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ambitionsource · 4 years

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no love like your love

Word Count: 6,500+

Notes: This little work is dedicated with so much love to my darling yearning touch-starved romantic, Jany ( @paigemelendez ). Yes, it is I, your secret santa!!! I tried to encompass a lot of your favorite little romantic things in here (as well as some of your fun little quirks and jokes and... unique opinions I’ve had the joy of getting to experience in our friendship). I hope you love it half as much as I love you. ♥

Happy holidays, AAA warriors!!

Preview:

If you asked Zay and Charlie what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a hug.

If you asked Riley and Lucas what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a hand hold.

If you asked Dylan and Asher what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a forehead kiss.

1 ✾ Zay & Charlie

If you asked Zay and Charlie what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a hug.

It wouldn’t take either of them long to reach this decision. Sure, they might throw a couple of other options out there into consideration before definitively settling on hugs. Charlie in particular would take a little bit longer to reach that conclusion, needing to give each one that jumps to mind its due weight in a way that Zay rarely has the time or energy for. It’s no surprise that their approaches would be different, but they would both get there eventually.

Because in their relationship, a hug symbolizes a lot more than just a hug. It’s bigger than a touch of the hand, but it’s more outwardly casual than a kiss in any variation. It’s deceptively informal, able to disguise itself as a friendly gesture or an offhand goodbye. But the two of them know the weight it carries—regardless of how they end up there, regardless of which of them pulls the other towards them, it brings them together. No matter who might see, no matter whether the embrace is fleeting or the kind where they don’t let go of each other for a long time, or the rare instance where they don’t think they’ll ever pull away for as long as they’re still breathing.

When Zay and Charlie hug, the universe finds its equilibrium. It’s the two of them finding everything they need in one another, bringing every piece of themselves in harmony and fitting together like puzzle pieces. It’s a symbol of what they are in spite of all the other external factors that push and pull at them throughout the day.

I’m me and you’re you, but we’re also one. We’re together. We are.

And when that sentiment is personified through an embrace, it feels pretty damn permanent.

When Zay initiates hugs, more often than not it’s a gesture of comfort.

If there’s one thing he’s learned about Charlie, it’s that he is the master of overthinking. He hides it impressively well, coming off collected and agreeable on the surface from a first impression and to most of their peers. Years of repression and behavioral habits make that possible, easily concealing the near constant way his brain is running on overdrive to stay out of trouble and prepare for any possible problem. Zay admittedly would have never guessed it back when they were merely classmates—the effortless, charming facade is expertly crafted and does its job well.

But now that he knows him, probably better than anybody else, Zay can spot the small tells that indicate how frantically Charlie’s mind is running. His eyes will widen just slightly, the edge of his smile grows tighter. His shoulders square, and while that could be construed as a gesture of confidence it’s more of a defensive position, a stance he takes to prepare himself for whatever anxiety he’s going to be carrying next.

The frustrating part is that there’s not much he can do to help. He knows that love doesn’t fix mental issues—he’s never been told that true love will cure his dyslexia, although he would not be surprised if someone tried to spin it that way—and even further, so many of Charlie’s greatest anxieties are things that he has no control over. It’s up to his boyfriend to grapple with and overcome his stressors on his own and in his own way. All Zay can do is what he’s been trying to do all along: be a safe space, an unwavering pillar of comfort and support whenever and however he might need it.

Admittedly, this task would be easier if Charlie were open about his emotional flares. Although it’s improved vastly in the time they’ve been together, Charles J.P. Gardner is still a master of deflection and repression and hardly ever wants to admit when something is wrong. So Zay has to rely on his knowledge of him, how intricately he’s studied him in the last few months to determine if there’s an issue for himself.

And even then, when he’s ninety-nine percent sure Charlie could use support, it’s still not simple to broach the topic.

“Everything okay?”

Charlie jumps lightly from his spot on the bed. He’s sitting cross-legged with his history textbook on his lap and a notebook on top of it for notes, but he hasn’t been turning pages. For the last two minutes he’s been staring blankly at the CD wall art Zay has at the opposite end of the room, clearly lost in his own head.

The question brings him back to the present. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m—yeah.”

If anything, Charlie’s nonchalant shrug and stammering assurance is the final confirmation Zay needs. He pushes himself back into a sitting position, a little grateful for the excuse to avoid his math homework.

“Are you sure?” He puts a slight emphasis on the question, hoping his tone indicates that he’s already aware something is wrong and is more so asking just for the sake of giving him the chance to speak on his own. “You seemed a little off after performances today.”

“Did I? Well, I—no. No, I’m good.”

“Charlie.”

“Isaiah.”

Zay rolls his eyes at the use of his full name, but he can’t help but crack a smile, too. He doesn’t much like when people call him Isaiah aside from his family, and even they do it sparingly, but it’s different with Charlie. Somehow, everything is. “You know you can talk to me about it.”

“Oh, yeah. I know.”

