Male!Latula X Reader - Late Night Visit

...Latula.  You grinned, trying to hide any of your previous apprehension at visiting your secret crush's hive.

"Hi Latula," you say raising a hand and giving a tiny wave.  "Can I come in?"

The handsome tealblood smiled brightly upon seeing you on his doorstep.  "Oh, yo ______!  I was wondering when you'd get here.  I was kind of worried you were all getting your snooze on back at your hive or some shiz!" he explained, laughing and rubbing the back of his head.  You couldn't help but let the corners of your mouth lift a little higher.  Latula was pretty cute when he didn't try to be.  But you would never tell him.  It'd be super awkward what with him being your crush as well as one of the most rad troll dudes this side of Alternia.  You wouldn't want to embarrass him or anything by calling him cute.  That was so . . . un-rad.

You instead just chuckled a little.  "No.  I was just a little late getting here.  Hope you weren't waiting long."

He shook his head.  "I just got up not too long ago myself!  Had this gnarl-nasty dream about wiping out on my board!" he said, shivering a little before shaking his head.  Looking terrified was so uncool to the Libra.  When he looked back at you through his red shades, he gave a slightly apologetic smile.  "Uh, so I hope the walk here wasn't too crazy or anything . . ."

You tilted your head.  "No, it was fine.  Why?"

"Well, uh, I mean there's like a ton of gross evil monsters and junk that like to jump on unsuspecting chicks, you know?" he said, leaning against the door frame a little awkwardly.  You frowned a little at his comment.  Latula knew you could handle yourself.  Besides, there weren't even any super dangerous creatures on the way over to his hive.  Not only that, but you realized he was rubbing the back of his head a lot more than he tended to anyway.  And then his body language was sending weird signals to you  . . . and he hand't even invited you inside yet!  He just stood there leaned up against the frame with the door still closed enough so that you couldn't see his lower body.  This behavior was really unlike him.

"Um, right . . . monsters.  Hey Latula?  Is everything okay?"

Latula's facade was steadily crumbling as you began to get more curious about his behavior.  "Huh?  Oh, yeah!  No, it's totally fine, yo!  Just . . . um," his teal and gold gaze darted around a bit as he tried to think of something to say.  You frowned a little more, brows furrowing as you waited for him to say something.  As the silence stretched on you opened your mouth to ask him again if he was alright when he quickly interrupted you.  "Oh!  Damara totally just put in a rad addition to his garden.  Those flowers are the shit!  You should go and check them out, like right now!"

You blinked and slightly quirked a brow.  Was he trying to get rid of you?  "Um, I'll go check them out later, Latula.  I came out tonight to come and see you, remember?"

"Uh, oh.  Heheh, yeah.  Well, um I mean I was just letting you know and everything.  Because, uh, you like plants and stuff."  He cleared his throat and slightly shifted his weight against the door frame, his look of discomfort steadily growing.  "That, and Karkat's got some really awesome new movies and junk!  And I think Kanaya's designed some new outfits that you'd be totally interested in!  They're so rad and all!" he said, speaking quickly as he started to grin a little more nervously.

Your frowning expression turned to a look of suspicion and slight annoyance.  Now you knew he was trying to get rid of you.  You put your hands on your hips.  "Latula, come on.  You know I don't care about plants and fashion and gross, sappy romance movies.  What're you doing?  Don't you want me over?  I mean, you're the one who set up this hang out a couple nights ago over Pesterchum . . ." you trailed off, stuffing your hands in your (f/c) hoodie's baggy pocket, looking a little hurt.

Latula's eyes widened as he pushed off of the door frame.  "Whoa!  Hey, no!  I totally want to hang with you!  It's just that the weather's super gross and stuff, you know?  Like, there's so much wind and junk I can't even hear my awesome self think!"

You deadpanned at him.  "Latula.  The weather's clear.  There isn't even a breeze."

"Really!?  Oh, well there was one not too long ago.  It'll prolly come back, you know?  You should maybe go home or something because when it does come back we won't even be able to hear each other talk!"

Your look of hurt grew even more.  "Latula . . . are you seriously lying just to get rid of me right now?"

