#God fuck I want to put him in one of those paint mixer things

[themintman]

I just think he’s neat.

#a hat in time #a hat in time fanart #Ahit goofy mafia #Ahit mafia boss #Goofy mafia #I need to make an actual drawing of goof #I love him he's so sweet #“hi!! Tiny baby alien!! Welcome back!!” Okay 😢😢 #Headcannon that he wears clothes like those deleted groovy mafia guys #He either dresses like a nerd or a drag queen and I can't figure out which #Shakes the mafia boss like a bartender at rush hour #😭😭😭 #He looks like he would be nice to shake #Like a jar full of orbeez #God fuck I want to put him in one of those paint mixer things

[mountswhore]

𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭 — mason mount

summary: after your breakup, mason realises just how much you need him. and how much he needs you too.

warnings: mentions of drinking, slight mentions of drugs, swearing, angst

requests are open!

It had been a month since your breakup, and you were at an all time low. But you couldn’t let Mason or anyone else know that. Luckily, you lived alone. So you had your own flat to mope about in, before painting on your fake smile and leaving for whatever errands you had that day. Your breakup was… unfair. Mason treated you like a toy, thinking he could just drop you and then pick you up just as quick. But you weren’t having it anymore.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” you laughed in disbelief at the words your boyfriend was spewing, “you’re really doing this to me, again?” Mason just stood with a stone cold face in front of you, in the comfort of his own living room.

“Y/N, believe me when I say I didn’t want to do this.” Mason consoled, taking a step forward. “You’re a distraction to my career, I barely see you. What would be the point of this anymore?” His words were like bullets, your chest full of holes and you were bleeding on the floor. But Mason was just staring back at you.

“I’m a distraction to your career. Lovely.” You mentioned, pushing past him and grabbing your bag from the stairs. Mason tried to stop you, he wanted to talk this out. “For the love of God, stop trying to hold me back. What is there to say? Or do you just want to ease your conscience? If you’re going to break up with me, be a man and own it. Leave me alone.”

With that you left, and you hadn’t spoken since.

You were going to meet a good friend for lunch, a WAG, but your breakup with Mason didn’t affect your friendship. She was adamant on it, saying, “just because Mason dumped your fine ass, doesn’t mean I can’t be friends with you. He’ll just have to deal with it.” You’d gone to your usual place, waiting in the foyer for her before booking a table together.

“How’ve you been, doll?” Abigail asked, putting her bag down beside her. “You know, considering.” You nodded, putting your fake smile to good use.

You let out a small giggle. “Good, yeah. I’ve been focusing on my work, which I should’ve been doing from the jump. I think I’m really making progress.” Abigail just nodded and smiled.

She didn’t seem the least bit frightened to say what she said, as she’d heard how you felt. “Good, because you’re coming to a party this weekend.”

“What?”

“A party.”

“Yeah I heard you,” you groaned, “are we sixteen- years old? Or am I just growing quicker than the rest of you?”

“Oh shh,” Abigail sighed, digging into her food that had now arrived with yours. Every time you came here, she got the carbonara. “Look, you said you’re making progress, and I want to have fun with my best friend again. And if I’m honest, all the other girls just aren’t as good of a laugh as you.”

“Thanks for the ego boost.” You added, smiling a genuine smile at her. You were still thinking heavily about this party, where was it? When was it? Who was going?

“Clear your weekend. It’s this Saturday, at some private lounge in London.” Abigail stated, twirling her fork once again. “It’s the England squad celebrating something or another, I don’t know. Dec told me about it.” The reason the pair of you were so close, was mainly because of your boyfriends being so close. Declan knew that his girlfriend was still friends with you and planned on keeping that, he’d always ask about you.

“Right. I’ll see if I can work overtime on Thursday to make up for my weekend off.” You mentioned.

So it was settled. You’d be going to a party with Abigail and the England squad. You weren’t the least bit excited, the only fraction you were was purely because you’d be seeing Abigail. You had your dress, you’d worked your overtime, and you were on your way to this private lounge in London. No matter how nice looking this lounge was, you’d always feel out of place. You were wearing your nicest dress, tallest heels, and Abigail had even done your hair and makeup.

“How are you, Y/N? You doing okay?” Declan asked, in the seat beside Abigail. You were sharing a taxi, Abi in the middle. Both you and Dec on either end. It was quite awkward, to see Declan. To know that he still speaks to Mason.

“Yeah, I’m doing good. How’s football going for you?” You asked. You despised small talk, it make you want to throw up. But it was only being polite to Dec. Declan mumbled a similar answer and paid attention to his phone. A text from Abigail appeared.

I don’t think she’s okay.

Declan wrote back to his girlfriend: I was thinking the same thing.

The three had gotten to the private lounge, Abi promising to not leave your side. You spent the first hour with her, constantly drinking to increase your confidence. Abi had finally left you, like you knew she would, but you weren’t mad. She’s here for her boyfriend, it’s only right she spends it with him. So now you were the loner at the bar, downing shot after shot.

Mason was sulking around like a shadow, holding tightly onto his mixer and speaking to some of his teammates. He’s not even sure why he came, all he knew was Declan forced him. And yet Declan had barely spoke to to him all evening. His mixer was empty, so he made his third beeline for the bar this evening. And saw you.

His heart had began beating irregularly, clammy hands almost dropping the cup he had. Why was he so nervous to see the ex he dumped? Luckily, you were occupied with talking to Jesse, so he could quickly grab his drink and leave. He found himself staring at you during his wait, how you laughed so genuinely with Jesse. You always did. He was one of your closest friends and now talking to him felt awkward because of your breakup. You looked at Jesse so happily, he wished it was him. It was a stupid thing to wish, considering he dumped you.

What had dumping you even done for him?

“Mount. Whatever the hell has happened to you outside of training, undo it. You’re off today.”

“Mase, why haven’t you been as on par as you usually are?”

“You keep playing like this and you’re being benched next game.”

Nothing. The answer was nothing. He was told he wasn’t playing well, saw you as an issue and dumped you. And now he plays worse. He’d been benched on his second game, overlooked by his manager due to his lack of focus in training. It was horrible. But you told him to leave you alone, he could never forget the look on your face. The look of exhaustion, of being dumped and picked back up again.

Mason had zoned back in, seeing you looking at him rather lazily. You looked drunk, high, or both. Jesse had gone, and you were throwing the shots back. You made it a game. Every time you had a good Mason thought, you’d have a shot. If it was bad, or any thought at all, you’d be having your stomach pumped by the end of the night.

Mason watched the bartender pour straight vodka into your cup, and then watched you stagger away to the stairs. The stairs led up to toilets, and were empty and quiet. Perfect. You collapsed onto the stairs, still sipping on your vodka before laying your head onto a step. You didn’t know Mason had followed you until you felt his hands on your arms.

“Come on, we’re going home.” He declared, holding you around your waist. You frowned at him, trying your best to use your half-working limbs to push him away from you.

“We’re? No, you are going home. I’m staying here.” You slurred, downing the rest of your drink and throwing the cup at his head. You laughed at the face he made, finally freeing you and you returned to your seat on the stairs. “You aren’t my dad, or my boss, or my friend. So leave me alone.”

“You’re off your face. So you’re going home.” He reaffirmed with you, folding his arms. You just shook your head again, looking up at him. You were having good Mason thoughts again, seeing just his face stare down at you. It made you want to cry and throw up.

“Get me a drink.” Mason left after your instructions, returning with a cup. You had downed it, waiting for the warm throat and slight burn. But nothing. “Not water, you asshole.” Mason kept a stone cold face with you, resting against the wall beside the door. Nobody had come into the toilet and you wished they had now. You needed someone to save you from happy Mason thoughts.

“So how is football? You must be scoring goals left and right.” You jested, tipping your head back and laughing. “Right?” Mason sat down beside you in defeat, knowing this wouldn’t be an easy conversation with you. It would end in you crying, or leaving, or both.

“No, actually.” Mason admitted. “I’m doing rubbish. My friends know I’m off my game, the gaffer knows I’m off my game. It’s atrocious.” You stared at him, kind of feeling bad but then remembering what he did to you. All those times he’d break up with you, just to say he missed you a few days later. If you were being honest with yourself, you thought it would happen again. But a month had passed, and nothing.

“Oh.” It was all you could say. Knowing what he did was for no reason, it had no benefits whatsoever. Your life had been completely thrown out of balance for nothing. It made you mad all over again. “So you’re telling me you broke up with me, and nothing good came of it?”

Mason hated to admit it. “Yes.” He spoke quietly, ashamed of the answer he was putting out there. “I was actually told to fix whatever happened outside of training, in an effort to make me better again.” You should be laughing in his face, glad he’s been royally fucked over after he royally fucked you over. But instead, you held your hands to your face to hide your tears.

“Hey,” Mason hushed, pulling you into his side. He knew you’d had a lot to drink, so maybe your emotions were all over the place, “don’t cry about it, you don’t need to be upset.” Why was he being like this? He broke up with you, why did he care how you were now?

“What’s happened to us?” You cried, pulling away from him. Just because you were at a low, doesn’t mean he can swoop in. “Ever since we broke up, it seems our lives have been shit.”

Mason laughed through the pain, resting his elbows on the step behind him. He’d tried to avoid his feelings instead of confront them, but it proved difficult when you had showed up. “I might be benched for the next game, or better yet, be taken from the squad.”

You shook your head. No matter how much you hated him at this very point, you couldn’t deny the man’s talent. “You deserve that spot on the team. There’s a reason you start for England every time. Don’t doubt yourself because something bad happened to you.”

Mason took your words and remembered them, keeping them in his head for the rest of the night. “Come here.” He put an arm around you and held you tight, sighing as your heads rested together. “I’m sorry I did this to you. I shouldn’t have left you, I had issues with myself and saw you as the problem instead. I’m really sorry.”

“I just don’t think I can take it again.” You confessed, laying your head in his lap and keeping your eyes closed. “I can’t take being broken up with again, only for you to end up in my bed a few days later. It hurts me everytime, Mase.” Mason was rubbing your back, hating himself for the way he made you feel before. And he hadn’t seen an issue with it, he treated you like it was okay to use you as an emotional rag doll.

“You don’t have to jump straight into it,” he whispered, hands now smoothing your hair out of your face, “you can take as long as you need to trust me again. But I’m telling you it’ll never happen again, I’ll never throw you about like I did before. It was reckless of me and I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, Mase.” You sighed, the weight finally freeing your chest. You could finally move forward with your life, and choose whether or not to take Mason with you. It wasn’t an answer you needed to know now, it could take it’s time. And Mason was willing to wait.

#money mase #mason mount x reader #mason mount smut #mason mount imagine #mason mount blurb #mason mount

[loveburnsbrighter]

Live In Your Heart

requested by @i-dont-even-effing-know-anymore. hope you enjoy! 💕

read it on ao3

"We're not setting up the wifi yet," Patrick says.  He's got his Stern Face on, which usually means fun things, but sometimes, unfortunately, means that David will be required to do work.  This seems to be one of those times.

"But babe," he says, wheedling, "how will I order pizza if I don't have wifi?"  He brandishes his phone. "I ran out of data in New York last week." He went with Alexis to help her settle in — it's been a strain, her moving right before he and Patrick were set to, and he's frankly exhausted, physically and emotionally.  "We promised Stevie pizza," he adds, as if he can convince Patrick that his motivation is purely selfless.

Patrick plucks the phone right out of his hand.  "I'll call them," he says. "You remember, how we ordered pizza back in the nineties?  By calling?"

"Ugh, don't remind me."  David leans back against a towering stack of boxes, ignoring Patrick's pained look, and sighs heavily.  "Alright, fine. We might as well get this done. Bedroom first, or kitchen?"

"We can put Stevie on kitchen duty when she gets here," Patrick says.  "Bedroom now." He pauses for a moment, and then smiles slowly, like he can't help it.  "Our bedroom," he says, and David wouldn't generally describe Patrick as a particularly jovial person, but he looks downright giddy.

David honestly can't blame him, feels that a little bit too, at the words.  He's spent a lot of time at Patrick's place, and for the last month or so he's lived there fully, barring his four days in New York with Alexis.  But it was still Patrick's place, no matter how at-home David made himself there.  (Very.)  

This is their place.  David and Patrick's home.  David and Patrick's bedroom.

"Our bedroom," he agrees, and grabs a box, following Patrick down the hall.

Their bedroom is, thus far, more or less a big empty cube.  There's a weird alcove with the window in it that Patrick has been insisting he wants a window seat for, and the master bathroom door is on the wall kitty-corner to the bedroom door.  David has been pleased (thrilled) to note that the whole thing comes with a lovely little walk-in closet; it's not huge, but it's easily three or four times the size of the closet back in Patrick's studio.

The movers brought in Patrick's bed yesterday and set it up against the far wall, and David and Patrick slept on the mattress on the floor at Patrick's place.  "Okay, first things's first," David says, dropping his box in the middle of the floor. Patrick pointedly pushes it against a wall, and David ignores him. "Where are the sheets?  Because we can not sleep on dirty sheets our first night in the new house, Patrick."

"Actually," Patrick says, "about that."  He's barely trying to hide a shit-eating grin, and it makes David immediately wary.

"What," he says heavily.

"Okay, don't be mad," Patrick says, which tells David that he probably should be, "I should have talked to you probably but I wanted it to be a surprise," and he rushes through the words to keep David from interrupting.  "I used all the money my grandparents gave us for our wedding and bought that flax-linen Pottery Barn set you wanted." 

David gasps, because he has wanted that bed set so badly — fair trade linens in gorgeous soft sandy beige — but Patrick has insisted every time David has argued that it's frivolous to spend more than a hundred dollars on sheets.  Their current sheets are from Target.  "Like, the sheets —"

"The whole bed set," Patrick says, looking inordinately pleased with himself.  "The sheets, the duvet and shams — I didn't get the dust ruffle because my bed frame —" But David doesn't get to hear about the dust ruffle because he's quite literally launching himself into Patrick's arms and kissing him. 

Patrick makes a soft, surprised noise, not quite a laugh, and lifts his hands to hold David by the waist.  He pulls back just a little, letting David kiss down his jaw, to say, "So you're not mad?"

"Linen sheets," David mumbles against his Adam's apple.  He pulls back to smile down at Patrick, and Patrick is smiling back, radiant in a way that David never saw him before they got engaged, a way that he's seen more and more since they decided to buy the house.  "Okay," he says, schooling himself, because if they do what he wants to do — which is tackle Patrick onto the bare mattress in their empty bedroom and thoroughly christen the house — then they'll never get to all the things they have to do.  "Well, where are the new sheets, because they have to be washed before we can use them."

Patrick helps David wrestle the new bedding out of its insane packaging, and then builds a little fort in the tiny laundry room out of all the cardboard while David starts a load.  He's relieved every second that the previous owners left their washer and dryer — they're both done with public laundry for the foreseeable future.

They grab another box each to haul into the bedroom on the way back down the hall; the bed and dressers are there already, and a single bookcase.  David has already been in to clean the closet and repaper the shelves in there, and they've agreed that they don't want to paint the bedroom; it came a creamy off-white that feels warm and soft, somehow.

David puts on music — he's made a playlist just for this, full of high-energy, multigenerational pop, Tina and Britney and Mariah all sharing space.  At some point Patrick logged into their shared Spotify — purely an economic choice; David didn't want Patrick's music fucking up his Wrapped, but that's not really worth ten bucks a month — and added Mumford and Sons and Bryan Adams and the Beach Boys, because Patrick has no sense of thematic or genre consistency.  It's fine, he supposes; when you love someone, you're willing to compromise for them.  

"'Framed wall art and photos - bedroom,'" Patrick says out loud, reading off the Sharpie label on a box.  "Maybe we should save this one until we've got the basics together?"

"Okay," David agrees over an infuriatingly long banjo solo.  "This one is your books?" Patrick gestures and David slides it over, watches him produce a knife from his pocket and slice open the top.

By the time Stevie strolls through the door, helpfully using her emergency key, they've mostly got the bedroom together.  The mattress pad and sheets are on, with the duvet set in the dryer, and Patrick's books and David's books are commingled on the shelf, which David is alarmingly pleased by — they're married, but the sight of his Virginia Woolf next to Patrick's Agatha Christie makes him feel warm from the inside out.

"I picked up the pizza," Stevie shouts.  "You owe me forty bucks in reimbursement!"

David skids down the hall, eager for pizza, with Patrick behind him.

"How in the name of god did you spend forty bucks on pizza?"  Patrick wants to know.

Stevie shrugs, hugging him as David relieves her of the boxes.  "I got garlic knots."

"And cheese bread," David says gleefully, spreading the boxes on the table.  "And one of those big cookies."

Patrick sighs after him but dutifully digs three beers out of the fridge.  (They set up all the appliances and TVs yesterday.) (All that's in the fridge so far is beer, a single head of lettuce, and a few bottles of green juice.)  David accepts his beer with minimal distasteful nose-scrunching.

They make short work of lunch, and Patrick sets Stevie up in the kitchen with a roll of shelf paper and more boxes than he'd ever thought he could fill with kitchen stuff; the dishes from his apartment, of course, and then they'd gotten a lot of the classic appliance wedding gifts: a brand new blender, a four-slice toaster ("but what will you use?" David had asked), an upright mixer, a block of knives with marble handles that Patrick is actually thrilled with.

David finishes making the bed, and then he just stands and stares at it for a second; he can't wait for Patrick to have sex with him in these sheets in this bedroom, but he also can't wait for Patrick to cuddle with him in this bed.  Watch movies with him. Hold him close and fall asleep with an arm slung low over his waist.

Patrick comes up behind him and settles warm hands on his hips, and David leans back into the touch.  "Stevie and I want to get started on the living room," Patrick says, hooking his chin over David's shoulder.  "You just about done in here?"

David crosses his arms across his own waist and takes Patrick's hands, swaying.  One of Patrick's songs is playing from David's tiny speaker. I've been so happy loving you, Dennis Wilson croons into the space, less echoey than it was earlier before they got their pictures up.  He looks around at their new room; the receipt from their first date is already on the bookshelf, and there's a framed poster for that first open mic night, and one from Alexis' singles week.  These are all things from Patrick's apartment; all this time, he's been collecting little souvenirs for them. Stepping stones tracing the path of their relationship. There's a framed wedding invitation, too, and photos: from the store opening, Patrick's birthday, their bachelor party, their wedding.

Even after David landed in Schitt's Creek without a paddle, if he'd been asked to describe his future, he would have crafted a life more or less like the one he'd left: galleries and parties, a drugged-out A-list entourage, globetrotting in the wake of Alexis' endless stream of near misses.  He never could have imagined this: a house in a small town, a business heavily patronized by flannel-clad locals, a single friend who loved him enough to help him move. Alexis settled in one place, his parents settled in another, weekly Facetime calls.  

Five gold rings on his fingers, the most beautiful man he's ever seen in Costco jeans, holding him and swaying and singing softly in his ear: "Forever, together my love…"  A sedan that clicks in the driveway, blueprints for a vegetable garden.  All the Ricky-and-Lucy trappings of a good life, things he never would have expected to love.  

"You won," Stevie told him a few months ago, when he brought her here to sit in the driveway and pour out his heart.  And David can hear her clanking dishes together downstairs, and Patrick is warm against his back, and the song is fading out the way that slow seventies rock does, and David knows, bone-deep, unshakeably, that she was right.

#david x patrick #fanfiction #rye.txt #stevie budd #schitt's creek

[pynkhues]

Ok, so. First of all, I freaking love your writig, its *chefs kiss* delicious. Second of all I have this theory. Its that the only way they will say anything seriously nice about the other is if they are not saying it to each other. Could you write something about Beth defending Rio to someone (maybe a PTA mom or Ruby) or Rio defending Beth to someone (maybe Dean) and the other one overhears? Kinda the opposite of 'eavesdroppers never hear nice things' kinda thing. Sorry for the ramble!

Thank you so much! You’re so sweet!

So, I’ve had so many requests for fic in The Center and Circumference / domestic fic universe, I didn’t realise that that wasn’t in your request until I’d already finished this prompt, haha. I hope that’s okay! Anyway, it’s pretty long, so I hope you like it :-) 

-

He’s halfway through a meeting with one of their newer clients – some watery-eyed, broad-faced fuck with a propensity already for overstepping – when Rio’s cell buzzes in the back pocket of his jeans, and shit, he thinks, gaze flicking to his right on the table where his work cell sits uninterrupted. It’s ain’t that.  

“I can manage the extra cars,” the client says across from him, unperturbed, shifting forwards slightly in his seat, and Rio arches an eyebrow, feeling his cell quiet down, then the tell-tale buzz of a voicemail left after it. There are only a few people it could be on this line – Elizabeth, probably about dinner tonight or somethin’ (she’s careful about calling his work cell for work-related things after all), his mom, probably about dinner on Sunday night, or - - his jaw already twitching in annoyance - - Glenvale Elementary School.  

“That’s a lotta product,” he tells the client, while telling himself it could be Danny’s teacher – Elizabeth had kept him home sick yesterday with what she was sure were the early signs of an ear infection, and she is usually right about those sorts of things; or Emma’s teacher, maybe – giving her another prize for highest raised hand or cleanest desk or some shit, but damn, who’s he kidding?  

If it’s the school, he knows who it’s about.  

“I can move it,” the client insists. “It’s only three more than my guys are already doing, and I’ve got a few new territories I’m exploring for distribution.”  

It’s the way the guy says it more than anything that makes Rio train a lazy eye back on him – the tone just the wrong side of desperate. Rio knows that tone – the tone of somebody who’s promised someone more than he can offer.  

Rocking forwards a little in his own seat, Rio knits his fingers together, drops them as one to the table in front of him, his brow furrowing in faux confusion as he does it, and he’s about to ask exactly why this dumbass needs three extra cars worth of pills when his cell starts buzzing again in the back pocket of his jeans.  

And just - -  

If it is the school - -  

If one of them is sick or hurt or something, just - -  

Fuck.  

He lurches to his feet.  

“We’ll start with one,” he tells the guy, already reaching for his cell, and when the client opens his mouth to try and haggle, Rio silences him quickly with a look. Once he’s sure the guy isn’t going to make trouble, he drags his gaze away just long enough to make eye contact with Demon, who’s standing, folded-armed, by the door.  

“Demon’ll take you through the, ah –”  he rolls his free hand out at the wrist, making a show out of considering this, his other hand still occupied with his buzzing cell. “Paperwork, dot the I’s, cross them t’s. You do okay with the one, we can talk about two next time, yeah?”  

And at least even the mention of Demon is enough to shut the guy up for real.  

What can he say? Demon’s got a rep, and what sort of boss would Rio be if he didn’t know how to use it? He smirks a little, watches as Demon moves to sit down on the edge of the table, inches away from the client, looking down at him, and when he’s sure Demon’s got it, Rio slips easily out of the room.

He’s still walking down the short hallway of the warehouse to his current office when he finally actually looks at his buzzing cell, feeling equally pissed off and vindicated at the Glenvale Elementary number blearing back up at him. And sure, maybe he’s pinching his nose as he answers the call, elbowing his way into his office – expecting what exactly, he has no fucking clue. He’s given up on guessing when it comes to Marcus and Jane. If they’ve started another fire though, he swears to god - -  

“Mr Vela,” the administrator says, a little breathless, her voice cutting through his thoughts. “Thanks for taking our call. We understand you’re a very busy man.”  

Rio just hums, folding down into his desk chair.  

“The kids aight?”  

“Um, yes, yes, the kids are all fine, we were just - - we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming in? Now? Or whenever soonest you could get here?”  

He checks his watch, rocking his jaw in irritation. He’s not sure he can sit through another meeting with Marcus and Jane’s teacher, watch him make cow eyes at Elizabeth, blush like he’s fourteen when she laughs at some joke so lame it may as well be leavin’ his mouth with scuffed loafers and a sweater vest. 

And - -  

Wait - -  

He purses his lips a little.

“Yeah, ain’t you got some PTA mom bake off on right now?” he asks. “My partner should be there already. In your cafeteria and whatnot.”  

Despite his best efforts to get her not to be. There were better uses of her time after all, but she kept insisting it was good for the kids to see her there, for the school to see her there too, and they’d fought enough about it, because yeah, sure – Rio was down for the recitals and the games and even the family mixers (which - - ugh), but it wasn’t like the kids were even around for the PTA shit, and besides, Rio (and Elizabeth, in name at least) had donated half a library to the damn place. Enough that the school would turn a blind eye to any of the shit Rio did if he needed to (namely taking the kids out at no notice if shit went down. Or if it didn’t. Whatever. Sometimes he just wanted to take ‘em to LegoLand).

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” the administrator says a little nervously. “There’s been an incident with some of the parents. In fact, with your partner. If you could come in as soon as you could, we’d be grateful.”  

***

And really, this shit is just hilarious.  

He’d gotten a few of the details over the phone from the administrator, but honestly he doesn’t think anything will really beat walking into a first grade classroom and seeing Elizabeth on one of those tiny little plastic seats, a handful of scratches at her temple like someone’s tried to gauge out her eye and missed, some more at her chest, the neck of her pink blouse torn open and her neck and chest smeared with frosting.  

Rio arches an eyebrow at her as he steps in, and Elizabeth puts her nose up and everything, a blush dusting her cheeks, all prim like they ain’t gonna be finding blood and frosting when she pulls her bra off later, but then - - he bites back a grin. That sounds kinda fun.  

She’s doing better than the woman beside her anyway – some Bargain Bin Barbie, who has two cotton balls shoved up her bloody nose, the start of a killer black eye (and damn, when had Elizabeth’s right hook gotten that good?) and cake in her peroxide blonde hair. Some Ryan Seacrest-type who’s gotta be her husband sits beside her, arms folded over his chest, looking for all the world like it’s the last place he wants to be.  

No imagination, Rio thinks, his jaw rocking in amusement, eyes shifting back to Elizabeth.  

He can’t think of a place he’d rather be.

“Ah, wonderful, we’re all here.”

The voice sounds from behind the desk, and Rio jerks his head around to see some guy who must be a part of the faculty – tall and lanky wearing the ugliest fucking tie Rio’s ever seen. The guy gestures him out vaguely towards the back of the classroom. “Would you mind taking a seat.”  

Striding forwards, Rio grabs one of the little plastic chairs from where they’re stacked in the corner, dropping it beside Elizabeth and sitting heavily down in it. As soon as he’s seated, the guy looks between them, ringing his hands a little nervously, shuffling in his own seat.  

“I’ve called you in today because your wives –”  

“They’re not even married,” Bargain Barbie snips, and Elizabeth’s head rotates around so quickly she’s like that little girl in The Exorcist.  

“It’s 2019, Tania, marriage hasn’t been a measure of a relationship’s worth in at least twenty years. Something you’d know if you read something other than the back of your box-mix cupcakes.”  

And, well, damn, Rio thinks, sucking in his lips to swallow a laugh as he looks back at Ugly Tie. Vaguely he can see Bargain Barbie (or Tania, he supposes, but whatever, he doesn’t care) make a noise of abject outrage – whether at being called out for her apparently dated ideas or the insinuation that her cupcakes aren’t made from scratch, Rio has no idea. Maybe it’s both, with the way she turns about nine different shades of red. Beside her, her husband suddenly grabs her hand, dragging it into his lap to stop her from hitting Elizabeth again.  

Or, well, trying to. No matter how funny this whole thing is, Rio’s not exactly inclined to let anyone touch her.  

“Your partners,” Ugly Tie corrects nervously. “Were involved in an incident in the school cafeteria ahead of this afternoon’s PTA Bake Off.”  

“We weren’t involved in an incident,” the blonde hisses, flailing her free hand out in Beth’s direction. “She attacked me.”  

“I did not attack you,” Elizabeth replies, and Bargain Barbie snorts while the colour drains from Ugly Tie’s face, like he thinks fists are about to fly again. He teeters nervously at the edge of his seat.

“Witnesses did say you pushed her face first into the cake display, Ms. Marks.”  

Witnesses, Rio thinks with a grin. Like this is an episode of CSI. These people really are a trip.  

Elizabeth looks at Ugly Tie at that and then quickly paints on that Stepford look – the one that’s all Bambi Eyes and Molly Manners – the one that, despite himself, still makes his dick twitch.  

“Maybe I moved a little suddenly,” Beth allows. “But honestly, it was an accident, Ed - - can I call you Ed?”  

Ed pinks a little, stuttering out a yes, and Rio has to resist the urge to snort.  

“I guess I was just a little swept up in the moment of it – you really do just run the best PTA fundraising bake off – and I mean, I’d know, because I’ve participated in more than my share, being an active member of the school community - - ”  

“You’re so full of shit,” Bargain Barbie snaps, arm flailing out of Seacrest’s grip, and honestly, Rio thinks, amused, she’s kind of got her there. Still, Ugly Tie holds up a hand to both of them, as if finding his train of thought again.  

“The reason we’ve called your partners in, is it seems like the fight stemmed from broader tensions between your families.”  

And that shuts them both up.  

Rio glances curiously over at the other couple, racking his head to think of any time Elizabeth’s so much as mentioned a Tania, but he comes up blank. He knows there’s a Margot who’s trying to get the school on a raw food diet, and a Penny who always fights it when Elizabeth tries to move the school away from celebrating religious holidays (“It should be all or nothing,” Beth insists. “If the school is going to keep celebrating Christmas and Easter, why can’t they celebrate Eid and Diwali too? It’s 2019!” – apparently that’s her buzz phrase at the moment), but - - no Tania.  

“Anyone?” Ugly Tie asks them all now, and Elizabeth and Bargain Barbie both sit up a little taller, pointedly maintaining their silence, and damn, they’re more tight-lipped than half Rio’s boys. He eyes them both with a vague interest as Ugly Tie sighs.  

“Fine. A two week ban on all PTA activities,” he says, and Rio could almost laugh at the look of abject horror on both Elizabeth and Tania’s faces. “And you need to apologise to each other and to the other members of the PTA.”

“Mr. Hollander, the Spring Fling Dance planning committee nominations are next week,” Bargain Barbie cries, and Elizabeth opens her mouth probably to say something equally embarrassing, and Rio figures that’s probably their cue. He grabs Elizabeth by the elbow, lurching to his feet and dragging her up with him, and before she can dig her heels in in that way she does, he’s nodding at Ugly Tie in acknowledgement, saying a quick “Sounds fair,” and dragging them both out of the room.  

***

Turns out her sister’s shitty car had croaked again that morning, so Elizabeth had lent her the mama van on the condition she drop her for the bake off and pick up the brood after school, which is fine, he figures, pulling out of the school carpark, Elizabeth all tightly wound beside him in the passenger seat, her cheeks red and her posture stiff.  

“You gonna tell me what that was about?” he asks as he gets onto the main road. He really should go back to work, but fuck it, he thinks. There’s nothing on Demon can’t handle, and if there is, he knows how to reach him anyway.  

“No,” she snips, and Rio casts a look at her out of the corner of his eye, and it takes him a minute to realise that the red of her cheeks isn’t embarrassment like he’d figured, but rather that it’s still anger. It’s enough to make him shift in his seat – it ain’t like she doesn’t get mad, just she doesn’t usually get mad about PTA stuff, at least not like this – more just tense and exasperated and sometimes frustrated in a way he can usually diffuse if he looks at her or touches her right. But this - -  

He ain’t seen her like this recently.  

The car slows at the traffic lights, and he uses the opportunity to reach over, push her hair out of her face, run a thumb over one of the scratches at her temple.  

“Want me to call my sister? Get her to bring over a rabies shot?”  

It works like he’d wanted it to. Beth exhales a laugh, her gaze drifting over to him, watching as he takes his hand back to the steering wheel of the car. They get another couple of blocks when he feels it, the slow boil of her anger again, simmering beside him in the car, and they’re not even that far from home, but fuck it, he thinks, he doesn’t like the idea of her going straight into one of her furious cleaning or cooking frenzies, so he pulls over.  

If she’s surprised, she doesn’t react, not even when he turns in his seat to look at her, taking in the tight lock of her shoulders, the tighter one of her jaw.  

“Elizabeth,” he starts, and she looks out the window, away from him. “Come on, ma.”  

She rolls her eyes at him, like he’s the one being ridiculous, and he pointedly pulls the keys out of the ignition, watching as she turns enough to scowl at him, folding her arms across her chest. Whatever. No skin off his nose, he thinks, leaning back against the driver’s side door, his eyes not leaving her, he’s got all day, and it’s only another minute, maybe two, before she’s flailing her arms in the air, her cheeks reddening all over again.  

“She called you a drug dealer,” Beth whisper-yells at him, like anyone can hear them in his car, and shit, is that all? Rio just laughs.  

“And you upset about that?”  

He knows she is – can see it in the heave of her (still frosting-covered) chest, in the way her lower lip quivers, her eyelashes clump. Can hear it in the tightness of her voice, and maybe he should’ve gotten her home first, gotten her on her back in their bed, breathless, legs trembling, made her forget about it the best way he knew how, but - -  

“She meant it as an insult,” she says hotly, interrupting his train of thought, and Rio pops an eyebrow at her, because no shit. “And it’s not like she knows you are one. She thinks you work flipping cars with me.”  

“So what?” he asks, shrugging, and Elizabeth frowns over at him, finally turning around in her seat to face him. She’s still all flushed, flustered, and she seems pissed at him now when she flails her arms out at him, and voice shrill, says:  

“So what? So - - so what if she says that sort of thing in front of her sons, who go to school with your son. What if they tell all their friends about what Marcus’ daddy does for a living?”  

Shaking his head, Rio can’t quite take her eyes off her, because seriously – sometimes he thinks she figures he popped out of the ground the day he showed up in her kitchen, like Marcus did that day in the park.  

“Trust me, it won’t be nothin’ Marcus ain’t heard before.”  

And at least that shuts her up, her mouth closing, her posture sagging a little back against the passenger side door. He just watches her, briefly considering putting the keys back in the ignition and driving them home, but then - - he knows her enough to know that that ain’t all it is bothering her. He frowns at her, drums his fingers on his leg, and then looks away, something sharp spiking in his gut.  

“You worried about your kids?” he asks, voice a little tighter than he wants it to be, and when Beth shrugs, his frown deepens.  

“It’s a part of the deal,” he says. “Shit, you know what I look like, ma.”  

And she doesn’t reply to that either, and that sharpness in his gut peaks into something uncomfortable. He rocks forwards a little in his seat, using the momentum of it to sit back harder, to bump his back back against the door.  

“This a problem?” he asks her. “You want me to talk to the kids about how their new stepdad’s gonna make ‘em whispered about on the playground?”  

“I don’t care about the kids!” she yelps, and he blinks, unable to contain his surprise when she suddenly backpedals. “I mean, of course I do, that’s not - -”  

She exhales, the sound harsh in the hollow of his car, and she won’t look at him when she says:  

“She can’t talk about you like that. She doesn’t know anything about you.”

And that’s - - not what he was expecting. He blinks at her, that sharpness in him dulling, squinting a little at her as he takes her in.  

“She can do whatever she wants, ma."  

Because shit, she can. Rio wouldn’t have wasted his time talking to her anyway, but hell, if she ain’t gonna pretend to make nice with other parents, he sure as hell ain’t either.

“Fine,” Beth says finally, sniffing a little. “But actions have consequences, isn’t that what you’re always telling me?”  

He could almost laugh at that, because she’s right, he is always telling her that, but he means it more in the context of handling a slippin’ employee, or her own tendency to steamroll into situations like she’s - - hell, like she’s one of their seven-year-olds.  

“And what? Talkin’ shit gonna get her hit?”  

“Yes,” Beth tells him firmly, nodding, sitting up a little straighter in her seat, her chin up, all defiant, and Rio snorts.  

“You all about defendin’ my honour now?” he says it patronisingly, expecting her to get embarrassed in that way she does when she thinks he’s making fun of her, but that’s not what happens at all.  

“Yes,” she says emphatically instead, and Rio blinks, surprised, and then before he can say anything else, she keeps talking.

