MASTERLIST
*The warmth of the trigger on your finger was familiar, easy- the pit in your stomach was anything but.
PART THREE - FINAL
Characters: Mark, Jaehyun, Taeyong, Reader
Pairing(s): Mark/Reader, Jaehyun/Reader
Genre: Assassin!AU // Angst // M
Word Count: 9.7K
Warnings: Graphic Violence (blood and the WORKS be warned), Language, Brief Allusion to Suicide
Fresh blood is warm.
The average human body operates at a temperature of 98 degrees Fahrenheit, organs thriving in their heat, blood pulsing and pushing at their veins. Humans under duress heat up. They blister and sweat and bruise with potent breaths of humility dripping between their teeth, fingers digging into their palms as they wince and wither. They burn and they fry. Pleasure, fear- it doesn’t matter- the body reacts similarly.
A man panting against your shoulder, with his canines sunk in sex, will probably be sweating. He will probably be thrumming, all his blood rushing down south, and he will probably be a flame to feel. His blood will be molten.
And when that blood coats you like a silver cast, dripping down the sides of your face and leaving a liter of dark, vengeful liquor to stain your blouse- it’ll feel like its burning.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t,” Mark heaved, his finger still twitching on the curve of the trigger, “I don’t know why I did that.”
“You don’t know why you just blew the head off our mark?” you growled, dragging a hand over your forehead to smear the blood away from your eyes, “The one that we were supposed to dispose of quietly, and cleanly?”
“No?” Mark stammered, eyes wide.
The inside of your mouth was coated metallic, teeth outlined in burnt red embers, face grim and body grimed. Your stomach was boiling, your skin was slick in warmth.
“Bullshit, Mark! Your finger did not just slip from eight yards away and through the balcony window!”
“It could have.”
You growled, slamming your fist into the wall and leaving a maroon splatter of anger against the crisp, wildflower-patterned walls. “Give me the gun Mark, because I’m going to kill you.”
“We can handle this,” Mark tried placating, his hands raised in surrender. He started walking towards you, stepping gingerly through the shattered frame of the balcony doors, crunching glass beneath his shoes. He winced.
“Fuck no, we cannot handle this, Mark,” you could feel your breath picking up, your own temperature rising, “We are currently standing in the penthouse of a thirty-story building, in the middle of the night, with the headless pulp of Oliver Cromwell still twitching against his Italian Mosaic flooring.”
“Now you’re just being dramatic.”
“You’d be dramatic too if you just took an impromptu bath in someone else’s blood- I smell like Caesar’s ass.”
“Why Caesar?”
“Because he killed fucking thousands of people, Mark, I’ll give you the textbook breakdown of all my analogies when I’m not in danger of going to prison for life, yeah?”
Mark was now beside you, staring forlornly at the tuxedoed hull of Daniel Carr- whose handsome face was now dispersed about his home like holiday tinsel. “What should we do?” He pushes his toe into Daniel’s shoulder, watching the body roll over.
You heaved a breath again, scraping under your eyes with your thumbs and blinking quickly, trying to clear your vision of red, dancing lights. “You’re going to call Taeyong and ask him for one of his many contacts, I’m going to take a shower and find Mrs. Bonaparte’s closet. Then, we’re going to fix this fuckery.”
A stern glare over your shoulder sent Mark’s face burning in your mind, and he turned, looking all-too-nonchalant for the events at hand.
“I’m sorry?” Mark shrugged, shoving his gun into the back waistband of his dress pants, “At least his hand isn’t shoved up your skirt anymore.”
You stopped halfway to the hallway, turning back on Mark as he stood in a puddle of blood near the foyer, his arms crossed. Your lips pursed and he looked up from the body, furrowing his brows at your expression. “What?”
A breath, long and despondent, collapsed from your mouth. “If the reason you just blew that man’s brains to next Thanksgiving is because he got too friendly with me…”
“You were telling him to stop.”
Your hands dropped at your side, fingers caking together as the seconds ticked by.
“Mark-“
“You were telling him to stop.”
His voice was fraying into the erratic; a tunnel-vision escapade that threatened his usual clarity. His hand was searching for his gun again, something familiar, something to hold onto. He needed something. The trigger was a constant, the blood was a constant. It was all he had.
He latched on finally, taking it out from behind him and letting it hang against his palm, the slate gloss flinching. “You told him to take his hand away, to stop kissing you, you told him no- and he wasn’t listening.”
