it is not a coincidence that the most homoerotic band known to man (yes the breakups were homoerotic also) released their most successful album during pride month
Anyway happy birthday EOTS and happy pride month to Tom and Mark!!
a/n - yk the grand irony of this title is that this is not taking place at said party but i can't change the title now so welp here you gooooo @iloveblink182somuch
part one
blink 182 masterlist
Mark had called on a Tuesday, which felt significant only because nothing ever happened on Tuesdays (no offense to Tuesdays, they seem like nice days).
You'd picked up on the second ring, which you immediately felt weird about, and then felt weird about feeling weird about, because you were a normal person who picked up phones at a normal speed. Definitely.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," you said back.
There was a beat — not uncomfortable, just the two of you calibrating. It had been four days since the party. Four days since the porch swing and Tom exploding through the back door like a golden retriever who'd figured out how to open handles.
"You want to do something Friday?" Mark asked. "Just us."
Just us. Like it was easy to say. You admired this ability, since you didn't know if that was a thing you could do without thinking.
"Yeah," you said. "I do."
He picked you up at seven, which was both earlier and more intentional than you'd expected. You'd anticipated something loose and last-minute — meet me somewhere — and instead he pulled up to your house in his car with the windows already down and music already on, and when you got in he turned the volume down like it was a reflex, like he wanted to be able to hear you.
That detail did something to you that you elected not to examine too closely.
"Where are we going?" you asked.
"There's a diner on Reseda I like," he said. "Open late. Good pie."
"You're taking me for pie."
"I'm taking you for pie," he confirmed, completely unbothered. "You have a problem with that?"
"No," you said. "I just figured you'd try harder."
He glanced at you sideways. "I did try hard. I almost took you mini golfing."
"And?"
"And then I thought, what if she's bad at mini golf and it's awkward," he said. "Pie has a much lower failure rate."
You laughed. "I'm actually terrible at mini golf."
"See," Mark said, satisfied, turning back to the road. "I was right. I always do my research."
The diner was exactly what he'd said — small and fluorescent-lit and a little worn at the edges, the kind of place where the menus had too many pages and the coffee came without asking. You slid into a booth across from each other and the vinyl seat made an undignified noise and you both pretended not to notice.
It was easy in a way you hadn't quite let yourself expect. You talked about nothing important for a while — a movie he'd seen, a book you'd started and abandoned, the ongoing debate about whether Tom's open door policy was a gift or a psychological hazard. You ordered the pie. It was good. You told him so and he looked genuinely pleased about it, like he'd made it himself.
"Can I ask you something?" he said, at some point in the middle of the second cup of coffee.
"You keep asking if you can ask me things," you said. "You can just ask."
"Okay." He leaned forward a little, elbows on the table. "What took you so long?"
You looked at him. "What?"
"To say anything," he said. "Tom told me you'd had a thing for a while. And I know I could've said something too, so I'm not — this isn't an accusation. I'm just curious."
You considered deflecting. You were good at deflecting. Instead you said, "I didn't know it went both ways."
"How did you not know?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.
"Mark, you're like that with everyone," you said. "You're easy to talk to and you remember things people say and you show up. That's just how you are. I didn't want to mistake it for something it wasn't."
He was quiet for a moment, turning his coffee cup slightly on the table. "That's fair," he said. "I can see that."
"What about you?" you asked.
"Honestly?" He looked up. "Tom."
"Tom stopped you?"
"Tom is my best friend and you're Tom's best friend," he said. "If I said something and it went badly, that's not just awkward for us. That's awkward for Tom forever. I didn't want to do that to him."
Something about that settled warmly in your chest. Of course that was his reason. Of course he'd thought about Tom.
"Very noble," you said.
"I thought so," he agreed.
"Tom, meanwhile, was actively conspiring against both of us."
"Tom," Mark said, with great affection and mild exasperation, "is a force of nature."
"He texted me this morning," you said.
Mark's eyes lit up with preemptive suffering. "What did he say."
You pulled out your phone and read it aloud: "'Good morning to you and your boyfriend have a great day I'm so proud of myself.'"
Mark put his face in his hand.
"And then a second text," you continued, "'also you're welcome.'"
"He's going to be like this forever," Mark said into his palm.
"Absolutely forever," you agreed. "We created a monster."
"We didn't do anything," Mark said, lifting his head. "He did this entirely to himself." He paused. "To us. He did this to us."
"And he's very happy about it," you said.
"He really is." Mark shook his head, but he was smiling, and you were smiling, and the diner hummed around you with the quiet industry of a place that had seen a thousand versions of this exact thing and found them all equally unremarkable and you found, surprisingly, that you didn't mind being unremarkable here, in this booth, across from him.
