Hanging by a Moment (Open)

[Zachary LaRousse]

Zac didn’t even hide the frown that slowly crept on his face when Ashton turned from fun to, well, not fun. First he didn’t buy the whole false humility act the pompous teen he set up, leaving his ego bruised, hurt and unsatisfied. Not only that, but Ashton’s way of putting dissing his ego-fishing was just plain snide. Even without the slight sting of his tone, word choice in itself spells killjoy, at least for the animal mimic. And then he went on and doubted Zac’s ability to manipulate people to do his bidding (in this case, have a blind date with the blonde).

That’s it then. No more blind dates for him. Let him rot in virginity land forever.

After a low growl and a quick eye roll, he tilted his head to the side, and with his arms crossed in front of his chest, spoke, “Suit yourself. You shouldn’t really turn away people who offer to help you know.” He shook his head slightly, his scowl disappearing and a smirk moving into its place in the process. “You know about vestigial organs right? You know, organs that shrink and become useless nubs because they’re not used? I’m just saying.” He may or may not have pointed to Ashton’s crotch with his pouted lips when he shrugged.

“Anyway, enough about that. Let’s do this,” he said as he waited for the boy to get ready.

After giving the signal, he took off, smirk still plastered firm on his face. Much like Ash, he wasn’t really planning on dashing or anything; he’s not that desperate to take this one seriously anyway. He just went on and paced himself, confident that even without giving it his all, much less tapping into his powers, he’s got the race in the bag.

Oh how wrong was he.

Within moments, he saw how wrong it was to let the blonde have the ‘inner lane’. Clearly he was an experienced runner, or at least had laps in school frequently (Zac knows he’s not a speedster and their strides are relatively the same length anyway). As the distance between them slowly made itself more prominent, the egotistic heir decided to bring his pace up a bit. He’s ok with being beaten this one time (he doubts Ashton would gloat anyway), but he can’t allow their difference to be that big.

And so he went on, slowly so as to be not too noticeable, picking his pace up every couple of steps. So focused was he on catching up (and even briefly overtaking the boy) that he didn’t notice the rock in front of him, causing him to trip and roll a few steps forward. “Fuck!” he shouted in pain, both by the trip and the roll on uneven ground his still shirtless body endured.

Don’t be fooled, the physical injury was nothing. It was his ego that was shattered to bits.