Fic: Bandom: 'The Internet is For...': Mike/Kevin
Title: The Internet is For...
Authors: xrysomou and xaritomene
Rating: PG
Warnings: Chronic awkwardness, faily boys in love and Mike Carden, but no serious warnings. (Except Mike Carden. He's a serious warning, right?)
Pairing: Mike Carden/Kevin Jonas
Word Count: 4819
Summary: "So... the internet says we should be gay boyfriends. What say you?"
AN: Written primarily because of a post here at sodamnskippy, about how a Google search of 'Mike Carden' brings up a popular search of 'Mike Carden Kevin Jonas'. This was intended to be much more meta-y and awesome, but descended pretty quickly into shameless fluff... sorry?
This is our first Skippy!fic, so our characterisation may be, er, off. Be gentle with us, if you can!
Cross-posted all over the damn shop, sorry!
**
Kevin’s phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning. “So,” the caller said before he could so much as say ‘hallo’, “the internet says we should be gay boyfriends. What say you?”
“Who is this?” Kevin looked blearily at the screen.
“M’name’s Mike,” he was informed.
“And - how did you get my number?”
“Suspicious, suspicious, Jonas. What a disappointment.” A beat of silence. “Pete Wentz, kid. I know Pete Wentz. And he knows everyone. Including your mom.”
“What?!”
“OK, maybe not your mom. Hang on...”
“Yes?”
“This is Kevin Jonas, right?” The voice had acquired a suspicious tone of its own. “Not one of the small, evil ones, right?”
“My brothers aren’t evil!” He protested instinctively, then added. “And yes, this is Kevin.” Damn his mother for raising him truthful. He should have said ‘Joe’.
“Oh, good. Apparently, we should be having sex.”
“And you decided this was a good idea... why?”
“Well, the internet thinks it’s a good idea.”
“The internet thinks Pete Wentz and that other guy are having sex.”
“Yeah?”
“Are- are they, then?”
“Well, if by ‘that other guy’, you mean Patrick, then yes. Yes, they are.”
“Oh.” Kevin digested this for a moment. “OK then.”
“So it’s all set, then?” Before Kevin could so much as reply, the guy said, “sorry, gotta go, Bill’s angsting. Talk to you later, Jonas!”
The dial tone sounded before Kevin could even think of a response. “But I still don’t know your name,” he told the phone futilely, and clicked off his end of the connection.
**
Half an hour of Google searching threw up one ‘Mike’ who would know Pete Wentz and would be spending time with a ‘Bill’. Unfortunately, that one Mike was ‘Mike Carden’, who had a killer stare.
“No, really,” Kevin told Joe when he made sceptical noises. “He looks like a serial killer.”
“So block his number!”
“I don’t know how!” He wailed. He didn’t want to admit that he was also kind of intrigued. When he’d Googled Carden’s name, his own had also appeared two ‘popular searches’ from the bottom, and he was kind of - fascinated. It was like watching the most awesome train wreck ever.
Failing to receive any support from his brothers, he gritted his teeth, stuck his courage to the sticking place and texted the serial killer back. He started simple. ‘are you mike carden?’
‘um. y.’
‘you never actually said’
‘my bad’
‘this is kevin btw’
‘i know, kid. sup.’
‘not much.’
‘JONAS YOU AND MIKE NEED TO HAVE SEX RIGHT NOW. NOW NOW NOW.’
‘...what?’
‘sorry sisky stole the phone’
‘oh. Ok. My brothers might do that too sometimes’
‘your brothers wont be texting me about sex though right. The purity ring says no’
‘in Joes case its pretty much just a suggestion. But. No.’
‘how about in your case?’
‘i have to go now’
‘jonas?’ no reply. ‘coward.’
**
Kevin, without even realising it, managed to fall into something of a routine with the texts. If something big happened, he texted Mike about it as a matter of course and almost always got a reply, even ‘wtf kid its 5 am and i didnt need to hear about the awesome cat macro right now’. Kevin had felt kind of guilty about that one.
Then he started texting Mike when things got boring, because Mike evidently did the same. They exchanged desultory texts like ‘syour fave color Mike?”
‘fuschia’
‘really?’
‘no’
‘so no fuschia curtains, then’
‘do it and you die’
‘its for our fuschia colored house’
There was no reply for half an hour and Kevin started to worry that he’d gone too far. Then: ‘death, jonas. Our house will be blue’
‘tasteful blue, right’
‘electric’
‘so not tasteful then’
‘shut it kid’
Then Kevin found himself ringing Mike when he was a bit low, a bit bored, a bit - anything, really. And when pressed, he couldn’t even explain what it was about Mike’s deadpan monotone drawl which was so comforting.
“Is this the same guy you called a serial killer?” Joe asked sceptically, when Nick had barricaded himself in the back lounge and refused to allow them access to Halo.
“Er. Yeah.” Kevin wrestled with an explanation. “He’s just - nice.”
“Nice,” Joe turned the thought over in his mind. “O-K... So, you’re gay now, then?” He moved on with typical brotherly candour.
“I don’t know!” Kevin said quickly. “We’re just -” What were they? Friends? Phone buddies? Ships that passed in the technological night?
“Just...?” Joe prodded.
“I don’t know, OK? I don’t know.”
“You’re boyfriends, then,” Joe decided calmly.
“Bzuh?!” Kevin squeaked.
“Well, he does want to be having hot sweaty sex with you,” Joe reminded him. “So you should tell him if you don’t.”
Huh. Kevin had forgotten that. “Oh. Yeah.”
“So, you’re not friends... you’re not boyfriends... and he texts you all the time and rang you that one time at like three in the morning when he was off his face... so he’s your stalker.”
Kevin didn’t dignify that with a response.
Once Joe had gone off to bother someone else, Kevin sat down and had a good heart-to-heart with himself. So, really, just a heart, then, he supposed. A mind-to-heart? Whatever. This was why he never got anything done.
What was Mike to him?
Time to find out. ‘we should meet’ he texted him, and proceeded to panic when he didn’t get an immediate response.
‘ok. When and where’
‘um. new York? Are you in new York anytime soon?’
‘were there in three weeks but its pretty big. I need exact coordinates jonas.’ Kevin texted him the address of the hotel. ‘see you there then. Does this mean i get sex? Because bill keeps laughing at me’
‘no!’ Kevin texted back indignantly
‘bummer’
‘no sex for you’ Kevin informed him haughtily and switched off his phone.
**
All might have been well had Joe not had such a good memory and Kevin not had such horrible brothers. It was a week and a half after his conversation with Joe vis-a-vis Mike, but apparently, all that time had done was give Joe longer to spread it around. And then he decided to share with the world.
“So, how’re things?” the interviewer said with that bright, ‘I’m-talking-to-children’ smile they had seen in every interview since Kevin was sixteen and far too old for things like that.
