If You Steal My Toast?
A/N: I've written this for fanfic100 over on lj. It's for the prompt "taste," ergo the theme of food and kissing. Fun, I know. I'm just attempting a new strategy to get back into writing because the large novel thing hasn't worked in the past. So a few one-shots should help. Tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I do not own a thing! I'm just borrowing these characters for my own twisted fanfictioning needs.
Zach always seemed to be hungry. It was like his stomach was on permanent grumble mode, constantly urging him to shove some kind of organic compound into his mouth. He liked to call this strange hunger 'the disease of a growing boy,' even though all his growing spurts had ended in the ninth grade. He was now three years older and thanking the lord that he hadn't grown any taller. Another couple of inches and he would've reached his own altitude.
But back to the food issue.
The day began the same as any other day. Zach reluctantly dragged himself out of bed, mumbling words no one could understand. He got ready for another enlightening day at Sky High, grabbed some kind of food as he walked out the door, and then waited on the curb for the school bus. It arrived a few minutes later and as the doors slid open he was grateful his stop was one of the first on the route.
"Good morning, Zach!" Zach looked up tiredly at Ron Wilson, who was greeting the teen in his overly happy manner. A large smile was planted on the bus driver's face and his eyes were bright with the prospect of another fulfilling day. Zach had no clue how Ron went around so cheery all the time. I mean everyone has bad days but apparently Ron Wilson didn't.
"G'mornin," Zach mumbled much less enthusiastically, before slumping into his usual seat. The bus continued to rumble down the road and he leaned back, letting out a huge yawn and grabbing the makeshift tinfoil container of food he'd packed. He pulled back the edges of the tinfoil to reveal about five somewhat soggy pieces of toast. Each one was covered in a thin film of butter and just looking at it made Zach begin to salivate. Without an ounce of hesitation, Zach picked up a golden brown piece and shoved it in his mouth. As he chewed madly, he glanced behind him and looked at the other few students who were also there. Soon the insides of the bus would be full of the noise of about thirty other Sky High seniors so he had to enjoy all the peace he could get. To Zach, peace meant eating his breakfast without being interrupted. And so only moments after finishing his first piece of toast he went on to his next one, intent on devouring them all hastily.
He was just finishing his fourth piece when the school bus stopped on Magenta's street. Zach suddenly shifted in his place, attempting to look casual but not like he was trying to. He cleared his throat a few times, made sure his breath didn't smell rancid, and then finally settled down. He was always so conscious of himself when Magenta was near him, even though they had been best friends since ninth and had even gone on the occasional casual date. But he was just weird that way.
Magenta walked onto the bus looking like she normally did, sporting some kind of black and purple clothing ensemble. Her hair was down and fell around her face, which was currently looking very grumpy and sleepy. As she made her way between the seats she was giving people very clear 'don't piss me off,' stares. But knowing Zach and his teenage-boy-brain he wasn't paying attention to the obvious signs that she was in a foul mood. Instead he was only thinking how much he loved it when she left her hair down. It always made him think about running his fingers through it, which led him to think about him doing so much more. A devious grin spread across his face at the idea.
Zach was still looking just as ridiculous when Magenta reached him. She looked down at his face with raised eyebrows as she dropped into the vacant spot next to him. As soon as he noticed her sitting beside him, he gave a very awkward cough and the expression was gone.
"Soooooo." she said, giving him a sideways glance as she placed her black canvas bag on her lap. "Did you finally finish that Atomic Radiation report?"
Zach gave her an accusatory stare. "Yeah," was his snappy, monosyllabic reply. He turned towards her and looked at her from underneath the white visor that was currently shading his eyes. "I was just making sure that the research was correct. And besides," he added, his head jerking forward in his gangster boy way. "Mad Science isn't my area of expertise." Magenta gave a small haughty laugh at his last comment. And then much to Zach's surprise she leaned into him, moving her mouth to within inches of his ear. His eyes widened and his throat suddenly went coarse, getting slightly nervous at their proximity.
"Zach," she whispered matter-of-factly, her warm breath on his cheek. "Nothing is your area of expertise." His glare seemed to only deepen and any nerves that had acted up before were suddenly cooled.
"Oh yeah?" He asked, cocking his had to the side and raising his eyebrows. "Well, it's not like you're acing anything either!" Magenta just looked at him, her dark eyes boring into his light ones. And after a moment, instead of replying with a witty comment, she took the easy way out. She punched him squarely on the side of his arm and a satisfied grin crept onto her lips as he winced.
