The Last Two

            (A hilltop.  MARK and JUSTIN are sitting.)

JUSTIN:  She always has bad breath.

MARK:  You should say something.

JUSTIN:  You can’t just say something like that.

MARK:  Sure you can.  She’s yours, isn’t she?

JUSTIN:  Yeah, but she’s not like—

MARK:  She’s practically your wife.

JUSTIN:  No, she’s not.

MARK:  Justin—

JUSTIN:  Mark, we agreed.

MARK:  I know, but—

JUSTIN:  We agreed she’s not my wife.

MARK:  But she’s something, right?

JUSTIN:  Yeah, I mean—she’s something.

MARK:  You think Kate is perfect?

JUSTIN:  No.

MARK:  Of course she’s not!  But she’s mine!  And Jane is yours.  And we have to make this work.

JUSTIN:  Kate’s better than Jane.

MARK:  No, she’s not.

JUSTIN:  She’s nicer.

MARK:  If you wanted Kate, you could have had Kate.  I told you, you could have whichever one you wanted, and you went with Jane.

JUSTIN:  I thought—Jane and Justin—I thought, Oh, that’s cute!  That’s how I decided.  I’m a moron.

MARK:  Do you want to switch?  Maybe we could talk to them about switching.

JUSTIN:  No, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

MARK:  Probably not.  You probably wouldn’t be happy anyway, and honestly, we need to remember that this isn’t about us being happy.  We’re doing something for the greater good.

JUSTIN:  What if—

MARK:  What?

JUSTIN:  Nothing.

            (A beat.)

            I miss you.

MARK:  You don’t have to miss me.  I’m right here.

JUSTIN:  This deal they made—

MARK:  It’s not a deal they made, Justin.  We all agreed to it.

JUSTIN:  You three came up with it, I just—nodded.

MARK:  You could have—

JUSTIN:  What?  Been the one guy not agreeing with everybody else?  Why bother?

MARK:  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.  I mean, you do have to contribute—

JUSTIN:  Well, that’s what we’re talking/about, isn’t it?

MARK:  --something.  But/nobody’s going to force you to/do that.

JUSTIN:  I mean, isn’t that what/we’re talking about here though?  Pressure?

MARK:  You know what?  Let me talk to Jane.  We should switch for a little while.  Give you a little break.  You can be by yourself.  Take a break from…Kate’s not—Switching temporarily might not be a bad idea.

JUSTIN:  You know, there are ways to do this—

MARK:  We’re not scientists, Justin.

JUSTIN:  It doesn’t take a scientist to know there are other ways of doing this, Mark.

MARK:  And what if we screw up?

JUSTIN:  Then we go back to the old way?

MARK:  This is not going to end with you and me being together, okay?  We talked about this.  Jane, and Kate, and I—we all agree—that there are productive and…appropriate ways of—having kids—and raising kids and—and—and we have a big responsibility on our hands.

JUSTIN:  I wish I had died when the bomb went off.

            (A beat.)

MARK:  You don’t mean that.

JUSTIN:  Yes, I do.  I mean—what’s the point?  Living so I can live with Jane?  Or even Kate?  And you and I are buddies and we’re going to have these two little perfect families because we have to because if we don’t humankind just becomes…And we can’t just—have them and raise them as, like, a village or something, because we need the kids to want to have kids with each other, even though eventually things are going to get incestuous anyway, because when you start with two couples and their kids have kids, you’ve pretty much already contaminated the gene pool.  I mean, this isn’t the Bible.  Some random person isn’t going to come walking out of the woods to impregnate anybody, and if he does, we probably shouldn’t let him, because he’ll probably have three arms because of radiation poisoning or whatever, and you—

            (MARK kisses him.  It’s impulsive.  The kiss ends softly.)

--you really need to stop doing that.

MARK:  I’m sorry.

JUSTIN:  No, you’re not.

MARK:  You’re just really cute when you ramble.

            (A beat.)

JUSTIN:  You know, it’s nice to know that God probably doesn’t hate us.  I mean, who we are.

MARK:  What makes you say that?

JUSTIN:  Well, he had his choice, right?  A bomb went off.  Then another, then another—and the only reason we’re still here is because—why?  And yet, here we are.  And we’re both—

MARK:  But we can’t be with each other, so maybe he does—

JUSTIN:  Who says we can’t?

MARK:  The girls want to do this a certain way and if we say no—

JUSTIN:  The girls can’t get pregnant.

            (A beat.)

MARK:  What?

JUSTIN:  That’s my theory anyway.  They can’t get pregnant.  The radiation, it—I mean, we’ve been trying, right?

MARK:  Yeah, but—

JUSTIN:  Obviously something’s wrong.  If not with them, with us.  Maybe our—stuff—isn’t any good anymore.  I don’t know.  I just know that it’s been two years.  Something should have happened by now if it was going to happen.

MARK:  So—what?  That’s it?  We’re done?

JUSTIN:  We’ve been done.  It’s just that nobody wants to recognize that because then it means we really are…it.  And the girls don’t want us together, because we’re the last two guys on the planet, so if we shack up, then where does that leave them?  They don’t want to be alone.  I don’t blame them.

MARK:  NOBODY IS GOING TO BE ALONE, OKAY?

            (A beat.)

No matter what.  We’ll stick together, we’ll—

JUSTIN:  But you do know that—barring some catastrophe—people don’t tend to die all at once.  Somebody’s going to be the last.  I mean, that was the reason we wanted to have kids, right?  Not just to keep the population going, but to…ensure that there would be somebody there for each of us when…

MARK:  I don’t think it’s that selfish, it--/it’s totally selfish.

JUSTIN:  It’s totally selfish.

MARK:  I hate the girls.  I know I shouldn’t, but—there’s no reason for me not to.  I mean, it’s arbitrary—that we’re here with them.  I mean, you and I didn’t even know each other until—I hate the girls.  And I really like you.  I don’t know if I love you, I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time trying not to love you, but even if I did, I don’t know if it would only be true because you’re the only one here I’m actually attracted to, but—I know I like you.  I really like you.

JUSTIN:  Let’s…

MARK:  We can’t.

JUSTIN:  Why?

MARK:  Because if it were the other way around--?  The girls…they wouldn’t leave us.  (Pause.)  Right?

            (A beat.)

JUSTIN:  So let’s sit.

MARK:  Yeah.  We can sit.

            (MARK puts his arm around JUSTIN.)

So you’re it, huh?

JUSTIN:  I’m it.

MARK:  I’m it too.

JUSTIN:  Kinda makes things easier, doesn’t it?  I mean, morbidly depressing, but easier.  I just look at you and I know, you’re—

            (He looks at him.  MARK looks back.)

Okay.

MARK:  I’m okay?

JUSTIN:  No, like, ‘Okay.’  Like—you’re it?  Okay.

MARK:  Okay?

JUSTIN:  Okay.

MARK:  Yeah.

            (He kisses him one more time.)

Okay.

            The End