Work Text:
Tmp. Tmp. Tss-tss. Tmp. Boombox’s head bobbed, slightly off-beat as he stared blankly at just those 5 beats, hearing them repeat over and over again. He huffed out a harsh sigh, leaning back in his chair and scrubbing his hands over his eyes. This was going nowhere.
He dragged himself up from his chair, reaching to snag his visor from its charging station and slip it back onto his face. Blinking at the sudden interfaces and notifications that popped up over his vision.
Recurring event starting in 2 hours: go phight with sling and skate. He dismissed that one, he probably wasn’t going to go. He hadn’t in a few weeks, anyways, he would probably be out of practice. He should drop by Zuka’s warehouse for a while before starting up again. If he ever got around to that.
You have 6+ new messages from: shuri. He grimaced, and then dismissed that one, too. He’d reply to him later.
He scrolled through the rest of his notifications in much the same way, until his vision was clear of the interfaces and he could safely amble out of his bedroom and to his fridge to fetch himself a bottle of soda and slouch onto his sofa. He really had to work on his song, but it just- it wasn’t working. He’d scheduled the release already, and it was creeping up, but all he’d gotten were a few scrapped melodies and several migraines. Not to mention-
New message from: shuri. Read? Boombox cringed at the notification popping up on the side, grabbing the visor back off of his face and dropping it onto the couch beside him.
He hadn’t texted Shuriken in almost a week. It had started with just casually thinking he’d text him later. And then a full day had passed, and then well- if he texted now, it’d be awkward. And he had more stuff to do, he should still text Shuri later.
Somehow, that had snowballed into Boombox straight-up ghosting his boyfriend for 6 whole days. Maybe that was part of the reason he didn’t want to go phighting, because- well, he might see Shuri there. And that would be a terrible place to speak to him for the first time in such a while
The problem was that there was no good way to start it back up again, at least not as far as Boombox could see. Every possible option resulted in some kind of talk, something emotional, that Boombox was not quite ready to have in his current state.
His visor buzzed in his hand, just once, and then started blaring out his ringtone. He jumped with surprise, scrambling to shove it back onto his face, missing the slot where it fit into his headphones at first. He mumbled a curse under his breath and tried again, slower this time, and then squinted at the caller ID. Sighing and tapping the side of his headphones to answer the call.
“Booooom!” Skateboard’s voice thundered into his ears, and Boombox winced.
“Skate...?” Boombox replied hesitantly, sitting back on the couch and closing his eyes. “I’ve actually been meaning to call you, I don’t think- I don’t think I can make it to the phight again.”
“Oh, nah, you’re good. Sling n’ I aren’t going phighting anymore.”
“Oh. Oh, good, then-”
“We’re coming to your place, instead.”
“You’re- What?!” Boombox sat bolt-upright, glancing around as if Skateboard was going to come crashing through his walls.
“Yeah, we’re in the elevator right now,” Skate chirped, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with what was happening right then.
“You’re in the elevator already, and you only now decide to give me a warning?" Boombox demanded, scrambling off the couch. Nibbling on his lower lip. “What are you guys even coming for??”
The faint sound of the elevator ding came through the phone. “Nothing in particular. Just gonna hang out. Open your door.” And then Skateboard hung up, and Boombox was left staring at the door for a moment before letting out a long-suffering sigh and walking over to open it.
“You know, asking before you come over is nice, sometimes,” he said dryly, stepping aside to let his friends into his apartment.
“Figured you wouldn't mind us crashing here,” Skate said brightly, walking past him into the room and leaning his skateboard against the wall. “Coil’s couchrotting at my place, and Sling'n the crew are getting the plumbing changed at theirs.”
Boombox's steps faltered at even the unspoken mention of Shuriken.
“The other two are dealing with the café right now, so I'm free all of today,” Sling added, padding in after Skate.
“Okay, so.... why aren't you two going to go phight? That was the plan, wasn't it?” Boombox asked wearily, closing the door and leaning against it.
“Well, yeah,” Slingshot said, making his way to the couch and settling down. “But you haven't been phighting with us in a while, and we figured you wouldn’t show up again, but we still wanted to hang out. So we came here. Skate, I told you to text him in advance.”
“Did you?” Skate clambered over the back of the couch, crashing onto Sling’s lap and snagging Boombox’s abandoned soda to take a quick sip. “I~ don’t remember that.”
“That’s probably because you weren’t listening, Skate.”
Skate gasped, scandalized, and Boombox exhaled slowly, smiling despite himself at the lighthearted banter between his two friends. He pushed off the door, walking to lean over the back of the couch as they bickered. “Ladies, please,” he said, reaching down to snatch his soda back. “You’re both beautiful.”
