[2] PUZZLE

[threedimensions]

Dimensions: [2]
Timeline: June 2017
Title: Puzzle
Summary: Brandon and Mark finally talk about the poly/V idea; they also discuss with Jack and make some decisions.
~26.5k

>Warnings

Mark had tried to hold off on feeling uneasy for as long as he could, because they weren't uneasy. Not very much, anyway, and what he was getting from them only had to do with him, with how close it had been. He had stopped trying to convince Brandon that he was okay now, realizing that he literally couldn't for two reasons: the first was that Brandon wouldn't be able to believe him no matter how many times he said it, because he'd been rocked to his core by the concept and by its reality. That he hadn't known, hadn't seen how bad it had been getting, hadn't reached out in weeks...and he would never forgive himself for letting it get so close.

The other was that he knew, from the breathless, hurt way that Brandon had looked at him when he'd come back from Mark's house, that he'd seen the folding chair at the end of the upstairs hall, underneath the latch in the skylight. Mark had set it there an hour before Brandon had come to get him, having thought previously that it would probably work, but uncertain until he stood on it and looked up. He'd stepped off, deciding that it was a definitely a suitable plan, and left it there while he went downstairs to get a Sprite and grab a sheet of paper out of the printer; he wasn't going to put the plan in action that day, but it was close enough to have the plan. He couldn't look at Brandon after getting that shocked, shaky, crushed-chest feeling from him, so he focused on changing the broken B string on his guitar and re-tuning it, and he decided he was glad he'd agreed to stay working in the studio while Brandon went to pick up more of his clothes. At least they were letting him be alone again.

There were also times—a lot of them—where he was almost sure that Jack was looking at him, or was wanting to say something to him, but couldn't. That was a goddamn mystery, one that he wasn't sure if he felt up to (again) trying to figure out; Jack had never seemed to like him before, to care if he was around or not, had even somehow blocked(?) him, mentally as well as personally. That could be down to the reality of the situation for him as well, though he hadn't seemed to mind too much when Mark had initially told him of his plans. He had evidently done a one-eighty between the time Mark had left and gone home and whenever Brandon had come home, and his manner was completely different now. He almost seemed ashamed of the way he'd let Mark leave, but Mark didn't like that. He was the one who had made the decision, asked for discretion, left feeling okay. If he'd gone through with it, it would not have been Jack's fault, only his own...but guilt could be suffocating, and catching.

Now, though, the whole thing made Mark tired, and although being here was a world's difference than being alone at his own house, he still felt isolated, that there was an empty space between himself and everyone else, even when Brandon was almost following him around the house when they weren't the the studio. There was a space between them there, as they played more than they talked, there was a space at the dinner table, as they ate meals Jack cooked and it was surreal that he was still here, now here, a place set for him every night although he had no place, not when this was their place. He was existing in a world in which he did not belong versus a world where he was completely alone, and it was exhausting.

He reached a breaking point with the silence and the goddamn space one night, late night in the studio, watching Brandon testing levels on the rhythm riff Mark had been trying to set up to his lead line. He watched him try it one way and another, a slight change here and a drastic change there, basically throwing shit at the wall to see what stuck. It was how he always started, but never before had he been so patient for so long, so unhurried, even though having his own studio had calmed him only slightly when they'd been working out their last album.

Brandon added more distortion, seemed to reject the idea at once, then flipped the balance so that rhythm was on the right and lead on the left. He seemed to like that—it was one of his standard plays—and threw in the bass line to hear it all together. He glanced to his left, where Mark was leaned over with one elbow on the table, head in his hand as he watched, and he raised his eyebrows a little, asking what he thought. Mark shrugged. Brandon grinned and saved that version of the track, and then silence fell again as he leaned back in his chair and stretched.

Mark hadn't much to say most of the time, but he was quieter now, in these still, early hours of the morning, thinking about dinner with Jack the previous evening. It had started like it always did, Brandon leading him up from the studio to find the table in the dining room set and most of the food ready, and they had gone through it like usual. Mark quietly ate whatever it was that Jack had made (he sometimes had no clue what he was eating, but it was food, and most it was really good), Brandon talked about what they had gotten done, or something regarding the band, and sometimes Jack mentioned his game company or the rental properties that he owned or some other deal. That was fine; Mark liked to listen to them and although he didn't often have much to contribute, he didn't feel pressured to. Sometimes the space was okay.

Jack always did the cleaning up; Brandon had told Mark that he liked to, that he wanted to, and that it would actually upset him if he could not (okay, so, no loading the dishwasher or sweeping the kitchen floor in some crappy attempt to thank them for allowing him to exist here), but they could help with clearing the table, so they did. Mark had gathered his plate, silverware, and glass, and followed last into the kitchen. Brandon carelessly slid his stack onto the counter next to the sink, and while Mark was setting his dishes down next to them, Brandon put both arms around Jack's waist, where his hands trailed up to his back, and kissed him.

"Thanks," he said softly. "I love you."

Mark had just stood there awkwardly for a second, stacking his plate with Brandon's plate and setting all of the silverware on top the way his mom had taught him. In all the time he'd known him, Brandon had been so private about romantic affection that Mark had only rarely witnessed him touching a boyfriend intimately, less often kissing one, and least of all telling him that he loved him. He and Jack had been together for five years now, and Mark had maybe seen Brandon spontaneously kiss him or hug him half a dozen times; all prior times, Jack had seemed to be surprised or awkward, standing still and just allowing it, but this time he responded. As Mark moved the stack of plates and silverware closer to the sink instead of the edge of the counter, Jack slowly raised his own arms and put them around Brandon's shoulders, his hands on the back of his head, and kissed him back.

Mark turned to go, either to the dining room or downstairs or up to his room—his room! The whole idea was still so absurd—but then, suddenly, Brandon's arm was around his shoulders, and Mark froze, looking at him in surprise as he said something to Jack about them probably working late again, to not wait up because they were close on something and could likely see it finished before the sun came up. Jack had nodded and turned to the sink, and Brandon turned that easy smile to Mark, asked him if he was ready to get back to it.

"Okay," he'd said uncertainly, wondering what exactly it was that they were getting back to.

Now, down in the studio and watching Brandon crack his neck and his fingers, seeing that it was almost three-thirty in the morning but knowing that he had no intention of calling it quits for the night, Mark decided that it was past time to actually figure out what was going on, right here and right now. He wasn't just 'hanging out' and helping to write music, that was for damn sure. What wasn't for damn anything was what the hell he was doing.

"What am I really doing here?" he asked quietly.

Brandon glanced at him. "Are you asking in a philosophical sense?"

"No."

"In a literal sense?" He shrugged. "Splitting cells. Digesting. Growing out your toenails. For fun, or maybe competitively."

"Brandon."

"You're..." Brandon was giving him a strange look and he seemed to realize it, glancing back down at the mixing board. "I don't know what you're asking. You're just...being here."

"Okay," Mark said slowly. "So...for how much longer? When am I going home?"

"That's a stupid question," Brandon said, but instead of sounding impatient, it was clear that he was trying to be gentle about it. That was even more confusing, as it wasn't always in his nature to be patient and gentle, not really, not unless he was interacting with a small child, or Jack, or sometimes Keith when he was getting into a bad state. Mark thought he knew what that meant and he sighed, dropping his eyes to the mixing board himself.

"You still think I'm going to break," he said dully. Maybe he was, and this was just suspended animation for them all. He hated the idea of Brandon—of Jack, too—putting their lives on hold so that they could babysit him until he could get a fucking grip again.

"No..."

"Then what?"

"I'm...waiting." When Mark looked up, to ask what the fuck for, he saw that Brandon was still looking at him with that strange expression, and this time he didn't turn away from it. "For you to understand. Mark...I already told you. You are home. You're not going anywhere. Unless, I guess, if you really wanted to, but...that would be stupid. Because, man, if you go back to that empty house, or if you go—somewhere else, somewhere bad—" He had to pause here, and Mark had to look away again. "Then I won't be there," Brandon continued after a moment. "But I want to be where you are. I want to be with you all the time. I've—I've always wanted to be with you." There was another beat of silence, and then, very quietly, he said, "Mark. Do you get it? I love you and I want to be with you. If—if that's an option, then I'm taking it."

Mark could only look at him. "What?" he managed after a moment. "What are you—you don't mean?"

"Of course I do. Idiot," he added, having to look away himself now. "Like I didn't. I'm even dumber than you are, though. I'm actually fucking gay, so I guess we both get a pass." He shrugged and looked at him again, taking in Mark's wide eyes, how every part of him had frozen and it was difficult to breathe. "I've been waiting for you to be okay enough to realize that I brought you here so that we can be together. Initially it was mostly just to keep an eye on you and make sure you weren't going to do anything stupid—"

"I won't," Mark interrupted. "I know—I can't—I won't. Ever."

Brandon only looked at him solemnly for a long moment, and then his eyes flicked back down to the mixing board. "Then I needed to know if you still—if you still felt the way about me that you said before. I mean, I read—y'know, that interview. And Jack told me everything you said when you came to talk to him, but you were in such a shitty place mentally that I thought it was possible that once you had some time, some perspective, you might chill out and take a step back, and it wouldn't be as much of a thing anymore. But...I think so, and Jack thinks so too. That you still love me?"

Since it was a question, and Brandon raised his eyebrows and waited, he had to answer. He didn't want to. They hadn't talked about any of that shit since he'd started staying here. It was stupid to think they'd never talk about it, and apparently now was the time. He'd brought it up by insisting he get some answers, so...it didn't matter that it was the one thing that had completely ruined both of their lives. It was still true.

Mark couldn't speak, so he nodded, and then he had to drop his eyes away, because that was absolutely his problem and not theirs. He'd had his chance, both to realize what he wanted and to grab it, and him missing both didn't mean anyone else needed to suffer or give up what they'd built together just to make room for his stupid ass to actually think. Maybe he should start lying and saying he didn't anymore. He'd thought about trying before, but didn't think it was likely to work, because Brandon would probably know. Mark wasn't very good at lying, and he doubted pretty heavily he'd be able to make that one believable. Not after everything that had happened...not with what he really felt now. None of them had talked about it and he'd been trying like hell to refuse thinking about it, but it was still there. Maybe it'd always been there in the background.

Brandon took a breath and nodded too. "So." Then he stopped. "Well, this is almost literally too gay to handle." He reached for the small carved wooden box on a nearby shelf and extracted a large joint from it. "I can say that," he added, as he sparked up his lighter and took a long pull off the end of it, holding the flame on it until it glowed and his lungs were full.

"You hate that," Mark said.

Brandon nodded as he exhaled and held it out. "Yeah," he said, as Mark slowly took it from him. "But you know how fickle I can be."

"I noticed."

"I know you have." Brandon looked at him while he looked down at the joint instead of hitting from it. "But you know me better than anyone else. You always have. It really was kind of like...we met and...it was us."

Mark put the joint to his mouth and inhaled. He held his breath, thinking, and then, as he held the joint back out and Brandon reached for it, he said, "I hate that."

Brandon blinked. "That we fit together as soon as we met?"

"No." That was actually—well, it would have been a nice thought, if it hadn't ruined their lives so far. "Calling things gay."

"It is, though."

"How can it be too gay to handle? You're gay."

"I know, and I'm handling it."

"You're a gay idiot," Mark almost huffed.

"Pretty sure that's what I said," Brandon reminded. Mark gave him a look and he relented. "Okay, fair enough. I won't say it any more."

"Say whatever you want."

"Okay. Like, maybe...if we love each other, we should be together?"

Mark returned his eyes to the dials and switches on the mixing board; he was going to have to smoke a lot more than half a joint in order to get his head to calm down, to get his racing thoughts to slow and stabilize. Brandon seemed to realize this and he stayed quiet, allowing the silence to grow while they passed it back and forth until it was too small to hold without burning their fingers, and he didn't seem to have a clip handy. He crushed it out and immediately retrieved another one.

"What about Jack?" Mark asked finally, the center point that his current messed-up swirl of a mind kept landing on.

Brandon studied the new joint before lighting it. "He knows," he said finally. "He's cool with it. Um...it was his idea, actually."

"Why the fuck would it be his idea for you to be with someone else instead? I thought you two were—earlier, in the kitchen—" Mark frowned, not knowing what the game was or which part he was supposed to be playing, and getting irritated at the little sense it made. Their little scene earlier hadn't sounded or felt like a goodbye.

Brandon gave him a long look while he put the joint in his mouth and lit it, inhaled, and held it out while holding his breath. Mark didn't take it, and Brandon pulled his hand back to himself while he let the smoke out of his lungs. "I didn't say 'instead'," he said. "I guess, technically, I didn't say anything, and it wasn't very clear. I need to get better with that. What I meant was—if you're okay with it, too—that we could be together and I'd still be with Jack. Polyamory. That's what he's fine with, and that's what was his idea. I get both of you."

He offered the joint out again and this time Mark took it, but he almost burned his hand because he couldn't look away from Brandon's face and the edge of it got too close to his thumb. He didn't hit from it and he couldn't speak, and after a moment, Brandon went on.

"I kinda thought maybe that was what he meant when he told me to go get you, after you talked to him," he said slowly. "He didn't say, 'Go make sure he's okay' or 'Go take him to the psych ward' or, even, I don't know, 'Go smack the living shit out of him until he realizes what a goddamn moron he's being'. He said to get you. I said something like, 'Do you mean go talk to him?', and he looked right at me and said no. Get you."

Mark could barely even think, to take any of this in. "That—that doesn't mean—"

"No, not by itself. But he sent me an email about poly and vee relationships, which is when one person has two others, but those two aren't also involved with each other. He must have sent it right after I left, because I saw it while I was waiting for you to get some clothes and whatever at your house. And I did talk to him about it later, where I said aloud that I'd have you both, and that's very definitely what he meant."