He started to panic even more.  That was honestly the last thing he wanted to have happen.  It's just that in the time since he set up this hang out, there'd been a little accident on his part--an insanely uncool accident that was totally embarrassing and would probably result in you losing respect for him and his skills.  He gripped the edge of the door, biting his lip.  "No!  I, I really want you over and all . . . it's just tonight isn't, well-"

"Isn't what?  Latula, why are you standing like that?" you asked, eyeing the weird way he shielded his legs with the door.

"It's- huh?  Oh, because it's super comfortable and totally rad," he said simply, shrugging and trying to play it cool.

You sighed.  "Really?  It looks pretty uncomfortable to me.  And no offense or anything, but you kind of look silly leaning like that from behind the door."

He pretended to scoff.  "Yeah, well I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand."

You almost gaped at him.  Did he just insult you?  That wasn't like him at all.  "Someone like me?"

He immediately regretted his choice of words.  "I-I mean-"

You stepped closer to him, taking your hands out of your pockets.  "Latula, what the Hell!?  This is so unlike you!  Listen, I know that something's up.  Just tell me what it is, be honest with me!  Or else I really will leave."  And be super pissed at you for a long time.

He swallowed, closing the door a little more to keep you from seeing in.  "Huh?  I'm being totes honest, ______!  I don't know what's got you all suspicious and shit.  I'm fine!  Everything's fine!"

"Then open the door.  We're hanging out."

"N-now?"

"Yeah, duh.  Let me in, bro," you said, getting more impatient.  It wasn't often that anyone was able to test your patience like this.  In fact, Latula of all trolls never tested it.  Something was seriously wrong with this picture.  What was he hiding?

He started to sweat a little, ducking more behind the door.  "U-uh!  I'm just tired?"

"You said you just got up."

"I'm sick?"

"Was that supposed to be a question?  Latula, come on!  Stop messing around and let me in!"  You put a hand on the door to try and push it open, but he actually pushed back, causing you both to strain a little before you both started pushing with growing force on the door to try and make it give.  "Latula!  What's wrong with you!?" you shouted, putting your entire weight against the door.  Damn his alien strength.

"I told you everything's COOL!" he shouted back, his voice straining as he grunted a little, pushing back on the door.

"Oh Jesus Christ!  Just.  Let.  Me.  IN!" you shouted.  You could feel him slightly giving way on the other side, and the door was starting to open for you again.  Just.  A.  Little.  More.  You took in a deep breath as you backed up, not quite letting him gain enough leverage to slam the door shut as he put his body up against it from the other side.  You tensed up for a moment before gritting your teeth and half-jumping, half-slamming into the door.  The sudden impact gave you all the power you needed to push the door the rest of the way open, causing Latula to fall onto the ground inside his hive, gasping and grunting as you fell in and landed on top of him.

Now of course you were slightly flustered at the position you found the two of yourselves in, but he had just majorly pissed you off, and you wanted to know why he did what he did.

"Latula!" you fumed, pushing yourself up while blushing a little at him.  Grabbing his teal and red suit, you pulled him up to look at you in the eyes, his glasses having fallen off when he was knocked over.

For a moment he just bit his lip before he slightly cracked his watering eyes open and looked up at you, pain sparking in his eyes.  The look shocked you, honestly, and you were instantly worried that you'd hurt him really bad by knocking him down and landing on him.

"Holy shit . . . did I do something?" you asked nervously, frowning.  He just shook his head a little, a noise like a pained sigh escaping the corner of his mouth as he closed his eyes again and grabbed fistfuls of his plush carpeting.  "A-are you sure?"  Looking down at him, he seemed okay.  Did he land on something?

You were just about to pull him up into a sitting position when you shifted, bumping his leg, and he jerked, eyes wide as he let out a loud cry.  "OH JEGUS CHRIST!  ______, PLEASE GET OFF!" he practically screamed, startling you.  You instantly did as he said and he flew up into a sitting position, his hands flying out to grip and hold his right leg as he panted and breathlessly groaned.  "O-oh GOG!"

Looking at his leg, you finally realized what had set him off.  His leg, normally clad only in his skate suit and red boot, was now wrapped up in a large cast.  So that's why he was standing all weird.  But . . . what was up with his behavior earlier?

You shook your head slowly, watching him.  "Latula, I don't understand," you said quietly.  "Is this all that's wrong?  You hurt your leg?"