Joe shrugged, and offered his own bright, ‘I’m-talking-to-an-idiot’ smile in return. “Not bad. The tour’s going real well, and the fans are as great as normal... oh, and Kevin has a stalker!”
Kevin felt a shock of ice water go down his spine and just knew that he had jerked upright. Had it not been very early in the morning - had his brain been connected to his mouth, he would have played it down. ‘Just one of those fans... just part of the job... really flattering...’. No. Instead, he stared at his knees and mumbled, “Mike’s just a friend.” And then - too late, Kevin thought viciously at it - his brain kicked in and went “no no no!!”.
“Mike, huh?” The interviewer turned The Child Smile on Kevin. The Child Smile was starting to look a little strained - these were, after all, the poster children for Disney’s middle American purity, and gay stalkers were never, ever on the agenda. Especially not before watershed.
“Carden,” Nick supplied helpfully. Kevin gave him a quick look of Death and received a beatific smile in return.
Kevin offered the interviewer a sickly smile. “Mike’s a friend,” he repeated. Perfect, he snarled to himself. Now he sounded like a broken record. He clamped his mouth shut, thought for a second then added, “who texts me sometimes.”
In the awkward silence which followed, Kevin sat frozen for a couple of seconds, then decided to concentrate firmly on smiling.
**
By the time they left the interview, Kevin had four missed calls, three from the studio and one from his mom, and about thirty texts, most of which were from numbers he didn’t recognise, and ranged from the solely amused (‘AHAHAHAHAHAHA’) to the threatening (‘I will tear down you and everything you hold dear, Jonas!’) to the salacious (‘You and ‘your stalker’ will have a lot of hot sweaty boysex, Jonas. The power of the Cobra compels you!’) to the merely obscene (he knew exactly who had sent that picture of their dick, and he was looking at you, Pete Wentz).
On the whole, Kevin was sincerely tempted to pull an Anne Hathaway from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and throw his phone into the nearest fountain. Mike would find some way to contact him, he was sure. Like - homing pigeons. Or email! Or... through his bedroom window at the dead of night to strangle him.
It was possible Kevin needed a safehouse.
**
Mike was not having a good day. He had been woken at six in the morning by the sound of Bill’s epic existential angst, which would have been fine had he not known, just known, that Bill was doing it solely to annoy him. Even Bill at his lowest had never crawled into Carden’s bunk and yelled “WHY AM I ALIVE!?” with quite that look of unholy glee on his face.
Then the bus had broken down, forcing everyone to stand in the rain for a good half hour whilst people tutted ineffectually over broken, steaming engines. When they finally got back to areas of civilisation and phone signal, Mike had twenty texts, a handful of missed calls and a video link.
It had been five years. He really should have learnt by now that a video link from Pete Wentz should never be clicked on. The last (entitled ‘cute n fuzzy!!!!’) had been panda porn, and Chiz had never been the same since.
This video looked set to do much the same for Mike.
“Oh, fuck.”
**
When Kevin’s phone rang - again - he almost didn’t even bother looking at the Caller ID. When he did, however, he dropped it like it was burning, and backed away in panic. “I’m sorry?” he offered pathetically, and Nick patted his knee.
“If it’s meant to be, he will forgive you,” he said sagely.
“Oh, that’s rich!” Kevin snapped. “Forgive me?! I didn’t say anything! You were the ones who gave his name, surname, social security number, address, credit card transactions...!”
Joe gave him a pitying look. “Drama queen.”
As Kevin fumed ineffectually, Nick said, “we told them his name-”
“And they all have google!” Kevin snapped back. “You underestimate the power of the Google!” And so help him God, he had almost said ‘the Cobra’. In his defence, whoever it was had sent him twelve further texts, all of them featuring cobras in some capacity. He wasn’t sure that last one was even legal.
**
His phone kept on ringing. When Kevin finally plucked up the courage to pick up, Mike very nearly snapped at him.
“Jesus, kid, I’ve been ringing for like three days now, you couldn’t find a moment to chat?”
“Hi, Mike,” Kevin said lamely. “How are things?”
“Things are weird. Mostly because my entire label thinks I’m a stalker, and even if they don’t think that, they’re telling everyone anyway because they think it’s funny. Also, your mom rang.”
Kevin winced. “I’m so sorry-”
“No, no - apparently I’m a ‘nice young man’. No one’s said that to me since I was about seven.”
“Well, I’m really sorry about the whole stalker thing. My brothers are kind of awful.”
“Eh, I told you. Evil,” Mike said easily.
“I guess,” Kevin said, and then there was an awkward silence. “Look, if you don’t want to meet up now, I totally understand, cos this whole thing has been a disaster and it’s really-”
“Hey, kid, hey! We’re still on, OK? Or are you chickening out on me?”
“No chickens here,” Kevin said quickly and then kicked himself. Mike chuckled.
“Good to know you’re not some creepy fetishist, Jonas. We’ll find out what you’re into later.”
“Must we?”
“It’s not all hellfire and damnation, you know that, right? You don’t go to bed with someone and find the devil waiting for you behind the door, pitchfork in hand.”
Kevin wondered if it was possible to blush so hard that it was visible over the phone. “I don’t think that, it’s just-”
“I know, kid, you’re alright. I was just-”
“Being nasty?” Kevin asked as acidly as he could.
A momentary silence. “Er, yeah,” Mike sounded like he was fighting a smile. “It’s what I do.”
**
Kevin spent the last few remaining days before their meeting working himself up into an absolute frenzy of panic. Mike was going to take one look at him and laugh in his face. Worse, he would laugh at Mike, or he would scream and run away. And then he would never be able to go outside ever again. He would have to live in his mom’s basement and have meals fed to him through the door.
“I think that dude from My Chemical Romance did that for a while,” Nick said absently, callously ignoring Kevin’s Pain.
“He’s cooler than I am!” Kevin said, biting one of his nails. “He’s in a rockband.”
“So are we!”
“No, we’re in a Disney band with our brothers,” Kevin corrected caustically. “Any younger and our only audience would be our parents in the living room.”
“Kevin - you’re twenty two.”
“Oh, God, I’ll just move into basement now, shall I?”
“Dude, I really think you’re over-thinking this,” Joe said, plopping down next to him on the sofa. “You’re going to meet up, make out and come home.”
“OK,” this sounded like a simple, step-by-step plan Kevin could follow. “Meet up, make- what!?”
“Kevin.” Joe said seriously. “You spend half the day texting him and the other half talking about him. It’s really tedious and a surefire sign that you’re boyfriends, okay? Just accept it.”
With that, he left Kevin there, completely poleaxed.
**
“Jonas,” Mike greeted him, straightening up from his sexy lean against their hotel building. And that was ridiculous, because he was leaning. He was just leaning. Not sexy-leaning. Just leaning. There was nothing sexy about leaning. But Mike made it sexy, somehow... god, how had Kevin not noticed that he was this gone before? “Jonas?” Mike tried again, clicking his fingers in front of Kevin’s eyes.