“Cool. So talk, then.”

Charlie narrows his eyes, obviously reluctant to budge. But it’s hard for him to maintain his disdainful expression when they’re looking at one another—all Zay has to do is wiggle his eyebrows and a smile creeps onto Charlie’s lips. He looks away in embarrassment, biting back the smile before it becomes too obvious.

He runs a hand through his hair. Zay’s honestly impressed with how long he’s let it get. Impressed, and definitely not complaining. “I mean, it’s whatever. I just… I don’t know. I thought Maya was being particularly loud today, that’s all.”

“She’s always loud.”

“Okay, yes, she is,” Charlie agrees. “But you know, after me and Nigel finished our presentation and she had all those notes… I don’t know, I just think she could’ve been a little more tactful.”

He wouldn’t ever want to say it out loud, but Zay knows Charlie is more sensitive than he lets on. Another thing he expertly hides behind that suave persona, that he works tirelessly to keep under wraps.

“Maya Hart, being tactful?” Zay laughs. “I thought you were working on all that wishful thinking.”

Charlie frowns, leaning forward to playfully push his knees. Then he sighs, shrugging. “I know you’re right. I know it’s stupid—,”

“It’s not stupid.”

“I don’t even know why it’s bothering me. It’s not like I haven’t endured many a Maya Hart criticism in the last three years. This wasn’t even that bad.”

Zay has a theory. Charlie is juggling a lot more under the surface these days than he ever was a couple years ago. Or he supposes it was the same, only now one of those major stressors comprises a much larger share of his conscious mind. It’s easy to stuff your mixed emotions about being gay into the dark corners and pretend it’s not real when you’re not faced with it day-to-day—he’s doing a lot more emotional labor now given that he’s got a boyfriend and is in a committed relationship where he can’t exactly deny his own sexuality.

He knows it’s not his fault, but Zay does feel a sense of responsibility for it. It’s a constant circle he’s running through in his own head—that he’s the selfish one for wanting to be in this relationship with Charlie, for wanting Charlie in general, when he’s got so much to grapple with around it. Then, on the other hand, isn’t Charlie the selfish one for keeping their relationship a secret, giving it all these conditions and stress around something that shouldn’t be inherently stressful?

He’ll go around and around, but he always ends up reminding himself that it hardly matters. The situation is unideal—they both know it. They’re making it work—they both are putting in time and effort to make it so. So long as that remains the case, then he feels like the energy and emotion he’s expending towards it is worth it. Everything else hardly matters.

So he forgets all of the little pitfalls and just focuses on the good, and what he can do to keep it that way. In this case that involves assuring Charlie that his feelings are valid, no matter how small, and offering comfort and support in the way he gives it best.

Zay smiles softly, climbing to his knees and crawling to meet him. He wraps his arms around Charlie and pulls him into a hug. “Maya sucks most of the time. It’s okay to feel that way.”

Although there’s still a trained hesitation and Zay can feel the way Charlie’s muscles tighten at the embrace, it’s not long before the tension falls away. With every hug and every day, it takes less and less time for him to return the gesture.

He releases a sigh and loops his arms around Zay’s back, tilting his head against his shoulder.

Zay isn’t sure how long they’ll be there. Might be a while because Charlie wants more time to relax in it while he can; might be a while because there’s nothing quite like being in each other’s arms. He doesn’t mind either way—if Charlie wanted to never move again, he thinks he might be okay with it.

After a couple minutes, Charlie murmurs into his shoulder. “Maya does suck most of the time.”

Zay can’t help but laugh. He nods, nudging his head against his. He smells like lavender shampoo and the sugar cookie air freshener that he has in his car, and while Zay thinks the freshener itself kind of smells sickening somehow it’s soothing as it lingers on his boyfriend.

It’s different with Charlie. Everything is.

2 ✾ Riley & Lucas

If you asked Riley and Lucas what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a hand hold.

Well, actually, they probably wouldn’t answer the question. Realistically, if you asked Lucas about anything relating to Riley Matthews, or love in general, he’d probably growl something incoherent and then tell you to mind your own business before stomping off and locking himself away where he can’t be reached. Riley would politely sidestep the question, changing the subject or turning the conversation back to you so skillfully you don’t even realize she neglected to give you an answer. It’s not that she’s shy about the reality of a relationship or how much touch shared with a significant other means—it’s that for how selflessly she gives up every part of herself to others, there are a few things that she likes to hold close to her heart, just for her.

So they wouldn’t say anything, but it’s undeniable that they would think the same thing. In fact, if you asked them at the same time, they would probably exchange a look that confirms that agreement without any words at all… before doing the above and escaping the query. The two of them are on the same page, and they don’t need to share with the rest of the world to make it true.

Like so many things between them, it would be unspoken yet perfectly understood.

For Lucas, a hand hold isn’t so much a touch as it is a confirmation.

