Marc had very little dating experience... scratch that. Marc had no dating experience. He had never really been a social person and dating, well, dating required someone to be social. Despite his non-existent dating history Marc was certain that dates were not meant to be this awkward.
All the movies Marc had seen with dating made it seem romantic, easy, like conversation was meant to come easily and both parties were meant to be smiling and laughing the entire time.
That was far from the case here.
It had started off fairly well, Nath picking Marc up from his house in an outfit that had consisted of a white button-up top and black trousers 'a true gentleman' as Marc's mother had said when she saw him. They had walked to the restaurant where Nathaniel had made reservations, cutting through the park where Marc had become the reverser, yeah, that was a little bitter-sweet. Bitter because, well, that was obvious, sweet because in the long-run it helped them team up on their comic and become friends.
They chatted the entire walk, mostly about their comic, a topic which they had only been exhausted about ten minutes after they were seated. They moved on to talking about homework, video games and TV shows, which worked wonders in keeping Marc distracted from the fact that he was on a date and not just hanging out with Nath as normal.
It was after these topics became worn out that the conversation lulled, becoming a silence that hung in the air over Marc's head, threatening to suffocate him.
Now Marc liked silence sometimes, it gave him time to think and regain energy after particularly busy days, but a silence like this was not something he liked at all. Marc had never been very good at judging silences between people. Many a-time he would misread a comfortable companionship silence as something else and would get funny looks whenever he mentioned it or asked what was wrong.
The silence he and Nath had been sat in for the past 8 minutes was one of those 'I have no idea if this is awkward or nice' silences. Nathaniel had asked for the bill not long before, refusing to let Marc pay and following through with that by getting up and following the waitress so he could pay her away from the table, leaving Marc sat alone in the middle of a busy restaurant, having an internal struggle over whether or not this date was going well or awful.
"Shall we go?" Nathaniel's voice came from beside Marc, causing him to jump about a mile from his seat.
"Yeah- yeah sure just- just let me grab-" Marc scrambled to get up quickly, pushing the chair back with a little too much force, almost causing it to topple backwards if Nath hadn't caught it "Sorry! Let me just grab my co-"
Nathaniel smirked, pulling Marc's coat off the back of the chair he was still holding
"R-right. Thanks." Mark blushed, taking the coat from Nath's outstretched hand and stepping out from between the chair and table so Nathaniel could push the chair back under.
"Ready?" Nathaniel asked once the chair was back in its correct position and no longer at risk of falling backwards because of Marc.
Marc nodded frantically, unable to speak for some unknown reason. Probably because a good majority of the people sat around them were now watching him. Great, now he'd caused a scene.
Nath smiled, heading to the door. Marc trailed after him, keeping his eyes downcast to try and hide his blush and prevent him from making eye contact with the people who were sure to be watching him.
The air was cold outside and Marc really was truly grateful he had brought a coat. When he left the house earlier he hadn't thought he was going to need one. Autumn was in full swing and with it came the cold winds and chilly evening air that made it hard to remember that summer had only been a few months before.
Nathaniel was still quiet, Marc noted as they walked. He was walking next to Marc, close but not touching, stiff. Neither knew what to do, Marc realised. Maybe Nath was feeling just as he was… that did very little to comfort Marc's nerves.
They were back in the park again when Nath finally turned to Marc "Want to sit out here for a bit?"
"I- uh…" Marc looked around at the quiet park, empty except for them and dark except for the light coming from the few street lights scattered around. It wasn't Marc's ideal place to sit but for some reason he still muttered "Sure."
Nathaniel smiled in response and somehow that made the empty park seem a little less daunting.
Nathaniel headed over to the fountain, taking a seat on the edge but before Marc could join him a car came tearing down the otherwise empty roads, horn blaring as it skidded around the corner. Both boys jumped in surprise as the car tore past the park, but the shock had more severe consequences for one boy over the other.
The splash came as a surprise to Marc and he quickly spun around to see Nathaniel sat in the fountain. It was comical really, the way his feet were still on the edge of the fountain from where he had clearly fallen backwards, hands propping him up so his top half was out of the water, although by the look of his dripping wet hair he had definitely fallen flat on his back, fully submerged except for his feet.
