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Rhett drove to the studio in silence today, wanting to have time to mull over his thoughts regarding the live show they'd just put on the previous Thursday. Once they wrapped, it had been a long weekend in anticipation of both himself and Link having a terrible hangover the next morning. However, to the dismay of the crew and the viewers, Rhett spent the night sober due to precautions surrounding his recent surgery—and that was the rub. Well both things were, being sober during the event and his recent reminder of his mortality.
He (and Link) are not getting any younger. 41 years of friendship, they've endured the accusations of being gay for a long time. Of course, it exploded when they became a staple internet personality duo. It has always been a point of contention and comedy with them; when they decided they could no longer ignore it, they played into it for laughs. But then, how much of their loyal fanbase sticks around for it? It's top of mind when just recently Dan and Phil, internet personality duo, revealed they have been a couple for 16 years. It seemed to be on Link's mind, too, Thursday night, the liquor loosening his lips. “Do you know anyone that has what we have? Compare us to anyone—we always win.” It could be coincidental. Every time his best friend got too tipsy he was always so unfiltered and emotional; he was also so affectionate, especially with Rhett, and even more when the cameras were rolling.
And that's just it, Rhett was fully present in the moment during this, playing a careful balancing act of comedy and making sure Link didn't hate himself in the morning. Link didn't realize it while drunk, but Rhett was protecting him from his impulse, like he has always done. The end of the main ticketed event, Link got touchy feely, and perhaps emboldened by a couple crew shouting “Kiss!” made an effort to kiss Rhett live on air. They'd said that they might kiss to entertain the people one day, and maybe they will, but Rhett didn't want it to be like that. He knew Link would have mixed up feelings about it when he was in his right mind.
It was enough that mere moments before the attempted kissing, Rhett half joking, half sincere stumbled into Link's praise kink. He knew when, rather than deny it, Link laughed uncontrollably; he was not good at hiding things, even when sober. Rhett leaned into it because yeah it's funny, but it also seemed to be the only way to convince Link to help him and end the stream on schedule—just another nail in the Rhett and Link are gay for each other coffin in the eyes of those tuning in. Rhett pulled into his spot at the office and turned off his car. Link's car was already here, he hoped that was a good sign but he wasn't so sure.
Rhett punched in the code to the building, and sure enough Link was with the social media team.
“Have any of the clips performed well?” Link asked dryly. Rhett knew he was masking anxiety about it.
“Good morning, guys, hey Link,” Rhett interrupted, Link turning to notice him. Rhett put a light hand on Link's shoulder.
“We should probably debrief about Good Mythical Evening before you start looking at that, huh Linkster?”
Link shot Rhett a glance and the slight twitch to a frown betrayed his easy going facade. “C'mon, let's leave the social media team to worry about metrics,” Rhett said, with the same soft tone he'd use if he were fluffing pillows for Link's afternoon nap.
Rhett's big hand moved from the top of Link's shoulder to his back by the shoulder blade as he carefully corralled Link towards their office. His best friend was being very quiet, but it seemed like he was that way last year too after Good Mythical Evening. They entered the office, Link sitting down on a couch first as Rhett shut the door behind him and sat across from his best friend.
“How much do you remember from that night?” Rhett broke the silence and looked to Link, whose gaze was cast toward his shoes.
“I remember the pre-show, I remember probably a little bit of the show, and I remember coming to in the aftershow,” Link said, not moving his eyes up to meet Rhett. “But I did rewatch the VODs over the weekend.”
Rhett sighed, of course Link had. Spent the whole weekend freaking out about it without talking to Rhett probably. “Talk me through your thoughts on it,” Rhett said quietly.
“I think people got what they paid for,” Link chuckled a little bitterly.
“What do you mean?”
Link looked up now and locked eyes with Rhett. “They got to see me make a goddamn fool of myself,” he tried to crack a wry smile, but it fell flat.
“You’re clearly bothered about it… do you want to tell me?”