Confirmation of what, exactly, he isn’t sure. The problem is that it seems to be not one concept but many, meaning something different every time he and Riley link their fingers together. Reassurance that they’re on the same page; proof that they are in one another’s corners; an inarguable and tangible acknowledgement that they’re together. She slips her hand into his, and he returns the touch, and it seems to say a million things without actually saying anything at all.

I’m here. I want you here. I want you. I got you. Together.

It’s good, because Lucas isn’t sure he’d be able to make it clear otherwise. He’s never been great with words when it matters—he hates how Asher and Dylan are constantly telling him he’s actually quite eloquent when he feels like forming a coherent sentence is a struggle when all eyes turn on him and the pressure is on—and communicating with Riley Matthews is quite possibly the most important words he’ll ever spare. So when they fail him, as they so often do, he’s grateful that there’s another way to deliver the message rather than just stranding her in uncertainty.

Riley doesn’t seem to mind much anyway. She likes to talk, of course, and he’s more than content to listen to her talk for as long she deems him worthy of her voice and attention. And sometimes, when the conversation is casual and the content isn’t crucial, he finds she can be easier to speak with than most people in his life. But she’s also surprisingly happy with the quiet, never complaining when they spend an hour or so in the booth working independently or when the walk to the subway is devoid of chatter. She doesn’t need the constant commotion and noise like so many of his classmates do just to get through the day. All she does is find her chance to slide her hand into his at some point, and that seems to suit her just fine.

It’s nice, because Lucas has always valued the quiet. He’s always grasping for it, he feels, but the disrespect others have towards the sanctity of it push it out of reach. It’s nice that the person who wormed her way into his life despite his best defenses, who is presumably meant to be the most important person in it if they aren’t doomed to fail by his cosmic bad luck, appreciates it just as much as he does.

The world is loud, and it’s also tough, and Lucas is no stranger to how much his hands have to endure throughout the day. His hands are practically maps of evidence, scars and callouses and cracked skin from biting New York winters. Riley is growing aware of it too, some of his favorite memories of her fingers on his skin being the afternoons in the back of her car parked at the hideaway the ones where she runs them along the marks on his palms and the back of his hands and asks to know the stories. Soft and sincere in her curiosity, wanting to soak up everything there is to know about him just because he’s him, and for whatever miraculous reason she’s decided that’s the most worthwhile thing he could be.

The stories usually aren’t pleasant, but neither are they all that interesting. A burn scar from a miscalculated bottle rocket, a hairline scar from falling in his entryway and knocking over the coat rack. A scuff from some stupid dare he pulled off with Dylan, the faded white gash in the skin of his wrist from when he fell and broke it on the dumpster last summer. Nicks from the tools while set-building, the occasional light scratch from a cat or dog at the animal shelter, band-aids to cover the places where he’s picked at his hangnails too much.

Riley loves to listen to the memories though, empathizing and nodding and responding at all the right moments. It’s as if they’re her memories too and she’s simply reliving them with him, his girlfriend somehow so gifted with empathy that he doesn’t even doubt it when she says she understands.

It’s a rare power she has over him, the ability to gain his trust so implicitly. He’d never say it aloud, but damn, does he love how nice it feels to be heard.

Case in point, his hands endure a lot, and today is no exception. In fact, today is especially rough, as the set piece they’re building for the musical is not coming along smoothly. They basically spent the entire breakout time putting half of one piece together before scrapping it and having to take it apart entirely. His hands are sore and scraped from the wood, and his fingers still ache with the pinch of having to use the hammer and drill to remove all those nails and screws.

That, and he’s been picking at his nails again. He knows how hard Asher worked on this set design, and he doesn’t want to have to be the one to tell him it’s not going to work. His best friend is resilient and clever and he knows he’d be able to come up with something else, but he also knows how attached he is to this vision. Not that he’d ever say it—Asher hates to come on too strong—but Lucas can tell, and he wants to be able to deliver on it. He doesn’t want his inability to figure it out result in the destruction of something so important to someone he cares about.

So he wracks his brain instead, skipping out on lunch with the techies in the courtyard to scrutinize the production design sketches in the booth alone. He doesn’t bother with food, hunched over the binder and comparing the specifications in Asher’s neat handwriting to the technical plans he and Nate put together in an effort to create a tangible product. Some piece isn’t translating over, and if he stares at them both long enough he figures he’ll be able to find it. He has to eventually.

Naturally, where he’s fine neglecting his own needs to get the job done, Riley is not so flippant. She figured out the situation before he even said anything, reading his absence from lunch as an indication that this was exactly what was happening. Hence why she shows up in the booth about halfway through the period, finding him precisely where she figured she would.

“Hi,” she greets him cheerfully, jogging up the steps with a bounce. She’s carrying an extra lunch bag in her hands. “I brought you something.”

Lunch. Food, one of the essential elements to survival. He furrows his brow but accepts it anyway. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” she retorts cheekily. She leans down to give him a quick kiss, twiddling with the braid on her shoulder as she reads over his shoulder. “What are you working on?”

