Mark Gatiss x Reader

Sat on top of the covers of your cheap hotel room bed you sighed quietly to yourself, as your tired (e/c) eyes scanned over the words of the page of your book. Mark had invited you along with him and the rest of ‘The League’ on their tour. Seeing as you and Mark didn’t get to see much of each other as of late due to his hectic work schedules, you were compelled to come along. For the past few nights you had enjoyed yourself, chatting happily with Mark, Reece, Steve, and Jeremy. But tonight, for some strange reason, you felt differently, you were upset and you didn’t know why. Perhaps you were missing the familiarities of your home, traveling and being amongst loads of people and strangers wasn’t exactly your thing.

Mark was standing outside of your hotel room door and was, unsurprisingly, met with a deafening silence upon knocking. You weren’t at home for the general public, which was painfully clear to everyone who'd ever tried to call on you at home or ring you up.

"(Y/n)? It's Mark."

"Door's open".

Pleased to see his name was still the key to you inner sanctum, Mark opened the door, peeked in and couldn't help but smile. You were sitting on the narrow hotel bed wearing a big, shapeless white t-shirt, book in hand. Your (h/c) hair slightly damp and tousled from the shower. The room itself was rather dingy and smelled slightly damp. Still, it was comparable luxury when he thought of the nights spent in the cheapest of the cheap hotels, where everything was complete and utter filth, making the whole crew wonder what kept that hotel open.

"Do you want to be alone?"

You smiled a little at the question and put the book away. "If I absolutely wanted to be alone, I would have ignored you. As you know very well. Come in."

Mark grinned and sauntered in, revealing the bottle of wine he had hidden behind his back.

"Oh I see where this is going." You rolled your eyes and then smiled. "I thought you were meant to go to some pub with Steve and Reece?"

"I was going to but then I thought, if I'm going to get knee-walkingly drunk, I can save myself the trouble of finding a suitable watering hole and having to come crawling back in the morning." Mark said as he plopped down onto the bed next to you. "So, what do you want to do?"

You, realising you were in for a long night, sighed. "Television?"

Mark had already stopped paying attention to you and instead was rummaging through the shabby cabinet hoping it might contain some decent drinking glasses. "Bad luck, no glasses."

"I prefer drinking straight from the bottle anyway."

"Now we're talking!" Mark sat on the bed once more, triumphantly holding up the bottle of wine, while you grabbed the remote and started looking for something interesting to watch. "And look, it's already open. I didn't want to have you re-create the drama from that one time you tried to open a bottle with a pair of scissors and a pen."

"I almost bled to death so you could get drunk and drool on my pillow all night, you ungrateful bastard." You laughed, hitting Mark with the remote.

"True, true. I'm not ungrateful though. I do appreciate little gestures like that, you know. Cheers!" Mark took a swig from the bottle, then passed it on to you, before settling comfortably against your side. "Nice room."

You snorted. "If you like the smell of piss and decay, it's lovely. But I won't complain, it's helping me tremendously to get into the kind of tortured artist mind-set." Mark giggled and stretched out comfortably.

"It's only for a night though and at least you get some time to yourself." He sighed. "And privacy."

You looked at Mark mischievously, "What do you need privacy for, Markymoo?" Mark blushed furiously, grabbed the remote and hit you gently over the head with it causing you to giggle loudly.

"Don't be an ass, (Y/n)." You laughed even more, trying to dodge Mark's attacks.

"Don't call me an ass." Mark leaned back and put a pillow on his head to drown out your giggles.

"Don't be such a kid, (Y/n)", he mumbled under the pillow.

"You're adorable when you're embarrassed" You pulled the pillow from Mark's face and grinned at him, twirling the loose ginger curl of his forehead around your index finger, his bright blue eyes boring into yours. "I reckon it does get frustrating to be boxed up with the two of them all the time, although they are out often… so I don't really understand why you're not in your room right now enjoying your, momentary privacy."

"Can we stop talking about this now, please?" Mark, still blushing slightly, sat up and focused on the screen again.

"Alright," You shrugged innocently, "we can postpone the discussion of your masturbation habits to another time."

Mark hit you again, causing you to unceremoniously fall off the bed and start howling with laughter. Then, suddenly, you stopped.

"Ew."

You hastily climbed onto the bed again, declaring "I think something died under the bed. I'm serious."

Mark laughed and pushed you down onto the mattress. "Will you shut up now?"

You sighed dramatically. "Fine. Sourpuss."

You two had settled in and quietly watched the program for a while, when Mark brought up the true reason for his late night visit. "I was a little worried about you earlier." You kept your gaze fixed on the screen.

"Were you?"

"Yes, I was. You seemed... upset somehow." He kept looking at your face for clues but you kept staring ahead, your expression blank and seemingly uninterested.

"I don't know what you could possibly mean." Realising it was futile to get you to talk about anything of substance this early in the evening, Mark gave up and focused on the show again, taking swigs from the bottle in turns with you.

                               ***********************************

After an hour of companionable silence, he heard the sound of the empty bottle being set on the night table and felt you relaxing deeply, sinking into the mattress. Turning onto his side, Mark looked towards you questioningly. "Will you tell me now, what was up with you tonight?"

You turned to face Mark and smiled slightly. "I don't know what you could possibly mean"

"Stop giving me that line. Come on. I know you’ve been going through some stressful times recently (Y/n) but tonight you seemed unusually... sad." He looked down to avoid your (e/c) eyes. "When I saw you before I went on stage, I thou- well I knew you’d been crying."

You snorted dismissively.

"It was hard to tell, I admit, because you hardly looked at me and didn’t even wish me a good luck like you usually do." Mark added in a sarcastic tone.