He reached across the table without making a thing of it — just turned his hand over next to your coffee cup, an offering, easy and unhurried.
You put your hand in his.
Outside, a car drove by with its windows down, music spilling out and disappearing. The coffee was warm. The pie had been good. It was a Tuesday — no, a Friday — and something that had been patient for a long time had finally, without much fanfare, arrived.
Your phone buzzed on the table.
You already knew who it was.
You flipped it face down without looking and Mark laughed, low and warm, and didn't let go of your hand.
The parking lot was warm when you stepped out, the kind of night that hadn't decided to cool down yet, still holding onto the day's heat in the asphalt and the air. Mark held the door for you on the way out, which was simple and easy and shouldn't have meant anything, except that it did.
His car was parked under a light that hummed faintly. You stood beside the passenger door for a second while he fished for his keys and the night settled around you — crickets somewhere, a distant freeway, the diner's neon sign buzzing pink behind you.
"I had a good time," you said.
"Yeah?" He found his keys.
"Don't sound so surprised."
"I'm not surprised," he said. "I just like hearing it."
He unlocked the car and you got in and he went around to the driver's side, and when he sat down he didn't start it right away. Just settled in, arm resting on the wheel, and looked out through the windshield at nothing in particular.
"We could drive for a bit," he said. "If you're not in a hurry."
You weren't in a hurry. You hadn't been in a hurry all night. "Yeah," you said. "Let's drive."
He took surface streets instead of the freeway, which you understood immediately was intentional. The freeway would've gotten you home in fifteen minutes. Surface streets meant stoplights and slower speeds and the city moving past the windows in a way you could actually see — liquor stores and laundromats and the occasional burst of a restaurant still open, warm light spilling onto the sidewalk.
He put music on low. Something you recognized.
"Is this—"
"Yeah," he said.
It was Dude Ranch. Of course it was. You felt the smile happen before you could do anything about it.
"Is that weird?" he asked, catching it.
"No," you said. "It's a little funny."
"We can listen to something else."
"I didn't say that." You settled back against the seat. "Leave it."
He left it. The album moved through the car quietly, unhurried, and you watched a stoplight turn green and thought about the party four days ago and the porch swing and how different this was from that — less charged, less like something waiting to happen, more like something that had already happened and was now just getting comfortable with itself.
"What are you thinking about?" Mark asked.
"The party," you said honestly.
"Good thoughts or bad thoughts?"
"Good," you said. "Just — thinking about how different this feels."
"Different how?"
You considered it. "At the party it felt like something was about to happen," you said. "This feels like it already did."
He was quiet for a moment, watching the road. "Is that okay?"
"Yeah," you said. "I like it better actually."
He nodded slowly, like he was filing that away. At the next red light he glanced over at you and then back at the road, and said, "I'm gonna do this right, you know."
You looked at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Simple and even, the way he'd said I would've picked up. Like it was obvious. Like there was no other option he'd seriously considered. "I just wanted to say that."
The light turned green.
You looked back out the window so he wouldn't see the full extent of what that did to your face. "Okay," you said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere slightly warmer than that.
"Okay," he echoed, and you could hear the smile in it.
He pulled up to your house a little after nine-thirty and left the car running, which meant he wasn't planning to make it a whole thing, which you appreciated. You'd had enough whole things for one week. This was better — quiet and easy, the engine idling, the album still going softly in the background.
"Friday again?" he said.
"Friday again," you agreed.
You reached for the door handle and he said your name, just once, and you turned back and he leaned across the console and kissed you — brief and warm and certain, the same way he'd said everything else tonight.
When he pulled back you were very close still.
"Okay," you said, for what felt like the hundredth time tonight, except this time your voice came out smaller than intended.
"Go inside," he said softly. "Before Tom texts you again."
You laughed, and got out of the car, and made it to your front door before you heard him pull away. You stood there for a second in the warm night with your keys in your hand and something large and unhurried living in your chest.
Your phone buzzed.
You looked down.
Tom: well??
Tom: don't leave me on read I will come over
Tom: I will literally come over right now I have nothing going on
You stood there for a moment, smiling at your phone in the dark like an idiot.
You typed back: it was good tom
The response was immediate.
Tom: I KNEW IT
Tom: I knew it I knew it I knew it
Tom: you're so welcome by the way
Tom: you're BOTH so welcome
You shook your head and put your phone in your pocket and went inside, and let him have it, because honestly — insufferable as he was — he wasn't entirely wrong.