“Set design stuff. Something about the blueprint isn’t coming out right in execution.”

She hums, squinting at the designs for herself. Riley doesn’t know much about set construction, but she’s one of the few performers who actually bothers to try and comprehend the technical arts at all. If he’s honest with himself, that’s probably one of the first things he grew to love about her.

Love. Strong word. Maybe not the right word. Feels like it sometimes though, like now, when he’s glancing up at her gazing with such concentration. Love? No. Maybe. Could be.

Words are tough.

“Hm.” She frowns, crinkling her nose in that way that Lucas can’t believe is humanly possible. It can’t be possible to be that cute. She adjusts and delicately perches on his lap, sliding an arm around his shoulder. “Have you talked to Asher about it?”

His silence answers the question. She shifts her gaze to him, getting the message loud and clear when his expression twitches and he dips his head down to avoid her eyes.

Clear enough. Riley hums again, and Lucas is very aware of how her thumb is gently rubbing his shoulder. He’s pretty proud of himself for being so calm and open to their proximity this afternoon, as trying to accept that comfort level with her as natural and welcome rather than dangerous is a challenge all its own. It’s usually even more difficult when he’s stressed. It always amazes him how generous she can be with touch, how she makes sharing space seem so effortless.

She waits until he lifts his gaze again, tilting her head at him. Asking the question without a word.

Lucas sighs. “Asher is brilliant. This design is good, and I don’t want him to think otherwise.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand. You guys are really good about discussing stuff like this. He respects your opinions, and it’s not like you didn’t give it your best effort.”

“I know. But I hate… I don’t like all of the work having to go back on his shoulders. Especially when he already made something so good.” He shakes his head wordlessly, clicking his tongue. “Despite what my expertly maintained persona might suggest,” at this, Riley rolls her eyes, “it’s not fun to be the one telling your friend that their idea doesn’t work.”

That much probably went without saying. Riley nods, absorbing the truth of it and not immediately having a perky solution to volley back. He didn’t expect her to—unlike a majority of their peers, he doesn’t expect her to be the magical mechanic to every problem that arises at Adams.

Instead, she offers him her hand. She takes the hand he’s resting on her knee, threading their fingers together. Expressing solidarity and comfort in an instant.

I’m here.

Lucas glances down at their joined fingers, her soft, well-manicured hand in contrast with his tanned, harsh one. Her fingernails are light blue—she must’ve just painted them last night. He likes the color. He likes the touch.

He likes her.

Loves? Maybe. Could be.

Lucas lets his thumb stroke the back of her hand.

I want you here.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Riley contemplating with her eyes on the production sketches while he finds trouble keeping her eyes off of her. Then her eyes widen, a little bit brighter than before as an idea strikes her.

“What if I talked to Asher with you? Maybe we can find a more subtle way to approach the conversation. I’m sure it’s not as disastrous as you think it’ll be anyway, but a comfortable setting might make it easier to have. Dylan can be there too, obviously. Like on our next double date.” She meets his eyes, curious. “Would that help? Just to have a buffer, someone to help you articulate what you’re really trying to say. Avoid any potential missteps. And then it’ll be done with, and you can move on from it rather than starving yourself trying to piece together a puzzle that might not ever fit together.”

It doesn’t completely take away the discomfort, but the prospect of not having to face the conversation alone does remove some of the weight off his shoulders. He finds it impressive how often she can end up being right, even years later. Because it’s a relief not to have to do everything alone, just like she told him.

“Yeah, that would be cool,” he says. “Thanks.”

She smiles, the type that makes his stomach flip. Then she leans forward and presses their lips together, stealing a kiss from him whenever she can manage it.

In this case, the proximity is more than welcome. He kisses her back, squeezing her hand to accent the point.

I want you. I got you.

Together.

3 ✾ Dylan & Asher

If you asked Dylan and Asher what the best form of physical affection is, they’d say a forehead kiss.

Of course, this is only after multiple alternative answers and a whole lot of discussion. It would start somewhere in the general kiss category—Dylan Orlando is the kissing expert, after all—but would bounce around a lot before landing on anything decisive. After contemplating the effective tenderness of a cheek kiss, Asher might point out that it’s sort of narrow-minded of them to immediately jump to kissing as the ultimate form of affection when there are so many non-kiss related gestures that also convey appreciation. Dylan would agree and easily shift into listing just about every other display of adoration he’s ever given to Asher, the latter having to reach over and cover his mouth after a certain point when the content innocently grows more intimate than Asher would like anyone else to know.

Even still, it would be endearing, because when Dylan lists them all it’s crystal clear how much love must go into each and every one.

