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sweetly-yours-and-mine · 2 years ago

Text

Chicago - Oneshot

Pairing: Marc Spector x Reader

Word Count: 12.7k

Summary: You and Marc go back to Chicago.

Warnings: as close to smut as I can write, 18+ only please, unprotected sex (please practice safe sex), reader takes the morning after pill, essentially a dive into Marc's past

A/N: I am not Jewish so if there is anything I misrepresented, particularly regarding Jewish burial practices please let me know.

This is part of The Dress universe, but can be read on its own.

I don't own photos, dividers or characters.

Marc’s hand is heavy and warm within yours. It not only carries your hand, but the weight of the world and the love he holds for you. Even on a day like today, as you both walk down the street towards a home that had been turned into a prison for him, you can feel the weight of his love. It hangs about you like a cloud heavy with rain, rumbling with thunder.

He’d insisted that he take your luggage, and it’s now click-click-clicking across the square cobblestones of the sidewalk. Your carry-on, a small backpack, is slung over one of his shoulders, bumping into his own backpack on the other shoulder.

Always the light-packer, Marc hadn’t checked any luggage, though it was complimentary with the international flight. So, you’d packed a couple of things for him as well. Steven’s latest book, a favourite baseball cap of Marc’s, a fuzzy, soft blanket that was a favourite of the three of you. Bits and pieces of home that weren’t a necessity, like the items in his backpack, but a comfort. Something to help him stay calm, grounded. Face the week ahead a little easier.

At the bottom of it all, squeezed between a pair of sweatpants and Marc’s favourite dress, is a little surprise. A Cubs jersey that you’d scavenged half of London to get your hands on. You’re planning to wear it on Sunday, when the Cubs were playing the Mets, a home game that Marc was going to take you to.

“Hey,” you slow down, right before the final twist to his home street. Marc had, on purpose, given the taxi driver the wrong address. You’d stayed quiet and let him pretend you didn’t realise, that you hadn’t sifted through the mail a few months ago and the address on an expedited letter from the United States hadn’t caught your eye. “You know…” you don’t mean to pressure him to look at you, knowing that this is already exponentially hard for him. But he does. He turns to you with soft eyes, tense shoulders.

“You know…” you’re fumbling for words now, wishing you had that magical ability of Marc’s to say exactly the right thing, in the least amount of words. With a sigh and tilt of your chin, you lean up a little towards him. On instinct, Marc presses his forehead against yours. His eyes fall closed. The heat of his breath against your face is more comforting than the sun. “We can go away now, take the rest of the week off and be tourists. Go to all those tacky places everyone raves about.”

Your eyes fall open just in time to catch a smile break across Marc’s face like a butterfly. The smell of his cologne is wrapping around you. You feel indestructible beside him. You hope he feels the same.

“Don’t worry, honey,” there’s the traces of the smile still in his voice, even if his face is neutral again. “I’ll take you to see The Bean regardless.” He squeezes your hand, turns the corner with renewed strength.

He knows that that’s the last thing you’ve come here to see. As the two of you were going to the bank to get a mortgage pre-approval, a bank that you’d made sure had an international branch in Spain, you’d hesitated. Paused and asked him if it was possible that you were moving too fast.

Misunderstanding your intentions, Marc had dropped to one knee and stuttered out a half-proposal before you’d dragged him up by the shoulders and told him what you meant.

So, Marc delayed your appointment with the advisor, booked two round flights for Chicago and took a couple extra shifts at work.

A month later, here you were.

You convince him to let you help with the luggage as you climb the stairs to the red-brick townhouse. The place you’d only heard of through Marc and Steven’s stories. You wait patiently, let Marc collect himself and grab the knocker in his own time. There are light curtains drawn at the windows, which shuffle at the sound of his knock, a grey head of curly hair and thick-rimmed glasses peeking out from the little gap before it disappears, and the lock and its door clicks open.

Surreal, it’s all surreal really. The house and the curtains you don’t recall ever having made their way into any of the stories you’d heard. Marc’s father, who, even a wrinkled and old, looks the spitting image of his son.

“Hi, Marc,” he speaks up first, his grip on the door so tight that his knuckles turn white. His gaze falls to you, searching. You smile at him, let Marc decide how, when and if he wants to introduce you to his father. If he wanted to turn back now, without even a hello, you’d let him.

You hope Marc knows that you’d do anything for him, let him do anything to you.

“Hi,” Marc’s voice is more gruff than when he talks with you. He lets go of your hand and smooths his palm down your back, pulling you into his side. He introduces you, tells his father your name, “My partner.” Marc hates the word girlfriend, you know that it makes his mouth sour to say it. A label that wasn’t fitting for what you were.

“Hi, Mr. Spector,” the words fall onto the little mat in front of the door. You step over them as you step into his arms for a hug. His whiskers scratch your skin as you feel a kiss pressed close to your temple. The weight of words unsaid, conversations to be had is heavy around the three of you.

“Elias please,” up close you can see the tears in his eyes, as he grips your shoulder comfortingly and lets you go. Magnet-like as always, you return to Marc’s side. His father gives the two of you another shaky smile, fidgets as he pushes his glasses back up his nose, plays with the hem of his cardigan. He waits a second longer than what would be considered normal, his eyes drifting up and down your frames quickly before he opens his mouth to say something but thinks the better of it. Stepping to the side, he opens the door for you, “Please, come in.”

You silently help Marc tug the suitcase into the door, let your hand rest on his a second too long on the handle, close the door quietly behind you.

The squeal of the kettle is the saving grace from the weighted silence that would have fallen on the three of you. Elias rushes to the kitchen, tells you in half-sentences to make yourself at home. He’s a flurry of curls and the worn wool of his sweater.

You do as he heads, take your shoes off and reach to take Marc’s hand in yours again. He shucks the backpacks off him, tosses them to the side, intertwines your fingers and starts going into the house.

He pauses when he catches sight of the pillows and blankets that are on one of the bottom stairs of the staircase. You squeeze his hand and lean up, whisper to him over the clanging of cabinets and the murmuring from the kitchen, that you don’t have to stay the week here, that there are plenty of cheap hotels nearby or farther away, if that’s what he wants, you’d be happy to stay at.

He nods, tense and curt. Leads you over to the couch, places your hand on his knee with a reaffirming tap of his hand. You catch his eye and he winks at you. Heavy and weighted. You smile back at him, squeeze his leg and let him know that it’s ok. More for yourself than him, you lean in and kiss his cheek. Fleeting, you feel like a girl before prom, sneaking in a kiss like this in his childhood house.

A tray of three mugs, all mismatched and chipped are plopped in front of you. A shaky smile sent your way from Elias. You don’t miss the way they drop to his son, the way his fingers tremble and find refuge in the magazines strewn on the table. Tutting he starts to gather them up, “Sorry, I-I, I’ve meant to clean this place up, but no matter what I do, the mess stays the same, and after a while trying I just gave up,” he pauses and looks at the two of you. “I don’t often get visitors.”

“You have a lovely home,” you look around, catch sight of a sepia-tinted photo hanging on the walls of a smiling little boy with chubby cheeks and look away as if burned. “Is it a remodel or?”

