Your Biggest Fan
A/N: Based off a convo with jblostfan16 at LJ, and then written for her because she owns me.
"I'm right and you're wrong," Kendall yells, sticking out his tongue like the mature young man he is.
James swipes at his face, trying to catch Kendall's tongue before it retreats. He misses, barely, slippery wet between his fingers for an instant as Kendall smirks up at him, the cocky little shit.
"You might be right, but you're also dumb," James retorts, letting Kendall eat some palm.
Kendall struggles out from beneath the destiny lines across James's hand and snarks, "Takes an idiot to know one. Idiot."
James shoves him off the bed.
Serves Kendall right; they were having a perfectly good conversation about the proper construction of a kitchen sink sandwich when Kendall made the fatal error of dissing pickles. Heathen. Pickles are amazing.
James cranes over the side of his bed, where they've taken up residence because he and Carlos have got a plasma screen TV while all Kendall and Logan share is a wall with a framed poster of the periodic table. "Enjoying the floor?"
"No," Kendall sulks in a tangled heap. "You need a maid." He stretches his hands over his head, beneath the bed. Something catches his attention. "What's this?"
"What's what? Don't dig around under that, it's mine," James protests, although mostly he's concerned about killer mutant dust bunnies and the sure to be petrified corn dog Carlos dropped down there a few weeks back. He doesn't keep anything important under his bed.
"This," Kendall says, pulling out an old, worn shoe box, and okay. James doesn't keep anything important under his bed except that.
"Nothing. That is nothing." James tries to grab the box.
"Is it porn?" Kendall asks, teasing, pulling it out of reach. "Sharing is caring."
He makes to open the box. There is really only one solution here.
James tackles him.
His elbow jams Kendall right in the ribs, his knees coming up just short of really important soft organs, and Kendall doubles over, letting go. James clutches the shoebox protectively to his chest and says, "Mind your own business, jerk."
Kendall blinks. "Since when do you hold out on me? Wait, it's not really porn, is it? Like, bizarre schadenfreude porn that you couldn't share with us?"
Because of course they share everything, even pictures of naked girls and their bizarre kinks. James realizes that clutching the shoebox like it's a lifeline probably isn't convincing Kendall that it's innocuous. He snipes, "No. It's just private."
Kendall has the nerve to look confused, as if he's never actually heard the word private before. Truth is, he probably hasn't, at least not from James's lips. He tries to wrangle the box from James's grasp. "Now I have to see. What's in there? C'mon."
James puts up a valiant fight, but the shoebox is ancient, practically disintegrating all on its own. It only takes a few urgent tugs from Kendall for the top to rip clean off, contents spilling all over the carpet. Kendall peers down.
His mouth opens.
Then it closes.
Then it opens again.
James squeezes his eyes shut, cheeks burning. He hasn't felt this humiliated since their fourth grade teacher called him stupid in front of everyone. Kendall defended him then, told the teacher off and stomped on his foot to boot. He had detention for days, but the teacher got suspended and worse from James's mom, so it all worked out.
James has no idea if this will work out. Objectively speaking it's…Creepy. Yeah. That's probably the word.
"James," Kendall breathes, and James can hear him rummaging around in the pile of junk scattered around his knees, the debris of a life lived without Kendall Knight. "How do you have all this?"
James dares to crack and eyelid, peeking out to assess whether or not Kendall's mad.
He doesn't appear to be mad. Or like he wants to mock James into the next century, which is James's other major concern. If anything, Kendall actually seems kind of delighted. That's good, yeah? Delighted is good.
"I, uh. I bought it." Kendall gives him this face, like, why? James rushes to add, "Not now. A long time ago."
He bites the inside of his cheek while Kendall strokes his hand over the face of a hockey card, reminiscing. Kendall's own five year old face beams up at him, highlighted by his name and vital statistics.
"Who else do you have?"
He starts searching through the other memorabilia, shoving a bright red sticker with the word Knight on it aside in favor of shuffling through the rest of the cards. Bewildered, Kendall concludes, "They're all me. Where's the rest of the team?"
He pauses.
Shit.
"Wait. You weren't even on the team back then. You joined in first grade."
James nods, slowly. Kendall really is kind of dumb. Or at least dense. His eyes land on a jersey with the old team colors and KNIGHT written in block letters on the back, complete with Kendall's number and everything. He touches the sticker with his name emblazoned across it, understanding breaking over his face. "James. Were you my fanboy?"
