Smosh Fic: Home
Title: Home
Rating: PG
Pairings: Ian/Anthony (more like friendship but my sister read it and I told her it's not slash but she said it was gay)
Beta: 98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: Angst
Summary: Anthony's been missing home.
Author's Notes: Greyscape is currently on hold. I needed something light - something hopeful - something easy to write and this is it. Not my best but considering my state of writer's indegestion... I'll give myself a pat on the back and a gold star for trying.
Anthony’s been missing home since he began living with Kalel and it’s a sort of unsettling feeling that he can’t quite understand. He tells himself that being with Kalel is good - it’s very good and he loves her. He likes their new house with its sparkling granite countertops and actual matching plate sets. The queen size bed that has more than two pillows, matching floral duvet, and that is slowly moulding to the shape of their two bodies when he presses his chest to her back as they fall asleep to a window covered by sheer white curtains.
He smiles when he wakes up to her smell - sweet and like fresh soap - to her hair tickling the underside of his chin and the small hum she makes as he pulls her in tighter. Kabuki comes crawling between them and it’s time to get out of bed.
It’s comfortable and nice and his life seems to be moving forward on its own to a place where he might be married to a loving wife with kids (and ten other cats if Kalel ever gets her way). And it makes Anthony smile and he’s so happy that he gets to kiss his girlfriend good morning and good night everyday. It’s something he should be thrilled to finally be able to do.
So when he starts missing home, it confuses him.
Home is the house he bought with Ian and where he lived for almost a decade. It’s got crappy mismatched furniture and stained carpeted floors. Cutlery is plastic and ants die in the freezer. It’s an old home next to an ass of a neighbour that hates them. The walls are too thin so any sound from any room is heard. When Ian stretches and groans in the other room, Anthony hears it as he clicks away while editing their latest video.
It’s home to Anthony. And he’s not used to his new house with Kalel, so coming home eases the jumble of faint misery somewhere in his stomach. This evening is no different, with the slight odor of leftover pizza floating under the door, settling the translucent questioning that rises up every time he realizes that he has to leave after he comes back.
“I think that’s enough editing for tonight, dude,” Ian says. Anthony turns and rolls his stiff neck around, sighing to the clink and crack of his stationary joints. He smiles at Ian who walks into the stuffy warm room, scratching his the overgrown beard. He’s been looking scruffier lately; unkempt with his wrinkled tees and hair in a disarray every time Anthony comes home. He plops down into the chair beside Anthony.
“Almost done,” Anthony says. “I’ve just got to do one more thing.”
Ian nods, sits there as Anthony’s ‘one more thing’ takes another half an hour of quiet and concentration with nothing but the click-click-click and tap-tap-tap of the keyboard, a harmony to the screeching of Ian’s old chair. Their breaths play background and bring the silence to a full orchestra.
For that half hour, Anthony feels good. He’s tired from a long day of work and despite the wretched headache on his brow, he still feels good. It’s good to be sitting in his seat that remembers the shape of his ass and a room that doesn’t smell like fresh paint and new wood and air purifiers Kalel insists on planting in every room. Even the incessant creaking of Ian’s chair doesn’t bother him anymore because he’s realized he misses it.
“So…” Ian starts, his voice soft and ending the music of quiet. “How’s the new place?”
Anthony shrugs. “It’s all right,” he answers, still focusing on the screen filled with cut scenes and Ian’s dumb face contorting to an elaborate grin in front of a poorly PhotoShopped background of rainbows. He doesn’t tell Ian he looks forward to coming home everyday, or to ‘work’ as it is referred to now between Kalel and himself. “How’s living alone? Heard you’ve been shitting with the door open. I don’t want to know the other things you’ve been doing.”
Ian jostles Anthony with his shoulder and they both laugh - maybe it’s just Anthony but Ian’s laugh doesn’t seem like a laugh, and is just a half-hearted exhalation. “It’s fun,” Ian says, albeit not very convincingly, and there’s a pause after an audible breath, which makes Anthony look up from the glow of the computer screen.
Ian’s smile is sad, trying to hide behind his fingers as he rests his chin in his palm. His blue eyes avoid Anthony’s and he suddenly sees the darkness bruising them.
