Big Book Of Sjips One Shots

Predatory Wasps (S)

TW: Teen!Cast, Drama

~Chapter One:

Sjin swats the wasp, easy as can be, and then yelps and yanks back his hand from the sweaty vinyl of Sips's car. It's about negative one degrees outside and the heater is turned all the way up and Sjin's fingers are smeared with yellow flesh, the tip of one long digit turning red. Sips's forehead is beaded with moisture and he's already shucked himself of his coat of arms: two flannel shirts, his track jacket, his dad's old army coat.

"Bit me!" He says, voice high with pain. Sjin hair that flips in the front and a shitty teenage mustache and his beard is growing in almost invisibly, but he's stupidly proud of it. He's taken off his nice jacket and he's wearing a t-shirt that reads "KISS ME I'M GRANDMA" and Sips has long since stopped asking about his sense of humor.

"Don't be such a baby," Sips says, pronouncing the last word all wrong, as they are wont to do. "Do wasps even bite?"

"This one did," Sjin replies, and glowers at Sips, obviously not happy with his unsympathetic reaction. "What a brat."

"You killed it, Sjin," Sips says, and laughs at Sjin's pouty face. Sjin sticks his pointed tongue out at Sips, and Sips gives in to the childish urge to try and grab it. He misses, of course. His gloves are sitting on the dashboard and snow is falling gently, silently, landing on the windowshield quiet as anything. "You big dummy, give me your hand."

"You're the dummy," Sjin grumbles, but thrusts his hand in the direction of Sips's face. It's smeared in wasp blood and his fingers look so delicate. Up close, Sips can see all the tiny hairs on his knuckles and the crookedness of where he broke his pinky in seventh grade. "What's a wasp doing in the winter, anyway?"

Sips leans in and kisses the tip of Sjin's finger, right where the sting is. He knows that wasps don't bite. Sjin sighs a little bit, a poignant sound. He pulls his hand away gently after a second and looks at it.

"Much better," he mutters, then looks up at Sips, his green-blue eyes catching Sips's own muddy brown ones. "Thanks, buster."

It's a cliche, but he could get lost in Sjin's eyes. He has every freckle memorized. He knows the exact width and diameter of the tiny scar next to Sjin's right eyelid, and he knows how it got there, too: an unwieldy run with a pair of scissors at five years old. He knows Sjin has a larger scar across his lower belly from an appendectomy and he's run his fingers across it in the shadow of dusk, lying in Sjin's bed, being quiet to avoid waking his parents.

"Are we going to get out of this car?" Sips asks, slouching low and looking at the snow. It's late enough that the street lamps are lit and they illuminate every single flake. The street they're on is silent. "Your mom's gonna worry."

"She can wait," Sjin says, turning to look at his house out the window. They've been idling outside for close to an hour now and Sips usually wouldn't mind spending time with Sjin, but he's a but worried that Sjin's parents hate him.

"Really, Sjin, she's done enough waiting alrea--"

"She's fine!" Sjin snaps, and Sips puffs up instinctively. Loud voices make him loud, too.

"Don't you yell at me, mister," Sips says, voice blunt, and stabs his thick finger into Sjin's pigeon chest. "Don't you fucking yell at me-"

"Get off my back!" Sjin yells, loud enough that Sips goes silent. Sjin squabbles, sure, they're teenagers and they get into thousands of squabbles, there have been weekends where they've abandoned each other entirely, but Sjin doesn't yell unless something is really wrong.

"Jesus," Sips says, looking out of Sjin's face, "Sorry."

"No, it's not-- it's not you, it's.." And Sjin is scrambling for words, hands butterflying around. "It's college." His hands drop. He looks out his window.