——
COSMO : You two don't really seem to mind what anyone says about you.
KQ : What's there to care about? All anyone says is that Oli is mad all the time and I'm rude – is that not true?
OS : That's true.
KQ: It's true.
COSMO : But what about the...you know.
KQ : (laughs) I don't know.
COSMO : Are you going to make me say it?
KQ : For a magazine that advertises 500 new sex positions every month...
COSMO : Fair enough. The touch-starving. Is that the right term? (KQ nods, OS glowers) Is there any truth to that? (COSMO notes, here, that KQ and OS have not touched once since the interview began – just saying.)
OS : What do you f**king think?
COSMO : (Nervously, as that particular glare OS gives off is even scarier in person than it is in the pictures) Well, it's just that the other two mutt couples don't seem interested in practicing it much at all. (pause)
KQ : Well, we're not like them. We're not all the the f**king same, you know.
——
Kellin and Oliver sit in chairs next to each other every single morning for a week straight, in shared dressing rooms backstage at some huge television studio in LA or Beverly Hills or Hollywood or wherever the fuck Oli's GPS winds up taking them on any given morning.
They get makeup painted over the faces except for over the mark, which always gets emphasized, touched up, rubbed with some kind of weird oil that makes it stand out more against their skin. The hazel-eyed man does crossword puzzles and doesn't say a word to Kellin. The small boy sits glaring down at his iPhone as he scrolls through his Instagram feed, enviously looking at all the happy people on there, and doesn't say a word to Oli.
If the hair and wardrobe people think there's anything weird about this, it's mostly just raised eyebrows at each other while they think neither of the soulmates are looking at them, probably thinking, 'these two kinky fuckers and their bizarre, kinky soulmate sex;' not that Oli and Kellin speaking or not speaking has anything at all to do with how good the sex winds up being.
The reason for the silences has more to do with the fact that anything and everything they say can and will be used against them by anyone who happens to be listening in; it's not something that Taylor ever told them or warned them about, but it's something that Oli and Kellin say to each other every morning before climbing out of the Lamborghini.
"Last words?" The raven-haired boy will ask, winking in Oliver's general direction, careful not to look directly at him.
The moody brunet will huff, rip the keys out of the ignition, and say something like, "Don't let them comb your hair back or put any product in it. It looks, uh- fine the way it is," or, "Try not to stand so close to me this time," or, "If you keep staring at the side of my face, it makes me want to look at you, and..."
And, they can't look at each other. They have not looked directly into each other's eyes or laid a hand on one another in days. Four days, to be exact.
Not that Kellin is keeping count or anything.
Not at all...
Oli is constantly annoyed with the younger boy, constantly badgering him for this, that and everything, and Kellin constantly has to resist the urge to whirl around, look him dead in the eyes, and say fuck. you. while waving both of his middle fingers in the air right in front of the taller man's face.
