Title: A Very Awkward Affair

Rating: Rated T for mild language usage and crack!fic humor.

Summary: "Quick, Jack, give me your pants!" / "What?! Fine, Kim, whatever you say!" / "No, not the pair you're wearing right now, idiot! Put your pants back on! They're coming!" / In which the gang walks in on something very unexpected between Jack and Kim that makes everything awkward all around; a pants exchange.

A/N: Just a quick one shot I thought I'd post. Tell me what you think about it, and if you'd like to read more stuff similar to it! Sorry if it's a bit confusing, but I literally have been working nonstop on classwork and my brain is a bit jumbled at the moment.

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Kimberly Beula Crawford did not like the rain.

It was messy, tracked mud, and overall, just life ruining. There were these stupid myths about how you've never experienced life fully until you danced in the rain, and how taking a long, slow walk in the drizzly weather brought the utmost joy to humanity.

Bullshit.

If rain was so pleasurable, then why did people catch pneumonia from it? If rain was so pure and cleansing to the human soul, then why did it erode century old landmarks and forever scar marble statues from acid residue? If rain was so freeing, exhilarating, and beautiful as those cliché dreamers thought it to be, why did dozens of people die from flash floods, courtesy of the rain, every year?

The people that believed in those childish fantasies were idiots. Pure idiots.

Her particularly intense hatred for the rain might have also been due to the fact that on one particular day, whilst she was walking home from the Seaford library without an umbrella, the heavens had decided that it would be the perfect time to pour rain down onto her unprotected body as she trudged on. The sky was an ominous dark grey, and every few minutes a crack of thunder followed by a loud boom of lightening would slash across the sky dramatically as the rain splattered onto the asphalt with the force of a million pins and needles.

Earlier that morning, when Kim had been debating whether or whether not to pack a rain poncho in her bookbag, she had consulted the local weather channel and was told by a certain ditzy redhead morning anchor by the name of Missy Sanden that there was a clear forecast for the day, with just about a zero percent chance of rain and a low humidity reading. Deciding to believe the idiot on her television screen, Kim had decided that an umbrella or a rain poncho would not be necessary that day, and instead opted for sandals and shorts.

Missy Sanden would have to watch her back. There was a certain fuming, and very very wet, blonde that was going to be after her.

But for the moment, she would have to tuck away her plans of revenge for a later time. Right now, her only concern was making it back to her house in as little time as possible, and even though she reveled in the thought of strangling the dumb redhead Missy Sanden, the thoughts on her elaborate plan would only slow down her walk. She was too far away from the library to run back, but not quite close to her home yet. There was nothing to do but to continue to move in the general direction of where she lived, and Kim didn't dare take out her cell phone for fear of it getting wet and short-circuiting.

Now, there were some people that just went with whatever life threw at them. They were the people who were known to roll with the punches.

Kim wasn't one of them.

If something punched her, it damn well should expect her to punch it back twice as hard, and to a more unprotected area. She was not a damsel in distress, thank you very much, and she could dish out a mean left hook when the time provided. Unfortunately, it was a little hard to punch a cloud when it was thirty miles above your head, and currently as big as Manhattan.

So she trudged on in the rain, shivering cold and clinging her bookbag to her body to protect it's contents. Her history teacher would be supremely pissed if her essay shriveled up into a big ball. Oh no, that certainly would not do.

Her feet were soaking and coated with mud. She noted, with despair, that the bright aqua nail polish she had used to paint her toe nails just two days before was already messy and streaked, chipping at the edges. It was just yet another reason why she would never watch the news again. All it ever did was make her believe in false statements and rot her brain until she was glassy eyed.

About half a mile from home, a car suddenly pulled over next to her and let out a long, blaring honk. She had been so focused on where she was walking that the sudden noise caused her to loose focus and trip, falling flat on her butt in a mud puddle. She sat for a moment, pathetically covered in mud, drenched from the rain, and far away from anywhere she could stay.

The driver of the car opened the door and rushed out to help her up. When she was back on her feet, Kim lifted her head up to meet the familiar face of her best friend's, and sighed in relief as she took the offered hand and picked up her bookbag from the sidewalk.

