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“Why haven’t we ever kissed on the lips?”
Mark turns, half-expecting Tom to be pointing a phone camera at him, because this sounds like a question that would normally have an audience - but Tom’s just laying across the couch, the same way he was the last time Mark glanced over, squinting up at the ceiling instead of making eye contact.
“Is that a real question or is this like a hidden microphone situation?”
Tom snorts out a laugh and finally looks over at him, cracking a smile. “How did you know there's a microphone up my ass? Actually, maybe you should check and make sure it's still there."
Stifling a laugh of his own, Mark shakes his head and turns back around to the mirror, trying to finish getting ready for the show. “I don't think we have time for that before the show."
Biting his lip against a grin, Tom flops onto his side on the couch and props his head up on his hand. “Okay, seriously, though. Is it weird we haven’t kissed on the mouth?”
“I feel like it’s a lot weirder that you won’t stop talking about it.”
“Look, just because it keeps coming up, that’s not my fault. It’s like - cosmic energy shit.”
“The universe wants us to kiss each other,” Mark says flatly, narrowing his eyes at Tom’s reflection rather than turning around.
“I don’t know, maybe!” Tom clearly can’t fight off a grin now, and Mark rolls his eyes. “Mark, seriously! I’m not joking!”
“You look like you’re joking.”
“I am so, intensely, literally not joking right now. How do I prove it?” Tom stands up, heaving himself up off the couch, and walks over so he’s hovering at Mark’s elbow. “I’ll totally prove that I’m serious. Call my bluff.”
The problem is that Tom has that look in his eyes - that achieve the goal by any means look. Mark knows that look, knows every terrible and wonderful thing that has ever come out of it.
“I’m not gonna try to kiss you just to call your bluff,” Mark tells him. He turns around though, and nudges his glasses up to fix Tom with a look. “Why are we talking about this right now?”
“Cause I was thinking about it,” Tom answers, too quickly to be anything but true. “I feel like it would feel less weird if we just - got it out of the way, right? What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Could be super gross.” It’s flippant - more flippant than Mark feels. His surprise is starting to give way to an uncomfortable pit in his stomach, and an increasing urge to flee the situation - to find his phone and use it as a shield somehow. He wants to grab someone from the hallway, or start streaming just so he doesn’t have to deal with this on his own. He really wishes that Skye hadn’t stayed at the hotel tonight. He’s not entirely sure why. He just knows he isn’t ready, right now, like half an hour before a show, to finally face this particular weird aspect of him and Tom face on.
Tom scoffs at him. “Cause we’ve totally never done anything super gross.”
“Speak for yourself, I’m an angel.”
One corner of Tom’s mouth twitches up, but he doesn’t laugh. He lets the silence draw out, but before Mark can open his mouth to make another dumb joke, Tom finally says, “Do you actually like - does the idea of it gross you out that bad? Or is something else about it bothering you?”
“Oh, don’t do that-” Mark bites out, turning back around, trying to dodge Tom’s eyes.
“Do what?”
“Do your - weird zen thing like nothing bothers you anymore.”
“Dude, all kinds of shit bothers me, just - this doesn’t. Is it really bothering you?”
Mark opens his mouth to respond, and then catches sight of his watch, just out of the corner of his eye. “Tom, we have to be onstage in like 20 minutes. Can this just - wait?”
In the mirror, over his shoulder, the spark in Tom’s eyes dims a little. “You can just tell me no, you know. I can back off.”
“Can you?” Mark bites out, nastier than he meant to. Someone in the hallway starts calling out - it’s obvious that they’re getting down to the 15 minute wire - and Mark only barely catches a glimpse of the startled hurt on Tom’s face before he looks over at the door and gives them a thumbs up.
“Guess I’ll see you onstage,” Tom says evenly, ducking away towards the door without waiting for a response.
As soon as Tom’s gone, the air gets lighter, and Mark can breathe again - but that pit in his stomach isn’t going away. The questions themselves were innocent enough. Poorly timed, sure, but when has Tom ever had a great sense of timing? Still - it’s not even just that it’s right before a show. Where was this conversation 25 years ago? Why is this only coming up now?
He doesn’t have an answer for that. Neither does his own hollow expression, looking back at him in the mirror.
The next fifteen minutes are a complete blur. By the time he’s getting corralled backstage, watching Tom get his guitar adjusted from a safe distance, Mark feels like he just wandered there in a daze. He can still taste the toothpaste on the back of his tongue, his drinks are where they’re supposed to be, he did everything he needed to do, but he doesn’t remember any of it. He feels strangely like he left some part of himself back in the dressing room, like he skipped a step going down nonexistent stairs.
He glances over again and catches Tom looking at him, brow furrowed. He looks away when he catches Mark looking back.
Abruptly, Mark realizes that this has the potential to be a very weird show. Like a Travis is gonna be fucking pissed at them, almost as bad as it was 10 years ago kind of show. If he and Tom are out of sync, it’s gonna fuck the whole thing up.
He knows, though, that at least right now, he still has maybe 30 seconds to fix it. He passes his bass off to the first person who reaches out a hand, and walks over to Tom. Actually, he’s so quick about it that Tom barely has time to turn around, so Mark just sort of goes slamming into his shoulder, forehead first. He’s not moving fast enough to hurt either of them - but he can feel Tom jump, the tension in his shoulders.
“Woah - Mark, hey.”
“Sorry for being a dick,” Mark tells him, lifting his head up just enough to mumble the words against the back of Tom’s neck.
“You’re gonna like - smudge your glasses,” Tom says quietly - but Mark can hear the hint of a smile in his voice.
“What, on your gross, sweaty neck? It’s fine, that’s what t-shirts are for.”
Tom laughs, and turns to place one of his hands gently on the back of Mark’s head. “Hey, as long as that’s on you and not on me.”
“Totally my bad,” Mark tells him, trying to push past the weird catch in his own voice. “Just don’t fuck up my hair.”
“Well now I like, want to, just because you said that.”
Mark pulls back enough to glare at him, and Tom raises both of his hands up, eyebrows raised, pretending to look caught out.
Pointing at him, Mark edges back into his space. “Watch it.”
“Alright, alright. Truce.” He relaxes back into an easy grin and places a hand back on Mark’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Hey. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Mark says easily - because that’s always easy now. “Let’s go kick some ass.”
“Fuck yeah.”
Mark reaches out to give him a fist bump, but Tom wraps an arm around him to reel him back in and kiss him on the temple. Still feeling indulgent, like he owes Tom some sort of compromise, Mark doesn’t bother to try and pull away or shove Tom off. He just closes his eyes, just for a moment, and leans into the gesture, letting himself feel the grounding weight of Tom’s arm over his shoulders, the way Tom’s nose nudges up into his hairline, the barely-there brush of his mouth - just a hint of pressure.
Apparently, though, Tom is so used to him ducking away or shoving off that they both just - linger there for a second, swaying gently where they stand.
“Are we good?” Mark hears somewhere over his shoulder - and he remembers, abruptly, that they’re backstage, moments from going on - possibly even already running late.
“Yep, sorry,” Mark says, forcing a laugh. Tom gives him a little push back towards his side of the stage, and when Mark glances back, he finds Tom grinning at him, smile as bright as it could possibly be.
Shaking his head, Mark just laughs. He grabs his bass, walks onstage, and tries to get back into the headspace of actually playing a show.