You know Marc is laughing at you, internally at least. Though the mortgage pre-approval still had to be approved, you’d taken up the house search with a commitment that scared him sometimes. He’d wake in the middle of the night, see you still scrolling on your computer after you’d promised him that you’d be done in just five minutes, baby, I have a feeling this is the one. You had an eye for houses now, would look upon them with a buying hand and could speak lingo that he barely understood.

The first time you talk with Marc’s father, your father-in-law of sorts, you speak about nothing at all. Marc stays quiet through all of it, dropping in quiet, strained sentences in between your words. Lets his hands wander where he wants them, your legs and arms, around your back and shoulders. It’s his way of letting you know that it’s alright, you’re doing good, he’s doing good.

Elias asks you about your job, London, your family. Sometimes, you think you’ve caught Marc smiling, his smile that hides behind his eyes. You can’t look at him too long for fear of making him too uncomfortable and so, you’re not sure if it’s just your mind playing tricks on you or if it’s really just Marc.

You miss him. He’s sitting right next to you, his hands warm against your body, and yet your heart yearns for him in ways you’ve only dreamt of someone else longing for you.

You drink tea and eat some crackers, hear the crack in Marc’s voice when he asks his father why he’s still buying these things.

“They’re good, they’ve become my favourite too,” there’s a faltering smile on Elias’ face, a crack in his voice that mirrors Marc’s.

You make a mental note of the brand and decide that it’s worth it to buy another suitcase just to be filled up with the crackers. Marc’s hands flutter to your waist.

As he starts to calm down, you see glimpses of the man Elias has become. Soft-spoken with a gentle temperament. A father grieving over two sons and a wife.

Your heart quivers as you think about how it’d feel to lose Marc, Marc whom you’ve only known for a few years. Marc whose fingers are trying to push the tension out of your muscles. Your treasure, Marc.

That evening, Marc devours a whole deep-dish pizza by himself, makes your heart warm with his renewed appetite. That evening, he decides that he wants to spend the night at his father’s. Mumbles something along the lines of getting a cab at this hour. So, you help his father make up the guest room for you, help Marc lug the suitcase up and stay discretely quiet as you pass the closed door right at the top of the stairs.

Elias sneaks in when he hears the shower running, sees the opened suitcase still filled with clothes, and his face falls.

“I-uh,” there’s a loss of zeal in his actions, as he holds up a handful of towels. “Just thought I’d drop these off, for extra. Though I don’t think you’ll be needing them anymore.” His gaze falls back to the suitcase, the empty chest of drawers.

“You know, Elias,” you stand up and take the towels from him, place them on the bed and make him hold your eyes. “We don’t actually have a hotel booked.”

He grins, forces himself to stop and then grins again and runs his hand across his face, looking away. The scene makes you smile, biting the inside of your cheek. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

In a burst of affection, he wraps his arms around you, hugs you much harder than what he did in the entrance of his home with the heat of Marc’s gaze on him. You feel a scratchy brush of his lips as he kisses your forehead, pulls away and looks you up and down again. He opens his mouth to speak when he hears the shower being turned off and rushes away. “Well, good night.”

“Good night,” the door closes moments later, only for the bathroom door to open and reveal Marc, with only a towel wrapped around his waist.

“My father was in here,” he swallows thickly, running a hand over his face in a gesture eerily similar to Elias’ a few moments ago.

You nod, take a towel and lead Marc into a chair. “Just dropping off some things we might need.” You start working the water out of his hair, knowing that he’d just let it dry, sopping wet as it is right now, and risk getting a cold. You refrain from scenting him like a dog, though you know Marc always smells amazing after a shower, and it makes you curl yourself into his body at nights in your sleep. You know tonight is going to be no different, if the jet lag doesn’t get to you.

Taking care of Marc’s hair is one of your favourite things to do with him. You like drawing him a bath filled with bubbles, pouring water over his hair and working in shampoo and conditioner. His hair is beautiful, and you hope that, when the time is right, his child will have the same.

When the majority of the water has been absorbed into the towel, you hang it up, and search through your suitcase for the little bottle of hair product you’d bought for him. The bottle that he begrudgingly uses for your sake, Steven less so. It makes their hair softer, more defined, easier to manage.

“Fuck, baby, you packed that thing?” You hope his eye doesn’t fall on all the other things you’ve packed, not wanting to go through the charade where he scolds you for packing sentimentally and not practically. Where he holds up items accusingly and tilts his head, silently asking you what was going through your head.

The answer is embarrassing. Him. Always him and Steven. They’re your world and you’re not sure if you want to explain to Marc that it’s difficult to stop thinking about the world, even for just a few moments.

“Hush, Spector,” you come back behind him and open the bottle, pour some of the product into your hand. Marc’s eyes fall shut as you start to work it into his hair. “You need to keep your curls moisturised, otherwise they get all frizzy.”

“Maybe I like them frizzy.” In the privacy of your shared room, you see his walls eb away, and he turns back into the man you’ve grown to know. Witty, affectionate, teasing. He always loves you, that never changes wherever you are.

So, you quip back and forth with him, let him kiss you breathless in bed and tease you a little more about getting turned on so easily. He’s escaping a little, letting the pressure of the house fade away into nothingness. You read to him out loud, let his hands crawl under your shirt and shamelessly grope at your chest, press his nose in the space between your breasts knowing that that’s where you always spray your perfume.

The sheets are soft against your skin, Marc’s body and his love warming you up. The house quiets down, the curtains are drawn. The feeling of his skin against yours is intoxicating. Marc falls asleep earlier than you, so entangled with you that you can feel his heartbeat against yours. Your hearts start to sync up together and the rhythm makes you sleepy.

The headlights of a car are dulled by the blinds as it hums its way down the street. Marc’s even breaths are the last things you register before falling asleep yourself.

The stress of the day before gets to Marc more than the jet lag, and as he sleeps soundly, you slip away from him and put on a sweater of his, padding softly downstairs with a book. The sun has barely risen and you’ve barely gotten over four hours of sleep, but another minute in bed with Marc, seeing him sleeping so effortlessly when you couldn’t was going to drive you insane.

So, downstairs it was.

The smell of coffee and toasted bread takes you by surprise. You peer into the kitchen to see Marc’s father, in a plaid robe and slippers standing and looking outside the window into the backyard, his hair a crowsnest. There’s the gentle drip of the coffee machine, the hum of the fridge, abandoned plates and glasses from last night’s dinner in the sink.

“Morning,” you say quietly for fear of breaking the early morning calm you and Steven love so much.

“Hi,” he’s beaming at you as he turns around. In another whirlwind of movements, he rushes you to the dining table, set on being a good host. He presses a cup in your hands, places some sugar on the table and asks if you take anything else with your coffee. He offers to buy some cream for you, if that’s what you prefer. Unspoken but still there is the question of Marc, the answer to which he’s dying to hear.

Like his son, it seems, Elias talks through his eyes.

