Smosh Fic: The Hollow Place
Title: The Hollow Place
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: One-sided Ian/Anthony, Anthony/Kalel, Ian/Melanie
Genre/Warnings: Angst, One-Shot
Summary: "And it felt like a hollow place and it felt like a loss, a loss that he never even had in the first place."
A/N: This wasn't supposed to be angst-y. I don't know what happened and I'm annoyed as anybody else who wants fluff. Arrghhh!!!
Anthony had been doing it wrong for twenty-three years. Eleven years if he discounted the ones before girls lost their cooties and gained the status of something to be desired. He remembered that moment at his locker when Ian, instead of grimacing and rolling his eyes at the girls chit chattering across from them, had smiled instead and whispered into Anthony’s ear about how hot Samantha Goldstein looked in her blue pleated skirt and was it just Ian or was she giving him the look. His breath had tickled the skin on Anthony’s neck and it was then that Anthony had to rewire his thinking to include ‘girls’ as ‘Things I Like’.
He did it wrong again when he was fifteen and kissed Amanda what’s-her-face on the mouth outside of 7-11. Anthony had finished his slurpee and Amanda was not even halfway through when he decided, after remembering that Ian had just kissed Samantha two days ago, that he should do it, too. So he had taken a deep breath, turned abruptly to face Amanda squarely, brain frozen and aching, and kissed her with his eyes open and lips shut tight. She was more surprised than pleased when their sticky lips broke apart and Anthony’s neck had felt like it was engulfed in fire. It wasn’t at all like Ian described a first kiss would be like but Ian liked kissing so Anthony put it tentatively into his list of things he should like, too.
At eighteen, every bit of him felt wrong. His arms were too long and his legs too big. He couldn’t see through his bangs but it was the style at the time. He’d been dating Ivy Somers for two months and it was the longest relationship he’d ever been in and apparently, too long because he hadn’t done the ‘big thing’ yet that he’s supposed to like the most. Ian hadn’t done it either but that was okay because he lied about it all the time and only Anthony knew Ian’s only companion at night was either Anthony himself or no one at all. So when Anthony and Ivy found themselves alone at his house one afternoon on a Saturday, they had done it. And it was awkward and it felt too long and Ivy had cried and bled. And Anthony had to close his eyes and think of things to keep himself hard because he was terrified. In the end, he didn’t think they even had real sex at all. It was only the moment when Ian clapped his shoulder, a look of pride and a goofy smile did Anthony file one of the most horrific moments of his life into his list of things he needed to like.
And then he liked Kalel. He knew he liked her. Thought she was cute and funny. Wanted to take her places and make her happy. When he would kiss her, she’d be pleased more than surprised and he would close his eyes, wanting to enjoy it. When they were naked, connected to each other the deepest way he knew how, his whole body would respond accordingly. He would be all hot and heavy, but light and free at the same time. Anthony thought she was the one, especially when Ian would smile at him and ask when he was going to have to be the best man.
And then Kalel wanted to find a place of their own. And it took Anthony a long time before he could slot in his new apartment, his new life - with only Kalel - into his list of things he tried to like. The handiwork kept him busy as he attempted to assemble new furniture, damning the Swedish for their wordless instructions, and the commute to and from work kept him connected to his old life. It wasn’t until one late night at four in the morning when Ian called him for editing help and he had no way to get to his friend, that Anthony first felt, again, the wrongness emerging out of what he had tried to make right.
He realized Ian wasn’t going to be in the next room anymore or a few steps away when they needed each other. And Anthony could walk through his whole apartment and see nothing that reminded him of his life - his old life - and knew that he should write down this new life as something he should love. But it was not. And it felt like a hollow place and it felt like a loss, a loss that he never even had in the first place.
He knew he was doing something wrong. And it terrified him. More than when Ivy had left and he was faced with the reality of wet and bloodied sheets and the inexplicable feeling that he had just lost something he would never have back again.
He didn’t know what to do.
So Anthony drove home. Passed the dying throb of the city and into the quiet flat lands of the place he grew up in. He didn’t even lock the door or bring his house keys, thinking Kalel would wake up and lock the door and that Ian would open his for Anthony.
Melanie opened the door.
“Just in time, Anthony,” she said, groggy eyed and in Ian’s grey ‘RIOT’ t-shirt. “Ian won’t go to sleep until he can finish it. And I’m tired.” She smiled at him, sweet and grateful and blending into his home effortlessly like he used to. Now he stuck out. There was no room to fling his jacket into, or a garage to park his car, or a chair for him to sit in beside Ian as he pulled his hair out, trying and failing to get the colouring right for their video.
It stunned him. It hurt. It was a pain in his chest that bled messily all over him until he didn’t know where it came out of anymore. He stood at that doorway, watched as Melanie ran her hands through Ian’s tousled hair, whispering lovingly to him and as Ian swiveled his chair around with a great tired smile of relief, Anthony knew -
Everything he had done up until now, was wrong.
And the only thing that wasn’t, was right in front of him, getting up from his chair and impatiently ushering Anthony with a warm hand on his shoulder to sit and help.
And it felt right to be here. To be sitting in front of this computer with Ian’s head inches from his as he leaned over Anthony to watch. He liked Ian’s smell, the way he breathed loud and long, and the heat that surrounded him all the time until Anthony felt like he was between a good place and a better one, filled with Ian’s smiles and laughs and curses and shitty cornbread and crappy rapping and bowl haircuts, and not empty at all. He knew now this was what he liked and who he loved, and carefully tucked it deep inside of him, wincing as he tried not to touch the raw bits and the painful bits and covered the gaping hollow hole with the list of things he should be.
And now - finally - he knows what he wants, he just can’t have it.