Work Text:
THEN
"Do you only know hot people?" Mark asked, leaned in close so Jaehyun couldn't overhear. Not that Jaehyun didn't field an average of ten compliments a day, many of them from perfect strangers. Probably he would thank Mark for holding up his end of the Jaehyun Jung social contract.
Johnny laughed into his ice water and cut Mark a glance that lingered on everything he could see above the restaurant table. Skinny arms, wide shoulders, an artful mop of hair grazing his eyelashes. He'd worn contacts today, and his unadorned cheekbones could cut glass. "Yes," he said meaningfully, and waited for Mark to catch on.
When he did, he whacked Johnny's shoulder. "Dude. Don't try your lines on me, okay, I'm impervious."
"Are you?" He let himself have more fun, leaning into the undercurrent of tension between him and Mark—and what they were going to get up to back at Johnny's apartment later—and pulling his lower lip between his teeth.
Even though Jaehyun was watching this, temaki hovering in a hand halfway to his mouth, Johnny couldn't have stopped himself if he tried. It was surprising how easy it was to be like this with Mark around his friends. He'd expected to feel weird about the whole thing, maybe around Jaehyun if not Ten. He'd been one way to them for so long, and now he was demonstrably different. But Johnny felt good, like he was tipsy despite not having ordered any booze.
"That's too bad," Johnny continued, smirking.
"Oh my God," Mark said, but he laughed.
Ten slid back into his seat, his multicolored dress shirt free of wasabi now, thanks to the Tide Pen he kept in his bag at all times. He frowned when he saw Jaehyun had sampled his sashimi, and Jaehyun raised his eyebrows sheepishly. Like Ten wouldn't have given him half of whatever he ordered anyway.
"Are you two being cute? Did I miss it?" Ten asked.
"Mark's being cute," Jaehyun said, pinching the hand roll tighter and preparing to shove it into his mouth in one go. "Johnny's being gross."
"Excuse me," Johnny protested. "I once third-wheeled a date where you and your girl kept giving each other nose kisses. I've earned this."
Jaehyun, mouth stuffed, rolled his eyes, but Ten cocked his head. He looked at Mark, looked at Johnny, and deepened his smile. "Yeah, I guess you have."
---
NOW
The day is mild for December in Vancouver, or so Johnny gathers. At the airport, he changed out of his plane clothes and into a light turtleneck and jeans. When he steps out of the rental car he navigated to Mark's suburb, a gentle breeze makes him shiver.
The house is nice, gleaming white in the muted winter sun and half-hidden by bushes and one very large maple tree bare of leaves. He's parked in front of the garage and hopes that won't be a problem later, but there's no cars parked on the street that he can see and he doesn't want to get towed his first night in Canada.
Johnny pops the trunk and wrestles his carry-on out first. His hands are shaking, he notes. Fuck, he's nervous. He hasn't been nervous like this since his first day at the shitty corporate job he ended up quitting. Johnny isn't an anxious person by nature, but the idea of meeting Mark's parents as his boyfriend has him wrong-footed and rehearsing basic greetings in his head. Parents love Johnny; he's still Facebook friends with an ex-girlfriend's mom, for God's sake. He's got this, so long as he stops letting nerves stand in his way.
He's leaning over to retrieve his suitcase when he hears a door slam. Johnny backs out so fast he nearly clips his head on the open trunk, and when he looks toward the front door, Mark is full-tilt running at Johnny, wearing shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. Johnny's nerves abandon him; all he can see is Mark, and all he can do is laugh.
"Holy shit," he says, when Mark's a foot from him, hair bouncing with each eager stride, and he opens his arms wide.
Mark throws himself into Johnny's embrace, and the momentum is enough to leave Johnny shocked and winded. On instinct, he wraps Mark up tight, squeezing his ribcage, but Mark won't stay still. He climbs him, wrapping all four limbs around Johnny like an affectionate octopus. He doesn't weigh a lot, so Johnny barely stumbles to accommodate him and then plants himself like the tree in Mark's yard. Johnny hoists him up higher and closer and secures him with one arm supporting Mark's thigh and another at his waist.
"You're here," he breathes against Johnny's neck, and Johnny buries his nose in Mark's freshly washed hair. The smell of him is a headrush, let alone how good he feels. "You're really here."
"Yeah, bud," Johnny says.
He has no idea how long they stand there, Mark trembling in Johnny's arms, Johnny closing his eyes and letting relief and happiness build. It hasn't been an easy few months, figuring things out, making plans, saving money, having halting conversations that hint to the future, but he's here now. He can meet Mark's parents, see Mark in his natural habitat, and they can work out what comes next in person instead of over text.
"You gonna climb down so I can meet your parents, baby?" Johnny asks, and the teasing note he's going for is subsumed entirely by how hoarse his voice is.
He's not built for long-distance; he knew it heading into this, and it was a huge part of the reason why he debated telling Mark about his feelings for so long—setting aside the whole sexuality crisis he had to boot. He wants a partner to go on adventures with, bike rides and scoping out new coffee shops and packing his weekends with food and sex and domestic shit. He can't have that with Mark more than once every few months. The rest of the time it feels like he's going on dates with his phone, taking pictures of places he wants to show him, sending voice memos about his day, trying to envision Mark next to him. Trying to will Mark into his bed. It sucks, sometimes, and there's no getting around that.
But now, despite the miscommunication and loneliness and frustration, he knows he couldn't trade it. Even if it means he's got to walk inside of Mark's childhood home and tell his parents he's the man dating their youngest child, a whole can of worms in itself even if they're already aware, and that he's got a hotel room (technically, a suite) for the week starting tomorrow.
"They can deal with waiting a few minutes," Mark mumbles, but he raises his head. His eyes are wide, his lips chapped, and he studies Johnny's face like he's never seen him before. After a beat, though, his eyebrows furrow, and he sniffs. "Okay, uh, my thigh is going numb, maybe you should let me down."
Johnny does, and Mark lands on his two feet with middling grace. He keeps an arm secure around Johnny's middle, though.
"You need any help with your bags?" he asks.
"Nah, just unhand me for a second and I'll get the suitcase."
Reluctantly, Mark steps back, and Johnny unloads the suitcase in a burst of show-off strength, though it tweaks his shoulder a little to do it. He packed… a lot of outfits. And shoes. He's prepared for any sartorial occasion. He drew the line at bringing his suit, mostly because he'd have to get it dry-cleaned if it wrinkled during travel.
Johnny closes the trunk and smiles when he sees Mark's holding on to the handle of his rolling carry-on.
"Lead the way," Johnny says, and is disappointed Mark's ass is not really discernible in his oversized shorts.
As they approach the house, some of Johnny's apprehension comes back. Mark has told him almost every detail of the painstaking process of coming out to his family—first his mom, then his dad and older brother—and telling them he's dating a guy in Chicago. He knows Mark's mom feels terrible for her initial reaction, that she's doing her best to accept and love her kid unconditionally, and that Mark's brother literally didn't care. Mark's dad, though, was a harder sell. It's been a journey Mark mostly had to make alone, and now Johnny's here to share some of that burden.
Johnny feels guilty sometimes that his mother squinted at him, asked him if he was sure, and demanded to know when she could meet his boyfriend. His father, when Johnny finally mustered the courage to approach him weeks later, after Mark's visit, merely patted him on the shoulder, his usual quiet support of Johnny's choices unwavering.
Mark opens the front door and yells "Ma, Johnny's here," and Johnny is careful to pick his suitcase up so he doesn't drag airport and outdoors grime all over their very clean entryway. Mark has no such compunction, dragging the carry-on through what feels like half the house with Johnny at his heels, stopping only once to literally kick off his sandals and slip on house shoes while Johnny takes longer to remove his sneakers.
Johnny sees a petite woman, looking shockingly young and wearing a sweater and jeans, poke her head around a corner. Johnny recognizes so much Mark in her, from the curious tilt of her eyebrows to her small mouth, it's unsettling. "Hi!" She comes forward with a tiny hand outstretched. "It's so good to finally meet you."
"Hi, Mrs. Lee." Johnny sighs internally and sets his suitcase down so he can shake her hand. "Thank you so much for having me." Her soft hand is swallowed by his, and Johnny feels the sort of intimidation others claim to experience around his own mother, though Mrs. Lee is physically the furthest thing from threatening he can imagine. It's Mom Power. It's daunting.
"Oh, goodness, you're even taller than I thought," she says, sounding delighted.
"I get that a lot," Johnny says, hoping for rueful instead of smug. His social compass has abandoned him. All he knows is that Mark is glancing between them with a worried, hopeful expression. "Your home is—"
"Is Dad in the garden?" Mark asks, interrupting Johnny's attempt at charm.
"Yeah, he's puttering around out back." In December? Well, Johnny thinks, everyone's got to have hobbies.
"I'mma go get him."
Mrs. Lee puts a hand out and gently rests it on her son's arm. "Worry about Dad later, hey? Johnny just got here."
Mark sighs and nods. Johnny tries not to loom awkwardly, but it comes with the territory.
"Johnny," Mrs. Lee says, turning back to him and smiling kindly, in a way that lets Johnny know everyone is in on the tension. "Would you like something to drink? We've got iced tea, hot tea, water, sparkling water, diet Coke—"
"Ma, we aren't a restaurant. Plus, Johnny needs to put his stuff away." He rolls the carry-on back and forth across the floor in demonstration, and Johnny can't help the chuff of a laugh he gives. Mark blinks at him in confusion but smiles back. "Come on, I'll show you my room, then Mom can ply you with drinks."
Mark's room is upstairs, which means Johnny regrets every day he's skipped the gym and packing so many shoes. It's tidy, and also surreal: Johnny's seen that headboard and quilted blue comforter a thousand times in FaceTime calls or selfies, the same with Mark's desk, his guitar on its stand. Even the pictures on the wall are things Johnny's seen, albeit with a blur.
"I guess you don't need to unpack if we're going to a hotel tomorrow," Mark says, scratching the back of his head. "But you can if you want to."
"I'm good. We'll figure it out."
Johnny sits in Mark's desk chair, tugging Mark's wrist to bring him closer. He's not about to put his hands all over Mark downstairs, where his parents could see, but Mark's room is a different story. He pats his own thigh, raising an eyebrow. Mark seems to calculate the strength of the chair before he sits, back to Johnny's chest. The squish of him is pleasant, and Johnny slides his hands up Mark's shirt to feel the in and out of his breathing.