For a moment, Anthony has the mind to ask what’s wrong. But he knows Ian will just shrug it off with a laugh and a joke like he always does. And Anthony knows him like he knows himself; talking it out never works between the two of them. It’s forgetting and building new memories together that overwhelm what they don’t understand or don’t want to feel that works.
So instead he saves his work and turns off the computer monitor, smiling as he takes Ian’s elbow and drags him off the chair. He can finish the video tomorrow and it’s an excuse to come back home for one more night.
“C’mon, let’s grab a drink, yeah? You need it,” Anthony urges, easing his friend to his feet. “God, you’re fat.”
Uncertainty flickers across Ian’s face before he throws an arm around Anthony’s shoulder and bumps their heads together, grinning. “Shut up. Just for that, you’re buying.”
*
They end up hiding behind the slides at the park, cradling a box of beer - bottled because Anthony thinks it tastes better so their palms are red and raw from trying to open the sharp metal caps. Ian complains after his second bottle and mutters with a slur that if they get arrested for drinking publicly, Anthony had better protect him from ‘butt-raping bad guys’. Anthony only says that Ian’s too ugly to get raped.
“How you managed to keep Melanie for years is a mystery to all of humanity.”
“Same to you. You probably drug whatshername every day to get her to touch your wiener.”
“It’s Kaayy-leeel. And she loves my wiener in her mouth,” Anthony counters, laughing too hard. He feels the beer make the stars dance lazily in the night sky. Ian groans and feigns gagging. Anthony starts singing and before he knows it, they’re both lying on the gravel floorbed next to the slide, judgement absent on their part as the pebbles act like needles between their shoulder blades and to the backs of heads.
It’s very dark and everything is navy blue. The streetlamps are too bright in the corner of Anthony’s eye, as bright as the crescent moon that hangs high in the velvety black sky, spiked with lacy foliage. The song on Anthony’s lips fades away with the nippy, wispy breeze and Ian lets out a sigh of relief, a small “Finally” making Anthony roll his eyes and send Ian a loud smack in the belly with his free hand.
And again, Anthony feels good; like he could keep on smiling the whole night and nothing could stop him. Not even the thought of possibly having to walk home drunk, or maybe having to haul Ian’s fat ass down the road because it’s now his fifth beer that he’s struggling to open with bare hands. Kalel would probably be wondering but it’s nothing like the age-old excuse of ‘working’ that will do the trick.
“I can’t open it,” Ian whines, rolling the bottle towards Anthony. He shakes his head, stupor clouding his senses, too sluggish to reach over and grab the once-chilled bottle, warm now from the summer night. The light of the moon blends in with the lights of the street lamps and the gravel could pass for feathers at this point of his drunkenness. “Open it for me, Ant.”
“Fine,” Anthony says, word dragging out but he still doesn’t make the move to find the drink.
“Thanks, man,” Ian slurs, rolling over a little until he’s on his side facing Anthony. Chuckling, Anthony thinks he looks so stupid, and even in the shadows he can see Ian’s face flushed crimson and swollen red lips slick wet from his sloppy drinking. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d probably die.”
“Yeah,” Ian agrees, heavy eyes unfocussed. A beat and again, that little bit of sadness shifts the blue in Ian’s eyes. “I’d be lonely, too.”
Anthony hums and nods, brows coming together as he stares at Ian’s expression. It confuses him the same way missing home confuses him. A thought drifts past the drunken haze and reminds him that he’s got a house now, separate from his home and from Ian, with a girl he loves waiting for him in a bed that he shares. There’s somebody else now and he’s being torn in two, something he’s never thought could ever happen to him. He has always said Smosh was first, but this new living arrangement has opened his eyes to the possibility that it wouldn’t anymore. Smosh is his family, or it will be until those kids and that army of Kabukis appear in his life. And it is - it’s happening - and he knows one person can’t be in two places at once. At least not yet, but he wishes he could.
He wishes he didn’t have to come home, not knowing what Ian has been up to all day. Or to find that his room at home is practically empty or that he’s starting to get used to living with Kalel so that when he comes back to Ian, he’s noticed he’s forgotten where things are. Things moving and shifting, being misplaced and replaced, has Anthony on edge.
