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“Go die.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“So is the fucking blue shell but you used it anyway.”
Shorter still ends up in second behind Ash, with a few millimetres of space between the two characters and screaming loud enough for neighbours to hear three doors down. “You fucker!”
Ash is leaping towards the air cheering loud enough for the world to hear outside on the pavement, out of context – they seem to be very good friends. His cheering quiets down as he flops himself back onto the couch with a sigh, chuckling at Shorter and playfully punching his side. “It’s your fault for picking Baby Daisy.”
“Well, I was supposed to be Yoshi, but somebody had to take the character,” Shorter’s glare is nothing short of humorous, despite his tone being filled to the brim with malice. Besides, Baby Daisy can be surprisingly ruthless on the karts. “You know I’m shit at 150cc.”
“Oh, blame the speed, blame the speed,” Ash teases, raising his voice pitch and mocking his friend’s tone. “Oh, I’m going tooo fast!”
Shorter elbows him off with a scoff. “You’re such an ass.”
Ash laughs as he leans back, clicking through the screens until they’re back at the menu. “You up for another round or are you in the mood for battle mode?”
“Dude, Renegade Roundup is the best.”
“That one is so chaotic, and you think 150cc is bad?” Ash clicks to it anyway, wanting a nice cooldown from competition with a competition that doesn’t have the same tone as holding somebody’s family hostage and keeping their lives at stake.
Shorter shakes his head. “This is nothing, unless if you’re high.”
“Never smoked so I wouldn’t tell you—you can have Yoshi this time.”
“Fuck yes,” Shorter hisses softly as he selects his favourite little dinosaur. Ash ends up picking Luigi with a breathy chuckle – he was used to being Luigi after years of being Player Two to Griffin, so this wasn’t too uncommon for him. That’s when the rest of Ash’s sentence kicks in as they continue onto the game. “Wait, you’ve never smoked weed?”
“Nope.”
“Not even like, once?” Of all people he would have expected to have never tried the Devil’s Lettuce he never would have expected the great Ash Lynx. Then he remembers: he’s just a kid. He’s just a kid in a big, big world against him. This game is only an extra nod to that.
“Never.”
Shorter just shakes his head, almost astonished. “We gotta change that one night.”
Ash smirks, “there’s a lot of things I haven’t done, actually.”
Sure. He’ll take the bait. “Like what?”
He was not prepared for Shorter to take the bait. Even still, it takes Ash a couple of moments to select what he wants to say, then he decides to give a brief list. “Like, I’ve never gotten a tattoo, never saw a show on Broadway, never had Chipotle—”
“—You’ve never had Chipotle?” Shorter is genuinely shocked by this one. He glances from the screen for a quick moment, but then he remembers that he’s playing a game, then he turns back to the television. The other ones he can vaguely understand – the tattoo wouldn’t look so promising on the body of a prostitute necessarily, and Ash hates anything classy because of Golzine, so theatre and other arts are off Ash’s list permanently. But Chipotle?
“I told you, man. There’s a lot. That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he laughs softly. “What about you?”
Shorter hums, a rising intonation on his tone.
Ash elaborates. “What’s your list of things you’ve never done?”
To Shorter, his own list was rather small, but then he remembered Ash included little things, so his list was expanded some. “I mean, Broadway was a big one for me. I’ve also never seen a Disney movie in its entirety, and I’ve never kissed a guy before—”
“Aw, really?” Ash’s voice is light, almost like he’s talking to a small child. “That’s so cute.”
“Yeah, really.”
The game suddenly pauses, and just as Shorter turns his head, he finds his face suddenly centimetres away from the boy. “If you’re comfortable,” Ash assures first. It’s an assurance he’s never had, so he makes sure to use it whenever he can. “I can kiss you and change that right now.”
Shorter gulps. He would be absolutely lying if he said he never thought about it. The way Ash’s eyes can stare into the deepest depths into someone’s soul and the way that his tone can cause an entire heart to beat only at his rhythm was infectious. He’d be lying if he said he never dreamt about the softness of his lips, the careful caress on his cheek, the silkiness in his hair—
“If you don’t want to that’s fine just tell me no,” Ash waits patiently.
