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Grant’s bad feeling started as soon as he locked his car.
His thumb didn’t hit the button just right, which would have frustrated him beyond comprehension before starting therapy, but he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he heard the car horn beep and it was indeed locked.
Walking around the vehicle towards the front door, another bad feeling washed over him as he looked in the trunk. He stopped and took a second glance, but nothing was amiss. He resisted the urge to just check, remembering the routine sweep of the trunk he did before grabbing the groceries and locking the door. He could still smell the new car smell on his shirt, it had really happened, and he was fine.
Two bad feelings might have previously put Grant on edge, but his breathing stayed steady and his mind stayed as calm as it could post-Forgotten Realms. Therapy really does work wonders, he thought, until he grabbed the handle of their front door and he realized with a stop that it was locked.
Marco never locked the front door. Against Grant’s best wishes, he insisted on keeping it unlocked since he was in and out so often, working on the front garden or grabbing a tool from the car.
Grant’s mind flashed with images of an intruder, of gunshot wounds, of Doodlerized monsters coming and stealing Marco away. Tears pricked at his eyes for a reason unbeknownst to him as his hands shakily fumbled with his keys.
Why would a monster even lock the door, someone in the back of Grant’s mind (who sounded a lot like Dr. Not Me) said. How would they even work a door knob? What would anyone want to do with Marco?
The key swiftly pushed into the lock, making a metallic click sound and giving way as Grant shoved open the door to a scene he would never be able to forget.
“Marco!” he shouted before he came face to face with the aforementioned man pointing a gun at the front door and aiming at Grant’s forehead. In his periphery, he saw the body of a bloodied man on the floor in front of him and heard the limp slap of an arm, like Marco had been dragging it before picking up the gun. Marco’s eyes were frantic, surprised, and most of all: scared .
Grant’s instincts almost kicked in. His mind begged him to lurch forward and disarm the target, pull out the knife Lark had insisted he keep hidden in his boot at all times, duck behind a piece of large furniture in case he needed to dodge a bullet. Instead, he stood deathly still.
Both of them, for a second, lay suspended in space. Grant blinked slowly and inhaled deeply, which triggered Marco to realize that he was pointing a gun at his boyfriend.
“Oh God, baby, oh my-” he stuttered, almost dropping the gun like it had burnt him. He threw it haphazardly ( not proper gun handling) onto a side table without looking away from Grant. “It’s not- it’s-” he glanced at the dead body in front of him and choked on his own breath, “n-not what it, oh, it, well it, oh no.” Grant watched as tears started to stream down his boyfriend’s face. Marco curled himself into a ball, squatting on the ground and hiding his face in his hands while practically hyperventilating. “I-I didn’t, didn’t w-want-”
That’s right , Grant’s mind supplied, This isn’t a Doodlerized monster. This is your boyfriend.
This was his boyfriend. He knew his boyfriend- at least he thought he did. He knew how to hold him and he knew how to comfort him. He also knew how to hide dead bodies and clean up bloodstains. Today, his two worlds just happened to collide.
The first thing Grant did was fully close the front door. No witnesses, no extra dead bodies to add to this mess. The cold metal of the doorknob helped to keep himself in the moment, but it wasn’t enough.
Grant dropped down onto his knees hard enough to hurt (hard enough to feel real- ) and placed a hand on his boyfriend’s knee. “Sweetheart, can we take some deep breaths together? Is that okay?” he asked gently. Marco pulled his face from his hands and looked up at him with an expression that looked remarkably like one Grant had made to his father many times in the Forgotten Realms.
“Baby, you- you need to leave,” Marco managed to get out before letting out a loud sob and losing his breath.
“I need to make sure you’re safe,” Grant said with what he hoped was confidence and finality. “Deep breaths please, and then you can let me know what’s going on, okay?” Grant reached up and stroked a thumb across Marco’s cheek, spreading a line of tears along the way. “Don’t want you to choke.”
