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Steinbeck is spacing out during the Guild meeting.
Which, okay. First of all, Mark doesn’t make a habit out of watching Steinbeck, but it’s not uncommon to see him pretending like he isn’t paying attention just to piss Fitzgerald off. Everyone knows he does it, because anyone who’s looking at the boss can sort of see the wrinkles slowly form in his brow for the better half of thirty minutes until he starts snapping his fingers and telling everyone to listen up. And everyone is looking at the boss anyways.
The thing is that Steinbeck is seriously, actually spacing out this time. He keeps fiddling with his hands underneath the table, and sort of absentmindedly scratching the sides of his face and staring off into the distance. Mark catches eyes with him once, and he immediately looks away instead of initiating a staring contest. Which is weird! It’s weird and spacey of him, and he’s determined to find out what’s up.
Fitzgerald barely even notices his subordinates' behavior, caught up in a conversation with Poe—something about trade agreements, which Mark actively refuses to learn anything about. When the meeting finally ends and everyone trickles out of the office, Mark does a little half-jog up to where Steinbeck is stalking away to his quarters and claps him on the shoulder.
“Hey, buddy!”
Steinbeck shrugs him off and starts walking faster, which is funny of him. Nobody can outrun a curious Twain. Mark speeds up to a full jog and places himself in front of his coworker, walking backwards with his hands in his pockets.
“Steinbeck,” Mark whines, drawing out his name. “Don’t be so cruel! You were so spacey today, what’s up with that?”
Steinbeck pays him no mind, continuing to stare down at the tiled floor.
“Just tell me, dude! I’ll even keep it a secret, between two friends.”
Steinbeck finally glances up and looks at him, a proper Look. “Friend is a strong word, Twain.”
“Coworker, then. Come on, share with the class!” Mark says cheerily.
Steinbeck lets out a long sigh, well aware that Mark is known for nothing but persistence. “You know how spring break is starting soon?”
“Sure,” Mark answers. The inner circle of the Guild gets paid vacation every spring, Fitzgerald spouting something about mental health and how important it is to spend time with family. It’s common knowledge that he just wants an excuse to go back home and dote on his wife, but nobody says anything about it, far too relieved to get some time away from the often stifling air of the Moby Dick.
Lucy and Louisa usually travel to some nearby city together, Hawthorne returns to his hometown, Mitchell and Steinbeck visit family. Lovecraft does….whatever it is that Lovecraft does, the creep. And Mark usually finds a hotel room to lounge in for the week. He doesn’t have anything better to do—his mother certainly doesn’t want him around, and he would rather not deal with the judgmental looks of the local townsfolk. Huck and Tom are good enough company anyways.
“I have to visit family,” Steinbeck says, with all the grim resignation of a man going to war.
That’s already a red flag. Steinbeck loves his family, he talks about missing them all the time. He even has a wallet full of photos of the Steinbeck clan that he’s all too happy to show to any poor bastard that asks. Mark thinks he has their faces and names engraved in the back of his eyelids. If he’s worried about seeing his family, something is definitely wrong.
“That can’t be all,” he probes.
“I have to visit family,” Steinbeck concedes, “and my Ma keeps hounding me to get a partner.
“A partner, huh?” Mark says, feeling the inkling of an idea in the back of his mind.
“I know, it sucks. Rose of Sharon just had her baby, and now Ma’s in some kind of grandmotherly fever about it. Oh, I showed you pictures of Georgie, right?” John says, fumbling in one of his overall pockets for his wallet, and Mark raises his hands in a universal stop signal before he can launch into another one of his baby-related tirades.
“Dude, I’ve seen that baby so many times I think I might start hating him,” Mark says, not unkindly. “And that would suck because he’s really, really cute.”
Of course, Mark’s big stupid mouth gets him in trouble: Steinbeck’s face immediately darkens, and he pushes past him with a pace that says fuck you, I don’t know how to interact with people without talking incessantly about my family anyways. And, okay, Mark started it and maybe he was a little bit mean about it. Whatever. He still has kind of a half-formed idea in his brain, so he’ll wait a little bit before springing it on anyone.
—
Here are the facts:
1: Mark’s mom doesn’t want him around.
2: Steinbeck’s mom wants him around, with a partner in tow.
3: Contrary to popular belief, most days Mark and Steinbeck get along just fine.
Mark spent the last night mulling these facts over in a sort of sleepy, contented haze born from the knowledge that he has nothing better to do, and shit, he’s never been the kind of guy who shies away from stuff just because there’s an embarrassingly high chance that he’ll be rejected outright. So, potential humiliation be damned, he decides that he’ll ask Steinbeck the big question in the morning.
Breakfast arrives, courtesy of the mini-buffet tucked away in the corner of the Moby Dick’s big, sprawling dining hall. Mark purposefully bumps Lucy with his hip while reaching over her to grab a slice of toast, and she elbows him in return with absolutely no concern for his poor ribs, ow. He forgoes a plate in favor of sliding into the seat next to Steinbeck, whose own plate is piled with a traditional continental breakfast. Big eater, that guy.
