Chapter Text
The very first time he’d met Gilfoyle had been just like every other time he met someone. Awkward and uncomfortable.
“So, you’ve heard about Aviato?”
This crazy-eyed, crazy-haired guy nodded enthusiastically in his direction. Dinesh briefly reconsidered living on the street. He was kind of concerned this guy could kill somebody. Probably him.
“Uh…yeah. Great app.”
“Really? I mean - of course you have! It’s one of the most helpful apps out there. Did you use the added functionality with bathrooms?”
“Uh. Yes. Look, I’ve heard about your house…” Dinesh tried maneuvering the subject away from whatever creepy sex app involved the use of bathrooms. He did not want to know.
The guy’s eyes lit up. What was his name…it sounded like something out of Skyrim. “Ah! The incubator! I should have known an enterprising guy like yourself would be familiar with my work giving back to the younger developers in this fine valley. Listen, tomorrow, swing by the house. You sound like you’ll be doing great things. You definitely have a taste for the better apps out there.”
With that, the guy shook Dinesh's hand enthusiastically and handed him a business card:
Erlich Bachmann
Creator of Aviato
Cultivator of Dreams
It also had an address and phone number on the back. Dinesh squinted his eyes in distaste as Erlich walked away. At least he would never need to call this guy. Hopefully.
Still, that was the easiest invite he’d ever gotten to go over to anyone’s house. Much less one he might soon be living in. From that conversation, he probably shouldn’t be this excited, but if the rumors he heard from his cousin were true, living with him would be dirt cheap. Plus, he was quickly running out of options. He couldn't live with Wajeed, that's not something the 'cool cousin' could do and still maintain his reputation.
The next day, at 9 AM, Dinesh rang the doorbell of a surprisingly normal looking house on a suburban street. There were kids playing a couple of houses down. An elderly neighbor was outside, rolling around his garden on top of a lawnmower. How could that weird, shouting egotist from yesterday live here?
Speaking of, Erlich opened the door, which banged loudly against the inside wall. Dinesh was briefly worried about the paint job before realizing that it had probably been fucked years ago.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Erlich glared at him, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around the lower half of his body. Dinesh kept his eyes trained directly at Erlich's face.
Dinesh blinked. “Um…you told me to come by today?” He hoped that Erlich hadn't forgotten. He'd told his previous roommate that he'd found a new place and no longer needed to sleep on the floor of the 'Goolybib mansion', so he needed this to work out. Today.
“It’s not the daytime until noon at least. Come back in three hours. Goodnight.”
With that, the door slammed in Dinesh’s face. Alright then.
He stood there looking at it for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. The door opened again, revealing a still glowering, but slightly more awake Erlich. He still didn't have a shirt on, though, which was uncomfortable.
“Look, come in, sit on the couch." Erlich rubbed a hand over his face. "Give me a couple minutes to…drink some coffee.” He walked off down a hallway to the left, vaguely gesturing over his back towards the presumable direction of the couch.
Dinesh carefully stepped inside and shut the door. He looked around, noting the large table covered with computer equipment (and the fact that the stuff was pretty nice and new. So people did actually work here). Then he noticed a man sitting in a chair nearby and staring at him. He was eating a bowl of cereal.
“Um.” Dinesh willed himself to be assertive and friendly, but the guy’s stare was making him nervous. He hadn't broken eye contract once, and Dinesh was worried about how long this man had been staring at him before he'd noticed.
Maybe this was the part where he got murdered.
“If you’re hungry, the kitchen’s back there.” The guy nodded over his shoulder. Dinesh followed the direction with his eyes, then looked back at him.
“Wait. Wouldn’t the coffee maker be in there?”
The guy raised an eyebrow. Was he confused? Was he waiting for him to continue? Dinesh cursed his lack of social skills.
“Erlich said he was getting some coffee.” He decided to explain, realizing he didn’t want a potential housemate to think he was crazy before he even moved in. At least, if this guy even lived here. It wouldn't make sense for there to be some random person who didn't live in the house to be sitting there eating cereal at nine in the morning, but he wouldn't put it past Erlich. And this guy looked like he had broken into some houses in his life. “But he went back that way.”
“Yeah…he wasn’t getting coffee, dude.” The guy spun back around to look at his computer monitor. Dinesh thought that his monitor setup looked pretty cool, but he didn’t bother saying that out loud. Things that he thought were cool usually turned out to be incredibly uncool, and the unnamed man seemed like the judgmental type.
“What was he getting then?” Dinesh shuffled his feet nervously.
The guy let out a small laugh. “Dude, you're hilarious.” He didn't turn back around to look at him, though.
Sensing that he wasn’t going to explain any further (and feeling a little annoyed at being brushed off), Dinesh set out to explore the rest of the house for a bit while Erlich got his not-coffee. The kitchen was indeed right where the rude guy said it would be, and Dinesh also finally found the couch that Erlich had probably been talking about earlier. He grabbed a can of cashews and decided to wait there.
When Erlich found him a few minutes later, he looked a whole lot more awake. And less violent.
“Ok, kid. Go.”
Dinesh stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? I just got here…” This was the shortest and weirdest house interview ever.
“No, no. Your pitch! Pitch me your app.” Erlich waved his hand in the air in a gesture that probably meant 'hurry the fuck up', but on him just looked like an invitation to fight. He grabbed the cashews and waited, staring at Dinesh.
Oh. That was the “complication” his cousin had mentioned. Ok. Well, he hadn’t actually started working on it yet, instead focusing on finally losing his virginity (so far unsuccessful, but he had some strong leads), but he had one pretty cool idea…
The rude guy, as it turns out, was named Gilfoyle. On the tour of the house, Erlich introduced him with “That’s Gilfoyle. He’s an asshole.” Which, yeah, thanks, he figured that one out himself.