[drabbles] Office Supplies
I'm tired. Really tired. To the point that I've got wicked writer's block, which doesn't only affect fic, but has a significant impact on my job. So I decided to try out a writing exercise where I texted breila_rose and made her give me object prompts. Please do not take any of these seriously, because they are all super short and silly and done in the last two hours or so of my work day today. Pairings include, in this order: James/Carlos, Carlos/Logan, James/Camille, Kendall/Logan, Camille/Lucy, James/Logan, and Camille/the Jennifers. I say pairings loosely, because none of them are particularly racy.
Titles stolen from The Great Awakening by Say Anything, Ice Cream by New Young Pony Club, Sub Symphonika by The Submarines, This Is Twice Now by Lydia, This Bottle Of Wine by Maria Mena, Resounding by Say Anything, and Epic by Big Time Rush.
The results are below:
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Here's My Lullaby (Designed To Wake You Up)
Prompt: Sheep, Jarlos
"That one looks like a herd of sheep."
"In what universe?"
"It’s big and fluffy! Sheep are big and fluffy!"
"Dude, you are so misguided. Obviously that one looks like my face. Observe that rugged jawline." James sweeps his hand across Carlos’s field of vision. "Have you ever seen such a handsome cloud?" He asks, a little wistfully.
"It looks nothing like you. Don’t insult the sheep like that."
"Insult? Your imaginary sheep should be so lucky." James throws a handful of grass in Carlos’s face. He sneezes, batting blades of the green stuff away from his nose and eyes. James grins and crosses his arms, like he’s made his point, and that is a total declaration of war if Carlos has ever seen one.
"You’d look better if you were fluffy. Here, let me help." Carlos dives at him, tangling his hands in James’s hair and rubbing, hard.
"Hey! Hey! The hair is off limits!"
"Do you surrender?"
"No! But you’re cheating!"
Carlos shrugs. "And you’re being a pussy."
He digs his fingers into James’s scalp, tugging tufts until James looks like he stuck his finger into an electrical socket. He’s squirming and bucking, trying to throw Carlos off, but Carlos is like, a champion at holding onto shit when he wants to, and he doesn’t let James shake him. Overhead, the cloud in question lazily drifts away, wending through the sky, while the two boys bicker and argue and bask in the sunlight.
James gains the upper hand eventually, because he is twice Carlos’s size and really, really passionate about people fucking with his hair.
"Now who surrenders?" He demands, grinning from ear to ear. "Victory is always mine."
Carlos cackles with glee. "You think? Wait until you look in a mirror."
"You’re so- so-" James throws his hands in the air and makes a noise that sounds vaguely like urghhhhh.
"I know." Carlos tilts his head and grins, the sun kissing every angle of his face. "I’m awesome."
"Awesome is not what urghhhh means."
"Really? Are you sure? Because that’s what I heard."
"Maybe you should get your hearing checked." James swipes his fingers across the shell of Carlos’s ears, knowing full well that he is insanely ticklish. He wiggles and yelps, trying to escape the assault, but James is ruthless. Carlos has to resort to the only tactic he has at his disposal.
He steels himself for the taste of Cuda and grass and licks out at James’s wrist.
James's reaction is immediate. "Did you just lick me?"
Carlos widens his eyes in challenge. "Yep."
"You can’t just lick people!"
"I can do whatever I want. This is war."
"You- you- god." James rolls off of him, and for a second Carlos misses his heavy, familiar weight. "I probably have tetanus now. Or rabies. Are you rabid?"
"I got my shots." Carlos laughs, crossing his eyes at James just to be a brat. There is no one in the world more fun to rile up than James Diamond.
He groans and mutters something mean under his breath, but then something like an idea flickers across his face, and Carlos stiffens, because with James ideas are always, always dangerous.
"If I’m already infected," James says, "I might as well do this."
He presses his thumb into the corner of Carlos’s mouth, and at first Carlos thinks he’s just going to try to force him to swallow something nasty in retaliation.
Except that something nasty turns out to be James’s tongue, accompanied by his mouth, neither of which are very nasty at all. In fact, he tastes almost sweet, like a memory, like comfort and familiarity on Carlos’s lips, and that is what this will become in the future: the day that James first kissed him, there in the middle of an empty field with the too-blue sky blazing on the back of his eyelids. It is the day that Carlos learns to associate things like love with the smell of fresh cut grass and the Minnesota sky and James.
