[Original: The City Adel] (Pevi/Ivahn) "Internet Famous" Theme #35: high school Title: Internet Famous Author:ivoryandhorn Fandom: The City Adel Pairing: Pevi/Ivahn Rating: PG-13 Warnings: very mild m/m Length: ~2000 Theme: #35 - high school Author's Note: This is almost nothing like any of my other ideas for this prompt. Which just goes to show you that inspiration hits at weird times with the weirdest things.
“Okay, just, hear me out.” Pevi scooted closer, Ivahn scooted away until he couldn’t.
“Only ‘cause it’s you,” Ivahn said warily. He could feel Pevi up against his whole right side, and the sofa arm pressing into his left, which meant he was trapped. Like a rat. “Go on.”
Pevi leaned even closer, blue-green eyes intense and animated. “Yelina,” he announced, “has this theory.”
Yelina passed the popcorn to Pevi and solemnly intoned, “I believe Sarha’s better suited to start the story than I am.”
Sarha, who was the traitor who had lured Ivahn into this meeting in the first place, gave a little seated bow from her position on the oak coffee table. It began to dawn on Ivahn that he wasn’t leaving this house dignity intact no matter how hard he fought. Still, he wasn’t going to let it happen without a struggle.
“You know YouTube?” she asked.
“Who doesn’t?” Ivahn waited for this to go somewhere.
Sarha continued, “YouTube has this thing where people like to post videos. Videos,” she added with relish, “of cute skinny emo boys making out.”
“And they post this,” Ivahn asked in horror, “on the internet? Like, for everyone to see?”
Sarha nodded enthusiastically. “So when I found out I simply had share it with my dear pal Yelina—“
“—and it reminded me of when I saw someone admit he pretended to be gay to get fangirls, so. I wanted to see if it actually worked. That, you know, being internet-gay equals popularity.”
“No,” Ivahn said, shaking his head vigorously. “No, no, no—I don’t know why you think the explanation makes it sound better! It doesn’t! I refuse to take part in this madness.”
“Madness?” Pevi intoned. “No, —this—is—"
Ivahn staged an intervention: he stole the popcorn, which forced Pevi to cut himself off and steal it back. His dirty glare was entirely worth saving that poor worn-out warcry, though. “Can we get back to persuading me to trade my—my moral integrity for a few badly-worded comments with too much punctuation?” he asked sourly.
“Oh come on,” Pevi said persuasively. He rested his head on Ivahn’s shoulder, for once not complaining about his delicate chin being injured by mean nasty collar bones. “I’ve seen them; it’s not like they’re sticking hands down each other’s pants or stripping or anything. I bet you it’s all faked.”
“Actually, I believe there are a couple time someone gets a hand down someone’s pants,” Sarha corrected helpfully. “And at least one instance of rutting.”
Yelina squinted into space. “Specimen Number Forty-Four, about a minute forty in?”
There was a horrified silence. At least, a horrified silence from Ivahn.
“You know that by heart?” Pevi asked delightedly. “Oh my God.”
In Ivahn’s opinion he was taking this whole request entirely too calmly considering Yelina was his twin sister and she was asking him to kiss another guy and then film it and then post it on YouTube for everyone on the Internet to see and furthermore, share with similarly inclined friends who would no doubt just pimp it out even more people and this was all just a million kinds of messed up, why was Ivahn still here again?
“What?” Yelina said, looking at their faces. “I was just…doing research. Archiving. Seeing how far subjects went and how often and whether there was a correlation to how many views the videos got. What?”
“Research?” Pevi chortled.
“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” Ivahn demanded, and she turned bright red before stealing his Coke.
Sarha patted Yelina on the shoulder. “It’s alright, I’ve watched that clip like a million times too.”
“It’s research,” Yelina muttered one last time, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Anyway. Moving right along...?”
Pevi turned to Ivahn and slung a companionable arm around his shoulders. “So as I was saying, it’d just be a kiss, man. No big deal, right?”