“B-but the body-” Marco said, glancing at the corpse like it hurt him to look at.
“Will stay right where he is. Breathe with me, I need this just as much as you do right now.” That seemed to change Marco’s mind and with closed eyes he started to take a deep intentional breath. Grant ran his hand along Marco’s forearm and breathed along with him, shifting his hand up and down as they breathed in and out.
Once Marco reached a semblance of a normal breath cycle, he immediately started speaking with desperation and fear. “I’m so sorry for lying to you for so long, baby, but I’m not a construction worker and- and I’m really a hitman and I never wanted it to go on for this long, wanted to tell you right away but,” Marco reached up to cup Grant’s hand holding his cheek, “you were just so sweet I didn’t want to- to stain you, but I loved you too goddamn much to leave you, which just doesn’t make any sense because what’s best should have been to leave you for your own good but, but God I’m just- I can’t imagine a day in my life without you in it. I need you like a fish needs water.”
Grant sat with shock clear as day on his face. He had never related more in his life, and he was elated that his boyfriend felt the same. “Baby, I-”
“But the body, God the body, this may sound horrible but I’m not shaken up about killing the man at all, it’s my life’s work, I just- This wasn’t how you should have found out. I should have told you. I should have sat you down and told you and you would have told me you wanted to leave me and I would have begged you to stay but in the end I’d go through our things with you and make sure you get everything you deserve and more-”
Grant lifted his other hand and turned Marco’s face towards him, looking right into his eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m here right now, and I’m going to continue to be here as long as you want me, okay? Now, are we in danger right now? Is someone going to come and get you back for this guy or can we work on hiding the body?”
“Right, right, yeah,” Marco said with a deep sniff, staring into space. “Um. He was the only one. I checked. He’s a rogue family member of a guy I was assigned years ago, figured he’d show up sometime- but, but at the organization, y’know, not for me. I just sit on rooftops with my sniper, I don’t know the first thing about, about,” Marco paused thoughtfully and wiped his nose on his sleeve before turning his gaze back to Grant, “about cleaning up bodies. Um. Do you- do you know about that?”
This was it. Grant took another deep breath before looking directly into Marco’s eyes. He needed to make sure he knew he was telling the truth. “Unfortunately, yeah. Yeah I do. Um, we have a lot more in common than I thought.” Grant’s hand found Marco’s and held on tight.
Marco gave Grant’s hand a squeeze. “Okay. What on Earth does that mean?”
“Not on Earth, actually. It’s- it’s a lot to understand, and really it’s a lot to explain too, but, well,” Grant sat back on his calves and Marco followed suit. Grant’s eyes strayed as he tried to gather up some sort of explanation of whatever the hell his life has been since he turned thirteen. “I also work for an organization but as a sniper, and we’re not exactly hitmen but we have, like, targets. Sometimes people die. People get hurt a lot. I’ve been on body duty more than once.”
Marco gave him a faraway nod. “Okay. Well. Not to quote your father at you but,” Marco gestured at the corpse right next to them, “we might want to talk about this later.”
Grant’s eyes lingered on Marco’s before fully comprehending what he said with a gasp, turning to look at the body. “Right! Right, um, yeah. Okay. I need to make a call.”
Marco’s head whipped around, looking at Grant with a hint of doubt in his eyes. “To-”
“Not to the police, no, I’m,” Grant’s hand fumbled from Marco’s cheek to hold his hand in both of his, squeezing tight and once again meeting his eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. That’s not happening.”
“Okay,” Marco said, looking like he was trying really, really hard to believe Grant.
Grant pulled his hand away to shakily take out his phone and pushed it into Marco’s free hand. “Here. You can- here. Can you call Terry, please?”
Marco unlocked Grant’s phone, searching through contacts before hovering his thumb over the button that would call Terry Jr. “And you’re not gonna tell him to call the cops?”
“I’m not, baby,” Grant said, shaking his head.
