Chapter Text
The pitch happened on a Tuesday morning over Anthony's peanut butter-based breakfast.
"I have a vision," Anthony announced, kicking the kitchen island stool out with his sneaker and dropping onto it backwards. He rested his chin on the wood backrest, eyes wide with the specific, manic gleam that usually preceded property damage or a five-figure video budget.
Coy didn't look up from his mug. "No."
"You haven't even heard it."
"The last time you said you had a vision, Will had to explain why a foam finger was on the ceiling."
"That was a mechanical failure," Anthony said dismissively, waving a hand. "This is purely demographic. Market research. Cultural commentary."
"He's going to propose something awful," Hanbon said from the stove, where she was carefully not burning eggs. "Will, put twenty bucks on the counter."
Will, slumped on the sofa in the living room with a pair of AirPods, didn't even turn his head. "Maybe I already put forty down when Anthony opened the notes app."
"Listen to the premise," Anthony pressed, leaning across the counter until his face was exactly fourteen inches from Coy's. He smelled like spearmint gum and the citrus body wash he'd stolen from Coy's shower two weeks ago. "Our engagement graph peaks every time we stand within breathing distance of each other. The comment section consists of, like, seventy percent people making slow-motion edits set to Mitski songs. We are leaving algorithmic money on the table."
Coy took a slow, deliberate sip of black coffee. "Get to the point, man."
"Three days of couples vlog."
The kitchen went so quiet you could hear the home appliance buzzing.
Hanbon turned around with the spatula held mid-air. Will slowly lowered his phone.
Coy blinked. Once. Twice. "I'm sorry. The what?"
"Seventy-two hours," Anthony repeated, grinning now, fully committed to the bit. "We rent a cabin in upstate New York for the weekend. We shoot it like a legitimate, unironic couples travel vlog. Matching thrifted sweaters. Holding hands in the grocery store. The whole 'boyfriend buys my outfits' and 'making breakfast for my man' cinematic universe. We upload it on Friday with zero context, no disclaimer, just straight-faced couple content."
"And then?" Coy asked, voice dangerously flat.
"And then we let the internet burn to the ground for five days," Anthony said, his eyes practically sparkling. "And then on Wednesday, we drop the behind-the-scenes blooper reel where we reveal it was just a massive bit. Two million views. Guaranteed."
Coy looked at Hanbon. "Tell him he's insane."
"I mean," Hanbon said thoughtfully, tapping it against her chin, "financially speaking, it's brilliant. The analytics would actually melt."
"You're supposed to be the sensible one" Coy protested, throwing his hands up. "Will! Back me up here!"
"I think you should kiss him on the mouth for the fans," Will saidf from the couch.
"Nobody is kissing anyone" Coy snapped, feeling heat crawling up the back of his neck, furious that his pulse had jumped at the word. "Anthony, this is a TERRIBLE idea. We're not actors. We look like we have some tea going on between us on a good day. How're we supposed to convince two million people we're dating?"
Anthony didn't flinch/react. Instead, he reached out accross the room, caught Coy's wrist, and pulled.
And he pulled just enough to throw Coy off balance, forcing him to catch himself with one hand against the counter. In a single fluid motion, Anthony slid his fingers down Coy's palm, laced their fingers together, and brought Coy's knuckles up to his cheek, resting his face against the back of Coy's hand. But maybe it only went this smooth in his head.
His skin was warm. His thumb did a tiny, absent-minded stroke across Coy's index finger.
Anthony looked up at him through his eyelashes, completely deadpan. "Good morning, darling. Did you sleep well?"
Coy's brain just immediately blue-screened.
Every single cognitive process in his head reducted to an instantaneous, screeching halt. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. The air in his lungs vanished.
From the stove, Hanbon dropped her thing directly onto the floor with a loud clatter.
"Oh," Hanbon said or whispered, something inbetween. "Oh, we're doing this.", she repeated
Anthony let go of Coy's hand with a triumphant laugh, kicking off the stool and spinning toward the hallway. "Pack your bags, Piso! We leave at 2!"
Coy stayed frozen against the kitchen island, staring down at his right hand like it belonged to a completely different human being.
◇◇
The Target off the highway was under aggressive fluorescent lighting.
"Rule number 1:," Anthony said, pushing the red shopping cart with one hand while holding a vlog camera in the other. He had the wide-angle lens on, the red recording tally light glowing bright against the plastic casing. "Full immersion. If any of us break character before Sunday evening, we'll have to eat a raw onion on main channel."
"I partially hate onions, that feels homophobic" Coy muttered, walking beside the cart with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his corduroy jacket.
