Archive of Our Own

Mark wakes up first because his feet are wet. He blinks to the stark orange of the tent and inhales, stretching his arms until he hits the window flap. Shit. He forgot to zip it up last night. He’d only wanted to let a little air in and now a whole darkened patch crept up his sleeping bag that went halfway up his calves. Wait. He reaches a hand down, patting at the insides of his pajamas and then the warmer parts of the bag right beneath his ass. Sniffs his fingers. Nah, he’s good. Just sweat. It’s strange. It’s light, but he can’t hear the birds. 

His face is freezing. It takes Mark another few seconds to realize his cheek was still getting pelted by pinpricks of ice and then he realized it was still raining. Getting up too fast makes his head whiz. Steadying himself with a sleepy elbow, Mark grunts, reaching up to seal the nylon gap. Then he plops back down and rolls over to Johnny’s firmer side of the airbed. Ohhh, much better. Warmer already, and it holds his weight, he feels buoyant, even, minus the crumbs caught in the crevices of the bumpy fuzzy surface. Mark shimmies his legs out to crawl into the guy’s larger, warmer bag. 

Unlike Mark, Johnny never zipped up his bag —having always taken the heavier winter-proof variety so it meant he’d always wake up soaked in sweat. Right now, Mark feels eternally grateful. He tucks his knees in to fully enjoy the trapped heat farther up and accidentally knocks into Johnny’s hip, a million feelings zinging through his throat, his whole body going tight. Johnny’s forehead scrunches and when he yawns, Mark ducks under the covers, grabbing his waist with icey, icey hands. 

Something between a shout and a grimace comes from above and then Mark’s snickering like crazy as Johnny haphazardly digs him out, muttering gibberish under his breath, finally letting his face resurface from the blankets. He’s a lot closer than Mark anticipates and they almost bump noses. It’s warm, still. Mark smiles. Traces of day-old Banana Boat smeared Johnny’s temple, some caught in his brow. It makes him smell sweet, somewhat gluey and when Mark tries to smooth it out, the white breaks off in flakes along his thumb. Some bits fall into Johnny’s eye and he hisses, reeling away from him, grumbling. The wrinkles in his shirt back make funny faces as Johnny’s elbows appear and disappear, the guy trying to get the sunscreen out. 

When Johnny turns back around, his tampered eye is red and shiny. His lower lid glistens with yellow gooey stuff stuck out just below. He looks a bit rundown, but not mad by any means. A single curved flake still stuck to his bottom lashes. Mark flicks it off with his pinky nail before the other can stop him. He’s met with a semi-exasperated sigh and the catch of his palm against Johnny’s warmer, rougher fingers, firm but still mostly gentle. 

“Morning,” He grins, pinching Johnny’s ear between his knuckles with his free hand. “How was sleep?”

“Wet. But mostly warm,” Johnny groggily half-smiles. He slides his hand along Mark’s bare arm, looking down. Pinched his stomach gently. “What’re you doing in here…?” 

Mark instinctively presses his damp, stinging soles all over Johnny’s ankles, slapping them up his shins, giggling when the other squirms —they’re even colder than his hands. They spend a full minute kicking each other’s legs, making the bed lose even more air  —which culminates in Mark stripping off his plaid pajamas after they get tangled and caught all over his feet, the soaked portions smacking them both. Now he can truly enjoy the heat inside the minus-thirty bag, the full warmth ballooning around his bare legs as he kicks his way to the fullest end of the bed, which was basically just one corner now, one leg hooked around Johnny’s waist. Rough jaggedness from the floor scrapes his elbow as he pulls Johnny close enough to kiss, but then Johnny ducks down to his throat instead, pressing hot, teethy kisses all over his ticklish collarbone and chest and then blowing one long, loud wet raspberry right against his exposed bellybutton. 

“Did you just fart?” He asks, mouth still against his stomach.  

“Shut up,” Mark laughs. “I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you did. I heard it.”

He blows another one —this one even wetter and louder and grosser than the one before. Ridiculous. Mark latches his legs around Johnny’s waist and grinds his heel halfheartedly against his ass in retaliation. All that does is make him groan embarrassingly loud and drawn out into Mark’s stomach, sending white-hot tremors down Mark’s thighs. He slides his foot down the back of Johnny’s leg.

“No, keep doing that,” He mumbles. “That feels good —I sat out there too long yesterday —my bum is like squashed flat. Pancake. Press into it, it feels good.”

“Yeah? Feels good?”

Mark pulls his foot back and ground his heel in again. It was true. Whenever they went out here, Johnny had a habit of staying out by the fire, staring into it until the light had diminished to embers. He said it was to use up all the firewood, but they could just as easily pack the rest in the car. Mark’s never gone around to asking more, but sometimes he’ll zip down the inner flap of the tent and watch him through the nylon screen, weak patches of reddish-grey light, barely discernible against the night. 

He never stayed out with him, fearing it was something he wasn’t welcome to, strange as it was. Since high school, Mark was afraid to cling. Sometimes Mark’ll still hold back, not say the thing, or just let the moment expire. Some things are better left alone. Some things he’d rather not know.

“Watch it there, sweetheart,” Johnny murmurs, elbow crawling his way up, legs brushing his, the bed barely dipping from its lack of air until his dank breath was right against Mark’s neck. Mark keeps moving his heel. It’s so good. He closes his eyes and sees the highway last night, intermittent orangish lights flickering over the fields. “Hit the wrong thing and you’ll give me a new personality.”

“Oh, yeah?” He grins. “-and what would...”

Johnny dunks his face back down into Mark’s neck and inhales. For a while, it’s quiet, nothing but soft, warm breaths through his nose. Rain taps the roof of their tent, beating gently against the fabric, some of it falling in. Somewhere farther away, a car scrapes down the road. Sirens. Mark almost thinks he’s nodded off again when Johnny grunts, turning his face up slightly.

“Had a really strange dream last night,” He mumbles against Mark’s skin. Shifting his legs a little so less of his weight was on him. Hugging at his shoulders a little tighter. It’s still a bit hard to breathe. “-you were in it. We were in some parking lot —you know, the one with the leveled tiers like Square One? You were wearing this metallic onesie with a hood, it was so weird. There were a lot of other people just scattered around. And then suddenly, this building collapses. It wasn’t even fully built —they didn’t even put in the balconies —it was just dark curved glass or plastic stacked up like a bunch of DVDs. It just toppled to the ground —it was just a street away and there was all this yellow dust billowing up all over the place. It was getting all over the road…”

“Mmh,” Mark nods, combing a hand through his splayed, somewhat sweaty hair, scraping it gently from his eyes. A flake of dandruff sticks to his scalp, Mark picks it off. Flicks it down, it stuck to Johnny’s shoulder sleeve. Oh well. “Did it hit us?”

“No, we were okay,” He said. “I pulled you down and we hid under one of the wall barriers. But then you got up and I don’t know, I think you were trying to get the other people to go to the wall too and then a piece flew in —this giant orange chunk of cement flew in and scraped you in the ear. You were bleeding. And I could feel it too, like where you’d been cut, even though I was still crouched by the wall.” 

He lifts his face and reaches a hand, touching the curve of Mark’s ear. Heat prickles his cheeks, Johnny’s thumb brushing the inside right along the curving ridge. His touch is just that affecting. 

