Archive of Our Own ^beta

🎬 ✨ 🎥

Old-as-life cliche—Mark fell first, Johnny fell harder, and the rest was history; but before that, there was a story.

They met years ago, brought together like stars colliding—pun intended—when Ten decided to involve his entire phonebook in his newest insane art project. It had something to do with the unretouched beauty of celebrities and it was a huge success, but Mark wouldn’t be able to stand by that information with a gun to his head, because for the entirety of that project the only thing he was able to notice was Johnny, Ten’s oldest and best friend. Two up-and-coming actors, they got on like a house on fire, and it was said later that neither was ever seen without the other.

And so it went. The majority of people involved dissipated into oblivion and only remained casual acquaintances, but some of them stuck together, held in place by Ten’s eternal fervor and a very active groupchat. Years passed, and it was still the six of them against the world. It helped, of course, greatly that the four of them coupled up, and while Mark was happy for them, of course he was, he saw firsthand what this life could do to your love as both of you climbed the ladder toward the Hollywood sign. More often than not, it fell to that tragic but expectable fate of Peg Entwistle, or it was as real as the glamor of the screen. He was scared, for them and of them, because people in love are more susceptible to seeing that in other people—and he felt like a spy, a traitor, constantly on the verge of having his secrets exposed.

If any of them noticed, nobody ever gave an indication, least of all Johnny. His secret was safe. Only Taeyong knew about it openly, because he was the one to accept Mark into his arms when it got too hard, when Johnny flung again out of his reach, when the gravity of his feelings pushed Mark too close to the ground.

It went on like that for what, about seven years?, before Johnny noticed. Later, Mark would laugh at this, because in retrospect, it was hilarious and just as cliche as the rest of their lives. Johnny was visiting him on set of yet another romcom Mark was doing, and he was watching the cameras when Mark played out his character’s confession to the love interest whose name Mark can’t even remember anymore. It stirred something in him, Johnny said, and before Mark knew what was happening, they were in Johnny’s dark apartment and Johnny was telling him that he was, it felt like, in love. His entire world fell apart when he heard that, and he asked who it was that earned somehow the glory of Johnny’s affections, and Johnny looked at him—really looked at him for the first time ever; and the world came together once again as they did.

He never felt happiness such as this. Not when he landed his first-ever role, not when he got an Emmy nomination, not when he starred in his first serious piece, not when he was able to buy his parents a worriless future. Only when he kissed Johnny, lied with him and felt his hands, he knew what it was to feel true, unblemished, pure joy.

The memories are a little foggy in his blissed mind, but he knows they came to the decision of keeping it a secret together. It was enough that their friends have been joking about them getting together to complete the trifecta for years; they couldn’t take even more teasing, or worse than that—scrutiny that came with it. They could, perhaps, handle Yuta and Ten’s nagging, and Doyoung and Taeyong’s suffocating affection, but they weren’t normal people, and they didn’t have normal lives. Johnny was in the middle of promoting a movie with a co-star he recently broke up with—privately, whereas the cameras still perceived them as sweethearts, and Mark wasn’t yet out officially, which he wanted to do soon but which came with complications that could crack their fledgling relationship. And, quite prosaically, it felt good to have their own little bubble, their space of laughter and secrets, and they decided, together, that they would wait. Four months were spent in bliss, and they set their official coming-out—second for Johnny, who flaunted his bisexuality for all the world to see since early days of his career, and first for Mark, who was still perceived as that gentle and considerate man-written-by-a-woman hearthrob; if only they’d known he was as gay as the day was long—in another two months, when enough time would have passed after Johnny’s premiere that the studio racked up as much money as it could. Everything was discussed with management, and everything was planned out to the latest detail, and they knew they would have to tell their friends before the whole world knew—and that was it. That was decided. They were as happy as ever, and everything seemed to go along perfectly.

Which is, of course, why Mark felt like breaking apart when it all came crashing down around them.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

All of them are there when it happens.

They’re taping their last interview of the Somebody Else, and there’s supposed to be a celebratory dinner on account of Johnny not having to spend any more time with Olivia than it is required—she wasn’t as graceful about their breakup as Johnny would like, and Mark had to listen to him rant about being essentially harassed by her every time they would come into any contact.

It is also the day they’ve decided to tell everyone about them and prepare them for the undoubtful barrage of questions from the paps that would most definitely beg their very well-known friends for details. None of them would give any up, Mark knows it even now, but he remembers the torture they all endured when Doyoung and Yuta started publicly dating, and he would like to have his friends be as ready as he was.

Suffice to say, Mark has been jittery since the early morning, when Johnny left his bed with a kiss and a happy grin, and it’s only gotten worse after he gobbled up three coffees. Taeyong keeps looking at him with concern from the dim corner they’re occupying with Ten, but Mark makes sure to steer clear of them lest he blurts out a confession.

So, when it happens, Mark feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest.

“So, to round up,” the interviewer, a British chap with a big Twitter following, says with a grin, “what’s next for you two? Have to say, the Internet enjoyed your romance, and obviously a lot of people think you’ll break up after the promotions end, so please, soothe our hearts.”

Johnny glances at Mark, who’s mostly concealed by the cameras but is still visible to him—always, really, and Mark’s chest warms—while Olivia glances at Johnny with a nervous glint in her eyes. Maybe it’s because she sees something on Johnny’s face that leads her to do it.

“Well—” Johnny begins, but she doesn’t let him speak.

“Actually,” Olivia bursts into a smile and reaches to cover Johnny’s hand with hers on the arm rest, “we have some very exciting news.”

Johnny whips his head to look at her with a frown as she reaches into her pocket and pulls out what can only be perceived as an engagement ring. The ground shakes under Mark’s feet.

“Holy shit!” The interviewer exclaims, reaching forward to look at it as Olivia puts it on her ring finger.

Mark is vaguely aware of the commotion behind him, both their friends and Johnny’s management scurrying to figure out what the hell is going on and why they haven’t been informed. He feels a hand wrap around his forearm and looks up to see Taeil, Johnny’s manager, his eyes round in a question. Mark shakes his head violently, but his vision swims and he’s grateful that Taeil is essentially holding him up.

“What the fuck?” Johnny finally says, breaking out of his stupor. His voice brings some life back into Mark. “No, we’re not— What the fuck are you doing?”

Olivia looks at him with a carefully manufactured look of confusion. “Baby—”

“I’m not your baby.” Johnny stands up, his hands shaking, and looks around for Taeil. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but we broke up a long time ago, and this—”

Both Taeil and Olivia’s agent come into the view, her agent coming up to them and Taeil approaching the befuddled interviewer to undoubtedly explain what would happen to his career if this portion was aired. Thankfully, this is a pre-recording, so it would be easy to cut the interview off before that wretched question.

“Did you know about this?” Doyoung suddenly asks from next to him, and Mark jerks around to see the four of them uncomfortably huddled together as if he had anything to do with that.

“How was I supposed to?” He barks out, but then softens his voice. They don’t know either. “A licensed professional wouldn’t guess what’s going on in her head.”

A grim look of comprehension settles over all of them as they watch the team hastily gather up equipment while Taeil runs around talking to every witness capable of spreading the misinformation. Or any information, really. Neither the fake engagement or Johnny’s confession aren’t supposed to be public knowledge. God bless NDAs.

And then, Mark sees Johnny’s eyes on him, and that’s all Mark can focus on. The world narrows down to the two of them, and Mark feels the comfort of their own bubble lap at his feet with gentle waters of the ocean Johnny took him on their one-month anniversary. He allows himself a small smile, but it quickly falls away when he sees that look in Johnny’s eyes that he knows all too well. That’s the look Johnny has when he’s decided something drastic, and it feels wrong, but Mark doesn’t have time to stop him. As in slow motion, he watches Johnny’s eyes tear away from him and to Taeil—he approaches him and whispers something quickly into his ear. Instantly, they both look at Mark. He stands there, wondering if he should walk over to them, but then he sees the calculation in Taeil’s eyes—and then a nod.

That single nod is what starts it all, really. It was probably not even Olivia and her schemes; it was that nod. Taeil marches over to them, wringing his hands.

“Get into your cars and meet us at the Cherry Bomb office,” he says before instantly walking away, Johnny trailing after him.

Mark shares a confused look with the rest of them, but something in Taeil’s tone invites no arguments. They slowly break out of their shock and start filling out, but Mark hangs back to grab Johnny’s hand and shake his head at him, not really able to articulate anything.

“I’m so sorry,” Johnny says first thing. “I had no idea she would—”

“I know you didn’t,” Mark says, touching his fingers in a dangerous gesture. “But what’s going on now?”

“Damage control,” Johnny mumbles. “Even with NDAs, someone is bound to leak it to the press, or the fucking Twitter.”

“Christ.” Mark feels all the blood drain from his face. “Which part, though?”

“I don’t know, but it’s bound to create a mess.” Johnny rubs his eyes as they walk into the corridor and toward the elevator leading to the parking lot. “But I’m literally contractually obligated to preserve Olivia’s reputation. I’m not sure what the agency decides in the end, but I think we’ll play the engagement thing as a prank. We won’t be able to contain the break-up news, though.”

“Alright, that’s—” Mark frowns as he watches Johnny punch the elevator button like it’s personally offended him. “That’s not so bad?”

Johnny flinches and turns to take his hands in his as soon as the doors close. “It’s bad because she’s deranged, sun. I mean, I know I’m irresistible, but come on.”

His lips break into a crooked smile, and even in this mess, he’s trying to make Mark laugh—it thwarts the ice in Mark’s lungs, and he reaches to plant a soft kiss on his lips.

