(no subject)
Title: Disgusting
Type: Slash
Genre: Fluff
Pairing: Brian/Mike
Rating: PG-13, or light R
Warnings: Language, talk of OMGTEHGHEI, people actually eating at McDonald's (oO), bad driving
Word Count: 3,765
Summary: Mike is very into civil disobedience and Brian whines.
Disclaimer: MINE. HAH.
A/N: Prompted by browsing Deviantart for assistance in making my Brian sketches not look anorexic, encouraged by Chelsea, and dedicated to Irene, who wishes I would write more with Brian because he brightens her days sometimes. May or may not actually be part of the full narrative, but it wanted me to write it, so... meh.
NB: This is written as a senior-year creative writing project; as such, the girls (Shana, Kacey, Christine, Rachel, and Mary) and Mike (the boyfriend) are going to come in and comment. In the text file, they have different fonts. Here, I'm changing their colors.
Shana's looks like this. Christine. Kacey. Rachel. Mary. Mike.
I seriously thought we were going to die with the way Mike was driving. I mean, he was usually a really good driver… you know, careful, respectful, uses his turn signal even when no one else is around and all that jazz, but… that day, he was completely manic. He whipped out of the school lot, turning left from the wrong lane, without using his turn signal, and almost ran over a raccoon. And the weird part was that he did it without adopting any facial expression. If he’d looked pissed off or exhilarated or something, then it would’ve been a lot easier to deal with, but no; he couldn’t give me that. He could hug me, he could kiss me, he could sneak up behind me and grab my ass in between classes… but he couldn’t have some look other than determined apathy.
That’s how I knew I fucked something up, even though it didn’t affect him at all. Boyfriend or not, whether or not I ate in thirty-six hours was not his business; it was mine, and going to lengths like this just because I’d been existing off of water and vitamins for a day and a half was completely ridiculous or not. Doing ten over is something I reserve strictly for the freeway and I only ever use my ability to do it when I absolutely have to. He was doing it down to Main Street in “Downtown Denton.” Stop signs held him for three seconds, if that, and, even though his face still stayed wooden, his right eye twitched a little at the two red lights we got stuck at.
And he wasn’t speaking to me. At all. And that hurt like hell, not that he and his hot ass cared. I don’t think he really understood what I sacrificed to be with him. I gave up the good fight of not liking guys and potentially increasing my self-esteem for it. I gave up a nicely sized piece of my dignity because, guess what, he was my best friend’s eighth grade ex and you’re not supposed to kiss your best friend’s ex, regardless of how old they were when they went out. And I could’ve stayed with Alex. I could have spared her feelings, never come out to and broken up with her, and I could’ve been happy trying to make myself straight with her.
But where was I? Who was I with and what was I doing? I was with him. And he didn’t seem to grasp the fact that, personal freedom aside, I deserved to be free of his meddling when I didn’t want it. And, when it came to my weight, I didn’t want him sticking his girly nose in. …And it wasn’t like my actions were unwarranted! Except for that part where anorexia isn’t okay ever. Shana! God damn it! See… for as much as I loved him, Mike did this… thing where he made me get lax with all my regimens.
See, we’d been officially going out for three and a half months and all my progress at getting down from 192 was gone, and then some. I’d put on thirteen pounds since we started (that’s up to 198, for all you math geniuses out there, which meant that I was dangerously close to crossing The Line that I promised myself I’d never cross, that being 200 pounds, and there’s a bitterly funny story about when I crossed it right after finals week, but that’s not relevant right now). Here I was, at my heaviest for the time (which my mom, Eric, and Lauren all took notice of and mocked), having difficulty buttoning some of my jeans, and he was trying to tell me that I was in the wrong for trying to lose weight, and it was all his fault in the first place.
The thing about getting fat is that you don’t really notice it happening until you can’t deny it anymore. That was what had happened over the summer, and it was what happened back in middle school too. I mean, I’d always been bigger than most, but I wasn’t really chubby. Then, I didn’t get out a lot, and I over-indulged, and I discovered the concept of comfort food, and, naturally, I put on weight. Mind you, I didn’t notice it for a while. When my clothes were uncomfortable, I thought they’d shrunk in the wash. And then I popped the button on my jeans while I was at Mr. Benedicti’s pizza place with the girls and it’s all been downhill from there.
With Mike… until that fateful Monday, I hadn’t weighed myself in about twenty days, and I saw that I’d gained weight when I had, but with one smile from him and my diet was gone… until the pants started causing trouble. They were my favorite pants too - dark blue Z. Cavaricci size sixteens; I’d been wearing them the day that Alex and Mike both asked me out, and they flattered me best of all my pants… until I had to suck my stomach in and relocate some of my fat to get them on. They were uncomfortable, and they were stretching a little, and the zipper was shaky, and I was spilling over the waistband, but I ignored all that. Like an idiot, I thought maybe they shrunk in the wash (again; it’s a classic excuse), until Eric informed me that I’d “outgrown them about twenty pounds ago.”