You smile and let him know that it’s alright, tacking on that Marc drinks his coffee black anyways. You stay quiet about Steven, about his experimental superfood, plant-based lattes he gifts you every morning. The way his eyes light up when you compliment them, the way he kisses your forehead and cheeks and the way your heart stutters when you think of having to leave him for work.

Elias latches on to that little bit of information like a moth to a flame, “Black?” His eyes light up, he plays his nails against the ceramic of his own mug and makes quiet clinks. Nodding, you confirm and he shakes himself out of his trance, “You sleep alright? Was the bed comfortable?”

“Yes, very,” you opt not to tell him about the jet lag, about how your eyes are glueing together when you blink. You take a sip of coffee instead, “Just an early riser that’s all.”

“Good, good,” he shifts, adjusts his glasses, brushes his hand through his hair.

“Did you sleep well?” you’re spooning some sugar into your coffee, expecting that the conversation is going to go in the same direction as the night before.

Laughing nervously, he looks away from you, “No, actually. Couldn’t lay still for the life of me. Too nervous I guess.”

Your eyes soften, “It must have been hard for you, with Marc gone for so long.”

“What?” he turns back to you with trembling lips that he hides behind his coffee cup. “Oh, well-” he makes a low noise at the back of his throat that sounds suspiciously like Marc’s when he’s trying to push back tears “-can’t say I blame him for staying away that much. I wouldn’t have done anything different.”

You smile at him, look down at your coffee to alleviate some of the pressure settling in the room around you. Your loyalties to Marc and Steven are wrapped tight around your heart, and they keep you quiet as you don’t try to contest Elias’ claim. To say that there wasn’t a time you had just as much unbridled hatred toward the man sitting in front of you as you had for his wife would be wrong to say. But you’re in his home, with his son, here to cross bridges, alleviate the weight on Marc’s shoulders a little, and so, though you don’t try to actively comfort Elias, you don’t bring him down either.

There’s still much to learn about him, to figure out, and you won’t cause any more unnecessary drama this week than there will already be. The photo is still hanging on the wall, right behind the couch you and Marc were sitting on yesterday, beaming like a spotlight that you discretely ignore.

Instead you stand up, head to the sink and start on the dishes from the night before, warding off any half-hearted attempts of Elias’ to stay put, that guests don’t do chores in his house. You tell him that you don’t mind, that you like having something to do with your hands. So, he sits quietly and reads through yesterday’s paper, finishes his coffee.

The sun starts to rise to the melody of the running tap, the occasional rustle of the paper.

Your mind drifts back to yesterday in the plane, it felt like lifetimes ago. Marc had claimed that he was going to stay awake the whole eight hour plane ride. That you two were travelling west, you’d gain an ungodly amount of hours, and get there only three hours, Chicago time, after your departure.

He told you to go to sleep, for he knew how long you were up the night before packing. That he’d stay awake, not only for his circadian rhythm, but for you as well. Make sure he got yours and his money’s worth of aeroplane snacks, let you lay on his shoulder, wake you up before landing so you could pop your ears ahead of time.

His high ideals had lasted him all of take-off. The moment the plane leaped into the sky it was as if someone pressed the off switch in his mind. He collapsed into your lap almost instantly, and you had no choice but to stay awake so as to ensure you got the cookies for his sweet tooth, thread your fingers through his hair and wake him up before landing so his ears would pop ahead of time.

You drank your fill of Marc in those hours. Gazed down at him for so long that your neck became sore and you started getting concerned gazes from the flight attendants. Your eyes traced his face, in a well-known rhythm you spent the early mornings playing until he woke up and pulled you back into his arms again with a grumble.

You dry your hands and turn around, come to sit back down at the table and take your coffee and book in hand.

For a few seconds you wish you’d stayed in bed, so you could do the same with Marc. So you could give him some soft touches and kiss his neck until he pushed you away.

“You’re good for him, I can tell,” at the sound of his voice your gaze focuses back in and you realise you’ve never actually focused on the page. You look at him and he offers you a meek smile.

Your heart stutters, you’re not sure if you can tell Elias how much that sentence means to you, that you’re going to store it away, bring it out for when you’re feeling doubtful and play it over and over to comfort you. “Oh,” a smile creeps on your face, eyes fill with tears before you look down and blink them away. This trip was for you as much as it was for Marc it seemed. “I-I…I’m not-” you take a stuttering breath away and wipe away a stray tear and smile at Elias. “He’s good for me too, brings out the best in me.”

Touch comforts you, he must have noticed that last night with his son touching you every second of every minute. Elias reaches forward and places a warm hand on yours, giving you a gentle squeeze.

He pulls away, fidgets with the edge of his newspaper and makes a faint crinkling sound, “Do you mind me asking how you two met?”

You tell him it’s alright. Run through the story over again. The bookstore, Marc, the sushi place and how his son was so nervous you were scared that he’d gotten food poisoning.

It feels like you’ve taken a stack of photographs, held your thumb against the edge and are flipping through at rapid pace. You try to slow down, go back and forth in your story as you try to savour the moment, make Elias see the high-energy atmosphere of the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the way Marc looked at you as if you held the sun in your arms, the way your heart flip-flopped around through the whole thing and how you were awash with disappointment when he didn’t kiss you at the end.

The narrative is so jumbled up now, that you’re not even sure where you are in the story of your first date before he surprises you, shows you that he’s been hanging on to every word you’ve said until now, even if it just sounds like confused, lovesick ramblings to your ears. “I thought they were tulips?”

You’re at that point where Marc is walking you back to your place, where he tells you to stay where you are for just one minute as he pops into a florist shop, closing for the day and returns with a box of long-stemmed roses and a sheepish expression on his face. “No, he got me both,” you still feel giddy when you think of that night, still feel like it was plucked out of a fairy tale. “Tulips before, and roses after.”

Your cheeks heat up under the scrutiny of his stare, as he tries to sort out what he thinks of it and you look back down to your book.

Though you might joke around with Marc about it sometimes, it was a small detail about the beginning of your relationship with him that you felt was as vital to your health as your heart.

When you’re with friends, you state the fact proudly, that your partner got you not one, but two bouquets on your first date to show that he was serious, that the body-crushing connection between your souls was not one-sided. You still have the roses, dried up and placed lovingly in the box they came in, tucked away safely in your closet. Every once in a while, usually when you’re alone in your apartment, you put on the outfit you wore that night and take the flowers out of their box, twirling around your living room with them cradled in your arms like a baby.

Marc would surely laugh at you if he knew you did this. Elias is most likely on his way to find it all ridiculous, call you a senseless romantic and take back his positive judgement of you.

“Why both?” is all he asks.

You try not to read into it too much and decide not tell him about how Marc had overanalyzed himself into a little corner of his mind and changed his mind before the date, had almost cancelled on you if it wasn’t so late. “He couldn’t decide, so I got both.”

“That’s lovely,” his warm tone is what convinces you to look back at him. There’s not a trace of resentment in his features. His face is soft, eyebrows wrinkled together in sympathy. Elias is more perceptive than you give him credit for, “Truly, it’s a lovely story.”