“It wasn’t your place, Mark. You should’ve controlled yourself,” you said, not noticing the way it sounded like a plea. He was binding himself to the floor somehow, staring into the discarded mutilation of his innocence as it leaked out over the tile. His fingers played a tandem game, over the barrel of the gun, over the band of his watch, around the tip of the silencer like it was a lover’s mouth.
“I should control a lot of things,” he muttered, “I’m having issues with that lately.”
You realized then that it was too late.
All those wasted, baited nights of prayer towards an unknown god for him to stay- well, you didn’t know what he was supposed to stay. He lost his purity much like you had: with a knife, a quick whispered tip of ‘ear to ear’, and a firm push to the back. He’s killed, he’s watched from behind the glass as someone shivered under lacerations, he’s bonded himself with pride and Ares’ war call. There’s no salvation to battle against six feet of soil and rolled grass anymore.
He wasn’t any better than you on paper, a little less staining on his hands, but malevolence draped over his shoulders just the same. He was your Greek tragedy, too far gone.
But you wanted him to keep the smile, the light behind his eyes. You wanted him to stay belligerent against fortune, against the fate you knew too well. You needed him to stay away from your sins, to wash in the waters of forgiveness. You needed him to stay good.
Now he stood before you, near midnight, a fallen angel choking on the vines of retribution.
It was too fucking late.
You wanted to take his hand, take the gun from his shaking fingers, wrap him in your arms under all your gore. You wanted to kiss him until the blood left your lips, till the blank stare slipped away from his face.
“Call Taeyong,” you told him from your place on the cutting room floor, turning your back as he nodded. You could almost hear his wings hit the ground.
♤♤♤♤♤♤
You paid little mind to the swirl of blood down the drain, your toes curling into the grain as you dragged your fingers through your hair. The shower began to clog with salt and clots of flesh, the water pooling around your toes as you turned the heat up, letting it scald you, purify you. You scrubbed and scrubbed again, the scent of the body wash choking you with steam until you could no longer smell it, until the rag was just scratching your skin red.
Clean. You need to be clean.
You dropped the rag somewhere in the water, but it blended in with pink.
The blood wouldn’t leave your skin, wouldn’t leave your eyes. The water burned faintly now, your body adjusting to the temperature until you couldn’t feel it at all. Your stomach and shoulders were raw and pink, but you couldn’t tell if the color was from Daniel’s brain or the gruff of your palms as you scratched against your body.
Down on your knees you pulled the blockage from the drain, digging bruises into your legs. The moisture wouldn’t leave your eyes.
Soon the bathroom was left as it once sat before, only fog against the glass and your heart left in the gutter. It wouldn’t be lonely amongst the ruin.
You still saw flecks of crimson on your hands when you glanced down, but they weren’t there. You rubbed, they wouldn’t move. Then, they’d be gone.
Mark sat on the couch in a fresh button-down shirt and a new watch, his gun on the clear coffee table and a burner cell beside that. Mrs. Carr’s dress was too loose on your waist and chest, and the color clashed with the curtains in the room. None of it mattered. You sat down beside Mark, your hand resting too close to his knee.
“Did you call?”
“He’s sending a woman named Valentine, she’ll be here within the half hour.”
He smiled at you, like he didn’t recall the last twenty minutes.
“How much time do we have to fix this?”
“There’s a couple hours till his son will be home; he works until two at a gas station downtown.”
“Then I hope Valentine knows punctuality- I wouldn’t want to add to her already gracious workload.”
You could play along.
“Is there ever a moment you aren’t planning someone’s death?”
“I could ask the same of you, Mark.”
He nodded acceptingly, and you settled into an empty silence, waiting for Valentine. You let your mind veer off in the quiet, wondering what was to come through the door when your salvation arrived. The name Valentine offered little to no substance to your fleeting recollection of Taeyong’s numerus contacts, as he preferred to keep every trick up his sleeve till the last possible moment, pushing everyone into the dark before he revealed his cards with grander.
Ten minutes creeped past before a light knock pushed you to your feet, Mark close behind you, gun in hand. Carefully stepping around the still spreading puddle of blood you grasped the doorknob and cracked it open, carefully angling yourself to block the sight of Mr. Carr’s misfortune and Mark’s gun that hung beside your hip.
A woman with impatience smeared across her angled brows stood in the hallway, tapping a heel-clad foot and clutching a briefcase against her thigh. She leaned to the side to peer through the opening of the door, her hair falling off her shoulders as she cleared her throat impatiently. “Taeyong called?”
“Valentine?”
She nodded, pushing you aside as she walked in, dutifully noting the surroundings and humming as she set down her case on the top of the coffee table. Hovering at the doorway still beside Mark, you exchanged looks of confusion before closing the door and coming towards the mysterious Valentine.