Brandon made a 'hurry up' gesture and Mark hit off the joint hard, feeling better again as he exhaled. Despite how freaked out he was right now, that was almost separate, pushed off to the side, while the calm, mellow feeling stepped in. Mark wondered if Brandon had set these particular joints aside for this conversation; he hadn't gotten into this box before while they were down here, just kept a bowl and a bag or container near to hand.

Brandon took the joint back from Mark when he offered it out again, and went on, "We also talked again a few days later, when I wasn't so scared that you still might do something. And when I saw how hard he was trying with you. You've seen that, right?"

"I don't know," Mark said slowly. "He's always been really hard for me to read. To figure out."

"Was it hard to figure out how he felt when I brought you back and he hugged you?" Brandon asked.

That...had been strange. Jack had never before even touched him, and Mark had been so shocked and mixed up that entire day—ever since Brandon had barged into his house and stopped him in the middle of trying to work out what went on his suicide note—that he didn't know what to think. "I just...I guess I just thought that he was sorry for telling you after he agreed not to, and that he was glad I didn't go home and, you know. Right away. Even though I told him it wouldn't be that day. Because he never—at least I'm pretty sure he didn't—actively dislike me, but the whole—everything, all of that shit—was fucking up so much for you, so then for him too."

He was sure he wasn't making a lot of sense, but Brandon got him anyway. "No. Well, maybe that was a small part of it, if any, but it wasn't the main point," he said. "It takes a huge amount of effort for him to touch me. He can let me hug him—sometimes—but usually just really quickly, and he almost never gives it freely. Earlier tonight was the first time in a long time, and it also means something that he could with someone else there. It meant a fuck of a lot that he hugged you when we got back that day. It meant that you mean something to him, and not by association with me."

"I thought..." Mark began, but then he shook his head.

"No, what?"

"It just...it kind of made sense to me that he put his arms around you and kissed you earlier with me there as a, you know." He couldn't quite think to say how he'd taken it and gestured vaguely.

"Oh, as, like, a claim? My territory, back off?"

"Yeah, that."

"No." Brandon smiled. "You were turned away, so you didn't see before I put my arm around you. He nudged me toward you." His grin widened as Mark just looked at him. "I think he also thought it was time we got it worked out."

Now Mark could hardly breathe again. "What are we working out?"

"This. Us. If you want to talk about a relationship." Brandon licked his lips and drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. "I do. I can say it again—I'll say it as many times as I need to. I love you and I want you. If you—if you still want me, or feel that way too."

Mark looked down at the half-gone joint in his hand, which had gone out as his head and heart debated. "So, you're just...going to have us both? Me and Jack, at the same time?"

"Yup. Well, probably not the same time—sometimes I'd be with him, and sometimes with you."

"You can do that?" He looked up and saw that Brandon was offering him his lighter. He took it but didn't re-light the joint yet. "I don't mean in general—I know some people do—I mean you. You can be demanding and itchy and moody. There's your insane perfectionist workaholic bullshit—"

Brandon snorted softly. "It's these sweet, sweet words that first made me fall for you..."

"There's your 'being a goddamn smartass when someone's trying to talk to you about something serious'..." Mark said pointedly.

"Sorry." Brandon shrugged. "Yeah, I'm an asshole. But I'm also a high-energy, multi-tasking, quick-minded asshole who has spent a lot of the last few weeks picturing it and reading up on it, and you know what I realized?" He raised his eyebrows and Mark shook his head slowly. "I realized that I need you, and not just to be around in my life, but to be with me, to be a part of me." He frowned a little. "I love Jack, okay? He gives me so much, and he takes care of certain parts of me that no one else can. I've never met anyone else in my entire life who is as smart as he is, and he teaches me and makes me learn. When I can keep up with him and make him think—it makes me higher than this shit does when he's impressed with me. It gratifies me when he responds to me when he gets in a bad place, by which I mean calming down and trusting me and letting me bring him back. I'm always impressed with him, by his intelligence and his ideas and his creativity, his sense of humor—did you know he has one? He almost never talks around other people, so I don't even know if you've ever heard him say something funny, or make a joke?"

Brandon seemed to expect an answer to that, so Mark thought about it briefly before shaking his head. "No." He was certainly right that Jack rarely spoke...there had been plenty of nights where Mark had hung out with Brandon at the house they'd shared with friends, at Eddie's, or after he'd moved in with Jack, and they'd be there for hours without Jack saying a single word the entire night. It seemed to be getting easier for him to talk during dinners now, but that could also be because Mark had kept himself as silent and still as possible so as to not further intrude on their lives, and Brandon had done most of the talking.

"Well, he does. He only shows it every now and then, because it's buried down in him. Whenever he shows it to me, or something else that's one of those tiny, rare things that feels like it's only for me, and I know that I'm the only one in the world that he trusts, that he loves, that he can ever—even though it's not often—feel completely safe with?" Brandon paused to let his breath out, and Mark re-lit the joint and hit from it hard. He passed it back and Brandon took it, pulling from it slowly and letting his head tilt up, breathing up toward the ceiling, and Mark knew he was trying to get a hold on himself. After a moment, he looked back at him, his face solemn. "He knows this, but don't say it, okay? Even with all of that. Even with how much I love him." He dropped his eyes down a little, not wanting to say it, but apparently all was being laid bare tonight. "He's not enough for me. Not really. If I'm really being honest...I've thought in the past that there was something missing. There have been times I wasn't really happy."

He sighed and held the joint out and Mark took it, putting it to his mouth and thinking about that while he inhaled. "He knows that?" he asked after a moment. What a shitty thing to know.

Brandon nodded, his eyes still on the table. "He's never said it, but I know, and he knows that I know. He needs so much time alone, and that makes me have to be alone. Sometimes when I want him—whether it's for sex or just to be with him—he can't. If he tries for me anyway, which he has, he can get overwhelmed and that makes it worse, and then we're both still alone, only feeling really shitty about it. Music is my language, and he can't speak it. He doesn't like almost anything of what I like, he can play the piano but the only music he ever makes is for his games, and he doesn't want anything to do with our music or the band or what's almost the biggest thing in my life. He's tried, but we both know he just isn't interested, and—like me, which is sort of ironic—if he's not interested in it, he doesn't care, and we both just can't care about what we don't care about. I need the music, I need the band, I need to write it and play it and live it."

He finally raised his eyes again, and Mark saw, and felt, a whirl of emotion there. Too many things to be conflicted about, too many balls in the air.

"I need you," Brandon went on quietly. "You hear me and understand me, even when I don't say anything. You've always known exactly when to wind me up and when to pull me back down. Do you have any idea how lost I've been, how lonely and empty I felt all those months when you couldn't even look at me? I seriously felt like part of me died. Especially to think—to think that the reason all of that was happening was because you—how you felt, and I couldn't—"

He looked away again, his throat working, and Mark had to turn his face away too, closing his eyes and trying to get back on an even plane himself.

"It was all wrong, always," Brandon said, calmer now but his voice low, careful. "For us not to be together. In any sense, whether just as friends or more. You're my partner, in the band and with our music and in all that really matters. I fucking love you, and every part of me that cares about anything, that will ever be happy again, will die if you're not there."

Mark couldn't say anything to that—he could barely take it all in—so he re-lit the joint again, with hands that were shaking harder than before, and took the biggest hit yet, willing himself to stay calm so that he could breathe slowly out and pull in smoke. He held it for as long as he could and then breathed out just as slowly, and little by little the mess in his head started to clear again. It wasn't that it was easier to think, but the barrier helped keep anything from getting too tangled, too frantic with hope or apprehension. He held the joint back out, almost gone, and Brandon took it, and neither of them spoke for a little while longer.

"If you don't think it'll work," Brandon said finally, "and you just want to be friends and bandmates, I can do that—or, to be completely honest, I can try—but it's not what I really want and I don't think it's what you want, either." He paused, seemed to hesitate, then said, "If you want to be with me, but can't if I'm with Jack, and I'd need to break up with him...I can do that, too."

"What? No," Mark said quickly. "That—that's not fair."

"None of this is fair, dude." Brandon sighed. "Jack knows that, too."

"He...knows that you're willing to break up with him?"

"Yeah."

"No," Mark said again. That was something he'd been afraid of after he'd been dragged over here: Jack getting pushed out when he was the one who had the least fault. Jack getting shunted aside for someone who had caused all the problems after he had been the one to save him, because of course Brandon's attention would be on Mark now. Even if there was never anything more than friendship between them ever again, it didn't mean Jack should have to be second banana to the one acting like an idiot sandwich. "You can't do that."

"I don't want to do that...but I will."

Mark didn't like how calm Brandon was, because it meant he'd absolutely made up his mind about it. "That's fucking awful, man," he said. "What's wrong with you?" If that was how everything was headed, he should just pack up his shit and go back home anyway. He wasn't in danger any more and shouldn't be entertaining whatever plans had been made without his knowledge, his input.

Brandon shrugged. "I'm an asshole, we talked about that. But Jack loves me, and he knows how much I need you. He knows how much I love you. So...if I have to choose...he knows. And he's okay with it. Really. He'll be okay on his own. I...will not be okay without you."

Mark shook his head, not in answer but still flabbergasted to the point that almost nothing would surprise him any more. What the hell else could happen this year? The fucking pictures, the scandal, he'd gotten alcohol poisoning and was making plans to kill himself, then he gets dragged to their house for a pseudo-suicide watch to only later find out they'd been making plans for a type of three-way—but wait there's more—although if he wasn't on board for that, they'd apparently easily just fucking end their five-year relationship to benefit him. Maybe he should also move in a girlfriend or wife and then Brandon could have his kids. Maybe they should start an alligator farm and hire Jack on the side to hose them down every weekend. Why the fuck not? It made about as much sense as anything else.

Actually...could he ask for that? If it meant getting everything he could finally acknowledge that he wanted? To actually be able to be with him, to have a life together. They'd shared so much of their lives already over the last, what, eleven years? Was this really real? It was possible, after all this time and all the fuckups, the distance and the longing and the emptiness, to have him? Actually? It would be so much...his entire life would change. He would have to tell his parents. That was too big to land on. No girlfriend, no wife. Just...him. Brandon. With him forever, everything he...they both...wanted.

Mark turned his face away and focused on the door to the recording booth. There was fair and there was right, and whatever he might want out of a situation didn't take precedence over that. As his father sometimes said his own father would tell him, he could "want" in one hand and shit in the other and see which filled up first. It didn't matter what he wanted. If it meant he'd be alone, fine, whatever. He had already pretty much resigned himself to being alone.

"That's not an option," Mark said finally. "I can't ask for that. I wouldn't ever ask for that—it's not right, and I don't care. All else aside...I don't want you to do that. Don't even put it in your 'what do we do next' file."

"I don't want to either," Brandon said softly. There was a long pause, and then he asked, "Have you ever thought about being in a poly relationship? I know it's come up a lot more in the last few years. I used to read some about it even when I was still living at my dad's. For some it works and some it doesn't. Do you...I think most people, the only context they ever get in 'my partner was involved with someone besides me' situations is cheating. That's not what this is, not if everyone's on the same page and consenting. Do you think...that would even be possible, with us?"

Mark could only shake his head again. "I don't know, man. There's...I don't know."

"I guess you might not really know without ever having been in the situation before...but if I was with you, and didn't break up with Jack, and still had him too...Some people just can't really..." he trailed off then hummed a little in dissatisfaction. "Hmm, I'm not sure the best way to say it. But there's nothing wrong with being monogamous just like I don't think there's anything at all wrong with being poly, and for a lot of people, that's just how they are."

Mark finally looked back at him when he heard the lighter snap again, reaching for the new joint when it was offered out. "Remember Lucia?" he asked as he exhaled. "Dated her for a few months last year."

Brandon nodded. "Yeah, she's the one that's in the scene. I think the last I remember hearing was that she was still trying to get on tours as merch girl or TM assistant, shit like that." He paused. "You just kind of stopped talking about her last fall, before—well, before any of that shit happened. When we were still co-headlining with FS." He paused again, hesitated, then said, "I remember thinking I was going to ask you about it, but you didn't really seem like you wanted to talk about it, and then, you know."

"Yeah." Mark sat back in his chair and rotated his ankle so that it popped. "She was seeing me and some other guy. Just dating...we were leaving for tour so I told her I was fine with keeping it kind of open for the time being. We hadn't even slept together." He shrugged while not looking at Brandon, who was very still and was watching him closely, a feeling like both hope and realization coming from him. "But then she did sleep with the other guy, and decided she wanted to go ahead and choose him, so we were done and I was fine with that, too."

"What...how do you think you might have felt if it wasn't done? We came back from tour and she still wanted to see you, but had the other guy too?"

"I don't know." He shrugged again as Brandon felt anxious over his lack of ability to discuss this moving forward, but he was doing the best he could while being so stoned and surprised. "Never really thought about it. I guess most times people date around they settle on someone—one someone—and it's assumed that anyone else is out of the running. I kind of assumed it. When she told me, I just kind of took it from her voice that, you know. He was there and I wasn't, and she liked him more, so she made a choice. That's how it goes. I guess...if we had come back and she still wanted to date both of us...I would've probably needed to think about that." And honestly...it probably would not have turned out that he would have been okay with it. He almost certainly would have pressed her into a choice, or, if she wouldn't make one, he likely would have stepped out, making it for her.

"I don't want to choose," Brandon said in a low voice.

"But you were saying you would." And that you would pick me. Before that thought could do more damage, Mark tried to shove it out of the way, out of what was most important. "You just got done telling me about how much you love Jack and how much he loves you. And—and this is just me, Jesus. I'm not that fucking special. I'm not that smart, I'm not ambitious or assertive or any of that shit. The music, the band—all of that is you, not me. I'm not the genius here. I'm not—like, shit, I'm not anything."

"Don't say that," Brandon said. "It's—you're everything. You really...must have no idea how much you mean to me."

