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billdenbrough · 4 months ago

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cannot possibly express enough how strange this one is. ok. @naturecalls111 prompted me (technically for microfic monday, but it was quickly determined to be untenable) kevaaron + frogs. there was an additional, informal element to the prompt she wanted that rocketed it from 488w (already egregious) to 1.6k (don't look at me), but i'm already wrestling with my psyche enough abt this one lmao. we'll leave that part to be a surprise so i don't have to think about it anymore HAHA. i guess. anyway. kevaaron + frogs, for mina.

“This is your fault,” Aaron says.

Kevin is affronted. “How could this be my fault!”

“Nobody cares enough about what I do to curse me,” Aaron points out, huffy. As huffy as a frog can be, anyway. “But you? Absolutely. You’re also really annoying.”

Kevin sulks.

“How sure are you?” Neil asks, following Nicky into the room. “I mean. Frogs?”

Nicky gives him an incredulous look, then snatches Kevin off the desk. Kevin makes the world’s most indignant croak, which everyone rudely ignores, except Aaron, who rolls his eyes.

“He has a queen mark,” Nicky exclaims, brandishing Kevin at Neil. “What kind of frog has a tattoo?”

Neil stares at it, then sighs. “Okay. Sure. Why not. So it’s Kevin. How do you know it’s Aaron with him?”

“Kevin wouldn’t leave without him, so it had to be one of us,” Nicky explains. Kevin thinks this is an optimistic reading of his character. “Which already probably meant Aaron, but I’ve confirmed he’s the only one also missing. So.”

“How did this happen?” Neil muses, sitting down on Kevin’s bed. His bed is right there. Kevin strongly considers kicking him. Except he doesn’t have the right feet.

Almost immediately after he has that thought, his mouth opens—without his express permission—and his tongue goes flying, a projectile aimed right at Neil’s face.

Neil barely manages to dodge, throwing up his arms and falling backwards quickly enough that Kevin’s tongue narrowly misses his skin. (Thank God.)

Nicky squawks, dropping Kevin, who thankfully lands on the desk. Aaron is watching Neil with interest. And Kevin—

Kevin is just pleased his aim and ability to forcibly correct Neil’s behaviour is still intact.

“Oh, gross,” Nicky complains. Neil looks relatively unruffled, though he shoots Kevin a slight glare before moving to his own bed. Thank you.

“Yep, that’s Kevin,” Neil mutters. “I wonder how Aaron got wrapped up in this.”

Nicky cocks his head.

“Assuming turning people into frogs is a real thing—which, okay, yeah—then I have to assume it doesn’t happen randomly,” Neil says. “And as annoying as Aaron can be—” Aaron rolls his eyes. Again. “—It’s gotta be Kevin, right? The reason?”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Nicky says immediately. Which is so rude.

“Maybe they were together?” Neil muses aloud.

“Or it’s like a fairytale,” Nicky says. At Neil’s confused—and slightly judgemental—look, he elaborates, “You know, like, The Frog Prince! Or The Frog Princess! Or—that movie coming out, the Princess and the Frog!”

“This is too many frogs,” Neil mutters, but looks attentive. “So what’s the common theme? Other than frogs.”

“You know, normal fairytale stuff,” Nicky says, waving his hands through the air. On the desk beside Kevin, Aaron has gone still. It’s weird that Kevin can tell—it’s not like Aaron was especially mobile in the moments prior, after all—but paying attention to Aaron isn’t that big of a surprise, these days. “True love’s kiss, all that.”

Neil goes still too.

Aaron is looking at Kevin, gaze watchful, eyes intent.

Kevin looks away. Unfortunately, this means he’s looking at Neil, who is observing him with a calculating expression. At least Neil can’t expect a response, Kevin thinks. Small victories.

“Well,” Neil says. Kevin assumes he’s talking to Nicky—as strange as Neil is, conversing with a frog is probably out of even his realm of behaviour—but he’s still looking at Kevin. Ugh. “That might explain it.”

“Huh?” Nicky asks.

Kevin cannot look at Neil anymore.

Aaron is still looking at him.

“Neil frequently has bad ideas,” Kevin says, a pre-emptive defence.

“I don’t disagree,” Aaron says. It’s fucking weird. He’s a frog. Green and disproportionate legs—maybe he should try keep those when they get back to normal, Kevin thinks, suddenly daydreaming of a genuinely tall defence line; and then his thoughts shift a little to the left, Aaron’s knobbly knees but now they’re green and his calves are endless, pressing against Kevin, and wow, okay, Kevin is shelving that one before he gets too anatomically-confused, what the fuck—but still so Aaron. It still feels the same, him looking at Kevin, and now there’s something in Kevin’s throat to swallow past. He’s not even sure if he still has a throat, technically.

