#123kid

Maybe it was their ongoing rise in popularity that convinced the boss to pre-book them one of the swankier hotels, something at least a full star above the typical motor lodge they could afford on their own dime. Maybe McMahon was just concerned about making a good impression on the new recruit, considering how swiftly Diesel had turned coat on WCW and jumped to the WWF only two months before. Or, perhaps, this was an attempt to dissuade Shawn, himself, from engaging in his usual illicit activities - whatever the reason, Diesel was down in the gym, taking full advantage of their accommodations. After their argument, the previous night had been rough, to say the least, with too much awkward shuffling around each other in the too-small room. Shawn was used to pushing the beds together, but Diesel didn't move the nightstand aside as he normally did. He showered, bedded down, and went to sleep, leaving Shawn standing in the ambient light of the hallway peeking under the door. Feeling like a lost puppy, he eventually crawled under his own bedspread and restless leg syndrome'd himself out of any real sleep until dawn. Diesel took off during one of the few hours his partner was unconscious, leaving a brochure opened to the gym's page on his bed to indicate where he'd gone.

Things were not good.

It was the first real fight they'd had, Shawn realised as he stared at the thick, day glow orange curtains, and he was doing a pretty bad job at making up, even though he resolved to do so en route to their current hotel. He bundled the comforter up against his chest and clutched it, sighing, racking his brain for a solution; he was determined not to let himself leave bed until a light bulb illuminated above his head. Metaphorically, at least, he thought to himself, already pacing from one end of the room to the next.

"So much for that," he grunted, tussling his hair furiously with both hands, leg bouncing every time he pivoted to pace another line. "It can't just be sincere, it's gotta look sincere. Believable, not like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar and the thing I'm sorry for is getting caught. I gotta apologise for popping open the cookie jar in the first place."

Shawn's stomach growled. He stopped pacing, looking down at his abdomen as if it had spoken to him.

"... Cookies, huh?" That was… Perfect. That was-

“-why I need to use your kitchen, capisce?” Shawn was leaning both elbows on the counter, chin propped in one hand, chewing his gum furiously and bouncing one leg so hard he kept knocking his knee against the pastry display case. He’d spent extra time on his hair, pulled out some of his more understated jewellery, touched up his nails, even applied a little bit of makeup. Just enough to make his eyelashes more noticeable when he fluttered them pleadingly and to cover up the bruise on his temple beneath his bangs, something Shawn earned in his latest match before Diesel could interfere. It was one of the things they’d fought over, but he omitted that part of the story when he explained his dire situation to the barista working the hotel café. He was young, probably college age, with enough piercings and processed hair to make Shawn suspicious of how he scored a job in the hospitality industry but, hey, whatever, who was he to judge? He was a jacked, 6’1” dude trying to coerce this kid into letting him use his employer’s kitchen to bake cookies for a man he nearly kicked in the jaw because he was angry at himself, after all. To drive his point home, Shawn bat his eyelashes up at him and clasped his hands together pleadingly.

“I don’t know, man….” The barista’s name tag read ‘Silas.’ “I can’t let you back here.”

“And I understand that,” Shawn responded immediately, spreading his hands out, palms pointed down and fingers splayed. He nodded sympathetically. “This is really important, my livelihood- our friendship could depend on this. How ‘bout you give me the stuff and I’ll, uh, I’ll mix the batter, and you can… Cook it for me?”

After a few moments of silence that lasted an eternity for Shawn, Silas sighed, shoulder’s slumping. He shook his head and resumed cleaning the whipped cream canister tips. Poor kid, he was probably only holding this job down because he desperately needed the cash and would move onto the next shitty gig in the next shitty town as soon as he had the gas money. Shawn pulled out his wallet, licked a finger, and leafed through a few bills. “I can comp ya for it.”

“No, that’s, uh,” Silas mumbled, searching for the least offensive words. “Unprofessional. Can you wait here a sec?”

