painting your soul with the colors of my words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
luxken27fics) wrote2012-09-05 06:53 pm
luxken27fics) wrote2012-09-05 06:53 pm
Entry tags:
Kids Inc | You’re the One That I Want [III]: Human Touch
Title: You’re the One That I Want
Author: LuxKen27
Fandom: Kids Incorporated
Universe: Season 1
Genre: Friendship, Romance
Rating: T
Summary: Mickey didn’t realize just how much Gloria had come to mean to him until it was almost too late.
Author’s Note: A (much belated) gift for
gloriafan's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
fandom_stocking. This story was also written for a prompt in my 2012 Summer Mini Challenge table. Further author’s notes can be found here.Human Touch
He wasn’t sure when his feelings for her began to change, but suddenly, every time she came near him, she managed to catch him off guard.
“Mickey!”
Mickey slammed his locker shut and whirled around. “Hey, Gloria,” he returned, pressing himself back against his locker door.
She gave him a strange look, clutching her books closer to her chest as she regarded him. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, rocking back on her heels. “Um, maybe before rehearsal this afternoon?”
Mickey’s heart started to flutter. She wanted to talk? To him? Alone?
Gloria furrowed her brow. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice laced with concern.
He finally managed to wipe the cobwebs from his brain. “Yeah, yeah,” he replied in a rush, reaching for his backpack and hastily shoving the book he was holding into it. “I – guess I just have a lot on my mind.”
Gloria sighed. “So do I,” she admitted. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
Stay cool, he told himself, hooking the straps of his backpack over his shoulders. You know how to flirt with girls. Gloria’s just another girl…
But she wasn’t – and that was the problem.
The late bell rang, jarring him from his reverie. “C’mon,” he said, nodding his head towards the exit. “We can talk while we walk.”
She smiled, falling into step with him as they weaved through the halls of the school, following their classmates out the front door of the building. They walked along in companionable silence for a few blocks; all the while, Mickey tortured himself with the possibilities of why she wanted to talk to him.
Alone.
Finally, as they turned the last corner towards the Garage, Gloria spoke. “I’m worried about Stacy,” she told him. “Haven’t you noticed that she’s been moping around lately?”
Mickey shrugged. “Not really,” he confessed. “Everyone seems to have the post-Christmas blues. What makes you so sure that’s not what’s up with her?”
Gloria rolled her eyes, shaking her head as a wry smile rose to her lips. “Boys,” she muttered under her breath.
Mickey furrowed his brow. “Isn’t Stacy a little young to be worried about boys?” he intoned skeptically. “She’s only eight!”
Gloria laughed. “I had crushes when I was eight,” she quipped. “And she’s nine, by the way. But that’s not what I meant.”
Mickey slowed, narrowing his eyes as he regarded her. “Okay, I’m confused,” he said, a note of defensiveness in his tone.
She grinned. “Of course you are,” she teased, touching his temple playfully. “You’re a thick-headed boy!”
He resisted the urge to catch her hand in his as it fell away, instead pulling on the straps of his backpack. “Thanks for the compliment,” he deadpanned. “So are you going to tell me what’s wrong with Stacy, or just leave me in wonder in my thick-headed state?”
She gave him a sympathetic look as she grasped his arm. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” she said, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow as they continued down the sidewalk. “That’s why I’m worried. She doesn’t usually keep things to herself like this.”
Mickey considered her words. “I know what you mean,” he contended. “We always know when she and Renee are having a fight.”
“Or when she and the Kid are up to something,” Gloria added. “But lately, she’s just kept to herself.”
He shrugged. “Well, whatever it is, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” he assured her.
She smiled, her expression soft with gratitude as she turned to him. “Thanks,” she murmured, giving him a squeeze. He felt the warmth of her touch even through his winter coat, a pleasant, electric sensation spreading down the length of his arm. He held her gaze for as long as he dared, enjoying the sensation of being so close to her.
The moment was shattered when Stacy huffed past them, throwing open the door to the Garage with a mighty slam before disappearing inside.
Gloria hurried after her without a word, leaving Mickey on the sidewalk by himself, feeling strangely disappointed. He couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason why, though he recognized the feeling all too well. Lately, he’d been feeling this way a lot when their concerts ended, because it also meant an end to their onstage flirtation. They’d always been a bit playful with each other, from the very first time Gloria had stormed the stage and inadvertently inserted herself in the band, but lately, it had seemed more intense, almost magnetic.
He was fairly certain she felt it, too, if only because of the way she lingered by his side sometimes, a beat longer than she used to.
