Chapter Text
182:00:00:00
“Do you like my gravestone?” Ethan fidgets in his chair absentmindedly. His hand brushes over his microphone. Mark can just catch the sound of it over their discord call.
Mark pauses for a moment, raising his eyebrows.
“No.”
“Rude, Mark,” Ethan’s voice drawls through his headphones.
“Hey, I’m protecting your honor!” Mark retorts. “It’s pretty mean, don’t you think?”
Mark looks at Ethan’s mock-up gravestone again, which is to say that he looks at himself, the focal point of the image, again. His gaze traces back to where Ethan is in the picture, behind Mark. His face isn’t even visible.
Something about it just rubs Mark the wrong way.
Ethan had probably been searching pictures of himself. This had probably come up in the search results. After all the times Ethan has defended himself, Mark wonders if this bothers him.
“Chill out. You’re the one who’s usually mean to me, meanie.”
“Meanie, are you serious?” Mark scoffs.
“I, um, yep, I’ve committed now and I can’t go back. Besides, you can’t say it’s not accurate,” Ethan quips.
It doesn’t sound like it bothers him but Mark can’t be sure through their call. If he could see Ethan’s face, he would know immediately whether he could push the joke or whether he should back off. It can be a hit or miss sometimes, if he goes too far when he teases Ethan.
But this time, he isn’t even doing the teasing.
“Jesus, man, don’t say that about yourself.” Mark doesn’t mean to but he can feel himself getting a little more heated.
“Are you…” Ethan pauses. It sounds like he straightens in his chair. “Are you actually mad at me or something?”
“I’m not…” Mark sighs. He looks to the ceiling. “I’m not mad at you.”
“You sure? Cause you sound a little mad.”
“I’m not—” Mark growls before taking a moment to collect himself and even out his voice. “I just don’t like that people think of you like this. I may joke about it for a bit but I would never want you to— I just feel like sometimes you actually think that kind of bullshit is true.”
“Well, it is true.” Ethan laughs but it sounds forced.
It’s not like his high pitched giggles or when he covers his mouth to try and make himself quieter. It’s short and abrupt. Mark’s heart clenches.
“Are you serious?” Now Mark’s words do come out aggressively. He hears Ethan suck in a breath.
“Chill chill chill, dude, it’s fine—”
“It’s not fine. I’m sick of hearing you badmouth yourself all—”
“What the hell has gotten into you because—”
“—the time. I’m sick of this bit. I’m—”
“—we’ve joked about this so many times, so why’re you—”
“—sick of seeing all the comments on our goddamn channel when it’s supposed to be our channel!” And now he’s yelling.
He stops. Ethan is silent. He thinks maybe Ethan disconnected or muted but his icon is still in the call.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, too quiet for his mic to pick up. Ethan has stopped sharing his screen. He can pick up the barest hint of breathing when he turns up the volume on his computer so he knows Ethan hasn’t left.
“...Ethan?” he finally says.
There’s another pause before Ethan asks, voice level, “What is this actually about?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why are you up in arms about this now? Why— Why’re you—”
“It’s always pissed me off—”
“It hasn’t and you’ve never brought it up like this before.”
They’re starting to argue again, which is the last thing Mark wants, but it’s like he can’t control himself. He hears the grain of truth in Ethan’s words but he can’t seem to stop himself from saying, “That doesn’t mean I—”
“I’m gonna hang up if you don’t just out with it,” Ethan snaps. “I don’t need to hear this shit. It’s not a funny fucking joke when you sound this serious, so either stop or tell me why you’re doing this.”
Mark grits his teeth. He doesn’t even understand how the situation started spiraling like this. “Why do I need an explanation for trying to be nice to you?”
“Fuck this,” Ethan mutters and he sounds dead serious this time.
“Wait, Ethan—”
Ethan hangs up on him.
Mark stares at his screen for a second before immediately calling him back.
As soon as Ethan joins the call, Mark says, “Did you seriously just hang up on me?”
He turns off his camera as he waits for Ethan to respond.
“Fuck off,” Ethan retorts but it’s weak and bodyless. “I’ll do it again, you know I will.” It’s clearly a joke but Ethan sounds so exhausted that any humor is drained from it.
Mark tries to test out the waters. “I don’t know why you’re so bad at taking compliments, dude.”
“Hm.” Ethan’s answer is curt and unsustained. “Hey, are you still recording?”
“No, I turned it off after you hung up on me. Remember when you did that?”
“Oh, I remember. So you’re for real now?” Ethan questions.
“I was for real before.”
“Sure, whatever you say,” Ethan gives in too easily.
A muscle in Mark’s jaw tightens. “No, I’m serious.”
“About what, Mark?“ He hears a thump, like Ethan is resting his head on his desk. “About what?”