“You’re okay,” He smiles, still feeling his ear between his fingers. “-you’re okay, huh?”

“Of course I’m okay,” Mark said. “It was just a dream.”

“Mm. Right. Just a—

He sneezes into Mark’s throat, making him jump a little from the sudden punch of air. Some of it gets on both their hands. Somehow Mark’s hardly bothered by it. 

“Don’t even think about it,” He said, eyes wide, when Mark jokingly makes a motion to lick it. “I didn’t brush my teeth last night,” Sits up and digs at the foot of the bed until he finds a nearly flat water bottle. Guzzled what was left, wincing. “Jee-sus. Don’t even like —nngh —my own spit right now.”

Two slivers of sky glow through the gaps in the ceiling. A leaf slides down. Johnny unzips part of the inner door flap to let some air in, sighing. More icy pinpricks blew in. Mark runs his bare and still mostly wet foot underneath the hem of Johnny’s shirt, enjoying the smooth hot warmth of his back, until Johnny twists around and suddenly snatches his ankle, doing a vicious helicopter with it until it knocks the hanging lamp —Johnny shouting as it clips him in the forehead. He drops Mark’s ankle and tackles him on the near deflated bed. 

“I’m gonna bite this foot off, Mark —I’m not joking,” He grabs hold of Mark’s ankle again as Mark laughs so hard he feels breathless, throwing a mist of spit in his face as Johnny presses his leg as far back as it will go, trying and failing to hide his own laughter, and twisting his grip so that Mark’s toes were almost in his own mouth. “Or I’m gonna feed it to you —you wanna eat your toes, Mark, you wanna—

Mark tries to kiss him and accidentally gets his toes in both their mouths, making them both wince before whipping his face away to wipe his tongue off against the nearest patch of sleeping bag and when he turns back, Johnny’s got him cornered on all sides, caged in by his towering arms and legs and Mark feels silly like a toppled rolling ladybug just kicking and slapping his limbs at him, rolling them back to the flatter end of the bed, but by now every end of it was about the same. They were just rolling on rubber and felt by now.

Then before he can press his heel somewhere else, Johnny clamps his thighs around both of Mark’s feet. 

“Okay, hey, no more funny business until I—” Johnny pulls out the nearly deflated pillow from under them and blaps Mark in the head with it. “-repump —this damn —bed, God…” He readjusts his legs so they were cushioned by the minus-thirty bag again. Feels around beyond the bed corner. Looks up. “Hey, where did you put the hand pump?”

“I don’t know,” Mark frowns. Twists his feet somewhat free from the other’s mighty quads, toes wiggling on instinct. Johnny clamped down again. Oh well. “-I thought like you were in charge of it.”

“Why would I be in charge of a hand pump?”

“Because it’s your car?”

“Because my car runs on a literal hand pump, Mark,” Johnny deadpans, releasing his feet, sighing. Picks up an empty Coors can, glances at it, and drops it back down. “First car in the world to run on actual gas. Gamechanging.” 

“Not all gas is like gas-gas, you know,” He notes, rolling until his legs knocked into Johnny’s legs and he was looking down the same gap between the bed and tent. Damn. Nothing but curled-up Hot Rod wrappers, sand grits, nickels and dimes and the odd green sock. Half-crushed Excel Winterfresh. Lime Gatorade, nearly empty. No pump. “Isn’t gasoline technically like a gaseous liquid?”

“And floor is made of floor and water makes you wet,” Johnny mutters, squeezing Mark’s hip to let him know he wasn’t serious. Tosses a few more things to the floor, grumbling. Then he just gives up and rolls back onto the flattened bed, wincing, dragging over a clump of sleeping bag to cushion his back. Stretching until he hit opposite sides of the tent, eyes closed. For several moments, it’s quiet.

“Hey,” Mark plants his chin on Johnny’s chest. “You wanna fuck?”

“What? Now?”

“Yeah, now,” He said. “You can use my thighs. Yeah. Let’s fuck right now. I can be as tight as you want.”

“Sounds promising,” Johnny grins, shifting onto his side, facing him. “But I kinda have to really go pee. So, no. Sorry.”

He shifts onto his back again. Makes no motion to leave the tent whatsoever. A spider crosses the nylon gap overhead. 

“Uh…didn’t you have to really go pee?”

“…I definitely do,” He yawns. Scratches his cornea. “I also wanna sleep for like maybe two more minutes.”

“Your eyes are literally open.”

“I’m sleeping,” Johnny winks at him. “-on the inside.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense…”

They stare at the sky-gaps in the ceiling for a while.

“Mark. Hey. Feet.” 

Mark squints at him until he sees his open thighs and slips them back inside. Johnny sighs, satisfied, before frowning down at them.

“Man, how’re you still this damn cold?” He pinches his quads tighter, making Mark’s heart jump a little. “Maybe you should take the minus thirty bag next time.”

“No, I like this instead,” He presses his cheek against Johnny’s throat again, smiling. Makes a soft noise. “Getting warm with you. Like it more.”

“Yeah?” 

Mark pulls back and pauses, brushing away some sweat-stuck bangs along Johnny’s forehead, then something else.

“Oh, shit, looks like a bite,” Mark spits on his thumb and rubs the reddened white bump until the saliva’s all evenly spread. It’s a trick his mom taught him when he was little. “There, but like don’t touch it now, okay?”

“Ow, ow —cut it out…” Swatting his hand away before Mark can get at the one along his eyelid, Johnny leans his face back until he gives himself three chins. “-you’re gonna give me an eye infection, idiot.”

“Sure beats getting malaria, though.” 

“That’s not how it works —do you actually know how it works?” Johnny scoffs, half-squishing Mark’s face between his hands like someone’s favourite idiot sandwich. Mark makes a kissy face just because he can.“-the mosquito has to already actually carry the virus. And then after it’s bitten you and it’s own saliva’s gotten into your bloodstream —no amount of your own sali—

He can barely get out the rest because Mark’s too busy trying to get him to shut up, his mouth frantically and gleefully pressing over his like it’s never even left. Sure, I know how it works. Sure, I do. 

…

Sometime later Mark’s sprawled on Johnny’s chest, legs tangled over his, lazily mouthing up the side of his neck when Johnny grunts lightly against his scalp and gets one hand on the small of Mark’s back to gently roll him off. He chuckles through his nose at Mark’s muffled whine at being separated from his skin, pressing a kiss between his brows, then leaning down for two more. Mark grabs at Johnny’s shoulder sleeve and almost gets him back down against him, but Johnny twists from his grip easily, reaching past the edge of the mattress, digging around for something. Mark stares at the sweep of chest overhead, showing from Johnny’s loosely hanging shirt neck. Good enough to devour. It takes everything in him to not lean up and push his face right into it. Fuck it to hell.

“Whatcha looking for?” Mark mumbles against the blanket, rolling his eyes back to try to see what it was. Chuckles. “Lotion?”

“You wish, baby,” Comes the equally amused reply. He sighs. Swallowing. “I’m parched, actually. Do we have any more water in here?”