“Yes, well, I’m the evidence to that,” he murmurs. “So what, she’s still in love with you?”

“I don’t know, but she’s certainly obsessed.” Johnny presses their foreheads together. “Who even does that? Christ. Well, in any case, she needs to get it into her head that I’m not with her anymore and I won’t be.”

“And how will you do that?”

“That’s what we’re about to find out,” Johnny says.

He wraps his palm around Mark’s neck and inhales deeply, bracing himself for the storm to come. Mark touches his jaw and leaves a soft kiss on it.

“Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together,” he whispers.

Johnny only has time to smile and nod before stepping away from him a second before the doors open. They walk through and go for their respective cars. The others are already waiting for Mark in his, but he only shakes his head when they ask him what’s going on. He still isn’t sure himself, but he meant it — they’ll get through it together.

Famous last words, those were.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

Ten laughs first, because Ten is the one among the six of them to never take things seriously but then obsess over the smallest details. Mark’s ears ring with that sound, so hollow in the glass room filled with Johnny’s entire team. When his laughter isn’t met with a response, Ten looks around himself, finally falling silent when Taeyong pats his forearm.

“How is that damage control, again?” Doyoung asks.

There was a question as to what they were all doing here in this meeting, but it quickly fell away when Taeil voiced their newest strategy idea. They’re all going to be involved in this charade.

“Because Johnny needs to be seen dating somebody new,” Taeil explains tiredly, “if we want Olivia’s management to wrangle her into some sort of control.”

“Why Mark, though?” Taeyong asks, and oh, there is pain in his eyes when he looks over.

That’s when Mark remembers—Taeyong must think this is hurting him. His poor best friend Mark, possibly forced to fake-date the man he’s been in love with for years; if only Taeyong knew.

“He’s not even out,” Yuta adds with a frown.

“Because Mark is Hollywood’s sweetheart,” Taeil explains. “He’s everybody’s favorite, even among his non-fans. Whoever we put on Johnny’s arm right now will face harsh scrutiny, since Olivia’s public image isn’t… really reflecting who she is. Everybody loved them dating, still do. If we have to float the story of them breaking up, we’ll need to replace her with someone they can’t hate.”

Through all of it, Johnny still hasn't looked at him. He’s next to him, and Mark’s been constantly looking over to him—until Taeil dropped the bomb.

“Alright, but wouldn’t it damage Mark to come out now?” Taeyong joins in.

Donghyuck, Mark’s own manager and his favorite bitch when Ten isn’t listening, perks up at that. “It was already in the plans, anyway.”

Everybody turns to look at Mark, but he just shrugs, too out of it to say anything. They knew he was thinking about it, but they weren’t aware he discussed it with management, because he was going to tell them tonight. Now, they’re finding this out like this. As if Mark wasn’t already feeling like shit.

“We already spread the story about the break-up, not specifying the timeline,” Taeil adds. “It was amicable, they remain friends, the works. In the next couple weeks, you need to be seen often together, and close.”

“We already are,” Johnny says hoarsely, the first thing he’s said since this meeting started.

“Yeah, well, you are, but it needs to be deliberate.” Taeil waves it off. “Stop hiding it.”

Mark’s heart stops. He doesn’t dare to look at his friends. This isn’t how they’re supposed to find out. This isn’t how he wants it. Fuck.

“I’ll do it,” he says before anyone can question Taeil’s slip.

“Mark—” Taeyong’s face is pained and uncomfortable. “What happens when you have to end it? You can’t—”

“I know what I can and can’t do.” He clears his throat and straightens his shoulders; finds Johnny’s hand under the table. “Work out the strategy and send the schedule over. If I have to come out now, there isn’t anybody else I would rather do it with.”

Finally, Johnny looks at him—a smile upon which the pollen of Mark’s love and the bitterness of Johnny’s apology lies. Taeyong is a good friend in his reservation, but there is still something he doesn’t know.

There won’t be an end; not if they have anything to do with it.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

There’s something to be said about Mark’s ability to fake a relationship. He’s never publicly had one, out of fear of deceiving his fans, but his agency’s policy was always not to deny any rumors. They boosted the ratings but weren’t ever confirmed, so that in the future Mark would have an excuse.

He’s had, though, relationships with girls when he was in high school. It was torture, but it was better than anything he would have to endure if he was found out as gay in his incredibly small-minded school. His parents were okay with it, and that made the whole thing easier—but he’s often left wondering what would become of his life if he had friends back then who truly knew him. If he had his ragtag bunch of idiots back then. If he had Johnny.

So yes, he has practice, but this is so wildly different and absolutely unorthodox that he can’t really wrap his mind around it at first. Most of all because they decide, the second they get alone, that this is absolutely the worst time to tell their friends they’re not going to be faking anything. Yes, in the future it will be even harder to explain everything, but at the moment everybody is so rattled that they need to discuss it and tell them in many colorful ways how bad of an idea this can turn out. The loudests agitators are Taeyong, who knows about Mark’s feelings but really doesn’t know even the half of it, and Ten, who Mark suspects knows because of him basically existing as one osmosis-adjacent being with Taeyong. They have to sit there on Mark’s vintage couch and listen to them list all the pros and cons of this arrangement and discuss them among themselves as if Johnny and Mark aren’t even in the room.

Eventually, Mark has enough of it and requests that everyone aside from Johnny vacates the premises. Taeyong catches his elbow on his way out.

“You can always back out before it really started,” he whispers furiously while Ten argues with the others in the driveway. “Do you even imagine how hard it will be for you?”

“I can,” Mark whispers back; but for reasons Taeyong can’t even imagine. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“Well,” Taeyong breathes out, throwing a look into the living room, “my doors are always open.”

Mark nods and hugs him tightly and gratefully, silently apologizing to him for all the lies. They all depart in a crowd way too loud for three in the morning, and Mark presses his forehead to the door once it’s closed. Before long, arms wrap around his waist and turn him around. He buries his face in Johnny’s neck and feels like he can breathe for the first time since that fucking interview.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny whispers into his hair.

“Don’t be,” Mark whispers back. “This is— better than it could be.”

“Which is an amazing way to start a relationship,” Johnny deadpans. “You can still back out,” he repeats Taeyong’s sentiment, and Mark chuckles—it’s a wonder nobody knows about them, still, with how in tune they are. “We’ll just figure out something else.”

“Johnny—”

“No, listen.” He cups Mark’s face in his hands. “You’re my entire world. I would rather starve and suffer than see you hurt in any way. I know you don’t care that much, but coming out might ruin many things for you. I’m talking canceled deals and people burning your pictures in the street.”

“Johnny.” Mark repeats and pecks him lightly. “I want to be with you, in every way possible, and it would happen eventually anyway. I’d rather have it be sooner than later, and like I said, there isn’t anybody I’d rather do this with.”

“Yes, but what if—” Johnny frowns, as if he’s in pain, and Mark’s heart sinks as he feels that old rusty wish to fling himself in front of a gun just to spare Johnny from the bullets. “What if down the line, you’ll change your mind about us? About me?”

Mark swallows hard, his first instinct being to rush into denial, but he’s been here next to Johnny for a long time and he knows all too well how that brain of his works. He raises his hand and brushes Johnny’s hair out of his eyes, lingering on the curve of his brow.

“I told you this when we started,” he whispers. “It feels like I’ve loved you my whole life, even before we met. To change my mind would mean to stop breathing.”

Johnny’s face constricts with the onslaught of emotions Mark feels too, and he darts forward to kiss him, deep and containing more words than all the scripts in the world can fit.

“You’re everything,,” he repeats in an exhale, almost pained.

Mark smiles into his skin. His phone beeps with a text from Taeyong, reminding him he’s there for him. Johnny sees it too as Mark tilts his phone between their bodies.

“How fucked up it is that we won’t have to pretend before the cameras but still pretend in front of them?” Johnny chuckles bitterly.

Mark raises his face and looks over him, noting the tired circles under his eyes barely concealed by the morning’s makeup, the perfect arch of his nose and lips, the disarrayed hair—and he knows, without really having to think about it, that he would endure anything for this man.

“A lot about our lives is fucked up,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers over Johnny’s cheek. “What’s one more thing?”

Johnny laughs without humor and kisses him, and that—that is what it’s all about in the end.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

Just like they said, it’s not that hard to adhere to the part of their bizarre schedule that is titled teasing in the PDF Taeil sends around. Mark even laughs at it before Johnny sleepily asks what’s funny from his side of the bed and he shows it to him.

The rest of the bunch is involved in it to make it look more natural, since there is a whole well-known betting pool in the industry on how long it would take them to complete the triad and get together. Everybody has to believe it, and nobody but the selected few can know the truth, in case somebody gets drunk at an afterparty or other and spills the beans where Olivia can hear it. She’s the one they have to convince in hopes that it gets her to back off, after all.

They go out to their usual dinners, but this time to spots where they know the paps will catch them. They can’t order it, since it would invite suspicion, but many years in the industry taught them about restaurants they should avoid—and they visit those almost exclusively every other day. People start casually noticing their joined hands, secret looks, unusual touches. Around the same time, the news about the breakup drops, and Johnny hides out in Mark’s apartment for three days before their schedule dictates they have to be seen together now. The official memo says Olivia and Johnny broke up a couple of months ago for amicable reasons, and Mark doesn’t like that the timeline isn’t specified because it could cause trouble in the future, but he also can’t really do anything about it.

Johnny only has one official appearance during that time, and when expectedly questioned, he just laughs self-consciously and says that they realized they were better friends than lovers. An old excuse, a familiar one, and everyone eats it up when Johnny says, calculatedly mysterious, “And well… Something happened that made us both realize where our hearts really lied.”

