A Match Into Water

“Dude, what the fuck was that?”

Jaime was violently screeching at me as he frantically hit all the buttons he could on his game controller. Everyone- yes, even the three FIFA fanatics in the room -grew tired of either watching or playing FIFA a long time ago, but someone had the great idea to bring in that one Sonic knock-off of Mario Kart along with a few other games, so Vic popped the game into the Xbox and now we were all taking turns playing the game and kicking each other’s asses.

Well, I was doing the majority of the ass kicking, but you get my point.

I let out a loud laugh at Jaime’s complaints and just smirked as my Tails character zoomed down the track. “Sorry, Hime-time, but you picked the wrong person to mess with on Mario Kart!” I exclaim.

“This isn’t even Mario Kart!” Jaime shouted back in response.

I shrugged and turned the sharp corner with ease as I picked up another weapon. “It’s the Xbox knock-off, so it’s basically the same thing,” I casually say, getting an annoyed groan from Jaime and a few amused chuckles from the rest of the guys. Tony and Alexis were playing with us too, but they weren’t complaining as much Jaime was, or losing as much for that matter.

“Jaime are you sure you even know how to play this game?” I asked after a few more moments of Jaime failing at the video game.

Jaime scoffed even though he was obviously flustered. “Of course I have-”

“Then care to explain why you’re fucking this up so badly?” I interrupt with a smirk.

Jaime didn’t have much of a response other than letting out a frustrated, garbled mess of words. I just shook my head at him and continued to race along the track with the rest of them. Eventually, the race ended and I was the one who was sliding into first place.

“Woo!” I cheer, dropping the game controller onto my lap and throwing my hands into the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

Admittedly, the three boys on the couch groaned at my win while Vic and Kellin, who were both sitting off to the side on the bed closest to us, snickered quietly to themselves at all of our separate reactions.

“I can’t believe this,” Jaime grumbled, setting down his controller and sulking in his seat with a frown.

“C’mon dude, lighten up,” Tony said, chuckling a bit and patting Jaime’s shoulder comfortingly. “It’s not the end of the world-”

“I don’t know man,” Alexis piped up, “weren’t you watching Jaime’s gameplay on his screen? It was pretty bad.”

Jaime’s frown deepened at Alexis comment and he just looked over at the smirking guitar player and promptly proceeded to flip him off. Practically everyone laughed at this and Alexis just shrugged and smiled back in return.

“Well,” I say, stretching out my arms and standing up from the couch. “I think I’ll let Jaime recover from his embarrassing losses and step out for a few rounds.” A few chuckles sound from the guys and I can’t help but smile a little and look over to the two guys on the bed. “Either one of you two want to step in?”

“I’ll play,” Kellin says with a shrug, jumping up from the bed and coming over to take my seat on the couch. The other three on the couch cheered at his arrival and Jaime, of course, was the first to jump to the trash talking.

“Prepare to get your ass kicked, Kellin!” Jaime exclaimed.

Kellin snorted in amusement and rolled his eyes. “Right, because I should totally be scared of you after that last round of racing,” he replied sarcastically.

As the rest of the trash talking commenced between the four boys on the couch, I went over to the bed where both Vic and Kellin had been chilling out while they watched us played the many rounds of virtual Sonic racing and plopped myself down next to Vic.

“Hi there,” I say with a wide smile.

Vic chuckled at my sudden enthusiasm and cheeriness and smiled back in return. “Hey,” he replied, lightly knocking shoulders with me.

“So I never realised Jaime was such a sore loser,” I joke, smirking a bit as I heard Jaime’s first complaint in the new round.

A smirk spread across Vic’s lips as well as he turned to give me a bit of playful look. “That’s because you’ve never really been around we all get together and play video games,” Vic comments. “Seriously, if you think this is bad, then you haven’t seen anything yet.”

This time, I let out a soft giggle and shook my head as well at the thought of Jaime complaining even more than he was now. “I’ll just take your word for it then-”

“Oh don’t worry, you’ll most likely get to see the whine-master in all his glory later on tonight,” Vic reassured, smiling as I rolled my eyes at his comment and turned my focus back on the rather interesting race in front of us.