Closing his eyes, Marco took a second to pull himself together. “Okay,” he breathed out. “Okay, I trust you.” Marco hit the call button and the couple sat together as Grant’s phone rang.
It only took a couple rings before Terry picked up. “Hey, Grant,” came Terry Jr.’s voice from the other side of the line. Marco looked up to Grant with a pursed mouth and wide eyes.
“Hey, uh, can you get over here? Like ASAP? I need you to open a portal to Walter’s for me.”
“Oh shit, yeah, I’ll be there in a sec,” Terry replied before the line went dead.
Marco blinked up at Grant. “And that was not a secret code phrase?”
Grant let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “We’re not cool enough for that. I kinda forgot to mention earlier, but, like, portals exist? And, like, magic stuff. Spells and potions and all that.”
Marco gave him a flat look before pulling Grant up by his hand, making him stand. “Uh-huh. Okay. Maybe we should lie down for a while, huh, sweetheart?”
Grant stayed still as Marco tried to pull him closer to the couch, hands still interlocked. “I know it sounds crazy, but you have to trust me. Things are about to get really weird really quick and for both of us to stay safe we have to trust each other.”
Silence filled the room as Marco pursed his lips, his thumb rubbing across the back of Grant’s hand. He glanced down at the body on the ground before steeling his gaze and pulling Grant by the neck of his shirt into a bruising kiss. Grant’s eyes closed in bliss, drawing Marco closer by his elbow. He would never get over how good of a kisser his boyfriend is.
“ Woah , sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” said a faraway voice that sounded a lot like Terry Jr.
Grant instinctively shoved Marco behind him, who happened to be scrambling for his gun he dropped earlier and who was also trying to push Grant behind him. Their arms ended up tangled together, with Grant pointing the knife from his boot at Terry and Marco raising his gun, ready to fire.
“Jesus! Guys, it’s just me,” Terry Jr. said, with his hands in the air and an open portal behind him, taking the shape of their television screen. One of his legs was on the floor of their home and the other was balancing on the rim of the portal. Terry looked like a scrawny teenager hopping a fence- it reminded Grant of times past, when Terry was a scrawny teenager who enjoyed hopping fences.
“Fuck, Teej, would you warn a man next time?” Grant asked, lowering his knife. Turning to Marco, he said, “It’s okay, he’s chill.”
Heavily breathing, Marco slowly lowered his gun but notably kept the safety off. “Is this what you meant by ‘things are about to get really weird’?” he said, side-eyeing Grant.
“Unfortunately, this is probably the most normal thing that will happen in the next few hours. Have you seen Portal ?”
Marco made a face. “I’ve seen Minecraft Let’s Plays with the portal mod installed?”
Grant chuckled. “Close enough. Works the same way, pretty much.”
Terry finished stepping out of the portal, closing it behind him and walking over to the body. He poked it with his foot. “I know Sparrow’s our resident healer but yeah, I’d say he’s dead. You kill this guy?” He asked, looking to Marco. The hitman nodded, nervously fiddling with his gun. Terry Jr. looked impressed. “Damn. Well, Grant, you know the rule, if the spouse finds out about D.A.D.D.I.E.S., then you have to get married.”
Grant and Marco both spluttered, red faces avoiding eye contact. “I- I’m fairly sure that’s not anywhere in company policy,” said Grant.
“Should be, you guys are made for each other,” Terry said with a shrug. “Alright, well, you two get to work on picking him up. I’m going to get started on the portal.”
“Right,” Grant said, beckoning Marco over. He knew this part well by now, just instead of lifting the body with Lark or Nicky he had Marco. Which would have been great, besides for the fact that Marco looked incredibly confused and slightly frightened. He touched Marco’s arm gently. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. You’re safe with me.”
That seemed to make Marco smile a little. “Never thought you’d be the one protecting me.” Marco wrapped his arms under the arms of the body, getting ready to hoist him up while Grant took care of the legs. “In all of the ways I imagined you finding out, this is not one I anticipated.”