“I told you. She can’t talk about you like that, and I’m not going to let her. And just for the record, I like the way you look, so.”

She stops then, looking over at him briefly, then quickly turning around in the seat, facing forwards again, all prim again like there ain’t cake in her hair, and Rio can’t quite stop his grin.  

“Yeah, I knew that last one, ma,” he says, and Beth pinks, but she smiles, gaze finding him again. She bites her lip a little, looks up at him through her lashes, and Rio just - - shit. He can feel how goofy his smile is, quickly tapering it into a smirk as best he can.  

“You really push her into that display?” he asks her after a minute of quiet, and Beth wrinkles her nose, blushing for real this time, but still. Something in her face, it’s a little proud.

“Punched her too.”  

He arches an eyebrow, looking dutifully impressed, and she preens before she can help herself, holding up a hand at that so he can see the start of the bruises on her knuckles. He laughs, shaking his head, grabbing her hand to inspect it, and shit, if he doesn’t find them cute too – all dainty like her, little blooms of purple, like flower buds, and ugh. Even thinkin’ that, he shakes his head at himself, but presses his lips to them all the same, and he doesn’t hear it, or even see it, but some part of him feels her breath hitch, and it’s a relief really – that he can feel just how sprung she is too.  

“Okay, bruiser,” he tells her, twisting back in his seat, pushing the keys back into the ignition, and he goes to drop her hand, but she threads their fingers instead, and he holds it there, against his thigh, the whole ride home.  

#beth x rio #nbc good girls #the center and circumference #my fic #prompt fills #welcome to my ama

[heartofsnark]

The Brat’s Birthday (Tsuneko/Platonic Bidders)

Notes: October 27th is Tsuneko’s birthday, as such I’ve written a little one-shot type deal about her first birthday with the bidders. We’re kinda going on Voltage rules of yeah, it’s her birthday, no it doesn’t affect main plot and she’ll just turn 22 every year forever

Summary: It’s Tsuneko’s first birthday since she was sold at that auction, she doesn’t expect it to be any different than any of her other birthdays these past couple years. But, the bidders are never the type to meet her expectations. 

Pairing: Tsuneko isn’t with anyone, it’s pretty platonic, but if you look you can see ship teases of Tsuneko/Eisuke and Tsuneko/Baba (They basically get the most love from her in this)

Word Count: 3124

Warnings: Cursing, hatred of Gudetama and....cake? It’s pretty much just fluff.

Cool autumn air fills Tsuneko’s lungs as she makes her way to employee housing, she stops off at her little mailbox in the lobby, it’s practically stuffed full. It’s all coupons and gift offers for her birthday, companies she uses often shoving discounts at her. It’s her birthday tomorrow, October 27th. There’s nothing from her dad, even though she made up an excuse for him to send things to her new address. He’s going to be late this year. She chuckles at the thought, she adores her dad, but he has the memory of a goldfish and always forgets her birthday. It’s either early or late every year. Her mom was the one who always had to keep him on track with dates.

“Hey, Tsuneko,” Sakiko suddenly speaks out and Tsuneko casually holds the mail to her chest, hiding what they are.

“Hey,” she doesn’t want to mention her birthday, but it might be nice to hang out on the day, “are you doing anything after work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, actually, I’m going to a mixer, gonna try to score myself a hottie.”

“Oh, do you know if Chisato is up to anything?”

“I’m pretty sure her and Itsuki are going out to a concert or something, guess it’s just gonna be you and Kiyo, sorry.”

“Eh, worst things have happened to better people.”

Their conversation ends, a small pang in Tsuneko’s chest, that she curses for existing. She has no right to be hurt, she’s spent most of her birthdays without anything or anyone. It’s stupid to act like a baby about it. Tsuneko spends her night cuddling with Kiyo and taking advantage of birthday coupons, maybe she’ll buy herself some cake tomorrow. She doesn’t need an excuse for cake, but she might as well take advantage since she has one.

Morning and her birthday arrive, nothing out of the usual. Until Kenzaki pulls her aside and asks her to skip the morning cleaning of the penthouse.

“Why?”

“The penthouse guests had a late night and would rather not be bothered until this evening.”

“Okay…”

She shakes her head, but goes on about her day, knowing those dumbasses they got shitfaced last night and are hung over. One less trip there just means less of a headache for her. Tsuneko gets to work; cleaning rooms, making bed, helping out guests, and every other mundane thing her job entails. Her customer service smile never dropping despite the childish ache in her heart.

It’s her own fault, she knows that. She never tells anyone her birthday, the only two people who know her birthday are her dad and Shinobu.  A man with a terrible memory and a man that’s just plain terrible. But logically knowing something doesn’t stop the little pang she gets as the hours move on and on with nothing out of the ordinary.

Her pager buzzes in her pocket, oh god, now this shit.

“Penthouse, five minutes.”

“Stay out of the penthouse, rush up to the penthouse, make up your mind asshole!”

If he heard her bitching, he doesn’t dignify it with a response, and she starts her way up to the penthouse. Assuming she was right, and the dumbasses did binge drink or go nuts last night, she’s going to have her work cut out for her, cleaning it up.  She can see the mess in her head already and a migraine is already building in her temples. Tsuneko makes it to the lounge and a little over five minutes, because fuck Ichinomiya.

“Happy birthday!”

Voices ring out along with loud pops, confetti and glitter spraying into Tsuneko’s face and hair. She blinks a few time, thankful no glitter found its way into her eyes yet. Baba and Kisaki have party poppers, there’s a banner up that says happy birthday, Tsuneko with a painting of a dog beside the text.

No.

Not from them, nope.

“Bye.” Tsuneko promptly turns around and tries to leave the penthouse, but Baba wraps his arms around her in a bear hug just to lift her up and spin her back around.

“We went through all this trouble and you’re trying to leave, that’s not even fair, Koro.”

“I didn’t see you doing anything,” Oh calls him out,

“I painted the banner, otherwise Baba would have covered it in hearts or some other garbage.”

“It’s okay, I plan on showing Tsuneko my love in other ways.”

“Like holding me hostage?” She glares up at him and he finally lets her go, she doesn’t run, clearly, they’re not letting this go.

“Take a seat, princess, you don’t need to lift a finger for the rest of the night.” She rolls her eyes, well aware that if it’s not tonight, then tomorrow she’ll be cleaning up glitter which is a nightmare in itself.  Nonetheless, she plops herself into a chair.

“Ain’t kids supposed to be excited on their birthday, stop pouting.”

“I’m not pouting,” she says with a pout.

“Happy birthday to you~ Happy Birthday to you~” Baba brings out a cake, candles alight on top of it as he sings.

“Baba, you’re the only one singing, it’s just sad.” She presses a hand to her face, hiding the small flush on her cheeks, it’s sweet, cringey but sweet.

“Blow out the candles, princess.”

She wishes to get out being owned by them, the only thing that pops into her head, and blows them out. It’d be nice if blowing out candles actually granted wishes.

“What did you wish for?” Kisaki asks her.

“To get as far away from you lot as possible.”

“Well, if you tell someone it won’t come true, so that’s great news for us,” Baba teases as he starts to cut out pieces of the cake, she rolls her eyes, “here made with love.”

“Gross.”

But she’s already taking a bite, despite his sappiness. She can’t help the noise of pleasure as she takes a bite, sweet vanilla cake and chocolate chip cookie dough flavors mingling on her tongue.

“Do you like it?” Baba’s grinning because he already knows the answer, little shit that he is.

“You’re really good at baking.”

“Well, the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”

“Then you go and ruin it with that shit.”

“Can we drink now?” Kishi buts in, more concerned with how sober he is at the moment than being pleasant.

“I’ll get the drinks,” Baba says, it’s starting to feel like he’s the errand boy when she’s not around and guilt eats at her heart that she’s just sitting while he runs around.

“I can h-”

“Nope, you aren’t lifting a finger, Tsuneko.” She sighs, watching him play busy bee while the others relax with no concern.

“You guys are just using my birthday as an excuse to get drunk, aren’t you?”

“Took you long enough.”

She rolls her eyes as Baba comes back into the lounge, serving the other men booze while he puts a mug of what smells like Chai Latte in front of her. Tsuneko didn’t even need to tell him that she wouldn’t want to drink, he just knows. It’s either sweet or creepy, she’s not sure. She murmurs a thanks and takes a drink, before a question pops into her head.

“Does the Hatter know it’s my birthday?” She knows he rarely if ever leaves the tearoom, but she hates that he might be getting completely left out of the celebration.

Kisaki lets out a loud groan, annoyed by her even mentioning the Hatter. Then she sees Ichinomiya smirking.

“Told you,” the hotel owner says as Kisaki hands him money.

“I thought she could at least go a day without mentioning that freak.”

“This is why you don’t bet against Eisuke.”

“Look here, you-”

“I told Maddy about your party,” Baba cuts her off, “he didn’t want to leave Wonderland, but he got you a present and wanted you to have a late party with him tomorrow.”

“He got me a present?” She can’t help but smile, knowing the Hatter, it’s something weird but sweet.

“We all did, of course.”

“You did?” She can’t help her confusion, the party is one thing, Baba basically did everything, and they all got an excuse to drink. But, each of them getting her a gift seems like more effort than she expected.

“What kind of cheapskate, do you take me for?” Ichinomiya sneers and shoots her a look of pure offense; how dare she even imply he wouldn’t buy someone a birthday gift.

“Knowing Eisuke, you won’t want his gift,” Oh warns her.

“Oh god, I didn’t even think of you all getting me purposely awful gifts,” dread settles in her stomach, “I think it’s time for me to go.”

Baba puts a hand on her shoulder and doesn’t let her get up, she pouts. This is going to be awful, nothing but insulting or degrading gifts, save for Baba’s and the Hatter’s.

“Don’t be like that princess, here, do you wanna open Maddy’s gift first.”

It’s a little box, wrapped neatly in teal and blue. She opens it carefully, inside is a little drawstring bag and a note. Tsuneko grabs the note first, the Japanese writing is rough and a little sloppy, he’s not great at it. Even that makes her smile, she can imagine how much effort he put in getting this as right as he could.

Dear Alice,

The happiest of birthdays to you~ I’m sorry I couldn’t leave Wonderland to celebrate with you, I’m afraid I’m just not capable of it. I hope you’ll come down tomorrow and we can celebrate then; you, me, and Cheshire of course. The gift I sent with Baba is more so from Cheshire than me, I’d rather save my present for you when we can meet in person. But, just a day or two ago, Cheshire came back from her walk with this beautiful stone. The moment I held it up to the light, I saw spectrums of violets and amethyst that reminded me of your eyes. I knew it must have been meant as a gift for you, Cheshire and I care for you deeply and hope you have the happiest of days today~

Her heart melts, that he would be so convinced that Cheshire was getting her a present. She undoes the little drawstring and find a rock, rough and jagged but she can see the glimmers of purple that he spoke about. Every little bit of dread she had about the others is gone.

“He got you a rock.” Kisaki says in disbelief.

“His cat got me a rock.”

“So, he didn’t get you anything?” Kishi chimes in.

“Now, now, we don’t need to question Tsuneko and the Hatter’s special relationship,” she glares, not liking the way Baba says special, “now, this one is from me.”

“At least the bar is set low,” Kisaki grumbles as she starts to unwrap Baba’s gift, his wrapped in red.

She expects something gross from Baba, either over the top sappy or something sexual. So, she’s pleasantly surprised when she sees a purse. It’s soft white, rectangular with a baby blue spade on it, meant to look like an ace of spades card. She was complaining just a week or so ago about how the strap on her favorite purse had snapped.

“It’s so cute!”

“I couldn’t find one with a three of spades card, but it still looks adorable on you.”

“Thank you, this is actually really practical and nice.” She’s already tucking the Hatter’s letter and Cheshire’s rock into the purse for safe keeping. Tsuneko is dreading the rest of these gifts.

“My gift next, I worked really hard and handmade this, so you better appreciate it, Koro.”

“It’s a collar isn’t it?” She cuts through the bullshit, not trusting dog boy for even a second. The glare and pout she gets tells her she’s right, this fucker really made her a collar.

“Just open it.”

She’s less careful opening this one, but once again she finds herself pleasantly surprised. She expected an actual dog collar with the buckle and a name tag, but instead it looks distinctly more like a fashionable choker. A soft baby pink band and a little gold heart shaped medal on it. It looks like something she’d actually wear.

“I hate that this is cute.”

“You think I’d give my pet something ugly?” Kisaki is the second one to sneer at her today.

“I’m not your pet, ass-”

“Who wants to go next?” Baba is once again there to stop the part from being a screaming match, he should

“We’re saving the best for last,” Ichinomiya comments, not moving to give his gift, clearly convinced his is the best. Knowing him it’s expensive and stupid.

“Here, brat,” Kishi throws what looks like a gas station plastic bag at her, she peers inside seeing four gashapon capsules you get from coin machines.

“Really, Mamo,” Baba scolds, but Kishi is snickering.

“What, kids love those kinds of toys.”

She pops open the first one, a little Hello Kitty figure, maybe it was a Sanrio themed machine? The second is Cinnamoroll, so that’s nice, she’s not crazy about figures as a whole. Tsuneko has always preferred stuffed animals, she’d rather they be nice to hug and cuddle with. But, she can’t deny how cute the characters are in any form. Next figure is Pompompurin, another cutie. Fourth and last one she pops open and her face falls, Gudetama. Ugh. By far her least favorite Sanrio character. Who thought an egg man was a good idea?

Not one to hide how she feels, she throws the Gudetama mini figure right into the trash. Everyone except Kishi, burst into laughter at the admittedly childish display of unappreciativeness, but she hates that fucking yolk man.

“What’d you do that for?”

“It was Gudetama.”

“So, you just throw away part of my gift?”

“Sanrio characters are supposed to be cute. If I wanted to be around something ugly and lazy, I’d just spend time with you.”

“You fucking brat.”  

“Sor, you’re next,” Baba’s back at damage control duty.

“Here,” he tosses what looks to be a bullet proof vest at her, “you’ll need this for when you mouth off to the wrong person, again.”

“Those aren’t the kind of gifts you give women, Sor.”

“It’s practical, especially for her.”

“Thanks, I guess…”

“I can help test out it’s effectiveness if you want,” he says with the sinister little smirk he gets sometimes, she’s sure he’d love an excuse to shoot her over and over again.

“I’m good.”

“Well, that leaves you, Boss.”

“It’s not much, but here,” Ichinomiya shoves an envelope at her.

She tears it open and pulls out the document inside, her eyes go wide when she reads it. How did he, what? Tsuneko blinks a couple times as if that will change the document and reveal what it really his, but no matter what it doesn’t change.

“He probably bought her a deed to some land.”

“Or a company.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, those can wait for her next birthday, which I have no doubt she’ll be spending with us again.” He’s smirking but her usual desire to hit him is absent in the light of his gift.

“You payed off my student loans?” She asks, despite having the proof of it in her hand.

“That’s not even fair, Boss, how am I supposed to compete with that?”

“You aren’t.”

The back and forth between him and Baba is just white noise to her. She really didn’t think she’d ever get out from under her student loan debt, a huge factor in why she hasn’t tried to get back into school. But, just like that Ichinomiya wiped the debt clean. She could question it, how he got the information and clearance to do. Or this could be a ploy to get more control of her. But she doesn’t question or ruminate on any of that, instead she throws her arms around him in a sudden move, hugging him tight to her.

“Ah,” he makes a small noise of surprise, taken aback by the sudden affection, she finally managed to surprise him, “is that all it took to get you to throw yourself at me?”

“I’m too happy to yell at you, thank you, thank you so much,” she gushes as she nuzzles her face into his chest, she can feel his hands hesitant on her back, like a part of him wants to hug her back but he’s unsure if he should. Who knew one hug is all it would take to make to unnerve him?

“It wasn’t that much, besides I own you, so your debt became mine and I don’t like having debts.”

“Don’t care.” She finally pulls away after another squeeze of Ichinomiya’s thin frame, he’s so bony. Tsuneko thinks she catches a hint of red in his face, maybe he’s drunk too much or is overheating?

“You know, I could have paid those off for you too, pretty lady,” Baba says, and she wonders if he wishes he had gotten a hug.

It does seem unfair, when she thinks about it. Baba went to the trouble of all of this, but Ichinomiya is the one who got a hug just because he decided to go all out on her gift. He deserves more appreciation, as much fun as it is to tease him, he deserves some genuine affection.

“But, you didn’t,” Ichinomiya retorts, but his smirk falls when Tsuneko has her arms around Baba next.

“Thank you for doing all of this, I really appreciate it.”

He wraps his arms tight around her, surer and more confident in showing affection than Ichinomiya was.

“Anything for you, princess.”

“Ugh, get a room.” Kisaki pretends to gag at the sight of them and then Baba unceremoniously lifts her up. She can’t control the flush of heat in her face at being picked up, it’s rare that people can manage to lift her. Ichinomiya was able to do it for a brief time before, but he seemed to be struggling. Baba, however, has no trouble.

“If you insist,” he teases and acts like he’s going to pack her off into another room, not without spinning her around in his arms and making her laugh. She playfully hits his shoulder between her giggles and he instead dramatically drops into the chair she was sitting in, Tsuneko in his lap. The rest of the men are smiling or cracking up at his antics too.

Her heart is lighter than it has been in years. She never thought she’d feel this happy and content with this group of idiots, but here she is. Despite everything, it’s the best birthday she’s had in years.

#kissed by the baddest bidder #kbtbb #black market wonderland #tsuneko tomori #eisuke ichinomiya #Mitsunari Baba #Soryu Oh #mamoru kishi #Ota Kisaki

[iheartseo]

for me // ashton i.

requested: no

word count: 1.6k+

synopsis: it is really the little things that matter and he loves that she learnt something so sweet for him just so they can spend that one minute together.

a/n: this idea has been stuck in my fucken head for AGESS. and i know i haven’t written anything in years but i hope you guys like this quick little blurb thing. i was going to write it for shawn, but considering ashton has been rocking suits lately, i had to do it for him. enjoy!! italics mean flashback.

masterlist // requests are open

“Babe!” Ashton called as he looked in the mirror, struggling to get his tie right. He furrowed his eyebrows as he unraveled the messy knot that he attempted himself. Before he began his sixth attempt, in walked in his girlfriend of five years. She leaned against the door frame from their bedroom, smirking with her hands folded across her chest. To say that she found it entertaining and a little bit sad that her boyfriend who could play almost any instrument he wanted, could string words together so poetically and thoughtfully and is even incredibly open minded towards anything artistic, could not tie his own fucken tie.

He looked up from his tie, his hazel eyes meeting her bright one. He gave her a small, sad smile which was begging for help.

“Need some help?” she asked, clearly finding his struggle amusing.

“If you don’t mind.”

Rolling her eyes playfully, she pushed herself off the door frame and walked towards him. He turned around, and completely undid his pathetic sixth attempt of tying his tie. Her smile stayed on her face when she approached him, smoothing out his tie and adjusting the length of it first before beginning to fold it in such an expert manner.

“You are absolutely useless, you know that?” she teased, her eyes flicking from his tie and his face. Ashton chuckled softly, shrugging his shoulders. “Glad you realised after all these years.” he responded back quickly. She rolled her eyes once more and concentrated back on tying his tie. For today, his tie was a classic black though there was a textured paisley pattern all over it that was only visible in certain angles when the light would hit it just right. He was wearing pairing it with a classic black suit jacket and slightly flared out pants.

“What’s the event going on tonight again?”

“To be honest, I have no idea. Some weird mixer thing that is going on at the label. The theme is black tie.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Yeah, especially since my baby isn’t coming.”

“Sorry Ash, but that 2000 word paper on the important use of commas in linguistics isn’t gonna write itself.”

Ashton laughed softly as he shook his head, causing her to hit his chest softly as she muttered ‘stay still’. He continued to smile, finding her concentration to tying his tie absolutely adorable. Her weird obsession with making his tie look perfect allowed them both to share a quick but intimate moment together. It was where he was able to hold her close and admire her beauty. Whether she was in full makeup, her toned down makeup, or her bare face, Ashton loved being this close to her to admire everything about her. It made him smile finding a new sunspot or freckle across her cheeks, or even a loose eyelash to which he gently would brush away and then end up gently caressing her cheeks.

In moments like this, he would get lost in his own little world.

That world being two gorgeous eyes and a weird little laugh.

That world being dry jokes and loud, startling awes at puppy and kitty videos on facebook.

That world being warm hugs and a heartbeat.

Her.

She then pulled up her perfectly created knot up to just the right height where he wouldn’t feel suffocated by the tie, or that the tie looked too loose on him. She straighten everything out and smiled. Her boyfriend was definitely handsome with a tie on.

She looked up from her creation and smiled at her boyfriend. “There you go rockstar. One perfectly good tie.” Ashton smiled back at her as he leaned down slightly to give her a quick kiss, holding onto her waist. “Thank you, baby.” he said, kissing her once more.

“You sure you can’t come to this party? I’m pretty sure they will have those mini bruschettas that you love so much going around.”

“Yikes… tempting, but my assignment is due this week and I really should start on it.”

“How did I find someone so dedicated and so smart?”

“You just got lucky, I guess.”

“Then I am the luckiest guy in the world.”

She let out a soft giggle when he pulled her closer to kiss her again.

“God, I love you.” he whispered against her lips.

“I love you too.”

---

It was an ungodly hour in the morning, but Ashton and the boys had a packed schedule filled with several radio interviews, magazine interviews and acoustic performances that would last them the entire day. Ashton thanked the makeup artist and hair stylist for finishing off his look for the interview that was up next. He got up from his chair and grabbed the tie that was apart of his ensemble. He would’ve put it on when he was in his hotel room but didn’t have the time considering he was immediately rushed out of his room to get to the first radio.

He stood in front of a mirror and began to tie his tie, surprisingly effortlessly without any mistakes. Smiling at his work, the drummer immediately noticed a surprised look on Michael’s face in the reflection. He turned his head and furrowed his eyebrows at his band member.

“Yes?”

“I thought you didn’t know how to tie a tie.”

“I do?” “Then why do you cry for Y/N all the time to come over and do up your tie for you?”

Ashton bite his lower lip, not wanting to admit the real reason why he lets his girlfriend do his tie every single time.

“I-I just like it better when she does it…”

Michael raised an eyebrow at how flustered and shy the drummer got, not believing a single syllable that just came out of his mouth.

“Uh huh. Yeah mate, I don’t believe you. Now what’s the actual reason?”

Ashton sighed as he shook his head. He took his cup of coffee that was sitting on the bench and took a quick sip of it before shrugging his shoulders.

“I let her do my tie because she learnt how to do it for me…”

Ashton smiled softly at the pizza delivery guy, handing over the money and a small tip. He grabbed the pizzas and told the worker to have a good night before politely shutting the door. Carrying the food to the coffee table, he made sure that the had the right TV show set up on Netflixs and her favourite candle burning in the corner.

“Babe! Pizza is here!” he called out. However, he didn’t hear a response back making him confused on what his girlfriend was doing. “Honey?” he called out again, walking towards their bedroom.

As he approached closer and closer to the slightly opened door, he heard another voice in the room. Thinking that she was listening to her lectures on a high volume again, Ashton slowly pushed the door open, peaking through the gap to just check up on what she was doing. However, he didn’t find her writing notes as her lecturer was speaking. In fact, she was doing that completely threw him off. She was sitting on their bed with one of his ties around her neck.

The look of concentration and determination was painted across her face as she was slowly following the instructions that was being said to her on her laptop. Ashton stood at the door, wondering how long she had been learning this for but finding the whole thing completely sweet and adorable. He stood and watched as his girlfriend sighed softly out of annoyance and reattempted to tie his tie once more. She bit her lower lip, following the instructions to a tee. Once she pulled up the knot, she quickly ran to the mirror and smiled widely.

“Holy fuck finally!” she exclaimed quietly to herself.

As proud as he was, Ashton remembered that they were supposed to be having a date night, causing him to clear his throat as he knocked on the door, opening it up fully to reveal himself. Hearing his voice, she quickly took off the tie and threw it somewhere where it couldn’t be seen. She turned around and gave her boyfriend an innocent smile. “Oh, hey babe. Is the food here yet?”

Ashton immediately noticed at his tie around her neck was gone, but tried his absolute best not to say anything. Instead, he just smiled at her and nodded his head.

“Thank fuck, cause I am starving!” she said, shutting her laptop close before walking out of the room, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before walking out.

“Wait so she doesn’t know that you know?”

“Well I mean, probably after this interview she will know.” Ashton laughed nervously as his face quickly started to blush. He had never told this story to anyone, not even to any of the boys before. He wanted to keep that moment to himself, though the more he thought about the story, the more he just wanted to brag and express how cute his girlfriend is and how much unconditional love she shares for him, especially with little things such as learning to tie his tie for him.

“That is so adorable!” The interviewer awed as Ashton laughed nervously once more.

“Yeah, my girlfriend is pretty adorable. I’m pretty lucky.” he smiled.

“So what are you gonna do now? Especially cause you know how to tie your own tie. Are you still going to need her to tie it for you?” the interviewer asked.

Without hesitation, Ashton immediately answered ‘yes’ following with an incredibly meaningful ‘no matter what, I’m always going to need her. Whether it is to tie my tie, make me my favourite dish or send me good morning messages; I’m always going to need her in my life. She is wifey. She honestly is.’

tagged: @24kcalum @irwinkitten @nostalgia-luke @flannelpunkcalum @ohhmuke @calumhoodaf @asht0ns-world 

#ashton irwin #5sos #5sos imagine #5sos blurbs #luke hemmings #calum hood #michael clifford #ashton irwin imagines #5sos fluff #ashton 5sos #luke 5sos #michael 5sos #calum 5sos #writing #this was so fucken random #but like idk!! #i just really wanted to write #but you could defs tell i haven't written anything in a long fucken time #WOW

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @drgrlfriend!

Merry Merry!

My gift for the good Doctor for SSS 2018. Hope you like it. :D

Enjoy!

Read on AO3

******

Stiles Stilinski: Baker Extraordinaire, Amateur Detective, Oblivious Idiot

“I swear to god, there’s something weird about him.”

“Stiles, you are so fucking paranoid,” Erica informs him, clearly only half-paying attention.

Stiles watches as Derek Hale, the new florist across the street from Stiles’ bakery, carries a bucket of roses out of his shop and refills his sidewalk stand. He waits until Derek goes back into the shop, trying to see if he does anything suspicious.

“Have you seen him, Erica? He doesn’t look like he should run a flower shop.” For one thing, he’s incredibly buff and looks like a supermodel that got lost on the way to the catwalk. And for another, his eyebrows are drawn down in a distinctly stern fashion that makes Stiles think he’s got murderous thoughts.

Erica sing-songs bitingly, “Are we judging books by their covers, Stiles?”

“No.” He gnaws on his lip, intent on dropping the subject. The door to the flower shop opens again and Stiles sees Derek bring out another bucket of flowers, this time some white frothy thing. “It’s just… well… I mean, look at him.”

Erica sighs, hops down from her seat at the counter, and peers out the window without even trying to hide what she’s doing.

Stiles rolls his eyes at her utter lack of stealth. He stands to the side of the window, biting his thumbnail and watching his best friend’s face for any reaction.

After another moment of openly staring, Erica gives her verdict: “Well, he’s hot as fuck.”

“That’s it?”

She shrugs, heading back to the counter. “That’s all I got.”

He throws his hands into the air. “You are utterly useless.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Stiles. He’s just a really hot guy who’s apparently really good at making bouquets.”

“There’s something weird about him,” he insists. “And I’m gonna find out what it is.”

She glances at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be getting the muffins ready? Our after-school rush starts in fifteen minutes.”

He lets it lie, for now.

-----

Stiles lives above his bakery, like any proper city dweller. He closes the shop in the evening and retreats upstairs to read or watch movies or sleep. Whatever he wants, since he’s single. So single. Single as a Pringle, which doesn’t really make much sense, considering Pringles come in sleeves with like, a hundred more…

Anyways.

Stiles enjoys his time alone, really he does, but sometimes it’s nice to have company. Lately, company has come in the form of a big stray dog that ambled up onto his balcony one night a couple weeks ago.

It’s become routine, now, that Stiles closes up shop and his visitor is usually by about thirty minutes after.

That night, he smiles at the sound of claws on the steps and grins when two black ears poke over the edge of the steps followed by a long snout and curious eyes.

“Hiya, bud,” he greets, patting his knee. “How was your day?”

The dog huffs and trots over to him, leaning hard enough to almost knock him over.

“Easy, dude. God, you’re strong. Who’s a big, strong man? Hmm?” he coos, scratching under the dog’s chin while its eyes half-close in bliss.

He pushes up his sleeves, prepared to reach around to get both hands on the scruff that drapes over the dog’s shoulders. Stiles laughs as the dog licks at the exposed tattoos climbing up his arms.

“Like them, big guy?” he chuckles.

He points to each one, explaining them: the compass for his mom, the star for his dad, the stylized measuring cups for his babcia, the sleek black cat for Erica…

“I want more, but I figure two sleeves are good for now.” He pats the dog’s chest as it pants happily at him.

The dog’s ears prick forward and it gives Stiles’ cheek one last lick before it clicks away down the stairs.

“Later, dude,” Stiles calls before going back to his computer.

See the thing is, Stiles is a researcher.

Well, obviously, professionally he’s a baker and a damn good one at that. But in his personal life, he’s been known to be sucked down many a rabbit hole when it comes to an obscure subject.

Since he’s suspicious as all hell about Derek Hale, he looks Derek up online. He gets a website for Derek’s shop and a couple of articles from the Beacon Hills newspaper about the place opening. Though he’s tempted to hack into the BHPD database with his dad’s access credentials, he leaves that route alone and settles for getting his information another way.

He moves on and researches flowers. The meanings of flowers, the uses of herbs, the symbolism of certain corsages, and anything else he can find. There’s a lot of occult use for flowers and medicinal ones, but Derek doesn’t strike him as witch. But hell, maybe he is. Stiles doesn’t know what a witch looks like since he doesn’t know any.

At least, he doesn’t think he does.

Hmmm. Another mystery for another time.

On one Tuesday morning, he catches sight of Derek putting out flowers and notices that the sides of his displays are lined in white heather.

“Why does he have protection flowers around his stands?” he mutters to himself.

Erica makes him jump when she replies lowly from right next to him, “Maybe to keep creepers like you away.”

Stiles glares at her and doesn’t bother to comment, just storms away into the kitchen as Erica goes back to the counter to talk to the customers.

-----

The first time Stiles actually speaks to Derek is weird.

Stiles is perusing the avocados at the grocery store when someone reaches across him, picks one up, and holds it out for him. “This one is perfect.”

Stiles takes it, then he realizes who’s standing next to him.

Up close, Derek Hale is even more magnificent to look at. Long lashes, thick beard, some kind of kaleidoscope eyes. Goddammit.

“Uh, thanks,” he mumbles, dropping the avocado in his basket and about to dart when Derek speaks again.

“You’re Stiles, right?” Derek’s voice is soft, softer than Stiles thought it would be. “You own the bakery across the street from my flower shop.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Derek smiles and it’s soft and slightly flirtatious. “I heard you have the best cookies in the entire county.”

Stiles smirks, always apt to brag about his baking reputation. “Three counties, actually.”

“Three counties. Well now I’m impressed,” Derek teases and something flutters in Stiles’ chest.

He reels himself back. Don’t fall for that smile and those dreamy eyes! He’s hiding something! “Mmhmm.” Maybe I can get it out of him. Or at least talk to him enough to figure it out myself. He slyly offers, “Come by the bakery sometime and you’ll see. They’ll change your life.”

Derek nods. “That sounds great.”

“Okie dokie,” Stiles replies, turning around and walking in the direct opposite direction.

The first step of his plan is done. Now all he has to do is catch Derek in the act. The act of… whatever it is that he’s clearly up to…

-----

Stiles didn’t really expect Derek to come the next day, so he’s confused when Erica pops her head into the kitchen right when they open and says, “Hottie McHotstuff is here to see you.”

“Who?” Stiles asks, half-distracted as he pulls muffins from a tin and places them on a tray to cool.

Erica sighs. “Derek, obviously.”

“Oh.” He dusts off his hands. “Wonder what he wants.”

“I wonder…” she mutters as she goes back out front.

He glances down at himself and unties his apron, patting at himself to shake off the excess flour and scratching at a patch of dried blue frosting on the stomach of his t-shirt.

When he emerges, slightly less floury, he sees Erica talking to a pretty redhead girl at the end of the bar. Rolling his eyes, he scans the place and finds Derek looking at the shelves filled with his babcia’s baking tools.

“Cool, huh?” he asks, sliding up next to Derek.

“Very.” Derek glances over, his nostrils flaring a little, and nods at the hand-mixer. “Family heirloom?”

“Remarkably spot on.” He points at the bowls, propped up to display the painted bottoms. “I learned how to make my first cookies with that mixer and those bowls.”

Derek’s looking at his arms, running his eyes over the tattoos if Stiles had to guess, but he smiles and teases, “Your Three-County-Wide Famous cookies.”

Stiles grins, heading back behind the counter. “What kind do you like?” he asks, leaning over the glass.

Derek points out the peanut butter – not serial killer material, most people like peanut butter – and white chocolate lemon – Stiles’ mom’s favorite, he can’t be mad about that – and caramel – perfectly normal choice, his caramel cookies are divine.

Half mad that he can’t narrow anything down by the man’s cookie preferences, he puts the special twist in the bag that keeps it closed and hands it across the counter to Derek with a smile. “Enjoy them. Have a good one.”

Derek blinks then smiles. He takes the bag, shaking his head a little as he leaves, the redhead trailing behind him.

When he turns around, Erica is staring at him, mouth open. “What?”

“Did… did you just brush off the hottest guy that’s ever flirted with you?”

“I didn’t brush him off. And he is not the hottest guy to ever flirt with me.”

“Ehhhhh…” Erica squints and wobbles his hand in the air.

He glares at her. “Why the hell are we friends?”

She shrugs. “Got me.”

“It doesn’t even matter,” Stiles adds under his breath. “He obviously just left with his girlfriend.”

“Who, Lydia?”

“Whatever the redhead’s name is.”

“She’s not his girlfriend. She said they’re practically brother and sister and she came to help him with the flower shop for a couple months.”

“Really?”

The small voice in Stiles’ head starts shouting, insisting that there’s something extra weird going on.

He’s just got to figure out what it is!

-----

Stiles sprawls on his back porch and fiddles with the dog’s toes.

His new friend is almost wriggling with pleasure, which is odd because normally dogs hate having their feet touched, but it’s helping him think, so it’s whatever.

“I have a problem, dude,” he sighs. “There’s this guy…”

The dog huffs when he stops his ministrations, snorting and kicking his feet.

“Oh, right, sorry.” He starts back up. “Anyways, there’s this guy who is… a conundrum. I don’t know what to think about him. He’s… man, he’s good looking and he’s a florist, of all things. And, I’m not exactly an expert on flowers even after all my research, but he seems really good at it.”

He sighs, wondering how he can get Derek to talk to him.

“Maybe… maybe I can get a tour of the greenhouse? Or his shop…” he muses half-aloud. That could definitely work. “We are new neighbors, after all…”

The dog snorts again and rolls to its feet, shoving its nose against Stiles’ face and licking him.

“Ew, dude, gross!” he laughs, pushing the dog away.

The dog’s tongue lolls out and it wags its tail before trotting away and down the stairs.

-----

Derek looks up as Stiles enters the shop a couple days later. “Stiles.”

“Hey,” he greets, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Thought I’d come by and see the place. Maybe get a tour, if you’ve got time.”

Derek nods, looking pleased, and gestures to a side counter. “I have to finish an order, but I’ll only be a second.”

“No worries.” He ambles over and looks at the vases on display, enjoying the smells and colors of the flowers around him.

Lydia pops up next to his elbow and he jumps. “See anything you like?” she asks with a cat-like smile.

“Uh, not… not really?” He glances over her shoulder as two guys come from the back and walk over behind the counter.