He sighed. Please don’t let it be all in my head, he pleaded silently, catching the Garage door before it closed and heaving it open once more. He’d never been so confused about whether or not a girl liked him before….
…but then again, none of those girls had ever been Gloria.
He found her with Stacy, sitting on a couple of overturned crates near the stairs. Gloria held the younger girl’s hand in her own, her expression full of sympathy and concern as she gazed at her.
“What’s going on?” Mickey asked, dropping his backpack to the ground near the tape deck.
Stacy looked up at him from beneath a fringe of blonde hair. “I don’t know what to get Renee for her birthday,” she sighed.
Mickey frowned. That’s what she was so upset about? “So? What’s the problem?”
Tears welled behind Stacy’s eyes, and her lips began to wobble. “The problem,” she wailed, “is that every year, Renee and I give each other the perfect present on our birthdays, and this year, she’s been dropping some big hints that whatever she got for me is pretty amazing.” Her gaze fell to her lap. “I don’t know how I’m going to top it.”
Gloria gave her hand another supportive squeeze. “Well,” she tried, “what did you give her last year?”
Stacy shrugged. “My mom helped me pick out a locket,” she replied with a sniffle. “But this year, I wanted to get her something by myself. Only I don’t have very much money, or really any idea what she’d like.”
Mickey considered her dilemma. “What about the new Springsteen album?” he suggested, knowing that Renee was probably the Boss’s biggest fan.
Stacy shook her head. “She already has it,” she said dejectedly. “She even bought it with her own money!”
“Okay,” Mickey returned, “so you’ll get her something different. How about Michael Jackson’s latest? Or Madonna? Pat Benatar? Rick Springfield?”
Gloria shot him a wry look.
“No,” Stacy sighed. “I want to give her something more than just an album. But I don’t know.” She kicked her feet out in front of her, letting her legs swing back and forth as she thought. “Sometimes trying to figure out what to give her is like digging for gold – I don’t even know where to start!”
Gloria bolted upright, the wisp of an idea lighting up her eyes. “That’s it!” she declared.
Mickey and Stacy stared at her with equally confused expressions. “What’s it?” he ventured.
“A treasure hunt!” she exclaimed, turning to Stacy with a happy smile. “That’s what you can give her – what we can give her! Think about it, Stace – instead of buying her the ‘perfect’ present, we can give her a bunch of little presents, like pieces of buried treasure!”
“We can hide the gifts around the P*lace, or around the neighborhood,” Gloria continued, “and then take Renee on a treasure hunt on the day of her birthday!”
“With a treasure map?” Stacy asked, warming up to the idea.
Gloria nodded enthusiastically. “And clues,” she added.
“Uh, there’s just one problem here,” Mickey interjected. “You’ve gone from one gift to a bunch of gifts.”
Gloria looked at him. “So? Little gifts don’t have to be perfect.”
Stacy’s smile waned. “No, but they do cost a lot of money,” she said despondently.
Gloria thought fast. “We’ll help you,” she suggested. “The whole band can pitch in – and we can be creative! We don’t have to get her anything expensive, just something fun.” She glanced up at Mickey. “And this can be our gift to Renee, from all of us.”
Mickey gave her a speculative nod. “Sounds pretty good to me.”
Gloria beamed at him before turning back to their youngest bandmate. “Come on, Stacy, what do you say?” she asked. “Can we help you give Renee the perfect present this year?”
Stacy looked from Gloria to Mickey and back again. “Okay,” she agreed with a smile. She threw her arms around Gloria’s neck. “Thank you!”
“Hey!” piped up a new voice. The trio looked up to see the Kid standing at the head of the stairs gazing down at them curiously. “What’s going on?”
“We think we know what we’re going to give Renee for her birthday,” Mickey informed him as he skipped down the steps.
“Yeah,” Gloria nodded. She opened her mouth to continue, only to hear the door creak open again, with Renee appearing on the landing above. “We’ll fill you in after rehearsal,” she whispered to him.
“Okay,” the Kid whispered back with a smile.
After nine months of almost daily rehearsals, Kids Incorporated had their practice schedule down to a science. Usually their afternoons flew by, but on that day, time seemed to stand still. Finally, six o’clock rolled around, and the band called it an evening.
As luck would have it, Renee was one of the first to leave. She and Mario had been assigned a science project together, and they decided to walk over to his house to start working on it. Aaron and Shanice were the next to go, leaving Mickey, Gloria, Stacy, and the Kid to hash out their birthday surprise.