The audience oohs and ahhs because they’ve always loved Johnny and his casual chivalry, and somewhere out there, Olivia is probably seething with rage, but oh well, Mark thinks darkly, she brought this on herself. Mark meets him back at his house after this and kisses him silly, and Johnny whispers things into his ear, whispers everythings and the only ones, and even though he is yet to say those three words Mark’s yearned for for years, Mark still feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest.

Gradually, they start being seen together without their usual crowd. It’s not like they never hung out publicly before, but this time it’s more deliberate, intimate, invites questions and speculation. Pictures of them on late-night walks appear, holding hands and sitting close together, and it’s not long before Mark is asked about it. It’s a premier of his latest romcom with Irene, a wonderful and absolutely brilliant woman, who’s also a friend of his and found it absolutely hilarious that he’s been typecast as a heartthrob when she found out he was gay. She’s a good sport and is queer herself, so it was an absolute joy to costar with her. And she’s a good anchor now, when they come to the next camera and prepare for questions.

“Why isn’t your friend Johnny at this premiere?” A blindingly blonde woman asks, not beating around the bush.

Mark chuckles self-consciously. “I’m assuming all of my friends are at my house preparing a surprise party. I’m not sure how much of a surprise it is, though, since I got an alert about them disabling the alarm.”

Irene snorts at his side but then has to look away and face another journalist, and Mark misses the weight of her hands around his forearm.

“Those are some good friends you have,” the woman says with a grin Mark feels she might have practiced in front of a mirror. “Is there a chance of something more?”

It’s an insanely vague question, and more brilliant for it, and it’s good, because Mark needed a chance like this. They’re a little behind their schedule.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” he smiles.

The time’s up and he has to move further, but this one simple answer sent so many vibrations through his body that the next reporter has to repeat her question before he can process it. A few others ask him about Johnny, and he gives the same polite, calculated answer.

The ball is rolling, and all Mark can hope for is that it doesn’t crush him under its weight.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

It’s Mark’s birthday when they decide to drop the bomb, both because it would be more significant and because there’s already going to be enough attention on him. He shakes the whole day as he goes about his business—which is mostly folding and refolding laundry with Johnny on the speaker reminding him they’ll be okay—before dressing his best and leaving for the restaurant.

They have the whole terrace booked just for the small crowd—six of them plus Jaehyun, their constant plus-one who’s finally back from presenting his new collections in Japan and France, and their respective managers—and Johnny looks so absolutely devourable in his simple clothes that Mark’s nerves instantly mellow out when he sits down next to him. It’s taking everything in him not to kiss him right here and now, but the paps still aren’t here and it would be hard to explain his reasoning to the others.

Two hours pass in easy conversion and casual but constant looks from Taeyong. Mark wonders if they should catch Jaehyun up on it, since he’s never going to blab and would definitely be hurt if they kept it from him, but before he can decide, Donghyuck and Taeil nod at them over the table. Mark’s stomach is instantly thrown back into anxiety, but it doesn’t have time to settle—Johnny takes his hand and leads him away, to the other side of the terrace for artificial seclusion and not to make it too awkward in front of their friends.

“You ready?” Johnny asks softly as he casually lights up a cigarette and leans his elbows on the railing.

Mark looks down, on to where the paparazzi are not even trying to hide as they train their enormous cameras up at them, and exhales. “I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

A shadow crosses Johnny’s face and he opens his lips to say something, but Mark touches his wrist.

“But you’re the only person in the world I would want to do this with,” he whispers. “I’m ready for anything with you.”

Johnny’s eyes widen a fraction as he cradles Mark’s neck—he can practically hear the clicking of the cameras—before leaning in and barely touching Mark’s lips before saying, gently but so reverently it breaks Mark’s bones. “Everything.”

He tastes of tobacco and rum, and the shape of him is so familiar against Mark’s body that he has trouble remembering it’s supposed to look like their first kiss. Mark has trouble remembering anything, really, as he grips Johnny’s waist and presses close to him, his body practically shaking with his devotion—and fear, of course fear, but what is terror before the love that feels too great to keep just for themselves?

Mark loses track of time as they stand there kissing, providing more than enough pictures—none of which will be released until Donghyuck’s say-so, everything strategic and planned out to the last detail. Johnny breaks away from him for an inch, keeping his palm on Mark’s neck and their foreheads pressed together.

“We should probably tell Jaehyun,” he whispers with a smile.

“Which truth?” Mark murmurs.

Johnny hums and kisses him again. “We’ll decide later.”

The sweetness of the we soothes Mark’s aching heart; it is a balm made up of affection and terror cradled in rough hands.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

The news hit the blogosphere the next morning. It causes a varied reaction, from surprise to denial to support to outrage at him being outed. Mark’s happy to find out that the latter is the mood of the majority, and it shifts into outright happiness and support after he tweets a picture of him holding Johnny’s hands and a goofy face emoji. Johnny laughs himself silly at that as he retweets it, but it does the job—everyone’s abuzz with the long-awaited romance, and nobody even remembers that they were upset about Johnny breaking up with Olivia. The plan goes off without a hitch; at least online.

As soon as Olivia catches wind of it, she starts assaulting Johnny’s phone. He keeps sending her straight to voicemail until his inbox is full and then deletes all of her messages without listening to them. Mark knows that because they spend the whole day holed in at Ten’s apartment watching the latest Cannes nominees, and he smiles every time Johnny declines her without a second thought.

Back when they were dating, Mark didn’t know how to feel. Johnny kept saying that it wasn’t deep, that they were basically just hanging out, while Olivia painted a story of a fiery romance filled with passion and true love. It landed in Mark’s chest like hot coals every time to see Johnny smile at her on screen or brush her hair away from her face with his knuckles. He was jealous; of her and the attention that she got from him.

Several months later, he found out how it felt to have Johnny be truly in love with you, and all his past grievances and hurts felt shallow and stupid. Nothing could compare; not a single pretty picture came even close to the overwhelming heat of Johnny’s devotion. No screen in the world could translate that particular golden glow of Johnny’s eyes in the morning, no interview truly reflected what his happy, besotted laugh sounded like, not a single person knew the taste of him and the softness of his touch. Mark still, even with Johnny sleeping soundly wrapped all around him, finds it hard to believe that this man is his. That he gets to be with him, finally, kiss him and touch him and laugh with him. Oh, how happy he is—and how scared he is of losing it.

It’s a week later when they have to openly talk about it. Ten has a showing at one of his galleries, and when they show up there hand in hand, they’re obviously swarmed by the reporters. Ten isn’t offended, since that’s the reason he threw the showing, but he still makes sure to play an affronted and upset artist just for the sake of Taeyong soothing him.

The questions are standard, just a few of the many, many possible ones Donghyuck and Taeil coached them through, and as they stand there in the light against the backdrop of Taeyong’s portrait of all things, Mark thinks that this would be a thousand times harder without Johnny by his side.

“Mark, are you gay?”

That’s straightforward, but again, they’ve trained through it.

“Happy to say that I am,” Mark smiles.

“How long have you known?”

Christ. “Since I was about thirteen.”

“What about your rumored relationships with women?”

“Keyword here is rumored.”

“How long have you been together?”

Johnny takes this one, squeezing Mark’s hand and giving the reporter’s his best famous smile; it dazzles them enough for a few men and women to smile back almost against their wishes.

“Since early August,” Johnny says. “I mean, we’ve been friends for years, and the feelings were there before, but it took some time for us to put a name to them.”

Took you, Mark wants to say with a stupid smile. He knew from the start.

“What about Olivia?”

Mark’s stomach sinks, and he barely holds himself back from burying his face in Johnny’s chest. He keeps his eyes trained on the cameras.

“We broke up a long time ago,” Johnny says through a smile, “as was stated before. We remain good friends.”

Mark almost snorts but channels his amusement into a happy smile instead. That one is easy to produce and impossible to keep off his face. He looks up at Johnny, noting the hard edge around his eyes that appears more and more lately when Olivia is brought up, and squeezes his hand. See, he can offer support too, he’s not only here to be pretty and flail around with nerves.

Ten flocks them away from the cameras soon after, demanding that they go and use their newfound extra popularity to get him more sponsors, and Mark complies only with a superficial put-upon groan. The rest of the evening is less in focus and more like the blur he’s been experiencing since that fateful day behind the cameras, and something at the edge of his mind tells him he should stop and contemplate it, but for once in his life, Mark has something he’s coveted for so long without having to pay the price of his sanity for it, so he holds on with both hands and refuses to let go, even if his fingers are growing tired and aching with their strain with each passing minute.

The illusion does break, though, later that night when he finally heaves himself into his bed and turns over to press his face into Johnny’s arm and happily pass out, but he doesn’t get that, not right away, because Johnny has that unhappy frown, dark line etched into his forehead in the white glow of his phone. Mark knows that frown. His stomach sinks.

“What’s wrong?”

Instead of using his words—a thing they really need to talk about at some point, when it concerns more important matters—Johnny tilts his phone to let Mark see the Twitter pulled up. A familiar user picture stares back at him, as he’s spent his fair share of time stalking this accounts in hopes of catching a glimpse of a life he could have had, and his heart drops when he focuses on the two most recent tweets.

@olivia_love: yeah. since august. sure.

@olivia_love: anybody with eyes could see it since october at least.

“Fucking bitch,” Johnny grits out when he’s sure Mark has finished processing it. “October puts our timeline over when we were still publicly together.”

Mark sits up, slowly dragging him out of the near-comfort of the duvet and sitting up to press his shoulder against Johnny. He stares at the feature wall made up of Ten’s art behind his bookshelves and wets his dry tongue.