“I—I—” Shorter swallows hard, his hands shaking just slightly now, the blush on his face probably painfully visible. It’s obvious that Ash knows of it, too, but he’s choosing not to say anything, thank god. “I—I do, I just—" He takes a deep breath before he sits up straighter, not even realising he had been leaning back. He carefully holds Ash by his face, now, who’s reaching up to take off his sunglasses. That’s right. He had forgotten – Shorter Wong, secretly, is a sappy romantic.
Shorter never finishes his sentence, his hands cradling Ash by his cheeks – cheeks that seem to be pressing furtherly deeper into his palm. A seemingly innocent gesture, but one he’s learned from somewhere. He knows the look in Ash’s eyes well enough to know he’s genuine, but that doesn’t mean things have never carried over.
Ash’s tongue pokes out between his lips just slightly to moisten them, then his head prods back some, providing the angle Shorter probably needs with his height. When Shorter’s lips comes in, that’s when he closes his eyes, allowing him to take his time and do whatever he pleased. He trusts Shorter enough, he knows he would never hurt him on purpose.
He doesn’t intend for things to feel almost romantic, but he wonders if Ash has ever felt things this way before. He had told Shorter about this girl once, a couple years back, whose family was visiting from Detroit – her name, apparently, was Jesse, and it’s probably the happiest he’s ever seen the boy in his life. He would never forget how he talked about her, and he would never forget how he came back one night, beaten and bloody and sobbing, wailing to Shorter about how she had died. Ash had only ever talked to her, but still, she was murdered in front of him anyway. She was wearing the blouse he had bought her.
There was no room for romance with Ash, and so Shorter takes his time. He’s careful with his touch and he pauses every so often to make sure that they can take in air to breathe. At one point he asks if tongue is okay, and it is. They continue from there.
Ash is pushed gently onto his back, with Shorter repositioning on top of him to keep going, not even caring that they had accidentally turned the game back on. These kisses were slow, careful, everything that Ash had ever needed – and all that Shorter ever wanted.
When they finally pull away, they’re equally out of breath, for different reasons that they can’t say.
“How was it?” Ash asks finally, with a small smirk that seems a little to close to a genuine smile.
Shorter’s heart only thuds wild. “That was good, that was nice,” his voice drops to a slight mumble, even though deep down he knows Ash could hear him. “You’re incredible.” His eyes connect with the angel behind Ash’s eyes. He has to act quick now, or he’ll start to fall for him again. “No homo, right?”
Ash’s laughter is authentic, contagious, loud – it’s the kind where his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s curling in on himself, holding his sides. Shorter keeps his laugh subtle, bringing a hand up and wiping the hair from Ash’s eyes, exposing the side of his face. He leans down to steal a kiss on his cheekbone, closer to his temple.
“The least amount of homo,” Ash manages to speak through his lightening laughs, trying to breathe and just chuckle as he rubs his eyes. There were a couple tears held in there, not enough to be shed, but enough to pay attention to.
Ash turns back to Shorter, the smile on his face pure and wide and it’s genuinely the happiest he’s been in weeks. Shorter purses his lips and swallows hard. “Can I kiss you again?”
“Yeah, go for it.”
Over on the television, Ash’s team had won the silly cops and robbers game nobody bothered to pay attention to.
“Okay, in Starbucks, follow my lead,” Shorter says, his tone serious.
“What the hell do you mean follow your lead?” He sees the mischievous glint in his eye, the one he’s trying so desperately to hide behind his sunglasses. “I swear to god I’m not doing any stupid bullshit we’re just getting our coffee and leaving.”
They will do no such thing.
When Shorter shows up to the counter, he pauses for just a moment, staring at the menu overhead. He’s interrupted carefully by the young woman on the other side politely asking him what she could get started. “Yeah,” he clears his throat. “Can I get a fuckin, uh,” he thinks, drawing his “uh” as long as he can, before he pauses altogether. He looks back to her, eyebrow raised. “Burger?”
