Chapter Text
“Where’s your Mafioso?” Aaron asked Andrew one night. He saw the moment his brother decided not to react to the nickname and felt a wave of smugness wash over him.
“Wymack’s place with Kevin.” Andrew answered and Aaron nodded in acknowledgement.
“We need groceries,” then added, “Nicky’s at a study group tonight,” because Nicky usually did the grocery shopping.
“Nicky usually does the grocery shopping.” Andrew said, and Aaron rolled his eyes. Maybe it was a twin thing but one of the sure fire ways his brother could piss him off was by saying the exact thing that Aaron was thinking.
No groceries meant an impromptu takeout order was needed. Unfortunately for Aaron, Andrew was Andrew, so he had to do things his way.
Pizza was Aaron’s go-to choice. Greasy and soul warming, perfect for a med student running on 3 hours sleep and ten cans of redbull. Apparently, Andrew’s choice was Mexican food.
“Flip a coin.” Andrew suggested, though it sounded more like an order as most of his sentences often did.
The moment the coin turned in Andrew’s favor, Aaron called bullshit.
“You rigged it!” He accused.
“I’m dying to know how the fuck you think I did.” His brother deadpanned like he wasn’t somehow guilty.
“I have no clue, but if anyone could cheat at flipping a coin I’d bet on it being you.” Aaron seethed. Sometimes he couldn’t even pinpoint his frustration at his brother. Maybe he was just used to housing such feelings towards him but Aaron was aware that sometimes his annoyance was misplaced even if he didn’t want to back down.
“Fine, you pick a decider then.” Andrew conceded which was entirely unlike him. When Aaron thought about it though, Andrew didn’t have the same argumentative spark that Josten had. His rage wasn’t often in words, it was in action. Food was a rather dull thing to waste energy on, so he wasn’t expecting the reaction he got when his brother lost the rock, paper, scissors round.
“This is stupid.” Andrew huffed. Aaron would have found it amusing if he wasn’t so hungry.
“You’re just being petty because you don’t want me to win!”
“Oh, and you weren’t doing the same when I flipped a coin and you threw a tantrum over it?” Andrew’s logic was sound but Aaron didn’t care.
“Neil will pay for it, if you’re worried about money…” Andrew added because he knew that would spark a forest fire inside of Aaron.
“I don’t need that fucker to pay. I can pay for a fucking Burrito. The problem is I don’t want mexican food.” Andrew rolled his eyes as if Aaron was being the only difficult one.
“Well I don’t want Pizza.”
“Fine, starve.”
The silence after was, putting it lightly, awkward. Ocassionally, a stomach rumble would break through the quiet as they both sat there refusing to look at each other. Aaron flicked his eyes over to the corkboard near to the kitchen. It had already been there when they moved into Fox Tower and now they used it to hang up takeout leaflets and appointment reminders, even some pictures that they’d taken. He spotted an ad for a Chinese place not too far away, free delivery within the area too.
Before he could say anything, however, Andrew spoke up, his eyes were on the corkboard too.
“What about—?”
“Chinese food.” Aaron finished. Andrew looked over at him and for a moment, Aaron could see a conflict in his eyes. It was the same conflict he had everytime he found himself having the same thought as Andrew. Perhaps it was the hunger that won, or something else entirely, Aaron would never know. Andrew just nodded and went to grab the pamphlet.
”Josten’s still paying?” Aaron asked.
“Obviously, yes.”