Work Text:
When Jackson is a little bit sick, or not really even sick at all, Jackson whines.
He pouts and cries and stomps his feet and hoards every pillow he finds, like the bigger a nest he manages to construct for himself, the more sympathy he’s thus earned from his members.
X
“I’m very ill, Jaebum. I’m bound to die soon. Tell the fans I died for them, Jaebum. Tell them I died to see them in their dreams.”
Jackson is lying on the floor on his belly; both arms banded desperately tight around a standing Jaebum’s ankles.
Jaebum doesn’t have to kick at Jackson to step out of his hold.
He does, nonetheless.
X
“My final wish, BamBam. This is my dear, dying desire.”
BamBam narrows his eyes, still otherwise wide and blank with sleep.
“Your dying wish is to eat my last Poptart?”
Jackson bats his lashes and BamBam snorts.
“I was a simple man,” Jackson intones, one palm flat to his own chest, “A simple man made happy by the simplest of things.”
“You’re a terrible friend and you live to make me miserable,” BamBam corrects him, but slides the coveted pastry across the counter anyway.
“You love me!” Jackson mumbles, bright even through his mouthful.
“Well, obviously,” BamBam sighs, settling today for reheated rice.
X
When Jackson is really very sick, he doesn’t say a thing.
If someone asks if he’s okay and he is not in fact okay at all, Jackson says he’s fine.
He’s great!
He’s fantastic!
X
“Jackson, is that puke on the collar of your hoodie?”
Yugyeom doesn’t think to be quiet and soon Jackson is swarmed by members and crew alike.
“I’m fine! It’s SOUP!” he protests, fighting his way out of the circle of concern, which dissipates, then.
Mark, however, is not so easily fooled.
He’s been watching Jackson today - he watches Jackson almost always, honestly - and he knows for a fact that Jackson hadn’t eaten soup for lunch. Jackson hasn’t eaten anything all that and that’s definitely puke on his hoodie.
When next they get a break, Mark makes sure to plop himself down on the floor right next to where Jackson is sitting.
Sure enough, after five minutes, Jackson’s head is on Mark’s shoulder.
After six minutes, Jackson is lying completely in Mark’s lap with his hood pulled up and his face turned into the soft, worn-thin material of Mark’s sweatpants.
“I’m fine,” Jackson might try to mumble again, but Mark quiets him by smoothing his palm down over the trembling hitch of Jackson’s flank. Jackson curls up tighter, lifts his shoulders into the touch.
“Go to sleep, Jackson,” Mark orders softly, knowing exactly how to deal with Jackson right now; at all times.
“I’m not sleepy. And I’m not sick,” Jackson valiantly tries, one last time. As he falls asleep. Folded almost into a ball; miserable and shaking in Mark’s arms.
“I know,” Mark tells him, his hand sweeping up and down Jackson’s side; the gesture rhythmic and soothing them both.
X
It’s not unusual for Jackson’s mom to call Mark, but it is weird when it occurs now, when they’re all at home on a very brief, very very deserved break.
“Jackson’s ‘not sick’,” she says, before Mark can say so much as ‘hello.’
“Ah,” Mark replies, because he’s not really sure what - if anything else - he’s supposed to say.
It doesn’t end up mattering, because the next voice he hears is a congested, croak-cracked version of Jackson’s.
“I’m okay,” he’s preemptively protesting and that’s already a step down from ‘I’m fine’, so Mark is in an instant on high alert.
“Sure you are,” Mark says anyway, because sometimes it makes him feel better too; pretending that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Jackson; never could be, never again will be. “We’re gonna chat for a little while anyway,” Mark decides and that’s exactly what they do, until - after a long moment of soft and easy silence - Mark is startled to hear Jackson’s mother’s voice once more.
“Thank you so much, Mark. He’s asleep now, but he needed … well. You, I suppose.”
Mark is a little stunned by that, until he actually thinks it through.
“Not a problem at all. I … uh. I need him, too.”
There is a pause.
“At first, I wasn’t so sure, but … you’re good together, the two of you. You’re good for my son, Mark, and that means a lot to me.”
It means a lot to Mark too, is his first thought.
‘Oh’ is his second.
“Oh,” he says. “Thank you.”
X
“So. You and Jackson hyung, huh?” Bambam says, and Mark rolls his eyes so hard that it genuinely pains him for a second.
‘Duuuuuuh,” Mark replies without so much as lifting his head from the car seat it’s resting back against, because - honestly - duh.
If anything has been dead set and clear as day since the seven of them got together, it’s that he and Jackson are … well. Him and Jackson.
Most things, Mark struggles to articulate. This? Not so much.