“Tell you what, Rhett?” Link said, his voice like a guitar string over-tightened.
“Link… you know you can talk to me, about anything. And clearly you wanted to tell me something while you were drunk,” Rhett steered the conversation but gave Link an out.
“I think you've been reading too much fan commentary,” Link said sharply. “We're gonna be late for our meeting with the writers, come on,” Link stood up after glancing at his watch.
Link walked towards the door and Rhett placed a hand on his shoulder. “If you want to talk, just tell me. Until then, like nothing happened.” He gave a pat to Link's shoulder and followed him to the meeting room wordlessly.
—
Rhett walked out of the meeting room, scrubbing a hand over his face. The social media team said several of the clips from the livestream had gotten good traction on socials and VOD sales were steady. The bad news was there were some vocal criticisms across platforms on those clips; people were accusing them of queerbaiting for profit and therefore taking advantage of the good will of queer fans. This was not a new complaint, however, viral clips were in the hands of people that knew a lot less about the duo and thus, it looked shamelessly like a cash grab. Rhett, Link, and the Mythical staff, after discussing, did not even fully disagree with the sentiment. So they decided, for the company and brand's sake, they'd make a video addressing it and centering their queer staff's experiences. Link had been sparingly involved in the conversation and Rhett was doing his best not to read into it—he'd told Link he could talk about his feelings about it all whenever he wanted, let him broach it. Both men headed to hair and wardrobe to prep to film the video in question; best to damage control it sooner than later.
—
Rhett and Link were at opposite ends of this semicircle of chairs at the desk, between them some openly queer crew, among them Stevie and (non-binary) Jordan. They had just gotten back from a break filming the opening, addressing concerns that they were misusing the love and trust of their queer audience. It was a few takes, Link made a few off color comments the first two times, to the surprise of no one. They called the third try good when the crew collectively gave a thumbs up.
“Welcome to our panel of queer mythical crew,” Link announced as they took their seats.
“Sorry this is a heavy one y'all, kind of serious.” Rhett said. “Would you all mind sharing a struggle that maybe non LGBT people might not intuitively understand?”
Each crew member spent time talking about the tribulations day to day with a throughline of people assuming things about them. Both Rhett and Link kept commenting to a minimum, mostly just indicating they were listening and understanding. Rhett's gaze would mostly hold on whoever was talking but occasionally he would look up and catch Link's eyes on his, Link's eyes shifting elsewhere when caught.
“Thank you, crew. Could you tell me about when you knew you were LGBT- queer?” Link asked, going slightly off script, to which Stevie cocked an eyebrow, but then went to describe a teenage crush. The others had similar stories, sometimes at a younger age with a crush on a cartoon, sometimes with a period of suppressing what they knew. It was Rhett's turn to affix his gaze to Link while Link watched the speaking crew member raptly; it was Link's turn to occasionally catch Rhett's gaze, but Rhett wouldn't avert his eyes when he was caught. Link would hold it for a few seconds and then resume looking at whoever was speaking.
They wrapped filming and Link asked the room, “What day is this going out on the More channel?”
A few people assured him it’d be tomorrow morning, once post production was done. The tension in Link’s shoulder eased, but only slightly. “What’s next?” he asked the crew. It was Monday and this whole thing had thrown a wrench in the usual shooting schedule.
KG started going over the rest of the shoot schedule. “You think you guys are going to be eye fucking the rest of today?” she joked.
Link’s shoulders tensed fully again and he visibly was upset. “I– sorry I was joking–” KG started to explain but Link looked at Rhett.
“I can’t do this right now, I need to take the rest of the day,” Link said, terse but not loud. That is how Rhett knew he was truly pissed. Some of the crew vocally reacted when it rippled through the room that Link was not going to stay to shoot.
Rhett leaned toward Link before he could leave the room. “What are you going to do today? We’ve gotta pay our team to work for the full day even if you’re not here. I know you know that.”