"Do not get me horny right now, I've gotta look my parents in the eye." Despite what he says, Mark wriggles until he's deliberately on Johnny's dick.
"Your mom is really nice," Johnny says, resting his cheek against Mark's shoulder.
"Yeah, she seemed excited to meet you," Mark says. He puts his hand over Johnny's over his shirt, tracing Johnny's fingers through the fabric. They both feel a little skin-starved, Johnny thinks.
"How's your dad doing with all this?" He gave his blessing for Johnny to visit, and to stay in the house (although Johnny gets the feeling Mrs. Lee runs the family and is the one Johnny needs to have on his side), but the idea of Mark having a boyfriend and the reality of him being there are quite different.
Mark huffs, but he doesn't go tense. If anything, he's melting in Johnny's hold. "I mean, he's been gardening for like two hours. But I guess he does that a lot on weekends anyway."
"Any tips for winning him over?"
Mark chuckles with an edge of weariness. "Yo, if I knew the answer to that…"
They sit for a few minutes, Johnny pressing his closed lips to Mark's back and neck, the knob at the top of his spine. He breathes in Mark's laundry soap and the mild smell of him, refamiliarizing himself in unfamiliar territory. Though he's eager to get Mark to himself, to pick their intimacy back up, he's committed to doing things right. He's not visiting solely to fuck Mark; that's a bonus. He's here to be his boyfriend and meet his parents.
"We should go downstairs," Johnny says reluctantly.
"Yeah." Mark stands, turning around to pull Johnny up. He looks so good, better than Johnny's memory. Despite his best intentions, Johnny's gut tightens with the need to touch him more, to kiss him.
"Lemme get a kiss real quick first," Johnny says, and Mark laughs and tilts his face up.
It's chaste, relatively, a press of lips and then a delve into Mark's mouth to savor the wet heat of him, but nothing hot and heavy. It's comfort, a reunion; they haven't kissed in months. For all the making out they did in Chicago, including one night on Johnny's couch where they watched Netflix and traded lazy kisses during lulls in the show, it's not something they're acclimated to.
Johnny pulls away when Mark nestles himself into Johnny's chest like he's getting comfortable. They can get back to this later, once everyone's in bed.
"C'mon, let's get back down there before anyone gets any ideas."
Mark groans in embarrassment. "This is so weird."
"Hey, worse comes to worst, we suffer an awkward dinner and then leave early in the morning." Johnny pauses. He's still not sure if Mark's parents are aware he's booked a hotel suite downtown. On one hand, he got it so they wouldn't have to commute to downtown Vancouver from Surrey every single day, what with their itinerary of fun date stuff planned, but on the other, he did get it so he could fuck Mark as loud as he wants. Telling Mark's parents means alluding to their sex life. "Uh, am I telling them about the hotel, or…?"
"I already told Mom, and there's no way she didn't tell Dad. But we should probably mention it again, make it official."
Johnny nods and tilts his head toward the door. "Ready?"
"Yeah."
As they descend the stairs, Johnny can hear water running and distant conversation. Mark's dad is inside, then. Mark leads them to the kitchen, no falter in his step, only determination to get this over with.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Lee is vigorously scrubbing something at the sink, and Mr. Lee is behind her, looking contrite. He's taller than Johnny imagined, and he looks as young as his wife does—Johnny's used to his parents being older than most of his peers', but the Lees look like a newly married couple on their starter home or something, not parents of two adult men.
"Hey, Dad," Mark says, and stalls, Johnny beside him.
Mr. Lee waves a soil-covered hand. His shirt is covered in dirt smudges too, and Johnny thinks he sees a twig half-hidden in his dark hair.
Johnny's not sure if it's the fact that he's so attracted to Mark and it's a marvel to see an older version of him, more or less, or if he can blame his awakening bisexuality, but he realizes with something like horror that Mark's dad is hot. He immediately locks that thought up and throws away the key, because he can't deal with this.
"Your father," Mrs. Lee says furiously, "wiped his filthy hands on my decorative towel."
Mark literally gasps, and Mr. Lee makes eye contact with Johnny and, of all things, mouths Help. Johnny tries to decide if he's allowed to smile. This is a lot… weirder than what he was expecting.
"Dad, you didn't."
Mr. Lee raises both dirty hands in surrender. "I just wanted a drink! I wasn't paying attention! Ah, hello, Johnny." He dips his chin and smiles. It's Mark's goddamn smile, down to the way his nose scrunches. Johnny is struck with an image of Mark in ten years, in twenty, and tries not to let it show. "I'd shake your hand, but I'm half dirt, half man right now."
"It's all good. I, uh, I don't think Mrs. Lee needs more laundry to do."
On cue, she hisses, "I can't believe I have to launder my good towels."
"Dude," Mark says, shaking his head at his father.
Johnny can't help it; he laughs, hand coming up to cover his mouth like maybe people won't notice. Mark turns to look at him, bewildered, and Mr. Lee visibly schools his face into something contrite and serious, though his eyes give the game away.
"I'll, ah, go and get cleaned up and meet your guy properly," Mr. Lee says, taking the opportunity to slip out of the kitchen, away from the scene of the crime. "Mark, help your mother with the laundry?"
"Oh, no, you're not making this my son's responsibility."
"I can buy you new towels," Mr. Lee shouts over his shoulder as he makes his retreat.
Mrs. Lee sighs and turns off the faucet. "Johnny," she says, lifting her sodden towel to inspect it. "Would you like something to drink?"
When Johnny laughs again, this time loud and unabashed, she smiles back.
---
THEN
Mark's come tasted much less nasty than it had any right to, it turned out. Johnny still spat most of it out into a tissue, but it bore commenting on.
Mark struggled to sit up, and his T-shirt was pushed under his armpits, his nipples looking distinctly swollen. "It's all the fruit I eat," Mark said, panting. "Oh, you got some on your—"
Johnny wiped at his chin where Mark gestured and swiped the streak of come onto his finger, then popped it into his mouth. He tasted nothing but jizz anyway, and the way Mark went glassy-eyed meant it was worth doing.
Mark's dick was not the first Johnny had sucked, though it was the one he gave his best effort to. It helped that Mark wasn't enormous, just a nice size that Johnny could stand to have hit the back of his throat. And he moaned like he was a second away from coming the whole time, low and punched out, which was flattering, even if Johnny suspected his head game was weak.
Johnny kissed his way up Mark's belly, pausing on his sensitive nipples until Mark gasped, and then hovered above Mark's face, offering him the option to say no to tasting himself. Mark yanked his head down and smashed their lips together, fully licking into Johnny's mouth.
Johnny smiled into the kiss. Okay, then.
"You didn't even get undressed," Mark said, pulling away to play with the locks of hair in Johnny's eyes.
After they'd gotten back from dinner with Ten and Jaehyun, Mark sent him out of the apartment for "a long walk" while he prepped in the bathroom. Johnny had gotten gelato and tried not to let his heart break over how hard Mark tried for him. How he wished he could talk to Mark through the bathroom door, or even be in there with him, damn the embarrassment, because Johnny really didn't care. But then he'd come back to Mark sitting on the bed fully dressed, looking nervous and excited, and he'd kissed him long and slow and deep and asked if he was ready, and Mark had moaned and tugged Johnny on top of him. One thing had led to another, and Johnny had Mark's shirt pushed up and his dick out. It was, in addition to being hot as hell, the least he could do in return.
"You need a few?" Johnny asked, leaning on an elbow. Mark's spent, slick cock rubbed against Johnny's jeans. It couldn't have felt great.
"No, I recover pretty fast."
Mark pushed at Johnny's chest to get him far enough away to start unbuttoning his shirt. Johnny sat up to help, and minus the contortion he had to pull himself into to work off his jeans, it was a relatively quick and easy unveiling. His dick was happy to be free from its denim prison, and Mark immediately went for it, curling his hand around Johnny and jacking him experimentally. They'd gotten up to some mischief that morning before heading out for their long day of sight-seeing, but the novelty of touch was still nowhere near wearing off.
"Fuck," Johnny said, when Mark made moves to get his mouth on it. "I won't last if you do that."
"Really?" Mark asked, clearly disappointed.
"I promise you can suck my cock all you want when it doesn't have anywhere to be," Johnny joked, pushing back Mark's bangs.
"You know I'mma hold you to that," Mark muttered, but he sat up on his knees and pulled off his shirt, skin stretching taut over his ribs. He was naked, then, in front of Johnny like a cornucopia of fantasy waiting to be lived out.
"You look so fucking good, baby," Johnny said, and bullied Mark onto his back again, working his hand between them to urge Mark's thighs to make room. He kissed Mark's collar bone with a hint of teeth. "Can't believe I get to touch your tight little body."
Mark went red, but he picked up the lube and popped the cap, drizzling some of it onto his palm. His hands shook, and Johnny went back to kissing his neck, his chin, his brave mouth once. "I prepped pretty good," he said, slicking Johnny's cock. As if Johnny hadn't been up close and personal with his ass a few minutes ago, hadn't seen exactly how clean and shiny with lube he was.
Mark had a few toys he'd managed to order without alerting his parents, and apparently a few creative hiding places for them, but none of them were a real-live dick or quite the size of Johnny's. He wasn't going to slam into Mark without making sure he really was ready for it, and on a selfish level, he wanted to watch Mark take every inch. He wanted to see what it did to him. He wanted to make it good, make it worth all of Mark's waiting and anxiety.
Teasing, he adjusted his dick to rub right against where Mark was spread for him. Any more pressure and the tip might have slipped in, but as it was, Mark's knees tried to close around Johnny's waist.
"I got you," Johnny whispered. "Gonna finger you. That okay?"
Mark huffed and nodded. Johnny caught his mouth and kissed him as a distraction, gathering lube from his own dick to make the glide easier, and nudged his finger inside. Like last time, in the shower, the sensation was enough to make him lose his mind.
"Another, c'mon," Mark instructed, and Johnny complied, groaning with how well Mark took him.
"You did three?" Johnny asked.
