"Hey, how's the script coming along?" You asked Troy as you walked into the raven haired boy's room and saw him furiously typing away on his laptop as he occasionally looked down at the script for Cinderella, which was lying right beside him.
"Really nicely actually." Troy replied as he continued to type, seemingly refusing to stop. "Honestly, at this rate, I'll have it done in less than a week."
"No way." You were hardly convinced that he would get it done in a week like he said he would, let alone get it done even sooner. "It's only been three days."
"Yeah, but you have no idea how hard I've been working on this script." Much to your surprise, Troy actually pulled himself away from his computer and turned his chair so that he was facing you. "Let's just say that I've worked harder on this script in three days than I ever did in the four years I went to college."
"I thought that you only wrote plays as a hobby though."
"I did." Troy replied as he shrugged.
"Then why are you pushing yourself so much?" You asked, genuinely concerned for him now, especially since you hadn't seen much of him these past three days. "I gave you a two week deadline, yet you're working as if I only gave you a five day deadline."
"I'm not pushing myself." Troy shrugged again, which didn't surprise you since he almost always brushed something off and claimed that it wasn't that big of a deal. "I'm genuinely passionate about rewriting and reworking this script. This is the most fun that I've had working on anything in a long time."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that you can-"
"Don't bother." You were cut off when Mary entered the room and didn't allow you to finish your sentence. "I've been telling him the same thing and he won't listen. You're just wasting your time. If he won't listen to me, there's no way in hell that he'll listen to you. Just leave me be and let him collapse from exhaustion at this point."
"I'm not even tired." Troy mumbled as he rolled his eyes.
"Bullshit!" Mary snapped. She then stormed over to the raven haired boy and placed both of her hands on his face. "You have dark circles around your eyes and you look like you're going to collapse from exhaustion at any second! Don't tell me that you're not tired because I know you are! It's so fucking obvious!" She then forcefully turned his head so that he was looking at you. "Even (Y/N) agrees! Right, (Y/N)?"
"Yeah, definitely." You didn't even need the slight threatening look on Mary's face to say that you agreed with her. "I know it may seem like we're nagging you, but we're just worried about you. We don't like seeing you like this. We like seeing the carefree, fun-loving Troy, not the overly-obsessed-with-working-to-the-point-of-pure-exhaustion Troy. While it's amazing that you're putting so much hard work and dedication into this script, the fact that you're sacrificing sleep and your health and well-being isn't so amazing. Whether you like it or not, everyone needs a break at some point, and that's okay. Do you know why that's okay?" You didn't bother waiting for Troy's response and instead chose to answer your own question. "It's okay because we're all human and need a break every once in a while. We're not robots mindlessly doing tasks while at the same time not having energy levels or emotions; we're humans, and that means that our minds grow exhausted after doing something for a long period of time, even if we're doing something that we love." You paused for a moment again. "So, with that being said, you really should take a break. There's really no harm in doing so. All of the work that you've put in thus far won't just suddenly disappear and you don't even have it done until a week and a half or so from now. Besides, Mary and I aren't even asking you to take a super long break or anything."
"Yeah, we just want you to take an hour or two long break." Mary piped in, still holding onto Troy's face.
Troy sighed and rolled his eyes. "I mean, if it will get you guys to stop nagging me, then I guess I'll do it."
"Thank you." Mary whispered as she finally let go of Troy. After she did so, she reached over and closed his laptop. "Now, let's go and watch a movie or something."
"Yeah, okay." Troy replied unenthusiastically as he stood up and rubbed his eyes. "Whatever you want to do, I guess."
Mary frowned and grabbed ahold of his hand, clearly unsatisfied with his response. It was obvious that she had wanted Troy to make the decision to take a break for himself and not for you and her. The fact that he didn't seem like he was excited to spend time with her probably didn't help either.
"I'll pick the movie, I guess." Mary mumbled awkwardly as she led Troy out of his room and into the living room.

After the two disappeared from your line of sight, you looked back at Troy's laptop and the script that was lying next to you. Since he wasn't in the room, it was entirely possible that you could take a quick peek at the progress he had made.
Well, maybe more than a quick peek...