“I know, Rhett. I’m going to go cool off at the creative house and work through a set.”
Rhett bit back an incredulous laugh. Someone said one thing to piss him off and he’s gonna go play DJ. “Ok, man. I might drop by in a couple hours; I’ve got some work to do here and then some work to do there.”
Link looked at Rhett and then turned heel and walked out of the room. “Ok everyone, we’re going to follow procedure as if Link was taking a sick day. Are there any promos I can shoot? If not, work on writer’s room for episode ideas. Post production crew, you do your thing. Camera crew, if there’s nothing for you to do today, go home. We’ll pay you for the day.” Rhett announced, cleaning up the mess.
—
Rhett had spent the previous hour shooting anything he could do on his own, which was not a lot. That felt really symbolic in his mind, both he and Link are most well known, most valuable as a duo. They're better together, simply put. Rhett was pontificating on things in their office at the studio, Link's chair empty.
Link had been short all morning and Rhett knew he'd probably been having some kind of negative emotion related to the livestream. And then they had to damage control the accusations. That had probably put Link right up to the edge, and KG making a gay joke about them pushed him over. But that was weird, usually Link let those kinds of comments roll off his back. I mean, it was kind of business as usual for them even before it became a business strategy to lean into it. They figured if everyone was going to assume they were together anyway, why not play it up a little? It didn't drive the majority of their viewership, but it certainly didn't hurt their metrics. Link was never that defensive about it these days, and growing up, it had always been Rhett with the complex about it.
Rhett shifted on the couch he was sitting on, trying to steer his thoughts away from their natural progression. Link is an emotional drunk. An honest drunk. A too honest drunk. And he sure seemed to be tripping over what he was trying to articulate, seemingly only temporarily aware that this was not the practice stream and they were in fact on air. Rhett, in an effort to keep them on their tight time table and also try to save Link the regret, intervened and rerouted him. Rhett knew he wasn't worried about Link talking out of his ass, he did that sober all the time in ways that still made it to the edit. No, what he was worried about—and hadn't really been wanting to dwell on—is that it sounded like Link was trying to have some kind of deeper conversation about their relationship.
Link being defensive about the gay jokes, asking the crew how they knew they were queer off script, his drunken behavior… Well, Rhett couldn't know for sure until he talked to Link, but he thought he knew the issue.
Rhett checked his phone, no messages from Link, but it was nearly lunch time. He made his way to tell Stevie he wasn't going to come back from lunch today. He was going to make it a short day too.
—
Rhett pulled up to the creative house, parking behind Link's car. He had a bag with burritos for both of them from a good local spot. He may miss BoJangles but damn if you couldn't get some of the best food from other cultures, including a burrito. Which is really a Mexican American food invention of immigrants, they don’t really eat burritos in Mexico like this. He was distracting himself from entering the house. He locked his car from his fob for the second time and made his way to the door. He slipped the key into the handle and turned and was greeted by the sound of music, a song he knew.
He shut and locked the door behind him and made his way to the living room, where Link had his DJ setup.
“Depeche Mode,” Rhett said, trying to indicate to Link he was here as he approached. “Is that ‘Never Let Me Down Again’?”
Link looked up, “Yeah.”
“Classic.”
“Of course,” Link said, looking at the plastic bag in Rhett's hand.
“I brought us some of those burritos for lunch,” Rhett explained as the song faded out.
Link stopped his system from playing another song. “It is lunch time, isn't it?” he said, softening a little.
He moved out from behind his setup and toward Rhett who was holding out a burrito with an L written on the tinfoil. Link took it and then headed toward the kitchen and came back with two opened glass bottles of Topo Chico, one he handed to Rhett who was now seated on the couch. Link took a seat next to him. Rhett was already half way through his burrito when Link started unwrapping his. They ate in comfortable silence, Rhett now occasionally sipping on the sparkling water as Link was finishing his last half of food.