"Yeah, but your hands—oh shit—your hands are bigger." He panted when Johnny quirked his fingers, not trying to find his prostate so much as testing the give of Mark's body. While Mark really had worked hard to stretch himself, his nerves were getting the best of him, making him clamp down.
"You like my hands, though, huh?" Johnny did aim for his prostate then, and missed it, but Mark helpfully lifted his hips for a better angle. He was a pretty flexible dude; he went to yoga classes with his mom sometime and once told Johnny in the midst of a filthy Discord call that he was going to do the splits on Johnny's dick. Johnny looked forward to testing that hypothesis sometime. "You like how big I am. Hmm, is it here, or—"
Jackpot. Mark gasped and clutched at Johnny's shoulders, and his dick jumped. "Johnny, fuck."
"There it is," Johnny crooned, rubbing at the spot until Mark's cock gave up precome and Mark was moaning nonstop, blunt nails digging into Johnny's skin. "Hand me the lube?"
As a rule, Johnny didn't talk this much during sex, but from day one, his intimacy with Mark was verbal. It made sense it carried to the two of them in bed together, and not just on the phone. It was easy, and fun, to wind Mark up like this.
Mark dropped the lube next to Johnny's thigh in a hurry. He hooked his arms beneath his knees and pulled them to his chest, opening himself up even wider. He looked wild-eyed when he caught Johnny's gaze, two spots of color on his cheeks, mouth open and wet. "I swear to God, if you don't get in me soon—"
Johnny pulled out to generously slick three of his fingers, gentle as he could manage, and shushed him. Mark's breath was coming faster, maybe too fast for the level of intensity they were at, and his heart pulsed rabbit-fast; Johnny could see a vein fluttering at his neck. "I'm gonna give it to you, don't worry. But I need you to relax for me." He slid two fingers back in at once, slowing when Mark tossed his head on the pillow. "You've been so good, trying so hard to make things easy, but not everything is gonna be easy."
He pressed against Mark's prostate while Mark gasped with the onslaught of it, and Johnny's cock throbbed with every noise Mark made, with the way Mark's body gave way. "I want it so bad."
"I know, I know. All you gotta do is lie back and be good for me. Let me worry about everything, okay?"
Mark made a cut-off sobbing sound and seemed to force himself to go as boneless as it was possible for someone to be while having their prostate massaged. After a few moments, where Mark didn't tense up again and seemed to get his breathing somewhat under control, Johnny tested adding his third finger, pushing against Mark's rim. It took a few tries until he could slip in.
Mark was staring up at Johnny, tracking the minute way Johnny's arm moved, twitching as Johnny speared him repeatedly. Eventually, Johnny felt Mark relax enough to make the three fingers easy.
"You ready for me?" Johnny asked. He'd snap both of their patience if he went for four fingers. "I think you might be."
Mark held his breath when Johnny repositioned, and Johnny put his non-lubey hand on his stomach to remind him. After a beat, Mark sighed. "Please," Mark asked, ragged, when Johnny tugged his fingers free and nudged his cock right against him.
"Fuck, Mark, look at you." He barely needed to guide his dick; the tip started sinking in, and even if Mark clenched down in the next second, they could stay still and breathe through it.
Watching himself breach Mark one inch at a time, the way Mark's body shuddered and his chest heaved the deeper Johnny got, was better than any porn, better than anything Johnny's imagination had cooked up on lonely nights. Mark, taking him inside, letting Johnny do it slow and careful, whining in the back of his throat.
He'd never fucked anyone raw. If he thought about that too long, he'd lose it, but Johnny could feel the difference, and it weighed heavier on him. The trust implicit in it.
"H-how much more until you're in all the way?" Mark asked, when Johnny stopped to pet his stomach and soothe him through another push of his hips.
"Not much." He barely recognized his own voice with how wrecked it sounded. "Jesus Christ, you're so—" Hot, tight, silky. Impossibly, Mark raised his legs even higher, nearly bending himself in half to give it up. Johnny bottomed out, eyes falling closed, all thought of speech forgotten.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, you feel so good," Mark babbled. It had to hurt, Johnny didn't kid himself that Mark wasn't feeling it, but Mark was bearing it for him, moaning because Johnny was in him deep.
Johnny rocked his hips experimentally, not pulling out, knowing Mark needed more time to adjust before he really started fucking him. Mark hiccuped and moaned the way he had when Johnny hit his prostate, so he did it again. And again. "Not gonna last in your tight hole," Johnny groaned. It was true as much as it was for effect. He'd been waiting for this for longer than a walk to get gelato. He'd been waiting for this for months, if not his entire life.
Johnny pulled out a few inches, as slow as he could manage, and felt Mark squeeze around him when he carefully worked back in.
When he did it again, this time snapping his hips, Mark's body rattled with the force of it, and Mark threw his head back and wailed.
"Your perfect fucking ass, Mark Lee," Johnny said, sweat starting to drip into his eyes. His hips were giving him warning of how much they'd ache later. He balanced his weight on one arm and rubbed Mark's taut, pinked-up balls. "Made for my dick."
"It's yours, oh my God, Johnny, please."
Johnny managed to shut up long enough to get a rhythm going, the unmistakable, dirty slap of skin on skin increasing until he could barely hear Mark's vocalizations over it. He was still gentler than he might have been, too aware of how little experience Mark had, but it was enough to get him close to coming in no time at all. Mark's cock was wet, dripping onto his stomach, even though he'd already come once not long ago.
He made himself ignore the building pleasure in his dick, his spine, and focus on getting Mark as close as he could. It was almost meditative; he noted Mark liked it when he ground his hips, so he did that every few thrusts. When Johnny slowed down to get his sweaty hair out of his eyes, obscuring the absolute vision of Mark taking his dick, Mark garbled a protest like he thought Johnny was going to stop.
"Just a sec, just a sec," he said, and impatiently pushed his hair back and adjusted his position slightly. Then his hips picked up, and Mark groaned in appreciation. "You close?"
"Yeah," Mark panted, scratchy-voiced.
"You wanna come first?"
"No," Mark said, lifting his head to pin Johnny with glimmering, deadly serious eyes. "Wanna feel you shoot in me. I need it, 형."
And if that didn't just about do it, Mark's broken voice and demand for Johnny to fill him up. Johnny's stomach tensed, and he gave Mark a few stuttering thrusts. "God, I'm gonna—I'm gonna come. Gonna give it to you."
Mark's brows furrowed, but Johnny's vision was blurring the closer he got, his orgasm taunting him, almost there. He looked down at Mark's body taking him, held open by Johnny's dick, nothing between them, and Johnny was going to get to see—
"Mark, coming," he gasped, and slammed his eyes shut as pleasure lit all of his nerves on fire, as his dick jerked and spilled inside of Mark's warm, tight body.
It went on forever, and Johnny couldn't move as he came and came, body locked tight, every muscle screaming with tension. When he finished, he collapsed all at once, sprawling ungracefully on Mark. Mark, who dropped his knees and cradled Johnny's sweaty head to his chest, murmured nonsense that stopped being nonsense when Johnny's senses came back to him.
"Oh, I can feel you, I'm so wet." He stroked Johnny's back. "Fuck, you really filled me up."
"I got you," Johnny slurred, kissing to the left of Mark's peaked nipple. "I can keep going if you—"
"Hold still," Mark said, and wormed his hand between them. Johnny didn't quite obey, hoisting himself back up onto his trembling elbows, giving Mark room. "Don't pull out," Mark demanded, and jerked himself off so fast and hard Johnny's sensitive dick panged in sympathy. It didn't help that he was still clenching and releasing around Johnny buried inside him. He could feel his own come around him, somehow distinguishable from the lube.
"Come on, Markie," he whispered as Mark mercilessly stroked himself. Johnny bore the discomfort of rolling his hips in a circle. "You feel that? You feel my come?"
"Yeah," Mark whined.
"Come for me so I can pull out and see what a mess I made of you, yeah?"
Mark shouted something, and he shot so hard and thin that his come went everywhere, running in rivulets down his flushed chest. Johnny grinned, light-headed with endorphins and victory, the bone-deep satisfaction of finally, finally giving Mark what he wanted so bad. If Mark weren't in the middle of coming, and if Johnny were slightly loopier, he might have gone for a high five.
He waited until Mark stopped trembling with aftershocks and readied himself to pull out. They'd put a towel down, but it had gotten impossibly twisted during sex, and Johnny knew his sheets were going to be a lost cause. When he started to draw back, Mark made another noise of protest.
"What is it?" Johnny asked. He rubbed Mark's hips, marveling again at his tiny waist.
"Ummm, do you think…" He chewed his lip for a second, then steeled himself. "Can I get my phone? I want to, you know, record it."
Johnny blinked, his brain lagging a half-second behind, but processed what Mark wanted. Christ. This kid was going to end him. He wanted Johnny to record his come dripping out of Mark's ass as—a memento? Something to jerk off to later?
"Sure," Johnny said, laughing, wishing he could lean in and kiss Mark's cute fucking face, charmed by the way he was nervous to ask for this after all they'd done. "Gimme your phone, you adorable pervert."
---
NOW
Mr. Lee turns away from the grill to point a pair of BBQ tongs at Johnny. "So what's this I hear about a hotel room?"
The expression of polite neutrality drops from Johnny's face, and the best he can come up with is a stammering, "Uhhh…"
Mark keeps appearing in front of the sliding door to the backyard—a tiny oasis with a charmingly weathered bench Mr. Lee built by hand and paving stones he installed himself—to press up against the glass and give them worried glances. He's there right now, looking between Johnny and his dad, eyes wide and panicked. Mrs. Lee keeps having to come up and bodily drag her son away.
Johnny wishes the Lees' winterized garden would open a sinkhole where he's standing and suck him into it. The tongs are still pointed at him, and Mark looks ready to barge into the backyard.
"What are your intentions with my son?"
"Ah, I mean—" Johnny's grip on the giant platter of meat he's holding goes sweaty. If he drops the food in the middle of this conversation, he's going to have to walk into the ocean, which is actually feasible in Vancouver.
The tongs drop, and so does the stern look on Mr. Lee's face. In its place, he gains a wicked smile. "I'm just kidding, Johnny. Mostly."