“So I was thinking,” Mark starts, buttering his toast with a plastic knife.
“Never a good thing.” Steinbeck says in between bites of eggs.
“I was thinking,” Mark, master of glossing over things that he doesn’t care about, continues, “since your mom is getting on your ass about bringing someone home, why don’t I come with you?”
Steinbeck snorts in an attempt at surprised laughter, which is really unfortunate because he has food in his mouth. He dabs at his cheek with a napkin.
“My Ma isn’t looking for a friend to come home, dumbshit, she’s looking for a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, whatever,” He says.
“No, that’s what I mean! I can come home as a boyfriend. A pretend-boyfriend.” Mark replies.
Steinbeck doesn’t snort this time, just sort of looks over at him, wide-eyed.
“A pretend-boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I’m a good actor, you know. They would be none the wiser.”
He squints. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but….literally why would you do that for me?”
Steinbeck pauses. Points his fork accusingly, like, what’s your angle? “Actually, why would you do that for anyone?”
The thing about that question is that in all honesty, Mark doesn’t know. He thinks it might be a desire to actually meet Steinbeck’s family instead of seeing them in faded, grainy photos, or maybe he’s just so antsy to do something over break aside for lounging and scrolling through his phone that he’s willing to construct an entire romantic scheme. Maybe he just wants to do something nice for his coworker, is that so hard to believe?
Mark breaks off a piece of his toast and shoves it in his mouth, putting the rest on the bare table, which he knows Steinbeck hates. He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms behind his head.
“Do I need a reason?” He says.
“Probably not,” Steinbeck says. “But it’s honestly weirder if you don’t have one.”
Mark shrugs as best he can with his arms at their current position.
Steinbeck spears a mini-pancake on his fork. “If you really want to, I’m all for it. It’s that or I come home empty-handed.”
Mark tears off another piece of toast. “Well, I really want to,” He says.
They continue eating in a not-quite comfortable silence, forks clinking on overly opulent tableware.
“Okay, I seriously can’t stand you putting that on the bare table, go get a plate you degenerate,” Steinbeck says all in one breath.
Mark laughs, and it’s decided. They’ll leave tomorrow.
—
Fitzgerald takes his request to take a flight home with Steinbeck with some really impressively masked shock. Louisa, always at his side, doesn’t mask it at all.
“You and John, really?” She says, before squeaking and clapping her hands over her mouth.
Mark waves her off. Pretty much everyone thinks that he and Steinbeck hate each other because they clash so often on missions. He doesn’t fault her for being startled.
“Sorry, sorry! It’s just, you’ve never gone off with him before, and I was surprised—“
“It’s okay, Lou, it’s weird to me too! But his family needed some help, and I never have plans for break anyway, you know how it is.”
That isn’t too bad of a lie, in his humble opinion. Just kind of bending the truth.
Louisa’s face cycles through a flurry of emotions, most prominently doubt. But Louisa is cool, so she doesn’t ask any probing questions even though she’s obviously dying to know what the actual reason for their impromptu vacation is. Also, this is technically a matter of business and she shouldn’t be asking any questions, not even probing ones. He adheres to that only because he’s trying to get on Fitzgerald’s good side.
“If that’s all, I’ll be on my way,” Mark says, walking backwards towards the door.
“Safe travels, Mark!” She calls out, waving as he swings it shut behind him. See, just what he said. He likes Louisa.
—
So. They set off in the morning.
Mark is going to be gone for the better part of a week, but he still packs light: A couple of crumpled up button-ups, a mix between jeans and dress pants, assorted toiletries in travel-safe packs. He meets up with John, and they say their goodbyes to Louisa and Lucy at the airport.
The plane ride is fine. It’s not as if being in the sky is particularly strange to him nowadays, and the same goes for traveling with Steinbeck. He listens to music and eats shitty airplane food and sleeps restlessly, jolted awake only by the ba-bump of the plane’s wheels as it touches the ground. When he looks to the left, Steinbeck’s nose is in a book and he’s holding a bag half-full of complimentary cashews. Mark makes grabby hands. Steinbeck gives him the whole bag without even tearing his eyes away, because he is a bro.
They exit the plane into the terminal, rent a car, and then it’s another three and a half hours until they reach the house. Steinbeck drives through Oklahoma City, and Mark looks out the window with his legs propped up on the dash, despite his coworker’s numerous protests. It’s pretty, in a homely kind of way. Lots of flat terrain, and as they drive further into the more rural areas, lots and lots of wheat. It kind of makes him ache for Mississippi, the small towns and the humidity and the rows of crops.
After about another hour of driving, during which the roads go from pavement to rural to pure dirt, they pull up to a surprisingly nice looking country house. It’s pretty sizable, built for a big family. It looks pretty new too—Mark wouldn’t be surprised if this came from Fitzgerald’s money. The car rumbles as they pull into the yard. The sun is low in the sky now, turning the clouds orange and pink.
Steinbeck drums his hands on the wheel for a bit before putting the car in park and exiting slowly. He stands up, stretching out his arms and exposing a thin strip of skin on his stomach. Mark stays in the car and wonders why he noticed that, watches as Steinbeck is immediately mobbed by two flashes of brown and white. He goes down with all of the grace of a sack of bricks. Ha.