All too happy to tuck his wallet away, Shawn nodded vigorously and resumed his leaning on the countertop, practically dancing foot to foot. Silas’s eyes were dark and soft, warm, his sympathy genuine - he wasn’t just taking pity on Shawn, and he held up a single finger with chipped black nail polish before he disappeared into the kitchen behind him. When he returned, he was carrying a plastic mold and a few transparent bags. He laid them all on the counter and nudged them towards Shawn. “Here, you can use these. Bring back the molds and whatever you don’t use, please?”

“Uh, thanks?” Shawn replied, dumbfounded. He picked up the mold and turned it over in his hands, realising the shapes were… Little teddy bears holding hearts. The bags contained paper lollipop sticks, cellophane wrappers, and satin ribbons. “Hey, Silas, pal? What am I supposed to do with these?”

Silas winced before getting his face under control. A little too under control, unfortunately, his tone deadpan. “Chocolate lollipops.”

“...Chocolate lollipops.” Silas nodded. Shawn exhaled slowly and laid the mold down on the counter gently, as if fragile glass. “And how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Looking taken aback, the teen shrugged a shoulder a first before catching himself. He held up his finger again, ducked back into the kitchen, and returned with a cookbook and notepad, the kind one would tear pages out of and clip to a turn style for a chef to snatch orders from. Placing the book on the countertop, he flipped to the index, trailing down the list until he found what he was looking for and tapped it, mumbling the page number to himself. After turning to it, he laid the notepad on the open page and leaned down so far over it Shawn thought he was going to put his head down and go to sleep. Shawn sort of wanted to do that, honestly, but instead he watched Silas copy the recipe down for him and accepted the paper when it was handed to him. Silas’s writing wasn’t sloppy, but it was sharp, with a flare that reminded Shawn of calligraphy and those moody goth albums Diesel liked. “I adjusted the recipe for you. If you follow these measurements, you won’t need another mold. Do you… Want some measuring spoons and stuff?”

–

Silas sent Shawn back to his room with a full box of stuff, including a hot plate, pot, silicone spatula, and all the ingredients. Initially, he’d tried to convince Shawn to buy the foodstuffs himself, but the fifty dollar bill Shawn somehow coerced him to accept changed his mind. Triumphant, Shawn fumbled with his key until he managed to open the door and tumble into the room, setting up his workspace on the window sill and nightstand in a near-frenzy. The analogue clock clattered to the floor, hotel notepad dropped behind the nightstand, the curtains haphazardly shoved aside. He’d left the do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob and hoped Diesel would heed the warning. Standing back with his hands on his hips, Shawn tapped his foot and assessed his battle station. 

It looked perfect. He had already greased the mold and laid the sticks in their little slots, tossing the rest of the cooking spray and sticks on the bed. Beside the mold was powdered sugar, four cellophane wrappers, and four strips of ribbon. To the left were measuring cups, red, off-white, and dark melting chocolates, three metal pots, three piping bags, a pair of scissors, and a jug of water, all lined up on the windowsill. Against the wall left of the window, taking the place of the bedside clock was the plugged in hotplate, pot, three spatulas, and a chocolate thermometer. He couldn’t find any Fun-Tac, so he stuck the recipe to the wood paneling above the hotplate with his chewed gum. Shawn felt pretty damn proud of himself for laying everything out in a mildly coherent order. It took him a really long time, and he had to tie his hair back away from his neck. He almost broke a sweat there.

Pouring water into the pot and a bowl over it, then flipping the hotplate’s switch to ‘on,’ Shawn measured out somewhere around how much of the red melting chocolate was necessary and stood in front of the double boiler, staring. He shuffled from foot to foot. It was too quiet in the room, actually, and he crouched in front of the television set to fiddle with the dials, one hand carefully balancing the metal measuring cup. It was only when he heard the hotplate hissing that he remembered he was boiling water.

“Uh-oh-” Shawn bolted upright, lunging across the room to turn the heat off. It was a miracle he didn’t spill any of the chocolate discs. Without checking the temperature, he poured the chocolate in. It instantly melted into a dark red mess and he snatched up one of the spatulas, stirring furiously, but it kept clumping. “C’mon. What the hell?”