“What does it mean for you?” He asks, quiet, maybe because he doesn’t want to break the silence with the voice that already knows the truth.

“Probably be branded a cheater.” Johnny shrugs, and Mark feels it more than sees it, and he still knows that this nonchalance is as real as the relationship Olivia is still clinging to.

“They have to know you wouldn’t do that,” he denies, turning to stare at Johnny’s profile.

Johnny scoffs, almost cruelly, and Mark knows it isn’t directed at him but it still stings. “In almost thirteen years of my career, I’ve never been caught in any impropriety. People will jump on the chance to cancel me before you can say alleged.” His eyes fall back to his phone. “Some of them already have.”

Everything in Mark rebels at the thought of Johnny ever being anything other than the perfect golden glow of the setting sun, but neither of them are the Hollywood debutants yet plagued with the naivety of youth. Mark knows how this works, how this entire business and industry works, and it makes him scream into his pillow sometimes when the constant on-camera smile aches in his bones, but hating it doesn’t mean being excused from following the rules.

“I’m sorry,” Mark whispers, and he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. For himself, for them, for the unfairness of it all, for the complexity that only gains additional twists with each day passed in the facsimile of sincerity. His heart tells him these are not his apologies to give; his mind accuses him of every single one.

“I don’t care,” Johnny exhales. “I honestly don’t. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Even if I lose my entire fanbase overnight… which, let’s face it, rarely happens to men… it won’t matter.”

His hand finds Mark’s under the covers, twisting their fingers together almost with desperation, and he doesn’t say the words he means but they are still clear in the soft lines of his face, some of the makeup still lingering around his eyes. His eyes are full of warmth, and Mark basks in it; and yet, there is an unhappy twist to Johnny’s mouth that could easily be explained by stress and disappointment and exhaustion, that bone-deep one they all feel more or less frequently. It could be easily explained, that’s the point, and Mark tries not to go there, tries to remember that he’s no longer of the age where it would be appropriate to sulk around and demand reassurances without actually asking for them out loud, tries to remember this is real, they are real, but it still sinks into him with ragged claws that perhaps there are doubts behind they honey of Johnny’s eyes, and perhaps they can’t ride it out on Mark’s purely selfish desires. It freezes his lungs and suffocates his throat, and he’s pretty sure Johnny can see how scared he suddenly is, but Johnny doesn’t say anything—which is so new and alarming that Mark, for the second time today, doubts the words Johnny whispers to him every day.

“Well, whatever,” Johnny says decisively, throwing his phone to the side and breaking Mark out of his depressing musings. “Mom’s going to be pissed, though.”

“Hm?” Mark’s mind is still a little hazy, but Johnny’s touch on his bare shoulder pulls him to focus, like a parody version of a hook strung up on the fishline. “You didn’t warn her about Olivia?”

“She only knows we broke up,” Johnny says, moving closer to nose at Mark’s neck.

It’s pleasant, but something tugs at Mark’s attention, for once not focused entirely on Johnny. “You… didn’t tell her about us?”

“It hasn’t come up,” Johnny mumbles with a shrug, his hands going to the hamstrings of Mark’s sweatpants.

Mark knows an attempt of distraction when he sees one, especially with his mind latching onto the implications of it coupled with Johnny’s words. Johnny talks to his mom practically every day. They’re even closer than Mark is with his mother, and that’s saying something since Mark comes down home literally every chance he gets, which can’t be said for others in their group. Taeyong’s parents are dead, Doyoung resents his own with a passion, Yuta generally tends to avoid the topic of his upbringing, and Ten’s daddy issues are the stuff of legends. And a few angsty albums.

It’s weird that Johnny hasn’t mentioned anything about them to his mother. It’s not like she’s besties with the others, so trying to avoid her accidentally revealing their secret isn’t a valid enough reason to keep something as important as Mark from someone as important as Johnny’s mother. Christ, Johnny tells her what clothes he’s wearing every day, so how come he failed to bring up the fact that he was sharing his bed—his life—with someone he said was worth having his name smeared across glossy gossip pages for?

He’s loath to bring it up, though. It’s still new and fragile, like a baby chick barely poking its head out of the shell, cracked but yet bearing its shape. Mark swallows and decides to keep holding it together for a while longer, trust Johnny to be honest when he inhales the scent of Mark’s aftershave and whispers to him that he’s everything. He doesn’t let the intrusive thought at the back of his mind break through as he meets Johnny’s lips.

It’s worth it. They’re worth it—but is he?

🎬 ✨ 🎥

The urgency of it fades after a few days but it still remains on Mark’s mind, an unpleasant background hum behind his thoughts and feelings and musings on the updated script he was sent for the movie he was cast in even before this whole mess—relationship—started. He’s set to start shooting in a month, and he’s practically memorized not only his lines but all the others as he puts it off, but eventually his reputation of a good boy catches up to him, so Mark fesses up and calls his mother.

It starts off cheery if not overcompensating on Mark’s part, and his mother has truly known him for too long to still be fooled. It’s hilarious that Mark has been able to hold up this ruse for so long, since according to Evangeline Lee, he can’t lie for shit.

“Does your strange behavior have anything to do with the news report your father and I saw the other night?” Mom asks, and if he didn’t know any better, Mark would think she sounds sly.

“It was on the news?” Mark groans.

“Yes, it was the fourth rerun of the segment.” Mom chuckles gleefully, as if she’s been waiting by her phone ever since she saw it and was begging for Mark to call her so she could revel in his misery. True to form, his mother is a menace. “What do you have to say in your defense?”

“It’s— complicated.” Mark heaves a sigh. He knows he’s not that important, but being closeted for so many years have gifted him with a sort of obsessive paranoia, and while he’s almost sure no rogue NSA agent is listening to his calls for a chance of gossip, he doesn’t want to leave it to chance. “But I’m— okay? Sorry I didn’t tell you before. It’s been weird.”

“I understand that, sweetie,” Mom says, her voice finally as gentle as he remembers from his fondest memories. “You know it’s been a while since we needed to know about every step you were taking. As long as you’re happy…” She pauses, as if waiting for him to fill in the blanks—but Mark’s throat goes dry and traps any words that had a chance to come up. “You are happy, aren’t you?”

His eyes drift over to the balcony, where Johnny was smoking a few hours before, unhurried and smiling even though he was late for a shoot, whispering into Mark’s hair that all the scoldings were worth it to steal a few more minutes with him. It ached in Mark’s chest, but he wrote it off to happiness; he wrote it off to deliberate oblivion.

“I think I am,” he whispers, not daring to raise his voice lest the room privy to so many clandestine touches was to hear his betrayal and crumble around him, taking with it every sweet memory and turning it into bitter ash.

Mom is silent long enough for Mark to check that the call didn’t end, and then he hears her exhale in that mom manner of hers reserved for bad grades and breaking curfew. Mark is pushing thirty, but he still ducks his head and feels his cheeks heat up.

“I’ve seen what you are like around him,” she says finally. “Before this, for so long. One would think that it would be even better now that you are… official.”

There is a pregnant pause brought upon by her tone at the last word, and Mark’s heart skips a beat. He licks his lips and tries to come up with something that isn’t an outright lie but also doesn’t tell his mother enough to race to the other coast to hunt someone down.

“It is,” he says finally, starkly aware that he should’ve responded way sooner. “It’s just— weird right now, with the public and his ex and everything. I didn’t expect it when I was dreaming about running off into the sunset with him.”

Mom barks out a dry laugh, a thing he misses hearing in real life with something tangibly painful between his ribs. “Well, honey, I told you married life wasn’t what it’s painted out to be.”

“Mom,” he whines, feeling sixteen again and getting an updated, gay version of the sex talk. Once was horrifying, twice was downright torturous. “We’re not married. We’re not even—”

He breaks off, not sure how he wanted to end that sentence. They’re dating, sure, but there are things they pointedly don’t talk about, and even though Mark knows it’s about more than just sex and sweet talk for Johnny, sometimes, late at night, he wonders if Johnny will ever be able to comprehend, let alone return, the feelings that run so deep in Mark’s roots that he might as well have been made of his love for Johnny, moles, and surprising acting abilities.

“Oh sweetie,” Mom exhales, and in that single brush of air Mark can feel all the sympathy and all the pity.

“It’s okay, Mom, really,” he hurries to say. “Things will calm down after a while, and it’ll get more— normal.”

“Are you sure you want normal, though?”

The question hangs above him like the sword of Damocles, because no, he’s never been known to settle for something ordinary; but if it’s a boring life with Johnny against the heartbreaking excitement of loneliness? He knows what he’d choose.

“I—” He breaks off when someone starts banging on his door obnoxiously, meaning it’s the only person who both knows the code from the gates and makes it his life’s goal to ignore doorbells in favor of being as loud as possible. It’s usually annoying but right now he clings to this small blessing like a lifeline. “I have to go, Ten’s here. We wanted to go over some of the planning for his next exhibition.”

Which is a blatant lie since Ten has never once let anyone into his artistic process, and they both know it, but Mom is merciful when she wants to be, so she lets him go with a quick affirmation that he’s the best boy in the world and an offer—or more like a demand—to bring Johnny home for a visit at some point. Thanksgiving is looming upon them, and Mark feels like he’s staring down the barrel of the gun—the joint dinner of Lees and Suhs. He shudders as he hangs up and rushes to the door before Ten breaks it down—for the second damn time.

“What?” He barks out, surprising both of them, only Ten manages to wrangle it into his usual dry amusement in a second's time as he perches his sunglasses atop his ruffled hair, still wet from the shower. It’s fucking October. Sometimes Mark suspects Ten is secretly a werewolf or something, what with never getting sick and the nocturnal lifestyle, but then again it might be Mark’s late-night Teen Wolf marathons talking.