Mark takes a moment to laugh and steps out to see Steinbeck laid out flat on the ground, along with two kids—one of them couldn’t be older than twelve, the other one smiling wide with a mouth missing most of its teeth. Ruthie and Winfield respectively, he assumes. They’re laid out on his outstretched arms, one on each side, smearing dirt on his nice white shirt. Mark isn’t exactly surprised to note that he somehow looks better that way, that he should be a little bit messy and unkempt.
“Mark,” Steinbeck says with a kind of breathless laugh. “This is Winfield and Ruthie. Winfield and Ruthie, this is Mark.”
Mark belatedly realizes that if he and Steinbeck are really doing this relationship thing, he’s going to have to get used to calling him by his name. And vice versa, apparently. He extends a hand and pulls him up with a little too much force, and Steinbeck—John—stumbles into his chest. They right themselves after a little fumbling. Mark slings an arm over his companions shoulder, because it somehow feels like the right thing to do.
“Hi Mark!” Winfield says.
“Are you John’s boyfriend?” Ruthie says.
“Ruthie!” John hisses, and Mark laughs. Honestly, it’s good that the first test of his fake-boyfriend skills is in front of two kids. They’re astonishingly easy to lie to.
“You’d be correct!” Mark says with a grin. “What gave it away?”
“We’ve never met you before. And John looks at you weird. And you’re,” Ruthie waves between the two of them, “you’re touching.”
“Astute observation,” John grumbles in a way that means he’s not actually mad. “Let’s go inside, okay?”
The kids don’t see anything wrong with that. They race each other up the hill to their house, and Mark and John lag comfortably behind them.
“Sorry about that,” John says.
“About what?”
“You know. Them,” He points to Ruthie and Winfield tripping up the stairs. “They’re just curious.”
Oh. It hadn’t even occurred to Mark to be offended. He was way worse as a kid, which he relays to John as they make their way to the entrance.
John opens the door and lets him in first, and Mark is halfway through a playful bow before a German Shepherd comes rocketing up to him, tail wagging, and plants its nose firmly in his crotch.
“Toby, no!” Ruthie cries. Winfield laughs, high and reedy.
It’s not the best greeting, but Mark fucking loves dogs, so he immediately drops down into a crouch and lets it lick on his face.
“Haha, gross, you smell bad!” Mark says, hands buried in the scruffy fur around the dog’s neck.
John’s voice laughs, and calls to him from behind. “I didn’t realize you were such an animal lover, Mark.”
He pauses his half-petting, half-wrestling of the dog and turns around towards the door. John is staring down at him with his arms crossed, looking inexplicably fond.
“Babe, dogs are awesome. Anyone with half a brain loves dogs. Isn’t that right, Toby?” he asks. Toby starts thumping his tail happily on the ground, which sounds like a yes. Cheers for self confidence, Toby!
John goes mysteriously silent. Mark doesn’t sweat it, cause that happens a lot. With the intention of being a good guest in mind, he stands up and lets Toby trot away. And, wow, now that he’s actually paying attention, something smells absolutely amazing. Mark spots a silhouette poke out from what he assumes is the kitchen.
“Is that John?” It says, before disappearing back into the room from whence it came. “Rosie, take the pan off the heat, John’s back!”
Toby continues walking through the home, pausing to weave through the legs of the two figures currently making their way into the living room. One of them is an older woman, with thin blonde hair and a heavyset frame. Mark remembers her from photos. This is John’s mother, and the reigning Steinbeck matriarch. The other one is a much younger woman, and she’s bouncing a baby on her hip. The baby seems preoccupied with one of those little toys shaped like a ring of keys, which it’s currently absently chewing as it watches Toby prance around on the floor. This must be Rose of Sharon, and little Georgie.
“Johnny!” The Steinbeck matriarch says delightedly.
“Hey, Ma,” Steinbeck says with a casual smile, and opens his arms.
She rushes over and nearly bowls him over with the force of her hug, and he laughs and wraps his arms around her in response. After a few more seconds she releases him, keeping her hands on his shoulders.
“My God, you’ve grown so much! And you’re still so thin, come in, dinner is nearly ready.”
Steinbeck begins to walk with her, going deeper into the house. Mark toes his boots off before following. “Ma, it’s only been a couple of months since you last saw me.”
“The longest few months of my life, I swear,” she says, sighing. “Thank god you’re back, we need a man around the house.”
Winfield makes a face like he takes issue with that, but before he can open his mouth John’s mom has turned her attention over to Mark.
“And who is this?” She says, peering at him.
Mark has the distinct feeling that this is how mice feel before they’re eaten by a particularly jovial cat. He dances up to her and shakes her hand before she gets any ideas about crushing him. He’s a delicate boy, he probably wouldn’t survive.
“I’m Mark,” he says. “John’s boyfriend, and perfectly capable of introducing myself, thank you.”
It still feels unfathomably weird calling John his boyfriend, but Mark is in the business of lying. He can cope.