He tried to pick up the bowl but jerked his hand away, shaking his fingers furiously, the spatula dropped in the bowl. He didn’t have any oven mitts. “Ow. Damn, what was that for?” Shawn was almost whining as he carefully lifted the spatula, half the red chocolate stuck to it. It looked sort of… Melty, the silicone bending, looking soft. When he tried to give the muddy chocolate a stir, some of the spatula swirled into it. He was going to have to give Silas way more than a fifty to make up for this, he realised, jogging to the bathroom to grab a few hand towels. He emptied the whole affair into the trash bin and tried again, this time reading the recipe closely and actually measuring the temperature of the bowl before adding the chocolate. The thermometer was held with one hand, the other stirring with a more solid spatula- it took him a few tries to figure out which hand should do what, and more than once he nearly checked the spatula and stirred with the thermometer. Behind him, the television was playing an episode of Family Feud, volume too low to make anything out.

“This is harder than it looks. That punk actually knows how to make these?” The Heartbreak Kid was muttering to himself, consulting the recipe again as he removed his earrings and threw them on the bed. “Looks like… I cool it down a little bit and put it in the piping bag next. That’s doable.”

By the time he looked down again, the chocolate was already starting to harden at the edges. He gave it a quick stir before pouring it into one of the piping bags, remembering his mother doing something similar when she’d make butter cookies on Saturday nights. Something about the memory made him miss Marty. Shaking the thought off, he snipped the bottom of the piping bag a little too wide, shuffled to the mold, and tried to be meticulous about filling the hearts the bears held. He overfilled the first one, nailed the second and third, and didn’t have enough chocolate for the fourth. Damn. “Big deal, Diesel wouldn’t eat four of these, anyway.”

He tossed the empty bag in the garbage, set the bowl aside, and realised how exhausting this whole process was when he looked at the dirty spatula. Next up was the white chocolate, so he’d use the clean spatula for that, but reuse the dirty one for the regular chocolate. The brown should cancel out the red, right? The process went more smoothly this time around, Shawn even getting the ratios right when filling in the little bows around the bears’ necks. Somehow everything went wrong the second he thought he had everything under control; Shawn forgot to check the temperature before adding the last batch of chocolate, which he suspected he measured wrong due to misreading the numbers, and he had to snatch the bowl up and stir like his life depended on it. The chocolate smoothed out thankfully and the spatula didn’t melt, but it was way too much, and when he glanced at the mold he realised he hadn’t let the white chocolate cool enough before pouring it. Only the last bear’s bow wasn’t deformed, and the first bear’s heart had expanded during hardening and oozed into other portions of the mold.

The chocolate in his hands started to harden before it was all melted and he got it back on the heat, trying to get into the rhythm of stirring and temperature checking again, but he kept forgetting the number and he was probably stirring too much and this was way, way too much chocolate and he was going to get Silas fired and-

A knock on the door made Shawn jump right as he was taking the chocolate off the heat. Luckily, he was able to make it tumble out of his hand towards the window sill, and somehow the bowl landed upright with a loud clang. 

“Shawn?” Diesel’s voice came from the other side of the door. Shit. Shit, shit- “I’m coming in.”

“Wait-” Diesel didn’t wait, unlocking the door even before he spoke, and froze when he saw Shawn’s makeshift kitchen. Initially, his expression was vacant. Even with his sunglasses, Shawn could tell he was trying to process this, and Shawn didn’t know what else to do but stand there clutching the red-and-brown chocolate covered spatula, staring at Diesel helplessly. He was vaguely aware that the chocolate might harden before he could get it into the mold but wasn’t sure what to do about that. Diesel blinked. Shawn cleared his throat, voice strained, a little higher than he would’ve liked. “I’m, uh, sorry.”

“For… What? Are you making d-”

“No! God, no,” Shawn barked out a forced laugh and ran a hand through his hair, rocking on his heels. He felt sweat run down his forehead and his face flush. His face couldn’t decide if it wanted to smile or grimace. “No. I’m making chocolate suckers.”