Long after the sun goes away and the grass turns brown and Carlos ditches Minnesota for greener pastures, so to speak, he keeps that memory in his heart; the perfect image of James, vain and beautiful, who at that exact moment looked precisely like a cloud that looked precisely like a heard of sheep.
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I Could Make You Ice Cream (We Could Be A Sweet Team)
Prompt: Ice cream with sprinkles, cargan
"You’ve got something on your mouth."
"Oh yeah?" Carlos wipes at his lips, smearing white across them, and then he returns to inhaling his ice cream, and none of it is even a little bit fair. Logan can’t deal with the visual, with the obscene stretch of his lips or the flick of his tongue as he works over his ice cream cone, lapping up rainbow sprinkles that stick to his lips like they belong there.
"Can’t you eat like a normal human being?" He snipes, irritated that Carlos is unable to eat anything without fellating it. It’s distracting watching someone make love to their food with their mouth during every single meal, and Logan doesn’t deal well with distraction.
He’s got an organic chemistry test to study for and three essays on James Joyce to write and a project due on the Oregon Trail, and it’s really hard to concentrate on any of it when Carlos is just sitting there, eating ice cream like he’s practicing for a career in gay porn. It’s only natural that Logan snaps, overcome by the pressure of all his academic responsibility and the heavy weight of his own dick pressing into his thigh.
He marches across the room and reiterates, "You’ve still got something on your face."
Carlos pauses mid bite, mouth gaping open so that all Logan can see is creamy white punctuated by red-blue-yellow-green-indigo melting across that landscape.
"What?" Carlos mumbles, trying to swallow, and Logan cups a hand under his chin.
Carlos tastes exactly like vanilla, like the crunch of the candy that Logan licks up with his tongue. He tastes every inch of the sweetness between Carlos’s teeth, and only then does he pull back, satisfied.
"What?" Carlos repeats, bewildered, dazed, and adorable. "What was on my face though?"
Logan smirks and mutters, "Me."
Now he can concentrate.
---
The Delicate Demons
Prompt: Demon Rubber Ducky, James/Camille
Camille wakes up at four o clock in the morning to a banging on her bedroom door. She’s not exactly surprised to see James standing there, shivering in his sweatpants, but only because it’s four in the morning and she’s not up to processing an emotion as large as surprise.
Cranky, she asks, "What?"
James has no respect for things like boundaries or personal space, so all he does is shove inside her door and hiss, "It’s back."
Camille blinks. Then she blinks a second time. "James. Not again. There’s no such thing as-"
"It’s real, I swear," James says frantically. "And it’s stalking me."
"James-"
"No, no, no." James shakes his head. "I’m sleeping here tonight."
Camille thinks about saying no, but this is the third time this week, and she just really wants to sleep. "Right side of the bed or left? You have to choose one this time."
"Left," James decides, and then promptly throws himself down right in the middle. He is such a bed-hog.
Whatever. It’s late. Camille curls into the space James has left her, tucking her face between his chest and his arm, and he pulls her close like she’s a teddy bear.
This, whatever it is, started a few weeks back, when James began seeing a pair of glowing red eyes in the middle of the night. At first he ignored it, but as time went by, the eyes- and the monster attached to them- began to grow more persistent. It crept up his bed and stared and stared and stared. Even when he tried to sleep on the bright orange couch in the middle of his apartment, it followed, with all of it’s dark, malicious intentions. The next thing Camille knew, she had a bunkmate, whether she wanted one or not.
She doesn't mind. Much. He’s hot, from fear or insanity, and he makes a pretty decent pillow as long as he doesn’t steal all the blankets, too. Sleepily, Camille mumbles, "You know there’s no such thing as-"
"Don’t say it," James commands.
Back in 2J, Katie grumpily peeks her head into the bedroom her brother and his friends share. "Is there a reason James just ran out of the apartment screaming his head off? Again?"
Kendall waves a hand in the air, which she translates to mean go away, and Carlos doesn’t even stir, caught up in his dreams about Candyland. Logan is the one who looks up from the first edition of Atlas Shrugged he is reading by flashlight beneath his comforter and explains, "He snores. Loud."
"And?" Katie prompts, exasperated, because it’s not exactly new information.
"Kendall couldn’t take it anymore."
"...And?"
"He’s engaging in psychological warfare," Logan says.
"How?"
"Well. James thinks he’s being stalked."
"By?"
