#like bro. sit your slightly-above-mediocre ass down

[shoyoist]

the way there isn't a single man i know in this entire world that hasn't made me feel so sick of him at least twice

[canonicallyanxious]

i can’t even fake it anymore

SKAM Austin | One-sided Shay Dixon/Megan Flores | 1.4k words

So this is just a quick thing I had to get out of my system, an imagining of Shay and Meg’s first proper meeting. Title is pulled from “Forever” by Ekali. Thanks to @arindwell, @offbeat-leah, @pronouncingitwang and @crazyheartfics for the encouragement! <3 Hope y’all like this small thing =]

It’s warm for January, even if it’s Texas. There’s a lot of things not to like about living in this dumb state, and the weather is just one of them. What Shay wouldn’t give to move to a place that knew what seasons were supposed to be.

Then again, maybe there are worse things than the kind of afternoon that would let her lie on her back in the grass, sun kissing her cheeks, new colors dancing behind her closed eyelids. Maybe she wouldn’t mind that much if this moment lasted a little longer. If she lived in a world where leaving the present was less of an inevitability and more of a choice to make.

Something nudges against her foot. Probably Tyler’s crusty shoe.

“Hey, dipshit,” Tyler says. “We should probably get going.”

Shay doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t speak.

Just soaks it in.

A nudge against her shoulder now, harder, more insistent.

“Lazy ass.”

She cracks a single eye open and turns it slowly toward him. It’s the most she’ll let him have. “Bro, can’t you just let me chill for a hot second?”

“No,” Tyler intones. “No chilling for Shay Dick-son allowed, ever.”

Shay rolls her eyes. How original.

She props herself up on her elbows, racking her brain for the appropriate comeback, but before it comes to mind Tyler elbows her in the side and says, “Look, here comes Marlon and his new chick.”

Shay groans internally. She loves Marlon, she does, she’d give up her life for him in a damn heartbeat if she had to but the boy’s got ninety-nine problems and a bitch is all of them. She kind of wishes he’d stop bringing them to their practices. It always makes her feel a little off-balance, strangely, a little like a bright spotlight is being shone on her when he’s got those pretty girls with the empty smiles and the emptier heads sitting on his couch, nodding as if they know anything about music and acting like they’re not waiting for them to be done already so they can start sucking on Marlon’s face in front of the rest of them. That “I’m not like other girls” mentality is the kind of bullshit Shay’s been trying to kill inside herself for years because it’s never done her or anyone else a bit of good, but in those times she still can’t help but feel the difference between her and them keenly, her rough sharp edges bumping up against their almost untouchable perfection in that garage, that place that’s too small for all of them.

They’ll never notice her, is the thing that makes her feel weirdest of all. To them she’s practically Marlon’s sister, and that makes her harmless. Not even worth a second glance.

Though honestly she doesn’t know what would be worse, that or if they did pay attention to her. If they were actually watching.

Whatever. It’s complicated. That’s why Marlon should stop bringing his girlfriends to practice. It’s always complicated.

Especially with the new girl. God, there in one person is enough drama to last them all the fucking century.

“Hey, guys.”

She doesn’t startle because she’s too cool for that shit but her head snaps upward toward Marlon’s voice almost of its own volition. He’s towering above them and Megan’s there too, hand intertwined in his. The sun’s behind them, annoyingly, meaning Shay has to squint at them and she still can’t see their faces that well.

How much of a dumbass must she look, she thinks hazily, how unflattering must this angle seem?

“Hi,” Megan says, a little shyly, and Shay doesn’t know her too well but somehow there’s this image that comes to mind of the uncertain smile that might accompany that word. She’s just got one of those voices, Shay supposes, where you can tell what the person’s feeling from a single word. Heart not so much on her sleeve as it is exposed for the whole world to see, if you knew where to look.

Which is some dangerous shit, all things considered. It almost makes Shay want to feel bad for Megan, despite her best judgment. A girl like that is destined to have a hard time in this shit ass universe.

