#i made it malum bc i felt a loyalty to malum but i couldve honestly just left it at calum and michael becoming bros | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clumsyclifford · 4 years

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you’re the photographer who’s been camped in front of my penthouse apartment for two weeks and i finally got lonely enough to come downstairs and share my leftovers with you” au or the child star one please i am begging you -it’s me rye rye rye your boat

ok im working on the child star thing but its gonna end up being much longer so heres this which honestly also ran away from me let’s see if tumblr will even let it all post it’s almost 2k ENJOY thank u for the prompt ily

The first day, Calum glances out the window and sees a whole host of paps on his front step and thinks, good thing I did the shopping yesterday.

The third day, most of them have gone except a few stragglers. Calum is determined to wait them out.

The sixth day, Calum is starting to run low on milk, and there's only one person left out there. He’s properly set up camp, actually, in a beat-up Volkswagen that makes Calum chuckle, then catch himself for chuckling because this man is for all intents and purposes his mortal enemy. Calum finds it strange that someone with such brightly colored hair and (squinting, he thinks he can make out) tattoos would be a paparazzi. He looks more like a punk groupie than a photographer, but to each their own, Calum supposes. He's tempted to make a break for it, or maybe sneak out in a cap and sunglasses, but leaving the apartment at all will get him photographed, and sue him, he’d like to be left alone. This is, like, the only month he gets to himself before training starts up again. He intends to take full advantage of it. Total invisibility.

Which would be a lot easier if this fucking pap wasn’t dead set on snapping his photo. Calum sees him turn the lens of the camera towards Calum’s front window, and he hastily moves out of sight.

The tenth day, Calum calls Luke.

“What?” Luke asks.

“‘Hey, Cal, nice to hear from you,’” Calum says. “Thanks, Lukey, right back at you.”

“I thought you were doing radio silence for a month,” Luke says. “Like, keeping your head down.”

“I am,” Calum says, exasperated. “There’s just one guy who’s been camped out in front of my building for, like, almost two weeks.”

“So what? Just go past him. He’s just one guy,” Luke says. Calum envies Luke. It must be nice to not care what the press thinks. Not that Calum cares, exactly; he just hates that they’re so insistent on being invasive. Calum’s not supposed to be a public figure, he’s supposed to be a symbol of Aussie pride. He plays soccer, that’s all. Nothing to be excited about.

“No,” Calum says. He’s not sure where this dogged determination is coming from, but he knows he would rather die than acknowledge the paparazzi out in front of his building. He’s got a right to his privacy, damn it. “Look, it’s a whole thing, I don’t want to get into it. But, uh, I’m sort of short on a few groceries. D’you mind…”

Luke heaves an exhausted sigh that Calum recognizes well. He calls it the fucking hell Calum the things I do for you sigh. Sounds similar to the fucking hell Ashton the things I do for you sigh, but less horny.

“Fine,” he says. “Send me a list.”

Luke gets photographed on his way both up and down the building. Calum watches the one stubborn pap take his picture, look at it on the camera screen, and slump over as if thoroughly drained.

Well. That’s his problem.

After two weeks, Calum caves.

He’s been subtly watching the pap out the window, and every day he looks a little worse for wear. Not that Calum can see him very well, but he can tell in the set of his shoulders, the way he leans against the steering wheel of his car or slouches against the driver’s window. Calum hasn’t been consistently staring, but he’s pretty sure this guy hasn’t even left. How is he eating? Is he eating? UberEats, maybe? Calum shudders to imagine living off of delivery Maccas. Here he is, eating home-cooked food, and this poor pap has been sitting out there, probably wishing he could go home and make some pasta.

For the first time in his recorded life, Calum takes pity on the paparazzi.

He cobbles together some leftovers from the past few nights — homemade pizza, a bean dish he’d got off the internet that hadn’t been half bad, and some spaghetti bolognese. He heats it all up and then takes the elevator down to the lobby.

Calum has genuinely not left his apartment in two entire weeks, so the greying evening takes him aback, but not nearly as much as when he makes eye contact with the blue-haired pap and the guy doesn’t instantly take his picture. Also, Calum thinks, despite his best efforts not to acknowledge it, he has to admit this is the most attractive paparazzi he’s ever met, and easily the most laid-back. Is that an eyebrow piercing? Fucking hell.

The pap rolls down his window. “Uh, hi?”

Calum starts to feel a bit silly, but whatever, he’s already here. “Hi,” he says. “Uh, you’ve just — you’ve been camped out here awhile, and I thought…maybe you’d want some real food? Not just, like, UberEats?”

The blue-haired pap looks suspicious. “Is this a bribe?”

“No, I wish,” Calum says, laughing a little. “If anything, this feels like feeding a kitten to encourage it to stay. I’d love for you to leave, but if you’re not going to, the least I can do is make sure you’re eating well.”

“I’ll leave,” the blue-haired guy says, surprising Calum. “I — I’ve wanted to leave since I got here. I’m sorry. You don’t have to feed me —”

“I insist,” Calum says, because he’s already gone through the trouble of heating it up, and he has a fork and everything. God, he’s going to regret this, he thinks, before adding: “Unlock the door? I’ll sit with you.”