You allowed your curiosity to get the better of you and looked behind you to make sure that no one was around before you went over to the desk and picked up the script as you sat down in the desk chair. You then began reading it over to see what Troy had written thus far, which, now that you were looking at it, wasn't a lot, much to your disappointment. The only things written on the script that even remotely of interest were character traits that he wanted for each of the characters. Some lines were also scribbled out and some of them had replacements written on top of them.
"I was really hoping that there were would be more than this." You muttered to yourself, sighing in disappointment as you laid the script back down exactly where you had found it. As you were doing so, you saw Troy's laptop out of the corner of your eye and the idea to try and get into his laptop to see his work suddenly popped into your mind.
I mean, he probably wouldn't mind.
But how am I supposed to get in without knowing the password? I'm not exactly a genius when it comes to computers.

Just then, you remembered that, since he was pretty forgetful, Troy wrote down all of his passwords. After remembering this, you glanced behind you to make certain that nobody was around before you began searching for the piece of paper that had all of Troy's passwords written on it. As you did so, you made sure that you didn't make a mess of his stuff since you knew that you would get scolded by Mary if you left it disorganized, and that was something that you definitely didn't want to deal with, especially since you had the opportunity to avoid having to hear it.

After you found what you were looking for, you opened Troy's laptop up and proceeded to enter the password for it, giggling as you did so because of how ridiculous it was. You then returned the piece of paper to its rightful place as you waited for the laptop to finish loading.
"Hurry the fuck up." You muttered, growing impatient after a few minutes went by. "I knew Troy had a shitty laptop, but this is just ridiculous. It really shouldn't be taking this long."
Of course, as soon as you finished your sentence, the laptop finished loading and you were met with a picture of Troy and Mary the night of Prom as the background. You wondered when and how exactly the picture was taken, especially since both of them had gotten drunk and since the picture depicted them with their arms wrapped around each other and looking into the other's eyes, meaning that the picture was definitely taken by someone else. You laughed as the thought of a drunken Mary and/or Troy going up to someone (who was more than likely a stranger) and asking them if they could take a picture of the two of them came to mind and it made you wish that you were there to see it happen.
"Stop getting distracted, (Y/N)!" You scolded yourself as you forcefully pulled yourself out of your thoughts. "You don't want to get caught doing this, do you?"
You didn't bother answering your question and looked behind you yet again to make sure that Troy and Mary were still downstairs instead. You had no idea why you were so paranoid about one or both of them coming upstairs, especially since you knew that Mary wouldn't let Troy come back into his room that easily.

Nonetheless, you pushed your paranoia to the back of your mind and opened up the document that Troy was using to rewrite the script for Cinderella. Thankfully, he hadn't closed out of it before shutting his laptop and leaving to take a break with Mary since it meant that you didn't have to do any extra work in order to access it.

*****

"No fucking way." You muttered underneath your breath as you read the progress Troy had made so far with the script. "There's no way that he actually wrote this."
Admittedly, you hadn't had very high expectations for Troy and how well he was going to rewrite the script when you agreed to let him do so, even though he had told you that he had written plays in his childhood. You would definitely be lying if you said that you would still allow him to alter the script if you had other options, that's for sure.
But now that you had actually sat down and read what Troy had written, you really wished that you had believed in him way more than you did.
"I can't believe how good that was." You whispered once you finished reading the rewritten script. "And to think that it's not even done yet."