But yes, eventually, they’d end up on forehead kiss. After two well-organized lists and hefty amount of banter, somehow they’d get there. Only Dylan would insist on an addendum, a little metaphorical asterisk next to their choice that clarifies “forehead kiss” is just a convenient umbrella term for any sort of peck upon the general head and face area. And Asher would question whether that includes cheek kisses, then, because that seems a bit like a cop-out if they do that, so the asterisk gets refined to specifying kisses above the nose on the general head and face area. Forehead kisses, kisses on the top of the head, kisses on the temple—all of that is fair game under their given consensus.

Then they’d add one more addendum, which is just Dylan’s way of pointing out that while they’ve provided an answer here, forehead kisses don’t actually convey any greater power or importance than any other form of physical affection. It’s just what they’re feeling that day, in that discussion. Asher agrees to the amendment, because it seems only fair to give the other contenders their due credit, and he’s never been opposed to a good clarifying statement.

But for Dylan, it’s not about fairness. It’s about breadth, abundance, that only sticking to one form of affection towards Asher Garcia feels impossible. He’s forehead kisses and linked pinkies and playful nudges. He’s bops on the nose and tight hugs and quick kisses on the cheek when he says something particularly smart or cute or unintentionally charming and Dylan can’t possibly leave him unrewarded. He’s cheekbone strokes and fingers in hair and kisses like kryptonite that always linger until they get the chance to do it again. Asher is all of it and more, deserving of all of it and more, he’s everything, everything, and there’s no possible way to put a limit on it.

But for now, sure, forehead kisses will suffice.

Dylan admits that one of the advantages to a forehead kiss is how convenient it is to give them.

He definitely has the upper hand when it comes to this particular display of affection. When the two of them met they were basically the same height, but after more than two years and a handful of inches later, Dylan stands at a comfortable five-foot-eight in comparison to Asher’s more humble five-foot-six. So he’s at the optimal height to brush his lips against his boyfriend’s forehead, taking this honor with great care and being as generous with it as he can.

Even still, he can’t help but love when Asher tries to return the favor. He likes the way he has to stand up on his tip-toes if they’re standing. He likes how much more common they are at certain times of day, like in the afternoon while he’s crouched down over a set piece helping Dave put it together and Asher comes over to check in with their progress. He’ll lean over his shoulder to ask for updates, then give him a brisk kiss on the top of the head while it’s in such a perfect, reachable place. Or at night after Dylan climbs in the window to stay the night, it’s not unusual for Asher to give him a quick peck on the forehead as a thank you before they settle in for the night.

Like everything else in their relationship, they’re equally eager to show their affection in whatever way possible. Dylan doesn’t think height impacts it much either way, and even though he has the benefit of two inches he greatly admires how Asher carries himself with so much poise it’s almost as if he’s six feet tall.

Of course, not everyone else feels the same.

“Oh, fuck off, Nate,” Jeff says, rolling his eyes.

“What? What are you all getting so heated about?” Nate shrugs offhandedly, focused on keeping his balance as he stands on a 2 by 4 on top of a cylinder. “I’m only saying, technically me and Dave are the only real ones in here.”

Dylan isn’t paying much attention to the argument. Nate is always poking fun and saying incendiary things, and although they’re all complaining and barking back at him Dylan knows they all actually kind of like it. They like the silly debate and fiery spirt he brings to things, so he doubts whatever they’re snapping about now is going to leave much of an imprint on any of them.

Honestly, he’s much more entranced with watching him try to balance on the board. He was the first one to give it a try fifteen minutes ago, which is why he’s now sitting on the acting block while Asher disinfects and patches up the scrapes he got on his knees when he inevitably fell off. He figures he could treat his own injuries, but Asher offered and the fact of the matter is he knows how much pride his boyfriend gets out of taking care of him. And admittedly, it’s nice to be taken care of with such obvious affection.

So instead he gets to focus on Nate’s balancing act, observing the way the wood is bending like a see-saw on the cylinder and brainstorming other ways he could improve his own record. More thoughtful accommodation for how he tends to put his weight on his left foot… maybe he could move with it, like a skateboard… honestly, him trying to figure out this contraption might not make a bad vlog update…

“Having more inches in height doesn’t give you more class,” Jade snarks.

“Wait, who wants more class?” Dave says, obviously lost. Much like Dylan, it’s likely he hasn’t been paying much attention. “Isn’t three hours a day with Cory enough?”

“Class like credentials, Dave.”

“Oh. Wait… oh. What are we talking about again?”

“You’re being so huffy,” Nate laughs, crossing his arms. He nods towards Dylan and Asher, the latter just finishing up sticking a band-aid on and helping him roll down his pant leg. “Can’t you all be more like Asher? He’s short and you don’t see him getting all fired up.”

“You going to tell Lucas to his face that you don’t think he’s a real person?”

“Lucas is tangential. He’s like the bar. You have to be that tall to have rights.”

Jade starts to argue back, but Asher beats her to it. He’s still deceptively calm as he rises back to his knees and closes the first aid kit, but something about his tone is terse in a way Dylan doesn’t miss. “You’re an idiot, Nate.”