“This is Scott and Isaac,” Lydia offers. “They work here too.”

Scott gives him a look, takes a deep breath, and asks, “Can you make stir-fry?”

“Uh,” he shakes his head, “I’m not a very good cook.”

“But you’re a professional baker,” Isaac almost accuses.

“Yeah, I bake things. It’s not exactly the same.” He thinks about it and adds, “I mean, I guess I’m okay at like… casseroles but that’s about it.”

“So you can’t make stir-fry?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I could try I guess.”

Scott frowns. “How are you alive if you don’t cook? What do you eat?”

He laughs. “I subsist mainly on take-out and frozen food.”

Lydia pokes a sharp-nailed finger at his abdomen. “How are you so skinny then? That food is terrible for you.”

“Hey, I’ve got muscles. I can carry three bags of flour by myself.”

“Not bad, I guess,” she sniffs.

The three of them look toward the door as Derek comes through.

He looks between them. “What’s going on?”

Stiles notices the angelic faces that Scott, Isaac, and Lydia wear and he turns to Derek. “Hi again.”

“Hi.”

“Would you care to save me from the Inquisition? They’re making me feel bad about my inability to cook and also my weight, I think.”

“Sure,” Derek laughs, jerking his head toward the door. “Come on.”

They go through the back of the shop, past coolers and sinks and a big storage room, and end up in a small alley that leads to a door.

“Greenhouse,” Derek explains, opening the door and gesturing him inside. “I need to water the plants anyway.”

“Cool.” He keeps his hands in his pockets, sure that he’ll kill something if he touches it. He’s got a notorious Black Thumb. “So,” he starts, aiming for casual interest, “what brings you to Beacon Hills?”

“My family lived here before.”

“What? When?”

Derek frowns at him. “Your dad is the Sheriff. Surely you’re familiar with the Hale fire?”

It clicks – he’s an idiot because it shouldn’t have taken him this long to put two and two together – and Stiles shakes his head. “Holy shit. I guess I just didn’t…” He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

Derek shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“Wait… so… you moved back to town, even though your family’s house almost caught fire?”

Derek shrugs. “No one was hurt. And the land is still in our name. I wanted to branch out to my own shop. It made sense.”

“Oh yeah, totally,” he mutters, but his mind is going a mile a minute. There’s not really anything strange about Derek’s story… so why does Stiles still have the weirdest feeling that he’s hiding something?

Derek holds a sunflower out to him with a smile.

“Oh, cool, thanks.” He tucks the flower behind his ear and grins. “How do I look?”

His eyes do a slow sweep over Stiles’ face, lingering on his mouth. “Really good.”

“Aw, thanks dude.” Stiles claps him on the shoulder.

Derek clears his throat, stating slowly. “I have to be honest, I’m kind of getting some mixed signals here.”

Stiles blinks at him, half-started on another spiral of thought about what Derek’s deal could be. “What?”

Derek smiles, shaking his head. “Never mind. Do you want to see the hybrid orchids I’ve been working on?”

“Sure.”

-----

Everything is hunky-dory for a while. Stiles tries to figure Derek out, Derek shakes his head at him with that strange smile and always sends him back to the bakery with flowers or plants.

It’s all good until the night of the full moon when he realizes he’s forgotten his phone charger at Derek’s shop.

He wonders if he has an extra somewhere, but guesses he probably doesn’t since the port on his new phone has rendered all his other chargers useless.

“Stupid upgrades,” he mutters, pulling himself up from his bed and shoving his bare feet into his shoes.

It’s a quick jaunt across the street and he loops around the back. The door to the greenhouse is open and he’s about to slip inside when he sees the black dog that’s been hanging out with him.

Before he can call out to the dog, it shivers and starts to change. Its body shifts, elongating and twisting and moving until Derek Hale, in all his glory, is standing in the dog’s place.

Stiles freezes, his heart climbing into his throat.

Derek is… Derek just… what the fuck? What the fuck?!

He takes a step back and Derek whips his head around, snarling with a mouthful of sharp teeth as his eyes flash bright red.

Stiles squeaks and takes off, sprinting across the street and scrambling up the stairs until he half falls into his apartment. He locks his doors and windows, pulls all his curtains closed, and sequesters himself in his bedroom with a baseball bat.

He has pretty fucked up dreams, so he barely sleeps. When Erica comments on how tired he looks the next day, he just levels her with a flat stare and keeps kneading his bread dough.

“Damn, okay,” she says quietly, clearly getting that he’s not having it today.

The only other time she bothers him is to poke her head into the kitchen and tell him Derek is out front.

“I’m busy.”

She frowns, studying his face. “Is there something I need to kick his ass for?”

“No. Just tell him I’m busy, please.”

“Okay…” She goes back out front. A few minutes later, she comes back in and asks, “Are you sure I can’t kick his ass?”

He snorts. “No. It’s not something you can fix by kicking his ass. No matter how entertaining that would be.”

“Hmf. Well, let me know if that changes.”

“Will do.”

-----

A purple hyacinth is waiting on the doorstep of the bakery when Stiles comes downstairs the next morning. Curled up next to the pot is his phone charger.

He stares down at it and sighs, lips pursed. He grabs the charger and thinks about taking the plant inside but, when he thinks about Derek’s glowing eyes, he decides to leave it where it is.

Even though he knows purple hyacinths mean that the giver is saying I’m sorry and he’s not actually sure that Derek needs to be apologizing for anything anyways.

At seven, when he’s locking the front door, he sees the flowers are still there. After a moment, he leans down, grabs the pot up, and brings it inside, placing it in one of the windows.

“What is that?” Erica asks as she sweeps.

“Purple hyacinth.”

She studies it, touching the flowers gently. “What does it mean?”

Stiles hums, leaning on the counter. “‘I’m sorry’.”

She glances at him. “You gonna forgive him for whatever he did?”

He shrugs, walking back into the kitchen.

-----

It's been a week and he misses Derek.

It just freaking figures that while trying to figure out Derek’s secret, all Stiles did was end up developing a fondness for the guy.

He curses his own foolishness as he tries to figure out a plant that he can bring by that says sorry I freaked out once I realized you were apparently a creature of the night please hang out with me again and also maybe go on a date with me because I kind of like you a lot.

It ends up being too hard, so he does what he does best: he bakes.

When Stiles enters the shop, it’s empty. He looks around, still a little jumpy, and rings the small bell.

Lydia is suddenly behind the counter and Stiles knows she wasn’t there a second ago. She raises an eyebrow, arms crossed. “What do you want?”

Stiles plays it cool and holds up the container in his hand. “I come bearing a peace offering.”

Lydia eyes him then gestures for him to go through the opening in the counter. “He’s in the greenhouse.”

Stiles tries to stay out of snatching range, just in case, and Lydia snorts, clearly amused.

When he pokes his head into the greenhouse, Derek is standing stiffly next to the herb garden.

Stiles makes his way over. “Hey.”

Derek eyes him warily. “Hi.”

“So, uh, I was gonna get you a mistletoe plant but I researched it and apparently mistletoe is just a giant parasite, so. Then I thought, well, maybe a holly plant. It kind of reminds me of you. It symbolizes hopefulness, but that seemed a little too Christmas-y, you know? Next it was red tulips, to tell you that I like you but I couldn’t find any red ones for some reason.”

Derek blinks at him, looking startled at the flow of words.

Stiles, of course, keeps talking. “Plus, I don’t really speak Flower the way you do, at least, not that type of flower.” He chuckles nervously. “F-L-O-U-R I totally speak fluently. So, here, I made these for you with my sick translation skills.”

Then, like a totally reasonable adult, Stiles shoves the container at Derek and flees before the other man can even say a word.

When he gets back into the bakery, he walks straight past Erica and into the kitchen, throwing himself down on the ratty couch in the corner and putting his hands over his face.

“What’s the matter? He didn’t like the cookies?” Erica asks after a moment from somewhere near his feet.

“I have no idea if he liked them. I just word-vomited about plants and then shoved them at him before I fled like the hounds of Hell were chasing me.” He almost chokes on a laugh at the inadvertent turn of phrase.

Erica sighs. “You’ve got serious issues.”

“I know!” Stiles wails. “I’m gonna die alone!”

“Probably,” Erica tuts sympathetically as she pats his foot. “I, on the other hand, am going to marry Lydia and we’re going to have lots of pretty, pretty babies.”

“You’re really bad at comforting people,” he complains.

“Yeah… luckily that’s not why we’re friends.”

“Why are we friends again?”

Instead of joking, she answers honestly: “Because it’s important for you to have someone to kick you in the ass every now and then.” She stands up and points down at him. “Now, you’re going to get up, finish baking those cranberry orange scones, and then, if Derek hasn’t come over by then, you’re going to go back and calmly ask him out on another date.”

He stares up at her, trying to figure out if he’s more disconcerted by how bossy she’s being or by the fact that it’s all good advice.

“But what if he says no?” he asks, his voice oddly small.

She gives him a look. “He’s not going to say no, Stiles. Not even you could blow this one. He’s smitten with you.”

He scowls at her. “I’m sure there was a compliment buried in there somewhere.”

She smiles, patting his knee. “I’m sure there was.”

When she leaves, he only wallows on the couch for another couple of minutes before pulling himself up and baking the scones, moping and pouting the whole time.

Instead of going back across the street, though, he chooses the coward’s route and retreats upstairs. Sitting on his porch, he sighs, wondering how long it’ll be before he lives this down.

Footsteps on his stairs make his head jerk up and, instead of the black dog, Derek appears at the top of the stairs. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He jerks his chin at the chair next to Stiles. “Can I join you?”

“Uh… sure.”

Derek looks around curiously, brushing his fingers over the edge of the seat and scuffing his feet as he sits. He looks like he wants to say something but he’s holding himself back.

“So what’s up?”

Derek blinks at him slowly. “Just thinking that I’ve never been up here on two legs before,” he explains softly.

Stiles stares at him, taking that in. “Y’know, I… should maybe be mad at you for not disclosing that you were a person under the fur, but, if I’m being completely honest,” he winces, “I may have hung out with you so that I could figure out your secret.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah, but not like in a bad way?” He waves that away. “Okay, even I hear how that sounds. What I mean is… I could tell there was something about you that was different. I just… didn’t know what it was.”

“And so you decided that being alone with the suspicious person was a wise decision?”

“Well, I didn’t think you were dangerous. Just…” he shrugs, “on the run, maybe. Like, witness protection or something.” He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Look, I know it was pretty dumb, I just, sometimes I get hyper focused on things and can’t let them go. You were a mystery I was trying to solve.”

Derek huffs a laugh. “Well, did you solve it?”

“Almost, but I… I have to ask.” He pauses, trying to phrase it the right way. “What are you guys? Like… you know what I mean.”

He nods. “Scott, Isaac, and I are werewolves. Lydia is a banshee.”

“That’s… interesting.”

“That’s it?”

“Forgive me if my reaction isn’t what you expected,” he drawls. “My former take on reality is kind of imploding a little.” He lets out a long breath. “Okay, so, you guys are werewolves. Why are you really back in town?”

“My mother told me that someone from the Hale pack is always supposed to live in Beacon Hills. There was one relative still living in town, a human pack member. Recently, she got married and moved to be with her spouse. My mom sent me and my pack to take her place.”

Stiles stares at him. “You’re being very forthcoming with information that seems pretty sensitive.”

“I guess,” Derek muses, “I feel like it’s okay if you know. I… I trust you.”

“Well that’s…” Stiles can feel his cheeks warming. “Um, thanks, I guess.”

“So, was that the only reason?”

“What?”

“That you hung out with me. Because you were trying to figure out the mystery?”

Stiles answers honestly. “Initially, yeah. I can’t lie that I’d like to get to know you, though, for real this time. Uh, if you’re… if you’re still interested.”

Derek studies him for a moment, then holds out his hand. “Derek Hale, Alpha werewolf, florist, still interested in you.”

Stiles smiles. “Stiles Stilinski, human, baker extraordinaire, amateur detective, oblivious idiot, definitely interested in you too. Would you like to go on a real date with me tomorrow?”

Derek smiles back. “I’d love to.”

#drgrlfriend #stereksanta18 #*fic18 #*gifts18

[koganphrancis]

Camless Episode 5

All The Writers Of This Show Are Shit

We had us a brand new writer this week and all we got was the same old same old: OOC, Retconing, and Repeats of Old Story Beats.

I’ll attempt a recap, but this episode really sucked the will out of me.

(gif credit: gallavichlovies)

I’m not going to do my usual character by character recap because frankly some really awful shit went down this week that I’m just going to refer to and not go into in depth.  Plus, so much of the episode was tedious repeats of shit the writer had JUST TRIED to say.  

We had both Debbie and Ian go knocking on the wrong doors for advice. We had two endless Lip scenes where all that was happening was he was running and riding a motorcycle.  Maybe next week he can paint a fence and we can all watch as the paint dries. Liam is sexually molested (off screen, but still) by another child who had been sexually molested. Carl and Frank both get slapped around in sexually-adjacent situations just as the show is once again trying to drive home what’s unacceptable for men to do to women-hey, Shameless, that goes for what’s unacceptable for women to do to men, women to do to other women, and men to do to other men as well.  They tried to make “going Fiona” a thing-twice.   There were at least four scenes where Frank tried to get an erection. There were endless retcons (more on those to come).  

My notes are all over the place and the show’s such a shit pile I can’t even begin to make a smooth narrative out of them, so here’s a list of my observations, saving the Ian shit for last.

Debbie had a running thread through a big part of the episode where she’s literally bored to the point of falling asleep listening to Alex-that is exactly how I feel about their relationship/the Debbie thinks she might be gay storyline.  Also, if anyone cares, Debs has completely dropped her equal rights/equal pay fight.  She doesn’t even seem to go to work anymore. Later, Debbie goes to visit the lesbians in Fiona’s building (rather than, I don’t know, talking to Vee about her experiences with Svetlana, since that seems maybe more in line with feelings Debbie is experiencing?) and the scene was clearly written in lieu of Shameless ever showing sex scenes anymore.  

The blond lesbian, Mel, exposes herself to Debbie in the doorway of her apartment (but sadly for the Netflix fans, her back is to the camera), without establishing if Debbie is not a minor, and then she kisses her in a sloppy slo-mo saliva string sharing close up.  Debbie is supposedly stunned stupid by this, but the whole “you like what you like and you don’t have to justify your sexual orientation to anyone” message falls flat.  Debbie has ALWAYS been starved for attention, and she misreads any attention she gets from anyone of any sex.  Since Matty she’s always equated someone trying to be interested in her as being interested in her sexually.  And that kiss wasn’t sexual at all-it too was a form of molestation-it wasn’t asked for or consented to.  This show is shit.  

Carl meets a young woman at a West Point mixer, the daughter of the scary military officer who is throwing the party.  Hello, we’ve done this already with Dom and her scary cop dad.  Yawn.  Carl films them not having sex after she passes out drunk so he can prove he didn’t molest/rape her, should it ever come in question.  At first the young woman is mad (and jumps on him and starts slapping him around, just like Katey Sagal will do in a scene with Frank), but then later she returns Carl’s phone and says she saw he didn’t film them having sex, but there is a recording on there of him having sex with someone else.  He says that’s Kassidi, his ex, but fails to let Kelly (the new chick) know she’s dead and he’s an accessory to her murder.  And how fucking creepy is it that Carl’s kept sex with his dead ex on his phone?  Is that something he’s still watching?  Does he get off to it?  This show is shit.

Kev and Vee get stuck with Frank in a few scenes, foreshadowing the boring seasons to come, should the show get renewed (why are they still sitting on announcing that, btw?).  There’s a subplot for Kev where he’s going to speak at a women’s rally in his new-found position of Vagina Safe consultant, but he wisely bows out when he hears the real hell women face on a regular basis.  Why this show is trying to be socially conscious this late in the game I’ll never know.  Especially since they’ll keep pulling their bullshit and defend it with “it’s Shameless!” like they’ve always done in the past.  This show is shit.

There’s the weekly Fiona/Bored disagreements-this time they’re about little things like music preferences and whether or not Fiona should care about her brother going to prison for up to two decades.  Bored winds up singing along to a song to Fiona at the end-it should’ve been Gus Pfender’s Fuck You, Fiona and they could’ve had a cute discussion about Gus being Fi’s ex-husband.  This show is shit.

Now Ian.  Sigh.  Nothing makes sense.  Everything’s either a lie or a retcon and we the audience still don’t know which.  At breakfast he’s telling the family his plea options, and when Liam questions temporary insanity, Ian rattles off, “Bipolar, off my meds.”  So is Ian saying that’s just the definition of the defense he could use, or is he saying “I was off my meds”????  WHY won’t the show give us any answers?  There were two significant scenes in Season 8 where he staunchly said he was taking his meds and that he (rightly) was entitled to feel emotions and be angry at times.  Are we supposed to think that right about then is when he stopped taking them and then Gay Jesus happened?  But if that was the case, why did he stop taking his meds, and now how long has he been off them-or did he start taking them again and now they’re working after being off them for all the GJ stuff PLUS when he was in jail for 9 months?  IF he was off his meds for any amount of time but especially a long amount of time (pretty sure an argument could be made he’d been off them since leaving Mickey/Monica dying/stalking boring Terror, blowing that old couple for money), why did his manic phase seem so different than when he was back from the army?  Can the show try to explain anything?  

Ian and Fiona and Geneva all go to the lawyer’s office-why?  There IS such a thing as client-attorney privilege and the lawyer, at least, would ask them to wait outside once the screaming began if not sooner.  But oh well.  Ian finally says, “Does anyone want to hear what my lawyer has to say?”  Me at home: YES!!!  Lawyer starts to talk, “I know this judge-he’s under...” Geneva starts yelling again and what gets lost in her bullshit is that later on, the judge is not a he?  

Outside Fi asks Ian, “Are all lesbians that dramatic?”  I asked last week, I’m asking again: Is Geneva a lesbian?  Is this just another retcon?  Her initial interactions with Ian seemed like she was crushing on him, that she wanted him, and there’s been nothing about her being a lesbian in canon.  I know it’s not important, but the lack of attention to detail on this show contributes mightily to its shittiness.

Suddenly Ian has a question, and he can think of only one place to get an answer (even though Liam was able to Google “what is cocktail attire?” and get an answer in seconds.  Ian should’ve asked him to look up his question as well).  

Ian goes to the Milkovich house and it’s so fucking OOC I don’t even want to think about it.  For whatever reason, Ian politely says, “Hi, Mr. Milkovich,” when Terry answers the door-why would he even bother?  Terry’s not big on manners, for one thing, and for another, the last time Ian saw Terry he was flipping him off as he was being carted back to prison.  Don’t think Terry’s going to be warmed over by a polite greeting.  Anyway, Ian asks him about being in the pen, and Terry says there’s ass and mouth rapings that Ian would probably enjoy, shitty food, and beat downs from the guards.  Ian asks if Terry was mouth raped (I think he specified that, I didn’t put it in my notes) and Terry indignantly says that Milkoviches don’t “bottom”.  Ian says, “Was Mickey adopted?” and I can’t tell if he was trying to piss Terry off or if he was genuinely curious, but as a joke it didn’t work-Ian knows (or the old Ian did, anyway) better than anyone that Mickey was absolutely nothing like Terry, in any way, not just in sexual preferences.  Another OOC comment to just make the viewer weep thinking about the old days.  Also, having Terry know, let alone USE, the term bottom was also OOC in the extreme.  He might as well have said, “All Milkoviches are cishet.”  It would’ve been just as believable.  

But back to the scene.  Ian says, “Rapings, food, guards-I can handle that shit.  I just need to know...” Terry interrupts him.  “Anyone can handle that shit.  (Again, me at home: Really?)  It’s the boredom that’ll kill ya...Start reading books, lifting weights...”  (Mickey already told him that about juvie AND prison-how dense is Ian that he never got it?)  “But you’re in the same place, with the same assholes, doing the same shit, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every god damn year.  If I was you I’d pack my shit and run.”  

Ian’s face while he’s running down all the segments of time seems to look like Terry’s getting through to him.  And Terry telling him to take off is actually the best advice Ian winds up getting-in the long run Terry seems to care about keeping Ian out of prison more than his own family.  Terry easily could’ve slammed the door in Ian’s face and ignored him.  Does that mean I forgive Terry at all for everything he did to Mickey, Mandy, and Ian-not to mention his other sons and Svetlana?  FUCK NO.  But how telling is it that this show is now so bad that a villainous piece of shit like Terry is the one character we are listening to and agreeing with?  

One last thing about Terry-he just got out, but he knows Mickey’s in Mexico?  How?  I’m hoping this is a set up for Ian being able to find Mickey next week (or at the end of the season if we have to wait that fucking long), but this show doesn’t do continuity anymore, so I’m sure there’s no logical explanation for Terry knowing that fact.  

Fi goes to the Gallagher house looking for Ian and finds an empty box of hair dye, and a towel stained with hair dye, and that Ian’s drawers are empty.  I also noticed that his pillow was gone-did he pack that up too?  If so, I’m hoping it’s because he and Mickey shared it and he wanted to keep some part of Mick with him always, but we know this show ain’t about that anymore.  Anyway, Fi goes and tells Lip she thinks Ian skipped bail and they have to go find him.  Lip says no, Ian’s an adult.  This conversation also just took place with Debbie-or takes place right after, the show was so boring I couldn’t keep the repeated scenes straight if you put a gun to my head.  

WHY are the siblings so uncaring about Ian going to prison-or getting caught as a fugitive and spending even more time there?  WHY is everyone so stupid about whether prison is “bad” or not, especially for their apple cheeked, puppy-eyed brother who is dealing with mental illness?  Who may or may not be off his meds at any given time?  Ian couldn’t even handle VISITING Mickey in prison, why does he suddenly think he could do a stretch of multiple years if not decades?  All those years stealing cable and watching bootleg DVDs, did none of the Gallaghers ever watch Oz?  In a prior season it was established that Lip has read so much he was able to determine a Louis Vuitton purse was authentic by the stitching and the lettering-he’s never read about prisons and how they affect young men that are in them for a period of time?  “Hardened criminal” is a phrase he’s never come across?  Lip doesn’t realize how hard Ian’s future as a convicted felon will be when he gets out?  Trying to find a job (especially one with medical benefits), a place to live, all that stuff?  This show is shit.

There’s a meaningless shot of Ian at the train station (we don’t even get to know where he was planning to run to-as if we didn’t know-show us he’s at least headed south, you bastards!) and then there’s a scene where Lip comes home in the dark to find Ian at the kitchen table eating ice cream right out of the Edy’s carton.  (They don’t show us the flavor-it looked like it might be chocolate chip?  I didn’t see any chunks of cookie dough or anything.  Again, this is only important because everything else is so boring that actually knowing what kind of ice cream Ian likes would be interesting in comparison.)  

I guess the ice cream is sort of a metaphor?  Ian’s last sweet taste of freedom?  Or maybe I’m reading too much into it and they just came up with something for the brothers to share and it couldn’t be beer-because of Lip, not because of Ian’s meds because god knows they never cared about that, plus we STILL don’t know if he’s just magically back on them-if he is, how is he paying for them?  Anyway, after Lip’s earlier attitude about Ian being an “adult” and not caring all that much about him ever, he doesn’t deserve ice cream!  Here’s a snippet of their dialogue: 

Lip: So you didn’t run. Ian: Oh no-I ran.  I just...ran back.  (well, at least that’s in character since he ran away to the army and came back, and ran away with Monica and came back, and the fucking Mexican border, but I’m not happy about that fact)

They start listing the things Ian will miss if he’s gone for the next ten years.  Debbie may be married to a woman (I would think her being divorced is more likely, but whatever, I won’t be around to watch it either, I’m gone as soon as Ian’s back with Mickey), Carl will be a war criminal, Liam will be the father of a ten year old, Frank, dead.  Ian asks Lip, “You?”  “Still in AA, if I haven’t drunk myself to death.”  Ian says, “Do me a favor?  Don’t.”  IAN CARES MORE ABOUT LIP THAN LIP CARES ABOUT IAN.  Always has, always will.  “Lip deserves to get out of the ghetto.”  But Lip’s fine with Ian going off to prison because of the whole Gay Jesus thing that he never even began to try to understand or help Ian find a way out of.  This show is shit.

Next there’s a scene of Ian in a suit, dressed for court and talking to his Bible that’s on his bed (still no pillow-weird).  He’s asking Shim to talk to him one last time, maybe give him a hint what he should do.  His voice is soft and pleading and he’s almost in tears and all I can think is he needs Mickey to talk things out with.  Lip comes to the door and says something like they’re all downstairs, it’s time or whatever.  Ian gives the Bible one last look and seems to do a little wink-did he hear something from Shim?  Would it kill this show to let us in on some things?  This show is shit.

His plea hearing was so factually inaccurate it hurt.  His lawyer doesn’t say anything, and when asked what he pleads Ian launches into his entire defense.  And the judge lets him.  OMGJ.  

Again I’m pretty sure I’m witnessing a retcon when Ian says “A young man was being forced against his will into a van to be taken to a conversion camp.”  Um, as I recall (and I won’t rewatch the episodes to get all the exact details, they were too stupid), a young runaway came to the Church of Gay Jesus and claimed his parents were trying to make him get conversion therapy and they were giving him drugs so he couldn’t get erections because they didn’t like the fact that he was gay, but when Ian talked to the dad he said the kid ran away on his own because he suffered from mental illness, was off his meds, and was living on the street and prostituting himself.  As I recall the dad/parents didn’t say anything about conversion, they just wanted him home.  Maybe the dad sought help from the guys in the van because there was no other way to get the kid home-none of this has been established for the court, if nothing else!  This show is shit.

Ian gives a speech in a voice like wimpy Jeremiah trying to convince everyone Jerome was the bad one and it was just lame.  He claims his family loved him unconditionally-since when?  They only gave him crap about being with Mickey, or ignored him.  And then when he became “like Monica” there were definitely conditions on loving him-mainly that he be on his meds.  Right up to this episode they were all going around saying it’s time to let him go-they didn’t love him enough to want to keep him at the house and try to help him!  

Anyway, he then states in open court he was off his meds and in a manic state when he torched the van.  Then he looks back at Fiona and starts to give a tiny smile right before the credits.  Was he lying to get a lighter sentence and he’s smiling because he got away with it?  Or does he look to her like that because he knows she’ll be proud of him for finally telling the truth even if it disappoints/ruins the GJ movement (that is so implausible as a concept it makes my head ache)?  

By next week the show will be in another writer’s hands and I’ll never get the answer to that question either, I bet.  IF this means the-fucking finally-end to the GJ storyline, I’ll have to be happy enough with that. 

In conclusion let me say that once again the only “great” thing about the episode was ZERO mention of Terror!  

But the rest of the show was shit. 

#Recap #Season Nein Episode 5 #Nobody wants it #So much to hate in this week's episode #They keep finding new depths to sink to

[artificialqueens]

GGG: Girl, Get a Grip! Ch.1 (Alaskatox) - chykopon

A/N: a huge thanks goes first of all to @spokywrites, because without her suggestion i would have already dropped this story, but foremost to @mistressaq, who patiently beta’d this chapter and thaught me a lot about english, lol - she’s such a cutie, and i won’t ever stop thanking her for all the work she put into this; without her, this story wouldn’t even be here ;; (you can find the prologue to this story onto the story tag, and i recommend to read that first) [13K words] A chapter in which Justin realises Matt is just like a Kandinsky’s painting, and Matthew himself has the most clarifying talk he had ever had. 

He was a bit surprised to read Matt’s name on the screen, and he opened the message out of curiosity.

“We broke up.”

Justin read the message few times, before realizing what it meant, thoughts rumbling in his head as if he couldn’t believe what was written there; Cory’s face deformed in a disgusted expression as hot tea drooled from his brother’s mouth in disbelief. Lasky wasn’t really used to shocking news, to the point he simply stopped functioning correctly…

«What?!» he almost screamed, even though nobody was really listening or watching what he was doing. Cory, still startled, was jumping on his seat and cursing towards his big bro.  

«The fuck happened?» he asked from the other side of the table.

Justin’s only reply was a puzzled look. He found himself blinking few times, desperately trying to process what he had just read. There was such a casual look in that simple message, that Justin couldn’t actually believe Matt – who was always a reserved person, more reserved than an introvert like Lasky had always been – had written it. Moreover to the fact that few nights before everything seemed going quite smooth, even though Justin knew Matthew wasn’t someone really used to established relationship.

He coughed, trying to regain a linear process of thought. Wondering about how odd it was to be receiving such a message from Matt had made him slightly lose contact with reality.

He pursed his lips and furrowed his brows as if he was feeling guilty: it seemed like what he did two nights before had a main role in that unlucky event. Something along the line of oh my god, I unconsciously craved so much to fuck with Matt despite his boyfriend, that they actually broke up.

It was an irrational thought, of course, but Justin’s mind worked in some odd ways. Even he didn’t know what his brain was doing sometimes.

He fidgeted in his seat, suddenly feeling as if a large weight had suddenly been dropped on his shoulders. Ignoring Cory’s question, he set aside his breakfast: he felt his stomach suddenly closing as he realized how horrible Matt would be feeling, and how he was completely unable to comfort people even when they really need it. He started typing violently on his phone with worry growing in his mind and spreading to his face.

“Are you okay? Wanna talk about it?”

Once he sent the message, Justin sighed loudly, his face still contorted in an uneasy expression. He wasn’t the right person to deal with these things. Justin set his elbow on the kitchen table, resting his chin on his open palm, musing. If Cory wanted, he could have probably heard his big brother thinking, seeing how concentrated he was, examining in his mind all different situations in which he could manage to handle Matt’s broken heart. Fantasy. Justin wasn’t able to fix his own wounded soul.

It was bizarre how just two days before they were talking about how fucked up Justin’s love life was, and the one ending with a broken heart had actually been Matt. Call it fate, a bad puns fate, actually. Pursing again his lips, Justin couldn’t stop overthinking how it was even possible, and what in the hell happened for it to end like this.

He didn’t know how funny he looked, all those different worried expressions switching upon his face.

He tensed in his seat. He really hadn’t expected something like this. He wasn’t supposed to be prepared to handle this, since Matthew didn’t really speak about it.

Cory sighed, having come to terms with the fact that his brother was totally on another planet. He’d tried to get Justins attention a few times by waving his hands in front of the others face, to no avail.

Was Matt really heartbroken? Justin realized he didn’t even know Matt’s boyfriend’s name, or when they got together. Had Matthew ever talked about him? Did Justin know him? He raised a hand to his forehead, realizing how sweaty he was from worry. Worry that was growing, as he was facing the fact he didn’t have a single clue about Matthew’s personal life. This sudden realization made him yet more uncomfortable. He felt the urge to distract himself, fiddling with his hair.

Less than 48 hours before, Justin was feeling ashamed for jerking off thinking about one of his best friends. He thought they were at that point of their friendship where they could consider themselves like that – in one way or another. Suddenly he was coming to terms with the fact he didn’t actually know a fucking thing about Matt’s life. Could he still call Matthew a friend?

Yeah, they opened up with each other in a way Justin had done with no one else, but analyzing how their relationship developed throughout the years, he realized how odd it had been. It was always Justin whining about things, Matt patiently listening– never the other way around.

Sometimes it was Matthew telling about the guy he took home after one of his performances, and other times it was Justin asking how he felt about that particular news involving Matt he got to know from social networks and never from Matt himself.

He couldn’t remember a single time in which Matthew voluntarily started talking about his problems.

Widening his eyes in sudden epiphany, Justin shot a look at his phone as another worried feeling added to his now tremendous discomfort and uneasiness. The thought he had somehow invaded Matt’s privacy, asking him about his break up was building inside his mind, along with the concrete fear he hit the point of no return in a relationship he didn’t even know if he could still call “friendship”. Not only he had been the worst of friends, he was now pushing Matthew to talk about private stuff, even though he probably hadn’t the right to.

Cory was giggling, watching a whole range of different odd expressions mutating and warping his brother’s face. He wondered what in the hell he was thinking to make him act so anxious and out of place in his own house.

Justin was quite the master in making a fuss about nothing.

After all, Matthew was the one sending the first message, so he did nothing wrong, right? Right, Justin tried to convince himself, biting his lips while playing with his nails as if they were the most interesting thing in that exact moment.

Justin was really good at fucking things up. He was good at counting chickens, before they hatch.

Matthew sometimes spoke about his family, his friends, his relationships, but he always told funny stories – about his sister Heather, wasted in his kitchen, using the mixer in the wrong way – she was trying a new detox smoothie recipe… ironic – or how the twink he took home the night before threw up vodka and hamburger on Matthew’s thighs.

Justin fell on the couch, exhausted by all that over-thinking. Only 15 minutes had passed, but to him it seemed like a whole hour– maybe more, as if he spent an entire day pondering about things he didn’t really know about, constantly feeling that he wasn’t slightly near the solution.

He always over thought things, and that was the reason why he fucked things up so often. As long as he was busy with work, he didn’t have enough time to consider the answer to life, universe and everything – it’s “42”, by the way – but when the touring, recording and performing stopped – and it was always for barely a month – he usually found himself replaying things in his head again and again and again.

Justin wasn’t flawless, because Justin wasn’t Alaska. He played a character he didn’t really have the guts to emulate in real life. But there still were lots of things he and Lasky shared, but while Alaska Thunderfuck was the Queen of Snakes from another planet, ready to seduce you, and then leave you a minute after, Justin was the kind of guy who grew affectionate toward people in a really small amount of time, investing too much of himself in every single fucking relationship.

Justin knew Matthew cared for him; he remembered him saying how much he loved him a bunch of times. But it was not a sufficient reassurance to stop Justin from convincing himself he was always doing something wrong. He threw his head back onto the couch, searching for a bit of comfort while his head suddenly started aching as if he was experiencing the worst sickness he had ever had in his whole life.

As he grew stronger about his self confidence towards some things, the constant fear he would do something irreparable grew too.

The fact was: if he had been on a date with Rick – and if he and Matt had had the consequent talk – just a month before, while he was still touring Australia, he wouldn’t be pining over all these uncalled thoughts. He would have jerked off to Matthew, waking up the next day as if nothing ever happened. He would have buried himself in the work, and never spend another second on the subject.

But unluckily for him, it happened now, when he had enough time to stress himself over drawing conclusions about his life.

His phone buzzed and Justin quickly opened the new message as if it was a matter of life or death.

“Not really”

Well, he fucked up. He threw his phone aside, a loud sigh bursting from his lips, shutting his eyes as if it was just a nightmare and he would wake up few moments after, realizing it had all been in his head and he didn’t jerked off on Matt in the first place.

It was so obvious he didn’t have the right to ask Matt about his private life, even though Matthew was the first one to bring it on. How could he call himself “his friend”, when they didn’t talk for months, and they rarely see each other during tours and they both were in LA at the same time. Obviously, Matt didn’t want to open up with someone who was almost barely part of his life.

Sure, when they had the opportunity, they would go clubbing together. And they would have fun together while touring the States and before and after every performance, but Justin had done it with quite a few of his colleagues, as long as he knew them enough to trust them just a tiny bit. But with Matthew he had always felt at ease… until that wank of misfortune – a good nickname, he thought.

His phone rang and lazily moving towards the object, he picked up the call without looking; he wasn’t quite in the mood to answer, but he was committed to his work and his own private life, to the point he wouldn’t miss answering his phone even with the worst flu.

«Yes?» his voice was tired as if he just finished taking part in a gig and just got off a 12-hour-flight.

«I thought you were gonna say “hieeee”».

Justin startled, suddenly raising from the couch as he recognized the voice from the other end of the phone. It was Matthew.

«I thought it was someone-else» Justin replied, trying to get a grip. His eyes shifted among the furniture of his living room, desperately trying to conjure up something to say, all while all the thoughts formed few moments before were still rattling in his head with no real sense.

«Are you cheating on me?» Matt joked, trying not to laugh. And Justin could clearly hear how he tried to muffle his laughter, probably covering his mouth with his free hand.

