~~~~~THREE MONTHS LATER~~~~~

"Hey, Jack, it's time to get up. We have stuff to do." I groan and roll over, the blanket wrapping around my body like a warm burrito of fluff. Lucky, who's taken to sleeping on my feet, yawns and stretches across my legs. "C'mon, Jack... We have to go shopping before noon or we'll never be ready in time," Mark warns me. My eyes open to glare at him. He's looming over me, standing by my side of the bed. His hair is still damp, small drops leaving darker spots on his light blue polo.

"What time is it?" I whisper, hunkering down further under the covers.

He stands up straight, pulls his phone from his jeans pocket and unlocks it. "It's about nine," he turns the screen to show me and my eyes scrunch shut reflexively against the bright light.

"Oh, come on, babe, you were so excited yesterday."

"I'm still excited," I mutter, slowly easing the blanket off me and sitting up. Lucky climbs into my lap immediately. "But now I really can't go." I point at my dog, who seizes the opportunity to bite at my finger and pull it down. I scratch his chin, and he turns onto his back, waiting for me to pet his stomach.

"I'm sure Lucky wouldn't mind leaving your lap if I were to put some food in his bowl," Mark reaches down to pet him, but Lucky snaps at his hand and dives off me before running out of the ajar bedroom door. "Fuck... Damn thing still hates me." Mark sighs, clutching his injured hand. "It was an accident," he whines in the general direction of the hallway, referring to earlier this week when he'd tripped over Lucky when he was napping in the middle of the hallway.

"Are you okay?" I throw the blankets off and grab his wrist, examining the indents in his hand. He's starting to bleed, but only minorly. Not even enough to require a bandage.

"I'm fine," he sighs, looking up as a half smile slowly blossoms on both of our faces. "It got you to get out of bed, so, I'm... very fine," his arm slides from my grasp and is around my waist in an instant.

I put my hands on his shoulders and push myself away, as much as I can. He keeps my stomach still pressed to his, somehow holding me in an inescapable embrace. "Mark," I giggle, struggling to keep our chests apart. "I need to shower."

"No time," he smirks, closing the distance between us and mock-sniffing my neck. I shrink back, his cool breath trailing goosebumps down my spine. "Besides," he makes an effort to breathe heavier than normal. "You smell good to me." His other hand slowly slips under my shirt, and then under the waistband of my boxers. "So hurry up and get dressed so we can get this party started," he snaps the elastic against my hip, making me jump.

"Alright, alright," I slap his chest once before crossing the room to our dresser.

I'm just about to open my drawer when he speaks again. "Hey," he comes to me, putting one arm lazily around my hips and kissing my temple. "I love you." My smile grows, along with my blush, and I turn my gaze to the mirror just above the dresser. "Look at us," he says happily.

"What about us?" I try, and fail, to contain a small laugh.

"We're amazing... You're amazing. Holy shit."

"Mark," my laughter comes in insuppressible loud bursts.

"What?" He laughs too, though much softer and quieter than I.

"Are you okay?"

His laughter dies down, and his lips curl into a dazed grin. His eyes return to the mirror, looking at my red face. "Yeah. I'm great actually. Really great." He kisses my temple once more, "now get dressed before I leave without you."

~~~~~~~~~~

After eating a quick breakfast, shopping for an hour and a half, and waiting in traffic for one more, we finally make it back to our house.

"Lunch time?" I ask as we place the bags on the counter.

"Do we have time?" He looks at his phone and sighs. "We have three hours to be COMPLETELY set up."

"Can we squeeze a pizza in," I plead, grabbing the four boxes of garbage bags from one plastic bag and grabbing the duct tape from another. "You order, I'll start putting these up."

I leave him to call for pizza and go into the living room. As planned, I push the couch far away from the TV. Then I start taking the white, extra large, heavy duty garbage bags and taping them to the floor. It's a boring, tedious task, but it needs to be done. He joins me after a few minutes, and by the time the pizza arrives, we've got the entire floor and most of the walls covered. We eat quickly and in silence before returning to the living room set up the camera, the consoles, and the games. The moment I lay down the Twister mat, he taps my shoulder.

"Let's get changed, okay? You wouldn't wanna ruin your clothes."

