Fic: The Case Of The Missing Sweater
Title: The Case Of The Missing Sweater
Rating: PG
Characters: Nux, Slit, Toast, Angharad, Capable
Pairing: Nux/Capable
Word Count: 1303
Summary: Modern AU. Nux searches for his favorite sweater.
Note: Xmas ficlet for catifrey who requested Nux/Capable, Modern AU, fluff. It’s Winter and it’s cold, Nux is looking for his favourite sweater and it turns out it somehow found its way to Capable’s place.
Nux looked everywhere in his room, and then everywhere in Slit’s room. Then he confronted Slit.
“Did you hide my sweater?” he demanded.
Slit attempted to look around him, not bothering to pause the game he was playing. “I didn’t hide anything,” Slit said. “Now get out of the way. You nearly got me killed.”
Nux refused to budge. “It’s my favorite sweater - the one you said you wouldn’t be seen next to me if I wore it again.”
“Oh, that thing. Consider yourself lucky you lost it. Now move!” Slit kicked out at him.
“I didn’t lose it,” Nux said automatically. But then he tried to remember when he’d last seen it. The last time he’d done laundry. He remembered making sure to set the dryer for sixteen minutes instead of his usual twenty-four, to avoid the possibility that his sweater might shrink. But it wasn’t with the rest of his clothes. He’d even upended the hamper, just in case it’d gotten stuck at the bottom.
Shit, could he have lost it? That pretty redhead had come into the laundry room and he hadn’t thought of anything except how to talk to her without seeming creepy. He’d ended up not saying any at all after ten minutes of very slowly folding a dozen articles of clothing.
Nux went down to the basement and found the laundry room empty. He checked the machines and those were all empty too. Maybe it had gotten mixed in with someone else’s laundry. He hoped whoever it was hadn’t tossed it in the trash. He didn’t know yet when garbage day was on this street; he just hoped it hadn’t been either of the past two days. He would have to go door to door and ask.
Fortunately for him there were only six units in this building. Neither the elderly woman nor the single mother on the first floor had seen his sweater, though the old woman gave him gingerbread cookies and told him what a handsome boy he was ‘despite those awful tattoos’. Nux accepted the cookies and declined the invitation to meet her granddaughter.
The weirdo across the hall from him on the second floor insisted Nux hold his cats so he could trim their claws before he’d give a simple yes or no answer. The answer turned out to be ‘no’, which is what Nux wished he’d said himself. His hands were covered in scratches that stung and burned with pain. Who knew fat house cats could fight like that?
Nux took a moment to gather his courage before heading up to the third floor. The third floor housed a lesbian couple and a police academy trainee in one apartment, and the redhead and her roommate in the other. All five girls were gorgeous and already Slit had managed to offend all of them. Nux just hoped they wouldn’t hold his roommate’s idiocy against him.
“No, I haven’t seen any strange sweaters,” the soon-to-be cop said. Nux suspected the tough act she projected was an attempt to compensate for the fact that she was tiny, not even reaching his shoulder.
“Maybe your roommates…” Nux suggested vaguely, afraid to more than glance at the couple cuddled on the couch. They had the tall, thin look of models.
“Hey, either of you steal this guy’s sweater?” the future cop called.
“I didn’t say it was stolen,” Nux said hastily. “It probably got mixed in with someone else’s things accidentally.”
“They don’t have your sweater,” the tiny cop-to-be told him, as though he couldn’t hear her roommate’s denials for himself.
Nux thanked her for her time and apologized for bothering her. If she made good on her threat to ‘find something to arrest you for’ it wouldn’t only be Slit’s ass on the line. They’d both been War Boys.
However it was the last apartment that made Nux nervous. It should probably have been the first place he asked, considering that the redhead had been in the laundry room at the same time as him. He knocked on the door, mentally rehearsing what to say.
But it wasn’t the redhead who answered. It was her roommate, the angry blonde who often wore t-shirts that said ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ and stuff like that. “Yes?” she asked, her tone implying that Nux was very unwelcome.
“My sweater…” Nux began
“Was probably made by slave labor, but what do you care?”
Nux glanced down at the brand logo on his hoodie. “Huh? No, not this sweater. I think my favorite sweater got mixed up with your roommate’s laundry.”
“Angharad!” The redhead came running. “Hi! Yes, I do have your sweater!”
The angry blonde, Angharad, glared at Nux and walked into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
“Thank you!” Nux exclaimed.
“Come on in,” the redhead told him. “I’ll get your sweater.”
Nux stood just inside their apartment and waited nervously while the redhead went into another room and came back.
