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They were sitting in Lacy’s streaming room, talking to chat about their life lately and upcoming events. Drew and Rocket sat in the background, laughing at random comments they happened to zone in on whilst scrolling through their phones.
“Chat we have a bunch of fun shit planned so be ready for that, Rug’s coming down next week and we’re doing a big collab later in the month,” Lacy boasted, rubbing his hands together as he leaned back in his chair.
Marlon’s sat beside him, hands fidgeting with a pen that was sitting on Lacy’s desk and reading through chat.
He kinda just watches him for a moment, watches the way that the afternoon sun beams off of his friends skin and the way that his usually brown eyes seem to look golden in the sunlight instead. He doesn’t notice at first when Marlon catches him staring.
“Yo, can I help you? Fuck you starin’ at me for?” The words come out intense but Marlon’s grinning as he says it.
Lacy looks away, smirks as he looks back at the monitor in front of him, “what, I can’t look at you anymore?”
“No, you can’t.”
It’s then that a familiar face walks in through the door behind them, originally having been talking to Bepsy but becoming distracted upon seeing the two men. School had just let out a few weeks back meaning that Mike was back to his weekly visits, and almost every day that he’s been at the house he’s spent most of his time in the pool. Lacy sees a towel draped around the boy's neck and realizes that today will be no different.
“Mike!” Marlon waves him over, to which the boy gladly listens with a grin on his face. The blonde offers out his hand for a dap, and Mike takes it with little hesitation, “ay how you been Mike, how was school?”
“I’ve been good, and school was fun,” Mike shrugs. Marlon nods, and Lacy almost laughs out loud at the man’s expression, like Mike just said the most interesting thing in the world.
“That’s good, that’s good, you paid attention? You wasn’t messin around or nothin’?”
Mike shakes his head, “No I paid attention, I got good grades all year,” he smiles proudly about his achievements, Marlon pats him on the shoulder.
“Good job bud, what are you up to now? You goin’ to the pool?” he gestures to the towel still draped around the boy’s shoulder, to which Mike nods.
“Yeah, can you and Lacy come swim?” The boy looks between the two men, who are looking at each other as if looking for confirmation from the other.
“Of course Mike we’d love to!” Lacy says finally, he looks over at Marlon who’s already looking at him with an expression Lacy can’t quite read on his face. He looks away upon making eye contact.
They stand up, following Mike out to the pool with Drew following behind with the camera. No one else is outside, just the four of them, Mike immediately runs and jumps into the shallow end of the pool with a giddy laugh.
Lacy snickers at his antics as he pulls out his phone, “guys can we get a W Mike in the chat?” He watches as the message fills his chatbox, setting his phone down on a nearby table after a moment.
He goes to step out of his sweatpants, but stops right as he places his hands on the waist band. He can’t help the way that his gaze latches on to Marlon as he pulls off his shirt, the way that the muscles on his back contort with every movement of his arms. When it's off he looks at the camera, shrugs his shoulders and looks off to the side; obviously clip farming but Lacy stares anyway.
It takes him a moment to realize he’s staring, and when he does his face morphs into a grimace, mock disgust apparent on his face.
Marlon looks over at him, sees the expression on his face and shakes his head with a smile, “alright bro, my bad, my bad.”
“You’re actually weird bro,” Lacy says, he turns around, not wanting to catch himself staring again. So instead he steps out of his sweatpants, grabbing the piece of clothing from the floor and placing them beside his phone–which he picks up and begins looking at chat.
Lacy’s gay, Why’s he staring at him like that lmao, GAYY, Lacy staring, he immediately puts down his phone, “chat I’m not gay, like bro, I can’t look at my friends anymore?” And he means that. He wasn’t looking at him in that way, obviously, he was just appreciating the effort, simple as that.
“Yeah chat stop bein’ weird,” Marlon pipes up, he doesn’t look at the camera, just continues scrolling idly through his phone.
“Alright, you ready?” Lacy asks, he doesn’t really wait for a response before he’s walking over to the edge of the pool and jumping in. Marlon jumps in after him, and they both swim over to Mike who’s been patiently waiting for the two men, occupying himself with a small beach ball.
Lacy takes notice of the floaties wrapped tightly around the boy's arms, “Mike do you know how to swim?”
Mike shakes his head.
“Do you want us to teach you?”
A small smile appears on the boy's face, he nods.