I follow him to the bedroom and we both put on our new outfits: oversized white t-shirts and grey sweatpants. Because I dress much quicker than he does, I hook up the microphone and start his computer while waiting for him to finish.

When he finally comes into the room, he spins in a slow circle. "Am I stream ready?" He asks, but aside from the two rainbows painted on his cheeks, he's no differently dressed than I.

"Perfect," I smile anyway. "But isn't that the paint for Twister?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Mark and I share a few cringeworthy knock-knock jokes while we wait for the stream's view count to go up. I let him paint my cheeks like his, and we each take a shot of whipped cream from the can. We don't want to start any of the real fun until we have most of everyone who plans on watching, but ten minutes into the stream, Mark asks if it's okay to start the introduction. I nod and let him speak.

"Hey guys, so, as you can tell by the title, and by our numerous tweets about it, Jack and I are doing this live stream for The Trevor Project. The project was originally a movie, or rather a uh, short film about a gay thirteen-year-old boy named Trevor. He was bullied because of his sexuality, and tried to... end his life... And I guess the filmmakers figured that some teens might be going through some of the same things as Trevor, so they wanted to have like, a crisis line for questioning teens to be on screen during its airing. But they couldn't find one. So they decided to create an organization, as well as support line, that promoted acceptance of LGBT plus people as well as suicide prevention. The number is toll free and there's also all these websites and chats rooms, etc. You may have heard of this project from, uh, Tyler Oakley. He raised half a million for it in 2014. So uh... Yeah, anyway-"

"What Mark's trying to say is that this live stream not only means a lot to us, but also to you guys as well," I interject.

"Yeah, yeah. I mean, Jack and I were lucky when it came to us coming out... Because you guys all really wanted it anyway, but I know if we had been younger, we'd most definitely not be as happy and open about it as we are now. But don't get us wrong! We have been through some stuff... Kinda personal, honestly... But... Well... Do you want to tell the story, Jack?" He drapes his arm around my shoulders, his eyes warm and loving.

"I wouldn't know where to begin, honestly," I stare down at my hands, clasped in front of me on the table.

"I'd say it all started at PAX East... We got a little tipsy and... It was my first time ever meeting Jack. I wanted to spend time with him, get to know him... And we kinda..."

"Kinda felt something more," I save. "And we weren't sure if dating would be right, or if this something was just pent up loneliness- which is what I chalked it up to be," I pause, and Mark shoots me a look. "At first," I continue. "But you guys know how I've always admired Mark and how I always wanted to do videos with him and... How he inspired me to do YouTube myself. I..." I finally meet his eyes, grinning wide and uncontrollably. "I fell for him. Hard."

His face flushes, causing the chat to explode. "Well, as much as we liked each other... We weren't really dating then," Mark sighs. "We expressed interest in it after he went back to Ireland and I went back to L.A, but it wasn't official until the night before Indypopcon. I took him out on a fancy date, and told him... I believe I said something like..." He leans back, folding his hands behind his head and looking up as if the answer might be on the ceiling. "I'm gay and I'm in love with you, will you be my boyfriend?" He smiles at me, "does that sound right?"

At this point, I'm laughing so hard my sides hurt. "I couldn't have said it better myself," I reply, the air suddenly so hot that I can't breathe right. It's then that my eyes land on his laptop screen.

'Kiss?'

'Kiss!'

'Just kiss already!'

Before I can acknowledge the chat, Mark notices it too. "No, we aren't going to kiss," he mock gasps. "We're explaining how Jack and I came out!" I shake my head. He's right. We aren't going to exploit our relationship by kissing because people asked us to. That stuff is real, passionate. A requested kiss would feel fake. You can't fake a kiss and feel good about it. "As I was saying," he clears his throat, "We became official at the start of Indypopcon, which is two years ago to this very day... But we still kept it a secret because... We weren't really sure how to bring it up. And we were just... New. We didn't know if we would last, or if our budding little romance could live through all the fangirl explosions... Or..." He exhales, a small frown forming, "the distance. It was fine- after PAX East we could go a few days without Skyping and everything was all good. Things were easy...." He swallows, his gaze falling to the table in front of us. Then after Indypopcon... I started to realize how lonely I was... How weird it is to really care about someone and not be able to hang out with them... And when PAX Prime came, God I'd missed him more than anything. We actually went to Seattle a few days earlier so we could spend time just chilling, and it was really nice, aside from a few things- but overall it was a wonderful time."