“Uh, we should…” Mark flips onto his stomach and digs around with him, but finds nothing but some clumps of discarded clothes and granola wrappers. A flashlight. Some nylon bike gloves. Their badly folded park map, some patches ruined by rain. No water. “Did you check the bag? Like my backpack.”

“Did now,” Dunks his arm into the limp, open compartment, the largest one, coming up with nothing. Turns to Mark, sighing again. “Where’d you put the rest?” 

Mark chuckles. Nudges his shoulder with his head. Mouth against his shoulder.

“I put most of them in the cooler. Ice, remember? Pretty sure some of them have melted by now, though.”

Johnny makes a noise of acknowledgement and slumps against the bed, arms comically hanging limply along the tent floor. Turns his head, bangs smeared over his eyes. 

“Babe?” He mumbles.

“Yeah?”

“Can you get some? Right now?”

“You mean, like water?”

“No, like fucking radishes. Yeah, water.”

“Instructions unclear,” Mark announces, pulling himself up to sitting. Readjusts his shorts unnecessarily. “I’m off to fuck some radishes. Peace!”

“Mark…”

“How do you want me to do it, hyung?” He snorts, glancing back. “Should I grab a bunch and fuck into them or carve a hole into one?”

“Second one might set your dick on fire.” 

“Oh, good call. Forgot they were spicy. Thanks.”

“Shit, Mark, what do I have to do to get some water out of you?”

“A whole lot more than this. Also your mouth’s in the wrong spot.”

Then Mark feels a hand slide over his wrist and tug him back. Feels Johnny’s breath tickling his fingers. Johnny chuckles. “Oh, it is, is it?”

He feels Johnny press his mouth over his palm, then slide his mouth down, kissing the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist. Licks a hot stripe across it. Mark hisses, but doesn’t pull his hand away. Johnny smirks against his hand, opening his mouth more and pressing ridiculously wet kisses against Mark’s palm until he reaches his fingers and then before he can take a finger into his mouth, Mark jerks his hand away. Rubs his hand against the side of his shorts. 

“I’ll get your damn water, hyung,” He mutters, jerkily getting the tent flap open and nearly tripping trying to get his flipflops on. “It’ll be mostly ice, so you’re gonna have to suck on it.”

“Sounds great,” Johnny grins. “-I can think of more than a few ways to melt it down.”

Mark zips the flap closed and rushed behind the nearest tree to check himself. Half-hard. Of course. Fuck Johnny. He staggers over to the cooler and pops the lid back, hastily reaching in and grabbing a couple semi-freezing bottles. Rushes back to the tree and drops the bottles onto the grass, spitting into his palm. Shut his eyes, stroking hard and fast, thinking about Johnny’s mouth taking him right to the base, then gripping him by the hair and brutally fucking his throat until he was gagging, come spilling down his chin, his chest. Mark swears and opens his eyes. Wet gooey zigzaggy streaks all over the bark, still going. He strokes on, slower now, getting the last bits out. Soon it turns into something closer to piss and then it was just piss curving into the tree. He steers it away from the bottles on the grass and then just when he was at the last stretch, got an idea, holding it off with an incredible amount of self-control. Reaching down to screw open one of the bottles and pours out about a quarter of the water. 

“Hey, pick an arm,” He grins once he’s back inside the tent, arms behind his back.

Johnny squints at him. “What?”

“Pick an arm. Just pick one.”

“Okay…the left one.”

Mark pulls it out and hands him the bottle. Johnny takes it, still staring at him. 

“What?” Mark asks.

“What’s in the other?”

“Ta daaa…” He giggles nervously, revealing the other bottle, wagging it around. “What?” 

“Did you really just make me pick between water…and water…?”

Mark laughs again, sitting down on the floor. Twists his own bottle open, winking. “Different flavours.”

“Nah, babe,” The other snorts, showing him the label. “Pretty sure both of ‘em are 100% natural spring.” He squints at the fine print. “With a hint of ozone.”

“Cheers,” They tap the bottom of their bottles together, Johnny still staring at him somewhat weirdly. Then right as Johnny puts the bottle to his lips, Mark panics, grabbing the bottle. “-W-wait, wait, stop.”

“Wh—” Some water had sloshed onto Johnny’s shirt. “Mark…”

“Hyung,” Mark pulls the bottle over to himself, Johnny still holding it, and smells the bottle, then compares it to his own. Goes back and forth between sniffing both bottles, his heart now pounding ridiculously hard. Fuck. He can’t tell the difference. “No, no, no, no, they smell the same, they smell the same…”

Johnny yanks the bottle away from him, more water sloshing. 

“Yeah, no shit, they smell the same,” He scoffs, patting at the splotches on his sweats with the sleeping bag. “-they’re both water…!”

“No, no, no, no, nooo,” Mark yanks the bottle back again, his own bottle lying horizontal, leaking out onto the tent floor, the seat of his shorts now fully soaked. “-hyung, uh, uh, a bird poop, a bird pooped in it…!”

“The fu…” Johnny lets go of the bottle and stares at him like he had six toes growing out of his forehead. “Why would you give me a bottle with bird poop in it…?!”

“No, no, no, no, a bird didn’t poop, no bird poop,” Mark snatches the bottle from the floor, hands back Johnny’s bottle and starts rapidly unzipping the tent. “-just wait, wait here, wait here.”

He runs outside, grabs two more bottles from the cooler, tosses the old bottle into the trees, runs back inside, zips up the tent, grabs Johnny’s bottle and tosses it out the dog flap door in the back. Panting. Hands Johnny one of the fresh bottles, still panting. 

Johnny, unsurprisingly, stares at him, still, not taking the bottle. “Mark, what’s going on?”

“It’s safe! It’s safe, hyung, look,” He unscrews his own bottle, gulps down a bunch, losing half of it down his shirt, showing him the bottle, gasping. “See? See, it’s good.”

“No, I don’t see. What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s good…! I took it right out of the cooler, it’s nearly fully melted, it’s just water, it’s just water, there’s nothing in—

“-Nothing inside? Yeah? Was there something inside before…?”

Mark ducks his head down and sighed, feeling his cheeks threaten to burn off in embarrassment. 

…

“Wait, you mixed them…?” Johnny scoffs afterwards. He stares at both bottles, now retrieved from the woods, and then stares at Mark again. “Are you serious? How on earth is that fair?”

“What do you mean? What do you mean, fair?”

“You’re not supposed to mix them —then how the fuck am I supposed to…?”

“I…I thought you were smarter than that,” Mark manages, blush rapidly rising to his cheeks again. “-I-it was supposed to be funny, it was supposed to be a joke…”

“So you thought that I was smarter than 100% water and 100% piss,” Johnny said, still holding the shiny dirt-caked bottles in his hands, staring at him like the sky was starting to fall. “-but you thought that maybe 100% water and a 25 to 75% piss-water ratio might trip me up…”

“Well, it did, didn’t it?”

“I don’t know…” He wrings the bottles in slow-motion like wind turbines in either hand and drops them onto the mattress, letting them roll off like a double mic drop. Still staring at him. “You never gave me the opportunity to try.”

Mark snorts, somewhat sheepishly.

“You wanna try now…?”

…

“I’m gonna do it,” Johnny warns him, sometime later. They’re still lying side by side on the near deflated bed. He picks up a bottle from the floor and shakes it gently like Old Man Yells at Cloud. The longer he stares at him, the more Mark wants to laugh. “-I will do it, Mark, I’m gonna do it too.”

