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Thanos pays attention.
He’s well aware of this thing Namgyu has tonight that he’s been talking about for weeks. No, months. For the better half of a year, actually.
It’s almost impossible for him to have ignored it anyway since Namgyu’s got this thick, hole-punched stack of papers that he carries around with him at all times. Thanos is kind of tired of looking at it. It’s got all these neon-highlighted passages, scribbled notes in the margins, and multicolored tabs staggered through the whole thing. Worst of all, it follows them to every single place like an extra limb. At the diner, it’s there on the table. At the movies, on the train, on the couch, in bed. That damn binder, always. And Namgyu reads from it constantly, saying words that sound like ancient tongues that are apparently written inside.
In fact, Thanos knows they’re written inside because he’s read it, too.
“Can you read it with more, like… emotion?”
This was a few months ago, when Thanos was first beginning to learn what he’d gotten himself into.
Namgyu had not been suggesting, but ordering. He paced the living room, one arm tucked behind his back and the other pulling anxiously at his lip.
Thanos groaned with a loud slap of the paper stack against his thigh, said “This is the last time I’m reading this shit,” then dutifully picked it back up and read again with every fabricated emotion he could muster to the point that it sounded less like a line from a serious acting script and more like something out of an anthropomorphic talking animal movie.
“Oh my god, you’re making this so fucking hard, Thanos. Go again. Talk normal.”
“But these words are not real words, like, they don’t exist!”
“Not only is it one of, if not the most famous play that’s ever been, but you’ve read through it a hundred times now. Come-fucking-on.”
“They’re not. Real. Words.”
“They are!”
Thanos fucked up the pronunciation when he said “besmirch?” exactly like he did the other twelve times he’d said it aloud.
Namgyu tilted his head back towards the ceiling, looked up, and mumbled a prayer to a higher power for strength.
Thanos did read it again, though, because, sure, trying to help Namgyu felt akin to a Saw trap, but he had promised to help him practice.
He remembers the audition. How he’d assured Namgyu it would be fine, walked him through a handful of deep breathing exercises, and even camped outside the front steps of the practice building for three hours waiting for Namgyu to emerge.
“I fucked it!” Namgyu had cried out when he’d stormed out the doors, head in his hands, fingers shaking.
“I’m sure it was fine, Nam—“
“It wasn’t fucking fine! You don’t know, you weren’t there,” Okay… true. But Thanos was trying to be supportive, alright? “I went in, shaking like a fucking leaf, and bombed it. They barely even looked at me.”
That was not, in fact, fine.
They’d been walking towards the train side by side, but Thanos stopped abruptly, and it took Namgyu a second to realize that he wasn’t keeping up.
“What are you doing?”
“Do you need me to go in there and shove my foot up their asses?”
If Namgyu had been rejected, there’s no promise that Thanos wouldn’t react the same way, but not even looking at him? What the fuck, he worked so hard?
“Oh my god.”
“‘Cause I’ll go do it. Right now. I’m going, I don’t care.”
Thanos turned to walk back in the same direction they came from, and Namgyu was quick to grab his arm.
He hadn’t done anything, of course. Turned around quite quickly and got a real good scolding from Namgyu, even if he did offhandedly mention that he thought the gesture was a little romantic, which was satisfactory enough, and actually all Thanos really got out of it. But he really would have stormed in there, flipped over the judge’s table, and told them to go fuck themselves until the cops came to take him away. He didn’t, though! He controlled his emotions, just like Namgyu asked him to, and instead let him bitch his ear off for the next week until he got the call. And then the script. And then this playhouse stole his boyfriend away every Monday-Wednesday night.
Unfortunately, Namgyu’s got a fucked up home life, so there are no pictures to prove it, but he’s bragged once or twice about getting the lead role in a primary school play. Until it was revealed to have been a Christmas play, and the lead role was, of course, Jesus. The non-verbal infant.
“Because you were the smallest in the class?” Thanos had asked, already flinching from the consequential punch to his bicep that he knew he deserved.
The dull pain was confirmation that he was exactly right, but God, if it doesn’t squeeze Thanos’ heart every time he thinks about it. A little Namgyu, probably wrapped up like a bundled mummy with his only line reading “Jesus: [cries]”, likely looking out towards a small conglomerate of parents and searching for his, even though he knows better. Thanos can’t even dwell on it too long or his face gets all hot and his throat starts to close up, but it’s a big part of why he didn’t even blink when Namgyu approached him about auditioning this time.
“Of course I think you should do it.”
“You’re so full of it.”
“I’m serious, Nam,” Thanos said, back when Namgyu was still trying to talk himself out of it, “They might need a last-minute baby Jesus to cry on command.”
“I fucking hate you.”