«I would never» Justin drawled, playing along. He heard Matt’s laughter, and a smile bent on his lips, feeling like things had gone back to how they were before Justin’s over-thinking had even started. Matthew had this skill of his, to always make Justin comfortable even in the oddest situations.

He bit his lip, a now happy – but still kind of worried – look upon his face, and then he continued: «I actually thought I’ve messed up» he confessed, crossing his long legs, while making himself comfortable on the couch. It took him a bit of courage to actually say it out loud, but due to the fact Matthew seemed to always be the right person in the right moment, Justin usually felt as if he could entrust to him even his darkest secrets…

«The fuck?!» and Justin could figure Matt’s furrowing his brows in a puzzled look by his voice’s tone, as if he was standing there in front of him; Justin could imagine him, looking at him with his usual skeptical glance, a bit of sarcasm in the way his barely visible eyebrows arched upon his forehead. Matthew always had that judgmental look upon his face, and he was the type of guy to not keep quiet in front of Justin’s bullshit, but still Lasky always felt as if there was nothing really shady in the way Matt often glanced him, and instead something more like the sincere worry of someone who actually cared.

If Justin simply took all those things for granted, he wouldn’t have a problem in the first place, but, well…

One of the few – many, actually – problems that made Justin’s personality so fucking twisted was that he couldn’t refrain from the urge to speak about his most superficial worries, even when they were totally uncalled for. While on the other hand he had never been able to talk about his inner and deepest troubles. The ones he, well, should actually confess…

«I don’t know» Justin drawled again, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to hide that expression, which seemed to be to crack up in tears, «I felt like I was intruding your privacy…»

Matthew stayed silent for a time that seemed an entire year – it actually lasted less than five seconds – and Justin found himself holding his breath; in less than a blink of an eye, he replayed in his head all the different outcomes of that conversation, each one ending with Matthew suddenly hanging up the phone.

«Lasky,» Matt said annoyed, and Justin could hear a testily sigh coming from his lips «the fuck are you saying?!»

Justin gulped, caught off guard. Ok, that was a situation he hadn’t depicted in his mind yet. He gasped for few seconds, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t incredibly stupid.

«I—»

But Matthew abruptly interrupted him: «If I didn’t want you to be part of my over-dramatic reaction and whining compilation about my recent break up, I wouldn’t have messaged you, Jesus!» he blurted, «You’re always making a fuss about nothing, stop worrying about stupid things! I thought you were smarter than that! I don’t want stupid friends!»

Matt was probably annoyingly waving his hand in the kind of fed up gesture he usually directed to Justin, especially when he was giving one of his bratty tantrums; Justin smiled. There was something oddly familiar and warm in Matt’s reply, something Justin had grown accustomed to without even realizing it. Something that reminded him of how paternally Matthew had always treated him… Aware of it or not, Matt gave him the reassurance he needed. A bit of it, at least…

«What about Michael, then?» Justin tried to change the subject, fearing he could just fuck things up more than what he had done before if they kept talking about that issue.

Matthew laughed loudly, «You shady bitch! I’m gonna tell him!»

Justin echoed him, stretching his legs, Roxxxy was always the good comic interlude in their conversation. He raised his head to look at his brother calling for him and now whispering something like “I’m going out, I’m not coming home for lunch.”Justin nodded, trying to pace his breath, still laughing.

«You wouldn’t!» he then started again, while the conversation seemed to regain their usual casual tone.

«Try me» Matt challenged, and Justin knew he was smiling viciously as he usually did, because at least about few things, he knew Matthew better.

«What’s the price of your silence?» he still got along with the joke – it was how they usually interacted with each other; mocking and annoying. «I can offer oral sex on the plate» he smiled mischievously because he meant it, but Matthew didn’t know it, so everything was fine.

«I’m not in the mood—God, I thought I would never, in my whole life, refuse an explicit sex offer, I think I really got old…» for just a moment, probably out of desperation or maybe exhaustion, Justin hoped Matthew would catch the ball, and remove the hook he had grown attached to during those days. Somehow, he felt as if Matthew had been the one taking the first steps. Getting him laid would fix things as they were before…

«Well, if you’re getting old you could try “grannies”, Redtube has a good section», he kept joking, comedic relief was the strongest shield he knew.

Matthew coughed, trying to contain his laughter, «I’m not gonna ask you how you know that—»

but Justin cut in «…or you could be the “granny” on the Redtube’s section».

Matthew kept silent for a moment, and Justin tried really hard to not giggle at his own bad – horrible – pun.

«…is that shade to that awful porn video I made?»

«Maybe?» and Justin waited with an amused look for a reply.

«You bitch!»

Justin chuckled.

«Can we just forget that video even exists? They called me “Detops” on Reddit for months!»

Justin heard him rambling, but he still couldn’t stop himself from laughing even harder; it was fucking hilarious hearing Matthew overreacting, Justin knew how much he cared for his top status, to the point he couldn’t miss reminding it to others every now and then, «Me! Detops! The self proclaimed West Hollywood’s toppest top!» Justin giggled, you sure are in my fantasies, he raised his glance to the ceiling trying to get a grip of himself and concentrate on the conversation.

«So, if I forget you did the worst porn video on Drag Race herstory, will you keep silent about me doubting Roxxxy’s smartness?» Justin suggested, still snickering. Of course he wouldn’t really forget about it – he couldn’t since he actually masturbated to it a few – too many – times. He didn’t know if it was more shameful to have jerked off to a friend’s porn video, or the fact that that same porn video was one of the worst he had ever happened to see.

«Mhhh…» mumbled Matthew, and Justin waited holding his breath, feeling as if he was years younger and he was asking his high school’s crush to come to the prom with him, «what about taking me out for lunch?»

Justin blinked. He wasn’t prepared to hear that, and it made his “fantasy” about the prom night thing quite real, to the point it seemed almost a scripted quote. «Well… ok» he answered, still a bit shocked.

Justin got up from the couch and headed to his room. The fact was, he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to speak with Matt vis-à-vis, even though he was too conscious of the fact that, well, they really should. He was still feeling a bit uncomfortable towards Matt, and it was so fucking wrong in so fucking many ways it seemed he entered the Matrix and a glitch happened.

«I didn’t want burnt soy noodles anyway» he joked, but there still was T in what he said: Justin Andrew Honard and cooking were proclaimed arch-enemies. It was the first thing that came into his mind actually, but he spared him one of those odd silent moment, which would betray him and his worries.

«I’m gonna go get ready, and I’m there in half an hour— Mel’s?»

«Mel’s» replied Matthew, his voice warm as usual «but take your time, I’m still in the bathtub».

Justin stood still for a moment not sure if he actually did understand what the other one said: «…why are you taking a bath at 11 in the morning?» he frowned with a perplexed look shading his eyes: but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining those long, fit legs stretching under the water just like Matthew always did in his snapchat’s stories. Maybe firmly bent on his bed, while his own legs were wrapped around Matt’s hi— he stopped, hardly biting his lower lip, too conscious of where those thoughts would lead him.

«Some fans gave me these Lush’s bath bombs… I thought it was a good way to treat myself to a post-break up», Matthew sing songed with his lowest and hoarsest tone, and Justin shivered. This wasn’t helping at all, and instead made Justin’s fantasy grow stronger as a vivid dream. Now he was in the bathtub along with him, sitting onto his lap, his long and skinny arms embracing him, while his plump lips peeked on his shoulders…

«Well, it is» Justin drawled, trying to ignore the hard-on which now bulged from his pants. Fuck, why was he so fucking horny these days?! «So, 12 o'clock?» he asked again, deciding it was a better idea to head to the bathroom first.

«Yeah, 12’s fine, see you there, girl, love you».

«Me too, byeee~»

Justin ended the call and found himself sitting on the toilet, pants already down his ankles: he wasn’t that surprised how he had grown used to this in less than a week. Replaying Matthew’s voice in his head and restarting his galloping fantasies from where he stopped, he grabbed his own cock; his head resting against the bathroom’s wall. He had half an hour to spend before getting ready, so he better enjoy himself, right?

Mel’s was quite famous world-wide, a 50’s styled diner on Sunset Boulevard, in which both Justin and Matthew ate the first time they moved to LA. It was a must for whomever chose to live in West Hollywood, “You haven’t been to Mel’s? Really?”, Justin remembered taking Cory there the first time his brother came to visit. And he had to admit it was one of the few cheap diners to offer an actually good vegetarian option.

He usually preferred take away to sit-down meals, the meat’s smell really did make him nauseous, but luckily for him – even though a drive-in was still a drive-in – Mel’s had tables outside, so Justin could stand the air full of grilled hot dogs and patties. It was one of the reasons he kept coming back, to the point he grew really affectionate to the place.

Thinking back, Justin realized that every time he and Matthew went out for lunch – it was not a rare thing, actually – they usually ended up eating at Mel’s, like some subconscious influence in considering Mel’s something like their place. It was less than 10 minute walk from Justin’s new house on Shoreham Drive, so it became quite the diner, whenever he didn’t feel to cook – three times a week, actually – to the point he considered Mel’s not only cozy, but also intimate, the perfect place where you could have an important talk with your friends.

Matthew, sitting on the other side of the table, lit a cigarette and offered the open package to Justin. He had that beard scruff he didn’t take care for surely more than two days, which made him even sexier than he usually was. And Justin’s irrational thoughts wondered how would it feel, his chin scratching onto his back, while his hands were grasping his hips– Justin returned to earth and lowered his glance to the smoking package with a startled look. «No, thanks, I don’t smoke.»

«You definitively quit?» Matt asked with a surprised look, while taking a good whiff from his Winston. He was really gorgeous when he raised his hand to his lips, kissing the cigarette. Justin wondered how he hadn’t realized before.

«Sometimes I do», admitted Lasky, crossing his legs in a desperate attempt to focus onto the conversation. His mind was all over the place, too invested in both thinking too much of how he should act like everything was fine, and trying to erase from his mind the memories of those few quality minutes he had spent in his own bathroom, before heading to the diner.

He needed to make conversation: «But not during lunch-time, how can you? I mean, doesn’t it taste disgusting afterward?» not that Justin was really interested in an answer, but it seemed like as good a subject as any.

Matt giggled sardonically, «Seriously? You know a heavy smoker doesn’t actually give a shit about taste, as long as he can have his smoke-breaks».

Justin chuckled: it was true. Once he started smoking during Drag Race’s filming, he didn’t actually give a fuck about the fact that all his – poor – meals would taste like ashes and burnt tobacco, as long as he could take a break from all the stress going on inside the walls. Out of the show, his stress-relief was doing laundry. Justin chuckled as he realized that he was slowly becoming a fifties TV housewife. To each his own.

«But you aren’t a heavy smoker, are you?» he asked, realizing what Matthew actually said. Since he remembered, Matt was one of those smokers who usually lit three or four cigarettes during a gig; smoking was something more like an excuse to relax his nerves before and after a flight, not something he had ever been really addicted to… or at least, he was the last time Justin had seen him. Two months before. 90 days is such a long time without seeing each other to call themselves “friends”.

As he ended that sentence, Justin had a return of one of that morning’s many epiphanies: he really didn’t know Matthew as well as he thought. Matt had maybe reassured him a tiny bit about their friendship in some crooked and unaware ways, but the truth was Justin didn’t know a lot about Matt’s behavior and life out of drag. Yeah, he could read him – by every meaning of the word. He knew how Matthew would react to a lot of things; he knew what to expect from him, but besides those things… had Matt ever had a pet? He didn’t have a clue. How did Matt spend his time during breaks? He didn’t know.

For a normal person, all those things would be sufficient to put his mind at rest, after all,  nobody knows someone so well without sharing an intense amount of time with that person, but Justin was a really fucked-up man with too much time to spend pondering about pointless things.

«I smoked a bit too much in the last few weeks» Matthew admitted, chugging a good amount of smoke on his side. Justin was torturing his own lips, his glance waving onto all Matt’s facial features, outlining the eyes, that straight jaw line, the prominent cheekbones. A hand raised to his chin as Justin assumed that position he always reverted to when he was deep in thought, disconnecting himself from the real world.

«…was it because of the break-up? I mean, things weren’t going well?» Lasky asked. As he finished his sentence, he realized he maybe didn’t have the right to ask, since Matthew said he didn’t really want to talk about it; but he was curious.

His glance tightened as if trying to take down the façade of Matthew’s. Except Matt wasn’t like Justin, he didn’t actually put up a front, it was more like he was always just closed off; Matt’s genuine self was Justin’s fake self.

Oh, he was so fucking curious, maybe out of contrition from realizing what a bad friend he had been. Maybe he was just searching for a solution to rest his confused conscience. But he came to terms with the fact that friends don’t act like that, so he quickly tried to make up for his  misspeak.

«Sorry,» he said, fidgeting in his seat, «I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—»

Matt gave him a kind of funny puzzled look. «Justin, the fuck are you saying?» he asked, maybe calmer than intended. Justin could see in that glance that Matthew seemed…  disappointed. He must admit he hadn’t ever behaved like that towards him, and even though he was trying his best to appear normal, to disguise his worries, he probably failed across the board, since Matt called him out on it.

«You’re acting so weird from this morning…» he reached for Justin’s hand on the table.

His touch was one of the warmest Justin had ever experienced. Probably because he wasn’t really used to the kind of worried expression Matthew wore right then. He knew Matt cared for a lot of people, and he knew, even though he was the outspoken but still the private type of guy, he hadn’t ever hidden how much he cared for the people he loved. Still, things between them had always been different. Something more like: we know we care but we don’t talk about it. They were not those friends who usually hug each other, or kiss one another on the cheeks, or something like that… they were more like “you know, if you need me, you can call”. Something more like Lasky watching Matthew when he had a breakdown in the werk room during the show, and vice versa.

Justin sighed, realizing that on the weight scale, the plate was still onto Matthew. Matthew, who was reaching for him. Matthew, who had always been there. Matthew, who always comforted him, and Matthew, who despite being heartbroken and post break up, was now worried for him.

Great, Justin thought, we went out for lunch to comfort Matt after his break up, and we end like usual, with me whining about something.

«Are you ok?» Matthew asked with a bit of worry, catching Justin off guard for the third time in less than four hours.

I’m not okay, he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Not now and not there. It wasn’t something he felt ready to face right now– maybe ever. Time to put that acting degree to good use.

«Yeah, I’m fine» he said, retrieving his hand from the other’s touch. «Don’t mind me, I have lots of things on my mind… let’s talk about you».

He meant it, he really did, even though the situation made him more uncomfortable than he originally thought. Matt pouted, clearly not buying it, but luckily for Justin he simply decided to go along with the lie, Justin theorized, because he was a too good person. Matt knew him better to just buy such a low-level lie, and the feeling of having been so quickly unmasked made him uneasy.

«It wasn’t because we were gonna break-up, by the way» Matt answered Justin’s first question. His eyes wandered over the table’s surface; to Justin he seemed to be trying to grasp words fading into his mind, «Lots of things happened during the last weeks» he paused, taking a final drag off his cigarette. Justin recognized this as a frequent nervous habit of Matthew’s, and he considered if he should ask what was worrying his friend or just let the subject fade given Matthew’s obvious discomfort.

Before he could manage to say a word, Matthew said «Laurie decided to move out».

Laurie? Justin fidgeted again, stretching his legs and then crossing them again. Ah! He suddenly remembered, feeling a bit ashamed to have forgotten – just for a moment, though – about Matthews’ lesbian roommate and best friend.

«You know, she’s in a long term relationship, she’s really in love, so they decided she should move in with her girlfriend…» Matt continued, pursing his lips and Justin simply listened. He couldn’t understand if he was pissed or maybe just sad. Matthew often reminded Justin of a Kandinsky’s painting: beautiful and cryptic. No one could understand him, once he had been taken out of context, or better, out of his comfort zone.

It was odd; he wasn’t really used to Matthew talking about private stuff, but at the same time he felt kind of relieved, like his complaining about feeling not really close to Matt had been heard and the solution had been dropped by heaven. He felt a bit childish and selfish, enjoying himself in the moment of personal sharing, especially since Matt was obviously feeling down.

Matthew confirmed just a moment after: «…I feel like shit».

It was not the first time he heard Matthew saying things along those lines, but the other times it was always one of those dressing-room whines they usually shared while getting in drag. This time was different: Justin could sense a beaten and shaken tone in Matt’s voice. It was downright destabilizing. He wasn’t prepared.

Matthew had always been one of the strongest people he had ever met, but getting to know him, he learned he was also a really emotive man. The type to cry over a news story about a trans teen’s suicide. It really happened, and Justin remembered how Michael spent an entire hour, rubbing Matthew’s back as he couldn’t stop crying.

Maybe Matt was totally aware of that, and that was the reason why he was always trying to get a hold of himself, and when he didn’t succeed, he would try to be the funny or irreverent one. Justin sat motionless, his face blocked in that same puzzled and a bit worried expression of someone unsure of how he’s supposed to react.

«I’m happy for her, I truly am» Matthew continued, «but a lot happened, and I’m not really in the mood to be left alone, last week Heather got in a car accident—»

Justin widened his eyes, jumping onto his seat with probably more drama than was called for. «Your sister got in a car accident?!»

Matthew startled at Justin’s sudden shift.

«Yeah…» he answered with a bewildered look, «Didn’t I mention it?»

Justin shook his head out of shock, wondering how the fuck you could forget something so important in the first place.

«Well, she’s fine now, but she’s still in the hospital, you know, for check-ups and things like that…» Justin stood still, watching his friend light another cigarette. He caught all of Matt’s gestures, and even though he was still gasping, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how stressed and beaten he should be and how insensitive he himself had been toward him, not noticing all the symptoms before.

Matt lowered a bit the cap on his head, probably trying to hide his face, though Justin caught his watering eyes anyway. Matthew hadn’t ever cried directly in front of him, probably because he was too aware and too caught up in the consciousness of how strong Justin considered him. Something like I don’t want to crash the idea of me he had built inside his mind.

«You should have called me…» Justin said without even thinking, and Matthew raised his eyes, catching the lanky man’s frown and worried look. It wasn’t an expression Justin would direct to just anyone, rather it was something really intimate he would keep for people he really trusted. Matt knew because he had seen that glance just one other time, directed to Aaron. If he had the ability in that exact moment, he would have blushed.

«You were busy with your work, I don’t want to trouble people about my problems» Matthew came up with an excuse the moment he regained awareness of the world surrounding him. He’d been too caught up in those blue icy eyes Justin was staring at him with; it was as if he could get lost in Justin’s unfathomably blue eyes.

But you certainly called Michael, Justin thought and regretted right after. He realized with a kind of horror how he really wanted to be something like the core of Matthew’s world.

«It was nothing, really, but you know, I’m always a bit too shocked when it’s about car-accidents… »

Justin slowly nodded; well, yeah, he knew, but they haven’t really spoken about that, and Justin could simply imagine how someone with Matt’s experience should feel towards the subject.

«So it was you know, stressful, with Laurie moving out and being  busy with her own life… and when things go for the worst and your relationship starts to waver, you know it’s time to end it».

Oh, yeah, Justin knew. Repressed memories of countless arguments buried inside the darkest spot of his mind threatened to resurface with the strength of a slap to his face. Justin knew too well, and he felt the exhaustion of being aware of the fact he simply couldn’t help him. He felt unarmed and useless. He tried to hide it, pursing his lips and making himself comfortable onto his seat.

«I know,» Justin drawled, «it happened with all my boyfriends…» he then commented, with a softer tone, and even though he didn’t speak it out loud, both he and Matthew knew he was talking about Aaron in particular. It was just a small relief, but Justin hoped it would be sufficient for the moment; something like saying you’re not alone, and there are lots of people who already experience what you’re going through and they came back quite… well. Justin maybe wasn’t the best example, but while he knew that knowing you’re not alone doesn’t actually fix things, seeing Matthew stretching his lips with a small and tired smile made him feel it actually worked. Somehow.

Justin, realizing there was no way to actually relieve him for that pain, tried at least to cheer him up with the worst joke he could come up with.

«Do you believe in life after love?»

And Matt actually laughed, not because of the joke itself, but because seeing Justin trying to hold his best – fake – serious looking was fucking hilarious.

«Bitch!» Matthew said, punching lightly Justin’s arm, «Don’t ever try to Cher me again!» he threatened, but he couldn’t stop chuckling.

Lasky smiled, seeing in that laughter the cheerful Matthew he had grown fond of giving him a sense of accomplishment.«Sorry ‘bout it» Justin mocked again, and this time he couldn’t really refrain himself to burst out laughing, while Matthew glanced him with the worst fake annoyed look he could wear.

«I swear I’m gonna shit down your pantyhose if you don’t stop!»

For a moment, Justin forgot all the worrying thoughts he had had in the last few days, and thought that he couldn’t expect any better solution to all the drama he built up – by himself – than ending with both of them laughing, and the reassurance that all his worries were actually a huge delusional stream of consciousness.

He was a fucking weirdo. Because if he hadn’t jerked off to Matt, he wouldn’t have been so overly obsessed with his friend in the first place. But that was Justin and the way his weird-ass mind worked.

They were still giggling when the waiter came back with their meals. Justin caught the way Matthew glanced at the young man. He noticed how that guy seemed to resemble the typical guy Matt had a sweet spot for. Justin thanked the man with an amused smile that guy didn’t know what was about, and then bit his lips in the effort to choose the right words in his mind. For a normal person, the subject had reached its end but Justin was not a normal person: ok, he and Matthew were friends, he masturbated thinking of him, because he was sexually frustrated, and life now could go on as usual.

But not for Justin. His wet dreams had been only an excuse for him to ponder about how his friendship with Matthew developed throughout the years. Because Matt was one of those friends who literally happens in life.

They met when he moved in LA, and he was looking at Detox as someone to admire, then there was Drag Race season 5, and they grew closer because it was a kind of forced move, and he was way weaker than what he was right now. Matt had always been closer to Michael, though. They started together in Orlando, they knew each other way before than meeting Justin, and it was okay, really.

But then there had been BOTS. And Justin had lots of chances to become closer with Matt, but he was in that part of his life where he could barely stand on his feet, and Aaron was the only thought in his mind. Then the breakup. And Matthew was there, even though Justin was still in Pittsburgh. He never really told him about it face-to-face, Matt knew because gossip was the core of drag communities.

Justin remembered crying so desperately he could barely speak for the whole night, while Matthew was patiently listening to his sobbing on the phone.

But their relationship never really grew from that point. There had been tours, performances, and he came back to West Hollywood, but besides going clubbing, eating out, and going out for a coffee together, there hadn’t been any real progress in how they approached each other.

Justin realized that somehow he had always been obsessed with becoming closer to Matt, and at the same time he realized he was the one who never really did a thing about it.

All Stars 2 had been quite bizarre. Because they argued a lot. But at the same time, something grew stronger, and it maybe was because it seemed like Matt had accepted not only the funny, crazy – kind and sweet – faces of Justin’s personality, but also his bratty and whining attitude. They still didn’t see each other often, but Justin had felt at ease in Matt’s company for a long time now.

Seeing things in this way, he couldn’t really claim more. The fuck you want, now, Justin?

He didn’t know, actually. So he simply spoke as word resurfaced from his mind: «It’s the first time you open up this way with me», he drawled, avoiding the other’s glance. He played with his meal, trying to seem at least a bit more interested in what he was doing than what he was saying.

Matthew raised his glance from the hamburger he was eating, to cross Justin’s fake relaxed look from the other side of the table; he knew he was hiding something, and smiling and pursing his lips, he tried to see through Lasky’s mask, «Really?»

Justin smiled, nodding.

«You never asked» said Matt, munching. Checkmate.

It was true. He opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it right after, furrowing his brows, as if he wasn’t really sure of what he was supposed to answer now.

«But—» Justin tried, with an astonished look, «it’s not something you ask, I mean, if you’re feeling down, you just talk to your friend, don’t you?» and he searched the other’s face for some kind of confirmation, never to arrive.

Instead, Matthew smiled, the same expression he usually wore when someone complimented him.

«I’m not like you» Matthew answered and it seemed like a criticism, even though Matt was chuckling, «I don’t want to push my problems over my friends, and let me be honest, you’re pretty fucked up to be the one listening and giving advice».

Justin giggled, even though for a moment he seriously weighed the idea of being offended by that comment, «I am» he confessed, because he was too self-conscious of him being a freak to lie about it, «but you can call, when you need help» and he knew that what he really meant was you should call. Justin didn’t know if he actually could be of any help… he was not good in dealing with people in general, he didn’t know how to approach people feeling down, he didn’t know how to comfort even his most close friends, but he knew he wanted to be of help, «We are close, aren’t we?» and the he asked what was rumbling in his mind for three days straight, because in the end Justin needed reassurance. As usual. He didn’t know where he actually found the strength to speak it out loud, but he did. Regretting it just two seconds after.

Matthew smiled, touching Justin’s foot with his own under the table in a gestures that seemed like an answer by itself, all while smiling, «We are».

And they talked about so many different things – gossips mainly – for two more hours without the awkwardness they felt at first, and Justin thought that everything was fine. He thought he simply had had a break down, and pondering about the day once he arrived home, he realized that it all started because Matt in the first place had called him that morning. He laughed at himself, realizing how stupid he had acted throughout the day – and the whole week, actually – sometimes he didn’t even understand how his own mind worked, making him overthink things which weren’t even a problem.

Things between him and Matthew had always been fine, he just made a fuss over nothing… didn’t he?

It was a step in the right direction, so he thought that all his dirty fantasies were a freakish Freudian – he didn’t really know if it was something Freud-related – way in which his brain was trying to point out to him how he really should take more care of his friendships.

He was ashamed, having wasted so much time worrying and being bothered because he wanted to be fucked by Matthew, instead of being bothered because he was worried about Matthew in the first place. But he thought that now he had all the time to take care of their friendship, and treat him in the proper way, without everything always being about Justin.

He went to bed, exhaling a relieved sigh before slowly falling asleep into Morpheus’ lap, just to wake up few hours after with a huge hard-on to the thought of his last wet dream, where Matt was fucking him harder and harder against a wall.

«Fuck!»

«Hey, gorgeous!» Michael waved from the skype screen, while Matthew cooked in the kitchen.

«Hi, baby!» he greeted, lighting the fire, before turning around to face Roxxxy, who was looking at him from the tablet monitor. It was an important part of Matthew’s daily routine: Roxxxy had always been his closest confidant and friend. Despite living on opposites US coastlines, he simply couldn’t give up on his habitual stress-relieving moment with his favorite Boxxxy Mandrews. Not that they reach for each other every single day, but Matt wouldn’t miss answering Michael’s call even when he had been busy, because Michael knew him better and he always had the right words to say, exactly when Matt needed to hear them.

«How’s it there?»

«Oh, everything’s fine, just had dinner with a bunch of friends» replied Michael, polishing his nails as usual.

They always had this kind of casual chat. Usually lasting less than an hour, “what did you do today?” “how are things going?” and other things along those lines, as if they were hanging out for a coffee,

«What about you? Weren’t you texting me about juicy gossip?» Michael smiled rascally, with a glimpse in his eyes typical of someone who literally lived for such talk.

Matt chuckled loudly. Michael’s smiling face was enough to make him feel at ease.

«Not gossip» he replied, putting the pan on the cooker before starting to shred a huge piece of cheese; he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to call… that. In the way that throwing shade was ‘gossip’.

No, it was more like: my life has been kinda awkward recently and I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to that…? The fact was, there was more bugging Matthew in the back of his head than he led on.

«I had lunch with Lasky today»

Michael gave him a puzzled look, stopping from his nail-care routine and raising his head to match Matthew’s, who was now biting his lip. He seemed quite uncomfortable. Michael also wore an expression explaining that he wasn’t prepared to talk about what they were going to talk about: «And?»

«I—»

«Sorry for interrupting,» started Michael again, pointing to his friend from the screen. «But you really should eat healthier», he commented with a paternal tone and a pissed look.

«Oh, fuck me!» exclaimed Matt, laughing. he knew the totally uncalled for comment was Michael’s way to try to ease the pace of the conversation. He’d probably noticed how nervous Matthew was. Oh, he loved Michael.

«You’re not my real mom!» Matt whined, following the mood.

«And I never will be—» Michael echoed, warmly smiling towards his best friend, noticing Matthew growing more relaxed.

«So what were you saying?»

«I had lunch with Lasky this morning—» Matthew tried again, still avoiding Michael’s glance, fearing the other would be able to read his expression and subsequently read him for filth for it. Matt knew Michael could and would do it at its finest.

«You already said that», pointed out the other mockingly.

Matthew faced him, brandishing a spoon threateningly. «I swear I’m gonna shove this up your ass, if you don’t stop interrupting me!» he said despite his secret gratitude for the interruptions. They gave him time to pick the right words.

Michael raised his hands in surrender, faking a serious face, traces of laughter peeking out from his lips. «Sorry, sorry, go on.»

«I was saying… I had lunch with Justin this morning,» Matthew started again, pursing his lips. he didn’t want Michael to actually understand what was rumbling in his head, so he really tried to seem quite casual towards the subject.

Michael rolled his eyes at the third same clarification. «You know, I was feeling a bit down due to the break-up with James, and Laurie moving out, and Heather’s accident…»

Michael slowly nodded while Matt listed things they’d already talked about on the phone the days before. But then, Matthew was one to repeat himself often, and Michael was by now used to it. He couldn’t hide the fact he was still a bit worried, just like the days before. Matt was the kind of person to keep everything to himself, just to explode in an humongous breakdown, upon hitting the point of no return.

«And you know… I’ve told you about me and Lasky’s talk the other day, didn’t I?» Matthew spoke slowly, too slowly for what Michael was used to, and it made him think that something was wrong. When Matt took his time in talking about things, it was usually because he was trying to sugarcoat it…

«Yeah, you did», Michael commented dryly, his glance sharpening. While he was stared at Matt, he searched for something, a glimpse, a movement upon his face, which would betray him and crash all that pantomime of the collected person Matthew was trying to build himself up to be.

«So I thought it would be good for both of us to just go out, have a little chit chat to distract ourselves» Michael nodded; he knew where they were headed, and he knew how that conversation was gonna end. He knew Matthew too damn well to not know what he should expect.

«But—» Matthew stopped, furrowing his brows, and Michael caught that, widening his eyes as he slowly realized he had been right.

«But?» he asked, expectant. He knew already, yeah, but Michael was looking forward to the moment where Matthew would admit it. It would be the core of all his jokes about Matthew for the next few months.

«But it felt a bit strange?» finally Matt looked back at him perplexed as he kept speaking. He placed his hand on his hip, accommodating himself on one of the kitchen chairs. «I mean, Justin was really weird, he was fidgeting, and acting really odd, he asked if we were close?»

Michael watched Matthew scratching his neck out of nervousness, and he knew something was really upsetting him. Matt was over-confident to the point he wouldn’t let himself look fragile in front of others, and if he wasn’t even trying to hide, it must be because the thing was frigging juicy.

Michael blinked a few times, chuckling, trying to come up with something to make Mathew feel a bit more at ease.

«Well,» he started, «Lasky has always been like that, reaching for people, and then pushing them away just to realize he wants them closer».

Matthew reminded himself to tell Justin to re-think his opinion about Roxxxy’s intelligence.

«He did it a few times with us both» Michael continued, turning his head a bit, as if he was reading a script beside him, trying to focus on what he was supposed to say, «he’s a weirdo, and I don’t mean that in a shady way. He’s a funny, sweet weirdo, but still a weirdo».

Matthew mumbled that he didn’t need clarification about how freakish Justin had always been. «You’re right, but he wasn’t weird like when everything has to be about Lasky, and he’s going crazy because he can’t handle stress», Michael smiled amused: it was a decent read of Justin’s personality.

«It was more like he was walking on eggshells», Matthew continued as if he was Sherlock Holmes in the middle of solving a crime and a solution was just around the corner.

Michael giggled, sing songed, «Unresolved sexual tension~» he accompanied his fluted tone by gesticulating like a conductor.

Matt kept quiet for a second. He opened his mouth, but his jaw snapped shut right after. A thought had just hit him with the strength of an avalanche. He had tried for too long to keep that thought in the most hidden part of his mind and Michael with a simple phrase made everything violently resurface. Matthew was slapped with a reality he had tried to avoid for too many years.

«What the fuck?» He blurted out, trying to seem shocked. He’d overcompensated, judging by Michael’s sardonic grin in the screen.

«Oh, come on!» Michael mocked, hushing him with a movement of his hand, «Back in the werk room, during All Stars 2, I honestly thought we would end up having a threesome. Or at the very least, you two would fuck in the bathroom—»

Matt pursed his lips, trying to mask his horrified expression. «The fuck are you saying?!» he tried again, turning his face to the side, knowing if he just matched looks with Michael again, the other would see through his act. He was already feeling naked enough in that moment. Bury me, he begged a likely non existent God.

«Toxy», Michael called in an oddly paternal way, «look me in the eyes, and tell me you never thought about fucking Justin».

Matthew kept silent, his body tensing while he tried to come up with a sagacious comeback. Too late.

«Ah-ha!» exclaimed then Michael, a winning grin upon his face, raising his arms with a joy you rarely saw outside of sports fans during the Superbowl, «Told ya!»

Matt grunted, annoyed, and it took him a moment to finally decide to face his best friend again, now beaten and unarmed, «Okay, okay, maybe I wondered few times how it would be to fuck Lasky, but that’s it, I don’t see the problem! You know I have a thing for twinks, and even though Justin ain’t one, he’s in the neighborhood… a really lanky twink»

Even Matthew himself didn’t believe what he just said. Michael’s skeptical eyes reinforced how bad at hiding it he was.

It had always been the elephant in the room. Matthew simply hadn’t wanted to address it, until Michael had pointed it out for him. Not that it had ever been a problem per se… the fact was: Matthew knew too damn well how those things would end for the worst, especially when Lasky was involved. So, many years ago, he simply tried to lock those thoughts inside his mind, far from the most conscious part of his brain, and things actually worked for a bit. They went on with their own lives, they acted like normal friends towards each other, and everything was going smooth.

So Matt thought he shouldn’t worry about such a thing from the past. Yeah, it kind of came back once they saw each other during AS2, but nothing happened and everything was fine… wasn’t it?

«Mh-mh—» mumbled Michael again with the same expression of someone who knows everything, «I know, I know, but maybe he’s thinking the same, and you know how he’s awkward in situations like these, he even admitted it».

That was an hypothesis Matthew hadn’t examined yet. They took home a twink together in the past. They did make out, and Matt simply thought that if something was supposed to happen… it should have happened already.

«What?» he asked skeptically. No, Michael couldn’t be right. Well, he was most of the time, except when he was investing too many emotions in someone casually hitting on him, but, well, when it came to Matthew, Michael was always right. Not this time, though. Uh-uh, he shouldn’t—couldn’t be right.

«When he’s bored, he gets really horny, like he hadn’t fucked in years».

Matthew stopped, looking kind of puzzled: «I don’t understand».

«You talked to him about his horrible date with that guy… what was his name?»

«Rick» Matthew answered flatly. Matthew realized how he had taken that whole situation for granted, because in the first place he hadn’t had the occasion to address… He didn’t want, ok, but thinking back about how his and Justin’s relationship developed, he remember how Justin had always had already a boyfriend, before Matt could even prompt to make something out of their… well, unresolved sexual tension. There was no point in denying it anymore.

«Yeah, you talked about his horrible date with Rick, and then you prompted him to take life more easy, and fool around, and maybe fuck someone, and he has probably taken your advice literally…»

As Michael kept talking, a sudden epiphany hit Matthew in the harshest way possible:  «Oh», he commented widening his eyes, and he knew Michael wouldn’t miss that glimpse in his look, betraying him right on the spot. The same shocked expression of someone caught red-handed.

«…what’s “oh”?» Michael prompted: he hadn’t expected this conversation to go this way, and he was confused for a full second. Once he connected all the dots of their little talk and with a bewildered and amused look, a shocked exclamation burst from his lips in the funniest way possible: «Oh my god, Toxy, really?»