A little flame of possessiveness flares up inside you. Mine. You want to tell him that it’s your story, that you lived through it and you were the one that got to tell it and make other people look at you and Marc with jealousy laced into their body like the back of a corset.

You bite your tongue instead, watch as he gets up and refills your coffee cups, rummages through the pantry for a package of cookies, and offers them to you.

“They’re really very good,” he presses with a slight smile when you decline. He reminds you of the way Steven strings adverbs together as if making a pearl necklace. You relent and smile back at him, thank him and take one.

Trying to talk with Elias, without having had a conversation about it first with Marc, is worse than walking on eggshells. It’s not even walking, just meaningless circles around and around. As soon as you start to make some progress, the leash around your neck is pulled back, reminding you that you still need to talk with Marc, Marc still needs to talk with his father.

The last thing you want to do is betray Marc’s trust, the last thing you want is to make Elias feel he can’t trust you.

The sound of water running through the pipes comes from upstairs and you excuse yourself to your room to go check on Marc.

He’s still in the washroom when you go up, the bed neatly made with all the corners tucked in. Though Marc often tries to stop his presence from making an impression on the world around him, the room radiates with him, his soul a candle that you like to hold to your chest to warm you up, as it lights the space around you.

Over the years, you’ve come to realise how you’ve grown to be dependent on Marc’s presence. How your skin tingles when you’re away from him, the way your fingers itch to touch him if he’s close by. It’s the by-product of spending almost every minute you’ve had with him, alone, usually in his apartment or yours.

Now, you know that if he’s not in bed with you, you’ll need an extra blanket to stay warm enough to sleep. Physically and emotionally, you depend on Marc, and so does Marc depend on you. It’s the most intimate bond you’ve ever shared with a person, that comes with its little perks and side effects.

So, when Marc opens the door of the washroom, rubbing at his eye with the back of his finger and catches sight of you, he bounds the length of the room in moments and is hugging you as if he hasn’t seen you in three years. It’s an aspect of your life a therapist would frown upon and would immediately start taking steps to fix.

You don’t care. You like the way your heart flutters when it’s away from Marc, the way it flutters when you see him again. The way he holds you as if you’re life itself and everything in between.

“Where were you?” he murmurs into your hair. He presses his hands into your shoulder blades and closes the particles of space between you. “Woke up alone.”

You make a small noise at the back of your throat, hug him tighter. The image he puts in your mind makes you hurt, “M’sorry. I couldn’t sleep. Jet lag.”

There’s a sound at the back of his throat that mirrors yours. With his hand soothing the back of your head, he tells you that you shouldn’t nap today, no matter how hard it’ll be. That he’ll treat you instead to an early bedtime and fix your sleep schedule overnight.

“You’re so sweet,” you pull away and cup his face, running your thumbs over the soft skin underneath his eyes. “For taking care of me the way you do.”

His hands come to rest on yours, he smiles that subtle Marc smile that to an untrained eye looks like indifference. To you it looks like love, adoration, the promise of taking care of you for as long as you’ll have him. Eyes falling closed, you feel his forehead against yours before it’s even there.

He’s perfect.

He’s yours and he’s perfect and you’re his. You never want to be parted from him from this day on. You want to wake up beside him for the rest of your mornings left. You want him and everything else he has to offer you. A life without Marc Spector in it doesn’t make sense to you anymore. A life where the intense need and desire your soul holds for his is returned to you in spades.

Marc Spector has integrated himself into your heart as an extra artery, vital and essential. You can’t fathom living without him as much as you can’t fathom living without your coffee machine or living without an artery.

The intense feelings wash over you, the exhaustion probably kicking in right around now and you hear Marc cooing, feel his shaking fingers wiping away your tears, “Now, honey…” you open your eyes and smile watery, two tears spilling over your cheeks as you do. You know how easily Marc gets affected when you cry, and you try to stop, “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” you shake your head and look down. Taking his hands, you guide them back to where they were on your face. He guides you in turn to look back up at him, and sends you a nervous smile once you do, “I love you, Marc.”

He doesn’t need to say it back for you to hear it from him, yet he does, and he makes you cry even more because of it, “I love you.” Marc knows how itchy your skin gets if your tears fall and dry, so he’s quick to wipe them away, a crease furrowed between his eyebrows, “But I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing, nothing,” you half-laugh, half-cry. He shoots you a look, that makes you elaborate, “I missed you that’s all.”

“I was just upstairs, honey,” he’s teasing you lightly, but you know he knows what you mean. He makes sure of that by kissing you, and you push some of his hair behind his ears, letting your hands rest on his neck. His arms slither around your waist, and they start to lean in your weight into his body.

They’re innocent touches, but with Marc the intention is there, and they’re too early for where you are, for what the time is right now. But you’ve never known how to say no to Marc, particularly when he’s giving you the soft things your body craves for.

There’s a clatter of pots and pans downstairs, that brings you out of the little love cloud you’ve been sharing until now. Reminds you that you’re not at his place, in London, where he can kiss your collarbones whenever he likes and make you weak in the knees.

You pull away and you see the walls shoot back up in his face, see his smile fade, and the frown take its place. He kisses the space above and then below your lips, finally pressing a butterfly of a kiss on them.

You hear his question without him having to say it, and can see it on his face, “I’ll only take a minute.”

“Alright,” he squeezes your hips, looks down at you for a second too long before heading out the door and downstairs.

Elias will be spending the morning at the community centre, running his weekly carpentry class for teenagers. He’d invited you two to join, but Marc had only shook his head.

Breakfast had passed like the dinner the night before. You chatted with Elias as if you’d bumped into him in passing at a coffee shop and were sharing a table for the next half hour. Marc is silent beside you as his father raved on and on about the different attractions Chicago had to offer, discreetly slipping in the lowering crime rates and top-rated schools in the area.

Maybe not as discreet as he’d hoped however, since Marc shifts and clears his throat pointedly. You place your hand on his thigh, and he takes your hand in his.

He’d asked you two what you were planning on doing with the day, when Marc speaks up, “Shedd.” It takes his father and you by surprise. He’s speechless and you’re staring at him, “I got a couple discount tickets online.”

“Well,” Elias starts to fiddle with his fork, until it drops out of his hand and clangs to the plate underneath. “Oh-well, have fun. It’s…lovely…used to take Marc there all the time.”

He doesn’t even give you a moment to respond before he starts clearing the table. Marc’s returned to his phone, and he starts asking about borrowing the car, what the traffic was looking like right about now towards downtown.

They’re pretending like this wasn’t the first time Elias has voluntarily pressed a finger on the blister of the past that hangs heavy around the house like fog. But it was there, and you’re going to hold on to the little snippet of the Marc you were given over breakfast.

He likes Fritos’ corn chips and the aquarium.

You file it all away, store it for an opportune time.

You know you’re already going to start searching for good aquariums in London, probably Spain as well, probably look at membership pricings on top of it.

In London, you don’t often get to see Marc drive. Sometimes, he rents a car for the day. Usually, you’re riding the trains and buses with him and Steven, because it’s cheaper and convenient. But you like watching him drive. Watching his side profile, the way his neck looks as he shoulder checks and changes lanes.