“Oh, blah, blah, blah,” Nate responds, before promptly slipping and falling off the board.

The rest of them burst into laughter, but Asher doesn’t join in. He marches off to return the first aid kit to its rightful place and doesn’t come back, Dylan looking in the direction he disappeared until he decides to go after him. No one notices him leave, too wrapped up in scraping Nate off the floor and making fun of him for his grand fall from grace.

Dylan doesn’t have to search long. He unlatches the gate to the set piece storage and heads straight for the step-ladder to the prop loft.

He hears Asher before he sees him, the light sniffling signaling that he is in fact present and is more than likely crying. That’s not out of character for him, Dylan knows, so he’s only moderately concerned as he pulls himself fully into the loft.

“Hey,” he greets him. Glass props clink as Asher rearranges them on the shelves he’s organized a thousand times, facing away from him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you crying?”

Asher sniffs.

“No,” he lies.

Dylan can’t help but smile. Maybe it’s morbid to find joy in your boyfriend’s tears, but he finds it so endearing how emotional he is. Especially when the tears are over something silly like this, something that he knows he can help fix.

He strides across the metal grates, lightly pinching Asher’s ribs and getting an involuntary chuckle out of him before he elbows him back. He grins wider and hugs him from behind, propping his chin on his shoulder. “So what was it? I’m assuming Nate.”

“Well, he was basically the only one talking,” Asher mutters. He keeps his gaze on the floor, but his hands drift to touch Dylan’s arms around him almost like they’re magnetized.

“True. I don’t think he was being particularly bad today though. He’s had worse takes. Remember when he said we shouldn’t go to the doctor because they’re capitalist machines and he informed you he hadn’t been to a dentist in three years?”

Asher shudders. “Please, don’t remind me.”

“Just saying, it’s been worse.” Dylan pauses. “So?”

There’s a moment of quite between them. Then Asher sighs, pulling away from him. He leans back against the wall—the same one they always sit against when cuddling together or when Asher needs to vent, the same one where they had one of the best kisses in the early phase of their relationship—stuffing his hands in his pockets and frowning.

“Do you think I’m short?”

Dylan doesn’t think on it much. “Not really?”

“I mean—,”

“I don’t really think you’re tall, either.”

“Well, Nate said—,”

“I don’t think I really think about it. It’s all relative, anyway.”

“Nate said I was in front of everyone else. I don’t really think about it either, usually, but I don’t know. I guess when someone just says it like that, it feels like it’s obvious. Like everyone feels that way too.”

Dylan twists his mouth, thinking. “I’m not sure anyone has feelings about it either way, babe.”

“Okay, I know. Like, I know that in my head. But it feels like one of those things I guess where yeah, I don’t normally really think about it, but then when someone points it out it stings more than I expect. So it’s like, I don’t care about it, but I guess I kind of do.” Asher fiddles with his sleeves, smoothing the crease where they’re rolled up. “You know? Does that make sense?”

No. Not to most people. When Asher gets this way, his normally eloquent way with words and even temperament go out the window, and it can be hard to follow what he’s trying to say.

But yes. To Dylan, it makes sense. Not because he relates—he and Asher are both well aware that they have very different mental states, totally different ways of absorbing and processing the world, but that’s one of the things Dylan loves most about being with him—but because he’s become rather skilled at understanding Asher Garcia.

“Sure,” he assures him.

“So yeah. It’s just another dumb thing, I don’t know. My brain will get stuck on it and then get over it.”

“Okay. But again, I don’t really think you’re short.”

“Well.”

“You’re not… you’re just Asher, you know?”

He scoffs, crossing his arms. “Reassuring, thanks.”

“Hey, you know I think that’s the best thing anyone could possibly be. Shame there’s only one in the entire world. Lucky for me, though.” Dylan beams, stepping closer and poking playfully at his cheek. Then he lights up with an idea. “Oh, I know what will help. Let’s look it up.”

The desire to remain blissfully ignorant is clear in Asher’s eyes. Dylan gets a little stuck on how pretty and green they are, with that unique hint of intensity they seem to always carry, before he continues pulling his phone out of his pocket. “No, that’s alright. Let’s not.”

“You love statistics. Nothing makes you feel better than definitive facts.”

“Okay, yeah, but—,” He lets out a grunt as Dylan slumps against him, huddling close and holding up the phone so they both can see the results come in. “Ouch. You’re heavy.”

“We can look that up next too, if you want. But at least I kept most of the weight on my feet this time.”

Service in the loft is notoriously bad. It takes a few seconds for the page to load, and a handful more to find results after Dylan types the query into the search engine. Asher’s fidgety hands shift from his sleeves to Dylan’s waist, ghosting his fingers absentmindedly over his skin along the hem of his shirt while they wait.

Finally, the results come in.

Average height for men in the U.S. Five feet, nine inches.

“There you go,” Dylan declares. “Feel better?”