"Don't put it like that!" James yelps. He's so not a fanboy. Just because he went to every game. And bought all the memorabilia. And may or may not have had a picture or five his mom took on her Nikon blown up and hung on his wall for a year and a half.
He refuses to say any of that out loud. James has a reputation to protect, here.
Kendall stares. "No, but. You totally stalked me."
"I did not."
"To get all this stuff? You had to have come to like, a million games."
James crosses his arms, neglecting to be cowed. It's only Kendall. Kendall being all smug and arrogant and self-satisfied. Kendall, who continues, triumphant, "That means…oh my god. That means when you met me at tryouts, you already knew who I was! You fucker, you treated me like dirt."
"You told me I sucked at defense."
"You did suck at defense," Kendall retorts immediately.
"I don't suck at anything," James shoots back. Mortification isn't going to make him a pushover.
Kendall picks up a Mini Mite card and dangles it in James's face, his brilliant smile a perfect mirror of the one his five year old self wears on the flat, laminate surface. "Did you paint your face with the team colors? Did you make posters? Was glitter paint involved?"
Kendall never looks so victorious as when someone is worshipping at his altar.
"Shut up."
The first time James went to one of Kendall's games, he was fresh out of kindergarten for the day and clinging to his dad's arm like a baby monkey. His dad wanted to teach him that hockey was the coolest sport on Earth. He more than succeeded. He just also kind of turned James onto Kendall, the fearless, reckless miniature team captain of their town's local tiny tot team. That day, Kendall boarded some kid into the glass and then sped straight across the ice to score a winning goal. He took off his helmet to reveal his lion's mane hair and grinned this big, dimpled grin straight up at the bleachers.
Straight up at James.
James was hooked. Instantly. He dragged his parents to the rink whenever he got a chance, for Kendall's games or private lessons of his own. He bought anything Knight related he could find. He even attempted to read a first edition copy of Le Morte d'Arthur he found in his mom's study because of the giant picture of a man in chainmail on the cover. That lasted until about the index, when James realized that not only was he trying to read a book, but it was a book written in Elvish. Or, like, French.
Eventually, his mom and dad got sick of carting James from one small Minnesotan town to another to watch a kid who wasn't theirs own the competition. They forced James to join the team. The rest is history.
Except for how he never exactly mentioned any of it to Kendall.
There was no point in it. It's hard to stay obsessed with someone when they're in your face every day, barking out orders or thinking up schemes or helping you throw water balloons at your next door neighbor's house. Kendall's perfect grin doesn't inspire fluttery winged butterflies to throw a rave in James's stomach anymore.
It does make him pretty warm though, melting across his skin like sunshine. When he turns it on James now, awed and honored, a single butterfly might attempt a halfhearted party, kicking up James's heartbeat like a bass line.
Maybe.
But not because Kendall's his super awesome hockey idol. More because he's Kendall. Who is pretty super awesome even when he doesn't have a hockey stick in hand.
James decides, "I hate you."
"You do not." Kendall smiles wide as a sunbeam. "I'm totally your hero."
"That is a vicious lie, you- you- you vicious liar."
"Do you want my autograph?"
"I want to punch you in the nose, does that count?"
Kendall laughs, loud and brilliant. "We could get you a t-shirt that says I Love Kendall Knight for our next concert and you could wear it on stage and-"
James punches Kendall in the nose. Not über hard, because Mrs. Knight gets mad at them when they bleed on the carpets, but he puts enough force behind it that Kendall's dancing eyes turn murderous. "Dude. Don't make me maim you."
"Like you could."
"I could. The fangirls will cry over the bruises on your pretty face." Kendall's smile returns, wicked. "You probably know what that's like. Did you cry when I got bruises, James?"
This time, James doesn't care about getting blood on the carpet, but Kendall is all prepared. He dodges James's fist with the grace and ease of a seasoned athlete. In one deft move he's got James flipped on his back amidst the Mini Mite player cards, two-dimensional grins pressed up against James's shoulders. His wrists are gripped firmly in Kendall's hands.
"You could hurt somebody that way, James." Kendall inclines his head right into the pool of gold emitted from James's bedside lamp, like a spotlight. "Not me, because I'm a rockstar. But you know. Somebody."
"You're an ass," James spits back, pouting. "Stop making fun of me."
"But then I would be failing- failing- in my civic duty as your best friend."
"So fail."
"I'll tell you what." Kendall's lips purse together, laughter bubbling behind his eyes once more. He is thrilled with his own splendor, James can tell. Kendall jerks his head towards the fan-made jersey. "Put that on for me, just once, and I'll stop."