“Ah, the mouth this one has!” She leans forward and pinches his cheek, seemingly inspecting him. “I like it. You need some more spice in your life, John,” she says with a side-eye. “Just call me Ma.”
Without Mark noticing, John has exchanged greetings with his other sister. When Ma turns away, finished with introductions, she steps up to greet him.
“I’m Rose of Sharon,” she says with a warm smile, extending the hand that isn’t currently holding a baby. “Call me Rose.”
Mark shakes her hand. She has a good handshake, firm but not painful. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the reigning “man” of the house.
“Rose,” he laughs. “I’ve heard so much about you! It’s great to finally put a face to the name.”
“Only good things, I hope.”
“Of course! Between you and me,” he says, faking a stage-whisper, “I think John is physically incapable of giving you guys a bad name.”
“Thank goodness,” she titters.
“And who is this?” Mark says, looking down at the baby that he’s like, ninety-five percent sure is Georgie.
“This is Georgie!” Rose confirms. “Would you like to hold him?”
“Please!” Mark says, hoping that he doesn’t sound as excited as he is. Fun fact: the only thing better than dogs is babies. Especially adorable, chubby babies that he’s been subjected to countless speeches about since his birth.
Rose moves Georgie to a cradle and passes him over to Mark’s open arms. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this, just burbles a little and makes himself comfortable as Mark adjusts him so that he rests on his shoulder. His tiny fists are still grabbing the keys in a baby-patented death grip. If he were to guess, Mark would assume Georgie is pretty used to being passed around like a tiny bag of potatoes. It’s a cute thought, and Mark realizes that if he sees John or the kids holding a baby he might implode on the spot.
“Sit, sit, all of you,” Ma says, waving the family towards the dining table. “Except for you, Winfield, help me with setting the table.”
Winfield groans. Ruthie punches his arm, like go on, it’s your turn, and he dutifully follows his mother into the kitchen. Mark takes a seat near the end of the table. John comes to sit next to him. Belatedly, he realizes that he was probably supposed to pull out a chair for him. Shit—he’s out of practice at this boyfriend thing.
Winfield flits in and out of the kitchen, carrying plates and silverware and napkins. Ma comes next, balancing a skillet of cornbread, a plate of greens, and another plate fried chicken all by herself, which has John scrambling from his seat to help her carry the dishes to the table.
The food is good, in the way that all food made for a family is good, but also John’s mom is packing some serious culinary skills. It’s so good that they barely even talk while they eat, just off-handed comments on the weather or the trip here. The kids are too busy scarfing down their dinner, Ma and Rose are on baby duty, and Mark and John are just enjoying some good cooking. Part of the way through the meal, John leans over and whispers, “I’m glad you came.”
Mark is currently in the process of eating cornbread, and so he isn’t ready for that particular bombshell. He swallows and turns to face his not-boyfriend.
“Really?” He says, just a touch incredulously.
“Yeah, man. Not everyone gets to experience Olive Steinbeck’s legendary cooking, you know.”
“Oh.” Mark says. He clears his throat. “Totally, your mom needs to apply to Masterchef.”
John seems to find that satisfactory, and turns back to his plate. But Mark is stuck on that casual admission. Regardless of why, John wants him here, sitting with him, sharing food with the family. Mark shovels some collard greens in his mouth and tries not to think about it.
—
When dinner is finished and the dishes are done (“No, get away you two, I’m not so useless that I can’t do something as simple as cleaning plates”) Mark is given the tour of the Steinbeck estate. He was right, the house was paid for almost in its entirety by John’s Guild money. It’s a fact that’s mildly disconcerting, especially when it seems like the family is completely in the dark about what John actually does. He’s not the kind of guy who barges into familial issues like that, but he resolves to have a talk with John about transparency at some point in the future. And then he nearly turns around and plants his face in the wall, because how can Mark be judgy about honesty when he literally volunteered to be someone’s fake boyfriend?
Anyways.
The house has four bedrooms split across two floors, with Ruthie and Winfield sharing a bunk bed, and two bathrooms. Mark doesn’t get to see most of the bedrooms, due to privacy reasons, but he will apparently be sharing John’s old room with him. You know, because they’re boyfriends. And, of course, because there isn’t a guest room.
It’s no sweat, and the room is funny anyways. It’s obviously gone untouched since his teen years. There’s a Panic! At the Disco poster above his bed, which sends Mark into poorly-hidden giggles for about five minutes. John is unimpressed.
It’s dark enough outside that it’s practically useless, but once the house tour is finished Winfield drags Mark by the arm to show him the farmland in their backyard. He’s reasonably awed, looking out rows upon rows of relatively young wheat that seem to stretch on forever in the black of the night. He sits on the porch and lets Winfield prattle on about what they grow, how they grow it, and his day-to-day chores until they both start feeling the pull of sleep: Winfield due to his youth, and Mark because he is suddenly, horribly jet lagged.
He says his good nights to the family and stumbles into their shared room, flopping face first on the bed. He ends up getting a nose full of old lady quilt that’s probably been there for like, generations upon generations of Steinbecks, so he rolls himself over so that he’s flat on his back. It still smells grandmotherly and vaguely musty.