“God damn it, Shorter,” Ash whispers.
The girl fails to suppress her smile. Even still, her tone is nothing short of polite. “Um, we don’t sell burgers—”
“—What do you mean you don’t sell burgers?” Shorter yells now, drawing the attention of customers and other employees. Ash, in the meantime, is trying to sink into his hoodie.
She nods, just trying to assume the best of this random man. She genuinely doesn’t know any better. The poor thing. She must be new. “We sell paninis and breakfast sandwiches.”
“You think I know what a fucking panini is?” Shorter glances over at Ash, with eyes that beg him to play along. Ash shakes his head sternly, eyes wide like a mother trying to discipline her child respectfully in public. “You don’t understand, I need this.”
“I’m sorry sir—”
“Just give me the burger, extra cheese.” Another look. Another shaking head.
“Sir—”
“Why are you suppressing food from the public?” It’s this line that breaks Ash’s defence now, with him snickering softly and trying to hold in giving any more power to this absolute idiot. He’s losing.
The poor girl. She keeps going. “Can I possibly interest you with a caramel macchiato?”
“I need a burger, extra dip,” Shorter is still stern. He glances another look at Ash, who neither nods nor shakes his head.
“Sir, we don’t sell—”
It’s at this moment when the situation turns dangerous. Ash Lynx has decided to join. The thing is, each time Ash joins, things start to get almost a little out of hand. This is no exception whatsoever. “—Please they’ll take his wife if you don’t give him the burger.”
Shorter loses it. For only a few brief moments, though, enough for the girl behind the counter to finally start to understand what’s going on. She doesn’t get paid enough for this.
“What? I—”
Ash’s tone is just as insistent as before, not even trying to figure out a proper story and reasoning for why these two idiots are ordering a burger at a Starbucks of all places. “Please we just need a burger they have my kids.”
Shorter starts to bounce off of him. They flow together like musicals – incredible, controlled, complete, wonderful chaos. “Extra dip, that’s real important.”
“Extra dip and cheese. Make sure there’s mustard.”
The girl clears her throat, straightening up. “Gentlemen, I—”
“Please our lives are at stake I have a family,” Ash is continuing this on his own now, the light in his eyes bright and childish. It’s not common.
“I’m going to call the police,” she says finally. A small hush falls between the boys before they just chuckle lightly.
“Nah, don’t call the police, I got a warrant,” Ash mumbles.
“Seriously?” Shorter asks, turning to the girl and assessing her.
“Yeah, seriously.” She’s serious.
Shorter tries to push it a little longer. One more line. “You’re killing my family—”
“—My family, too,” Ash whines, waving it off slightly now that they’ve decided enough is enough. “But I think they’ll do just fine with a latte.”
“Yes,” Shorter agrees, turning back to the girl with the kindest smile in his eyes. “I’ll take a latte.”
Ash’s lungs are sensitive, evidently, based on how he practically hacking them back up after just a few smokes. Shorter hands him a glass of water, chuckling softly at the boy’s inability to keep the smoke.
“You’ll get used to it,” he says, carefully packing his own pipe before he joins his friend in the cloud of smoke. “What I recommend is not inhaling it all at once. Inhale some, then breathe in some air with it so it gets into your lungs.”
Ash tries that, and now his eyes are watering with how hard he’s coughing. Shorter just laughs again, telling him he’ll get used to it again.
“Don’t take too much,” Shorter warns him. “You don’t know how you react to weed yet, for all you know you could be the paranoid type.”
Ash is not. He doesn’t listen.
It takes about five minutes for the marijuana to kick in, and suddenly, to Ash, everything is hilarious. He’s giggling at the little things. He’s giggling at the birds. He’s giggling at the stars. He’s giggling at the floor. He’s annoying the hell out of Shorter with the way he laughs every time he speaks.
Shorter takes one glance, and he can tell from Ash’s eyes that he’s blitzed. He chuckles softly, walking over to the fridge and grabbing his eyedrops and returning, instructing Ash to lean his head back.