Matthew bit his lip guiltily, understanding he couldn’t flee the issue anymore. He shut his eyes , not wanting to face Michael’s judgement. He confessed «I may or I may not have offered him comfort sex…?»

It took Michael a moment to realize what Matthew had just said, and then he raised a hand to his face, hiding it behind his palm in disbelief and exhaustion. «How can you expect him to not act weird, when you offer him sex. You’re friends and you both seemed to want to jump to each other’s bones for years!»

«I was joking!» Matthew tried to justify himself again, pissed by the whole situation. He knew he was somehow guilty, because, in fact, he knew he wasn’t really joking that time but he couldn’t face the fact that it had actually been his fault from the beginning.

«The last time you joked about fucking your friends, we ended up having sex, and it has been weird and awkward for weeks before you got me laid!» Michael switched to a softer tone, knowing that if he kept speaking with that harsh and judgmental voice Matthew would feel attacked and shut him out.

Matthew frowned, pursing his lips. He knew Michael was right… he just didn’t want to admit it. «Yeah, because you’re a bitter and insecure bitch».

Michael opened his mouth in disbelief, seriously offended. Ok, he shouldn’t, because he knew that lashing out was just the way Matthew shielded himself. But still…

«Sorry» Matthew said quickly, realizing how harsh he had sounded, «I didn’t mean it, sorry» he repeated, assuring himself Michael didn’t really get offended, and finding a confirmation in the slight hand gesture the other one made towards him to dismiss the subject. «But, look, seriously, I don’t see the problem, we are grown men, we can fuck with each other and still be friends, it’s called friends with benefits», Matthew said it, but he knew better how casual sex with friends would not work with Justin.

Michael pouted.

«We’re talking about Lasky, you know he takes things too seriously, and he surely can’t handle a relationship based on being friends with benefits».

«We haven’t had sex—»

«—yet. And you actually shared bed with a twink» Michael interrupted.

They stood quiet for a solid minute. Michael could hear Matthew thinking behind the screen. crumbled onto his chair with a pondering expression.

«Look, when it happened between us,» and Michael fidgeted anxiously, «I spent an entire week, thinking about how it could ruin our friendship, and if we were close enough to handle things without one of us being heart-broken or wasted, and if things would be awkward after that, and luckily for us it did go well, but that’s because we knew each other for years, and we have this kind of really close friendship, that makes me realize I really don’t want a relationship with you».

A bittersweet laughter burst from Matt’s lips: «Thank you» he commented sarcastically. He knew what Michael was talking about, but he simply glossed over it. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear.

«I love you, girl, but we’re the most mismatched pair you will ever see!» Michael joked, trying again to ease the pace of the conversation.

«I know, I know…» Matt drawled, but he didn’t really know what to think now, and he probably hid it in the worst way ever, because Michael glanced him with a worried smile upon his face.

«Seriously, Toxy, I think you should talk to him».

And Matthew knew he really should, but how can you start a conversation about having sex with your insecure friend, who’s pondering too much about the implication of being friends with benefits?And for what he knew, Justin could be acting weird because of lots of other things. Maybe he didn’t even mind that Matthew offered him sex, and he took it as a joke – as it supposedly was meant from the beginning – and now Matt was making a fuss about a thing that didn’t even exist.

No, he knew – he was sure – it was due to that thing that Justin was acting weird. He simply didn’t want to face it; he had grown so used to the thought it was a never-in-a-million-years fantasy. They both were having a good life, good work, a good… boyfriend. Then, Justin broke up with his almost – ? – fiancé, and then he himself broke up with James—well, he knew he didn’t love James in the first place. But he tried so hard to convince himself he could learn how to love him, that he really believed that.

But realizing how things exploded in just one week, and the first person he searched for had been Justin, Matthew understood how he had miserably failed to act as if that thing between them had never existed.

Maybe he should start with “you’re acting weird these days”, but he continued pondering about the matter for the whole night.

Justin avoided Matthew for three days in a row. Matt texted him few times, to ask him if he wanted to have lunch with him again, but Justin had came up with a different excuse each time. Of course, he couldn’t know that the other one was searching for him for the exact reason he was avoiding him.

“I’m going out with Cory”, “I’m hanging with friends”, “I don’t feel well”, Matthew didn’t buy any of that, but he thought that pressing Justin to talk about how awkward it had been between them during the whole week wasn’t a good idea, so he let him be. Plus, none of them was really ready to face that talk, even though both unaware of the fact that the other one was actually thinking the same.

Justin surely couldn’t avoid him forever; he knew that at some point he would have to face him, but the fact was, how can you start a conversation about… that in the first place? And what was that in the first place?

Justin had time to think. Too much time to think, actually, as if he wasn’t already over-thinking things, but he hadn’t come up with a solution yet. He didn’t really have a clue about what he was supposed to do.

He wanted to fuck Matthew. Check.

He wanted to be a better friend with Matthew. Check.

He wanted to be closer with Matthew, mostly because he should really amend to what a bad friend he had been for him in the past. Check.

How would all these things mix up together?

He didn’t even know if they were related at all. Of course they were related, but Justin couldn’t see the big picture yet. So he simply thought he needed more time to think about.

Unluckily for him, they were now in Willam’s house, he had a cup of new NA Budweiser brew in his hand – gosh, it tasted like shit – and Matthew was glancing towards him on the other side of the kitchen table.

Willam had invited all the queens he knew in West Hollywood to come and see his brand new performance, and – Justin had to admit – it was amusing, but he didn’t understand how he and a bunch – other 20 people, maybe? – ended up hanging to Willam’s house for a totally wasting after-party. He didn’t even know Matt and Will were on good terms again, so he was surprised to see his face through the crowd at the club.

He tried really hard to avoid him, and in fact they didn’t speak for the entire night; he didn’t know how he accomplished that, actually. But he did, just to end up with both of them in the same room, and the exact same awkwardness they shared when they went out for lunch few days before. Justin knew he couldn’t fake any longer. Matthew had had it – officially – and Lasky sensed that something was completely off.

Willam, who was now Justin’s focus as he tried to come up with the courage he needed to face Matthew, was kind of wasted already, his arm on Courtney’s shoulder, laughing like a donkey, dancing and shouting from upon the living room’s table. People were cheering like it was the best entertainment they’d had had in ages, and Justin wondered if that table would hold the weight of both Willam and Shane. It seemed like the most interesting thing in the world in that exact moment… and everything would be preferable to meeting Matt’s glance from the other end of the kitchen table.

Justin smiled. It actually was hilarious seeing how the other 2/3 of the AAA Girls were holding the court, but then Matthew approached him, and Justin’s smile dropped. He caught that bittersweet glimpse in Matthew’s eyes, and  he knew it was due to the fact he noticed that he was the one making Justin’s mood change abruptly. Lasky felt kind of guilty. He didn’t want to make Matt uncomfortable, and it wasn’t like he was… upset with him—he simply wasn’t ready to talk about his odd behavior. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say about it in the first place. Please, follow me home and fuck the shit out of me, then we can become closer friends and everything will go smoothly? Just for a second, Justin thought it wasn’t such a bad idea.

He was that desperate.

«Hey» Matt greeted, and Lasky noticed how he forced himself to smile, resembling that same happy expression, Matthew always wore upon his face, «Hey» Justin answered, trying on the other hand to smile kindly towards him, failing miserably. He surrendered. He had to face him in that exact moment, or things would have always been too awkward between them.

Matt gave him a puzzled look, before leaning to the kitchen counter by his side, and resting his back onto it. He was looking at him, and Justin was fidgeting, continuously moving his arms, first resting them on the counter, then crossing them on his chest, and then leaving them hanging on his side. Lasky felt the other one’s glance upon himself, and he consciously knew Matt wasn’t pushing him or something like that, but… he couldn’t bring himself to rationally think that. He felt an exhausting weight dropping onto his shoulders. Matthew frowned: Justin probably wasn’t aware of how uncomfortable his expression looked, but Matt noticed and couldn’t stop himself to think it was due to his presence.

Fuck, it was unbearable.

«Feeling better?» Matt asked, he tried to start a casual conversation, just like Michael tried to make him feel at ease during their skype call.

Justin answered with a confused look.

Matthew knew that Justin had been lying, but he hoped that at least he remembered his own lie. He chuckled: «…weren’t you feeling sick?»

Oh, yeah. He was supposed to be sick, Justin realized and widened his glance caught off guard. He took time, sipping from his – awful – beer, trying to come up with a decent answer.  «Yeah, now I’m fine» he lied. Again. «How’re you?» at least, he should try to make an effort to make the casual — awkward — conversation to go on smoothly.

Well, he actually started a conversation, and that was a kind of a win, even though Matthew was really the last person he wanted to talk to right now. He hadn’t fixed a thing about all the turbulent thoughts in his head, and as long as he was still confused, he didn’t really feel it was a good idea to face him.

It felt awkward, mostly because Justin knew he had avoided him for the whole week, and he was aware that Matthew hadn’t bought a single lie.

«I think we should talk» Matthew started, and Justin realized again he had no escape this time. He didn’t look at him, so he couldn’t notice how worried Matt seemed, but he couldn’t stop either from fidgeting in his own spot against the kitchen counter, with no effort in trying to hide how nervous he was. Gosh, he wanted a cigarette right about now.

He was used to fleeing problems—he was fucking good at it too, but this time he knew he couldn’t do what he always did. Because it was dragging him to the point of exhaustion, and he was worn out from all the overthinking.

«You’re acting weird… I mean, really weird, even for your standards», Matthew seemed a bit insecure of what he was talking about, as if, just like Justin, he wasn’t prepared at all for the conversation.

I already know, Justin though, sipping his beer.

«It seems like you’re really worried about how our friendship is right now, but you never did, I mean, we’re close, Justin» and Matthew tenderly brushed the lanky man’s arm, searching for the courage he needed to keep talking. He recognized how odd that was coming from such a confident person. «And we’ve always been, and at first I didn’t understand why you were walking on eggshells around me— it’s really creeping me out, and…» Matthew drawled and then stopped. He took a sip from his beer and coughed, choosing his words carefully. «I’ve talked with Michael, and I realized that it may be my fault».

Justin furrowed his brows, turning his face to the other man. He’d heard what the other one said, even replayed those words in his mind, but still, he didn’t quite comprehend the part where it was supposedly Matt’s fault. For a moment, Justin had thought that Matthew read through the lies and through him, and he couldn’t hide anymore the fact that, yeah, there was something unspoken and unresolved between them, but…

«What?» Justin asked, probably a bit too loud, because Matthew almost startled. His brows furrowed upon his face, with a look that seemed both puzzled and pissed.

How could it be his fault, since it was Justin the one tormenting himself over a thing that… maybe wasn’t even “a thing”?

Matthew raised his glance to the ceiling, keeping touch with Justin’s arms; it was somehow as if he really wanted to look at him in the eyes, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to do it. He simply thought that if he glanced him in that exact moment, Justin would have read through him and would draw conclusions without giving him the time to explain things. Justin was exactly like that.

«When we talked about you feeling beaten, because of that horrible date, I gave you advice, because that’s what good friends do, and I may have said something that made you uncomfortable», Matthew spoke slowly. It was slightly off putting, because he usually didn’t talk like that. Lasky felt uneasy again, as if he was supposed to expect bad news.

He gave Matt a puzzled look, placing his cup on the counter, and crossing his arms across his chest. His eyes bore into the kitchen table in front of him, not really watching it. Justin was losing contact with reality, retreating more and more into his head as Matthew kept talking.

«You know, I said you don’t need to grow affectionate toward people»

But he did.

«But just fool around a bit more»

He couldn’t really.

«You don’t want a relationship»

But he did want to be closer to Matthew

«And you just need to be fucked and enjoy yourself»

Yeah, he did, but the problem was he already had an idea of who could restlessly fuck him until morning,

«And I may or may not have offered you sex…»

Ah. So he meant it.

Justin suddenly regained awareness of his surroundings. Raising his glance to the other man – who wasn’t matching his look – he widened his eyes in disbelief, caught out of surprise. Ok, yeah, he really excruciated himself over that suggestion, he did, but somehow he didn’t really expect a confirmation about it. He wasn’t prepared. At all. He had examined all the different outcomes of speaking with Matthew, and that one was something that didn’t even glimpsed in Justin’s mind.

«And, look—»

But Lasky abruptly interrupted him: «I jerked off, thinking about you. Few times, actually».

God, it was a fucking relief.

…but Justin regretted it quickly, when Matthew turned facing towards him, he matched his astonished and bewildered look. Justin opened his mouth not sure of what he was supposed to say, and Matt blinked few times in his direction.

«I… spent an entire week avoiding you, because that made me frigging uncomfortable towards you» Justin started, skeptical because he didn’t really know how that conversation was supposed to end once he had begun, «and it’s not your fault, it’s me, because I’m fucking twisted and fucked up, and I couldn’t stop thinking about our relationship, and how, I think, I’ve always found you quite attractive…?» he admitted, and looking at Matt’s figure, he forced himself to not focus on that beard, which was growing more and more day by day, making him fucking sexier than he had ever been, «…and I think that’s the reason I always wanted to be closer to you, but I couldn’t push myself in doing it, because between friends things become easily awkward and weird, and I don’t want to ruin things again» he drawled, gulping loudly, realizing things as he continued to speak. So, that’s how it works when you go to a psychologist.

«I always ruin things, because I have this rotten mind of mine, which I really can’t handle, and though I really want to be fucked by you, and at the same time be a better friend to you than what I have been until now is driving me fucking crazy… I know we… we shared bed with another guy, we kissed, and touched, and everything, but I think it was since then that I couldn’t stop thinking about these things».

Once he finished, he found himself craving for water, his throat aching. He probably should have focused on the fact he literally spilled all the T in just one moment, and Matthew – judging from his look – wasn’t prepared for that, but the only thing Justin could concentrate on was the fact that he needed a fucking glass of water. He didn’t know if it was an odd shielding-mechanism or something, he simply couldn’t think about the conversation – monologue – they were having.

He avoided Matthew’s look until he finished speaking, then he faced him for the third time, unsure if he had definitively ruined everything or if he would be the core of Matthew’s jokes for the next 20 years.

Justin felt freed from a chain which was really suffocating him, and at the same time he was both worried and relieved, because speaking it out loud allowed him to draw the right conclusion to all his thought.

In the end, he needed Matthew. Not only for a one-night-stand – he couldn’t do anything for the sexual tension that resurfaced between them – he needed Matthew by his side as it had always been. And he wanted to reciprocate it, because in some crooked ways it gave him life to feel closer to him.

Justin wasn’t sure how it worked, it was something really bizarre which he couldn’t label yet.

«So—» but Justin couldn’t finish his sentence, because, while nobody was really minding them, too busy in laughing and screaming towards Willam and Courtney, who were now dancing on the couch, Matthew leaned closer, a hand tenderly caressing his cheek, the other hand grabbing the arm his fingers were gently caressing few minutes before… Justin had almost forgotten how the real sensation of those plump and full lips was, but when Matthew shut his mouth with his own, kissing him, Justin realized how reality was frigging better than fantasies.

Matt mentally appointed to himself that he should really offer Roxxxy lunch next time they would meet.

A/N2: for any suggestion, come drop by at @chykopon (:

TAG: alaska thunderfuck, detox icunt, roxxxy andrews, alaskatox, rotox, detoxxxy, just hinted btw, romcom, chykopon, ggg: girl get a grip

Justin read the message few times, before realizing what it meant, thoughts rumbling in his head as if he couldn’t believe what was written there; Cory’s face deformed in a disgusted expression as hot tea drooled from his brother’s mouth in disbelief. Lasky wasn’t really used to shocking news, to the point he simply stopped functioning correctly…

«What?!» he almost screamed, even though nobody was really listening or watching what he was doing. Cory, still startled, was jumping on his seat and cursing towards his big bro.  

«The fuck happened?» he asked from the other side of the table.

Justin’s only reply was a puzzled look. He found himself blinking few times, desperately trying to process what he had just read. There was such a casual look in that simple message, that Justin couldn’t actually believe Matt – who was always a reserved person, more reserved than an introvert like Lasky had always been – had written it. Moreover to the fact that few nights before everything seemed going quite smooth, even though Justin knew Matthew wasn’t someone really used to established relationship.

He coughed, trying to regain a linear process of thought. Wondering about how odd it was to be receiving such a message from Matt had made him slightly lose contact with reality.

He pursed his lips and furrowed his brows as if he was feeling guilty: it seemed like what he did two nights before had a main role in that unlucky event. Something along the line of oh my god, I unconsciously craved so much to fuck with Matt despite his boyfriend, that they actually broke up.

It was an irrational thought, of course, but Justin’s mind worked in some odd ways. Even he didn’t know what his brain was doing sometimes.

He fidgeted in his seat, suddenly feeling as if a large weight had suddenly been dropped on his shoulders. Ignoring Cory’s question, he set aside his breakfast: he felt his stomach suddenly closing as he realized how horrible Matt would be feeling, and how he was completely unable to comfort people even when they really need it. He started typing violently on his phone with worry growing in his mind and spreading to his face.

“Are you okay? Wanna talk about it?”

Once he sent the message, Justin sighed loudly, his face still contorted in an uneasy expression. He wasn’t the right person to deal with these things. Justin set his elbow on the kitchen table, resting his chin on his open palm, musing. If Cory wanted, he could have probably heard his big brother thinking, seeing how concentrated he was, examining in his mind all different situations in which he could manage to handle Matt’s broken heart. Fantasy. Justin wasn’t able to fix his own wounded soul.

It was bizarre how just two days before they were talking about how fucked up Justin’s love life was, and the one ending with a broken heart had actually been Matt. Call it fate, a bad puns fate, actually. Pursing again his lips, Justin couldn’t stop overthinking how it was even possible, and what in the hell happened for it to end like this.

He didn’t know how funny he looked, all those different worried expressions switching upon his face.

He tensed in his seat. He really hadn’t expected something like this. He wasn’t supposed to be prepared to handle this, since Matthew didn’t really speak about it.

Cory sighed, having come to terms with the fact that his brother was totally on another planet. He’d tried to get Justins attention a few times by waving his hands in front of the others face, to no avail.

Was Matt really heartbroken? Justin realized he didn’t even know Matt’s boyfriend’s name, or when they got together. Had Matthew ever talked about him? Did Justin know him? He raised a hand to his forehead, realizing how sweaty he was from worry. Worry that was growing, as he was facing the fact he didn’t have a single clue about Matthew’s personal life. This sudden realization made him yet more uncomfortable. He felt the urge to distract himself, fiddling with his hair.

Less than 48 hours before, Justin was feeling ashamed for jerking off thinking about one of his best friends. He thought they were at that point of their friendship where they could consider themselves like that – in one way or another. Suddenly he was coming to terms with the fact he didn’t actually know a fucking thing about Matt’s life. Could he still call Matthew a friend?

Yeah, they opened up with each other in a way Justin had done with no one else, but analyzing how their relationship developed throughout the years, he realized how odd it had been. It was always Justin whining about things, Matt patiently listening– never the other way around.

Sometimes it was Matthew telling about the guy he took home after one of his performances, and other times it was Justin asking how he felt about that particular news involving Matt he got to know from social networks and never from Matt himself.

He couldn’t remember a single time in which Matthew voluntarily started talking about his problems.

Widening his eyes in sudden epiphany, Justin shot a look at his phone as another worried feeling added to his now tremendous discomfort and uneasiness. The thought he had somehow invaded Matt’s privacy, asking him about his break up was building inside his mind, along with the concrete fear he hit the point of no return in a relationship he didn’t even know if he could still call “friendship”. Not only he had been the worst of friends, he was now pushing Matthew to talk about private stuff, even though he probably hadn’t the right to.

Cory was giggling, watching a whole range of different odd expressions mutating and warping his brother’s face. He wondered what in the hell he was thinking to make him act so anxious and out of place in his own house.

Justin was quite the master in making a fuss about nothing.

After all, Matthew was the one sending the first message, so he did nothing wrong, right? Right, Justin tried to convince himself, biting his lips while playing with his nails as if they were the most interesting thing in that exact moment.

Justin was really good at fucking things up. He was good at counting chickens, before they hatch.

Matthew sometimes spoke about his family, his friends, his relationships, but he always told funny stories – about his sister Heather, wasted in his kitchen, using the mixer in the wrong way – she was trying a new detox smoothie recipe… ironic – or how the twink he took home the night before threw up vodka and hamburger on Matthew’s thighs.

Justin fell on the couch, exhausted by all that over-thinking. Only 15 minutes had passed, but to him it seemed like a whole hour– maybe more, as if he spent an entire day pondering about things he didn’t really know about, constantly feeling that he wasn’t slightly near the solution.

He always over thought things, and that was the reason why he fucked things up so often. As long as he was busy with work, he didn’t have enough time to consider the answer to life, universe and everything – it’s “42”, by the way – but when the touring, recording and performing stopped – and it was always for barely a month – he usually found himself replaying things in his head again and again and again.

Justin wasn’t flawless, because Justin wasn’t Alaska. He played a character he didn’t really have the guts to emulate in real life. But there still were lots of things he and Lasky shared, but while Alaska Thunderfuck was the Queen of Snakes from another planet, ready to seduce you, and then leave you a minute after, Justin was the kind of guy who grew affectionate toward people in a really small amount of time, investing too much of himself in every single fucking relationship.

Justin knew Matthew cared for him; he remembered him saying how much he loved him a bunch of times. But it was not a sufficient reassurance to stop Justin from convincing himself he was always doing something wrong. He threw his head back onto the couch, searching for a bit of comfort while his head suddenly started aching as if he was experiencing the worst sickness he had ever had in his whole life.

As he grew stronger about his self confidence towards some things, the constant fear he would do something irreparable grew too.

The fact was: if he had been on a date with Rick – and if he and Matt had had the consequent talk – just a month before, while he was still touring Australia, he wouldn’t be pining over all these uncalled thoughts. He would have jerked off to Matthew, waking up the next day as if nothing ever happened. He would have buried himself in the work, and never spend another second on the subject.

But unluckily for him, it happened now, when he had enough time to stress himself over drawing conclusions about his life.

His phone buzzed and Justin quickly opened the new message as if it was a matter of life or death.

“Not really”

Well, he fucked up. He threw his phone aside, a loud sigh bursting from his lips, shutting his eyes as if it was just a nightmare and he would wake up few moments after, realizing it had all been in his head and he didn’t jerked off on Matt in the first place.

It was so obvious he didn’t have the right to ask Matt about his private life, even though Matthew was the first one to bring it on. How could he call himself “his friend”, when they didn’t talk for months, and they rarely see each other during tours and they both were in LA at the same time. Obviously, Matt didn’t want to open up with someone who was almost barely part of his life.

Sure, when they had the opportunity, they would go clubbing together. And they would have fun together while touring the States and before and after every performance, but Justin had done it with quite a few of his colleagues, as long as he knew them enough to trust them just a tiny bit. But with Matthew he had always felt at ease… until that wank of misfortune – a good nickname, he thought.

His phone rang and lazily moving towards the object, he picked up the call without looking; he wasn’t quite in the mood to answer, but he was committed to his work and his own private life, to the point he wouldn’t miss answering his phone even with the worst flu.

«Yes?» his voice was tired as if he just finished taking part in a gig and just got off a 12-hour-flight.

«I thought you were gonna say “hieeee”».

Justin startled, suddenly raising from the couch as he recognized the voice from the other end of the phone. It was Matthew.

«I thought it was someone-else» Justin replied, trying to get a grip. His eyes shifted among the furniture of his living room, desperately trying to conjure up something to say, all while all the thoughts formed few moments before were still rattling in his head with no real sense.

«Are you cheating on me?» Matt joked, trying not to laugh. And Justin could clearly hear how he tried to muffle his laughter, probably covering his mouth with his free hand.

«I would never» Justin drawled, playing along. He heard Matt’s laughter, and a smile bent on his lips, feeling like things had gone back to how they were before Justin’s over-thinking had even started. Matthew had this skill of his, to always make Justin comfortable even in the oddest situations.

He bit his lip, a now happy – but still kind of worried – look upon his face, and then he continued: «I actually thought I’ve messed up» he confessed, crossing his long legs, while making himself comfortable on the couch. It took him a bit of courage to actually say it out loud, but due to the fact Matthew seemed to always be the right person in the right moment, Justin usually felt as if he could entrust to him even his darkest secrets…

«The fuck?!» and Justin could figure Matt’s furrowing his brows in a puzzled look by his voice’s tone, as if he was standing there in front of him; Justin could imagine him, looking at him with his usual skeptical glance, a bit of sarcasm in the way his barely visible eyebrows arched upon his forehead. Matthew always had that judgmental look upon his face, and he was the type of guy to not keep quiet in front of Justin’s bullshit, but still Lasky always felt as if there was nothing really shady in the way Matt often glanced him, and instead something more like the sincere worry of someone who actually cared.

If Justin simply took all those things for granted, he wouldn’t have a problem in the first place, but, well…

One of the few – many, actually – problems that made Justin’s personality so fucking twisted was that he couldn’t refrain from the urge to speak about his most superficial worries, even when they were totally uncalled for. While on the other hand he had never been able to talk about his inner and deepest troubles. The ones he, well, should actually confess…

«I don’t know» Justin drawled again, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was trying to hide that expression, which seemed to be to crack up in tears, «I felt like I was intruding your privacy…»

Matthew stayed silent for a time that seemed an entire year – it actually lasted less than five seconds – and Justin found himself holding his breath; in less than a blink of an eye, he replayed in his head all the different outcomes of that conversation, each one ending with Matthew suddenly hanging up the phone.

«Lasky,» Matt said annoyed, and Justin could hear a testily sigh coming from his lips «the fuck are you saying?!»

Justin gulped, caught off guard. Ok, that was a situation he hadn’t depicted in his mind yet. He gasped for few seconds, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t incredibly stupid.

«I—»

But Matthew abruptly interrupted him: «If I didn’t want you to be part of my over-dramatic reaction and whining compilation about my recent break up, I wouldn’t have messaged you, Jesus!» he blurted, «You’re always making a fuss about nothing, stop worrying about stupid things! I thought you were smarter than that! I don’t want stupid friends!»

Matt was probably annoyingly waving his hand in the kind of fed up gesture he usually directed to Justin, especially when he was giving one of his bratty tantrums; Justin smiled. There was something oddly familiar and warm in Matt’s reply, something Justin had grown accustomed to without even realizing it. Something that reminded him of how paternally Matthew had always treated him… Aware of it or not, Matt gave him the reassurance he needed. A bit of it, at least…

«What about Michael, then?» Justin tried to change the subject, fearing he could just fuck things up more than what he had done before if they kept talking about that issue.

Matthew laughed loudly, «You shady bitch! I’m gonna tell him!»

Justin echoed him, stretching his legs, Roxxxy was always the good comic interlude in their conversation. He raised his head to look at his brother calling for him and now whispering something like “I’m going out, I’m not coming home for lunch.”Justin nodded, trying to pace his breath, still laughing.

«You wouldn’t!» he then started again, while the conversation seemed to regain their usual casual tone.

«Try me» Matt challenged, and Justin knew he was smiling viciously as he usually did, because at least about few things, he knew Matthew better.

«What’s the price of your silence?» he still got along with the joke – it was how they usually interacted with each other; mocking and annoying. «I can offer oral sex on the plate» he smiled mischievously because he meant it, but Matthew didn’t know it, so everything was fine.

«I’m not in the mood—God, I thought I would never, in my whole life, refuse an explicit sex offer, I think I really got old…» for just a moment, probably out of desperation or maybe exhaustion, Justin hoped Matthew would catch the ball, and remove the hook he had grown attached to during those days. Somehow, he felt as if Matthew had been the one taking the first steps. Getting him laid would fix things as they were before…

«Well, if you’re getting old you could try “grannies”, Redtube has a good section», he kept joking, comedic relief was the strongest shield he knew.

Matthew coughed, trying to contain his laughter, «I’m not gonna ask you how you know that—»

but Justin cut in «…or you could be the “granny” on the Redtube’s section».

Matthew kept silent for a moment, and Justin tried really hard to not giggle at his own bad – horrible – pun.

«…is that shade to that awful porn video I made?»

«Maybe?» and Justin waited with an amused look for a reply.

«You bitch!»

Justin chuckled.

«Can we just forget that video even exists? They called me “Detops” on Reddit for months!»

Justin heard him rambling, but he still couldn’t stop himself from laughing even harder; it was fucking hilarious hearing Matthew overreacting, Justin knew how much he cared for his top status, to the point he couldn’t miss reminding it to others every now and then, «Me! Detops! The self proclaimed West Hollywood’s toppest top!» Justin giggled, you sure are in my fantasies, he raised his glance to the ceiling trying to get a grip of himself and concentrate on the conversation.

«So, if I forget you did the worst porn video on Drag Race herstory, will you keep silent about me doubting Roxxxy’s smartness?» Justin suggested, still snickering. Of course he wouldn’t really forget about it – he couldn’t since he actually masturbated to it a few – too many – times. He didn’t know if it was more shameful to have jerked off to a friend’s porn video, or the fact that that same porn video was one of the worst he had ever happened to see.

«Mhhh…» mumbled Matthew, and Justin waited holding his breath, feeling as if he was years younger and he was asking his high school’s crush to come to the prom with him, «what about taking me out for lunch?»

Justin blinked. He wasn’t prepared to hear that, and it made his “fantasy” about the prom night thing quite real, to the point it seemed almost a scripted quote. «Well… ok» he answered, still a bit shocked.

Justin got up from the couch and headed to his room. The fact was, he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to speak with Matt vis-à-vis, even though he was too conscious of the fact that, well, they really should. He was still feeling a bit uncomfortable towards Matt, and it was so fucking wrong in so fucking many ways it seemed he entered the Matrix and a glitch happened.

«I didn’t want burnt soy noodles anyway» he joked, but there still was T in what he said: Justin Andrew Honard and cooking were proclaimed arch-enemies. It was the first thing that came into his mind actually, but he spared him one of those odd silent moment, which would betray him and his worries.

«I’m gonna go get ready, and I’m there in half an hour— Mel’s?»

«Mel’s» replied Matthew, his voice warm as usual «but take your time, I’m still in the bathtub».

Justin stood still for a moment not sure if he actually did understand what the other one said: «…why are you taking a bath at 11 in the morning?» he frowned with a perplexed look shading his eyes: but he couldn’t stop himself from imagining those long, fit legs stretching under the water just like Matthew always did in his snapchat’s stories. Maybe firmly bent on his bed, while his own legs were wrapped around Matt’s hi— he stopped, hardly biting his lower lip, too conscious of where those thoughts would lead him.

«Some fans gave me these Lush’s bath bombs… I thought it was a good way to treat myself to a post-break up», Matthew sing songed with his lowest and hoarsest tone, and Justin shivered. This wasn’t helping at all, and instead made Justin’s fantasy grow stronger as a vivid dream. Now he was in the bathtub along with him, sitting onto his lap, his long and skinny arms embracing him, while his plump lips peeked on his shoulders…

«Well, it is» Justin drawled, trying to ignore the hard-on which now bulged from his pants. Fuck, why was he so fucking horny these days?! «So, 12 o'clock?» he asked again, deciding it was a better idea to head to the bathroom first.

«Yeah, 12’s fine, see you there, girl, love you».

«Me too, byeee~»

Justin ended the call and found himself sitting on the toilet, pants already down his ankles: he wasn’t that surprised how he had grown used to this in less than a week. Replaying Matthew’s voice in his head and restarting his galloping fantasies from where he stopped, he grabbed his own cock; his head resting against the bathroom’s wall. He had half an hour to spend before getting ready, so he better enjoy himself, right?

Mel’s was quite famous world-wide, a 50’s styled diner on Sunset Boulevard, in which both Justin and Matthew ate the first time they moved to LA. It was a must for whomever chose to live in West Hollywood, “You haven’t been to Mel’s? Really?”, Justin remembered taking Cory there the first time his brother came to visit. And he had to admit it was one of the few cheap diners to offer an actually good vegetarian option.

He usually preferred take away to sit-down meals, the meat’s smell really did make him nauseous, but luckily for him – even though a drive-in was still a drive-in – Mel’s had tables outside, so Justin could stand the air full of grilled hot dogs and patties. It was one of the reasons he kept coming back, to the point he grew really affectionate to the place.

Thinking back, Justin realized that every time he and Matthew went out for lunch – it was not a rare thing, actually – they usually ended up eating at Mel’s, like some subconscious influence in considering Mel’s something like their place. It was less than 10 minute walk from Justin’s new house on Shoreham Drive, so it became quite the diner, whenever he didn’t feel to cook – three times a week, actually – to the point he considered Mel’s not only cozy, but also intimate, the perfect place where you could have an important talk with your friends.

Matthew, sitting on the other side of the table, lit a cigarette and offered the open package to Justin. He had that beard scruff he didn’t take care for surely more than two days, which made him even sexier than he usually was. And Justin’s irrational thoughts wondered how would it feel, his chin scratching onto his back, while his hands were grasping his hips– Justin returned to earth and lowered his glance to the smoking package with a startled look. «No, thanks, I don’t smoke.»

«You definitively quit?» Matt asked with a surprised look, while taking a good whiff from his Winston. He was really gorgeous when he raised his hand to his lips, kissing the cigarette. Justin wondered how he hadn’t realized before.

«Sometimes I do», admitted Lasky, crossing his legs in a desperate attempt to focus onto the conversation. His mind was all over the place, too invested in both thinking too much of how he should act like everything was fine, and trying to erase from his mind the memories of those few quality minutes he had spent in his own bathroom, before heading to the diner.

He needed to make conversation: «But not during lunch-time, how can you? I mean, doesn’t it taste disgusting afterward?» not that Justin was really interested in an answer, but it seemed like as good a subject as any.

Matt giggled sardonically, «Seriously? You know a heavy smoker doesn’t actually give a shit about taste, as long as he can have his smoke-breaks».

Justin chuckled: it was true. Once he started smoking during Drag Race’s filming, he didn’t actually give a fuck about the fact that all his – poor – meals would taste like ashes and burnt tobacco, as long as he could take a break from all the stress going on inside the walls. Out of the show, his stress-relief was doing laundry. Justin chuckled as he realized that he was slowly becoming a fifties TV housewife. To each his own.

«But you aren’t a heavy smoker, are you?» he asked, realizing what Matthew actually said. Since he remembered, Matt was one of those smokers who usually lit three or four cigarettes during a gig; smoking was something more like an excuse to relax his nerves before and after a flight, not something he had ever been really addicted to… or at least, he was the last time Justin had seen him. Two months before. 90 days is such a long time without seeing each other to call themselves “friends”.

As he ended that sentence, Justin had a return of one of that morning’s many epiphanies: he really didn’t know Matthew as well as he thought. Matt had maybe reassured him a tiny bit about their friendship in some crooked and unaware ways, but the truth was Justin didn’t know a lot about Matt’s behavior and life out of drag. Yeah, he could read him – by every meaning of the word. He knew how Matthew would react to a lot of things; he knew what to expect from him, but besides those things… had Matt ever had a pet? He didn’t have a clue. How did Matt spend his time during breaks? He didn’t know.

For a normal person, all those things would be sufficient to put his mind at rest, after all,  nobody knows someone so well without sharing an intense amount of time with that person, but Justin was a really fucked-up man with too much time to spend pondering about pointless things.

«I smoked a bit too much in the last few weeks» Matthew admitted, chugging a good amount of smoke on his side. Justin was torturing his own lips, his glance waving onto all Matt’s facial features, outlining the eyes, that straight jaw line, the prominent cheekbones. A hand raised to his chin as Justin assumed that position he always reverted to when he was deep in thought, disconnecting himself from the real world.

«…was it because of the break-up? I mean, things weren’t going well?» Lasky asked. As he finished his sentence, he realized he maybe didn’t have the right to ask, since Matthew said he didn’t really want to talk about it; but he was curious.

