I Am Obsessed With Fictional Guys Being Really Weird About Each Other. Hard At Work In The Plausible

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inspired by ekky and his snoopy: a little baby sharks fic 🦥

The Sharks media team have let them loose with half-a-dozen rolls of quarters and a camera guy trailing them round.

As media goes, it’s not too bad - they both love any kind of game, no matter how dumb, and they’re so competitive they end up getting way too into everything, which apparently is what the fans love. If Mack can’t be playing hockey, then beating Will at the coconut shie by the pier is a pretty good consolation. At least no one’s asking him questions.

It’s nice to see Will so relaxed too, throwing his head back to laugh at Mack’s terrible rifle shot, his perfect teeth bright in the fairground lights. It’s busy, and after a while they manage to accidentally-on-purpose lose their social media handlers in the crowd. They wander, aimless and contented, through the stalls, passing a churro back and forth now there’s no one to confiscate any contraband.

“Oh hey,” says Mack, stopping in front of a stall garlanded with stuffed sloths. He reaches out, strokes a gentle finger over one of their weird little faces. “I used to have one just like that when I was a kid. He was like, my favourite thing.”

“Yeah?” says Will, taking advantage of Mack’s distraction to swallow the last of the churro.

“Yeah, Slothy, I think he was called. My dad tossed him out after I got benched in some Midget game.” He grins and turns to Will, expecting some chirp about naming a sloth Slothy. But Will’s staring at him.

“What? He, like, threw it away?”

“Well, yeah,” says Mack, “But I was probably like, seven? So not like it wasn’t time anyway.” He bumps Will’s shoulder companionably to try and smooth out that unhappy furrow between his eyes that Mack hates. It doesn’t work.

“Jesus fuck, Mack.”

Mack’s frowning now, starting to feel actually upset, which is dumb. “It’s not a big deal, dude.” Will opens his mouth, as if to argue but Mack spies the Sharks camera guy craning his neck through the crowd and elbows him. “C’mon.”

Will doesn’t look convinced but lets Mack steer them over to the hoops stand anyway. He’s quiet, doesn’t even demand a rematch when Mack smokes him at tiny basketball and barely acknowledges a dachshund dressed like a hot dog. Mack glances at him all the way back to the car park, trying to catch his eye long enough to pull stupid faces but Will barely notices.

“Hey, sorry, think I forgot something,” Will says, when they’re almost at the car. “Here.” He fishes his keys out of his sweatshirt pocket and tosses them at Mack.

“Dude, what?” Mack starts, but Will’s already heading back towards the fair.

“I’ll be quick!” he shouts over his shoulder, breaking into a jog. Will never jogs. Mack stares after him, trying to shake the feeling that he’s missed something here but not quite managing it. He sighs and clambers into the car, resigned to actually answering that email from his agent and texting his dad back, earlier happiness vanishing like bubbles.

***

When Mack steps out of the bathroom, damp from his shower, Will’s exactly where Mack left him: slumped in bed on his phone. But he’s not alone. There’s a stuffed sloth sitting upright in the opposite bed, it’s long furry arms holding Mack’s sleep shorts and t-shirt.

Mack stares at it, then at Will scrolling TikTok. He picks it up. It’s very soft, softer than Slothy was at the end, because he went everywhere, but the button eyes and little sloth-hands are just the same. Its smell is different though, like Will’s detergent - like the Marleau’s detergent, Mack mentally corrects, because Will doesn’t know how to work a washing machine - like maybe it travelled in his suitcase, folded between his clothes. He strokes a hand over its belly, along its arms.

“Will, I-” he breaks off around the sudden lump in his throat, and stares down at his sloth in his hands, unsure what to say.

“It’s not a big deal, dude.” Will parrots Mack’s own words back at him, but he’s clicking off his phone, and rolling over towards Mack, smiling at him, warm and teasing. “Ekky’s already ruined our street cred. You can have a little buddy too.”

Mack nods, risking a watery glance in Will’s direction. “Thanks man.”

He doesn’t put the sloth down when he pulls on his pajamas; has to swap hands so he can tug his t-shirt over his head. When he shuffles over Will takes it gently out of his hands and makes it pat the bed next to him.

“Did you win it for me? At the fair?” Mack whispers, sliding in under the thick comforter and pulling a pillow under his cheek.

“I tried.” Will grins and tucks the sloth in against Mack’s chest. Mack’s arms immediately come up around it, holding on tight. “I was worried that you’d come find me, kept flubbing the game - you had to knock all these little bananas down. And then I ran out of quarters.”

“That‘s ‘cause your hand-eye coordination goes to shit under pressure,” whispers Mack, shifting closer. There’s a warmth rising up from his toes, slowly filling his whole body. Will reaches over and tucks the blankets right up to his ears, then gives him a flick on the nose for good measure.

“So I offered him twenty bucks, which was all I had, but he said no, they can’t do that, so I told him that it’s for a guy I really like who lost one a long time ago.” He grins ruefully at Mack. “I think I’ve been watching too many romcoms.”

“Oh,” breathes Mack. He inches closer, emboldened, until they’re touching: foreheads, hands and knees. He wonders if Will can feel his heart thumping through the sloth. “Did it work?”

Will winds an arm around Mack and rolls them until Mack’s on top and the sloth is flattened between them. “Yeah,” he whispers, catching Mack’s smile with his own. “It did.”

↳ ROMAN JOSI POSTGAME | NSH v. CHI | 4.12.24

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