The others quickly filled the Kid in on their earlier conversation, and he was completely gung-ho about the idea of designing a treasure hunt. He suggested they find a map of the neighborhood so that they could decide where to hide their treasures; as the four of them combed through the interminable cardboard boxes stashed in the corners of the Garage, he found an old piece of parchment paper, big and blank and beginning to yellow with age.
“This can be our treasure map!” he declared, to instant nods of agreement from his bandmates.
Mickey finally unearthed an old map of the neighborhood. The others gathered around him, poring over the map and shouting out suggestions for hiding places. They finally narrowed it down to five or six potential spots, before turning back to the question of what, exactly, their treasure was going to be.
“What can we give Renee that won’t cost very much money?” Gloria mused, settling back on her crate near the old piano. The map was spread out on the piano bench, the four of them clustered around it.
The Kid shrugged. “It’s too bad we can’t give her presents she’s already received,” he joked.
Suddenly, Mickey was struck with an idea. “Wait a minute,” he breathed. “That’s it!”
The Kid furrowed his brow. “What’s it?” he asked skeptically.
“We can give her presents she’s already received!” Mickey insisted. He gazed at each of his friends in turn. “Think about it. Renee’s turning twelve, right? That’s a milestone birthday – so why don’t we re-gift her things she received on her other milestone birthdays?”
Stacy frowned. “Like what?” she wanted to know.
“Like – her first doll,” Gloria suggested, cottoning onto Mickey’s idea. “Or her first book!”
“Exactly!” Mickey said, nodding in agreement. “Stacy, you know when she received these things, right?”
“I guess so,” Stacy replied uncertainly. “But how are we going to get these things from her, without her finding out?”
Gloria’s smile turned playful. “I think that’s the perfect job for you two,” she said, nodding to Stacy and the Kid. “After all, you guys are the masters of mischief. I’m sure you can think of something.”
They smiled at each other. “Definitely,” they chorused, their eyes sparkling with possibilities.
“And Mickey,” Gloria continued, turning her attention to him. “You should draw the map. You’re the most artistically inclined of us.”
He turned the idea over in his mind. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “But what are you going to do?”
“I’ll write the clues,” she proposed. “Maybe like riddles, or something like that.”
The Kid began to wriggle like an excited puppy. “Ooh, this is going to be so much fun!” he exclaimed. “C’mon, Stace, let’s figure out how we’re going to break into your sister’s room.”
“It is heavily secured,” Stacy quipped as the two of them stood up and headed for the stairs.
Gloria grinned as she watched them leave, the two chatting animatedly as they disappeared through the Garage door. Mickey found himself smiling as well, though his attention was focused solely on Gloria. He couldn’t help but marvel at her ability to think through such an ambitious idea and pull it all together with record speed. He wished he could be half as thoughtful as she was…although at that very moment, her compassion was just about the last thing he found himself admiring about her.
Heat blossomed from his core as he gazed at her, his eyes tracing the counters of her features: her pretty brown eyes, framed by long lashes; the crest of her cheekbone; the line of her jaw. Even as she sat in profile to him, he noticed the fullness of her lips, still colored with a hint of her lipstick. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, drawing his eyes to her long, curly tresses, swept so effortlessly over her shoulders. He became aware of how fast his heart was beating against his ribs, how shallow his breath had become in his lungs, how much he wanted to reach out and touch her –
“Those two,” she laughed, facing him once more, her eyes dancing with mirth. “They’re something else, aren’t they?”
He blinked, swallowing hard as he realized that she expected him to say something. “Uh, yeah,” he choked out, quickly looking down at the map on the bench between them, smoothing his suddenly clammy hands across the page.
“Listen, Mickey,” Gloria said thoughtfully, drawing his attention back to her, “I think you have the biggest job of us all. What if I helped you with the map? Maybe you could bring it to school tomorrow, and we could work on it at lunch?”
He blinked again, momentarily forgetting how to speak. Was she asking him to have lunch with her?
Yes, he decided. Yes, she is. “Okay,” he agreed. “We can firm up the places where we’re going to hide the treasure.”
“Sure,” she nodded, granting him a soft smile. She glanced down at her watch. “Oh, I better go,” she cried in a rush, shooting to her feet. “My mother’s going to wonder what happened to me!”
“Tomorrow, then?” he mused, watching her as she gathered her belongings.
She smiled, mounting the first step of the staircase. “See you then,” she said as she climbed the stairs. She stopped on the landing, smiling at him again before turning back and disappearing out the door.
“I can’t believe we managed to get all this stuff,” the Kid marveled a few weeks later. He was sitting on the floor of the Garage, along with Stacy, Mickey, and Gloria, helping them put the final touches on Renee’s surprise birthday treasure hunt, which was set for the next day.