Logan points the flashlight straight at James’s bed, where, on the comforter, a small green rubber duck with black demon horns sits in all it's ominous glory. "That."
Katie sighs. "You guys are idiots."
"Hey. I’m a genius." Logan pauses. "…James not so much."
Katie can’t really disagree with that.
She still chucks the green demon ducky straight at her stupid brother's head before returning to her nice, warm bed.
Kendall doesn't even stir.
---
Baby, Just Ask Once More
Prompt: Clipboard, kogan
"Stop!" Logan’s hand slams into Kendall’s face. "I need a list."
"You don’t need a list," Kendall argues, clutching his nose, because ow, that kind of hurt.
"I do though. I need a list. Where’s my pen?"
"Logan. You’re being ridiculous."
"I’m being organized."
"Organization is ridiculous."
"Your face is ridiculous."
"What’s wrong with my face?"
Logan deigns not to answer, too busy saying, "Aha! Clipboard!"
"Why do you keep a clipboard in the glove compartment?"
"You never know when you’ll need to make a list of pros and cons."
Kendall bristles. "There are no cons!"
"There are always cons," Logan replies seriously, already bent over the clipboard, tapping the attached pen fervently against the plastic side. Kendall watches him trace out the words in his fastidious cursive, and then mumble to himself for over five minutes.
It's boring.
He tries to sneak a peek at the list, but Logan’s covering it with his arm, and he’s being really aggressive about it, so fine. Kendall slumps down in his seat and sulks. Outside, the sky is touched with pink, one of California’s less-than-glorious sunsets perched on the horizon. The waves crash in the distance, thundering like a stampede of horses, and the occasional beachgoer trots by, joggers or surfers or girls wearing very tiny bikinis.
"Are you done yet?"
"No."
Kendall tries to subervertly glance at the list again, and the con side looks really, really long. He catches sight of a word or two, including commandeering and sweaty.
Sweaty?
"Hey!" Kendall protests. Logan shushes him with a noise like air leaking from a tire, and okay, he’s had enough now. Kendall snatches the clipboard away, throwing it in the back seat before he can see anything on that list that’s really going to annoy him. He squares his hands on Logan’s shoulders to stop him from diving for the stupid thing and announces, "That is it. Logan, you don’t get to make a list of pros and cons about kissing me."
"But what if-"
"No. Nonononono." Kendall shakes his head. "No what ifs. Do you want this, or don’t you?"
Logan shifts a little guiltily and mutters, "Yeah, of course, but what if-"
Kendall shuts him up the only way he knows how.
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You Look More And More (Like Someone I Could Love)
Prompt: a bag of southern pecan coffee and a stapler, Camille/Lucy
"This is really good."
"I think you’ve had enough."
"Nope." Camille primly cups her mug to her chest. "I’m ready for another glass."
"You’ve had three."
"But it’s delicious."
"But that’s a lot of caffeine. Look, your hands are shaking and- put down my stapler please?"
"Why do you keep a stapler in your living room?"
"In case I need to staple things!"
"Like?"
Lucy thinks about it.
"Like things, okay? You know, I can buy you a bag of this stuff." She taps the Southern Pecan Coffee sitting on her tiny counter.
"Our machine isn’t as good as yours," Camille explains. "It’s just not the same."
"I could buy you a machine," Lucy suggests.
"They’re expensive."
"Trust me, it’s not big deal." Lucy swipes a hand across her eyes, thinking that if it will stop Camille coming over at seven thirty every morning she is more than willing to drop a couple hundred on a gourmet coffee maker.
Camille’s pretty eyes widen and she gulps down another big sip of coffee. "Don’t do that. I wouldn’t feel right taking a gift. Besides." She sets the mug down and pops up with entirely too much energy for the early hour. She’s across the teensy room Lucy rents in less than two steps, all perky and up in Lucy’s face with her boundless enthusiasm. "I don’t come for the coffee. I like the company."
Camille kisses Lucy on the cheek, this lingering touch of her lips accompanied by a stroke of fingers across her throat and oh. Lucy stares.
And stares.
And stares.
She’s maybe been a little slow on this one.
Camille smirks. "See you tomorrow morning!"
---
'Cause It's Always Been For You
Prompt: cuticle cream and lip gloss, lames friendship
It’s weird how easy it is to get accustomed to weird shit.
That’s what James is thinking while Logan massages cuticle cream into his nail beds, prattling on and on about the plan, and what James has to do, and how to keep balance in heels.