"Ha ha," Johnny says weakly. He shakes his head. "Um, we have a plot of plans downtown, and I figured it would be easier on everybody if we didn't have to commute and come in at all hours. But I—"
"It's fine. Just stop by for dinner again before you leave." He retrieves the last of the beef from the platter and sets it on the grill, now that his attempt to give Johnny a heart attack is over. It smells delicious, and Mr. Lee appears to know what he's doing. "You seem like a nice kid."
Johnny does not remind him that he's almost twenty-seven.
"I think you can understand my concern when my son comes to me and tells me that he's dating some older guy"—Johnny is glad Mr. Lee is prodding the meat and can't see him wince—"that he met on the internet."
"I can." He considers how much to divulge. "I told my mom and I thought she was going to demand a background check." She took it very well, considering the nightmare scenarios Johnny rehearsed beforehand, up to and including being given the cold shoulder or ignored entirely in that way his mom has when she hears something she doesn't like, but he wagered her love for him would overcome any misgivings and was luckily correct. Her eyebrows went up when he said "Vancouver" and Mark's age, but she didn't comment. "I don't know how much Mark told you, but I never expected this to happen."
He's not sure how comfortable Mr. Lee is with his son's sexuality being addressed head-on, or named, so he's tip-toeing around concepts like "your son was my bisexual awakening" and "we got close because he came out to me."
When he glances back to the glass door, Mark is gone. Hopefully Mrs. Lee can get him to stay in the kitchen.
"Mark said you met in a chatroom?"
"Yeah, more or less. He showed up to talk to Donghyuck but ended up blasting his voice at like two hundred people, and I messaged him to walk him through the, uh, technology." Johnny smiles remembering, and how eager and relieved Mark was for the help. He kept sending Johnny emojis and sentences punctuated with five exclamation points. Dude ur saving my life rn!!!!! Thx for being so nice 2 me haha ✌️
Mr. Lee's shoulders work with a chuckle. "That sounds like Minhyung."
"It's not exactly the greatest meet cute ever, but we're making it work." He's all too aware of how each word is falling out of his mouth awkwardly, with nothing of the sincerity of his feelings. Every part of him, from the way he was raised to the sheer discomfort of the situation, balks at the idea of talking openly to Mark's parents. Especially given what he knows about the fights Mark had to get them to this point.
That gets Mr. Lee to look at Johnny over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. "It sounds pretty cute to me, but what do I know?"
Johnny's saved from trying to answer by the sliding door opening. Mrs. Lee pokes her head out. "Are you two done bonding? When can we eat?"
"Ya, you know you can't rush the grill."
Mrs. Lee sighs and shakes her head. She gestures at Johnny. "Johnny, come inside. Leave him to his mysterious grill rituals." She darts out of the threshold but then immediately comes back, hair swinging at her shoulders. "Oh, and bring the platter, I need to rinse it."
Johnny does as he's told. He's halfway across the patio when Mr. Lee tells him to wait. With dread, Johnny turns on his heel, gripping the edges of the platter with white knuckles.
"Be good to my son, Johnny-yah, please," he says in Korean.
Well. Johnny certainly didn't expect that. He shakes off his surprise before his silence gets weird, and he tries to look Mr. Lee in the eye when he agrees.
"I've got another one, but sons are expensive to replace." He throws Johnny a wink before going back to babysitting the grill.
With the door shut behind him, cutting him off from the nipping chill of the evening and Mr. Lee's ability to make Johnny's whole brain blue screen, he almost slumps with relief. He makes his way to the kitchen, and he's about to wash the platter in the sink for something to do—and to spare Mrs. Lee the chore—when Mark comes up to his side.
"How… was it?"
Johnny glances around to make sure Mrs. Lee isn't going to overhear; she must be in the dining room, setting the table. "Your dad is really weird," he says eventually, with feeling.
Mark barks a laugh at that, and seemingly, what Johnny said knocked most of the worry out of him; Johnny sees his shoulders lower, his posture change. "Dude, tell me about it."
---
THEN
Mark: Taeyong's taking me to Navy Pier and IDK how to tell him it hurts to walk that much bc you fucked me in half last night?? Help
Johnny almost choked on his coffee. The next message was an image of Mark and Taeyong in a taxi, throwing twin peace signs, Taeyong's bony arm around Mark's shoulders. It was cute, exactly the sort of thing Johnny expected from Taeyong when he offered to keep Mark company during Johnny's unfortunately necessary half-day at work. He hearted it and hurried to reply.
Johnny: Oh my god
Johnny: Tell him I wanted to do it, he'll pout but he'll take you to his favorite arcade instead
Mark: OK I'll report back
Mark: Hope he buys it haha
A few minutes went by, Johnny distractedly updating Excel sheets and reacting to his coworkers' Slack messages with emojis. The harder and faster he worked, the sooner he could leave and go meet up with Taeyong and Mark, but he was genuinely worried Taeyong might not catch the hint. He didn't want Mark limping all over Navy Pier because he was too polite to say anything.
His sore boyfriend should have had the luxury of lazing around in bed all day, honestly. Johnny had managed to cook a giant omelet and brought it to bed for them to demolish before he got up and showered, at least, but unfortunately, Google had done something that meant the non-profit's SEO and ranking were jacked to hell. Johnny was still trying to put out all the fires ten days later, and he'd begrudgingly committed to two half-days despite his boss previously approving a full week off. Taeyong, who had the schedule of a freelancer and a burning desire to become Mark's new best friend, offered his tour guide services, and Mark had accepted.
Mark: OK it worked, he literally did pout but we're going to an arcade and then getting lunch
Mark: Taeyong's so nice
Truly, Taeyong should have accounted for the frantic first-time sex Johnny and Mark were fated to indulge in over the last two nights. Ten would have; he probably would have brought Mark some aspirin as a joke and stayed in to watch movies with him. But Yong isn't that perceptive.
Johnny: FWIW I think you could have said we had a late night and he might have gotten it
Johnny: Sometimes Yong doesn't see what's right in front of him
Mark: Oh yeah lmao I'm gonna tell your best friend that, yep adding that to my calendar rn
Johnny snorted, sent off a somewhat sardonic heart emoji and a good luck, have fun, and put his phone away in his drawer so he could get some actual work done.
Over the course of a few hours, Johnny fixed two-hundred links, answered seven emails, and drank two iced Americanos. His boss came by his desk and sighed with relief when she saw how much he'd gotten done.
"I'm sorry I can't make the interns do it, but it's just too sensitive," she said, putting a conciliatory piece of chocolate on his desk. She was half the reason he'd taken the job, because at his interview, she'd dropped his file, papers spilling everywhere, and yelped, "Shit! I mean, Jiminy Cricket!" and hadn't minded when he'd laughed. It was a welcome change from the stifling, toxic boys' club of his previous job.
"It's fine, I get it." He did. He even liked this sort of busy work, as monotonous as it was, because he could clearly see his progress. He liked doing the same monotonous work for over ten days somewhat less, but the light at the end of the tunnel was quickly approaching at last. "I'll be back on Thursday. If there's any more garbage fires, text me."
"Thank you, Sir John, you're as usual an angel and a sage."
Johnny smiled, unwrapped the chocolate, and savored it while retrieving his phone.
He had a plethora of unread texts from Taeyong and Mark both, selfies and short clips, including one of Mark falling over trying to play DDR while Taeyong cackled like a bog witch in the background.
Johnny's stomach panged with hunger, reminding him it had been many hours since the omelet, but it was also a fluttery excitement of looking at Mark, grinning ear to ear, getting along with his best friend.
Johnny: Fuck you two are so cute
Johnny: OMW gimme a location update
Johnny: Fair warning I'm starving, and if not fed soon, I will start considering cannibalism
He collected his things, set his Slack status to Out of Office, and shut down his computer. Mark was quick to reply, though the pic he'd sent of Taeyong eating a huge plate of food at one of Johnny's favorite places downtown took forever to load since Johnny was in the elevator.
Mark: Poor baby
Mark: Still at the restaurant, Taeyong got dessert. We can chill here
Mark: Tell me what you want and I'll order it for you??
Johnny debated taking the train, but given how much he'd still have to walk and how drizzly it was, he decided to splurge on a taxi. As he flagged one down and got inside, he marveled at how excited he was to see Mark again after only a few hours. Normally, Johnny found excuses to stay late at work; even when he dated, he tended to get blinders on and had to remind himself not to be a dick and make time for them. But knowing Mark was waiting for him, was in his city, having fun and goofing off (and sore, from taking Johnny's cock for the first time, which shouldn't have been as hot as it was), made Johnny feel desperate. Lit up.
Happy.
---
NOW
"We can't do much because my bed squeaks, and I didn't prep, but Jesus, I've wanted to climb you like a tree all night," Mark says, the instant the door to his room is shut.
Mr. and Mrs. Lee are on the ground floor of the house, luckily, but Johnny is not unaware of how far sound can travel. He hopes they're distracted getting ready for bed.
"I'm happy to be climbed, but I have a request," Johnny says.
"What is it?" Mark's already taking off his shirt, then kicking off his shorts in a hurry.
Johnny admires the outline of his half-hard cock in his boxer briefs. It really has been too long, and they're still fairly reticent to send anything too risque. Johnny's got another dick pic for his collection of Mark shots, hidden far back in his camera roll, and Mark's got the footage of Johnny's come leaking out of him on his own phone, but Johnny hasn't asked for a copy. "Put in one of those prostate vibrators and blow me?" he asks.
"Oh man, yeah, hold on." Mark's underwear hits his hamper too enthusiastically, and then he's a tangle of naked limbs trying to crawl into Johnny's lap on the bed, which, annoyingly, does groan under their weight.
"Shit. You weren't kidding."
"Yeah," Mark says, breathless and distracted, his dick rubbing against Johnny's clothed stomach. "Kiss me for a sec, fuck, then I'll go get the vibe."
Johnny obliges, burying his hand in Mark's hair and getting a good grip on his ass to make sure he doesn't tumble onto the floor. It's filthy and open-mouthed, pent-up from hours of behaving themselves and weeks of plans. When Mark pulls away and stands up, he looks dizzy, steadying himself on Johnny's shoulder for a second.
He pulls his supplies from a hiding place in his closet, near the back. Johnny watches Mark's bare ass as he moves around and palms his cock, then pops the button on his jeans.