-
They end up swimming laps in the pool, teaching Mike how to do breaststrokes and simply trying to get him to stay above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. They’d go back and forth, demonstrating the techniques while holding him up as they moved through the water. They praised Mike’s effort, watching as slowly but surely the boy began staying above the water for larger amounts of time.
It’s when they’re getting out of the pool that it hits.
-
It’d been almost 30 minutes of them teaching Mike how to swim, forgetting completely about the stream and the camera pointed directly at them the entire time, in which they had just remembered was there.
Marlon was getting out of the pool, running his hand through his hair and rolling his shoulders back–obviously looking to be edited by their viewers–and right as he was about to step out Lacy grabbed him from behind and threw him back in. Lacy couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face when he heard Mike laugh loudly from the pool, clearly very entertained by the two streamers.
Quickly Lacy rushed out of the pool, afraid that Marlon would try and get him back, and walked over to the table to grab his phone. He opened twitch, looking again at his chat but was stunned to see the messages that sped rapidly on his screen. W dads, W gay dads, W couple, and so on.
He shook his head, thoughts immediately racing to denial. They were just teaching Mike how to swim, it was a fun stream segment was all it was, nothing more.
And yet when he looks up to see Marlon stepping out of the pool with Mike on his shoulders, he begins to second guess. Because he sees the wide grin on Marlon's face with Mike laughing hysterically above him and thinks that maybe he could get used to seeing this all the time. It's the way that his lips immediately curve up into a smile at the two, the way that Marlon’s looking at him and he doesn’t know if he’s seeing things or not.
It’s the way that Marlon picks Mike up from off his shoulders with ease and offers him a fist bump, the way that he pats him on the shoulder with an affectionate smile before walking over to where Lacy is, it’s then that Lacy realizes then that they really are acting like a family.
He also realizes at that moment that he doesn’t hate the idea of having a family with Marlon.
What?
“Alright I’m gonna go change,” he doesn’t say it towards anyone specifically, just swiftly grabs his sweatpants as he turns to walk away, “Mar talk to stream.”
“Wait, you're not gonna dry off?” Drew calls after him, and he hears Marlon say something as well but he doesn’t catch it, too busy fleeing from his feelings as he speed walks to his bedroom. If anyone tried talking to him along the way he didn’t notice.
He runs quickly into his bathroom, locking the door behind him and leaning heavily against it. He breathes stiffly, running a shaking hand through his hair.
He doesn’t have a problem with gay people, but he isn’t gay.
(Which is why he’s cowering in his bathroom)
And he’d never been super religious, not when he was young and not now. His parents weren’t super religious people, he hadn’t gone to church much as a kid, but he’d heard more times than not of homosexuality being wrong. He doesn’t think he abides by that, sure he makes jokes but he doesn’t have a problem with them. With that.
(With himself)
And he makes gay jokes, they all do, but that’s all they ever are.
(Jokes to bury the truth)
And if one of his friends were to come out as gay he’d congratulate him and go on about his day.
(Loathe his ability to be true to himself)
But he stands there, wet clothing sticking to his body as he shivers and his teeth chatter–looking begrudgingly at his reflection in the mirror. He thinks about his best friend, water running down his toned chest and a bright smile that never fails to make the corners of his own lips turn upward even if only slightly. The light touches and small acts of service–like taking the shorter man's microphone off and putting it on, his knuckles grazing his skin–and jokes that they seemed only to over-do when they were around each other.
Then he thinks about every time they’d gone to a party together, about how no matter how many people they talked to they had always wound up finding the other within the crowd. About how every time he tapped the other man's shoulder and he’d turn around to see the shorter man there, he’d simply deflate. Like all of his worries had been drained from him within the blink of an eye, and Lacy had always thought that maybe it was because he was finally seeing a familiar face within a sea of strangers.
And no matter how many different moments Lacy happened to think back on, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that what he was feeling was real. That it was too sudden and maybe he’s just letting chat get into his head. But he also thinks that maybe this feeling had always been there, lurking in the back of his mind, he’d just finally recognized that it was.
But even if he tried to come to terms with it, what would he say to the man that had caused them?
It’s then that he realises the tears welling up in his eyes, the breath being held. He lets it out, slowly, looks up at his reflection again. His curls hung loosely over his forehead, small drops of water falling from them and landing at his feet. The temperature of his bathroom was overly low at this point, causing goosebumps to form all across his body. And he brings his hands up to rub idly at his bare arms.