Like it’s James’s first time wearing five inch stilettos.
"We have to pull this off just right," Logan continues in his gravest voice, the same one he used when they were nine and accidentally broke Mrs. Magikowski’s window.
They had to work that off for months, raking leaves and shoveling snow and basically acting as her personal servants while Kendall and Carlos looked on and laughed. But James kind of misses those days, when he and Logan were the only two people around beneath a slate gray sky, shoveling powder and cracking jokes about the wrestling team. They don’t spend a lot of time together now, out in California, where everything is always busybusymoving, and…he just misses it, okay?
Logan lets go of his hands, primly wiping the excess cuticle cream on a paper towel, and then he eyes James critically. James makes a face at him, trying to break the solemn atmosphere, and Logan cracks the briefest of smiles before figuring out what’s missing. James watches him rummage around in Mrs. Knight’s vanity and thinks that it’s nice to sit down, to have this little bonding ritual where they can enjoy each other’s company. Even if it involves Logan applying James’s lipgloss.
"Hold still, it’s smearing." Logan grabs a tissue and dabs at the corner of James’s mouth, coming away sticky, shiny, and orange. He leans back and examines his handiwork. "You look good. No one’s going to know the difference."
He spins James’s chair around so that he can see himself in the mirror. James is pretty sure that everyone is going to know the difference, but he only has to pretend to be a girl for a whole five minutes this time.
Still. "I look hideous."
"Don’t be dumb, you look pretty enough to kiss."
"Oh yeah?"
James puckers his lips at Logan, who squeaks and explains, "I don’t want to kiss you!"
"Are you sure? You don’t look sure."
"I’m sure," Logan snaps. "Now stop that. You’re going to ruin your makeup. Do you remember the plan?"
James rolls his eyes.
"Duh. I’m ready whenever you are," he says, and it’s true.
With Logan at his side, James is ready for a plan, a kiss; just about anything. He always has been, and he always will be.
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This One Is For The Ladies (They Lookin' So Amazing)
Prompt: pink bra, Camille/the Jennifers
"Why pink?" Jennifer asks, falling into step with Camille.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Camille picks up her pace. She’s got an audition across town, and no way is she going to make it there on time at the rate she’s going.
Besides, Jennifers are like hydras; give one the time of day and another pops up to nag and pester you until you’ve got the brood of them at your side and a missed audition to deal with. She knows firsthand, because she used to be a Jennifer, a few years back when she was working a mean girl role on a popular teen show. Back then, there were only two of them, Jennifer Wood and a pretty redheaded girl named Jennifer who ended up landing a dream role in Paris a few months later. Camille enjoyed the camaraderie and the designer clothes, but in the end it turned out that she wasn’t very good at being catty, despite all her ambition.
"Why pink?" Jennifer repeats, flouncing her pretty blonde hair. Camille thinks about running it between her fingers in much the same way she thinks about what she might eat for lunch, idle curiosity without any urgency attached to it.
"You’re going to have to give me more than that to work with."
"Your bra," Jennifer explains. "It’s pink."
Camille glances down. She can’t see the shape of her bra beneath her sundress, but she vaguely recalls pulling a pink one from her dresser this morning. "Yes, yes it is."
Jennifer nods and then says, "You can’t wear pink under white. It shows."
"So?"
"The casting director is going to think you’re slutty."
"How do you know I’m going to see a casting-"
"You’re always going to see a casting director."
"Alright, but who cares what they think?"
"We do," a voice chips in at her side, and Camille has to steel her nerves in an avid attempt not to scream, because it’s happening. They’re replicating. She is about to be overrun.
"Okay. I appreciate your input on my fashion malfunction but-"
"It’s not a malfunction. It’s hot," Jennifer Wood says, coming to stop right in front of her, and damn, they're all here. Jennifer's lips curve into a familiar smile, somewhere between sweet and seductive.
"So hot," the first Jennifer agrees.
Curly haired Jennifer doesn’t say anything, but she’s smiling like everything is going to plan, and there can’t be a plan, because Camille absolutely does not have time for plans right now.
Jennifer Wood’s hand rests on the small of Camille’s back, trailing up to the clasp of her bra beneath her sundress.
"Do your panties match?"
Camille feels the blonde Jennifer touch her shoulder, the curly haired girl palm over her thigh, and okay. This might be the one thing she misses about being a Jennifer.