She handed his sweater to him. “Did your grandma make it for you?”
“No, I did. It was the first sweater I made.”
She gaped at him disbelievingly. “You knitted this yourself?!”
“Yeah. I’m glad it’s not that obvious though.”
“That’s so awesome!”
Awesome wasn’t what Slit had called it when Nux’s caseworker had first suggested it as a form of relaxation after Nux told her he needed to keep his hands occupied.
The redhead extended her right hand to him. “I’m Capable, by the way.”
Nux gingerly shook her hand. He’d never shaken hands with a girl before. “Nice to meet you, Capable. I’m Nux.”
“I can’t believe you knitted this yourself! I know I shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on how they look, but you don’t look like the type of guy who knits.”
She seemed to like him. Nux figured she deserved to know that not all of her probable assumptions about him were wrong. “My caseworker suggested I try it, and it turned out I was really good at it.” He waved the less-than-perfect sweater. “Good for a beginner, that is.”
“It’s cute,” she said. Her voice and the way she was smiling at him suggested she thought he was cute too.
“Do you knit too?”
She shook her head. “I never learned how. But you could teach me…”
Nux stared at her stupidly. This was better than he’d dared to hope for.
“Angharad’s going to a rally tomorrow night. I was going to go, but to be honest, it’s not really my scene. Too many people who like to cause trouble and make things worse. If you’re not doing anything, you could come up and give me my first knitting lesson.”
Slit would say that ‘knitting lesson’ probably meant the same thing as ‘Netflix and chill’. Nux decided he wasn’t going to tell him. Though if it did, then Nux would never let him forget it and Slit would probably take up knitting himself.
“Yeah!” Nux agreed. Then he regretted sounding so enthusiastic, like he didn’t have anything else to do and was grateful for the invitation to social contact. But only for a brief moment.
Capable was smiling at him. “It’s a date then.”
Nux didn’t remember leaving her apartment or descending the stairs. He was in a different plane of existence entirely as he entered his and Slit’s apartment.
Slit was watching porn on their jointly-owned 48’ television.
“I found it,” Nux said.
Slit didn’t care about his sweater. “Fuck you. Don’t talk to me while I’m jerking off! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Nux ignored him. Christmas was less than a month away. He had time to knit a sweater for Capable as a holiday gift. His was a basic, simple sweater; he’d have to find a special pattern for Capable.
Rating: PG
Characters: Nux, Slit, Toast, Angharad, Capable
Pairing: Nux/Capable
Word Count: 1303
Summary: Modern AU. Nux searches for his favorite sweater.
Note: Xmas ficlet for catifrey who requested Nux/Capable, Modern AU, fluff. It’s Winter and it’s cold, Nux is looking for his favourite sweater and it turns out it somehow found its way to Capable’s place.
Nux looked everywhere in his room, and then everywhere in Slit’s room. Then he confronted Slit.
“Did you hide my sweater?” he demanded.
Slit attempted to look around him, not bothering to pause the game he was playing. “I didn’t hide anything,” Slit said. “Now get out of the way. You nearly got me killed.”
Nux refused to budge. “It’s my favorite sweater - the one you said you wouldn’t be seen next to me if I wore it again.”
“Oh, that thing. Consider yourself lucky you lost it. Now move!” Slit kicked out at him.
“I didn’t lose it,” Nux said automatically. But then he tried to remember when he’d last seen it. The last time he’d done laundry. He remembered making sure to set the dryer for sixteen minutes instead of his usual twenty-four, to avoid the possibility that his sweater might shrink. But it wasn’t with the rest of his clothes. He’d even upended the hamper, just in case it’d gotten stuck at the bottom.
Shit, could he have lost it? That pretty redhead had come into the laundry room and he hadn’t thought of anything except how to talk to her without seeming creepy. He’d ended up not saying any at all after ten minutes of very slowly folding a dozen articles of clothing.
Nux went down to the basement and found the laundry room empty. He checked the machines and those were all empty too. Maybe it had gotten mixed in with someone else’s laundry. He hoped whoever it was hadn’t tossed it in the trash. He didn’t know yet when garbage day was on this street; he just hoped it hadn’t been either of the past two days. He would have to go door to door and ask.
Fortunately for him there were only six units in this building. Neither the elderly woman nor the single mother on the first floor had seen his sweater, though the old woman gave him gingerbread cookies and told him what a handsome boy he was ‘despite those awful tattoos’. Nux accepted the cookies and declined the invitation to meet her granddaughter.
