running on empty

17 // Fair.

Well. Ethan was never one for turning down a free ride. "Sure, man! What time did you wanna meet?"

"Does two sound good?"

"Hell yeah."

And with that, it was settled. Ethan had an official excuse to postpone The Video.

-

"Hey, they have funnel cakes here! Fuck yeah!"

They had only been at the fair for an hour or so, and already had Mark pointed out every single food item and game they had. None had elicited such an excited response, though.

Mark raced over to the booth before Ethan could get a word in, dragging the younger man with him by their clasped hands. "God, I love these fuckers."

Ethan giggled along, but nerves slowly started to trickle down his spine. He hadn't really liked these things before - and looking at them now, covered in grease and sugar and dough, he figured that distaste had probably stayed the same, if not gotten worse.

"Do you want one?" Mark asked. He was bouncing on his toes, that special shine in his eyes that someone only gets if they're about to receive something they love that they haven't had in a while, and Ethan feels horrible for bursting his bubble.

"No, thank you. But you should get one! The strawberry one looks good."

Mark's smile faltered a little, but he quickly turned back to the menu to look at the different flavors they offered. "Damn, I didn't even realize they had that! I just saw funnel cake and my vision tunneled." He made a few weird hand gestures coupled with noises Ethan knew by now were imitations of him "blasting" to the stand, and he laughed.

"Yeah, I realized."

Luckily, Mark pouting didn't last long as it was their turn to order. Ethan held his breath as Mark spoke, worried that his friend was going to order him a funnel cake anyway. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, Mark had always been good with respecting boundaries before, but with the development of his disorder...

Well, he had been a little pushy around food.

And Ethan got it! He truly did - of course Mark would care and he would want him to eat. But sometimes commenting on it was worse. It would break down whatever courage he was trying to build up, or drag his attention back to whatever he was trying to ignore.

It came from a place of love, of course. But that didn't stop it from fucking him up sometimes.

If he was honest, he almost preferred the way Amy dealt with things.

There was one time - just after coming back from an outing with Amy and her friends (where there was food, of course there was food) - that he had darted into the bathroom as soon as they got back to the house.

It was obvious what he had done to anyone else. He looked like shit, as he found out by his haggard appearance in the mirror, and he forced himself to flee the bathroom after flushing just so he didn't sit there and think about it.

Resisting the urge to brush his teeth, he had made a b-line for their fridge and poured out a glass of water for him and Amy.

And, fuck, it was so embarrassing. Amy knew what he did - of course she did, it's not like her and Mark talk about him all the time, not to mention the fact that she has ears - but she didn't give him the usual pitying glance.

Well, that's not necessarily true. It's hard not to when a friend of yours just puked their guts out. But it was less noticeable than normal.

"Can I have some water, too?" she called from the dining room, and Ethan was grateful for that. With Mark, he had always wanted to address the topic immediately, no questions asked. Sometimes he'd try to push a little snack onto him, if he was up for it.