A/N: Let's keep this Christmas upload train going! From Camille's PoV, this is 'Just a Pinch'.
Today had been a seriously rough day. First I found out that my audition for the part of Jackie in the new sitcom "Two and Three-Quarters Women" was rejected, which immediately ruined my day. Still in a slump, I came back to my apartment only to find it being fumigated because my idiot of a dad decided to try and deal with our little ant problem himself. It probably didn't help that right after that I got absolutely cleaned out of my week's allowance by playing Texas hold 'em against the janitorial staff and Katie Knight (little devil girl…). I don't even know why I accepted that bet, I suck at Poker!
In short, the beginning of my day was horrible, almost making me want to quit and go back to bed even though it was only noon. But I couldn't since my apartment was being fumigated.
The only thing that kept me going for today was seeing Carlos sitting and smiling at me in the lobby after I walked off the pool deck, still sad from my devastating monetary loss. My sorrows quickly dissipated, a similar smile taking to my face when I remembered today's big activity.
"Hey Camille," he chirped happily, running over and putting his hands on my shoulders, bouncing up and down on his toes excitedly. He started randomly blurting out everything that was on his mind, my brain struggling to keep up. "Are ready? I'm so ready! I totally can't wait! When are we going? Can we go now? I bet he's going to—"
I clapped my hand over his mouth, his voice being muffled for a couple seconds before he finally shut up for a second.
"Calm down a bit?" I asked. He nodded vigorously and I removed my hand, watching his smile grow a little brighter.
"Sorry Camille, I'm just so excited!" I laughed. His enthusiasm truly is infectious.
"I know you are, Carlos," I replied, grabbing his hand. "Now come on, let's go up and get him." He quickly forgot about his promise to stop talking.
The elevator ride was slow and anything but silent, Carlos continuing to rattle off all of his thoughts. I could tell I was going to go insane, staring at the numbers above the door with pleading eyes and trying to will it into changing faster. Now Carlos was talking about corn dogs and I couldn't take it any longer. I would have killed him had there not been a loud "ding" signaling our arrival to the second floor. Grabbing hold of the doors, I tried to pry them open faster, feeling my Latino friend's stare drilling through my back.
"Uh, Camille… what are you doing?" I turned around, an awkward smile on my face.
"Nothing, nothing. Now let's go get your boyfriend." Carlos smiled, walking past me out of the elevator. I followed close behind, stopping to let him unlock the door.
"He's gonna be so surprised!"
"Yeah."
"I can't wait to see the look on his face!" He flung the door open, quickly walking inside and looking around. Logan was lounging on the couch watching some TV show, looking over his shoulder to see who arrived. He gave that little half-smile of his upon seeing Carlos, the tan boy running over, jumping over the back of the couch, and landing in the brunet's arms. I smiled. They're so cute together.
"Hey there, Carlitos. What're you and Camille doing here?" He looked over his shoulder and gave me a small wave. "I thought you had some kind of big project to do today."
"Well," Carlos looked over at me and giggled, "you're today's big project Logie." I smirked back, walking over to see a look of confusion on the taller boy's face.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"Remember what you said you were going to do a couple weeks ago?" Logan's face visibly paled with realization, making the two of us laugh.
"Carlos, I only said that I might do that!"
"Come on Logie! Camille, Jo, and I all agree you'd look great~!" The Latino grabbed onto his boyfriend's hands pulling him up onto his feet and giving him a quick peck on the lips. "We're going to the mall now, no objections."
"But—"
Carlos sighed, leaning up to silence Logan with another kiss. They stood there making out in front of me for almost half a minute before I cleared my throat to get their attention. Logan blushed heavily, pulling his face back and looking at me, embarrassed.
"Are you two ready to go or not?"
"No."
"Yes. Let's go, Logie." Carlos grabbed the taller's hands and pulled him out the door, turning around and quickly telling me to go get Jo before disappearing around the corner.
This was going to be fun.
The four of us walked through the mall, Jo and I looking for the store. Carlos was almost dragging Logan along behind him, the pale boy ranting softly to Carlos about how he had changed his mind and didn't want to be there anymore. The tan boy ignored him.
"Logan, it'll be fine," Jo said. I nodded in agreement. "It doesn't hurt all that much, just a pinch for like half a second and then you don't feel it anymore." Logan stared at us, a look of doubt in his eyes, but our reassuring statements managed to calm him down a bit.
"…okay," he replied, grabbing Carlos' hand and finally beginning to actually walk so that we weren't moving so slowly.
After about ten minutes, we finally found the store. Jo and I turned around to look at the two boys to judge their reactions. Carlos was giggling, Logan looked… a little surprised and almost a bit repulsed by the store.
"So?" Jo asked.
"It's really… girly," the pale boy returned, looking inside again.
"Look, it's where both of us got ours done," Jo countered, grabbing Logan's arm that wasn't wrapped around the smaller boy. "They're really good at this, and they even give you a bag of stuff for afterwards." She tugged a little on his arm, forcing him into the store and up to the cash register. The woman standing there looked up from her fashion magazine at us. Her so-blond-it's-white hair flipped up behind her head, showing her multiple piercings and dark red lipstick clearly.
"Welcome to Claire's, how may I help you chicks?" She glanced between me and Jo, noticing Jo's grasp on Logan's arm. "I'm guessing you're here for cartilage peircings and brought boyfriends for moral support?" Well, she was sort of close. Jo shook her head.