Your mother always told you the best way to know someone was when they sat behind the wheel. Every time he’s sat behind the wheel, he’s made you only fall harder for him. He’s found different ways for your affection to grow in different parts of your body, like an overripe potato sprouting out in the most bizarre places.

He must feel the way your eyes are trained on his face, for he chuckles, places a warm hand on your thigh and squeezes, “You’re starin’.” His accent started to come out the moment you’d stepped foot in the airport. It’s a tilt to his voice that makes you heady, like all aspects of Marc Spector do.

“I am,” you sigh exaggeratedly and look out the window instead. “Can’t help myself. You look so pretty.” It’s a corny pick-up line at best, probably far too immature for where your relationship is at.

But to your surprise, it affects him heavily. The colour rises to his face, his eyes darting back and forth between the rearview mirror enough times for you to know that he’s not checking the cars behind him. “I fly you all the way to fuckin’ Chicago and you can’t quit staring at me like a creep.”

This makes you laugh, makes you seek out his hand on your leg and intertwine your fingers together so you can run your thumb against his palm. “How’s Steven doing?” He hasn’t fronted since you two had left the flat. It wasn’t that long ago, but for Steven it’s been ages.

“Oh, just fine,” his eyes catch the rearview mirror and he grins, changes lanes and merges off the highway. He pauses, glances at the mirror again and then rolls his eyes, “He also says that you should try chamomile tea tonight, to sleep better.”

“I will.” You feel giddy, “Tell him thanks for me.”

“He’s heard you,” his voice is a little strained as he looks over his shoulder, once, twice and changes lanes. A horn is blared and he grumbles, glaring through the rearview mirror at the car behind him, “Fuckin’ tourists.”

Pouting, you say, “But I want you to tell Steven, I don’t want Steven to hear it from me.”

When a glance in your direction tells him that you’re deadly serious about this, even if there’s a smile hanging around your face, he looks back to the rearview mirror and mutters, “She says thanks. For the tea.” He stops at a red light and keeps looking at the mirror. After a pause, “He says he loves you.”

You press the backs of your fingers against your cheeks, as they start heating up, “And do you love me?”

“I love you. Of course.” You know he does. You don’t need to hear it from him to know. Yet he knows you like it when he says it, so he does, and makes the butterflies take flight inside your chest.

Shedd is enormous. The attendant who checks your tickets tells you to set aside a good three hours if you want to see the whole thing. They rave about the beluga whales, pointing out various presentations happening in different exhibits that day and their times.

You can tell from the disgruntled little downturn of Marc’s mouth that he’s only trying to be agreeable. It’s the same look Steven gets when someone tries to dispute a claim he’s made about Egyptology.

But, unlike his alter who is quick to correct and to defend, Marc just shuffles further inside his little shell, bites his cheek and tries to bide his time until it’s over.

You wish he wouldn’t be so tolerant, so flexible with his boundaries. At the beginning of your relationship, and still even now, it creates a lot of tension between you two. Sometimes, you don’t know how to identify certain triggers and stimulations of his, certain things he’d rather not do but puts up with for your sake and pretends to be fine with it.

Of course, he’s not fine with it. He lets it build and fester inside of him for so long that he self-destructs. Retreats into himself at the smallest comment and doesn’t front for weeks at a time.

So, instead, you feign interest in one of the exhibitions and manage to cut the conversation short. A glance at Marc shows that the hinge of his jaw has relaxed, the corner of his mouth turned neutral. His hand is warm and comforting on the small of your back as he guides you towards the entrance and you wonder if you could fall in love with him more.

First, Marc takes you to see the Moon jellyfish in the Wild Reef exhibit. There, you also see three types of sharks, and a chocolate-chip starfish, the name and appearance of which delights you. It delights Marc as well, you know for you’ve grown accustomed to his type of humour, but he’s just better at hiding it than you.

However, he’s amused enough by your reaction to the clownfish, similar to the children around you who are parroting the words it’s Nemo! over and over again, to smile. Actually smile and he holds it long enough for you to catch it, and he grins when he catches your eye.

You realise how much of Marc you’ve been missing out on in London, Steven’s stomping ground. In Chicago, there are memories of Marc in every corner, the soft shadow of him as a child following behind you wherever you go.

It’s there in the practised ease with which he takes you through the streets, how comfortable he is behind the wheel of the car, the way his eyes twinkle the same way Steven’s did when you met Crawley for the first time when he sees a familiar street corner.

It’s there when he leans into the glass of another exhibit and murmurs a faint, “Hey, old lady,” to Nickel, the green sea turtle, and arguably the star of the whole show. You’re not sure if you’re just being a romantic but you manage to fool yourself into thinking that there’s a spark of recognition in the animal’s eye as well as she glides smoothly past Marc’s face and cuts through the middle of a school of angelfish.

But he’s also still your Marc. Just because Chicago is familiar to him, he doesn’t forget you, your intricate language made up of gestures and looks. He sees when you’ve become oversaturated with what you’ve seen, where a fish starts to look like any old fish and he changes itinerary without ever telling you.

The next stop was supposed to be the Oceanarium, but Marc takes a left turn instead of a right and takes you to the cafe and buys you a cinnamon roll that he’ll eat half of anyways but he’ll never confess to later. He gets himself a coffee and for you a hot drink.

Even the sight of him pulling American bills out of his wallet, the familiar leather fraying and hanging on by the seams, twists your stomach and chest together into swirls.

Marc, ever resistant to voluntary change because he’s had so much of it in his life, still pays with cash. It’s one of his old habits from the days he’s lived in secret from Steven and has never shaken off. It goes hand-in-hand in the way he cleans out the coffee filter the moment it’s brewed, how he actively seeks out one-pot recipes to minimise the time he spends cleaning up after himself.

He’s sitting across from you, tucked into a corner with his back to the wall and stuffing some of the roll into his mouth. There’s a bit of filling that’s left over at the corner of his lips, and you smear it away with your thumb, still deep in thought.

You see now that his muscle memory kicked in the moment your plane landed yesterday.

Chicago seems to have accepted Marc back into its fabric without a qualm and question of where he’s been the past twenty years.

His home is with you and Steven. In the memories you’ve built together and the soft touches you’ve given to and will continue to give to each other. But he grew up in Chicago.

To know Marc completely is to also discover the city he grew up in. To know the city is to know Marc.

You’ll hear an inflection in a word from a stranger passing by. You’ll see a mannerism, a furtive glance of an eye.

And it clicks into place for you.

Attitudes and behaviours that you found strange in Marc you now attribute to the city. And for that, you fall in love with the people as well.

You fall in love with the attendant at the front of the aquarium, the cabbie who brought you from the airport to Elias’. There’s a child a few metres away from you that calls out to his friend, his hey distinctly similar to Marc’s cadence of speech. You love that child, no older than seven, after having seen just a brief seven second glance of him.

The murmur of the music around you filters to your ears. The hiss and hum of the espresso machines of the cafe, the squeak of a toddler’s shoes as she tramples in front of her parents.

The American accents that were initially grating to your ears have revealed their true nature to you, gold mines where bits and pieces of the man you love reside.

