Chapter Text
Sneaky's lying on his bed in the darkness, the soft glow from his phone screen the only thing illuminating the room. He has his phone raised above his face, and scrolls inanely through the endless reddit comments. He knows he shouldn't check reddit, especially after losing the past... however many games it is now, but he can't help it. It's almost like he has to, to feel the small stirrings of anger and hurt from strangers that don't know shit. Something feels empty about it though. There's no one to laugh with him about especially stupid comments.
He ignores the soft grumble of his stomach. He's used to the background noise of discomfort, from hours and hours of long solo q games. Being too tired and lazy to leave his chair. Sometimes he'd beg Balls or Lemon to get him Chipotle. But they've all left for dinner. The Last Supper. He's the only one left in the house. It feels so empty, without the random yells coming from downstairs.
Suddenly he hears the front door close and Sneaky pauses. He hears laughter and murmured speech filter through the floor of his room. The quiet becomes a little less suffocating, but it still feels... weird. Sneaky flips over away from the door and watches some stupid YouTube video. He has to rewind two times because he can't pay attention to what's happening. Belatedly, he realizes he's unconsciously tensed, listening for sounds, for footsteps. It's almost like he's expecting something, without realizing it. He doesn't know what exactly he's expecting, but he knows what he's hoping for.
Someone up there must be listening because there is a soft pattering of steps to his door. There's a knock, but before he even has enough time to respond, his door opens. The light from the hallway spills into his room, painting his bed orange. Sneaky doesn't turn around. There's only one person who doesn't care enough about privacy and social etiquette to just come in like that.
"You missed out," comes the bored-sounding tone of Cloud9's jungler. Or rather, ex-jungler. Sneaky winces, face still turned away from the door. "We had Korean BBQ. Shit was orgasmic."
Sneaky doesn't answer. Meteos sounds so damn normal. Like it was just any dinner, like it wasn't the last dinner before Meteos fucking moved out.
Sneaky tries to sound normal too. He's not sure it works. "Yeah, well. ‘S not like it’s-"
"Chipotle?" Meteos cuts in. "Yeah. I picked you up some on the way back."
That makes Sneaky turn around, and he looks up from his sideways vantage point on the bed to Meteos' figure in the doorway, his silhouette dark, hair looking even more golden in the light.
"You are a god," Sneaky says without thinking. His stomach rumbles again. He knows it's a peace offering, but it's a damn good one. "Come in and close the door," he says. His own peace offering.
Meteos closes the door but hovers awkwardly at the doorway for a few moments before deliberately stalking towards the bed. He sits on it and sets the Chipotle bag onto the floor by the bed. The room descends into darkness again. For a moment, it's pure silence.
Then they hear Jensen's loud laughter float up from downstairs and it's like a switch is flipped. They both relax, and Meteos lies back onto the bed, his lower body hanging off of it.
Sneaky rolls back onto his back as well, staring at the blank ceiling. He's aware of the closeness of Meteos. They're a foot apart, but Sneaky feels like he can feel Meteos' body heat. He's probably imagining it. Slowly, his eyes readjust to the darkness.
"Hey," Sneaky breaks the silence. "I'm sorry I didn't come to dinner. It wasn't... personal. Well. I mean. You know."
"I know."
They lapse back into silence. Sneaky wants to ask why Meteos came into his room, but some deeper part of him already knows. Sneaky fidgets slightly, fingers clenching and unclenching into fists at his sides. He expects Meteos to burst into some snarky joke or sarcastic comment at any moment, but the other male is uncharacteristically quiet. It doesn't feel right.
Sneaky finally breaks the silence. "Why didn't you tell me?" He'd expected his voice to sound annoyed, even mad, but instead it just sounds fragile.
Meteos sighs. "I wanted to," he says. "I didn't really know how."
"Maybe I'm talking crazy but a simple 'oh hey Sneaky I'm gonna quit the team' probably would have worked." Sneaky tries to recapture the light atmosphere they've always shared, the jokes and sarcasm that'd always run undercurrent to their conversations. But his heart is pounding, and he's not quite thinking before speaking. "Maybe then I wouldn't have been fucking blindsided by your announcement."
Meteos takes a breath. "Same."
And any other time that would've been okay, that would've been funny, just another nod to their numerous inside jokes. This time though, it feels like he's running away, every moment growing farther even though he's close enough to touch, if Sneaky wanted to.
"No, it's not the fucking same."
Meteos laughs. It doesn't sound pleasant. It sounds like the laugh he makes when he's found himself caught out on the other side of the map, in the enemy's jungle, with his flash down.
"I'm sorry," Meteos sighs at last. It's not a phrase he utters often. "I'm fucking sorry, alright? Satisfied?"
Despite the harsh words, he doesn't sound angry. Just tired, maybe almost as tired as Sneaky feels. He can hear Meteos' breathing quicken from beside him, his breaths sounding almost desperate. Of course they can't be, but in the darkness with every little sound echoing and amplified, Sneaky can imagine it. And right then and there, Sneaky forgives him. And really, he's always known he would. He can't not forgive his best friend, not after so many shared moments of dank memes and late night streams.
Still, he can't help but draw it out a little. "What? I didn't hear you."
Meteos snorts. It's too dark to see, but Sneaky knows he's rolling his eyes. "Yeah okay. Listen up, because I'm not going to say this again. I'm sorry."