You laughed bitterly. "Mark, I honestly don't know what you're on about." You got up and, stumbling slightly from tiredness, disappeared into the bathroom. "God, this place is filthy." Mark raised his voice so he'd be heard in the other room.

"I'm just worried, that's all. You'd tell me if you felt lonely, wouldn't you?" He heard the sound of the toilet flushing and a moment later you returned and sat on the bed, looking into your lap.

You bit your lip and asked,

"What would that be good for Mark? What would you do about it?" You shook your head a little, took a deep breath and, frustrated, laid on your back and stared at the ceiling. "I don't think how I feel sometimes can be cured with company and wine."

"Maybe I can still make it better somehow? I don't have to go out all the time. Maybe it'll help to take your mind off things a bit if I'm just hanging about, talking over the thoughts in your head." Mark insisted, his blue eyes full of sincerity.

You gave him a sideways look,

"If anyone can achieve that, it's you, you little chatterbox." You smiled in spite of yourself, turned off the telly and stretched out, groaning slightly. Mark smiled a little and scooted closer so he could drape an arm over your chest and rest his head against your shoulder. Lying in the dark, he could feel how warm and relaxed you were and knew that you were beginning to feel the effects of the wine, too.

Mark had almost fallen asleep when you turned your head a little, buried your nose in Mark's soft hair and sighed, "Don't listen to me, Mark. You're always making it better just by being there."

Mark felt his heart beat faster at this, suddenly feeling weirdly nervous. The harder his heartbeat, the more he feared you would notice it, making it worse and worse. He swallowed hard and then whispered,

"Earlier, you know, during the show. I couldn't help but wonder...since this is only our fourth night..." He closed his eyes, regretting having said anything at all.

"Mmh?" You sounded sleepy, yet slightly curious.

"I only wondered if there was anyone in particular... at home. Someone you might miss."

"Like?"

Mark fought with himself for a moment, wondering what to say. Eventually he sheepishly said, "Like...a boyfriend or girlfriend?" You let out the breath you’d been holding and asked curiously,

"Don't you think, Mark, that you would know if I was seeing someone?" Mark shrugged a little

"I'm not sure. I haven't seen much of you lately, except for when I’m not rehearsing scripts and when you’re not too busy with your work. And you're kinda secretive about who you're going out with." You laughed,

"I'm not going out, that's my secret."

Mark propped up on an elbow and objected,

"That is not true and you know it. You keep telling me about shows you've seen or things that happened at clubs and stuff and I don't think you go there alone, do you?"

"My old friend Hugh keeps dragging me along most of the time. And no,” you chuckled “we're not dating."  You paused for a moment and then continued "Give it up Mark, there's nothing to find out. Why would I hide something like that from you anyway?"

Mark flushed and whispered, "I don't know..." You tensed,

"Mark, what...?" But Mark only shook his head.

"Forget it. I didn't mean anything by it." He leaned into you and added playfully, "So, if you aren't dating anyone, I guess no one will mind if I stay the night and drool on your t-shirt."

You laughed and put your arm around Mark, closely watching for signs of resistance from the older man. He seemed perfectly happy cuddling up to you, though, and not for the first time you were surprised by how comfortable Mark was around you. With a slight pang, you wondered if Mark was so affectionate with all of his friends. You couldn't really imagine it though, remembering the bunch of beer-drinking, football-playing ruffians Mark liked to call his friends.

It could only be chalked up to the wine that you decided to put that thought into words.

"Mark… don't you mind...this?"

Mark blushed, thankful for the darkness. Trying hard to sound indifferent and failing gloriously, he asked,

"Why? What's there to mind?"

Hearing the uncertainty in your friend's voice, you, for what was possibly the first time in years, stopped thinking and followed your first impulse. You leaned down towards Mark, touching his lips to yours ever so gently, half expecting him to jump up and yell at you to stop. Instead, Mark parted his lips, breathing shakily. Overwhelmed by your own courage, you insisted in closing in for a real kiss, just slightly dipping your tongue between Mark’s soft lips was enough to make him moan softly and close the distance between the two of you. He gently pulled you closer to his body before rolling on top of you and the feeling of your friend's body so close to yours made you groan in pleasure. You winced, embarrassed by your display of emotion, but Mark seemed spurned on by the little noises you made and pressed into you, panting deliciously against your lips.

You now both shared slower, open mouthed kisses as his nose pressed against yours, only interrupted by small moans as the excitement in the two of you built up until it was almost unbearable. Mark slid his large soft hands under your t-shirt and caressed the soft skin underneath. You moved your hands from his silky ginger hair to run down the small of his back, as his fingers lightly slipped under the waistband your knickers. You gasped sharply and bit Mark's lip while his hips involuntarily pushed against yours.  Not even knowing what you were begging for, you moaned, "Please, Mark…" before capturing the man's lips again, kissing him passionately.

Before Mark could take it any further the phone rang startling the both of you. You pressed into him again, before groaning in frustration and pushed him gently away. You sat up and reached over for the phone sighing and switching it off as you didn’t recognise the number.

"Fucking hell." You groaned hiding your face against Mark's neck as you tried to calm down your breathing. He put his arms around your shoulders, and still breathing raggedly, whispered softly,

"I love you. Please be happy, I want you to be happy and I promise that I can make you feel that."    Your (e/c) eyes widened in surprise from his sudden outburst but your heart fluttered all the same. Cursing your shyness for making you unable to find the right words to reply, you propped yourself up on your elbows and placed a small but sweet kiss upon Mark’s lips, while Mark comfortingly rubbed your back; giving you the confidence to whisper a quiet but sincere ‘I love you too, I always have’ back. You lay back down against Mark’s chest and he buried his nose into your hair knowing that you meant what you said and for the first time in a long time you drifted off to sleep feeling happier than ever.