"Kiss me," Mark demands, and Roger only gives him a smug look before grabbing his face in his hands and earnestly complying.

It's all Maureen's fault, honestly. She was the one who had started the conversation last week when they'd all gotten together at the Life – those impromptu dinners were getting fewer and further between and he was achingly aware of the way everyone's lives were slowly, naturally separating.

Forks in the road. Mark had known they were coming, but not this fast.

He's not ready.

He is, however, apparently ready for this.

Everyone knew Mark and Roger's story by heart by now. Unlikely friends in junior high, then inseparable until college, and against all odds, somehow, they'd ended up living together completely by accident the week after Mark dropped out and went rogue.

Collins got a strange gleam in his eye whenever that story was told, and Mark had his suspicions, but he kept his mouth shut. He was good at that.

Besides, it's been a long time since he was reunited with Roger, and the shock has worn off. Now he can be nothing but grateful. Even if – and he probably had – Collins had arranged the whole thing, behind the scenes.

He'd probably been expecting more of a show. All he'd gotten was Mark's awkward greeting and Roger's frozen stare for a full minute before he got up and scrutinized Mark all over, muttering about how he couldn't believe he'd managed to get even skinnier without wasting away.

Well, he was getting his show now. Seven years later, but hey. It still counts, right?

Roger is a fucking fantastic kisser. Even with Collins in the next room, undoubtedly watching them furtively from behind the stack of essay's he'd surrounded himself with on the couch, it was mind-blowing. Fantastic. Amazing. Roger knew just what to do with his tongue, with his fingertips, with his whole body. It blew his fucking mind.

This was exactly what he'd wanted.

For days now. Well, obviously longer than that, but days since Maureen had just had to go on and on and on about how everyone in their little ragtag group had kissed… except for Mark and Roger.

Collins had snorted so hard into his tea that it had sloshed onto the table, and Mark can still feel the flush on his skin most of a week later –

Or maybe that's just Roger, fingers twisted in his short hair, pulling him closer. Mark doesn't hesitate to lean into it, groaning, throwing his arms around Roger's neck and eagerly sucking at his lip, and then his tongue, breaths coming louder and more ragged.

"What's the occasion, boys?" Collins calls out to them, and Mark can hear the smug grin in his voice. Then, abruptly, he laughs. He must have shifted his gaze to Mark's arm, still stretched absurdly over their heads. "Good going, Cohen!"

Neither of them breaks away to give him the satisfaction, although Mark's ears are burning. He whimpers and Roger abruptly grabs a fistful of his shirt, twisting to drag him into his room and out of the public eye.

Just before they hit the mattress Mark sees Collins flashing him a cheeky thumbs up through the bead curtains. He flips him off in return –

Roger catches the finger in his mouth and sucks, wet and sloppy and ridiculously erotic, and Mark thanks every deity whose name he knows that all of those years of unresolved sexual tension had paid off.