Work Text:
Marc was in a funk.
He was used to doubting his words. He was used to cringing whenever he passed his drafts to Nathaniel. He was used to the anxious spirals that took over his life the day before they published a new comic in the school paper. He was used to writing down an entire page worth of prose, only to cross out everything and start again from scratch.
But he wasn’t used to looking at Nathaniel’s beautifully drawn pictures, searching his brain for words to bring their story to life, and coming up with nothing.
Zilch. Zero. Nada.
Marc sighed and slammed his notebook shut in his lap. He sat cross legged under the stairs at school, dreading the day to come. He wasn’t sure what it was about today of all days. It had seemed to start the same as any other day—his mom and older sister arguing over breakfast, Marc leaving early for school as soon as he managed to cram down his toast, and crossing the street to avoid walking by the apartment that always had some weird old lady peeping out from behind the curtain.
There was no reason for him to be any more anxious than normal. No reason that he’d started chewing on his fingernails, biting off the polish that was meant to keep him from doing that. No reason his leg bounced an erratic rhythm that he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
Except…
Marc pulled his knees to his chest and yanked his hood further over his head. He pulled the strings tight and hid is hands in his baggy sleeves, scrunching up the ends between his fingers. As if by doing that, he could somehow hide from what was really bothering him. From the unease that had been slowly building in his chest for days, now.
Nathaniel had been acting odd, lately.
It had started last week, in the art room one day, and Marc hadn’t thought much of it at first. Alix whispered something in Nathaniel’s ear, something Marc hadn’t heard. Nathaniel narrowed his eyes at Alix, who grinned widely. Nathaniel’s cheeks turned red. He then refused to acknowledge Marc for the rest of the hour they spent together, keeping his eyes trained on his drawings instead, and only mumbling the barest of responses when Marc asked him a question.
That could have just been played off as Alix being Alix, except that Nathaniel had seemed completely normal toward her for the rest of that time. They mouthed words to each other across the classroom. Nathaniel made faces at her, and she howled with laughter. It was just Marc who Nathaniel could barely bring himself to look at.
This week had been even worse, so far. Marc got the sense that Nathaniel wasn’t even listening when Marc tried to brainstorm ideas for their next comic. Nathaniel had cancelled their weekly movie night. And almost every time Marc actually got a second alone with Nathaniel, Alix seemed to show up and ruin it.
If Marc hadn’t known that Alix was aromatic, and that Nathaniel had never considered her as more than a friend anyway, then Marc might have been jealous.
Scratch that. Marc was jealous.
He’d settled on the fact that Nathaniel would probably also only ever see Marc as a friend. Even if it hurt sometimes. But Marc wanted Nathaniel to be his best friend, even if he’d never be anything more. Marc didn’t want Alix to steal that place. She already had so many friends, and she could make them so easily. Meanwhile, Marc struggled to keep close to just a few.
“Hey!” The familiar voice shook Marc out of his thoughts, but did little to ease his tension. He peered over his knees to see Nathaniel’s familiar sneakers in front of him. They disappeared beneath purple skinny jeans as Nathaniel sank cross-legged to the floor, facing Marc, who didn’t return the greeting. After a few minutes, Nathaniel tapped his fingers gently against the rubber at the end of Marc’s shoes. “Is it a quiet day, today?”
Marc sucked in a breath and nodded, careful not to show Nathaniel his face beneath the hood.
This was why Marc had fallen for Nathaniel. It wasn’t the way his green eyes sparkled in at Marc like they were always sharing some secret joke together. It wasn’t that his hands spun magical ink across paper. It wasn’t the timbre of his laugh or the way one piece of his hair always stubbornly refused to lie flat or how his lips pinched together when he concentrated.
It was that he saw Marc.
He took the time that most people didn’t to get to know him. He knew what to say. And, perhaps more importantly, he knew when not to say anything at all. He knew that some days the blood pumped to erratically around Marc’s chest, and the thoughts in Marc’s head created a fog that kept him from expressing what he wanted to. Nathaniel knew how to just sit with Marc on those days. To breathe with him, and distract him with silly drawings and to let Marc know he was there to talk whenever Marc was ready, all without ever saying a word.
And Marc never felt pressured to do anything other than just exist, in those moments.
Nathaniel reached out a hand, palm up. It rested in the air in front of Marc’s knees, free for him to take or leave. Marc studied it for a moment, almost testing how long it would stay there, equal parts worried it wouldn’t stay and terrified it would.