“This is steak?” Link said around a mouthful of food. Rhett fought the temptation to repeat the garbled question to Link to tease him.
“Carnitas,” Rhett clarified.
“It’s good,” Link said after swallowing the bite he’d been chewing. “Thank you for making sure I was fed.”
“I thought it might be better to talk while neither of us were hangry,” Rhett said, half joking.
Link pulled from his bottle for a long moment. “I thought you said I could talk to you about it when I was ready,” Link said.
“Well, yeah, that is before you stormed off set and left the crew to sit on their thumbs,” Rhett said, holding back a sigh.
“Yeah… yeah.” Link said, looking at the wall.
“So let’s debrief about Good Mythical Evening, what’s on your mind?”
“I think it’s kind of parasocial for the audience to accuse us of… ‘queerbaiting.’”
“What do you mean?” Rhett shifted to look more directly into Link’s face.
“I mean, they don’t know us personally. How can you accuse someone of something like that?”
“Well, Link, we’ve spent 40 years of our lives fighting gay allegations and reassuring people that we are straight. I can see how an audience watching us simulating sex for entertainment is a bit misleading.”
“I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
“About what? Being straight?”
Link cleared his throat and drank from his Topo Chico and let the question linger in the air for a couple minutes.
“I… love Christy, I will never stop… But I don’t know,” Link started. “ I always thought I’d never get a tattoo other than the one for that commercial. And look at me now, I’ve got a few, one that’s most of my arm. I’m not the person I always was, the person I thought I’d be.”
Rhett was listening intently and not responding until Link had finished the thought.
“I’d already been thinking about it, for a while, but Good Mythical Evening and then talking to the crew about how they knew they were queer… well. I think I may have attraction to a man… men.” Link cleared his throat again.
“And you’re worried people are going to think less of you for it?”
“I– I’m worried what you think, Rhett.”
“Link you’re my best friend, you know that won’t change anything,” Rhett said, as reassuring as he could. Link’s body betrayed him as a single tear fell from each eye. “Hey man, it’s ok.”
“It’s not ok, Rhett! Being just your best friend is exactly the problem.” Link pushed his glasses up from his face so he could rub at the tears with his hands.
Rhett was shocked without being shocked. He had thought this had been the issue but he wasn’t expecting to be right. Rhett finished his Topo Chico while Link attempted to regain composure. When Link had calmed down a bit, Rhett picked up Link’s bottle and offered it to him.
“Drink some water; you know if you don’t, you’ll get a headache.”
Link took it and sipped a few small sips. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m not going to let it change anything, like I said.”
“Because it’s not mutual.” Link sniffled a little.
“Link, you know I’m not attracted to men. The first thing I did when I deconstructed was really make sure.”
“You’re attracted to trans women so it’s not a physical form thing?”
“If you were a woman, trans or not, it might be different. But I don’t feel that way, I’m sorry, Link.”
“I mean what if it weren’t even a sexual thing?”
“I love you deeply… but not the way I love Jessie,” Rhett ran a hand through his own hair.
“I wish… I wish I had let myself realize this sooner. Harnett County was not the place to come out in the 80s. And then we got deep into the church. I spent so long thinking there was no way because that wasn’t right, not right for me. I love my wife but I love you too, Rhett. I can’t help it. I’m sorry,” Link’s tears started running again and he took a big sip to finish his drink.
Rhett scooted closer to Link and rested an arm around his shaking shoulders as he gave small sobs. “I’m not blaming you for how you feel. I wish I could do something to fix it all… I didn’t want us to have this conversation when you were drunk and on air.”
Link took off his glasses and set them on the couch. He let himself lean into Rhett’s chest at an angle. They sat like that for a while, Link crying quietly and Rhett holding his friend to him.
“You never thought about it? Us?” Link said softly.
“I mean, people assume you’re gay with your best friend your whole life, you think about it. Obviously. Especially once I left the faith. Maybe if we’d grown up in a different place and time, things would be different.”