The two of us continued to watch the next several rounds of racing with not much talking between us. After awhile though, conversation started to flow between us and we began talking almost non-stop. We were hardly paying attention to the game in front of us and it honestly began to feel to me like the whole Ricky thing never happened. I had gone back to the person I’d become after getting to know these guys, and quite honestly, it was the best feeling in the world.

At some point while we were both lying there, his hand had sneaked into mine and our fingers were shortly intertwined after that. That same feeling I had gotten when I first held Vic’s hand when we went shopping for the tour returned and I couldn’t help the small blush that had risen to my cheeks or the smile that couldn’t be wiped from my face. I also had taken to leaning into Vic’s warm, comforting side and it was kind of hard to ignore the butterflies frantically flying around in my stomach.

God I sounded like a love-sick teenager.

As the night went on, the games continued, but Vic and I stayed where we were. If the others had noticed how close, and dare I say flirty, we were being with each other then they didn’t say anything about it. Vic was right though when he said Jaime’s full whining potential would be shown throughout the night. About an hour after I’d switched out with Kellin, Jaime’s complaints had reached new heights and I could honestly say that whiny 5 year olds had more dignity and restraint than him.

No one really said anything about his complaints, but after hearing it go on for close to two hours, I quickly got fed up with it and was ready to do just about anything to escape it. Fortunately, Tony made a comment about how we were running out of beer, and I took that as my opportunity to save my sanity.

“I can go pick up some more from the liquor store,” I offer, sitting up a bit on the bed.

“You sure, Leia?” Tony asked from his spot on the couch.

I rolled my eyes a little and shook my head. “It’s not like I’m exactly doing anything right now-”

“Oh, okay, I see how much our conversations mean to you,” Vic quietly teased from next to me.

“Oh my God, shut up,” I say with a giggle, lightly smacking Vic on the arm before getting up from the bed and searching for my shoes. “Kellin can you give me directions to the store you went to?”

Kellin pressed a few buttons on his controller and paused his screen, saying, “Um, yeah, just give me a second.” He hopped up from the couch and came over to me, first stopping by the small desk hugging the opposite wall to grab some paper and pen. He quickly scribbled down a few things on the paper and then handed it to me. “That should do it,” he replied with a smile.

I nodded and scanned over the directions Kellin scribbled onto the paper. “Great, but what if I somehow get lost?” I asked as I looked up from the paper.

“I can come along with you,” Vic offered. “I’m pretty good at understanding Kellin’s directions, and if worse comes to worse, I can just call him and ask for directions.”

“Sounds good to me,” I say with a bit of a smile, finally finding my shoes and slipping them on my feet. Kellin had already wandered back to the gaming couch and already jumped back into the game while Vic was in the process of putting his own shoes on, so I grabbed my phone and wallet from my Jansport and waited for Vic to get his stuff together.

Once Vic had his shoes, wallet, and of course, his trusty snapback, we left the confines of the hotel room and began to make our way down to the liquor store nearby. Surprisingly, the liquor store wasn’t that far away from the hotel, just a few mere blocks down the road. Since this was the case, and because Kellin had given me directions for walking, Vic and I didn’t bother with trying to get a cab and just wandered through the quiet city streets. I honestly wasn’t quite for sure what city we were in, but we had to be somewhere along the edge of Florida. Either way, the city was nice and definitely a nice change in pace from both tour life and the semi-hectic flow of San Diego city life.

The flickering street lamps lining the sidewalk illuminated our path in the dark of the night, and Vic and I walked in a comfortable silence in the cool summer air with the rumbling sky above us filling the silence. We were walking hand-in-hand down the street, and most likely, to anyone who didn’t know any better, they’d probably think we were a couple out for a late night stroll, not two friends walking to the liquor store to get more alcohol for the rest of our friends playing video games back at the hotel. I, of course, didn’t mind this ‘couply’ thing that was going on, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice was nagging at me saying the eventually, it was all going to go away and Vic and I would go back to being platonic buddies.