Mark looked at him and tried to say something, but his eyes were solemn and determined, and he couldn't. His throat was too tight and he already knew how it was going to go. How the rest of it all would play out. It wasn't about what they could do, not any of them. It actually was about what they wanted.

"I'm still not that fucking special," Mark managed to say at last. "I'm not—I really want you to stop acting like I'm more important than Jack is."

"You're both important," Brandon said at once. "In a lot of the same ways, but a lot of different ways, too. The band is not fucking just me. It's you as much as me." Mark opened his mouth, ready to argue this time, but Brandon cut him off. "Your music, your writing and playing—you—make our songs what they are. Even if I wrote it...I was inspired by you. I...in a lot of ways, I think almost everything I've written has been for you," Brandon said, gazing out of the window in the control room to the recording booth, his wall of guitars. "I wanted you to hear it and like it. If it wasn't something I thought you'd like, I scrapped it. I only ever give a shit about your input, your feedback."

"Not totally true," Mark insisted, though his voice sounded thin. He was feeling like he wasn't getting enough air again. "You took a bonus track off because your dad didn't like it."

Brandon smiled a little. "Yeah. But that's my dad."

"I liked it."

"Maybe I'll leak it."

"You'll get in trouble. They'll fine you. No gold sticker on your chart."

"Don't care," Brandon said serenely, raising the joint to light it again. They should probably just use a pipe since the joints had been going out so frequently while they dug into these matters of fucking feelings and decisions, but maybe that was on purpose too. Mark preferred joints over a pipe, a bong, a vape, anything—and of course Brandon knew that too. "I want...to do whatever the hell I want...to be happy," he said carefully. "Sometimes, whatever works is just...what works. Non-conventional. Fuck conventions. No one's going to a convention."

"Some people like them." Wasn't most, if not almost all, of the rest of the world set to monogamy as the standard? And to be fair, to be as rational about all of his as he could be...every time others were involved, it ended badly. All the movies and books and songs and stories, all of the relationships of everyone he and everyone he'd ever known had been like that. A couple plus another, in any capacity, was trouble. It was too easy to talk about wishful thinking like it was real.

"I didn't buy tickets. Actually," Brandon said thoughtfully as he offered the joint out again. "It's more like I'm just ready to leave. I've seen all the panels there. There's more outside. We could...have more. If we wanted."

Mark took his time with the joint, pulling on it slow and steady to fill up his lungs and hold it for as long as he could, partly so that he could try to re-center himself and partly so that he'd have time to think. It was still hard to isolate his thoughts and try to put them in order, and while part of him realized that this not only could be but likely was the turning point for them...a couple plus another, in any capacity...he tried to shove that back, too. Brandon clearly wanted this to go one way, a way that would end with them all being happy. There was another, far more likely outcome, no matter what they wanted or how hard they tried or what they did.

"Everything I've made has been with you," Brandon said after a moment. "You're the one that wrote almost all of our songs with me. You've spent days and weeks on it pretty much continuously ever since we were teenagers. Every time I'm ready again. You've spent almost as much time here as I have—not literally here, in this room, but remember back in my room at my dad's, when we'd stay up all night writing and playing and you'd just end up crashing there because it was flowing so well and we never wanted to stop?"

Yeah. Of course he did. He remembered other things, too, and knew much too late that he hadn't wanted to stop those, either.

"This is the biggest thing in my life," Brandon said, opening his hand toward the recording booth, at the mixing board. "And one of the things that makes it so is that you're there. When we're on tour...backstage, on stage, on the bus...and then right back here, making more so we can do it again. I wouldn't be—what we have with the band wouldn't be anywhere near what it is without all of your work and writing. My blood, sweat, and tears, yeah. But yours too. You were always right there with me, driving just as hard."

There he went again, giving him more credit than he deserved. "Well—that wasn't because I had the drive, not really. I'm lazy as shit sometimes."

Brandon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the guy who had two jobs at eighteen to help pay his parents' bills is lazy."

Mark could only shrug again. That was something he'd had to do, not that he'd minded all that much. "I also spent many whole ass weekends just sitting around and getting high somewhere instead of working. Or writing music or recording, all that shit." He paused. "I've been pretty shitty with all of that lately. Not as much since I got here, but when I was at home..."

"I remember...your guitars were all dirty since you weren't playing." Brandon smiled again. "But we got 'em cleaned up, and we're back at it. Even just kind of hanging out, like we have been...we're still doing some more writing and recording. You've always gotten up and worked when it was time, whether it was going to a shitty job or going back on stage or whatever. Spending whole weekends going over final cuts and masters with me until I was finally happy enough with it, spending whole weekends writing an entire new song because I woke up with a riff in my head. Just about every time I'd want you...you'd be there."

Mark bit himself back from saying it, but he was pretty sure they both knew it anyway. Any time you want me. Any time.

"You were the one that bounced my ideas back, who forced me to chill out and sleep every so often, who was there every time I asked, sometimes before I had to," Brandon said. "And I know that a lot of the time you weren't driving, you were just along for the ride. But man...we've gone on a lot of rides. The band...I swear that even I never seriously thought we'd get this big. It's been fucking amazing—up until about this year, actually—but it's still been so much work. Not a lot of people could handle it, and we've seen some of them burn out. Keith's almost gotten to that point, Andrew's had a shit time when it's every day for weeks or months. But you...every time I wanted to do something else, something more, and they'd fucking piss and complain or we'd get told our ambitions needed discussing with management or the label or what the fuck ever. There you were, though...right beside me. Every time. And I think...some of that was because it was me in the driver's seat." He snorted softly. "We were both oblivious and stupid."

He was probably right, but... "That doesn't really make it better."

"No, I guess not." Brandon was quiet, and then went on, "I don't want to break up with Jack. You're right—I love him, and he loves me, and what he needs from me would be gone. What I get from him would be gone. Maybe that's wrong, too." He paused, and then he said again, "That's only if I have to choose. I don't want to, though. And I don't have to, at least from Jack's side. If you want to be with me, and you're okay with me having him too...then I can do that. Really. Trust me that I've thought about it a lot in the last couple of weeks, and Jack and I have talked about it—not just the idea of it, but of how to make it work for all of us."

"Okay, but..." Mark frowned, not sure for a few moments how to put his hesitation into words. It was hard, this thinking-and-feeling shit. No wonder so many people gave up on it. Brandon waited for him though, re-lighting the joint again and taking his time getting it going. "I've been here a month," he said finally.

"About that," Brandon agreed. "You seem like you're...in a much better frame of mind."

And he'd said he'd just been waiting for him to be ready to bring this up. Had been thinking about it and discussing it with Jack. "So...you guys have had this in the back of your minds for weeks. That's a lot of time to...I don't know. What you said—picture it, and think about how you feel about things. I don't—" Mark stopped and laughed, it was so ridiculous. "You just dropped this on me, man. I don't know. I don't—" He could only shrug again. After the last six months, he didn't know what the fuck had become of his life. It had started out so mundane, so normal. He'd been any random asshole working a shit job and living with roommates, having a girlfriend sometimes and playing in a band on weekends. Now he was a post-suicidal celebrity rock star who'd had a gay sex picture/love scandal. What the fuck.

Brandon nodded. "I know, sorry. Of course you can take all the time you want to think about it—nothing's cast in stone and nothing needs to be decided tonight, or whenever. Do you want to know what we were thinking? Just—all cards on the table, so you know where we are."

Mark knew that he should say no, that he should shut down the whole stupid conversation, that it was a fantasy that not only wouldn't work, but would break apart the little bit of stability they had all been working toward building. Wasn't it A Thing that couples that opened their relationship in any way were usually in trouble by that point and would end up breaking up? He hadn't wanted Jack to get left out and that's probably what would happen eventually, even if they tried to make it even. He didn't want that to happen, but maybe he did want something else. Something he never even let himself think about. Maybe there were people or situations where it could work, but most of the time, it probably didn't. Most of the time, things still ended up shitty after all. Or worse than before.

But his hands were still shaking and he could feel his legs trembling and his stomach felt alternately full of ice or that it had disappeared completely, and Brandon had said that he loved him and wanted him, and it was almost five o'clock in the morning in mid-June, and Mark should have—would have—been dead by now. He'd been existing in an in-between world, what he now knew was a recovering world. Now, if it was possible, he was being offered the chance at everything he wanted, the chance to be really, actually happy again. To have not only what he and the most important person in his life had had before, but more. He didn't know what it felt like any more to have hope or happiness, only that he wanted both. Maybe—fuck it—it would be okay to want something, to have something, even for a little while. Brandon wasn't stupid; he'd done research and he'd clearly done a lot of thinking. He wasn't bringing this up as a desperate last straw. He really believed in it, and when Brandon believed...Mark believed.

"Okay," he said. "Yeah. Tell me your tales. You got another joint?"

"Yup." Brandon pulled another from the box and lit it while Mark set down the tiny end of the most recent one that had gone out. "So...I'm not sure how much you know about polyamory or multiple relationships," Brandon began, "but two of the main ways it goes when there are three people involved is a vee or a triad. The vee is when one person has two partners, and those two aren't together themselves. That's what this would be."

"The other one is, what, that all three of them are all together, the same?" Mark frowned as he took the new joint. Would that mean that he and Jack would—?

If the idea of anything between himself and Brandon was on the table, the idea of him and Jack was somewhere along the coast in Ecuador. They didn't know each other, had mostly only interacted through Brandon or with him present. Jack still didn't look at him, and reportedly it was difficult enough for him to have a relationship with his partner of five years, let alone someone new he wasn't comfortable around. And while Mark couldn't deny that he'd quite enjoyed gay sex and was having big gay feelings about another guy, he didn't know how much farther that stretched. He'd been insisting to anyone and everyone that he was still straight despite all of that, but he now didn't know how true it was. If he was into guys after all, or just one guy in particular.

"Yeah," Brandon said. "Though, everything else aside, I'm not seeing that happening if you two don't even talk to each other. And, when Jack and I were talking about it, we weren't completely sure how you'd even react to the vee idea, if you'd be okay with it or wanting to give it a go." Brandon paused, but Mark didn't say anything yet, so he went on. "Here's what I was thinking, to start, and Jack agreed. You have that room upstairs...so you could officially move in and live here. He has no problem with you now and wouldn't if I was with you too, and that way I'd still always be here for him, too. I could spend some nights with you there and some on the third floor with him."

"Would...are you talking about, like, a schedule?" Mark was frowning more now and couldn't help it. That sounded like more than trouble—it sounded like trouble in fast-forward. If some people made it work, then good for them, but most of what he was getting from it now was complications and planning, and having a relationship with a rule book honestly didn't sound that appealing. That sounded like another checkmark in the 'why are we even discussing this' column. This 'relationship' was communism—good on paper, bad in practice due to the human element.

"No, neither of us like that," Brandon said, at least dispelling that idea. "We can play it by ear and see how we feel, keeping communication open, making a point to all be on the same page all the time. Maybe there'll be times he's working and we'd all be happier if I was spending more time with you. Or if we're on tour together for a while and I don't get to see him, maybe I see him more for a while when we get home. Maybe, yeah, sometimes I'll just want to be with one of you more, but I can't imagine it would ever get really lopsided. I honestly don't think it would naturally, and I'd make a point to not let it get that way."

Mark was sure he was right on that...but that brought him back to the 'rule book'. Would there end up needing to be a schedule? "Gonna put my name on the calendar?" he asked as he exhaled and held out the joint.

He'd only been half-kidding, but Brandon answered him seriously, like it was something he had actually considered. "I don't think so," he said. "What I'd like...what I was sort of envisioning is just...keeping it open and seeing how we feel, or what's going on. That would actually be another benefit to you living here. If there do end up being times where 'how we feel' is that I'm spending a disproportionate amount of time with you, sometimes Jack will be fine with that, like if he's working on something too, or just feeling more comfortable alone. Maybe there would also be times when he started to feel lonely and missed me. Which could just as easily happen if I was working a lot, or we were on tour," he added quickly.

Mark nodded as he took the joint back and raised it to his mouth again. He remembered Brandon making a comment once, a few years ago, that had made him briefly think that he and Jack were having problems. Something about Jack being happy he wasn't home, or preferring that he was gone...but then later, Mark had been around them both and sensed only contentment between them.

"But with us all here..." Brandon was saying slowly. "He just has to tell me. Or, hopefully, I notice or don't let it get to that point, which is going to be something I'm going to pay attention to. But we're human, I'm an asshole and fuckups happen...we can be patient and communicate. He just has to tell me, and I can spend time with him during the day, or be with him when he wants to sleep for a few days, whatever we want. And we're adults—understanding adults, right? If I was hanging out with you...but Jack really needed me, like if he was having nightmares, for example...I dunno, I kinda don't see you pulling the 'me first' card."

"How could I?" Mark said. "You're already his first." Sure, if one of them was having an especially tough time with something, or there was an emergency, it made sense that Brandon would focus most of his attention there. But what if everything was fine? What if they both wanted him, who got precedence then? The one who'd already been with him for years, obviously.

"Some people do go for a primary/secondary thing," Brandon agreed. "But we talked about it being equal. No 'first' or 'primary'. He doesn't want you to be less than him just because we've been together longer in a relationship-sense, because, well." He paused and smiled a little. "You and I have kinda been 'together' in some sort of sense since...I don't know. Obviously before I met him, and I'm not just talking about the physical incidents."

Mark handed him back the joint slowly, remembering that one interview and all of the badgering questions he'd gotten. Ones like, did you love him for years without knowing it? Yeah. Apparently. Had it...gone both ways?