Then there’s Ian, alone at home because Melanie lives across the country and it never occurred to neither Ian nor Anthony that it would be a problem because they had each other to distract each other, to fill the intervals between Ian getting on a plane or Melanie coming to visit. But now that Anthony’s gone at night, sometimes days, Ian is alone - really alone and not just without, but actually alone where he wakes up to a silent home and goes to sleep without saying goodnight to anybody and to no-one.
It stings. The missing feeling inside of Anthony stings and hurts him, more than the jagged tiny rocks beneath him, or the bottle cap’s needle-like edges.
He blames the alcohol when his vision blurs, filled with Ian’s stupid sad face (he wishes he could smack it away and choke it out of his best friend) and a tear lines the edge of his eye, threatening to fall.
Anthony blinks and sniffs, turning his gaze back to the sky above him. He reaches for the bottle between them but finds Ian’s hand instead. The unexpected feel of hot skin makes him heat up with embarrassment and he pulls away, an apology on his lips. It’s unheard though because when Anthony opens the bottle clumsily, spilling half of it on his t-shirt and thrusts it unseeingly towards Ian, there is no response. There are only the sounds of the wind dancing through the trees and their breaths in rhythm of each other.
Ian’s asleep, face pressed into the gravel and mouth open. His hair falls over his eyes and spills shadows over his pale face. There’s the faint smile still playing on Ian’s lips and he looks okay.
Ian will be okay. They’ll both be okay. He tries to tell himself that it’s for Ian, but can’t help but realize hazily that the reassurance is for himself, too, though in a perfect world he would never need it.
He laughs but it’s a bitter one. One that sticks to the sides of his throat and is almost impossible to swallow down. So he takes a swig of beer and puts it down, daring to reach his fingers, tentative and shy, towards Ian’s own and feeling the warmth in the other’s hand.
Ian is home. He is the foundation that keeps Anthony up when the storms try to break down the walls. He’s where Anthony can close his eyes and feel all the familiar memories they’ve both built together with their bare hands.
Ian will never be alone, because as long as he’ll let it be, Ian will always be home and Anthony will always miss it and come back to him.
Rating: PG
Pairings: Ian/Anthony (more like friendship but my sister read it and I told her it's not slash but she said it was gay)
Beta: 98ninetyeight
Genre/Warnings: Angst
Summary: Anthony's been missing home.
Author's Notes: Greyscape is currently on hold. I needed something light - something hopeful - something easy to write and this is it. Not my best but considering my state of writer's indegestion... I'll give myself a pat on the back and a gold star for trying.
Anthony’s been missing home since he began living with Kalel and it’s a sort of unsettling feeling that he can’t quite understand. He tells himself that being with Kalel is good - it’s very good and he loves her. He likes their new house with its sparkling granite countertops and actual matching plate sets. The queen size bed that has more than two pillows, matching floral duvet, and that is slowly moulding to the shape of their two bodies when he presses his chest to her back as they fall asleep to a window covered by sheer white curtains.
He smiles when he wakes up to her smell - sweet and like fresh soap - to her hair tickling the underside of his chin and the small hum she makes as he pulls her in tighter. Kabuki comes crawling between them and it’s time to get out of bed.
It’s comfortable and nice and his life seems to be moving forward on its own to a place where he might be married to a loving wife with kids (and ten other cats if Kalel ever gets her way). And it makes Anthony smile and he’s so happy that he gets to kiss his girlfriend good morning and good night everyday. It’s something he should be thrilled to finally be able to do.
So when he starts missing home, it confuses him.
Home is the house he bought with Ian and where he lived for almost a decade. It’s got crappy mismatched furniture and stained carpeted floors. Cutlery is plastic and ants die in the freezer. It’s an old home next to an ass of a neighbour that hates them. The walls are too thin so any sound from any room is heard. When Ian stretches and groans in the other room, Anthony hears it as he clicks away while editing their latest video.
It’s home to Anthony. And he’s not used to his new house with Kalel, so coming home eases the jumble of faint misery somewhere in his stomach. This evening is no different, with the slight odor of leftover pizza floating under the door, settling the translucent questioning that rises up every time he realizes that he has to leave after he comes back.