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yeah, I will. You’re not gonna be the only one who…” He ruins it by sneezing, shaking his head, bottle still held in the air. “-who gets to pull a piss—” The bottle drops hard onto his chest and Johnny shouts, groaning as he rubs at the spot the damn thing crashlanded on, as Mark loses it on the floor, crying into a near-deflated pillow. He drags himself back up and crawls to snuggle up next to him, rubbing at the spot on Johnny’s chest, kissing at the underside of his chin to distract him. Johnny’s already swatting him away, mostly half heartedly.

“Who gets to pull a…” 

Mark’s still laughing.

…

“That smells really nice,” Mark presses his cheek against Johnny’s shoulder as he scrapes around two runny eggs and a bunch of little red smokies with his chopsticks. They’re standing outside over the propane stove. It sits at the edge of the damp picnic table, balanced somewhat haphazardly along a folded stack of newspapers to replace the missing rubber peg on one corner. Reddish-bronze juice oozes and bubbles in the pan around the sausages and Johnny chuckles through his nose, stabbing into one, holding it up to Mark’s mouth.

“Already?” 

“Check if it’s cooked,” He winks. “-it’s been a few minutes, but…”

“I love being your salmonella tester,” Mark narrows his eyes, biting into the sizzling thing anyway. It’s too hot —he tries to eat around it, but juice just ended up mixing with his spit and sliding down his chin as his tongue burns and tries to curl away from the heat even as he bit into it, breaking it up in his mouth. It’s sweet, almost overly so, but mostly what he felt was sting.

“Good?”

“Hurgh,” Is what comes out, more juice spilling down his chin.  

“Sorry,” Johnny chuckles. “I’ll blow on it more next time. Is it burned?” He points his chin at Mark’s mouth, then taps at his tightened lips with the chopsticks. “Come on, open. Let me see.”

Mark rolls his eyes, letting his mouth fall open, feeling like a kid, showing him all the little pieces of sausage he’d managed to bite it into, the leaked juice starting to feel cool and sticky along his neck. Johnny makes a humming noise, inspecting all the little pieces with his chopsticks, tapping at them, moving them around a little, then tugging at the insides of Mark’s cheek with the chopsticks, then the undersides of his teeth like he was some fucking dentist or something, Mark trying his absolute hardest not to bite down or laugh and choke on wood. He makes a whining sound with his mouth still open and Johnny finally places the chopsticks down and ducked in, mouth against his, kissing him absurdly deep, the softish, fried sausage pieces squishing around inside, until they’re all mostly eaten or fallen on the grass by their feet. It’s so fucking gross and somehow he’s still whining as he feels the other already pulling away, his mouth loosening from his. It’s so salty now. Sweet, then salty then sweet again. Mark swallows and nearly chokes on the wet, broken pieces. Fuck.

“Tastes good,” He mumbles —and he meant it, licking at his wet mouth as they break off again, a thread of savoury spit flying forward and then falling back and sticking to his throat. His tongue still burns, but now it’s just sweet, mostly sweet.

“Yeah, it does,” Johnny said, staring at him, then his mouth as he picks something off the edge of Mark’s lashes. It had started raining again. “-makes me want more of you.”

…

It was raining, then, too. Mark closes his eyes and he can feel it immediately, the room taking shape. Dimmed, second floor. The sting of his back being crushed into the stippled fur, hundreds of hard ridges carved right into the wall. A blurred squarish glow quivers as rain runs down the floor-to-ceiling window glass, the visitor hours long since over. He can just barely make out the light against his lids, coming in from the floor to ceiling windows looking out into the parking lot. He tastes rainwater as Johnny kisses him against the bear, the massive, hulking thing cradling him in and breaking him down all the same. Ursa Major in reverse. Every fibre of his being aches and stings so sweet as the simulated fur carves itself into his skin through his wet clothes. Becomes him. His foot slips and he grabs at the panel, gasping. 

He’s soaked from the waist down, Johnny’s jacket thrown over his back and knotted at his chest, water sliding down the inseam of his long khakis, making his sneakers squeak as he slid further down the carving, both hands strung tight through Johnny’s wet hair, long enough to tug, wet enough that it’s hard to tug smoothly, but that doesn’t stop him from making an absolute mess of himself against the jagged caved wall. Thunder cracked outside. Soon Johnny is kneeling. Mark gasps, his hands going numb. Breath fogs up in his face, he’s almost there. Almost real.

It always ends there. Mark can’t figure out why.

There’s no point to them. These useless, wasted imaginings. And yet he still wonders. Wonders what it would’ve been like if they’d met a different way, if their families never knew each other. As if it would make any of it better.

Maybe it would go like this. Mark sees Johnny from the back, slightly hunched over, polishing one of the rodent display cases with a folded red-and-white terry cloth. Plain white starched shirt, rolled to the elbows, black slacks. Tall. He looks out of place, like a sensitive, somewhat detached waiter who walked through the wrong set of revolving doors and ended up here instead of the Ritz. The cloth made faint bluish smears along the glass and Mark goes up to him to ask him where the bathroom was just to have an excuse to talk to him. His hand smells lemony and slightly acidic as he points him to the curve of wall by the entrance, the restroom doors hid behind there. Some of the soapy water gets on Mark’s shirt and he laughs a bit awkwardly as the guy tries wiping it off, first with the cloth, then his hand and then Mark tells him it was fine, he’d fix it in the bathroom, he was headed there anyway.

By the time he’s stepped back out, the guy’s long gone. Mark absently picks up a few brochures at the front and a little business card thing he could use as a bookmark later and just sort of wanders around the place, hoping he’ll run into him again. He doesn’t. He stays there all afternoon. Even goes up the ramp to the second, third and finally the fourth floor with all the hanging taxidermied birds held by strings from the ceiling, descending in a perfect helix of earthen wing and bone. He even tries to go to the roof —which is locked. Nothing. He’ll lean back against the wooden railing alone, staring up at the trees upside down, not going in until the rain came back.  

Mark never runs into him until the afternoon he’s about to leave —his parents were just about finished packing at their campsite. He’d decided to walk down the beach one last time —what counted as the beach around here —a mishmash of sand, rock and trash and the occasional torn condom or two washed up against the clumps of smashed clams and filth —the shoreline pleasantly dotted with rotting fish carcasses with their eyes plucked out. At least the gulls weren’t out that much today. As Mark heads back up along the grass, he’ll spot a startlingly familiar figure sitting at the steps by the convenience store. 

“Hey,” Mark will say, feeling stupid.

“Hey,” The guy says back, setting his indigo popsicle into a plastic cup. It had melted into a rounded chunk and left fat, spattering dots of fainter purple against the pale wood by his feet. “Have we met somewhere?”

“Yeah, um,” Mark smiles. What the hell. “You got like,” Gestured vaguely to his own shirt. “-soap on me that one time, remember?”

The guy’s eyes widen and then he just starts laughing.

“I didn’t think you were still mad about that,” He sighs sometime later. Both of them are seated on the steps now, shielding their melting Rockets from getting on their shorts with mostly useless bundles of napkins twisted around the sticks. Mark stares at his mouth, brightly reddened by the popsicle as bluish red juice trickled down his hand onto his long, hiked up calves, faintly dusted in long attractively dark hairs, more than a little mesmerized.