…He was exaggerating to be a bastard, of course, but all the same. I was keeping the pair I was wearing that day from bursting open with discreet safety pins. And Mike was trying to tell me that I needed to eat more than I needed to lose weight. What the Hell? After the first day of my “water and vitamins” diet, I was already down two pounds and I was planning on including the occasional salad eventually. I needed a few days of cleansing first, like Oprah, but… the “water, vitamins, and salad” diet worked for Hayden Christensen when he was prepping for Life As A House, so it could work for me.
Brian, will you kindly come off it?
What?! I’m verbalizing how I felt right then, and I was pretty pissed at you.
I understand that, but I think you might be missing the point here.
Like how?
Like this: I do not disapprove of you trying to improve your life and self-esteem. In fact, I heartily encourage it. But I highly disapprove of you doing it by starving yourself.
I wasn’t starving! I wasn’t even that hungry! I got all my nutrients from the vitamin supplements I stashed in my room and the fact that I was setting a personal record for longest time gone without eating was circumstantial.
Whatever. Eating is far from being a sin, you know.
When you add almost fifteen pounds to the weight you already need to lose, yes, Mike, it is.
No. Eating is a necessary part of life.
I got all my nutrients and none of the calories in convenient little pill form. I was fine!
You looked pale and sick, and you were far from fine.
I wasn’t fainting, was I?
Well, no, but that is NOT the point. The point is that, whether you think so or not, you were on a path that would, eventually, kill you.
Whatever. Anyway. He’s not going to admit it here because he’s allowed to have dignity and I’m not, but Mike likes me better chubby. I don’t know why, I guess he’s just weird like that, but… whatever.
I like you best when happiness is involved, angel. As for liking you better when you have a little extra weight on you, well, the hugs are nicer for one thing. Who likes hugging a stick figure? Not me. Also, you look really cute like that.
Whatever, Mike, okay? Drop it.
Fine.
“Downtown Denton” is about the biggest misnomer I’ve ever heard (well, except for calling me anything but “fat…” Oh, come off it, Brian. Seconded, again. Will the two of you please shut up?). When they say “downtown,” they mean “a few little homey stores, a Borders, a drugstore or two, two Starbucks, some other stuff, and a McDonald’s.” I didn’t know it then, and didn’t expect it since I was dieting and Mike usually eats healthily, but we were going to McDonald’s. …Turning into that lot was the ONE time he used his turn signal on that whole ride and, immediately, he parked, turned off the car, and disembarked, whistling some upbeat, springy tune. I followed him, even though I hate McDonald’s and hadn’t gone in one since I got food poisoning in one when I was eight.
Real food poisoning or pill-induced food poisoning?
Real food poisoning, Mary, honestly! I was eight! I was thick, but I wasn’t fat yet and I was hardly thinking about losing weight, let alone popping pills to do so!
I felt compelled to ask. Just to be sure.
Right. So, anyway.
Mike was taller than me and moved faster so he was already ordering when I came in. He looked up at the menu, drummed his fingers against the counter pensively, and… I should have stopped him, but I was trying to be mad at him and figured that, if he wanted to eat concentrated caner, then I shouldn’t stand in the way of it.
“Yeah,” he said lazily. “I’ll have… two quarter pounders with cheese, a six-piece chicken nugget meal with a coke and ranch sauce… super size it, a McFlurry with oreo, and big size of that too, an apple pie, a fruit and yogurt thingy, and a chocolate chip cookie.”
…Okay, clearly some alien had taken over Mike’s mind and hot body. I’d never seen him in a McDonald’s, even back in middle school, let alone ordering that much food. He always took leftovers home when we went out for dinner, and that was consistently of GOOD food… of food period, since, well… McDonald’s isn’t really food. It’s a product that vaguely resembles food, but it isn’t food.
As if this was entirely normal, even though the cashier was giving him the biggest “what the fuck” look I’ve ever seen, he turned to me.
“Hun, what do you want?”
…What did I want? Excuse me? Did he not hear me going off at Mary for trying to force her lunch scraps on me when I wasn’t hungry? Did he not hear my elaborate plan to cleanse my systems and lose the weight I’d gained (I didn’t blame him to his face, but I probably should have)?
“Yourheadonapikeforstaters,” I grumbled.
“’kay.” Back to the clerk. “My foofy boyfriend’s going to have a side salad.”
“Mikeiamgoingtofuckingkillyou.”