This was what you were searching for when you asked Marc to take you to Chicago. To be able to see him carry himself with the practised ease Steven carries around his books and messily scrawled notes.

Chicago, though it has equal parts good and bad memories, acts like a salve for Marc.

He’s missed the city without ever knowing that he has.

“Marc?” You’re not sure if this is the best way to approach him about it. His gaze flicks back to yours. “Did…” the question formed easier in your head. With a tsk, you reach for his free hand and he gives it to you without question, save for the concerned waves of his eyes.

As always, everything becomes remarkably clear and simple the moment his skin meets yours. “How,” you swallow down your fear and his hand squeezes yours affectionately. “How often did you come here with Elias?”

His face closes off, tension returning to his shoulders as his mouth turns down. You loosen your grip on his hand in preparation for the moment that he will inevitably pull away from you.

The moment never comes.

“You almost done with that?” his eyes are downturned to the table, and he gestures with his head to the cinnamon roll.

“Yeah.”

His hand still in yours, he finishes it off without a word, washing it down with the remainder of your drinks. He doesn’t spare you a glance through it all, making your heart crawl up your throat with every second that passes.

You want to get up and leave him. It would be the easier thing to do. To take your hand away before he gets the chance to, and go see the beluga whales and dolphins by yourself, Marc be damned.

It would be easier, but it would be horribly wrong. To ask him a question so heavy and weighted and not be there for the inevitable spiral when he’s stuck with you through much the same.

So, you try and remind yourself that the many conversations you’ve had with Marc usually are like this anyways. You and Marc always have unlimited rain checks for each other. Sometimes it ends up being awkward and clunky, and if you read into it too much, it can look like he’s avoiding you.

It’s what works so well about your relationship. There’s the acknowledgment that conversations like these are supposed to be awkward and clunky, and to a third party it might seem avoidant. But it’s the conditions under which both you and Marc thrive off of.

He stands up now, gathering up your coffee cups and plates, placing them on the counter of the cafe.

When he comes back, he takes your coat in his arm and guides you towards the exit, back towards the Oceanarium.

Before you arrive, you stop, and look at him. “Marc, can I kiss you?” You wonder if he’ll taste like cinnamon.

He does. You kiss the corner of his mouth first, then press your lips together. He tastes like cinnamon and coffee, and if you close your eyes, you think that things will be alright between you.

“Thanks,” you murmur, slightly out of breath like you are after all of Marc’s kisses.

“‘Course,” he wraps his free arm around your waist and starts to walk. “You never gotta ask.”

The beluga whales exceed your expectations. You were expecting to be enthralled with the sea otters and their playful circles and flips in the water as they tried to rub water into their fur.

But it’s the smooth glide of the whales, their chirps and bellows that enthral you. The way they look like they’re smiling at you when they open their mouths in front of you. Their playful side-eyes as they bob their heads up above the water.

In many ways they remind you of Steven.

In many more ways, they remind you of Marc, of the soft, duvet-like interior he manages to shield so well from so many, including you sometimes.

Guilt crawls up into your stomach as you remember what happened in the cafe, and a sharp tide of self-loathing washes over you. You feel unworthy of even standing so close to the animals, let alone looking at them.

You go and sit down on one of the benches. You’re uncharacteristically cold for the humid air around you.

Marc’s jacket is draped over your shoulders and he sits down beside you, rubbing his palms together as he looks down at them.

The jacket smells like him, of course it does. But it also reminds you of the London apartment, their bed and myriad of blankets and quilts on top of it.

You think of Gus and hope that he’s doing ok, that the automatic feeder is doing its job. You miss Gus as well, the soothing hum of his water filter having ten times the effect the aquarium could have on you. Pushing your arms through the sleeves of Marc’s jacket, you do up the top bottom and cross your legs.

“Are you tired?”

You can feel him looking at you and you look back at him, “A little.”

“Do you want to go?”

You shake your head in response. He bites his upper lip and frowns, looking back down to the floor. The sight tugs at your throat, for how hard he’s trying for you and you reach for his hand, intertwining your fingers together. You press your other hand to the back of his, caging it in between your own.

You’re content to stay like this forever.

“They uh-” his voice is raspy when he starts to talk. He stops and clears his throat, “They loved the beluga whales.” You shuffle along the bench and press your shoulder against his. “My father and…” his throat moves as he swallows harshly and you want to press your fingers against his neck to feel it, but you also refuse to move from where you are right now. “Randall.”

Your look back to the animals, swimming around blissfully unaware of the weight that’s associated with them in Marc’s mind.

Leaning forward, you kiss his temple, the curve of his ear.

“I liked Nickel the best,” he’s not looking at you but you’re looking at him. Images of the sea turtle rise back up in your mind, the soft murmur of his voice floating in your ears.

You think back to the photo hanging up in Elias’ living room, you think of Elias this morning, shy and bashful, not knowing what to do with himself.

“What about Steven?”

He gives you a dry chuckle, squeezes your hand, “Hates aquariums with a passion.”

“Is he ok? With all this?” You’re smiling, thinking of the depression of fear and disgust that would have been on his face, had he been fronting.

Marc nods his head, almost imperceptibly.

His arm falls around your shoulders and he pulls you into him as much as he can. “We,” he takes a deep breath and lets it out. You feel the way his ribs expand and contract with it. “Roro and I would fight all the time about where we should go.”

You’re suddenly acutely aware of where you are, of the way he’d asked you if you were tired and wanted to leave, “Marc, if you want we can go somewhere else-”

He shakes his head, soothing his hand against your shoulder, “My father always settled the whole thing with a cinnamon roll. And after-” he presses his nose against your head and takes a deep breath. “After…Roro, he would still bring me here every weekend, and let me sit with Nickel as long as I wanted.”

A ball rolls towards his feet, breaking him out of the dreamlike state he was in. A platter of footsteps follows soon after, a little girl no more than four or five years old looking up at him shyly. The ball is made out of a green plastic, littered with small daisies.

Letting go of you, Marc stoops down and picks it up with both hands, as though it was made out of glass. “This yours, honey?” His accent is strong now, you almost don’t recognise his voice.

She nods, daring to take a couple steps forwards. Marc holds out the ball for her to take and in a furtive movement, she snatches it from him and runs away.

When the girl disappears out of view, he looks at you, offers you a small smile that you scoop from his palms and press into your skin.

It’s late afternoon by the time you’re done with Shedd.

You say you want to see Nickel again, and let Marc stay with her as long as he wanted. You spend more time looking at him than the turtle, and you don’t regret a minute of it.

The sun is shining a heated red that hits your skin and warms you straight to your bone marrow. Marc buys you a hot dog from a stand close to the aquarium. He kisses you lazily as you try to eat it, littering his love along your shoulders and neck.

You fall asleep on the drive back and he makes no move to wake you, despite the fact that he’d promised to fix your sleep schedule overnight and that was contingent on the fact that you stay awake for the rest of the day. He’s quiet as he carries you from the car and back to your bed and you’re about to fall asleep again when he whispers to you that he’s going to be going on a walk with his father.