"Oh god, Kim, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to scare you," Jack said, eyes wide. However sorry he looked, though, she swore that she saw a hint of a smirk and a bubble of laughter coming from his throat.

"It's okay. I was already wet anyway," she said, waiting as Jack unlocked the passenger side door of his car. It was a worn yet faithful red pickup truck with chipping paint and dirt tracked tires, but at that moment, Kim couldn't imagine anything more beautiful. She took off her jacket, which had been spared from the mud, and covered the seat with it before sliding in. The last thing she needed was to leave a mud butt print on the seat of Jack's car.

Jack sat back down in the driver's seat, and flicked on the heater before glancing over at the blonde seated next to her. The white graphic t-shirt and khaki shorts she wore were thoroughly wet, and clung to her like a second skin. Jack figured it probably was best not to dwell on the fact that Kim was as good as naked right next to him, shivering. It would only make it awkward for the both of them.

"How about we stop by my house first? It's closer, and I have dry clothes you could borrow," Jack offered as he made a turn, sparing a look from the corner of his eye to look at her. She nodded, and shrugged, "Yeah, sure."

Truth was, the thought of wearing Jack's clothes made Kim feel a bit uncomfortable, seeing as she already was confused enough with their relationship status, but she figured that she wasn't one to argue. She'd take Jack's shirt any day over wearing her wet clothes and catching a cold. Besides, it would be nice to have some company, as her parents were away for the weekend and her little sister was at yet another slumber party. Kim never really got invited to those, as most of the friends she had were guys, and guys didn't exactly throw slumber parties. It wasn't "manly enough".

The old car pulled up into the cobblestone driveway, and together, the two of them made a mad dash for the door as Jack quickly fished his keys out of his pocket and hurriedly ushered Kim inside as a crack of lightening tore the grey sky into two. Her bookbag was still in the car, and even though it was parked just four feet from the house, Kim figured it probably was best to leave it where it was for the time being. There was no way she was going back out into that rain anytime soon.

Whilst Kim was busy prying off her shoes so that she wouldn't leave shoe prints on Jack's wood floor, a loud sneeze exploded from her nose and shuddered her brain. Jack frowned, pulled off the sneakers she'd been struggling with for three minutes with ease, and led her upstairs to his room to change out of her wet clothes, which had no doubt been the cause of the earth-shattering sneeze.

She stood awkwardly at his door, not wanting to sit on his bed and get it wet. Jack turned around and tossed her a shirt several sizes too large in her direction. She caught it clumsily, and looked at it for a minute, as if not knowing what to do with it.

"Uh... You can put that on. I'd give you a pair of my pants too, but I think my waist is probably twice as large as yours. Besides, you'll get sick if you stay in those wet clothes," he said, an amused expression on his face.

She sent him a grateful smile, and was about to head to the bathroom with the huge shirt of his when she remembered something.

"Um, Jack?" she asked tentatively, walking back into his room. He was in the middle of taking off his socks when she called his name. He turned around on the bed with a heavy creak and smiled at her. She stood at the doorframe, his shirt clutched to her chest as she nervously shifted from foot to foot. "Something wrong?" he asked casually.

Oh god, how could she phrase this without it being so embarrassing? She could hardly just straight up ask him. "Well, when I was walking, all of my clothes kinda got wet."

He raised a brow, and pointed to the shirt he'd given her. "That's what the shirt's for, Kim. I don't have any pants that would fit you, but I think the shirt will be long enough for modesty, trust me," he said, a half smile gracing his features.

She sighed, and grumbled at his obliviousness. Did he want her to just blurt it out? "No, I mean, all my clothes got wet," she repeated a flush staining her cheeks. Jack simply nodded, and repeated his previous statement, not seeing what exactly the problem with the shirt he had given her was.

Kim practically wanted to pull out her hair; how could he be so dense? "There's nothing wrong with the dang shirt, and I don't want one of your stupid pants. When I said all my clothes got wet, I meant all of my clothes got wet, okay? That also includes undergarments, which I have none of. So if you would just use your blockhead for a minute, I'm trying to say that I have no change of underwear! I have no freaking underwear! Is that clear enough for you?"