Clearly, this poor, acne-plagued young man was so intimidated by Mike’s order that this seemed positively normal. He rang us up, Mike paid, and we waited in silence until a completely loaded tray showed up for us. Mike was probably just showing off, but he carried the whole thing to a table for two and, without looking at me, set the salad in front of me. I pushed it aside and took to glaring at him instead. Apparently, this didn’t matter much because he ignored me and started digging into one of the entirely questionable-looking “burgers.” And, with all the subtlety of a brick wall, it all became obvious: Mike - my hot, thin Mike - was boycotting my attempt at bettering myself by stuffing himself and making a lot of noise about it. Just what I fucking needed.
“Mike,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “This is so unnecessary.”
He looked up from his burger, which was already half gone (he had won our grade the eating contest during spirit week in seventh grade). “Yeah, well, so is you not eating, and, as long as you’re not eating, I’m going to rub your face in it.”
Since I was sure I was going to keep a promise to myself and hold out this time, I came to the conclusion that he was going to gorge himself until I caved or, since I thought I wouldn’t, until I went off the diet. The mental images… were not pretty. I mean, they were still discernibly of Mike… but I saw him getting three entrees at Olive Garden, plus soup and breadsticks, and eating all of it (and he probably would have been able to do so). I saw him buying out all of the Candy Shoppe’s stocks of his favorites - chocolate nonpareils, gummi bears, and chocolate-covered cashews - and eating them all in one sitting. Worst of all, I saw the outcome of all this nonsense, standing at 6’2” and weighing in at 300 pounds or more, and he was bloated and disgusting… still Mike, but a bloated and disgusting Mike.
I sighed, whining a little bit; he ignored me and licked the ketchup and cheese off his fingers. As soon as his hands were clean, he started in on the second one. Oh God. His pants were already sinfully tight; he was probably going to split them if he kept going on like this.
“Honestly,” I groaned. “This place is greasy, and disgusting, and you’re eating cancer!”
“I am making a statement, angel,” he said through a mouthful of “food.” “Once you get it, we’ll leave.”
“Oh, I get it alright, and I think it’s stupid!”
“Mhm…” He chewed one bite slowly and pensively, and then went back to speed eating.
“Come on! I wanna go!”
Mhm…” He was a little over half done with it.
“You don’t need to eat this shit to make a point, Mike!”
“Obviously,” he sighed, wiping something off his mouth, “I do. You haven’t eaten in a day; that’s not healthy.”
“…A day and a half, actually…”
“My point exactly!” He shoved the last fifth into his mouth and, somehow, didn’t choke on it.
“…This is so fucking unnecessary…”
“Was Gandhi unnecessary?” he asked, proceeding to shove five fries in his mouth.
“…What does that have to do with anything?”
“Gandhi went on hunger strikes to end British occupation in India, and I'm going on a bad food strike until you quit being stupid and eat something.” He got eight into his mouth that time.
“…That comparison is completely out of line.”
And it was. Freedom and equality for native people is one thing. Trying to break my diet was a different thing entirely. With an insane meticulousness, Mike counted out ten fries and shoved them into his mouth one by one. He chewed all ten together, swallowed, and then looked at me. I couldn’t tell if he was confused or resolute, but, either way, I didn’t like it one bit.
“Well, I think it works, so there.”
“…But it really doesn’t!” I huffed. “It doesn’t work at all!”
“Yes, it does.” He returned to the French fries, picking up two of them; he dunked them in ranch sauce and brought them to his lips. “Mmmm, French fries. They’re so grease-laden and horrible for you, and mmm, mmm, mmm! I am going to enjoy them.”
In that annoying, point-making way, he shoved them into his mouth and moaned like he was having an orgasm. Of course it was fake, but still! Fake orgasms are for unsatisfied people and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, no one else! Once he was done with that, he moved from the fries to the chicken nuggets and popped one into his mouth.
“Mike, honestly… this is so stupid…”
“Well, so’s anorexia, but that doesn’t stop you.”
“I'm not anorexic… you have to be skinny to be anorexic.” Duh. Everyone knew that. Fat people can have other eating disorders, but anorexia is the ED country club reserved only for the thin and pretty.
“What's the medical definition of anorexia?” he mused, shoving two chicken nuggets into his mouth and making noises that I guessed were an act to show how tasty they were.
I sighed. “Self-starvation and a BMI below 18.5.”
“Why do you know that?”
“…Internet.” Coincidentally, that was also where I found out about Hayden Christensen’s Life As A House prep diet.
“No, that's how you know it. Why do you know it?” He popped in a completely ketchup-soaked nugget.
“…This isn't helping your point!” I scoffed, blushing. How the hell was I supposed to tell him that I knew because I deeply admired anorexics and wanted to be just like them?
“I see that. …I also see a really lonely apple pie just begging to be eaten.”