“I can’t believe it, either,” Gloria intoned wryly, picking up a soft-furred teddy bear and cradling it in the old white bed sheet in her lap. She carefully wrapped it up, pinning the sheet closed with a large safety pin. “I have it hand it to you two, masters of mischief. You really are the best!”
“Why thank you,” the Kid replied grandly, carefully peeling a piece of tape from the dispenser and laying it smooth and flat on the old newspaper he’d used to wrap up Renee’s first book.
“Don’t you want to know how we did it?” Stacy asked giddily, already sounding a bit punchy, though it was only eight thirty in the evening.
Mickey looked up from his own wrapping job. “I don’t think so, Stace,” he told her sardonically, shooting a covert glance in Gloria’s direction. “We don’t want to be complicit in any of you guys’ crimes.”
Stacy simply shrugged in response, turning back to the pair of ballet shoes she was wrapping up. “Done!” she proclaimed, tying a bit of string at both ends of her paper. The wrapped shoes looked like a giant piece of candy.
“Great!” Gloria said with a smile. “Here, make sure the clues are attached to the right gifts.” She passed out three folded squares of paper, which each of her friends dutifully attached to their presents.
Mickey surveyed the room a moment later. “Okay, guys, is that everything?” he mused.
“You have the map?” Gloria asked, to which he nodded, patting his back pocket.
“And I have the envelope to give to Riley,” Stacy announced, wielding a large manila envelope with an ‘X’ on the front, along with Renee’s name.
“Great!” Gloria said again. “Why don’t we split up?” she suggested, switching gifts with the Kid. “You two hide those,” she directed, nodding to the Kid and Stacy, “and we’ll take care of these.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Mickey agreed, inordinately pleased that she volunteered to accompany him instead of one of the younger kids. He’d very much enjoyed their time together working on the treasure map, and was reluctant to see it end.
It seemed like maybe she was, too.
The two set off in the opposite direction of the others, stopping first just outside the Garage, where they decided to hide their first gift.
“Up there,” Gloria nodded, pointing to the light overhead that illuminated the street. “Is there a ladder anywhere?”
“I think so…” Mickey’s words trailed into oblivion as he slipped back inside the Garage, hunting for one of his dad’s old ladders. He found it and dragged it outside, holding it steady as Gloria climbed up and attached the gift. It was all he could do to keep his eyes trained forward, resisting the temptation to stare at her long, toned legs instead.
“Thanks,” she breathed as she clambered down the steps.
“Mmhm,” he murmured, feeling a flush creeping up the back of his neck as he quickly stowed the ladder away. He emerged into the dusk once more, regarding her with a bit of curiosity. “So did you decide where to hide the fourth and final gift?” he asked.
She nodded, her lips curving into a mischievous smile. “Yes,” she answered definitively. “Your locker.”
He froze. “My locker?” he echoed. “You mean – my school locker?” Please, say no, he pleaded silently. It’s such a mess, I’d be so embarrassed if you saw it! She was always so tidy and pulled together that he felt a bit ashamed to be such a slob by comparison. So far, he’d been successful in keeping her from seeing the sorry state of his personal housekeeping, and he’d give anything to keep it that way.
“Of course, silly,” she replied, oblivious to the way she shattered his unspoken request. She cradled the final gift – Renee’s first doll, wrapped in an old checkered picnic blanket – in her arms as she gazed at him, her expression playful.
“But – why?” he sputtered, grasping for any reason to deter her from this quest. “I mean – why not your locker?”
“Why not yours?” she countered. “C’mon, Mickey, be a sport! I’ve already written the clue that leads us there, and it’s too late to change it. It’s already attached to the gift that Stacy’s hiding,” she added pointedly.
Dammit, he thought with a wince. “Oh, all right,” he relented, heaving a heavy sigh. “If we have to.”
“Yes, we do,” she teased, impulsively wrapping her hand around his arm and prodding him forward. “Let’s go!”
Her touch soothed his embarrassment a little bit; it mollified him even further when she didn’t let him go during their trek to the school. Luck ended up being on his side after all, as all of the entrances to the building were locked – but he didn’t get out of it completely, not when she reminded him that his gym locker was outside, and thus, still accessible.
At least this one isn’t as big a mess as the other one, he thought to himself as he peered into the darkness, turning the combination lock with practiced ease. No sooner had he slipped the lock from its place than she wrested open the doors – only to yelp as she was forced to take a step back by the mountain of junk that spilled out of it.
He simply looked at her for a long moment, unsure of how she’d react, feeling another traitorous blush burnishing the nape of his neck and rising to color his cheeks. He was suddenly quite thankful that it was so late at night – he’d die if she could see him now, the color of a ripe tomato.