“...Okay?” Diesel inched into the room almost cautiously and closed the door behind him, moving like Shawn’s delicious confectionery concoctions were wild animals that would leap out of the mold and maul him. Maybe there was something to that, with how bad Shawn screwed them up. “And you’re sorry for making chocolate lollipops?”

“Yeah- no- hold on-” Suddenly remembering the chocolate again, Shawn almost dropped the spatula and whirled around, snatching up the bowl and furiously shoveling the swiftly hardening chocolate into the cavities, foregoing the piping bag altogether. More accurately, he dumped the contents of the bowl onto the mold, positive he didn’t measure correctly as he watched the chocolate cover the entire surface even after filling out the rest of the bears. Some of the chocolate had hardened, creating little lumps here and there. Defeated, Shawn heaved a frustrated sigh and tossed the bowl and spatula on the windowsill. “Fuck.”

“Shawn,” his partner’s voice came from right behind him, fingers grazing his arm. Diesel spoke so softly Shawn almost cried, stomping his foot before pivoting on it, hands fluttering up Diesel’s arms, over his chest and up, hands settling on his neck. He felt jittery. He was so tired. He could run a marathon and sleep for a week at the same time, and he wanted nothing more than to twist Diesel’s arm until his elbow dislocated, except maybe drag Diesel into bed- “Shawn.”

“Whuh?” Shawn blinked, hard. His nose felt runny, his throat tight, face hot. He sniffed, blinking back tears and inhaling sharply. His chest felt like an airplane cabin that forgot to depressurise. At some point Diesel had pushed his shades into his hair and was looking at him with concern, hands hovering just under Shawn’s elbows. He was trying not to cringe at how hard Shawn was rubbing his thumbs against the sides of his neck, but when Shawn jerked his hands away, Diesel quickly clapped them back against his skin with his own hands. The leather of his gloves was so soft. It made Shawn want to cry. “Yeah?”

“You’re okay. Tell me what’s going on?”

“I screwed it up,” Shawn laughed. It sounded wet. Gross. “I screwed up, okay? I’m sorry, I’m an impulsive asshole and I never should’ve kicked you or got in your face and you didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just an asshole, and I’m supposed to be making it up to you and apologising but I’m fucking stupid and can’t read and-”

“Whoa,” Diesel squeezed Shawn’s hands, fingers pressing into his knuckles. He slid his grip down Shawn’s arms slowly, hovering over the junction of his arm and torso only briefly before grasping him more firmly, hands coming to rest over Shawn’s waist. He squeezed again and Shawn shuffled closer involuntarily. He was learning he loved when Diesel held him more than almost anything else in the world, maybe even more than rhinestones and gold camera flashes and- “Pump the breaks, Heartbreak. Let me get this straight: You’re making chocolate lollipops to apologise to me?”

Feeling a pathetic wave of shame, Shawn nodded. He couldn’t look at Diesel’s face anymore, laser focused on his Adam's apple. Diesel didn’t acknowledge it if he noticed.

“Okay. Thanks. I forgive you.” What? Shawn frowned, trying to process that. No, that wasn’t right. What? Diesel kept talking though, not giving him any time to parse what he was saying out. “And you’re making these lollipops, but it’s not going well.”

“Silas wrote the whole recipe for me and he gave me all this crap and I really, really should’ve just- just bought my own, because he’s not supposed to, but his handwriting is so stupid and fancy and-”

“Who the hell is Silas?”

“The barista, Diese!” Shawn stomped a foot and pat Diesel’s neck firmly, glaring, suddenly indigent. He could feel a tension headache forming as his eyebrows furrowed and a scowl threatened to twist his face. “Downstairs, in the- the bakery- thing! I bribed him to give me his shit and he copied the recipe for me and I fucked it up and now what am I supposed to do, huh?”