Sling snorted, smacking the back of Skate’s head when he squawked in protest to the counter-thievery. “Whatever. As long as you’re okay with us being here.”
“Yeah, you guys are okay. I wasn’t.... I wasn’t getting anything done, anyways," he said, thinking back to the abandoned project sitting on his monitors. He really wasn’t getting anything done, was he? “Is there- anything in particular you guys wanted to do when you came over?”
“We could finally beat the level that Sling n’ I have been workin’ on for a while,” Skate suggested, sitting up from where he was draped across Slingshot’s lap.
“Skate, no, we can’t just be using Boom for his console,” Sling interrupted. “We should do something else. The whole reason we came was to hang out with him, not just play his games.”
“Dammit, you’re right,” Skate said, frowning. “I don’t know, we could.... hey, let’s- Let’s go outside! I haven’t been around Crossroads in a long while, and Boom looks like he could use some grass-touching.”
They both turned to look at Boombox, who stared back for a second before squinting at them. “Hey. What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sling snorted again, covering his mouth with his hand. “He means you look like you’ve been through a war. You’ve got the thousand-yard stare, Boom, the one that means you’re probably not taking very good care of yourself.”
Boombox opened his mouth to protest, to argue that they couldn’t even see his eyes through the visor, but he was cut off by Skateboard speaking back up. “So a stroll around Crossroads, then?” he asked, glancing at Sling, who nodded. Skateboard did not, in fact, look at Boombox for confirmation before hopping up off of the couch.
Boom didn’t get much ability to protest at all, actually, until he was hustled out of his own apartment and dragged down the elevator. He barely had the time to grab his horn rings and gear strap before being essentially kidnapped. The elevator ride down to the ground was spent grumbling and strapping his namesake boombox onto his back while Skate and Sling argued about where they should go first.
Over the next few hours, the three of them traipsed all over Crossroads together, and Boombox had to admit it, he was having fun. It was nice to get away from his desk for a while. Eventually, they settled down by the skate park, with Skate zooming around like a chihuahua and Boom and Sling sitting on the side and watching. Boombox got to play some easy, mindless tunes, and they chatted about simple things. This was nice.
Once Skate had gotten his fill of face-planting onto the floor, they got up and started walking again. Boombox didn’t think about where they were going for a while, until it clicked and he froze. “Actually, guys, I’m feeling like- really tired. You guys can go, I’ll just head home for now.”
“Nope, we’re not letting you dip out now,” Skate said, snagging Boombox’s arm and dragging him along. “Sling, grab the other arm. Good.”
“C’mon, Boom, we just got some new stock in. Shuriken’ll be there~” Slingshot added in a sing-song voice, trying to encourage Boombox to come and not quite noticing the little grimace of discomfort that elicited.
“I’m serious, guys, I really don’t think we should- Guys!”
They didn’t listen. So pretty soon, Boombox was sitting in a booth, trying to slide under the table before anyone saw him.
“Seriously, Boombox, what the hell is going on? Why are you being so weird?” Skateboard asked, nudging his friend’s side with his elbow.
“I’m not being weird,” Boombox snapped back, face buried in a menu. This was stupid, he knew it. He wouldn’t be able to hide when Shuriken came to the table, and they would have to have some sort of interaction. Honestly, it would've been better to face it and just talk to him. Well, actually, he should have talked to him 5 fucking days ago. What could he even say to apologize? “Sorry, I fell off the face of the earth?” No.
“Hey, guys!” The voice jerked Boombox out of his internal conflict, and he glanced up at Shuriken. Meeting his eyes, and then promptly looking away again. Shuriken, meanwhile, continued as if nothing was wrong, setting three glasses of water onto the table and tucking the tray under his arm. “What can I get for you all today?”
Boombox didn’t even know what they got. He was busy staring at the menu, rereading the same unintelligible words over and over again until Shuriken was gone and Slingshot threw a balled-up napkin at him.
“What was that shoddy performance?” he demanded, squinting at Boombox. “Shuriken didn’t tell me that something happened between you two.”
“Nothing happened between us, I just-” Boombox sighed, pulling the napkin out of his hair and dropping it onto the table. “That’s exactly the problem, actually, nothing’s happened. I’ve.... I haven’t texted Shuriken in, like- 6 days.” He mumbled the last bit, clicking his visor off his face and setting it down.
“What- 6 days? Why not??” Skate demanded, eyes wide. “You’ve responded to all of our texts, what’s-”
“I don’t know, I just- I forgot, at first, and then I felt bad and I wanted to text, but- it’d already been a day and I didn’t know what to say, so I said I’d do it later, and then- when ‘later’ rolled around, I felt super terrible about it and- and I didn’t know how to pick the conversation back up, I thought he’d hate me, and- emotions are hard to talk about!”
