#all the stuff in juno's tag is outdated lmao... or at least most of it

[multi-lefaiye]

OC KISS WEEK - DAY 4, REUNION

it's still day 4 somewhere- anyway!! finished one of the outlines i wanted to do for oc kiss week, and i was very excited to share :3

the actual kiss ended up not being super important to the scene, but i had fun writing it and getting a feel for these two's dynamic. juno and markus,,, beloveds,,,,

CW: references to a suicide attempt and suicidal ideation and alcoholism

--

It’s very late one night in September, well after one in the morning, and Markus is alone at his favorite bar downtown, Zesty’s. Most of the other patrons have filed out by now, leaving just him and the few other stragglers behind.

He’s sitting at a table in the corner, half asleep with his head on his folded arms, half-empty glass of whisky sitting next to him. He’s not as drunk as he was earlier, and his buzz has mostly faded. Now, he’s just tired.

God, he needs a fucking cigarette. It’s been a long day, and he’s just glad it’s ending.

Tomorrow, he goes back to court for another round with his ex’s lawyers. Tonight, he sees if he can drink himself to death before he gets there.

Just as he has that thought, he hears someone walking over to his table, clicking heels followed by the thump of a cane against the tiled floor.

Once they’re close enough, the stranger presses a kiss to the top of his head, ignoring the way he bristles and swats at them with a hand, and plops into the chair across from him.

Immediately, Markus is pissed off, practically snarling as he lifts his head to tell them to fuck off. The movement sends a dull, throbbing pain through his temples, and he grimaces as he rubs his eyes.

“Oooh, careful there,” the person across from him rasps, in an achingly familiar voice. “Don’t hurt yourself there, Torres.”

He opens his eyes and looks across the table to see-

Him. The man from the bridge, the one who’d dragged him back from the edge and told him to get his shit together.

In the dim lights of the bar, the man looks much more alive now, less like a corpse. His brown skin is no longer sunken and dull, his short white hair neatly trimmed and tied back, his single grey eye sparkling with amusement. Even his clothes look more put together, his sleek black suit and eyepatch out of place in a shitty little dive like Zesty’s.

Overall, he looks much more presentable than Markus feels right now. Fucking asshole.

“Fancy seeing you here,” the man says, lips pulled into a smirk. “Bit late, though, hm? Thought you had something important tomorrow.”

“The fuck was that for?” Markus groans. “Nevermind, just- just leave me alone.” The man snorts.

“What? I can drag you out of a river, but I can’t be your drinking buddy or give you a little kiss on the head?” Markus’ glower only makes the man snicker. “Jeez, who pissed in your booze, man?”

“You did,” he tells the stranger. “What are you even doing here?” It’s been just over a week since he met this man, and, truthfully, Markus had thought that would be the end of it, and he’d never see this man again.

He’d almost convinced himself by this point that their meeting was all just a strange fever dream. He tried to kill himself, and a white-haired corpse stopped him and told him to get his shit together. Markus has had much weirder dreams while black-out drunk, so it made sense enough to rationalize that night as nothing more than a nightmare.

And yet here he is, sitting across from the same goddamn corpse, who has the audacity to look more alive than Markus has felt in a long, long time.

(He doesn’t know why he’s so angry to see this man, really. Maybe he’s just angry at the world, and angrier at a reminder that he couldn’t even kill himself right.)

“Well, I’m supposed to be here for work, but I got bored,” the corpse hummed. He’d swiped one of the bar’s menu, his visible eye boredly half-lidded as he flips through it. “You’d be surprised how boring it is waiting for people to die.” A beat passes, he flicks his gaze upwards. “No offense. Anyway, you think the kitchen’s closed by now, or do you think maybe the chef would be willing to fry me up a-”

“Can you just-” Markus cuts him off, rubbing his eyes again. Fuck, his head’s throbbing. “Can you just leave me alone?” The words come out in a whine, more pathetic than he meant them to. “I didn’t ask you to save me, and I definitely didn’t ask you to fucking stalk me after the fact.”

Markus hears the man snap the menu shut and set it down on the table. When he chances a glance up, he sees the man staring him down, expression intense and unreadable.

“You’re right,” he says, flat and slow. “You didn’t ask me to, but I did anyway. I decided that you get to live. You’re fucking welcome.” He reaches out prods Markus’ forehead with a single finger, right between his furrowed eyebrows, giving him no time to flinch away.