"Are you okay?" Marc asked, quickly rushing to the edge of the fountain, hands reaching out to help but he wasn't quite sure what he could do so his hands just linger in the air between them.
What if Nath had hit his head? What was the procedure for if someone passed out again? Could head injuries cause someone to pass out? He really should have paid better attention when he was being taught first aid.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Nath responded, trying to pick himself up without having to pull his feet into the water and failing miserably "Give me a hand here?"
"Oh! Yeah sure, of course!" Marc quickly leaned forward, offering Nathaniel his hand to help pull him up and out.
Nath took it but obviously his grip wasn't quite strong enough because the second Marc tried to pull, Nathaniel's hand slipped from his grip and the red haired boy fell back into the water.
"Oh god! Nath I'm so sorry I-" Marc spluttered frantically as the boy reamurged from under the water, but he wasn't angry like Mark thought he would be.
No, Nath was laughing, genuine laughs, pulling his feet into the water- shoes and all- so he could sit cross legged and use his hand to cover his mouth.
"Nath! It's not funny! You could have been hu-" Marc stopped mid sentence, taking in Nath's appearance properly.
He looked like a child, the way he was sat cross-legged in his best clothes, soaked from head to toe in cold fountain water, laughing as if it was the funniest thing in the universe. That laugh was contagious, Marc found, and soon he was laughing too.
"Yo- you look like a little kid!" Marc breathed between laughs.
"Oh yeah?" Nath asked, laughs giving way to a cocky grin that Marc both loved and feared "Well then, I guess I have an excuse to do... this!" Nath sprung out of the water like a jack-in-the-box that had just played its full chorus of Pop Goes the Weasel, grabbing Marc's hand and pulling with full force so that Marc toppled over the edge of the fountain as well.
Marc didn't have time to do anything but brace himself for the impact as he toppled, but he never hit the hard stone bottom of the fountain. Something stopped him. Or rather, someone.
Marc opened his eyes, finding himself looking up at Nathaniel who had fallen backwards in a much more controlled way then the previous two times and had managed to land in a sitting position, hands on the floor behind him, propping his upper body out of the water and Marc lying on his lap. It took Marc far too long to realise that his head was on Nath's slightly angled chest and his hands were under Nathaniel's hands.
Nathaniel was still laughing as Marc quickly tried to pull away, heat racing to his cheeks despite the chill in the air and the freezing water now soaking his clothes. Before Marc could fully pull away though Nathaniel had shifted again, taking the weight off his hands leaving them free to grab Marc's face and pull him in for a kiss.
It was brief, a fact Marc was both grateful for and resentful of. Grateful because of the position they were in, sitting in the middle of a freezing cold fountain in the middle of Autumn. Resentful because the kiss seemed to make that go away, made the cold melt into the background and become a distant memory. He also really, really, wanted to kiss Nathaniel for longer. So much longer.
Once the two pulled away they locked eyes, both smiling genuine smiles of pure happiness and, dare Marc say, love. No. Maybe not yet. Maybe it was too early? At the same time, maybe it wasn't, who knew.
And then Marc smirked, pulling away more so that he was actually supporting his own weight instead of sitting on Nathaniel, and splashed the red head.
"Hey!" Nathaniel protested, laughing despite himself.
"That's for pulling me in too," Marc laughed before standing up and offering Nath his hand again "Now we're both going to freeze!"
"Worth it." Nath stated, taking Marc's hand and standing up a lot more successfully this time "My place is closer, you can stay over if you want, my parents won't mind and you kind of need to have a warm shower and dry clothes before you get ill."
"Won't that, you know, look weird?" Marc mumbled, eyes focusing on his feet.
"Why would it? You've stayed over before, why does that need to change now that we're dating? Come on, you said it yourself, we'll freeze if we're out here much longer." and with that Nath took Marc's hand and led him out of the fountain, not letting go even when they were safely on dry ground and walking towards Nath's house.
They were in silence again, but Marc knew instinctively that this silence was a good silence.