Suddenly, you heard footsteps coming up the stairs and you immediately panicked. You shut the laptop at lightning speed and jumped onto Troy's bed, pulling out your phone to make it look like you were texting and not secretly reading what he was working on.
"What on earth are you doing in here?" The raven haired and blue eyed boy asked you as he walked into his room.
"I don't know." You replied, trying to play it cool. "What are you doing in here?"
"Um, just grabbing something." A confused look fell on Troy's face. "Why are you acting so weird?"
"Me? Acting weird?" You laughed nervously, the whole "playing cool" thing being thrown right out the window at that moment. "No way. Maybe you're the one who's acting weird."
"No, I'm pretty sure that it's you who's acting weird." Troy was now even more confused. "I mean, you're the one who's in my room, after all."
"I guess you have a fair point." You nervously ran your fingers through your hair, unsure how he would react if you told him that you had logged into his computer and read what he had been working on the past three days.
"So, what exactly are you doing in my room?" Troy asked his initial question again, obviously not going to drop the subject until he got an answer.
"I don't want to tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because you're just going to be mad at me."
"Why would I-?"
"I got into your computer and read what you had written for the script so far." You blurted out, speaking so fast that you wondered that if any part of your statement was comprehensible.
"How did you even manage to get into my computer?" You were surprised that Troy was even able to make out anything you just said.
"You literally wrote down all of your passwords on a piece of paper." You shrugged, starting to think that he wasn't mad about what you had done. "A piece of paper that you didn't hide all too well, by the way." You started laughing again as you remembered the password for his computer.  "And as for your password, I can't believe that it's actually-"
"I'm not a very creative person, okay?" You were cut off before you could finish what you were going to say.
"If you would've told me that before today, I just might have believed you." You replied as you sat up and looked directly into Troy's eyes. "But now that I've read something that you've written, I beg to differ."
"What?" Troy scoffed, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "No way. What I'm working on isn't an original work. It's simply just a reworking of something that already exists."
"So?"
"So it's not exactly all that creative." Troy shrugged. "It's not like it's an original work or anything."
"That doesn't change the fact that what you've written so far is phenomenal."
"You're just saying that to be nice." Troy scoffed again. "There's no way that a jumble of words on that document is anything good."
"Really? 'A jumble of words?'" You echoed. "That's what you're going with?"
"Well, yeah." Troy replied with a confused expression on his face. "How else do you want me to describe the mess I've been writing these past three days?"
"Uh, how about 'surprisingly amazing?'" You suggested. "Because that's exactly what it is."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Troy asked as he raised his eyebrow.
"It means that you don't really look like the type who would good as something like writing a play." You explained. "Or rewriting a play in your case, I guess. Either way, I never knew that you had a secret play writing talent all this time, and it's pretty amazing."
Troy's response was nothing short of just a jumbled mess of words, and you couldn't help but laugh at him. It wasn't very often that Troy was speechless and/or embarrassed, so seeing him in this state was quite comical.
"Whatever." Troy had a sheepish smile on his face as he rolled his eyes. "Just... I don't know. Do something other than sit in my room and read what I'm working on."
"Okay, I can do that." You replied, shrugging as you stood up. "Do everyone a favor and  don't overwork yourself again."
"I make no promises." Troy said to you as you walked out of his room. You didn't reply since you didn't feel like bickering with him and instead went into your room to grab your coat and shoes, deciding that you should make a surprise visit to go and see a certain friend of yours...