Eventually, Marc’s balled fists released his legs, letting them fall open and mirror Nathaniel’s position. He shook his fingers free from the now wrinkled ends of his hoodie and took Nathaniel’s offered hand in both of his. He pressed his thumbs into Nathaniel’s palm gently for a bit, then started tracing soft patterns into it. Marc was no artist, but he liked to imagine that he could paint things onto Nathaniel’s skin.
About a minute passed before Nathaniel’s hand tensed, and he pulled away. The first time that had happened Marc had been worried he’d done something wrong, but now he was used to it. He smiled to himself at the familiarity of the interaction
“It tickles,” Nathaniel whined. Like every time.
“Sorry,” Marc said. He wasn’t though, and Nathaniel probably knew that.
Impulsively, Marc reached out with one hand and grabbed Nathaniel’s hand before it could settle on Nathaniel’s jeans. This time, Nathaniel didn’t pull away, and their clasped hands dangled in the air between them.
Marc reached up with his free hand and loosened the string of his hood. When his face peaked through, he shot Nathaniel a small smile. Green eyes gleamed back at him as Nathaniel’s lips quirked up in response.
Maybe Marc was just overthinking things. These little moments between them hadn’t changed, at least.
Then Nathaniel’s eyes suddenly widened, and he dropped Marc’s hand as he leaped to his feet. “I just...I remembered I have to...uh...I need to talk to Alix before class real quick.”
He was already turning to walk away, and Marc didn’t bother to watch him go. Instead, he retreated into his sweater again.
Marc was pretty sure that this time, he wasn’t imagining it. He wasn’t just letting his anxieties get the better of him.
Something felt different, between him and Nathaniel. Something felt wrong.
Marc swallowed back the lump in his throat and blinked back his tears as the bell rang for class, and chased him away from his safe space.
Whatever, he thought, as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. The safety had already been broken, anyway.
“Marc?” Aurore said softly. Marc hadn’t looked at his seatmate the entirety of the day. He hadn’t really looked at anything that wasn’t a page of his notebook, his shoes, or the floor. “Are you okay? The bell just rang, and you haven’t said a thing all day.”
“I don’t want to go,” Marc said softly. He only spoke because he knew everyone else had left the class. He’d counted the pairs of shoes walking through the door. But Aurore was safe to talk to. The one friend he could always count on, if he couldn’t count on Nathaniel anymore.
Aurore might have a temper. She might be a little stubborn and hot-headed at times. But she’d been Marc’s seatmate for all of collège, and she always had a nice word to say to him. They didn’t hang out much outside of school, since Aurore didn’t have much free time, but they were always partners on school projects, and she was the one person Marc would actually talk to over the phone. So now, with her prompting, everything Marc had been holding in tumbled out.
“I think Nathaniel’s avoiding me,” he said. “Maybe he’s mad, o-or maybe...I dunno. Maybe he doesn’t think I’m a good enough writing partner, or…” He bit his lip. “Maybe he just doesn’t want me around. Maybe I’m annoying him. Maybe I did something wrong, or—”
“Marc, no. You’re not annoying, and there’s no way he found a better writer than you. Besides. You two are joined at the hips. I’m sure he still wants you around.”
Marc looked at Aurore. “But he’s been ignoring me, lately. Acting weird, like he doesn’t want me around.”
Aurore fiddled with the end of her ponytail. “Maybe...maybe you should ask him about it. You won’t know what he’s thinking if you don’t ask.”
Marc sighed and slouched over on his desk, resting his chin on his hands. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Come on, I’m su—”
Aurore broke off as a pair of footsteps entered the classroom. Marc looked up to see Nathaniel standing in the doorway. He waved, with a small smile that made Marc’s stomach swirl.
“You still good to come over?” Nathaniel asked. “To work on the next comic?”
Marc nodded, then slowly started shoving his things back into his bag. He was barely aware of Aurore saying goodbye and of Nathaniel coming to stand by his desk. When Marc stood, he walked past Nathaniel without meeting his eyes, leading the way out of the school without checking to see if Nathaniel followed.
Luckily it wasn’t a long walk to Nathaniel’s, but the awkward silence stretching between them made it seem infinite. Marc wanted to crawl into his hoodie and take up permanent residence, but he needed to leave the hood loose so that he could actually see the traffic.