Link was quiet a moment and looked up at Rhett. “This empire we've built is based on our relationship… but at the end of the day Rhett, no matter how many people we work with, how much success, it's only your voice that matters to me. If you can't love me the same, I just want to know that I am making you proud.”
Link hid in Rhett's shoulder with fresh tears. Rhett pulled his friend closer and soothed his back with a hand.
“I couldn't have gotten here without you. Of course I'm proud of you, Link. So proud, even now.”
“Really?” Link said weakly.
“It takes a lot of courage to have this conversation. We're in this together, forever, man. You've held it together so well and I'm proud of you.”
“Rhett I need to go… I–” Link started to pull back from Rhett's hold.
“Why? Go where?” Rhett looked down into Link's eyes.
“The praise kink thing, that wasn't a joke and I can't– being held by you and and…” Link's face turned red while he stuttered.
“You want to be a good boy for me?” Rhett's voice seemed a little lower.
“Rhett you don't– you don't have to, I'll just g–”
Rhett wrapped his arm around Link's back tighter, pulling them further together. “Tell me no and I stop,” Rhett said.
Link's urge was to say no just because this was masking him anxious, but he wanted to see what would happen.
“Link– I want you to take your shirt off, for me.”
Rhett's arm loosened around Link and Link pulled at the bottom of his shirt to pull over his head. Rhett could see Link's hairy chest rise and fall rapidly.
“Good boy. Do you want to show me how you like your nipples touched?”
“Rhett–” Link breathed as his hands reached his nipples on each side and began pinching and pulling.
It was now obvious to Rhett that Link was in fact fully erect in his jeans. “Does that feel good, Link?”
“Yeah…” he gave a little buck up of his hips trying to get some friction.
“Ok, stop playing with your nipples. Put your hands at your sides.” Link did as he was told.
“Good job. Now, unzip your jeans and pull them down a little. Keep your briefs on.”
“Is this Simon says?” Link mumbled as he unfastened the button and zipper. He carefully slid his jeans down to the bottom of his thighs. His boxer briefs were gray and that made this obscene already, a clear outline of his cock visible.
“You're doing good for me, Link. Touch your cock over your briefs.”
Link bit his lip and laid a hand over his hard cock over the fabric. He felt the heat and his heart racing through it. He was watching Rhett watching him. They'd been naked in front of each other before but this was different. A few beads of precum soaked through the fabric.
“Rhett, we can stop, you don't have to–”
“So you don't want to be my good boy?”
“Rhett I–” the damp spot on the fabric of Link's underwear grew a little.
“That's what I thought. Show me how you like to jerk yourself.”
Link blinked a few moments. “I'll have to take my boxers down…”
“Then take your boxers down for me, Link.”
Link sheepishly pulled at the waistband and lifted his hips so he could slide his underwear down by his jeans. His cock sprung free for Rhett’s eyes to see. He ran his hand over the head covered in his slick and used it to lubricate his first few strokes. He looked up to watch Rhett looking at the show Link was putting on for him. This gave him the courage to start squeezing and tugging his balls with his other hand.
“That feel good?” Rhett asked, prompting Link to lock eyes with him.
“Yeah…”
“Look at you, taking instruction so well. Showing me what gets you off.”
Link started adding a squeezing twist toward the top of his up stroke around the head. He was capturing the new precum and using it to help reduce the friction.
“Wanna make you proud,” Link said, a little breathy.
“You always do, so proud of you Link. All the time.” Rhett reached over and ruffled Link’s hair lovingly.
“Rhett… will you… tug my hair?” Link was a little helpless with both his bands occupied, at Rhett’s mercy.
“Since you’ve been a good boy,” Rhett said as he gripped some of Link’s locks and gave a firm tug, enough to move Link’s head up. Link made a pleasant groan and bucked his hips as he continued stroking.
Rhett watched Link for a good minute and then said, “Ok, changing position. You sit with your back pressed up against my chest.”
