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Justin is an obnoxious narcissist with an ego so big Noah’s surprised there’s room on planet earth for anything else. This is in no small part due to the amount of fawning everyone does over him, because Justin is statuesque. Objectively so, like if Noah went over him in bronze body paint and he stood stock still in a museum he wouldn’t look out of place. Not that Noah intends to go over his body, with paint or otherwise.
To make Justin even more insufferable he looked good in anything. And when Noah means everything, he means everything. Justin could wear a food sack and he’d still manage to be hotter than an egg in a cast iron skillet in the center of the sun.
Not for a lack of trying either. Noah has challenged Justin to wear a number of things. He looked fantastic in all of them. The dress, the overalls, heck one time he had Justin wear a sandwich board that said, “I’m a pretentious prat,” over his clothes and people were still fawning over him. And Noah’s pretty sure the only reason he got away with that was because Justin was too stupid to know what it meant.
Noah just wanted to find something, anything, that Justin would look bad in. If only because it would make him feel better about finding the git attractive in the first place. It doesn’t help that every time he fails Justin gives him the most contemptible look.
Geoff’s throwing a Christmas party soon, and Noah sees it as a perfect opportunity to try and make Justin look unattractive. After all, they would be giving presents. So all Noah has to do is find a piece of clothing that would be appropriate to get, and has a high chance of making Justin look bad.
It was a challenge admittedly. Most clothes are meant to look good on the average person. Let alone someone of Justin’s caliber. If only he could find something that was intentionally ugly. At that moment Noah knew exactly what to buy.
Christmas had many traditions, and one of them was ugly sweaters. It had started out unintentionally by people making them, but at this point it had exploded in popularity. The intrinsic irony of seeking out a piece of clothing you know to be gaudy and hard to match was simply too good for people to ignore.
So all Noah needed to do was find the ugliest Christmas sweater he could and maybe, maybe Justin would look bad enough in it to be average at least. Noah would take average at this point. The sweater would need to be really, really ugly.
And as it so happened there was one sweater that really stood out to Noah. The body red and green patterned in large horizontal stripes, over top of this was a diamond pattern over golden tinsel with little round ornaments. The sleeves were completely green with fake garlands wrapped around them, festooned with little fake holly.
It was perfect. The horizontal stripes were a huge fashion faux pas, the tinsel added an entirely separate clashing pattern as well as being gaudy, the ornaments were tacky, and the sleeves didn’t even match the body of the shirt! Noah was quite happy with his purchase, and just to really rub it in he made sure to wrap it nicely.
The day of the party Noah was actually excited to attend. He sat and ate food with Owen, Izzy, and Eva. Of course his cheer was a little disrupted when Justin approached. “Noah.”
“Justin.” He replied. Letting his tone do all the talking.
“Nice to see you’re eating. There’s such a thing as being too thin you know.” The model smirked.
Noah winced internally. Justin knew that was a sore spot for him. “I’m aware.”
“Well that’s good, health is always a priority Especially when you have no fashion sense to cover up for a lack of it.” Justin said.
“You wear used jeans and a green shirt.” Noah pointed out.
“True, but I’m an exception. Don’t want to paint the peacock after all.” The model said, running his fingers through his perfectly quaffed raven hair.
After that dinner couldn’t be over soon enough. Noah knows they're going to be opening presents afterwards and he wants to see the look on Justin’s face when he sees the monstrosity Noah got him.
When the time finally game Noah was filled with a petty sense of excitement. He almost wished they weren’t opening presents in alphabetical order so he wouldn’t have to wait so long. Admittedly though it was nice to see Eva appreciated the gym membership he bought her, and Izzy’s reaction to the chew toy he bought her. Yes, he is talking about a dog toy. Izzy likes to bite and this way she’ll bite Owen less. Hopefully.
When Justin’s turn came it took a while. He had a ton of presents from the female members of the group. And Owen. From the look on the model’s face he was deliberately saving Noah’s gift for last. That was fine. Noah could wait.
The look on Justin’s face when he opened it is a memory Noah will cherish. The model grimaces. “What is this thing?”
“It’s an ugly Christmas sweater! They’re all the rage this time of year!” Lindsay cheered.
“Oh. How thoughtful of you. You shouldn’t have.” Justin said.
“I know.” Noah smirked. The model went to set it to the side. “Aren’t you going to try it on?”
“Yeah Justin, we wanna see you in it!” Katie and Sadie said.
“I’d love to see what it looks like on you.” Heather smirked, a taunting tone to her voice.
“Unless you don’t think you can pull it off.” Noah smirked, using the social situation to his advantage.
Justin leveled a glare at him. “I can pull anything off.” With that he put the ugly Christmas sweater on over his shirt. Noah waited to see if his ploy had worked.
“I can’t believe it.” Noah gasped.
“He’s still hot!” Katie and Sadie shrieked.
They were right. Justin was somehow still hot. “How?! Why? Is there nothing that looks bad on you?!” Noah pouted.
“Nope.” The model replied, smiling cheekily.
Noah spent most of the rest of the present opening attempting to burn a hole through Justin’s head. He paused to open his presents. He got An I’m with Crazy shirt from Izzy. a punch card from Eva, and by that he means a card he could trade in for Eva punching anyone he wanted. And a scrapbook from Owen.
He did feel a little better when Owen opened his present, a charcuterie board and the meat and cheese to go on it.
Once everyone was done they all had fun with their presents. Noah was looking through the scrapbook when Justin approached. “You know, you can admit you were wrong.”
Noah huffed. “I’m not wrong. I will find something you look bad in.”
“Good luck.” Justin smirked. Then he leaned forward and placed a hand on the back of Noah’s head. “And hey, consider this my thank you.” He kissed Noah on the cheek.
Noah stood still for a moment, shocked. When he came to his senses he stormed after Justin as he walked away. “Hey! You can’t just do that! Get back here!”