"And then the convention started," I say. "Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love conventions and meeting you guys, but when someone comes up to you, with... Well... The very first day a girl came up to me and handed me these pictures. They were photos from Mark's birthday back at Indypopcon, which was fine, except they were pictures that neither Mark nor I posted. They were private pictures. N- not like that though!" Mark chuckles a bit at my sudden defensive and flustered outburst. "They were just a strip of pictures we took in a little booth at Dave And Buster's. But at the same time, you could tell that Mark and I... Were together. You can't find them anywhere, though. Because she thankfully didn't post them, and Mark sort of... Confiscated them."

"But not before we announced to the entire crowd around us that he and I were seriously dating," Mark sighs. "And that's where everything went to shit... The panel was a bit after that, and almost every single question was about us, and it was really unfair to Felix and Ken. Jack and I... It got us really down. We weren't in the best of moods after that, and when we got back to our hotel room, I wouldn't say we fought, but we got in a bit of an argument, and I... I was so scared. I thought that that was the end," his hand grabs mine under the table, his fingers squeezing mine in a grip nearly too tight for comfort. "But it wasn't the end," he looks up at me, "and even though that really sucked- the next few months were even worse. I felt really shitty, after we argued. I couldn't sleep very well at all... And apparently Jack wasn't feeling his best either, because he didn't seem himself over texts... Our Skype calls were all the same, and very far apart. We were drifting, but it wasn't normal drifting, because we weren't wanting to be apart," he clears his throat again. "Anyway, it got to a point that I was so... Distraught over everything that I often found myself lost in thought. One of these times I'd just woken up, and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I... I fell down the stairs." He laughs quietly at that, but my whole body tenses, just imagining him falling, breaking, and landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

"That's not funny," I whisper, which only causes him to laugh harder, and he rests his head on my shoulder.

"I forgot Jack was so worried about me after I told him that. He probably would have thrown himself down the stairs in order to cushion my fall."

"Probably," I shrug. "I was really worried. And I was also really... Really depressed. I would purposely ignore Mark and not get on Skype, just because... I was avoiding the truth. I was trying to hide from the fact that I was not only dating my friend, but also a guy, and that I was actually considering leaving my country to be with him... In the end, obviously, I came here, unannounced and a complete mess... But Mark and I, we worked it out."

"Because no matter how you look at it," he grins at me, hints of tears sparkling in his eyes, "we were going to end up together. I'm not a big believer of fate- but I do believe that Jack and I are just... Too compatible to not... Not, at least, have considered dating."

"Anyway," I quickly start talking again before I become putty in Mark's warm hands. "When I came here, there was a bit of trouble actually getting me on the lease. Mark's landlord was a complete douchey-douche, and though he didn't say it right out, he only refused to let me move in because Mark and I were dating. I mean, we're in L.A., I thought California had the largest gay population of the U.S., but apparently this guy was not having it. Which was why Mark and I decided to try and find a house. And we absolutely love it. It's amazing here. Our neighborhood is quiet-"

"Except for when you open your big mouth," he jokes.

"Except for then," I allow. "But it is wonderful here. We can't have a big dog, unfortunately, but we'll get one someday."

"And thankfully, our new landlord here doesn't mind that we're together. Not at all. Which is really nice. Because I was so terrified... I never thought I'd be someone who'd find them self embarrassed of who they are, but I was. I was so embarrassed. And it's nothing against Jack, heck, I think you were scared too, weren't you?"

"Hell yeah I was," I answer. "I was scared of my family, my friends, strangers... Even you," I point a finger to the camera.

"And even though we were scared... We were still much more... Privileged than the average gay couple. Parents don't pray for their kids to be gay, like you guys hoped for Jack and I to be... And we're used to being hated, we're... This sounds terrible, but we already got hate from people who just... Didn't like our channels or whatever, so when we came out, the added hate from that was... Almost easy to block out all the same."