He knows that John isn’t technically the one who got the both of them into this situation. He was the one who offered to do this fake dating thing in the first place, and it’s kind of a gift from God himself that John was desperate enough to take him up on it. But this isn’t what he was looking for—he was looking for an excuse to bug him, and meet the family, and maybe make out with him a little bit. Like those Hallmark movies where the grumpy woman from the city finds a well-meaning but kind of ugly country boy and learns about The True Meaning Of Christmas, just in the opposite direction. He wasn’t expecting actual feelings, and intimacy, and seeing John genuinely happy for once and realizing that the guy was never really having a good time on the Moby Dick.
Mark kind of rolls around on the bed for a little while longer and stews in his own discontent until the door opens softly, John peeking in to see Mark pretty much starfished out on a tiny, creaky bed. He pulls himself up into a sitting position, legs crossed.
“Hi,” He says, in an uncharacteristically small voice.
“Hi yourself,” John replies, closing the door. He clambers onto the bed and sits so that he’s shoulder to shoulder with him. “How was Winfield?”
Mark lets out a little huff of a laugh. “Fucking awesome. He can carry a conversation all by himself. One little remark and then,” Mark mimes a plane taking off with his hand. “Whoosh.”
“You’re good with him,” John says. “All of them.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. They like you, dude. I never thought you were such a charmer.” He says, bumping into Mark’s side.
“What?” Mark says, faux-offended. “I wasn’t charming before?”
“If charming means ‘incessantly annoying,’ then sure. You’re the king of charming.” John says sardonically.
Mark laughs, and tells him to shut up. It’s a familiar routine, and a welcome relief after trying to hold a conversation with an eight-year-old for the better half of the night.
They lapse into a comfortable silence after that, still side by side on the bed, broken only when Mark finds himself dozing and realizes he has to get into bed before he passes out right there. He crawls under the covers, refusing to extend any more effort towards getting ready for bed. He’ll just wash his face super hard tomorrow. John, who apparently has more impulse control, actually manages to get off of his ass and brush his teeth before joining him with a book in hand, the same one he was reading on the flight here.
And he starts feeling weird.
Listen. Mark is no stranger to sharing quarters with John, or sleeping with him. They’ve shared rooms during missions many times, even if Lovecraft is technically John’s partner. But this—huddled under the quilt, staring up at his not-quite-friend as he thumbs through the same book he was reading on the plane, feels stiflingly intimate. Mark wants to chalk it up to the weird domesticity of meeting the family, of seeing John as his most candid self, without the pressure of the Guild looming over him. But he knows it’s more than that, a lot more. He wiggles even further into the covers and closes his eyes, willing the thoughts away. It probably isn’t going to help anything if he starts being weird about this, right? He should just try to sleep, and he’ll be less jet lagged in the morning, and everything is gonna be fine.
He’s wrenched out of his thoughts by a hand landing in his hair. Mark’s first instinct is to jolt and bat at the offending appendage, but a tiny voice in his head that sounds distinctly like Huck says that this is a rare display of physical affection and he’s gonna give him hell if he ruins it. Plus, the hand has started to gently move back and forth, essentially petting his head, and it feels fucking awesome. Mark sort of shuffles and sighs a little bit. The hand pauses for a second, before resuming.
He eventually drifts off like that, still smelling faintly of old lady quilt, the hand still moving through his hair.
—
“-ark. Mark. Twain, get the fuck up.”
Mark cracks his eyes open. Steinbeck is standing over him, fully dressed.
He closes his eyes. Not today, Satan.
“Mark, if you don’t wake up I’m going to flay you alive. Everyone is outside already.”
“Hrgfghfmmn,” Mark says intelligently.
“That’s awfully cute, but you still have to get up.” John’s voice says, now distant.
Mark throws his arms over his eyes, but he stretches out and swings his legs over the side of the bed, maneuvering himself into a sitting position. He opens his eyes again to the sight of John rustling through his suitcase—hey, that’s his suitcase, the fuck, and throwing a balled up shirt at him. It hits him square in the chest, and he cheers.
“You’re an asshole,” Mark says, lumbering to the bathroom.
“I live to serve,” John grins.
—
Mark makes his way down the stairs, where John is sitting alone in the living room. His legs are crossed and he’s got an open magazine on his lap and it’s still dark out, how is he even sentient right now?
“What time is it?” Mark says, in lieu of greeting.
John glances up from his magazine, hastily uncrossing his legs. He looks at his watch. “About five-thirty in the morning. You missed breakfast.”
“You guys already had breakfast?” Mark asks, feeling a little incredulous.
“Yeah, but Ma saved a plate for you in the oven.”
They didn’t even have breakfast recently, Mark hears. John let you sleep in, Mark hears. He’s oddly touched, but also kind of pissed, because he missed out on a family gathering like a total asshole and it’s definitely not his own fault for not setting an alarm. What kind of vampires wake up before five in the morning?
“I take back everything nice I said about your family,” Mark says, already on his way to the kitchen. “You’re all crazy.”