Her breathing shallows out a little, and she knows she has the audition, but honestly, it’s a beat cop role that she’s probably not going to land, and Jennifer Wood is exhaling into her ear, all warm and sweet, "We miss you. I miss you. Come by my apartment…sometime."
"Now?"
Jennifer grins. "Now works."
---
Titles stolen from The Great Awakening by Say Anything, Ice Cream by New Young Pony Club, Sub Symphonika by The Submarines, This Is Twice Now by Lydia, This Bottle Of Wine by Maria Mena, Resounding by Say Anything, and Epic by Big Time Rush.
The results are below:
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Here's My Lullaby (Designed To Wake You Up)
Prompt: Sheep, Jarlos
"That one looks like a herd of sheep."
"In what universe?"
"It’s big and fluffy! Sheep are big and fluffy!"
"Dude, you are so misguided. Obviously that one looks like my face. Observe that rugged jawline." James sweeps his hand across Carlos’s field of vision. "Have you ever seen such a handsome cloud?" He asks, a little wistfully.
"It looks nothing like you. Don’t insult the sheep like that."
"Insult? Your imaginary sheep should be so lucky." James throws a handful of grass in Carlos’s face. He sneezes, batting blades of the green stuff away from his nose and eyes. James grins and crosses his arms, like he’s made his point, and that is a total declaration of war if Carlos has ever seen one.
"You’d look better if you were fluffy. Here, let me help." Carlos dives at him, tangling his hands in James’s hair and rubbing, hard.
"Hey! Hey! The hair is off limits!"
"Do you surrender?"
"No! But you’re cheating!"
Carlos shrugs. "And you’re being a pussy."
He digs his fingers into James’s scalp, tugging tufts until James looks like he stuck his finger into an electrical socket. He’s squirming and bucking, trying to throw Carlos off, but Carlos is like, a champion at holding onto shit when he wants to, and he doesn’t let James shake him. Overhead, the cloud in question lazily drifts away, wending through the sky, while the two boys bicker and argue and bask in the sunlight.
James gains the upper hand eventually, because he is twice Carlos’s size and really, really passionate about people fucking with his hair.
"Now who surrenders?" He demands, grinning from ear to ear. "Victory is always mine."
Carlos cackles with glee. "You think? Wait until you look in a mirror."
"You’re so- so-" James throws his hands in the air and makes a noise that sounds vaguely like urghhhhh.
"I know." Carlos tilts his head and grins, the sun kissing every angle of his face. "I’m awesome."
"Awesome is not what urghhhh means."
"Really? Are you sure? Because that’s what I heard."
"Maybe you should get your hearing checked." James swipes his fingers across the shell of Carlos’s ears, knowing full well that he is insanely ticklish. He wiggles and yelps, trying to escape the assault, but James is ruthless. Carlos has to resort to the only tactic he has at his disposal.
He steels himself for the taste of Cuda and grass and licks out at James’s wrist.
James's reaction is immediate. "Did you just lick me?"
Carlos widens his eyes in challenge. "Yep."
"You can’t just lick people!"
"I can do whatever I want. This is war."
"You- you- god." James rolls off of him, and for a second Carlos misses his heavy, familiar weight. "I probably have tetanus now. Or rabies. Are you rabid?"
"I got my shots." Carlos laughs, crossing his eyes at James just to be a brat. There is no one in the world more fun to rile up than James Diamond.
He groans and mutters something mean under his breath, but then something like an idea flickers across his face, and Carlos stiffens, because with James ideas are always, always dangerous.
"If I’m already infected," James says, "I might as well do this."
He presses his thumb into the corner of Carlos’s mouth, and at first Carlos thinks he’s just going to try to force him to swallow something nasty in retaliation.
Except that something nasty turns out to be James’s tongue, accompanied by his mouth, neither of which are very nasty at all. In fact, he tastes almost sweet, like a memory, like comfort and familiarity on Carlos’s lips, and that is what this will become in the future: the day that James first kissed him, there in the middle of an empty field with the too-blue sky blazing on the back of his eyelids. It is the day that Carlos learns to associate things like love with the smell of fresh cut grass and the Minnesota sky and James.
Long after the sun goes away and the grass turns brown and Carlos ditches Minnesota for greener pastures, so to speak, he keeps that memory in his heart; the perfect image of James, vain and beautiful, who at that exact moment looked precisely like a cloud that looked precisely like a heard of sheep.