It’s easy enough to settle in, once he’s in position behind his mic, and he can hear the muffled screams of the crowd like a wall of sound even through his in-ears. Tom’s still grinning at him, even as he sings, and like it always does, being onstage feels like home - almost more than home does sometimes. He forgot for a long time, longer than he should have, that this was home first - onstage with Tom, Travis behind them, nothing up there with them but dumb jokes and their instruments and the sounds of their own songs.
More than he has in a while, Mark finds himself drifting over to Tom’s side of the stage. He thinks about messing around, ducking down for the easy grope, but it doesn’t really feel like the night for it. Tom seems more cautious, too, in spite of what happened just before they came onstage - he’s joking around, still happy, but he’s not really reaching out either. They have nights where they don’t really get around to messing with each other that much - it’s not that strange. Mark just feels like he needs to keep re-establishing for himself that everything is fine.
At one point, he spends so long hovering in Tom’s space that they nearly bump into each other when Tom turns around - after Mark dodges out of the way and Tom grins at him, Mark shuffles closer again and presses his shoulder against Tom’s before they walk in opposite directions.
Again, it earns him a smile - soft, and a little surprised. It’s the same kind of look Tom got backstage when Mark leaned into him.
It’s easy enough, then, to find other subtle ways to touch. A hand on Tom’s shoulder as he passes by with a mic, bumping shoulders or elbows if they’re passing each other - even leaning his forehead against Tom’s shoulder at one point. He feels the muscle there tense underneath him - then relax, slowly, just enough to make it easier for Mark to rest his head there.
By the time he goes to sit on the drum riser during All the Small Things, Mark isn’t sure what to expect. He watches Tom walk over, vaguely planning to just close his eyes and turn his cheek - but before he gets a chance, Tom sits down beside him, and tilts to the side to rest his head on Mark’s shoulder this time. He smiles, softening the slope of his posture enough that Tom doesn’t slide off, even though Mark knows the moment won’t last for long.
He has vague thoughts of kissing the top of Tom’s head - but of course his stupid fucking hat is in the way. Huffing out a laugh, Mark tips his chin down enough to tell Tom that - and when Tom lifts his head up just enough to laugh, Mark darts in and kisses him quickly on the cheek. It’s a faint brush of lips against Tom’s whiskers more than it’s anything else - but Mark can still feel the warmth of his skin, flushed from the stage lights.
Travis, thankfully, riffs long enough that neither of them are late getting back to the mics.
The show wraps up as quickly as it always does after that. Over too soon, the same way it feels every single time. They take their bows, and head offstage, everyone being herded in different directions. Before they completely part ways, Tom makes sure to find him, and they share a fairly routine post-show hug.
Nothing seems that different about it - but tonight, Mark gives himself a moment to really process it: how comfortable he feels with Tom’s arms around his shoulders, the way his head naturally rests at the place where Tom’s neck meets his shoulder, and everything just slots into place. They’re both sweaty now, and it’s definitely a little bit gross - but it doesn’t bother Mark as much as he usually tries to pretend it does. Tom mostly still smells like his throat spray and a hint of cologne.
“Good show,” Tom says, squeezing Mark’s shoulder as he pulls back, smile wide enough to light up his face.
“Yeah, really good. Loud.”
“Fucking - so loud. It was awesome.” With a laugh, and another quick pat on the back, Tom is gone, jogging ahead to catch up with Travis - and Mark feels oddly like he dodged something unintentionally.
This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s completely off the hook for earlier - or whatever he was doing during the show - but apparently if Tom is planning to ask any questions, those are coming some other time.
For now, Mark gets to grab his things, take care of any critical post-show tasks, and then head back to the hotel for the night.
When he makes it up to the room, he finds Skye still awake and waiting for him, reading by the light of the bedside lamp. She looks up and smiles at him as he walks in, and any of the unease that was still lingering in the line of his shoulders just melts away at the sight of her.
Partly just to make her laugh, he drops everything and walks over to the bed, falling onto it facefirst with a groan. She does actually chuckle, just a little, and he considers it a win.
“Good tired at least? You had a good show?” She asks, reaching down to brush her fingers through his hair.
“Yeah,” he admits, smiling as he rolls carefully onto his side, facing her. “Yeah, it was good. Just - kind of a weird night before the show. Glad to be back.”
“What was weird?”
Flopping onto his back, Mark lets out a sigh as he squints up at the ceiling. He’s trying to find some way to articulate anything that happened, parse out what he actually wants to tell Skye - but before he can do that, she just says-
“Tom?”
“What-” he startles a little, and frowns over at her. “Okay, that’s not-”
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that exact sigh in the last 25 years? There’s a Tom sigh.”
“I do not have a Tom sigh. That’s - you’re making that up.”
“I notice you’re not saying that whatever made tonight weird wasn’t Tom-related.”
“Well it wasn’t - he didn’t actually do anything. Not really.” He glances back at her and meets her steady, unconvinced stare. “Look, it’s not - basically he got a stupid idea that got under my skin, and I kind of snapped at him about it. I felt bad afterwards, because it really wasn’t - on the scale of stupid Tom ideas, right, this is like - barely a 1.”
“So we do have a scale of Tom’s bad ideas, but you think you don’t have a Tom sigh?” Skye asks - but she softens it by reaching over to run her fingers through his hair again, and he can hear the smile in her voice.
He sighs again, scooting closer to her on the bed so she’s easier to reach, wrapping a hand around her knee just to anchor himself. “Okay, fine. Maybe I do. But - seriously, it wasn’t that bad. It was just a little awkward. It’s probably gonna be fine.”
“Do you actually wanna tell me about it, or are you just gonna keep talking around it?”
“I just don’t know how to-” He huffs, and tips his head back to look up at her. There’s nothing but patience in her eyes - it’s a genuine question. Closing his eyes, Mark tries to force himself to relax - to feel the warmth of her there beside him, her hip only inches from his head. The delicate press of her fingers against his scalp. “It feels weird to talk about it,” he admits. “I know I’m already making a bigger deal out of it than I need to, but I just - it’s kind of hard to put it into words without it sounding - I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Skye says softly, her fingers pausing their motion. She brushes her thumb over his temple. “Do you want to wait?”
It’s appealing, as far as options go. He could tell her he does, forget all about it, change into his pajamas and just settle into bed with her and let everything outside of their hotel room wait for a day or two.
He knows, though, that it would still creep up on him. Tom will bring it up again, eventually. Even without that, the way he reacted tonight is already bothering him again, playing on repeat in his head like an endless loop. He’s still not sure why he snapped like that - he’s not sure why it’s so hard to put it all into words for Skye now. It’s obvious that avoiding it is only going to cause him more problems - so he takes a deep breath, crafts the simplest summary he can manage and then forces it out of his mouth. “He won’t stop asking me why I won’t kiss him on the mouth.”
There’s a long moment of quiet, where the words just sit in the air between them - Mark refuses to open his eyes and look at them, or check Skye’s face.
“And that’s bothering you?” she asks, clearly keeping her voice as even as possible.
“I just - am I crazy that that’s a little bit weird?” He blurts out finally, so frustrated that he forces himself to sit up. “Why is this coming up now, and not thirty fucking years ago? Or ten years ago for that matter? And why just - I know he’s not actually kissing any of his other friends, so why does he suddenly wanna kiss me on the mouth?”
“Do you actually want me to answer any of that?” Skye asks him softly - and he turns finally, to meet her patient, sympathetic stare.