Namgyu turned to leave the living room where they’d been talking, and Thanos was quick to catch his wrist.
Namgyu tried to act mad that Thanos was tugging him onto the couch, but put up very little fight. In fact, there was no resistance in his body when his back hit the cushions, and, sure, he raised his hand to push away Thanos’ chest when he climbed on top of him, but it was all in jest. There were lips all over his face, his mouth, his jaw, his neck, then back up to his hairline, and Namgyu couldn’t help the warm laugh that bubbled out of him.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Thanos asked when he’d raised his head again to meet Namgyu’s eyes. His painted fingers played with his soft, splayed hair, their noses bumping.
A hesitant nod. A proud grin on Thanos’ face.
Namgyu lifted his head just enough to press their lips together.
It feels like it’s been a thousand years since then, but today, finally show day, Thanos still doesn’t know what “besmirch” means.
Namgyu’s been at the rehearsal building since 9:00 this morning even though the play is at 7:00 tonight, and it’s around 4:00 when he texts a picture of a coffee cup in his hand and a simple white bubble that just says “coffee.”
Okay…?
Earlier that morning, there’d been a picture of the script. Then a picture of his shoes criss-crossed on the floor, then a blurry picture that Thanos couldn’t make out, and Namgyu never retook.
Thanos responds with a simple thumbs up emoji, but he has a working theory that Namgyu keeps sending him mindless updates partly because of his nerves the closer they get to showtime, but he’s also deathly afraid Thanos might forget about it, which is not going to happen because there’s a flyer of the play magnetized to their fridge, today circled in bright red on the calendar, and no less than a hundred reminders in his phone from both Namgyu and his past self reminding him that the play is, in fact, tonight.
Thanos will be there. If he doesn’t understand a word of it, if he has to be high for the whole thing, and if it kills him.
And he is.
And he may have also taken a couple of edibles before he got here, but he’s got to stay focused, okay? This is important to Namgyu and requires a couple of hours sitting still in an uncomfortable auditorium chair. Plus he's sure Namgyu would do the same thing, and at 7:00 on the dot, he is seated three rows from the stage with one of those pre-made supermarket flower bouquets in hand, watching the lights dim and the curtains draw.
He didn’t really know what he was expecting out of this play, but it wasn’t…. this. This is clearly a local production where everyone who auditioned got a part because the auditorium audience is only half full and on stage are some clearly homemade props of what is supposed to create the atmosphere of a stony castle balcony.
Lucky for Thanos, he doesn’t have to wait long to see Namgyu.
He’s one of the first few on the stage, dressed in this weird dress-like medieval costume that Thanos can only describe as the ugliest thing he’s ever seen.
He must fuck him in it immediately. It’s instinctual, as natural as breathing.
“Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak!”
Namgyu shouts this with real fear in his face, voice echoing off the walls, waving around a flimsy-looking sword at a man dressed in white face paint, and it’s absolutely ridiculous, but Thanos lets out a tiny “woo!” of encouragement anyway.
Some background extra, at one point, drops his sword clearly on accident, and scrambles to pick it back up. If Thanos hadn’t had to read the other lines, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the main guy fucking up his big monologue, but he did, and he thinks to himself, This is what he’s been doing? This is what he was so afraid to miss out on? But there aren’t many other opportunities around here, and Namgyu’s giving it his damn best.
He’s saying those words that Thanos has heard a million times (hell, Thanos could probably fill in if need be), exactly as practiced, and he’s killing it. He’s got this nimbleness to his body that makes his character believable, his words true, the physicality all down to a science. Thanos may be biased because he’s seen all the hard work, but Namgyu is miles better than any of those other losers.
It’s kind of like rapping, Thanos thinks while zoning out during a scene Namgyu’s not in. It’s baring your soul to an audience that may applaud you just as much as they may boo you, completely at the mercy of their judgement, and yet you do it anyway, because it’s an itch that must be scratched. Even if the outfits and accents are terrible, even if you are given a side character, even if it’s a little humiliating, even if you are forced to work with people less capable or embarrassingly better than you. And, sure, it’s two extremes. Thanos’ version of baring his soul is standing on stage and rapping a line about “fucking bitches” and how comically large his dick is, and Namgyu’s is reciting Shakespearean prose in a pair of tights. But they’ve got to do it.
The edibles hit hard at some point during the third act, and, okay, maybe he should’ve taken one less, but he’s still behaving himself pretty damn well. In fact, whatever it was that he didn’t understand about this play before, he suddenly understands now.
“Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption,” the main character says to the actress standing before him, “honeying and making love over the nasty sty!”
These stupid words are actually not that difficult anymore, and maybe it’s the magical weed or just his brain adjusting to the speech, but Thanos is on the edge of his fucking seat.