“He’s Jackson,” he tells Bambam, leaning forward in his seat to root around at his feet for his neck pillow, “He’s mine.”
Bambam laughs; his tongue soothing his bottom lip afterwards like the sound was too sharp for his mouth; shocked out of him and barbed.
“I know that, hyung,” he says, and then “we know that,” he corrects. “But the fact that you do? You’re ahead of schedule, Mark Tuan. You’re way ahead of where the rest of us thought you might be.”
Mark is accustomed to being underestimated and overlooked at this point. It’s where he’s made his home in this group, because it’s how he’s most comfortable. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t irritate him when people who spend all day every day by his side refuse to see what’s right in front of them, however.
“Markson 5eva,” is all he can say; purposefully phrasing it in english because he and Jackson are the only ones that can talk to one another fluently that way.
Bambam holds his hands up in front of him, as if in defeat.
“None of us would ever dare to suggest otherwise, hyung.”
X
Mark’s stomach is jerking back and forth on the floor, somewhere near his feet, and his head is spinning from cloud to cloud.
There’s a hand on his forehead, on his cheeks, cupping his jaw, and Mark would wonder who owns the hand if his eyes weren’t rolling in his head.
“Mark. Markuu,” a voice says, and Mark tries to smile, he’s pretty sure.
“Jackson,” he slurs, or tries to at least, and then the hand is back on his forehead, a cool and comforting pressing between his feverish skin and his sweaty bangs.
“I’m here. I’ve got you, babe,” Jackson says.
A strong arm winds its way around his waist, and Mark can finally let his eyes fall shut.
X
Mark wakes up to absolute silence, which is bizarre and frightening in and of itself, because if there’s one thing their dorm isn’t, it’s quiet.
“Oh. You’re awake,” a voice says, soothing his panic.
“I sent everyone else away to practice. You needed time and space to recover,” the voice continues, so solemn that it takes a moment for Mark to place it as being Jackson’s, though honestly - he should have known all along. He blames his slow-to-catch-up thoughts on whatever has felled him this time.
“You fainted,” Jackson tells him, matter of fact although his voice clips the words; cuts them off quickly. “I caught you, but … you had a fever. The doctor gave you fluids. You have to rest for three days. You’re not leaving this room without me until then. Not even bathroom breaks, hyung.”
This is where Mark would normally launch a protest, if only for the sake of it, but he feels like shit right now, and he’s willing to indulge himself, if just this once.
He rolls over, instinctively seeking out and curling into the warmth of Jackson by his side. He has his reading glasses on and something pulled up on his ipad.
“You’re my hero,” he says, voice gone hoarse with sickness and disuse. “You’re my best friend.”
Both statements equate, for Mark. There’s a balance there. Simple truth.
Jackson is bare faced when he turns to look down into Mark’s face. Mark notes the beginnings of bags beneath his eyes, the tremor in his hands when he turns his ipad off and shoves it under the blankets he has piled up next to Mark’s bed.
“I love you,” Mark says, and Jackson smiles, but it’s sad.
“I love you too, bro,” Jackson tells him, and Mark falls back asleep with a small frown on his face and his hands tucked under Jackson’s thigh.
X
They’re being asked about their celebrity crush and most of the questions they’re faced with strike Mark as ludicrous, but this one feels especially ridiculous today.
Jackson says something bright and loud about Jaebum, and Mark laughs along with everyone else because he sees it for what it is and he appreciates the effort Jackson puts into making everything he does entertaining for someone.
Mark, though.
Mark has never really cared all that much for soliciting any kind of reaction. Mark’s interests have always lain more solidly in pure, simple truth.
When the mic comes his way, Mark accepts it easily.
“My celebrity crush is Jackson Wang of Got7,” he says. It’s a coincidence that almost everyone laughs.
Bambam is looking at him with something like pride; clapping his hands in delight.
Jaebum’s mouth is open so wide that he could catch all the moths currently inhabiting their dorm.
Jackson is frowning, shocked out of his stage persona by one of those rarer and rarer occasions when someone can surprise him from his path to being a broadcast king.
Things tend to grind to a halt when Jackson is thrown off, but Mark knows so, he’d been prepared.
“Jackson is fun to be around. He’s energetic and kind and observant. He takes care of us so well and nothing is boring when he’s around. His handsomeness doesn’t hurt either,” Mark makes sure to wink and it’s audible when Jackson - seated right next to him - takes a massive inhale.
“Oh …. okay,” the MC says after a significant pause, and then things are - as ever - moving forward.
X
“We room together. The martial arts line. MFEO,” Mark says, proudly grinning, until Jackson jabs him sharply in the ribs during a pause in recording.