"And for someone who hasn't..." I hesitate. "For someone who's still discovering who they are and who isn't yet comfortable with themselves, coming out can cause such a shift in their life. Friends and family could react in a number of ways, and even just... colleagues and classmates, they can react bad or good. Who's to say? Who knows? No one does, and that has to be one of the most... Awful feelings in the world. One that could lead to depression, if you think about it. One that could leave someone contemplating all sorts of things, like... Like suicide. And suicide is a serious... Serious thing, and I don't even want to think about any one of you considering it. It breaks my heart-"

"So let's have fun!" Mark interrupts me before I can get too emotional. "First game is... Pie Face?" He turns to me in his chair, and I nod. The game is set up right in front of us on the card table that we'd dragged in earlier, along with our two notecards and the whipped cream. "This game is basically self explanatory, but Jack and I are going to do it a bit different." He shakes the whipped cream and sprays it onto the plastic purple hand protruding from the device, so much so that it overflows onto the table. "We're going to ask each other questions about ourselves, and if we get it right, we don't have to spin the handle. But! If we get it wrong, we spin the handle a number of times. And with each spin, the handle is closer to sending the whipped cream at your face. Now it's not guaranteed that the hand will come up and smack ya, but the tension alone is punishment enough. Ready, Jack?" He pushes the game toward me and I begrudgingly place my head in the hole of the cardboard cut-out.

He picks up his note card and grins evilly at me before asking the first question. "What's my favorite color?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirteen questions later, I wind up with a face full of white stuff, which of course Mark takes a taste from. He trails his finger down my nose and tentatively licks the whipped cream. I only glare at him and go to wash my face. When I return, my cheeks no longer rainbow like his, he's got Just Dance set up. We play that for what feels like hours before retiring to Twister.

"You ready for this?" He smirks, taking the red bottle and dumping a pool of red on each red Twister circle. I shake my head, still uncertain of how we'll be able to spin colors without falling. He says he's got an app, but I'm not sure it'll work out. Even so, we begin. Mark keeps his phone in hand, as well as in a a layer or two of plastic wrap to protect it from the paint.

