Work Text:
Riley wiped the sink out in the kitchen of the DinoBiteCafe. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as Chase walked in with a grin on his face. He crept up behind Riley and kissed him on the cheek.
"Hey!" Riley turned and saw Chase standing behind him, "Oh, it's you."
Chase kissed Riley, and then grabbed his hips, "I want to talk about something."
"Can it wait until after I've gotten a drink?" Riley sighed and walked over to a soda fountain, pouring himself a lime drink. Chase was holding a newspaper with some yellow circles, drawn in marker, all over it. "What's that?" Riley asked taking a sip of his drink.
"I was looking for something," Chase kept smiling at Riley.
"What?" Riley took off his work cap and apron and prepared to leave.
"An apartment for us."
Riley spit his drink all over the floor, and then turned to Chase wide-eyed, "Huh?"
"Well, c'mon, Bro," Chase was disheartened that Riley reacted so viscerally, "You never thought about it?"
"No, it's not that--"
"Then what's with all the-- spittin'?"
Riley walked into the kitchen, grabbed a rag, and then kneeled on the floor to clean up his spit. "I just-- isn't it a little soon?"
"Riley you're 19 now, and I'm 20. We've been datin' fer a while, and I don't think this is a terrible idea."
"Chase," Riley whined.
"What?" Chase creased his eyebrows at Riley, "You love being around me."
"I live in the dorms."
"So, move out. That roommate of yours, Kurt, he's always singing-- gets on my nerves."
Riley didn't want to articulate his feelings on the matter because he didn't want to hurt Chase's feelings. Chase was the kind of guy that would leave an old pair of socks sitting in the same spot on the floor for weeks. He let dishes pile in the sink, he left lights on, and he left doors unlocked. Riley was persnickety. Everything had to be in the right place. Living with Chase, to Riley, wouldn't just be uncomfortable, it would be a hair-raising nightmare. He grimaced at Chase, and Chase, thinking Riley was rejecting him, rolled his eyes and walked out the kitchen.
"Wait, Chase!" Riley called before Chase popped on his skateboard and left. He knew Chase would go to the skatepark, so he decided to meet him there. Chase was practicing a pop shove-it when Riley walked up.
"What?" Chase narrowed his eyes at Riley, "Can't you see I'm practicing?"
Riley walked up to Chase, "Chase, you know that's a really scary question--"
"Why because you don't want to live with me?" Chase craned his neck at Riley.
Riley grabbed Chase's shirt and pinched the material between his fingers, "Because I love you," his green eyes were like a flame, and Chase was a moth, "And I'm worried."
"What, babe?" Chase put his hands on Riley's hips. Riley's flirtation had calmed him down despite how rejected he felt earlier.
"That we're going to end up hating each other."
"Why?"
"Because you kind of-- live like-- a caveman."
"Pfft," Chase huffed and rolled his eyes, "Like a caveman?"
"Chase, I'm just saying--"
"You're saying you think I live like a slob?"
"I don't think it," Riley clenched his teeth and pinched his face at Chase.
"I can't believe this," Chase pulled away from Riley and kept practicing his pop shove-it.
"Chaaaase," Riley pleaded.
"No, bro," Chase hopped off his board and scowled at Riley," It's fine, really. All you had to do is say no. I get it."
Riley sighed and threw his hands up in the air. Unfortunately Riley didn't always say things as delicately as he needed, and now he'd infuriated Chase to the point that Chase didn't want to talk to him. Chase thought Riley was over-analyzing the situation, like he did everything, instead of going with his heart. They were like that though. Riley was the brain, and Chase was the heart.
***
Shelby was feeding a baby triceratops some greens when Riley walked in the pen with them.
"Hey, Ry," she stood up and acknowledged as he entered the pen.
Riley grabbed a broom and started sweeping the inside of the pen, "I'm a jerk."
"What're talking about?" Shelby laughed and stood up, "Oh, are you and Chase having a problem?" She rolled her eyes, kneeled back down, and pet the triceratops.
"He asked me to move in with him?" He set the broom aside.
"What!" Shelby popped back upto her feet and stared at Riley, "Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
Shelby started laughing. She laughed and laughed until she started crying, "You two would kill each other," she wiped tears from her eyes.
Riley stared at her with his mouth ajar and his eyes narrowed, "Yeah, thanks for that."
"I'm sorry, Riley, but seriously that would be a wreck-- wouldn't it?"
Riley crossed his arms over his chest, pursed his lips, and looked at the floor, "I didn't tell him no, but-- I really hurt his feelings."
"Why?"
"Because I told him he lived like a slob," Riley grit his teeth.
"Ouch," Shelby walked up to Riley and patted his shoulder, "Maybe try not being so harsh to the boyfriend?"