Neither of them cared to really discuss those 'physical incidents', at least not now or maybe ever. Brandon waved his hand to knock away his last comment, then went on. "But I wouldn't want it to not be equal either. It's not going to be like...Jack and I...and then you. It would be him and I, and you and I. Jack found this one really good post on terminology, so if we decide to go with this, we'll have to talk about how we want to refer to certain things, because language has meaning and when intent can be up for debate, that's where you get confusion and bad feelings and jealousy and shit like that. Not just on terms, but with actions too. I have to—" Brandon stopped and frowned a little, and Mark saw him biting at the inside of his cheek. "I have to be really cognizant of what I'm doing and saying. I have to pay attention to everything and get it right. There's never been anything more important than this."

None of which were complaints, but a checklist. "It sounds like there also needs to be...room for error?" Mark suggested.

Brandon frowned more. "We would all need to be aware of each other and to try to cut some slack if needed, and to be really patient, at least in the beginning. But a lot of it is going to be up to me, and I have to handle it right. I know it sounds like a lot, I know. But with having all of this time to think about it, I'm making myself aware of everything I can. How I say things, how others are reacting to me. Jack knows he has to start being more forward. He needs to tell me 'I want to spend time with you' and 'I want to be alone' instead of either making himself available and waiting, or hiding away and I have to figure out what's the reason and if it pertains to me. That's just something we should work on anyway, apart from anything we all decide that includes you. But communication...they say it's key. It must be. It has to be. I've been really bad at it before. I kind of think you have too."

Mark sure as hell couldn't argue with that, so he nodded. "Yeah. I know. I can—I need to be able to say things sometimes, I guess. But...man, a lot of the problem before was that I didn't know. I can't put it into words sometimes. I didn't—I'm so bad at math I couldn't put two and two together. I didn't know what the feeling was."

"It's not..." Brandon trailed off and was quiet for a long moment, then he sighed. "You wouldn't have had to say 'I'm in love with you' all those months before when it was bad. When we barely talked or looked at each other, and we know now how much it was killing us both. You could have said something like, 'this is stupid, it's just that you mean so much to me' and I could have said 'I miss you and I can't function without you' and that would have been the down-to-the-bones truth of it. It doesn't have to be..."

Mark was finding it hard to breathe again, his stomach feeling tighter, and another stitch of it was coming from Brandon too. Maybe they were both remembering that Mark had told him: he'd said it in that hallway and Brandon had said nothing back.

"It doesn't have to be anything," Brandon said finally. "I think...it just has to be something. I think...I really believe that I absolutely need you in my life, and that what I feel for you...is more than I could ever say. But that's okay—I'll learn how to say something else, or to show it. I know you're really worried it'll all blow up in our faces and be worse than before. It almost seems like nothing could be worse than before."

"Something," Mark said.

"Yeah. I'd rather still have you as my friend, my partner with the band, someone that I just—get to see and talk to and be around all the time. Even if we weren't anything more. Nothing physical, nothing, y'know, romantic or otherwise. I'd want that over nothing."

"I don't want nothing," Mark said to the wall. Why not, he'd said other important shit to the wall when he couldn't say it to Brandon.

"We could figure this out by process of elimination...or we could go by what we do want."

"I want..." Mark leaned back in his chair and laughed a little. "Fuckin' magic, man. I want things to work out."

"That doesn't need to be magic. We can do it ourselves. Look, I can be a magician."

Mark had been hitting from the joint again and glanced at him, ready to refute the great Brandono, but then he solemnly did the Moving Thumb trick and Mark laughed and choked a little, holding the joint out to him while reaching for his drink. "I guess you can," he said, after coughing to clear his throat.

"I'll be whatever I need to be," Brandon said seriously. "And I think...just as long as there's a little wiggle room, with all of us...I think we could make it work. I really do. Even playing it by ear, just going with whatever for the day. At least to start with, until we were better able to figure out what worked for us and what didn't. If I was with you and Jack needed me and I left and that upset you more than you thought it would...we'd have to talk about it and figure out something that worked better. We couldn't...we wouldn't want you to just keep quiet about it until it's something you might resent him for, or for you to just feel like you're not as important to me."

"You'd make it up to me in other ways," Mark said, almost a question but pretty sure he had it right.

Brandon smiled a little. "Yeah. And I mean...in all reality, the cards on the table again...I think we all know I'd probably end up spending more time with you. Hell, I spend almost all of my time with you now, and I have a lot in years past. This is one of the things I've thought about a lot, because both are true that Jack needs a lot of time alone, needs time without me, but also sometimes he needs me. So I think it would end up being okay...if there were times I was with one of you, but then something came up and plans changed. We'd need to give that leeway, and I think we would all be perfectly okay doing it. Is that...do you know how you feel about any of this so far?"

Mark shook his head. "A lot of mixed up. I don't...there's still a lot of difference in wanting things in an ideal world and—and reality."

"Yeah...but we can make it our reality by working at it and through it. Being better at communicating—all three of us."

He sounded so firm, so confident. He'd had weeks to think and research, to look at their situation from dozens of angles, to scout out the road ahead for problems and potholes. He had plans and contingencies for those plans. He certainly would have talked to people online who had experience and to ask for suggestions or advice or feedback, though he probably hadn't been able to give a lot of specific information for obvious reasons.

So he had a lot of the current situation decided and planned out...but what was next? "You've thought about this a lot," Mark said. "Did—have you even thought about the future? Like...say we tried this? You're just gonna...have two boyfriends forever? What's five years, or ten?"

"Or twenty, or fifty," Brandon said. Mark gave him a look and Brandon raised his eyebrows, indicating that he was being serious, not a smartass. "I wouldn't want to ever be without either of you," he said. "Jack and I were already...even a couple of years ago, we were thinking we'd probably be together forever. He pretty much wouldn't ever leave me unless I wanted him to, and there's only one thing that would ever make me consider that. Because I know, in my mind and the bottom of my heart and every part of me, that I'd want to be with you beyond forever. In any form, and no matter what it took. I will make it work...it will work. And remember? It was his idea." Brandon grinned a little again. "Jack thinks we should be together. It'll be an adjustment...sometimes it might get tough. But any relationship can be like that, anything can be affected by any number of external or internal factors, and as long as there's that love and patience and willingness to be open and work and fix it...why can't it be fifty?"

"Jesus. I can't even think about next year."

"Next year...well, to start, it would have to be kept just to us, obviously, but maybe, after we made adjustments and figured out better what worked, a few others could know, like, once we get the album finished and we're going to tour again. Andrew and Keith, because we spend all of our time with them, and Ashley Rozen, because I'll need her more than before if I'm going to take on more of the PR and tour management, and I can trust her. Obviously we won't want it to be public, so we might have to talk about how to handle that later—maybe you could lie about having a girlfriend or be perpetually single."

Mark shrugged. Not like he gave a lot of fuck about what the general public thought, not after the first half of this year.

Brandon was still going with his plans, or envisionings, or whatever. "By a year, you'd probably have already told your parents, or would be thinking about it. I would have already told my dad and probably the oldest of my siblings. Some of our friends other than the band assholes would end up knowing—Kylen and Luke and Delta for sure, probably ones like Kieran and Matt that we've known forever. We'd have months of experience in how we all fitted together, and what was working. Lots of time like now, when we're writing and recording, time when you and I would be on tour. I'm sure there would have been times when I was with Jack a lot, or times when I'd change plans with you to be with him, so...we'd have time to see how we all really felt about that, and to work with it or around it."

Mark frowned. "You're really stuck on that." He'd made it sound like it would be a few and far-between situation, but he'd also repeatedly come back to it.

"Someone I talked to online said it was what broke him up with one of his girlfriends. One had PTSD and nightmares and needed him a lot, and the other ended up having too much of an issue with it." Brandon frowned and looked down at his lighter, where his thumbnail was picking at the bar code sticker on it. "Jack...definitely has PTSD and nightmares. Among other things. He can deal without me...for the most part...like when we've been on tour before. But that means that, at best, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, he's afraid and distressed...I don't want that if I can help it."

"No. Makes sense." And even if it didn't...that went back to something—anything—instead of nothing. "So if I needed you..."

Mark had dropped his eyes down to the mixing board, but then he glanced up a little, feeling as well as seeing the longing and resolve in Brandon's eyes. "I'd be there," he said softly. "Any time you want me."

"So you really..." Mark shook his head again, all of the information he'd taken in in the last few hours was unreal. "You got everything down. What am I gonna say?"

"I hope you're going to say yes. Because I don't have anything down—I only have some thoughts and ideas. If you...if you want to try, then we can start to think about things seriously, together. And there would need to be a lot of now before there can be any future, because we'd have to start slow and keep it easy and open while we worked out the bugs."

In Mark's mind's eye, he saw a flash of him telling his parents about this proposed setup—it only lasted a second because it was too big and filled him with such anxiety (their faces—this isn't normal—so disappointed: what about a wife and kids?!—how long can it really go on before you're back where you started?) that he discarded it. "The present can ruin the future," he muttered.

"Maybe," Brandon said after a moment. "But I don't think so, and there's no way to know that for sure. We can only do the best...we can only try for what we want." Mark didn't reply to that and he drummed his fingertips on the edge of the table in the quiet, seeming to wait for Mark to say something, but he didn't, and when he was excited about something, Brandon was never quiet for long. "For now," he said, "you and I could start it off slow, just take it little by little and let it grow. We'll all have to spend some time together—dinner seems to be working well—and kind of check in constantly to make sure everyone's on the same page and doing okay. Day by day." He looked at Mark contemplatively. "Did it bother you, earlier in the kitchen? When I went to Jack and hugged him, kissed him?"

"No?" Why would that have been a problem—they were the ones in an actual relationship. "I mean, I guess I was a little surprised. You never do that, at least not in front of me." He looked at Brandon, who was watching him.

"I thought maybe he needed it, and I thought it'd be good to show him that I was going to be trying better to not only meet his needs when I saw them, but to be actively looking for what he needs from me. I thought if it upset you, or made you jealous...that would be an indicator as to whether or not I should bring up anything about...more."

Mark shook his head. "No, of course not. You're—you guys have been together for, what, five years?"

"Yeah," Brandon said softly. "Would it bother you if I was also with you?"

It was difficult to actually try to picture it, but he tried anyway. "Something like that, no," he said, shrugging. "I don't know about beyond that. When I was seeing Lucia before and she was also dating someone else, it wasn't, like. In front of me. But I guess...I don't know, that's different than this."

Brandon was nodding. "That might be a pitfall we have to watch for. So we'd need to figure out where the line was, and keep communicating about that. Especially if you do decide to live here—yeah, that'll make a lot of things more convenient, but if it ever becomes an 'okay, but not in front of me' sort of situation, we'd have to reevaluate. Although, honestly? I wasn't really worried about it." He shrugged. "Like you said, I usually don't do anything like that with Jack in front of other people—that's anyone, not just you in particular. Sometimes he doesn't want to be touched when it's just us. But—while I know to watch out for it—I'm just not thinking possessiveness or jealousy is going to be a huge problem. It wasn't before, right?" He raised his eyebrows. "In the middle of the bad shit, on the tour—you never acted like you hated Jack or thought he was in the way or didn't want him around or anything."

Mark shook his head. "No. I've never had any problem with him that I can remember. Even when—that whole thing, it sucked for a lot of reasons, but I never thought he should leave or anything. I already said I don't want that now."

"You did...but feelings and situations can change."

That was one Mark was pretty sure wouldn't, though. Brandon had talked about trying to make sure both his relationships would be equal, but in any way that should actually count, Jack had been there first. "Nah. I know there were people that said I did, or tried to say that he must hate me, but I think we both knew that it was all bullshit." He shrugged, suddenly remembering something else. "Remember when he offered to teach me how to play chess? He didn't have to do that."

"Yeah," Brandon said, smiling a little again. "He's not jealous of you or of the relationship we have. Whether it's the friend part, or the musician part, or...any other part. In the past, what could be now...or in the future. He understands that it doesn't take away from what I have with him. Sometimes stretching in one spot to make room for something bigger in another will have to happen, but overall, it doesn't change anything. It wouldn't change how much I felt about you if I had to leave off being with you for a night or two because Jack needed me more. He can be completely confident that if there's a stretch of time I'm with you more, that doesn't make me love him any less."

"But...he also knows that you'll drop him for someone else. Or that he's gotta share or get nothing."

Mark regretted that when he felt a twinge in his chest that was Brandon's own ache over the situation. "Well...I mean, not in so many words," Brandon said quietly. He'd also said repeatedly that he didn't want to, and he absolutely loved Jack...it wasn't a choice he wanted to make, that he'd ever thought he'd need to.

"Sorry," Mark said. He was sorry for saying again something that didn't need to be said when it was painful enough, he was sorry for being the sole cause and continuation of the whole thing. He never should have allowed it to get to this point. Why couldn't he have gotten a fucking grip and just pushed it all down and ignored it and gone on so they could go about their fucking lives? Jesus, he was pathetic sometimes. And he was the one Brandon was considering choosing? For the band? They could still be in the band. It was too late. It was so late and they were so stoned and they should stop talking like this and go to bed.

"That's all right...when we're trying to be realistic, sometimes we have to also talk about the bad side...if things that we don't want to happen end up happening," Brandon said slowly. "One of the times when we were talking about it—about bringing up the idea of the vee to you—I asked what he really thought he'd feel or want if you said no. If it came the point then where I'd need to make the choice. And right away—like he'd been waiting for me to ask, or for a good chance for him to say it—he said that I should pick you."

Mark looked at him sharply but could say nothing, and Brandon just looked back. After a moment, he looked down at the joint that had gone out yet again, and raised it to re-light. He hit and passed it, then reached down to the mini-fridge to get a bottle of water. He looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows at Mark, asking if he wanted anything, and he shook his head.

Brandon sat back in his chair and had a long drink while Mark pulled on the joint and exhaled at the ceiling. He could see a cloud gathering at the light by the door, but the room was small and neither were going to stop crutching along so that they could actually talk. Now that they were into it—and Jesus, were they—he knew neither were going to go up to bed until they'd reached some sort of landing point.