“That you deserve to be your own person,” Mark insists.
“Thank you for saying that. I appreciate that,” Ethan replies but he doesn’t sound very appreciative at all. His words are flat.
There’s a lull but Mark doesn’t want to hang up yet. He plays his words back in his head, watches Ethan reveal his gravestone and hears his own burst of surprised laugher repeat. Then the rush of anger. He’s ruined the mood, hasn’t he?
He can’t really bring himself to care about that right now.
“Mark?”
“Yeah?” Mark answers, probably a bit too quickly.
“Can I be real with you for a second?”
“Course.”
Ethan hums that he heard him. There’s a beat of silence before he speaks up.
“It is true though, you get that, right? The whole I’ll be remembered as someone who was once in the presence of Markiplier thing. The whole, you made me thing, or whatever. I think about this a lot, okay, and yeah, it sucks. But I’m not dumb. Well, I’m not dumb about this. It’s a little bit true and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t work hard on my own channel too, but it’s a little bit true. Maybe not all the way true but a little bit true.
“What I don’t get is why now, all of a sudden, you’re making a big deal out of this,” Ethan’s voice grows firmer. “You make fun of me all the time and it’s funny because it’s a little bit true. I just have to come to terms with that. So I just wanna know why now because I know you already get this.”
“Alright,” Mark concedes. He looks at his door, thinks about what’s on the other side. Thinks about what’s not on the other side. Who’s not on the other side. “It’s—and I’m not in anyway saying this to minimize your success—but it’s a little bit true.”
“Thank you. I just wanted you to admit it,” Ethan huffs. His voice lightens as he says, “So now that we got that out of the way, what on Earth are you on about?”
“I guess I’m…”
Mark has to think about it for a second. The moment of annoyance had been real but he hadn’t expected the bout of anger that followed. He didn’t expect it to come out, anyway. He had been feeling it under his skin for the better part of a week, making him antsy and irritable.
He blows out the air in his cheeks. He tries to be honest. “I’m frustrated that we can’t deliver the kind of content we said we would. Especially since we only have a year.”
“Okay. Okay.” Ethan draws out the second word. “So am I. I mean, yeah. What do you want me to do about it though?”
“I wasn’t taking it out on you because I want you to do something about it,” Mark grumbles.
“Great, because I can’t,” Ethan states.
Mark snarls. “I know that.”
“See, when you take that tone with me, it makes me think that you actually are kind of angry with me.”
“I am!”
“Okay, about what?” Ethan’s voice rises in pitch. “Dude, you’re all over the place!”
“I don’t know! Every time we talk, I just get… mad!”
Ethan sing-songs into his mic, “Mark, I think you miss me.”
“I don’t—” Mark stares at the wall.
He got so used to seeing Ethan each week. Talking just isn’t the same, especially when they’re not even using video. It’s the little things too, watching Ethan fiddle with the camera angle and updating each other on their lives while they set up the shot or making jokes while they drive somewhere.
They’re so efficient now, mostly because Mark has encouraged them to be. They plan separately, talk for maybe five minutes before they start recording to cement the video topic, and then they hang up. Mark thought he could maintain their friendship the way he does with his friends from Ohio but it’s not the same, not when Ethan’s so close but they can’t even see each other.
He made connections when he came to LA, when he left everyone else he knew behind. He still has Amy, thank god, but all the people he used to see day to day are gone. It’s not the same.
He shouldn’t keep acting like it’s the same.
“Holy shit,” he breathes. “I think I miss you.”
“Wait, really?” He hears the squeak of a chair, a sleeve dragging on the table.
“I know, I’m just as surprised as you are.” He blinks at his screen, at Ethan’s icon pulsing as he speaks.
“Aww, Mark, that’s so sweet. I didn’t know you thought of me.” Ethan’s voice is babyish but there’s a hint of real sincerity.
“Of course I do. You thought that I didn’t think about you? We literally have a channel together.”
“Yeah, for now.” Ethan laughs but there’s something like a sigh at the end.
If they were together, Mark might be able to see if Ethan’s smile was genuine or if Ethan wasn’t making eye contact, the way he did when he said something a little too honest. But Mark can’t see him. He can only guess at what Ethan’s feeling.
“I’d still miss you even if we didn’t have the channel together,” Mark murmurs. He smiles, barely, at the end. He wonders if Ethan can hear it.
“Wow, mushy gushy quarantine Mark over here. Stop it, you’re making me blush.” He thinks Ethan is smiling back and he knows, somehow, that Ethan understood what he meant.
“And,” Mark breaks in, “if by some fluke you die before me, I’d give you a killer gravestone.”
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re still on this stupid gravestone,” Ethan mutters, half laughing. “Oh, and Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you too.”
They say their goodbyes and this time when Ethan hangs up, it isn’t as sad as it was before.