He hears a noise that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle as he turns away. Mark almost calls something back like, Sorry we can’t all be nocturnal like you, fuckhead, did you even sleep last night? But that’s rude, and John has been weirdly nice this whole trip and it feels so strangely delicate that he would hate for his big mouth to get in the way. He settles for mumbling curses to himself. Screw John, and screw his stupid, pretty face.
Wait. That sounded like an innuendo.
Mark shakes his head, pulling open the oven and wincing as the hot air blasts into his eyes. Blinking the pain away, he looks in to see a plate wrapped in plastic wrap, loaded with enough biscuits and breakfast sausages to kill the whole guild. Did everyone get a plate like this?
He reaches in barehanded to pull it out, rearing back back with a hiss when he remembers that hot things are hot. A pair of oven mitts are thrust in front of his face. He whirls around to see Ruthie standing eye to eye with him.
“CHRIST,” Mark says in a completely calm and rational voice, bumping back against the oven. Ruthie grins. She’s wearing an adorable little pair of overalls paired with a light green undershirt, and she’s got a smear of dirt on her face. He resists the urge to wipe it off.
“Were you looking for these?” She says innocently, dangling the oven mitts out in front of her.
“Yes, thank you,” Mark says. He reaches out to take them, but she snatches the mitts away at the last second. Bested by a twelve-year-old.
“Not until you tell me something!” She sniffs.
“Tell you what?” He asks.
“Tell me that you’re good. You’re good for John, and he’s happy with you.”
Oh.
Oh, that is so stinking cute. John has an overprotective little sister. He’s being given the shovel talk by John’s overprotective little sister.
Mark crouches down so that he’s at her level.
“Of course John is happy with me. John’s always happy!”
“Nuh-uh. Not when he thinks we aren’t looking,” Ruthie says, casually shattering his soul. She pokes him in the chest. “But you make him happy, right? You’re his boyfriend.”
Mark’s heart does a kind of flippy twisty thing. He softens.
“Yeah, Ruthie. I will.” He says, as honestly as possible without actually resolving to be John’s boyfriend then and there. He’s decided that he’s gonna do whatever it takes to make John as happy as he is here, just everywhere. Not for him, but for his family. Probably.
Ruthie inspects his face, and decides that she’s content with what she sees. She hands him the oven mitts. “Okay. But if you make him unhappy, I’m gonna beat you up.”
Like that, the tension is broken. It’s not like he doubts her—his chest is still kind of hurting from that poke. It’s just that the thought of being hunted down by a little girl because he broke someone’s heart is kind of hilarious. He snorts a little, but shoos Ruthie off before she can try to break his nose.
Mark is walking back into the living room with a full plate, hoping desperately that John heard nothing of that conversation, when John sighs loudly and hops up from his seat. Mark sets the plate on the dining table.
“Hi,” He says, slightly nervous.
“Jesus, Mark,” John says, suddenly extremely close.
“Huh?”
“Dude, your shirt is all the way unbuttoned. All the way to the belt.”
“That’s how it always is?” Mark says, puzzled.
John looks unimpressed. “Really, you walk around like this all the time? Even at home?”
“Uh, yeah? I was kind of the town hussy,” he says, only half-joking. It’s kind of hard to concentrate when John is using his first name and staring directly at his bare chest. That’s a double whammy dude, not fair.
John huffs out a laugh and walks over to where Mark is standing in front of the mirror. “I’m not gonna let my fake boyfriend be the town hussy,” he says, and starts buttoning up Mark’s shirt for him like it’s a totally okay thing for two friends to be doing.
Mark can feel his face heat up, but he keeps looking as John’s deft fingers work their way up his chest, finally stopping at his neck. John is a dictator, but he is a merciful one at least, and so he leaves the last few buttons open so that a tiny sliver of skin still shows. He smoothes out his collar and finally looks back at him, seemingly satisfied.
“There, you still have your street cred.” John says calmly, like Mark isn’t about to have a heart attack right here and now. He pats him on his (woefully) covered chest, and walks out to the backyard, like he’s that cool.
Mark stops gaping and trails behind him, apparently off to toil on the farm for the day. Some vacation this is.
—
It is currently 12:30 pm. The sun is high and hot in the sky, sending rays of blasting heat and humidity upon any poor soul who dares to leave the shade. Good lord, it’s supposed to be spring.
Mark watches from the porch as the Steinbecks chore out in the field. It’s only early April, so most of the tasks are apparently simple upkeep: watching for parasites, watering the crops, stuff like that. Georgie is also out on the porch, bouncing in one of of those special orbital baby chairs that lets him jump up and down without fear of falling.
Ma, Ruthie, and Winfield are all bent over at the waist in various parts of the farm, shoveling out particularly pesky weeds. Rose of Sharon is far off in the distance, tinkering with the irrigation system. John is apparently feeding the chickens, and Mark had responded with outrage at not being told that they had chickens, but he had been refused entry outright. They’re bitey little bastards in the morning, according to John, which sounds like bullshit. Mark is still kind of sulking about it.
