Crack Attack: A Collection of One-Shots and Other Disturbing Shit

Leftovers (Midge)

Warning: This story is not intended for innocents, smut virgins, or anyone who tries to avoid sexually explicit content. This story was written while listening to "Livin' in the Fridge" by Weird Al (see above), as if it needs an additional layer of crack.

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Mitch:

Lachlan quietly shuts and locks the front door, looking anxiously around the dark house while he pockets the spare set of house keys and clutches the precious brown paper bag. The Uber driver pulls away from the curb and the headlights flash one last time on the windows of the house across the street before the black car turns around the corner and disappears. He checks around himself once, twice before he quickly creeps down the hallway to his temporary room and locks the door with a soft click. He thinks he's home free. Whenever he sneaks out at night to go on one of his secret Chipotle raids, he always comes back acting more suspiciously than the time before - ducking around corners, hiding behind furniture, peering out into the hallway before he hurries over to the bathroom hours later. He acts like an abused dog, preparing for its owner to whip it with a ruler. I give him a few minutes to settle down, waiting until the crinkling of the bag has stopped before I walk from the window seat in the empty sunroom to the kitchen down the hall. Jerome has been asleep for a while, and now that Lachlan will be occupied for at least an hour, I have the kitchen all to myself.

The Bacca really outdid himself this time: he ordered a precooked (and, thankfully, unburnable) Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings from some catering company, his attempt at a pity-ploy when I left for the weekend to visit my family and Lachlan refused to put his burrito down long enough to go with him to a high-class buffet for the afternoon. It would be almost pitiful, if Jerome could make a facial expression that looked anything remotely close to 'pitiful.' Every selfie he sent me over the weekend looked more hideously disturbing than the last, and the final picture was just his unfocused nose covered in chunky cranberry sauce. It was his choice not to go on the cruise with his extended family, and there was no way I was going to hear Dad rant about the importance of family again this year. I would rather try to take a bite out of Lachlan's beloved chicken burrito than go through all of that again.

I turn on the dim surface light on the microwave to avoid attracting Lachlan's attention, then I grab a paper plate from the cupboard and head over to the fridge. I run my fingers up and down the cool, smooth metal handle while I consider the available options, pausing when I see that there is still a small cut of roasted turkey left. Jerome must be sick if he left this beauty in here this long, especially now that I'm home. I snatch the container of chilled meat and the styrofoam cup of gravy, listening closely in the near-silence for the soft pad of slippered feet on the wooden floor. Satisfied with the quiet, I peel open the cardboard lid of the turkey and take a big whiff of the perfectly seasoned bird, the chill of the refrigerated container gently burning my cheeks. I don't bother warming the food up; it would dry out the thin slab of meat, and the noise would probably give me away and start a heated argument with a tired, hungry Bacca. He was still salty about my trip home without him when my flight landed this morning, so I don't want to push my luck tonight when the neighbors are trying to sleep. I pop open the cup of gravy and carefully drizzle it over the smooth, slick, rounded cut of meat. It looks appetizing in more ways than one. This is one of those beautiful moments when there is no one around to ruin the fun, and I'm going to take full advantage of it.

I lean back against the cold metal of the fridge, gently rubbing the space between my shoulderblades on the ridged handles. This is better than a masseuse, and it doesn't complain or ask for anything in return. I suck the stray droplet of turkey gravy off my left thumb, using the reflection in the glass patio doors to peer around the corners. I feel like Lachlan, creeping around in the middle of the night, doing unspeakable things that no one should ever be forced to accidentally walk in on. Yeah, we have a pretty good idea of what goes on behind that closed door at the end of the hallway, whether he wants to admit to it or not. At this point, Jerome ships Chipotlan harder than he ships Vikklan, which is really, really saying something. He even persuaded Lachlan that Americans give gifts at Thanksgiving just so he could get him to take the glittering Chipotle gift card he bought him to run his little experiment. I might have felt bad about joining in on the lie if he hadn't started fidgeting in his chair thirty seconds later, with his eyes glazed over and his hands moving down below the table to supposedly put the card away in a wallet that should have been in his back pocket. Apparently, I'm not the only one who gets creative when he gets lonely.