“Not exactly,” Asher says, frowning. “That didn’t really disprove Nate’s point.”

“Yeah, but look at it this way. I’m short, too.”

Asher snorts, rolling his eyes. “You are not short.”

“According to the statistics, I am. It’s all relative!” He waves the phone closer to his face, Asher unable to hold back his smirk as he pushes his arm away. “See what I mean?”

“Okay, okay, yes. Point taken, thank you, Dyl Pickle.”

Dylan beams as brightly as he can manage, waiting until the inevitable moment when some of that sunshine leaks into his boyfriend’s expression. It always happens eventually.

“I don’t know if this will make you feel better, but I think you’re the perfect height. And you can say I’m biased—because I am—but I think of it like this.” He shifts back so he’s in front of Asher again, taking his hands as they press back against the wall. Their wall, it feels like, for all intents and purposes. “We fit together pretty well. Don’t you think? And we didn’t use to always be that way—there was even that crazy month in November freshman year where you were taller than me by a quarter of an inch.”

“Historic margins,” Asher deadpans, but when he moves his hands to wrap his arms around Dylan’s torso, the gesture isn’t anything but soft.

“We grew into this, just like we grew into everything else about ourselves and our relationship and whatever else. And I know that’s not the only thing that matters, but I think it’s pretty damn epic that for all the heights we could’ve surpassed and all the ways we could’ve turned out, we ended up like this.”

To demonstrate his point, he places a gentle kiss to Asher’s forehead. Right in perfect reach.

“I know that’s not a solution, but that’s how I feel.” Dylan shrugs, pleased to see most of Asher’s earlier frustration melted away to content. “I hope that helps, at least.”

“It does,” Asher murmurs fondly. “You always do.”

Then he rises onto his tiptoes to return the favor, keeping them in perfect balance.

#bonus content #riley x lucas #zay x charlie #dylan x asher #secret santa 2019 #winter hiatus 2019 #by maggie #<333333

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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504: Secret Agent Super Dragon

Let’s move on to another oft-overlooked subset of MST3K – the Budget Bond films. These are always very bad, but often a lot of fun if you’re in the right kind of mood.

Brian Cooper is Super Dragon, pulled out of retirement to find out who’s distributing poisoned chewing gum to co-eds! Boy, if that doesn’t sound like the setup for a thrilling spy caper, nothing does! The plot seems to revolve around a Dutch student named Christine Bruder, so Cooper goes to Amsterdam looking for her. There, in between fucking his female colleagues and flirting with every woman he sees, he learns that Bruder was part of a plot to smuggle deadly drugs into the United States, hidden in fake Ming vases. An evil conspiracy is planning to dope the free world on a chemical that will cause us to violently attack one another, and then… uh, I don’t know what happens after that, but it’s probably safe to assume it’ll end in the bad guys ruling the world. That’s always the goal.

What’s with that spy movie cliché about the glamorous secret agent who sleeps with every woman he meets? Friends, enemies, co-workers, random waitresses… our suave hero loses no chance to insert Tab A into Slot B. He can’t walk down the street without having women throw themselves at him. This trope has been parodied to hell and back in everything from Austin Powers to The Million Eyes of Sumuru and it’s actually sort of weird to see it played straight, as it is here. As a PSA to my readers: never sleep with a glamorous secret agent. He probably has like nine venereal diseases.

The weirdest thing in the movie is a facet of this trope: it’s the bit where Cooper and Agent Farrell are busily smooching when a man breaks into her apartment and tries to kill them. They fight him off, and he commits suicide so they can’t question him. Cooper then throws his body out the window, turns the soundtrack back on, and the couple just pick up where they left off! Maybe it’s because I’m not a glamorous secret agent but I gotta agree with Tom Servo on this one: I don’t think I could have sex in the same room where I just watched a guy kill himself. It wouldn’t be right, you know?

I will say that this indifference towards death bothers me less here than it did in Master Ninja I, but the characters in Secret Agent Super Dragon have presumably have years of both physical training to kill and psychological coaching to deal with the consequences. Even so, just getting right back to the makeout session before the body’s even had a chance to cool seems unnecessarily callous.

The other trope I notice a lot of in Secret Agent Super Dragon is the death trap. Our hero’s life is threatened repeatedly but always in some contrived way that allows him a chance to escape. The first time he’s tied to a rail so some machine can come along and roll over his head. He gets out in the nick of time and it crushes a can of red paint instead. The second time he’s nailed into a coffin and thrown into the river. He holds his breath and inflates a flotation device. The third time, he’s trapped in a building rigged to explode. His buddy flies in with a helicopter. Why doesn’t anybody just shoot this guy? Villains that stupid don’t deserve to take over the world!