Link stopped and started to get up and almost fully tripped over his half down jeans and boxers. Rhett caught him while sitting on the couch, holding him up by his shoulders. They were eye to eye, a brief intense flash of electricity ran through Link.
“Be careful Link, I know you’re excited. Don’t go hurting my best friend now.” Rhett chuckled. Rhett helped right Link to standing.
“Take those off, you don’t need ‘em right now.”
Link shed his last remainders of decency and his cock throbbed once. He carefully seated himself against Rhett’s chest to his back, sitting between Rhett’s spread legs.
“Good boy. Now you can keep jerking yourself for me.”
Link was a bit rigid sitting up against Rhett, more out of nerves than discomfort. He resumed the stroking on his cock with the twist at the end, the other hand kneading his balls. Rhett gingerly wrapped an arm around Link.
“You can relax, Link. It’s ok. Lean on me.” Rhett said into Link’s ear, hot breath on the shell of it. Link moaned a little; this was like every teenage wet dream Link had had about his best friend.
Link shut his eyes tight for a moment and breathed a deep breath and let himself sink against Rhett. Rhett’s arm was still around his midsection and now Rhett had his head on Link’s shoulder so he could watch Link’s movements.
“Doesn’t that feel good, just to let me support you?” Rhett said, the deep rumble of his voice vibrating through his chest and against Link’s back.
Link bucked his hips with the next stroke down. He was dripping steady now, overwhelmed by the warmth and the sound and the smell of Rhett all around him. He felt so loved and wanted right now; he felt like he was drunk again.
“Rhett…” Link sighed as his hips bucked again.
Rhett’s hand across Link’s torso started to move, caressing the flesh it had access to. He wrapped his other arm around Link and both hands grazed Link’s inner thighs and rubbed their way up to his chest. He put each nipple between his thumb and pointer finger on each hand and pitched lightly at first.
“Oh fuck,” Link cried. “You know ‘m sensitive there,” he whimpered, increasing the speed of his strokes.
“Good boy, Link,” Rhett said low into Link’s ear and pinched harder.
Link bucked at the sensation and his hand on his balls fell loose and then reached to rest against Rhett’s wrist on the same side. He was leaving it there needing to touch Rhett directly in some way. He was bucking his hips more often now, the strokes stuttering and less even.
“Rhett, I’m close! Gonna–” he said like he was being tortured.
“Come for me, Link. Show me what a good boy you are,” Rhett coaxed, low and rumbly and hot breath on Link’s ear.
Link made a keening noise and his body got a little more tense as he focused on keeping a steady quick stroke on the top half of his cock, and in about a minute he was spilling come over his hand. Link made a pained half moaning half grunting combination; the first jet landed near his belly button, the next one grazed Rhett’s forearm. Rhett didn’t withdraw, holding Link until he rode out the last of his orgasm, now just dribbling over his cock and balls.
Link let himself go slack against Rhett, laying there catching his breath.
“Rhett, why…” Link didn’t even know how to phrase the question.
“I– I can’t love you the same way and I’m not aroused but… maybe I can do this for you sometimes. I gotta tell Jessie first, though; I didn’t plan on this happening.”
“Christy gave me the greenlight already.”
Rhett wasn’t surprised, of course he’d told Christy about how he felt about Rhett; how could he not? The thing is, when he was discovering if he was attracted to men, Jessie had already mentioned that it wouldn’t really even be cheating with Link—she often joked that Link was his other wife. But Rhett still wanted to talk to her about this, about boundaries, about his feelings about all of this.
“Thank you, Rhett. For being my rock and my hard place, if you get me.” Link said.
“The mythical beasts really are gonna think we’re gay together after this if you start saying shit like that,” Rhett laughed. He was glad Link was back to his irreverent, dorky self.
slugtoast Wed 17 Dec 2025 08:12AM UTC
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queerbastian Sat 20 Dec 2025 04:02PM UTC
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