I mean, I knew that voice was right, but it didn’t have to remind me all of it all the time.

Thanks to the Kellin’s very descriptive directions and Vic’s observant eye, we found the liquor store with no problem and walked in after walking for a good 10 or 15 minutes. The store itself wasn’t very busy, it only had two or three people in there besides Vic and I, and nobody really payed much attention to us when the bell on the door frame rang upon our arrival. We made our way over to where the beer was being kept and I glanced over at Vic for a moment as I said, “How much should we buy anyway?”

“Honestly?” he replied. “I have no idea.”

I snorted a bit and rolled my eyes. “Good to know,” I say with a tiny smile.

Vic chuckled soft in response and dragged me over to a different section of beer a few spaces down. “Here, let’s just buy a couple of six packs and call it good.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I say, smiling and nodding as I open up the refrigerated door and pulled out two six packs like Vic had suggested. Vic took one of them from me and led me up to the front of the store so we could buy the beer. We had to wait in line behind one person while their stuff was rung up, but out of the corner of my eye, I could already see Vic beginning to pull out his wallet to pay for the stuff. I rolled my eyes a little and lightly smacked him on the arm, startling him a bit and getting his full attention.

“Don’t even think about paying for this, Vic,” I say, shaking my head as I spoke.

“Well, I was planning on it-”

“You’ve bought a lot of things for a lot of people, including myself, over the past several days- let me pay for this one,” I tell him, giving him a pointed look and challenging him to fight me on this.

Vic looked a little frustrated with my answer, but he didn’t say anything against it and just shrugged in response. “Alright,” he said, putting his wallet back into his pockets and putting the beer up on the counter as we went up to pay for the liquor.

“Thank you,” I say with a slight nod, fishing out my own wallet and greeting the cashier with a small smile. She smiled back at me and started to scan the six packs.

“How are things going for you two tonight?” she asked with a cheerful tone.

“It’s going alright,” I reply, getting my debit card from my wallet and handing it over to her.

“Great,” she says, taking my card and swiping it through her machine. While she was looking back at me to tell me to sign for the purchase, she caught sight of Vic and her eyes widened a little in surprise. “Hey, you’re that Vic Fuentes guy from Pierce The Veil, right?”

Vic smiled back at the lady and nodded. “That would be me,” he replied.

“Well what are the odds of me running into you?” she said with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, it’s just that my daughter is a really big fan of your band and she made a point to make sure I knew who you all were because you’re honestly her favorite band.”

“Really? That’s awesome,” Vic replied, his smile widening as he looked genuinely interested and touched by what this lady was saying.

“Yeah,” she says with another chuckle, handing me my receipt before turning back over to Vic. “So what brings you to little ol’ Pensacola anyway?”

“We’re just staying the night,” Vic explains. “We’re all on tour right now, and this was about the midway point between our two locations, so we decided to get a hotel.”

The lady chuckled a bit and smiled. “Well you certainly came to the right place for a hotel,” she lightly joked. There was suddenly a loud rumble from outside and the cashier briefly glanced out the glass door at the front of the store while I just fidgeted uncomfortably in my spot. “Looks like it might rain pretty soon, you two should get going.”

Vic nodded and grabbed one of the six packs off the counter. “Probably,” he said in agreement. A sudden thought crossed his mind as he looked back at the lady and added, “Is there anything I can sign for your daughter or something before we leave?”

“Maybe just a picture?” the lady said. “I don’t really have anything of hers with me, and as it is, she’s over in Phoenix visiting her father- oh! And I believe she’s going to the Mesa date of your guys’ tour.”

“Awesome!” Vic replied with a wide smile. “And sure, I can do a picture.”

The lady smiled just as wide in response and suddenly got very excited about being able to take a picture of one of her daughter’s idols. I couldn’t help but smile at the whole ordeal and patiently waited off to the side while she took a picture of Vic and eventually handed over her phone when Vic asked for it. Vic opened up the messages app, asked for the name of her daughter, and then typed a few things before passing it back to the cashier. She looked it over for a few moments before letting out a loud laugh and smiling happily at her phone.