Mark turns around holding a bottle of lube and a small white toy, a plug of sorts if Johnny isn't mistaken. He also has a condom packet that he rips open with his teeth like a pro, which is funny, because Johnny knows he's never used them with other people. He works the condom over the toy and comes closer. "I'll do it on my knees," he says, "on the floor. But I wanna take your dick out."
Johnny's eyes nearly roll back, and he squirms out of his pants in a hurry. His cock is almost all the way hard, just thinking of Mark's wet mouth around him.
Mark makes a face at the hard floor under him when he settles, and Johnny gropes up the bed for a pillow and passes it down.
"Put it in now, before you get distracted," he says, pulling off his turtleneck and flinging it in the direction of his luggage, as Mark kneels on the pillow.
Mark slicks the condom and toy up and reaches back behind himself with a focused, lip-bitten expression, and after a second, he gasps. Then, after two clicking sounds, there's a low, barely audible, buzzing.
Mark's gasp is Pavlovian to Johnny now, he's heard Mark slip something inside himself so many times. It's funny, because the vibrator was among the first fantasies Johnny had of him, when he still had a hard time actually placing himself in them. He would picture Mark alone, curled up with pleasure, begging for Johnny's touch.
"I don't even need the toy, you know I come easy." Mark flips Johnny's underwear down and ducks low to breathe on the head of his cock, fitting his hand around the base.
"It's for me as much as it is for you. Drives me crazy, the sounds you make."
Mark glances up, tongue extended, and dips into the divot at the tip of Johnny's cock with a palpable amount of self-satisfaction. He looks like a dream. Johnny strokes the side of his face, the soft curve of his neck.
"Try coming in my mouth again, I think I can swallow this time," Mark says, and his eyes flutter shut when he guides Johnny's dick inside, a hot, wet glide.
---
THEN
"Baby, please stop trying to choke yourself on my dick."
Mark pulled off again with a grunting sound, still jerking Johnny's spit-wet erection. Johnny thumbed over Mark's swollen lower lip, the corner of his mouth where he had to be feeling the stretch. "I can take a popsicle all the way down," he said, clearly frustrated and horny, as though that was any antidote for inexperience. "I don't get why this is so hard."
"My dick isn't a popsicle, for starters. This angle isn't great for your throat either," Johnny pointed out. "Stop trying to get fancy with it and let me admire how good you look with my cock in your mouth. I'm close anyway."
"Well, that's a miracle," Mark said with a small laugh. He wiped his face and tried a different grip with his hand. Then he leaned in again and tapped the crown against his lips, parting them while staring up at Johnny, taunting him with the idea of being inside again. "Like this?" he asked, low.
"I'm gonna shoot all over that pretty mouth," Johnny promised. "You're unreal."
Mark must have liked what he heard, because he twisted his tongue over the head and bobbed shallowly a few times, Johnny's hand in his hair ready to pull him off again if he got too adventurous.
Truly, it was agony to lie there and let Mark practice the way he wanted to. Johnny liked a blowjob as much as anyone, but Mark had a whole lot of expectation and fantasy to live out. He'd taken his time, familiarizing himself with the way Johnny felt, tasted, the different noises he could provoke. It was basically an edging session, only Mark kept going too far and choking, and Johnny would back off from the cusp because of worry.
When Mark started licking his balls, Johnny groaned and nudged at him gently. "No, I can't, I give up, you're gonna make me bust in half a second if you do that."
"So come," Mark said, and licked the flat of his tongue from root to tip. The gold cross around his neck swung like a pendulum with the way he had to hold himself up. "Want it."
"Just... close your lips around it and suck, I'll pull out to shoot on your mouth." Mark opened said mouth to protest, and Johnny—sweaty, too horny, ready to come—somehow found it in himself to give a mock-stern look that Mark smiled at. "Don't try and swallow for your first time, I swear to God, Mark."
Mark hadn't teased him then, only created a nice amount of suction and worked the rest with his hand, until Johnny felt it building. His nerves sizzled, his toes curled, and he waited until the last second to pull out, painting Mark's reddened mouth with his load.
Then, of course, as Johnny groaned through the tail end of it, each spurt weakening, Mark got curious and opened his mouth, catching way more than he'd bargained for straight on his tongue.
"What did I just tell you," Johnny garbled, woozy with how hard he'd come, as his boyfriend hurriedly tried to find something to spit in.
Mark flailed around until he found his own shirt tossed on the headboard and started rubbing his tongue with it, shuddering. "How does anyone come this much?" he demanded.
"I don't know, maybe people come a lot when their twink boyfriend edges them for an hour." Johnny reached for his package of wet wipes on the nightstand and tugged out a couple, passing them over silently to a grateful Mark.
Once he had cleaned up and stopped wiping his tongue, Johnny pushed him down onto his back on the mattress. Mark was still hard despite the trainwreck of getting a mouthful of Johnny's come, and he sighed with relief when Johnny got a rhythm going.
Johnny mouthed at his collar bone, his tight nipples, the gentle swell of his pec.
Mark was making the kind of noises he did when he was about to come, but when Johnny nuzzled up to his mouth to kiss him through it, Mark stopped him. "Just… thanks," he said, serious and shy. "For all of it."
Despite the oddity of it, it was so sincere, Johnny couldn't help but smile. "You don't need to thank me for fucking you. It's a goddamn privilege." He sped up his hand, and Mark clutched at his arm, fighting to keep his eyes open against pleasure. "Let go for me, that's it," he said, and kissed Mark's mouth as he came, shooting wet over Johnny's fist.
---
NOW
It's like an inverse image of Johnny dragging Mark all over the streets of Chicago a few months back—Mark's pointing out buildings and giving him strange architectural facts, stopping to peer into windows. Johnny's got a Tim Hortons dark roast in one hand and his phone in the other, looking exactly like the tourist he is. He keeps getting distracted by the glory of the scenery peeking between high rises, the immensity of the sky overhead.
"I don't come downtown as much as I should. It's so expensive, though." Mark stops short at a bookstore with a display of used books encroaching on the sidewalk, and Johnny takes a quick snap of him trailing his fingers over the spines. He's forgone gloves, and his hands look red and wind-chafed.
Mark moves on after reading the back blurb of exactly one novel. He continues to talk a mile a minute, pointing out a boba place he likes, commenting on how cupcakes have too much frosting for him, and lamenting that it's too cold outside to take a water taxi.
Johnny comes up behind him while Mark is looking at a window display of pastries and cupcakes, and the reflection of the two of them is visible in the glass. Johnny looks remarkably taller, and the same smug rush he gets from being taller than his dates washes over him. Interesting.
He pockets his phone, transfers his coffee to his other hand, and slides his palm against Mark's, locking their fingers together. "We should have worn gloves," he says with a squeeze.
In the reflection, he sees pure surprise take hold of Mark's face. He jerks a look to Johnny like he can't believe it's happening.
"You know you can just take some of the frosting off the cupcake," Johnny says, and Mark tentatively squeezes his hand back.
This long, and he's never held Mark's hand in public. A part of him worries he should have asked Mark this was okay. To say nothing of his own hang-ups that he's doing his level best to work on, plus his paranoia someone is going to say something and he'll have to figure out what to do. Mark deserves a boyfriend who holds his hand whenever he feels like it, though.
"Yeah, but then I feel like I wasted money," Mark says, and turns to look at Johnny, smiling a private smile despite them standing on a busy public sidewalk.
"Hold up," Johnny says, and hands Mark his coffee while he digs for his phone again. "I want a cute couple selfie in front of a bakery."
He unlocks his phone, opens the camera, and centers them in the frame, thankful yet again he's never needed a selfie stick to get a good shot. Mark leans into his shoulder, pressing his cheek against Johnny's caramel-colored coat, and if Johnny thought he looked happy before, he had no idea. The camera manages to pick up the gleeful shine in Mark's eyes.
"Say cheese," he says, and smiles into the camera when Mark actually does, very enthusiastically.
"Hey," Mark protests after he realizes Johnny stayed silent.
He takes a few shots until he's satisfied and selects one to post to his Instagram. Mark patiently keeps hold of his coffee while Johnny captions the shot TFW bae is too sweet 🧁 💖.
It's not technically the first picture Johnny's posted publicly that Mark's in, but it is the first couple selfie, with no room for misunderstanding.
"Do you want me to tag you?" Johnny asks, angling the phone at Mark.
"Yeah," Mark says, voice rough, and hands Johnny his coffee with impatience. "C'mon, I actually want cupcakes now."
When Mark's asking an employee about the special flavors, Johnny gets a notification on his phone from Wendy, who commented, Johnny! Mark's so cute! 😘 I'm happy for you. Johnny grins down at it, tickled this is what his life's turned into: his ex whom he dumped amidst a sexuality crisis is calling his boyfriend cute. Once Mark's paid, Johnny shows him the comment.
"Wait," Mark asks, using a plastic knife to cut off two-thirds of the frosting. Johnny thinks he got the carrot cake flavor. "Wendy knows about me?"
"Uh, yeah, dude, I couldn't shut up about you even before I figured out why. I don't think it was hard to put two and two together." Johnny snags some of the discarded frosting, enjoying the too-sweet cream cheese flavor, but he waves off Mark's offer of a bite of the actual cupcake. "Pretty much everyone knows about you, excluding a lot of distant Facebook relatives."
"Oh." Mark takes a huge bite. "Wild," he says around his mouthful.
"Gross." Johnny tosses a napkin at him. "We're still friendly, so I'm glad she approves."
"Me too," Mark says from behind the napkin. "She's mad nice."
Johnny prides himself on being good friends with his exes, or at least friendly; there's a few minor blips from high school and early college that don't technically fall under that umbrella, but all the big ones do. Even his first love, which ended in her moving across the country, and a lot of tearful phone calls, still DMs him to check in. Wendy and he were always better as friends anyway, and it was obvious by the time Johnny let her off the hook that he'd done so in time and there was a friendship to salvage. "Next time you fly out, we should all get coffee."
"Uh-huh, and I'll invite Daniel to the thing later this week," Mark says, looking innocent for all of a second before he cackles and crams more cupcake into his mouth at Johnny's utterly unimpressed look.