With two chicken nuggets left, he reached at the apple pie. Then, like an ADD kid goes for shiny things, he put that down and reached for the McFlurry instead. He lasted on that for ten seconds, at most, before he started in on the apple pie. I couldn’t see his stomach from where I was sitting, but my guess was that it was distending. Granted, he didn’t have totally flat, washboard abs to begin with, but he had tone and he had a really nice stomach and chest. Just the thought of what they’d look like after he got done with all this “food” was enough to make me want to vomit, despite having only water, vitamins, and stomach acid to vomit with. Okay. It wasn’t as bad as the completely bloated, disgusting mental image of him, but still! I had enough belly for both of us. He didn’t need one too.
“…If you're going to do this, can't you at LEAST eat in some orderly manner?” I whined slightly.
He looked up from the apple pie and gave me a look that suggested that he thought I was from Venus. “…No.”
“Mike, please?”
“Please what?” he said through a mouthful of “pie.”
“Please stop this! It’s stupid, useless, and unbecoming.”
“We’re not leaving until you eat something or I finish.”
“There’s no way you can finish all of that.”
“Watch me.”
He sounded serious, which was, honestly, scarier than the thought of him putting on weight, mostly because it would lead to him putting on weight. I have never actually been skinny - I want to be, and so help me GOD, I will be one day, hopefully before graduation, but I never actually have been - and being fat squishy huggable, lovable, and chubby in all the right places (what Mike means to say is that I’m still trying to lose weight… I was at 178 this morning. No, I mean exactly what I said. You are huggable, or, squishy, soft, and fun to hug. You are lovable, i.e. endearing and cute. And you are chubby in all the right places: you have a squishy belly - just the thing to raise my self-esteem, thank you, Mike - but I like your belly! Anyway, you have that, and your face is adorable, and you have the cutest calves I have EVER seen... You do realize that I take everything you say with a grain of salt because of your little chubby fetish, right? Yes. I do not mind.).
Anyway, the point is: I have never been skinny, at all. When I’ve been thin, it’s either been in a point of my life I can’t remember or it’s lasted for like… two weeks (though, I’ve got something that’s working now, and I’m going to be thin for my graduation, even if I weighed 186 for my senior photo). And, all things considered, there are only three people I’d wish my predicament on, and I’m related to all of them.
Well that’s not very nice.
Neither is the way they treat me, but that’s not the point here.
There’s a point here? I was under the impression that you were just writing whatever was on your mind and somehow relating it to the story.
The point is, Kacey, that I have no willpower.
Brian, I love you dearly, but... that’s not as much a point as much as it is a statement of fact.
Shut up. What it comes down to is this: when Mike threatened me with stuffing his own face full of cancer in food form, I made it just over five minutes. While he was making a big deal over the minute differences between a McFlurry and a pseudo-parfait, I slumped forward onto the table, resting my head on my arms. There was a definite chuckle from his end and I felt him poking my head. I really shouldn’t have, especially since he was sticking his nose where I didn’t want it, but I shifted my head and looked at him anyway. …Damn it all. Damn him and his beautiful smile and his expert knowledge of how to properly apply it. He smiled, open-mouthed like usual, and moved some of my hair, and… I really wanted to be mad at him for this whole shenanigan, but all I could manage was a sigh.
“Fine,” I huffed, putting my chin on my arms. “I’ll eat something.”
“Thank you, Brian,” he said with a smile. “But… you don’t mind eating somewhere else, right?”
“Why would I mind?”
“Oh, good. Just thought I’d ask.”
“…Why? I hate this place.”
“Frankly, I don’t know how anyone could like it. It’s horrible.”
“That’s an understatement…”
Rather than respond with one of his usual, intelligently smart ass remarks, he slid a finger under my chin, lifted me up and leaned down, and kissed me. God, I loved it when he kissed me. I mean, the first one was completely unexpected and tasted like disgusting winter formal punch and I spent an hour afterwards washing my mouth out with toothpaste and Listerine because my Mike was Mike Thomaschewski, who was kind of gross and listened to bad music. I love you too. What?! When we were in middle school, you listened to Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, and Hank William Junior, and you were built like a wall, and you hadn’t grown into your body or discovered deodorant yet, and you hijacked my best friend, which caused some natural envy and dislike. Hey! Idea. …I’m not going to like this, am I?
Hey, Shana!
Oh dear God…
Yes, Mike?
Do you think I hijacked Brian from you?
Only a little bit.
Are you envious? Do you dislike me because I happen to be dating him?
Not at all.
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but still!
Love you.
Love you too.
*hug*
*grin*
*kiss*
*blush*
*molest*
Mike! Not on my project, damn it!
Come on! It’s cute!
Not on something that’s getting graded, it’s not.
:p
Mike…
End Notes: Right, so. The *asterisk actions* are being typed by Mike and Brian as they perform them. And now I'm tempted to write angst about Brian's little "accident," but I'm in a good mood, so I'ma write lesbians instead. They're angsty too, but in a prettier way.
