott wanted was dinner, a movie, and Mitch. Unfortunately, he was completely out of groceries to use for cooking dinner and entirely unwilling to drag himself to a grocery store, and he had so much work to do that if he tried to squeeze in a movie, Scott was sure he'd not only get fired from his post at the university, but also from his position as best man/wedding planner in Kirstie and Jeremy's wedding. The only thing that could possibly make Scott's day better at this point was Mitch.
Scotty: Hey, are you free tonight?
Mitchy: yeah what's up
Scotty: I was hoping for some emotional support when I throw out the last of my expired food and face my completely empty kitchen.
Mitchy: lets grocery shop girl
Scotty: Exhausted and willing to deal with nasty cheap take-out. Come over?
Mitchy: give me half an hr
Scotty: What kind of food do you want?
Mitchy: let me take care of it
Mitchy: u just rest hunty
Scott allowed himself to drift off slightly as he lay back on the couch, an arm thrown lazily over his eyes to block out the light. Even the thought of all of the wedding problems he had to take care of before the weekend gave him an intense headache. He would never again offer to plan a wedding, no matter how much he loved the idea of it. It was just too much.
Mitch's day hadn't been going much better than Scott's. He'd been up all night, a third of it spent screaming at his a**hole of an ex-boyfriend who had--incredibly enough--had the nerve to invite Mitch to his wedding with the man he had cheated on Mitch with, a third of it screaming at a sound engineer who had left the country when he was supposed to be working on a new album scheduled to drop in two weeks, and the remainder of it crying in the corner of his room as he contemplated just quitting his job and moving to Antarctica. There was just no way he would be able to finish the work to be done on the album on time if he had to do not only his own job, but also Logan (the sound engineer who was almost definitely going to lose his job)'s.
No, Mitch had not had a good day, but he couldn't help but feel he owed Scott a nice, minimal-stress (though minimal was a broad term when it came to the amount of stress that Scott was carrying) evening after waking him up in the middle of the night with his screaming. It hadn't even occurred to him that Scott might hear him angrily berating stupid Hunter ("Please, Mitchy, just come to my wedding! You're so special to me. I really want you to be there.") or even stupider Logan ("You said I could have two weeks of vacation! I didn't realize I had to tell you ahead of time. What's wrong with these two weeks?") until he had received Scott's more-than-a-little-shady texts at 3:30 AM.
Now, despite his disaster of a life, Mitch was determined to make Scott's night easier, which began with a nice, home-cooked meal--or, at least, as nice and home-cooked a meal as Mitch was capable of making. It was almost exactly half an hour after Mitch had texted Scott that his spaghetti with his famous Grassi Family Secret Sauce and even more famous Mitch Grassi Mystery Meatballs was ready for consumption. He pulled on a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, shoving his phone and keys into his sweatshirt pocket, before leaving his apartment and knocking on Scott's door with the hand not carrying a steaming pot of spaghetti.
"Mitch." Scott sighed with relief, his muscles relaxing and expression softening as his eyes fell on the brunette on his doorstep. His eyes widened when he finally processed more than just Mitch and realized that his favorite boy was carrying a steaming pot of what smelled like incredibly delicious pasta. "You cooked?"
Mitch smiled shyly, a light blush on his cheeks as he walked past Scott into his apartment and set the pot down on Scott's kitchen island. "It's just spaghetti," he said with a shrug, turning around and gasping when he found himself chest to chest with Scott, who had apparently been following him more closely than he realized.
"It smells amazing, and it's exactly what I needed. You're perfect." Scott leaned down slightly, capturing Mitch's lips in a soft kiss before the brunette could respond. "I'm so sorry for last night. I was so grumpy and tired, but that wasn't your fault."
Mitch shook his head, grinning and pecking Scott's lips one more time before sliding out from his spot between Scott and the countertop behind him, skipping around the kitchen to grab everything he needed. "I told you not to apologize," he said as he pulled a serving spoon and fork, as well as two forks to eat with, from Scott's silverware drawer. He turned to grab them both dishes from the cabinet, grinning when he found Scott standing in front of him with a large bowl in each hand. "Thanks," he said as he began serving the spaghetti. "Anyway, you really have nothing to be sorry for. It was my fault; I should've known you could hear me through these stupid walls, and you really needed the sleep." With a flourish, Mitch dropped the last meatball on top of Scott's bowl and held it out to the blonde with a smile. "So, how are the wedding plans going?"
Scott sighed. The conversation was clearly over, even though Scott wasn't sure he was quite done with the topic. "There was some issue with the cake, and the baker said that he'd try to fix it, but that he had to get a few other orders done first. And the jeweler messed up the sizing of the rings and I just don't know what to do about it. I called a few times but they said that, since I already picked up the rings, there's nothing they can do at this point." Mitch smiled sympathetically, rubbing a consoling hand on Scott's shoulder. "I really need to get this right, Mitchy. I'll never forgive myself if I f*ck up Kirstie and Jeremy's wedding."
"You won't," Mitch said, his voice firm and confident. "I'll help you. Not now, though, okay? You gotta eat first. Come sit down."
The boys settled down on the couch, eating their dinner and carrying the same easy banter that they always did. There was no pause in laughter or teasing until they were almost finished. Scott placed his near-empty bowl down on the coffee table in front of the couch, reaching forward to run a hand through Mitch's hair. "Hey, Mitchy?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?" Scott asked hesitantly. "You seem a little...off...today."
"I'm good," Mitch said with a weak smile. "All good."
Scott wasn't convinced. Mitch's words were saying one thing, but his body language was saying another; the usually sassy, energetic boy was more quiet and reserved than usual, and the deep bags under his eyes suggested that something was keeping Mitch up at night. Tentatively, Scott pushed further. "Are you sure? You just--you look really tired."
Mitch arched one of his perfectly groomed eyebrow at the blonde boy. "Are you trying to tell me I look bad today?" he questioned in a teasing tone, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
"You know you always look beautiful," Scott said dismissively, brushing off the idea of Mitch looking bad as if it were a complete impossibility. "You just look like a beautiful boy who hasn't slept in several days."
"It's genetic, hunty," Mitch said after a moment's pause. "My eyes are always like that. Don't worry about it, okay? Just concentrate on taking care of yourself. You're running yourself into the ground with all this wedding stuff, but you need to remember to eat and sleep and breathe, too."
Scott was quite sure that Mitch wasn't telling him the truth, but he was quite honestly much too tired to fight Mitch further on it. "Okay," he surrendered with a small, but genuine, smile. "I'm completely stuffed, though. That dinner was incredible, Mitchy. You'll have to teach me how you made that sometime."
"Secret recipe," Mitch said with a taunting grin, sticking out his tongue at Scott childishly. "But maybe, if you're lucky, I'll decide to let you in on the secret one day. Until then, let's get this wedding planning out of the way. How about this? You call the baker again and ask him why the f*ck he's filling newer orders before working on an older order that he messed up in the first place, and I'll take care of the jeweler. We'll get this done, okay, Scotty? No stress."
Scott nodded, feeling some of the tension leave his body and mind at the realization that with Mitch--calm, level-headed, amazing Mitch--there to help him, he could surely get everything done by the time of the wedding. "No stress," he repeated, grinning and dropping a soft kiss on the top of Mitch's head before each of them reached for his respective phone and began the grueling process of arguing with stubborn business owners.