*****

Thankfully, when you had arrived at Mark's house and knocked on the door, Mark was the one who answered the door and not his mother. The last thing you wanted was to deal with hearing her nag you and erupt into a fight with either you or Mark.
You didn't tell me you were coming over. Mark smiled softly when he opened the door and saw you.
"I wanted to surprise you." You smiled back at you.
Well, you certainly did surprise me. Mark's smile grew as he stepped aside and beckoned for you to come in.
"Was it a nice surprise?" You asked him as you went inside and watched as Mark closed the door behind you.
He nodded as he locked the door and quickly began running upstairs.
"Hey, wait up!" You called after him as you began running upstairs as well in an effort to catch up with him, only managing to do so when both of you entered his room.
"God, I hate running." You laughed breathlessly, feeling quite a bit embarrassed by the fact that you were short of breath just from running up a single flight of stairs. "That's why you should probably run too if you ever see me running."
Mark smiled brightly as he went over to his dresser and picked up his Polaroid, placing the strap around his neck as he turned the camera on.
"What are you doing?" You asked, slowly starting to catch your breath.
Remember how you promised me you would let me take more pictures of you as we were given the opportunity? Mark asked. He didn't bother waiting for you to answer his question and instead chose to answer it himself. Well, I would like to take some time and let you fulfill that promise for me.
"I would love to do that, but I don't exactly look my best right now." You weren't even saying this to get out of getting your picture taken. You legitimately believe that you really didn't look all that great at this time. "My hair's a complete and utter wreck, I'm not wearing anything nice, and I'm not even wearing any makeup."
Okay, first of all, your hair looks fine. Mark protested. Second of all, you don't need to be wearing anything nice right now. All we're doing is hanging out at my house, not going to meet the queen of England or anything like that. Third of all, you don't need any makeup to look nice. You look nice with and without it.
"S-Shut up!" You fired back sheepishly as you began blushing madly. "None of that's true, and you know it! You're just saying that to be nice and to get pictures of me."
Mark didn't respond right away since he took your embarrassment as an opportunity to not-so-discreetly take a picture of you.
Aw, you're so cute when you're embarrassed. Mark teased as he eagerly awaited for the picture he had just taken to finish developing once it had printed from the Polaroid. Oh, by the way, I'm not complimenting you just to be nice and get pictures out of you, even though it was pretty awesome that I managed to get a picture of you when you're flustered. I firmly believe all of that stuff I just said, and nothing you do or say will change your mind.
You crossed your arms as you felt your face growing hotter and hotter as each and every second passed by. You stuttered immensely as you tried to figure out what you wanted to say for your argument, but gave you once you realized that you couldn't really come up with anything to say.
"You know what? Whatever." You replied after you officially gave up trying to come up with an argument to his previous statement. "You have your opinions, and I have my own, okay?"
Okay, whatever you say, (Y/N). Mark smiled at you, making it painfully obvious that he wasn't taking what you had just said to him seriously.
"Mark Edward Fischbach, why on earth do you love making me embarrassed as hell?" You scoffed playfully.
Because, like I said before, you're so cute when you're embarrassed. Mark replied as he took the picture he had taken of your embarrassed expression a few moments before out of the Polaroid and placed it down on his dresser.
"Oh, whatever." You crossed your arms and rolled your eyes, but you had a very faint smile on your face nonetheless.
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Mark smiled ever so slightly.
Mark laughed as he asked, Can I take a few pictures of you now?
"Sure, I suppose you can." You stood up and ran your fingers through your hair. "But only because of the promise I made."
Yes! Mark threw his hands up in the air excitedly as he stood up as well.
You laughed a little as you went over to the mirror and attempted to fix your hair since you wanted to look at least somewhat decent in the photos that Mark was going to take of you, especially since it was more than likely that he was going to make you look at the pictures in the future (hopefully not in the near future though.)
What are you doing? Mark asked as he walked up to you and stood directly behind you.
"I'm fixing my hair." You informed him, your face sinking in frustration since you couldn't seem to fix your hair and make it look good (in terms of your standards, at least.) Then again, you were just using your fingers and not a comb or a brush, so it was pretty stupid of you to expect anything more than mildly decent results. "Why am I even wasting my time doing this? It's not like I'm actually going to make my hair look good or anything."
Mark didn't respond. Instead, he walked over to his dresser, opened one of the drawers, and pulled out a brush. He then closed the drawer and walked back over to you with a grin on his face.
"Is this yours?" You asked him as you looked down at the brush, which was white and had a purple petunia painted on the back of it. Surprisingly, the white was relevantly vibrant and showed very little signs of age.
Technically, it's mine now, but it used to belong to Amy. Mark replied. This is one of the very few things that I kept when I finally decided to get rid of her stuff since I couldn't stand living in a carbon copy of her room anymore. Also, like I said before, while I initially thought that pretty much quite literally living in her room would help me cope with losing her, it actually made me even more devastated than I already was. However, there were a few things that, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't let go of, and that was one of those things.
"It's very pretty." You grinned as you raised your arm up in order to start brushing your hair. But before you could even start, Mark grabbed ahold of your arm and stopped you.
Let me do it. Mark grinned back as he took the brush out of your hand and started brushing your hair.
"Oh, okay, sure." Your eyes slowly darted down to the floor as a blush began forming on your face. You also felt your face growing hotter and hotter as each second passed by and you were one-hundred percent certain that your face was as red as a tomato at this point.