“Yeah! Hi! Sorry, I’m kind of spacey.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike offered him a lopsided grin.
“Yes. Of course you do.” He glanced round. “Er, can we go inside? That girl has a lean and hungry look in her eyes and it’s starting to scare me.”
Once he had hustled Mike inside, they sat awkwardly in the hotel bar looking at each other. “So,” Kevin started uncomfortably, knowing that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was bound to be a bad idea. “Are you here long?”
“Nah, not long. Two shows and some time for sight-seeing. Y’know, every time I come here, I’m always kind of disappointed that there’s no Stark Industries Tower or Avenger’s Mansion.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know. Iron Man, Captain America, that lot.”
“You know,” Kevin said contemplatively, “you’re a lot goofier in person.” And there was the bad idea.
Mike just looked amused. “Eh, you’re a lot more coherent. At least, you form full sentences. There was a while there where I wasn’t totally sure you spoke English.”
“I speak English,” Kevin said redundantly.
“Oh, Jonas, what’m I gonna do with you?” Mike asked with a grin.
“Feed me?” Kevin said and watched as Mike visibly jumped to a filthy conclusion. “Breakfast! Nothing dirty!”
Mike’s eyebrows slid upwards. “You often have dirty breakfasts, kid?”
“Dude, I live with my mom!” Kevin protested, then watched, bemused, as Mike started laughing and evidently couldn’t stop. Eventually, he laughed himself out, stood up and grabbed his jacket. He had, Kevin couldn’t help noticing, lovely hands.
“C’mon, then, let’s go grab you some clean, porn-free breakfast.”
Kevin followed him out of the hotel, still a little confused.
**
They talked over bagels until Kevin was nearly late for soundcheck. As it was, he may as well have not turned up for soundcheck at all, because he went through it in a complete daze. Later, waiting the wings to go onstage, Joe poked him in the stomach.
“So, it went well?”
Kevin nodded like an imbecile. He couldn’t seem to wipe the stupid grin from his face. Joe raised his eyebrows.
“So what happened? What did you do?”
Kevin, mentally still in the breakfast bar with Mike, heaved a happy sigh. “Yeah...”
“Dude!”
“What!?” Kevin jerked back to the present.
“What. Did. You. Do. With your. Stalker?” Joe was using the tone of voice he reserved solely for journalists.
“Don’t call him that! He’s not my stalker. He’s not even my boyfriend,” Kevin finished morosely, and Joe raised his eyes to heaven.
“Kevin, you are boyfriends. You are ten steps away from a white wedding, a white picket fence, and three orphans from Cambodia. Now come on, focus. You spent an entire morning with him. From, what, ten til three?”
“About that,” Kevin said dreamily.
“So,” there was iron patience in Joe’s voice. “What happened?”
“Oh, we just talked.”
“Oh my God, you are actually Sandy from Grease, aren’t you?”
“No,” Kevin said with dignity, whilst his brain idiotically added ‘I wouldn’t look as good in high-waisted leather pants.’ Then, he mentally slapped himself.
“So. You talked. Did you make out?”
Kevin considered it. Did a pat on the shoulder count? It was body contact, but then again, no. “Um, no. Not really.”
“Do you have some kind of mental block about sex, Kevin?” Joe asked carefully. “Because - there are people you can talk to about that, y’know.”
“No! No, I’m fine with sex! I have plenty of dreams about Mike’s dick!”
Joe paused. “OK. Well, I’m going to wipe that from my mind, and you, bro, are going to make plans to see this guy tomorrow. You’ve gotta give the poor guy something.”
Kevin, still smarting from the ‘Sandy’ dig, gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Like what, promise rings?”
“Sarcasm ages the skin, Kevin!” Before Kevin could respond, Joe shot him a shit-eating grin and headed for the stage. “We’re up!”
**
“Dude, you can’t leave the poor kid hanging like that!” Bill’s eyes were huge and full of reproach, and also five inches away from Mike’s face. Had they been further away, and had Mike been planning on leaving Kevin hanging anywhere, he was sure he would have broken under the pressure of the look alone. As it was:
“Bill, personal space,” he said, shoving him backwards to flump down on the sofas the other side of the bus. “And I wasn’t going to leave him hanging.”
“Yeah, how did your date with your lady-love go?” Adam asked, plopping down opposite him.
“Good, thanks. And don’t call him that. It’s demeaning.” Mike scowled as his bandmates cat-called as one.
Bill leant forwards again. “Was that your word for the day?” he asked sweetly and ducked to avoid a swipe.
“Shut up. Look, we just talked,” this last directed at Adam. “It was fun.” He was met with four uniformly blank looks. “Y’all are bastards. And sometimes chastity is fun!”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Once more with conviction?”
“I think it’s sweet,” Chizzy opined, and patted Mike on the shoulder on his way to the bunks.
“Whatever you have to do to get through it, man,” Butcher told him, following Chizzy back.
“Seriously, though,” Bill said, after the others had gone. “Call the kid, OK? I remember when you were that awkward kid-”
“Bill, I’m still that awkward kid. Just bigger.”
“This is no time for boasting, Mike,” Bill grinned, “cos it’s not like your Jonas bride is going to see it for a long, long time.”
“Bill, if I’m ever stupid enough to introduce you to him, try not to be too obscene. He might faint and he’ll probably bring up his mom, and it’ll just be awkward for all involved.”
“His mom?” Bill looked faintly revolted.
“Yeah, you see? Awkward. Go to bed, man. I’mna ring him.” He watched Bill as far out of hearing range as it was possible to get, and picked up his phone to dial, only for it to ring, and Kevin’s google-searched image to appear on the screen. Rather than waste time wondering how the image got there, he just picked up. “Kev, my main man.”
“Hi. Are you drunk?”
“Most of the time, but not right now. Which is probably why I sound like this. And called you ‘my main man’, oh my god. Never meet me sober.”
To his relief, Kevin laughed. “OK, well, I was just thinking-”
Courage, Carden. “Before you say anything, I was wondering whether you wanted to meet up sometime tomorrow?”
“Uh. Yeah, yeah, that sounds - well, actually, that sounds exactly like what I was going to ask you.”
“You know what it is, Jonas? It’s,” Mike had been about to say ‘great minds’, but that got lost on the way to his mouth and what actually came out was, “a Vulcan mindmeld.”
There was a pause. “Is that some kind of deviant sexual practice I should look up?” Kevin sounded genuinely worried. “Because I want to be able to look my mom in the eye the next time I see her.”
“Oh God, please stop mentioning your mom,” Mike groaned.
Kevin laughed a surprisingly evil laugh. “I was just kidding,” he sounded delighted. “So, when do you wanna meet?”
“Same time tomorrow?”
