Chapter Text
Fourth wakes up with the worst headache he’s ever felt in his twenty three years of life. His temples are throbbing and there’s a sharp pain all over, pressure behind his eyes that he refuses to open. Despite that, the sunlight annoyingly made its way through the blinds, irritating Fourth even further.
He blindly pats around himself and finally touches the hand of his roommate. His skin is dry and warm and Fourth squeezes him gently. “Gem, are you awake?”
The other man just hums and pulls his hand away. Fourth sighs and it takes all his strength and willpower to finally pry his eyes open. The sun is up, the light is too bright, just like he expected. He groans and turns onto his side, facing his best friend. He’s looking ahead, absolutely ignoring the other’s presence. As if he’s mad at him. “I remember absolutely nothing from last night. What time is it?”
Gemini looks down at him, his face stoic as always, stone cold and void of any emotion. “Nine. We should start packing, we have to check out of the hotel soon.” He’s avoiding Fourth’s eyes. Fourth once again realizes that he remembers absolutely nothing from the previous night and panic arises in his chest. He looks around. There’s his phone on his bedside table. His wallet still has some cash in it and all his cards. Yet he cannot shake the feeling like something happened. “Do you remember anything?”
Gemini lets out a shaky breath and rubs his eyes exasperatedly. “Look at your left ring finger.” Fourth does. There’s a ring. A simple yellow gold band, snug around his digit. “I bought a ring?” But then he notices the very same ring on Gemini’s hand. “We bought a matching set?”
Gemini glares at Fourth and reaches over to his bedside table, then hands something to the younger man.
“ Marriage certificate?!” He gawks at the piece of paper. “We got married?”
“Clearly,” Gemini mutters, then gets out of the bed. Fourth can’t help but look at him. Relief washes over him when he sees that Gemini is wearing pants. “Do you remember anything?” The older man shakes his head. “No. I think someone spiked our drinks yesterday. But it probably didn’t go the way they wanted.” He rubs his face, he looks exhausted. “We can ask for annulment, but it’ll have to wait until we’re back in Thailand.”
Fourth quickly throws off his blanket and rushes to Gem, grabbing his forearm. “Wait.” He’s aware he’s going to sound absolutely insane but he sees a chance and he has to take it. “My parents have been bugging me about getting married already. I guess at twenty three I should have four kids already… anyway! They’ve been trying to set me up with someone and so have your parents, I know that.”
Gemini’s eyes widen when he finally understands what Fourth is hinting at. “We can just say that we were too scared to tell them we were seeing each other earlier and then got married because we couldn’t wait any longer. Our families are friends, they’ll be fine with it!”
Gemini continues staring at Fourth in absolute disbelief. “I’m not saying we have to stay married if you really hate the idea! But it would get our parents off our backs. And if any of us found someone, we’d just divorce.” He’s aware he sounds batshit crazy but they’re best friends, they grew up together, they lived together when they studied abroad, a platonic marriage isn’t that weird for them.
“So if I found someone, you’d just… divorce me?” Gemini finally speaks up. Fourth nods. “I wouldn’t hold you back in a marriage you didn’t want in the first place. But funnily enough, it would give us some more freedom. Plus we’re attached by the hip anyway. And have been since we were literal toddlers. Would it really be that unbelievable to say we’ve been hooking up for a while?”
Gemini swats his hand at him. “Shut up, oh my god. We are not going to tell our parents that we have been sleeping together, are you nuts?” Then he finally relaxes his face, letting go of that frown and lets out a shaky breath, looking straight into Fourth’s eyes. “Fine. You’re right. It’ll give us more freedom. But we’re moving into your condo, it’s bigger.”
Fourth beams at him. “Alright, Mr. Jirotchikul!”
Gemini snorts out a laugh. “You took my last name, check the certificate.” He takes clean clothes from his luggage. “I’ll take a shower, you make sure you have everything. I am not paying for shipping from Nevada if you forget anything.”
Fourth grabs a fistful of his clothes. “We can shower together, my beloved husband!”
Gemini throws his shirt at him, hitting him in the face hard enough to make him stumble. “Don’t even!”
~*~
“How are we going to tell our parents?” Gemini asks as he parks in the designated spot for Fourth’s condo. He has some of his stuff in the trunk so that he can start moving into the spare bedroom as soon as possible.
“I guess we should try and gather them all somewhere to tell them at once. Not here though, they’d notice you took the other bedroom and we would lose credibility.”
Fourth helps him with some of the bags, dragging them to the elevator. “We gotta stop by the office tomorrow though, to make it sign the documents to finalize our marriage,” he reminds Gemini. Thinking about being Gemini’s husband officially kind of tickles his insides. He is now a married man. He married his childhood best friend. Platonically.
“Gem, do you think we kissed at the ceremony?”
Gemini whips his head around and glares at his husband. “Most probably, Fourth. Why are you asking? Want a reminder?”
Fourth puckers up his lips at him and Gemini rolls his eyes. “Save that for when we’re lying to our families.”
“It’s not lying if we’re actually married!” Fourth argues and leans against the elevator wall. “We just didn’t marry out of love.”
“I knew it, you only like me for my money,” Gemini wipes his nonexistent tears, making a crying face. Fourth chuckles fondly and stumbles as the elevator starts going up to their floor. “I cleared out the bedroom for you so you can start unpacking immediately. I’ll make lunch for us.”