He’s currently stuck on baby duty because he’s so incompetent that he’s more harm than help, which the kids were not shy at all about telling him. It’s cool though. Georgie is cool. He just bounces and shakes his little pacifier around in the shade of the house.
Mark and Georgie watch as Winfield wipes his brow and stands up, stretching. He must have a supernatural sense for when he should be eating lunch, or maybe he’s just tired. He starts tiptoeing away somewhat conspicuously away from his work, evidently trying to avoid Ma’s line of sight, and oh man, this is good. He starts unhooking a comically large hose from its place from the side of the house, turns it to it’s most gentle mist setting, and aims it directly at his mother’s back.
Oh man!
Mark almost yells out a warning, but honestly this is gonna be a lot funnier if he just doesn’t say anything. Winfield cranks the wheel to turn the hose on and it immediately shoots a jet of light, misty rain at his mom. She practically jumps five feet in the air and immediately starts stalking over to where Winfield is giggling, still spraying water.
He’s expecting her to come over and box his ears or something, but she laughs loud enough that even Mark can hear, and runs over to her son. She wraps him up in a spectacularly wet hug, and Winfield groans and struggles against her death grip, and it’s so cute?
The commotion makes Ruthie and Rose come running, then Toby, and soon enough they’re all very wet and very happy, Winfield and Ruthie wrestling in a patch of dirt that has now become mud.
Mark realizes abruptly that he needs to get in on this when Rose looks up, grinning, and gestures for him to come down. No need to tell him twice. He extracts Georgie from his space-baby-chair and bounds down the stairs. He thinks that the little guy is smearing his wet pacifier on his shirt. It doesn’t particularly matter.
He passes Georgie over to his mother, who takes him happily. Her hair is all messed up and taken out of its usual delicate hairstyle, and she’s smiling so hard it hurts to look at.
“Mark!” Winfield greets, hugging him from behind so quickly that he stumbles.
Rose immediately winces. Mark peers down to find two huge, muddy handprints on the sides of his flannel. So there’s obviously only one course of action that he can take. He grabs the hose from its position on the ground and points it at Winfield, lighting fast.
“Hey, Win,” He greets casually. “You know I’m a famous sharpshooter, right?”
Ruthie, who is an absolute fucking legend, turns the hose on right as the last word leaves his mouth. It sputters to life, and her brother can’t quite get away before he’s thoroughly soaked. He ducks and weaves to try to escape the hose, but Mark is literally a famous sharpshooter, so it’s impossible to get away even when he’s going relatively easy on the kid. Ma and Rose of Sharon intelligently move out of the way, and Winfield wrestles the hose away from his grip, and then it’s on.
—
“What in the name of God is going on here?” John says.
Mark looks up from his position on the ground, sopping wet and probably muddy. Winfield and Ruthie are next to him, one on each side, heaving ragged breaths. He pushes himself up into a sitting position and rises to his feet, shaking off some of the water not unlike a dog.
“John, my love!” Mark greets, smiling a Cheshire grin. John makes a face like he knows where this is going, and he doesn’t particularly like it. Smart cookie.
He slides up to his not-boyfriend, arms crossed behind his back, and plants a sloppy kiss on his cheek—the first one they’ve shared so far.
“No, fuck, get away from me!” John screeches, flailing and trying to wipe the dirt away. Mark leans back and grins at the pretty pink flush that’s spreading across his face, likely born of anger.
“What’s wrong? Can you hardly stand the thought of your boyfriend kissing you, you prude?” Mark taunts, spreading his mud-soiled arms. “Come on, give me a hug.”
John’s eyes widen, and he immediately turns on his heel, hauling ass away from him as fast as his well-trained legs can take him. Mark laughs, loud and bright, and chases after him, rubber hose laying long-forgotten by the porch.
They run through the field for a little while, careful not to trample the still-young wheat as they swerve left and right. John is hardy, and it’s not like he’s in bad shape, so he puts up a good fight. The thing is that Mark is a natural speedster. Like, Lucy said he was like a cheetah in human form, he’s fucking fast. He quickly catches up to his friend, launching himself directly into his side in a tackle that even Tom Brady would be proud of. They both topple to the ground, John laying on his back and Mark on top of him, breathless with laughter.
They stare at each other for a little bit, stuck in that position. Mark is dimly aware that he’s wet and muddy and he should definitely move, but he’s stuck to the ground as he struggles to remember how to breathe. John’s eyes are just so bright, and his eyelashes are tiny and blonde and he kind of feels like he’s drowning. In a good way.
John’s eyes darken with an unnamable emotion. Before Mark can even begin to gather the courage to ask what it is, he leans up and captures his mouth in a messy kiss. Their teeth kind of clink together and he has to pull back to try again, but once they’re in it, they’re really in it. John, unsurprisingly, takes the lead, and Mark is kind of content to just let him do his thing. He’s still the god of makeouts, as he was so lovingly named after a particularly wild frat party, but he’s literally sitting on top of what he’s beginning to realize is the love of his life in the middle of a field of wheat like some shitty coming of age movie. He’s going to take it slow, thank you very much.
After a while of just leisurely kissing (and a couple of casual touches), John decides he’s had enough and pushes Mark off of him, who tumbles away overdramatically.