“I have an interview,” Kevin said regretfully. “Can we make it half an hour later?”
“Sure. You going to tell everyone I’m your stalker again?”
“No, I was going to tell everyone -” Kevin suddenly stopped talking.
“What?”
“Nothing. I have to go. Sleep.”
Mike sat up. “Jonas, what? Do not hang up on me, do not-” Dial tone. “Tease,” he muttered and absent-mindedly threw his phone across the room before stomping off to his bunk.
**
“Good morning! Are you drunk?” Kevin beamed at Mike.
“Is this going to be a running theme?” Mike asked, rubbing his eyes blearily.
“Well, the first time I was worried. Now I want to make sure.”
“S’ok. I’m completely hammered.”
“Oh good. Breakfast? I’m starving.”
“And looking particularly... you know what, I wish I could say ‘good’, but I can’t tell a lie. You look like death, Jonas.”
“Yeah... I was up till three marathoning Star Trek after your ‘Vulcan mindmeld’ thing,” Kevin agreed.
“You like Star Trek?”
“Never seen it before. It was better than I thought it would be!”
“You’d never seen Star Trek before?” Mike looked horrified. “Next time we both have a break, you are coming to mine for a proper marathon, none of this YouTube shit.”
“OK,” Kevin said affably, trying to act cool whilst most of his mind deserted him in favour of going ‘eeee!!!’ “So long as there’ll be pizza.”
“Of course there’ll be pizza. What kind of host do you think I am? And it’ll be proper, Chicago pizza, none of your New York shit.”
“Please, New York pizza is the best.”
“OK then, Jonas,” Mike gestured at the city around them. “Prove it.”
“OK!”
“What, now!?”
“When better?” Kevin asked, making with the big eyes.
“Kid, it’s quarter to eleven in the morning!”
“Yeah! So? It’ll be fresh!”
“They don’t make to order? What is this blasphemy?”
**
“Eh,” Mike looked down at his plate. “I suppose it wasn’t total shit.”
“High praise,” Kevin grinned, and that was when he realised he’d been flirting. He’d probably been flirting really obviously (and really badly) the entire time. It was a like a magic charm - he could feel his muscles starting to freeze up in embarrassment. He managed to squeak out something about “I need to go pee!” before making good his escape to the bathroom.
He remembered Joe’s words as he was splashing water on his face, and his stomach curled up, cramping around the pizza. He froze, staring at his dripping face in the mirror, and only unfroze a couple of minutes later. “Right, we can do this,” he muttered at his reflection. “We are no longer fourteen years old. We can kiss a guy,” ridiculously, he added to himself, “and we will like it.”
“Um, are ‘we’ OK?” asked a voice from the door. Kevin spun round with a manly shriek. “Because ‘we’ve’ been in here for, like, ten minutes.”
“Mike! Yes, we - I, I! - am fine, honestly. I’ll be out soon?”
“OK, then?” Mike said and disappeared.
Kevin let his head thunk back against the mirror.
It was OK, though. He totally could do this.
Oh God.
**
Kevin was all but silent in the taxi back to his hotel, mentally gearing himself up for The Big Moment. Mike walked him into the lobby, keeping what he seemed to feel was an obligatory two foot distance between them. Finally, displaying the first signs of awkwardness since they’d met, he said, “Um, well. This has been fun? But I think I’d better go no-”
“Youshouldcomeup,” Kevin said in a rush.
“I - I didn’t get any of that,” Mike said after a brief but apparently fierce battle between the flattering lie and the ignominious truth.
“You should,” Kevin swallowed, “come upstairs. To my room. For,” for what, Kevin, genius, his mind demanded.
Mike saved him. “For coffee?” He suggested.
“Yes!” Kevin agreed, rather fiercely.
“Ok then, c’mon Jonas. Show me to your room.” He paused. “You don’t room with your brothers, right?”
“Not anymore. I,” Kevin said, with dramatic haughtiness, “have my own room.” Dropping the act, he added, “it got really boring listening to them wank. Not that it was ever interesting! But now I don’t have to listen at all! So. Um.”
“You have no filter at all, do you Jonas?” Mike asked sympathetically.
“No. I’m hell to interview,” Kevin agreed.
Mike laughed and, apparently instinctively let his hand drift down to link with Kevin’s. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
As he was towed towards the elevators, Kevin wondered whether this was a ‘we’re boyfriends!’ hand-holding or a ‘I’m with the mental equivalent of a toddler who needs to be guided safely and carefully towards his destination!’ hand-holding. He was just starting to fret when the elevator arrived, and Mike dragged him into it.
“Jonas, I can hear you thinking. I am holding your hand,” the doors slid shut, “because we are boyfriends. The internet told us so, remember?”
“Oh. Yes,” Kevin nodded, torn between relief and ecstasy.
“And the internet is...?” Mike prodded.
“Always right?”
“Well done.”
Kevin, tired of fretting, decided that there was no time like the present and he probably wasn’t going to get a better moment than this. Looking back at their first kiss, the initial impetus was really more of a lunge than anything else and Mike, caught off balance, stumbled backwards and almost hit his head on the mirror.
He did, however, manage to catch Kevin before he fell ignominiously at Mike’s feet. He also managed to keep a calm head. “Hallo,” he said to the boy he was currently holding up by the elbows.
“Hi,” Kevin replied, and swooped in.
Their first kiss, as kisses went, was pretty damn terrible. Kevin managed to hit his face on Mike’s nose, bust his lip on Mike’s teeth and then nearly bit Mike’s tongue. This was in between Mike planting a flailing elbow in Kevin’s solar plexus and, in dragging him forwards, almost tripped him up. At least, Kevin reflected ruefully, the incompetence was mutual.
“Well,” Mike said after a momentary silence. “That was a bit, um, bad. How ’bout we try that again?”
“OK,” Kevin agreed amiably.
Their next attempt wasn’t exactly better, but it was more coordinated. One of Mike’s hands came up to cup Kevin’s cheek, manoeuvring him carefully into place, and they managed not to bump noses. Kevin may have got a little frisky with the teeth, but Mike didn’t seem to mind - he gave as good as he got, in fact - and all in all, what had started out as rather unpromising had left them dishevelled and red-faced when the elevator opened on Kevin’s floor to reveal - Joe.
Joe took one look at the pair of them and said, “finally, thank God!”
“Er - Kevin?”
“Hi, Joe,” Kevin managed, chronically embarrassed. “Mike, Joe, Joe, Mike. Bye Joe!” He dragged Mike past his brother, down the corridor and into his room. Carefully locking the door behind him so as to avoid any fraternal interference.
There was the briefest moment of bonecrushing silence before Mike shoved Kevin back up against the door.
**
“So can we have sex now?”
“No. You knew that was coming, right?”
“Yeah.” Silence. “But we are boyfriends, right?”
“Well, the internet said we were.”
**
The End!