His glance tightened as if trying to take down the façade of Matthew’s. Except Matt wasn’t like Justin, he didn’t actually put up a front, it was more like he was always just closed off; Matt’s genuine self was Justin’s fake self.

Oh, he was so fucking curious, maybe out of contrition from realizing what a bad friend he had been. Maybe he was just searching for a solution to rest his confused conscience. But he came to terms with the fact that friends don’t act like that, so he quickly tried to make up for his  misspeak.

«Sorry,» he said, fidgeting in his seat, «I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—»

Matt gave him a kind of funny puzzled look. «Justin, the fuck are you saying?» he asked, maybe calmer than intended. Justin could see in that glance that Matthew seemed…  disappointed. He must admit he hadn’t ever behaved like that towards him, and even though he was trying his best to appear normal, to disguise his worries, he probably failed across the board, since Matt called him out on it.

«You’re acting so weird from this morning…» he reached for Justin’s hand on the table.

His touch was one of the warmest Justin had ever experienced. Probably because he wasn’t really used to the kind of worried expression Matthew wore right then. He knew Matt cared for a lot of people, and he knew, even though he was the outspoken but still the private type of guy, he hadn’t ever hidden how much he cared for the people he loved. Still, things between them had always been different. Something more like: we know we care but we don’t talk about it. They were not those friends who usually hug each other, or kiss one another on the cheeks, or something like that… they were more like “you know, if you need me, you can call”. Something more like Lasky watching Matthew when he had a breakdown in the werk room during the show, and vice versa.

Justin sighed, realizing that on the weight scale, the plate was still onto Matthew. Matthew, who was reaching for him. Matthew, who had always been there. Matthew, who always comforted him, and Matthew, who despite being heartbroken and post break up, was now worried for him.

Great, Justin thought, we went out for lunch to comfort Matt after his break up, and we end like usual, with me whining about something.

«Are you ok?» Matthew asked with a bit of worry, catching Justin off guard for the third time in less than four hours.

I’m not okay, he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Not now and not there. It wasn’t something he felt ready to face right now– maybe ever. Time to put that acting degree to good use.

«Yeah, I’m fine» he said, retrieving his hand from the other’s touch. «Don’t mind me, I have lots of things on my mind… let’s talk about you».

He meant it, he really did, even though the situation made him more uncomfortable than he originally thought. Matt pouted, clearly not buying it, but luckily for Justin he simply decided to go along with the lie, Justin theorized, because he was a too good person. Matt knew him better to just buy such a low-level lie, and the feeling of having been so quickly unmasked made him uneasy.

«It wasn’t because we were gonna break-up, by the way» Matt answered Justin’s first question. His eyes wandered over the table’s surface; to Justin he seemed to be trying to grasp words fading into his mind, «Lots of things happened during the last weeks» he paused, taking a final drag off his cigarette. Justin recognized this as a frequent nervous habit of Matthew’s, and he considered if he should ask what was worrying his friend or just let the subject fade given Matthew’s obvious discomfort.

Before he could manage to say a word, Matthew said «Laurie decided to move out».

Laurie? Justin fidgeted again, stretching his legs and then crossing them again. Ah! He suddenly remembered, feeling a bit ashamed to have forgotten – just for a moment, though – about Matthews’ lesbian roommate and best friend.

«You know, she’s in a long term relationship, she’s really in love, so they decided she should move in with her girlfriend…» Matt continued, pursing his lips and Justin simply listened. He couldn’t understand if he was pissed or maybe just sad. Matthew often reminded Justin of a Kandinsky’s painting: beautiful and cryptic. No one could understand him, once he had been taken out of context, or better, out of his comfort zone.

It was odd; he wasn’t really used to Matthew talking about private stuff, but at the same time he felt kind of relieved, like his complaining about feeling not really close to Matt had been heard and the solution had been dropped by heaven. He felt a bit childish and selfish, enjoying himself in the moment of personal sharing, especially since Matt was obviously feeling down.

Matthew confirmed just a moment after: «…I feel like shit».

It was not the first time he heard Matthew saying things along those lines, but the other times it was always one of those dressing-room whines they usually shared while getting in drag. This time was different: Justin could sense a beaten and shaken tone in Matt’s voice. It was downright destabilizing. He wasn’t prepared.

Matthew had always been one of the strongest people he had ever met, but getting to know him, he learned he was also a really emotive man. The type to cry over a news story about a trans teen’s suicide. It really happened, and Justin remembered how Michael spent an entire hour, rubbing Matthew’s back as he couldn’t stop crying.

Maybe Matt was totally aware of that, and that was the reason why he was always trying to get a hold of himself, and when he didn’t succeed, he would try to be the funny or irreverent one. Justin sat motionless, his face blocked in that same puzzled and a bit worried expression of someone unsure of how he’s supposed to react.

«I’m happy for her, I truly am» Matthew continued, «but a lot happened, and I’m not really in the mood to be left alone, last week Heather got in a car accident—»

Justin widened his eyes, jumping onto his seat with probably more drama than was called for. «Your sister got in a car accident?!»

Matthew startled at Justin’s sudden shift.

«Yeah…» he answered with a bewildered look, «Didn’t I mention it?»

Justin shook his head out of shock, wondering how the fuck you could forget something so important in the first place.

«Well, she’s fine now, but she’s still in the hospital, you know, for check-ups and things like that…» Justin stood still, watching his friend light another cigarette. He caught all of Matt’s gestures, and even though he was still gasping, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how stressed and beaten he should be and how insensitive he himself had been toward him, not noticing all the symptoms before.

Matt lowered a bit the cap on his head, probably trying to hide his face, though Justin caught his watering eyes anyway. Matthew hadn’t ever cried directly in front of him, probably because he was too aware and too caught up in the consciousness of how strong Justin considered him. Something like I don’t want to crash the idea of me he had built inside his mind.

«You should have called me…» Justin said without even thinking, and Matthew raised his eyes, catching the lanky man’s frown and worried look. It wasn’t an expression Justin would direct to just anyone, rather it was something really intimate he would keep for people he really trusted. Matt knew because he had seen that glance just one other time, directed to Aaron. If he had the ability in that exact moment, he would have blushed.

«You were busy with your work, I don’t want to trouble people about my problems» Matthew came up with an excuse the moment he regained awareness of the world surrounding him. He’d been too caught up in those blue icy eyes Justin was staring at him with; it was as if he could get lost in Justin’s unfathomably blue eyes.

But you certainly called Michael, Justin thought and regretted right after. He realized with a kind of horror how he really wanted to be something like the core of Matthew’s world.

«It was nothing, really, but you know, I’m always a bit too shocked when it’s about car-accidents… »

Justin slowly nodded; well, yeah, he knew, but they haven’t really spoken about that, and Justin could simply imagine how someone with Matt’s experience should feel towards the subject.

«So it was you know, stressful, with Laurie moving out and being  busy with her own life… and when things go for the worst and your relationship starts to waver, you know it’s time to end it».

Oh, yeah, Justin knew. Repressed memories of countless arguments buried inside the darkest spot of his mind threatened to resurface with the strength of a slap to his face. Justin knew too well, and he felt the exhaustion of being aware of the fact he simply couldn’t help him. He felt unarmed and useless. He tried to hide it, pursing his lips and making himself comfortable onto his seat.

«I know,» Justin drawled, «it happened with all my boyfriends…» he then commented, with a softer tone, and even though he didn’t speak it out loud, both he and Matthew knew he was talking about Aaron in particular. It was just a small relief, but Justin hoped it would be sufficient for the moment; something like saying you’re not alone, and there are lots of people who already experience what you’re going through and they came back quite… well. Justin maybe wasn’t the best example, but while he knew that knowing you’re not alone doesn’t actually fix things, seeing Matthew stretching his lips with a small and tired smile made him feel it actually worked. Somehow.

Justin, realizing there was no way to actually relieve him for that pain, tried at least to cheer him up with the worst joke he could come up with.

«Do you believe in life after love?»

And Matt actually laughed, not because of the joke itself, but because seeing Justin trying to hold his best – fake – serious looking was fucking hilarious.

«Bitch!» Matthew said, punching lightly Justin’s arm, «Don’t ever try to Cher me again!» he threatened, but he couldn’t stop chuckling.

Lasky smiled, seeing in that laughter the cheerful Matthew he had grown fond of giving him a sense of accomplishment.«Sorry ‘bout it» Justin mocked again, and this time he couldn’t really refrain himself to burst out laughing, while Matthew glanced him with the worst fake annoyed look he could wear.

«I swear I’m gonna shit down your pantyhose if you don’t stop!»

For a moment, Justin forgot all the worrying thoughts he had had in the last few days, and thought that he couldn’t expect any better solution to all the drama he built up – by himself – than ending with both of them laughing, and the reassurance that all his worries were actually a huge delusional stream of consciousness.

He was a fucking weirdo. Because if he hadn’t jerked off to Matt, he wouldn’t have been so overly obsessed with his friend in the first place. But that was Justin and the way his weird-ass mind worked.

They were still giggling when the waiter came back with their meals. Justin caught the way Matthew glanced at the young man. He noticed how that guy seemed to resemble the typical guy Matt had a sweet spot for. Justin thanked the man with an amused smile that guy didn’t know what was about, and then bit his lips in the effort to choose the right words in his mind. For a normal person, the subject had reached its end but Justin was not a normal person: ok, he and Matthew were friends, he masturbated thinking of him, because he was sexually frustrated, and life now could go on as usual.

But not for Justin. His wet dreams had been only an excuse for him to ponder about how his friendship with Matthew developed throughout the years. Because Matt was one of those friends who literally happens in life.

They met when he moved in LA, and he was looking at Detox as someone to admire, then there was Drag Race season 5, and they grew closer because it was a kind of forced move, and he was way weaker than what he was right now. Matt had always been closer to Michael, though. They started together in Orlando, they knew each other way before than meeting Justin, and it was okay, really.

But then there had been BOTS. And Justin had lots of chances to become closer with Matt, but he was in that part of his life where he could barely stand on his feet, and Aaron was the only thought in his mind. Then the breakup. And Matthew was there, even though Justin was still in Pittsburgh. He never really told him about it face-to-face, Matt knew because gossip was the core of drag communities.

Justin remembered crying so desperately he could barely speak for the whole night, while Matthew was patiently listening to his sobbing on the phone.

But their relationship never really grew from that point. There had been tours, performances, and he came back to West Hollywood, but besides going clubbing, eating out, and going out for a coffee together, there hadn’t been any real progress in how they approached each other.

Justin realized that somehow he had always been obsessed with becoming closer to Matt, and at the same time he realized he was the one who never really did a thing about it.

All Stars 2 had been quite bizarre. Because they argued a lot. But at the same time, something grew stronger, and it maybe was because it seemed like Matt had accepted not only the funny, crazy – kind and sweet – faces of Justin’s personality, but also his bratty and whining attitude. They still didn’t see each other often, but Justin had felt at ease in Matt’s company for a long time now.

Seeing things in this way, he couldn’t really claim more. The fuck you want, now, Justin?

He didn’t know, actually. So he simply spoke as word resurfaced from his mind: «It’s the first time you open up this way with me», he drawled, avoiding the other’s glance. He played with his meal, trying to seem at least a bit more interested in what he was doing than what he was saying.

Matthew raised his glance from the hamburger he was eating, to cross Justin’s fake relaxed look from the other side of the table; he knew he was hiding something, and smiling and pursing his lips, he tried to see through Lasky’s mask, «Really?»

Justin smiled, nodding.

«You never asked» said Matt, munching. Checkmate.

It was true. He opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it right after, furrowing his brows, as if he wasn’t really sure of what he was supposed to answer now.

«But—» Justin tried, with an astonished look, «it’s not something you ask, I mean, if you’re feeling down, you just talk to your friend, don’t you?» and he searched the other’s face for some kind of confirmation, never to arrive.

Instead, Matthew smiled, the same expression he usually wore when someone complimented him.

«I’m not like you» Matthew answered and it seemed like a criticism, even though Matt was chuckling, «I don’t want to push my problems over my friends, and let me be honest, you’re pretty fucked up to be the one listening and giving advice».

Justin giggled, even though for a moment he seriously weighed the idea of being offended by that comment, «I am» he confessed, because he was too self-conscious of him being a freak to lie about it, «but you can call, when you need help» and he knew that what he really meant was you should call. Justin didn’t know if he actually could be of any help… he was not good in dealing with people in general, he didn’t know how to approach people feeling down, he didn’t know how to comfort even his most close friends, but he knew he wanted to be of help, «We are close, aren’t we?» and the he asked what was rumbling in his mind for three days straight, because in the end Justin needed reassurance. As usual. He didn’t know where he actually found the strength to speak it out loud, but he did. Regretting it just two seconds after.

Matthew smiled, touching Justin’s foot with his own under the table in a gestures that seemed like an answer by itself, all while smiling, «We are».

And they talked about so many different things – gossips mainly – for two more hours without the awkwardness they felt at first, and Justin thought that everything was fine. He thought he simply had had a break down, and pondering about the day once he arrived home, he realized that it all started because Matt in the first place had called him that morning. He laughed at himself, realizing how stupid he had acted throughout the day – and the whole week, actually – sometimes he didn’t even understand how his own mind worked, making him overthink things which weren’t even a problem.

Things between him and Matthew had always been fine, he just made a fuss over nothing… didn’t he?

It was a step in the right direction, so he thought that all his dirty fantasies were a freakish Freudian – he didn’t really know if it was something Freud-related – way in which his brain was trying to point out to him how he really should take more care of his friendships.

He was ashamed, having wasted so much time worrying and being bothered because he wanted to be fucked by Matthew, instead of being bothered because he was worried about Matthew in the first place. But he thought that now he had all the time to take care of their friendship, and treat him in the proper way, without everything always being about Justin.

He went to bed, exhaling a relieved sigh before slowly falling asleep into Morpheus’ lap, just to wake up few hours after with a huge hard-on to the thought of his last wet dream, where Matt was fucking him harder and harder against a wall.

«Fuck!»

«Hey, gorgeous!» Michael waved from the skype screen, while Matthew cooked in the kitchen.

«Hi, baby!» he greeted, lighting the fire, before turning around to face Roxxxy, who was looking at him from the tablet monitor. It was an important part of Matthew’s daily routine: Roxxxy had always been his closest confidant and friend. Despite living on opposites US coastlines, he simply couldn’t give up on his habitual stress-relieving moment with his favorite Boxxxy Mandrews. Not that they reach for each other every single day, but Matt wouldn’t miss answering Michael’s call even when he had been busy, because Michael knew him better and he always had the right words to say, exactly when Matt needed to hear them.

«How’s it there?»

«Oh, everything’s fine, just had dinner with a bunch of friends» replied Michael, polishing his nails as usual.

They always had this kind of casual chat. Usually lasting less than an hour, “what did you do today?” “how are things going?” and other things along those lines, as if they were hanging out for a coffee,

«What about you? Weren’t you texting me about juicy gossip?» Michael smiled rascally, with a glimpse in his eyes typical of someone who literally lived for such talk.

Matt chuckled loudly. Michael’s smiling face was enough to make him feel at ease.

«Not gossip» he replied, putting the pan on the cooker before starting to shred a huge piece of cheese; he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to call… that. In the way that throwing shade was ‘gossip’.

No, it was more like: my life has been kinda awkward recently and I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to that…? The fact was, there was more bugging Matthew in the back of his head than he led on.

«I had lunch with Lasky today»

Michael gave him a puzzled look, stopping from his nail-care routine and raising his head to match Matthew’s, who was now biting his lip. He seemed quite uncomfortable. Michael also wore an expression explaining that he wasn’t prepared to talk about what they were going to talk about: «And?»

«I—»

«Sorry for interrupting,» started Michael again, pointing to his friend from the screen. «But you really should eat healthier», he commented with a paternal tone and a pissed look.

«Oh, fuck me!» exclaimed Matt, laughing. he knew the totally uncalled for comment was Michael’s way to try to ease the pace of the conversation. He’d probably noticed how nervous Matthew was. Oh, he loved Michael.

«You’re not my real mom!» Matt whined, following the mood.

«And I never will be—» Michael echoed, warmly smiling towards his best friend, noticing Matthew growing more relaxed.

«So what were you saying?»

«I had lunch with Lasky this morning—» Matthew tried again, still avoiding Michael’s glance, fearing the other would be able to read his expression and subsequently read him for filth for it. Matt knew Michael could and would do it at its finest.

«You already said that», pointed out the other mockingly.

Matthew faced him, brandishing a spoon threateningly. «I swear I’m gonna shove this up your ass, if you don’t stop interrupting me!» he said despite his secret gratitude for the interruptions. They gave him time to pick the right words.

Michael raised his hands in surrender, faking a serious face, traces of laughter peeking out from his lips. «Sorry, sorry, go on.»

«I was saying… I had lunch with Justin this morning,» Matthew started again, pursing his lips. he didn’t want Michael to actually understand what was rumbling in his head, so he really tried to seem quite casual towards the subject.

Michael rolled his eyes at the third same clarification. «You know, I was feeling a bit down due to the break-up with James, and Laurie moving out, and Heather’s accident…»

Michael slowly nodded while Matt listed things they’d already talked about on the phone the days before. But then, Matthew was one to repeat himself often, and Michael was by now used to it. He couldn’t hide the fact he was still a bit worried, just like the days before. Matt was the kind of person to keep everything to himself, just to explode in an humongous breakdown, upon hitting the point of no return.

«And you know… I’ve told you about me and Lasky’s talk the other day, didn’t I?» Matthew spoke slowly, too slowly for what Michael was used to, and it made him think that something was wrong. When Matt took his time in talking about things, it was usually because he was trying to sugarcoat it…

«Yeah, you did», Michael commented dryly, his glance sharpening. While he was stared at Matt, he searched for something, a glimpse, a movement upon his face, which would betray him and crash all that pantomime of the collected person Matthew was trying to build himself up to be.

«So I thought it would be good for both of us to just go out, have a little chit chat to distract ourselves» Michael nodded; he knew where they were headed, and he knew how that conversation was gonna end. He knew Matthew too damn well to not know what he should expect.

«But—» Matthew stopped, furrowing his brows, and Michael caught that, widening his eyes as he slowly realized he had been right.

«But?» he asked, expectant. He knew already, yeah, but Michael was looking forward to the moment where Matthew would admit it. It would be the core of all his jokes about Matthew for the next few months.

«But it felt a bit strange?» finally Matt looked back at him perplexed as he kept speaking. He placed his hand on his hip, accommodating himself on one of the kitchen chairs. «I mean, Justin was really weird, he was fidgeting, and acting really odd, he asked if we were close?»

Michael watched Matthew scratching his neck out of nervousness, and he knew something was really upsetting him. Matt was over-confident to the point he wouldn’t let himself look fragile in front of others, and if he wasn’t even trying to hide, it must be because the thing was frigging juicy.

Michael blinked a few times, chuckling, trying to come up with something to make Mathew feel a bit more at ease.

«Well,» he started, «Lasky has always been like that, reaching for people, and then pushing them away just to realize he wants them closer».

Matthew reminded himself to tell Justin to re-think his opinion about Roxxxy’s intelligence.

«He did it a few times with us both» Michael continued, turning his head a bit, as if he was reading a script beside him, trying to focus on what he was supposed to say, «he’s a weirdo, and I don’t mean that in a shady way. He’s a funny, sweet weirdo, but still a weirdo».

Matthew mumbled that he didn’t need clarification about how freakish Justin had always been. «You’re right, but he wasn’t weird like when everything has to be about Lasky, and he’s going crazy because he can’t handle stress», Michael smiled amused: it was a decent read of Justin’s personality.

«It was more like he was walking on eggshells», Matthew continued as if he was Sherlock Holmes in the middle of solving a crime and a solution was just around the corner.

Michael giggled, sing songed, «Unresolved sexual tension~» he accompanied his fluted tone by gesticulating like a conductor.

Matt kept quiet for a second. He opened his mouth, but his jaw snapped shut right after. A thought had just hit him with the strength of an avalanche. He had tried for too long to keep that thought in the most hidden part of his mind and Michael with a simple phrase made everything violently resurface. Matthew was slapped with a reality he had tried to avoid for too many years.

«What the fuck?» He blurted out, trying to seem shocked. He’d overcompensated, judging by Michael’s sardonic grin in the screen.

«Oh, come on!» Michael mocked, hushing him with a movement of his hand, «Back in the werk room, during All Stars 2, I honestly thought we would end up having a threesome. Or at the very least, you two would fuck in the bathroom—»

Matt pursed his lips, trying to mask his horrified expression. «The fuck are you saying?!» he tried again, turning his face to the side, knowing if he just matched looks with Michael again, the other would see through his act. He was already feeling naked enough in that moment. Bury me, he begged a likely non existent God.

«Toxy», Michael called in an oddly paternal way, «look me in the eyes, and tell me you never thought about fucking Justin».

Matthew kept silent, his body tensing while he tried to come up with a sagacious comeback. Too late.

«Ah-ha!» exclaimed then Michael, a winning grin upon his face, raising his arms with a joy you rarely saw outside of sports fans during the Superbowl, «Told ya!»

Matt grunted, annoyed, and it took him a moment to finally decide to face his best friend again, now beaten and unarmed, «Okay, okay, maybe I wondered few times how it would be to fuck Lasky, but that’s it, I don’t see the problem! You know I have a thing for twinks, and even though Justin ain’t one, he’s in the neighborhood… a really lanky twink»

Even Matthew himself didn’t believe what he just said. Michael’s skeptical eyes reinforced how bad at hiding it he was.

It had always been the elephant in the room. Matthew simply hadn’t wanted to address it, until Michael had pointed it out for him. Not that it had ever been a problem per se… the fact was: Matthew knew too damn well how those things would end for the worst, especially when Lasky was involved. So, many years ago, he simply tried to lock those thoughts inside his mind, far from the most conscious part of his brain, and things actually worked for a bit. They went on with their own lives, they acted like normal friends towards each other, and everything was going smooth.

So Matt thought he shouldn’t worry about such a thing from the past. Yeah, it kind of came back once they saw each other during AS2, but nothing happened and everything was fine… wasn’t it?

«Mh-mh—» mumbled Michael again with the same expression of someone who knows everything, «I know, I know, but maybe he’s thinking the same, and you know how he’s awkward in situations like these, he even admitted it».

That was an hypothesis Matthew hadn’t examined yet. They took home a twink together in the past. They did make out, and Matt simply thought that if something was supposed to happen… it should have happened already.

«What?» he asked skeptically. No, Michael couldn’t be right. Well, he was most of the time, except when he was investing too many emotions in someone casually hitting on him, but, well, when it came to Matthew, Michael was always right. Not this time, though. Uh-uh, he shouldn’t—couldn’t be right.

«When he’s bored, he gets really horny, like he hadn’t fucked in years».

Matthew stopped, looking kind of puzzled: «I don’t understand».

«You talked to him about his horrible date with that guy… what was his name?»

«Rick» Matthew answered flatly. Matthew realized how he had taken that whole situation for granted, because in the first place he hadn’t had the occasion to address… He didn’t want, ok, but thinking back about how his and Justin’s relationship developed, he remember how Justin had always had already a boyfriend, before Matt could even prompt to make something out of their… well, unresolved sexual tension. There was no point in denying it anymore.

«Yeah, you talked about his horrible date with Rick, and then you prompted him to take life more easy, and fool around, and maybe fuck someone, and he has probably taken your advice literally…»

As Michael kept talking, a sudden epiphany hit Matthew in the harshest way possible:  «Oh», he commented widening his eyes, and he knew Michael wouldn’t miss that glimpse in his look, betraying him right on the spot. The same shocked expression of someone caught red-handed.

«…what’s “oh”?» Michael prompted: he hadn’t expected this conversation to go this way, and he was confused for a full second. Once he connected all the dots of their little talk and with a bewildered and amused look, a shocked exclamation burst from his lips in the funniest way possible: «Oh my god, Toxy, really?»

Matthew bit his lip guiltily, understanding he couldn’t flee the issue anymore. He shut his eyes , not wanting to face Michael’s judgement. He confessed «I may or I may not have offered him comfort sex…?»

It took Michael a moment to realize what Matthew had just said, and then he raised a hand to his face, hiding it behind his palm in disbelief and exhaustion. «How can you expect him to not act weird, when you offer him sex. You’re friends and you both seemed to want to jump to each other’s bones for years!»

«I was joking!» Matthew tried to justify himself again, pissed by the whole situation. He knew he was somehow guilty, because, in fact, he knew he wasn’t really joking that time but he couldn’t face the fact that it had actually been his fault from the beginning.

«The last time you joked about fucking your friends, we ended up having sex, and it has been weird and awkward for weeks before you got me laid!» Michael switched to a softer tone, knowing that if he kept speaking with that harsh and judgmental voice Matthew would feel attacked and shut him out.

Matthew frowned, pursing his lips. He knew Michael was right… he just didn’t want to admit it. «Yeah, because you’re a bitter and insecure bitch».

Michael opened his mouth in disbelief, seriously offended. Ok, he shouldn’t, because he knew that lashing out was just the way Matthew shielded himself. But still…

«Sorry» Matthew said quickly, realizing how harsh he had sounded, «I didn’t mean it, sorry» he repeated, assuring himself Michael didn’t really get offended, and finding a confirmation in the slight hand gesture the other one made towards him to dismiss the subject. «But, look, seriously, I don’t see the problem, we are grown men, we can fuck with each other and still be friends, it’s called friends with benefits», Matthew said it, but he knew better how casual sex with friends would not work with Justin.

Michael pouted.

«We’re talking about Lasky, you know he takes things too seriously, and he surely can’t handle a relationship based on being friends with benefits».

«We haven’t had sex—»

«—yet. And you actually shared bed with a twink» Michael interrupted.

They stood quiet for a solid minute. Michael could hear Matthew thinking behind the screen. crumbled onto his chair with a pondering expression.

«Look, when it happened between us,» and Michael fidgeted anxiously, «I spent an entire week, thinking about how it could ruin our friendship, and if we were close enough to handle things without one of us being heart-broken or wasted, and if things would be awkward after that, and luckily for us it did go well, but that’s because we knew each other for years, and we have this kind of really close friendship, that makes me realize I really don’t want a relationship with you».

A bittersweet laughter burst from Matt’s lips: «Thank you» he commented sarcastically. He knew what Michael was talking about, but he simply glossed over it. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear.

«I love you, girl, but we’re the most mismatched pair you will ever see!» Michael joked, trying again to ease the pace of the conversation.

«I know, I know…» Matt drawled, but he didn’t really know what to think now, and he probably hid it in the worst way ever, because Michael glanced him with a worried smile upon his face.

«Seriously, Toxy, I think you should talk to him».

And Matthew knew he really should, but how can you start a conversation about having sex with your insecure friend, who’s pondering too much about the implication of being friends with benefits? And for what he knew, Justin could be acting weird because of lots of other things. Maybe he didn’t even mind that Matthew offered him sex, and he took it as a joke – as it supposedly was meant from the beginning – and now Matt was making a fuss about a thing that didn’t even exist.

No, he knew – he was sure – it was due to that thing that Justin was acting weird. He simply didn’t want to face it; he had grown so used to the thought it was a never-in-a-million-years fantasy. They both were having a good life, good work, a good… boyfriend. Then, Justin broke up with his almost – ? – fiancé, and then he himself broke up with James—well, he knew he didn’t love James in the first place. But he tried so hard to convince himself he could learn how to love him, that he really believed that.

But realizing how things exploded in just one week, and the first person he searched for had been Justin, Matthew understood how he had miserably failed to act as if that thing between them had never existed.

Maybe he should start with “you’re acting weird these days”, but he continued pondering about the matter for the whole night.

Justin avoided Matthew for three days in a row. Matt texted him few times, to ask him if he wanted to have lunch with him again, but Justin had came up with a different excuse each time. Of course, he couldn’t know that the other one was searching for him for the exact reason he was avoiding him.

“I’m going out with Cory”, “I’m hanging with friends”, “I don’t feel well”, Matthew didn’t buy any of that, but he thought that pressing Justin to talk about how awkward it had been between them during the whole week wasn’t a good idea, so he let him be. Plus, none of them was really ready to face that talk, even though both unaware of the fact that the other one was actually thinking the same.

Justin surely couldn’t avoid him forever; he knew that at some point he would have to face him, but the fact was, how can you start a conversation about… that in the first place? And what was that in the first place?

Justin had time to think. Too much time to think, actually, as if he wasn’t already over-thinking things, but he hadn’t come up with a solution yet. He didn’t really have a clue about what he was supposed to do.

He wanted to fuck Matthew. Check.

He wanted to be a better friend with Matthew. Check.

He wanted to be closer with Matthew, mostly because he should really amend to what a bad friend he had been for him in the past. Check.

How would all these things mix up together?

He didn’t even know if they were related at all. Of course they were related, but Justin couldn’t see the big picture yet. So he simply thought he needed more time to think about.

Unluckily for him, they were now in Willam’s house, he had a cup of new NA Budweiser brew in his hand – gosh, it tasted like shit – and Matthew was glancing towards him on the other side of the kitchen table.

Willam had invited all the queens he knew in West Hollywood to come and see his brand new performance, and – Justin had to admit – it was amusing, but he didn’t understand how he and a bunch – other 20 people, maybe? – ended up hanging to Willam’s house for a totally wasting after-party. He didn’t even know Matt and Will were on good terms again, so he was surprised to see his face through the crowd at the club.

He tried really hard to avoid him, and in fact they didn’t speak for the entire night; he didn’t know how he accomplished that, actually. But he did, just to end up with both of them in the same room, and the exact same awkwardness they shared when they went out for lunch few days before. Justin knew he couldn’t fake any longer. Matthew had had it – officially – and Lasky sensed that something was completely off.

Willam, who was now Justin’s focus as he tried to come up with the courage he needed to face Matthew, was kind of wasted already, his arm on Courtney’s shoulder, laughing like a donkey, dancing and shouting from upon the living room’s table. People were cheering like it was the best entertainment they’d had had in ages, and Justin wondered if that table would hold the weight of both Willam and Shane. It seemed like the most interesting thing in the world in that exact moment… and everything would be preferable to meeting Matt’s glance from the other end of the kitchen table.

Justin smiled. It actually was hilarious seeing how the other 2/3 of the AAA Girls were holding the court, but then Matthew approached him, and Justin’s smile dropped. He caught that bittersweet glimpse in Matthew’s eyes, and  he knew it was due to the fact he noticed that he was the one making Justin’s mood change abruptly. Lasky felt kind of guilty. He didn’t want to make Matt uncomfortable, and it wasn’t like he was… upset with him—he simply wasn’t ready to talk about his odd behavior. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say about it in the first place. Please, follow me home and fuck the shit out of me, then we can become closer friends and everything will go smoothly? Just for a second, Justin thought it wasn’t such a bad idea.

He was that desperate.

«Hey» Matt greeted, and Lasky noticed how he forced himself to smile, resembling that same happy expression, Matthew always wore upon his face, «Hey» Justin answered, trying on the other hand to smile kindly towards him, failing miserably. He surrendered. He had to face him in that exact moment, or things would have always been too awkward between them.

Matt gave him a puzzled look, before leaning to the kitchen counter by his side, and resting his back onto it. He was looking at him, and Justin was fidgeting, continuously moving his arms, first resting them on the counter, then crossing them on his chest, and then leaving them hanging on his side. Lasky felt the other one’s glance upon himself, and he consciously knew Matt wasn’t pushing him or something like that, but… he couldn’t bring himself to rationally think that. He felt an exhausting weight dropping onto his shoulders. Matthew frowned: Justin probably wasn’t aware of how uncomfortable his expression looked, but Matt noticed and couldn’t stop himself to think it was due to his presence.

Fuck, it was unbearable.

«Feeling better?» Matt asked, he tried to start a casual conversation, just like Michael tried to make him feel at ease during their skype call.

Justin answered with a confused look.

Matthew knew that Justin had been lying, but he hoped that at least he remembered his own lie. He chuckled: «…weren’t you feeling sick?»

Oh, yeah. He was supposed to be sick, Justin realized and widened his glance caught off guard. He took time, sipping from his – awful – beer, trying to come up with a decent answer.  «Yeah, now I’m fine» he lied. Again. «How’re you?» at least, he should try to make an effort to make the casual — awkward — conversation to go on smoothly.

Well, he actually started a conversation, and that was a kind of a win, even though Matthew was really the last person he wanted to talk to right now. He hadn’t fixed a thing about all the turbulent thoughts in his head, and as long as he was still confused, he didn’t really feel it was a good idea to face him.

It felt awkward, mostly because Justin knew he had avoided him for the whole week, and he was aware that Matthew hadn’t bought a single lie.

«I think we should talk» Matthew started, and Justin realized again he had no escape this time. He didn’t look at him, so he couldn’t notice how worried Matt seemed, but he couldn’t stop either from fidgeting in his own spot against the kitchen counter, with no effort in trying to hide how nervous he was. Gosh, he wanted a cigarette right about now.

He was used to fleeing problems—he was fucking good at it too, but this time he knew he couldn’t do what he always did. Because it was dragging him to the point of exhaustion, and he was worn out from all the overthinking.

«You’re acting weird… I mean, really weird, even for your standards», Matthew seemed a bit insecure of what he was talking about, as if, just like Justin, he wasn’t prepared at all for the conversation.

I already know, Justin though, sipping his beer.

«It seems like you’re really worried about how our friendship is right now, but you never did, I mean, we’re close, Justin» and Matthew tenderly brushed the lanky man’s arm, searching for the courage he needed to keep talking. He recognized how odd that was coming from such a confident person. «And we’ve always been, and at first I didn’t understand why you were walking on eggshells around me— it’s really creeping me out, and…» Matthew drawled and then stopped. He took a sip from his beer and coughed, choosing his words carefully. «I’ve talked with Michael, and I realized that it may be my fault».

Justin furrowed his brows, turning his face to the other man. He’d heard what the other one said, even replayed those words in his mind, but still, he didn’t quite comprehend the part where it was supposedly Matt’s fault. For a moment, Justin had thought that Matthew read through the lies and through him, and he couldn’t hide anymore the fact that, yeah, there was something unspoken and unresolved between them, but…

«What?» Justin asked, probably a bit too loud, because Matthew almost startled. His brows furrowed upon his face, with a look that seemed both puzzled and pissed.

How could it be his fault, since it was Justin the one tormenting himself over a thing that… maybe wasn’t even “a thing”?

Matthew raised his glance to the ceiling, keeping touch with Justin’s arms; it was somehow as if he really wanted to look at him in the eyes, but he couldn’t actually bring himself to do it. He simply thought that if he glanced him in that exact moment, Justin would have read through him and would draw conclusions without giving him the time to explain things. Justin was exactly like that.

«When we talked about you feeling beaten, because of that horrible date, I gave you advice, because that’s what good friends do, and I may have said something that made you uncomfortable», Matthew spoke slowly. It was slightly off putting, because he usually didn’t talk like that. Lasky felt uneasy again, as if he was supposed to expect bad news.

He gave Matt a puzzled look, placing his cup on the counter, and crossing his arms across his chest. His eyes bore into the kitchen table in front of him, not really watching it. Justin was losing contact with reality, retreating more and more into his head as Matthew kept talking.

«You know, I said you don’t need to grow affectionate toward people»

But he did.

«But just fool around a bit more»

He couldn’t really.

«You don’t want a relationship»

But he did want to be closer to Matthew

«And you just need to be fucked and enjoy yourself»

Yeah, he did, but the problem was he already had an idea of who could restlessly fuck him until morning,

«And I may or may not have offered you sex…»

Ah. So he meant it.

Justin suddenly regained awareness of his surroundings. Raising his glance to the other man – who wasn’t matching his look – he widened his eyes in disbelief, caught out of surprise. Ok, yeah, he really excruciated himself over that suggestion, he did, but somehow he didn’t really expect a confirmation about it. He wasn’t prepared. At all. He had examined all the different outcomes of speaking with Matthew, and that one was something that didn’t even glimpsed in Justin’s mind.