His eyes and nose are a pinkish color, and he hadn’t noticed when he’d begun biting at his finger nails.
I’m a fucking mess
Suddenly there’s a knock at the door, and he jumps away when he feels the pressure against his back. A familiar voice calls from the other side.
“-ace, Lace! Are you good?” Marlon calls, Lacy can hear the worry in his tone.
He calls back, “I’m fine! Just got a little preoccupied,” he looks at himself in the mirror again, runs a tired hand down his face and wrings them out at his sides. He brings the towel up and scrubs quickly at his scalp to dry his hair before shaking his head to get himself back into character for the cameras.
He finally opens the door, immediately catching onto the cameras in Drew's hands, who’s standing beside Marlon; sat on his bed.
They both look at him, like they’re expecting him to say something. He looks at them as well, gives them a weird look, “can I help you guys? A guy can’t use the bathroom?”
Marlon shakes his head, like he’d just returned from zoning out, “no- I mean yeah, that’s my bad, you’re good, right Drew?”
“Right, yeah.”
“You guys are actually weird,” Lacy says, turning to go into his closet.
While he’s rummaging through his clothing, Marlon comes and leans against the doorframe, crosses his arms as he watches the shorter man grab a black t-shirt hanging limply on the rack, “you were up here for a solid 20 minutes, doing nothing but sitting in the bathroom. Are you sure you’re good?”
Lacy looks at him, and proceeds to look behind him to see if Drew’s there, only to see the brunette sitting on his bed with the camera in his lap, scrolling absent-mindedly on his phone.
“Don’t worry about the stream, I’m focused on you.”
“I’m fine Mar, honestly,” the taller one only looks at him as if expecting more to come from his mouth, Lacy sighs, “I was just thinking about future shit, got distracted,” he shrugs as he turns around, “can chat see me?”
“Nah it’s on Drew right now.”
With that Lacy pulls his shirt off, hastily moving to put the new shirt on before turning around and grabbing his balenciaga hoodie from off the rack.
He doesn’t notice the way that Marlon’s gaze stays on him the entire time.
Lacy remembers then that his boxers are still sopping wet, so he grabs a new pair as well as a pair of sweatpants that match the color of his hoodie before going into the bathroom again.
-
They continued streaming after that, pretending like nothing had happened–more Lacy if anything–yet he hadn’t missed the way that Marlon had begun watching him, maybe too closely afterwards. Almost as if he knew something was amiss with the shorter of the two, watching to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.
-
It was almost midnight when they ended the stream, sitting on the couch near the kitchen after another failed attempt at baking. They could smell the cookies they’d accidentally burnt in the trash can.
“Alright I’ll see you tomorrow Lacy, and Marlon I’ll see you whenever,” Drew said, waving a hand as he turned and walked away. The two men waved him goodbye, thanking him for his services as they watched him go.
With all of the Faze Boys being out of the house, and now Drew as well, it was just them within the multimillion dollar mansion. And Lacy would be lying if he said that he and Marlon by themselves like this didn’t scare him. For once he just wanted Marlon to dap him up and get out, how was he supposed to act around his best friend whom he’d just realized he had feelings for? Idea: you don’t.
A hand waves in front of his face, he snaps his head to look at the culprit, “what?”
“You’ve been acting mad weird all day, since we got out of the pool, what’s up with you?” Marlon questions, and he sets his phone down, giving the black-haired man beside him his full attention.
Lacy huffs an annoyed breath from his nose, eyes darting to an area behind Marlon, “I’m fine, I don’t know why you keep asking.” And he tries not to look nervous, to not look like he’s keeping the largest secret ever, but when he sinks back into the couch and begins twirling his curls between his fingers he knows he’s failed miserably.
When he looks up at Marlon again he’s got an unbelieving look on his face, “tell me what’s going on.”
Lacy brings his hands into his lap, looks at Marlon for a long moment.
“I can’t tell you,” he mutters, it comes out so quiet that it almost goes unheard, but Marlon hears it anyway.
“Why not?”
Lacy only shakes his head, realizing that maybe it's best that he stays quiet all together–afraid that if he says the wrong thing he’ll lose one of the most important people in his life. So he simply says, “Nah it’s not important nevermind.”