Hope you enjoyed! Do tell. ^_^
Authors: xrysomou and xaritomene
Rating: PG
Warnings: Chronic awkwardness, faily boys in love and Mike Carden, but no serious warnings. (Except Mike Carden. He's a serious warning, right?)
Pairing: Mike Carden/Kevin Jonas
Word Count: 4819
Summary: "So... the internet says we should be gay boyfriends. What say you?"
AN: Written primarily because of a post here at sodamnskippy, about how a Google search of 'Mike Carden' brings up a popular search of 'Mike Carden Kevin Jonas'. This was intended to be much more meta-y and awesome, but descended pretty quickly into shameless fluff... sorry?
This is our first Skippy!fic, so our characterisation may be, er, off. Be gentle with us, if you can!
Cross-posted all over the damn shop, sorry!
**
Kevin’s phone rang at an ungodly hour of the morning. “So,” the caller said before he could so much as say ‘hallo’, “the internet says we should be gay boyfriends. What say you?”
“Who is this?” Kevin looked blearily at the screen.
“M’name’s Mike,” he was informed.
“And - how did you get my number?”
“Suspicious, suspicious, Jonas. What a disappointment.” A beat of silence. “Pete Wentz, kid. I know Pete Wentz. And he knows everyone. Including your mom.”
“What?!”
“OK, maybe not your mom. Hang on...”
“Yes?”
“This is Kevin Jonas, right?” The voice had acquired a suspicious tone of its own. “Not one of the small, evil ones, right?”
“My brothers aren’t evil!” He protested instinctively, then added. “And yes, this is Kevin.” Damn his mother for raising him truthful. He should have said ‘Joe’.
“Oh, good. Apparently, we should be having sex.”
“And you decided this was a good idea... why?”
“Well, the internet thinks it’s a good idea.”
“The internet thinks Pete Wentz and that other guy are having sex.”
“Yeah?”
“Are- are they, then?”
“Well, if by ‘that other guy’, you mean Patrick, then yes. Yes, they are.”
“Oh.” Kevin digested this for a moment. “OK then.”
“So it’s all set, then?” Before Kevin could so much as reply, the guy said, “sorry, gotta go, Bill’s angsting. Talk to you later, Jonas!”
The dial tone sounded before Kevin could even think of a response. “But I still don’t know your name,” he told the phone futilely, and clicked off his end of the connection.
**
Half an hour of Google searching threw up one ‘Mike’ who would know Pete Wentz and would be spending time with a ‘Bill’. Unfortunately, that one Mike was ‘Mike Carden’, who had a killer stare.
“No, really,” Kevin told Joe when he made sceptical noises. “He looks like a serial killer.”
“So block his number!”
“I don’t know how!” He wailed. He didn’t want to admit that he was also kind of intrigued. When he’d Googled Carden’s name, his own had also appeared two ‘popular searches’ from the bottom, and he was kind of - fascinated. It was like watching the most awesome train wreck ever.
Failing to receive any support from his brothers, he gritted his teeth, stuck his courage to the sticking place and texted the serial killer back. He started simple. ‘are you mike carden?’
‘um. y.’
‘you never actually said’
‘my bad’
‘this is kevin btw’
‘i know, kid. sup.’
‘not much.’
‘JONAS YOU AND MIKE NEED TO HAVE SEX RIGHT NOW. NOW NOW NOW.’
‘...what?’
‘sorry sisky stole the phone’
‘oh. Ok. My brothers might do that too sometimes’
‘your brothers wont be texting me about sex though right. The purity ring says no’
‘in Joes case its pretty much just a suggestion. But. No.’
‘how about in your case?’
‘i have to go now’
‘jonas?’ no reply. ‘coward.’
**
Kevin, without even realising it, managed to fall into something of a routine with the texts. If something big happened, he texted Mike about it as a matter of course and almost always got a reply, even ‘wtf kid its 5 am and i didnt need to hear about the awesome cat macro right now’. Kevin had felt kind of guilty about that one.
Then he started texting Mike when things got boring, because Mike evidently did the same. They exchanged desultory texts like ‘syour fave color Mike?”
‘fuschia’
‘really?’
‘no’
‘so no fuschia curtains, then’
‘do it and you die’
‘its for our fuschia colored house’
There was no reply for half an hour and Kevin started to worry that he’d gone too far. Then: ‘death, jonas. Our house will be blue’
‘tasteful blue, right’
‘electric’
‘so not tasteful then’
‘shut it kid’
Then Kevin found himself ringing Mike when he was a bit low, a bit bored, a bit - anything, really. And when pressed, he couldn’t even explain what it was about Mike’s deadpan monotone drawl which was so comforting.
“Is this the same guy you called a serial killer?” Joe asked sceptically, when Nick had barricaded himself in the back lounge and refused to allow them access to Halo.
“Er. Yeah.” Kevin wrestled with an explanation. “He’s just - nice.”
“Nice,” Joe turned the thought over in his mind. “O-K... So, you’re gay now, then?” He moved on with typical brotherly candour.
“I don’t know!” Kevin said quickly. “We’re just -” What were they? Friends? Phone buddies? Ships that passed in the technological night?
“Just...?” Joe prodded.
“I don’t know, OK? I don’t know.”
“You’re boyfriends, then,” Joe decided calmly.
“Bzuh?!” Kevin squeaked.
“Well, he does want to be having hot sweaty sex with you,” Joe reminded him. “So you should tell him if you don’t.”
Huh. Kevin had forgotten that. “Oh. Yeah.”
“So, you’re not friends... you’re not boyfriends... and he texts you all the time and rang you that one time at like three in the morning when he was off his face... so he’s your stalker.”
Kevin didn’t dignify that with a response.
Once Joe had gone off to bother someone else, Kevin sat down and had a good heart-to-heart with himself. So, really, just a heart, then, he supposed. A mind-to-heart? Whatever. This was why he never got anything done.
What was Mike to him?
Time to find out. ‘we should meet’ he texted him, and proceeded to panic when he didn’t get an immediate response.
‘ok. When and where’
‘um. new York? Are you in new York anytime soon?’
‘were there in three weeks but its pretty big. I need exact coordinates jonas.’ Kevin texted him the address of the hotel. ‘see you there then. Does this mean i get sex? Because bill keeps laughing at me’
‘no!’ Kevin texted back indignantly
‘bummer’
‘no sex for you’ Kevin informed him haughtily and switched off his phone.
**
All might have been well had Joe not had such a good memory and Kevin not had such horrible brothers. It was a week and a half after his conversation with Joe vis-a-vis Mike, but apparently, all that time had done was give Joe longer to spread it around. And then he decided to share with the world.
“So, how’re things?” the interviewer said with that bright, ‘I’m-talking-to-children’ smile they had seen in every interview since Kevin was sixteen and far too old for things like that.
