#i'm beyond happy he had a mirror scene lol what are the chances?!

[mastersoftheair]

↳ inspired by @ww2yaoi's post

[pynkhues]

I'm not so patiently waiting for any and all C+C updates 😬😬😬 lol. Seriously you're fics make me so happy.

Haha, thank you! I know I kept promising the Christmas C&C fic, but I’ve gotten way, way too distracted writing this one for Kenny’s 15th birthday which is extremely low stakes / very domestic and has been so much fun in so many ways (including a scene I now love where Rio’s sister accuses Rio of being a helicopter parent), and I’ve been able to work quite a lot of smaller prompts into it that I wasn’t sure I could write a full fic for, so yay! 

I was hoping to post it today, and I still might, but I think it’s more likely it’ll be tomorrow since it’s gotten so long. You can have a snippet though if you like!

-

“When?” she asks, sitting up in bed, clutching the sheet to her bare chest, and Rio blinks his eyes back open, forehead furrowing in confusion.

“When what?”

“I mean give me an example of when they’ve - - ” she flails a hand out. “Hit on me.”

And she squints a little, immediately annoyed at the too-big, too-bright grin that spreads across his face. He turns a little over in their bed towards her, popping an eyebrow and not even bothering to hide his amusement which is frankly rude. Beth squints harder, holds the sheet a little tighter.

“You wanna know when Kenny’s classmates hit on you?”

He says it with such heavy disbelief, that Beth latches onto it, widening her eyes and nodding.

“See? It sounds ridiculous.”

“Only sounds ridiculous coz you ain’t seein’ it.”

She rolls her eyes, thins her lips down at him, and Rio laughs, propping himself up on his elbow so that he’s sort of half raised to meet her, and she has to resist the urge to flatten her hand on his face and push him back down onto their bed.

“’Sides, they ain’t hittin’ on you, they’re just checkin’ you out, prob’ly seein’ which one can get the best look down your blouse,” his eyes slip shut again as he yawns and says something that sounds suspiciously like horny motherfuckers. Beth frowns. Thing is, she’s barely even noticed them looking at her. They’re a study group for goodness sake, it makes sense they’d want to spread out around the dining room table while she’s making dinner in the kitchen, or working on something she brought home from the office at the kitchen island.

They come in sometimes to talk to her, but that’s just because they’re polite, and usually it’s to ask her if she can make them a hot cocoa or something, and okay, maybe she did look up the other day as she was stirring in the cocoa powder and Mason was staring at her chest or - - that was probably nothing, she reminds herself. God - -  

“They’re children,” Beth insists, and Rio laughs again, a little exasperated this time. He shakes his head, before glancing back up at Beth, his eyes wider than they have any right to be, inquisitive almost.  

“How old’s Kenny turnin’ next week?”

And right, Beth thinks. That’s exactly it!

“Fifteen,” she says, punctuating her point, and Rio holds his hand out like it proves his.

They both just stare at each other, briefly confused how the other can’t get it, and Beth finally scoffs, flopping heavily sideways into her pillow, resting on her elbow, mirroring Rio’s pose so she can better argue with him.  

“Please, when I was fifteen I had only just started dating Dean and we were like,” she flails a hand out. “Babies. We thought the sexiest thing in the world was holding hands at the drive-in. We didn’t even kiss until my sixteenth birthday.”

He gives her a look at that which is simultaneously incredibly amused and incredibly judgemental.

“Yeah, coz that dumbass ex of yours couldn’t close a deal if it came pre-signed,” he says. “Wanna know what I was doin’ at fifteen?”

Which - - well.

“No,” she replies petulantly, because while she knows Rio’s history is certainly - - extensive to say the least, she can’t say beyond brief bouts of insanity she’s ever had any desire to know the details. Rio grins again, huffing out a laugh.

“Look, it ain’t that deep. You’re their friend’s mom, you got this whole too-sweet, Martha Stewart energy in this stacked, Jessica Rabbit package. They know they ain’t got no chance beyond lookin’ down your shirt and standin’ a little too close, but they gonna try it anyway coz they’re young and they’re really fuckin’ dumb. You get uncomfortable with it, you tell them to take a walk. They don’t, you snitch on their horny asses to their parents. That don’t work, you tell me, and me and them can all have a little talk.”

He shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Beth stares at him, irked by the blasé authority of his tone, like he knows what this is, like - - like it isn’t the first time he’s going through this with a kid too.  

“I’d rather you didn’t pull a gun on a group of teenagers for looking at me,” she says dryly, before adding: “Which I’m not even convinced they do by the way.”  

Rio rolls his eyes, looking briefly at the ceiling before back at Beth.

“Then what are we talkin’ about?”

And - - well. She doesn’t even really know. It had just surprised her – how Annie and Ruby – god, even Stan, had been so certain that Mason had a crush. Little Mason, who’s been coming around since Kenny started at Glenvale almost three years ago, bright eyed and sweet and helpful and a child and if Mason’s growing up, then that probably means Kenny is too.

She feels her lower lip wobble before she can even help it, and sees Rio clock it, frown, but before he can say anything, Beth quickly cuts him off.

“Well Annie thinks one of the boys has a thing for you,” she says, putting on her best know it all voice that both Rio and Ruby say is going to get her in trouble one day, and for a minute, Beth doesn’t think he’s going to let her pivot, but in the end he just lets loose a smug grin, shrugging knowingly.

“Mm,” he hums. “One with the glasses and those ugly ass sneakers?”

And just - -

Okay.

That’s not fair.

“His name is Tommy,” she sniffs, but dammit, he is the one with the glasses and the ugly sneakers. “How do you even know that?”

“Just because it takes someone proposition’ you in the passenger seat of your mama van to realise someone’s checkin’ you out don’t mean we all got that problem.”

Beth blinks, a flush finding her cheeks, sliding down her chest before she can help it, and Rio’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and she knows he’s going to press them to the bony cup at the top of her sternum before he even does. He likes that, she knows, to taste her blush.

She shivers pleasantly, raking her nails down through his hair, feeling him purr against her chest.

“It didn’t take that, just so you know,” she tells him. “I knew way earlier.”

Well, a little earlier, not that much earlier, but - -

He makes a placating noise, but she knows he doesn’t believe her. His hands glide down over her naked sides beneath the sheet, pulling her hips against his and Beth lets herself be pulled, despite still feeling a little sore from doing all of this fifteen minutes ago. His recovery time really is pretty unbelievable.

Lifting his head, Rio just stares at her for a minute, like he’s trying to read something on her face, when suddenly he says:

“You gonna make all this a thing?”

“No,” she replies quickly, and Rio makes a noise like he doesn’t quite believe her, and Beth grins, leaning in to kiss him, snaking her hand down between them. It’s not like they’ve never used sex to distract each other before. Besides, it’s not a thing.

She doesn’t think it’s a thing?

(It’s probably a thing.)