Chapter Text
"You doin' okay, Buddy?" Marvin expected to be asking his twelve-year-old son this question as the drop tower slowly inches up higher in the air; instead, he's patronizingly asking his boyfriend, a full grown man who is currently gripping his own padded safety bar hard enough that his knuckles are bone-white.
"I'm fine." Whizzer answers quietly through gritted teeth, refusing to look over at Marvin as he stares firmly ahead.
"Really?" Marvin prods skeptically, fighting a smile from working its way on his face.
"Really." His boyfriend snaps fiercely, but his defiant expression grows tighter as their elevation slowly increases.
"You look like you're about to cry." Marvin points out, unable to preserve the chuckle that spills from his lips. He holds a hand out to him, waving his fingers teasingly, "Wanna hold my hand?" Whizzer glares at him, but the severity of which is lessened due to the fact that he looks like he's about to puke any second now.
It was Whizzer's own fault that he'd been suckered into going on this ride in the first place, really. They'd taken Jason to the nearest amusement park on one of Marvin's weekends, and the young boy has been a ball of energy since nine o'clock this morning. Because he made the fatal mistake of asking Jason to just slow down for one minute, please I'm dying, Marvin has been the brunt of many ageist jokes for the past few hours (he tries to point out that Whizzer is only five years younger than him, but Jason is quick to bat that fact away). Due to this discrimination, Whizzer has assumed the role of Riding Partner on many of the amusement park rides, bouncing along with Jason and pretending that he hasn't amassed an overwhelming ache all over his body in result of the many jerky, vomit-inducing rides.
As they near the top, Marvin takes pity on Whizzer and murmurs lowly, "Jason already thinks you're great, Whizzer. It's not like you have anything to prove."
"I used to love these rides when I was a kid," Whizzer reveals softly, his ghostly face one of sincere devastation, "Now, I'm sweaty, and anxious, and sore, and I feel like I wanna throw up—and not in the fun way that these rides used to make me feel. What happened?"
"You're getting old," Marvin answers with a laugh, "But hey, it's not so bad. You would not believe how much money you save with all those Senior Discounts." Whizzer snorts and, after a pause of hesitation, quickly grabs Marvin’s extended hand, all at once crushing the bones in his fingers with his vice-grip.
"I always hated this ride." Whizzer admits tightly as the ride finally reach its maximum height and pauses for the briefest second.
Marvin looks over to Jason on his right and sees his son grinning in anticipation. He dares a look back over at Whizzer and sees the man with his eyes screwed shut and lips pressed firmly together in a grimace. Before Marvin can comment on either, however, the ride dramatically plummets to the ground, earning various screams and laughs from the riders. Marvin laughs along with his son and distracts him from looking over at Whizzer, who is still frozen in place with a terrified, sick-ridden expression. The grip on Marvin's hand grows tighter and tighter as the ride continues, and when the terror is finally over, Marvin has lost all circulation on the entire left side of his body.
"That was so much fun," Jason exclaims as they exit the ride, "Let's go again!"
"No!" Whizzer and Marvin yell in unison, and that's when Jason notices their interlocked hands.
At his expression of growing suspicion, Marvin saves Whizzer from explanation by exclaiming jovially, "What? I can't embarrass my son by engaging in unnecessary PDA with my hot, young boy-toy?" He jokingly pulls Whizzer into a kiss, prompting exclamations of disgust from Jason.
"Okay, that's enough. Come on, let's just go play some games for a while." Jason trots off several feet ahead of them, seeming to forget his desire to ride the drop tower again.
As they walk to catch up with him, Whizzer turns his head and kisses Marvin's cheek, "That was sweet of you."
Marvin shrugs casually, glancing down at their intertwined hands with a soft expression, "What can I say? You bring out the best in me."