Type: Slash
Genre: Fluff
Pairing: Brian/Mike
Rating: PG-13, or light R
Warnings: Language, talk of OMGTEHGHEI, people actually eating at McDonald's (oO), bad driving
Word Count: 3,765
Summary: Mike is very into civil disobedience and Brian whines.
Disclaimer: MINE. HAH.
A/N: Prompted by browsing Deviantart for assistance in making my Brian sketches not look anorexic, encouraged by Chelsea, and dedicated to Irene, who wishes I would write more with Brian because he brightens her days sometimes. May or may not actually be part of the full narrative, but it wanted me to write it, so... meh.
NB: This is written as a senior-year creative writing project; as such, the girls (Shana, Kacey, Christine, Rachel, and Mary) and Mike (the boyfriend) are going to come in and comment. In the text file, they have different fonts. Here, I'm changing their colors.
Shana's looks like this. Christine. Kacey. Rachel. Mary. Mike.
I seriously thought we were going to die with the way Mike was driving. I mean, he was usually a really good driver… you know, careful, respectful, uses his turn signal even when no one else is around and all that jazz, but… that day, he was completely manic. He whipped out of the school lot, turning left from the wrong lane, without using his turn signal, and almost ran over a raccoon. And the weird part was that he did it without adopting any facial expression. If he’d looked pissed off or exhilarated or something, then it would’ve been a lot easier to deal with, but no; he couldn’t give me that. He could hug me, he could kiss me, he could sneak up behind me and grab my ass in between classes… but he couldn’t have some look other than determined apathy.
That’s how I knew I fucked something up, even though it didn’t affect him at all. Boyfriend or not, whether or not I ate in thirty-six hours was not his business; it was mine, and going to lengths like this just because I’d been existing off of water and vitamins for a day and a half was completely ridiculous or not. Doing ten over is something I reserve strictly for the freeway and I only ever use my ability to do it when I absolutely have to. He was doing it down to Main Street in “Downtown Denton.” Stop signs held him for three seconds, if that, and, even though his face still stayed wooden, his right eye twitched a little at the two red lights we got stuck at.
And he wasn’t speaking to me. At all. And that hurt like hell, not that he and his hot ass cared. I don’t think he really understood what I sacrificed to be with him. I gave up the good fight of not liking guys and potentially increasing my self-esteem for it. I gave up a nicely sized piece of my dignity because, guess what, he was my best friend’s eighth grade ex and you’re not supposed to kiss your best friend’s ex, regardless of how old they were when they went out. And I could’ve stayed with Alex. I could have spared her feelings, never come out to and broken up with her, and I could’ve been happy trying to make myself straight with her.
But where was I? Who was I with and what was I doing? I was with him. And he didn’t seem to grasp the fact that, personal freedom aside, I deserved to be free of his meddling when I didn’t want it. And, when it came to my weight, I didn’t want him sticking his girly nose in. …And it wasn’t like my actions were unwarranted! Except for that part where anorexia isn’t okay ever. Shana! God damn it! See… for as much as I loved him, Mike did this… thing where he made me get lax with all my regimens.
See, we’d been officially going out for three and a half months and all my progress at getting down from 192 was gone, and then some. I’d put on thirteen pounds since we started (that’s up to 198, for all you math geniuses out there, which meant that I was dangerously close to crossing The Line that I promised myself I’d never cross, that being 200 pounds, and there’s a bitterly funny story about when I crossed it right after finals week, but that’s not relevant right now). Here I was, at my heaviest for the time (which my mom, Eric, and Lauren all took notice of and mocked), having difficulty buttoning some of my jeans, and he was trying to tell me that I was in the wrong for trying to lose weight, and it was all his fault in the first place.
The thing about getting fat is that you don’t really notice it happening until you can’t deny it anymore. That was what had happened over the summer, and it was what happened back in middle school too. I mean, I’d always been bigger than most, but I wasn’t really chubby. Then, I didn’t get out a lot, and I over-indulged, and I discovered the concept of comfort food, and, naturally, I put on weight. Mind you, I didn’t notice it for a while. When my clothes were uncomfortable, I thought they’d shrunk in the wash. And then I popped the button on my jeans while I was at Mr. Benedicti’s pizza place with the girls and it’s all been downhill from there.
With Mike… until that fateful Monday, I hadn’t weighed myself in about twenty days, and I saw that I’d gained weight when I had, but with one smile from him and my diet was gone… until the pants started causing trouble. They were my favorite pants too - dark blue Z. Cavaricci size sixteens; I’d been wearing them the day that Alex and Mike both asked me out, and they flattered me best of all my pants… until I had to suck my stomach in and relocate some of my fat to get them on. They were uncomfortable, and they were stretching a little, and the zipper was shaky, and I was spilling over the waistband, but I ignored all that. Like an idiot, I thought maybe they shrunk in the wash (again; it’s a classic excuse), until Eric informed me that I’d “outgrown them about twenty pounds ago.”