Joe shrugged, and offered his own bright, ‘I’m-talking-to-an-idiot’ smile in return. “Not bad. The tour’s going real well, and the fans are as great as normal... oh, and Kevin has a stalker!”
Kevin felt a shock of ice water go down his spine and just knew that he had jerked upright. Had it not been very early in the morning - had his brain been connected to his mouth, he would have played it down. ‘Just one of those fans... just part of the job... really flattering...’. No. Instead, he stared at his knees and mumbled, “Mike’s just a friend.” And then - too late, Kevin thought viciously at it - his brain kicked in and went “no no no!!”.
“Mike, huh?” The interviewer turned The Child Smile on Kevin. The Child Smile was starting to look a little strained - these were, after all, the poster children for Disney’s middle American purity, and gay stalkers were never, ever on the agenda. Especially not before watershed.
“Carden,” Nick supplied helpfully. Kevin gave him a quick look of Death and received a beatific smile in return.
Kevin offered the interviewer a sickly smile. “Mike’s a friend,” he repeated. Perfect, he snarled to himself. Now he sounded like a broken record. He clamped his mouth shut, thought for a second then added, “who texts me sometimes.”
In the awkward silence which followed, Kevin sat frozen for a couple of seconds, then decided to concentrate firmly on smiling.
**
By the time they left the interview, Kevin had four missed calls, three from the studio and one from his mom, and about thirty texts, most of which were from numbers he didn’t recognise, and ranged from the solely amused (‘AHAHAHAHAHAHA’) to the threatening (‘I will tear down you and everything you hold dear, Jonas!’) to the salacious (‘You and ‘your stalker’ will have a lot of hot sweaty boysex, Jonas. The power of the Cobra compels you!’) to the merely obscene (he knew exactly who had sent that picture of their dick, and he was looking at you, Pete Wentz).
On the whole, Kevin was sincerely tempted to pull an Anne Hathaway from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and throw his phone into the nearest fountain. Mike would find some way to contact him, he was sure. Like - homing pigeons. Or email! Or... through his bedroom window at the dead of night to strangle him.
It was possible Kevin needed a safehouse.
**
Mike was not having a good day. He had been woken at six in the morning by the sound of Bill’s epic existential angst, which would have been fine had he not known, just known, that Bill was doing it solely to annoy him. Even Bill at his lowest had never crawled into Carden’s bunk and yelled “WHY AM I ALIVE!?” with quite that look of unholy glee on his face.
Then the bus had broken down, forcing everyone to stand in the rain for a good half hour whilst people tutted ineffectually over broken, steaming engines. When they finally got back to areas of civilisation and phone signal, Mike had twenty texts, a handful of missed calls and a video link.
It had been five years. He really should have learnt by now that a video link from Pete Wentz should never be clicked on. The last (entitled ‘cute n fuzzy!!!!’) had been panda porn, and Chiz had never been the same since.
This video looked set to do much the same for Mike.
“Oh, fuck.”
**
When Kevin’s phone rang - again - he almost didn’t even bother looking at the Caller ID. When he did, however, he dropped it like it was burning, and backed away in panic. “I’m sorry?” he offered pathetically, and Nick patted his knee.
“If it’s meant to be, he will forgive you,” he said sagely.
“Oh, that’s rich!” Kevin snapped. “Forgive me?! I didn’t say anything! You were the ones who gave his name, surname, social security number, address, credit card transactions...!”
Joe gave him a pitying look. “Drama queen.”
As Kevin fumed ineffectually, Nick said, “we told them his name-”
“And they all have google!” Kevin snapped back. “You underestimate the power of the Google!” And so help him God, he had almost said ‘the Cobra’. In his defence, whoever it was had sent him twelve further texts, all of them featuring cobras in some capacity. He wasn’t sure that last one was even legal.
**
His phone kept on ringing. When Kevin finally plucked up the courage to pick up, Mike very nearly snapped at him.
“Jesus, kid, I’ve been ringing for like three days now, you couldn’t find a moment to chat?”
“Hi, Mike,” Kevin said lamely. “How are things?”
“Things are weird. Mostly because my entire label thinks I’m a stalker, and even if they don’t think that, they’re telling everyone anyway because they think it’s funny. Also, your mom rang.”
Kevin winced. “I’m so sorry-”
“No, no - apparently I’m a ‘nice young man’. No one’s said that to me since I was about seven.”
“Well, I’m really sorry about the whole stalker thing. My brothers are kind of awful.”
“Eh, I told you. Evil,” Mike said easily.
“I guess,” Kevin said, and then there was an awkward silence. “Look, if you don’t want to meet up now, I totally understand, cos this whole thing has been a disaster and it’s really-”
“Hey, kid, hey! We’re still on, OK? Or are you chickening out on me?”
“No chickens here,” Kevin said quickly and then kicked himself. Mike chuckled.
“Good to know you’re not some creepy fetishist, Jonas. We’ll find out what you’re into later.”
“Must we?”
“It’s not all hellfire and damnation, you know that, right? You don’t go to bed with someone and find the devil waiting for you behind the door, pitchfork in hand.”
Kevin wondered if it was possible to blush so hard that it was visible over the phone. “I don’t think that, it’s just-”
“I know, kid, you’re alright. I was just-”
“Being nasty?” Kevin asked as acidly as he could.
A momentary silence. “Er, yeah,” Mike sounded like he was fighting a smile. “It’s what I do.”
**
Kevin spent the last few remaining days before their meeting working himself up into an absolute frenzy of panic. Mike was going to take one look at him and laugh in his face. Worse, he would laugh at Mike, or he would scream and run away. And then he would never be able to go outside ever again. He would have to live in his mom’s basement and have meals fed to him through the door.
“I think that dude from My Chemical Romance did that for a while,” Nick said absently, callously ignoring Kevin’s Pain.
“He’s cooler than I am!” Kevin said, biting one of his nails. “He’s in a rockband.”
“So are we!”
“No, we’re in a Disney band with our brothers,” Kevin corrected caustically. “Any younger and our only audience would be our parents in the living room.”
“Kevin - you’re twenty two.”
“Oh, God, I’ll just move into basement now, shall I?”
“Dude, I really think you’re over-thinking this,” Joe said, plopping down next to him on the sofa. “You’re going to meet up, make out and come home.”
“OK,” this sounded like a simple, step-by-step plan Kevin could follow. “Meet up, make- what!?”
“Kevin.” Joe said seriously. “You spend half the day texting him and the other half talking about him. It’s really tedious and a surefire sign that you’re boyfriends, okay? Just accept it.”
With that, he left Kevin there, completely poleaxed.
**
“Jonas,” Mike greeted him, straightening up from his sexy lean against their hotel building. And that was ridiculous, because he was leaning. He was just leaning. Not sexy-leaning. Just leaning. There was nothing sexy about leaning. But Mike made it sexy, somehow... god, how had Kevin not noticed that he was this gone before? “Jonas?” Mike tried again, clicking his fingers in front of Kevin’s eyes.