Neil and Nicky are still talking in the background, a buzzing noise that Kevin can’t focus on.

“Fairytales aren’t real,” Kevin says.

“We are frogs,” Aaron enunciates. Which is a reasonable counterpoint.

“This is ridiculous,” Kevin mutters.

“Kevin,” Aaron says. This is going to do something insane to Kevin’s dreams, he thinks, dismayed. Aaron croaking his name, and it being completely understandable. Life is so hard.

“Ugh,” Kevin says. His tongue goes flying past, apparently the frog equivalent of throwing one’s arms up in exasperation.

Aaron watches it go past, then looks at Kevin. If they were normal, he thinks Aaron’s eyebrow would be raised, or face tilted to the side, or something to that effect. People don’t think of either twin as especially expressive, but Kevin knows Aaron’s face, has mapped all its mountains and shifting planes. He misses it, suddenly, fiercely. More than the consistent pulse of exasperation and disbelief at their situation, the underlying desire to get back to normal. It’s an active, immediate thing: he wants to see Aaron’s face again, a deep-seated ache.

“Careful,” Aaron says. “If you keep throwing that tongue around, I won’t let you put it in my mouth.”

Kevin chokes. His tongue tangles itself on the way back into his mouth, his eyes bulge, and he makes a sputtering noise. Neil and Nicky don’t even pause their discussion.

If there’s a way for a frog to look calm in the wake of their friend (?)—also a frog—almost dying in response to an implication of flirtation, Aaron does.

“Aaron,” Kevin wheezes, once he’s got his tongue safely back inside his mouth and has reminded himself how to be a person.

“Kevin,” Aaron returns. He sounds so calm. So sure. And Kevin still knows him, down to his bones, but in this body, he can’t figure out his tells as easily. He can’t watch the movement of his knee, the furrow of his brows, the curling of his fingers into a fist. There’s no jaw to tighten, no hair to run his hands through, and while he still has eyes, they’re not ones that Kevin has memorised the way they soften.

“Is that a joke?” Kevin asks.

“We’re frogs,” Aaron reminds him. “We’re already the joke.” Before Kevin can decide how he feels about that, Aaron says, “Kissing you? Sure. Why not. Worth a shot.”

“Why not,” Kevin echoes. “Worth a shot.”

Aaron looks at him again. Kevin thinks maybe this is what it looks like for a frog’s eyes to soften, but who knows? Maybe he’s just looking for what he wants to see.

God, this whole thing is fucking ridiculous, but maybe the most unsettling part has been realising how much he misses seeing Aaron’s face. He’s gone longer without seeing it, obviously, it’s just—he’s never had to look at Aaron without it being Aaron. He can’t explain it better than that.

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind,” Aaron says suddenly, “if it were a fairytale.”

Kevin blinks. (Oh, that was weird.) He thinks that over.

“Oh,” he says, then smiles. He thinks he smiles. He’s not really sure what his mouth is doing. It’s unnervingly large in relation to the rest of his body.

“Oh,” Aaron echoes, but he hops closer. One hop. Two. His legs are very strong, Kevin notes, but then he stops thinking about it, because Aaron is really close.

Kevin cannot believe he’s maybe—probably—almost certainly—about to kiss Aaron for the first time. And they’re fucking frogs.

Kevin hops that last step, moving in closer.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Aaron says, rolling his eyes again. Kevin has never seen a frog do that before, though jury’s out as to whether that’s because normal frogs can’t, or because Aaron Minyard brings a level of exasperation previously unknown amongst the species.

Kevin leans in, and kisses him. It’s the weirdest sensation he’s ever had—their bodies are approximately 30% mouth right now, which is a lot to deal with—but then Aaron’s mouth is open a little, and Kevin’s weird, powerful tongue darts in and tangles with Aaron’s.

This is fucking insane, Kevin thinks, and then there’s a sudden whoosh of air through the room, and suddenly the desk crashes and he and Aaron are sprawled across each other on the floor.

Human.

And naked.

“Oh my god,” Nicky says. “You’re back!” And then, tilting his head at Kevin, “And naked.”

“We’re leaving,” Neil announces, grabbing Nicky by the elbow and tugging him out of the room. His expression is dismayed. “I don’t want to see you today,” he says over his shoulder, which Kevin would like to apply to Aaron, but probably mostly means him.

Aaron is beneath Kevin, which luckily means his modesty is protected, given his usual hangups (Aaron and Neil often tell Kevin that it’s not that everyone else has hangups, but that Kevin is entirely too open with nudity; Kevin largely ignores this); unfortunately, it does mean Kevin landed on him, and now he’s groaning.

Kevin gets off him, then looks at him. At his face. God. He missed that face.

“Why are you staring at me?” Aaron grumbles.