"What should I do?"
"I don't know. When me and Tyler moved in together, it was weird at first. He did a lot of things like-- do handstands on furniture-- anyway, eventually it wasn't so weird. I mean we got into some arguments about stuff, but that's kind of the point of dating."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, Ry. It's not all sunshine and daisies. There will be days when you can't stand the sight of him, but when you love somebody there's something else going on..."
"What?"
"I don't know. It's like ," Shelby clasped her hands and her eyes glittered, "When you fall in love with someone it stops just being about you. It's not me anymore, it's us. It's not I anymore, it's we. You just think of things differently. Because even when you don't want to kiss them anymore, they're still your best friend."
Riley grabbed his lower lip and tugged on it.
"Sometimes Ry, you fight with your best friend. But that's okay," Shelby nudged Riley in the ribs causing him to retract ticklishly, "Because at the end of the day you also get to sleep in the same bed and uh, maybe you know," She waggled her eyebrows at Riley and laughed.
Shelby was right. Even if he lived with Chase, and they fought like cats and dogs, he would be living with his best friend. Well, one of them. He looked at Shelby, smiled, and hugged her.
"Thanks, Shelbs!" Riley ran back to the skatepark as the sun was setting; in the distance the sky became a swirl of pastels: pink, periwinkle, and lavender.
Riley ran across Chase while he was watching the sunset from an overlook. Chase loved watching sunsets and would often come to the same overlook every day after skating.
"Hey," Riley muttered, scratching the back of his head.
Chase looked over at him, pursed his lips, and smiled, "Hey, bugalugs."
Riley chuckled, "You and all that weird Kiwi stuff you say." Riley walked up beside Chase and looked at the sunset with him.
"Chase, I'm sorry--"
"You say that a lot to me."
"It's because I can be a jerk," Riley half grinned and looked down.
"I didn't fall for you because you were an angel," Chase tittered.
"Hey!" Riley furrowed his brow while still smiling at Chase, "Anyway, look, I was wrong about everything before."
"You always gonna' to be like that-- wrong about everything?"
Riley lowered his brow and simpered, "You gonna' hate me if I am?"
"I could never hate you, Riley," Chase threw his arm behind Riley and pulled him in, giving him a hug. Riley put his arms around Chase's waist and squeezed.
Riley looked into Chase's squinty eyes and smiled with his mouth open, "I would love to live with you, Chase."
"I love when you look at me like that," Chase looked in Riley's small, upturned eyes, fixating on those murky emeralds staring back at him, and kissed Riley. Then he pressed Riley's head against his shoulder and rested his chin on Riley's hair.
***
It had been a week since Chase and Riley moved in to their new apartment. Their modest earnings at the DinoBite Cafe afforded them something with defunct plumbing that eventuated in them having to put a bucket under the sink in the bathroom. Even though Riley insisted that they hire a plumber, Chase was eager to prove how manly he was by fixing the leak himself. Chase sat under the sink trying to dislodge the pipe while Riley hovered above him, tapping his foot as he waited for the inevitable calamity.
"Hand me that screwdriver with the-- with the flat head?" Chase reached up to Riley.
"You mean the Philip's head?" Riley sighed and reached in the tool box and handed Chase the screwdriver.
"If you know so much about it, why don't you fix it then?" Chase started to fumble with the pipe.
"Because I said we needed a 'plum-ber'," Riley enunciated, bouncing his fingers off his head. When Riley noticed the faucet still dripping water, his eyes widened. "Chase did you--"
"Hold on, Ry, I've almost got this-- thing," Chase tugged on the pipe and pulled it out and a torrent of water began spraying him. Riley grabbed the pipe with him, and they struggled against the spouting vein until they secured the tube in place again. They were both completely drenched. Riley's mouth was wide open, shocked, and Chase's eyes shrank as he started grinning.
"We're all wet," Chase teased through his big smile.
"You don't think," Riley narrowed his eyes at Chase, "You didn't happen to think to cut the water off first did you, Chase?"
Chase grabbed Riley's face and kissed him, "I didn't know we were supposed to."
"Ugh," Riley grumbled, "Chase, you can't just start pulling things apart without knowing what you're doing. Now we're going to have all this water damage, and we're going to have to hire someone--"
Chase fell back on the floor laughing while Riley complained. Riley playfully punched him in the stomach and Chase sat up and groaned. Then Chase grabbed him and pulled Riley down on top of him. Chase lay in the puddle on the floor, looking up at Riley.
"We're getting a plumber, Chase," Riley flattened his expression.
"Oh, c'mon I can fix it!" Chase laughed.
"No you can't! You're going to kill us! I can't believe--" Riley went on and on. He went on until Chase kissed him again. And then Riley kept ranting.