I don't even know where this came from but I had a lot of fun writing it. I just love everything about Mituna and the alphas are all such dorks. :)

Title: Baby, Do You Like My Sweater?

Pairing(s): Flushed Mitula (Mituna Captor 3 Latula Pyrope)

'Verse: School!Stuck

Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck.

Mituna fidgeted in his seat, his eyes glued to the clock as the second hand slowly ticked closer and closer to the twelve. The moment the bell rang he could leave and go to his locker, grab his chemistry book and then be walking up the stairs just as Latula Pyrope was leaving art. If he was lucky, he might be able to catch her eye today.

"Captor! Pay attention!"

Mituna jolted a little in his seat. "I-I'm sorry." He murmured, ducking his head. The moment he ducked his head, his eye caught a nick on his desk and he began to follow it with his eyes, tracing over the grains in the wood as he followed them all the way to the edge of the desk, where someone (presumably a Spongebob fan) had carved "Skool is 4 chumps" into the wood.

He was jerked out of his reverie by the bell ringing and he bolted upright, nearly knocking his desk over in the process. He grabbed his books and headed out the classroom door, his head down as he walked quickly.

Bam! He walked into a wall of solid flesh and jolted backwards in surprise. "What the everloving fuck—!?" He shrieked, hand flying to his forehead, rubbing it as he looked up. Cronus Ampora gave him a lazy grin.

"Look alivwe there, Captor." He slurred the v in the word alive, like he always did. The rumor went that when Cronus and his younger brother Eridan were little, there had been an accident involving power tools and Cronus had bit his tongue so hard that he was never able to pronounce the letter v or the letter w properly ever again.

Of course, that same rumor also said that Eridan had been chopped in half by Porrim's younger sister and that Kanaya had then proceeded to drink his blood, so who really knew. All Mituna knew was that both Eridan and Kanaya were fine and alive and that he was about 99% sure Kanaya Maryam wasn't a vampire.

Ok, so 98%.

Maybe a conservative 97%.

Cronus was speaking again. "Unless, of course, you meant to bump into me. Did you mean to bump into me, Captor?" Cronus stepped forward and slung his arm around Mituna's shoulders. Mituna squeaked and gripped his book tighter to his chest.

"Please stop touching me." He mumbled, trying to slide out from under Cronus' arm. Cronus ignored him.

"I mean, if you meant to bump into me, that's perfectly understandable." Cronus sighed self-deprecatingly. "I am devwistatingly gorgeous, after all, not to mention popular and—"

"Please stop touching me!" Mituna repeated, just as the girl's bathroom door opened behind them. Cronus kept talking but Mituna wasn't listening to him anymore.

"—to the Sadie Hawkins, Latula?"

"I'm not telling… But trust me, he's totally RADICAL!"

The door swung shut again and Mituna stumbled out from under Cronus' arm as Latula Pyrope and Meulin Leijon exited the bathroom. He averted his eyes as Cronus slicked his hair back with his hand and sidled up to Latula.

"Heyy, Lat, wvord is you're asking someone to the Sadie Hawkins?"

Latula rolled her eyes at him. "Keep dreaming, Ampora."

Mituna chose that as his moment and scurried away, feeling his ears burning as he scuttled to his locker to grab his English book, ducking into the classroom and finding a seat near the back corner just as the bell rang.

It wasn't his fault he had such trouble talking to girls. And looking at girls. And being near girls. Especially when they smelled as nice or smiled as bright as Latula Pyrope. She was beautiful, and smart, and was totally kickass with a skateboard. He still remembered the first time he'd spoken to her – Mituna had been walking into school in the early morning, trying to open the energy drink he'd bought on the way over and growing increasingly frustrated when the seal wouldn't break. Why did the damn things have to be vacuum sealed anyway?

He'd just crossed the front walk towards the steps when, all of a sudden, a sharp cry rattled him out of his frustrated Monster dilemma.

"Whoa, there, look out below!"

Crash!

Mituna had found himself flat on his back, staring dazedly up at the sky. "What the fuck!?" He yelped as he reached up to make sure his skull was all still in one piece.

"Damn, boy, you ok?"

And then he'd seen her – Latula Pyrope was leaning over him, her nose wrinkled concernedly as she checked him over for damage. Her red sunglasses had slipped down the bridge of her nose, giving him a glimpse of her warm, concerned eyes and he'd promptly turned what he was sure was a sickly shade of yellow.