---
THEN
Johnny had spotted the first nick in his mother's armor when Mark bowed upon meeting her and shyly passed over a tiny matte-black jewelry box. She'd opened it at the restaurant table, before their brunch was served but after mimosas, oohing and ahhing appreciatively at the neat silver brooch, subtle but clearly not cheap.
"Mark, this is lovely, thank you," she'd said, and pinned it to her blazer then and there.
"My mom helped me pick it out," Mark had revealed, which kind of went without saying, but she'd smiled at him anyway. "I wanted to show some appreciation for you driving into the city to meet me, and uh, for being so cool about me and Johnny."
Johnny's mother, a legendary negotiator and almost all the reason Johnny came across as intimidating if he wasn't actively trying not to, had reached across the table and patted Mark's hand. "That's very sweet of you both. Thank her for me. She has good taste."
Mark, given his tiny bladder and propensity for drinking too much water and/or mimosa to avoid putting his foot in his mouth, had eventually needed to slip away from the table to use the restroom. So now it was Johnny facing down his mom in private, over the remnants of French toast and Eggs Benedict, bracing himself for her honesty. He had an inkling she liked Mark, but liking Mark as a person and liking Mark as Johnny's boyfriend were not the same thing. When it came to her only son, his mother was a shark in lipstick.
"He's very nice, John-ah," she said, tracing over the jewelry box. "Very cute." She leveled a look at him as she thought about her next words. "He likes you a lot."
"I like him too," Johnny said.
"Be sure you know what you're doing, because with the distance, both of you could get hurt."
Johnny sighed. In her way, she was finally criticizing the obstacles, the reasons why Johnny shouldn't have committed to this, why it was out of character for him. But it wasn't like he hadn't prepared for this or had the same arguments with himself. "I know it's complicated because of distance, and our ages, and me not having been, you know—"
"You know I've always said you can do anything when you focus," she said, which shut Johnny up entirely. This was not the direction he'd thought this was going. She leaned in, pinning Johnny with serious but soft eyes. "You've always second-guessed yourself when you come close to achieving goals. Be firm in your choices. If you want to be with Mark, be with Mark. Find a way."
Johnny was not going to cry in the middle of this too-expensive brunch place. His throat bobbed with a heavy swallow, and he nearly embarrassed himself with the hoarseness of his, "엄마."
"How could I not like that boy? He's cute as a button and looks at you like you hung the moon. And he bought me this lovely Neiman Marcus brooch." She tilted her shoulder at him, not quite teasing, but there was something in his own sharp sense of humor in it.
"But Dad—" Johnny said, the last stone of his worries still unturned.
"Let me worry about your father. Worry about yourself. And Mark."
The server came by then to take their plates, and she turned a thin smile up at them, sitting back in her seat. The conversation was over, and not only because of the interruption. She'd said what she drove all the way out from the suburbs to say to him.
Mark returned when the server was finishing up, and he slid into his seat with a chipper, "Did I miss anything?"
"No," Johnny said, and there was no sign of the previous emotion in his voice. Carefully, but casually, he slung an arm over the back of Mark's chair. If she approved, then Johnny was going to treat Mark the way he treated any of his partners. He was still getting used to displays of affection, reconciling them to himself, but he was also apparently done cutting corners to keep his mother from facing the cognitive dissonance of him touching a boy when he'd only touched girls in front of her. "We were just talking about Christmas plans."
---
NOW
"Mark, this is too much damn food," Johnny says, adding yet another item to the enormous cooler Mr. Lee lent him for the day. "Is your entire high school graduating class coming?"
"No, it's just four of us," Mark says, somehow missing the joke entirely. Probably nerves. Johnny watches him fiddle with his bangs, smoothing down the sides, before he cranes to look into the trunk and cooler. "I don't want to forget anything, and I don't know what Jeno and Hyuck will want—"
"We can always go to a restaurant," Johnny points out. "They have restaurants in small towns. No one is going to die of starvation."
Privately, he suspects Mrs. Lee knows exactly what Jeno and Donghyuck like to eat, and since she's the one who helped them make everything and pack it up, there's little chance there will be an issue.
"God, they'll be here any minute. I'm dying." Mark laughs, half-hysterical, turning admittedly cute worried eyes on Johnny, who closes the cooler and then the trunk pointedly. Mark better not come up with more ideas for snacks to bring. "Is this what it felt like when you introduced me to your friends?"
"Mmm, not really? Maybe when I told them we were dating. But my friends are chill. Yours are too, from what you've told me," he hurries to add, in case Mark misunderstands. "It's December, so I think you need to worry more about the elements than the food we're bringing."
"It barely feels like it's winter," he says, pointing to his hoodie. "Normally, I'd need a coat too."
"Bring it anyway, in case it rains," Johnny instructs, and Mark rolls his eyes.
"Okay, city boy," Mark says, like he doesn't live in a thriving suburb of a huge city, and like Johnny doesn't weather some of the most godawful winters on planet Earth in Chicago. He sees something beyond Johnny and blanches. "Oh, shit, they're pulling up."
Johnny did end up having to move his car that first night, so they're parked on the street, and whoever is driving the blue Prius hatchback they clearly borrowed from someone's parents does a decent job of parallel parking right behind his rental. Once the engine is off, two boys pile out, the taller of which wearing a cozy-looking sweater and a wide smile. The second, who Johnny recognizes from Mark's Instagram feed, is Donghyuck. He's wearing a hoodie like Mark and carrying a duffle bag.
Really, Johnny thinks, do these kids think we're going to get lost in the wilderness during a coastal drive?
Jeno bounds up to them with long, eager strides, Donghyuck holding up the rear, taking his time. Johnny stretches his hand out to Jeno, who ignores that in favor of wrapping Johnny up in a quick hug. Johnny likes hugs, and he likes Jeno from what he's heard about him, and Jeno's squinty smile is easy to like too.
"Hi," Jeno says. "I thought you were going to be like seven feet tall."
"Oh my God, I thought Hyuck was going to be the weird one," Mark groans.
Johnny smiles and claps Jeno on the shoulder. "No, I'm a normal person, not a pro basketball player."
"Too bad," Jeno says. "Anyway, I'm Jeno. You're Johnny. This is…" He turns to find Hyuck has only now caught up with them. "Donghyuck, but I think you already know each other?"
For a dude Johnny could pick up and carry around with one arm, Donghyuck has a surprising gravity to him, especially since Mark's described him as an agent of chaos, and that's the impression Johnny's gotten from playing matches with him and listening to him yell. Excitable, acid wit, hard to shut up unless he's concentrating. Johnny suspects he and Ten would get along if Ten ever deigned to play co-op anything.
"Hi, FullSun," Johnny says, to remind Donghyuck that they'd actually known each other on that gaming Discord server and had gotten along before Johnny met Mark.
That prompts a laugh, and Donghyuck adjusts the duffle bag to exaggeratedly shake Johnny's hand. "Hello, John. I'm so excited to finally give you the shovel talk," he says, and his features twist into a cherubic smile.
"Oh, no, he's still going to be weird, cool," Mark says, leaning against Jeno for support. "Hyuck, terrorize him once we're actually in the car, please?"
"Sure," Donghyuck says, finally dropping Johnny's hand.
Johnny's feeling magnanimous today, and he's well aware that he'd want to protect Mark from predatory internet dudes too if he were friends with him, but Hyuck's whole thing is a thinly veiled farce. He'll play along because he can afford to, and because he knows Hyuck is ride or die for Mark and pretty cool.
"Everyone ready to go? We packed five days worth of food, but if anyone wants to stop somewhere on the way out of town, let me know now." He looks at Mark and narrows his eyes. "Mark, go get your rain jacket."
Mark makes a big show of complying and heading back to the house, but most of it is that he's glad the meeting is going well and being loath to leave it.
"Thanks for agreeing to come along on our road trip," Johnny says to Jeno and Donghyuck. "I thought it'd be nice to see the coast, explore some of the towns. The scenery up here is mind-blowing."
"For sure," Jeno agrees. "It's prettier in summer, but I guess you'll see that next year if you visit again, huh?"
Johnny almost blinks with surprise, caught out by the probing, the test, underneath Jeno's effortless friendliness. "Yes," he says firmly. "Absolutely. I think the ferries would be more fun during summer too."
"Yes," Jeno agrees, and his smile hasn't budged an inch.
Mark jogs back out of the house and over to them, a coat thrown over his shoulder. He seems relieved that everyone is in the same position, and that no one looks ready to throw hands. So little faith in Johnny's social graces.
But maybe that's not quite it. Jeno and Donghyuck likely got to hear all about Mark's feelings for Johnny, all the pining after a straight dude he did, and then about how Johnny suddenly got possessive over him once Mark met Daniel and started trying to date guys. Objectively, Johnny knows the whole thing looks odd, and he knows that because he's spent a lot of his life thinking about how he comes across to other people. It's not a shocker that Jeno, or Donghyuck, have reservations beyond internet dating.
"I've got my coat, we're all packed up— Oh, could you pop the trunk for Hyuck's bag?"
"It's fine, I'll put it on the floor. I'm not making you pull over so I can rustle through the trunk when I want to change out consoles."
"You don't need to play video games the entire trip, dude," Mark says, voice edged with disapproval.
"Yes, I do. I can't be cooped up in a car with you and your farts without them."
Jeno gives Johnny a knowing look. "It's going to be like this the whole time, FYI."
"I figured," Johnny says, smiling fondly at Mark, who has forgotten he's supposed to be worried about them all meeting and is scowling only half-seriously at Donghyuck. "Baby," he calls, getting Mark's attention, and Mark comes to Johnny's side like Johnny had tugged his hand. "You really have everything?"
"Yep, I checked, Ma checked. I'm good."
"You got the itinerary?"
"Yeah, it's on my phone and in my backpack."
Johnny smiles and kisses him because he wants to, because he can, and because he has a point to make. Mark looks up at him with mild surprise when he's done, and he pulls on Johnny's sweater.
"Then let's head out, yeah? It gets dark so early."
"Okay," Mark says meekly, and ducks his head as he goes over to the front passenger seat.
Jeno and Donghyuck are staring at Johnny, who opens the driver-side door and gives a good, long stretch before bending to climb into the car. "I would have rented an SUV if I knew I was gonna be going on an adventure," he jokes. "Come on, everybody in."