Not that she was even looking in his direction – instead, she stared down at the mess at her feet and chuckled. “Well, at least it won’t be difficult to hide the present,” she quipped, tucking the doll in the back corner of his locker. He knelt down beside her as she started shoveling his stuff back inside, trying to pick up the grosser stuff so she wouldn’t have to touch it. Mercifully, they worked in silence; he could feel the color receding from his face when no further gentle taunts met his ears.
They rose to stand once they’d finished with the last of it; Mickey was so busy making sure nothing else would fall out that he didn’t realize she’d taken notice of the pictures he’d tacked up inside the door until it was too late.
“Looks like you have some treasures of your own in here,” she joked, angling the door open so that it would catch the light from a nearby streetlamp, giving her a better view.
He didn’t say a word, still thanking every deity he could think of that the school building was locked, keeping the picture of her that he’d taped inside his locker there still safely a secret.
“Which one of them do you like the most?” she asked, abruptly bringing him back to the present.
He blinked, not entirely sure he’d heard her correctly. “W-what?”
She held up a neatly folded square of paper. “It’d be the perfect place to hide the final clue,” she teased him sweetly. “On the back of your favorite picture.”
His gratefulness that they were standing at his gym locker instead of his regular locker soared even higher. “Oh. Well, give it to Brooke,” he decided, pointing to the pinup of Brooke Shields that he kept at eye level.
She giggled as she carefully pulled the photo off the door of his locker, turning it around to tape the clue to the back. She pressed it into place again. “You need some fresh gum soon, I think,” she observed with a hidden smile. “I’m not sure how long Brooke will hang on with this old stuff.”
“Long enough,” he muttered in response, reaching around her to close the doors and slide the lock back into place.
They stood together in awkward silence for a long moment, Gloria’s eyes trained to the ground, while Mickey gazed at her. He’d managed to survive the embarrassment of her getting an eyeful of his locker, and she’d satisfied her curiosity without mocking him mercilessly. All in all, he considered it a net win.
“Do you still have the treasure map?” she asked softly, breaking the stillness of the air.
“Yeah,” he replied, just as quietly, reaching into his pocket and drawing it out. He turned it over in his hands. “I’ll be sure to give it to Riley tomorrow morning, so he can have it ready by our afternoon concert.”
“Good,” she murmured with a nod, her eyes rising to meet his.
His mouth went dry. “Speaking of the map,” he croaked out, pushing a pool of saliva back to coat his throat. “Um, it was a lot of fun working on it with you during lunch. Even though it’s finished – do you think that we could still sit together in the cafeteria?”
“Why, Mickey,” she replied grandly, granting him a teasing smile as she rocked back on her heels, “are you asking me to have lunch with you tomorrow?”
He narrowed his eyes imperceptibly as he studied her, half hidden by the encroaching shadows. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he replied, tucking the map back into his pocket. “So what do you say?”
His heart skipped a beat when she took a step towards him, her hand finding his arm, her fingers sliding down to meet his, igniting a spark of electric heat. “Yes,” she replied softly, cupping his palm into hers. “I’d love to.”
no subject
I'm happy to see a school scene. Kids Inc was strangely lacking these (I think it's funny that they referenced classmates/teachers but never actually showed one of the kids' classrooms/the halls). The fact that Mickey had a picture of Brooke in his locker always made me crack up.
It was so adorable when he didn't want her to see the mess (amongst other things) in his locker! And I really love the descriptions of his embarrassment/nervousness. He's clearly at that stage when it grows from "yeah, she's pretty and nice" to "I might legitimately love her," and I love when that gets covered in any media. You did an absolutely lovely job!
I can't wait to see the conclusion!
no subject
I'm happy to see a school scene. Kids Inc was strangely lacking these
Yay! I legit enjoy writing them ~ its kinda fun to think about how they'd act in school, around kids their own age, considering we only really ever see them interacting with each other. And it's funny; Season 1 had the most school scenes of all, so you'd think it'd satisfy that need! :P
I really love the descriptions of his embarrassment/nervousness. He's clearly at that stage when it grows from "yeah, she's pretty and nice" to "I might legitimately love her," and I love when that gets covered in any media.
:D :D :D Yay!!! You seriously just made my evening. Teenage boys are one of my weak spots, and Mickey especially - I felt like I only really got to know him in writing this story for you. This is the only way I could see him reacting to this situation, considering how he handles his crushes on the show. The big difference is that he knows Gloria, which makes it so hard and yet, so sweet at the same time ♥