“Please never stop smiling.” Adashi. This is the dreamy, spiritual successor to this ficlet, which I’ve been wanting to re-visit. :D So some implied Shurtis, side Klance and angsty exes ahoy! (Happy ending though)
“Well, you look terrible,” Adam says. “You’re not gonna smile even on your wedding day? Not that it would help that much. Because, yeah you look awful.”
“Thanks,” Shiro rolls his head back against the pillows.
“I’m not here to lie to you Takashi,” Adam sips his coffee. “Apparently I’m here to whisk you away to wedded bliss.”
Shiro throws a pillow over his head. “Whyyy aren’t you Keith?”
“Something to do with a fork in the garbage disposal, he’s been in the ER with Lance all night. They got his finger back on, don’t worry.”
“… He really think I would buy that excuse for sending my ex-fiancé to pick me up and take me to my wedding?”
“Or he’s dumb enough that he really risked his pinky to engineer this, do you want to see the pictures he uploaded?”
Shiro groans, sitting up on his arms. There’s a cup of coffee on the side table next to the bed. Probably the same stuff Adam’s drinking.
They always took their coffee the same. Black, three sugars.
“Just tell me he’s only trying to force us to re-kindle a friendship, and he’s not punishing us because he knows we’ve been fooling around ever since the engagement party?”
“I mean, I got here early enough that we can sneak in a quickie?” Adam smirks.
“Am I just supposed to get up there and smile and say a bunch of vows after…” Shiro pulls his shirt off as if its second nature. “I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re not–”
**
Shiro blinks.
He’s not in bed.
He’s sitting next to Adam on the carpeted floor of his apartment. Adam is clutching his sides, moaning about stomach pangs. They’re both wearing tuxedos, but the ties have been pulled loose and buttons undone. Adam’s belt is un-buckled.
“What was that?” he asks.
“My body punishing me for eating beluga fucking caviar,” Adam hiccups. “Rich people food is the worst. I can taste the endangered species kicking me in the spleen. I deserve it. I deserve all this pain.”
“You don’t,” Shiro shakes his head.
“I might as well of had shark-fin soup and Condor eggs Benedict.”
Shiro looks down at his left hand.
There’s no ring.
His prosthetic is around Adam’s shoulders. Ring-free as well.
“What?” Adam asks. “Are you smiling at my suffering?”
“Does the name ‘Curtis’ mean anything to you?” he asks.
“Uhhh, like Curtis Mayfield? The singer?” Adam cocks his head. “Or the dude on the Atlas who hit on you and Keith threatened to knife him because you’re taken? Gosh, we raised that boy right. Krolia doesn’t get credit for that one.”
Shiro laughs, hard enough to make his eyes tear up.
“What is with you, all giddy and shit? How much champagne did you get?”
“I feel like I just woke up on the better side of a dream.”
**
“Just smile. Please, never stop smiling,” Adam says through clenched teeth. “Otherwise your fiancé is gonna punch me.”
Shiro blinks back to life. Curtis is shutting the door, and it’s the engagement party again. The moment Adam decided to get too drunk and roasted them both and ran off to vomit. The moment Curtis found Shiro taking care of him in the hotel room.
There’s paths unfolding in front of him. Directions everything can take. Lying and cheating and denying and sublimating.
“I have to do a bad thing to a good person,” Shiro says, taking off his engagement ring. “I’m not going to smile for a long time.”
“I have pictures of Lance with his tongue stuck on the ice-sculpture. Would that help?”
Shiro tries to hide a grin. “I’m a terrible person.”
“Same,” Adam says. “I lost the best guy in the universe because I am a bitter, possessive, grudge-holding, irrationally jealous jerk.”
“Well, I’m about to break the heart of the real best guy in the universe,” Shiro sighs. “Because I lied to myself, pretended I could be good enough for someone better than me. When I’m an indecisive, broken person who–”
“Takashi,” Adam interrupts. “Put the ring back on. Go downstairs, smile and be happy. Nothing happened, so you have nothing to apologize for.”
“But I want something to happen.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like smiling and pretending I don’t want to wake up next to you every damn day.”
Adam scoffs. “Needy.”
“Messy drunk.”
“Indecisive lunkhead.”
“Salty Sandra.”
“Drama queen.”
“Said the guy who roasted his ex at the engagement party.”
“Said the guy who’s gonna pull a last-minute rom-com style ‘here’s your ring back’ breakup so he can try and get back together with his loser ex.”
Shiro looks over his shoulder.
“You do look like garbage.”
Adam smiles. “And you still want this?”
“I want you puking beluga caviar in my lap, yeah.”
“Huh?”
**
Shiro is drinking a beer in the empty ballroom when it’s all over.
Lance sits down next to him.
“Keeth thaid you’d be thitting here.”
Shiro furrows his brow. Lance takes the bandage off his tongue.
“Keith said you’d be sitting here, I’m supposed to make sure you’re not wallowing or I have to lick the ice-sculpture from the bat mitzvah across the hall to cheer you up.”
“Did he tell you to lick the first one?”
“… No?”
Shiro shakes his head. “At least it wasn’t a fork in the garbage disposal.”
“He’s really weird right now. He’s protective of you and Adam at the same time and I think it’s making him short circuit. Not that he’s the paragon of excellent spur-of-the-moment decision making to begin with.”
“But you’re not that type of impulsive,” Shiro says, sipping the beer. “Why’d you go along with it?”
“I love him,” Lance shrugs. “Doing dumb things to make him smile is part of the deal.”
“Just don’t let him risk a finger, okay?”
“Are you going to get back together with Adam?”
“I don’t know if he’ll let me. He’s got this crazy idea that I should stay with Curtis instead of doing something dumb and impulsive because I love him.”
“Well… if you need a way to prove to him you’re dumb and in love, I have an idea?”
**
Adam’s smile is the best thing he’s ever seen.
“Who the hell gets an ice-sculpture of a Squirrel holding a giant acorn?” Keith shakes his head.
Lance shrugs. “I’m just glad it’s not my tongue this time.”
“Thaa-daaa!” Shiro says with his tongue firmly affixed to the ice-nut.
“Well congratulations Takashi, you’re not a drama queen or a rom-com cliche. You’re just an idiot.”
“Thays the thude in luff wiff this thidiot.”
“Okay, true. Someone help get my idiot’s mouth off of the thirteen year old girl’s nut so we can go have hot, messy rekindling our relationship sex upstairs before the hotel kicks us out?”
**
“You have the best smile,” Takashi says, kissing Adam’s neck. “Never stop smiling.”
