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"Come on. You're the one who's been harassing me about painting my room, man, at least help," Shorter whines.
Ash looks up from where he's laying on the floor in the middle of Shorter's room, one leg propped up with the other crossed over it. He's reading some shitty porn magazine they had found shoved under Shorter's bed while moving his furniture downstairs. Shorter had stolen it out of a trash can when he was fourteen, if he remembers right. Yeah-he had been scared half to death sneaking it in under his hoodie, although it wasn't like Nadia would have cared anyway (he was pretty sure she did similar-no one looked at women's lingerie catalogues that long if they were just looking for a new bra). He didn't look at it once after that first night, just shoved it far under his bed and hoped no one would find it.
Of course Ash had to and used it as an excuse to stop helping Shorter take all his posters down.
But Shorter can't be mad, because, well-Ash looks really pretty on Shorter's bedroom floor with sunlight spilling onto him and splashing up his arms, and he looks the way whispered laughs in early morning sound.
"It's about time," Ash says dryly, but his mouth twitches into a smile. "The green always hurt my eyes. And it's ugly."
Shorter takes the insult personally, and he considers defending it for a second - he had picked the neon green paint with Nadia when he was seven, and it feels like a part of him now.
But after ten years (Ash whining about it for two of them) he supposed it was time to change. So after spending about three hours in Home Depot with Ash and Nadia, they decided on a paint color. White.
Ash had promised to help him paint, and now Shorter is stuck begging him to. He probably should have known.
After a minute of stretching in the light from the window (he really is a cat, Shorter thinks), Ash stands and lifts his arms over his head. The hem of his shirt rises. Shorter swallows hard and looks away.
He can feel Ash watching him as he goes back to painting, and suddenly Shorter is very aware of the fact that he isn't wearing a shirt (he didn't want to ruin one with paint) and the way his back muscles move as he pushes the paint roller up and down. He swallows again.
"Hey," Ash blurts after a moment. Shorter looks at him. "Can I wear one of your shirts? I don't want to ruin mine, and yours are all ugly anyway."
"Yeah," he says slowly, and he's so lovesick he doesn't even react to the jab at his fashion sense.
Ash grins at him and walks to Shorter's closet. Shorter watches him, like he's the last thing in the world. The way Ash moves is smooth and graceful and Shorter can't fucking believe how beautiful he is. He thinks he could watch Ash forever.
Shorter blinks his way out of his world of fairy lights and winter air, all the things he thinks of when he thinks of Ash, when Ash pulls a shirt over his head and turns around.
It's some dorky one he got at a gift shop a year ago, soft fabric with an octopus playing the drums printed on it. It's giant on Ash, with his skinny arms and skinny everything, and something about it makes Shorter feel fluffy and masculine and sick to his fucking stomach. He's so in love, and he doesn't want to be.
"Sho," Ash says, and Shorter wants to throw up at the way his heart jumps at the nickname. "You good?" He nods, and Ash grins, grabbing a paint roller from the tray and joining him.
They finish painting an hour later, Shorter covered in paint that Ash flicked on him just to be annoying.
Shorter doesn't mention the fact that Ash is still wearing his shirt when he leaves.
Dating Ash Lynx is everything Shorter wanted and more, and he can't believe how lucky he is.
It's fast and wild, and Shorter is like a pawn in Ash's hands-he'll do anything he says. He only wishes he had confessed sooner, because he doesn't know how he went without it. Making out with Ash's hands in Shorter's back pockets pulling him close is probably his new favorite thing.
Ash will randomly come by in that shiny red car, and Shorter feels like he's in a movie when he climbs in the passenger's seat and Ash grabs his collar to pull him down for a kiss.
They should be in a movie, he thinks, Ash with one hand in Shorter's hair and the other on the steering wheel. They're currently breaking the speed limit by probably fifteen miles per hour, and Ash keeps looking away from the road to kiss him, but there's not a car in sight and Shorter can't bring himself to care with Ash's hand on the back of his neck.
Shorter didn't really know why he loved Ash. He was quiet and angry all the time but Shorter wanted to know everything about him, like the way he liked his eggs (fried) to how he looked leaning in for a kiss (an angel, that's the only way Shorter can describe it).
And Ash is so pretty, setting sunlight on his hands and splashing up his neck. He's an angel, has to be, because no one else can glow like that. It's like soda fizz in Shorter's bloodstream, Ash Ash Ash. "Ash," he says out loud, and he doesn't even realize it until Ash gives him this look then throws his head back and laughs.
Shorter never really understood the "their laugh was like music" shit, but Ash. He laughs like honey, or something equally golden and sweet, slow and rare. Shorter replays the sound and tucks it in some corner of his heart.
He thinks Ash is his soulmate.
They meet Eiji at a bar.
It's supposed to be a date, kind of. Ash didn't like dates. He always pulled Shorter out of the building they were in and convinced him to make out in the car instead.
Shorter didn't mind. He would do whatever Ash wanted.
What he does mind is this boy with the blue button up peeking out from the soft red sweater, and the even softer black hair, and the way Ash's eyes light up like never before the moment they see him.
Shorter knows he's lost him right away.
Ash breaks up with him four days later.
Shorter says it's okay, and it is but it isn't because he told Nadia Ash was the one.
Which was probably fucking stupid. He knew deep down Ash didn't love Shorter the same way Shorter loved him.
He still thinks Ash is his one. Even if Shorter isn't his.
The worst part, though, is the fact that it took one moment for Ash to replace him. Like Eiji really is so much better that a split second with him is worth more than all the kisses and sleepovers and inside jokes with Shorter.
Ash kissing him was hot and hungry, every time, and Shorter doesn't want to admit that he's jealous of the fact that the kisses Eiji gets are all soft Sunday mornings and hi honey I'm home and just because he can.
Maybe Ash only ever wanted Shorter's touch.
Shorter misses him like hell anyway.
He says he's not gonna cry, keeps saying it when his pillow is soaked and Nadia asks if he wants anything and he tells her to fuck off. He regrets that.
Ash never was his, really, but Shorter would rather leave that at the back of his mind with memories of when he could still pretend Ash was his and speeding in his car and his hands on Shorter's hips.
He tries not to think about any of it.
Ash comes by with a box of Shorter's things twenty two days after they break up.
There's the extra toothbrush he kept at Ash's place (he was always forgetting his). His red gameboy (he already bought a new one). A pair of boxers (he doesn't want to remember why they were there). And the shirt with the octopus playing drums. Shorter wishes he didn't give them back. Maybe then he could have pretended Ash missed him just as much, pictured him clinging to Shorter's shirt at night and imagining Shorter's hands against his chest and his lips on his jaw.
"You can keep the shirt," he says. You never wear it anymore anyway.
So Ash has Shorter's heart and his old tee shirt, and Shorter has nothing at all.
Shorter looks behind him. The boy from the bar is waiting by Ash's car. His hair is soft and dark, not damaged by one (seven) too many dyes. And he's wearing Ash's shirt.
Shorter leaves the box in the dumpster.