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I Could Make You Ice Cream (We Could Be A Sweet Team)
Prompt: Ice cream with sprinkles, cargan
"You’ve got something on your mouth."
"Oh yeah?" Carlos wipes at his lips, smearing white across them, and then he returns to inhaling his ice cream, and none of it is even a little bit fair. Logan can’t deal with the visual, with the obscene stretch of his lips or the flick of his tongue as he works over his ice cream cone, lapping up rainbow sprinkles that stick to his lips like they belong there.
"Can’t you eat like a normal human being?" He snipes, irritated that Carlos is unable to eat anything without fellating it. It’s distracting watching someone make love to their food with their mouth during every single meal, and Logan doesn’t deal well with distraction.
He’s got an organic chemistry test to study for and three essays on James Joyce to write and a project due on the Oregon Trail, and it’s really hard to concentrate on any of it when Carlos is just sitting there, eating ice cream like he’s practicing for a career in gay porn. It’s only natural that Logan snaps, overcome by the pressure of all his academic responsibility and the heavy weight of his own dick pressing into his thigh.
He marches across the room and reiterates, "You’ve still got something on your face."
Carlos pauses mid bite, mouth gaping open so that all Logan can see is creamy white punctuated by red-blue-yellow-green-indigo melting across that landscape.
"What?" Carlos mumbles, trying to swallow, and Logan cups a hand under his chin.
Carlos tastes exactly like vanilla, like the crunch of the candy that Logan licks up with his tongue. He tastes every inch of the sweetness between Carlos’s teeth, and only then does he pull back, satisfied.
"What?" Carlos repeats, bewildered, dazed, and adorable. "What was on my face though?"
Logan smirks and mutters, "Me."
Now he can concentrate.
---
The Delicate Demons
Prompt: Demon Rubber Ducky, James/Camille
Camille wakes up at four o clock in the morning to a banging on her bedroom door. She’s not exactly surprised to see James standing there, shivering in his sweatpants, but only because it’s four in the morning and she’s not up to processing an emotion as large as surprise.
Cranky, she asks, "What?"
James has no respect for things like boundaries or personal space, so all he does is shove inside her door and hiss, "It’s back."
Camille blinks. Then she blinks a second time. "James. Not again. There’s no such thing as-"
"It’s real, I swear," James says frantically. "And it’s stalking me."
"James-"
"No, no, no." James shakes his head. "I’m sleeping here tonight."
Camille thinks about saying no, but this is the third time this week, and she just really wants to sleep. "Right side of the bed or left? You have to choose one this time."
"Left," James decides, and then promptly throws himself down right in the middle. He is such a bed-hog.
Whatever. It’s late. Camille curls into the space James has left her, tucking her face between his chest and his arm, and he pulls her close like she’s a teddy bear.
This, whatever it is, started a few weeks back, when James began seeing a pair of glowing red eyes in the middle of the night. At first he ignored it, but as time went by, the eyes- and the monster attached to them- began to grow more persistent. It crept up his bed and stared and stared and stared. Even when he tried to sleep on the bright orange couch in the middle of his apartment, it followed, with all of it’s dark, malicious intentions. The next thing Camille knew, she had a bunkmate, whether she wanted one or not.
She doesn't mind. Much. He’s hot, from fear or insanity, and he makes a pretty decent pillow as long as he doesn’t steal all the blankets, too. Sleepily, Camille mumbles, "You know there’s no such thing as-"
"Don’t say it," James commands.
Back in 2J, Katie grumpily peeks her head into the bedroom her brother and his friends share. "Is there a reason James just ran out of the apartment screaming his head off? Again?"
Kendall waves a hand in the air, which she translates to mean go away, and Carlos doesn’t even stir, caught up in his dreams about Candyland. Logan is the one who looks up from the first edition of Atlas Shrugged he is reading by flashlight beneath his comforter and explains, "He snores. Loud."
"And?" Katie prompts, exasperated, because it’s not exactly new information.
"Kendall couldn’t take it anymore."
"...And?"
"He’s engaging in psychological warfare," Logan says.
"How?"
"Well. James thinks he’s being stalked."
"By?"
Logan points the flashlight straight at James’s bed, where, on the comforter, a small green rubber duck with black demon horns sits in all it's ominous glory. "That."
Katie sighs. "You guys are idiots."
"Hey. I’m a genius." Logan pauses. "…James not so much."
Katie can’t really disagree with that.