She stood still for a minute, not believing that the last sentence had come out of her mouth. She'd meant to subtly hint at it, but his inability to catch on to what she meant for all of her clothes was infuriating. Looking at his face, she would have laughed if the situation wasn't so mortifying. Had she honestly just asked him for a pair of underwear?

Kim wasn't sure who's face was redder.

"Well, uh- you can- I- um," Jack stammered, twisting his hands together until the knuckles turned white. "You can, I mean, well," he tried again, and failed miserably. The atmosphere in the room had taken a nosedive as soon as it had registered in his mind that Kim Crawford had asked for a pair of his underwear.

Literally.

Giving up entirely on the idea of reasonable thought, Jack silently crossed the room and opened a random drawer, plucking an old pair of boxer briefs that he'd grown out of just a short while ago. They probably would be slightly large on the blonde's tiny frame, but it was better than having her parade around his house, butt naked. The last thing he needed at the moment was that image in his mind, especially with everything that had gone on between them the past few weeks that had left him utterly confused as to where they stood.

Wordlessly, he handed them to her, and after muttering a quick thank you, Kim turned around and ran to the bathroom so fast that she left a blur, her cheeks still burning and the back of her neck boiling. She locked the door and stripped down, trying to clear those thoughts from her head.

The shirt was comfy; cotton, Kim supposed. It smelled like cologne and vanilla bean cupcakes. She brought it up to her nose, inhaled, and then promptly shoved it away in disgust. It wasn't the smell that bothered her (it was amazing, for your information), but the fact that she was being such a... Girl. Which she was, but she never considered herself to be one of those teenagers who sniffed with starstruck expressions at the clothes of their crushes. It was just so cliché.

After she'd changed, Kim took a long, hard good look at herself in the mirror. If only mom and dad could see me now, she thought, wearing another boy's underwear and shirt. They'd have a heart-attack at their good little girl.

Meanwhile, Jack wasn't sure how everything had gone so downhill so fast. One minute they were upholding a playful banter, and the next she was screaming at him about underwear, or more specifically, her lack thereof. He would've lied if he said that he hadn't thought about not giving her the boxers for a moment, as any other self sustaining teenage boy would, and it would also be a false equivocation to say that his mouth hadn't gone dry at the thought of Kim Crawford walking around his house, sans undergarments.

It probably was best for the both of them if he just dropped that mental image all together.

She entered the room, seeing Jack sitting on the edge of his bed, busily drying his hair with a white towel. There was an odd look on his face; not quite troubled, yet not quite amused. It was more of a confused look on his face, laced with something Kim couldn't quite name. He was staring at a blank patch on his wall, her body out of his peripheral view. She cleared her throat loudly, and he turned to look at her with a slightly hand-dog expression.

"Hey, Jack? You okay?" she said as she waved a slim, tan hand in front of his face. He noticed her and flashed a smile, telling her that everything was just fine.

There was an awkward silence in the room.

If there was one thing that everyone knew about Jack and Kim, it was that there were no awkward moments or silences between them; that simply didn't happen. A few years back, when Kim had broken off from the slow dance with Jack at the disastrous Swan's Court Cotillion to jerk to a new hip-hop track that started playing, he had simply shrugged and went on to dance right next to her. Or like the time when the two of them had fought for their lives from aloft the Hollywood sign on "The Karate Games" movie set and almost, almost kissed, nothing had changed between them. It wasn't anymore awkward just because of those events.

But it seemed like everything that had ever been known to them were flushed down the drain at the mention of the word "underwear".

Jack took it upon himself to try and break the awkwardness of the situation. "Um," he hummed under his breath, trying to think of some excuse to talk. Something nagged the back of his mind, giving him a reason to babble, "I think you might've left a bracelet at my house last time you were here. Hold on a minute, I'll get it for you," he stumbled to his desk and pulled a small, beaded piece of jewelry from one of the drawers and handed it to Kim, making sure to avoid eye contact.

And, although Jack had thought it was Kim's, it was most definitely not. Sure, she wore a plethora of bracelets on a daily basis, but there was one major thing about all of her jewelry. They mainly consisted of just yarn and leather, because she found that beaded bracelets tended to make the most annoying clinking sound when she moved her arm, and that was not something she wanted to hear every time she sparred against someone.