After Mark had finished brushing your hair, you forced yourself to look up at the mirror rather than down at the ground. Upon looking into the mirror, you immediately noticed that, just like you suspected, your face was bright red and you were blushing madly. But, on the bright side, your hair looked a little better than it did a few moments prior.
What do you think? Mark asked you as he poked your cheek and caused you to somehow blush even more as a result. Are you ready for me to take pictures of you?
"As ready as I'll ever be." You replied, seriously questioning why exactly you were blushing because Mark had brushed your hair. Then again, you usually found yourself flustered around him for seemingly stupid things, even if you didn't realize it.
Okay, well, here. Mark said as he took off his flower crown and put it on your head. He adjusted it for a couple of moments before he added, Let's go outside and take the pictures.
"That's really good idea actually." You replied as you stood up and began heading out of Mark's room. "Mostly because the weather's actually nice for once."
That's exactly why I want to go outside to take the pictures. Mark caught up to you once he grabbed his Polaroid and placed the strap around his neck. We might not get another day like this for a long time, especially since it's almost fall.

*****

"So, tell me." You said to Mark in between posing for pictures. "What sparked your interest in both art and photography?"
You wanna know? Mark asked, his facial expression indicating that he was surprised that you had any interest in knowing why he was so passionate about his hobbies.
"Yeah, of course I do." You told him as you sat down on the grass and looked up at him. "Why wouldn't I want to know?"
Mark shrugged. I don't know. I'm not really used to people actually caring about what I do since Amy's passing. He paused for a couple of moments before he started "speaking" again. But anyway, I've had an interest in art for as long as I can remember. My parents and my brother have told me that I drew my first picture before I even spoke my first sentence. Yes, I meant sentence. I didn't start speaking until I was three and when I did, although rarely, I spoke in sentences. According to my parents, the very first thing I said was "I love you."
"Aw, that's so adorable!" You gushed.
Yeah, maybe a little bit, I suppose. A blush began creeping onto Mark's face as he shrugged. Funny enough, that was actually the last thing I said before I officially went mute. I remember it so vividly too. I was visiting Amy a little bit after she was buried and as I was leaving, I told her that I loved her.
You didn't really know what to say, so you just gave him a sympathetic smile in response.
Well, anyway, let's get back on topic. Mark stated, quickly shifting the conversation back to the question you had asked him. To answer the second part of your question, photography is just something that I like to do purely as a hobby. I've never really understood why I liked it, but maybe it's because a photograph, like a work of art, can capture and depict something so beautiful.
"Maybe." You shrugged. "Either way, you're amazing at everything you do, and it makes me so jealous."
Why? Mark asked with a puzzled look on his face. You're great at acting, and you don't even know it. I saw you audition for the musical. You have so much potential. The only thing that brought down the quality of your audition was your nervousness. You're going to be an amazing lead in the musical. I just know it.
"Do you really think so?"
No. Mark replied, but he quickly followed up with, I know so.
You simply smiled in response as you noticed the sunset out of the corner of your eye. Upon noticing it, you turned so that you could get a better look at it.
"I'm so jealous that you have such a good view of the sunset." You said to Mark as he set his Polaroid and the pictures he had taken of you over to the side and scooted so close to you that his leg was touching yours. "I've tried watching the sunset at Troy's house a couple of times, but the view is terrible there."
I like the view too. Mark replied as he looked over at you. I go out here and watch the sunset a lot, actually. It's really relaxing.
"Yeah." You agreed. "And the fact that you're here makes it even better."
Mark didn't do or say anything for a couple of moments. But once those couple of moments had passed, he slowly pulled you into a hug. You grinned as you hugged him back, feeling extremely content.

You pulled away from the hug for a very brief moment and reached up, taking Mark's flower crown off of your head and returning it to its rightful place, which was on top of Mark's head. He smiled when you did this and pulled you back into the hug, his grip on you tighter this time around.

As you were sitting underneath the sunset hugging the pretty boy, you realized that there wasn't anything else in the world that you'd rather be doing than spending time with your best friend and (though you would never actually admit it to anyone else) crush, Mark Fischbach.