Latula had offered a hand. "Sorry 'bout that, dude! Sometimes I get a little outta control, you know?" She laughed as he allowed her to pull him up. All he'd managed was a nod and a strange little croak before the ten minute warning bell rang. Latula glanced behind her. "Damn! That's the bell! Gotta run, dude! Sorry 'bout the board again!" She'd grinned and scooped up her board, vanishing into the crowd of people grudgingly rushing to class.

Sometimes, Mituna wondered what it would have been like if he'd said something, offered to walk her to class, asked her to teach him that awesome trick she'd been working on. Would she have turned back, maybe given him another smile…? Probably say his name too…

"—ptor."

No, it'd be his first name.

"Captor."

No, that wasn't—

"Captor!"

Mituna jerked awake, hurriedly swiping the back of his hand across his lips. He'd drooled on his desk. He looked up apologetically at his English teacher, a skinny man with a wicked looking scar over his eye. It was whispered in the halls that Slick had gotten into a fight with a bear and that all the bear'd managed to do to him was that scar. The bear, it was said, was not as lucky. Slick had been teaching English for years, and had steadily hated it a little more as each year went by. In fact, the only time Mituna could remember seeing him smile while in a class was the one time that Droog, the senior calculus teacher had poked his head in and said, with a dead straight face, that Clubs was stuck in the toilet again.

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

"S-Sorry."

Slick grinned wickedly. "Since you seem to have such a firm grasp of the material, Mr. Captor, maybe you'd like to teach the class for a bit? Go on, tell me what the most prevalent theme in Romeo and Juliet was. We're all ears."

Mituna blinked, looking around for help. English wasn't paying attention, busy scribbling frantically in a notebook. Probably writing more Avatar fanfiction. He didn't appear to notice that Strider and Crocker seemed to have spent all of class flicking bits of paper into his hood while LaLonde smothered giggles in the next row. Behind Strider, Meenah Peixes was tilting back in her chair, watching as Aranea Serket hurriedly outlined a math problem for her. So no help from that side.

On his other side, Meulin was making quick sharp hand gestures at him, apparently forgetting that no, he did not know how to decipher fucking sign language, Meulin. He looked back up at Slick, who was glaring at him.

"Uh…" He cleared his throat and looked down at the battered copy of Romeo and Juliet. It had been his older brother's before he ran off with that controlling chick and had just never come home.

"Romeo is actually gay and is secretly fucking Mercutio?"

There was a dead silence in the room before Meenah burst out laughing, followed quickly by half of the rest of class. Slick looked like he was about to blow a blood vessel and Mituna smirked as the bell suddenly rang, signaling the rustling of papers and scraping of chairs as students rushed for the doors.

English let out a howl as he tried to pull up his hood and he got showered in little bits of paper while Strider and Crocker laughed uproariously. Slick snapped his book shut and stalked towards his desk while Mituna gathered his things and escaped as innocuously as possible.

Lunch time. He had never been more happy to get to lunch time. He stopped by his locker to stow away his book before joining the flow of people heading for the cafeteria. From the buzz around him, it appeared to be taco day. Mituna's stomach grumbled as he slipped into the cafeteria amongst a group of tittering junior girls and he grabbed a tray from the stack, moving through the line on autopilot, more focused on where he was going to sit.

It was very important, after all, which table he chose. Usually he sat at the back left table near the window. It was nice, quiet, out of the way, with the added bonus of being able to see the nest the birds were building in the little tree just outside and the even more added super double bonus of having an excellent view of the table where Latula sat with Meenah, Aranea, and Meulin and her boyfriend. Not that he stared. Because that would be creepy.

But today… Mituna stood awkwardly in the middle of the cafeteria staring at the group of shouting and laughing freshmen who had invaded his usual table and felt completely lost. He looked down at his tray and then back up at the chattering swarm of students and tried quickly to think of a solution. He skimmed over the crowd before spotting a small corner of empty table in the middle of the room. He beelined for it, ducking his head as he slipped between the benches of Latula's table and the one next to it when, without looking, Damara Megido swung her long legs over the bench, stood up and stepped into the aisle.

Mituna walked right into her. His tray went flying, his tacos smushing between his and Damara's chests as cutlery and his plate clattered to the floor, making a loud crash that drew the attention of everyone in the cafeteria. Mituna stepped back in horror, staring down at the taco sauce dripping down his now ruined t shirt.

"Fuck." He mumbled, flicking sauce off his fingers onto the floor. "I liked that shirt." He looked up to where Damara was staring down at her own low-cut shirt, eyelid twitching and took a step back, lifting his hands defensively.