"Then you better start looking at me like I hung the moon, babe."
Anthony swung the camera up, framing both of them in the poor-quality screen. "What's up, guys. We're currently getting supplies for the cabin. Coy is being shy because he woke up twenty minutes ago, but look at him."
Before Coy could react, Anthony's arm hooked around his shoulders, hauling him in close until Coy's temple bumped against Anthony's cheekbone.
"Look at this face," Anthony crooned to the lens, using his free hand to ruffle Coy's little twink hair with alarming familiarity. "Tell me in the comments if his hair looks like a bird's nest today. Until the end of this video, we may kiss, for retention, obviously!"
"Stop it," Coy mumbled, ducking his head to hide the inevitable flush creeping up his collarbones, but the camera caught his involuntary smile before he could kill it.
"He loves it," Anthony reframed himself and told the camera with unshakeable confidence. "He's obsessed with me."
They made it to the produce aisle. That was where the real test started and boy, was Coy anxious again.
Coy reached for a bag of apples. As almost all of his fingers closed around the plastic, Anthony appeared at his elbow, stepping so close his chest brushed Coy's shoulder. Without even glancing at the lens, Anthony took the bag from Coy's fingers and tossed it into the cart, his other hand sliding right into Coy's back pocket, resting there warm and heavy through the denim.
Coy went rigid.
"We need coffee," Anthony said, his tone completely light and conversational, as if his hand weren't resting against Coy's hip like the most random yet intentional act ever.
"Ant. Anthony" Coy whispered through his teeth, eyes darting to an elderly woman inspecting celery four feet away.
"What?" Anthony turned, looking genuinely puzzled. "Couples touch each other in grocery stores, Coy. Relax. You look like a hostage."
"Your hand is in my pocket!"
"It's cold in here," Anthony pointed out, squeezing his fingers lightly against the seam of the pocket. "Your pocket is warm. It's practical."
"You're doing this on purpose."
"I am a method actor dedicated to the craft," Anthony declared, looking directly into the camera lens with theatrical sincerity. "My boyfriend thinks I lack artistic discipline. Tell him in the comments that I am a visionary."
"Yeah... or you're a menace," Coy groaned, but when Anthony grabbed his hand again in the snack aisle to debate the merits of white cheddar popcorn, Coy didn't pull away. He could get used to that.
◇◇
The cabin was three miles up a gravel road surrounded by hemlocks and pitch-black mountain silence.
It had high wooden beam ceilings, a wood-burning fireplace that smelled faintly of birch ash, a wall of glass looking out into the misty valley—and, as Coy discovered the second he opened the bedroom door, exactly one king-sized bed covered in a thick grey knit duvet and four oversized down pillows.
Coy stopped in the doorway. "Anthony."
Anthony came up behind him, carrying their two duffel bags. He peered over Coy's shoulder into the room. "Nice. Good lighting."
"There is one bed."
"Yeah. It's a couples vlog, Coy. What did you expect, twin cots like an army barracks?"
"We could have put an air mattress in the living room"
Defeated but not surrendered, Anthony dropped the bags onto the cedar floor with a dull thud and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest, he was fighting for this. "Coy. We've crashed on random floors and shared whatever furniture the shoot handed us. Why're you acting like sharing an eight-hundred-dollar pillow-top mattress is a war crime?"
Because when we were crashing on random couches back in the day, I hadn't spent almost two years wondering what your hands would feel like against my ribs and..., Coy thought, with such brutal clarity that his teeth ached.
"I'm not," Coy said aloud, swallowing hard. "I just... you kick in your sleep. That's all."
"I do not kick," Anthony protested, already kicking off his shoes and flopping face-down onto the duvet with a dramatic groan of satisfaction. "I am a gentle, angelic sleeper. Come test the pillows, they're like clouds."
Coy stood by the door for three seconds, listening to the wind hit the cabin windows.
Outside, the darkness was absolute very quickly. Inside, the cabin was warm, the amber lamps casting long, soft shadows across the wood floor, and Anthony was lying in the center of the bed, patting the empty space beside him with an easy, careless grin.
Coy set his backpack on the dresser, took off his shoes, and walked over to the bed.
"This is just for seventy-two hours," Coy warned, climbing under the edge of the duvet on his side.
Anthony rolled onto his side, propping his head on one hand, his blue eyes gleaming in the lamplight. He reached over, set the small vlog camera on the bedside table with the lens pointed directly at them, and pressed record, the camera was being charged as well.
"Seventy-two hours," Anthony agreed softly, his voice dropping into that quiet, intimate register that never made it into the public edits. "Let's see who breaks first."