He prefers watching Namgyu, though, and notices that his wandering eyes can’t be helped. Namgyu’s greatly engrossed in the actions of his stage mates, knows his lines by heart, but every time he’s on stage, Thanos can see the way he starts to scan the crowd.
He’s looking for me, Thanos thinks, but Namgyu’s hair is sweaty and clinging to his neck, face rosy under the blinding spotlight, and it’s too hard to see outward.
“The rest is silence.”
Quiet does come over the theater as the actor writhes for a moment, clutches at his fake stab wound, reaches out for Namgyu in agony, and then stills.
“Now cracks a noble heart,” Namgyu says, kneeling beside the slain and poisoned body of his friend, gripping at his hand, “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!”
Thanos is really fucking high and really fucking into it. He thinks he’s crying, actually, and reaches up to wipe at his face with his shirt sleeve. It comes back wet.
At some point, he leans over to the woman seated next to him and hears his own voice in a whisper saying, “He’s still breathing, can you see it?” and his own finger pointing lazily at the fake dead body on stage whose chest is slowly rising and falling.
She looks at him—Thanos, not the amateur actor—with a very concerned, deeply disturbed look on her face. “He’s not actually dead,” she whispers back, more in a scolding manner that says shut up more than it says you idiot.
Whatever. Fuck him for getting too into it?
Thanos has never actually been to a play, so when the curtain closes and the lights come up, he’s nearly out of his seat, ready to find Namgyu and give him his flowers, and he’s fucking confused when the actors start running out one by one and doing these little bows at the end of the stage. The entire audience is standing, and Thanos does too, but he doesn’t clap for anyone until, finally, there is his Namgyu.
“Woo! Namgyu! Let’s go!”
Thanos is (naturally) the loudest person in there, clapping as hard as his hands will let him, jumping a little bit in his seat, motioning to the section around him to clap harder because they’re all fucking useless.
And, like this, it’s impossible for Namgyu to miss Thanos with his violet hair, enthusiasm, and exploding adoration.
They lock eyes, and when he comes back up from his bow, Namgyu’s got this pressed-lipped smile and a shallow dimple digging into his left cheek that Thanos knows all too well: he’s pleased.
“That’s my partner!” Thanos says, full volume now over the sound of applause, to the same woman beside him.
“I can tell!” She says back.
Thanos finds Namgyu chewing on his nails in the lobby.
His eyes dart around and Thanos can spot his tense shoulders from a mile away, but within seconds, he’s on him. Lifting him up, spinning him around, pressing a thousand and one kisses all over his face in a way that he knows is embarrassing the fuck out of Namgyu, judging by the way he’s hitting at his chest, but he doesn’t care.
“Oh my god, Nam,” Thanos says when he sets him back down, an arm still around his waist, “You were so fucking good. I’m so proud of you.”
Namgyu can fight it however much he wants, but he’s elated right now. This is kind of everything he’s ever wanted.
“Are these for me?” He asks, pointing at the bouquet that’s crinkling in Thanos’ grip.
Thanos hands it off, grins as Namgyu inspects them, and proudly, confidently says, “For my Romeo.”
Namgyu’s head snaps up so fast.
There’s an immediate mood shift. What was once bashfulness in his expression is now filled with disgust and disbelief, looking at Thanos like he’d just confessed to killing his entire family.
“What?” Thanos asks, panicked, looking around him as if the daggers being stared into him were meant for someone else. “What?”
“I was Horatio… this was fucking Hamlet, you dumbfuck!” Namgyu raises the bouquet to hit Thanos on the side of his hollow fucking head, hard enough to send a few petals to the floor, and making one of Thanos’ gel-spiked devil horns wobble a bit. “We’ve gone over this a thousand fucking times!”
“Oh, shit, baby. I’m sorry! I was paying attention, I swear, I just—these edibles are getting me good.”
Namgyu’s pissed, naturally, but he still glitches a little as the wheels suddenly halt and then spin again in his brain.
He glances around, red-faced, chest puffing, and leans in with an open hand. Within seconds, there are two green gummies in his palm that he pops into his mouth.
They’re both high as fuck an hour later, home, freshly showered, and leaning over opposite ends of the kitchen island, digging spoons into the biggest tub of Neapolitan ice cream they could find. Namgyu favors the chocolate, and Thanos keeps digging into the strawberry, and what once was a flat tricolored bed is now a lone mound of vanilla. On the countertop behind them are Namgyu's flowers in a drinking glass half-filled with tap water.
“They were tight, huh?”
“So fucking tight, they were, like, squeezing my balls the entire time.”
“Good, probably kept you from wanting to fuck the Hamlet guy.”