Once they’re in the actual apartment, Fourth prepares coffee for them and starts working on the lunch. He checks his emails and replies to a few as he’s waiting for the rice to cook. Gemini is unpacking his stuff. Fourth can really picture his near future like this, peacefully coexisting with Gemini in one household.
They all gather in Gemini’s parents’ backyard two weeks after returning from Las Vegas. The ring on Fourth’s left ring finger suddenly feels searing hot as they step out of Gemini’s white Mercedes and walk to the four people waiting for them.
“We still haven’t figured out how to tell them or even how to bring it up!” Gemini hisses at Fourth as they’re only a few feet away. Fourth pinches his nose and closes his eyes for a split second before turning to his best friend. “Just trust me with this, okay? It’ll be like ripping off a band-aid.”
He hears his mom saying that she heard their car and the telltale crunch of grass under someone’s step and he grabs Gemini’s shirt and pulls him towards himself, closing the distance between them. Then he kisses him.
A gasp can be heard from somewhere near them so he pulls away and looks at his mom that’s bewilderedly staring at them. “What is this about?” She finally squeaks out. He glances at Gemini who nods at him slightly. It’s show time.
~*~
“You should’ve been an actor,” Gemini mutters as they get back into his car. “Award winning performance, truly.”
“I’m just glad we told them. And we have their blessings!”
Quite frankly, their parents were less shocked than they expected. Gemini’s mom even said she sort of expected them to get together. Fourth finds it funny because they definitely skipped a few steps and became husband and husband without even dating.
When they come back home, Gemini goes straight to the bathroom and Fourth pours them some wine. They have a routine at this point, spending the evenings together, talking in the living room or just watching TV. Not much has changed since the whole marriage thing, they’re still as close as ever.
Gemini walks into the kitchen, freshly showered and his hair still wet. Fourth gestures towards himself and gets to drying Gem’s hair with a towel. “Are you going to work tomorrow?”
“Yeah, have to stop by the office for at least a few hours.” He’s almost purring. Clearly he enjoys when others are taking care of him.
“I’ll make you some lunch to take with you,” Fourth offers and Gem hums. “You’re so nice to me, hubby.”
“Oh you know what they say,” Fourth giggles. Being called Gem’s husband makes him tingle. Gemini spins around on his barstool and looks at the other man slightly puzzled. “Happy wife, happy life,” Fourth explains. He barely dodges the wet towel slap.
~*~
Three months into this new life and both Gemini and Fourth fell into a comfortable routine. Although it’s still strange to know he’s a married man, his life is basically the same. He’s still going to work, he’s still financially supporting the cat shelter he volunteered at when he was fifteen, he’s still spending his free time with Fourth. But now he sees Fourth in the mornings, too. He always wakes up to Fourth making them breakfast and coffee and he always has lunch ready to take to work. It’s such a nice thing that Fourth does for him and it feels so domestic. Gemini likes it, even bragging about it to his coworkers, showing off the homemade meals like a trophy, he would never admit to it though.
He returns home with a bag full of groceries and as soon as he opens the front door, he gets an armful of Fourth. He glares at him when Fourth pecks him on the lips. “Hi baby, how was work?”
Gemini wants to ask if he fell and hit his head but then he notices his mom’s shoes. Oh.
“Work was fine, best part was the lunch break,” he answers Fourth’s question and he’s not even lying. “Hi mom!” He greets her as they walk hand in hand into the living room.
“Gemini, my dear!” She gets up to hug him. “I was just telling Fourth that your father is leaving tomorrow for a work trip and that I would like to take that chance to stay here with you two and spend some time with you, if that’s okay.” Gemini’s smile falls as he looks at Fourth in panic. “Well there’s not really a space for you-“
“What are you saying, this condo has a spare bedroom!” Gemini winces. Yeah, spare bedroom- his bedroom. Fourth is chewing his lower lip, looking uncomfortable as hell. “Khun Mae, I know you mean well but maybe it’d be better if we went to visit you instead?” She looks at him puzzled. Fourth smiles awkwardly. “Well to be completely honest, we’re still in the honeymoon stage and if we’re in our home you might.. hear things. ” Gemini is mortified but he has to admit that if there’s something that will make his mom back off it’s the idea that they could be having sex in the bedroom next to hers. She sighs. “Fine. At least you’re honest.” Gemini’s ears are basically on fire, he feels so embarrassed. “I’d love to have you visit though. I could cook something nice and we could catch up. I hadn’t seen you for weeks before I came here.” She looks at both of them, scanning them from the top of their head down to their sock clad feet. “Though you’re still technically newlyweds so I do understand it. You’re clearly busy.” Gemini feels like he’s going to implode. And the fact that he’s not even actually having sex with Fourth is not helping at all.
“I’ll text you and we can figure out the details, right Fo?”
Fourth nods and smiles sweetly at his mother in law, who smiles back at him just as warmly. Something tugs at Gemini’s heartstrings at the sight.
“Well I’m glad I saw you two,” she says after dinner. “Please come visit me soon. When you’re not busy trying to make me a grandma.”
“Mom!” Gemini wants the ground to swallow him whole. “We’re both guys!”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t keep trying,” she shrugs. Fourth finds it hilarious, still cackling like a madman even as he closes the door behind his mother. “We definitely dodged a bullet here.”
“Dodged a bullet? She thinks we’re fucking like rabbits!”