Heaving out another sigh, Mark pushes up his glasses to rub a hand over his face. “No. Sorry. It’s not - I know those are questions I probably should have just asked him.”
“Or you can just - tell him no, you know. If you don’t want to. He’s not going to make you.”
Mark snorts. “It’s not like I’m worried he’s gonna make me. It’s not like he’s never-” Trailing off, Mark tries not to think too hard about drunken near misses, about dares that didn’t quite feel like a joke. “I can dodge.”
“If he’s asking, it doesn’t sound like he’s going to make you dodge. It sounds like he only wants to try it if the answer is yes.”
“Don’t-” Abruptly, Mark resists the urge to squirm. “Don’t make it sound all fucking serious. He’s not serious. This is some stupid idea again, he probably read some fucking article somewhere about - I don’t know, some stupid Tom shit, creative alignment through physical contact or something. He’ll get over it.”
For a moment, the room goes quiet, and Mark can feel Skye looking at him steadily, her eyes practically burning a hole in his temple, where he’s turned to argue with the wall instead of her.
“Can you answer one question for me?” She asks him.
He exhales, slowly. “Sure.”
“If he was serious, would you want to?”
“That’s not-”
“I know you’re saying it’s not, but I’m asking. If Tom really did want to kiss you, for real, would you be interested in that? We can have a conversation about it.”
“Skye, come on, we don’t - please don’t make this all serious and weird, he’s just -”
“I just want a yes or a no.”
“No,” Mark says, but for some reason the word feels wrong in his mouth. It feels a little like spitting out blood. “No, of course not.”
“Okay. Does it change your answer if I tell you I’d be fine with it?”
He turns sharply, so caught off guard it’s basically on instinct. One corner of her mouth quirks up, clearly a little amused, and he raises a finger to point at her. “Are you fucking with me?”
She laughs - fully, truly laughs at him. “Why would I do that?”
“You’re literally laughing at me!” He tells her, gesturing broadly at her face, but he’s cracking a smile now, too.
“It doesn’t mean I’m lying. I just don’t get the big deal. After everything I’ve already seen onstage? Or on your phone? For 25 years? Before I knew any better I honestly assumed - well.” Her laughter dies off, and she presses her lips together, shrugging one shoulder. “Maybe we shouldn’t get into all that.”
Mark blinks at her. “Wait, did you seriously think - when? Like when we met?”
“For - several years. Especially-”
“Oh not-”
“When you stopped talking the first time. I always kind of wondered. If - you know. There was more to the story that I missed somewhere. But I didn’t - I trusted you. I’ve always trusted you. I knew you would tell me eventually - and then you never did, and then it just turned out - I don’t know. You and Tom are just - you and Tom. And you always have been.”
He feels - flustered. Strangely caught out. He fidgets, trying to resist the urge to pick at loose threads in the expensive hotel bedspread. “I don’t know if I should apologize for that or-”
“For what?” She asks him simply, finally shifting closer to him on the bed, just enough to nudge her knee against one of his, and wrap a hand around his wrist. “I’m not complaining. I think it's sweet. Obviously I was also happy to carry a grudge on your behalf for a while, but - it’s not like I hate him now. He made you laugh when I could barely even think about being funny - when it kind of mattered the most. I know I don’t love him as much as you do but - I probably do love him a little bit, just for that.”
“Oh don’t make me fucking - cry in the middle of this,” he complains, his voice already thick with emotion, and she laughs again, finally shifting around just to lean against his shoulder.
“All I’m trying to say is that I made my peace with the idea of you two - having had something, years and years ago. Then I realized I was wrong, but - I guess I already kind of worked through how that would work, in my head, just in case. I’m not saying you have to take me up on it, if you’re really not curious at all - but I’m not gonna pretend it’s not - a little bit sexy for me to think about.”
“Wait, what?” He asks, surprised enough that he’s louder than he meant to. He nudges her off his shoulder and looks down just to find her biting her lip against a grin. “What does that - are you serious?”
“I’m not trying to convince you that you should, if you don’t want to-” Her tone’s softened again now, into something more genuine.
“I-” Mark feels all the excuses he’s made slipping right between his fingers. “I mean I really never thought about it. Not seriously. Not until he - we just keep talking about it, for some reason. Maybe a couple times, years and years ago, when we were really drunk and stupid, the thought crossed my mind, but I never - I just never thought about it.”
“And if you do think about it?”
The problem is, even with Skye asking him to, Mark’s not sure if he can. It feels like something that’s completely blocked off in his brain - some trail of thought that’s been locked in a box in a dusty cupboard somewhere since the mid-90s, that’s only barely been glanced at a couple of times.
“I don’t know,” he says, softly. “I’m not - it doesn’t actually freak me out, the act of it itself, except - it doesn’t feel like a joke. I wouldn’t wanna do that as a joke onstage, because if we’re just - actually kissing, that doesn’t feel very funny. But if it’s not for an audience or a joke - what is it for?”
“I guess that’s up to you and Tom to decide,” Skye murmurs against his shoulder. She kisses him there, over the fabric of his shirt, and then rubs a hand up and down his arm, soothing. “You should talk to him about it, before the next show. Obviously it’s gonna drive you both crazy otherwise.” Then she lays back down, looking up at him where she’s reclined against the pillows. She bites her lip. “Only rule is that you have to tell me all about it afterwards.”
He laughs, in spite of himself, and props himself up on one elbow beside her again, just to look at her - the gold of her hair in the lamplight, all spread out over the pillows. “How did I get so lucky, huh? You realize it’s absolutely ridiculous that you would agree to this. I don’t think anyone else would agree to this. An open relationship is one thing, but Tom specifically-"
“Well for better or worse, I love you a lot,” she teases, her smile edging into something more genuine. “I like it when you’re happy. And - admittedly, if it were anyone else I might be worried, actually but - it’s not like you’re gonna run off and leave me for Tom. You’d have nowhere to go, he's already around all the time.”
Laughing again, he crawls closer, finally leaning in to kiss her, just once, softly. “I love you so much.”
She kisses him back, utterly indulgent, and scratches gently at the back of his neck. He shivers with it, just a little, before he breaks the kiss.
“Thank you,” he says roughly. “I have no idea what I ever did to deserve you.”
“Eh, you made me laugh,” she says simply, nudging her nose up against his. “You still do. That and you were really hot-”
Mark laughs, and falls forward again to press it into her mouth.
Tom, at least for a little while, is forgotten.
The next morning, mostly at Skye’s insistence, he finds himself knocking on Tom’s door with breakfast in hand. His palms are strangely sweaty, enough to make him feel like a kid on a first date, which is frankly the most embarrassing part of the entire thing.
On the one hand, this is Tom, so whatever happens will probably be weirder than anything he could ever plan for. On the other hand, he doesn’t remember how to do this - any of this. Brief almost with Robert Smith aside, still over 20 years ago, he can barely even remember the last time he kissed anyone other than Skye.
Tom opens the door, obviously still half-asleep. He’s got on a t-shirt and sweatpants, but he doesn’t even have his hat on yet. Mark manages to keep himself from making some kind of snide remark about it.
“Hey,” Tom says, blinking at him blearily.
“Hi. I brought you some breakfast. I, uh - Is it just you?”
“Yeah. Come on in, we can put it on the little - fuckin’ table thing.”
“Yeah, great,” Mark says, physically incapable of keeping the fondness from bleeding into his voice.