“Yeah, this isn’t what I expected either. I thought I’d be either sitting you down to have a serious conversation or protecting you from an eldritch monster, not helping you hide a body in my old babysitter’s backyard.”
“Your old babysitter? Is that where we’re going?” Marco said, lifting the body in unison with Grant.
“Oh shit, I didn’t explain anything to you, did I?” Terry barked out a laugh at Grant’s struggles in the distance. Marco shook his head, the slightly frightened look returning to his face. “Okay, well. We’re heading into the Forgotten Realms, which to make a very long story short is basically a whole other dimension that we got stuck in as children. The guys and I usually bury bodies at the house of our old babysitter, Walter, as a way to, like, honor their lives.” Grant takes a deep breath and readjusts his hold on the body. “It also makes it. Um. Feel more real. You feel the levity of what you did more tangibly when you’re covering a body in dirt.”
“Okay,” Marco says, squinting his eyes but nodding nonetheless. “I think we should talk about that later. Not to quote your dad at you again, sorry.”
Grant nodded. “We’ll have a lot of things to talk about later. Teej,” Terry Jr. perked up from his place on the floor, “how’s that portal going?”
Terry was slowly lowering a finger down their living room wall. As Grant looked closer, he noticed that it was drawing a glimmering purple line. He seemed to have already outlined three sides of a box. As he connected his finger with the bottom line of the box, the resulting square flashed brightly before opening a dark portal in the middle. Terry stood up and gestured to the portal. “You two head in first, I’ll take up the rear.”
Marco and Grant headed towards the gaping wall in their home, Grant keeping his back to it so he would enter first. Marco looked at the portal skeptically. “So we just step in? No fancy tricks or secret passphrases?”
“Nope,” responded Terry Jr. “just good old-fashioned magic prepared by yours truly. You can take your time. I get it if this is a lot for your mind to comprehend.”
“Is it… safe on the other side?”
Grant shrugged. “Usually. Walter doesn’t have many enemies.” Grant felt nervous. He really didn’t know how Marco was going to react to the Forgotten Realms and he didn’t know if he wanted to find out. Marco looked nervous, too. “Marco, you don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. Terry can help me carry this guy and we’ll be back before you know it.”
Marco bit his lip ( wow, bad timing to relish in his sexiness, Grant) before shaking his head. “No, no, I’ll join you. I showed you some of my double life, it’s only fair I see some of yours.”
“Okay,” Grant said with a faraway smile. Marco’s double life was a lot easier to understand than his, and yet he seemed to think that asking your partner to travel to a different realm was on equal playing ground. He didn’t deserve Marco. “I love you so much, you know that?”
Grant saw the beginning of tears forming in Marco’s eyes. “Thank you. That means a lot right now, baby. I love you too.” Marco cleared his throat, glancing over to Terry Jr., whom Grant had completely forgotten was there. Oh well, Terry’s seen him in worse states than hopelessly in love. “Let’s head into this portal, yeah?”
Grant smiled hesitantly and nodded. “Let’s get it.”
Grant stepped backwards onto the dirt floor of Walter’s workspace, where Terry Jr.’s portal had manifested into its doorway. The familiar smell and sounds of the Forgotten Realms rushed into his senses. He took in the crowing and cawing of fantasy creatures, the metallic smell of Walter’s projects, and the humidity of the outdoors. It had been only a few months since the boys had visited, but he had no idea how long it had been to Walter. The shack held a couple new tools and the windows (or really, the large holes in the wall that functioned as windows) showed that the ground was clear of snow and the sky was a bright blue. It must be summer in the Realms, as opposed to the early spring of Earth.
As he continued to step back into the space, he watched Marco come into view from the other side of the portal. His posture was tight and his face was scrunched up, like he had expected to be hit with something on the way in. As Marco stepped further into the workshop, he carefully opened his eyes and made eye contact with Grant. Grant couldn’t help a smile from forming on his face, seeing that Marco was taking all of this craziness really well. That was, until Marco’s eyes widened dramatically as they locked onto something behind him and Grant heard a familiar voice-
“Watch your step there, kiddo.”