“Yeah! Hi! Sorry, I’m kind of spacey.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike offered him a lopsided grin.
“Yes. Of course you do.” He glanced round. “Er, can we go inside? That girl has a lean and hungry look in her eyes and it’s starting to scare me.”
Once he had hustled Mike inside, they sat awkwardly in the hotel bar looking at each other. “So,” Kevin started uncomfortably, knowing that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was bound to be a bad idea. “Are you here long?”
“Nah, not long. Two shows and some time for sight-seeing. Y’know, every time I come here, I’m always kind of disappointed that there’s no Stark Industries Tower or Avenger’s Mansion.”
“Huh?”
“Y’know. Iron Man, Captain America, that lot.”
“You know,” Kevin said contemplatively, “you’re a lot goofier in person.” And there was the bad idea.
Mike just looked amused. “Eh, you’re a lot more coherent. At least, you form full sentences. There was a while there where I wasn’t totally sure you spoke English.”
“I speak English,” Kevin said redundantly.
“Oh, Jonas, what’m I gonna do with you?” Mike asked with a grin.
“Feed me?” Kevin said and watched as Mike visibly jumped to a filthy conclusion. “Breakfast! Nothing dirty!”
Mike’s eyebrows slid upwards. “You often have dirty breakfasts, kid?”
“Dude, I live with my mom!” Kevin protested, then watched, bemused, as Mike started laughing and evidently couldn’t stop. Eventually, he laughed himself out, stood up and grabbed his jacket. He had, Kevin couldn’t help noticing, lovely hands.
“C’mon, then, let’s go grab you some clean, porn-free breakfast.”
Kevin followed him out of the hotel, still a little confused.
**
They talked over bagels until Kevin was nearly late for soundcheck. As it was, he may as well have not turned up for soundcheck at all, because he went through it in a complete daze. Later, waiting the wings to go onstage, Joe poked him in the stomach.
“So, it went well?”
Kevin nodded like an imbecile. He couldn’t seem to wipe the stupid grin from his face. Joe raised his eyebrows.
“So what happened? What did you do?”
Kevin, mentally still in the breakfast bar with Mike, heaved a happy sigh. “Yeah...”
“Dude!”
“What!?” Kevin jerked back to the present.
“What. Did. You. Do. With your. Stalker?” Joe was using the tone of voice he reserved solely for journalists.
“Don’t call him that! He’s not my stalker. He’s not even my boyfriend,” Kevin finished morosely, and Joe raised his eyes to heaven.
“Kevin, you are boyfriends. You are ten steps away from a white wedding, a white picket fence, and three orphans from Cambodia. Now come on, focus. You spent an entire morning with him. From, what, ten til three?”
“About that,” Kevin said dreamily.
“So,” there was iron patience in Joe’s voice. “What happened?”
“Oh, we just talked.”
“Oh my God, you are actually Sandy from Grease, aren’t you?”
“No,” Kevin said with dignity, whilst his brain idiotically added ‘I wouldn’t look as good in high-waisted leather pants.’ Then, he mentally slapped himself.
“So. You talked. Did you make out?”
Kevin considered it. Did a pat on the shoulder count? It was body contact, but then again, no. “Um, no. Not really.”
“Do you have some kind of mental block about sex, Kevin?” Joe asked carefully. “Because - there are people you can talk to about that, y’know.”
“No! No, I’m fine with sex! I have plenty of dreams about Mike’s dick!”
Joe paused. “OK. Well, I’m going to wipe that from my mind, and you, bro, are going to make plans to see this guy tomorrow. You’ve gotta give the poor guy something.”
Kevin, still smarting from the ‘Sandy’ dig, gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Like what, promise rings?”
“Sarcasm ages the skin, Kevin!” Before Kevin could respond, Joe shot him a shit-eating grin and headed for the stage. “We’re up!”
**
“Dude, you can’t leave the poor kid hanging like that!” Bill’s eyes were huge and full of reproach, and also five inches away from Mike’s face. Had they been further away, and had Mike been planning on leaving Kevin hanging anywhere, he was sure he would have broken under the pressure of the look alone. As it was:
“Bill, personal space,” he said, shoving him backwards to flump down on the sofas the other side of the bus. “And I wasn’t going to leave him hanging.”
“Yeah, how did your date with your lady-love go?” Adam asked, plopping down opposite him.
“Good, thanks. And don’t call him that. It’s demeaning.” Mike scowled as his bandmates cat-called as one.
Bill leant forwards again. “Was that your word for the day?” he asked sweetly and ducked to avoid a swipe.
“Shut up. Look, we just talked,” this last directed at Adam. “It was fun.” He was met with four uniformly blank looks. “Y’all are bastards. And sometimes chastity is fun!”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “Once more with conviction?”
“I think it’s sweet,” Chizzy opined, and patted Mike on the shoulder on his way to the bunks.
“Whatever you have to do to get through it, man,” Butcher told him, following Chizzy back.
“Seriously, though,” Bill said, after the others had gone. “Call the kid, OK? I remember when you were that awkward kid-”
“Bill, I’m still that awkward kid. Just bigger.”
“This is no time for boasting, Mike,” Bill grinned, “cos it’s not like your Jonas bride is going to see it for a long, long time.”
“Bill, if I’m ever stupid enough to introduce you to him, try not to be too obscene. He might faint and he’ll probably bring up his mom, and it’ll just be awkward for all involved.”
“His mom?” Bill looked faintly revolted.
“Yeah, you see? Awkward. Go to bed, man. I’mna ring him.” He watched Bill as far out of hearing range as it was possible to get, and picked up his phone to dial, only for it to ring, and Kevin’s google-searched image to appear on the screen. Rather than waste time wondering how the image got there, he just picked up. “Kev, my main man.”
“Hi. Are you drunk?”
“Most of the time, but not right now. Which is probably why I sound like this. And called you ‘my main man’, oh my god. Never meet me sober.”
To his relief, Kevin laughed. “OK, well, I was just thinking-”
Courage, Carden. “Before you say anything, I was wondering whether you wanted to meet up sometime tomorrow?”
“Uh. Yeah, yeah, that sounds - well, actually, that sounds exactly like what I was going to ask you.”
“You know what it is, Jonas? It’s,” Mike had been about to say ‘great minds’, but that got lost on the way to his mouth and what actually came out was, “a Vulcan mindmeld.”
There was a pause. “Is that some kind of deviant sexual practice I should look up?” Kevin sounded genuinely worried. “Because I want to be able to look my mom in the eye the next time I see her.”
“Oh God, please stop mentioning your mom,” Mike groaned.
Kevin laughed a surprisingly evil laugh. “I was just kidding,” he sounded delighted. “So, when do you wanna meet?”
“Same time tomorrow?”