“I think you might have just made my daughter’s day,” she said, still chuckling as she looked up from her phone to look at Vic. “Thank you for that.”

Vic shrugged casually and replied, “You’re more than welcome, it’s no big deal.”

The lady nodded and then shifted her gaze over to me for a moment before looking back at Vic. “Well, I should probably get back to work and actually let you two leave now,” she joked. “Hope you have a great night!”

“Thanks, you too!” Vic said with a small wave and a smile. We both made our way out of the store and started on our trek back to the hotel. I could have sworn I felt a few rain drops on our way out, but I didn’t really think much of it.

As we walked, I looked over at Vic with a bit of a smile and said, “That was really kind of you what you did.”

Vic looked back over at me and gave me the same shrug he gave to the cashier. “It really wasn’t a big deal,” he told me. “Besides, we all love interacting with the fans and the fact that that mom was willing to talk to me and then ask for a picture for her daughter was pretty cool.”

I chuckled a bit and nodded. “Yeah, that was cool,” I admit. “And I’m pretty sure it took some guts too- I mean, if I were a parent, I probably wouldn’t have handled that quite so well or even had the guts to do what she did.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not a parent then, I guess,” Vic teased, lightly nudging me in the side.

I couldn’t help but laugh at that and roll my eyes. “Rude,” I retorted. Vic laughed a bit in response as well and we continued on our walk back to the hotel.

Several moments later though, as I kept feeling the occasional rain drop here and there, Vic turned to me with a bit of a quizzical expression and asked, “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?” I asked.

“The rain,” he elaborated. “I mean, it’s barely there, but-”

Of course, just as he was saying the rain was ‘barely there’, the rain had to pick up. It was suddenly no longer lightly sprinkling but it was now a light rain that was slowly turning heavy. I let out a bit of a squeal of surprise and I could hear Vic’s laughs ringing out into the night.

“C’mon!” he shouted, quickly grabbing my free hand with his and pulling me along with him and he ran back to the hotel. Fortunately, it was only about a block away as it was, but with as heavy as the rain was getting, we were soaked to the bone by the time we made the couple minute run to the hotel’s entrance.

“It’s freaking April, why is it raining?” I exclaim with a bit of a laugh as we did our best to dry off underneath the sheltered entrance.

Vic shrugged and replied, “Well, you know what they say, April showers bring May flowers.”

I looked over at him with a bit of a playful glare and jokingly asked, “What are you, five?”

“Actually, I’m four,” Vic said with a sly smirk.

“Oh my God, you’re as bad as Kellin,” I laugh, shaking my head at him and finally setting foot into the hotel’s entrance. Vic laughed along with me and followed close behind. We both got weird stares as we walked in dripping wet, and I’m sure the clerks at the front of the desk were wanting to kill us for tracking in so much water. Fortunately, the pool guy was passing by with some fresh towels and was kind enough to loan both Vic and I one so we could dry off before getting in the elevator.

Once we’d stop leaving puddles in our path, we finally deemed it safe enough to set foot into the elevator, so with our beer in hand- yes, we’d still held on to our purchases -we got onto one of the elevators and waited until we got to our floor. The elevator itself was very sleek on the inside; the chrome walls were quite reflective, and I could see every single ugly detail about my entire self at the moment-

And unfortunately, that included my unruly hair.

Due to the fact that it was short, had a tendency to dry super fast, and also because I’d tried towel drying my hair, my hair was almost completely dry, but not at the expense of the extra poofiness and messiness that ensued when my hair was left to dry like this. Cursing my ugly hair, I leaned forward to inspect myself more carefully in the wall’s surface, desperately trying to flatten down my mess of a hair. I could hear Vic’s soft chuckle next to me, and when I glanced at his reflection in the wall, I could see him staring at me with a bit of an amused, almost adoring gaze.

“What?” I find myself asking Vic. “Is my hair that bad?”