Being around Tom doesn’t just - inherently relax him the way that being around Skye can. In a lot of ways Skye is more like his safe port in a storm - the one person he’s always been able to count on, steady and solid through some of the most difficult parts of Mark’s life, always stronger than he is in a crisis.
Sometimes, Tom has been the crisis. But there’s something about him, something inescapable, that’s always made something in Mark light up as soon as they’re in the same place. Back when everything between them went to shit, the fact that he could never quite shake that feeling just made him even angrier. Now that things are good again, it’s nice to just be able to bask in it - the way that being around Tom feels a little bit like standing in the sunlight.
“Dude, this isn’t like - hotel breakfast, this is like a real fucking breakfast burrito,” Tom says, pulling the food out of the bag with a grin, even as he’s still rubbing the sleep from one eye with his free hand. “Where’d you even find this shit?”
“There’s this cool new invention called Google Maps, I don’t know if you heard about it-”
“Isn’t Apple gonna come like - send an assassin to kill you or some shit for not saying Apple Maps? Isn’t that how that works now, don’t they own your soul or something?”
Laughing, Mark kicks at Tom’s shin under the table. “Actually I just promised them yours when I signed the contract, sorry about that.”
“Shit, I knew I lost that thing somewhere.”
Smiling, Mark just picks up his tea and lets the cardboard cup warm his hands while he watches Tom eat.
It is, predictably, not the most appealing thing he’s ever seen - but he’s seen it a thousand times before, so it’s hard to start being bothered now.
“Are you kicking me out of the band again? Because like - as nice as this is, it’s kinda freaking me out a little bit.”
“Ha ha,” Mark says flatly, and kicks at Tom’s shin a little harder. “Just - consider it apology breakfast.”
Tom frowns, more with his eyes than his mouth. “You don’t have to do that. You apologized yesterday and - anyways I probably could have timed that better or - I don’t know, not been such a dick about it either. I probably was - I don’t know, it was a little bit pushy or something.”
“You? Pushy?” Mark asks with mock surprise, unable to resist teasing just a little bit.
“Ha ha,” Tom says back, even flatter than Mark. He kicks back. “I just - I know you like to say I’m all fearless and shit like it’s a good thing, but I know it can make me kind of an asshole, too. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but - I should have backed off instead of just giving you shit about it. I shouldn’t have tried to make you feel bad. If you don’t wanna-” For some reason, at that point in the sentence, Tom’s voice gets stuck in his throat, and he stops, clearing it briefly before just tucking back into his food. “It’s fine, obviously,” he says quietly, after he gets through another bite.
“I wanna talk about it. I just - I felt a little ambushed yesterday. You didn’t give me a lot of time to process.”
“I just didn’t think about it as anything we needed to process, I guess,” Tom says, now staring at the table instead of Mark’s face. “You know we’ve done so much other shit - way worse shit, in my opinion. Just kind of felt like backtracking almost.”
In spite of how ridiculous it makes him feel, that queasy pit opens up in Mark’s stomach again. “And if that’s all it is - I guess I just don’t see why it matters so much. Why bother with it at all if we’re just - backfilling some made up checklist?”
“I didn’t mean it like-” Tom looks at him again, really looks, and there’s something - some emotion, deep in his eyes, that Mark can’t quite read. “I don’t know. I guess you’re right. Maybe it was stupid - I just thought, you know, the once, it might be-” Biting his lip, Tom shakes his head, and scoffs out something that’s not quite a laugh. “I don’t know. You’re right, let’s just forget about it.”
“Might be what?” Mark asks quietly, trying to coax a real answer out of him.
“Guess I just thought it might be nice,” Tom mutters, eyes firmly on the table. Then he laughs, still a little off, clearly mostly at himself. “God I sound like a fuckin’ - kid, I don’t know, sorry. I don’t know why I’m so - I guess I just always kind of wondered?”
The queasy pit in Mark’s stomach disappears so abruptly it leaves him feeling slightly weightless - a little like he’s hovering just over his chair. “Wondered? About kissing me?”
“Okay, well don’t make it sound so-” Tom fidgets, visibly flustered as he cuts himself off. “It just feels kind of weird we’ve never actually done it, you know? Like as much as we joke around about it, nobody ever called our bluff or caught us on a dare or made it a bet - it feels like it should have happened, right? Like at some point, but it just never did. So much other shit we do is just - fine now. I like that we’re - you know, we’re closer in some ways, now, than we were before. I think if I kissed you on the forehead in public back then as much as I do now you probably would have like - punched me.”
“I wasn’t gonna punch you. I might have - freaked out, a little bit.”
“Right, so,” Getting into it now, embarrassment falling away again, Tom leans over the table. “So this is just - another one of those things, right? Like maybe it's fine now."
Something a little like disappointment settles into Mark’s chest - but Mark’s done stupider and weirder things in his life than platonically kissing Tom, and after all the trouble of talking the whole thing out with Skye, he may as well go all in. If Tom just wants to try it, they can try it, and if they end up being just friends who trade a fleeting kiss on the mouth every once in a while, to prove that it’s fine - well, there are probably worse things in the world.
“Yeah,” Mark says finally. “Alright.”
Tom goes still like he’s waiting for the punchline. “Wait. Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Mark says, trying to sound more certain than he feels. “As long as this isn’t just some elaborate bit - I’m down. Let’s try it.”
“Like now?”
“I mean, if you can fit it into your busy schedule-”
Grinning, Tom springs up and steps around the table. “Shit, dude, c’mere.”
With a sigh that can barely hide the fact that he’s already smiling back, Mark stands up from his chair. “Alright.”
He steps into Tom’s personal space, something he’s already done more than his fair share of recently, and tips his head up to make eye contact.
Tom blinks down at him, and his smile softens. “Hey.”
Unable to resist, Mark laughs. “Hi. Are you actually gonna kiss me or are we both still just gonna wimp out like we have for thirty-whatever years?”
“I am actually gonna kiss you. For real. Just - brace yourself, cause I’m gonna - rock your fuckin’ world. Right to the top of the list, greatest kisses of all time.” Reaching out, Tom does actually wrap a hand around the back of Mark’s neck to keep him close, and settles the other hand on his shoulder. “You ready for this shit?”
“I feel like you’re just stalling,” Mark says, just to get a rise out of him.
“You’re stalling,” Tom mumbles, ducking in close enough that his nose brushes against Mark’s as they both tilt their heads to find the best angle.
But then - they hover there, with one last stubborn centimeter between them.
Mark starts to laugh, in spite of himself, so used to breaking at the last minute, and Tom immediately pinches him on the shoulder.
“Fuck you!” Tom says, but he’s already laughing too. “This isn’t - I can’t take this fucking seriously if you’re gonna laugh at me right now.”
“I can’t help it!” Mark tells him, barely coughing the words out through laughter, leaned forward hard enough that he’s ended up with his forehead pressed against Tom’s shoulder. “I’m not - we never get this far without you doing something stupid, I don’t know how to take it seriously.”
“Okay, alright, that’s it - c’mere.” Tom’s obviously still smiling, but his laughter’s mostly died down - he cradles Mark’s face in his hands, thumbs tucked just under his chin, and tips his face up, pulling him in close.
Before Mark can start to laugh again, or either of them can crack another joke - Tom just leans down and presses his mouth directly against Mark’s. It’s a brief, chaste press of lips, and nothing else. There’s no fireworks, no sense that the Earth stopped spinning or started again - but all the same, they both go quiet.