“Gee, what’s up your ass this morning?” He asks, arching an eyebrow and pushing past Mark to waltz into the hall.

Mark glances at the digital clock as he follows Ten into the living room, even though it feels a little as if Ten is leading Mark into his own house.

“It’s four in the afternoon,” he points out dryly.

“Time isn’t real,” Ten says with a flick of his wrist. “Coffee?”

“Kitchen. Where it has been for all three years I’ve been living here, you lazy ass.”

“Eish, someone’s in the mood.” But he does drag his ass clad in Jaehyun’s designer jeans into the kitchen space.

Mark trudges after him, because it’s been years since he’s learned that Ten will keep talking with no regard if people actually hear them, and this day has been annoying enough without having to ask the person who loves hearing himself talk to repeat himself.

“It’s not like I don’t enjoy you raiding my house without warning,” he starts, perching himself on a bar stool as he watches Ten make coffee. Two mugs, too, which tells Mark this conversation won’t be pleasant since Ten is already sweetening him up with actually not being selfish, “but what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m wounded, Markles,” Ten gasps, pressing a manicured hand to his chest. “Can’t I just drop in on my bestie to check how he’s doing?”

Mark squints at him suspiciously. “Your checking how I’m doing usually is limited to a random midnight text going, ad verbatim, u alive? and I’m not your bestie, Johnny is.”

Ten throws a calculating look around the part of the house that he can see from his place at the kitchen island and turns his eyes to Mark with a shiteating grin. That grin was the first thing Mark saw and memorized about him. It never means good things. Ten grins like that all the time, which is why knowing him is practically jailbait in and of itself.

“With what I can observe, Johnny might as well live here,” he says.

Mark very carefully doesn’t turn around to check if any rogue items of clothing or books have wandered their way into blowing their secret out of the water. Even if there was anything of obviously Johnny’s ownership here, it wouldn’t mean anything that revealing. These people spend so much of their time at Mark’s house they all have designated guest rooms and various belongings stuffed into the nooks and crannies of Mark’s home, as well as his life.

“What do you mean?” He asks innocently.

Ten snorts. “I can practically smell him here.”

See, this is exactly what Mark means when he talks about Ten and werewolves. He might as well have crossed from Mark’s screen and into his kitchen like some deranged version of Stiles and Derek’s child, what with the vibrating energy of untreated ADHD and violent mood swings. His eyebrows are on par with the theory, too. And yes, Mark insists there was some homoerotic tension there that got vigorously and repeatedly solved off-screen. He cheered to himself to see Stydia go canon, but Sterek was where his heart has always been. It didn’t help meeting both Tyler and Dylan at a convention once when the show was still active and seeing that famed chemistry firsthand.

An argument could be made that Mark needs to get a life that doesn’t revolve around Johnny or fictional gay men.

“You just seem to be comfortable with this thing,” Ten says when it’s obvious Mark isn’t going to dignify his theories with a response.

Mark raises his eyebrows in question and Ten does an elaborate gesture consisting of flailing his arm and stuttering out Johnny’s name. Again, there is Stilinski blood somewhere between the blue and the gay in Ten’s veins.

“I’m comfortable with Johnny,” Mark says with a shrug, proud of himself for nailing nonchalance.

Ten clicks his tongue and dumps six spoons of sugar into his mug before splashing cream in—it stains Mark’s pristine counter—and sliding Mark’s coffee across the table toward him. It spills too, but it’s as perfect as it gets, so Mark forgives him.

“So,” Ten drawls, “when this ends, will you be able to let go?”

Let it be known that Ten’s many talents include not beating around the bush—or slashing the shit out of it when he wants to. Mark carefully takes a sip from his coffee, sending clandestine looks toward Ten’s calculating eyes and wagering as to how he could play it. Ten is Johnny’s best friend, platonic soulmate as his fifteen-year-old-girl-mind likes to point out, and he spends half his time up Taeyong’s ass, both figuratively and literally, so there is a big fat chance he’s already aware of Mark’s true feelings on the matter. Have been aware, if the sympathetic looks Ten sometimes sends his ways when he forgets he likes to put up the image of being a raging asshole are of any indication, but he’s never brought it up before. Until now. Which can only mean one thing. Consciously or not, Ten found out the real truth, and his meddling ass just couldn’t sit tight and wait it out.

This might be a test, and a dark part of Mark expects Ten to laugh at him and mock him for it, but there’s a bigger part that knows the truth of Ten’s real laugh and true kindness. He wouldn’t do this to him. He’s not the one to kick while Mark is down, at least not when he realizes it would actually hurt. And, this might be still a test, but for once, and on the heels of that unhappy twist to Johnny’s mouth and his mother’s soft words, Mark wants to be open and honest.

“No,” he says firmly, setting his mug on the counter with a clink of plaster on marble. “And I don’t intend to.”

“Good.” Ten’s eyes are serious for once, his fingers tapping out a familiar rhythm against the mug with a clink of his many rings. “Because he won’t be either.”

Ten doesn’t know for sure, Mark tries to tell himself, and he, despite what he says, doesn’t have a direct line into Johnny’s mind, most definitely not on this, but still—Ten knows Johnny like the back of his hand and isn’t one to waste his breath on too much candor, so this is as good an open seal of approval as it gets.

Mark releases a laugh into his coffee, sagging his shoulders as at least some tension in his chest loosens. Ten looks at him like this was exactly the reason for his visit, and that’s when Mark is reminded of the suffocating affection he has for this ridiculous man. He wishes desperately that he could just open his mouth and be out with it, but the shell is still too gentle to move, and it wouldn’t be right without Johnny’s consent, so he clams up and sips on his perfect coffee while Ten deems the topic closed and goes on to rant about his newest collection, or music, or art, or whatever it is that occupies his mind every second. It’s nice, and it settles him into the gushing comfort of familiarity, and so Mark finally finds himself believing that his life isn’t about to blow into pieces.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

He isn’t even sure what he’s doing here, but it might have involved him being barely awake and Johnny sweetening him up with kisses and murmurs. It’s the last Somebody Else party, celebrating the movie's immense success, and Mark is conflicted about his being here. On one hand, this is the last time he has to see Olivia for the foreseeable future—or, as his stubbornness can help achieve, ever—and on the other hand, Olivia.

She’s hanging off of Johnny on the stage a little ways away from the crowd, and Mark tries not to scowl as he sees her happy pink smile and dark eyes that, upon closer inspection, would probably show insanely blown pupils. Johnny doesn’t look in the least bit uncomfortable next to her, but Mark knows how good of an actor he is, and besides, there are throes of paps here just waiting for him to slip up and get some pictures to accompany Olivia’s long-deleted tweets.

Mark filters out most of the speeches, eager to have it over with and get drunk. Finally, after even Doyoung’s famed patience runs out and he heaves an impatient sigh, the cast and crew wrap up and bow to the cheering audience. It’s mostly insider stuff, other celebrities with their friends and a select few from the media, just to round up the huge publicity stunt that the past few months have been. He watches everybody get down from the stage. Johnny makes his way to them just as Hot Chip starts flowing from the speakers, the strobing lights pulsating in beat with the music. Johnny’s hand immediately goes to Mark’s, and he spends a moment to be grateful that this is a publicized event and he can be as coupley as he wants to support his boyfriend. The others don’t even bat their eyes as Johnny presses a kiss to Mark’s temple, even if Ten’s eyes glin ominously.

“How long do we have to stay?” Taeyong asks over the music.

“Well, longer than two minutes,” Johnny deadpans. “What, you have other plans?”

“Tickets for the concert go up in a few hours,” Taeyong informs him with a pout.

Mark frowns as he tries to get what he’s talking about it before it clears. “For fuck’s sake, you have Taylor’s number, you’re friends, why do you have to compete with thousands of fans for tickets?”

“It’s about the experience,” Taeyong informs him with a defiant tilt of his chin.

Ten snorts from his side and pecks his cheek. “Sales don’t open until midnight, so we might as well enjoy ourselves for a bit.”

With another pout, Taeyong concedes, and they spread out through the crowd to do the habitual networking and catch up with people who aren’t really too close to be friends but aren’t distant enough to be just acquaintances. Besides, face-flashing at events like these are the basis of the industry, plus they have a running bet on who gets papped the most. The loser pays for brunch the next day, and the winner gets to post an incriminating picture of the person of their choosing. An argument could be made that all of them need to get a life outside of their weirdly codependent group.

An unidentifiable amount of time later, long after Taeyong and Ten have ducked out and Yuta passed out on Doyoung’s shoulder, Mark finally has to concede to the fates and do what he has been vigorously avoiding the entire night—he bumps into Olivia.

Or, more like, she crashes into him, and her drink would spill all over his white shirt if the glass in her claws wasn’t empty. Mark is pretty sure she was aware of the first fact, blissfully oblivious to the second one. He straightens her up and makes sure her dress is covering everything she doesn’t want to see pictures of the next morning, because he’s still a gentleman and Mom raised him better than being a complete dick, but other than that, he’d prefer not to touch her in any way. Or be in any vicinity of her vaporous breath and wobbly gaze. He takes a step back, but she clutches at his elbow, long nails digging in painfully.

“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” She slurs, and Mark’s only managing to hear what she’s saying because he’s spent way too much time drinking with important people in his youth to get them to notice his skills rather than his ‘bambi eyes and pouty lips’.

“I believe I am, yes,” Mark replies, if only to amuse himself, since the entertainment currently is lacking. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Olivia’s lips scrunch up, and he notices that there was purple lipstick on there at a certain point in the evening, now only visible in the corners of her mouth.