“We gonna kiss again?” Ash smirks through a light laugh.
“I’d sooner punch you,” Shorter carefully places his fingers on either side of Ash’s right eye and he puts two drops in.
Ash shrieks, yanking his head back and grabbing his eye as he curls away from Shorter. He reaches to grab the maniac on the couch, but he’s starting to swat at his hands. “The hell are you doing?” He yells.
“I’m trying to make your eyes look more normal,” Shorter huffs, wrestling with Ash a bit to get his face back facing up. He’s trying to pry on his eyelid again for his left eye, but Ash has them sealed air tight. “Work with me here!”
It takes a faint second where he manages to get Ash’s eye only a sliver open, and he takes advantage of this to put in the two drops in the other eye. He cries again, flopping to his side now, and Shorter lets him, as he drops into his own eyes before putting the tiny bottle back in the fridge. He comes back and Ash is breathing at half-second intervals, moping about how he’s blind now.
“You’re such a fucking idiot, I’m never letting you get high again,” Shorter says as he shoves Ash upright so he can sit back down on the sofa. “You’re not blind.”
Ash opens his eyes to tell him otherwise, but he pauses, the moment colour pops into his sight. He just sits back, staying silent, prompting Shorter to genuinely laugh this time. Ash crosses his arms with a pout, but the moment he does, he’s suddenly aware of the texture of fabric against his skin.
He stares at it for a few moments, before he balls the centre of it in his fists and starts to tussle it around, growing more and more frustrated at how it’s winning the fight. “I hate my shirt,” Ash huffs. “It feels weird. I hate it.”
Shorter makes a noise caught between a chuckle and a scoff. “Sorry?”
Ash groans, fighting with it some more before he manages to peel it off, throwing it down onto the ground and kicking it a few times.
“For God’s sake, Ash, sit down and just relax,” Shorter’s laugh has a hint of fear. “Get some food or something.”
Suddenly, emerald eyes flicker and flash, beaming into the hallway as if he had just been trapped by headlights. “I want powdered donuts.”
“Go get some.”
“I want powdered donuts, Shorter.”
“They’re in the pantry,” at this point, Shorter just gives up, pushing himself to stand again. He grabs Ash by his shoulders and carefully moves him to the couch to where he’s sitting down again, then he explains that he’ll be back with the donuts. When he is, he finds Ash just sitting there, meticulously staring at his hand, studying it in the light. Shorter watches this for only a few moments, before he realises that he’ll keep staring at it unless he does something. He tosses the bag of powdered donuts onto Ash’s lap. “You can have the whole bag if you want.”
“I don’t want this anymore,” Ash mumbles. “I’ll get fat.”
Shorter mumbles something to the ceiling, some sort of plea to be struck by lightning, before he looks back. “Where the fuck does it go, Ash? You’re so fucking thin.”
“My thighs,” he says simply, his hand petting them now. “I have big thighs. Unlike you.”
Yeah, he’s gone. Shorter blinks, trying to comprehend his logic. But now the drug is finally hitting him, and while he isn’t the paranoid stoner type like his friend seems to be, he will admit he’s a little more likely to do something stupid. Such as arguing back a childish argument, for example. “I have big thighs.”
“Do not.”
The moment Ash glances over, Shorter has an idea. There’s a rational thought behind this idea (“oh, he doesn’t know because I’m wearing baggy sweatpants. I just have to show him to prove otherwise.”), but the execution doesn’t work at all. Shorter just grabs his pants with both of his hands, and in one swift, cartoonish swoop, his pants are now on the floor.
Ash, now, is roaring with laughter. It’s at this moment when he realises the flaw in his supposed rational thinking.
“Wait,” Shorter laughs with him, now. “I had a logical reason for this!”
Ash is sprawled across the couch and doesn’t want to hear it, waving at him to shut up as he’s laughing so hard tears are rolling down his cheeks. Shorter has to hold on to the doorframe to try and keep it together, but that’s it, they’re both gone, laughing endlessly into a void of purple weed and ashen smoke.