You dream of Nickel and the beluga whales. Of plastic balls and squeaking shoes. Of Marc with a baby and soft sunshine that feels like everything you’ve ever wanted.

Marc is silent as you go through the motions of getting a hotel room, his presence as heavy as the hand he’s keeping on the side of your waist. He hasn’t said a single word since he’d woken you up and said that he wasn’t going to be spending the night at Elias’.

You’re not sure where he is right now, what Steven is telling him and even, if Steven is there at all, soothing Marc in ways you only wish you could. You can only do what you can, and it usually just feels inadequate.

The moment the door closes behind you in the room, Marc’s agony is let go of. It spills out of his chest and into yours. You feel him hesitate, you feel him start to pull back, to zip up and run away from you. But you have it. You grapple, hold your arms open for him and he runs back to you.

Pushing you up against the wall, he kisses you, his mouth rough on yours as he starts to tear away at your clothes until you’re naked. It feels intensely vulnerable, to feel the rough material of his jeans rubbing against your thighs, to be so exposed when he’s still covered.

But his hands start to wander and you feel dressed in love again. You’re not sure how much of Marc you’re going to see tonight, any if all. You’ll accept what he’s going to give you, you want to give him the feeling of being enough, a feeling he’s never gotten from Wendy or Elias.

“I don’t have a condom with me,” he murmurs against the skin of your neck. A low groan rumbles through you, the pressure of his body against yours lifting, “I’ll go-”

“No,” he looks at you in surprise. You’re shaking your head, keeling over with the weight of what he’s asking of you, and desperate to give it to him, to soothe him better, “No, Marc, I don’t mind.” You’ll find a pharmacy in the morning and get the pill. The last thing you want is for him to be separated from you right now. Looping your arms around his neck you bring his forehead to yours.

His hands drop to your waist, his voice aching with desire and a fleeting sense of control, “You sure?”

You reassure him again wordlessly, pressing a butterfly of a kiss to his lips, fingers finding purchase in the collar of his jacket and urging him to take it off. He listens, of course he listens, even now when he has every right not to. He grants the small wishes of your heart and deepens the kiss, so your ears go staticky and you can barely make out the faint thud of his jacket hitting the ground.

His fingers go to the soft skin behind your knees, pressing softly. You jump, he’s there and he catches you, stumbling towards the bed and holding you as you fall back onto the covers. His lips never leave yours, the immense pain oozing out of him and onto you only making you want to merge your skin with his even to take a bit of the weight off of him.

Instead, you reach for his belt, so overwhelmed with the emotions Marc is making you feel that your fingers start to fumble. You’re about to flip him on his back, so you can kiss down his chest, so he can thread his fingers through your hair and use your mouth the way he wants to when he stops. He’s able to read you better than himself, knowing what you want to do even before you do it.

There’s the brief glimpses of remorse and guilt, apologies streaming from his eyes, “Ok,” you nod, grasping his face between your hands. “It’s ok, honey.” He’s barely touched you, and you’re already breathless, desperation wet between your thighs.

He swallows, the emotions receding back like the tide of the ocean. Dipping his fingers between your folds, he hides in your neck, pressing kisses to your skin that burn like hot coals.

Your eyes flutter shut, sighing at the way he touches you.

Fervent and loving.

It’s always like this with him, but the pain, the years of agony he’s had to endure alone are heavy and present in each movement of his against your body right now. It brings tears to your eyes, tears you feel you have no right to shed. Taking deep shuddering breaths, you push them away, try to think of Marc, only of Marc, to be here and present for him like he’s done countless times with you.

The fire burns down your chest as he kisses down between breasts, to your navel and lower stomach. He pauses for a moment and reaches for your hands, eyes brushing against yours as he guides them towards his head. When he presses his mouth against your core, you cry out.

Marc makes you come two times like that. Shuddering and gasping out his name as he moans and presses his hips against the bed.

He’s right there with you, but he’s never felt farther away. In the AC’d air of the hotel room, the goosebumps rise to your skin as he doesn’t relent, searching and desperate between your legs. You push back the hair falling in front of his forehead, in hopes of catching his eye. When you do, he presses two fingers inside you, curls them just right and makes stars explode in your mind.

Just as quickly, the cold ebbs away from your body, a searing heat spreading like wildfire in its place. You’re still laying down on your back, but you grow lightheaded, losing your sense of direction for a moment. Marc’s name falls from your lips over and over again.

At that moment nothing exists apart from him, apart from the love you hold for him and the way you want to press your hands against his wounds until they stop bleeding, no matter how long it takes, no matter what it takes.

The goodness, the kindness that on his best days he doubts the existence of, is there. It’s always there. Shining bright inside his chest, and bathing you in warmth and love. There’s never a moment where you doubt it’s there. It’d be like trying to ignore the existence of the sun.

If there’s anyone deserving of affection and adoration it’s Marc Spector, who, after a world of pain can still touch you so gently and make pleasure alight in your body. You’re set on giving it to him, everyday and in every way you can until he realises that it’s his right to take.

Slowly, the fuzz fades away from the edges of your mind, your sense of North returning. Marc’s leaving sticky kisses to the inside of your thighs and you feel it’s been years since you last saw him. You cup his cheek in your hand, and guide him back to your face. He moves a little easier than before, and doesn’t resist when you lean up and capture his lips.

Your taste floods your mouth and a feral curl of possessiveness takes a hold of the chambers of your heart. Hooking a leg around his waist, you press him down into you, his arousal hard against your thigh. He’s still fully clothed, and the sensation of the denim against your skin is ten times as intense as it was at the beginning.

Marc curls a hand into your hair, you drift your fingers down his back, feeling for his muscles underneath his shirt. He nips at your bottom lip and makes you whimper, unconsciously pressing your hips up.

Pulling away, lips swollen and eyes blown, curls falling forward on his head, his voice is rough when he says, “You still sure?” You hum, trying to pull your thoughts together to see what he’s trying to say. Chest still struggling to return your breath to normal, you nod. It’s not enough for Marc, he kisses your cheek, nudges his nose against yours, “Sweetheart?”

Your eyes focus back into him, into the slick that hangs around the edges of his mouth like dew and makes the heat rise in your lower stomach. “Yeah,” you lose all hope of returning your heartbeat to normal. “Yeah. I don’t mind.”

When Marc presses into you, you lose your North. You forget where you are and what happened and will happen soon enough. You know only of Marc, of the agony he holds to himself like a second skin and you feel yourself drown in it.

Your anchor, your only rock in a turbulent sea of mothers wielding belts and deadly tides threatening to pull you under is Marc, the darkened brown of his eyes, the thundering of his heart, the way he’s seated deep inside you and the way he thrusts, gentle and rough all at once.

You’re not able to control the tears anymore, and with each press of his hips against yours, they roll down your cheeks, and you cry out.

Marc isn’t hurting you. He could never. But for a brief moment, you feel as if your skin has truly fused with his, and that you can feel the torture pressed into his body like the fibres of a cotton-weave fabric. A primal anger rises inside you, and if you could, you would have burned the world to the ground at that moment, starting with the townhouse on Milwaukee avenue.