Mark shoves him away, even though that’s literally the last thing he wants to do.
“Yah! Don’t joke!” Jackson half-yells, near hysterical and that’s what makes Mark stop in his tracks.
He cups a hand up under Jackson’s elbow and pulls him away, all but drags him to the first empty-ish corner he can find.
“What’s with you?” he demands. “Why are you being like this?”
Jackson is, for the first time Mark can remember in forever, sullen. He puts his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans and stares at his feet.
“Everything is a joke to you lately, hyung,” he mutters and even the ‘hyung’ stings; a formality that Mark thinks of as long since unnecessary between them.
It’s bizarre; trying to speak to a Jackson who is so visibly closed off; his head still hung low and his sneakers scuffing at the floor. Mark is much more accustomed to a welcoming, open Jackson; one with wide arms and a seemingly permanent warm smile.
“This isn’t a joke,” Mark finds himself insisting. “This wasn’t about laughs.”
Jackson lifts his face only to roll his eyes dismissively, and Mark pouts and grabs for him, reaching until his hands find their way to Jackson’s shoulders.
“I’m serious,” he says. “I’m more serious than you know how to deal with.”
It’s too far, but Mark doesn’t care. Jackson is pushing and Mark is determined to push right back.
“I mean it. You and I … we’re not the like the rest. We’re part of that, but we’re - we’re something different. We’re something more.” That’s how it seems to Mark, at least.
Jackson stares.
Mark stares right back, defiant, because this is important.
“More,” Jackson echoes; hesitant. “More how?”
Mark steps into Jackson’s space, sure about how he feels even if he can’t know how Jackson will respond.
“More like … more,” he says, touching his nose to the line of Jackson’s jaw and staying there, still and inhaling. “More like … this,” he murmurs.
“Don’t play,” Jackson pleads, his mouth hot and full against Mark’s ear and his heart beating loud under the palm of Mark’s right hand.
“I’m not,” Mark says, letting his nose lift up into Jackson’s hair, letting his hands fold themselves around the curve of Jackson’s waist. “I’m not playing.”
Jackson sighs and the sound sinks into Mark’s bones.
X
“So handsome. So chic and sexy!” Jackson babbles, his gaze wide and fond as he directs it to Jaebum, asked for the fourth time today who in his own group he’d choose to date.
Jaebum isn’t even looking his way, but he’s their leader and he’s classically handsome, and.
It’s true, but it’s not what Jackson means, not really and truly.
“Lovely,” Mark echoes, quiet enough that maybe the mics don’t pick it up, but that doesn’t matter.
He’s looking at Jackson when he says it and Jackson is smiling back at him, his teeth and dimples cutting across the space between them and wishing away the shy fold of Mark into his seat, away from the camera.
That’s the part that matters, but that’s also the part that very few people will pick up on.
X
“You’re lovely. You’re everything I want,” Mark says, low and without finesse; honest when Jackson corners him just outside their backstage area with hands low on his hips and a gaze that could pin light in place.
“Prove it,” Jackson dares, cocky in a way that sets Mark at ease. His cheekbones still shine with makeup and Mark can’t wait to strip him of product and stage clothes; get him near naked and keening in the dim privacy of their room.
“I don’t need to,” Mark says, smoothing the ripples of Jackson’s tee where they bunch up at his hips, his fingers lingering much longer than they really need to, “you know so already.” And on this, Mark is confident in a way that he’s never been before.
“You know it. You know that you’re what I want,” he knows, when he tells Jackson so and Jackson only smiles, sly and sure.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t need to hear it,” is Jackson’s comeback, and then both of his hands are down the back of Mark’s sweatpants and his incisors are deep set in his bottom lip, his smile near feral.
“I - I want you,” Mark gives in easy, always a sucker for Jackson’s palms and the sharp points of his teeth.
“Of course you do,” Jackson agrees easily, up on his toes for a kiss and smiling like it’s the start of the day rather than the end.
X
“That’s gross,” Yugyeom complains, whining in between takes of Real Got7 footage.
Mark and Jackson are next to one another on the couch, sandwiched closer together than might be strictly necessary and maybe a hand or two has disappeared from view.
“That’s Markson,” Bambam corrects, patient and wise from across the room.
Mark raises his eyebrows at Yugyeom, daring him to go on.
Yugyeom is silent.
Bambam smiles serenely, vaguely pleased.
Junior and Youngjae are too busy fiddling with their phones to notice any of these goings on.
Jaebum sits, silent, with his hands underneath his thighs and a serious expression on his face, as usual.
“Markson 5eva,” Jackson says into Mark’s shoulder, and he’s not the only one who giggles, after.
-----
----
---