“We text you about easy things, right?” Sling asked softly, tilting his head.
“Exactly! I can give you guys like- the occasional 3-word-sentence about the new Flipside album, but- other stuff is harder. I... I love him, I really do. I don't want him to think I don't. Or that I'm mad at him. But.... I don't know what to say to him.” Boombox sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. “I'm a terrible person.” A moment of silence passed, in which Boom had his face in his hands and Skate and Sling just looked at each other for a while.
Finally, Sling spoke up. “You're not a terrible person, you're just being one,” he said, taking a sip of his water, and he was met with a kick under the table and an accusatory look from Skate. “Ow! I’m serious! This is bad! You need to talk to him soon, Boom. I know it sucks, I know, but the longer you put it off, the worse it's gonna be.”
“Still, you could've been a bit more gentle,” Skate mumbled, and Boombox shook his head.
“Nope. Nope, I deserved that. He's right.” He tugged absently at a curl of his hair, nibbling on his lip, and then he exhaled. “I'll talk to him. I will. I'm already here. And I don't want him thinking I'm trying to avoid him.”
Even though he is 100% trying to avoid him.
When Shuriken came back over, bearing their pastries on a tray, Boombox still froze up and stared down at the table until he left again. Sling and Skate just looked at each other for a moment and didn’t say anything as Boombox picked up a tart and bit into it to avoid having to talk.
He should have seen it coming when they both headed to the bathroom at the same time. He really should have. But somehow, he still managed to panic and almost spit out his water when Shuriken slid into the booth seat opposite him.
For a long moment, they stared at each other, Boombox looking quite akin to a deer in headlights. And then he took a deep breath.
“Are you okay-”
“I’m really sorry-”
Shuriken snapped his mouth shut, and Boombox blinked before barrelling on ahead. “I’m really sorry, Shuriken, I’ve been an asshole and- and- I really-”
His stammered words were interrupted by Shuriken’s hand brushing over his own, resting on the table. Gently interlacing their fingers together. “Boombox, calm down. I was more concerned about you being alive, to be honest. What happened?”
For a moment, a thousand excuses ran through Boombox’s head. His visor could have broken, or maybe the apartment below him tripped the circuit breaker for the whole complex again. For several days. Or- but, no, none of that would be fair to Shuriken. “Nothing happened,” he mumbled, sighing and squeezing Shuri’s hand. “I just.... couldn’t bring myself to text you.”
“But- why not? Did.... Did I-”
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong! I guess.... I’ve just.... been busy. But- but that doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t excuse anything. And I’m really sorry. Please don’t break up with me. But- but if you do, I’ll understand.”
Shuriken stared at him, and then shook his head a little bit, smiling. “Really, Boombox, it’s okay. I just would rather you tell me what’s happening next time, instead of.... hiding under the menu.” He brushed his thumb against Boombox’s knuckles gently. And then paused once more.
“I will! I will. I promise. I love you. You’re amazing. I’m so sorry.” He squeezed Shuriken’s hand tightly, exhaling a slow sigh of relief. “I really.... I really thought you would hate me.”
Shuri snorted. “It would take worse than a week of silence for me to hate you, Boombox. I know you. I love you, too, and I hope you know that.” He rose from his seat, leaning over the table and brushing Boombox’s cheek with his fingertips. “I should get back to work, though, I don’t want to leave Sling doing work for too long on his day off.”
Sure enough, when Boom glanced around for the first time since Shuriken came over, he saw Slingshot delivering food to the tables. “Ah. I was wondering how you’ve gotten away for this long,” he said, chuckling. “Go rescue him. I’ll text you later.” Shuriken squeezed his hand a little, squinting at him, and Boombox chuckled, lifting their hands to press a kiss to Shuri’s wrist. “I will! I swear. And if I don’t, you can come to my apartment and smother me in my sleep.”
“I might take you up on that,” Shuriken said with a chuckle, sliding out of the booth. “I do have your apartment key. Better keep that in mind, huh~?”
“Scary, scary.” He chuckled, opening his arms for a hug. Shuriken grinned, circling the booth and leaning his knee onto the seat, tugging Boombox into a hug with his chin resting on the other inphernal’s head.
Boombox let out a short breath, eyes closing. From here, with his face pressed into Shuriken’s chest, he could feel the faint rhythm of his beating heart.
Tmp. Tmp. Tmp. Tss-tss.
Faintly, Boombox’s mind added the little sizzle he had been playing with on his software. Yes. That was a good beat.