“Awww,” He whines. “It was just getting good!”
John laughs. “I’m not gonna jump your bones in the middle of my family farm,” he says.
Wait, what? Jump his bones??
“John Steinbeck,” Mark says slowly, “Were you holding out on me this whole time?”
The man in question averts his eyes, suddenly looking slightly guilty and very red. Which, really, is answer enough.
“You sly dog!!” Mark exclaims, jumping to his feet. “I thought that was my plan!!”
“I mean, I thought so too,” John says. “But you were waiting so long to make the first move that I,” He stops.
“I…” Mark prompts, extending his hand.
“I thought I’d do it first.” He mumbles, taking the hand and letting him pull him up.
Mark laughs, slings his arm companionably around John’s shoulder, and says something about being relieved that he didn’t have to make the first move as they amble back to the house. He is relieved, at least, that he wasn’t the only one nursing less than wholesome feelings about his friend. But his kiss-drunk brain wasn’t fooling him before—He might be in love with John. Might have been in love with John for like, a lot longer than he thought.
As they walk into the house and up the stairs, both heading for the showers, Mark makes eye-contact with Rose. She smiles at him, like, I know what’s going on. He gives her a saucy little wink in response, to mask just how incredibly lost he feels.
—
They’re doing dishes together.
Ma and Rose made another feast for dinner, which makes sense now because of how much hard work they all do, even on vacation. It’s also kind of insane to Mark, because Ma was out working in the sun with everyone else and Rose has a literal baby and they still spend so much of the day just making dinner. He almost feels bad while eating, but the food is so good that he can’t bring himself to bring down the experience with petty things like guilt. He still insisted on doing the dishes, though, and he was perfectly willing to fight through the protests that weren’t really protests. They were breaking their god damned backs out there. The least he can do is rinse off some plates.
John insisted on joining him, something about how there are always more dishes than you think, Mark, and he obviously leapt at a chance to talk about where their relationship is at. They fell into a comfortable rhythm, Mark scrubbing and John rinsing and drying off various pots and pans and silverware. The sun has set by now, and the sky is almost as dark as it was when they arrived last night. John still somehow looks pretty in the night-fluorescent light of the kitchen.
“John,” Mark says, breaking the silence.
“Mark,” John says, toweling off a fork.
“How far do you want to take this?”
John turns to face him. “You mean—“
“I mean us. Like, do you want a friends with benefits thing, or was that a one time thing, or what?”
He scoffs. “It’s not entirely my decision, you know.”
Mark pauses, lets the sponge in his hands drop.
“Fucking duh,” He says, leaning against the counter. “But you get first choice, cause I’m down with anything.”
“Anything?”
Mark tilts his head. “I’m not gonna dress up as a dog and drink from a bowl or whatever—“ He starts.
“No, God, why did you put that image in my head?” John asks despairingly, sobering just as quickly. “But. I mean, if you’re down for anything.”
He turns and curses under his breath. Mark waits with a patience that he didn’t know he had.
“If you’re down with anything, then let’s do it. All of it.” John says.
Mark feels his heart stop, and spends a moment staring at him in shock. In fact, he probably stares for a bit too long, because John suddenly realizes the weight of his words and blushes deeply. Wow, he’s really prone to blushing.
“Unless that’s weird!” He cries. “Fuck! I know you have this male whore image to upkeep, but you’re always looking at me like that and you had this stupid idea in the first place, so I thought about us being like that. Doing all of it. Whatever.”
John is actually kind of crying angry tears now, which really, really sucks because that was definitely not how Mark wanted this conversation to go. Listen, it’s not his fault that he’s kind of stupid. Steinbeck is the kind of pretty that makes people stupid, even when he’s pissed off and crying and doesn’t think that Mark wants him in the same way.
He thumbs his tears away and pulls him into a bone crushing hug. Like, he really fucking squeezes the life out of him. This is the kind of hug that can kill a lesser man.
“Of course I want you like that, dumbass.” Mark says into John’s shoulder. “Why else would I offer to do all of this for you? You think I would help Lucy like this?”
John shakily pulls his arms up so that he’s hugging Mark back. He laughs wetly. “You wouldn’t help Lucy like this because she’s nineteen, you idiot.”
“Point still stands,” Mark says decisively. “I want to do all of it.”
—
They do all of it.
Or they try.
They spend the rest of the week with the family much more comfortably: working out in the sun is partially traded for trips into town or hikes in the countryside, all interspersed with gentle touches and forehead kisses, little stuff like that. Both John and Mark kind of have raging libidos, but they decide to save it for somewhere more private. And they agreed that the less children around,, the better.
It doesn’t change the fact that Mark is kind of tearing up when they have to say goodbye to the family, even if they’re gonna meet again in just a few months. And like, the entire family is kind of tearing up too, even though they seem like the type that’s far too tough to cry.
They meet up with Louisa and Lucy at the airport, waiting for a ride back to where they can safely be picked up by helicopter. In the back of the limo, Louisa asks if they had a good time, if they were happy.
Mark clasps John’s hand, and smiles.