“What?” Vic asked in a bit of a startled tone before composing himself. “No, you’re hair looks fine, it’s just that…” his sentence trailed off a bit before he sighed softly to himself and shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he finally finished.

There was something in his tone of voice and in the way he said that that caught my attention, and suddenly, I wasn’t all that worried about me hair. “Vic, you can tell me what’s wrong,” I tell him.

The elevator came to a stop and the door suddenly pinged open. “Nothing’s wrong, Dean,” Vic reassured, stepping out and navigating his way to the room. “You don’t have to worry about it-”

“But I want to know,” I insist, following him to the room. “You can tell me anything Vic, especially if it’s about me.”

Vic let out another soft sigh and and stopped right in front of the door to his shared hotel room. “Really, it’s nothing, it’s just that, um, you looked really cute trying to fix your hair,” he said, his voice dropping down to a mumble as he talked.

At first, I didn’t quite catch what he said, because there’s no way Vic just said I looked cute, but after a few moments of his words sinking in, a bright red color flushed my cheeks and made me look down at the floor in mild embarrassment. How was I supposed to react to that? In all honestly, I was anything but cute, but still. Vic, out of all people, just called me cute and I couldn’t properly function for a good ten seconds because of it.

I was shaken from my daze by Vic opening up the hotel door and walking in, and when I hesitantly followed a few moments later, I could hear the sound of the TV filling the room, only this time, the boys playing weren’t playing video games. They were all spread out across the room watching some random movie they probably found off the hotel’s cable and were looking quite enthralled with it.

“Hey losers, we brought you beer!” I call out, suddenly getting the attention of every single person in the room.

“Finally!” Jaime cried, jumping up from the couch and rushing over to us. “Dude, we seriously thought you two died or something.”

Vic rolled his eyes and sat the six pack onto the counter. “We weren’t even gone for half an hour Jaime-”

“Still!” he cried dramatically, grabbing a beer and twisting the cap off. “You never know.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I say, rolling my eyes as well. I turned my focus to the film playing on the TV and almost immediately recognized what was playing. “Are you guys watching Die Hard?”

“Yeah, and it’s almost to the good part, so shhh!” Kellin shushed, not even turning his focus away from the screen to scold us.

I chuckled a bit at that and said, “Alright, I’ll shut up now-”

“Thank you,” he replied with a nod, earning an eyeroll from me and a light laugh from Vic. I shook my head a bit and went over to the bed where I’d previously been sitting with Vic while we had watched the guys play video games. Vic plopped down right next to me shortly after with a beer in his hand and gave me a soft smile before turning his focus to the movie playing on the screen.

All five of us- Alexis had mysteriously disappeared before Vic and I got back from getting the alcohol -sat through the rest of Die Hard and through half of Pulp Fiction before Tony and Jaime decided to head back to their hotel rooms while I decided I’d go take a quick shower before I left for my own room. Speaking of said room, I was dreading going back to it. I had no idea if Ricky would still be there or would even show up in the night after he went to his brother’s room, but either way, I didn’t want to take any chances and I didn’t want to end up in that room all night.

All my night clothes and body care stuff were in the Jansport bag I came over with, so I took that into the bathroom with me, stripped, and hopped into the shower. I scrubbed my body clean of all the dirt, grim, and rainwater from today and even got to shampoo my hair. Roughly 15 minutes later, I was officially squeaky clean and done with my shower, so I stepped out and quickly dried off. Again, my hair started to do it’s weird ‘poof’ thing when it air-dried, but I ignored it for the night and just changed into my normal set of pajama pants and tank top for the night. After running my fingers through my messy hair one last time, I finally stepped out of the bathroom and found that the TV was off and the only person left in the room was Vic lounging out on one of the beds in just a pair of sweatpants and scrolling through something on his phone.

“So I take it everyone left then?” I ask, startling Vic a bit as I spoke.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he says, nodding a bit and putting down his phone. “I’ve just kind of been chilling here until you got out of the shower.”