She still chucks the green demon ducky straight at her stupid brother's head before returning to her nice, warm bed.
Kendall doesn't even stir.
---
Baby, Just Ask Once More
Prompt: Clipboard, kogan
"Stop!" Logan’s hand slams into Kendall’s face. "I need a list."
"You don’t need a list," Kendall argues, clutching his nose, because ow, that kind of hurt.
"I do though. I need a list. Where’s my pen?"
"Logan. You’re being ridiculous."
"I’m being organized."
"Organization is ridiculous."
"Your face is ridiculous."
"What’s wrong with my face?"
Logan deigns not to answer, too busy saying, "Aha! Clipboard!"
"Why do you keep a clipboard in the glove compartment?"
"You never know when you’ll need to make a list of pros and cons."
Kendall bristles. "There are no cons!"
"There are always cons," Logan replies seriously, already bent over the clipboard, tapping the attached pen fervently against the plastic side. Kendall watches him trace out the words in his fastidious cursive, and then mumble to himself for over five minutes.
It's boring.
He tries to sneak a peek at the list, but Logan’s covering it with his arm, and he’s being really aggressive about it, so fine. Kendall slumps down in his seat and sulks. Outside, the sky is touched with pink, one of California’s less-than-glorious sunsets perched on the horizon. The waves crash in the distance, thundering like a stampede of horses, and the occasional beachgoer trots by, joggers or surfers or girls wearing very tiny bikinis.
"Are you done yet?"
"No."
Kendall tries to subervertly glance at the list again, and the con side looks really, really long. He catches sight of a word or two, including commandeering and sweaty.
Sweaty?
"Hey!" Kendall protests. Logan shushes him with a noise like air leaking from a tire, and okay, he’s had enough now. Kendall snatches the clipboard away, throwing it in the back seat before he can see anything on that list that’s really going to annoy him. He squares his hands on Logan’s shoulders to stop him from diving for the stupid thing and announces, "That is it. Logan, you don’t get to make a list of pros and cons about kissing me."
"But what if-"
"No. Nonononono." Kendall shakes his head. "No what ifs. Do you want this, or don’t you?"
Logan shifts a little guiltily and mutters, "Yeah, of course, but what if-"
Kendall shuts him up the only way he knows how.
---
You Look More And More (Like Someone I Could Love)
Prompt: a bag of southern pecan coffee and a stapler, Camille/Lucy
"This is really good."
"I think you’ve had enough."
"Nope." Camille primly cups her mug to her chest. "I’m ready for another glass."
"You’ve had three."
"But it’s delicious."
"But that’s a lot of caffeine. Look, your hands are shaking and- put down my stapler please?"
"Why do you keep a stapler in your living room?"
"In case I need to staple things!"
"Like?"
Lucy thinks about it.
"Like things, okay? You know, I can buy you a bag of this stuff." She taps the Southern Pecan Coffee sitting on her tiny counter.
"Our machine isn’t as good as yours," Camille explains. "It’s just not the same."
"I could buy you a machine," Lucy suggests.
"They’re expensive."
"Trust me, it’s not big deal." Lucy swipes a hand across her eyes, thinking that if it will stop Camille coming over at seven thirty every morning she is more than willing to drop a couple hundred on a gourmet coffee maker.
Camille’s pretty eyes widen and she gulps down another big sip of coffee. "Don’t do that. I wouldn’t feel right taking a gift. Besides." She sets the mug down and pops up with entirely too much energy for the early hour. She’s across the teensy room Lucy rents in less than two steps, all perky and up in Lucy’s face with her boundless enthusiasm. "I don’t come for the coffee. I like the company."
Camille kisses Lucy on the cheek, this lingering touch of her lips accompanied by a stroke of fingers across her throat and oh. Lucy stares.
And stares.
And stares.
She’s maybe been a little slow on this one.
Camille smirks. "See you tomorrow morning!"
---
'Cause It's Always Been For You
Prompt: cuticle cream and lip gloss, lames friendship
It’s weird how easy it is to get accustomed to weird shit.
That’s what James is thinking while Logan massages cuticle cream into his nail beds, prattling on and on about the plan, and what James has to do, and how to keep balance in heels.
Like it’s James’s first time wearing five inch stilettos.
"We have to pull this off just right," Logan continues in his gravest voice, the same one he used when they were nine and accidentally broke Mrs. Magikowski’s window.