James frowns. "It's too small now. It won't fit."
"Oh." Kendall obviously didn't think of this hitch in his brilliant plan. "Hold on."
He hops to his feet and is out the door in a flash. James seriously considers locking it behind him. Instead he carefully folds the tiny jersey, gathers up his cards, and tucks them and the sticker all back in the shoebox. The giant photo-posters are still in his room back home, as is the life sized cutout his dad got him as a joke for his sixth birthday. They're tucked away in a closet, dusty, but not forgotten.
Not really.
When James joined the hockey team, he was nervous as fuck about meeting Kendall. Who was totally right before; on that first day, James treated Kendall like he didn't even exist.
He was scared.
It didn't help that Kendall insulted James's defensive skills- which brought his six year old self close to tears- but that wasn't the only reason. It was how, despite the insult, Kendall was just really, really nice. He helped James up every time he fell, still unsteady on skates. He taught him how to rush, how to hit, how to do all the things that James's fancy schmancy private skating instructor hadn't known how to do. He was, suddenly, a real human being with a real dazzling grin and there was a realrealreal possibility that he wouldn't want to be friends with spoiled, arrogant, crybaby James Diamond.
James didn't actually have a whole lot of friends in school for the aforementioned reasons. He never expected that Kendall would take to him like they'd been besties for their entire life. Yet somehow, miraculously, Kendall did. He threw a right hook at the next person who called James a crybaby and then turned back around to tell James he needed to man up. He did the same thing in fourth grade, with that teacher. He'd said, "You are smart, James. Maybe not as smart as Logan, but he's a mutant. No one's as smart as him. Don't let anyone talk to you like that again."
That's why James brought the shoebox with him. To remind himself that Kendall might be a gigantic asshat, but he also really is a bit of hero. He makes James better, and he's made James's life better, just by being in it.
Kendall comes skidding back into the room, fabric balled up in his hand.
"What's that?"
"My real jersey. Almost as good as that one." Kendall sees that James has put it all back in the box and his face falls a little. Strange.
James argues, "It's identical to mine. We're on the same team."
"But this has my name on it," Kendall replies hopefully. "C'mon, pleeeeease?"
"Alright." James slips his t-shirt over his head, throwing it haphazardly on his bed. He stands there, all half naked, waiting expectantly for Kendall to toss him the jersey. Kendall does, eyes never leaving James, entranced.
James catches the fabric on his thumb, slinging it around in a circle before shrugging it on. He feels more exposed in the folds of cloth than he did in jeans and nothing else. It's not like he's never borrowed anything of Kendall's before; dudes who live together are constantly bogarting each other's t-shirts and jeans and sometimes even their underwear. But this is different.
A hockey jersey is a sacred thing, and Kendall won't stop staring.
"You look good wearing me," he says. Seconds later, it occurs to him how it sounds and he hurries to correct, "I mean, my- you know."
James shifts from one bare foot to another, embarrassment burning across the bridge of his nose. "Duh. I'm gorgeous. I look good in everything."
He'd look good wearing Kendall, too. Not that he's ever thought about it before.
Maybe once.
Or twice.
"This is awkward," Kendall announces, as if he can read James's thoughts.
"So awkward," James agrees. "I'm just going to-"
He starts to pull the jersey off, but then Kendall says, "I'll help you."
His hands are big and warm against James's side. They both freeze, the skin to skin contact unexpected. Kendall is shorter than James by an inch or two, just enough that his line of sight draws even to James's lips. He has to tilt his head up to meet James's gaze, and likewise, James has to glance down the slope of his own nose.
Kendall's eyes are big, silver-green-gold in the safety of James's room, startled and uncertain in a way James has never seen before. He waits for Kendall to say something, because Kendall is the one who takes control of these situations. He's the one with the words and the plans and the awkward-dispersing magic. James has comedic timing and a pretty face, but neither of those is really useful, right now. So he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Kendall wrings his hands in the hem of his jersey, rucked up near James's armpits. He admits, "It's just that you're really hot."
"I know," James replies automatically.
Kendall groans. "I mean in my jersey. You're really hot, and you're wearing my clothes and you liked me enough to stalk me across Minnesota. But you're James, and that's weird, and I got carried away. Sorry."