"Owwwww," he croaked as Magenta moved back to look forward, her face innocently blank as Zach began to rub at the now sore spot.
That's pretty much what most of their days together consisted of. Zach and Magenta would battle in a war of wits and brawn, neither really winning nor losing. But Magenta always had the upper hand because she could get away with using such tactics as punching him. But Zach would never hit Magenta no matter how light the situation. He called it the 'gentle-man's way.' It was an unfair advantage but she used it because she could.
Small things like that about Zach were some of the reason's Magenta liked him in the first place. Even if she called him a sissy the fact that he would never hit her was very endearing. And there were so many other things that made Zach so different from the other guys she knew. Like how he was so dumbly outspoken, his clumsiness and inability to do anything properly in Hero Support class, and even his odd freakish dance moves. Despite being very irritable at the moment, Magenta couldn't help but smile at her last thought. His dancing was something in itself and it was the reason why their first Homecoming together was an event that would always be burned into her memory. She remembered being reminded of an excited dog when he started dancing randomly beside here and thinking he had to be some kind of idiot. But in the end he'd won her over and they danced the rest of the night together.
Suddenly, the sound of crinkling tinfoil broke into Magenta's thoughts. She looked over at Zach who had picked up a piece of toast from his lap. He was just about to bring it up to his mouth when Magenta interjected.
"Hey," Magenta said, his head to snapping over so he could look at her. An innocent expression was on his face and a smile couldn't help but curve at the edge of her lips when she saw it.
"Yeah?" Zach asked, batting his eyelashes at her for a second. He was finding it very hard to keep a straight face because he knew that Magenta would get angry if he acted like he hadn't a clue what she was talking about. It was time for some payback for that punch she just so kindly bestowed on him.
"Give me some," she replied, pointing to the toast that he was still holding in his hands.
Zach face was still innocently dumfounded and she knew he was doing this just to get at her. "Some of what?"
"Your toast," Magenta said flatly, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips slightly. She was already getting annoyed.
"Oh. This?" He turned his head back to look at his food and paused, rubbing his chin and looking as if he was thinking hard about the answer. "Hmmmm. No."
She gave a little scoff and looked at him with one eyebrow raised up "And why not?"
"Well," Zach looked at her like he was a bit unsure as to what to say. But then his eyes lit up with the perfect words. "As I recall, you just punched me in the arm. I don't think I want to share this delicious piece of toast with someone who punches me." She just gave him an unbelieving stare. Okay, sometimes she though Zach was cute but most of the time he was just irritating. This was one of those times. She knew he was just trying to be a prat because he always shared his breakfast with her.
Magenta was about to reply when she was suddenly thrust back into the hardness of the bus seat behind her, straps crossing themselves over her chest. She looked out the window to see that they had just started speeding up on the fake construction bridge, the sight outside becoming increasingly harder to see as the bus continued to move faster and faster. And then suddenly, she felt her stomach drop out as the wheels lifted from the pavement. Of course, they had gotten used to the fact that they flew to school everyday, but it was still sort of hard to engage in conversation while in the air. So Magenta sat back as the bus zoomed expertly through the clouds making it's way to the unknown location of Sky High. When the bus landed roughly on the school's front deck, Magenta looked over at Zach who was just about to pick up his food once more. A sly smile curved on her mouth and she bit her bottom lip in amusement.
She had a plan.
The toast was getting closer and closer to his mouth and just as he opened it to take a bite Magenta quickly grabbed it from him. With a large smile now fully on her face, she leaped up off the seat and expertly dogged the other students around her who were standing up to get off the bus. She flew past Ron Wilson with her black canvas bag in tow and then bolted it for the left side of the school where the gym was.
Magenta could vaguely hear Zach yelling after her from behind but she didn't slow down. Many of the other students were giving her long gawks as she dashed past them. She knew she must have looked insane, running madly with a large grin on her face, a piece of soggy toast in her hand. Zach yelling profanities behind her wasn't helping much. But still she didn't care.
Almost out of breath, Magenta rounded the corner of the gym and slammed her back against the wall, dropping her bad beside her feet. Her breathing was rather hard now and her shoulders were going up and down with the intake of air. She listened for a second to see if Zach was coming and when she didn't hear anything she looked down at her hand that was grasping the toast. It probably wouldn't taste that good anymore, seeing as it was soggy, mutilated, and had been held several times in the last hour. But she brought it up to her mouth and enjoyed its buttery goodness anyways.