“I have an interview,” Kevin said regretfully. “Can we make it half an hour later?”
“Sure. You going to tell everyone I’m your stalker again?”
“No, I was going to tell everyone -” Kevin suddenly stopped talking.
“What?”
“Nothing. I have to go. Sleep.”
Mike sat up. “Jonas, what? Do not hang up on me, do not-” Dial tone. “Tease,” he muttered and absent-mindedly threw his phone across the room before stomping off to his bunk.
**
“Good morning! Are you drunk?” Kevin beamed at Mike.
“Is this going to be a running theme?” Mike asked, rubbing his eyes blearily.
“Well, the first time I was worried. Now I want to make sure.”
“S’ok. I’m completely hammered.”
“Oh good. Breakfast? I’m starving.”
“And looking particularly... you know what, I wish I could say ‘good’, but I can’t tell a lie. You look like death, Jonas.”
“Yeah... I was up till three marathoning Star Trek after your ‘Vulcan mindmeld’ thing,” Kevin agreed.
“You like Star Trek?”
“Never seen it before. It was better than I thought it would be!”
“You’d never seen Star Trek before?” Mike looked horrified. “Next time we both have a break, you are coming to mine for a proper marathon, none of this YouTube shit.”
“OK,” Kevin said affably, trying to act cool whilst most of his mind deserted him in favour of going ‘eeee!!!’ “So long as there’ll be pizza.”
“Of course there’ll be pizza. What kind of host do you think I am? And it’ll be proper, Chicago pizza, none of your New York shit.”
“Please, New York pizza is the best.”
“OK then, Jonas,” Mike gestured at the city around them. “Prove it.”
“OK!”
“What, now!?”
“When better?” Kevin asked, making with the big eyes.
“Kid, it’s quarter to eleven in the morning!”
“Yeah! So? It’ll be fresh!”
“They don’t make to order? What is this blasphemy?”
**
“Eh,” Mike looked down at his plate. “I suppose it wasn’t total shit.”
“High praise,” Kevin grinned, and that was when he realised he’d been flirting. He’d probably been flirting really obviously (and really badly) the entire time. It was a like a magic charm - he could feel his muscles starting to freeze up in embarrassment. He managed to squeak out something about “I need to go pee!” before making good his escape to the bathroom.
He remembered Joe’s words as he was splashing water on his face, and his stomach curled up, cramping around the pizza. He froze, staring at his dripping face in the mirror, and only unfroze a couple of minutes later. “Right, we can do this,” he muttered at his reflection. “We are no longer fourteen years old. We can kiss a guy,” ridiculously, he added to himself, “and we will like it.”
“Um, are ‘we’ OK?” asked a voice from the door. Kevin spun round with a manly shriek. “Because ‘we’ve’ been in here for, like, ten minutes.”
“Mike! Yes, we - I, I! - am fine, honestly. I’ll be out soon?”
“OK, then?” Mike said and disappeared.
Kevin let his head thunk back against the mirror.
It was OK, though. He totally could do this.
Oh God.
**
Kevin was all but silent in the taxi back to his hotel, mentally gearing himself up for The Big Moment. Mike walked him into the lobby, keeping what he seemed to feel was an obligatory two foot distance between them. Finally, displaying the first signs of awkwardness since they’d met, he said, “Um, well. This has been fun? But I think I’d better go no-”
“Youshouldcomeup,” Kevin said in a rush.
“I - I didn’t get any of that,” Mike said after a brief but apparently fierce battle between the flattering lie and the ignominious truth.
“You should,” Kevin swallowed, “come upstairs. To my room. For,” for what, Kevin, genius, his mind demanded.
Mike saved him. “For coffee?” He suggested.
“Yes!” Kevin agreed, rather fiercely.
“Ok then, c’mon Jonas. Show me to your room.” He paused. “You don’t room with your brothers, right?”
“Not anymore. I,” Kevin said, with dramatic haughtiness, “have my own room.” Dropping the act, he added, “it got really boring listening to them wank. Not that it was ever interesting! But now I don’t have to listen at all! So. Um.”
“You have no filter at all, do you Jonas?” Mike asked sympathetically.
“No. I’m hell to interview,” Kevin agreed.
Mike laughed and, apparently instinctively let his hand drift down to link with Kevin’s. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
As he was towed towards the elevators, Kevin wondered whether this was a ‘we’re boyfriends!’ hand-holding or a ‘I’m with the mental equivalent of a toddler who needs to be guided safely and carefully towards his destination!’ hand-holding. He was just starting to fret when the elevator arrived, and Mike dragged him into it.
“Jonas, I can hear you thinking. I am holding your hand,” the doors slid shut, “because we are boyfriends. The internet told us so, remember?”
“Oh. Yes,” Kevin nodded, torn between relief and ecstasy.
“And the internet is...?” Mike prodded.
“Always right?”
“Well done.”
Kevin, tired of fretting, decided that there was no time like the present and he probably wasn’t going to get a better moment than this. Looking back at their first kiss, the initial impetus was really more of a lunge than anything else and Mike, caught off balance, stumbled backwards and almost hit his head on the mirror.
He did, however, manage to catch Kevin before he fell ignominiously at Mike’s feet. He also managed to keep a calm head. “Hallo,” he said to the boy he was currently holding up by the elbows.
“Hi,” Kevin replied, and swooped in.
Their first kiss, as kisses went, was pretty damn terrible. Kevin managed to hit his face on Mike’s nose, bust his lip on Mike’s teeth and then nearly bit Mike’s tongue. This was in between Mike planting a flailing elbow in Kevin’s solar plexus and, in dragging him forwards, almost tripped him up. At least, Kevin reflected ruefully, the incompetence was mutual.
“Well,” Mike said after a momentary silence. “That was a bit, um, bad. How ’bout we try that again?”
“OK,” Kevin agreed amiably.
Their next attempt wasn’t exactly better, but it was more coordinated. One of Mike’s hands came up to cup Kevin’s cheek, manoeuvring him carefully into place, and they managed not to bump noses. Kevin may have got a little frisky with the teeth, but Mike didn’t seem to mind - he gave as good as he got, in fact - and all in all, what had started out as rather unpromising had left them dishevelled and red-faced when the elevator opened on Kevin’s floor to reveal - Joe.
Joe took one look at the pair of them and said, “finally, thank God!”
“Er - Kevin?”
“Hi, Joe,” Kevin managed, chronically embarrassed. “Mike, Joe, Joe, Mike. Bye Joe!” He dragged Mike past his brother, down the corridor and into his room. Carefully locking the door behind him so as to avoid any fraternal interference.
There was the briefest moment of bonecrushing silence before Mike shoved Kevin back up against the door.
**
“So can we have sex now?”
“No. You knew that was coming, right?”
“Yeah.” Silence. “But we are boyfriends, right?”
“Well, the internet said we were.”
**
The End!
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