When you come, it’s with his name on your lips. He’s whispering or murmuring things to you, broken by his moans. You don’t understand a thing. You only know of the aching need inside your heart to make sure Marc isn’t hurt again.

The faint beep and click of the room door opening wakes you. You’re disoriented almost immediately, the sliver of light streams in from the hallway and disappears the moment he closes the door and steps in doing nothing to help remind you where you are.

Your head pounds and your legs are sore, but you reach up to the bedside lamp and turn it on. You’re not sure how long it’s been since you drifted off. When your legs rub together as you sit up to lean against the headboard, the sticky, rough feeling you’re expecting is not there.

Marc looks at you, the rustle of the white paper bag in his grip sounds out as his knuckles lose their colour.

“Hi,” you watch him as he comes to sit beside you on the bed. You find a strange amount of comfort in the way the duvet creases underneath his weight, the physics of the way the mattress leans towards him and makes you lean towards him in turn.

He tugs at the staple holding the bag together until it rips open, “I got you some levonorgestrel.” He takes out a small blue box, a protein bar and a bottle of water. “The pharmacist said to-uh-” his eye catches yours and he looks away as if burned “-to take it with food. Said it helps with the nausea.”

Only Marc would be able to know what you were only planning on doing ahead of time, and do it first.

“She also said to take it as soon as possible,” he wrings his hands together, ears going red as he continues to refuse to look at you. Scrunching his nose, he shakes his head, “That whole ‘morning after’ thing is sortuva myth.”

On instinct, a quip rises to your tongue, something about him changing his mind about you having his kid, something to make him a tad bit flustered and to see him floundering for words. You bite it back, silently reach for the protein bar and start to eat it.

After about half of it is finished, you open the box and break out the pill from the foil, washing it down with water. You finish the bottle and place it on the side table.

He nods to the rest of the protein bar in your lap, “Can you finish that?” He reaches back inside the bag, a bag of chips, a chocolate bar, and two more levonorgestrel boxes come out in his hand. “There’s more, just in case you might throw up.”

“Marc?” he looks in your direction, not at you. “Thank you,” his gaze snaps up to yours, shock and remorse written over it, the ever present bags a little deeper than they were this morning. “For taking care of me the way you do.”

His face starts to twitch and you lean forward on your knees to cup his cheeks with your palms. “I love you,” you murmur, eyes roving his face, faint scars from childhood Khonshu was either too lazy or too cruel to remove. There’s one just above his eyebrow that calls out to you, and you press your lips against it. “I love you, Marc Spector.”

You feel his arms wrap around your waist, his face press into your neck. His shoulders start to shake and his tears start to fall against your skin and down your chest.

The whimpers he lets out strike straight to your heart.

Steven had one time recounted to you the sheer helplessness he’d felt watching Marc cry on the street at Wendy’s shiva. You only remember being struck with the sudden urge to hug Marc, to give him the soft things he’s deserved since he was a child and was cruelly deprived of.

Now, you thread your fingers through his hair, you kiss at his temple and feel the same helplessness Steven described to you. It wracks at your bones, your lungs. The other half of your soul is crying and all you can do is wipe away his tears.

In a rough voice, he starts to mumble his apologies. Though you want to reassure him he has nothing to apologise for, you only say that it’s alright, that he’s forgiven, that he’s safe with you and you love him. That he’s enough.

Your eyes fall shut and the tears start to fall in tandem with Marc’s silently. He presses his fingers into your skin and pulls you closer. You climb into his lap, not letting go of the hold you have of him.

His sobs die off suddenly, but his chest is still heaving, shoulders shaking with the exertion of holding them back. You soothe your hand against his cheek and make him look at you. Blotchy-eyed and a tear-stained face looks back, eyebrows furrowed in pain.

“It’s ok, baby,” your thumbs move to wipe away his tears. “Darling, I’m here.”

He breaks down again, pulling you into his frame as he cries out. You press one hand to his heart, the other to the back of his head. He still feels miles away from you. You yearn for him as you would yearn for blood.

Moments or maybe hours later, you’re half-expecting Steven to front, considering the way he’s gone quiet. He presses a kiss to your chest, to your collarbone, to the junction of your shoulder and neck. You let your hands drift down his back in comforting shapes that you hope are working to calm him down, to make him feel loved.

“I’m sorry,” Marc’s voice is rough, but considerably calmer, and it rumbles through you. The feeling brings you great pleasure, because it means Marc is still here, and with you.

You shake your head, slide your fingers underneath his chin and lift his face to yours. A couple of words and sentences arise, but they seem redundant, incapable of expressing what you want to say, how you feel and what you want Marc to feel.

Instead, you kiss his cheek, his other cheek, the space between his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose. The skin underneath his eyes is wet, but you press your lips there all the same. You kiss the space above his mouth, the corners, his chin and finally, you cup his face, one hand on his cheek, the other on his neck so you can feel his pulse and revel in it, and so you can kiss him.

Randall’s grave is a soft off-white. There’s the Star of David on top, some writing in Hebrew and his name in capitals below. Underneath are a short set of years that tugs at your heart.

There’s a collection of stones both on his gravestone and on the ground surrounding.

You and Marc add to it, each of you putting one down with your left hands.

When Elias opens the door for you two, it’s clear that he hadn’t been expecting either of you to show up again.

How you’d been in this exact spot a couple days ago, jet-lagged and ridden with anxiety, nostalgia almost kicking you in the stomach before you remember how much has changed and how much you’re hoping will change.

Still, if Marc wanted to turn back right now, without even a hello, you’d let him.

Some things would never change.

“Hi,” Marc is the one to speak up first, fiddling with the button on the suitcase handle. Elias, eyes puffy and stained red, is about to speak before his son beats him to it, “Hi, Dad.”

He lets out a sob and you can see how hard he’s holding himself back from taking Marc into his arms. Instead, Elias reaches forward and clasps his upper arm, “Hi.” His voice is warm and watery with unshed tears.

In heartbeats, Marc is hugging his father. Though you can’t see his face, you see the way his frame trembles in Elias’ arms, the way the many burdens he’s carried on his shoulders have lifted.

You’re about to turn away to find something to occupy yourself with when Elias sniffs and clears his throat, “Please, come in. I’ll put the kettle on.” He catches Marc’s eye and smiles, giddy and boyish. He makes no move to wipe it off his face.

And, even better, the gift you’ve always asked for, Marc grins back.

The crowd is livid, vibrating with the excitement of the match and the heat of the late summer day.

Marc is muttering underneath his breath, perched on the edge of his seat, his eyes tracking every movement on the diamond. He’s so deeply invested in it that it’s cute.

Baseball. Another bit of Marc that you get to revel in. Baseball and turtles and corn chips.

“Are you happy you came, Marc?” you lean in and ask during a brief lull.

It had taken some convincing on your part to take him here, after he’d seen the jersey and his favourite dress on you.

He turns and catches your eye. “Yeah,” he grins and kisses you, your heart in his chest and his hands warm around your waist.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it please consider leaving feedback, I've been working on this for about five months.

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