Sidemen Shots

Take the Bait (Wroetobehz/?)

Amongst the chaos that is seven adult males, referred to by both themselves and others as 'the Sidemen', Harry sits stock-still, staring in shock at the older man sat to his left.

"You want me to what?" He asks, the intonation on the final word perfectly expressing his near incredulity.

Next to him, Josh chuckles to himself. Before speaking again, he eyes the shambles that is their group of friends, that sparkle of fondness never leaving his shining eyes as he gazes over the other five men.

"I want you to bait someone in to sleeping with you." Josh reiterates, his tone kind but humorous, sounding as amused as he visibly looks. "Just one of the lads, yeah? You don't have to put yourself out there or anything. Just work with what you've got. I bet if you asked right now, one of them would jump at the chance."

Harry sits for a moment after hearing that. He glances around the room, watching everyone share their dares between them and the person whose name they pulled out of the Sidemen bucket hat they had found laying around in the studio.

(Vik looks particularly displeased as he twists his beard hairs, nodding along reluctantly to JJ's words, whereas Ethan, on the other hand, looks overjoyed. Ethan sits there - barely still on the sofa - leant over with a hand clutching at his side, his arm wrapped around his torso as he cackles. Next to him, Simon is positively beaming with poorly veiled pride at his own suggestion, glancing over at Tobi, who is watching on with a smile.

Tobi had already received his dare from Harry, and before even that, he had been the first to whisper a dare; his mystery order made Josh's eyebrows raise with curiosity. Because of that, he is now just sitting back to observe, as well as try and hear any of the dares under the jumble of different voices.)

"O-okay. Yeah! I c-can do that. No problem."

Harry's head slowly tilts to one side as he continues to look over his friends, his mind's eye suddenly overly critical of all their flaws and all their best assets. Both physical and otherwise.

He knows he didn't sound as confident as he had wanted to when accepting the dare, but he does hope that, in the long run, the dare will do something to improve his self-esteem at least somewhat.

'Right,' he thinks, 'it's easy. Just get one of them to sleep with you. You can do it, Harry.'

Yeah, easy.

"Hey, if anyone can do it, you can." Josh says, quickly batting his arm with the back of his hand in encouragement.

-•-

'Laying it on a bit thick, aren't ya?' Harry questions himself in his head, a small frown tainting his lips as he awkwardly moves his hand away from JJ's firm bicep, shuffling back slightly from his place on the sofa. As he does so, he huffs a faint laugh to match the ones around him (as he so often does), not understanding what's funny as he's too busy trying to respect JJ's personal space, having just broken it for the past ten minutes and all.

It's a couple minutes later when Harry feels a light knuckle tap against his knee, looking up to find JJ staring at him with unfiltered bewilderment. Harry hadn't noticed him looking.

"Why'd you move away?" JJ questions gently, his voice hush - not in an attempt to be quiet, but because he's relaxed and confused. He was actually quite comfortable chilling with Harry leant against him. Yeah, some of his laughs had been a bit over the top, and JJ didn't understand why he kept rapid-fire blinking at him, glancing at him from under his eyelashes, but what did that matter?

Comfort was comfort, strange friend be damned.

Harry doesn't provide an answer straight away, first stares as his thoughts sprint in circles around his brain's obstacle course, trying to determine what and/or why JJ asked.