"Right foot red," he announces. I move to step on the closest red circle, paint seeping up through my toes and making me cringe.

~~~~~~~~~~

When it comes down to it, we're both covered in slick paint and posed like crabs, except my feet keep slipping from their positions on red and yellow. With great difficulty, he manages to take his hand and press the spin button through the paint-streaked makeshift case. "Left hand yellow," he gulps nervously. I lift my hand from the blue at the same time as he does, our eyes never leaving each other. I slam my hand down to keep myself stable, but unfortunately, the results are just the opposite. The yellow paint, mixing with the blue on my palm, makes me slip, and I go sliding directly at Mark, who flails in an attempt to escape me. But he slips too, and we both end up rolling our eyes at each other while we attempt to stand again. With a mischievous sneer, he takes a handful of red paint and flings it at me. It smacks against my chest, making me jump.

"Oh, it's so on," I scoop up a ton of blue paint as he reaches for green, and we start throwing paint at each other, furthering the stains our clothes have already acquired. I attempt to duck sometimes, but it never works. He always gets me, whether it's on my cheek or across my shirt. I miss sometimes, but I have a few lucky hits here and there, one leaving me with an opportunity to approach him.

I take my hand, coated in a mix of blue and yellow and green paint, and I smear it down Mark's cheek. He smiles, simply letting me do my thing before he grabs my wrist. I reflexively try to get away, but he's too strong, even with the layers of paint making my skin slippery. He manages to get his arms around me, crushing me to him in a similar embrace as this morning when he woke me up. I screech, like a wounded elephant, hoping he'll let me go, but he doesn't. "Hey, Jackybaby, stop. Wait, stop." I stop struggling and he lets me step back. Both of his hands grab mine, and his eyes flood with emotion. "I have something to say," he glances at the camera, "or rather, ask."

Suddenly, I can't breathe. My heart feels like it's stopped, but at the same time, it feels like it's beating at a million miles per hour. His thumbs caress both my hands as he begins. "Jack?" I nod. "You already know I wouldn't want to have this moment with anyone but you... So let's make it special, okay?" I nod again, incapable of doing anything else. What is he doing? Is he really going to... Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I attempt to blink them away. "Jack, I love you, more than anyone or anything I've ever encountered." My blush darkens so much, I feel forced to look away from his passionate stare, and so I do. I look down at the minimal inches between our paint dampened shirts. Mark removes one hand from mine and tilts my chin up again, grinning when he sees the astonished look on my face. "You make me smile. You make me laugh... You make the sun shine on the cloudiest of mornings... Not a day goes by that I don't feel extremely lucky to have you, and I couldn't ask for a more perfect person to spend the rest of my eternity with." His hand drops from my chin to fumble in his pocket for a second before he pulls out a silver ring. "So, what I'm trying to say is... Jack, will you marry me?"

I nod, for the third time, before an extremely loud and enthusiastic "YES!" escapes my lips. And though he's shaking more than ever, he takes my left hand in both of his, easing the sleek ring onto my paint-smeared finger. I throw my arms around him then, and he hugs me back. We laugh a bit, the tension of the moment wearing us down. I let as few tears slip as I hold him tight, for longer than I should, burying my face into the crook of his shoulder. He doesn't say anything, and we just stand there, embracing and slowly rocking from side to side. He kisses my shoulder, then my neck, and finally my cheek, before he pulls back. My hands drop to his waist, and his cup my face, delicately pulling my lips to his. We kiss, completely wrapped up in each other and forgetting all about the stream... For a moment, anyway.

When we break apart, he smiles at the camera, brandishing my now ringed finger for all to see. "He said yes," he exclaims, as if they hadn't just watched him propose to me... He proposed to me. My mind screams. He's my fiancé. "He said yes!" He reiterates.

"Oh god, Mark," I sob once, frantically wiping at my tears as they continue into fall.

"How's that for a special moment?" He nudges me with his elbow.

"It's perfect," I murmur, holding out my hand to better see the ring. It has one diamond, small and square, embedded into the metal. A thin black outline surrounds it, making it stand out even more, if such a thing were possible. It's more than I could have ever imagined, and yet so simple. When we talked about marriage all that time ago, I never expected him to be the one to take initiative. I always imagined me on one knee, with a black velvet box in my hands, ready and waiting... But instead of me, it was him, and instead of on one knee, he was standing, equal to my height, and within close proximity. If I had been able to exhale, our stomachs would have touched, though just barely. Suddenly, my vision goes blurry again, and my knees go weak. "Oh, it's so perfect."

"I think we're going to end this here," Mark says, putting his arm over my shoulders and making me lean against him. "Seeing as we have a lot of things to do."

The chat, once filled with with exclamations of 'aw', 'oh my god', and 'MY SMOL HEART', now bursts with vulgar things like 'things to do? Yeah, each other!', 'do things like... sex?', and '#fucktime'. I smile wider than I ever thought possible, a quick, cough-like laugh making me nearly double over. Oh how well they know us.

"We'll see you guys, and definitely keep you posted on, ah... The wedding," he beams then, a prideful sort of smile that tells me exactly how happy he is about this. "Bye," he waves with his free hand, and I wave with mine.

"Bye," I match his energy. "You guys go celebrate too! I know we will be."

We wave for a few more moments before he shuts the stream down. Without a word, he grabs me, whisking me around and then dipping me low. My hands clutch his back, my feet skidding on the plastic garbage bags beneath our feet. His eyes, burning with an intensity that would put an action movie to shame, captivate me. His mouth is on mine before I can even blink. My body goes completely limp, which turns out to be a bad thing, because my foot that was previously searching for balance catches on his, knocking us both to the floor.

"Oh god, are you okay?" He gasps, propping himself up on his palms so he isn't crushing me. I just laugh. It starts quiet, but with each passing second, I realize how ridiculous we are and it builds up, until we're both laughing, and then I put my arms around him and kiss him with as much force and passion as he had kissed me so long ago in his hotel room that second night of PAX. I never would have pictured it then, but somehow, rooted deep inside me, I always knew we'd end up here.

"I'm more than okay," I whisper, my tears returning. He only smiles, and leans down to kiss me again.

THE END.

(Letter To Readers coming soon)