#STUPID OBTUSE HIMBOS JUST SHUT UP AND ADMIT YOUR FEELINGS!!!!! WHY AM I HERE!!!! I WRITE ONLY TO SUFFER!!!!!

[heffrondriving]

ooh happy one year anniversary to the super angsty himbo boyfriends secret/fake dating au that broke my heart into a million teeny pieces and legitimately hasn't left my mind for a straight year and the draft is already 50k+ words and counting at this cursed time but i still haven't made any moves to actually publish it…..clown hours peaking yuh 🤡

@digitalfate i originally posted this snippet for you so um. sorry for torturing you with this dumb wip for so long btw. it will happen again </3 and @cvsmicbaddie1 i think i rambled too much abt this to you at some point in our tomes of messages so i swear hand on heart that both of you are at fullest permission to cyberbully me into actually finishing this fic ajjajaja pls i beg i need it- ლ(ಥ益ಥლ)

saccharin pink, aspartame blue (sugar-free) | BTR WIP

Jett opened the door a sliver of a crack wider, just enough for James to accidentally snag his jeans on the doorknob and lurch wildly once more. Perfect, just as he had masterminded. Hey, it was his house getting intruded upon, he was allowed to have some fun. Jett suppressed a smirk as he watched the taller boy flail about with all the grace of an inflatable tube man, before steadying James with a mild bump of the palms to the small of his back.

“Woah there, tiger. Gotcha.”

James gave the actor a grateful nod as he shuffled in more carefully this time, scanning Jett’s place with bloodshot, bewildered eyes. He uncomfortably wedged himself by one of the dining stools, barely managing to keep his balance while he propped his elbows against the kitchen counter, all before instantly skidding downwards and banging his chin on the slippery surface with a sickening crunch and a pained scream.

It was simply too much, and Jett couldn’t hold back his chortles that time. He almost wished he had a hot bowl of butter-free, white cheddar and Himalayan-salted popcorn with him—because like a clumsy puppy chasing around to bite its own tail before tripping over uncoordinated paws, nth-drinks-later James was a truly pathetic sight to behold, and Jett was having the time of his life.

Unable to recover from his pratfall and with nothing much else to do, the out-of-commission singer settled for burying his head in his folded arms and groaning all I was a Teenage Zombie-like instead.

Okay—pranks and giggles over, ‘cause that slapstick act was not-so amusing for Jett. God, James was really killing the positive feng shui up in his business. All that careful furniture arrangement he laboriously had to go through solo over the span of a hundred-degree-forecast weekend, and for what? Some depressed boozehound with a lump of dirt for brains wrecking the serene atmosphere of his home with all the baddest vibes possible?

Jett sighed exasperatedly, though it wasn’t really at the forefront of his concerns. Because this whole situation, as incredibly annoying as it was, was also quite intriguing. So maybe he was going to regret asking—at the very costly price of having to put up with sobbing and whining and ew, human emotions—but the curiosity was burning holes in his rudely-jarred subconscious, and be damned if he wasn’t gonna be a conniving man and pry some potentially-useful information out of James, before the poor sod inevitably blacked out and forgot about the whole affair and wakes up messed-up and mugged-out in some back-alley dumpster.

“Well, if I’m gonna have to deal with your B.S. for a few minutes more, then may as well get some answers,” he casually started. “So tell me, why this whole mess of you, Diamond?”

“It’s nothing,” came the low grumble of a response, muffled from beneath James’ forearms. “Well, no, that’s a big fat lie actually—it’s everything. ‘Cause it’s just that, Lucy, she already left for her European tour, but…I still can’t stop thinking about her. She’s the love of my life, and I—” He darkened. “I really hoped I could’ve been with her by now, but even after all my hardest efforts to try to win her over…she will never be mine. And now everything I wanted is gone. All of it. She was…she is my everything.”

“How…tragic.” Jett’s lips screwed into a half-sympathetic slant as he approached the tormented boy and gave him an awkward pat or two on the back. And maybe even one more, to be sure. Was that enough? Swear to god, he was trying his very best—but even if he didn’t, James was probably way too out of his mind and all the way into deep space nine to notice anyway, so who cared?

Not Jett, for one; but here he was, enduring through the motions of it all the same. It was just the same old bland bullshit, same old girl problems, same old repressed boycase sobbing up a storm on his shoulder and leaving him to get drenched anyway, nothing he hasn’t been bored of before. He really should’ve just taught aqua aerobics at overcrowded state penitentiaries or donated half his future earnings to Save the Koalas, if he was gonna be this uncharacteristically charitable. Those options took a whole lot less effort than this, for sure.

“Would you like…some uh, water?” Jett offered. “Or a Wu Lou mantra bracelet? Heck, a friggin’ hotline number to Dr. Phil?”

Revived with a bolt of frustration, James suddenly rose up and staggered forward, grabbing the surprised actor by his designer seigaiha silk robe and pulling him in close. Jett could now fully smell the reek of alcohol and regret on James, rancid and stale and disgustingly desperate. He gagged as he turned away and tried not to inhale—it was so suffocating and now the anger and loser vibes and negative energy were getting all over him, which was some seriously big bad feng shui!

“Why…why doesn’t she want me, Jett? Why?”

“I don’t know, and I really don’t care a cow’s lick. Now get your rough grubby man-hands off—of—me!”

“I just don’t understand it…every girl I’ve ever met has wanted me. I mean, I’m handsome…and charming…and talented…and very lovable too—not to mention, I’ve got a sensitive side to me, and I kiss amazingly!”

“I think you forgot to mention your superplanet-sized ego, captain asswipe, surely the ladies luuurve that.”

“Oh, ‘cause you’d know, huh?” James scoffed, mirthless breaths falling heavy on Jett’s neck and making him shudder. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. But it’s just like…for all the girls I could ever have in the world, it’s just never Lucy Stone, no. She’s one of a kind, and I want her—need her, so bad, but…why can’t she just love me?”

If Jett really wanted to play therapist, he would’ve accepted that hack role his agent tried to pass him ages ago, some stupid FOX medical show or whatever—but he never looked good in wire-frame dork glasses nor starchy white lab coats, and even trying to read the pilot’s name on the script cover alone was enough to make him reach for the aspirin bottle. For crying out loud, he was good at being a darling soap star superhunk, not at being some clinical desk drone-looking jockey like that Dak Zevon tweenage washout. And even if Jett’s acting chops were versatile enough to pull it off—which, no duh, it is—it still wouldn’t work, since he was never really great at consoling people, either. Like seriously, fuck all that messy melodramatic noise. He’d very much rather just stab someone with a goodnight syringe or something if they were gonna go full straitjacket neurotic on him.

Unfortunately, Jett didn’t have any liquid sedatives on hand, so he had to make do with his most piercing leer instead.

“You’re seriously nuts.”

“Tell me, Jett Stetson…” slurred James, taunting fingertips barely clinging to Jett’s exposed shoulder blades, a shiver of flowing silk against dirty leather, their dagger glares throwing sparks and only inches away from hitting a critical vein. “Why can’t she fucking love this?”