#i wanted to just make a little reply but i forgot tumblr doesnt allow that many tagged blogs

[good-beans]

@mulberriesandtea @clownsalot @trinipopkt @milk-ly @tired-and-unslimed @qrevo @azuresuu Thank You for yelling back you all are so right -- I'm glad we are all equally normal about this 😤👍

I know most of our focus goes (rightfully) to the trial songs, but I genuinely believe Baptism of Fire is equally a masterpiece of meaningful writing and intense vocal acting

Incoming tag rant because I need to yell about this, feel free to yell back

[bonesofapoet]

From Dusk ‘Til Dawn

[marcus lopez arguello x you]

author’s note: i dunno about you guys, but i miss this show So Much, and i wont disappear from this fandom again!! you know, probably. (used to write for deadly class under ladyofstadvst) also, this prompt is like ten years old but im still a sucker for it so here! we! are!

word count: 1148

ao3: @ ladyofstardvst (apparently tumblr doesnt like links anymore??)

two times Marcus wanted to kiss you, and the one time he did.

I.

Marcus Lopez Arguello couldn’t remember the last time he paid attention to the world around him.

He noticed thunderstorms and sunshine, knew when it was cold enough to snow. Saw the leaves begin to change from bright, leafy greens to honey gold and russet red. Of course he saw these things. He simply stopped caring about little happenings when Reagan killed his parents.

The last memory he had of a sunset . . . he couldn’t remember.

And he still couldn’t, even with the one painting the sky right before his eyes. Because when it was transforming into a radiant Monet as the sun descended down, down, down below the skyline, then the harbor -

The only place that held his attention was you.

You, with a smile that tugged the corners of your lips up towards your eyes. Eyes that reflected the deep violets melting into vibrant magentas and swirling with heavenly golden clouds. You, standing next to him in awe at the raw beauty this world had to offer for no cost but your time.

The air had become tinted with that specific shade of pastel pink, and Marcus had to catch his breath. His chest tightened, hands began to shake just enough to be noticed. He shoved them in his pockets so you wouldn’t see.

He would trade all the sunsets in the world just to feel your lips against his own. He would do it in a heartbeat.

II.

This time, it’s different.

Power outages darkened the city, torrential rain threatened to flood the streets, shutting down trains and buses, and no, don’t even think about walking. Wind came alive to uproot small trees and gift certain people with wings. It rattled the glass of Lost Innocence Comics right inside of its frames.

You and Marcus were soaked to the bone after stepping outside to just get a look down the street.

Great, he groaned, slamming his head against the locked door. The C L O S E D sign rattled against the glass. We’re fucking stuck here.

In front of him, the clouds changed from heather gray to deep navy and, within minutes, they were almost midnight black. It began to look like night had come to call early.

“Think we can find some candles around here?”

“Uh,” Marcus scrambled to collect himself, turned to face you in the fading light. “Who knows, there’s all kinds of shit in back.”

An eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Lead the way, then.”

Thunder rumbled low and followed you into the small storeroom. It was all damp concrete and chaos and muted rainfall past the small window lodged into the far wall.  Bright, violent flashes of lightning accompanied scavenged flashlight beams as you scored a box of matches. Marcus balanced the half-burned pillars he found on a stack of inventory crates to breathe the treasured warmth of fire into the darkness.

Your chilled bones didn’t complain, either.

Flickers of flame danced across you both, the silence slowly growing thick with that special sort of tension. The kind that was only present when something big was about to happen, or when no one had anything left to lose. It would have become overwhelming, but then – then. You were closer to each other than you had been before. Closer than the moment that had just passed. Maybe it was the sharp crack of thunder that made your heart beat faster when his lips were drawing so close to yours -

A bright, harsh light filled the room and you both jerked apart.

The power kicked back on, and the worst of the storm had passed.

III.

Things were different after Vegas.

Distant, secretive, hushed.

A fog followed them around like a phantom that thrived on fear, and fear alone. The friends who came back were not the same people who left the day before, not really. Those mere hours seemed to age them years, decades, eons.

Maybe it was smart that you bailed on them with Willie. You wondered if the abandonment of their two friends led to their downfall.

That was the thing about King’s Dominion - death clung to it’s students like a cloak one could never shed. You didn’t always want to rush off to meet danger at it’s doorstep when you didn’t have to. There was value in a quiet, comfortable weekend spent in your room, thank you very much. So you turned them down.

But that was the thing.

There was no such thing as comfort in a place like King’s, in a life that trained the next generation of assassins. It felt detached somehow, the reality that there were no safety nets, no promise of a life growing old, no promise of even growing at all. Comfort, ease, dreams – those ceased to exist the day anyone walked through those monstrous front doors.

Marcus forgot that too, sometimes.

Vegas reminded him that life was so impossibly fleeting, invincibility certainly did not exist, and there was no fucking time to live safely when there was nothing safe about life in the first place. When all you really had were ghosts that didn’t yet exist, and nightmares of the ghosts already born from your own making.

When San Francisco greeted them in the early morning sunlight, Marcus Lopez Arguello found himself heading straight to your dorm.

I almost died, he greeted you with tired eyes and a rough voice. Like. Five fucking times.

He watched as your eyes drifted over his silhouette propped against the door frame, all bruised and bloody boy. You expected nothing less at this point.

“But you didn’t.” came your reply.

“No,” he said. You were so close that it had gotten difficult to breathe – and, no, it wasn’t because of his bruised ribs. Probably. “I didn’t die.”

The unspoken ‘yet’ hung in the air, the elephant in your room.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t with-”

The dam inside Marcus cracked, hitched, broke.

There wasn’t a universe where he would allow you to apologize for something he had no right to ask for in the first place. No universe where he would allow death to take him home before he did the small things. The important things.

The kind of things that almost dying in an alleyway dumpster in Las Vegas made him realize mattered.

He kissed you, and you kissed him back.

It was hesitant, at first. All soft lips and warm breath questioning if this was real, if this was happening, if maybe Marcus really was dead after all. Then passion crept in, the comfort of his arms wrapped around you, your hands threaded through his hair, his own pulled you closer and closer and closer.

He was so very much alive, with a pounding heartbeat to prove it. With your skin grazing his, with your breath in his lungs. For the first time in a long time, he was so very grateful to be alive.