…He was exaggerating to be a bastard, of course, but all the same. I was keeping the pair I was wearing that day from bursting open with discreet safety pins. And Mike was trying to tell me that I needed to eat more than I needed to lose weight. What the Hell? After the first day of my “water and vitamins” diet, I was already down two pounds and I was planning on including the occasional salad eventually. I needed a few days of cleansing first, like Oprah, but… the “water, vitamins, and salad” diet worked for Hayden Christensen when he was prepping for Life As A House, so it could work for me.
Brian, will you kindly come off it?
What?! I’m verbalizing how I felt right then, and I was pretty pissed at you.
I understand that, but I think you might be missing the point here.
Like how?
Like this: I do not disapprove of you trying to improve your life and self-esteem. In fact, I heartily encourage it. But I highly disapprove of you doing it by starving yourself.
I wasn’t starving! I wasn’t even that hungry! I got all my nutrients from the vitamin supplements I stashed in my room and the fact that I was setting a personal record for longest time gone without eating was circumstantial.
Whatever. Eating is far from being a sin, you know.
When you add almost fifteen pounds to the weight you already need to lose, yes, Mike, it is.
No. Eating is a necessary part of life.
I got all my nutrients and none of the calories in convenient little pill form. I was fine!
You looked pale and sick, and you were far from fine.
I wasn’t fainting, was I?
Well, no, but that is NOT the point. The point is that, whether you think so or not, you were on a path that would, eventually, kill you.
Whatever. Anyway. He’s not going to admit it here because he’s allowed to have dignity and I’m not, but Mike likes me better chubby. I don’t know why, I guess he’s just weird like that, but… whatever.
I like you best when happiness is involved, angel. As for liking you better when you have a little extra weight on you, well, the hugs are nicer for one thing. Who likes hugging a stick figure? Not me. Also, you look really cute like that.
Whatever, Mike, okay? Drop it.
Fine.
“Downtown Denton” is about the biggest misnomer I’ve ever heard (well, except for calling me anything but “fat…” Oh, come off it, Brian. Seconded, again. Will the two of you please shut up?). When they say “downtown,” they mean “a few little homey stores, a Borders, a drugstore or two, two Starbucks, some other stuff, and a McDonald’s.” I didn’t know it then, and didn’t expect it since I was dieting and Mike usually eats healthily, but we were going to McDonald’s. …Turning into that lot was the ONE time he used his turn signal on that whole ride and, immediately, he parked, turned off the car, and disembarked, whistling some upbeat, springy tune. I followed him, even though I hate McDonald’s and hadn’t gone in one since I got food poisoning in one when I was eight.
Real food poisoning or pill-induced food poisoning?
Real food poisoning, Mary, honestly! I was eight! I was thick, but I wasn’t fat yet and I was hardly thinking about losing weight, let alone popping pills to do so!
I felt compelled to ask. Just to be sure.
Right. So, anyway.
Mike was taller than me and moved faster so he was already ordering when I came in. He looked up at the menu, drummed his fingers against the counter pensively, and… I should have stopped him, but I was trying to be mad at him and figured that, if he wanted to eat concentrated caner, then I shouldn’t stand in the way of it.
“Yeah,” he said lazily. “I’ll have… two quarter pounders with cheese, a six-piece chicken nugget meal with a coke and ranch sauce… super size it, a McFlurry with oreo, and big size of that too, an apple pie, a fruit and yogurt thingy, and a chocolate chip cookie.”
…Okay, clearly some alien had taken over Mike’s mind and hot body. I’d never seen him in a McDonald’s, even back in middle school, let alone ordering that much food. He always took leftovers home when we went out for dinner, and that was consistently of GOOD food… of food period, since, well… McDonald’s isn’t really food. It’s a product that vaguely resembles food, but it isn’t food.
As if this was entirely normal, even though the cashier was giving him the biggest “what the fuck” look I’ve ever seen, he turned to me.
“Hun, what do you want?”
…What did I want? Excuse me? Did he not hear me going off at Mary for trying to force her lunch scraps on me when I wasn’t hungry? Did he not hear my elaborate plan to cleanse my systems and lose the weight I’d gained (I didn’t blame him to his face, but I probably should have)?
“Yourheadonapikeforstaters,” I grumbled.
“’kay.” Back to the clerk. “My foofy boyfriend’s going to have a side salad.”
“Mikeiamgoingtofuckingkillyou.”