“Okay,” Diesel mumbled, squeezing Shawn’s waist again. Shawn’s leg was jittering, a staccato much unlike his stomps when tuning up the band. He didn’t like that but didn’t have time to dwell on it, thoughts coming to an abrupt halt when Diesel wrapped his big arms around him and squeezed. Shawn’s arms wrapped around his neck, Diesel’s stubble scratching against his cheek. Diesel huffed, the sound muffled by Shawn’s shoulder. “Alright. Let the chocolate cool and we’ll pry the lollipops out, okay?”

‘Kay,” Shawn whispered, voice cracking. He leaned all his weight against Diesel and played with the ends of his hair. He hadn’t gelled it back, his bangs parted in the middle, and the back was wavy but flipping up and out. It was soft, maybe a little frizzy from excessive flat iron use. That was Shawn’s fault, though. They stayed like that for a while, Shawn gradually gaining awareness of the Family Feud audio still quietly playing in the background. He muttered without realising he was even doing it until it was too late to stop himself. “Cowboys.”

“What?” Baffled, Diesel drew back from their extended hug, mindfully shifting Shawn’s weight back onto his feet. Shawn pointed at the television behind Diesel’s back as the speakers dinged, the word ‘COWBOYS’ displaying on the board. Forty-seven people had responded to the survey with ‘cowboys’, Diesel noticed as he turned around. He hadn’t even realised the game show was on. “Cowboys.”

“Cowboys,” Shawn echoed, nodding sagely. “‘Name something that Texas is famous for.’ Cowboys.”

“...Cowboys,” Diesel said again. He snapped out of his trance and turned back to Shawn with a raised eyebrow, patting his shoulder. “Why don’t we pop those suckers out?”

“You wanna help?” A grin threatened to split Shawn’s face, his mood deftly swinging upwards. Energy coursed through him again and he didn’t notice how tired Diesel looked as he spun, picking up the filled mold and holding it out to Diesel. Some of the chocolate had dripped over the edge during hardening, creating a single slab of chocolate with four sticks embedded in it. Shawn beamed despite this. ”I made them myself. D’you have a knife? We can carve them out.”

“I’ll get a knife,” his bodyguard assured him, examining the chocolate. “Wait here.”

-

While Diesel meticulously carved the chocolate bears out, Shawn laid on the bed, kicking his legs and flipping through the SkyMall catalogue he’d stolen from the flight he took to meet Diesel the first time. He hadn’t gotten the chance to look at it before then, and he tossed it onto the opposite bed when Diesel held up the four misshapen, heart-clutching bears at Shawn, freed from their chocolatey prison. Shawn rolled off the bed and landed on his feet, knees bent, springing to Diesel’s side in a motion akin to a leap. “Mission success.”

“These look great, big daddy.” He whistled, plucking only the best bear from Diesel’s hand and spinning it around. “Wrap ‘em.”

Diesel snorted and handed Shawn a second lollipop, along with two of the wrappers. Diesel was significantly more graceful when fitting his wrappers over his pops, Shawn struggling to hold both of them at once and muscling through it. He followed Diesel’s lead and twisted the ends around the sticks, apprehensively looking at the ribbons Diesel held out to him but not making any move to take them. After a few seconds, his partner took back the bear he handed Shawn, trading it for a singular, pink satin ribbon. Shawn beamed, leaned over the lollipops to give Diesel’s cheek an almost comical smooch, and went to work. He ended up having to sit down and wedge the stick between his thighs to tie the ribbon on prettily enough. By the time it was ready to present to Diesel, the big man had already tied off his three ribbons, sticks clutched between the fingers of his left hand. Oh.

Uncertain, Shawn held the lollipop out, brought it back towards himself, then fully extended his arm towards Diesel. The bottom of the stick was pointing at him. “Sorry. For being such a jerk.”

“Eh, you’re my jerk.” Accepting the lollipop, Diesel laid all four of them on the windowsill and opened his arms instead. Shawn didn’t hesitate, barreling into Diesel so hard he nearly toppled his chair backwards. “Oof. Launch a torpedo at me next time, why dontcha?”

Shawn laughed and covered Diesel’s face in obnoxious kisses, ignoring his protests.

-