“So why can’t you tell me if it’s not important?” And Lacy hates the fact that Marlon knows him as well as he does, knows that he can try as hard as he can to avoid it but in the end he’ll slip, he’s just preparing for it.
“I don’t wanna waste your time, I know you’re tryna go home and shit,” At this point he was making excuses, trying to salvage whatever lie he’d had to circumvent the truth.
“I have time.”
Lacy detests the way Marlon looks at him then, like he’ll really sit there all night until Lacy admits what’s been bothering him, and he knows he will. So he looks away from his intense stare, and tries to muster up a lie.
He comes up with, “I have that really big stream coming up soon, the one with Angel Reese? I don’t know, I guess I just want to make a good impression.” He clasps his hands together, looking over at his best friend.
Yet instead of responding, Marlon stares at him and watches his face for a moment, “since when do you care this much about what other people think of you?”
“Well I mean, she’s on a generational run right now, what if people have something to say about her collaborating with me?”
“And since when do you care about what people on the internet have to say about you?”
“Since I decided to invite Angel Reese over for a stream,” Lacy silently curses himself for the disapproving look he receives.
“I call bullshit.”
“What?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth!” Lacy exclaims, hands coming up in offense. And yet despite his statement Marlon only continues to look at him.
Maybe he wasn’t as good of a liar as he’d thought.
After a moment Marlon looks away, he sighs as his head falls and he shakes his head in disappointment right before standing up. Lacy only watches, confused by the sudden switch yet oddly curious. He also notices how tense the air suddenly feels. It had been building all day, he’d been paying attention to it, but now it felt like a pressure that was holding him back, stopping him from spilling his guts right then and there.
“Alright then, if you not tryna talk that’s fine, just know I’m here if you need me yeah?” His voice is soft when he says it, like he’s trying to urge a wounded animal out of its den, and Lacy hates how it's working. But nonetheless he holds back, knows that this is most likely more important than whatever Marlon thinks it is. So, he simply nods his head.
“You heading out?” He replies.
“Yeah,” Marlon scoffs, pockets his phone, “I’ll see you Lace.”
And Lacy thinks everything’s set and done, that Marlon will go home and these feelings will disappear by the morning. That the next time he sees Marlon he won’t be thinking about living the rest of his life with him or what it would be like to wake up by his side every morning, that they’ll just be back to normal.
(Normal)
But as Marlon begins walking away, Lacy has the odd feeling that he’s taking his heart with him. That if he doesn’t get it off his chest now it’ll reside there forever, eat away at him until it’s devoured him whole.
“Wait Mar,” he blurted before he could even think of what to say next. Marlon hums as he turns around to look at Lacy, still sitting on the couch but now his leg is bouncing sporadically. Lacy only looks at him for a moment, teetering on the edge of not saying anything at all, yet at the last moment he pulls himself back, “you wanna know what’s been bothering me all day?”
“Is that not what I was just asking for?” he responds.
Lacy chuckles at that, a dry broken laugh as he looks down at his hands again. He’s picking at the skin around his nails idly, and when he notices he decides to instead squeeze his hands together, “uh, well.”
The words don’t come out, not just yet. And as he’s lulling over it still Marlon walks back over, sits beside him and places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. His breath stops in his throat at the way that his touch seems to burn him, even from under two layers of clothing.
“You.” He says it so silently that not even Marlon hears it, a ghost of a whisper.
“What?”
“You.” It’s louder this time, still quiet, but Marlon hears it now.
“Me? What do you mean?” Marlon questions, and Lacy feels the way in which he squeezes his shoulder the smallest amount, like he's asking for him to continue.
He clears his throat, “I just, uh, realized some things today,” and when he looks up to see Marlon still watching him, silently, he continues, “you know how chat was spamming all that shit? When we were teaching Mike how to swim?”
Marlon nods, his eyebrows furrow in confusion, “were they making you uncomfortable?”
“No, no,” Lacy glances at Marlon, biting at his lip nervously, “the opposite.”
It’s quiet for a moment, and then Marlon’s speaking again, “what are you trying to say Lace?”
“I guess,” he swallows, taking a deep breath before sinking back into the couch, “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I hated the idea of…us, as much as I wanted to. I saw you with Mike today and it made me think about a future that I know I can’t have, that I like you more than I should.” He’s looking away from Marlon at this point, eyes focused on an unfinished water bottle a few feet away from him, and his voice shakes as he begins speaking again, “and I thought that maybe I was just letting chat get into my head, but I think I just didn’t want to admit it. This is the first time I am.” His voice cracks at the end and he brings a hand up to cover his mouth.
