The Interview

Link was always the nervous one when it came to interviews with press, but this particular interview had him in shambles. While he sat on the couch next to Rhett, waiting for the magazine interviewer to enter the room, his knees were shaking so badly that he knew it had to be noticeable. He didn't know what to do with his hands. He adjusted his glasses. Cleared his throat. Fixed his hair. Adjusted his glasses again. He eventually settled on interlocking his hands in his lap and trying to just breathe in and out at a normal pace.

Rhett was nervous for once too. He rubbed his sweaty palms over his pants. He chanced a glance over at Link, who met his gaze. They sighed anxiously in unison.

Link got to his feet abruptly and ran a shaky hand through his black coif. He turned to Rhett and said, "I don't know man. Maybe we should call this interview off." He sounded very much like someone who was on the verge of completely losing his grip.

Rhett was annoyed. He had been trying to remain calm for the both of them, but now with Link freaking out like this, it made him feel even less tethered to the ground. He just wanted everything to be normal again.

"Just calm down, please."

Rhett gestured for Link to sit back down, which he did. The brunet put his head between his knees and buried his face in his hands.

"Ughhh, I can't do this," Link whined.

Rhett was trying not to let his temper flare. He had to be calm if he was ever going to get Link to go through with this interview.

"Link, we've been over this," Rhett said, "I specifically told them not to ask us about the whole 'incriminating photo' fiasco. They're not even going to mention it."

Link knew this already, but he still couldn't help feeling like he was going to have a panic attack. The whole uproar over the leaked photo had only just happened last week, and it was all too fresh in his mind. It had been traumatizing.

They had been in the parking lot of their office building, next to a busy road. They really should have known better. But then again, their relationship had only just recently gone from friends to more than friends a matter of days before the photo incident. It was all so new, they were in love, and they weren't thinking clearly. That fateful evening, as Link was getting into his car to drive home, Rhett had run outside and pulled him into a close embrace. In the photo that a nameless fan had taken, Rhett was smiling down at Link, whose back was turned to the camera, but it was clear to see that the brunet was kissing the taller man's neck. There was no mistaking it. People on the Internet had proved it wasn't photo-shopped, and then the whole thing blew up overnight. In a matter of days, pretty much all of their millions of fans had seen the photo on social media. Luckily, their subscriber count had only grown after the incident.

Flash forward to this interview, one week later. They had already scheduled it way before the photo scandal had occurred, and they were trying to save face by choosing not to back out of any obligations. So far, their strategy had just been to deny, deny, deny. They did not respond to comments about the photo. They did not acknowledge it. They had convinced their wives and family that it was clearly photo-shopped, and they had wholeheartedly believed them. Their families knew that people "shipped" them together anyway, and these kinds of photo-shopped images of them together was nothing new.

Except that this time...the photo was completely real.

They heard the door to the office room open and Link jerked his head up, trying his best to lean back quickly and look natural. Rhett casually rested his arm on the back of the couch behind Link, a forced smile plastered onto his face.