But this bracelet was, without a doubt, not hers. It was a bright, vibrant pink, and decorated with glass beads that spelled out a short, much over-used phrase.

"I'm in love with you, and all these little things," she read the tiny script aloud. "This isn't mine," she stated loudly, a hand on her hip. "One Direction lyrics, really? Bracelets with those sappy lyrics belong to girls named Lily who wear Viva La Juicy perfume and flunk all their tests," she deadpanned. Kim didn't miss the flush that stained his cheeks or the stutter as he took the bracelet back.

She was about to explode and ask him just what other girl had been at his house recently when Jerry, Eddie, and Milton entered the door via the spare key hidden under the pot of petunias and barged right into the foyer as the silence between the two reached a peak.

Unluckily for the two of them, however, Kim was still clad in Jack's clothes. The Wasabi Warriors had been through just about everything together, from epic fights to a thoughtless Witness Protection Program to eating Phil's extra spicy baba ganoush poppers (which were probably the most dangerous out of all of their endeavors together). But Kim was sure that them walking in on her in Jack's underwear would provoke something similar to fainting at the scandalous situation before she even had a chance to get a word out.

Thinking quickly, Kim pulled on the sleeve of Jack's shirt to regain his attention, "Quick, Jack, give me your pants!"

"What?!"

"Just give them to me!"

"Okay, whatever you say!" Jack responded, and unzipped the fly of his shorts. Obviously, the brunet had gotten the very wrong message, as what Kim had meant was for him to give her a pair of spare pants so at least when the gang walked in, she would be wearing something that resembled decent clothing rather than looking like she and Jack had just done something they had most definitely not. Jack, on the other hand, had interpreted it as taking off his own pants and giving them to Kim, which for some reason, he did without asking another question. Kim caught on to what Jack was thinking as soon as he unbuckled his pants and started sliding them down his knees.

"No, not the pair you're wearing right now, idiot! Put your pants back on! They're coming!" Kim frantically screamed under her breath as their footsteps up the stairs approached closer. The blonde, irritated by the general stupidity of the male teenager, took it upon herself to fling open all of his drawers and pick a pair of his pants, which she then proceeded to try and tug on.

The door opened.

It was quite possible the most awkward affair all around.

Milton, Jerry, and Eddie were greeted by the sight of the two of them in Jack's room, which would be a very typical sight, had it not been for what they were doing. They stood, eyes wide, each with a pair of pants around their knees. The two of them desperately pulled their clothes up all the way and looked at the other three that were standing, shell-shocked, in the room.

Milton was the first to speak, "Uh, we just.. We heard noises and we thought you guys were fighting again... Obviously not... Um, we'll... We'll be going now!" the ginger said said, his cheeks as red as his hair. He turned around to run out the door, forgetting that Jerry was behind him. He rebounded off the latino like a rubber ball and sat on his rump on the floor of Jack's room.

And just at that moment, Kim's pants- or rather, Jack's pants that Kim was wearing- fell down to the floor to pool around her ankles. They were, after all, about eight sizes too large for her.

Despite the situation, Jack just had to laugh at the horrified expression on her face, especially when Jerry saw what she was wearing underneath. "Yo, Kim, are you wearing Jack's underwear underneath Jack's pants underneath Jack's shirt? Whoooooooo! Little Kimmy's got some game!" he let out a long, sharp wolf whistle.

"I told you that my pants would be too big, Kim!" Jack said, his face a bright crimson.

Eddie, meanwhile, had stood silent throughout the entire conversation, quietly processing every detail. "So, um," the stout African American piped up, "Sorry for interrupting... Whatever it was that was happening. Milton, Jerry, don't you think it's time to go? I think it's time to go. Let's leave, Milton and Jerry. How about we go? Milton, Jerry? Leaving?!"

They did not leave.

Because honestly, why would they, when the view was so much better from here?

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A/N: Well then.

Quick little one shot, because I felt like writing something fluffy and humorous for a change. I've been working on a gritty and darker story lately, so I felt I just needed a quick break with something I could laugh at. I apologize in advance for any spelling/grammatical errors that you might find, as I finished this one-shot in one sitting and didn't really bother to proof read.

But, yeah! Please review and tell me what you thought, it really makes my day.

- lots of love, al.