«And, look—»

But Lasky abruptly interrupted him: «I jerked off, thinking about you. Few times, actually».

God, it was a fucking relief.

…but Justin regretted it quickly, when Matthew turned facing towards him, he matched his astonished and bewildered look. Justin opened his mouth not sure of what he was supposed to say, and Matt blinked few times in his direction.

«I… spent an entire week avoiding you, because that made me frigging uncomfortable towards you» Justin started, skeptical because he didn’t really know how that conversation was supposed to end once he had begun, «and it’s not your fault, it’s me, because I’m fucking twisted and fucked up, and I couldn’t stop thinking about our relationship, and how, I think, I’ve always found you quite attractive…?» he admitted, and looking at Matt’s figure, he forced himself to not focus on that beard, which was growing more and more day by day, making him fucking sexier than he had ever been, «…and I think that’s the reason I always wanted to be closer to you, but I couldn’t push myself in doing it, because between friends things become easily awkward and weird, and I don’t want to ruin things again» he drawled, gulping loudly, realizing things as he continued to speak. So, that’s how it works when you go to a psychologist.

«I always ruin things, because I have this rotten mind of mine, which I really can’t handle, and though I really want to be fucked by you, and at the same time be a better friend to you than what I have been until now is driving me fucking crazy… I know we… we shared bed with another guy, we kissed, and touched, and everything, but I think it was since then that I couldn’t stop thinking about these things».

Once he finished, he found himself craving for water, his throat aching. He probably should have focused on the fact he literally spilled all the T in just one moment, and Matthew – judging from his look – wasn’t prepared for that, but the only thing Justin could concentrate on was the fact that he needed a fucking glass of water. He didn’t know if it was an odd shielding-mechanism or something, he simply couldn’t think about the conversation – monologue – they were having.

He avoided Matthew’s look until he finished speaking, then he faced him for the third time, unsure if he had definitively ruined everything or if he would be the core of Matthew’s jokes for the next 20 years.

Justin felt freed from a chain which was really suffocating him, and at the same time he was both worried and relieved, because speaking it out loud allowed him to draw the right conclusion to all his thought.

In the end, he needed Matthew. Not only for a one-night-stand – he couldn’t do anything for the sexual tension that resurfaced between them – he needed Matthew by his side as it had always been. And he wanted to reciprocate it, because in some crooked ways it gave him life to feel closer to him.

Justin wasn’t sure how it worked, it was something really bizarre which he couldn’t label yet.

«So—» but Justin couldn’t finish his sentence, because, while nobody was really minding them, too busy in laughing and screaming towards Willam and Courtney, who were now dancing on the couch, Matthew leaned closer, a hand tenderly caressing his cheek, the other hand grabbing the arm his fingers were gently caressing few minutes before… Justin had almost forgotten how the real sensation of those plump and full lips was, but when Matthew shut his mouth with his own, kissing him, Justin realized how reality was frigging better than fantasies.

Matt mentally appointed to himself that he should really offer Roxxxy lunch next time they would meet.

#please remember your tags!! #chykopon #detox icunt #alaska thunderfuck #ggg: girl get a grip #rpdr fanfiction #submission #alaska x detox #rare pair #s5

[pseudophan]

Choking On Your Alibi

Rating: M Genre/tags/idk: friends to lovers/getting together, fluff, eventual smut, all the good stuff Word count: 6.3k what the fuck Summary: When Dan had first responded to a stranger’s roommate ad, he figured they’d be like acquaintances living together; simply exchanging pleasantries now and then. However as it happens they had quickly become good friends. But what will happen when Dan walks in on Phil hooking up with another guy?

based on this article referencing a reddit post about a guy who thinks he's homophobic because he doesn't like seeing his roommate with other guys

title from Mr. Brightside because that's where everyone gets their titles tbh

click here to read it on ao3 if that’s more your thing

"There's just one more thing," the man sitting across from him says, looking up from Dan’s application form.

"What is it?"

"Well so I assume it's not gonna be much of an issue for you but I'm uh ... I'm gay?"

"Oh," Dan is a bit taken aback at first, though he recovers fairly quickly, "That's cool," he says, truthfully.

Phil relaxes noticeably in his chair, he'd clearly been worried about Dan’s reaction. “I just thought you should know in case i bring any guys home. Or a guy, rather, I mean I’m not gonna bring a whole group and have like an orgy…”

“Phil-”

“Actually my sex life isn’t that interesting, I might not even bring anyone home but-”

“PHIL,” Dan has to raise his voice to get him to stop rambling. “Relax, it’s alright.”

Phil stops and smiles, “okay, cool. Good. So uh- I’ll see you Thursday then, yeah?”

“See you Thursday.” Dan gets up and walks towards the front door, casting one last glance over at the older guy before walking outside.

He is actually looking forward to living with Phil, he seems pretty cool and in the few conversations they’ve had together so far he’s gotten the impression that their interests are fairly similar.

Yeah, he thinks, this will be good.

Three days later Dan is again stood in the London flat, only this time he’s surrounded by boxes and feels a lot less optimistic. He’s still excited about the new living arrangements, but after a full day of moving, the knowledge that he has to unpack all his stuff makes him regret every life decision he has ever made.

“Do you need some help?” Dan is dragged back to reality by Phil’s voice, sounding rather amused.

“Huh?”

“You look a bit overwhelmed, we could order pizza and then I’ll help you unpack?”

“Phil, I fucking love you,” Dan replies, chuckling, and lifts one of the boxes off the floor. “I’ll start carrying these to my room and then you can order the pizza?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Phil smiles and reaches for his phone.

The pizza arrives after about half an hour, just as they finish unpacking the first box. Phil pays the delivery boy - with his own money as he refused to let Dan spend as much as a penny - and brings the food upstairs, figuring they’d eat as they work.

“So,” Phil says as Dan opens the next box. “Tell me something about yourself.”

“Like what?” Dan asks, looking up from the newly opened box.

“Like anything, if we’re gonna be living together I’d like to know more about you.” Phil picks up a plushie from the box and holds it up, “what’s the story behind this?”

Dan laughs and grabs the plushie, placing it on top of his wardrobe. “There’s no story, I won it for my girlfriend in one of those claw crane machine things.”

“That is a story,” Phil says, smiling. “If you won it for your girlfriend then why is it here?”

“She kinda threw it at me as I left her house after we broke up.”

“Oh. I’m sorry?”

“Nothing to be sorry about, it wasn’t the most passionate of relationships. I like the plushie though, so i kept it.”

“Is it like a reminder not to put up with things that don’t make you happy?”

Dan stops, looking up at Phil. “Uh. What?”

“If she threw the plushie at you I’m assuming you were the one who broke it off, and there must have been a reason for that, right?”

“Well, yeah, she cheated on me, but-”

“There you go! Whenever you look at the plushie you’re reminded of a time you did something you maybe didn’t want to, but knew you had to in order to be happy.”

“That’s … a lot deeper than I’ve ever thought about it but I uh. I guess?”

Phil grins, looking very pleased at himself for his analysis of some random teddybear. Dan looks at him and shakes his head in disbelief.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit odd?”

“All the time,” Phil says and then he giggles , like a little kid, except somehow it doesn’t seem out of place for him. “I usually take it as a compliment.”

A few months pass, and living with Phil couldn’t be better. They have the same taste in TV and films, and although Phil isn’t into all the music Dan listens to, they do have quite a few favourite bands in common.

When Dan had first responded to a stranger’s roommate ad, he figured they’d be more like acquaintances living together; making their own dinner and exchanging pleasantries now and then. However as it happens they had quickly become good friends, and more often than not they eat their meals together.

On this particular day, Phil had woken him up to make pancakes because ‘it’s Saturday and you can’t have Saturday without pancakes!’

So here they are, in the kitchen making pancakes. Except, they’re not really making pancakes as much as thoroughly destroying the room. The batter has found its way out of the bowl and all over the counter. Long story short, Phil had attempted to use an electric mixer and it didn’t go well.

“You really suck at this cooking thing,” Dan says, laughing at Phil’s defeated expression.

“And you haven’t exactly been much help,” Phil replies. “Besides, it’s the thought that counts and all that.”

“You just keep telling yourself that.”

Then, without warning, Phil lifts the mixer from the bowl again and presses the on button, causing a shower of batter to rain over Dan.

“Oh, my God, Phil!” Dan quickly dips his finger into the batter and smears it on Phil’s cheek in revenge.

“Jokes on you, now I look like I’m wearing some epic war paint,” Phil says, before he coats his entire hand in batter and playfully smacks Dan’s ass.

“Messing up my jeans is a low blow!” Dan says, after the initial shock.

Phil just shrugs. “What can I say, it’s a good ass.”

Dan laughs. They do this a lot, jokingly flirt with each other. If he’s being honest Dan kind of loves it. It’s nothing serious, Phil knows he’s straight, and the way he flirts is clearly just banter, but it gives Dan an odd sense of comfort to be close enough to somebody that they can joke around without it being weird.

All in all this roommate thing is working out quite nicely. But of course, because the universe seems to hate him, something has to go wrong sooner or later.

One day when Dan comes home from the gym - after exercising, obviously, not just quickly signing a year long membership he’ll probably never use before getting intimidated by the very buff guys lifting weights who could all probably kill dan with one finger, thus prompting him to postpone his dream of getting ripped and instead leaving as soon as possible - he finds Phil on the sofa in their lounge. Horizontal. With another man.

Dan freezes in the doorway. He knows he should leave, or at least say something to let them know he’s here, but his legs are glued to the floor and his tongue has stopped working. Phil and the guy are heavily making out, neither of them are wearing shirts and the stranger is slowly moving his hands over Phil’s chest. Suddenly, Phil lets out a loud moan, and evidently that’s what Dan needed to wake up from his frozen state. He lets out a surprised ‘oh!’ and as much as he wish they hadn’t, both Phil and the guy hear him.

“Um,” Dan begins as he steps back from the door, frantically searching for words.

“Dan! I didn’t think you’d be home yet.”

“I’m so sorry, I- I’m just gonna, um- go.” Dan quickly walks towards his room and closes the door behind him, leaving a very flustered Phil on the couch.

Alone in his room, Dan paces back and forth. What the fuck just happened? It’s not so much the fact that he walked in on Phil with a guy, it’s how it made him feel. He feels sick. Like he might throw up at any moment. Why? He’s walked in on his parents before, and though that experience ranks as one of his top 10 least pleasant moments it didn’t make him feel physically ill. Then, a thought strikes him. Is it because Phil was with a guy ?

Dan can’t recall ever having had anything against gay people, and though he was surprised when Phil said he was gay he never thought anything negative of it. However as he unwillingly replays the scene he’d just witnessed, he can’t help but feel highly uncomfortable by it, and if it’s not the idea of walking in on someone itself then what else can it be?

Confused, and frankly quite disappointed in himself, he goes to bed and falls into an uneasy sleep.

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s due to a knock on his bedroom door. Unsurprisingly when the door opens it’s Phil, looking rather embarrassed.

“Hey… Did i wake you?”

“Yeah, but that’s okay. What’s up?” Dan knows what’s up, of course he does, but he asks anyway.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for last night, I really thought you’d be gone longer.”

“It’s fine,” Dan says.

It isn’t.

“Are you sure?”

No.

“Well I wasn’t exactly expecting to walk in on you getting down and dirty so I was a bit surprised, but really - it’s okay.”

Lies.

Phil doesn’t seem convinced, but he lets it slide and leaves the room, probably to eat breakfast.

Dan tries to go back to sleep but soon realises it’s not gonna happen and gets out of bed. He doesn’t particularly want to have breakfast with Phil, in fear of having to continue the conversation about last night’s awkward encounter, and so he decides to wait until he’s certain Phil is done in the kitchen. Unfortunately this also gives him an unwanted opportunity to ponder his feelings about what happened. Why is he making such a big deal out of this? He’s had gay friends before. Well, one gay friend… Okay he had a gay classmate who he occasionally talked to, but he’d never had any issues with him.

But you never saw that guy with a boyfriend an unwanted voice in his head reasons.

“That’s irrelevant!” Dan exclaims to the empty room, before silently cursing himself and hoping Phil didn’t hear his outburst.

You’re being ridiculous, he thinks to himself, careful not to speak out loud this time to save himself from further embarrassment. If he really does have a problem with Phil being gay, he’ll just have to get the fuck over it.

And he does.

That is, he thinks he has. Until the next time he encounters one of Phil’s dates.

When Phil said his sex life isn’t that interesting he wasn’t lying, it takes almost two months before Dan once again wishes the earth would open up and swallow him whole. This time he comes home from a weekend spent in Wokingham with his family just as a tall, blonde guy he’s never seen before is about to leave.

“Oh, hello!” The stranger smiles and holds out his hand, seemingly for Dan to shake. “I’m Nathan.”

Dan ignores the hand. He’s too busy staring at the telling bruises on Nathan’s neck, unable to keep his mind from imagining how they got there. After about a minute of awkward silence, Phil walks out into the hall, typing something on his phone and therefore not noticing Dan’s presence right away.

“So I’ll call you, yeah? I just saved your-” Phil looks up, finally spotting his roommate. “Dan! Welcome back, did you have a good weekend?”

Dan shrugs.

“Uh, so this is Nathan,” Phil begins, though apparently he’s struggling to figure out what to say next because what follows is just another awkward silence. Incidentally this is when Dan decides to finally chime in.

“So i hear,” he says, not meeting his friend’s eyes. He knows that he’s being an asshole, but the second he walked through the door and realised what Phil had been up to in his absence something just snapped. That was all it took for the time and effort he’d spent convincing himself he was perfectly okay with Phil’s love life to lose its worth. Phil furrows his brows and Dan knows he’s about to get a well deserved berating.

“Right, well, I’m gonna uh...I’ll just go.” Nathan doesn’t wait for a response and is out the door before either of them can say a word. The second the door slams, Phil takes a step towards Dan, his expression dangerously similar to that of someone about to commit murder.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t-” Dan begins, but Phil interrupts him.

“Don’t you dare say that you don’t know! If you’re gonna be a dick, at least pretend to have a reason for it.”

“I just...” Dan tries again, but this time he trails off by himself. I just feel bad because the very thought of you hooking up with a guy makes me feel uncomfortable and frankly downright disgusted, he thinks to himself, inwardly shuddering at how horrible it sounds.

“You just what?” Phil pushes. And then, as if he’s read Dan’s mind he asks “Do you have a problem with me sleeping with other guys?”

Fuck.

“What? Of course not, I don’t give a shit who you hook up with!” Dan doesn’t mean for it to come out that harshly, and it does nothing to calm Phil down. If anything it makes him even more upset, Dan notices, slightly confused at this development.

“You know what, I’m just gonna go stay with Nathan,” Phil says and grabs his jacket, walking past Dan who’s still stood in the middle of the room.

“But I got back early to go to the cinema tonight because you wanted to!”

“Yeah, well, now you won’t have to.” Phil walks past him and opens the door. “Just to be clear,” he says, his back turned, “you’ll be okay if I sleep with him as long as it’s not here?”

Dan tries his best to sound nonchalant when he replies, “It’s none of my business what you do elsewhere, knock yourself out.”

The door slams. Dan feels sick.

He fucked up, God he fucked up. There was absolutely no valid reason for him to be rude to Phil, not to mention poor Nathan, and yet…

Several hours pass and Phil doesn’t return. I guess he was serious about staying the night with Nathan then, Dan thinks, and as soon as he does that familiar nauseous feeling returns. He can’t help but picture the two of them in bed together, naked and sweaty, moans filling the air. Already the first hour he tried drowning his sorrows in alcohol, but all he could find in the flat was a quarter bottle of wine which he drank in one go with very limited effects.

Usually if he doesn’t know what to do he’ll just google it, but something tells him the search results for ‘help i’m a homophobe’ may not be particularly helpful. An obvious solution would be to talk to somebody, but if he’s being honest the entire thing is just really embarrassing. Who does he know that has experience in awkward topics and who won’t judge him for it?

Then it hits him. Louise.

Dan had met Louise during his limited time at uni, and though they don’t meet up as often as they used to she’s still one of his best friends.

She picks up on the second ring, clearly not any more busy than Dan,

“S’up. This is Henry from last night, did I leave my pants at your house?” he opens in the deepest voice he can possibly manage.

“You know, you should probably block your number before attempting to prank call people,” Louise laughs into the phone. “And his name was George, if you must know.”

“No way! Louise has a lovelife, who would’ve thought.”

“Shut up, Howell. Why are you calling, anyway? Shouldn’t you be watching movies with your new BFF?” “Hey, you know it’s not like that-” Dan begins, but Louise laughs and interrupts him.  

“Oh relax, I’m perfectly content being replaced by your cute roommate.”

“Cute?”

“Don’t even pretend like you haven’t noticed.”

Dan rolls his eyes, even though he’s aware Louise can’t actually see him.

“Speaking of, how is Phil?” She continues before Dan can conjure up an appropriate response.

“Well, uh, that’s kinda what I’m calling about-” he begins, hesitating.

“...Yes?” Louise says after several seconds of silence.

“Promise you won’t judge?”

“I will promise no such thing,” she replies, but he can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s joking.

“Alright, here it goes-”

He tells her everything, about how great living with Phil was in the beginning - although she’d already heard that part a million times before - and then how weird it had gotten lately. He talks about how he walked in on Phil with that stranger a couple of months ago, then Nathan and how rude he’d been to him.

“-and then I told Phil I don’t give a fuck who he sleeps with outside of our flat, but that just made him even more upset! He didn’t even say goodbye, just slammed the door and left. That was nearly four hours ago and he doesn’t seem to be coming home any time soon so I guess he really is staying with Nathan or something.” He stops, finally, and takes a deep breath. He must have been rambling for ages.

He’s expecting Louise to say something, but all he hears is silence.

“Hello?”

He hears a sigh on the other end. Then, “you really are an idiot, Dan Howell.”

“You weren’t supposed to judge!” He says, but she ignores him.

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t like Phil being intimate with other guys, and your natural deduction is that you’re homophobic?”

Dan hesitates. When she says it like that it does sound stupid, he must admit.

“During all this freaking out,” Louise continues, “did it ever occur to you that what you’re feeling might just be jealousy?”

“Well yeah, I thought about that, but it’s not like I never have sex either, why would I be jealous of Phil?”

“No, you doofus, I mean you’re jealous of the other guys. Nathan and...whatshisface.”

Oh. Oh.

“You haven't even considered the possibility, have you?” Louise’s voice is amused but considerate.

“I’m not… I don’t… I-” Dan’s head is filled with different thoughts and questions all battling for attention, effectively resulting in none of them being uttered.

“Alright,” Louise says, “close your eyes.”

He’s not entirely sure what’s going on, but any excuse to hand the thinking over to someone else is very welcome and so he does as she says.

“Are they closed?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, now, picture yourself kissing some girl.”

“What, why?”

“Just do it.”

He realises there is no point in arguing and goes along with it.

“How is it?” she asks.

“It’s…nice? I guess.” In a way it is, too. He’s always enjoyed kissing, and though it makes him feel like he’s 13 years old again, picturing kissing a pretty girl is definitely not something he dislikes.

“Now picture kissing a guy.” Louise’s strange request breaks his fantasy, but before he can say anything she continues, “don’t question it, just let your mind run free.”

And so he does. This picture is a lot more difficult to maintain than the last one. He struggles to concentrate, and it’s less of a coherent fantasy and more like a distant idea he can’t fully grasp.

“Well?”

“It’s...weird. I don’t feel ill like when i walked in on Phil with that guy, but I don’t feel anything else either.”

“I have one more.” Louise sounds hesitant, as if she knows he won’t like this next proposal. “Imagine you’re kissing Phil .”

He doesn’t even bother protesting. If he’s being honest he did sort of see it coming, though the idea still makes him feel highly awkward.

Here goes nothing he thinks, and lets his mind run wild. The Phil in his head is walking towards him, as smiley as ever. He stops in front of him and hesitates for a second before moving his hand to rest on Dan’s hip, then gently cups his face with the other. He moves in slowly and lightly presses his lips to Dan’s, who sighs and parts his lips slightly, inviting the other to explore his mouth. However, just as they really start getting into it Dan is torn away by a loud cough.

“Huh?” he opens his eyes and looks around the empty room before he remembers he’s on the phone. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh . What the hell just happened?”

“What do you mean? I just did what you told me to”

“I told you to picture yourself kissing Phil, not passionately making love to him.”

“I didn’t!”

“Dan, you moaned.”

Dan’s face goes deep red and he can only thank any possible higher power that there isn’t anyone in the room to witness it.

Louise laughs. “Well, it seems like you have no problem with Phil kissing guys if it’s you he’s kissing.”

Dan almost smiles at her words, but any hints of said smile vanishes from his face when he remembers Phil wouldn’t actually kiss him, ever.

“God, Louise, what the fuck do I do?” He sighs and sinks deeper into the sofa cushions.

“I suggest you make out with Phil and live happily ever after.”

“Yeah, see, there’s a gaping hole in that plan. Phil doesn’t like me in that way!”

“Dan… are you blind and deaf or are you just simply an idiot?”

“Huh?”

“Phil is so obviously into you! Didn’t you say he got upset when you said you don’t care who he sleeps with?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“And doesn’t he flirt with you like all the time?”

“That’s just for fun! It’s not like he means it.”

“Is it though?”

“I mean…I think it is. Oh God, what if it isn’t?”

On one hand the thought of Phil liking him back fills Dan with so much joy he could barely contain himself, but on the other it scares him half to death. Not only has he never been with a guy before, but Phil is one of his best friends and the thought of fucking that up terrifies him.

“Dan?” Louise’s voice is quiet and careful, as if she’s afraid she’ll scare him. “If you want my advice I say take some time, think everything over and then if you decide to tell Phil I will be here cheering you on.”

“And if I decide not to?”

“I’ll still be cheering you on, just with less enthusiasm.”

Dan chuckles. “Thanks. I love you, did you know that?”

“I’ve always suspected. Goodbye and good luck!”

“Bye.”

The next few days are agonising . His newly discovered crush ends up staying at his boyfriend-or-fuckbuddy-or-whatever’s house for three days, leaving Dan to re-think his decision over and over until he’s certain he will actually go insane. At first he decides not to do anything and just hope the crush will disappear on its own. Then, four hours and a fair amount of alcohol later, he changes his mind and suddenly telling Phil seems like the best idea anyone has ever had. It’s a good thing he didn’t charge his phone after the long chat with Louise because he tries his best to drunk dial the man in question, but the battery dies before any harm is caused.

By the time Phil finally arrives back at the apartment Dan has been back and forth so many times he’s given himself whiplash. In the end, though, he decided not to tell Phil. It’s not worth it, he thinks. Our existing friendship is more valuable than my need to snog him.

And if a little voice in the back of his head is yelling bullshit! at his claims, he is skilfully ignoring it.

A week passes and Dan is frustrated.

Then another week and Dan is in agony.

Being around Phil before he realised his feelings was bad enough, but now it’s downright torturous. More than once he finds himself staring at Phil’s lips as he speaks, or follow his hand as he raises it to brush his fringe out of his eyes or scratch his jaw or fuck knows what else.

Phil hasn’t brought up their argument, nor the cause for it, since it happened and Dan is more than happy to pretend it never happened. Nathan hasn’t been around since that day and Phil hasn’t been outside enough for Dan to suspect they’ve met anywhere else, and although he knows it’s selfish he can’t help but hope it will stay that way.

It doesn’t, of course.

“Hey, Dan, have you seen my phone?”

Dan looks up from his laptop screen to see Phil standing in the doorway of the lounge, looking mildly stressed. He chuckles at his flatmate’s expression and ponders the question for a few seconds.

“Have you checked the bathroom?” he says, finally. “I’m not entirely sure but I think I may have seen it in there earlier.”

Phil walks away and half a minute later Dan hears a triumphant “Hah!” coming from the bathroom, making him chuckle.

“It’s been missing for hours,” Phil says as he reenters the lounge and falls down on the sofa next to Dan. “Two missed calls from my mum, several snapchat notifications and- oh.”

“What?” Dan asks, confused.

“Uh, it’s nothing, nevermind.” Phil smiles at him, but contrary to popular belief Dan isn’t a complete idiot, and keeps pushing.

“Come on. Is there anything wrong?”

“No, it’s just… Nathan texted me?” It’s not a question, but the nervousness in Phil’s voice makes it sound like one, as if he’s unsure whether he’s allowed to receive texts from boys. Fuck, that makes Dan feel like a shitty person.

“Oh.”

“He’s asking if I want to go out for a drink tonight.”

“Oh,” Dan says again. “Are you going?”

Phil shifts uncomfortably in his seat, clearly conflicted. “I want to, but I don’t wanna make things awkward between us again so if it bothers you for whatever reason I won’t.”

Dan wants nothing more than to tell Phil not to go, to beg him never to see Nathan - or anyone else, for that matter - ever again.

But of course he doesn’t do that. He can’t. He has no right to decide over Phil’s life, and in the end he truly does want Phil to be happy.

“You should go,” he says, finally.

“Really?” Phil sounds excited.

“Sure.”

“You’re the best,” Phil says and gives him a quick hug before getting up.

By the time Dan recovers, Phil is gone and Dan can hear him rummaging around in the bathroom, presumably getting ready for his date. With Nathan. Phil is going on a date with Nathan.

Dan feels sick. It’s the same feeling he got when he first met Nathan and realised what he and Phil had been up to, except this time he recognises it and knows what caused it. Jealousy. He is so jealous he wants to scream. He might have done it as well, if it wasn’t for Phil being able to hear him.

And so he settles for crying. He gets up and all but runs to his room, closing the door behind him before he falls into his bed and sobs into his pillow. It’s pathetic, he knows it is, but right now he has no idea what else to do. He cries until he can’t anymore, and ends up just laying there, staring up into nothing.

That’s when he sees it. On the top of his closet; the stupid plushie he’d won for his girlfriend. God, that felt like so long ago now. He can’t even remember the day he got it, only her angry cries as she threw it at him after he broke up with her. No, wait… He remembers one more thing. He remembers Phil picking it up and asking for the story behind it. He remembers him analysing it, saying it reminded Dan to do whatever it takes to be happy. He remembers his giggle when Dan called him weird.

And suddenly Dan knows exactly what he needs to do.

Before he can change his mind he hurries out of bed, rips his door open and runs down the hall. Please dear God tell me he hasn't left yet, he thinks, as he all but trips down the stairs. And for once in his life the luck is on his side because there, looking both confused and concerned, is Phil. He's wearing a coat and is clearly on his way out, but Dan has already decided that Phil's date is cancelled. Sorry Nathan. "Dan, what-" Phil begins, but Dan cuts him off.

"Do you have any idea how annoying you are?"

"I-" Phil tries again, to no avail.

"My life was going great! Well, perhaps not great, but it was fine. It was calm, and I had everything more or less figured out." For the third time, Phil opens his mouth to say something.

"But then!" Dan exclaims before he can utter as much as a syllable. "But then. Then you came along. With your stories and opinions and unique way of thinking that I could probably listen to for hours on end. And your hair is neat and never curls and somehow you can dye it an emo black well into your twenties and still look good. And then you started bringing guys home and I felt so awful and I didn’t understand why and I was sure I’d somehow become homophobic."

The confused look on Phil's face is replaced by an amused smile, and this time he doesn't even try to interrupt Dan's rant.

"And you giggle! You giggle like a five year old and it's annoying and adorable and I just want to kiss that stupid grin off your face."

"Then go for it."

"Huh?"

"Kiss the stupid grin off my face. I dare you."

And so he does. In two short steps Dan reaches Phil and he doesn't give himself as much as a second to think before grabbing the front of the other's jacket and pulling him in. Their lips meet, and suddenly nothing else matters. Dan doesn't care about his newfound sexuality crisis, all he cares about is Phil's lips and how smooth they are against his own chapped ones. Phil grabs Dan’s waist with one hand and pulls him closer, then moves the other to the back of his neck and tilts his head before he tentatively flicks his tongue over Dan’s bottom lip. Dan can’t help but moan, and doesn’t even have the time to feel embarrassed before Phil takes advantage of his parted lips and deepens the kiss and then Dan is gone.

They kiss for what feels like hours. Dan is pressed up against the wall and Phil’s coat has long since been discarded, allowing the younger to roam his hands under his shirt and feel the warm skin of his back.

“Wait, shit, Dan I-” Phil pulls back, sweaty and out of breath, and rests his forehead against Dan’s.

Dan wants nothing more than to ignore him and just keep kissing, but he knows better than to force himself on him. “What’s wrong?” he asks instead.

“Nothing’s wrong, I just um-” he nods down, and Dan follows the motion, instantly realising what he’s getting at.

“Oh.” Phil’s jeans are tight, and even in the dim light of the hallway he can clearly see the bulge forming underneath them.

“I don’t want to pressure you into something you’re not ready for, so we should probably stop before things escalate.”

Dan goes quiet for a moment, still lightly stroking Phil’s back with his thumb as he thinks. He is already in way over his head, and he has no idea how to proceed with getting intimate with another man, yet there is still a voice in his head telling him to just do it. Phil definitely isn’t the only one who’s gotten worked up over their current situation, and although he could always retreat to his room for a wank, something tells him it would be a disappointing high.

Deciding that this truly is the day for trying new things, Dan takes a deep breath and looks Phil straight in the eye as he slides his hand from his back and towards the bulge in his jeans. He moves slowly, making sure Phil knows exactly what he’s doing and has the opportunity to stop him if he wants to. He doesn’t, and Dan takes it as permission to continue. Phil gasps as Dan suddenly presses his hand against his crotch, beginning to palm him over his jeans. Dan smirks as he feels Phil grow impossibly harder under his touch, noting how his breath catches when Dan slowly pulls down his zipper.

“Can I?” Dan asks, though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer already.

“God, yes,” Phil replies, and Dan wastes no time before pulling his jeans down over his hips, immediately resuming his previous actions. Now that the jeans are gone he can feel the shape of Phil’s length through the thin fabric of his boxers. Phil moans and God the knowledge that Dan is the reason for these noises is intoxicating.

In the midst of his desire to please Phil he has completely forgotten about his own hard-on, and so when Phil suddenly reaches out to undo Dan��s own trousers it takes him a second to understand what is happening.

“I’ve got an idea,” Phil says, fingers toying with the waistband of his jeans. “Do you trust me?”

Without even thinking, Dan replies “Completely,” and Phil pecks his lips before promptly pulling down his jeans. He then steps out of his own and discard them completely, motioning for Dan to do the same.

Once they’re both stripped down to their underwear, Phil pulls Dan in for a heated kiss that leaves him weak in the knees. As their lips and tongues move together, Phil moves both of his hands to Dan’s backside and, without warning, grabs his ass. Then, as if that wasn’t enough to send Dan’s head spinning, he pulls him impossibly closer and rolls his hips into the younger man’s, causing their erections to rub together and making them both moan into each other’s mouths.

“Fuck, shit, shit, fuck!” Dan desperately clutches Phil’s shirt as they continue to move together, the thinking part of his brain having long since stopped working. “How very articulate,” Phil teases, though the moan he lets out just afterwards makes it clear he’s just as far gone as Dan.

Dan moves his hands back to their previous spot under Phil’s shirt, desperate to feel more of his soft skin beneath his fingers. Taking the hint, Phil hastily removes the shirt completely, allowing Dan’s hands to roam even further. Whilst Dan is occupied with exploring every part of his body, Phil takes the opportunity to back him up against the wall once again. He then lowers his mouth to Dan’s neck and starts sucking and biting slightly at the skin there. This, paired with a particularly well aimed roll of his hips, makes Dan moan louder than he think he ever has, and if his brain was in a normal working state he’d no doubt be embarrassed.

“I’m ah- I’m close,” Dan manages, barely.

Phil stops.

He fucking stops.

“Phil!” Dan whines, trying his best to roll his hips into Phil’s again but he just steps back. Dan is just about to take matters into his own hands - literally - and jerk himself off, when Phil falls to his knees in front of him and oh. Oh.

Without a word, Phil pulls down Dan’s boxers, and just the sight of Phil’s mouth that close to his cock is enough to make Dan moan again. When Phil then licks a stripe from his base to his tip, Dan is certain he’s going to literally fall apart. This is proved even more likely when Phil wraps his lips around the head of his cock and starts sucking lightly, teasingly flicking his tongue over the tip. Just as Dan is about to tell Phil to please oh please hurry the fuck up, he takes his entire length into his mouth and holy shit does he even have a gag reflex?

Once again Dan warns Phil that he’s about to come, and Phil looks up at him through his lashes as he pulls his own cock out of his boxers and starts stroking himself as he takes Dan all the way down again. The tip of his cock hitting the back of Phil’s throat combined with the look on Phil’s face as he chases his own orgasm is enough to send Dan over the edge. He cries out as he comes, unable to keep his hips from bucking into Phil’s mouth as the older man swallows around him, not spilling a single drop.

Dan sinks down the wall, unable to keep himself standing any longer. In fact, he can’t see himself standing up ever again if he’s being honest. Phil wipes his own cum on his previously discarded jeans before turning back to Dan, who can’t help but run his hand through the ruffled black hair. He pulls Phil closer and their lips meet as Dan ignores the voice in his head reminding him that the lips he’s kissing were around his cock only two minutes ago.

“So,” Phil says as they pull apart for air. “What’s the verdict?”

“Huh?” Dan asks, confused.

“Well, are you homophobic or..?”

“Oh, shut up.”

Phil just giggles and pulls Dan in for another kiss.

------

so uh. did you like it? confession time, i haven't actually written a proper fic before so i'm nervous as HECK. hopefully it wasn't entirely terrible though ahhh

thank you to andy (jellyfics) for being my beta (and helping with the title when i was ready to Die after pondering it for ten hours) and to caitlyn (ratinof) for constantly assuring me that the fic isn't /entirely/ shit. i appreciate it.

#phanfic #phan smut #phanfiction #phan #my fic #the fuck do i tag this as

[thetouristtrapper-blog]

The Tourist Trap

I'm sitting here in my favorite café a few blocks from my house recollecting all the men I have taken here at one time or another.  Sean, who once moved here became the loyal steed in my stable. I'd at times even run into him here. Those times were fun. Bike rides and laughs. He's not around much any more but he's always someone I'm proud to have spent time listening to and engaging with. My way too old for me ex boyfriend, Noah. My best friend and former lover, Alex. Josh, whom I had met in Cambodia last summer featuring a week of explosive orgasms and tears upon departure. My most beloved Danny, who I had met while he was in town for a bachelor party. I managed to get him back down here for Mardi Gras. God I miss him. There was Matthew just last week who was only in town for a week but I lured him into my web and kept him close for two of those. We came for lunch before we headed to The Drifter for some micro dosing and swimming. The Barista who I've developed a crush on from afar over the years wasn't keen on seeing me with someone. He'll be fine. The Barista and I had matched on Tinder but never talked. I think we both figure it's best. Wouldn't want to sour the experience and general sphere of friendly encounters. Maybe before I leave this city I'll ask the barista to get a drink with me and subsequently have a whirlwind romance due to the fleetingness of it all.

I do that. I do that a lot. Fleeting whirlwind romances filled with action packed and passionate sex followed by some sweet and intimate heat between the sheets. Each one takes from me but never more than what it ultimately gives. Though, I love giving myself. I give my love to get used, not played with. I have a lot of it to give. Part of that being because I love myself. Or rather, I've learned how to love myself, care for myself, and enjoy myself.

I micro dosed LSD this past weekend while on a Blind VacationTM (I'll recount that later) I thought to myself, maybe I'm just obsessed with fucking different versions of myself? All these people I'm having these romances with I relate with on a significant level in one way or another. I see myself in so many of these men. Often times I’ve joked with some of them saying how they’re essentially a male version of myself. They tend to agree. So good, we agree about what we are doing. Having fun, enjoying ourselves, manifesting the intentions we had put out into the world, one stolen kiss featuring a New Orleans crumbling sidewalk at a time.