"Hey, Dam—"

Damara stepped forward, muttering in low, rapid, Japanese and Mituna leapt backwards in shock, stumbling over a backpack.

"Damara, I didn't mean…!"

Damara lunged for him and he squeaked in terror, turning and bolting the other way as she raced after him, shrieking in Japanese at the top of her lungs. Mituna clamped his hands over his ears as he ran, shouldering through the double doors and into the hallway.

"I don't speak fucking Japanese, Dam, speak fucking English!" He shouted over his shoulder before skidding around a corner. He spotted an empty classroom and dove for it, sprawling ungracefully onto the hard tiled floor before kicking the door shut with his foot. He gasped for breath, not moving as he listened to Damara's footsteps stop outside the door. She muttered something – sounded mean – and the footsteps started sharply clicking away.

Mituna relaxed, allowing his body to go boneless as he thunked his head onto the floor. "Ow." He mumbled.

Behind him, the door opened and Mituna froze, his entire body going rigid as he waited for Damara to kill him. This couldn't be the end, he was so young! He had his whole pathetic life in front of him to waste away, he couldn't die here, skewered on the end of a slut's heels because he'd dripped taco sauce down her cleavage. There are so many things he didn't get to do! Beat the end of Assassin's Creed III, finish the Wheel of Time books, finally kick his little brother's ass in a 1v1 match of League of Legends, tell Latula—

"Hey, 'tuna!"

Shit. Shit on a stick. Shit on a stick submerged in shit in a box covered in shit somewhere on shit mountain.

Mituna rolled over and looked up at Latula, who was leaning against the door frame, her arms folded over her chest. He blinked at her as she ran a tongue over her lips, eyes flicking from him to the floor and back again. He opened his mouth and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Did you just call me 'tuna?"

Latula uncrossed her arms and then crossed them again. "Yeah, that is your name, right? Mituna?"

Mituna scrambled up, rubbing his forehead. "Uh, yeah, yeah." He paused and just looked at her. "Hi."

"Hi." She smiled and there was an awkward silence. Mituna scratched his head. Was he supposed to say something? She said something, so now it was his turn, right? What was he supposed to talk about? What did girls talk about? Why couldn't there be a manual or something? How to Talk to Pretty Girls, sure as hell not written by Mituna Captor. In fact, he would probably be used as the "How Not To" example. And here we are, folks, how not to talk to a pretty girl step one: Stand there and sweat awkwardly because you suddenly can't think of a single conversation topic—

"Mituna?"

Mituna snapped out of his daze and blinked at her. "Huh?"

Latula looked awkward. "I asked you a question, dude."

Mituna rubbed the back of his neck. " Uh, sorry. I was…" Don't say staring at you. "… Kinda out of it." He laughed awkwardly, trailing off. "What was that?"

Latula's arms dropped to her sides and she fiddled with a wrinkle in her pants. "I asked if you, uh, maybe wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkins with me."

Mituna's mouth fell open. "Me!?" He squeaked and Latula jumped in instantly.

"You know, if you don't already have anyone. Thought it might be fun." She grinned loosely, though her fists remained clenched around the wrinkle in her pants. "You're a pretty cool dude, 'tuna! We could totally tear up that dance floor."

Mituna gaped at her, scrabbling for words as his blood roared in his ears, adrenaline making him fidget and his palms sweat. "I—You—I mean, me and— Sadies—" He shook his head frantically before taking a deep breath. "I'd love to." He squeaked out and Latula broke out into the most radiant smile he could ever remember seeing on anyone's face ever. Fuck wind turbines, Latula's smile could power the globe.

"Awesome!" Latula flung up her hand, almost knocking him in the face. "High five, dude, come on!"

Mituna grinned shyly, lifting his hand and she smacked it, leaving his palm stinging.

"This is gonna be so totally RADICAL!" She spun in a circle, fist pumping the air. "I'm grabbing tickets after school today. How do you feel about red? Also, do you care if we go with some of the others? It'll be like a big awesome group and everyone's real excited and I even think we're dragging Kankri with us because no event is complete without him telling us we all look like sluts and—Hey, 'tuna, you alright?"

Mituna nodded slowly, unable to wipe the little grin from his face. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

Latula grinned. "Well good. Come on then, dude, bell's about to ring!"

Mituna followed her out of the classroom as the bell began to ring and the hallways began to fill and wondered, as she chattered on amiably about anything and everything, whether or not that red sweater he had in the back of his closet still fit.

*Title and inspiration from the song Sadie Hawkins Dance by Relient K.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Pom