“Well, you did it,” Mark says, his voice softer than he meant it to be.
“That was just - like the icebreaker,” Tom says - and Mark opens his eyes and sees that Tom is still - right there. With all the dumb backstage fucking around they’ve done in the past year, it’s not that Mark hasn’t been this close to his face - but he’s not usually looking. Tom’s eyes are dark, wide open and fixed on Mark’s mouth. His face is flushed, all the way to his ears - Mark can hardly stand the idea of looking at his mouth.
“Icebreaker?” Mark asks, not exactly sure where they’re heading from here.
“Doesn’t count,” Tom says dismissively, blinking quickly. “Still owe you a real one.”
“Alright then, show me your moves,” Mark tells him, still terminally incapable of being serious. He pinches Tom’s sides, hands landing on his hips - and the corner of Tom’s mouth quirks up, but he manages to keep himself from laughing.
“Oh, I’m gonna.”
Tom leans down again, Mark closes his eyes - and they’re kissing for real.
The ultimate punchline was always the idea that if they ever did this, it would be bad. Mental images of puckered lips and Tom rubbing his whiskers all over Mark’s face like when they pretend to kiss onstage - Tom licking the side of his face just to gross him out. The whole idea of it was ridiculous - they made it ridiculous, so it was hard to imagine it ever being pleasant.
But not unlike what Tom said - it’s nice. Tom’s lips aren’t chapped, they’re fairly soft. Mark can feel the prickle of stubble against his chin, but it just serves to remind him that this is Tom. Tom’s actually kissing him, softly pressing their mouths together, one thumb brushing over Mark’s cheek as he lingers. It’s warm and pleasant in a way that sinks all the way down to the soles of Mark’s feet. He hums, softly, and leans into the kiss, sliding his hands up to Tom’s waist - and he stays there.
Eventually, Tom pulls back with a sharp little inhale, like he spent most of the kiss holding his breath.
“I hate that you were right about that,” Mark says slowly, reluctant to open his eyes.
“Told you it could be nice,” Tom replies - but there’s something a little off about his voice.
He forces himself to look at Tom again, just to check, and he finds Tom’s eyes closed, still. His brow is furrowed. One of Tom’s hands shifts enough that he can brush his thumb blindly against Mark’s bottom lip, and Mark tries not to shiver with it.
“Hey,” Mark says quietly. “You good?”
“What?” Tom asks, obviously distracted - then his eyes fly open and he pulls back, his hands falling away from Mark’s face. “I- uh. Yeah, no I’m good. Sorry.” He laughs, oddly forced, and wipes his hands off on his sweatpants like a nervous tic.
Mark was certain, there for a second, that Tom was going to kiss him again. He’s not exactly sure why he didn’t. “Are we done, then? I thought for sure you’d at least try to slip me some tongue.”
Tom laughs, but it comes out a little strangled, and he’s still doing something awkward with his hands. “Look, the last thing I need is you, like - throwing up in my mouth or some shit.”
“I’m not gonna throw up on you, Tom, Jesus,” Mark insists, even as he fights off a laugh just from the absurdity of the sentence.
“You never know,” Tom answers with a simple shrug - but all the same, he keeps his distance. “Anyways, I wasn’t trying to like, make out with you. That’d be weird, right?”
Something in Mark’s chest seizes up a little, but he’s fairly certain he hides it well. “Hey, you were the one with the plan. If that’s all you wanted to do, then I guess that’s it - I just figured if we were gonna do it at all, we were going all in.”
Laughing around the words, Tom asks, “What does that mean?”
“I mean, seriously, come on, I’ve had kisses with my own mother that probably lasted longer than that.”
“Of course you have, you fuckin’ freak.” With that, though, the spark comes back into Tom’s eyes, and he takes a step back towards Mark. “I figured you weren’t gonna let me get away with much.”
“Who’s getting away with anything? Come back over here and kiss me like a man, put your fuckin’ back into it.”
For a second, Tom hesitates, and Mark wonders if he pushed it too far. He's not even sure why he's goading Tom into it - if Tom doesn't actually want to kiss him for more than a couple of seconds, Mark trying to dare him into it isn't gonna change anything. But - if this is all they get, just this handful of minutes in a fancy hotel room somewhere in Europe, Mark wants to make the most of it. He wants to know how it feels - wants to know if they've really been missing out on something all these years.
"Alright," Tom says finally, his grin going sharp and wild. "But you fuckin' asked for it."
He crosses back over in a single step, tips Mark's head back with both hands again, and kisses him, hard. This isn't the same kind of light, pleasant, almost platonic kiss that the first two were. The second one was a little long, maybe - but this one quickly becomes messy and insistent. Tom pushes his tongue against Mark's mouth, and Mark opens, instinctively, because he asked for it - but that doesn't stop the strange thrill of it, of just opening his mouth and letting himself be kissed.
A thought comes into focus, even past the warmth of Tom’s mouth against his, the calloused fingertips at the back of his neck, Tom’s whole body pressed right up against him, from shoulder to hip - this is almost exactly how it would have felt 30 years ago. There’s a kind of vertigo in the realization - if he can mentally edit out the stubble against his chin, if he can focus instead on Tom’s hands, and the angle of the kiss, the way that Tom’s pressed so close to use his height to his advantage - he can pretend, just for a second, they’re still just those idiot kids. They’re in some dingy club hallway, or some shitty motel where the floors are so sticky they can’t take off their socks, and they didn’t waste over half of their lives not trying this.
Caught somewhere between the past and the present, Mark grabs at Tom's waist, tugging him even closer, and pushes his tongue back against Tom's, trying to get as close as he can, in all the ways that he can. Tom jumps a little - just the twitch of muscles under Mark's hands, a sudden tension - but he doesn't pull back. Instead, he relaxes again, pushes one arm all the way across Mark's shoulders and keeps him close, tangles their bodies even further.
It's easy to get lost in it - the warmth, the pressure, the closeness, the rhythm of their mouths moving together - and Mark does. He's pretty sure they both do. He has no idea how long they stand there, just trading slow and increasingly sloppy kisses, drunk off the taste of each other and the novelty of it. He feels like he could stand here for another week, just like this, making up for lost time, but eventually Tom turns his face, letting Mark's mouth land against his jaw as he pants into the open air.
"Are you gonna-" Tom exhales, and Mark noses in just below his ear, pressing a kiss there. Tom twitches a little again, but tips his head back. "Fuck. Mark, are you gonna tell me when to stop?"
"Why are we stopping?" Mark murmurs into Tom's skin, teasing it with his teeth.
"Mark," Tom says again, nudging him back enough to lower his head, putting a hand on Mark's shoulder, just enough to leave a little space between their bodies. Not much - just an inch or two, where there was no space at all. "I can't think when you're fucking - doing that. Shit." He's flushed, pink all over and rubbing his free hand over the spot on his neck where Mark's mouth just was.
"Again, why are we thinking? What's happening?"
"I don't know," Tom says insistently, taking another step back. "That's kind of my point, Mark, I don't know what the fuck we're doing."
"This was your idea," Mark reminds him, frowning slightly.
"Well, yeah, but- this isn't how I thought this was gonna go. I didn't really plan this far ahead."
In spite of his creeping sense of unease, Mark can't stop himself from huffing out a laugh, one corner of his mouth quirking up. "How did you think it was gonna go?"