“I can see through your nice-boy act,” she seethes suddenly, swaying in her heels. “I know you’re just a slut desperate for a dick with a big-enough name attached to it.”

Mark’s eyebrows fly up. He didn’t expect it to escalate this quickly. Slowly, he looks around himself in an exaggerated manner that will register to her drunk brain, and notices a few people glancing their way, Johnny included, probably expecting a confrontation. He winks at Johnny and turns back to Olivia. He kinda liked her, back in the day, when he saw her only on screen and not hanging off of his best friend slash secret crush.

“Oh, you were talking to me?” He feigns surprise. “Sorry, I thought you saw a mirror.”

She blinks at him dazedly a few times before twisting her face up, almost as if swirling saliva in her mouth to send into his face. That would be a first. And, after the whole stalking thing, the most unpleasant thing to happen to him during his stardom.

Thankfully, either because some sense returns to her or because her mouth is too dry, Olivia does not do it. Instead, she leans in, her eyes so big and angry that Mark almost, almost misses the genuine hurt in there. All of a sudden, all he can see in her is that deep-rooted sadness that has broken people stronger than her. His chest twists with pity he doesn’t really want to feel.

“He might think he loves you,” she whispers, a sharp contrast against the shrill of her voice previously. “He might whisper sweet nothings into your ear while he fucks you. He might tell you you’re everything he’s ever dreamed off. He might whisk you away on a vacation and make you think you’re something precious and important.” Mark’s heart skips a beat as his mind flashes to the lakes Johnny took him to on their two-months anniversary. “He might look and sound perfect, but he’s nothing like that. He’s rotten, and he cares only about himself, and he will throw you away when he’s bored with you.”

She’s suddenly away from his personal space, and Mark blinks the daze away to see Johnny with his hand on Olivia’s forearm, gentle despite his stormy expression. He takes the glass from her hand and sets it aside before redirecting Olivia to her frazzled personal assistant with instructions to take her straight home, make her drink a bottle of water, and force her to go to sleep. The assistant looks like she knows just how hard that will be and that she’s not getting paid nearly enough for this, but she just nods and leads Olivia away.

Mark exhales and forces a smile when Johnny cuts off his view of the retreating women.

“I’m sorry about her,” he murmurs, his hand hovering over Mark’s as if he’s afraid to touch.

That’s a first; Mark entwines her fingers. “How much did you hear?”

“Barely anything.” He looks sincere, and Mark feels relieved for reasons he can’t name. “If she insulted you—”

“No, she actually called me pretty,” Mark snorts, hoping that’s enough to leave the topic. “Now, how about you take me home and make us both forget about her existence?”

Johnny looks ready to argue, visibly struggling to let it go—he’s like a dog with a bone sometimes, honestly—before choosing the lesser evil and nodding with a tight smile. They say their goodbyes and leave through the back exit, still getting expectedly swarmed by fans. Mark’s too tired to sign anything, but he does smile and poses for pictures for nearly twenty minutes before Johnny looks murderous—behind his trained smile and warm eyes, and Mark thrills at the knowledge that he can see Johnny’s mood while everybody else remains none the wiser—and Mark smiles apologetically and ducks into the car waiting for him.

As they drive back to Mark’s house, he holds Johnny’s hand and looks out the window, remembering Olivia’s words and her pain; her sadness, a brand of it the familiarity of which makes something churn in Mark’s gut. He tries not to let it get to him, but coming on the heels of his despondency already sharding his stomach, it lands just like another perfect piece of glass.

When they go to bed, Johnny is all over him despite their exhaustion, making up for the stress of the night in plenty with his hands and lips, and Mark loses himself, if only for a brief moment, because it feels blasphemous to be thinking about anything else but the golden existence of them. They fall to sleep panting and entwined, and Johnny whispers into his ear that he’s everything, and Mark’s throat is stuck as he tries to say something back. As he struggles to say that he loves Johnny, if only in hope that Johnny finally says it back.

But they don’t need to, Mark reminds himself sternly, not yet. They know it anyway, and they say it with things much more precious than words—he cringes at the use of the word, now darkly tinged with the purple in the corners of Olivia’s lips—and it’s enough.

It should be enough.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

Halloween is fast approaching, and before Mark knows it, he’s at Jaehyun’s NYC studio, getting fitted for a frankly ridiculous costume bordering on touch too glittery; which says a lot. Mark loves glitter. It’s one of the gay stereotypes he fits and gladly and frequently enforces.

Johnny doesn’t even bother hiding his smile as he lounges on the armchair and watches Mark getting tortured by Jaehyun’s wild albeit trained fingers.

“What?” Mark pouts defensively. “I’ve seen yours, it’s even worse.”

Johnny’s face falls just as Jaehyun straightens up with a frown. “You don’t like it?” He asks around a mouthful of pins.

Fuck. Hurting Jaehyun’s feelings is worse than kicking a puppy. Not that Mark would know, because he’s never treated puppies with anything but utmost respect and squishy cuddles, but he can very well imagine.

“No, no, it’s wonderful!” He rushes to say, flattening his palms over the side of his Elvis costume that is set with what Mark suspects to be definitely real Swarovski. “It’s just flashier than I’m used to.”

Jaehyun makes the dimples pop in his amusement and delicately pins the material around his waist.

“Far be it from me to perpetuate fashion toxicity,” he says, “but make sure to keep off sweets and anything high-calorie until Halloween, okay?”

“Sure,” Mark says with a smile, because he only ever accepts comments about his weight from Jaehyun, since most of them state that he should be eating more, not less like some asshole people like to point out.

“Make sure he keeps to it, eh?” Jaehyun says in Johnny’s general direction, and then adds with a smirk, “And keep him as exercised as he is now.”

Mark’s neck flushes red as Johnny sends him what comes as close to his bedroom eyes as is appropriate in a relatively public setting. Sure, there’s just some assistants and Jaehyun around—all of whom are very well aware of their relationship—but still, decency and good old Catholic upbringing make Mark squirm a little as he sweats, to which Jaehyun responds with a playful slap on his ass.

“I can keep to a diet myself,” he grumbles.

Both Johnny and Jaehyun regard him with amused looks, and he remembers that it isn’t wise to lie in the presence of people who have seen him on his midnight eating binges way too often.

Before long, thankfully, he’s done and then it’s his turn to watch Johnny be vaguely uncomfortable but still visibly supportive of Jaehyun’s ill-advised decision to dress him up as Cher. Johnny’s good in heels, but he’ll be towering over Mark even more and Mark has mixed feelings about that one. Jaehyun, bless his soul, extends the same dietary request to Johnny, so Mark gets to cackle evilly as he looks forward to the next two weeks. Misery loves company and all that.

There’s more sex than anything leading up to the day X, though, which you wouldn’t ever hear Mark complaining about. Johnny seems less tense, more relaxed and happy now that his schedule doesn’t include having to spend time with Olivia, and even if she still sometimes drops bangers on the Internet that her management struggles to clean up, they don’t affect them anymore. The cheating allegations, as Johnny predicted, got him canceled for about a day and then blew over almost too quickly. Mark suspects Taeil was involved, but he doesn’t dwell on it.

He feels so elated and fucking ballooning up with happiness that not even the lack of those words affects him anymore. With every day, he feels more and more sure of them, and it even starts registering on their friends’ faces that they might not be faking as much as falling in love for real; they think it’s cute, they say quietly to Mark, and he smiles, but when he sees them doing the same to Johnny, all they get in response is a tense smile and a shrug. It hurts, but just a little. Johnny isn’t that open about his feelings as his fame suggests, and Mark knows it all anyway.

Especially in moments like these, when they sway in the crowd on Halloween, in the midst of Jaehyun’s infamous bash, and Johnny cradles his face and leans in just as the clock strikes midnight and they officially enter the Unholy Night part of the party. Which is just an excuse for everyone to start taking off their stuffy costumes and engaging in activities bordering on obscene. Johnny kisses him deeply and warmly, and something about it—the ache, the longing, the surprise—reminds them of their first kiss, when Johnny looked insane and Mark still had his filming makeup on.

When they break away, Mark doesn’t hear the music or the people. They exist within their own little world made up of tired whispers and constant affections; Mark is so in love with him it hurts, and he wants to say it, but instead what comes out is, “It’s not New Year’s.”

Johnny snorts fondly and shrugs. “I don’t care,” he murmurs. “I want to kiss you every time the clock strikes.”

Mark’s pretty sure he stops breathing, and this is it, this is when Johnny will say it, because it’s perfect, it’s exactly the moment, because Johnny is exactly the romantic they think he is, and it’s only appropriate that his confession will be as grand as everything else he’s done, a moment just for us in the midst of all of them.

But the seconds tick away, and Johnny only smiles, and his hands slide down to Mark’s shoulders in an embrace; Mark tamps down on his disappointment and tries to remind himself this is good enough. It’s good enough. It’s enough.

He only realizes someone comes up to them when Johnny raises his face from where it was pressed into Mark’s hair—it’s weird Johnny isn’t sneezing like crazy, considering the amount of product in it. Mark blink away the fog he doesn't remember coming from his eyes and sees Doyoung next to them, serious in a hilarious juxtaposition of his Slutty Mickey Mouse costume. Jaehyun’s mind works in mysterious ways.

“It’s real, isn’t it?” He asks.

Mark feels like someone’s punched him in the gut when he sees the horrified look on Johnny’s face. He’s about to pull away, make an excuse, run away to hyperventilate in the bathroom, when Johnny’s grip tightens on his shoulders and he squares his jaw.

“Our relationship?” He asks.

Doyoung blinks. “Your feelings.”