For a moment, his forehead feels feverishly cold, before it abruptly warms. He jerks his head back and snaps at the man, “Don’t fucking touch me.” It takes him a few seconds to realize that his head doesn’t hurt anymore. Not only that, his anger is melting out of him, and he feels… not quite calm, but less inflamed. Less of an open, festering wound.

It’s like something in him is a little less rotten, and he’s not sure how to feel about it. How in the actual fuck-?

“I’m not stalking you, though,” the man says, ignoring Markus’ confused outburst as he crosses his arms and rests them on the table. “Like I said. I’m here for work. Your delightful company is an unexpected bonus.”

Markus doesn’t want to know, and he feels strangely lightheaded. He asks anyway. “... What do you mean, work?”

The man stiffens, and then he grins, showing off teeth that are just a bit too sharp. “Don’t worry about it.”

The two fall into an uncomfortable silence, the man examining the menu again as Markus stares into his abandoned drink. There’s a fly floating in the booze that he didn’t notice before, long-dead.

He wants to go home. He wants to die. He doesn’t know what he wants.

Well… not really. He does want one thing, and that’s an answer to a single question, the one that’s been eating at him in the back of his mind for the past few days.

“... Why’d you do it?” Markus asks after a moment. The man glances up at him again, but doesn’t say anything. Markus feels compelled to elaborate. “I mean- why save me? You don’t know anything about me, and I don’t know shit about you. Why does it matter to you if some- some washed-up old fuck like me decides to kill himself?”

The man thinks for a moment before responding. “It doesn’t,” he says. “In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if one person takes their life. I certainly don’t give a shit, and neither does the universe, or God, or whatever.” He taps his fingers on the table, shifting nervously in his seat. Markus notices distantly that his nails are painted black.

“I guess I just felt… bad,” the man says after a long moment. “I dunno. I just felt bad for you.” He sounds almost uncomfortable admitting it, shifting uneasily in his seat as he stares down at his nails.

“Well, that makes two of us,” Markus grouses, though there’s no longer any heat or anger in his words. Fuck, he needs another drink. He goes to sip from his whisky, only to remember the dead fly still floating in the drink and grimace. He sets his glass back down.

The two of them are quiet for a long moment. In the background, Markus dimly registers that the bartender is announcing the bar’s impending closure. They have another ten to twenty minutes before security tells them to leave, Markus knows from experience, but he can already see the other patrons gathering their things.

That means he needs to start heading home. The thought makes dread pool in the pit of his stomach, and he glances longingly at his glass. Maybe…

“Hey, I gotta get back to work, but…” the man says, and Markus looks up to see him staring again. His face is still… intense, but there’s something gentle in his eyes that wasn’t there before. It makes Markus distinctly uncomfortable to see, so he averts his eyes and looks down to see the man is holding a hand out to him.

The man sighs and shakes his head.

“Listen,” he starts again, “I know we got off on a pretty shitty foot, and you can hate me as much as you want for bothering you, but I think we both know that you could use a friend, or at least someone to bitch to instead of slowly melting your liver every night.” The man shifts a little. He looks almost nervous, like he’s not used to reaching out to anyone like this.

That makes two of them.

Markus hesitates, staring at the stranger’s hand with wide eyes. After a moment, the man seems to falter, starting to withdraw his hand.

“Sorry-” he starts, but before he can finish his sentence, Markus is grabbing his hand and grasping it, firmly but gently, in his own. It’s the first time in months he’s held someone’s hand like this, he realizes.

“We’re not friends,” Markus tells the man. “Not yet, anyway, and I don’t know if we will be, but… you’re not… wrong.” The admission makes his face burn with humiliation. “I don’t have a lot of friends right now, or people to talk to, not since Jul-” He takes a breath, cutting himself off.

“Point is,” Markus continues, “I… guess if you’re gonna hang around… I wouldn’t… completely mind the company.” A beat passes. “... What’s your name, anyway?”

The man’s answering smile is just as sharp as it was before, showing far too many teeth, but he seems… relieved, almost, as he squeezes Markus’ hand. “Juno,” he says. “You can call me Juno.”

---

was a lil unsure about tagging the full art/writing taglist, but fuck it we ball. if you don't wanna be tagged in any other oc kiss week stuff i do, pls let me know!

@skitzo-kero @anexor @vacantgodling @chaieyestea @corvus-rose

@drawnecromancy @invaderskoodge @paradoxspir1t @moonflowerrss @albatris

@yourlocal-lichen @angsty-prompt-hole @astral-runic @kk7-rbs @void-botanist