“I’m not mad,” Mark says. “Unless you want me to be mad, or…”

“Why would I…?”

“Actually, I changed my mind. I am a little mad.”

“Oh yeah?” Johnny grins. He’d told him his name by then. Slipped out somewhere between picking out more ice cream and telling him his favourite Monster flavour. The green one. “And what can I do to make it up to you?”

“Go see a movie with me.”

It’s freezing, this early in the day. No one else is here. The sky is blank overhead and birdless as Mark pulls him along into the water, jeans rolled up to the knees. They go until they’re waist deep. Everything underneath him goes numb.

He only hears the ends of it.

And it doesn’t matter. Mark knew it was coming, had been preparing himself for it. At least these next few days would be worth it. At least he still had him now.

…

“Here,” He slides his foamy hands into Mark’s scalp, fingers sluicing straight through his wet strands to where his roots ended and Mark didn’t even bother biting back the moan. He’s always been a bit sensitive there. He could probably get hard if Johnny just massaged it enough. “-let me wash your hair.” 

“Mm, yeah,” He shuts his eyes and leans his head back, laughing when he knocks right into Johnny’s mouth, sharp pain of scalp hitting teeth, feeling the other grunt-shout foam against him. His fingers going hard in his hair. “-oops, sorry...”

Johnny spits right then and Mark swears it runs down his back, but he just laughs. Pressing back even closer. The spray is already weakening. Fuck. He bangs his palm over the metal dial until it returns in full force which wasn’t honestly even that strong. Most days the stream between his legs is stronger. They picked a bad one. Soon Johnny’s fingers are relaxed again, latched back to his head, hands back up to task. Pushing the foam ever deeper into his hair, scraping it back. Back and forth between his separated, foam-flattened sections, Mark’s own hands limp at his sides, itching to draw his fingers back up his boyfriend’s bare, soaked thighs. 

“Oh, I’ll have my vengeance,” He murmurs against Mark’s wet, mildly thrumming hair. Running his teeth very faintly against his scalp and Mark goes up on his tiptoes to push himself even tighter to his mouth, inhaling. Mark lets him pull him backwards into the spray until it cuts down his face alongside his hair and he holds his breath and then breathes through his mouth as the water ran down his cheeks and brought the foam down his shoulders in loose, uneven clumps, sliding down his legs. Separating around his feet. He lets Johnny pull his head back, loosening the last of the foam off his hair.  

“Oh, what’s this?” His hand wends around Mark’s waist and brushes just the tip of Mark’s growing hard-on. Mark hisses, instinctively twitching. His thighs tense beneath him. “Should I take care of it?” 

Mark nods, biting his lip. 

“I didn’t hear you,” he said. “Guess I won’t, then.”

“Hyung,” Mark whines, trying to press himself harder into Johnny’s hand. It’s no use. The other refuses to put any pressure on it. Mark pushes harder. “-h-hyung, please…”

“That's a little better.”

Johnny steps out of his plastic slippers and kneels down to rest his knees against them, sliding his hands up to grip Mark’s hips. Mark shivers slightly, his back and ass pressing against the cold wet tiles behind the weakening spray. This time, he just lets it die off. Johnny breathes over his thigh, mildly grinning. He spits into his palm and tugs gently at him before bringing Mark towards his mouth, licking right against his slit. Mark inhaled sharply, the sudden sensitivity hitting him immediately. 

“Look at you getting bigger around me,” Soon he has his lips wrapped around him, wetting the inside of his mouth enough for there to be a decently smooth slide and Mark can barely keep his eyes open as he felt the tighteningly hot suction of Johnny’s practiced mouth take him deeper than he ever thought possible. Soon he’s fucking Johnny’s mouth with both hands and Johnny’s letting him. Over and over as he gets ever closer to the edge.

“I’m —I’m gonna, wait— 

He pulls off, glancing up at him dreamily before opening his mouth, tongue fully out. Mark lets go and shoots his load seconds later, spilling fat, globbish streaks across Johnny’s cheek, down his chin, some in the hair by his ear. Most of it doesn’t get in his mouth. Fuck, Mark could stare at his face all day, streaked messy like that. Ruined for him, just for him. Johnny wipes at what’s left on his face. He licks it off his thumb and presses a firm, hot kiss against Mark’s hip before getting up. Wobbling a little, one hand pressed to the wall next to Mark. Reddish slashed marks of his crushed slippers imprinted all over his knees. He can barely get his feet back into them.

“You taste nice, baby,” He said, somewhat hoarse. “You taste real nice.”

…

When Mark first met Johnny, he had a girlfriend. She arrived on the second day they were camping, so Mark hadn’t known it at first. He just remembered waving as the familiar sand-coloured Toyota Caravan rolled onto the gravel and noticing there was someone else there. Sitting next to the father of the girl Mark used to babysit back in high school. It was a weird feeling. Like he should somehow have known her, yet didn’t. She had gotten out of the car and gone straight to the tent Johnny was in, pulling off her sky-blue Converse by the tarp mat at the door. They stayed in there until it was late and Mark’s dad had a fire going. 

She was slightly taller than Mark at the time, wore light wash jean cutoffs and flipflops. A no-name beige t-shirt, thin and baggy around her hips, likely from repeated washes. In the mornings, she’d wear a dark red hoodie with the hood pulled over, hands shoved into the pockets, despite the whole thing being unzipped. Mark only saw her face a handful of times. She wore glasses sometimes. She was pretty. 

Nothing spectacular, but pretty enough. Mark wondered if Johnny ever got bored around her. From the few times Mark had exchanged conversation, she hadn’t seemed all that interesting. Passing her by when he was turning the corner to the bathroom, smudgy glasses and sunscreen on her nose. Handing him a purple popsicle from the convenience store by the beach. But what did he know? Maybe she’d done it on purpose. Smart, then. Pretty and smart. That was the winning combination. God forbid, she was kind too. 

Right now Mark is the happiest he’s ever been. Or at least he should be. 

“What?” Johnny looks at him, toweling off his hair and already pulling on a fresh set of underwear from the bench, the hairs on his legs still wet and smeared, shiny. Mark still stands under the spray, hitting the dial when it died down, staying warm for just a little longer.

“Nothing,” Mark said, then dabs a smear of shampoo foam across his arm. “You missed a spot.”

…

Back then, the water came up to his neck this far in and Johnny stood in the center of their lopsided circle, long navy trunks swishing as Mark and his cousins splashed at him from below. The sun was so strong that day. Impossibly bright. Mark remembers looking up and not really being able to see much of Johnny’s face  —all shadows and recesses —some darker bumps where his acne was really bad. Still, he liked him then. He liked him anyway. 

Mark got him in the face at one point and then Johnny suddenly turned his attention to him and whipped a vicious wave across —and even as Mark dodged, it barely hit his shoulder. He kept trying to see under the gap in Johnny’s trunks, the tender, shadowy space up his thigh that smelled sharper, different from the rest of him.