---
THEN
They spent the morning and much of the afternoon of Mark's last day in Chicago in bed. Johnny had no desire to find some other activity for them to try together; they'd hit up the majority of the big landmarks and tourist traps, as well as Johnny's favorite spots, and although Mark kept wheedling Johnny to let him see him spin, that wasn't going to happen yet.
If his friends wanted to see Mark, as Ten kept insisting, they could come to his apartment and fight him over it. As Mark giggled at YouTube videos from his cradle against Johnny's chest, Johnny couldn't imagine wanting to see another human being outside of this room.
"Yo, check this one out," Mark said, tilting his head to give Johnny an unfettered view of his phone screen. In the looping video, a sitting kitten fell asleep and careened head-first onto a comforter. Mark's giggling shook Johnny's whole body.
Johnny carded through Mark's hair. "Cute."
"I fucking love cat videos, man. I wish my mom would let us get a cat." He made a contemplative noise and scrolled on to another video. "I think I'll get one when I move out."
"I was thinking I could visit you before Christmas. Or maybe before New Year's. If you'd be down for that."
Mark went stiff and paused the video, seemingly accidentally, because he unpaused it the next second. "I… Yeah, that'd be awesome. I would totally be down for that."
Johnny, who figured this was an easy ask anyway, tugged Mark's hair the way he knew he liked. "Good."
Mark was quiet and still for a moment as another kitten video played, but then he was talking so quickly Johnny would have had trouble following him if he hadn't already experienced Mark's brain getting ahead of his mouth a few times. "So we need to talk about stuff, I get it, but I'm just, man, it's a lot to be here, you know? And to be sure that we, like, vibe in person, which we really do. And I know it's hard to plan for the future—"
"I get it," Johnny interrupted, soft, and Mark went lax against him again. "It was a trial run, I think. But hey," he said, and opened his arms as Mark started to turn in them, flipping onto his side so they could make eye contact. "It ran."
Mark's face was as open as Johnny had ever seen it. He smiled, slow and broad. "Yeah, it did."
---
NOW
At the end of the road trip, when he drops Jeno and Donghyuck off at Mark's parents' house and then hits the road back to Vancouver proper, Johnny is fairly certain he has wind burn and a headache from the playlist Donghyuck selected. But he's happy, Mark at his side in the passenger seat, looking out the window. Mark's mood seems muted, and he's not really talking. Given the length of the day, the amount of driving and exploring they did of tiny, half-shuttered coastal towns (and their truly great restaurants; Johnny's going to have dreams about that clam chowder), it's no great surprise. Johnny figures both of them will perk up once they get to the hotel and have a chance to shower and unwind.
Except that's not what happens. If anything, Mark gets even more withdrawn, downright moody, as Johnny lets them into the suite and tries to ask him what he wants to do for the night, if he wants the first shower.
"I dunno, whatever," Mark says flatly, and Johnny is raked with irritation.
He tells himself it's because they've been in each other's pockets for days, and now this long stretch of added stress with Mark's friends. But somehow that does nothing to soothe him.
"Well, I'll go, then," he says, and grabs his sleep clothes before making his way into the bathroom. He strips off in a hurry, confirms that he's indeed been out in the elements too long and his skin is going to suffer for it, and climbs into a shower on the pleasant edge of too hot.
As he soaps himself up, he obsesses. It's kind of Johnny's thing. He's an overthinker, something he knows Mark is too, though their brains function on totally different wavelengths, and he can't help but go over the day to try and nail down exactly when Mark's temper changed.
During the last stop before they headed home, he thinks. Mark was smiling and laughing, even when Donghyuck kept asking Johnny to buy him stuff, up until their dinner at that quaint gastropub where they'd been nearly the only customers. Johnny was somewhat distracted by the food, but he thinks he remembers Mark's energy level sinking then.
He can't figure out why, though. Nothing happened. Donghyuck made jokes, Jeno asked about Johnny's work, and they all rehashed how Mark and Johnny met and became a thing. It was a nice way to wrap up the day.
Out of the shower, after thoroughly moisturizing, Johnny brushes his teeth and tells himself to calm down and stop thinking so much. He'll get the answer from Mark, even if he has to wait this funk out. He can afford to be patient. Mark's no good at grudges anyway, from what he can tell.
When he exits the bathroom, letting out a cloud of fragrant steam, Mark is sitting on the suite's sofa, and everything about his body language says he's anxious, worried. The TV is on but muted.
"You okay?" he asks, immediately going to Mark's side and dropping down next to him. Mark cuddles up to him, tucking his head under Johnny's chin, fingers walking anxiously up and down his arm.
"I'm… all right," he hedges. "I'm sorry I've been so weird, but like, that thing you said during dinner, did you mean it? I, like, I know we were all joking, but—"
"Slow down." Half of his attention is on how Mark is winding himself up in Johnny's arms and starting to stammer. The other half is trying to recall anything he could have said to make Mark react like this. "I don't even remember what you're talking about, dude. You're gonna have to be specific." He rubs at Mark's waist, the dip where his hands fit so well, as Mark gets up his courage.
"You said that I wore you down," Mark says, voice thick. "Jeno was like, calling me persistent, or whatever, and you said I wore you down. And I—"
"Holy shit, that was a joke." Johnny feels like a balloon on the verge of popping, filled up with horror that Mark took it that way. When he said it, it was such an obvious fucking joke that he'd forgotten it in the next second. "It was literal bullshit I was saying to be quippy. If I knew—"
"I mean, I knew it was a joke, everyone laughed, but it feels kinda true? In a way? If you look at it."
Johnny can't keep having this conversation with Mark facing away from him. He makes a mess of trying to rearrange them, especially since Mark is not exactly excited about eye contact and isn't doing much to help him, but eventually the two of them can look at each other, though their positions make touching harder. Johnny cups Mark's jaw and strokes it, feels it clenched under his hand.
"It's not true. It's my dumb joke, Mark, so I can tell you exactly how little I meant it."
Mark shivers like someone walked over his grave, and he dips his head and picks at the material of the couch. "I believe you," he says, though Johnny doesn't believe him with that tone. "I guess I feel like I… tricked you, somehow? It doesn't make sense that you like me back."
Johnny's jaw drops, and his hand slips away from Mark's face. He's struck with no idea of what to say or do for a long moment, reeling from this revelation after months and months. Months of Mark being brave, almost too brave, for him; months of them trying to define what they mean to each other; months of late-night conversations and getting deeper and deeper in. "Oh, baby, no," he says. "Not in a million years. I fell for you with my eyes open."
Mark shifts, visibly uncomfortable, squirming under what Johnny's trying to tell him. Johnny doesn't try to stop his fidgeting, even if he's slightly worried Mark will unravel the damn couch, but reaches out to brush his fingers over Mark's other hand.
"I need you to listen to me, okay? Yeah, I probably could have lived my whole life thinking I was straight, or not feeling for a guy what I feel for you, but it's because I thought being gay or bi would be like… the way I'm attracted to women? And it isn't."
Mark gives a jerky nod, and Johnny nudges his hand to accept Johnny's, increasing their touch.
"It's a different thing, bud, you know I've told you that. And it took some getting used to."
Mark chuffs at that, the first real sign of life in him since this ugly look into the depths of him started. "I bet," he says, low.
"And not to get, ah, too real? But I think I'm pretty acclimated." Johnny worries about the next part, if it might stoke some other deep insecurity Mark's been keeping locked up. "I keep noticing other guys now."
Mark's head snaps up, mouth open, expression wiped clean of sadness. He's only shocked, and Johnny almost laughs at him. "Dude," he says, and leans in. "Who? Like, celebrities?"
"Sure," Johnny allows, because he's entertained a fantasy or two of that kind.
The full scope of his attraction is still unknown to him, and he has no real desire to test the edges of it since he's got Mark and Mark is a fantasy-fulfillment factory. Still, he's noticed the way he looks at men now. Or maybe the way he's always looked at men, behind a thick wall of plausible deniability that everyone notices hot people. Until Mark, thought was never truly connected with the desire to act.
"Celebrities, baristas at Starbucks, strangers," he continues. Johnny has a flash to Mr. Lee, his smile, the lines around his eyes and the way Johnny felt warm and weird about it. "Uh, it doesn't even matter who, just that it happens on the regular."
Johnny is not fooling Mark with that abrupt subject change. He's off his game, and Mark narrows his eyes. "No, really, who?" When Johnny sighs, Mark pushes at his arm. "This is the best day of my life, dude, you gotta tell me."
"I caught myself checking out Jaehyun at the gym for way too long," Johnny says.
"Understandable. God, was it in the showers?" Mark asks. "Did you get to see Jaehyun in the showers?"
"You're way too into this," Johnny says, and tweaks Mark's nose only to be batted away. "Yeah, it was in the showers. His abs are a work of art. Before, I thought it was just body envy, but like. No."
The degree to which Mark's mood has changed is almost disarming. He's drawn a leg up and leaned forward, propping his chin on his hand and resting his elbow against the couch back. He looks… hungry, alight, no trace of jealousy or insecurity. Johnny's relieved, for sure, but still off-balance from learning that Mark thought he… tricked Johnny into dating him, or wanting him, somehow?
"I tried that excuse too. I liked watching gay porn because it was motivation to work out," Mark says, laughing at Johnny's expression. "No, legit. I even believed it for a while."
"Denial is powerful, I guess." Johnny sobers and levels a finger at Mark. "We're not done talking about how you thought you tricked me. What the fuck, Mark?"
"We're not done talking about all your bisexual crushes," Mark counters. Johnny doesn't want to bring the mood back down again, so he lets Mark get away with not talking about it, though he does file it away for later. "C'mon, Johnny, I told you about the time I wrote a short story about Sasuke being my first kiss."
"Yes, and you've failed to provide me with that incredibly important artifact." Johnny blows out a breath. What the hell. It's honesty hour. "Uh, don't take this the wrong way, but your dad is… pretty hot. I think it's that he looks like you, but older."
Johnny chances a look at Mark in the silence that follows his admission. He knew he shouldn't have done it, but he has a nearly impossible time saying no to Mark. Mark's frozen, and Johnny's stomach twists.
"My dad," Mark says, his hand going up to his mouth.