Shay brings a hand to her face, a poor attempt to shield her eyes from the sun. She still can’t see for shit. “Hey,” she says. Tyler says nothing.

“So, uh,” Marlon says, and he’s definitely not a heart-on-sleeve kind of person in general but Shay is maybe one of the only people in the world for whom that doesn’t matter. She knows intimately well the exact way his voice goes whenever he turns into a small wreck specifically because the girl he likes wants to kiss him back. Truly, a burden she must bear. “Y’all know Megan. She’s gonna watch us practice, if that’s chill.”

Tyler jumps to his feet. “As long as you don’t try to impregnate her in my garage. That’s basically public indecency, you could probably get arrested for that.”

Well, there’s no point in staying down here if she’s the only one. Shay gets up too. “Don’t be a dick, asswipe,” she says. “Yeah, it’s chill. We could use an audience.”

“Thanks,” Megan says, and smiles, very briefly, at Shay.

Marlon and Tyler have already stopped paying attention, arguing about some pop quiz they had in world history. Megan turns toward them, and Shay blinks.

It’s strange. Her back is to the sun now, but somehow she still feels like she’s squinting.

“All right, bitches,” Tyler says, spinning away from the group in the direction of the parking lot. “Let’s go.”

Practice goes without much of a hitch, surprisingly, considering Marlon and Meg are still very obviously and very squarely in their gross awful honeymoon stage and won’t stop making eyes at each other. Despite that they manage to get a good bit of work on one of their newer songs. Shay works out this cool syncopated beat they decide would be great for the chorus. It’s satisfying, she has to admit, to come up with something entirely on her own that everyone agrees is a good idea. She’d never say it to the boys, they’d probably give her shit until the end of their days, but it’s always nice to feel like she isn’t useless.

After they wrap up Marlon leaves to get them drinks, and Tyler and Shay collapse on the couches. Somehow Shay ends up on the one Megan was already sitting on. She didn’t think about it. She’d almost forgotten Megan was even there.

“You guys sound good,” Megan says. There’s that small half-smile on her lips, except it’s real and not imagined. It’s almost as quiet as her voice itself.

“Wow, thanks,” Tyler says, clear sarcasm dripping from his voice because he can’t go two seconds without being a total douche, apparently. “Your opinion means so much to us.”

“Seriously,” Megan says without a beat of hesitation, earnest and undeterred even if her voice is as gentle as before, and just for a moment, so brief Shay almost thinks or maybe hopes she imagined it, her heart twinges in her chest. “I’ve never seen a band live before. It’s cool.”

“Well, that definitely wasn’t us at our best, but it’s sick you liked our sound,” Shay offers before Tyler can jump in and be an asshole again. “That probably means we’ll kick ass when we actually get where we want to be.”

“You guys definitely will,” Megan says. “Especially you.”

Shay’s heart, that stupid treacherous thing, skips a very small beat. “What?”

“Yeah,” Megan says, tilting her head as her smile gets ever so slightly wider. “You’re such a badass on the drums.”

“No, I’m not,” Shay says, almost reflexively. “I’m, like, mediocre at best. Keeping time, that’s all I’m good for.”

She means it as a joke, but Megan doesn’t laugh.

“You’re not,” she says instead. “You’re really, really not.”

And her voice is as quiet as ever, but the kindness in her eyes is so damn loud.

It’s almost deafening.

And it’s then that Marlon comes back into the garage, drinks in hand and typical smirk on his face. “Got you your sprite, dumbass,” he says to Tyler, tossing the can over before throwing himself down between Shay and Megan and wrapping his arm around her, easy as an afterthought. They lean toward each other that way, too. Shay looks away just in time.

Tyler catches her eye. Badass? he mouths at her, raising his eyebrows.

Because of course. She’s not a heart-on-sleeve kind of person, either. She’s the kind of person with a heart you could probably see from the goddamn stars themselves.

Megan and Marlon are kissing now, really hard, which she doesn’t need to see because she can hear it. She looks the other way and sinks a little deeper into the couch, a little more inside herself.

Badass. What a fucking joke.