He remembers watching the zigzagging stream of droplets snaking down the twisted dark folds of Johnny’s trunks, the wet fabric stuck tight to his ass as he headed back when the sun got too hard. Part of his trunks had ridden up just far enough for Mark to see the uneven tan line along the back of one of his thighs. He wanted to touch it so much at the time. Johnny had been pulling him along by the wrist. Everyone else had already ran to shore. By then his hair was all wet, luckily shielding most of his face. The fine dark hairs along his chin were patchy, uneven. Mark couldn’t stop looking at him, burning him permanently into the violet grey afterimages of his eyes.

There’s more people now and it seems to have gotten lighter overhead. The sun’s still hidden. Mark starts to pull them both out of the water. 

…

“Have you ever gone so far back,” Mark had asked him the night before. They were lying side by side in the tent, sleeping bags thrown lopsidedly over their stomachs. It was too hot to cover their legs. “-you’re not sure whether or not your memories are real?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when I was really little,” He stared into the shadows of the leaves overhead. “-I had this memory that I used to be able to jump really far. Like really, really far. Like you know those gaps in the sidewalk that they make in the cement to show all the squares are lined up one after the other?” He thought he could feel the other nod in the dark. “I could clear like five of those. Or like maybe even six, or seven, maybe nine? I was like maybe three or something. At first, my parents would be helping me like I’d be holding hands, one hand holding my mom’s hand, the other my dad’s and they’d swing me up and I’d clear one sidewalk gap and then the next time I’d hold myself up for longer —I’d squeeze my arms and tuck in my knees so my feet wouldn’t scrape the ground and then I’d go over two gaps or three…”

“And then you just started,” Johnny snorted a little. “-sort of flying, then?”

“I know it sounds silly,” He said. “-but it just got me thinking. Eventually, you go so far back that all your memories and dreams and random imaginings just converge and it all just mixes together and you don’t know which is real. It could be anything. It’s so scary and beautiful at the same time. Right?”

It was quiet. A van passed and suddenly their tent went bright with shadows, endless leaves in motion. Then dark again. 

“What about right now?” Johnny was suddenly so close, close enough that Mark felt his breath right against his ear. “You think this moment is real?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Mark said after a pause. “If I remember it later, then maybe.”

…

“Can I play something for you?” Mark bites his lip and adjusts the weight of the guitar on his lap. He sits on the bench, towel wrapped around his shoulders, just back from the lake. Johnny gives him a look. 

“What would you do if I actually said no?” 

“Well,” He thinks out loud, warming up with a few tame chords. Tries to avoid the blister on his middle finger. “-I’d probably be a little sad. Because you’ve never said no before. And then I would probably play it, anyway,” Glancing up at him. “-facing away from you, of course.”

Johnny snorts softly. “Of course.”

He gets the clip adjusted right and clears his throat. Droplets hit the strings, then his fingers, sliding off the wood. More water has collected around his cold trunks, dank and stiff, darkening the bench too. “Are you ready?”

“Never will I be more ready.”

“Okay, here goes,” Mark counts himself in, and began. “It’s three in the morning and I’m still not sleeping. ‘Cause I’m finally running your race. The mountains you’ve been climbing seem like they have steepened…”

When he’s done, he looks up again. Johnny’s looking at him in a way that’s hard to describe. He touches his lip absently with his fingertips, looking past Mark for a moment, then he smiles. He opens his mouth, almost speaks and then stops. Waves at him to come over.

“Come here,” He said. Mark sets the guitar down and stood before him for a few awkward seconds before Johnny reached up, squeezing at his side and then slapped his lap, nodding. This isn’t a good idea. This Walmart fold-up chair has fallen apart at least three other times with a single passenger (Mark has no idea why Johnny insists on still keeping it) and Mark can guarantee his additional ass weight will probably be what finally sinks and flattens the thing into a stretcher, permanently. Johnny clearly doesn’t care, clapping his hip gently as Mark sighs, still wearing his towel, holding onto Johnny’s arms and then his waist and then pressing his palms hard into the rough canvas of the seat, testing the give at the same time as finally settling down, almost. Johnny sighed, almost whiny. “Babe, just sit. Come on!” 

“I —don’t —wanna —break the chair…” He said, ass still hovering millimeters above Johnny’s lap, legs now slotted semi-awkwardly on either side in the big gaps between the flimsy armrests and the even flimsier edges of the seat, his thighs now rock solid locked in a three-quarter squat. “-again…”

“God, babe, just sit down…!” 

Moments later, the chair collapses. They’re lying in the grass and dirt, wincing, rumpled canvas, towel and cold struts tangled with their legs. Mark sighed, staring at the sky. It was hopeless. 

“Did you write that yourself?” Johnny stares up at him in that warm, knowing way, cheek pressed to the grass. “What you just played for me?”

“No frickin’ way,” Mark laughs, looking down. “Kinda wish I did, though. It’d be more special that way, right?”

There’s a pause.

“Would it, though? Would it really?”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I mean, I think it’s already so special that you picked that song out of all the hundreds of songs you kn—

“-I don’t know hundreds of songs—

“-Okay, then, dozens or twenties of songs,” The other rolls his eyes, making Mark laugh at that, comically shushing him by pressing a few quick fingers against his mouth for a moment. Maybe he realized how corny he sounded and didn’t care. Or just didn’t want Mark to ruin it. Bits of damp dirt stick to his lips. “-and then you learn how to play it and you practice it and practice it until it’s as good as what you just showed me —and even the fact that you thought of me specifically when you first picked it. That’s significant too, you know.” He paused. “It’s hard. It’s hard doing all those things…” Rolled his eyes again. “And you’re laughing again. Is it funny to you? I really mean it, Mark. Even if it’s fucking corny, I still…”

“I know,” He giggles, shushing him too. Dirt specks the other’s mouth. All he smells is dirt. They’re both eating it now. Fuck. “I’m just happy, that’s all.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then I’m glad,” He slips a hand into Mark’s hair and just smooths it over and over again, pulling him closer. Anyone passing by now would think they’re deranged. Lying in the wet dirt, giggling. “I’m really glad.”

“Mmh. Me too.” 

“Give yourself more credit,” He said. “-please.”

“Okay.”

…

They wash up at the running tap, too lazy to go back to the comfort centre. Johnny bends over double to get the dirt out his hair, and then Mark taps his shoulder, handing him the towel. He has to bend even lower to get his back, hands humorously squashed around the narrow stone platform beneath the tap, doing some kind of wildly tilted downward dog to get all the dirt off. There’s still dark, grainy patches and then specks in a lot of places. Mark lets him torture himself for another solid minute before he comes back with the pale turquoise basin they usually use for their feet and they take turns dunking water over themselves til they’re good to go. It takes another few minutes.

Back in the tent, Mark traces a drawing along the back of Johnny’s still-damp, towel-chafed red thigh with his foot on the bed, Johnny’s face dunked snug into the pillow. Mark pokes him with his toe.

“Now guess. Guess what it is.”

“Guess? Hmmrgh, I don’t know, hun,” he mumbles into the inflated navy velvet, sighing. His voice sounds like it’s coming out of a sock. “Is it a giraffe? A kangaroo? No, wait. A bush. A porcupine? You were doing a lot of up and down stuff on there.”

He’s joking around. Getting it wrong on purpose. 

“It’s not an animal.”