"Actually, we're here for him," she replied, raising Logan's arm a bit. "And he brought his boyfriend for moral support." The woman didn't look fazed at all by the response. Carlos seemed happy about that, opening his mouth to speak.
"We kinda had to drag him here, he said he would do this a couple weeks ago and was trying to go back on that today." Logan looked at the Latino incredulously.
"Carlos, I said I might get my ears pierced a couple weeks ago. I never set anything in stone." The woman at the counter laughed, picking up her magazine and placing it beneath the desk.
"Well aren't you two cute together? Anyways, this is just my opinion, but I think you'd look good with a little silver stud in each ear, stud." Jo and I giggled, watching as she grabbed his hand and pulled him to the back of the store, sitting him down in a tall chair. The three of us followed them over, Logan taking Carlos' hand immediately when it came in range. "Just wait here, I'll get the paperwork ready for ya."
The brunet stayed quiet for a little bit after sitting down. Jo and I looked through the racks of earrings and whispered back and forth about how it'll look and which ones he should get for later. Carlos just stood next to the chair, whispering reassuring things to the nervous brunet, thumb running over his boyfriend's knuckles slowly. Finally, the woman returned with a clipboard and a couple of pens, guiding Logan through all of the little signatures and all of that stuff. He looked up at the end, still quiet until he looked at her nametag.
"So why are you called Buzz?" I turned, a bit confused, but her nametag did say 'Buzz' on it. Well, it actually said 'Lizzie' on it, but that was crossed out with 'Buzz' written over it.
"Oh, that? First of all, I love Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear is my favorite character." Carlos giggled and Logan smiled at that. "Second," she pulled a couple of white plastic boxes from under a nearby counter, "my favorite power tool is a buzz saw." The brunet paled a bit; she noticed that and held up a hand in apology. "We don't have any of those here, don't worry. Third, I'm always buzzing around like a busy little bee." Logan released his held breath, only for it to catch in his throat and make him start coughing at the last reason she gave. "Last but not least, I'm always drunk. Get it, 'buzzed'?" She laughed loudly upon seeing his reaction, mostly how white his face got and seeing Carlos' angered expression, slapping her knee with her hand that wasn't busy preparing everything. She gave the tan boy a quick wink, his frown disappearing when he realized that she was only joking. Again.
We waited about five more minutes, turning to looking at 'Buzz' when she announced that everything was ready. "So what kind of hardware were we looking for in there?" She pulled out a small clear plastic display, Jo, Carlos, and I looking at it. They were pretty nice for starter earrings.
"Well, I agree with you Ms. Buzz," Carlos said, pointing to a little silver ball in the display. "What do you think Logie?" The still pale brunet looked in, swallowing heavily.
"Yeah, let's do that and get it over with." Buzz just laughed again.
"Well, usually that's not the attitude we get in here. I want my client to actually get a good look at the piece of metal that will be going into their body, but whatever." She picked the two white boxes up off the counter, pulling a cover off to reveal the earrings.
"It's really different from when I got mine done," I heard Jo say, nodding my head in agreement. Buzz looked over at us with a smirk.
"Yeah, it's much easier and less painful this way." Logan looked relieved and regained color in his face for just about a second. "But it still hurts like a bitch." Well, there goes the pale again. Buzz looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Jeez kid, you should know that I'm kidding by this point. Now, let's do this."
She raised one of the little white boxes up to his ear, taking a second to align it. Logan grasped his boyfriend's hand tightly, the tan boy's thumb still running softly over the bright white knuckles. Suddenly, there was a clicking noise, Logan's eyes widening and mouth opening to say something (or maybe scream something), but Carlos quickly sealed his lips over the brunet's, effectively silencing him.
"Aw, isn't that adorable?" I heard the woman mumble as she picked up the other white box. "Okay, one down, one to go. You okay hun?" she asked, waiting for Carlos to separate from the kiss. When they finally pulled apart, Logan nodded. She went around to the other side of the chair. "Okay, just remember, this'll only hurt a lot. I mean, a bit," Buzz said, a devilish smile on her face. She obviously took joy from toying with him.
Fifteen minutes, another deep kiss between the two boys, and fifty bucks later, we left the store, the tall, white-haired woman handing Logan a pink bag that read "I Just Got My Ears Pierced!" and waving goodbye to us. I turned to look at Logan, his ears a little red around the silver studs that now decorated them.
"So Logan, what did you think?" He smirked.
"It wasn't as bad as I thought, I guess." Carlos smiled and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
"That's nice, Logie. And you look great with them too," the tan boy chirped, lacing their fingers together. Logan leaned down and whispered something in the Latino's ear, causing his smirk to drop quickly. His eyes widened and he gave his boyfriend a look of shock.
"No, anything but that! Logan, don't make me do that! I don't wanna—"
"Relax, babe, it was just a joke."
"Well it wasn't a very nice one…" Carlos said as he pouted and crossed his arms. Logan sighed and leaned down again to deliver a quick kiss to the Latino's lips.
"What did you tell him?" Jo asked with a giggle, both me and her expecting the same thing. The brunet chuckled back, giving Carlos another little kiss, this time to the forehead. He turned back to us. The response wasn't exactly what we had in mind, and he just howled with laughter at our shocked expressions that matched the shorter boy's perfectly.
"I just told him that he's next, and it's not going in his ear."