The blue-haired guy looks positively dumbstruck. “Um,” he says. “You don’t have to.”

“Believe me, I know,” Calum says. “You just look like you could use the company. And, to be honest, so could I. What’s your name?”

“Michael,” blue-haired guy says, smiling gratefully with just a touch of apprehension. “Alright, if you say so.”

He hits a button, and Calum comes around to the passenger side and climbs into the car. It occurs to him that Michael could easily kidnap him right now. Calum’s entirely defenceless, and has just willingly gotten into a car with him.

(But Michael doesn’t look that strong, and Calum’s an athlete, for god’s sake. He could take him.)

“Here,” Calum says when he’s settled, offering up the food. “It’s all warm and everything.” He hesitates as Michael takes the tupperwares and cracks one open. “You — you said you wanted to leave? Why haven’t you?”

Michael already has a mouthful of spaghetti, so he covers his mouth with his hand and swallows before speaking. Calum tracks the way his Adam's apple moves, then mentally slaps himself for doing that.

“‘S my job,” Michael says. “Not because I like it. It just, it pays well enough, and…it’s not like I have anything better to do with my time. I’m usually not invasive like this, I swear. I try to keep at the back, I just get some blurry photos and people pay me for them, nobody usually cares. But my boss was, like, crazy about this. He kept pushing to get exclusive photos, and then when he heard you had a month off, he told me to stake you out like my life depended on it.” Michael looks incredibly sheepish, hanging his head. “Sorry, mate. I thought I could just get a few pictures on the first day and be done with it, and then when you didn’t come out, I tried to tell my boss you’d holed up. But he wasn’t having it. Told me to stick it out.”

“Christ,” Calum says, aghast. “Your boss sounds like a real dick.”

“He is,” Michael says agreeably. “But, you know. I need the money, so.”

Calum likes how honest Michael is. It’s refreshing. People tend to lie to him a lot, especially in regards to his job, which he’s usually very good at, but gets told he’s good at even when he’s not. Michael’s forthright, though. Calum appreciates it about him.

“Well,” he says obligingly, “take a few photos now and take them back to your boss. Can even say you got an exclusive interview if that wins you any points.”

Michael raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t.”

“Fine,” Calum says. “Ask me a question. Wait.” He pulls his phone out and opens up the voice memo app. Hits record. “Alright, ask me a question.”

Michael looks amused. “Okay, but you’re not going to like this question very much.” Calum gestures for him to go on. “Okay. Um, what exactly are you famous for?”

Calum stares at him and then bursts out laughing.

Once he’s calmed down, he manages, “I never thought I’d say this, but I am absolutely delighted to have met you, Michael. I’m the center forward for Socceroos.”

“Oh,” Michael says, grinning. “Explains why I don’t know you, then. I’m not really a sports guy.”

“Yeah? What kind of guy are you?”

Michael shrugs. “Music, really. Part of why I ended up in this line of work.”

So Calum’s initial instinct had been correct. He’s weirdly proud to know that.

“Well, Calum Hood,” Michael says, and Calum likes how his name sounds in an unfamiliar voice, saying it because it’s what he’s called, not because it’s some big name to throw around, “what’s your favorite color?”

“Blue,” Calum says.

“How many years have you played soccer?”

“Most of them. Boring question, been asked that a million times,” Calum answers. “Come on, be creative.”

Michael arches his eyebrow, like he’s ready for the challenge. “Alright then. Worst drink you ever had?”

“Any time I have to drink beer in America, it’s a dark day,” Calum says. American beer is awful, and he will die on that hill.

“Favorite song at the moment?”

“‘Monsters’ by All Time Low.” Michael hums appreciatively.

“Good taste. Favorite article of clothing you own?”

Calum glances down at himself. “Probably this sweatshirt,” he admits, because he’s pretty sure at this point the sweatshirt is legally part of his body. Has he even taken it off in two weeks? Hard to say.

“Uh, worst way you’ve ever tried to pick someone up?”

Calum really only thinks for a moment before diving headfirst. “Well, once there was this pap who sat outside my building for two weeks, so I brought him my leftovers because I felt badly, but then he turned out to be fairly interesting and very attractive, so.”

Michael turns pink. He grabs Calum’s phone and turns off the recording.

“You’re not picking me up,” Michael says. “You can’t. This is my car.”

Calum laughs. He likes Michael. “Humor me,” he says. “You can say no. I’ll still let you have the pictures and everything, I’m not a total dickhead.”

“I didn’t say no,” Michael says. He lifts up his camera. “Smile.”

Calum makes his most serious face at the camera and listens for the click. He makes another face, and the camera clicks again. Then again, and once more.

“Alright,” Michael says. “That’s my job done. I’m officially off the clock. You were asking me something, I think?”

“You’re a shit,” Calum says. “I might take it back.”

Michael grins. “You will not.”

No, he won’t. “Fine,” he says. “Dinner? Or, uh, ice cream? You’ve sort of just eaten.”

“Won’t say no to ice cream,” Michael says. He looks over at Calum and smirks. “Imagine if this is the ‘how I met your father’ story.”

It’s an extremely forward thing to say, Calum’s too busy laughing to call him out on it.

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