"That wasn't even what I'd asked," Brandon said after a long silence, and Mark handed him the joint. He hit it and held his breath, passed it back, but all Mark did for the moment was knock the ash off. "I'd been talking about what he'd feel like—apprehensive and scared about being alone again, maybe depressed, anxious about moving, if he thought more nightmares would come back, shit like that. Part of what makes me think he'd been waiting to say it...because he'd said before that he thought we should be together. Like that first day—the day you came to see him and then later I came home and he told me, and then I left to get you. He told me to get you, and that was...all of it, right there."

"Did...you know that when you came over?" Mark asked slowly. He didn't remember thinking anything like that in those few minutes, but he'd been so shocked and then almost immediately overwhelmed that most of what he did remember felt like amp feedback.

"No. I only first started thinking it while I was waiting for you to grab some clothes and whatever. He'd sent me an email with a few links about polyamory and vee relationships. Then later that night, after you and I hung out for a while and you went to bed, I went upstairs and he was there. That was the first time we talked a little about it...that first day."

Around a month ago. So Jack had been cooking him food and cleaning his dishes and other shit the whole time, all while knowing or keeping in the back of his mind that his relationship was going to significantly change soon, none of it in his favor. There were two probable reasons for that, the first being that Jack felt sorry for him, and that would be his own fault for getting so pitiful he needed to be babysat and carefully stepped around so he didn't fall apart.

But he didn't think that was it...they may have been being careful around him, but he'd meant it when he'd told Brandon—also that first day—that he wasn't a danger to himself any more. It really had been like a bucket of ice water in his face when Brandon had barged into his house and said the word suicide and yelled at him that he was fucking stupid and then cried and held him and said please. No, he was pretty sure that no matter what else happened in the rest of his life, he wouldn't. He couldn't ever do that to him, that would have been worse than anything. That was part of the nothing...the biggest nothing.

So he was set on that, and he was also pretty sure they finally believed him. Jack wasn't making him dinner and talking to Brandon about how he was going to share him with someone else because that someone else was so sad and pathetic and going to hurt himself otherwise. Jack wasn't doing those things because he had no choice, because he could just as easily have been polite but not going out of his way, letting Mark stay there until he got his feet under him, and then telling Brandon 'all right, make your choice, I love you but it's up to you so go ahead and decide so we can all move on with our lives'.

Mark had to admit he didn't know Jack very well, but he'd never really seemed to be the type to do things he didn't want to. He didn't want to deal with neighbors or a landlord so he bought a whole building and lived there alone. He didn't want to be around the frenzy of the tour scene so he stayed home and didn't see his boyfriend for weeks multiple times. He didn't want to be in the sun and heat and so had literally turned around two steps outside a hotel in Australia and gone back inside while Brandon had looked after him and then shrugged.

So...Jack was making space for him because he wanted to. Jack was telling Brandon to choose Mark because he thought he should. He was willing to step back and to give up his five years because he wanted to.

"Actually, can I have another one?" Mark asked, tilting his empty Sprite bottle.

"Yeah." Brandon leaned back, opened the mini-fridge again, and grabbed him one.

Mark opened it and drank off half, until the carbonation burned his throat and he could focus on that for a moment or so. "I think that kinda sucks," he said finally. Brandon frowned slightly, not sure what he was referring to, and he sighed. "That like, for the last damn month he's been going about life thinking that at any moment you were going to bring this up to me and then you'd go have a talk with him."

"No, not at any time," Brandon said quickly. "It's really only been in the last week or so I was thinking it could be the right time. Too soon would have been bad—could have changed our ability to slow down and think."

"But you talked about it that night when you brought me back. Whether or not it was time it could actually happen, it was still, like." Mark gestured, thinking of the vibe he usually felt when something heavy was hanging over someone. "You know, hovering around in the background."

But then he frowned; he hadn't really been feeling that. Except he almost never felt anything from Jack, and Brandon hadn't been feeling like—well, there was almost no dread in him. If anything, he was apprehensive, but that was because he was afraid Mark would say no. More that he'd say no to the poly/sharing idea instead of him saying no to anything, but that was there too. Of course he'd been right...'just friends' wasn't what they'd been even in the before, not really. Not knowing what they knew now.

"But not in a bad way," Brandon said. "We had lots of time to talk about it and think—you know, about how we could make it work. I know he's sure that he's been completely okay about everything right from the start. We only talked a little that first night, but then in the few days after...we talked about the vee, me being with both of you. I guess he'd already decided on the rest of it, too. If it came down to it and I had to pick, he thinks—I believe that he actually believes it, too, and I—I don't know about the future, but I..." Brandon stopped talking and Mark looked at him, his heart speeding up a little as he was almost sure what he meant. Brandon drank more of his water and Mark waited. "He thinks that you and I make more sense together, that we...that I'd be happier. There's a lot of the time he needs to have his space, either to work or just be okay on his own. And he doesn't like that he can't be as much to me as he wants, or that I need."

Mark looked down just in time to catch the last glowing ember of the joint, and he raised it to his mouth to try to reignite it before it failed entirely—yes, that worked, he could stare at the growing red end of the joint for a while. He almost choked while handing it back, but then managed to say, "That...also sucks."

"Well...maybe it doesn't," Brandon said. Mark gave him a disbelieving look and he shrugged. "It's not always fair to expect one person to be able to be everything to someone else. It doesn't always work that way, and even if someone could, that's still a lot of pressure. It's like—no one expects people to have only one friend. They can have their goof-off friend or their tough friend or their supportive friend, whatever. You have the room to get from others what you can't get from one person. Relationships can be like that too."

"You can have your band boyfriend, and you can have your smart computer boyfriend..."

Brandon gave him a look, but saw that he was mostly kidding. "Watch it, or I'll also have my movie star boyfriend, and my doctor boyfriend, and my high-level politician superpower boyfriend."

Mark snorted. "Fuckin' collect 'em all?" He hadn't wanted to be a Pokemon, but here Brandon was, basically saying 'I choose you'.

"No..." Brandon said softly, his face serious again. "I just want...I want you, and I want to still have him. And I want that to work, for us all to make it work so we're happy. I think we can, it's just—we just need to be careful and figure out what fits and what doesn't. Like a picture. Jack's a puzzle, a hard one, with a lot of little pieces that don't always fit together. Some pieces have parts missing or warped because of his experiences, or maybe some pieces are missing entirely. I'm another puzzle, and some of my pieces make his pieces fit. A lot of ours fit together and start to make a picture that looks like something, but there are still a lot of gaps and empty holes, a lot of edges that don't fit together and a lot of pieces that don't fit anything." He paused. "When someone else can fill those gaps, because no one can be the whole picture to someone else, it makes everyone's lives more complete."

"A puzzle," Mark said thoughtfully. Despite everything, that was starting to make sense, and he was starting to see it, to like it.

Brandon glanced at him and nodded. "I think all people are puzzles. Jack fits some of mine. You fit some of mine. And when we fit more, the picture is clearer."

"What's it showing?"

Brandon shrugged. "I don't know, yet. All I know is that I want to see it. That—that I really want this. And so does Jack. So...do you? At all?" He paused, took a long pull from the joint, and held it out.

Mark took it but just held it for a moment and watched it burn, not sure which of the jumble of thoughts or shaky feelings in his stomach were the right things to settle on. He sure as hell could want in one hand. It overfilled the hand that wanted to reach for it and so fucking tempted that weak part of him. It was such a long shot...such a risk. If it all fell apart and they lost each other for good? Images of bright shiny pictures definitely fell into the 'too good to be true' category.

"Do you need some time to think about it?" Brandon asked. "It's fine if you do—probably good if you do. We've had all this time, and it's...a lot. Jack and I both have had plenty of time to think separately and together...we know there will be concerns. We can talk about ideal situations forever, but the real world will have problems. We've talked a little about how we might approach some of them, but will want and need your input. We all have to be completely committed to trying hard to make it work. Because it...if it can be what we can have...then it's what I want, and what Jack wants."

Ideal situations. Exactly. Mark hit the joint to prevent it going out again and offered it back, blowing smoke up at the ceiling again. The real world and its problems. The public. If it got out somehow? He couldn't even touch on that either. He was sick to fucking death of the public and some assholes who called themselves their fans who had very much helped his life turn into a pathetic mess. Then, he hadn't even really considered how the next tour was going to go, either. Still horrible and awkward, trying to play and do interviews and shit together. Having to be crammed in on the tour vehicle or in green rooms all the damn time. While it would suck for different reasons, even 'secret relationship' topped that mess. He'd get to be on the lookout for a whole new mess.

"I think...to be realistic, it's probably a dumb fucking idea that's more than likely going to end up an even bigger mess than the shit we've already dealt with," he said, and he felt Brandon's stomach starting to sink. The real world and its problems had already caused so many problems for them...but a lot of it really was their own damn faults for not being able to communicate, and it didn't change how they felt now.

He suddenly thought of something Jack had said to him that day he'd come and confessed his plans. Something like, I don't think you'll be happy without him. That was another down-to-the-bones truth of it. That was the root of the reason he'd gotten so depressed on the tour, when they weren't hanging out or even talking and barely even looking at each other. It probably wasn't even possible now, in the real world, for them stay friends and bandmates only after all that had been said.

"But...I guess it's no dumber than moving me in here and playing weird-ass awkward roommates and you two talking about it like it's real. And I'm an idiot, remember." He looked down at the joint instead of at the confusion of emotion on Brandon's face. If it worked...of course it could be the best solution to this bizarre and shitty situation. No one got left out, there would be patience and give-and-take, and there would be room and time enough for everything to work. That was a big damn 'if'...he wanted to be real and tell himself firmly that it would almost certainly not work in the long run and things would end up even worse than they were now, but hadn't he already known that by the time they called it quits for the night and had landed on something for at least the temporary future, there was no way he would refuse the chance to try?

He couldn't. Not when his stomach still felt wobbly from the idea that he could really have, at least in part, what he now knew he'd wanted all along. He didn't ever let himself think it because of how much it hurt, but if it could turn into hope, even if it was shit later, he could have a little while. If it wasn't better than nothing after all, he'd at least have it while he did. Anything to have him back, to have him. He had never thought that he would fall so deep and hard in love with another guy, but there it was. It wasn't even important, except for how it had possibly played a part in how he hadn't recognized how he felt for so long: here was the person he loved and craved most in the world. He didn't care what his parents or anyone else thought: if this was what he had to do in order to be with him (not just 'another guy' but Brandon, everything), then okay. He'd try it, give it his best, and maybe, even for a while, be happy while he could.

"So...I think...okay, yeah, like I was going to say no," Mark said, laughing a little. Brandon looked at him and there was so much hope on his face that Mark had to look away, focusing on the wall again. "I do want to be with you," he said. "I still...yes, I still feel the same. I also want...whatever we need to do to figure it out."

"We'll figure it out," Brandon said immediately, his voice a little shaky. "We'll make it work. It'll work, I promise that. I'll do anything I need to."

Apparently. "Except break up with Jack," Mark said. "I'm not—I don't want that. You don't have to choose. I can..." he trailed off a little and then nodded. "I can work with that." He glanced over at Brandon to see him trying to stop grinning in relief and hope and failing. "But I think maybe before we go any farther...we should probably go talk to Jack."

"So that's—your answer is officially yes, you're okay with it?" Brandon's voice was quick now, excited. "You're on board to try the vee thing, I'm with both of you?"

Mark picked at the sticker on his own lighter, fidgeting. "Am I allowed to say something gay?" he asked sarcastically.

"Please do?"

So he let himself say it again, the third time overall but the first that didn't hurt so much. He'd said it in that interview, he'd said it in the hallway at that venue, and now in the studio, where they wrote and recorded their music, it finally seemed to fit. A fucking puzzle indeed.

"I...really fucking love you," Mark said, his voice not quite steady. "At the end of the day I'd probably do anything even to just be around you, and the idea that it could be more than that...yes. What I want is you. Even to be like what we were before. Even that. Even if it's just for a while."

"I don't want 'just for a while'," Brandon said. "But...I only want to do what you really want." He hesitated, then said, "If you're really worried it won't work, or we'll have major problems down the road..."

"I trust you," Mark said after a moment. "If you think it's got a real shot, and it's not just some desperate last-ditch effort like a couple that's about to get divorced trying an 'open marriage'..."

"If that was what it was, or if it didn't have a real chance at seriously working, Jack wouldn't have agreed," Brandon said firmly. "And he wouldn't have really talked about it with me, discussing how we could make it work. He wouldn't have said that he wants you to live here permanently and keep the room, or we can pick one of the others and make it ours together if you want. He wouldn't have made a point to tell me that it wouldn't bother him to see me being, uh, intimate with you." He paused and grinned a little. "He read an article and thinks I should be. Like...in the kitchen, earlier? I can do that with you."

"Oh." Mark flicked the wheel on his lighter now, feeling its bumps and grooves and—not yet—trying not to think of intimacy with Brandon and how far it could go. It hadn't been a part of what had happened between them before, at least not on a conscious level, not a physical level. They'd kissed but not much, they hadn't held each other while both knowing what it really meant. That would be another hurdle for him to jump—not only learning how to be intimate and romantic with a guy, but to build on and incorporate into the relationship with Brandon he already had.

"Not right away, maybe," Brandon said quickly. "Or it doesn't have to be literally in front of Jack, obviously. I just meant he knows it would happen, and it wouldn't bother him if he did happen to see it. Just to go back to how he wants us to happen too."

"Yeah...I know you got, like, loose little plans or ideas for how it'll work. It's gonna be...I guess we'll have to fit that with what actually happens."

"Right, exactly."

"So...the first thing, before anything more, is that we should probably all have a discussion," Mark said slowly. "Because to me, at least for now, it's not equal and can't be. You guys were together first, and I'm—intruding? Don't." He held up a hand as Brandon opened his mouth. "I'm not going to argue with you about it, and I don't think you can argue that talking with him is the logical next step no matter what."