“I think that’s enough editing for tonight, dude,” Ian says. Anthony turns and rolls his stiff neck around, sighing to the clink and crack of his stationary joints. He smiles at Ian who walks into the stuffy warm room, scratching his the overgrown beard. He’s been looking scruffier lately; unkempt with his wrinkled tees and hair in a disarray every time Anthony comes home. He plops down into the chair beside Anthony.
“Almost done,” Anthony says. “I’ve just got to do one more thing.”
Ian nods, sits there as Anthony’s ‘one more thing’ takes another half an hour of quiet and concentration with nothing but the click-click-click and tap-tap-tap of the keyboard, a harmony to the screeching of Ian’s old chair. Their breaths play background and bring the silence to a full orchestra.
For that half hour, Anthony feels good. He’s tired from a long day of work and despite the wretched headache on his brow, he still feels good. It’s good to be sitting in his seat that remembers the shape of his ass and a room that doesn’t smell like fresh paint and new wood and air purifiers Kalel insists on planting in every room. Even the incessant creaking of Ian’s chair doesn’t bother him anymore because he’s realized he misses it.
“So…” Ian starts, his voice soft and ending the music of quiet. “How’s the new place?”
Anthony shrugs. “It’s all right,” he answers, still focusing on the screen filled with cut scenes and Ian’s dumb face contorting to an elaborate grin in front of a poorly PhotoShopped background of rainbows. He doesn’t tell Ian he looks forward to coming home everyday, or to ‘work’ as it is referred to now between Kalel and himself. “How’s living alone? Heard you’ve been shitting with the door open. I don’t want to know the other things you’ve been doing.”
Ian jostles Anthony with his shoulder and they both laugh - maybe it’s just Anthony but Ian’s laugh doesn’t seem like a laugh, and is just a half-hearted exhalation. “It’s fun,” Ian says, albeit not very convincingly, and there’s a pause after an audible breath, which makes Anthony look up from the glow of the computer screen.
Ian’s smile is sad, trying to hide behind his fingers as he rests his chin in his palm. His blue eyes avoid Anthony’s and he suddenly sees the darkness bruising them.
For a moment, Anthony has the mind to ask what’s wrong. But he knows Ian will just shrug it off with a laugh and a joke like he always does. And Anthony knows him like he knows himself; talking it out never works between the two of them. It’s forgetting and building new memories together that overwhelm what they don’t understand or don’t want to feel that works.
So instead he saves his work and turns off the computer monitor, smiling as he takes Ian’s elbow and drags him off the chair. He can finish the video tomorrow and it’s an excuse to come back home for one more night.
“C’mon, let’s grab a drink, yeah? You need it,” Anthony urges, easing his friend to his feet. “God, you’re fat.”
Uncertainty flickers across Ian’s face before he throws an arm around Anthony’s shoulder and bumps their heads together, grinning. “Shut up. Just for that, you’re buying.”
*
They end up hiding behind the slides at the park, cradling a box of beer - bottled because Anthony thinks it tastes better so their palms are red and raw from trying to open the sharp metal caps. Ian complains after his second bottle and mutters with a slur that if they get arrested for drinking publicly, Anthony had better protect him from ‘butt-raping bad guys’. Anthony only says that Ian’s too ugly to get raped.
“How you managed to keep Melanie for years is a mystery to all of humanity.”
“Same to you. You probably drug whatshername every day to get her to touch your wiener.”
“It’s Kaayy-leeel. And she loves my wiener in her mouth,” Anthony counters, laughing too hard. He feels the beer make the stars dance lazily in the night sky. Ian groans and feigns gagging. Anthony starts singing and before he knows it, they’re both lying on the gravel floorbed next to the slide, judgement absent on their part as the pebbles act like needles between their shoulder blades and to the backs of heads.
It’s very dark and everything is navy blue. The streetlamps are too bright in the corner of Anthony’s eye, as bright as the crescent moon that hangs high in the velvety black sky, spiked with lacy foliage. The song on Anthony’s lips fades away with the nippy, wispy breeze and Ian lets out a sigh of relief, a small “Finally” making Anthony roll his eyes and send Ian a loud smack in the belly with his free hand.