I blushed ever-so-slightly at his words and then plopped my Jansport down onto the opposite bed. “You didn’t have to do that Vic,” I tell him. “You could have gone to sleep or something; I’m just getting the rest of my stuff and heading back to my hotel room so I can leave you alone-”

“You can stay here if you want,” Vic quickly said. “I mean, I ran into Alexis outside and he’s spending the night in your room with Ricky instead of here.”

My eyebrows scrunched together a bit in confusion and I was genuinely shocked at his words. “Really?” I asked.

Vic nodded his response. “Alexis sees how uncomfortable Ricky’s been making you, so for tonight, even though we’re not supposed to be doing this, he offered to at least stay in the room with you two and even switch rooms all together.”

I couldn’t help but smile a bit and feel a little touched. While I felt that Alexis didn’t have to do that for me, I also was extremely grateful for that, because at least for tonight, I didn’t have to worry about Ricky, and that was something worth smiling about.

My happiness was short lived though, because just as I was about to respond to staying in the room tonight with Vic, a loud rumble came from outside and a bright flash lit up the room. I let out an involuntary yelp and cowered away from the nearby window, looking at it with wide, fearful eyes.

Vic looked over at me with both worry and a curious glance and prepared himself to jump up to my rescue if need be. “Dean?” he asked softly. “Are you okay?”

I looked back over at him with a shy, fearful gaze and shook my head a bit. “I, uh, I have a fear of thunder and lightning,” I quietly say, stumbling over my words and glancing towards the window in anticipation of another set of the deadly duo.

Vic’s face lit up in recognition and his mouth made a bit of an ‘o’ shaped as he realised why I was suddenly freaking out. “I see,” he said in understanding. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Make it go away?” I asked with a weak laugh. Vic laughed a bit at my joke as well as I shook my head at him, just in time for another loud boom and bright flash to fill the room. I let out another small yelp and instinctively threw myself at Vic and clung onto him for dear life as the weather continued to rage on outside

“Hey, shh, it’s going to be alright,” Vic quietly reassured, not even phased by my actions and wrapping his arms around me in a comforting way. “I know it’s scary, but you’re going to be fine, okay? It’ll go away eventually.”

I couldn’t really speak, so I just nodded my head and buried my face into his chest, hoping that somehow it’d allow me to hide away and be safe from the thunder and lightning. Vic continued to sit there and hold me, mumbling a few bits of nonsense now and again in an attempt to calm me down, and after a few moments of this, he finally spoke again.

“You really should be getting some sleep-”

“I can’t with what’s happening outside,” I complained, my reply muffled by his chest.

“Then you can sleep with me for the night,” he told me. “I promise to keep you safe from the weather outside.”

I gave him another nodded response, and I felt him start to lie down with me still in his arms, and eventually, we both settled into the bed with me facing Vic and hiding away in his chest while his arms had moved to be wrapped around my waist yet they were still comforting to me.

We laid there in that bed for what seemed like hours, but Vic never once left me alone. He stayed awake with me while the thunder and lightning continued outside and still mumbled little bits of nonsense to keep my focus away from the scary things outside. After a while though, the weather finally started to calm down and I could already feel my tired, anxious body relax and finally start to give into sleep. Vic must have noticed too, because a few moments later, all I heard from him was a soft, “Get some rest, Dean.”

I didn’t even argue his point on that, I just let out a small noise of agreeance and started to drift into sleep’s warm embrace. Vic let out a soft chuckle at that, but I didn’t respond. I just let myself drift to sleep.

But then, several moments later, just as I was about to finally fall asleep, I felt a soft kiss on the side of my head and heard a set of words I would probably never forget for the rest of my life:

“Please be mine.”

Notes

So this chapter is like 99% crap, and I'm really sorry about that. Also, I apologise for such a late update, but school is seriously kicking my ass and leaving me with no creative juices (hence the shitty-ness of this chapter). I did try to make it longer and I finally gave you guys some more cute 'fluff' I promised you ages ago, so there's that at least.

Also! Recently, I asked one of my friends if they could draw Dean, and in my opinion, they did a fabulous job. Take a look at this beauty and also check her out on tumblr while you're at it (;