Namgyu’s hair is still wet and glistening, tucked behind his ears, and he looks at Thanos across the island with a half-hearted look of warning that makes Thanos want to tell him to put his costume back on so he can bend him over in it and cum on the back.
“Thanos,” Namgyu stares at him, deadpan, “don’t even—“
“I’m joking.”
“He was ugly.”
“He was ugly. And not that great, actually.”
There’s a beat of silence, another spoonful collected and consumed. Namgyu slides the spoon from his mouth where the concave side had been resting on his tongue. It comes out clean, and he stabs it back into the mound of frozen ice cream and licks the stickiness off his thumb. And then he says, “You should have had that role.”
Thanos raises his eyebrows. Laughs. “Me? Fuck no.”
“I’m serious! You’ve practically learned all the lines,” Namgyu rounds the island, gliding his hand along the granite until they’re side by side and leans his head against Thanos’ bicep. “Come on, give one to me now.”
“I’m trying to eat my ice cream, Nam,” Thanos says through a mouthful, plus his tongue is a little frozen, so the words probably won’t come out right anyway.
“Don’t care. Spit it out. Come on. Any line, anything. Hamlet. One, two, three, go.”
Namgyu is resting his chin there now and looking up at Thanos with these horrible puppy dog eyes that are so annoying and disturbing to Thanos’ soul, pushing and bruising at every weak spot he has, that he has no choice but to play along.
Thanos lazily waves the spoon around in the air with a fond roll of his eyes.
“Then came each actor on his ass—“
“Okay, no. You're done. No more.”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Namgyu’s entire body is a little sore from practicing all day. He’s put an enormous amount of pressure on himself for tonight, all of it building and building and building, and now that it’s over, it’s beginning to melt down and it all makes him feel heavy and a little emotional.
They both laugh. Thanos into the air and Namgyu into his shirt sleeve.
Namgyu doesn’t need to be high to be this clingy to Thanos, but he does need to be considerably out of it to say “Thank you. For coming. And helping me and all.”
He mumbles it, but it’s out there.
“You always come to my rap gigs.”
True. “But I like your raps. You don’t like Shakespeare. It’s, like, painful for you.”
Thanos scoffs, runs a free hand briefly through Namgyu’s damp hair, and scratches gently at the scalp. “I like you. If you like Shakespeare, I like Shakespeare.” He says it like it’s so simple, and Namgyu’s chest feels like the ice cream tub in front of them, melting in little sticky beads of sugary endearment. Thanos kisses the top of his head. “Nothing’s painful about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Words, words, words.
It’s sweet, all of it. All over in Namgyu’s molars, inside his ribcage.
“Well…” Namgyu pulls away to look up at his lover, maintaining tender eye contact while his hand blindly reaches for his abandoned spoon. When he manages to grip the handle, he yanks it from the ice cream it’d been lodged in and jumps back, instantly pointing it towards Thanos. “How about if you die by my sword? Is it painful then?” He threatens with his spoon outstretched.
Thanos will insist he’s not into the acting, but he’s dramatic as fuck and has a bone-deep flair for theatrics. Therefore, he wastes no time assuming a similar position.
“You’re a fuckin’ theater nerd.”
“I said, is it painful then?”
They begin slowly circling around one another as if preparing for a real knife fight.
Namgyu takes the opportunity to lunge at him, and there is a shrill sound of metal clinking and scraping, and all the while, ice cream is actively dripping onto the floor between them.
At some point during the struggle, Thanos wrestles a hand free and manages to fake stab Namgyu right in the ribs, and Namgyu instantly retaliates with the curve of the spoon pressed to Thanos’ neck.
A dramatic cry from Thanos, who is gripping at his throat as if there’s real blood spraying there and not chocolate, fills the room. “You besmirch me!”
Namgyu is out of it now, though. He stands barefoot on the floor tiles, defeated, with his arms slack at his side because his scene partner is fucking terrible. “That’s not what it means, like, at all.” Pronounced wrong again, too.
“Oh my goddddd, I take it back. You are insufferable and extremely painful to get along with.”
“Okay, now you’ve actually besmirched me. That’s fucked up to say.” Namgyu tosses his spoon at Thanos, which clinks right against his stomach and clatters on the floor.
Thanos’ purple hair is limp and cold on his forehead, his tongue is frozen, but the rest of him is all warm. “You know I don’t mean it.” And he really doesn’t because this was just a spoon, and he prefers splitting Namgyu on his, but he would die by his sword. If it were medieval times and all. Drown and bleed out and haunt him at the end. Drive him mad. Sit through a thousand small-town auditorium low-budget plays just to get a glimpse of him.
Namgyu tilts his pretty, tortured head. “I know.”