75 AMAZING PICK UP LINES

Hot Topic

A/N: Hi guys! I'm so so sorry that this one is a little short. I had fun with it, though, and hopefully you have fun reading it! Enjoy :)

"Are you Hot Topic? Because I'm uncomfortable when I enter you."

Ugh, fuck my life, Mitch thought as he begrudgingly flung open the door to the dark, foreboding presence on the second floor of the Arlington mall: Hot Topic.

Let's get one thing straight, okay? Mitch didn't hate goth kids. He had nothing against them. He listened to bands like Fall Out Boy and Paramore (before they went pop-punk, of course), and there were a couple kids in his classes that dressed a little...dark...that he would talk to politely and make nice small talk with. But he seriously did not understand the emo aesthetic. Like, at all. What was the point of dressing all in black all the time? To mourn the death of fashion? Honestly.

But his cousin Jeremy wanted a Black Veil Brides t-shirt for Christmas, and Mitch's mom was just as intimidated by Hot Topic as Mitch was, if not more so, so of course she gave Mitch $30 and sent him to go buy it. "Keep the change, but if you don't come back with that t-shirt, then we're gonna have an issue," his mom had lectured him that afternoon before he left to buy the shirt. He promised he would, and now here he was. Better to get it over with now so that he could use the leftover money to maybe buy something from American Apparel.

He walked in and made a beeline for the wall of band tees, glancing nervously at the merchandise he had to pass to get there. Black ripped skinny jeans, shirts with punked-up cartoon characters on them, ew, was that a fur vest? It was basically a waking nightmare. Thank God there weren't many people in there to witness Mitch's suffering.

When he was finally standing in front of the wall with all the band shirts hanging all on it, it didn't take him long to find the Black Veil Brides tees. He grabbed a size small from the cheapest stack and turned around to go to the cash register, pay, and get the hell out of there, but he ended up turning around right into someone else. "Oh, sorry," a familiar voice said as he took a step back from Mitch, and Mitch's heart stopped when he saw his face. Oh Jesus Christ.

Scott Hoying. Of all the people from school he could have run into here, it had to be Scott, the cutest boy in choir. Scott was absolutely perfect, with amazing looks and a voice to match. They've actually never really talked before, so Mitch couldn't help but drool over him from afar. Kirstie always made fun of him for it, but could you really blame him? "Oh, uh, hey, Scott..."

"Hey, Mitch," Scott replied, an amused smile playing on those gorgeous lips. Mitch was surprised that he even knew his name. "What's up?"

He gave a slight shrug and swallowed. "Uh, nothing much. Just...you know, shopping."

Scott chuckled, and Mitch felt like he could die. "I see that. You know, you don't seem like the type of guy that would shop at Hot Topic."

Mitch forced a smile. How fucking awkward was this? "Oh, I don't normally. I'm just here to get a Christmas gift for my cousin." After he said that, he realized that if he didn't seem like a Hot Topic kind of guy, then Scott certainly didn't. His outfits always looked like they were stolen directly off of American Eagle mannequins. "And neither do you, for the record."

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, laughing uneasily. "I need a studded belt for the studio theater project. I'm supposed to be a punk rock star, but I don't really have a costume for it."

Mitch felt a wave of relief wash over him, now that he knew they were both there somewhat against their wills. "That's so funny! I'm supposed to be a magician, but my sister is letting me borrow her sparkly top hat from her Halloween costume, so I'm good."

"Ugh, lucky," Scott groaned. "This place gives me the creeps. It's totally beyond me why anyone would shop here..."

"Oh my God, same! I hate this store." Wow, they actually had something in common. But then again, who doesn't get weirded out by Hot Topic?

They ended up talking about their favorite places to shop and about the studio theater project while browsing around. Scott challenged Mitch to see who could find the weirdest thing in the store. Mitch came up with a boxed set of My Little Pony collectibles (Scott jokingly stuck a finger down his throat when Mitch showed it to him), and Scott found a giant sticker in garish green lettering that read "'RAWR' MEANS 'I LOVE YOU' IN DINOSAUR." Mitch pretended to roll his eyes at it, but secretly thought it was kind of cute.

After a while, Scott settled on a gold-studded belt for his costume and went up to pay for it while Mitch browsed the sticker rack Scott found the dinosaur decal from. "It was cool seeing you," Scott told Mitch as he came back over to him, Hot Topic bag in hand. "I'll see you tomorrow in choir!"

"Bye!" Mitch said a little too eagerly as Scott smiled and walked out. He turned back to the sticker rack, his body radiating with a warmth he couldn't explain. After some consideration, he took it off the rack and up to the cash register along with Jeremy's tee.

The next day in choir, Scott was talking to his friends on the other side of the room when Mitch walked in. Without a word, he snuck over to Scott's backpack and slipped the sticker into the front pocket, hoping that he'd find it along with the handwritten note on the back - Did you know I speak dinosaur?