I’ve realized that I’ve developed a formula for manifesting these sort of encounters. I’ve gotten good at it. Real good. It clicked when I finally started trusting my gut and stopped sleeping with people who didn’t deserve me. You see, I’ve worked hard on myself and continue to invest in the woman I want to be. Those who seem to not understand how to do that, aren’t worth the emotional and mental labor. It takes a lot in order to achieve the depths and heights that intimacy with another can take me to. I want to be sure the effort I put in is matched. Honesty and communication are the most important factors in these sorts of situations. Otherwise it becomes unfair to one of us. My lack of communication and clarity has often led to men falling for a version of myself that doesn’t encompass the duality of who I am. I live on both sides of the spectrum in so many aspects of my life. One cannot be achieved without the other. So this manic pixie dream girl you’ve just created in your mind doesn’t include the basic white girl that’s rooted deep within me.

Same happens for them, If they’re not able to lay themselves bare just as I do, I find it leads me to believe there were hidden motives and that just stings at the end of the day.

So back to my formula - it involves trusting your gut and listening to those little doubts in the back of your mind. They’re there for a reason. My success in having so many of these fleeting and fiery romances is due to countless failures and burns. Healing those burns takes introspection, asking yourself the hard questions, and taking responsibility when you must.

I at times do get rejected or ghosted by men and don’t know why. Just last week, I met up with Cameron F. who was a sound mixer in town staying at a beautiful hotel in the CBD. He was totally my type and I, his. We looked good together and had a great time dancing and playing with physical boundaries. Once back in his hotel room I could tell he was nervous, holding back. I told him “Hey we don’t have to do everything in one night”. He relaxed and we continued to roll around between the sheets. Mind you, I met him off of r/randomactsofmuffdive after he had replied to a post I had put out. So, I was a bit surprised. However, we cuddled and teased one another all night and morning even exclaiming how turned on he was. The next few days, radio silence or the too few word replies to me touching on previous things we had spoken about. I got the hint. He wasn’t interested. Why? I don’t know. I want to ask him why because I can’t find a reason. Maybe I was too much? Maybe he could see through me and didn’t like it. Though, I don’t have any ill will or intentions that I’ve been hiding especially considering how he met me! This kind of rejection is most common. Maybe I just give too much of myself too early. They have me and there isn’t much else they need. I’m aware of feeling that towards others but usually it’s mutual! We fucked, had a great time and that was that. I get it but when I’m blindsided by something or don’t expect that to happen, it’s disappointing. Sometimes it hurts.

I’m often told that I’m intimidating to men, by men. They don’t know what to think of me, why I’m there, what my deal is, how to approach me. There’s a lot going on with me upon first glance. I’m fashionable, with a color palette that could be described as “high fructose”. I have a chic blonde pixie cut, love painting my face to match the mood I wake up in, can easily be found laughing or with a dumb smirk fixed upon my face, all while surrounded by a group of equally colorful and boisterous friends. The thing is that I’m aware of the fact I’m intimidating. I wear it like a badge. I coddle it, encourage it in order for it to be maintained. You see, it hasn’t always been this way. I used to be 5’6” and 240lbs at 18 years old. Now I’m 26 and 5’7”, 165lbs. I don’t even recognize who I used to be. Though, I was always confident growing up. I didn’t really have an awareness of what I looked like till I started to lose weight. People treat you differently you know. They take you more seriously and that kind of improvement can sometimes be addicting. I often wonder what it would be like if I lost the remaining 30lbs and how that would affect my life. I think sometimes I’m afraid of it. It sort of keeps me in a different place socially and in a certain place on the spectrum of attractiveness. I think I’m sexy. I think I’m pretty. I think wonderful things about myself in my current form. However, I’m so curious what that would mean for me and the kinds of men I entertain if my weight were different.

With that being said, the validation of men does not define my worth. I know my worth. It’s why I’m selective and it’s why I’m able to have these beautiful, hilarious, extraordinary, and fleeting romances I’m going to recount and share with you.

#neworleans #tourist #nonmonogamy #blog #ethicalslut #sexpositive #romance #love #passion #randomactsofmuffdive #tinder #onlinedating #loveaffairs #millenialwoman #seduction #sexualliberation #confidence

[theliterateape]

...fucking Mark

...fucking Mark.

Imagine a sad, defeated Mitch McConnell. He’s seated hunched over all alone in his dark empty office. Obamacare just passed. He’s got his glasses in one hand while the other pinches the bridge of his nose right between his eyes. And between the dry gasps that always precede a good cry, shakes his head, and says, not without humor, “...fucking Obama.”

That. That right there. That is how you say, “...fucking Mark.”

The ‘g’ is typically silent. Like when you say something is “rootin’ tootin,’” which is becoming so commonplace these days it’s just chiche. Everything is “rootin' tootin.’”

So, just to clear the air of the elephant in the room of long tailed cats and rocking chairs, this is not a story about what it is like to fuck Mark in the biblical sense of “fuck.” It is a true story, though Mark is not his true name. I am really nice that way. Not quite nice enough to not use a name so incredibly close to his real one. But, you know, nice.

I was hired to be part of the entertainment for a corporate Christmas function in Iowa. The entertainment was to involve an interactive improv show, with drinks and dancing to follow DJ’d by fucking Mark. Altogether I spent about two days with him. In a row.

Mark was an almost last minute replacement recommended by someone’s weed dealer. Mark had about two-and-a-half day's notice.

The first time I saw Mark, we were arriving in the van at his pick up point in the far north Chicago neighborhood of Edgewater. It was the middle of the marrow-deep Lake Michigan cold that is the true dead of Chicago winter. Fucking Mark was wearing a red winter beanie, work boots, over sized dark blue jeans that he had, apparently, painted his floor in at one point (I asked and he confirmed), fingerless gloves, and a loose fitting gray tank top.

Beady little eyes, always fidgeting, his long brown hair that stopped just above his trapezius muscles. Honestly pretty impressive. The dude was stacked. He looked liked Scott Stapp from Creed had a baby with Cheddar Bob from 8 Mile. The Google image search you should do based on that last sentence is worth it.

As we turned into the corner and parked, he popped one eye wide open and turned it toward the van. This facial expression gave the impression that we had just severely insulted him. It was like you had just crossed a serious line with Popeye, and he's just decided to eat an entire can of spinach he doesn't even need to beat your ass.

We stopped at the curb, him still giving us a one-eyed glare. He just stood there like that, looking at us, for about 10 to 15 seconds, which feels much longer than it is. Something in his head clicked, and he began walking toward the van. Cautiously. He craned his neck forward with his rib cage sucked in, his hands hung from disengaged wrists at his drawn back sternum as his feet seemed to pull the rest of him along with his legs acting as leashes. He looked like Mr. Burns, but a bird, trying to figure out if we were food or, in fact, a trap, with a coked out eye of Sauron on top.

I thought we were either about to be robbed or offered free samples of the type of drugs you shouldn’t do.

He got to passenger window, my window. He moved his head around the window to see in like he was searching for a keyhole. I lowered the window.

“Hi, I’m Mark. I’m the DJ. Are you here for Mark the DJ?”

“Hi Mark, I’m Boss,” said Boss, driver, and owner of the company we were booked through, “Hey, it’s pretty cold out, if you want to go in and grab your coat that’s totally fine, we have time.”

“It’s no problem, I don’t live here. Besides I have really good callouses.”

Boss, “What?”

“Plus a hat.”

Mark was 32, and blind. Partially. Mostly. That’s why he approached the van the way he did. Every time Mark looked at something, he would get that one eyeball so close it would practically touch its subject. He did this with people too. I would describe the first handshake with Mark as "startling".

I assure you that I am not picking on Mark because he is blind, nor would I anyone ever. Being blind is not Mark’s biggest problem. His problem, from which all others grew, is that he is what my grandfather would have called, “dumber'n two turds fightin’ 20 turds’’.

Mark got in the van.

Boss asked where his DJ equipment is.

“Oh it’s in storage on the south side.”

A pause. Boss asked for something that you might maybe call specifics. “I don’t know the address. But I know where it is.”

Using “south” as our guide, and with a sundrop of hope, we made our way to the highway and around the city toward this mysterious storage facility. About halfway around the city, I smelled that burning leaves smell that, to me, always reminds me of running through the seemingly endless rolling plains and orange forests to explore that is rural Michigan in the autumn. To this day and forever my true heart will always reside there.

I contributed some small talk, something like the above, but shorter.

Others said something like, but longer than, “Me too.” Mark contributed:

“Yeah, I still love going into, like, you know those old general stores? I love just sticking my head in bags of manure and inhaling as fast and deeply as I possibly can through my nose.”

The rest of us, simultaneously, sucked in an egg sized pocket of air. And held it. I was the first to break.

“You mean like... like, horse... like horse, uh, poop?”

“I mean yeah but it’s not like it’s human shit.”

“Oh.” I was willing to forgo all questions if I could be promised no answers.

“Yeah. I mean, other than my shit. Or farts. I like the smell of those. They’re actually, seriously? They’re not bad. Just not other people’s shit.”

“Yep,” I yepped.

“What in the Ever-Loving Sun God of fuck.” I thought.

I just accepted that there are places where there are giant sacks of shit on display, and all the customers come from miles around to smell them. These places are called “old general stores.” I held onto that information, put it in my back pocket, and moved on.

We arrived at the storage facility after stopping three different times to check the internet maps on our pocket robots while Mark left some voicemails. I know this sounds crazy, but even though we were on a schedule, through that entire search time did not stop even once.

Are you starting to see how any one of these little pieces of Mark so far are relatively easily forgivable in isolation? But fucking Mark pokes at this primordial nerve in your brain over and over and over. It’s death by tiny spears. You cannot understand. You are young, and I envy you.

His equipment was in a square concrete room in the basement of the storage facility. It smelled like bong water and burnt food. I had a suspicion he slept here. He assured me he did not (I didn’t ask) because “no bitches would fuck me here.” I suppose he wasn’t wrong.

None of the equipment was ready to move. We broke down and packed up two large speakers, wires galore, two turntables, a crossfader/mixer, a home stereo sized dual CD player, crates of vinyl, CDs, more wires, and stuff. And yes, he owned a laptop. Three of them, laying on top of each other, underneath a half eaten hot pocket with a cigarette stubbed out in it, in the storage space.

Here is the best game; guess how much of this he ends up actually using other than the speakers. Now hold onto that guess, put it in your pocket. It’s one turntable, a handful of records, and his phone.

We made the six- or seven- hour trip in the van. Mark kept farting to prove to us that his farts really didn’t smell bad. He would get indignant when you told him to stop. Here is another fun game; guess if they did or not. I will tell you the answer after this sentence. Yes. Here is that same game on hard mode; guess how many scovilles.

There’s so much other stuff. Little Mark instances and stories. Thousands of the little nuggets of odorless Mark shit. Too many to include all of them. We lost him at a gas station because he walked across the street to another gas station to “check out the area.” He argued at every perceived opportunity, and poorly. He said the solution to gun violence was "little helmets with guns that detect when someone is pointing a gun at you" and “they probably already have them.” He had many, many opinions. Here is the last game: Guess how they tended to land politically. This is actually the most difficult of the games. If you guessed “alt-right internet forum memes,” congratulations, nobody wins. There are no winners in any of these games.

We arrived at the venue. It was a large event rental space with catering in the middle of a nothing but a frozen tundra of dead Iowa cornfields. Snow and freezing rain was falling, and the DJ equipment needed to be brought in.

Mark asked if he can borrow my coat.

In the middle of the two of us carrying a speaker, he said he needs to go talk to the manager of “about this one thing.”

“Um,” I said. Mark dropped his side of the speaker, jogged in and did not return.

Boss relayed the story to me later. In the interest of setting up the tone that Mark would proceed to lay waste to, you should know that our boss could sell you a ketchup popsicle. He is a seasoned performer, legit funny, and a trained experienced natural salesman. And Boss was in mode.

Mark followed our boss’ voice, found him, shook his hand and asked where the fuckin’ manager was at.

Boss, “Mark! This is Client McClientsname, he hired us. Client, Mark will be your DJ for the evening!”

Mark grabed Client's hand and shook it, shoving his wide open eye right in Client’s face, “Are you the manager?!”

Client said, “no” like he was just asked if he had fucked Mark’s wife.

“OK,” eyeball still close enough to count pores, “I need some help because I’ve only ever actually done this I think maybe one or two times on my own and...”

“Mark!” shouted my boss’ skeleton from behind a polite smile belying the hunger pains he felt in his gut that only revenge satiates. “I think the other guys need help bringing in the rest of your stuff?” Boss said it without breaking character in front of the client. Boss could sell you a pickle-flavored boat.

When Boss told me that story later, I laughed so hard I grew tits.

Mark asked us to introduce him “DJ Tushy Flex.”

“That sounds like you’re puckering your asshole, Mark.”

“What, that’s not what it is.”

“...what is it?”

“Dude it’s my fucking DJ name.”

We did the improv show. It was great. Fun was had by all. Mark stood behind us and his DJ equipment, arms crossed, unmoving, the entire show. He just stood there the whole time with a neutral expression and blinked.

The show ended and it was time for Mark to DJ. We introduced him as “Mark the DJ.”

Just to establish my credentials as one to stand in judgement of a DJ set, let me just say that I am a long time fan and hobbyist with an above average level of appreciation for the craft of DJing.* I want you to know this so you can understand how serious I’m being when I say, that DJ Check-Out-My-Glutes was, by far and by away, the absolute worst god-dang rootin’ tootin’ DJ I have ever heard in my whole entire life.

He refused to take requests. He would only play what I can only describe as rasta house. Corporate America, of course, long known for their affinity for obscure electronic dance music subgenres.

He would cross back and forth between completely incongruent songs that made no sense. Like when he rapidly switched back and forth between Kiss from a Rose by Seal and some fucking drum circle happening near a murder. Not in some cool mash up way either. In no universe did those tempos match. There was no rhythm to the switches either. Just back and forth between those two songs, playing with the crossfader like a hyperactive kid flipping a light switch.

In a heroic effort, boss took over the sound, plugged in his mobile pad and bought a subscription to a music streaming service and started playing requests. People started having fun.

Mark would somehow keep getting control back and switch in the middle of the song to a recording of some guy yelling over the sound a middle school marching band warming up.

Several hours of this went by and it was time to leave. Mark didn't help with the load out because he was smoking weed in the green room, which was really a large business meeting room with high ceiling to floor windows that faced the parking lot. When chastised, he angrily insisted that we’re the true idiots here because nobody told him he couldn't and “cigarettes smell worse.”

The freezing rain made the roads unsafe and we were exhausted, so we decided to stay overnight and drive back to Chicago in the morning. Mark held us up at the gas station so he could spend over 3/4 his night’s paycheck on a bottle of “real Iowa whiskey.” Back at the hotel I try some. If a politician running in the next primaries compliments Iowa on their historically good whiskey, I will know they are a liar.

Later on than we would have liked, we were in the hotel room hanging out with the TV on. Mark had the remote. He was seated directly in front of the TV, eyeball practically making a smear on the screen flipping through channels. It occurred to me that this might actually be how he went blind.

Mark landed on Women’s college basketball. His accompanying comment made between the landing and subsequent dismount from this channel was, and I quote: “Ha ha ha, women’s basketball. Show me your titties. Take her titty out and bite it. Whoa, that one’s actually hot.”

Myself and another cast member exchanged a knowing pained look at each other that we knew he would never see, then pretended to be distracted by our phones.

He flipped some more and eventually stopped on A League of Their Own.

"Oh sweet, A League of Their Own," he said.

A League of Their Own is a timeless and distinctly American romp featuring unforgettable characters and heart. I think there is a good argument to be made that it is the greatest baseball movie ever made** But I think Mark might have missed one of the central messages of A League of Their Own. It may even have been, in fact, the central message. I am also pretty sure that, at some point, Mark has voted. I can’t be certain of this because if he ever told me he voted I surely would have repressed that memory.

The next day, during the drive home, I was woken up from a nap by Mark. He was shouting about how unfair it was that he couldn’t say the N-word but the two other cast members in the van, who were both African American, could.

Of course he never once said “N-Word” or “the N-word.” I mean, of course. And though I haven’t said so explicitly, you guessed it. Yes, of course he is white.

“Why? Why, Mark. What, do you need permission ahead of time just in case? Like, if you find yourself in this situation where you really need to use it?” I attempted, among other things, despite what was clearly a brick wall.

“No, but what I’m saying is why not.”

“Because it’s a hurtful thing to say, and the people in this van are asking you politely to stop.”

Later, Mark asked me what I thought of his DJ set. This was long past me being fed up, so I told him the truth as delicately as one can tell someone that they were awful. Mark told me he had a gun, then threatened to kill me for “talking shit.” He was serious. I told him, I shit thee not, that he’d have to fucking aim at me first. That was not a nice thing to say, nor smart. But I did.

No, I am not afraid of him reading this.

It's too long.

We got back to the storage facility and put all the equipment back. Mark met a ride who was waiting for him there. We said "good" and by the time we got to "bye" our backs were turned.

By the end of the trip, Mark had gone from being an obnoxious but mostly harmless joke to being legitimately... not a good guy. Maybe even dangerous. He had no mental impairments or disabilities, as least no diagnosable ones I could see.*** He was never doing a bit to mess with us. I never detected in him a desire to be seen as funny, and I know my own.

I think that at some point somebody should have told him that how he’s behaving is not OK. Though I am not qualified to be the arbiter of who deserves to have painful criticism handed out to them, surely in this case somebody at some point should have been willing to hurt this guy’s feelings. Not to hurt this guy’s feelings, but being willing to have that a price Mark might have to pay for his and the world’s greater good, because he's a dick. And nobody ever did that for this guy.

He's racist, misogynist, self assured with no qualifications to be, ignorant, genuinely unintelligent, has a crushing confidence, and defaults to aggression at the any criticism. Does this remind you of anyone?

That is why when I turned around after hearing him slip on a patch of ice, I thought to myself, “Welp, there by the grace of God goes The President of The United States of America.”

It’s OK. Let it out. You deserve that sigh.

...fucking Mark.

*I love dance music. I have always loved dance music. When I was a kid I listened to Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation cassette on repeat. I had a poster of her in my room. When my dad went to music stores to look at guitars, I always wanted to play with the synthesizers. What is generally (and stupidly, because none of the bands sound the same) called “’90s electronica” is my favorite music of all time. I started making my own dance music in high school with a cheap little computer program. My freshman year of high school, I auditioned for battle of the bands with a full heavy as stone 1996 or ’97 desktop computer and giant CRT monitor and a synthesizer. I got in. I got more equipment. I started sneaking out to go to and play at raves in high school. I swear on my life, I did nothing stronger than pot, and even that was seldom. I just loved the music and the energy so much. Dance music used to be hippie culture, even though now it’s more club culture. I will be that guy and say dance music was better before it was popular, and please stop sarcastically calling me dad.

I have favorite DJ mixes, I’m constantly seeking out new ones. I make them in my head for fun. If I wasn’t poor and had DJ equipment and a laptop that could run the necessary software, I would be spending all my time playing around with it and making mixes for fun. Somewhere in Michigan in an attic there are tons of old mix tapes I made as a kid. I can even appreciate a DJ on the level of a wedding DJ. What song follows what? How did that energy match? What’s the crowd doing? You don’t need to beat match to be able to read a crowd and play a good song.

Once, in line for one of those underground parties, I saw two guys speaking to each other in sign language. I inquired, for it was a music event. I was a bit of an asshole that way. He told me that his friend was deaf, and because of the bass and volume this was the only way he could experience music. That is how much I like dance music.

**Yes I am including every movie you just thought of. A League of Their Own is the only one where they are fighting for just being able to play which is just an extension of them fighting for their very meaning  as the devastation of the largest war ever waged plays as a backdrop to what is already a very stressful situation. Highest emotional stakes. Also most quotable. Funniest by far. These are but a few among variety of reasons I say A League of Their Own is the greatest baseball movie ever made.

***If it matters, I have worked with people with special needs of all ages through several different jobs.

#True Story #Peter Kremidas #Road Trip #Stupid #thinly veiled metaphor

[literateape]

...fucking Mark

...fucking Mark.

Imagine a sad, defeated Mitch McConnell. He’s seated hunched over all alone in his dark empty office. Obamacare just passed. He’s got his glasses in one hand while the other pinches the bridge of his nose right between his eyes. And between the dry gasps that always precede a good cry, shakes his head, and says, not without humor, “...fucking Obama.”

That. That right there. That is how you say, “...fucking Mark.”

The ‘g’ is typically silent. Like when you say something is “rootin’ tootin,’” which is becoming so commonplace these days it’s just chiche. Everything is “rootin' tootin.’”

So, just to clear the air of the elephant in the room of long tailed cats and rocking chairs, this is not a story about what it is like to fuck Mark in the biblical sense of “fuck.” It is a true story, though Mark is not his true name. I am really nice that way. Not quite nice enough to not use a name so incredibly close to his real one. But, you know, nice.

I was hired to be part of the entertainment for a corporate Christmas function in Iowa. The entertainment was to involve an interactive improv show, with drinks and dancing to follow DJ’d by fucking Mark. Altogether I spent about two days with him. In a row.

Mark was an almost last minute replacement recommended by someone’s weed dealer. Mark had about two-and-a-half day's notice.

The first time I saw Mark, we were arriving in the van at his pick up point in the far north Chicago neighborhood of Edgewater. It was the middle of the marrow-deep Lake Michigan cold that is the true dead of Chicago winter. Fucking Mark was wearing a red winter beanie, work boots, over sized dark blue jeans that he had, apparently, painted his floor in at one point (I asked and he confirmed), fingerless gloves, and a loose fitting gray tank top.

Beady little eyes, always fidgeting, his long brown hair that stopped just above his trapezius muscles. Honestly pretty impressive. The dude was stacked. He looked liked Scott Stapp from Creed had a baby with Cheddar Bob from 8 Mile. The Google image search you should do based on that last sentence is worth it.

As we turned into the corner and parked, he popped one eye wide open and turned it toward the van. This facial expression gave the impression that we had just severely insulted him. It was like you had just crossed a serious line with Popeye, and he's just decided to eat an entire can of spinach he doesn't even need to beat your ass.

We stopped at the curb, him still giving us a one-eyed glare. He just stood there like that, looking at us, for about 10 to 15 seconds, which feels much longer than it is. Something in his head clicked, and he began walking toward the van. Cautiously. He craned his neck forward with his rib cage sucked in, his hands hung from disengaged wrists at his drawn back sternum as his feet seemed to pull the rest of him along with his legs acting as leashes. He looked like Mr. Burns, but a bird, trying to figure out if we were food or, in fact, a trap, with a coked out eye of Sauron on top.

I thought we were either about to be robbed or offered free samples of the type of drugs you shouldn’t do.

He got to passenger window, my window. He moved his head around the window to see in like he was searching for a keyhole. I lowered the window.

“Hi, I’m Mark. I’m the DJ. Are you here for Mark the DJ?”

“Hi Mark, I’m Boss,” said Boss, driver, and owner of the company we were booked through, “Hey, it’s pretty cold out, if you want to go in and grab your coat that’s totally fine, we have time.”

“It’s no problem, I don’t live here. Besides I have really good callouses.”

Boss, “What?”

“Plus a hat.”

Mark was 32, and blind. Partially. Mostly. That’s why he approached the van the way he did. Every time Mark looked at something, he would get that one eyeball so close it would practically touch its subject. He did this with people too. I would describe the first handshake with Mark as "startling".

I assure you that I am not picking on Mark because he is blind, nor would I anyone ever. Being blind is not Mark’s biggest problem. His problem, from which all others grew, is that he is what my grandfather would have called, “dumber'n two turds fightin’ 20 turds’’.

Mark got in the van.

Boss asked where his DJ equipment is.

“Oh it’s in storage on the south side.”

A pause. Boss asked for something that you might maybe call specifics. “I don’t know the address. But I know where it is.”

Using “south” as our guide, and with a sundrop of hope, we made our way to the highway and around the city toward this mysterious storage facility. About halfway around the city, I smelled that burning leaves smell that, to me, always reminds me of running through the seemingly endless rolling plains and orange forests to explore that is rural Michigan in the autumn. To this day and forever my true heart will always reside there.

I contributed some small talk, something like the above, but shorter.

Others said something like, but longer than, “Me too.” Mark contributed:

“Yeah, I still love going into, like, you know those old general stores? I love just sticking my head in bags of manure and inhaling as fast and deeply as I possibly can through my nose.”

The rest of us, simultaneously, sucked in an egg sized pocket of air. And held it. I was the first to break.

“You mean like... like, horse... like horse, uh, poop?”

“I mean yeah but it’s not like it’s human shit.”

“Oh.” I was willing to forgo all questions if I could be promised no answers.

“Yeah. I mean, other than my shit. Or farts. I like the smell of those. They’re actually, seriously? They’re not bad. Just not other people’s shit.”

“Yep,” I yepped.

“What in the Ever-Loving Sun God of fuck.” I thought.

I just accepted that there are places where there are giant sacks of shit on display, and all the customers come from miles around to smell them. These places are called “old general stores.” I held onto that information, put it in my back pocket, and moved on.

We arrived at the storage facility after stopping three different times to check the internet maps on our pocket robots while Mark left some voicemails. I know this sounds crazy, but even though we were on a schedule, through that entire search time did not stop even once.

Are you starting to see how any one of these little pieces of Mark so far are relatively easily forgivable in isolation? But fucking Mark pokes at this primordial nerve in your brain over and over and over. It’s death by tiny spears. You cannot understand. You are young, and I envy you.

His equipment was in a square concrete room in the basement of the storage facility. It smelled like bong water and burnt food. I had a suspicion he slept here. He assured me he did not (I didn’t ask) because “no bitches would fuck me here.” I suppose he wasn’t wrong.

None of the equipment was ready to move. We broke down and packed up two large speakers, wires galore, two turntables, a crossfader/mixer, a home stereo sized dual CD player, crates of vinyl, CDs, more wires, and stuff. And yes, he owned a laptop. Three of them, laying on top of each other, underneath a half eaten hot pocket with a cigarette stubbed out in it, in the storage space.

Here is the best game; guess how much of this he ends up actually using other than the speakers. Now hold onto that guess, put it in your pocket. It’s one turntable, a handful of records, and his phone.

We made the six- or seven- hour trip in the van. Mark kept farting to prove to us that his farts really didn’t smell bad. He would get indignant when you told him to stop. Here is another fun game; guess if they did or not. I will tell you the answer after this sentence. Yes. Here is that same game on hard mode; guess how many scovilles.

There’s so much other stuff. Little Mark instances and stories. Thousands of the little nuggets of odorless Mark shit. Too many to include all of them. We lost him at a gas station because he walked across the street to another gas station to “check out the area.” He argued at every perceived opportunity, and poorly. He said the solution to gun violence was "little helmets with guns that detect when someone is pointing a gun at you" and “they probably already have them.” He had many, many opinions. Here is the last game: Guess how they tended to land politically. This is actually the most difficult of the games. If you guessed “alt-right internet forum memes,” congratulations, nobody wins. There are no winners in any of these games.

We arrived at the venue. It was a large event rental space with catering in the middle of a nothing but a frozen tundra of dead Iowa cornfields. Snow and freezing rain was falling, and the DJ equipment needed to be brought in.

Mark asked if he can borrow my coat.

In the middle of the two of us carrying a speaker, he said he needs to go talk to the manager of “about this one thing.”

“Um,” I said. Mark dropped his side of the speaker, jogged in and did not return.

Boss relayed the story to me later. In the interest of setting up the tone that Mark would proceed to lay waste to, you should know that our boss could sell you a ketchup popsicle. He is a seasoned performer, legit funny, and a trained experienced natural salesman. And Boss was in mode.

Mark followed our boss’ voice, found him, shook his hand and asked where the fuckin’ manager was at.

Boss, “Mark! This is Client McClientsname, he hired us. Client, Mark will be your DJ for the evening!”

Mark grabed Client's hand and shook it, shoving his wide open eye right in Client’s face, “Are you the manager?!”

Client said, “no” like he was just asked if he had fucked Mark’s wife.

“OK,” eyeball still close enough to count pores, “I need some help because I’ve only ever actually done this I think maybe one or two times on my own and...”

“Mark!” shouted my boss’ skeleton from behind a polite smile belying the hunger pains he felt in his gut that only revenge satiates. “I think the other guys need help bringing in the rest of your stuff?” Boss said it without breaking character in front of the client. Boss could sell you a pickle-flavored boat.

When Boss told me that story later, I laughed so hard I grew tits.

Mark asked us to introduce him “DJ Tushy Flex.”

“That sounds like you’re puckering your asshole, Mark.”

“What, that’s not what it is.”

“...what is it?”

“Dude it’s my fucking DJ name.”

We did the improv show. It was great. Fun was had by all. Mark stood behind us and his DJ equipment, arms crossed, unmoving, the entire show. He just stood there the whole time with a neutral expression and blinked.

The show ended and it was time for Mark to DJ. We introduced him as “Mark the DJ.”

Just to establish my credentials as one to stand in judgement of a DJ set, let me just say that I am a long time fan and hobbyist with an above average level of appreciation for the craft of DJing.* I want you to know this so you can understand how serious I’m being when I say, that DJ Check-Out-My-Glutes was, by far and by away, the absolute worst god-dang rootin’ tootin’ DJ I have ever heard in my whole entire life.

He refused to take requests. He would only play what I can only describe as rasta house. Corporate America, of course, long known for their affinity for obscure electronic dance music subgenres.

He would cross back and forth between completely incongruent songs that made no sense. Like when he rapidly switched back and forth between Kiss from a Rose by Seal and some fucking drum circle happening near a murder. Not in some cool mash up way either. In no universe did those tempos match. There was no rhythm to the switches either. Just back and forth between those two songs, playing with the crossfader like a hyperactive kid flipping a light switch.

In a heroic effort, boss took over the sound, plugged in his mobile pad and bought a subscription to a music streaming service and started playing requests. People started having fun.

Mark would somehow keep getting control back and switch in the middle of the song to a recording of some guy yelling over the sound a middle school marching band warming up.

Several hours of this went by and it was time to leave. Mark didn't help with the load out because he was smoking weed in the green room, which was really a large business meeting room with high ceiling to floor windows that faced the parking lot. When chastised, he angrily insisted that we’re the true idiots here because nobody told him he couldn't and “cigarettes smell worse.”

The freezing rain made the roads unsafe and we were exhausted, so we decided to stay overnight and drive back to Chicago in the morning. Mark held us up at the gas station so he could spend over 3/4 his night’s paycheck on a bottle of “real Iowa whiskey.” Back at the hotel I try some. If a politician running in the next primaries compliments Iowa on their historically good whiskey, I will know they are a liar.

Later on than we would have liked, we were in the hotel room hanging out with the TV on. Mark had the remote. He was seated directly in front of the TV, eyeball practically making a smear on the screen flipping through channels. It occurred to me that this might actually be how he went blind.

Mark landed on Women’s college basketball. His accompanying comment made between the landing and subsequent dismount from this channel was, and I quote: “Ha ha ha, women’s basketball. Show me your titties. Take her titty out and bite it. Whoa, that one’s actually hot.”

Myself and another cast member exchanged a knowing pained look at each other that we knew he would never see, then pretended to be distracted by our phones.

He flipped some more and eventually stopped on A League of Their Own.

"Oh sweet, A League of Their Own," he said.

A League of Their Own is a timeless and distinctly American romp featuring unforgettable characters and heart. I think there is a good argument to be made that it is the greatest baseball movie ever made** But I think Mark might have missed one of the central messages of A League of Their Own. It may even have been, in fact, the central message. I am also pretty sure that, at some point, Mark has voted. I can’t be certain of this because if he ever told me he voted I surely would have repressed that memory.

The next day, during the drive home, I was woken up from a nap by Mark. He was shouting about how unfair it was that he couldn’t say the N-word but the two other cast members in the van, who were both African American, could.

Of course he never once said “N-Word” or “the N-word.” I mean, of course. And though I haven’t said so explicitly, you guessed it. Yes, of course he is white.

“Why? Why, Mark. What, do you need permission ahead of time just in case? Like, if you find yourself in this situation where you really need to use it?” I attempted, among other things, despite what was clearly a brick wall.

“No, but what I’m saying is why not.”

“Because it’s a hurtful thing to say, and the people in this van are asking you politely to stop.”

Later, Mark asked me what I thought of his DJ set. This was long past me being fed up, so I told him the truth as delicately as one can tell someone that they were awful. Mark told me he had a gun, then threatened to kill me for “talking shit.” He was serious. I told him, I shit thee not, that he’d have to fucking aim at me first. That was not a nice thing to say, nor smart. But I did.

No, I am not afraid of him reading this.

It's too long.

We got back to the storage facility and put all the equipment back. Mark met a ride who was waiting for him there. We said "good" and by the time we got to "bye" our backs were turned.

By the end of the trip, Mark had gone from being an obnoxious but mostly harmless joke to being legitimately... not a good guy. Maybe even dangerous. He had no mental impairments or disabilities, as least no diagnosable ones I could see.*** He was never doing a bit to mess with us. I never detected in him a desire to be seen as funny, and I know my own.

I think that at some point somebody should have told him that how he’s behaving is not OK. Though I am not qualified to be the arbiter of who deserves to have painful criticism handed out to them, surely in this case somebody at some point should have been willing to hurt this guy’s feelings. Not to hurt this guy’s feelings, but being willing to have that a price Mark might have to pay for his and the world’s greater good, because he's a dick. And nobody ever did that for this guy.

He's racist, misogynist, self assured with no qualifications to be, ignorant, genuinely unintelligent, has a crushing confidence, and defaults to aggression at the any criticism. Does this remind you of anyone?

That is why when I turned around after hearing him slip on a patch of ice, I thought to myself, “Welp, there by the grace of God goes The President of The United States of America.”

It’s OK. Let it out. You deserve that sigh.

...fucking Mark.

*I love dance music. I have always loved dance music. When I was a kid I listened to Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation cassette on repeat. I had a poster of her in my room. When my dad went to music stores to look at guitars, I always wanted to play with the synthesizers. What is generally (and stupidly, because none of the bands sound the same) called “’90s electronica” is my favorite music of all time. I started making my own dance music in high school with a cheap little computer program. My freshman year of high school, I auditioned for battle of the bands with a full heavy as stone 1996 or ’97 desktop computer and giant CRT monitor and a synthesizer. I got in. I got more equipment. I started sneaking out to go to and play at raves in high school. I swear on my life, I did nothing stronger than pot, and even that was seldom. I just loved the music and the energy so much. Dance music used to be hippie culture, even though now it’s more club culture. I will be that guy and say dance music was better before it was popular, and please stop sarcastically calling me dad.

I have favorite DJ mixes, I’m constantly seeking out new ones. I make them in my head for fun. If I wasn’t poor and had DJ equipment and a laptop that could run the necessary software, I would be spending all my time playing around with it and making mixes for fun. Somewhere in Michigan in an attic there are tons of old mix tapes I made as a kid. I can even appreciate a DJ on the level of a wedding DJ. What song follows what? How did that energy match? What’s the crowd doing? You don’t need to beat match to be able to read a crowd and play a good song.

Once, in line for one of those underground parties, I saw two guys speaking to each other in sign language. I inquired, for it was a music event. I was a bit of an asshole that way. He told me that his friend was deaf, and because of the bass and volume this was the only way he could experience music. That is how much I like dance music.

**Yes I am including every movie you just thought of. A League of Their Own is the only one where they are fighting for just being able to play which is just an extension of them fighting for their very meaning  as the devastation of the largest war ever waged plays as a backdrop to what is already a very stressful situation. Highest emotional stakes. Also most quotable. Funniest by far. These are but a few among variety of reasons I say A League of Their Own is the greatest baseball movie ever made.

***If it matters, I have worked with people with special needs of all ages through several different jobs.

#True Story #Peter Kremidas #Road Trip #Stupid #thinly veiled metaphor