Yet another thing that stands out as remarkably dumb is the cause the charity auction is supposed to support – ‘an International Hospital for Babies with Malnutrition’. Okay, so, imagine you’re somebody whose child is starving, which probably means you’re dirt poor. Instead of sending food to you, these people expect you to bring the baby to a hospital, which may be in another country, so that they can feed the kid there. Is the complete impracticality of this supposed to be our clue that it’s a scam? The script never references that, though. Did somebody just pick a bunch of charitable-sounding words? Was it a bad translation of something that actually made sense in the original language? Are the writers just that stupid? We’ll probably never know.

Beyond that… it’s honestly really hard to say anything deeper about Secret Agent Super Dragon, because this is another movie that’s not very ambitious. It has some vague themes about drugs as the downfall of western civilization, but its characters don’t have appreciable arcs and there’s not much by way of symbolism for me to analyze. All it wants is to keep us mindlessly entertained for an hour and a half – and there’s nothing wrong with that, honestly, but Super Dragon isn’t even any good at it. Trying to watch without Joel and the bots I found myself drifting repeatedly. There’s the charming super-spy, the parade of blandly beautiful women, the evil mastermind with a vague plan to take over the world, the easily-escaped death traps… we’ve done this all before, and Super Dragon doesn’t even use the stereotypes in skillful or interesting ways.

The thing about spy movie tropes is they’re so easy to parody, and have been parodied so many times, that even somebody who doesn’t actually watch spy movies can spot them because we all absorb them through pop-culture osmosis. Playing them straight therefore runs a very serious risk of boring the audience. Of course Agent Farrell is working for the bad guys, because in a story like this, a character like her does – and of course she falls in love with Cooper and betrays her bosses for him. None of this stuff is even really foreshadowed (except that Farrell dyes her hair – can’t trust those unnatural redheads!) but we still know it’s coming because we’ve seen the same shit in fifty other movies. The bad guy wants to cleanse the world so it can be made anew? Been there. The movie wallows in misogyny but in all the same old ways, so I’ve got nothing new to say about it.

Throughout the film people talk about the ‘legendary Super Dragon’ but I don’t think we ever get a reason why Cooper’s so great. Bond films begin with a breathtaking action setpiece to show us that our hero has nifty gadgets and balls of steel – Secret Agent Super Dragon begins with Cooper playing dead by the pool. His most remarkable ability seems to be holding his breath for a really long time, and his gadgeteer, the kleptomaniacal Babyface, makes most of his gadgets out of literal toys. I think this might be a joke about the obvious miniatures some of these movies use… but I’m not sure. All I’m sure of is when that dinosaur waddled into the room I was halfway expecting it to demand the return of the Golden Ninja Warrior.

About the only place where the movie seems to accidentally brush by a real statement is in a moment that resembles a historical reference. Cooper has infiltrated a conspiracy meeting (by wearing a half-mask that leaves his rather distinctive chin fully visible) at which the Big Bad, Mr. Lamas, is delivering an expository monologue: their factory in India is in full production of the drug, which will be shipped to America in phony Ming vases and bring the world to its knees! If you’re going to talk about drugs making and breaking empires, China and India are where it happened.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the East India Company fostered opium addiction in China because they wanted cheap tea and because the British government had vague plans, which never came anywhere close to fruition, to add China to their empire. The opium to feed this addiction was grown in India, often by farmers who would rather have been growing actual food but owed too much money to the EIC. This all led to the Opium Wars and a lot of other unpleasantness in which the British Empire came out looking even more like assholes than they usually did. In a story about conquering the world through drug addiction, then, having the drugs created in India and slipped into something Chinese looks like a reference to history repeating itself.

It may also mean something else. Secret Agent Super Dragon is relentlessly white, set mostly in a city in northwestern Europe, where conspiracies of middle-aged white guys drink booze and decide the fate of nations. The actual work that makes this possible, however, is being done by people of colour in the east. Not only does this seem to reference how western nations use other countries as battlegrounds and bargaining chips in their own power struggles, it can also serve as a reminder of something we frequently forget: a lot of what makes our comfortable lives possible comes from other countries, made by people who could never afford to buy it. My eyeglasses, the sweater I’m wearing, and the chair I’m sitting on were all made in China. Our entire economy depends on cheap foreign labor, and I wonder sometimes how much longer that can last before the whole thing falls apart.

Is any of this the movie’s intentional theme or message? I doubt it. The historical reference seems to be just a ‘hey, look how clever we are!’ moment and the rest probably goes no deeper than ‘oh, no, our children are doing drugs!’, which has been on the verge of ending civilization since at least the thirties. Secret Agent Super Dragon is just a dumb trashy Eurospy movie, and not even a very good one. I don’t hate it, but mostly because it’s not worth that kind of effort. The MST3K treatment renders it infinitely more enjoyable, especially when Tom and Crow do Jazz.

Agent Cooper was played by actor Ray Danton, who died in 1992, a year before the episode aired. Probably all for the best. I doubt he’d have been into all those jokes about how his character is perfectly smooth.

#mst3k #reviews #secret agent super dragon #60s

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