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It’s quiet in Finn’s apartment. The light is dimmed – because he knows Shrimpo is sensitive to bright lights – and the two of them are sitting on his couch. Shrimpo has one leg on the couch and one dangling off, and both have colorful bandaids littering his knees. One of his hands is in his lap, Finn’s eyes darting over the deep purple blotches on his knuckles, and the other is clasped between Finn’s palms. He’s holding a frozen back of peas onto the freshest sets of bruises. The mode is dark and unbearably tense. Shrimpo won’t look at him.
“So,” The fishbowl says, breaking the silence. Relief washes over him when dark brown eyes meet his blue ones. He tries not to let it show, because Shrimpo will get mad at that. “How did… uhm, who did…? …What did the other guy look like?”
A hint of a smile catches Shrimpo’s chapped lips. Finn’s heart swells. “Two black eyes and a broken nose.” He boasts, clearly proud of himself.
Finn grins. “Sick.”
The two’s usual comfortability settles over them. An easy conversation flows, first led by Finn until Shrimpo regains his obnoxiousness and starts rambling. He lies, brags, complains. His words flow endlessly. Finn hangs onto each one. He loves hearing him talk, even if the topics are concerningly violent. He watches Shrimpo’s spirits rise in real time.
“--And, like, his girlfriend was staring. She wanted me.”
Caught off guard, Finn couldn’t help but let out a short laugh. Shrimpo gives him a faux-offended look. “What? Something funny, fishbowl?” He scoffs, elbowing him in the shoulder and wincing when it draws back up a settled ache.
“Nothing, nothing!” Finn giggles.
“What, you think girls don’t like me or something?” Shrimpo scoffs, his sharp teeth bared in a playful grin. “Are you calling me ugly?” Finn laughs again at the ridiculousness of that statement. He’s been finding Shrimpo attractive since the moment he met him. Really, he found him pretty – pretty eyes, pretty smile, pretty shrimp. Of course, though, saying that is weird, so Finn bites his tongue. He shakes his head quickly, Shrimpo arches a brow.
“Mmmh, I’m not convinced.” He teases, sickeningly smug. Finn is sure he’s blushing.
“You’re not ugly.” Finn states, the flatness of his statement completely contrary to the way he’s beaming. Glowing, really. His touch on Shrimpo’s contained palm turns to something like holding hands. Holding hands. Finn laughs again, nervous and giddy from nothing but this, nothing but banter and the barest hand-on-hand contact.
“Liar.” Shrimpo leans forward and Finn arches back to compensate. His hot breath on his face feels like fireworks. Finn is surely reading into his movements, but he’s been doing that since forever. He’s fixed him with a look that Finn can’t read – he doesn’t know what Shrimpo wants from him, what he’s expecting. His head spins with possibilities.
“You’re not.” Finn insists.
“Then what am I?”
He’s flirting. It hits Finn so suddenly, piercing him right through his heart, that he feels dizzy. Shrimpo is flirting. He must be. Finn prays that he is. They’re so close that it feels suffocating, like his world has shrunk down to just this moment, just the pounding of his heart and the softened, nearly-honeyed tone in Shrimpo’s words, almost covering his usual screechiness or his voice cracks. It gives him a new confidence, a recklessness he may never recover from.
Breathy and low, Finn admits, “You’re pretty. I-... girls probably… do like you.”
He can hear Shrimpo’s breath catch, even with his eyes fixed on his lips. He can see red fill his cheeks in the corners of his vision. He’s silent for a long, drawn-out stretch of time. Finn almost expects him to startle and flee, like an animal, because he knows Shrimpo hates anything tender. More than he hates everything else.
Finally, “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“...Like me?”
Finn swallows around the lump in his throat. His chest feels too full. It aches with all the love he’s containing.
“Yes.”
Shrimpo hesitates, and then he kisses him.
Finn lets him. He tenses against him, kissing back, emotion stinging the corners of his eyes. The bag of peas is abandoned. Shrimpo’s hands grab his wrists roughly and he presses him down against the couch. It’s every bit as good as Finn has imagined. Like lightning striking, like a balloon bursting into confetti, like the ending of a movie. It satisfies that deep, unrelenting longing in Finn’s chest. They kiss until they have to pause for breath, and then they kiss again.
Shrimpo kisses Finn, rough and aggressive and so very him, until the fishbowl’s lips feel bruised, like they could match the crustacean's knuckles.
They separate. Finn is practically gasping for breath, his cheeks colored bright pink. He can’t stop smiling. He feels completely and utterly full of joy, of love. Uncontained. “How… How did we end up here?” He laughs, bubbly, ecstatic.
Shrimpo snorts and buries his face in his shirt, his head-tail wagging. “I have no fucking clue.” He admits. He looks up again, his chin resting on his chest. He looks the happiest that Finn’s ever seen him. Finn gazes at him fondly.
“I love you.”
Shrimpo flicks his forehead. “Yeah, whatever, idiot. Love you too.”
♡