"Usually you just shove me off, you know?" Tom answers quietly. He glances at Mark, but won't meet his eyes, still just rubbing at his own neck like he's forgotten he's doing it. "I really - the vomit thing was kind of a joke, but I seriously thought you were gonna get grossed out at some point and tell me to fuck off, I really didn't-"
"Are you telling me this was the world's stupidest game of gay chicken?"
"What?" Tom finally locks eyes with him. "Mark, what the fuck are you - no. I told you why I was doing it, my fucking point is I don't know what you're doing and you're still not telling me."
Caught off-guard, Mark opens his mouth to answer, but can't quite find the words.
After a moment of quiet, Tom draws in on himself a little, crossing his arms over his chest. "There were easier ways to get me to shut up about it, you know. If that's what you were doing."
"Tom, why the fuck would I tell you to stick your tongue in my mouth to get you to shut up about it?"
It wasn't really a joke on purpose - but Tom coughs out a little chuckle like he can't help it, and when he presses a hand over his mouth, Mark's helpless to do anything but smile back. The growing tension eases off again, and he steps back into Tom's space, poking him in the arm.
"Come on, seriously," Mark nudges, and Tom lowers his hand, huffing out another almost-laugh.
"Okay, fair point. I just-" A little of the spark comes back into Tom's eyes - but his expression is soft, all big warm eyes and fond twist of his mouth. "Listen, I've been trying to kiss you for like, 30 years. I thought maybe I could get away with it, but I still didn't really think you'd be into it."
Mark's breath catches, but he tries not to let it show on his face as the thousand little almost-moments of the last thirty years flash through his mind at top speed. Maybe Tom doesn't fully realize what he's just sort of admitted to, or maybe he's just decided it's ridiculous to keep pretending otherwise - but either way, he's clearly more serious about this than Mark realized.
"I mean it's not like I knew for sure when I offered to try it," Mark offers quietly. "I figured you'd get bored with it or - maybe I would hate it. But uh - turns out I don't hate it."
Tom laughs, just one, sharp sound, a little too loud, and when he stops, he turns to face Mark again, head-on. "Yeah, I guess not. And like - to be fair, I was thinking, like - maybe if we did this the one time I could stop fucking thinking about it, but - isn't really working out like that."
Unable to stop it, Mark grins at him. "I'm just that great, huh?"
"Oh shut the fuck up," Tom grouses, but he's squinting at Mark, making that stupid face he always makes when he's trying not to laugh. "Like you weren't the one saying we should make out."
"Well it's not like I was wrong," Mark argues, but he's smiling, too, shifting back into Tom's space. As he does, though, he has an abrupt realization that makes him close his eyes and let out a sigh. "Oh, Skye's gonna give me so much shit about this."
"She - what? Why? Did you-"
"Because she told me you were serious and that I should come over here, and we had this whole conversation, and I was like, nothing's even probably gonna happen-"
"Wait, really?" Tom says with audible delight. "Skye was on my side?"
"Okay," Mark starts, opening his eyes and trying not to roll them at the sight of Tom's absolutely ridiculous shit-eating grin. "She was not on your side. That is not - she just - knew before I did, which it feels like she always does. You thought I was gonna throw up on you, that is not the same thing."
Tom's grin softens into something more subtle, and he reaches up to place his hands back on Mark's shoulders. "But she was like - cool with it?" There's something almost nervous in the tilt of Tom's head, the hesitant pressure of his hands.
"Yeah, she's fine," Mark answers, sliding a hand back up Tom's arm. "She just told me I have to tell her about it afterwards."
Immediately Tom's expression shifts, and he says "Wait, like-"
"Stop, just - stop," Mark says, barely biting off a laugh. "Whatever you're about to say, you can save it for later."
"Oh, I will," Tom tells him, smirk in full effect. "We're coming back to that shit."
"Would you just shut up and kiss me again?" Mark asks, enjoying the way Tom reacts to it, eyelids fluttering, his next inhale coming just a little too fast.
"Alright, alright," Tom grumbles, but when he tips his face down and presses his lips back against Mark's, he's still smiling. It's a little awkward that way - a little toothy, not quite the right angle, but the joy in it is contagious.
It's not exactly like Tom was holding back before - but his kisses are slower, now. More deliberate. His hands are wandering, too, where he'd kept them strictly on Mark's shoulders or his face, before. Now, it's like he can't decide where they should settle. He runs his hands up and down Mark's back, squeezes gently at his arms, tugs at the fabric of his shirt - but eventually, predictably, takes the opportunity to grope Mark's ass, too.
Mark jumps a little, and laughs, but he doesn't pull back - he just leans forward into another kiss, pushing his fingers back into Tom's hair to keep him close. He's not exactly surprised by the way Tom's touching him. It makes sense. Tom's always taken any excuse to be close to him - pushed into his space to make him laugh, kissed him on the cheek or on the forehead or the temple a thousand times over the past couple of years. But now that they're kissing, and really kissing, it's like the last little piece of restraint has fallen away. Tom is greedy with it, grabbing anywhere he can reach, kissing Mark so deeply it's hard to catch his breath.
The things that have always held Mark back, too, are easy enough to forget under Tom's touch. His constant need to duck away, to never linger too long without laughing, to make the joke first in case someone else did, to pull back before he enjoyed anything too much - it all seems so ridiculous in retrospect.
He could have had all of this 30 years ago, Tom's eager hands and his kiss-ruddied mouth. That dark, desperate want in his eyes whenever Mark pulls back enough to see his face. He's trying to catch his breath, mostly, breathing heavily while he glances from Tom's mouth to his flushed cheeks, and back to his eyes - but Tom just starts kissing his way across Mark's jaw, then down his neck.
He tips his head back, gives Tom more space - but he decides it's his turn to touch back, too, and pushes his hands up underneath Tom's shirt, hungry for the feeling of bare skin underneath his palms - well-loved, freckled skin he's seen hundreds of times, but that he's never touched exactly like this.
Tom jolts under his touch, but it just makes the next kiss he presses against Mark's neck a little sloppier. Then, Tom follows it up with a press of his teeth, right above the collar of Mark's shirt, and Mark can feel his knees wobble a little.
"How about we go lay down before one of us fucking falls over?" Mark asks, panting the words up towards the ceiling.
"You just wanna get me in the bed, don't you?" Tom teases, murmuring the words against Mark's skin.
"If I say yes, will you actually get in the bed?"
"I mean I want to, but that kind of depends."
Mark pulls back further, raising his eyebrows. "Depends on what?"
Even as his flush deepens slightly, Tom shifts his hips forward until Mark can feel him, the unmistakably hard press of his dick, right against his hip. "There's like - a solid 60% chance I come in my pants even if you don't actually wanna touch my dick."
Unable to help it, Mark laughs - but he grabs at Tom's hips and keeps him close, just in case. "Just from kissing me?"
"Shut up," Tom grumbles, tucking his face back against Mark's neck. "This is like - 18 separate teenage fantasies at once, that's not my fault."
"Oh, because you were just so fucking hot for the concept of 50-year-old me-"
"You think that's funny, but if you could have told me how fucking hot you'd still be, like if you thought I already jerked off too much-"
Mark laughs hard enough that he throws his head back, too flustered to do anything else, and Tom just follows him, nosing against his neck, staying pressed against him as they stumble vaguely in the direction of the bed.