Every time they order a pizza, it’s always split in half.
Now, what’s on either side varies every time, but when Shorter and Ash decide that it’s pizza that they want, they always order it to where there’s two different kinds to choose from. Typically, they just pick the main flavours they’re in the mood for and divide from there.
“Fuck, I’m deadass hungry right now,” Ash mumbles quietly. This time, Ash was in the mood for some simple pepperoni. He glances to Shorter, a phone in hand, asking him what he wants on the other half.
Unfortunately for Ash and his hunger, Shorter Wong is bored.
“Can I get a,” he pauses, thinking for the best term he can use to draw out this conversation and Ash Lynx’s notoriously thin patience. “A boneless pizza with a two litre of coke?”
Ash blinks. “The fuck kinda pizza?”
“The fuck you meaning?” Shorter raises his eyebrow, peeling his eyes away his phone now to look at Ash with concern. The two of them are incredibly talented at blending in within plain sight, which has caused some incredible pranks. But it has also made it damn near impossible to tell when one is fucking with the other. Acting, after all, can be quite powerful. “Aight, lemme get that pizza boneless.”
Ash seems to assume he’s being serious. That’s going to make this even more fun. “But pizza don’t got bone on it.” His tone is genuinely concerned, but also dumbfounded. They’ve had the argument about pineapples on pizza before (Shorter being absolutely for it while Ash wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole), but this is a whole new level of dumbassery he was not prepared for on this day.
“The fuck did I just say then?” Shorter keeps up the act, painfully holding in a laugh as he contorts his face in a way that’s almost offended.
“You said ‘lemme get it boneless’ like pizza’s got a damn bone in it,” Ash stares at him.
“Do you put bones in your pizza?”
Ash rolls his eyes. “No.”
Shorter flips out his hands as if to say there you go. He shrugs it off. “So what’s the problem?”
Now they’ve gotten to the part Shorter was excited about: the part where Ash starts to get angry. He groans loudly, taking a deep breath to try and keep himself together. “I swear on your fucking Yeezys,” he huffs. He looks back to Shorter, speaking at a regular tone now, trying to rationalise this line of thinking. “Name one pizza that’s got bones on it.”
“Just don’t put them shits in my pizza bruh how many times do I gotta say it?” Holding in laughter is getting harder now. He so desperately is on the edge of cracking into a fit of near-tears, but he wants to see how long he can carry this out. If he does this just right, he can rile Ash up like this until the end of the night.
“Bruh,” Ash mocks. “Just explain to me how the fuck pizza can be boneless.”
Shorter throws up his hands, masking the humour with annoyance because boneless is such an obvious term. Regardless, he readjusts himself, speaking slower, like how an elementary school teacher would at the beginning of a brand new lesson for their children. “If it don’t got bone in it, it’s boneless!”
Ash blinks, dumbfounded. “What school did you go to?”
“Come on, I don’t understand the problem, just make that shit boneless,” Shorter almost laughs, but he covers it with a scoff. He huffs. “Deadass.” But it’s too late. Ash seems to already be picking up on his bullshit.
“I’m deadass not getting you pizza,” Ash’s voice is stern, now. His patience running nearly transparent and his tone unenthused.
“Fine, Hawaiian,” Shorter gives up. He waits a couple minutes, however, before he decides to continue in a different way. He’s not even looking at Ash when he speaks again, scrolling through his phone. “Also, remind me to pick up laundry sauce later.”
Ash is on the phone, now, but he suddenly shoots a look that’s just as dumbfounded as their last conversation. He speaks low, the bottom of his phone tilted away from his mouth while the top is still connected to the harp of his ear. “Pick up what?”
“Laundry sauce,” Shorter explains. But he can’t hold in his laughter through this one. “You know, the stuff that goes in the dishwasher for clothes?”
“Shorter Wong the minute I’m done ordering pizza I’m going to beat your ass.”