“We’re not emo,” Ivahn pointed out. He shrugged Pevi’s arm off; it was warm and solid against his shoulders but it felt kind of weird, having it there, especially with other people around. Then he wondered whether that meant it’d feel less weird if they were alone, before strangling that train of thought in its crib.
“I can fix that!” Sarha rummaged in her backpack and pulled out her sketchbook; after a moment of frenzied flipping she thrust the sketches forward for Ivahn’s perusal. The two figures on the page looked horrifyingly similar to himself and Pevi, except he’d never worn that many bracelet-thingies at one time in his life and didn’t want to know if Pevi had ever worn jeans that tight, and if so for who and why. He was pretty sure the notes in the margins were actually scribbled lists of where to obtain all the necessary accoutrements of emo-hood.
Ivahn looked up with protest already forming on his lips, but it wilted under the force her proud, hopeful smile.
“Why don’t you ask Ralin to do it,” he muttered instead, after ignoring the last strong protest he could think of. It wasn’t exactly something he wanted to bring up in front of anyone—especially in front of Pevi.
“We did, but he’s already internet famous for modeling his mysterious female friend’s impeccable homemade fashions,” Sarha said, perfectly deadpan. Everyone present knew that 'mysterious female friend' was code for Sarha having too much free time and an obliging boyfriend.
“Come on, just say yes,” Pevi pleaded. “I’ll treat you to Starbucks for a month, no questions asked. Come onnnn.”
Ivahn rested his face in his hands to avoid seeing Pevi’s Puppydog Eyes TM. “Just a kiss?” he asked at last. Beside him, Pevi whooped and draped himself all over Ivahn’s body in what Ivahn could only term a glomp.
Sarha beamed and joined the dogpile.
Yelina patted his knee amidst the tangle. “Think of it as taking one in the name of science.”
---
“This is so stupid,” Ivahn declared, staring at his reflection. Sarha was fussily combing his short bangs into his eyes as much as possible. She’s already successfully spiked it up in the back.
“Oh, don’t be a spoil sport.” Pevi left off poking at the biggest of his newly dyed black streaks, the rest of his grey hair already combed and gelled to perfection. “Besides, you already agreed to it.”
“Don’t remind me,” Ivahn groaned. His eyes kept straying over his reflection’s shoulder to Pevi, who was apparently unfazed by the fact his eyes were surrounded by what Ivahn was aware fell under that eldritch category of “make-up.” The black just made his eyes pop even more, bright like they’d been swapped for gems when no one was looking.
Ivahn locked his eyes on the doorknob.
But out of the edge of his eye he could still see the pull of the tight t-shirt across Pevi’s shoulders as he slouched, examining his nail polish. Could still see the way his boxers peeked out of his jeans in the back; blue and red plaid. Why did it feel so weird to notice that? Especially now, considering what they were about to do.
He shouldn’t have ever said yes to this, but Pevi had asked and he’d caved, because he still wasn't immune to the infamous Puppydog Eyes TM and apparently never would be, considering he’d already suffered through two years of exposure and had still folded like origami. Besides, free coffee for thirty days. Ivahn made a mental note to revise his Starbucks visits up to twice a day instead of once. Pevi was going to pay for conning him into this. Literally for now, figuratively when Ivahn devised some suitably and equivalently humiliating punishment.
“Finished!” Sarha spun Ivahn around with a flourish. "Ta-daaa!" Ralin, who’d joined them because, he claimed, he could not miss this show for anything, let out a little wolf whistle with a grin that could only be described as lecherous.
Yelina snapped a picture—“For archival purposes,” she said archly, and since she’d done the same to Pevi it wasn’t like Ivahn could argue. He suspected it was going to go into her file, probably labeled something like Experiment Internet-Gay: Subject #2.