The weirdo across the hall from him on the second floor insisted Nux hold his cats so he could trim their claws before he’d give a simple yes or no answer. The answer turned out to be ‘no’, which is what Nux wished he’d said himself. His hands were covered in scratches that stung and burned with pain. Who knew fat house cats could fight like that?
Nux took a moment to gather his courage before heading up to the third floor. The third floor housed a lesbian couple and a police academy trainee in one apartment, and the redhead and her roommate in the other. All five girls were gorgeous and already Slit had managed to offend all of them. Nux just hoped they wouldn’t hold his roommate’s idiocy against him.
“No, I haven’t seen any strange sweaters,” the soon-to-be cop said. Nux suspected the tough act she projected was an attempt to compensate for the fact that she was tiny, not even reaching his shoulder.
“Maybe your roommates…” Nux suggested vaguely, afraid to more than glance at the couple cuddled on the couch. They had the tall, thin look of models.
“Hey, either of you steal this guy’s sweater?” the future cop called.
“I didn’t say it was stolen,” Nux said hastily. “It probably got mixed in with someone else’s things accidentally.”
“They don’t have your sweater,” the tiny cop-to-be told him, as though he couldn’t hear her roommate’s denials for himself.
Nux thanked her for her time and apologized for bothering her. If she made good on her threat to ‘find something to arrest you for’ it wouldn’t only be Slit’s ass on the line. They’d both been War Boys.
However it was the last apartment that made Nux nervous. It should probably have been the first place he asked, considering that the redhead had been in the laundry room at the same time as him. He knocked on the door, mentally rehearsing what to say.
But it wasn’t the redhead who answered. It was her roommate, the angry blonde who often wore t-shirts that said ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ and stuff like that. “Yes?” she asked, her tone implying that Nux was very unwelcome.
“My sweater…” Nux began
“Was probably made by slave labor, but what do you care?”
Nux glanced down at the brand logo on his hoodie. “Huh? No, not this sweater. I think my favorite sweater got mixed up with your roommate’s laundry.”
“Angharad!” The redhead came running. “Hi! Yes, I do have your sweater!”
The angry blonde, Angharad, glared at Nux and walked into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
“Thank you!” Nux exclaimed.
“Come on in,” the redhead told him. “I’ll get your sweater.”
Nux stood just inside their apartment and waited nervously while the redhead went into another room and came back.
She handed his sweater to him. “Did your grandma make it for you?”
“No, I did. It was the first sweater I made.”
She gaped at him disbelievingly. “You knitted this yourself?!”
“Yeah. I’m glad it’s not that obvious though.”
“That’s so awesome!”
Awesome wasn’t what Slit had called it when Nux’s caseworker had first suggested it as a form of relaxation after Nux told her he needed to keep his hands occupied.
The redhead extended her right hand to him. “I’m Capable, by the way.”
Nux gingerly shook her hand. He’d never shaken hands with a girl before. “Nice to meet you, Capable. I’m Nux.”
“I can’t believe you knitted this yourself! I know I shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on how they look, but you don’t look like the type of guy who knits.”
She seemed to like him. Nux figured she deserved to know that not all of her probable assumptions about him were wrong. “My caseworker suggested I try it, and it turned out I was really good at it.” He waved the less-than-perfect sweater. “Good for a beginner, that is.”
“It’s cute,” she said. Her voice and the way she was smiling at him suggested she thought he was cute too.
“Do you knit too?”
She shook her head. “I never learned how. But you could teach me…”
Nux stared at her stupidly. This was better than he’d dared to hope for.
“Angharad’s going to a rally tomorrow night. I was going to go, but to be honest, it’s not really my scene. Too many people who like to cause trouble and make things worse. If you’re not doing anything, you could come up and give me my first knitting lesson.”
Slit would say that ‘knitting lesson’ probably meant the same thing as ‘Netflix and chill’. Nux decided he wasn’t going to tell him. Though if it did, then Nux would never let him forget it and Slit would probably take up knitting himself.
“Yeah!” Nux agreed. Then he regretted sounding so enthusiastic, like he didn’t have anything else to do and was grateful for the invitation to social contact. But only for a brief moment.
Capable was smiling at him. “It’s a date then.”
Nux didn’t remember leaving her apartment or descending the stairs. He was in a different plane of existence entirely as he entered his and Slit’s apartment.
Slit was watching porn on their jointly-owned 48’ television.
“I found it,” Nux said.
Slit didn’t care about his sweater. “Fuck you. Don’t talk to me while I’m jerking off! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Nux ignored him. Christmas was less than a month away. He had time to knit a sweater for Capable as a holiday gift. His was a basic, simple sweater; he’d have to find a special pattern for Capable.