"No, I agree." He smiled a little again. "If it's yes...and we can start thinking about real discussions and plans...then I would need to tell him and we would need to have a chance to talk before I actually do anything with you. We've talked about it coming up, but he doesn't know we've been talking about it now."

Mark nodded. "What do you think the chances are he's awake right now?"

"Probably pretty good." Brandon reached for his phone, which Mark just realized he'd set face down on the mixing board and must have been silenced this whole time as he hadn't heard anything from it and Brandon hadn't touched it, which was normally pretty unusual. He checked the time and nodded. "Yeah, he's been working on new game character designs or maps or something and went nocturnal again, so I think so. I can see if he's awake and up for meeting."

Mark took in a deep breath and let it out. So they were really doing this, and he'd agreed to it. What a night. "Okay."

"All three of us?" Brandon pressed. "Or would you prefer if I told him first, and then we all talked together? Or do you want to talk to him separately?"

Mark frowned a little. "I don't know. He doesn't really talk to me."

"You don't talk to him, either."

Mark nodded. "Fair enough."

It was another reason this was a stupid idea—something like this, with several people already demonstrating a lack of communication ability. If that wasn't a setup for disaster. Mark had always thought he was good with others, good at knowing what they felt and wanted and believed in. He could almost always see where someone was coming from in their perspective, even if he didn't agree with it. But he had never known Jack or had even felt like he could be able to. Except—except that one moment. When Brandon had brought him back and Jack had looked at him, had let everything down and had even embraced him. Allowing him into their lives in more ways than just inside the house.

But it couldn't—shouldn't—all fall on him anyway. In the last month since he'd come here, Mark had spent long hours and whole days just holed up in 'his' bedroom while Brandon had been spending time with Jack or asleep, and had made almost zero effort to try to talk to Jack beyond thanking him for dinner. He hadn't wanted to intrude, to make himself too big in Jack's space (in his house with his boyfriend in his life) but he couldn't deny that this was already beyond that. And it wasn't also like he hadn't fucked up almost everything to a point where it might never be fixed by being shitty at communicating with Brandon, too.

For being the one so reliant on that deep part of his mind that knew things and felt things about others, he hadn't considered in a long time that probably no one else was a goddamn mindreader when it came to him. He knew he had made Brandon confused and lonely and depressed by how he had acted on the tour, and he hadn't been trying to make anything better since he'd gotten here, either. It was easy to wallow or to shove it all away. He was the one who had decided it was time to deal with it, so.

"We can decide whichever we think is the best way to go," Brandon was saying, and Mark thought he was being careful with his phrasing again. "But I think a general meeting with all three of us to start would be good for this time. Maybe in the future we'll have more one-on-ones, but since this is the biggest, general topic—the start—we should—it would probably be best to start off right from the jump with everyone on the same page."

Mark nodded again. "You're right. We should all talk. Everyone figure it out."

"I agree," Brandon said at once. "We'll make it work. And how we do it is by talking."

"Good thing we don't all suck at talking."

"Maybe, but I think a lot of that was just...not getting started."

"Maybe."

"And we'll get better," Brandon insisted as he started texting. "I'll see to that, too."

He set his phone down and picked up the carved box again, lifting the lid to check the contents and seeming to be satisfied with what he found, and then set it back on the table while Mark finished his soda and turned his head to belch quietly and let some of the air out of his stomach. He did feel a little more settled, a little less like his head was full of static. Even though they now had another huge pile of question marks to deal with, these at least brought back a spike of excitement, of looking toward the future with hope instead of dread. What they could do, what they could have, to fix it all versus learning to live with what had been lost and broken.

Brandon's phone dinged and he snatched it back up. "Yeah," he said. "He was about to go to the kitchen anyway, so we can talk. He's going to meet us there." He stood up and pocketed his phone. "Ready?"

No, Mark thought, but he nodded and stood up anyway.

He turned toward the door and started to go...then stopped when he felt Brandon rightthere. Some of that anxiety and apprehension and excitement came through, but then, as Brandon tentatively touched his arm, he turned back to face him and it was huge, all encompassing, not a wall of feeling but an enormity of it that permeated the air and soaked into them. Brandon looked at him and wanted more than anything, was fully convinced he was right that they fit and it should have been them. And that it still could be. Mark had rarely known him to be wrong, at least about the big things, the ones that mattered.

"This is just as friends," Brandon said softly, and then he moved forward and put both arms around him and held him tight.

Mark couldn't have resisted even if he'd wanted to. He let go and hugged him back, closing his eyes and dropping his head so that his face rested on Brandon's shoulder. Brandon held him tighter and didn't let go, but then, Mark didn't either. The last time they had been this close was when Brandon had held him outside his room on that first night in their place. He had been on such shaky ground then, unable to sleep for hours, feeling like he was both out of time and stuck in it, not fully anywhere—except for when Brandon touched him and pulled him in, and Jesus fuck that had been all he'd wanted and needed for so long. Just to make him feel fully there again. They were both so solid and this was real after all, after all those months and even the years before that they weren't aware of. To really finally give in and touch him and feel his arms, feel his body right there, feel him. He could feel him breathing and thought he could feel his heartbeat against his own chest, but that could have been his own, because it would have meant that even that was in sync.

"You fuckin' liar," he murmured, after what felt like several minutes. Neither wanted to let go; they were making up for such lost time. "You never really hugged me when we were just friends." He raised his head a little, the sides of their faces barely touching. "You hardly touched me at all, you know."

"Yeah. Someone pointed that out to me." Brandon sighed a little but he didn't let go either; instead, he turned his face a little so that their cheeks were pressing together lightly; Mark could feel their stubble grazing together and liked it for how close it meant they were. "I didn't even think about it. I think part of me knew, or suspected, what I felt about you. I couldn't even begin to let that surface, not when there was the smallest chance that it might make me lose you." He sighed. "Who the fuck falls in love with their actual best friend? Especially with the whole, y'know, gay/straight thing. Two seconds of the wrong feeling and I could say goodbye to even having a friend."

Now Mark did pull back, giving him an incredulous, exasperated look. "I asked you to fuck me," he said. "Me, being straight the whole time. Out of nowhere. For almost no reason."

Almost. The thin layer of 'for her amusement' hadn't really lasted that long, not when he looked back on it. She'd unfortunately been correct when she said they were so focused on each other they basically forgot she was there. When they'd broken up and she'd snapped at him that he'd only come to see her in the last few weeks so that he could then call Brandon over, he'd been unable to argue it.

"With almost no thought," he added, because that had been so true it was almost scary. "She brought it up and said 'a guy', and I said no. Then she said you." He snorted while Brandon could only look at him. "I thought about it for less than a day, did you know that? I don't think I even really thought in particular about being straight, or previously having absolutely no interest in any other guy, ever. I barely even thought about how it was supposed to be something for her. I remember...I thought about it being you. If I was going to do that...and it was going to be you...then it was okay. I'd never tried anything like that before, but I...you know me, man, I can be pretty open."

He smiled a little at Brandon though it was hard to keep looking at him, the hope and longing on his face more naked than they'd ever been before. "But you said no at first," he said uncertainly.

"I said no until she said you," Mark repeated. "That's really all it took. I thought about you...kissing me, touching me...fucking me. And that was okay. Then I wanted to." He shrugged. "The only reason it was a little awkward at first was because I was new at a lot of it. But you remember...I wanted to. Every time I called you, every time you showed up, every time it started. I wanted you." He stopped and cleared his throat a little. "It was...uh. Really good."

"Yes it was," Brandon said at once, his voice low, and then, slowly, one corner of his mouth started to turn up. "Do you want me to fuck you again?"

"Yeah," Mark said. He wanted more than that—he wanted everything. He felt a spike of arousal at that—and definitely not just his own—but shrugged and turned toward the door slightly, to curb anything before it got out of hand. "But I guess we should all talk first. And I don't know about—that all—right away."

"Yeah—of course. Whatever you want."

Well, that...yeah.

Mark turned and headed for the door now, and by the time he got to the hall outside the control room, Brandon was following him as he led the way to the stairs. He could hear the lights being switched off and the mechanical beep of the electronic lock on the door; Brandon and Jack liked their security, and Mark should have known when Jack added him on his encrypted emails to Brandon whenever the security codes for the gate and the house changed at random intervals. A guest in the house would probably have the gate code and the front door code, a band member might even have the studio code, but all of them at his fingertips, before he even had to ask? Before the end of the first week?

Jack was already in the kitchen when they got to the doorway, standing at the counter and making himself some tea. "Hi," Brandon said, as he pulled out a chair from the table. Mark sat across from him, watching Jack out of the corner of his eye but trying to not be obvious about it. "Were you working?" Brandon asked.

"Yes," Jack said.

"Sorry," Mark said. Jack looked over his shoulder at him and seemed to be confused, and Mark realized that he wasn't wearing his dark glasses. "For interrupting," he explained, and glanced at Brandon. "You didn't say he was busy. We could have said, 'This will hold until tomorrow'."

Brandon shrugged. "I didn't want it to. And he was already getting ready for a break."

Jack had turned back to the counter and poured some water from the kettle in a mug and added a spoon; he then picked out a coffee pod from the display next to the Keurig and put it into the machine, sliding another mug underneath its dispenser while it made water sounds and coffee smells. Brandon seemed to be patiently waiting, so Mark waited too; when the coffee was done, Jack added some crap to it and brought it and the mug with tea to the table, sliding the coffee in front of Brandon and setting the tea at his usual spot. Brandon picked up his mug and sipped while Jack went back to the counter, grabbed the carton of cream, and put it back in the fridge. The door swung closed and Jack came back to the table with a Sprite, which he put in front of Mark without looking at him, and then he sat down and stirred his tea.

"Thanks," Mark said. Jack didn't respond to that, but this time it was okay.

There was a beat, and then Brandon took control, as he always did. "I told him what we talked about," he said to Jack. "Me being with both of you. He wants to...we think we're going to go for it. So...we all need to be on the same page from the start. What are your thoughts?"

Mark opened his Sprite and drank off half while Jack finished with the tea and considered the tiny whirlpool in his mug for a moment. "I am glad," Jack said finally.

"And you really...you want this too?" Mark asked carefully. It wasn't that he didn't trust Brandon, but he needed to hear it. "Not just that you'd let it happen?"

"Yes."

It was quiet for a long moment then, and Mark glanced at Brandon, but he seemed to be calmly waiting, watching Jack gazing at his tea. There must be some cue that let him know Jack wasn't done, just that he needed a moment...Mark tried feeling out for him and still got nothing back, but maybe that would also change in time. Until then, it wasn't hard to read the room in general and figure out whether it was his turn to talk to act or to be patient. Brandon was dead set on watching everything, scrutinizing every detail to make two relationships work. It wasn't going to only be up to him for any of it to turn out well.

Mark glanced at Jack then and saw his eyes flick over several times before he raised them, and Mark realized that he was trying: holy shit but he was trying hard. "You belong with him," he said quietly. He looked away then, never seeming to be able to hold eye contact long, if at all, though his gaze rested on Brandon's hand, where the fingers were still curled around the handle of his coffee mug...and he smiled just a little, just enough to notice. "And I might," he said.

"You do," Brandon said firmly.

"Then we are equal," Jack said to the salt shaker.

"Yeah," Brandon said, raising his eyebrows a little at Mark. "Different but equal. While some people may be monogamous or can't be happy in a more-than-two sense...I think we can be. All of us. I know I can be. My love isn't pie. I can have more than enough for you both—I know I can because I already do."

"We can always make more pie," Mark said, realizing he was hungry.

"Jack can make great pie," Brandon said, smiling again. "Speaking of, having dinner together was a great idea and we should keep it up," he said to Jack. "We talked a little about him just moving in here, but I don't think we landed anywhere on that yet. Which doesn't at all have to be decided now," he said to Mark. "We're still working on the album, so it makes more sense for you to be here than not. I guess if you wanted to go home...it's not like I could stop you. But I'd much rather you were here."

Mark nodded and shrugged. "I don't really have any reason to go back there. I mean—yeah, at least until we're done recording. I think there's probably a lot of things that can't really be decided for now, not without knowing how any of this is going to go."

Brandon was nodding quickly. "Communication is going to be key." He paused, and his eyes flicked between them. "You guys should try to be better at talking with each other, not just to me and not just through me. There's no animosity, right?"

"No," Jack agreed. "I will try."

Mark's soda was gone and he wanted another one, but he still felt like this wasn't his kitchen and it wasn't his refrigerator or his goods, even though Brandon had asked him twice what he wanted for grocery trips and twice more had just came back with a bunch of things he knew he liked. Mark had been trying to keep boundaries firmly in his mind for the last several weeks while staying here and now these two were saying that there almost weren't any and that he wasn't staying, he was living.

He didn't know what the word Brandon had used meant, but he felt like he could glean the intent from context. "No, man, no like, jealousy or bad shit from me. I'll try too. It might be weird for a while...I don't really know what I'm doing."

Brandon shrugged. "Who does? I've been faking it for years. All we have to do is talk about it and try it out. See which pieces go together and which don't."

"Yeah."

"So...sorry to keep pressing the confirmation, but that 'same page' thing...we're all at 'yes'?" Brandon raised his eyebrows. "We're doing this? You and I are going to be together now? Jack said yes, and I say yes..."

Mark had already said yes, already said he wanted to do whatever it took. It was important now to say it in front of everyone, and he would, but he had to try once more to dispel that rational logic that whispered it was a bad idea, that while it may actually be good for a while, it would only be a while, that they were grasping at straws. Anything to hold onto something that was no longer there.

Maybe that didn't matter either. So what if what they used to have wasn't there...what they'd been having for the last six months or so sucked. So they should build something else. They were each going to be out of their comfort zones, there would be times when they were unsure or probably even feeling left out or lonely. They would just need to talk. Preferably with the aid of the contents of that box—Jesus he was high—but as Brandon had said: whatever works for them...would work for them.