“I—” Johnny wets his lips, and he looks so unsure it kills Mark a little inside. “Yes.”

Mark could double over from the relief coursing through him. He’s so elated that he almost fails to voice his own assent, which results in him nodding so hard he almost knocks Johnny in the face with the elaborate headpiece tilted on one side.

Doyoung snorts dryly and gives them one of his rare smiles.

“Congratulations.” He salutes with his glass and gets that wicked look in his eyes that makes half the world swoon and another half get slightly horrified hard-ons. “I’ll go break the news to the others, so you better clear out before they descend.”

He’s not even exaggerating, Mark knows, so he grabs Johnny’s hand and bolts. They’re far too old to be running through the crowd and halls like teenagers, but Johnny still echoes Mark’s laughter as they sneak into the parking lot and fall into the backseat to make out. It’s not as comfortable as it used to be, during Mark’s younger and more flexuous years, but it’s with Johnny, so, all in all, it’s absolutely perfect.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

It’s stupid.

It’s honestly insanely fucking dumb, especially after weeks of bliss. Mark’s been walking around with his head in the clouds for days, because after the initial near-Inquisition from their friends, there was support and only gentle teasing all around. As it turned out, everybody’s reluctance to follow Taeil’s insane plan stemmed mainly from the potential pain of it all—and Mark’s chest swelled with affection at such loyalty—and not from the ensuing awkwardness. Now that everybody knew there wouldn’t be any breakups where they’d be forced to choose sides, however public-only, Mark only had to survive through Taeyong’s pouting for a while before everything settled down. Johnny became even more open with his affections, and Mark was prepared to write an entire doctoral dissertation on the topic of happiness making people lose their minds.

Which is why it was so fucking stupid, and which is why it came out of nowhere, when a simple conversation about future plans—brough up only because Mark was coming down to LA for shooting and wondered if Johnny would visit since he only had a few NYC-based events scheduled—grew into what was their first fight in months, fuck, in years.

“What’s wrong?” Mark snaps after he’s tired of getting grunts and shrugs in response to his questions. Johnny’s across from him at the kitchen island, swirling his cereal more than actually eating it.

“Nothing,” Johnny says, instantly, which is what solidifies it. “I just— don’t want to plan my life down to a minute.”

“Nobody says you had to,” Mark says with a frown that verges on angry. “I just asked if you wanted to come down for a weekend and visit my parents since we’ll be in Cali anyway.”

Johnny sighs like he’s bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders and stands up to discard his mostly-untouched cereal in the sink. He doesn’t even try to pretend he’s going to rinse it, which is somehow the last straw of Mark’s patience. He’s been moody as hell and snappy for a while now, but it generally calmed down around Mark, so this now hurts and pisses him off. He fucking hates being angry, Christ, and Johnny knows it, but it’s like he’s doing this on purpose.

“I don’t know,” Johnny says as he turns to prop his hip on the counter and shrug, his eyes not quite meeting Mark’s. “Do we have to spend every minute together?”

Mark feels sick. Slowly, he stands up too and mirrors Johnny’s pose. His mind is blank with rage, which is why it’s hard to choose what to focus on—the fact that Johnny thinks they spend too much time together or that Johnny is way off the mark. They haven’t been together enough lately, and Mark thought they both felt it.

“Considering I’ll be away and insanely busy for the next four months,” he starts, slow and measured, “then no, I don’t think a weekend or two is too much to ask for.”

Johnny flinches and looks down on his feet, and for a snap between one moment and the next, Mark doesn’t recognize this man. This isn’t his boyfriend, isn’t his gentle and loving and funny Johnny; this is Johnny Suh that Mark met all those years ago, guarded and crude and standoffish as he was before they actually had a one-on-one conversation and realized they fit together like old pieces of a vitrage window in Mark’s childhood church. He used to gaze up at them for hours, memorizing every little detail so thoroughly he could still draw them from memory, and he spent just as much time studying Johnny; and he doesn’t know this one, not anymore. He thought that man was gone, but here he is, in his warm kitchen with the sun streaming down on him, and for the first time ever, Mark wants him out of here.

“Are you that bored of me?” He asks, in a voice that sounds foreign, and it’s fitting. It doesn’t feel like they know each other. Just two perfect strangers, thrown together over spilled coffee and soggy cereal. “If you wanted more space, you could’ve asked for it, openly, without this passive aggressive bullshit.”

Johnny winces. “That’s not what I meant— I just…”

Mark gives him time, because no matter what he’s feeling, he knows he will always find himself giving Johnny the benefit of the doubt. He feels too cold, too exposed in his old sweatpants and a loose UCLA shirt, and it’s strange, it’s fucking wrong, and he doesn’t know what to do but wait.

“I don’t—” Johnny frowns as if the right words elude him, and Mark hopes that that’s the case because anything that starts with I don’t usually doesn’t end well. “I don’t know what this is anymore.”

It’s like someone dropped a piano on Mark’s fucking head. He shudders out a breath and a weird sound stuck between bewilderment and a pained moan. Johnny looks up sharply and jerks as if to move toward him but stops himself at the last moment, and that hurts even more.

“I mean, I do know, I just—” He sputters, crestfallen when he doesn’t get to look like that, not when he threw Mark this curveball and expected him to roll with it. “I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Deal with it?” Mark hisses out. “Shit, dude, you don’t have to make our romantic relationship sound like shower mold.”

It’s not fucking fair that Johnny looks hurt, because it was him who started this, it was him who decided to explode, it was him who refused to say that fucking l-word for months only to reveal now that maybe he never will. Mark is confused, and Mark wants to ask more, know more, find whatever worm has muddied Johnny’s constantly-vigilant mind and destroy it; but Johnny won't help him. Johnny rarely helps anyone help him, and Mark, like an idiot, thought that it would change now that they shared more than laughter and texts.

“I just feel like it’s a lot all of a sudden,” Johnny says, quite successfully burying the hole under himself even deeper with each word. “Shit, no, that sounds wrong.”

“You bet your fucking ass it sounds wrong,” Mark snaps, throwing his hands up. “Everything has been sounding wrong since we fucking sat down.”

“I just need space!” Johnny yells back. “To figure it out!”

“Well, look at you, using your words like a big fucking boy,” Mark laughs mercilessly.

He turns on his heels and goes into the bedroom to snatchs Johnny’s bag from its usual place on the floor and storms back into the kitchen, where he finds Johnny unmoving and frozen in time and place—and his shining eyes are the only thing that reminds Mark it’s still his Johnny underneath all that forced ice and confusion of a man who never figured out how to deal with something that wasn’t scribbled in a script delivered to his doorstep. Mark hates that all these dark things that he never even dared to think are rising to the surface now, but there’s nothing he can do to stop them now—and he’s tired of trying.

“Get the fuck out,” he says, throwing the bag to Johnny’s feet. “You know your way out.”

He doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t stick around for anything else, just bolts out of there and into the upstairs bathroom, too anxious not to let his tears show. He barely closes the door before his legs give out and he sinks to the floor, his chest caving in. It’s echoey in here, so Mark grabs a towel and stifles his sobs into it until he hears the front door closing and Johnny’s car drive off.

Even then, he doesn’t let himself remove the towel, because he knows that as soon as his sorrow breaks the silence, it will be out there, it will be real, it will solidify itself as a thing that happened and will continue happening long after he’s stopped crying. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to cry it out, but even when there’s no tears left in him, he’s hiccuping and convulsing like a child that forgot to stop its tantrum.

The next two days are a weird mess of anger and crying and not leaving his bed, and he loops through Taylor’s entire discography at least four times before Donghyuck shows up to see if he’s dead, since he hasn’t answered any texts or calls for days. Mark fishes his phone out from under the bed, finding it dead, and refuses to engage in any conversation with Donghyuck—which is a thing best attempted at least after a shower and a good breakfast, neither of which Mark is feeling up to—as he plugs it in and waits for it to load. There are dozens of voicemails and messages but not a single one from Johnny. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. It’s not like he didn’t know about Johnny’s avoidance skills, which are almost as sparkling as his acting. He throws his phone away and burrows himself back in his sheets until Donghyuck physically wrangles him to the floor.

“You have a flight in six hours,” he announces, hitting Mark on the ass with his clipboard for good measure. “You fucking stink, so go shower for at least twenty minutes and then get to packing. I am planning on unloading you onto the plane and getting rid of you for the next four months.”

Mark honestly wants to punch him, but he isn’t a punching kind and Donghyuck is very vengeful, so he just stands up with a grunt as his bones protest.

“You’re not the only one, apparently,” he mumbles as he shuffles into the shower, shedding his clothes as he goes.

Donghyuck is too busy scowling in disgust at the state of his bedroom to hear it, and maybe that’s for the better. Mark isn’t sure he’s ready to talk to someone who isn’t a bartender at the moment.

Somewhere between brushing his teeth and falling into the backseat of Donghyuck’s car, Mark remembers that he’s always been considered the most mature out of all of them—at least between him and Johnny. It makes him want to vomit, that ugly reluctance mixed with sizzling want, and he wrangles with himself for twenty minutes before giving up and unlocking his phone.

The text chain with Johnny remains depressingly outdated, but he doesn’t let himself think about it for too long as he types out a simple, i’m leaving in two hours. you can still make it to jfk if you want., sends it, and locks his phone to resist the temptation of watching the status line until he’s hit with motion sickness. Donghyuck shoots him meaningful glances in the rearview mirror, whereupon Mark remembers that he’s also everybody’s friend, which means his absence was the subject of their internal rumor mill practically nonstop. He heaves a tired sigh and decides to let them deal with it. He’s far from being ready to talk about it; he isn’t even sure there is anything to talk about anymore.