And again, Anthony feels good; like he could keep on smiling the whole night and nothing could stop him. Not even the thought of possibly having to walk home drunk, or maybe having to haul Ian’s fat ass down the road because it’s now his fifth beer that he’s struggling to open with bare hands. Kalel would probably be wondering but it’s nothing like the age-old excuse of ‘working’ that will do the trick.
“I can’t open it,” Ian whines, rolling the bottle towards Anthony. He shakes his head, stupor clouding his senses, too sluggish to reach over and grab the once-chilled bottle, warm now from the summer night. The light of the moon blends in with the lights of the street lamps and the gravel could pass for feathers at this point of his drunkenness. “Open it for me, Ant.”
“Fine,” Anthony says, word dragging out but he still doesn’t make the move to find the drink.
“Thanks, man,” Ian slurs, rolling over a little until he’s on his side facing Anthony. Chuckling, Anthony thinks he looks so stupid, and even in the shadows he can see Ian’s face flushed crimson and swollen red lips slick wet from his sloppy drinking. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d probably die.”
“Yeah,” Ian agrees, heavy eyes unfocussed. A beat and again, that little bit of sadness shifts the blue in Ian’s eyes. “I’d be lonely, too.”
Anthony hums and nods, brows coming together as he stares at Ian’s expression. It confuses him the same way missing home confuses him. A thought drifts past the drunken haze and reminds him that he’s got a house now, separate from his home and from Ian, with a girl he loves waiting for him in a bed that he shares. There’s somebody else now and he’s being torn in two, something he’s never thought could ever happen to him. He has always said Smosh was first, but this new living arrangement has opened his eyes to the possibility that it wouldn’t anymore. Smosh is his family, or it will be until those kids and that army of Kabukis appear in his life. And it is - it’s happening - and he knows one person can’t be in two places at once. At least not yet, but he wishes he could.
He wishes he didn’t have to come home, not knowing what Ian has been up to all day. Or to find that his room at home is practically empty or that he’s starting to get used to living with Kalel so that when he comes back to Ian, he’s noticed he’s forgotten where things are. Things moving and shifting, being misplaced and replaced, has Anthony on edge.
Then there’s Ian, alone at home because Melanie lives across the country and it never occurred to neither Ian nor Anthony that it would be a problem because they had each other to distract each other, to fill the intervals between Ian getting on a plane or Melanie coming to visit. But now that Anthony’s gone at night, sometimes days, Ian is alone - really alone and not just without, but actually alone where he wakes up to a silent home and goes to sleep without saying goodnight to anybody and to no-one.
It stings. The missing feeling inside of Anthony stings and hurts him, more than the jagged tiny rocks beneath him, or the bottle cap’s needle-like edges.
He blames the alcohol when his vision blurs, filled with Ian’s stupid sad face (he wishes he could smack it away and choke it out of his best friend) and a tear lines the edge of his eye, threatening to fall.
Anthony blinks and sniffs, turning his gaze back to the sky above him. He reaches for the bottle between them but finds Ian’s hand instead. The unexpected feel of hot skin makes him heat up with embarrassment and he pulls away, an apology on his lips. It’s unheard though because when Anthony opens the bottle clumsily, spilling half of it on his t-shirt and thrusts it unseeingly towards Ian, there is no response. There are only the sounds of the wind dancing through the trees and their breaths in rhythm of each other.
Ian’s asleep, face pressed into the gravel and mouth open. His hair falls over his eyes and spills shadows over his pale face. There’s the faint smile still playing on Ian’s lips and he looks okay.
Ian will be okay. They’ll both be okay. He tries to tell himself that it’s for Ian, but can’t help but realize hazily that the reassurance is for himself, too, though in a perfect world he would never need it.
He laughs but it’s a bitter one. One that sticks to the sides of his throat and is almost impossible to swallow down. So he takes a swig of beer and puts it down, daring to reach his fingers, tentative and shy, towards Ian’s own and feeling the warmth in the other’s hand.
Ian is home. He is the foundation that keeps Anthony up when the storms try to break down the walls. He’s where Anthony can close his eyes and feel all the familiar memories they’ve both built together with their bare hands.
Ian will never be alone, because as long as he’ll let it be, Ian will always be home and Anthony will always miss it and come back to him.