"Just shut up and lay down already," Mark grouses, finally forcing himself to let go of Tom, just so he can step back and sit down safely. He takes off his shoes, sets his glasses carefully on the bedside table, and glances back up to see Tom watching him. "What?" Mark asks.
Shaking his head, Tom crawls onto the bed, nudging Mark back towards the pillows. "Just feels fucking crazy, having you in here like this. Feels like I'm gonna come to like - passed out in the shower or something."
Laughing again, Mark wraps his arms around Tom's shoulders and pulls him down, basking in the weight and the warmth of him. "Shower, huh? Not even the bed?"
"Actual dreams never get this far, this is like - head injury levels of crazy sex fantasies."
"We're still not even anywhere close to sex," Mark reminds him. "Yet."
"Yet," Tom echoes, finally leaning down enough to kiss Mark again, deep and hungry, tongue pushing back into his mouth. "And who's fault is that?" Tom mumbles against his lips.
"Literally yours," Mark reminds him, pushing a hand back under Tom's shirt again, pushing the fabric up so he can have easier access to Tom's skin.
"You know what, that's fair actually," Tom admits - and he sits up, abruptly, peeling his shirt off over his head. "Now it's your fault, though. Come on." He reaches down and plucks at Mark's shirt with a crooked little grin, shifting off enough to let him sit up.
Tom reaches out to help him, and they peel the fabric over his head, together. There's a moment where they're just sitting there beside each other, shirtless, and then Mark glances down to see where Tom is visibly tenting his sweatpants - the dark spot on the front and the visible shape of him makes it obvious enough he isn't wearing underwear. That should probably be disgusting, but Mark feels like he's been losing brain cells ever since he walked into the room, and suddenly, it isn't anymore.
Instead, it's the only encouragement he needs to push down his own sweatpants, leaving him in his boxers as he settles back against the pillows. "Alright. Now who's fault is it?"
"Who fucking cares?" Tom answers, his eyes so dark now they're basically black, fixed on Mark. He stares for just long enough to make Mark squirm a little, and then he settles half on top of him again, licking back into Mark's mouth, messy and eager and damp and perfect. Tom's got one hand on his neck, thumb pressed to his chin, but mostly it's the press of bare skin from shoulder to hip that's taking up most of Mark's brain space. Tom is warm and heavy on top of him, but heavy like a weighted blanket, like something that's holding Mark in place, keeping him tethered in the moment instead of wandering off in his head again.
One of Tom's knees is tucked in between his, and the longer they keep kissing, pressed against each other, the more obvious the steady motion of Tom's hips becomes. It's probably mostly subconscious, just mindless friction-seeking - but Mark can feel him, hard and heavy, right against the line of his hip, and it's enough to make him reach down and tuck his fingers under the waistband of Tom's sweatpants.
"Uh, you don't-" Tom pulls back, flushed, lips swollen and damp, but as nervous as he is pleasantly flustered, his eyes darting away. "Jokes aside, you don't have to - if you don't want to-"
"Oh, fuck off," Mark says, shoving Tom's sweatpants down properly, just enough to get his hand wrapped around Tom's dick. "If we're gonna do this-" He brushes his thumb over the head, tries to gather some of the precum there to ease the slide of his palm - but it's not quite enough. Tom's just staring at him, open-mouthed, barely moving, like even this would be enough to get him off - but Mark doesn't see any reason to force him to come just from mostly dry friction, even if he could. He pulls his hand out, and Tom grabs onto his wrist - but he stops in his tracks when Mark just spits into his hand and then wraps it back around Tom's dick.
"Mark-" Tom gasps out, his eyes falling shut as his knees nearly give out, more of his body weight landing on top of Mark.
"If we're gonna do this," Mark repeats, trying to work up some kind of consistent rhythm with his hand, even though he's not used to the angle at all. "I'm gonna fucking do it right."
"It's not gonna-" Tom manages to leverage himself up again on unsteady arms, just enough to make eye contact again. "I'm gonna come in like - a second, fucking seriously, Mark-"
"That's the whole point, isn't it?" Mark asks, shifting up enough to kiss right at the hinge of Tom's jaw again, and then further down his neck. "Did you have other plans? Were you just gonna sit in here and jerk off after I left?"
"I mean if you-" Tom thrusts into Mark's grip and whines, his head falling forward to rest against Mark's neck. "If you left after, I - yeah. Probably."
"Yeah? You were gonna jerk off thinking about me?"
Laughing, breathless, Tom presses his tongue against Mark's neck, and Mark tries not to shiver, just from the warmth of it. "Like I don't already? Every other fucking day?"
That's - something stirs in the pit of Mark's stomach, and he tightens his grip around Tom in response, stroking him a little harder, a little faster. "That's pretty hot, actually," he mutters, voice low, right into the space below Tom's ear, the words escaping before he has the chance to second guess them.
Just like that, Tom tenses above him, shudders, and comes, right into Mark's hand. Mark gentles his grip and finishes him off, slowly coaxing Tom through each stuttering thrust. Once he's finished, Tom makes another quiet sound and collapses on top of him, face against his neck. It leaves Mark's hand sort of trapped in between them - so he just wipes it off on the inside of Tom's sweatpants and then shuffles until he can free himself enough to be comfortable.
They have approximately 30 seconds of quiet warmth, Tom's leg still draped over his, both of them still catching their breath, before Tom says, "You're gonna tell Skye I lasted longer than that, right?"
"Jesus Christ, Tom," he groans, but he's fighting off a smile, turning his head away to try and hide it. Still, he takes the opportunity to shove Tom in the shoulder, where it was still tucked close against his.
"I'm just saying, if this is like, her big dream fantasy, I think we owe it to her-"
"I guess you should have lasted a little longer, then," Mark tells him, barely resisting the urge to laugh out loud. Tom rolls onto his side to look at him, playfully indignant, but he catches Mark grinning and smiles back at him, eyes gone soft and crinkling around the corners.
"Well, you know. Maybe next time," Tom says softly. His smile twitches, just a little. "I mean, I guess if-"
"Oh you're not getting out of it that easy," Mark tells him. "We're not even done with this time."
"Wait are you-" Tom gets up on his hands and knees again, and glances down to see where Mark is visibly hard. He stares, hard enough that Mark gets a little self-conscious, bringing his knees up to make his erection slightly less obvious.
"Eyes are up here, you know," he jokes, and Tom just turns enough to stare at his face with the same, insistent, open-mouthed desire.
"You really want me to-"
"I mean at this point I'm gonna be kind of pissed off if you don't do something, so-"
Tom all but pounces on top of him, pressing a kiss against his still half-open mouth, clutching at his arms, probably very narrowly avoiding kneeing him in the balls, which would have made all of this even more embarrassing than it probably already is. Still - Mark can't even bring himself to care. He likes this, more than he ever would have acknowledged or thought possible. He likes the sloppy press of Tom's mouth when he gets a little over-enthusiastic, he likes the sturdy feeling of Tom's shoulders underneath his hands - he just likes the closeness of it. They're passing breaths back and forth between their mouths, pressed physically closer than they've been in years and years, and Mark still feels like he can't get close enough.
As Tom pulls back to breathe, Mark holds onto him so tightly he can barely put an inch between their mouths. Still, he pants out, words brushing against Mark's lips, "I'm gonna make this so fucking good for you, swear to God."