Mark looked at Jack, said his name quietly, and waited. Slowly, Jack raised his head and then his eyes. "This is important," Mark said gently, and Jack nodded. After a second, when he didn't look away, Mark thought he could try again, try to feel for him—okay, yes. Anxiety, terror, apprehension...patience? Something that couldn't be...remorse? "Are you really okay with this?" Mark asked him softly, still trying to feel for him.

A strong approval, a green light, a sense of calm. "Yes," Jack said. He held it for one second longer and then it was all gone, his head turned away and, somehow, he was walled off again. That was all right, he'd gotten enough. He'd gotten a lot.

"Then...yes. I...am in." Mark looked at Brandon and nodded. Brandon grinned hugely and let out a breath that had a laugh on the edge as he released a huge wave of anxiety that he'd been trying so hard to hold at bay, and he sat back in his chair, radiating relief and hope. Before he could say anything, Mark turned back to Jack again. "One more thing, okay? One more important thing. Please."

He clearly didn't want to, and it took more out of him, but eventually, Jack raised his eyes again. Mark was waiting for them and he spoke quickly the second that they did: "You won't lose him. I promise."

Jack turned his face away quickly, the shoulder that was closest to Mark coming up as his head lowered; he seemed to shrink a little, and while he still couldn't feel anything more from him, Mark realized that this was a defensive pose. Jack was afraid or deeply uncomfortable about something, and Mark looked at Brandon.

"Of course not," Brandon said softly, studying him carefully. When Jack didn't move, Mark thought that he didn't believe him—and why should he, if some of their conversations had already discussed such a loss and Jack was partially prepared for it already? "We can talk about it more later," Brandon said gently. "Do you want to go back up to your office for now? Or maybe to bed?"

Jack relaxed a little, slowly straightening in his chair although he didn't look at either of them. "Yes," he said quietly, eyes on the table. "I will sleep."

Brandon glanced at Mark, seemed to hesitate for half a second, then asked, "Want me to come with you?"

Jack frowned slightly, and although his head didn't move, his eyes slid along the table in Mark's direction. "That's fine," Mark said. "I might get something to eat and then go back down for a while, if that's cool."

Brandon also straightened up at the idea of the studio, but then his eyes darted to Jack, who hadn't answered. He hesitated, then said, "C'mon Jack, let's go up."

"All right," Jack said, and he stood.

Mark got up too, heading for the refrigerator while they exited, pretty sure he felt Brandon's eyes on him as he and Jack left the kitchen. Although he opened the fridge, he just stood there for a moment in the white LED light and cool air, staring at the array of fruits, vegetables, and labeled containers in Jack's small printing. Brandon, on a medium-sized container of what looked like pasta. Mark, on another that he recognized as leftover garlic roasted potatoes from the other night.

As he was reaching for that one, he saw another with his name, but this container was opaque and he couldn't tell what was inside. He took it down and looked at it, then lightly brushed his thumb over his name. He took the top off and saw homemade pretzel bites, the ends dipped in white and milk chocolate.

Okay. Maybe he really did belong here, then.

He put the pretzels back and grabbed another Sprite and a string cheese, pulling it apart as he headed for the studio. It was gone by the time he'd gotten down the stairs and input the security code, so he tossed the wrapper and went into the recording booth, switching on his favorite amp and standing in front of the display of his guitars. All of them—he'd gone with Brandon a couple of weeks ago to get the others from his house, and they'd come back just as Jack was finishing screwing in some more hangers on the wall. Brandon had started putting them right up alongside his own left-handers, and Mark had watched them go into their new spaces and told himself it was only for the duration of writing/recording the new album. That Brandon was probably planning on getting more of his own to fill those slots later on.

Jesus. He'd missed so much of what they'd been showing him for weeks. No wonder they'd just been waiting on him.

He reached for his red Les Paul, almost the twin of Brandon's favorite, his black one, and strummed it lightly with his thumbnail. Still in tune. He'd tried to play it only once since they'd gotten back from that tour, but the sound of it had turned him off after just a few minutes, and it had gone back into the dining room he'd been using for an instrument display, exactly where it had stayed until they'd come to retrieve the rest of them. Once it was here—cleaned and strings changed, tuned and polished and in its designated place on the wall—it was like a new relationship with an old friend. The feel of it in his hands and the music from the amp was like coming home.

Mark attached a strap and a cord and flipped it on, starting to play some of their old riffs to warm up and thinking only of the chords, the rhythm. His place in the band and in life. Maybe their place, together.

He didn't know how long he'd been playing—he was only fucking around, not deliberately trying to write anything, thinking over what they'd gone through that night—when he noticed Brandon come through the door to the control room and take his seat at the mixing board. He didn't have any urgency about him, so Mark continued strumming and picking, ignoring Brandon watching him and focusing on his guitar instead of the future, because this he could hold in his hands while the other was just this side of imaginary. It was a good way to wind down as well as wind up, and he was still riding a pretty damn good high from all of the smoking they'd done earlier to make it through the emotional shit. He still wasn't 1000% sure he believed any of this was real. Maybe he really had killed himself and this was a hallucination brought on by the few seconds of oxygen deprivation before his neck snapped.

He thought about how heavy it had gotten between them when Brandon was trying to explain how he felt. How he and Jack had decided—weeks ago, apparently—that this new thing, this 'both of them'/'sharing' thing, was going to be the way to go for all of them. He tried to figure out if he was annoyed about that, left out of the decision, and maybe even kind of stupid for the past few weeks while he bumbled around and they discussed things like whether there'd be a schedule for which nights he was with whoever and him moving in and all. There was probably a slight bit of that...but it would dissipate in time. He understood. They had just been giving him time, and he'd needed it; to rest, to give his own mixed-up mind time to settle down and to heal, to give him a chance to spend enough time around them to realize that they were right.

And, even if they weren't, what chance was there that he would say no? Not now. Even though he still had misgivings, of course he did, even though he was still partly sure that something was eventually going to get fucked over it...he'd been crushed by emptiness and loss for too long to not want to grab on to at least something of what he wanted. And when he'd asked Jack, Jack had let him in, even if it was that brief; he might again in the future. It was okay. For now, it was okay, and for now, he would take it. They could see where it went and what happened. Why the fuck not?

He let the last string he hit spin out, the sustain going and going while he wondered if Brandon had had sex with Jack when they'd gone upstairs. Probably. Why not? Jack had looked like maybe he'd needed him, and it was probably a thing to cement their relationship after finally going through and talking about one of them adding another.

He wondered if he could ask, just as a point of curiosity, or if it was none of his business. They had set the very basic of boundaries with this thing, and Jack had said they were "equal", whatever that meant, but there were still tons of questions, tons of ways he could overstep. He had gotten patience from Jack, too, just a little glimpse, and he hoped that he would be understanding, as much as he could, while they were all trying this out to see if it fit. Brandon was clearly dead convinced that it did without even trying it on, but he was also the sort of person that would make something fit where he put it if he really wanted it there. Either the surroundings would bend or the thing itself would, but by god he would have what he wanted.

Mark took his finger off the fret and let silence fall for a moment, and then he sighed and switched the guitar off, lifting it off his shoulder and hanging it back up. He glanced at the window toward the mixing board and saw Brandon leaned over it, messing with it. Oh. He'd been recording him. It was just idle fucking around and couldn't have been that good, but that wasn't surprising; Brandon would record any of them improvising whenever he could, because occasionally there was some nice shit that came out of nowhere. And...he liked the "pieces". Because he could and often did fit them together in an interesting and satisfactory way.

"Hey," Mark said as he came out and took the other chair next to him. Brandon glanced at him quickly, seemed as if he'd say something, then decided against it and turned his attention to the computer, saving the file. "Did Jack get to sleep?" Mark asked after a moment.

"Oh. Yeah." Brandon picked up the bowl that had been sitting by one hand and offered it out. "Or are you good? We really hit it today."

Mark had almost never refused a smoke, and now was no different, especially since he thought he could tell that Brandon wanted to talk more. That wasn't a bad idea, considering all of the various things they'd covered that night. One or two conversations about something as big as this weren't going to cut it. "Scared you're going to run out?" he asked.

"Yeah, like that's a possibility." Brandon pointed to himself. "I'm a rock star. I get it delivered now."

Mark snorted as he inhaled and coughed. "No shit? Well, I've never heard of you."

"I get that a lot—my band doesn't have a name."

"Huh, mine either." Mark handed back the pipe and wondered why the hell he hadn't been getting any damn deliveries while he'd been alone at his house. In the past, Brandon had just about always been his contact, and they hadn't been talking...and since he'd been isolating himself from just about anyone and anything else, he'd basically quit smoking and had started drinking again. Not too much that time; it was easier to keep it low and steady throughout the day when he wasn't on a bus and stage every twelve hours. He hadn't really started smoking pot again until he'd come back here, which he was quite grateful for. "I didn't get any damn deliveries," he said, reaching for the pipe again after Brandon lit up and held it back out. "They gonna legalize it yet? I want it through the mail."

"That would make the drug dogs really happy. I don't know when it'll be legal recreationally—it already is for medical use, which is actually what this is."

"Oh yeah?" That made sense—it was fucking strong. "What's your condition?"

"You're not allowed to ask me that."

Mark smirked. "I'm dating you, and I'm not allowed to ask? You better tell me your social security number right now. You were born here, right Comrade?"

Brandon gave him a fake-offended look and said something in Russian, then, "And fuck you, Hoser."

"That better have been about my deliveries."

"It wasn't." Brandon grinned and sat back in his chair. "Remember when I used to make deliveries?"

"Yeah."

"You used to go with me a lot."

"Yeah." Just to be with him. That's really what it was. All the times before when he'd either get a text or Brandon would find him at their apartment or the house they'd shared with their friends, saying that he was going to 'ride around' for a bit, did Mark want to go along? And—as long as he didn't have to work—he said yes almost every time at once. They'd put music on and talk and smoke, sometimes stop in to see others or take others with them. Long summer nights with the heat and humidity of the Midwest making the lights of the city hazy. Drawing snowmen and multi-color lights on fifty joints that he and Brandon handed out to everyone they knew for Christmas one year, getting high again and again, up and up and up, each time they stopped or started. There had been occasional close calls, with the cops a couple of times and with dealers or thieves a few more, sometimes a fight or mugging to liven things up...but mostly it was just...being with him.

"If you like this shit that we've been having for the last few weeks, I can get more," Brandon was saying. "The new guy actually has a pretty good source and so has some variety."

Mark hit the bowl again and enjoyed the feeling of his head floating away. "Yeah, for sure."

"Jack likes some of it too—he switched up which strains he uses for anxiety, and that seems to be helping."

"Yeah?" That made sense, since it had certainly helped keep a lot of his own at bay earlier. He watched Brandon switch desktops on the computer, bringing up his email and scanning for anything critical.

Push the boundaries, why not? Unless someone was going to spell it out for him, it was the only way to find out where they were, and Brandon could also be blunt; he'd say so if he thought someone was being intrusive. He would probably even appreciate the boldness, as he often got frustrated when people hinted at him instead of telling him something. Or he might get irritated with the privacy intrusion, but Mark didn't think so, not right now. Maybe he didn't exactly know where all of the boundaries were either, and they would find out together.

"Did you fuck him earlier?" he asked, pitching his voice as interested instead of accusatory.

"No," Brandon said distantly, clicking on one of the emails and scrolling through it quickly. "He doesn't like it."

Mark blinked in surprise. "Jack doesn't like sex?"

Now Brandon looked at him. "He likes sex. He doesn't like to be penetrated. At all."

"...oh." Mark dropped his eyes and shifted uncomfortably. Yeah, that was...probably too much information there. Probably something Jack wouldn't have wanted to be shared outside his own relationship.

He could see Brandon shrug out of the corner of his eye, and felt from him that at least he wasn't annoyed with the question itself. "So it's a good thing I do. We almost never do it the other way." He paused. "Is that—will that be a problem? If I'm with him before you?"

Mark hadn't even thought about it. "Uh, no," he said. "I don't know. Sorry...I shouldn't have asked that."

"You can ask anything you want. Mark." Brandon waited until Mark looked at him again before going on. "If we want to be together—which we do, so we're going to—then I really want it to work. I swear I'm going to do everything I can. If you're not okay with something, we have to figure it out. We have to talk. If you have feelings, you have to share them, and I want to hear them and know them." He paused again. "As dumbass and gay as that sounds. Oh. Sorry."

"I'm not even gay. Or at least I'm pretty sure." Mark frowned. "I know I still like chicks. And I don't like...guys in general." He grinned a little then, remembering that he hadn't told a single person about attempting to confirm that. "I did check."

As he expected, Brandon's eyebrows went up and so did his amusement. "Oh yeah? How?"

"I watched gay porn," Mark said casually, and hit the bowl again.

He tried not to laugh as Brandon blinked and opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly having questions and unable to decide on any. He was also a little aroused. "When?" he asked finally.

Mark exhaled for as long as he could, making him wait. "Once on the tour. Once after I got home." He handed the bowl over but Brandon was still just looking at him. "Wasn't anything that caught my eye," he went on after a moment. "I mean, I guess I just didn't really have any reaction. So I figured that's just...normally not my jam."

"Maybe," Brandon said, though he sounded a little doubtful. He unscrewed the lid of the pipe and shifted the bud so that he could get a better hit, although that was probably just so that he'd have something to do with his hands. "Porn is...not accurate, a lot of the time."

"I know. I'm still pretty sure, though." He sighed as Brandon lit up. "I guess I don't know what I am."

Brandon shrugged again as he blew smoke toward the ceiling, which had started to clear while they'd been upstairs and evidently needed a fresh layer. "Probably a straight-leaning bi, but that doesn't really matter right now."