He wants to cry suddenly, yet again, but before long they’re at the airport and he can’t afford for any of the pictures to show his red-rimmed eyes. It’s not like he doesn’t look like he’s actively dying, but that can be easily explained by his impending role and preparations for it. The trip to the private entrance feels like forever, and he doesn’t let himself get his hopes up, but when he raises his eyes and studies the lounge to find that Johnny isn’t here, his heart still breaks. Just a little, with little fragments falling away just as they have been for days now.

Donghyuck sits with him until it’s time to board, which is unusual for him but easily explained by his probable fear that Mark will bolt the first chance he gets. What would be the point? Everything in New York reminds him of things he doesn’t want to think about; if anything, he’s desperate to finally get away and let Los Angeles cradle him against its sweaty life buzzing with action.

As the clouds slowly come into view in the illuminator, Mark feels absolutely and utterly spent; the only thing he can stomach to consider is that it’s good that he’s playing a depressed borderline addict trying to kick the habit. He feels just like one, and he certainly looks the part.

Maybe, he thinks dully as he drifts away, it wasn’t worth it in the end.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

He ignores numerous calls from Taeyong that border on obsessive and eventually turns off his personal phone altogether when it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing, with possibly every name in his short contact list except for the one he really wants to see there. His work phone is the only one he needs during shooting anyway, and the others know better than to blow it up too—or so he thinks until Taeyong’s name flashes on it barely minutes after he turned the other one off. Mark screams at the screen and declines before swiftly blocking his number and every other friend’s number in one smooth motion; cowardly, he leaves Johnny’s number intact.

After that, he has maybe an hour of relative peace before he has to go into makeup and wardrobe. They’re only doing walkthroughs today and then going out for a start-of-production dinner, so it’s not like he needs to be exceptionally alert. He just needs to get through the day and then try not to embarrass himself in front of his new coworkers by consuming all the alcohol he knows he will be ordering as soon as they arrive. He’s generally a pleasant drunk and it’s been said he’s a sunshine to be around in any state, but that last part was said by people he’s planning to drink to forget, so it’s sour.

Before he can even try to take a quick nap, there is almost too-loud rapping on the door of his trailer. It rings in his sensitive mind of an insomniac. He grunts and gets up from the bed, slowly making his way to the door and only succeeding in making himself move under the promise of coffee in his on-set assistant’s hands. He’s not that big on it, but in his current state he’d take a caffeine shot up the ass not to pass out on set. It’s fine, he placates himself; it will get better. He just needs to get himself together and throw himself into work, worm his way into the character’s skin and stay there for the foreseeable future with periodic exceptions lest he ends up another Jared Leto. He doesn’t even have cult members to fall back on if that happens.

When he opens the door on the embarrassing third try, all thoughts of coffee and makeup and distant planets whoosh right out of his mind. He stands there, gaping, wondering absentmindedly if he’s so tired he started hallucinating.

“I—” Johnny gasps out before doubling over.

Alarm brings some action back into Mark, but he doesn’t even have time to get down one step before Johnny straightens back up and Mark sees he’s not sick, just out of breath and very red. Extremely and alarmingly, actually, but Mark isn’t sure he remembers how his tongue works—useful for an actor, Doyoung would point out dryly, and useful for a man, Ten would say slyly, and maybe Mark does miss talking to them a little.

Johnny holds up a finger as he tries to regain his normal breathing patterns—Mark knows them, spent hours listening to them at night when nobody could notice and shame him for it—and it would be funny in the context if it wasn’t goddamn baffling. As Johnny keeps doing what substitutes for drunk yoga breathing, Mark takes in his disheveled damp hair, tired blue skin under his eyes, and rumpled clothes. When Mark focuses on those, he realizes they’re the same ones Johnny was wearing when Mark kicked him out, and upon further inspection, his hair isn’t damp, it’s dirty. He takes a conspicuous smell and yep, that wasn’t a whiff of the dumpster, that’s Johnny’s alcohol-and-sweat musk.

“Did you fucking run here from New York?” Mark blurts out.

Johnny glares at him half-heartedly, and it slams against Mark’s chest how familiar it is, how beautiful, how them. He doesn’t know if he should smile or cry.

“I drove,” Johnny wheezes out. “I did run here from the parking lot, though.”

Mark’s eyebrows fly up. The parking lot is so fucking far from the trailer park—a ridiculous thing he noted while hauled what felt like ten miles on a cart—it wouldn’t be believable if Mark wasn’t privy to Johnny’s rigorous and extensive gym routine.

“I—” He huffs. “Where were you? I texted you—”

“I know,” Johnny interrupts, taking a tentative step forward and grabbing the railing, but Mark steps away purely on instinct and Johnny takes the hint and doesn’t move further. “But I— Fuck, babe, you have no idea how shitty my past three days have been.”

Mark’s heart stutters on the endearment and speeds up at the declaration.

“I have some idea,” he says grimly.

Guilt passes through Johnny’s face openly and so unusually it almost makes Mark feel he did succeed in taking that nap, because Johnny is this vulnerable and honest with him only in his dreams. Where they’re still okay, where Mark matters to him more than he thought he did.

“I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am,” Johnny says.

“You can begin,” Mark points out.

Johnny’s lips purse around a smile. “Charming.”

“I take after you.” Mark shrugs and crosses his arms as he leans on the door.

“After I left—” He flinches as they both reflect that it wasn’t as much him leaving as Mark giving him the boot. No regrets, though. Well, maybe some small regrets. “I went to get drunk in Central Park and blacked out like three hours in, and when I woke up I was in Connecticut, sans my phone and the majority of my dignity.”

Mark whistles under his breath, honestly impressed that Johnny’s still standing. It’s only a matter of time before Taeil finds him and stages a tragic accident. He almost itches to go on Twitter right now to see all the pictures that undoubtedly came out of this, but he also feels like maybe Johnny will get to an important point for once in his life anytime soon.

“I honestly don’t even know how I actually managed to drive there, but by the time I realized what was happening and got back home, you were already gone. The others told me that you left for LA and I went straight on the road. Should have probably stopped to get a new phone.”

“One of the things you should’ve done,” Mark murmurs with a nose scrunched up as he regards Johnny’s clothes and his general smell, but it’s only half-hearted because he’s trying to cover the fact that he’s freaking the fuck out.

Johnny ignores his comment and plows on, almost running out of breath again. “I just—” He racks his hands through his hair, but it’s not like it could get worse. “Fuck, Mark, I can’t even tell you how much I know that I fucked up.”

He does step up, bringing their faces on one level for once, his hands hovering at his sides as his eyes rack hangrily over Mark’s face.

“I love you,” he says, and Mark’s heart stops. “I love you, I love you so fucking much, I’m in love with you, have been since the moment we kissed, and the reason I wouldn’t tell you sooner is that I was scared out of my fucking mind. Scared that it would pass, because it always did in the past, scared that it was too much too soon, because I do have a tendency to blow things out of proportion, scared that it would be too intense for you, because if there is one person I cannot afford to lose it’s you. But then I just, I just started drinking and driving and I knew that none of that fucking mattered, because things come and go but you came and stayed. Fuck, Mark, you’re everything, and I don’t care about anything or anyone else. I only care that you’re mine.”

Later, Mark will wonder at himself for not passing out. He will wonder at how he managed to move or speak at all, stricken as he was with shock and joy and disbelief, so great that they pierced his lungs and turned him breathless.

Johnny looks wrecked, guilt-stricken but so fucking hopeful, and Mark was never able not to go to him, so he does it—only he remains himself as he does, which means he trips over his feet and flies into Johnny, sending them both crashing to the ground.

There’s a yelp of pain as Johnny’s ass hits the hard ground and Mark’s elbows hit his ribs, but Mark doesn’t think he’s up for complaining—especially because his mouth becomes busy a second after. Mark’s tired and aching all over and there is a smell that he does not care for and some dust flew into his nose, but he doesn’t give a flying fuck because Johnny’s here, Johnny’s his.

“Always have been,” Mark murmurs between Johnny’s panting and his own sobs, and wow, there go the tears again.

Johnny’s eyes are shining too, and he raises his fingers to brush his knuckles along Mark’s jaw like he’s touching something precious and delicate—and Olivia’s words reach him but distantly, from a dissipating fog, because she was wrong. She mistook whatever Johnny gave her as the real thing, and Mark wasn’t there but he knows that it wasn’t.

Because it’s here, in the dust and under the heat of the LA sun; and it was all worth it, in the end.

🎬 ✨ 🎥

Someone snaps a picture of them still lying in the dust—Mark’s assistant, as he finds out later—but she has enough sense to only send it to them. Mark stares at it until he has to go on set, and Johnny promises to tag along after he takes a much needed shower in Mark’s trailer, and Mark is loath to let go of him but he does have responsibilities aside from making sure Johnny is kissed at all times.

He notices Johnny a few times in the dimness behind the cameras as he works, and it’s a testament to his professionalism that he doesn’t break character when he does, even if he really wants to contradict the script and grin like a madman. Johnny disappears shortly before they’re finished to get ready for the dinner he was enthusiastically invited to by the director, and Mark uses the time it takes him to get back to the trailer to check his phone, now turned on.

The first thing he sees when he goes on Twitter—not to find and save as many pictures of drunk Johnny as possible, of course—is a tweet from Johnny of all people that is already trending and has millions of likes.

Mark stops in the middle of the lot with the pink of the sun glowing onto his phone and his heart swarming with buzz and energy as he recognizes the picture of them on the ground. He spends a good five minutes staring at the tweet before sending his reply.

@johnnyjsuh: he fell first, i fell harder. [picture]

@onyourm__ark: and the rest is history.