“My friend, the emo kid!” Pevi sighed, falling over backwards on his bed. He grinned at Ivahn, lopsided and upside down. “Bet we’d get at least a thousand hits with just a pic of you standing around like a lump.”
“Shut up,” Ivahn muttered, turning bright red. Objectively speaking and given what passing knowledge he had of emo culture, he had to admit he did look at least the perception of the part. He was skinny, even though at the age of barely seventeen he was still already too tall to be mistaken for a girl unless the mistaker was some kind of freakish giant who'd lost his coke-bottle glasses. He was pale enough to have to fend off constant inquiries as to whether he preferred to suck AB or O for dinner. It was mostly the hair and clothes that made the look, though—t-shirt with a band he'd never heard of, girl hoodie and tight jeans, studded belt, his ugly spare glasses in lieu of contacts just for today.
“Places!” Yelina clapped her hands and bounced off the bed with her camera, heading to the doorway for the prescribed angle. Ralin and Sarha gathered up the tools of her trade and scampered off to an appropriately out-of-the-way position. Apparently it had to look like he’d been caught with Pevi when they were alone? Though if a camera person had walked in while he was making out with his boyfriend he’d have deleted the evidence and smashed the stupid thing the first opportunity he got. Not that he wanted a boyfriend. Or Pevi.
Pevi's hand slid distractingly around his waist. “Dude, relax,” he was saying. “It’s just a kiss. We can totally do this without being weird, right?” Pevi was wearing a collar, a thin leather affair that drew attention to the smooth line of his throat. Ivahn hadn’t really noticed that until now, when they’d arranged themselves together on the bed and were way, way too close to each other, and it seemed like a really bad time for his brain to fixate on it, especially considering what they were about to do.
Ivahn took a shaky breath and tried to steady himself. Maybe he should’ve mounted that one last protest after all—though if he had, it’d just mean a lot more questions along the highly awkward lines of, So why’d you agree to it if it’d make Pevi your first kiss? Just what he needed, to make the whole ordeal even more humiliating than it was no doubt going to be.
“Make sure you note the clothing,” Ivahn said instead, turning to look at Yelina’s blessedly un-emo-fied self and blessedly collarless neck. “You know. Colors and styles and—and make note of which one is—um.” He flushed. “Initiating.”
“Already done,” she nodded impatiently. “Come on, stop stalling. Ready?”
Pevi shifted position, moving a little closer. “Ready?” he asked softly.
Ivahn swallowed and nervously settled his far hand on Pevi’s shoulder. Everything felt like it was moving too fast, approaching the speed of light and freezing him here with Pevi like a pair of particularly interesting butterflies. “…ready.”
Yelina pressed Record. Pevi leaned in.
---
Within a week—no, less than a week—within just four days, the view count of fr0z3n_fl4m3’s first vid, a short black and white affair of two mysterious yet ridiculously hot emo boys sharing a kiss, skyrocketed to 40,000 plus and counting.
Ralin had a ball pimping it all over LiveJournal, DeadJournal, SchrodingerJournal, GreatestJournal, LamestJournal, InsaneJournal, LatestJournal, ExtraJournal, PrettyJournal, PrettierJournal, AnotherJournal, and VampireFreaks. Ivahn was mortified by all the responses and refused to touch the internet for a month, a resolution which lasted an impressive three minutes. Pevi basked in his moment of anonymous Internet fame and spent hours scrubbing out the black streak before his mom found out, before developing a fondness for tighter jeans and the occasional collar.
Sarha started scheming how to get their shirts off and also new and exciting ways to dress them up. Yelina joined in when she found out, purely because she wanted to further the experiment, not because she was doing her brother a favor or anything.
Pevi offered not only his shirtless self, but his Puppydog Eyes TM to their cause. In exchange, they continued to ensure he got to make-out with his crush without screwing up their friendship.
Ivahn refused to make any sequels to “emo boy kiss” until bribed with a year’s worth of WoW.