He continued painfully moaning and rocking back and forth on his butt for a little while before he looked a little shamefully over at you.  "Maybe . . ."

"But why?"

"Because . . . ." he trailed off for a long moment, and probably would have gone without saying anything if you hadn't prompted him again.  He sighed and looked up at you, finally letting his hands drop onto the floor.  In all honesty, he looked pretty pathetic right then.  "Because this is so . . . un-cool!  I mean, I'm supposed to be this super rad dude who's always throwing tricks and epic stunts, not someone who wipes out while doing their trickiest rail-grind and busts their ass on the concrete like a noob!" he complained, holding the sides of his head, gritting his teeth at his own stupidity as much as the pain in his leg.

You were silent for a moment before reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder, making him look up at you.  "But I still don't understand why you were acting like a jerk.  No offense, or anything," you muttered.

He sighed after giving you a pained look.  "I . . . I just," he sighed.  "I just didn't want you to think I was lame or anything," he reluctantly admitted.

"So you'd rather that I think you're an asshole?  You're no Karkat, Latula.  I knew something was wrong the moment you started acting like that.  And what do you mean 'I'd think you were lame'?  Just because you had an accident and got hurt?  So what?  This happens to everyone at least once," you said honestly, your voice slightly lowering as you comforted him, lightly rubbing his shoulder with one hand.

He sighed and held his sides as he looked down for a moment.  "Yeah, but it's not supposed to happen to cool dudes."

"Oh please.  It happens more to cool dudes!  You're a skater, Latula!  A daredevil.  You're going to wipe out a whole Hell of a lot more than this!  So what if this time you accidentally broke your leg, or something?  Yeah, it's unfortunate.  But all you have to do now is wait for it to heal up before you go back to trying out new tricks and junk.  It's not a big deal!  What's a big deal is you trying to hide it from me like I'd really think any less of you for not being indestructible."

He finally looked back up at you, ears folded back.  "But . . . I feel so . . . dumb.  I just didn't want you to see me like this.  I was afraid, alright?"

"Afraid of what?" you murmured, leaning in a little, frowning again.

He hesitated.  "Afraid that you'd stop hanging out with me," he finally admitted.  Your eyes widened a little in surprise, the silence only causing him to want to explain himself further to you.  "I don't want you to stop hanging out with me!  You're an awesome chick--the raddest I know!  You're funny and actually listen to me talk about skating and stuff, and you watch all of those wicked competitions with me on TV, and I didn't want that to stop if maybe you thought I was too lame to be around.  'Cause I . . . I," his voice lowered.  "I really, really like you, okay?"

You felt your breath catch a little as your heart almost stopped.  "Like me how?" you whispered suddenly.

He peered into your (e/c) eyes silently for a moment before softly blinking and leaning in minutely.  "Like, like like you . . . ______.  I feel red for you," he admitted in a hushed voice.

That was it.  You went bright red as your eyes widened and your mouth hung slightly open.  "You do?" you squeaked.  He nodded in reply and before you knew what you were doing, you engulfed him in a huge hug, knocking him back down onto the ground.  "Latula, why didn't you say so sooner?!  I feel like that for you, too!"

"You do?" he asked in surprise, carefully holding you back so that you were stable on top of him.

You nodded, beaming as you back up a little, propping yourself up on your arms as you gazed back down at him.  "And you know what?  Some dumb injury isn't going to change that."

He blinked up at you for a moment before slightly tinting teal and grinning back, his hands lightly moving up to the back of your head, tangling in your (h/l), (h/c) hair.  "Will it stop you from agreeing to become my matesprit?" he asked, a little of his smooth, cool guy persona coming back to him.

You felt your heart leap in your chest and you shook your head, biting your lip.  "Not at all."  You leaned down, half-lidding your eyes as your lips just barely brushed over his.  "In fact, I'd love nothing more than becoming your matesprit."

He gave a happy sigh and closed his eyes, gently moving your head down so that your lips finally met his.  You tilted your head a little to the left to better meld them with his, sucking and nibbling on his bottom lip a little while you laid on top of him, reveling in the affectionate contact you two were sharing.  So, while totally unplanned, this night had turned out pretty great after all.  And it'd only just begun.