"Aesthetically—" Johnny begins in a panic.
That's when Mark loses it, surging forward and gasping with laughter. He's… howling, basically, at Johnny's awkward revelation.
"Okay, sure, laugh it up," Johnny says, when Mark shows no signs of calming down.
Mark keeps going, laughing so wide Johnny can see his molars. His face gets red, and it's like he's lost his equilibrium. Johnny worries he might slip off the couch. "What—oh, fuck, I'm crying—what did you think I was going to do? Con-congratulate you?" He wipes at his eyes, shoulders shaking, little ha-has escaping while he tries his best to get it together. "It's my dad."
"Your mom is cute too," Johnny argues. "It doesn't mean—"
Mark slaps his hand over Johnny's mouth, eyes still wild with mirth. "Johnny, for both our sakes, just stop there."
---
THEN
Dropping Mark off at the airport blew.
Johnny had opted to park so he could walk Mark up and spend as much time with him as possible. The idea of a curbside goodbye, one of those quick hugs while cars honked and taxis nearly ran over pedestrians, was a sour one, but this prolonged goodbye wasn't great either.
"I should get through security pretty soon," Mark said, nearly at a mutter. "Frick, how is it over already? I feel like I just got here."
"Me too, bud," Johnny said. Pressure kept building in his chest, and words struggled to loose around it; Johnny had grand plans for their goodbye, reassurances saved in his back pocket, and they had all abandoned him the minute they got to the airport and it became real.
Fuck. He couldn't let this weird little dude fly away from him like this, on a depressing note. Mark needed to know—
"Hey, uh," Mark said, with sudden intensity, "I know this might be weird, but I love you? I'm in love with you, I think?"
Johnny nearly went to his knees right there, the only thing keeping him up his grip on Mark's suitcase handle. If his chest had felt tight with unexpressed feeling before, that was nothing compared to this. He struggled to even breathe.
"It's okay if that's too much," Mark said, eyeing Johnny calmly, as though he'd rehearsed this and Johnny was playing his part. "You deserve to know, so I told you."
Johnny knocked the suitcase over scooping Mark into a hug, crushing Mark to him, whispering his name over and over, not caring about who might see or what they might think. That didn't matter.
He couldn't say it back, he knew he couldn't, not yet, but he wanted to.
---
NOW
Mark comes out of the bathroom and closes the door loudly, and Johnny looks up from the bed where he's sorting the Christmas presents they each bought.
"Do not," Mark says in a warning, shaken tone, "go in there for a while."
"Oh no," Johnny says sympathetically, as Mark walks to the bed with his hand protectively braced against his stomach. "Something you ate?"
"I have no freaking idea what it was, but yeah," Mark sighs, and slides into his side of the bed, not incredibly mindful of the stuff piled on the mattress. "I may not be done, sorry."
Johnny puts the gifts—handmade stuff, mostly, with some Vancouver-themed items he bought for his folks—back into plastic bags to worry about later. He watches Mark curl up like a sad shrimp, still holding onto his stomach. He looks too pale. Johnny rubs his back. "Don't apologize. You need anything?"
"Uhhhh, a stomach transplant?" He groans against his pillow and wraps an arm around it, peering at Johnny with sad eyes, face mostly obscured. "I'm bummed because I was looking forward to getting dicked down tonight."
Johnny snorts, keeping up his slow, steady rub of Mark's back. "I can dick you down another night. We've got some time still."
"Not much," Mark mutters, and closes his eyes when Johnny scritches from his nape to the base of his spine. "Oh, that's good."
"You safe to drink any water?" Johnny asks, and Mark groans at the very idea. "Guess not."
"No, I should. I just… bleh."
"I'll get you the water. Drink it at whatever pace you need to."
Johnny raids the mini-bar, selecting two waters and a packet of M&Ms for himself. He's sleepy, still pleasantly full—unlike poor Mark—and ready to lie down, frankly, so he's not too torn up about not being able to have sex. Their day was so good, culminating in an evening spent wandering around looking at Christmas decorations and lights, Johnny taking pictures of Mark because he looked so charmed by the nativity scene populated entirely with oversized rabbit statues. Johnny thought it was a little creepy, but Mark kept cooing, "Aww, look at the baby Jesus."
(Eventually, Johnny had gotten so overwhelmed with fondness for Mark and his rabbit Baby Jesus appreciation that he'd come up behind him and hugged him, kissing the cold lobe of Mark's ear from where it wasn't covered by his beanie.)
A few sips into the water, Mark makes a face and hauls himself upright and out of bed. Johnny waits for him, changing out of his clothes into pajamas and figuring he can brush his teeth in the morning, when Mark's not in the midst of a stomach thing. Johnny's got the same cast-iron stomach his mom has, so he can't really relate to the frequent upsets, but he can imagine how miserable Mark is.
"Fuuuck," Mark says when he comes out of the bathroom again. "Okay, I think I might be done for real now."
"Think you can sleep?"
"I'm gonna try," Mark confirms, sliding under the covers and giving Johnny a very tired look.
Johnny kisses his forehead, his mouth, and this time, he rubs Mark's stomach, asking if it's okay.
"Yeah, feels good," Mark yawns.
He drifts off that way, breathing evening out under Johnny's palm, snuggling deeper into the covers when Johnny tucks him in.
---
THEN
"My dad acted like I'd never been gone at all, which was weird, but that's about where he's at with the whole thing," Mark complained. Johnny's phone was on speaker, propped up on his pillow, and after having Mark there in the flesh, talking to him as he fell asleep every night, Johnny was aware of what a poor substitute it was.
"My mom wants to know when you're coming back, if that helps at all," Johnny said.
"It does. She's so nice." Johnny smiled into the darkness. Mark hadn't even scratched the surface of Johnny's mother; nice was not high on the list of things he loved about her. "Eugh, it'll probably have to wait until I've got a real job, though."
"No worries. I looked at ticket prices for my trip out west; it looks pretty doable. I'll price out some hotels too, let you know what I find."
There was a long pause on the other end, so long Johnny squinted at his phone to make sure the call hadn't dropped.
"Mark?"
"No, I… That's cool. I'm just excited. And uh, really horny, suddenly? Like, apparently talking about travel plans is dirty talk to me now, haha."
"Oh, baby, wait until you hear about my diamond status," Johnny said huskily, and Mark laughed. "That TSA pre-check? Gets me going every time."
"You're joking, but like, I miss your cock so bad, bro," Mark said, somewhere between playing along and earnest, torn-up horniness, the way he got when he wanted to beg. "It's only been a day. This is pathetic."
"I miss your ass," Johnny said, resigning himself to fate and sliding a hand under the waistband of his sleep pants. "Still can't believe how lucky I got with you, Jesus Christ."
"Johnny," Mark whimpered, and it wasn't as good as kissing him, touching him, watching him fall apart, but it was good too. Anything with Mark was good.
---
NOW
"Thank you so much for doing this for me, Johnny, I really appreciate it."
"You need to stop thanking me. I don't mind at all."
Johnny glances over at Mark, in his literal Sunday best in the passenger seat, hair parted and styled different from usual. He looks too serious, intent, fiddling with the tie Johnny tied for him earlier, back at the hotel.
"My family goes every week, and I was planning to skip since we only have so much time together, but Mom asked, and—"
"Mark, I grew up going to church every week too, I get it." He removes one hand from the steering wheel and squeezes Mark's plush thigh. "We'll sit through a nice service, grab lunch with your family, and then the rest of the day is ours. It'll be fine."
"Sure, yeah," Mark agrees. "I'm not worried about it."
Johnny looks over again, making a face of evident disbelief. "Then why're you so wound up?"
It could be that Johnny's leaving soon, that the same dark cloud of awareness that this would be over, that they're going to have to resort to texting and phone calls, is hovering over an otherwise pleasant day. Sure, Johnny's not jumping for joy over withstanding more of the Lee family dynamic, which seems specifically designed to keep him on his toes, but he knows he'll get used to it, that it's necessary.
"Uh, lots of stuff." Mark, as usual, has a hard time keeping quiet when something's bugging him. He lasts for a half-kilometer or so. "Like, I started looking at internships and jobs in America. Um, I thought about maybe uni there too, if I find a graduate program I would actually like."
"In America?" Johnny asks carefully.
"Chicago," Mark admits. "Come on, man, you know what I mean."
"Just making sure," Johnny says. "I know you like New York."
"Yeah, but New York doesn't have you. So. What do you, uh, think?"
"What do I think?" Johnny repeats, a little amused. "I think I'm over the moon, Mark."
"Wait, really?" Mark asks, and in Johnny's peripheral, he can see Mark turn in his seat to get a better look at him. "You don't think it's too fast or too much?"
"No?" He thinks about their lack of conversation about next steps beyond allusions to future trips to each other's cities, how even though they said they were going to sit down and talk about it, they haven't yet. No wonder Mark's so nervous. "I know talking about logistics long-term is scary because everything is so complicated, but we need to. I need more than a week of you at a time."
"Yeah," Mark says, sounding shyly pleased. "Me too."
Every time Mark reacts to something Johnny's said like the universe has opened up for him, Johnny's heart cracks. Whether it's shit he did, with his wishy-washy behavior, fully engaging in emotional intimacy with Mark while no homo'ing the entire time, or if it's something from further back, from Mark's family and community, Johnny doesn't know. Whatever the reason, Mark shouldn't be so insecure, not about himself, and not about Johnny.
"This is not how I planned on this conversation going," Johnny says, smiling ruefully and hoping Mark can read the truth on his face, regretful he can't turn to look at Mark for longer than a moment because he's driving but slightly relieved too. "But I love you, Mark. I want to see what that looks like when we're in the same city."
"Oh," Mark says. A beat, where Johnny keeps his eyes firmly on the road. "Um, I love you too, but you knew that already."
"Yeah, honey, I did."
"Can you pull the car over?" Mark asks.
"What? Why?" Johnny looks over at last to see Mark looking back at him, eyes shiny, biting his lip. "You okay?"
"I need to kiss you right now. Really, really bad."
Johnny feels Mark pry his hand off Mark's thigh to tangle their fingers together. He puts on his blinker and gets ready to take the next off-ramp, his heart thudding wildly in his chest, his face stretched with a smile. "Yeah, all right."