“After everything that just happened, that’s your question?” Kevin asks, incredulous. Fucking fond, because of course it is.

“Everything else has a root cause of you being annoying,” Aaron says. “This—”

Kevin leans in, cupping Aaron’s jaw with one hand.

Aaron shuts up.

“Take a guess,” Kevin says. His voice is – soft. Too soft to hide behind.

There’s so much going on Aaron’s face, eyes quick, expressive, roving all over Kevin’s, taking him in, figuring him out. Then his expression clears.

“You’re so annoying,” Aaron says, and then he surges up and kisses Kevin.

It’s much better, Kevin thinks, getting to do this as them.

#kevin day #kevaaron #aaron minyard #aftg #aftg fic #aaron grabs a pillow off kevin's bed to cover himself once his brain catches up and kevin SQUAWKS #he's like. how dare u. that's MY pillow. and then his brain catches up to what it's covering and he gets blushy and a little smug about it #aaron calls him a weirdo but kevin is unruffled. he kissed the boy! isn't a frog anymore! berated neil even in a new body! wins all around #crack treated seriously #i . guess #frog mention //#this goes in my duelling mina tag #this isn't her art but it is her fault. so. it feels appropriate. but i will reconsider later #poor nicky is SO stressed this whole time and does not want to involve andrew. understandably #kevin keeps stealing his snacks to throw them away but nicky doesn't want him to die for turning andrew's brother into a frog. ykwim #the girl who cursed him a) was correct to do so but b) was less fairytale dramatics and more Transform And Kiss Your Crush about it #punishing kevin for being annoying and rude by way of like minor embarrassment (theoretically) not Intense Fairytale Curses #omg these tags look RIDICULOUS. i will cease now. unbelievable #jane writes sometimes #jane kevaaron #jane ficlets #jane kvar ficlets

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a-larry-retrospective-blog · 10 days ago

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The thing that gets me, even 10+ years down the line, is that EVEN IF Harry and Louis were weirded out by people shipping them (which IS fair, but also: I think the blame can be shared 50/50 between fandom and pr people) to the point where it "ruined their friendship", we simply shouldn't have been able to notice it.

Like, that's the WHOLE POINT of having people who media train you and pr people: to present a nice image to the public. And 1D's image, like EVERY boyband out there, revolved around thinking the boys were all close, they were happy to be together forever. The reason people were so blindsided by Zayn leaving the band is that they had to pretend everything was fine and dandy even when it wasn't, and the public bought it.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, I'm not saying I'm happy with it, I'm saying that's the reason pr people and managements and every other behind the scenes part of the industry even EXISTS: to smooth out the wrinkles of the image presented to us. Boybands are supposed to be a UNITED FRONT. We as the public are not supposed to know about the skirmishes boys get into, because people would not root for a band where they know there's infighting.

If H&L were actually barely speaking during all those Years (and that's the thing that gets me, it was genuinely YEARS, not like, a bad week), as management their job should have been to force them into a Get Along Shirt and have them actually be professional and act like they did not have disagreements. It seriously makes NO SENSE to me after all these years that there were span of Months of interviews in which they barely interacted with each other and acted like the other one didn't exist, because if it was actually them not wanting to speak to each other, a good (by this I mean somewhat professional, not morally good) management would have said "suck it up and pretend you're still friends". That was their job! I cannot stress enough how this was PRECISELY a job for pr people! And they didn't do it!

So either they were so bad at their job they didn't even TRY to fix the public perception of the band, or having them pretending the other didn't exist was the best outcome. Which. You see how insanely suspicious that was? Like, even without taking into account whatever weird glances they threw at people in the crowd or the images of them hesitating to touch each other, the fact that the mainstream narrative was THIS and no one DARED to put a patch on it is insane in and of itself. It's honestly the dumbest thing whoever was in charge ever did for these boys' image

#twelve years later #one day i will elaborate on the fandom vs pr people because i think the fault lies on both parts #but today is not that day #dare i say #larry stylinson #anyway looking back on it its such a dumb approach to the rumors. both if they were a thing and if they weren't.#bc wdym they didnt even sit next to each other for YEARS???#i can assure you there is NOT that many permutation between five people.#and if they were actually together it looks like a poor overcompensation tactic #but if they weren't #and this was all h&l decision bc they didn't like each other anymore #those modest! people look EVEN WORSE st their jobs! like truly if your talent is being stroppy because they dont like each other #you tell them to suck it up and do their fucking job #and this one isnt even a 'the industry is evil and forces people to be fake' this one is COMMON SENSE BETWEEN COWORKERS.#like idc if outside of your job you roll your eyes at each other but if as a team you have to present a united front you WILL play nice #god knows how many coworkers of mine i could not fucking stand and yet. if it came down to i would have sooner died than let the kids see it

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