“No? Okay, then, uh. Let’s see. Is it a…whirlpool? A cloud? A fireball? Oh, wait. I got it. I got it. It’s the bottom part of a mop.”

“What the fuck.”

“Am I…still not getting it right?”

“You are getting farther and farther away from right.”

Johnny blew a slow, defeated raspberry into the pillow.

“Then I give up. I don’t know.”

Mark traced one part harder, sighing. “Babe, come on, it’s a mountain…” 

Silence. Then the other started to laugh. 

“Ohhh, right. Mountain, gotcha. Totally got that one. Yeah, that feels like a mountain.” 

Mark looks at him skeptically. He still hadn't turned his head. “Yeah?”

“Yeah…! Mountains…of talent.” 

“Fucking god…” 

…

“You’ve got, um,” He smiled, brushing the corner of Mark’s lip with his thumb. Something crumbly came off. Johnny flicked it away onto the sidewalk, then wiped his hand on his jeans. They sat on a bench outside the college. This was barely a month ago. Two years since they last talked. “-it’s gone now. Muffin or something.”

“Thanks,” Mark said, trying to laugh it off. He watched a couple vans round the roundabout ahead before they flowed back into the street one by one. The light turned green. It was late enough that the sun had turned the air dusty orange towards the hills. “Now you saved my mom the trouble. She hates that. Always telling me to do it.” 

“How’s she?”

“My mom?” Mark frowned. “She’s fine, I guess. She’s…really into church these days. Always on call. I think they made her the head of one of the groups —she has this pile of notebooks —you know, the ones you always find on the rack next to the pamphlets and schedules and little Daily Bread prayer booklets? She’s always writing in them now. All the time.” Laughed lightly. “I don’t know if it’s ‘cause Derek’s gone abroad and she has no one to watch reruns of Heart Signals with…”

“He’s gone abroad?” Johnny raised his brow. “Where? Not the Philippines, right?”

“New Zealand,” Mark nodded. “Actually, he’s getting married next year. He met a girl at the school he was teaching at. Also a teacher. She’s got these, uh,” Mark wiggled his fingers over his head, grinning. “-absolutely crazy curls, man. I used to have hair like that when I was a baby too, apparently. My mom’s got all these pictures. They take the most insane pictures too —Derek and, uh. There’s one where, um,” He snorted, rolling his eyes. “-they have this, like…” Mark paused. Johnny was just looking at him. “-what? What is it?” 

“I really want to kiss you right now,” He said. “Can I do that?”

“You…you want?” 

Mark barely heard himself, just staring at him, nodding, barely feeling that too. He doesn’t know what he expected to feel, how he expected it to feel. Just closed his eyes, let the world go dark right then, felt Johnny’s lips against his, soft and slightly dry, but still soft somehow, then blushing impossibly hot when Johnny slid a hand to his cheek to pull him closer, tickling the hair by his ear. Mark felt like his face was gonna burn off as he kissed him back, melting against him, mouth on his mouth, chasing his lips over nothing, it wasn’t like they were gonna just disappear, he just never wanted it to. Then Johnny broke off, grinning.

“You’ve never done that before, have you?”

“I have…!” Mark glared at him, then looked at the ground. It felt like he was lying even though he wasn’t. “Just…just not.”

“Just not with me.” 

“Yeah. Just not with you.” 

“Well,” Johnny said, sounding mildly satisfied. “What do you think about doing that again sometime? Like maybe at my place.” 

“W-what about…”

“What about what?”

It killed him to bring it up, but Mark didn’t want to wait until they really did end up at Johnny’s place and were really getting into it and then ruin it for good by bringing it up then. He’s not strong enough for that. He’d probably never be able to face Johnny ever again, let alone any other guy he ended up falling for down the line —though it’s hard enough itself trying to imagine falling for anyone else when he’s already in so deep. Two years was nothing. Seeing Johnny this afternoon was a mistake. Fatal mistake. He’s hardly changed at all. Everything’s flooding back. He loves him. He loves him too much. Mark sighed shakily. In the end, he couldn’t even say her name. 

“You know. Her.”

Johnny squinted at him, frowning. “Her?” 

“You…you know, when you were…”

It took him another few seconds. “Oh. Oh. You mean, Victoria?” 

Victoria. Fuck. God. Crazy how something so shapeless as a name could make his chest feel like it was imploding. Fuck, Mark almost wanted to throw up. 

“Yeah. Vic…toria.”

Suddenly Johnny burst out laughing. 

“I can’t believe you still remember her,” He said through his laugh. “Victoria…God, she was ages ago. We don’t see each other anymore. I don’t even follow her on Instagram.”

“You don’t…?”

“No,” He’s shaking his head, still laughing. “I have no idea about her. Wow, not even my mom brings her up. Mark, you’re really something. You’re…” Shook his head, still. “You’re so…”

“I’m so what?”

Johnny just took Mark’s face in both his hands and kissed him again. 

…

The coolest Johnny has probably ever been was when he set a mosquito on fire. Really. Mark was fourteen, elbows leaned against the crooked grain of the picnic table when the abnormally massive sucker landed right by his nose and the propane gas stove. The thing was nearly the size of Mark’s hand. (The mosquito, not the stove.)

“Watch this,” Johnny said, droplets from his hair falling onto Mark’s shirt neck as he leaned over to grab the matchbox by the cooler. He’d just come back from the lake. Struck a match. “Show you a magic trick.”

He brought his lips close to the flame and breathed. Fire flashed just centimetres from Mark’s face. The mosquito was blackened to a crisp, singed straight into the table. Johnny flicked it. It fell and broke into ashes. Mark sat on his hands, palms crushed against the bench. He blamed the heat, the brightness of the sun making him feel lightheaded.

Johnny grinned. He tossed the match onto the grass and squeezed the back of Mark’s neck with both hands, damp pieces of dirt breaking off and falling down his shirt. He smelled like the marshes and Axe body spray. A prize-winning combination, obviously.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

By the time Mark had formulated a semi-decent response, Johnny was already halfway to the volleyball nets across the field. Yeah. Pretty cool for a guy who went viral from parrot noises. Mark touched the back of his neck and picked off the remaining dirt. He didn’t get it. It tasted just like regular dirt. 

…

He loses a flipflop to a rough patch of grass as they’re running up the path to the comfort centre, darkened and rendered nearly shapeless by the rivulets of rain rushing down the surface. Pockmarked cracked cement and rushing water slaps against the raw ball of Mark’s foot as he grips tightly to Johnny’s hand, the other guy pulling him along so fast he’s nearly flying as the rain comes down on them so hard Mark can barely see. The flap of hoodie Mark holds over their heads is completely soaked, the strip of zipper teeth only throwing more rain into their eyes. 

They dash through the door, missing the handle entirely —Mark jolting, feeling his intestines whack into his spine from how hard Johnny throws him against the door, kissing him hard against it. They can’t get to each other fast enough, Mark clawing his hands up Johnny’s shirt as the other strings his hands into his wet curls, Mark gripping the sides of his face, kissing back just as hungrily, feeling the rainwater run down the back of his khakis, down the door, making a steady puddle at his feet. Mark tries to hook a leg around Johnny’s waist so he can grind against his thigh and feels Johnny laugh through his nose, dropping a hand to the back of his khakis, squeezing the rainwater out of that side of his ass. Mark breaks off, panting. 