"Carried away," James repeats. Kendall's so close, his big eyes distracting, lovely, in a way. His fingers graze the skin near James's nipples, unwittingly, and oh. James can taste Kendall's breath. He sounds out, "How? You don't wanna…um. You weren't. I mean. Were you going to try to kiss me?"
It is ridiculous out loud. Completely outside the realm of possibility.
But Kendall confesses, "Yeah, was thinking about it."
He doesn't apologize again. He does take a step back, letting go of the jersey. "It was dumb. You're right, I'm dumb. Just. Fans, you know."
Kendall's stammering in a way he hasn't since they were kids, the only visible tell that he's really, really anxious and humiliated. Only he has no reason to be, because James does know. He understands exactly what it's like to have a gorgeous, amazing person think you're the best thing in the entire world, to be stared at with starry-eyes and stalked to crazy places and completely and utterly adored. He's taken more than one groupie to bed before for exactly those reasons, because he wanted to see if they still thought he hung the moon the next morning.
James wonders how much more intoxicatingly potent that feeling would be if the fan in question was one of his best friends. And then he thinks he sort of already knows, because even if Kendall isn't the president of the James Diamond fan club, he's still there in the ranks, supporting everything James does. He may not have any memorabilia, but he was the biggest advocate for James's career right up until he actually managed to deliver that career up on a silver platter.
As far as Kendall's concerned, it's the first time James has reciprocated any of that. He's Kendall, so he would never ever expect James to, but still. In a way he must admire James. It's got to be pretty enchanting to be admired right back.
James shoves his hands in his pockets, abruptly brimful of understanding. "Kendall."
"We should go back to talking about pickles," Kendall warns.
"Pickles are spectacular. But so am I," James replies levelly. "C'mere."
"I'd rather not."
Kendall takes a step forward.
"That's a lie." James wiggles his toes, digs them into the carpet. He is standing his ground here.
"I don't want to kiss you now," Kendall says. He takes another step.
"That's a lie too."
James thinks.
James hopes.
That butterfly is flapping its wings pretty fervently, inviting its friends back into the picture. An insect rave might be in the works.
Maybe James is not totally, one hundred percent over this hero-worship thing.
That's okay. No one's here to see it, except for Kendall, who is obviously hardcore down for a meet and greet with his original fanboy. He stands in front of James, running his hand across the giant gold M on the front of the jersey, his chest rising and fallen unevenly. "I, uh. Pickles are-"
James kisses him.
It's easy. All he has to do is lean down a few inches, bridging the gap between their lips, hands still shoved deep in his pockets. Kendall's hands, though, they fist in the front of his jersey, and yeah, James gets this too. Kendall would look pretty hot with the word Diamond emblazoned across his back as well. He runs his teeth across Kendall's lower lip, begs entrance into his mouth while Kendall clings to the front of him.
James is waiting, waiting to see if Kendall will write this off as a horrible mistake or jump in with both feet.
Kendall does the latter, snaking his arms around James's neck and trying to draw him closer, mouth moving in a caress against James's, and it's exactly what James was hoping for. He's Kendall, fearless, reckless.
Unafraid to make mistakes.
James draws his hands from his pockets and grabs for Kendall's ass, coaxing him onto his tip toes for better access. Then, when that's not enough, James scoops him straight up in the air with a knee on either side of his hips. Kendall goes easily, molding himself to James's front while he slides his lips across James's, alternating pressure and absolutely filthy with his tongue. His mouth is plush, hot, wet, everything James thought it would be when he was ten and he pulled that life sized cut out of Kendall out of the back of his closet, just for practice.
Not that he'll ever admit to that out loud.
He stumbles back towards his bed and trips over the shoe box of Knight souvenirs, landing squarely on his butt against the comforter, with Kendall seated in his lap.
James can totally work with this.
He strips off Kendall's thin t-shirt, which smells of sweat and cologne and Kendall, and continues to do so when James flings it in the general direction of who-the-hell-cares. Freckles dust Kendall's shoulders like fallen stars, so light against his flesh that James has to really squint when he searches them out, first with his eyes and then with his mouth.
He flips them this time, gets Kendall all vulnerable on his back while James flicks over the nub of a nipple with his tongue. Kendall's moss-eyes are half slitted, heavy with bedroom thoughts. He asks, voice cracking, "Are you going to fuck me, James? Are you?"
"Can I?" James's voice is too small to combat the big things he's feels, a familiar tide of lust and loftier, more virtuous emotions that he's not even close to equipped for.
Kendall's smirk is lazy and cocksure, but his words are laced with a tremble-edge. "Anything for my number one fan."
