Our Life: Beginnings And Always Oneshots

New Year

21 was a fun age to be. It was especially a fun age to be on New Year's Eve. Cove realized very quickly that he didn't much like drinking. It was just... kinda gross. If he had to pick anything, it was usually fruity drinks. Mark was, surprisingly, a bit more exploratory when it came to alcohol. Not that he'd ever gone crazy– he took school seriously, and that didn't stop once his moms weren't around to monitor him– but Cove could attest from a small handful of joyous phone calls this most recent semester that Mark enjoyed the rare chance to get tipsy. He was always just ever so slightly bolder. At one point, he'd even spontaneously chosen to Uber to Cove's apartment, about three hours away from his college, which was an entertaining experience. It was hard, not getting to see one another every day like they had for ten years of their lives.

However, now that Winter break had arrived, Mark was back in Sunset Bird, and Cove had elected to spend a few precious days at his father's house. The two jaunted easily across the familiar shoreline, barefoot and with hands intertwined. Occasionally, the smooth rhythm would be broken up by cold seafoam smattering their feet as the tide ebbed and flowed, or by Mark jumping ahead to dance a bit and express his enthusiasm for the new year. It made Cove laugh. New Year's Eve had never really been much of a big deal to the two of them before– aside from the one two years ago, the first they'd experienced as an actual couple– so this unbridled excitement was both bewildering and hilarious.

"Oh! The park!" Mark pointed eagerly at the tiny play equipment that had seemed so vast when they were eight-year-olds, and then broke off in a dash toward it. Cove grinned and chased after him. The monkey bars were only about six inches taller than Mark was, but he was insistent that he could still use them. He tried, dangling his feet up so that they weren't an issue, but as his motor responses were ever so slightly impaired, he had trouble accurately estimating how far apart each bar actually was. It made him giggle, which made him lose his grip and crash the very short distance to the ground. "Shit! Now I have sand in my shirt and on my face and stuff!" he laughed.

"Oh, like that's a problem for us," Cove teased. He swooped Mark into his arms and spun him, sand residue whirling around. The two kept their eyes shut tight for fear of sand getting in their eyes, but Mark whooped delightedly at the motion. He nuzzled his head into the crook of Cove's neck and peppered it with tiny kisses, making Cove giggle boyishly. No matter how many times he did that, it always tickled. "So, Mark, any resolutions?"

"Mmm... I wanna get straight A's this upcoming semester... even though that's my resolution every year. I wanna get a poetry collection published, maybe? Just maybe. Oooh, you know what could be fun?"

"What?"

"Getting into scrapbooking. I could ask Cliff to give me some of your baby pictures," he announced, mostly kidding. He then stuck his tongue out. "Blegh. I wanna call your dad by his first name but it's still really weird and new right now. Which is dumb. I've been calling your mom Kyra since we were thirteen."

Cove stared out into the starry sky with a contemplative look on his face. "It's weird for me, too. But we'll both get used to it. The first time you did it, Dad was so surprised!"

"Wow. I've called him a lot of things over the years, and I'm gonna call him even more things, and those ones will be even MORE surprising."

"What do you mean?" Cove asked, feeling simultaneously confusion and dread.

"When I call him Dad." The candor and unabashed seriousness playing along his blushing face made Cove shiver despite being warm, and the breath got caught in his throat.

He was forced to try and speak again. "R-Right. It's good to know we're still on the same page." Having already talked about the extremely high likelihood that they would one day wind up married, this wasn't exactly a jaw-dropping declaration. Even so, it felt funny in Cove's heart, in a way that made him feel that stupid familiar feeling. It was the feeling of wanting to sprint and yet being held back by a wall that happened during so many markers of their relationship over the years. He felt as though he wanted to get on one knee this very minute, but also as though he would never be capable of proposing. But of course he would be, in time. After Mark had graduated, like they agreed on.