The Time Taken to Understand (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Twenty-Four~ Mark

"Adam, I swear to god, if you're not here in the next ten minutes I'm going to castrate you". Adam groaned something on the other end of the phone and Mark could hear Penny talking to him in the background. "Adam, I haven't seen Alec in a week. You get to see Penny all of the time. If you don't-"

"Penny is the reason that I'm late. I'm sorry, we'll be there soon". Before Adam hung up, Mark heard him say, "this is why I didn't want you to come," to Penny. The line clicked dead and Mark tossed his phone down in frustration, looking around the empty apartment, that just felt wrong without Alec's presence.

Alec had driven home only hours after the news of his father's death, and refused to let Mark accompany him, saying he needed to stay and finish his finals. This wasn't a valid argument, since Adam had then gone around to all of Alec's teachers and informed them of the news and said that his father would be very generous if they allowed Alec to take their exams the week before classes resumed, and they had all agreed, and had been handed a check.

Alec leaving the week prior also meant that Mark had no car, and was forced to carpool with Adam and Penny, who had finally convinced Adam to let her come along because not only did she want to meet his family, but she also wanted to support Alec.

Mark had talked to him countless times over the past week, and was quite worried about him. He had been staying at his deceased father's house, but Mark made sure that his mother went over at least once a day and brought him food and checked on him. But that's not what worried Mark most about Alec.

Mark was worried because Alec seemed fine.

Absolutely fine.

When he clearly was not.

There was a honk, and Mark glanced out of the window, spotting Adam's stupid cherry red car in the parking lot and grabbed his suitcase, which had all of the things he would need over the next month, and then all of the things Alec had forgotten.

He hurried out of the room, almost forgetting to lock it before running down the stairs, tripping over his own two feet and denting his shin with the suitcase.

Adam and Penny were bickering with smiles on their faces as he climbed in the back, pulling his belongings in next to him. Only Penny stopped to say, "hi Mark," before going back to Adam again.

Mark stared out of the window as Adam drove, tapping his leg anxiously and wondering how he could get through this six hour drive without Alec. He was also afraid that he may kill either Adam or Penny, or possibly both.

Loneliness was what pulled him into their conversation. "What are you two fighting about?" He asked, and Adam corrected him and said that they weren't actually fighting.

"Penny and I are going to move in together and she wants to move into my appartment," Adam said, and Penny turned in the passenger seat to look at Mark.

"His place is closer to the coffee shop, and the campus. It just makes more sense".

"Her place is bigger," was Adam's argument, and Mark raised his eyebrows.

"Are you planning on having babies?" Adam spluttered and Penny looked pleased with Mark. "I'll take that as a no. If you're not, why do you even need a big place?"

"You here that Adam?" Penny said, turning back around and putting her feet up on the dashboard. Mark watched in amusement as Adam noticed this and didn't say anything. That was always something that drove Adam insane. He hated when people put their feet up in his car, even Sam constantly got yelled at for it. It was kind of romantic, Mark thought, that Penny could get away with it. "If you move into my place, we've got to start having babies".