Grant’s head whipped around to see Walter the Immoral smiling at him. He was sitting in his wheelchair in front of a wagon, wrench in hand. Grant looked down at his feet to find that if he took one more step back he would have tripped over the metal handle of the wagon. “Sorry, Walter!” he exclaimed. Grant lowered the body to the ground and ran over to give his former babysitter a hug, feeling like a kid again in the best way possible. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Grant. It’s been a couple of months,” Walter said, setting down his wrench to wrap his arms around the man. Grant had missed his voice.
“We would have come by to visit, I swear, but we’ve been swamped with incursions lately,” said the voice of Terry Jr. before Grant felt a pair of arms wrap around him and Walter.
“I know, I know, my boys have been too busy saving the world to visit their favorite bullywug,” huffed Walter. Grant started to protest, but Walter cut him off before he could get any words out. “It’s alright, I’m kidding. You’re all doing important work back on Earth. I’m very proud.” With one last pat on the back, Walter pulled away. He winked at Grant before gesturing to Marco. “Is this who I think it is?”
Grant blushed furiously before catching Marco’s eye. He had a mildly confused look on his face and was looking to Grant for guidance, biting his lip again. Damn his cute little face and wide doe eyes.
Grant walked over to Marco and linked their arms, staring at his adorable boyfriend. He caressed his arm in an attempt to comfort and desperately hoped he wouldn’t break up with him after all of this. “Marco,” he started, “this is my former babysitter, Walter the Immoral. He’s a bullywug, which in Earthly terms is like a frog-human. He’s kinda like all of our second dad.” Marco nodded at Grant’s words, smiling politely to Walter. He seemed a little overwhelmed, his breath coming quicker than normal.
Grant led the two of them closer to Walter, keeping his arm linked with Marco’s to keep him in the moment and making sure to avoid the body on the ground. “Walter, this is Marco Li. He’s my boyfriend.” His face must be so red. He felt flashes of hot and cold similar to when he introduced Marco to his mother and father.
Walter smiled his paternal smile at Marco and waved. “It’s nice to meet you, Marco. You from Earth?”
“Yeah,” Marco said with a hefty voice crack before breaking into an awkward half-laugh half-wince. His grip tightened on Grant’s arm. “Sorry, this is all… a lot.”
Walter waved a hand. “It’s no problem, kid. Take your time, you’re doing fine.” He gave a conspiring look to Grant before covering his mouth in a stage whisper. “You’re doing more than fine, I’d say. Besides the dead bodies, you’re the only man Grant has brought to visit me!”
“Oh my god, Walterrr!” Grant whined, hiding his face in his free hand and his boyfriend’s neck. Why did his parental figures have to be so embarrassing? He heard Terry Jr. laughing at his embarrassment while Grant’s face continued to redden. Marco’s shoulders shook the way they always did when he giggled. The tight grip on his arm loosened- at least Walter made Marco feel more comfortable.
“Why don’t you go take care of the body and give your poor human boyfriend here a break? The quicker you get done the more time you can spend with ol’ Walter. I’ll make sure Terry has some of that lemon sugar water you love ready for you two,” Walter said, setting down his tools and giving Terry Jr. a pointed look.
“Oh,” Terry said, “I was going to offer to do it so you three could-”
“Nah, let the lovebirds have their time,” said Walter. Grant was tempted to hide his face back in his boyfriend’s neck, but the urge melted away when he glanced over and saw the genuine yet small smile on Marco’s face. Walter maneuvered his wheelchair so he could turn around. “There should be a shovel on the wall behind you. We’ll be in the house if you need us.” With that, he rolled himself out the door and up the ramp to his wooden porch.
