After a weirdly unsuccessful training session, Mark and Nathan were on top of the hill again in their usual spot.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?"Nathan said quietly. "You haven't been avoiding me, have you?"
Mark gasped. "Of course not! Why would you even say that?!"
"I just haven't seen you in a while, that's all,"Nathan sighed.
"It's nothing to do with you, I've just been busy training, hanging out with Axel, and you know what, I've even been to Jude's! His house is a mansion!"
"Really?"said Nathan. "I've been a bit busy too. I've been with Miles a lot lately."
"Really? I thought you didn't like her,"said Mark. "Did she finally get over her crush on you?"
Nathan took a deep breath and said,"I came out to her, Mark. I told her I was gay."
Mark grinned and tackled Nathan in a hug. Nathan gasped and burned red.
"Well done! How'd she react?!"
"She actually told me that she liked me, and got really upset that I didn't like her back, so I kinda had to tell her. But it felt good,"Nathan sighed, and smiled slightly,"I don't feel the need to avoid her as much. I've just always felt so guilty that she liked me and that I didn't like her back. But now I don't. And she can move on too. I wish I would've told her sooner."
Mark smiled. "I'm so happy for you, Nathan."
"I'm happy for me too,"Nathan smiled.
There was silence for a while, before Mark said,"I wish Axel could have the same courage. He's still so shy about people knowing that he's gay. I wish I could help him."
"Well you can't help anybody come out,"Nathan said. "You have to do it because you want to do it."
Nathan internally burned. He would want their relationship to be public if he was with Mark. He wished that he was the one that Mark gushed about. He wished he was the one accompanying Mark to Jude's house as his boyfriend.
He burned as he listened to Mark gush about Axel. He struggled to make it not obvious. He hoped that Mark wouldn't notice, because he didn't want him to feel the same way that Nathan felt about Miles for so many years.
He loved that Mark was happy, but there was a small part of him that wished that Axel would just go away, or even better, that Axel had never came into their lives at all.
Maybe that way Mark would've fell for him instead. Nathan daydreamed about this far more often than he would like to admit.