When they got there, Nathaniel fumbled as he tried to get his key into the lock. Marc, who was never the steady one of the two, lost patience after a couple tries, and grabbed the key. He crammed it in none to gently and turned the lock, then shoved the door open with one shoulder. He turned to Nathaniel to give back the key, and Nathaniel’s gaping mouth and furrowed brows only made Marc feel worse.
Nathaniel’s mom called a greeting from the kitchen, and both boys returned half-hearted replies.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get started?” Nathaniel said. “I’ll grab us a snacks.”
“Fine,” Marc said.
He walked into Nathaniel’s room and took the proper desk chair, instead of the stool beside it where he usually sat. If Nathaniel was going to act weird, then Marc could take his chair.
As Nathaniel talked to his mom, his voice carried in from the kitchen, and suddenly Marc wanted to block that out. He picked up the noise-cancelling headphones hooked up to Nathaniel’s computer and shoved them on his head. He shook the mouse—Nathaniel didn’t have a password—and pressed the space bar to start the open Spotify window.
Marc didn’t recognize the song, but he liked the tune, so his eyes flicked to the screen to get the title. Instead, his eyes caught the top of the page. The name of the playlist.
Songs for Marc
And right underneath was Nathaniel’s username. He’d made the playlist.
In shock, Nathaniel pulled off the headphones and went to minimize the window, not wanting to be caught looking. The sound of something dropping to the floor alerted Marc to the fact that he was no longer alone. Marc swirled around to see Nathaniel standing near the entrance to the room, a bag of chips sitting on the floor in front of him.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Nathaniel’s voice was quiet, and Marc couldn’t interpret the tone, but he still flinched. “I forgot I left it open.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” he broke off when he saw Nathaniel’s face, or rather...when he saw that he couldn’t see Nathaniel’s face, because Nathaniel was studying his shoes with as much dedication as Marc usually had to that activity. “Nath?”
“I didn’t want to tell you this way,” Nathaniel said.
“T-tell me what?” Marc didn’t want to assume...he couldn’t assume. His rapid heartbeat told him exactly what he thought the playlist meant. What he hoped it meant. But he had to be sure.
Instead of answering, Nathaniel walked forward. He unplugged the headphones and clicked the first song from the playlist. Marc’s English wasn’t great, but he knew enough to understand the meaning of the title.
First Time He Kissed a Boy.
Marc stared wide-eyed at Nathaniel, who was studying his feet again.
“I like you, Marc.” Nathaniel’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the song. “I really like you. And I know I made things weird, this week, and I’m sorry. I was just so scared about telling you how I felt, but I didn’t think I could keep it in any longer, because…I mean I don’t know...You’re my best friend. And I didn’t want to mess things up between us.”
Marc swallowed. He slid his hand overtop of where Nathaniel’s rested on the desk. Nathaniel looked up at him, his eyes wide and unblinking. Nathaniel slowly sank into the stool next to Marc.
“I like you too, Nathaniel,” Marc said. “I have for...for a long time. I just didn’t think you’d feel the same way.”
“How could I not feel the same way? You write feelings I didn’t even know existed, and it’s almost like you read my mind, the way you put words to my art. You have something nice to say about everybody, even the people who don’t deserve it. And enough patience to sit through me drawing the scene over and over for two weeks in a row because I couldn’t get Ladybug’s hair right. You’re amazing, Marc. You—”
“Kiss me,” Marc interrupted. He wasn’t sure where the burst of confidence had come from, but suddenly he was sure. This was what he wanted. And he wanted it now, before his confidence ran out.
“Wh-what?”
“I-if you’re okay with that, I mean.” He leaned forward and placed his hands on Nathaniel’s knees.
“Are you sure?” Nathaniel asked?
Marc nodded, and watched, transfixed, as Nathaniel grabbed Marc’s cheeks in his hands, gently pulling him closer. Nathaniel leaned in closer, and Marc closed his eyes. A few seconds later, their lips met.
The kiss was short—just their closed lips pressing together for a few seconds—and Marc was almost glad for that. Because he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have passed out if it had lasted any longer. Breathing had suddenly become incredibly hard.
“Woah,” Nathaniel said.
And Marc might have been a writer. He might have spent his free time googling synonyms and describing scenes in particular ways. He might have agonized over verb tenses and second-guessed the tone his vocabulary implied. He might have rewritten the same sentence one time in ten different ways, only to scrap the entire paragraph because it just wasn’t the right vibe. But this time, he had to concede that Nathaniel was right.
Because there was no better word to describe what had just happened.
The first time Marc kissed a boy, it was Woah.