Terry Jr. stopped and put a hand on Grant’s shoulder. “If you two need to portal back, let me know. Any reason, any time, okay?” Grant and Marco nodded. “And, for the record,” Terry leaned forward to address Marco, “I think Walter likes you.”
Marco smiled and laughed. “Thanks. That’s good to hear.”
“Wouldn’t have doubted it for a second.” Terry looked down at the corpse and headed to the doorway. “You two are made for each other, after all!” With a quick wink, Terry Jr. left the workspace, leaving Grant and Marco to themselves.
Grant heaved a sigh and pulled Marco into a hug. He heard the voice of his therapist in his mind telling him better alternatives to feeling real again rather than pain. As his mind drifted away from his body, he reeled himself back in by breathing in the herbal scent of Marco’s shampoo. Marco had made Grant switch to using separate shampoo and conditioner when they first started dating (which he had argued was a waste of time, but now his hair thanks him greatly) and offered up his own products as Grant’s first trial. Marco still used the same shampoo and conditioner.
Grant both felt and heard a shaky inhale wrack Marco’s body. He wasn’t the only one who needed this moment, then.
With a quick kiss to Marco’s pierced ear, Grant pulled back until he was holding Marco loosely in his arms. “I’ll carry the body out. You go ahead and get the shovel.”
Marco’s voice shook. “No no, I feel bad. Let me do it.”
Grant lifted a hand to caress the ear he had kissed. He gently traced his three piercings. “It’s fine, I’ll get-”
“Grant. Please let me carry the body.”
Marco stared at him with pleading eyes. Grant remembered something his therapist had told him early on in their sessions: his bad habits had come from his desire to control something when he felt helpless. Grant figured he could give up his learned hospitality just this once. “Okay, baby.”
“Thank you.”
The two men gathered the body and the shovel and walked into the space that served as a graveyard/garden behind Walter’s house. Large, colorful flowers covered a small hill that lay behind multiple small clumps of flowers. Walter had taken to planting flowers over the graves that rested in his backyard. Sparrow had been the one to float around the idea and Walter took to it quickly, planting them in his free time while the boys were away on Earth.
“Wow, this is beautiful,” commented Marco. “The hill is very scenic.”
Grant smiled minutely, finding a place at the foot of the hill where no flowers rested. “It is.”
Marco set the body down where Grant stopped and made an endearingly cute confused face. “This area is really flat, though. Why is there a hill here?”
Grant let out a sigh. “It’s a really long story. Wanna hear it?”
Marco picked up the shovel and dove it into the ground, pressing his foot onto the metal to fully shove it in before scooping the dirt out. “We have to dig a hole, so we’ve got time. Go ahead.”
“Okay- so. When I was 12 years old, Nicky, Terry Jr., and Lark and Sparrow and I as well as our dads got teleported to the Forgotten Realms by our grandfathers. They intended to steal us from our parents and raise us in what they thought was the ‘right’ way, but honestly, if you’re transporting children across dimensions I wouldn’t trust you with parenthood. Anyway, we all went through a lot of shit- I was sold into slavery and had my first kill and got my heart broken all within the span of weeks.” Marco stopped digging to turn to Grant and stare at him in shock. Grant waved a hand. “Don’t worry, we’ll talk about that later. It’s not important to the story right now.”
“What kind of life did you live where that isn’t important to the story?” Marco asked incredulously.
“My life fucked me up. I don’t know why you love me.” Before Marco could contest that point, Grant continued on, taking a seat on the grass. “My dad, on his way to save me from the grandparents, met a 9 year old orphan named Paeden. He was a super sweet kid, loved to fight, prone to attacking Achilles tendons. Our dads didn’t want to bring a child with them on their dangerous adventures, no matter how good of a fighter he was, so they found someone to be his dad. That’s how we met Walter.
“After a lot of things fell into place, we came to find out that the soul of my grandfather, Frank Wilson, was trapped in the 9 year old body of Paeden. And, to add insult to injury, the only way we could get back to Earth was for him to die.