"...huh." Mark hit the bowl again and exhaled slowly, staring at the FS poster on the wall and imagining telling his parents he was bisexual and had a boyfriend now. And not just 'a boyfriend', but someone they too had known since he was sixteen, and of course the subject of those pictures or whatever, that whole mess. He wondered how surprised they'd really be.

He then shook his head briskly and got a little dizzy; twelve hours ago they hadn't even gone up for dinner yet. He hadn't seen Brandon and Jack embrace and kiss in the kitchen and finally decide it was time to ask what the hell was going on yet, how long his duffel bags and living in limbo was supposed to last. Just as long as he could stand, apparently. Maybe they were going too fast when trying to make up for lost time.

Brandon had been scrutinizing him. "Same page," he said again. "Does it really not bother you if I have sex with Jack and then I'm with you?" Brandon saw he was uncertain and went on, "I just—I really felt like he needed me after that, to be reassured and comforted. I think it went well—I really do—but he was much better after we went up to our room together and then got to talk a little." He licked his bottom lip and then bit it. "I really hope there's no contention between you two. If there's going to be an issue, that's where it's going to stem. It always is."

Mark raised his eyebrows. "Always?"

Brandon nodded. "The reading on polyamory and multiple relationships and stuff I've been doing," he explained. "Jack has, too. You want me to send you some stuff?"

"Um...sure."

"It'll help."

"Okay."

"All right, I will. But yeah, jealousy can be a problem. If one person thinks or feels like they're ending up not as important...especially if it starts off small. Small enough that you don't think it's anything, just brush it off. Instead of that: don't. The other killer is a lack of communication." Brandon unscrewed the lid of his pipe, tapped the ash out, and began re-packing it. "Jack isn't jealous of you," he said, while he broke up a bud into smaller pieces to fit into the bowl. "It's like I said earlier. He knows that you can give me stuff he can't. He said he's glad, because then that means I'm happier, and he loves me and wants me to be happy." He screwed the lid back on, lit it up, inhaled, and held it out. "But, yes, you can ask, and yes, he did fuck me when we were up there," he said as he exhaled. "And I do need to know if that bothers you, because...I really want to kiss you tonight."

As if there hadn't been anything else that would make this night more bizarre. All the time—on that last tour, and the silent weeks since they've been back—it was so hard to even be able to look at him. They had talked more tonight than they had in the last six months all put together, Mark was sure. Everything they had said to each other and then with Jack...and now he was saying something like that as if it was something that was really going to happen. Today.

"If you would want me to," Brandon continued softly, and Mark realized he hadn't responded.

Thinking about being that close to him again, touching him. Kissing like before—but now it would be different, now they both finally knew what they had been trying to say for years. "Uh...yeah," Mark managed to say.

"And if it's okay that I already had sex with Jack today," Brandon pressed gently.

Mark looked down at the pipe in his hand and thought about it—really tried to make himself picture it and see how he felt about it—while he held the flame of his lighter over the hole in the lid and inhaled. Mostly, he didn't feel much of anything. He really couldn't ever remember feeling any ill will toward Jack for getting to be with him...possibly he'd felt some very minor envy when things were bad before, but that was likely for the whole of their relationship, or even just getting to be with him, both of them calm and easy and happy. He was pretty sure he could remember feeling a little jealous of Andrew once when he'd been goofing around with Brandon, both of them laughing, and that of course had nothing to do with any kind of more-than-friends relationship. Brandon and Jack had been together for years, had lived together for years. Of course they had sex, and of course it had nothing to do with him and should have no bearing whatsoever on their own relationship.

"Yeah," he said, and breathed out easily. "It doesn't bother me. I feel—fine, about it, actually." He nodded. "He needed you. It's good that you went up with him, especially if it made him feel better afterwards. That's the—that's the give-and-take. Right? Like you kept talking about if he has bad dreams or whatever? He needed you more then."

"Right," Brandon said, starting to smile again. "How do you think talking with him went earlier?"

"Good, I guess?" Mark shrugged. "I don't really know him that well to know his cues and all. He looked at me. That's something—he almost never does that."

"He doesn't usually with me, either. I was really impressed. Did you see what I was talking about? How hard he's trying?"

"Yeah."

"He did it when you wanted him to. That's also something." Brandon grinned wider. "He thinks it went well, too. He said that he's really glad that we finally talked about it. We're not done, but it's a good start." He reached for the pipe when Mark held it out to him, hit it mightily, and leaned back in his chair. "He really wants this to work, too. Oh—he wanted me to tell you thanks, for what you said at the end. He wanted to say it but couldn't."

Mark couldn't exactly remember what he'd said, and not only because it was so late and he was so stoned. "For asking if he's really okay with it?"

"No. For saying that he isn't going to lose me."

"Oh. No...whatever else happens, I don't want that."

Brandon nodded. "He knows you meant it, too. That's kinda why he got weird." He paused and chewed his lip a little. "You're probably going to need to know some more details about what happened to him if you're possibly going to be living here on a permanent basis. I'll have to talk to him about it at some point soon. But anyway. Jack knows how much I love you and want you, and with you, well..."

"The whole world knows that," Mark said dryly, taking the bowl when Brandon passed it back to him.

"The whole world doesn't know all of it. Um, I hope it's okay, but I kinda told him what you said before we went up."

Mark had sparked it up while Brandon was talking and now he exhaled slowly, his mind calmer and quieter than it had been in weeks. "Man, I said a lot of shit before we went up."

"Right before." Brandon started to grin again. "About that bitch bringing the whole thing up to you, and you being like 'no thanks', until she said me. That, even though you always thought of yourself as straight, you said okay because it was me."

Mark shrugged. "I don't fucking know, apparently I'm not? That was some pretty not-straight shit." He thought about it for a moment and snorted. "And, I don't know, I liked it."

"You want to do any of that with any other guy?"

"Not really."

"Just with me?"

"Yeah."

"...no reaction at all to any kind of videos, huh?"

"Nope." To be fair, some of that could have been the depression, since he hadn't been having much in the way of arousal or sexual interest at all in the last several months. But he hadn't dived any deeper than half a dozen short videos depicting things he'd already experienced, and he hadn't really been expecting to find anything, and so wasn't surprised didn't feel the need to keep researching. "Not anyone else I've known in real life, either," he added.

"Hm. There are lots of really specific identities, maybe one of those will fit you."

"Maybe. I guess 'bi' doesn't feel right. Even with the 'lean', or whatever." Mark frowned and Brandon stayed quiet for a moment, giving him time, but it wasn't like he hadn't exhausted his own line of thinking on this months ago. "I guess I just don't think I'm enough of anything to qualify," he said finally. "It's just...literally only you."

"An exception?" Brandon suggested. "That can happen."

"I don't know, maybe. It's—it's you, and I..."

He stopped short before saying it, then realized that he didn't have to. Packing it away for so long, even before he knew he'd been doing it, felt like the standard default setting, but now...it didn't have to be? Brandon had said it several times tonight, and it made him feel shaky in his gut every time, because there was no way he would have said it if he didn't mean it. He seemed to know what Mark had stopped himself from saying, and he also seemed to be waiting to see if he would. He had put a lot on the line. He had always known how to get what he wanted.

He was absolutely everything that Mark had called him earlier—demanding, moody, obsessive, a smart ass, a little arrogant, a little bitchy, intelligent and funny and kind and generous and sweet and brilliant and caring and stop, stop. He was all of that and more, he was everything, and when it came to him Mark had never said no, he had never even felt no, he had loved him from the start. From the beginning he had loved the person that he was and would have done anything for him, would have been anything to him, so of fucking course he hadn't had to think about it much when his girlfriend had suggested he randomly have gay sex with a friend only so that she could watch and get hot over it, because she said that one magic word: she'd said his name, and it was easy, so natural and easy, to let him inside physically because he'd already let him inside his head and his heart.

He looked at Brandon and made sure that he was looking right back at him, that he'd know how much he meant it and how true it was, how true it always was. "I love you and that's just...all it comes down to," he said. "It doesn't matter, not to me, that I've always been straight and you're a guy. I don't know if I'm really not or if you're an exception or what, all I know is that...when it's you...I just want you. I just...I fucking love you, too. You said that you made everything for me...you are everything to me."

Brandon had been slowly smiling as he said all this, but then he blinked quickly and looked away, taking a moment to get a hold of himself. He set the bowl on the table in front of him and stood up, holding out his hands. "Come here."

Mark stayed where he was for a few seconds longer, looking up at him and trusting him, but afraid of closing that chasm because it would mean really doing this. No more just sitting and talking, thinking 'what about the future'. Fuck the future, actually. Hadn't he been fucked enough by the past?

He stood up and Brandon moved closer to him, putting both hands on his sides and moving him so that he was against the table. Brandon put a hand on his face and Mark leaned into the touch, and when he gently tipped his face up and moved in for the kiss, it was the same, all the same, familiar even though it had been so long. Jesus he had been so fucking empty without him, without this. This was so good, so fucking right, this was what he wanted, fuck yes.

He didn't want to stop, to ever stop, but oxygen was still a thing, and when Brandon finally pulled back, Mark was lightheaded and his heart was pounding, but maybe not all of that was due to the lack of breathing. He leaned more against the table and Brandon moved forward again, not wanting them to be even a few inches apart, and kissed him again. That one was much shorter but no less intense, and when Brandon forced himself to pull back, he seemed to think better of it again and kissed Mark a third time, this one full on the mouth but with no tongue. He seemed to be breathing a little hard himself and Mark thought he could maybe feel him trying very hard to hold himself back.

"Can I stay with you in your room tonight?" he murmured. "Just to sleep." He grinned a little, the one that meant that he was really pleased, with the crinkle at the sides of his eyes and one side of his mouth pulled higher than the other. "I don't mean that I don't want to, because holy fuck—" He stopped and kissed Mark again, this one the same as before, so quick Mark didn't have a chance to open his mouth. "But you said not right away, and that's fine. This was kind of an emotionally exhausting night, and I'd want to do it right...make sure it was really good for you. I don't know how great that would be right now anyway since we're both so tired."

Mark grinned too, feeling exhausted but pleased himself. "And you've already gotten laid," he pointed out.

"True. But it's not like I wouldn't be up for it again."

"Slut."

"Hm. Maybe," Brandon said casually. "You're going to enjoy that later, so don't knock it."

"Oh." Mark just looked at him for a few seconds, almost considering going for it, diving whole hog into everything all at once, but then he re-remembered how wrung out he felt. "Yeah...I could use some sleep, too."

Brandon raised his eyebrows a little. "Can I come with? Or it's totally okay if you need time, or want to, like, decompress from all of this..."

They'd slept in the same bed before a few times, but not with any sort of intent other than literally going to sleep. Mark thought of their arms around each other, falling asleep wrapped in him or waking up together—getting to do that regularly now—and he couldn't help but grin. "No. I mean, I am gonna need time and yeah, I'm exhausted...but I also kinda don't want to let you go."

"I don't either," Brandon said. "Tonight, I just want to be with you." Mark looked down when he felt his fingers on the side of his arm, gently moving down to his hand, and he raised his arm a little and entwined their fingers together. Brandon started to say something else, then stopped, hesitated...and finally went for it. "I just want to hold you," he said softly. "I...I missed you."

That one dug into him and settled there, because here again was the down-to-the-bones truth. They had been missing so much. Mark couldn't speak, so he gently disentangled their fingers and instead put his arms around him again, turning his face into his neck and breathing in and closing his eyes when Brandon's arms came around his back. They held each other tight and it was so quiet and still down here, finally calm and centered between them. Not empty anymore—not quite filled up with something, not yet, but enough room and time to grow something together that was more fulfilling than anything in their lives so far.

"Okay," he said after what felt like several more minutes, realizing that he was about to fall asleep standing up. It would have been easy in that comfortable, warm embrace, finally close to him and having said things he never thought he'd say aloud. Or hear back.

Brandon stepped back, but Mark wasn't quite ready to not be touching him yet; he put one hand on his chest, then the other, and while Brandon stayed still and looked back at him solemnly, his hands went up to his shoulders, then to his neck, to the back of his head, and they were kissing again.

He was just starting to feel the once well-known stirring in his groin (he'd been too depressed to even get himself off for so long, how was that for pathetic), when Brandon pulled back again. "I'm going to fall asleep right here," he murmured. "And that's going to reflect very poorly on this, which is not at all conducive to a great start for us."

"Oh. Yeah."

Mark stood up more fully and waited while Brandon made sure everything on the computer was saved and he put the machine to sleep, then he followed him up from the basement, through the first floor and to the stairs, and up to the second floor. Brandon stopped outside the closed door of Mark's room and waited for him to go through it first, then followed him in.

All of the beds in the second floor bedrooms (not Jack's office and a whole floor of guest rooms now, but the office, the guest rooms, and Mark's room) were queen-sized, so there was plenty of room, but Brandon confidently slid into the middle after stepping out of his jeans, and he held his arms out expectantly. Mark turned off the lamp on the bedside table and moved in next to him, and Brandon pulled him into his arms and fit them together like he belonged there. Mark thought of the analogy Brandon had made earlier with pictures and pieces and wondered how accurate it was—probably very, since Brandon had always had an eye for that kind of shit. It didn't mean the picture was complete, though, not by a long shot; they all had a lot of work to put into it to figure out where everything went. As long as they were all willing, it could work. Would.

And if it didn't, well, that wasn't something Mark was prepared to consider. For the time being, especially after hearing those amazing things about how much Brandon loved him and would fight for them to stay together, that incredible kissing session, and now, being able to lay his head on his shoulder and put an arm over him, he would absolutely take what he could get. He'd also fight to keep it, whether it was the public or himself or whatever else he had to. There was a lot he didn't know yet, but none of it mattered because he knew that they would fit because they did.

Brandon very gently kissed the side of his face and squeezed him a little tighter for just a second. "Fuckin love you," he mumbled as he fell asleep, and Mark closed his eyes, his chest aching with happiness.