James has to kiss him again, appreciating Kendall's ability to maintain his inner bitch when they are standing on the edge of a precipice that neither of them really knew existed an hour before. He wants to thank his five year old self for laying the foundation of this giant, gaping maw of a mistake he's about to make, for all those sleepless nights where James wondered if he'd ever be half as strong, fast, or powerful as his favorite obsession.
Being a superfan isn't so bad when this is the outcome; getting to show Kendall exactly how strong, fast, and powerful James can be.
They wiggle dance out of their jeans, reluctantly disentangling for a moment or two, but when James tries to take off the jersey Kendall tells him, "Wear it."
"Next time I get you in mine," James promises, even though he has no idea if next time exists.
He fingers Kendall loose and open, going slow, ignoring him when he whines for more. The actual process of getting his dick inside of the blond takes longer and involves much more wincing and many more expletives. They are both fueled by desperation and the idea that their bodies can take whatever hurts they inflict upon them, and something deeper still; the implicit trust that comes with being best friends for so long that they can practically read each other's minds. James clutches a bruise into Kendall's hipbone, a black-blue mark that only serves to complement the pale flex of Kendall's skin and the flutter of the jersey, maroon and gold, team spirit, hurrah. He bottoms out inside of Kendall, tight and fantastic.
Why haven't they done this before?
James's vision is sharp, turned Technicolor. He can make out every ridge and dip and crest of Kendall's spine and the rainbow tan lines striping his waist, dark and then ivory and then an in-between gold, all from different swim trunks. He rolls his hips forward urgently, watching the way Kendall's ribcage balloons out with sobbed breath and how the motion makes the muscles in his sides jump. Kendall's entire body molds itself around James's dick, opens up to him and invites him to stay with a whirlpool of suction on every withdraw. His insides are silky, scalding. He is perfect.
He is James's, completely.
To be fair, James is also Kendall's. He has his name sticking damp to his shoulder blades, his knees situated against the satiny inner curve of Kendall's. He fucks into him with a rhythm that is not quite a song, more primal, baser. Kendall's ass takes James right down to the root, connected at the hips and the knees and the kiss that James presses against his neck before James pulls back again, thickred, a tether.
Kendall's fingers clench the sheets, James's sheets, which he'll never be able to sleep in again without thinking of this, of Kendall on all fours, babbling, "James, fuck, god, James."
Right now Kendall lives in the space beneath James's lungs, in the harmony of the noises that rip from their throats, moans that ride the current of groans chasing the tail end of grunts like meteors. Each sound sparkles and fizzes and makes James's skin stretch taut around his muscles. There is a nebula of stars in the pit of his stomach, and when he touches up inside of Kendall, they push outward, expand, explode. James's body runs through with light, brilliant, white-gold, fragmenting from the event horizon that is Kendall rocking greedily back onto his cock.
He comes without warning, thinking that this is what it means to be starstruck.
"I didn't mean to-" he begins, a whole new wellspring of embarrassment forming in his throat, as he carefully pulls out, oversensitized.
Kendall does not care what James did not mean. He falls upon him, ravenous, begging, "Please."
James has to finish Kendall off with his hand, holding his best friend in the circle of his arms while Kendall bites James's name into the shoulder of his own jersey. His cum sticks the fabric against James's skin as he shatters, shards of broken Kendall that James tries to gather to his chest, hold close so that none will make a great escape. Kendall's rests his head somewhere near James's collarbone. He manages, "I'm still hungry."
"We could go make those sandwiches." James runs his fingers through Kendall's hair, just because he can.
"Can't get up," Kendall whimpers, nuzzling James's skin. "My everything hurts."
James holds his breath. Is Kendall going to yell at him now? Tell him that was the most awful idea in the history of awful? He prepares for the blow.
Kendall says, "You should go make me a sandwich."
"Excuse you?"
"You're the reason I'm all sore. Plus, it's like your sacred duty."
"Excuse you?"
Kendall's lips curve. "As a fan, you're supposed to keep me all nutritional-ized and stuff." He gasps. "You could make me cookies, too! I like cookies."
"I'm not making you cookies."
"So just the sandwich then?" Kendall plants a kiss on the underside of James's chin, lingering. "No pickles."
"Pickles are spectacular," James protests, glaring down at him.
Kendall kisses one corner of James's mouth, and then the other, the bow of his upper lip and the plush of his lower. He teases, "So. Are. You."
They don't end up getting sandwiches.