Clearly, this poor, acne-plagued young man was so intimidated by Mike’s order that this seemed positively normal. He rang us up, Mike paid, and we waited in silence until a completely loaded tray showed up for us. Mike was probably just showing off, but he carried the whole thing to a table for two and, without looking at me, set the salad in front of me. I pushed it aside and took to glaring at him instead. Apparently, this didn’t matter much because he ignored me and started digging into one of the entirely questionable-looking “burgers.” And, with all the subtlety of a brick wall, it all became obvious: Mike - my hot, thin Mike - was boycotting my attempt at bettering myself by stuffing himself and making a lot of noise about it. Just what I fucking needed.
“Mike,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “This is so unnecessary.”
He looked up from his burger, which was already half gone (he had won our grade the eating contest during spirit week in seventh grade). “Yeah, well, so is you not eating, and, as long as you’re not eating, I’m going to rub your face in it.”
Since I was sure I was going to keep a promise to myself and hold out this time, I came to the conclusion that he was going to gorge himself until I caved or, since I thought I wouldn’t, until I went off the diet. The mental images… were not pretty. I mean, they were still discernibly of Mike… but I saw him getting three entrees at Olive Garden, plus soup and breadsticks, and eating all of it (and he probably would have been able to do so). I saw him buying out all of the Candy Shoppe’s stocks of his favorites - chocolate nonpareils, gummi bears, and chocolate-covered cashews - and eating them all in one sitting. Worst of all, I saw the outcome of all this nonsense, standing at 6’2” and weighing in at 300 pounds or more, and he was bloated and disgusting… still Mike, but a bloated and disgusting Mike.
I sighed, whining a little bit; he ignored me and licked the ketchup and cheese off his fingers. As soon as his hands were clean, he started in on the second one. Oh God. His pants were already sinfully tight; he was probably going to split them if he kept going on like this.
“Honestly,” I groaned. “This place is greasy, and disgusting, and you’re eating cancer!”
“I am making a statement, angel,” he said through a mouthful of “food.” “Once you get it, we’ll leave.”
“Oh, I get it alright, and I think it’s stupid!”
“Mhm…” He chewed one bite slowly and pensively, and then went back to speed eating.
“Come on! I wanna go!”
Mhm…” He was a little over half done with it.
“You don’t need to eat this shit to make a point, Mike!”
“Obviously,” he sighed, wiping something off his mouth, “I do. You haven’t eaten in a day; that’s not healthy.”
“…A day and a half, actually…”
“My point exactly!” He shoved the last fifth into his mouth and, somehow, didn’t choke on it.
“…This is so fucking unnecessary…”
“Was Gandhi unnecessary?” he asked, proceeding to shove five fries in his mouth.
“…What does that have to do with anything?”
“Gandhi went on hunger strikes to end British occupation in India, and I'm going on a bad food strike until you quit being stupid and eat something.” He got eight into his mouth that time.
“…That comparison is completely out of line.”
And it was. Freedom and equality for native people is one thing. Trying to break my diet was a different thing entirely. With an insane meticulousness, Mike counted out ten fries and shoved them into his mouth one by one. He chewed all ten together, swallowed, and then looked at me. I couldn’t tell if he was confused or resolute, but, either way, I didn’t like it one bit.
“Well, I think it works, so there.”
“…But it really doesn’t!” I huffed. “It doesn’t work at all!”
“Yes, it does.” He returned to the French fries, picking up two of them; he dunked them in ranch sauce and brought them to his lips. “Mmmm, French fries. They’re so grease-laden and horrible for you, and mmm, mmm, mmm! I am going to enjoy them.”
In that annoying, point-making way, he shoved them into his mouth and moaned like he was having an orgasm. Of course it was fake, but still! Fake orgasms are for unsatisfied people and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, no one else! Once he was done with that, he moved from the fries to the chicken nuggets and popped one into his mouth.
“Mike, honestly… this is so stupid…”
“Well, so’s anorexia, but that doesn’t stop you.”
“I'm not anorexic… you have to be skinny to be anorexic.” Duh. Everyone knew that. Fat people can have other eating disorders, but anorexia is the ED country club reserved only for the thin and pretty.
“What's the medical definition of anorexia?” he mused, shoving two chicken nuggets into his mouth and making noises that I guessed were an act to show how tasty they were.
I sighed. “Self-starvation and a BMI below 18.5.”
“Why do you know that?”
“…Internet.” Coincidentally, that was also where I found out about Hayden Christensen’s Life As A House prep diet.
“No, that's how you know it. Why do you know it?” He popped in a completely ketchup-soaked nugget.
“…This isn't helping your point!” I scoffed, blushing. How the hell was I supposed to tell him that I knew because I deeply admired anorexics and wanted to be just like them?
“I see that. …I also see a really lonely apple pie just begging to be eaten.”