Sweet as the sentiment is, Mark huffs out a laugh. "I promise I do not need anything fancy-"
"Just shut up," Tom insists, punctuating the words with a kiss, "And let me have this. Please?"
"Okay," Mark answers helplessly, tipping his head back as Tom nuzzles against his throat, pressing kisses all the way down to his collarbone, damp, insistent smudges. "Okay, sure, do your worst."
"What do you want?" Tom asks, glancing up as he rests his chin on Mark's chest. "Just my hand, or-"
"Tom seriously, do whatever you want-"
"Well I don't think we have time for all of it-"
Mark sighs, tipping his head back further to look up at the ceiling, digging his fingers into Tom's shoulder. "Will you just-"
"I got you, I got you, I promise." He presses a kiss to the spot right where Mark's ribs meet his stomach, and Mark can feel in the press of his teeth that he's smiling, just a little. He looks back down and presses his hand to the side of Tom's face, just to feel the curve of it under his palm.
Looking up at him, Tom turns his head enough to catch Mark's thumb in his mouth. Mark raises his eyebrows.
Tom pulls back, and licks his lips. "What if I suck you off?"
There's a filthy twist in the pit of Mark's stomach, and he can feel himself twitch inside his boxers. "Seriously? Do you even-"
"I mean it's been a while," Tom admits, shrugging one of his shoulders. "But I - yeah."
"Shit," Mark breathes out, shoving at the waistband of his own boxers. "Alright, just-"
With Tom's help, they get his boxers down to his knees, and Mark mostly kicks them off from there, even though Tom goes from grinning to outright laughing at him.
"I can think of better things you could be doing with your mouth at this point," Mark mutters at him, settling back against the pillows.
"You know, that's crazy, I was gonna say the same thing," Tom tells him, grinning as he scoots down the bed and presses his mouth against Mark's stomach. "Like you read my mind."
"You're not doing a very good job of-" But for better or worse, at that point, Tom finally wraps his hand around Mark's dick, positioning it right in front of his mouth, and all Mark's words die off in his throat.
For a moment, Tom just sits there, staring up at him with those big, dark eyes, his mouth so close to the head of Mark's dick that Mark can feel him - the warmth of his breath, just enough physical sensation to be a horrible tease. Between that and the unmoving grip of his hand, Mark shoves his hand against his own mouth, biting down just so he doesn't make some kind of horrifically embarrassing sound.
Still, the moment Tom actually licks over the head of his cock and wraps his mouth around him, Mark groans against the meat of his own palm, his head falling back against the pillows, eyes falling shut. He slides his free hand back into Tom's hair, and as Tom's mouth moves further down his cock, tongue pressing against the underside, Mark moves his other hand away from his own mouth, flailing for something else to hold onto, tangling his fingers in the sheets.
"Tom, Jesus fuck, Tom," he babbles out, and Tom pulls back, hollowing his cheeks, sucking hard enough that Mark's toes curl against the mattress and his back arches against his will.
He starts to take a breath, expecting Tom to pull off for a second, but instead he just sinks down again, taking Mark in even further this time, pressing a steadying hand firm against Mark's hip. Mark nearly chokes on his own inhale, groaning as he tangles his fingers properly in Tom's hair, curling them enough he's probably scratching at Tom's scalp, at least a little, but Tom just hums against him, and Mark shudders with it.
He's already close. Mortifyingly close, for all he tried to tease Tom about the same thing - he can feel the twist in his stomach, that tingling right at the ends of his fingertips, the tension all over his body as he gasps for air.
Finally, though, Tom does pull back to catch his breath, and Mark grapples at his shoulder instead of his hair, fingernails digging into his skin. "Tom, I'm close - really - really fucking close, if you don't want to-"
"I don't know if I can swallow still, but I can try if you want me to." Mark can feel the way his own dick twitches at that - jumps in Tom's grip, and as he looks down, Tom looks up at him, grinning crookedly. His lips are swollen, bright pink and spit-slick, and he brushes his thumb over the head of Mark's dick as he licks his lips. "So I guess that's a yes, then."
"Tom-"
But he doesn't get the time to tell Tom off again - instead, with the smug expression still lingering around his eyes, Tom wraps his lips back around Mark's cock and sinks down as far as he can go, keeping his eyes on Mark all the while.
Mark does make some sort of horrifying noise, and his hips twitch under Tom's hand, and then Tom pulls back, sticks out his tongue, and gives Mark a couple proper strokes, and that's it. Mark comes, hard enough that he nearly slams his own head against the headboard, hard enough that he almost knees Tom in the ribs, hard enough that he barely notices any of that as the pleasure crashes through his body and Tom just keeps stroking him through it.
When he comes back to himself, laying spent and exhausted against the sheets, Mark realizes that Tom's still between his legs, cheek resting against his hip, just staring up at him. His fingers are still tangled loosely in Tom's curls, and he strokes a hand through them, trying to straighten them out a little.
"Jesus Christ, Tom," he rasps, still catching his breath.
Tom laughs, and buries his face against Mark's skin. "Yeah, tell me about it."
"Would you just-" He reaches down far enough to grab onto Tom's arm, and tugs at him. "Get back up here, idiot. Kiss me or something."
"You sure? Cause the taste is probably-"
"Yeah, whatever, if it's that bad I'll make you brush your teeth. I think I can handle it."
With something that might almost qualify as a giggle, Tom settles onto the bed beside him and leans in to press their lips together. He doesn't dive in tongue-first - so his mouth is a little salty, in a slightly unfamiliar way. Determined not to be put off, Mark presses his own tongue against the seam of Tom's lips, forces them open and licks inside. The taste is stronger there, sharp and a little unpleasant - but he finds himself chasing it anyways, warmth rushing through him with the memory of the way Tom's mouth looked wrapped around him.
"You want me to get hard again?" Tom pulls back to mutter against his mouth. "Because that's what's gonna happen if you keep kissing me like that."
Mark scoffs and smacks him on the arm, kissing him once more, softly. "Like you can still get it up that fast. I don't believe you."
"Well we're gonna fucking find out how fast I can if you keep it up, that's all I'm saying."
It might be a hollow threat - it might not, but either way, Mark finds he has no desire to get up and find his clothes. "Well, at some point we'll probably find out either way."
"Don't threaten me with a good time," Tom tells him - but the words are softer than they probably should be, pressed against Mark's temple with a kiss as Tom wraps an arm around his shoulders.
Mark's fairly sure he's not going to fall asleep, but he closes his eyes anyways, more than a little worn out as he presses his cheek against the warmth of Tom's shoulder. "Love you, by the way. You're twice as stuck with me now. Skye's probably gonna send me over here every time she wants to have a day to herself or I start getting on her nerves while she's trying to read."
"Yeah, well, I think I can handle it." There's a hint of a tremble in Tom's voice, and he kisses Mark's temple again, and then the top of his ear. "Love you, too."
"Yeah, you fucking better," Mark grouses, and squints his eyes open just enough to watch the way Tom's eyes crinkle up as he laughs, right before he pokes Mark hard in the ribs.
"Asshole," Tom chokes out around his laughter.
"Shithead."
Tom's breathing starts to even out beside him, and Mark closes his eyes again, the better to just bask in the quiet intimacy of it all. He starts to think maybe he will fall asleep, and then Tom says, "So when you do tell Skye how fucking great I am at blowjobs-"
Mark fumbles for a pillow, grabs one, and smacks Tom in the face with it until he bursts out laughing and gives up on what he was trying to say.