“We had a big final fight against the grandparents a while later. Paeden went out doing what he loved: fighting.” Marco was no longer digging. He sat on the grass across from Grant and the makeshift grave with tears welling in his eyes. “This hill,” Grant said, gesturing to the mound of flowers and grass, “is his body. Someone cast a spell to turn him into a giant before he died. He got revived into a zombie and lived with Walter for a little while longer, but y’know, rotting flesh eventually decays.” Grant took a deep and shaky breath. “We buried him behind Walter’s home so that they could be together and we could visit his grave easily. When we started to handle missions and had to unfortunately deal with corpses, we brought them here. We wanted to let them rest, just like we did with Paeden.” Grant fiddled with his thumbs. “He was one of the best things to come out of this place.”
Marco was silent. Grant looked up to see tears streaming down his face before Marco hung his head and buried his face in his hands. Marco was full-on sobbing- Grant had never seen him like this before today.
“Baby, hey,” said Grant, scooting closer to his crying boyfriend.
“I’m so sorry.”
Grant pulled Marco’s hands away from his face by linking their fingers. “Oh- hey, it was a while ago, it’s-”
“Not that!” Marco said forcefully, pulling his hands from Grant’s and turning his head away. Grant froze in confusion, his hands still hovering in the air. “I’m sorry that I ruined everything,” he said quietly. “You were finally living a happy and mundane life after all of these horrible things that happened to you and I- I fucked it up!” Grant pulled back slightly. Marco never cursed.
“What?” Grant breathed. “Marco, I should be the one apologizing. I brought you into this inter-dimensional mess by falling in love with you in the first place.”
“I ripped you away from happiness! You were finally living with a normal human man in a normal human world and now you’re going to break up with me and move out and-”
“Marco,” said Grant. He gently turned Marco’s chin to face him. “ You are my happiness. I don’t care that you kill people. So do I. It happens. And it’s fucked up that I think that but it’s true. Nothing about us was ever going to be normal and that’s okay.” Grant slowly leaned closer, checking Marco’s eyes before pressing his lips into his boyfriend’s and feeling a press of lips back. When he pulled away, Marco’s eyes slowly blinked open. Cute.
The couple stared at each other for a beat before Marco spoke up.
“I don’t deserve you,” he said, eyes scanning Grant’s face.
“I don’t deserve you. ” Grant replied.
Marco wiped away the tear tracks from his eyes before sniffing deeply. Then, he pulled Grant forward into a deep kiss. Grant felt hands in his hair as his own drifted to Marco’s waist, balancing their weight as Marco pulled them down so they were lying in the grass. His lips tasted like tears and salt and pure love and Grant wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Maybe,” Marco started before diving in for another kiss and finally pulling away, “maybe Terry Jr. is right. Maybe we are made for each other.”
Grant smiled and laughed. He took in the sight before him: his boyfriend, lying in the grass with tear-stained cheeks, puffy eyes, and guilt on his conscience. A situation he had been in many times. He hummed, pretending to mull the statement over. “Maybe we are,” he said, placing a kiss on Marco’s nose.
Terry also mentioned marriage, his brain supplied. Don’t you want to put a ring on him before he runs for good?
Tucking that away for later, Grant continued a line of kisses along Marco’s nose before kissing either cheek and finally his lips. Marco smiled into the kiss, giggling at his boyfriend. He fluffed Grant’s hair before pulling back, their lips practically still touching. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too. So much.”
Marco ran a hand along Grant’s arm, which was holding up his body weight above him. “Enough to dig this hole for me while I watch you work?”
“Ugh,” Grant complained. “Yeah.”
Propping the shovel on the front porch, Grant grabbed Marco’s wrist before he could open the front door. “I think Walter’s going to interview you. Sorry for the impromptu ‘meeting the parents’.”
Marco shrugged. “It’s alright. I charmed your mom and dad, I think I can charm a bullywug.”
Grant laughed and pushed open the front door. Note to self: find out Marco’s ring size.