Sometimes, when they’re in two different locations and a situation is looking sticky, but not quite bad – an occasional joke is thrown in. It’s always inappropriate, and it doesn’t always work, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an attempt sometimes.
At this particular moment there was some improper exchanges caught up about territory, just as Ash is nearly completed with uniting most of the gangs of New York City.
Shorter was asked of a simple favour: to dissolve the dispute and to return home safely while Ash had to take care of a different incident close to Chinatown. He’s done first, despite having left much later, and now it leaves him worried. He returns to Shorter’s apartment, where he notices that Shorter still is not there.
Where the hell is he?
His mind is racing with a thousand different scenarios, and it’s right when he’s about to pull out his phone to call Shorter, it’s starting to vibrate in his pocket. Good, he’s alive.
“Shorter?” He answers carefully, fully expecting some kind of incident or a completely different voice on the other line.
There’s a harsh grunt on the other line, then that damn Solid Snake impression Shorter has a hidden talent for. “Colonel, I’m trying to sneak around, but I’m dummy thicc, and the claps from my ass cheeks keeps alerting the guards.”
Ash is quiet for a long time, unphased. “Is this your way of telling me everything settled okay?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, I hate you,” Ash laughs lightly with no humour behind it. “Well you and your dummy thicc ass cheeks better be good at finding things because I just tossed your keys out the window.”
Shorter groans loudly, and Ash holds in a genuine laugh now. “Dude,” he whines. “Come on. Not cool.”
“I locked the door, so you better start looking now while it’s still light outside,” Ash shakes his head, despite knowing that Shorter can’t see him on the other end. They both forget just how talented Ash can be with his acting when he chooses to be.
“God, fuck you man,” Shorter’s laugh is almost a sarcastic cry and he hangs up. It’s at that point when Ash just giggles, glancing over at the apartment key sitting neatly on the breakfast bar.
When their lips pull away and pause for about the – wait – perhaps seventh time, Shorter notices a troubled look on the boy’s face, the victory music from Mario Kart faintly echoing through the empty walls as their eyes meet.
“Did I overstep?” Shorter asks calmly. Ash shakes his head. “What’re you thinking about?” He rephrases.
“Earlier today I was informed that there were these people in Japan that had heard about me. They want to write a story for some magazine,” he says carefully. “I said no, but something feels wrong. Like something is going to happen. I don’t know why.”
These gut instincts were never out of the blue. They were there after years of training to be on the run and surviving in the worst odds. It feels almost genetic with how prominent this instinct is.
They sit up and Shorter has an idea of where this conversation is going. “You think they’re coming anyway,” he says.
“And something’s going to happen. To all of us,” Ash agrees. “Like they’re going to show up and things are never going to be the same.”
“You think they’re the cause?” Shorter asks. Ash shrugs. There’s only so much he can assume, but this much is all he somehow knows. That’s if he’s even correct at all.
“I’m not crazy, am I?” Ash chuckles lightly, pushing his hair back behind his ear.
Shorter shakes his head. “Of course not.” The game switches to the main menu automatically now, which sparks his attention for a brief second and he looks over. He chuckles slightly, “I mean, you can be when you see a blue shell coming,” he turns back, and suddenly finds Ash’s lips crashing against his own again.
This one feels genuine. This one feels real. This one feels like all emotions were swirling past his lips in an outpour. Their lips tingle, now, and it’s not like their past kisses that were sprinkled with giggles and comments of joy to spark laughter and playful promises of no homo – this time, their eyes meet when they’re done, and there’s a connection. There’s life.
Shorter’s managing his breathing, knowing that his soft panting is definitely audible. Ash bears no reaction to it. He only speaks, his voice careful and his words heavy, yet soft all at once.
“We’re partners, right?” He clarifies. “Until the end?”
Shorter nods quickly. “Until my dying day.”
Ash leans back, letting out a deep breath he didn’t even know he was holding in. He smiles lightly and nods once, before handing him the game controller again. “One more race, then we should get to bed.”
Shorter smiles back at him, then nods, turning his head towards the television.
“One more race.”