They had to work that off for months, raking leaves and shoveling snow and basically acting as her personal servants while Kendall and Carlos looked on and laughed. But James kind of misses those days, when he and Logan were the only two people around beneath a slate gray sky, shoveling powder and cracking jokes about the wrestling team. They don’t spend a lot of time together now, out in California, where everything is always busybusymoving, and…he just misses it, okay?
Logan lets go of his hands, primly wiping the excess cuticle cream on a paper towel, and then he eyes James critically. James makes a face at him, trying to break the solemn atmosphere, and Logan cracks the briefest of smiles before figuring out what’s missing. James watches him rummage around in Mrs. Knight’s vanity and thinks that it’s nice to sit down, to have this little bonding ritual where they can enjoy each other’s company. Even if it involves Logan applying James’s lipgloss.
"Hold still, it’s smearing." Logan grabs a tissue and dabs at the corner of James’s mouth, coming away sticky, shiny, and orange. He leans back and examines his handiwork. "You look good. No one’s going to know the difference."
He spins James’s chair around so that he can see himself in the mirror. James is pretty sure that everyone is going to know the difference, but he only has to pretend to be a girl for a whole five minutes this time.
Still. "I look hideous."
"Don’t be dumb, you look pretty enough to kiss."
"Oh yeah?"
James puckers his lips at Logan, who squeaks and explains, "I don’t want to kiss you!"
"Are you sure? You don’t look sure."
"I’m sure," Logan snaps. "Now stop that. You’re going to ruin your makeup. Do you remember the plan?"
James rolls his eyes.
"Duh. I’m ready whenever you are," he says, and it’s true.
With Logan at his side, James is ready for a plan, a kiss; just about anything. He always has been, and he always will be.
---
This One Is For The Ladies (They Lookin' So Amazing)
Prompt: pink bra, Camille/the Jennifers
"Why pink?" Jennifer asks, falling into step with Camille.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Camille picks up her pace. She’s got an audition across town, and no way is she going to make it there on time at the rate she’s going.
Besides, Jennifers are like hydras; give one the time of day and another pops up to nag and pester you until you’ve got the brood of them at your side and a missed audition to deal with. She knows firsthand, because she used to be a Jennifer, a few years back when she was working a mean girl role on a popular teen show. Back then, there were only two of them, Jennifer Wood and a pretty redheaded girl named Jennifer who ended up landing a dream role in Paris a few months later. Camille enjoyed the camaraderie and the designer clothes, but in the end it turned out that she wasn’t very good at being catty, despite all her ambition.
"Why pink?" Jennifer repeats, flouncing her pretty blonde hair. Camille thinks about running it between her fingers in much the same way she thinks about what she might eat for lunch, idle curiosity without any urgency attached to it.
"You’re going to have to give me more than that to work with."
"Your bra," Jennifer explains. "It’s pink."
Camille glances down. She can’t see the shape of her bra beneath her sundress, but she vaguely recalls pulling a pink one from her dresser this morning. "Yes, yes it is."
Jennifer nods and then says, "You can’t wear pink under white. It shows."
"So?"
"The casting director is going to think you’re slutty."
"How do you know I’m going to see a casting-"
"You’re always going to see a casting director."
"Alright, but who cares what they think?"
"We do," a voice chips in at her side, and Camille has to steel her nerves in an avid attempt not to scream, because it’s happening. They’re replicating. She is about to be overrun.
"Okay. I appreciate your input on my fashion malfunction but-"
"It’s not a malfunction. It’s hot," Jennifer Wood says, coming to stop right in front of her, and damn, they're all here. Jennifer's lips curve into a familiar smile, somewhere between sweet and seductive.
"So hot," the first Jennifer agrees.
Curly haired Jennifer doesn’t say anything, but she’s smiling like everything is going to plan, and there can’t be a plan, because Camille absolutely does not have time for plans right now.
Jennifer Wood’s hand rests on the small of Camille’s back, trailing up to the clasp of her bra beneath her sundress.
"Do your panties match?"
Camille feels the blonde Jennifer touch her shoulder, the curly haired girl palm over her thigh, and okay. This might be the one thing she misses about being a Jennifer.
Her breathing shallows out a little, and she knows she has the audition, but honestly, it’s a beat cop role that she’s probably not going to land, and Jennifer Wood is exhaling into her ear, all warm and sweet, "We miss you. I miss you. Come by my apartment…sometime."
"Now?"
Jennifer grins. "Now works."
---