With two chicken nuggets left, he reached at the apple pie. Then, like an ADD kid goes for shiny things, he put that down and reached for the McFlurry instead. He lasted on that for ten seconds, at most, before he started in on the apple pie. I couldn’t see his stomach from where I was sitting, but my guess was that it was distending. Granted, he didn’t have totally flat, washboard abs to begin with, but he had tone and he had a really nice stomach and chest. Just the thought of what they’d look like after he got done with all this “food” was enough to make me want to vomit, despite having only water, vitamins, and stomach acid to vomit with. Okay. It wasn’t as bad as the completely bloated, disgusting mental image of him, but still! I had enough belly for both of us. He didn’t need one too.
“…If you're going to do this, can't you at LEAST eat in some orderly manner?” I whined slightly.
He looked up from the apple pie and gave me a look that suggested that he thought I was from Venus. “…No.”
“Mike, please?”
“Please what?” he said through a mouthful of “pie.”
“Please stop this! It’s stupid, useless, and unbecoming.”
“We’re not leaving until you eat something or I finish.”
“There’s no way you can finish all of that.”
“Watch me.”
He sounded serious, which was, honestly, scarier than the thought of him putting on weight, mostly because it would lead to him putting on weight. I have never actually been skinny - I want to be, and so help me GOD, I will be one day, hopefully before graduation, but I never actually have been - and being fat squishy huggable, lovable, and chubby in all the right places (what Mike means to say is that I’m still trying to lose weight… I was at 178 this morning. No, I mean exactly what I said. You are huggable, or, squishy, soft, and fun to hug. You are lovable, i.e. endearing and cute. And you are chubby in all the right places: you have a squishy belly - just the thing to raise my self-esteem, thank you, Mike - but I like your belly! Anyway, you have that, and your face is adorable, and you have the cutest calves I have EVER seen... You do realize that I take everything you say with a grain of salt because of your little chubby fetish, right? Yes. I do not mind.).
Anyway, the point is: I have never been skinny, at all. When I’ve been thin, it’s either been in a point of my life I can’t remember or it’s lasted for like… two weeks (though, I’ve got something that’s working now, and I’m going to be thin for my graduation, even if I weighed 186 for my senior photo). And, all things considered, there are only three people I’d wish my predicament on, and I’m related to all of them.
Well that’s not very nice.
Neither is the way they treat me, but that’s not the point here.
There’s a point here? I was under the impression that you were just writing whatever was on your mind and somehow relating it to the story.
The point is, Kacey, that I have no willpower.
Brian, I love you dearly, but... that’s not as much a point as much as it is a statement of fact.
Shut up. What it comes down to is this: when Mike threatened me with stuffing his own face full of cancer in food form, I made it just over five minutes. While he was making a big deal over the minute differences between a McFlurry and a pseudo-parfait, I slumped forward onto the table, resting my head on my arms. There was a definite chuckle from his end and I felt him poking my head. I really shouldn’t have, especially since he was sticking his nose where I didn’t want it, but I shifted my head and looked at him anyway. …Damn it all. Damn him and his beautiful smile and his expert knowledge of how to properly apply it. He smiled, open-mouthed like usual, and moved some of my hair, and… I really wanted to be mad at him for this whole shenanigan, but all I could manage was a sigh.
“Fine,” I huffed, putting my chin on my arms. “I’ll eat something.”
“Thank you, Brian,” he said with a smile. “But… you don’t mind eating somewhere else, right?”
“Why would I mind?”
“Oh, good. Just thought I’d ask.”
“…Why? I hate this place.”
“Frankly, I don’t know how anyone could like it. It’s horrible.”
“That’s an understatement…”
Rather than respond with one of his usual, intelligently smart ass remarks, he slid a finger under my chin, lifted me up and leaned down, and kissed me. God, I loved it when he kissed me. I mean, the first one was completely unexpected and tasted like disgusting winter formal punch and I spent an hour afterwards washing my mouth out with toothpaste and Listerine because my Mike was Mike Thomaschewski, who was kind of gross and listened to bad music. I love you too. What?! When we were in middle school, you listened to Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, and Hank William Junior, and you were built like a wall, and you hadn’t grown into your body or discovered deodorant yet, and you hijacked my best friend, which caused some natural envy and dislike. Hey! Idea. …I’m not going to like this, am I?
Hey, Shana!
Oh dear God…
Yes, Mike?
Do you think I hijacked Brian from you?
Only a little bit.
Are you envious? Do you dislike me because I happen to be dating him?
Not at all.
Okay, so maybe it’s just me, but still!
Love you.
Love you too.
*hug*
*grin*
*kiss*
*blush*
*molest*
Mike! Not on my project, damn it!
Come on! It’s cute!
Not on something that’s getting graded, it’s not.
:p
Mike…
End Notes: Right, so. The *asterisk actions* are being typed by Mike and Brian as they perform them. And now I'm tempted to write angst about Brian's little "accident," but I'm in a good mood, so I'ma write lesbians instead. They're angsty too, but in a prettier way.