He expects to feel the weight beside him lighten, that Marlon will walk away cursing his name as he goes.
Instead he hears Marlon from beside him, his voice soft, “Lace, look at me.”
He hesitates, mind going through a plethora of ways that this could go; a slap to the face, a spilling of angry words, or maybe he will walk away and he just wants Lacy to watch him go. Maybe to make him reflect on the friendship he’s just ruined.
But when he turns around it's none of that, simply brown eyes staring right back into his. Marlon's expression is gentle, and he notices the watery line of a tear that’s fallen from one of Marlon's eyes.
“...Mar?”
He watches as Marlon's lips turn into the smallest smile, “You don’t understand how happy I am to hear that.” He chuckles at Lacy’s expression, whose eyebrows are now furrowed and Marlon thinks that the younger has never looked so confused in his life, “Fuck I’ve liked you for so long.”
“You have?”
“ ‘Course I have,” he says it like it's the most obvious thing ever, and he brings a hand up to rest on the side of Lacy’s neck, his eyes roam over every feature of Lacy’s face, “it was always you.”
“Mar please don’t lie to me, please tell me you’re not joking.”
“I’m not, I’m not, damn it Lace, why would I lie to you about this?”
“I mean, what about-”
Marlon shakes his head, “I never liked any of them. I hoped I would, yeah, but only to get my mind away from you. Until I met you I’d always thought I liked women, and even after I tried to get myself to believe that I did, but deep down I knew it was you.”
Lacy stares at him, dumbfounded. Marlon’s other hand has found itself on the other side of Lacy’s neck, and the younger finds himself bringing his hands up to rest on Marlon’s larger ones, “You mean that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” and he seems genuinely confused by the question.
Neither of the men say anything for a moment, rather they bask in the moment of their new found connection instead. Time seems to slow around them, and for Lacy all together when he notices the area in which Marlon's gaze has fallen. His lips.
All it takes is for Marlon to look up again, to see Lacy watching him steadily for them to fall into each other. Neither know who leans in at first all they know is that they have, and it's tentative at first, shy and almost fearful questions wrap their true desire.
It's slow, a quick peck before they both pull away. And yet when their eyes meet again it’s like those questions have been answered within that simple, quick kiss. Like they’ve lit a firework and are now in the area before it blows up, and the colors paint an image in the night. They can see those first few sparks within their irises, and when their lips connect for a second time the firework sets off.
Marlon’s hands are still resting on the sides of Lacy’s neck, but one hand slides up to cusp the side of his face. They tilt their heads to avoid bumping noses and Lacy’s hands fall to grasp at the front of Marlon's shirt.
This kiss isn’t as delicate as the first, no, this one is filled with unbridled emotion. Feelings that had washed over the sand in waves upon waves, yet had not once reached far enough to reach the line of where everyone had set their umbrellas up at the beach. And now finally, on a day where a storm had begun to brew unbeknownst to the people on their vacations, the water had crept up.
Yet this kiss isn’t harsh either, nor lustful, it’s simply a bond of glue that’s finally dried on an art project, one that can finally be looked at with pride in its completion. A flower garden that was planted on the last frost and bloomed in the spring, the delicate color vibrant in the afternoon sun.
When they finally pull apart, breathing heavier than before, they rest their foreheads together. Marlon rubs a gentle thumb over Lacy’s cheek, and Lacy’s originally tight grasp on Marlon’s shirt loosens.
“Come back to mine, stay the night?”
Lacy snickers softly, but he nods nonetheless.
-
If the two check everyone's stream to make sure they’re all still at the party and not outside or on their way home, that’s only for them to know. And if they leave the house trying to look as casual as possible, sneaking around to avoid being seen, that’s only for them to know. If anyone did, they never knew nor were told.
And when Lacy shows back up to the house the next day in a hoodie that’s not his, early in the afternoon. Some ask questions, but Lacy doesn’t answer. So people have their suspicions, but that’s they’ll ever be, until a time comes when they can admit what they share. But that time isn’t now, and until that time comes they’ll continue to sneak around and stream together more often than not. Until that time comes they’ll hold their false provado, and allow it to crumble behind closed doors. Until then, but not now.