Skin and Bones (boyxboy) ✓

Chapter Six

[A/N] Quick warning before I forget! This story follows some noncon themes, as do all of my stories. I'll quickly explain what this means, to me in any case. It's a kind of kink where one enjoys feeling forced, manhandled, that sort of thing.

If I shout noncon from the hilltops in a story of mine it means my characters enjoy this! I usually go out of my way to show that they like this but we like a good written warning too.

(edit: 01/10/2021) I'm not really sure this warning is relevant in this. I should also take it out of the tags. Looking back I never actually displayed any noncon. Possibly manhandling, but I wouldn't say it qualifies. Just in case I'm getting any hopes up...

"How are you doing?" Andrew asked me, watching me half-heartedly while he slurped obnoxiously loudly from his milkshake.

I rubbed my hands together in the cold and hugged myself. We were sitting on a bench together outside, waiting for two other people to arrive with some takeout food which we had organised together as we sat there with the requested drinks, my coffee slowly going cold.

"I'm fine." I replied.

He hummed. "That shit with Zackary sort itself out then?"

I sighed noiselessly, taking my first sip from my black coffee while it was still hot enough to enjoy. "Yeah, I guess."

"I can always speak to him..." He suggested, assuming the truth from the tone of my voice.

I shook my head. "Don't do that. I still don't know exactly what he told Mark to get him so annoyed at me but it can't be good. I don't know why he won't even let me defend myself or explain anything... I don't want any more of my friends getting dragged into our drama."

He nodded. "Yeah, alright. But I won't though. There's nothing he could tell me that would make me ice you out like that."

I nodded, smiling thankfully but completely not believing it. "You say that but I'm pretty damn sure Mark would have said the same thing."

"Clearly not."

I groaned, pressing my face in my hands for a second. 

"So stupid, I should be more hung up on Zackary but all I can think is how could Mark just crush our friendship like that?"

He frowned but said nothing.

The thing is that Mark and I weren't the closest people in the world, but we were close enough that we felt at ease around each other, not close enough to argue about everything or get in each others faces.

I'd known him from high school, I'd met him during my awkward tough guy phase where I was desperately hiding the fact that I was gay from my repressed teenage friends by wearing exclusively tracksuits, chasing after every girl, and playing rap music out loud on my phone while we were hanging out, usually at the back of the second floor of the 212 bus on the way home because most of the boys lived spread out from each other. 

Mark was straight but he'd been kind of feminine. Not in a sassy way or anything, he was gentle and lean and didn't try to speak ten octaves lower than he was capable of.

I liked it a lot, it felt like I didn't need to be anyone special when I was around him, and even as we grew older his character stayed relatively consistent so I always felt like I knew him.

He had moved in with Zack maybe a year before I finally met him, and Zack was cute, real boyish charm to him, that too hadn't changed. When I mentioned it to Mark he'd told me to go for it, I hadn't told him we'd already smooched outside the apartment at this point.