"All cool, bro," Sneaky says. And because the mood has turned deceptively light, he teases, "I always wanted to know what having a good jungler felt like anyway."
Meteos laughs again, but it's short and sharp. And somehow, Sneaky must've read the situation wrong, because it sounds forced. Fuck. He should've realized it was too soon. No matter how much Meteos jokes and fucks around, he's still a fucking person.
"I-" he begins, but Meteos cuts him off.
"Forget it. You're right, anyway. It's for the best."
Sneaky doesn't remember the last time he heard Meteos sounding this dull. Maybe it was after the 6th game in a row they'd lost. Maybe it was after he had yet another shouting row with Lemon. Somewhere between then, maybe. But never this raw. Never this... lost.
Suddenly he has the strangest urge to reach out and touch the other male, close the last few inches of that gap. It's absurd. He hasn't ever thought about this before, at least... not when he's awake. But it's so dark in his room, and the noises from outside of it are muffled, muddled together enough that it just sounds like comforting white noise. The few slats of moonlight that peek into his room turn everything into an almost dreamlike quality. And because it's a dream, Sneaky tells himself, it's okay to voice what he hasn't told anyone, what he hasn't even admitted to himself.
"What am I going to do without your feeding ass?" he murmurs. It's both a rhetorical question and not. "Who else is going to meme with me when Charlie starts getting way too fucking serious?" He tries to make it sound like a joke, but honestly he's just tired, and his voice shows it.
"Jensen's been a pretty quick learner," Meteos offers.
This time it's Sneaky who laughs, softly and dully. It seems to echo in the dark room. Meteos turns his head then, so he's looking directly at Sneaky, who's still staring aimlessly at the ceiling. Sneaky feels the heat of his gaze prickle against his skin and he can't help but turn his head and meet Meteos’ gaze straight on. It feels too close. It'd been fine, when they'd been lying side by side looking up at a white ceiling, but now, looking at each other, the foot between them starts to feel like inches.
In his chest, Sneaky's heart pounds so loud that Meteos must hear it. The words tumble out of his mouth. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm going to miss you."
This time Meteos' laugh comes softly, quietly. Genuinely. "Same."
For a moment everything slots back into place. The world is normal again. It's Sneaky and Meteos against the world, ADC and jungler of Cloud 9, butthole brothers. Epic memers. He can almost hear the fans chanting in the background. But the moment breaks, and Sneaky's eyes shutter. Not anymore. Meteos is leaving. Cloud 9 is 9th place. It's over.
Then Meteos leans closer and suddenly his lips are brushing against Sneaky's. Sneaky freezes. They both freeze. He can't think. Everything is suddenly static. He couldn't move even if he wanted to. Then Meteos pulls back with a jerk, his eyes wide, looking guilty and panicked. This close Sneaky can see every emotion that flits through Meteos' eyes. Meteos is already backing off, breaths harsh and fast, looking around the room like he's looking for an escape plan, and something snaps inside Sneaky. He reaches out, closes the distance he couldn't earlier, grabs the back of the other male's head and pulls Meteos close into a crushing kiss.
He's never done this before with a guy, only once with a girl in 10th grade, and it was awkward and Sneaky could taste the onions she'd had at lunch. This... is a world apart. There's nothing awkward about it because Sneaky can't think enough to even remember what the word awkward means. It's not thought, just pure instinct that makes him press his lips into Meteos' urgently. It's a heat that flares in the bottom of his stomach that makes him open his lips, that makes him hungrily seek out Meteos' with his tongue.
Meteos' tongue sweeps across his lips, finds his tongue, and everything is white-hot heat. He feels sparks as Meteos kisses him with a desperation he hadn't been able to voice. Right now, there's nothing else. Just him, and the warm wetness of Meteos' tongue, the softness of his lips. It's unfair how fucking soft his lips are.
He's not sure how long the moment lasts. He just knows when it's over. A loud knock on the door cuts in through the dark and Sneaky and Meteos jolt apart.
"Yo Sneaky, you seen Meteos?" comes Hai's voice from right outside his door. Sneaky stares wordlessly at Meteos. Meteos' eyes meet his in a daze, his pupils so dilated, the blackness swallows all of the blue of his eyes. Sneaky can't remember to breathe.
"Sneaky?" Hai repeats.
Sneaky tries to remember how to form words with his mouth. With his oversensitive, swollen lips. "N-no," Sneaky yells back. "I haven't seen him."
The sound of footsteps slowly disappears as Hai walks away, and then it's just Sneaky and Meteos again. But something's changed, already. Now, with the re-introduction of the real world, a reminder this isn't a dream, the moment is broken.
Meteos moves quickly, almost tumbling off the bed. His eyes are downturned, looking anywhere but at Sneaky. "I better go." He stumbles over the Chipotle bag, the thing that started this whole mess, and then he's out the door in a rush.
The light blinds him for a split second before it's gone, and Sneaky once more lies on his bed in darkness, the afterimages of the bright light dancing in his eyes. They slowly fade as his eyes readjust to the darkness. Sneaky stares at the ceiling. His heart is still thudding in his chest, threatening to escape his ribs, almost as if it wants to leave too. He reaches out with numb fingers to touch his lips. They tingle.
The next morning Meteos is gone.