For once, not a de-anon from a kink meme.
Sometimes Jean just can't get rid of the feeling that he should be documenting every moment he had with Marco, saving up pictures and mementos from every instant they were together. He's not sure when it started, and he knows that Marco would never say anything-knows from the exasperated smiles he gets when he pockets ticket stubs and newspaper articles, tells him to stop to take just one more picture.
It's one of the reasons they're a team. Investigative journalism is easy when they're already taking notes about everything.
It had started as a hobby in college, some tiny voice at the back of his head telling him that he never knew when tragedy would strike, that he should savour every moment. Marco had just grinned and bought him a top of the line camera for his birthday that year.
He'd enrolled in some photography courses, just little things at first, then changing his major to photography. The day he'd told Marco what he'd done, he'd just gotten a laugh, and the freckled boy had ruffled his hair and tapped him on the nose.
"Now we can be a team. Journalism and photography go together pretty well, huh?"
The first time Marco had gotten injured when they were reporting a case, Jean had hyperventilated in the waiting room of the hospital, fainting and then waking up to Marco perched on the side of his bed holding a cup of water.
The whole year after that he'd hovered relentlessly whenever they left the safety of the little flat they shared on a corner above a place called the Jean Marco Cafe. It had amazing hot chocolate and the best scones you'd ever taste in your life. Marco had put up with it until he started trying to follow him to the bathroom.
The next year was that whole fiasco in the Middle East, and when they got sent over there to report, Marco had had to sit him down just to tell him to iback off/i because he was being an overprotective idiot, and Marco could take care of himself just fine. Plus the locals were starting to look at them and mutter.
They barely got out in time. For a month afterwards, Jean had taken pictures of everything. From Marco brushing his teeth in the morning, to lazing around on warm afternoons, to eating dinner and making silly faces. He still had the three external hard drives he'd stored the pictures on.
Every time they were sent out to report, Jean took a picture of his partner, and when they got back home he'd pat the brunet over to check for injuries, then hug him until he had to let go or fall asleep standing up.
He went to a psychiatrist. It didn't help a bit. But it made his parents feel a little better. Marco watched him like a hawk, not fooled by his facade of okayness. But that was alright, because Marco knew him better than anyone. When he started to frame the oddest pictures, hanging them in their bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, the freckled man had just rolled his eyes and taken down the more embarrassing ones, packing them neatly into a box.
His friends were well used to his strange habits, letting him get away with his periodic checks on Marco. Even when he interrupted them every hour to call Marco just to hear his voice, they said nothing.
His coworkers didn't really understand, just assumed that they were very close lovers and left it at that. He'd get the occasional wary glance from interns, but he cared very little, and Marco was always there to smooth it over.
His boss cared very little, because his obsession with documenting every moment made him a good newspaper photographer. The fact that Marco was in almost all the pictures he took was remedied the third week they'd been working there, Marco pulling him aside to say that, while it was nice that he cared, they'd never get anywhere if the focus of every picture he took was the author of the article, not the thing they were supposed to be reporting on. He'd taken those words into account and, while he hadn't taken less pictures of Marco, he only sent in the ones that didn't have any adorable freckles in them.
Feeling arms wrapping around him from behind, Jean left off with his musings, leaning back into Marco's hold with a sigh.
"You know, you might be a bit of an anxious Annie, but you really need to lay off the thinking. It's time for bed."
Craning his neck, Jean looked up into warm brown eyes and melted, letting himself be pulled towards the single bed in their flat.
"Sometimes I can't help but think."
Marco shook his head and smiled tolerantly, tugging at the black t-shirt Jean was wearing.
"Then maybe I should help you stop."
Tugging the shirt over blond hair and tossing it into a corner, Marco leaned in and kissed him."
"I can't- say- I'm adverse- to that- idea," Jean mumbled breathlessly between kisses, backing them up until his knees hit the bed, "But you're going to have to try a little harder."
Marco grinned wickedly at the challenge and pushed the slightly shorter man back onto the bed, leaning over him to nip at his neck.
"I think that can be arranged."