“I can’t wait anymore,” He breathes. Licking at the bead of spit at the corner of Johnny’s mouth. Mark was ready to do anything. “-I want it in here. Right against the wall.”

“Yeah? You want that?”

“Anything,” He said. “-I want anything.”

Johnny glanced towards the window, then past it, then back to him.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” His voice drops to a whisper, somewhat wavering. “It always gets me so hard just thinking about it.” He leaned his mouth right against Mark’s ear, whispering so low 

“What? Are you serious?”

“Completely serious.”

Mark grips the top of the platform and climbs on, grainy plastic digging hard into his bare knees. A shiver courses down his spine when he feels Johnny squeeze his waist through his wet shirt and press a firm kiss behind his ear. He grips tighter, struggling to keep himself from slipping as Johnny’s hands move down his hips, the front of his shorts glued to his crotch, dripping rainwater all over the hinges of the baby-changing station. Mark’s gaze glues to the wall, unevenly flecked with mosquito grits, quite tame compared to the cartoon frozen in an eternal Barney smile —Koala Bear Kare, completely oblivious to the utter desecration about to go down right now. To all the mothers and their babies who use this later, I’m so fucking sorr—

“You’ve got so many bites on your ass, babe, holy shit,” Johnny chuckles, digging his nails in, making the crisscrossed indents he knew Mark liked. “-even the fucking bugs wanna piece of you, huh?”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Mark grits, silently reminding himself to never take a shit in the bush ever again, especially not eight kilometres into the trail (and right next to the fucking swamp too). He grimaces at his hips automatically jerking forwards when Johnny slips his hand down his waistband. His palm is just the right amount of roughness, worn from years of doing ropes in his crossfit regime. Warm too. “-wh-what if someone—

The twist of his wrist renders Mark’s voice to a choke, thumb grazing the slit, Johnny’s breath hot and heavy against Mark’s ear. 

“What if they do?”

“L-Lock the door.”

“What?” 

As if right on cue, a sudden barrage of banging sounded on the other side so violent it kicked up the bottom half of the pale green metal. It’s the cleaning lady. Fuck. 

“One minute!” Johnny shouts, then looks down at him, laughing. “-shit, I think we might’ve went in the wron— 

“Wh—

“Okay, hurry up, get this on,” And then Mark’s face gets swallowed up by layers upon layers of sweaty green darkness, warm and thick and mildly wet, Johnny’s hoodie going down to his knees. He tucks as much of his legs under the hoodie’s edge, just letting his ankles peek through. Johnny snorts, running a hand up his wet, muddy calves underneath. Squeezing his tensed knee. “What’s this? Are you really gonna pretend to be my baby? Really?”

“No,” Mark rolls his eyes, kneeing him gently in the waist, wincing. Right on the belt buckle, fuck. Another couple bangs rapping the door, the cleaning lady calling to get in. “-it’s my legs, you know —they’re like...”

“Like?”

“Like, you know. You know. Dude, you’re fucking feeling them now.”

“And? What’s wrong with ‘em?” He loves teasing him, he really does and Mark knows he knows what he means. He just wants Mark to say it. Because it’s funny. Because it makes him look funny. “-I’ve never had a problem with your legs, Mark. I love your legs. No, really, I do, I don’t know what you’re—

“-Girls don’t—” It’s as far as he goes before he stops himself. Because he knows it’s wrong, it’s not accurate —but at the same time, it is accurate because it’s life and what they’re expected to do, and he doesn’t— He sighs thinly. Grabs Johnny’s hand and slides it down the hairs on his shin, pressing it against them, pointedly. “-girls don’t have—” 

“-Legs like yours, I know they don’t. That’s why I,” He pulls free from Mark’s hand and slid his hand further up Mark’s leg, squeezing the skin of his hip. The roughness of his thumb, his palm’s dampness makes Mark shiver. He traces Mark’s hipbone back and forth with his middle finger, knowing what it was doing to him. “-never sleep on your lap. I’d break my damn neck, tryna sleep on these rocks. But legs aren’t for sleeping. So I get it.”

Banging continues even harder against the door. Now the lady’s really starting to sound agitated. She’d stopped using English and began talking rapidly in some Southeastern Asian language Mark now fails to recognize. Probably Malay or something.

“Don’t let her see my legs,” He mutters, pressing his face into Johnny’s damp chest as he’s hoisted up, legs still mostly tucked under the hoodie. Gripping the top of the hoodie and pulling it down as far as it would go. Good thing he shaved last night, fuck. Would’ve made it impossible otherwise. “-then she’ll know, she’ll definitely know.”

“And so what if she knows? Do you really think they care about this stuff?” Johnny snorts. Snakes his hand up Mark’s leg so he could squeeze his ass. Mark rolled his eyes again and bit down on his lip to keep from actually kicking him. “And I bet she totally heard us before this. She knows we’re fucking. Who’s to care that neither of us are female? That’s the least of her worries.”

“Don’t make me fucking talk when we’re out. I barely had any water this morning —I can’t do my voice like that.”

”Ohohohoho, never —never in my life would I imagine…”

And then in one smooth sweep, Johnny pushes through the door with one arm, other arm gripping Mark’s back diagonally, Mark hanging onto him like a fucking baby spidermonkey, face still turned into his chest, heart now pounding a mile a minute. He could taste bile. Suddenly the air’s a lot cooler. The lady had stopped talking. 

“Sorry, uh, my girlfriend was on her period,” He hears Johnny saying. So suave, so faux-sympathetic. Mark presses his face harder into his shirt, genuinely wanting to die. “She wasn’t feeling very good so she wanted me to stay with her. I don’t really know anything about periods, honestly. I was just, you know. Trying to help. Helping her get changed.”

Mark hears some rustling and then feels Johnny make a sound of surprise. It sounds like the lady gave him something. 

“For her,” The lady said. “-I don’t know what she use. Maybe pad?”

“Oh, thanks so much,” Johnny said, shoving the items into Mark’s sweaty hands, something flat and soft, something hard, small and tubey. The edge of the tubey one gets jammed into his fingernail and Mark fights to keep from fucking screaming. “-we just ran out in the tent. Gotta keep her nice and comfy, eh? You know if there’s a Sobeys nearby?”

When they get back in the car, Mark bursts out laughing, tears in his eyes. 

Not long after, Johnny’s reaching back into the open cooler. Pulling something out, then another, then hiding his arms behind his back. Panting.

“Hey. Pick an arm.”

…

“You don’t think I’m smarter than 100% water and 100% water…?!” Mark squints, tossing both bottles into the back moments later. They hit the seatback and roll off, knocking back into his ankles from under his own seat. He picks them back up and drops them onto his lap, all cold and dropletty, sighing. “Duuuude…!”

“I didn’t want you,” Johnny manages, just barely without laughing. Then he bursts out laughing for real. “-actually drinking piss, babe. I didn’t want you…slurping dick water…from a dick.”

“I wouldn’t have, anyways! I could figure it out…!” 

And then Johnny’s pulling them out of the campsite, only laughing harder when Mark slips a foot out of his sandals and tries to turn the wheel with his toes.