"Did you really have to steal my toast?" Magenta heard from beside her, as she quietly swallowed the last bite. Her head snapped in the direction of the voice and she saw Zach, doubled over with his hands on his knees. He was frowning at her from under his visor and his breath, like hers, was still erratic.
"Well, I was hungry!" She laughed, reveling in her triumph.
"Yeah," he replied matter-of-factly. "So was I." Zach straightened himself up and began to move towards her.
"And it was my breakfast that you stole!'
"And your point is?" She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Zach a lopsided grin. He was only a few feet away from her and she could see he we was already annoyed and probably still very hungry.
He scoffed when he heard her feigning innocence. "My point?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. She was being difficult. He knew that. But he had an idea that would take that smug look from her face. Now it was time to test her boundaries.
A small smile spread on his lips as he took one more step closer to her, making the gap between them very minimal. He lifted one arm up until it was just above Magenta's head and placed his hand on the wall behind her. Already she was looking rather suspicious of what he was doing and even more so when bent his head down close to hers and gave her a heated stare.
"Ha-ha,' he whispered, stressing each syllable. "Like you don't know what it is."
Magenta's dark eyes locked with his light ones and she was surprised to see that her throat had already gone dry. She gulped trying to clear the weird sensation but it didn't work. It was weird that Zach was so suddenly intense, seeing as only a little while before he had went all fidgety when she had done quite the same thing to him. But she could tell that this time he was having an effect on her. Magenta wasn't too sure she liked it, but at the same time she wasn't too sure she didn't either.
He raised his eyebrows at her reaction to him, surprised that he was able to conjure such an effect. He was also surprised with his own ability to hold her gaze. There were so many other things about here that were distracting him at the moment that he was finding it rather difficult. Like Magenta's lips, for example. They were very distracting and he was finding that the thought of leaning down just a little bit more was entering his head rather often. And while he was there he wouldn't mind brushing past her curvy neck to that little hollow at that base of her throat. And why had he not noticed how low her shirt dipped earlier this morning?
He was sure if he stayed like this much longer he would lose it.
"And, uh," Magenta said, her voice coming out a lot huskier than she thought it would. "How would I know what this point is?" Zach placed his other hand beside her waist so that she was now stuck against the wall.
"Because." It was all he could say. Zach was already starting to forget what the point of this conversation was and the longing to kiss her was becoming too strong to ignore. He had only meant this as a ploy to make Magenta uncomfortable but he was discovering that he quite liked what it had become.
Magenta wasn't sure what to think of the situation. She didn't know where he was going with this but what had begun as a stupid friendly play fight had become rather intense in such as short time. She couldn't deny that there was something between them, but he was Zach, her best friend. And where she was at the moment, pinned to the wall, was making her think about much, much more.
"I think I deserve a bit of restitution," he said, leaning his head further forward. Zach finally let his vision travel over her face, his lids closing so his eyes were only half open.
"What kind of restitution?" Magenta replied, responding to him in much the same way. Zach suddenly made the space between them even smaller so that their lips were barely an inch apart. Magenta's lips parted and she sucked in a quick breath.
"Perhaps." He paused. "A kiss?" Magenta didn't answer but let her eyes close and then brushed her lips lightly against his. It was feather light but in a daunting moment she felt him press his lips firmly against hers. Within moments, she raised her arms up and draped them around his neck, pulling him closer to her so that she could feel his warmth. He smiled against her lips and let out a small moan at the feeling of her body against his, surprised by her sudden actions. Within minutes both of them were lost, but just as quickly as it began the whole thing ended.
Rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnng.
Zach would have gladly ignored the bell signaling the beginning of classes, but he was sure Magenta wouldn't. So he hesitantly pulled back and looked at Magenta who was smiling softly and lightly panting.
"Guess we better go," she said almost inaudibly, tilting her head to the side. Her arms were still draped over his neck and he was still leaning up against her.
"Yeah," was all Zach could muster in reply. He sighed and then let his arms fall from her side, pushing up on the wall so he could stand up properly. Magenta frowned lightly as her arms also left is neck, not much liking the feeling of coldness she now felt from the absence of Zach's body. They both picked up their bags and then began to make their way to the front entrance. As they were stepping out from behind the gym, Zach gave a small chuckle and he smiled broadly. Magenta shot him a dangerous look that easily conveyed she wouldn't be amused if he was laughing at her.
"What?" She snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. Zach only smiled bigger and leaned sideways so his mouth was positioned close to her ear.
"You taste like toast."
It was the wrong thing to say. And Zach knew that after Magenta punched him once more.