“Taeyong mentioned he had a couple of associates who had made a bit of a problem, I hope I’m not wrong in assuming it’s the both of you?” she asked, swiping her thumb along the underside of her lip to clean the bleeding edge of her lipstick. As both of you stared dumbly at her she just rolled her eyes and smiled, turning back to click the locks of her briefcase open.
Mark cleared his throat. “Yes-yes, we’re who Taeyong called for, sorry about the rush…” he trailed off as she pulled out a box of latex gloves, a roll of trash bags, a small flip phone and a few rags- the contents of her luggage seeming unending.
She tied her hair up quickly and discarded her suit jacket, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt. She jolted suddenly, as if she had forgotten something, and turned back towards you and Mark.
“Terribly sorry! I seem to have forgotten my manners,” she said, holding out a hand towards you, “You both can call me Val.”
Taking her hand, you pumped it twice and responded in kind, a feeling of uncertainty settling over you as you watched Mark do the same. Who the hell is this?
“Mark, could you be a dear and run out to my car and grab the bleach? I didn’t have enough hands on me to get it earlier,” she requested, tossing you a pair of gloves with a pointed look and then handing Mark her keys.
“Sure,” Mark drawled, returning the same look that was plastered across your face as he slipped out the door.
Valentine took it upon herself to stalk towards Mr. Carr’s body, squatting down beside him and moving his neck so she could observe the bullet holes. Her manicured nails dug into the bloating swell of his flesh, the demure beige paint seeming to disappear into his pallor as she prodded him.
“How long has he been dead for?” she asked, voice strangely clinical in comparison to the light cadence she had only seconds earlier.
“An hour- hour and a half, at most,” you told her as you squinted, slowly pulling the bright blue latex over your hands.
“Who shot him?”
“Mark, through the balcony door,” you pointed towards the shattered glass with a wince as Valentine’s expression darkened.
“Now, that would’ve been nice to know earlier,” she mumbled, standing and grabbing for the burner phone as she began punching in a few numbers.
Mark came through the door then, balancing jugs of bleach in his arms and kicking the door closed behind him. Valentine smiled around her conversation, pointing towards the kitchen isle for him to place the containers down. Hanging up, she turned to you, her smile disappearing. “Is there anything else I should be made aware of?”
“We only have two hours before his son gets home.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
♤♤♤♤♤♤
You met Daniel’s son at the threshold of the lobby with a bag of his Father’s guts grasped in your fist, the red cord of the trash bag cutting into your skin as if it wanted to carve away your fingertips. He was handsomely tired, with purple bruises under his eyes that made the blue stand out like superficial waters, his kind and decent smile homely, but sad. He held the door open for you as you slipped past him into the night air, his palm flat against the heavy glass. You wondered if he would offer such neighborly courtesy if he knew your hands were full with death, scrubbed clean of the same blood that ran through his veins, that pumped his heart and carried oxygen to the same brain that offered petals of decency to strangers until he himself began to wilt. Would he wilt when he walked into his home? Would he know the second he smelled the air, felt the empty atmosphere? Would he notice that the glass was new, that a man had shattered his window earlier with a lead-cased bullet? Or maybe he wouldn’t realize, maybe he would simply think his father had stepped out for awhile, maybe he would rationalize his absence for a couple days before he grew worried; maybe, in the end, he would thank you.
You lofted the last bag into the trunk of Val’s car, rubbing and pressing your fingers with your opposite hand to relieve the lingering pressure. For a moment it felt like you were smearing blood across your palms, but when you looked down, only clean, raw skin stared back.
“That was him, wasn’t it?” Mark asked you from his place against the car door, his arms crossed against his chest, his eyes still watching the building like he would be able to see the son as he waited in the elevator.
“Yes,” you answered simply, slamming the trunk close with both hands, listening to the latch. It almost sounded like a gun’s safety going off.
“Do you think he’ll know? That he’ll realize?”
“Know what?” you asked for show mainly, for the glitter and gold that kept you sane, for the delay in truth before the magician would reveal his doings.
“That his father died tonight.”
“I don’t know,” you said, “He might not even notice his Dad’s not home right now, he may notice the second he passes through the door- I don’t know.”
“Well what do you think?”
“Think?”
“Yeah,” Mark pushed away from the door, walking towards you and the back of the car, his head angled upwards still, now at Daniel Carr’s apartment, “What do you think is better?”
“I don’t know.” You shrugged. What was better? What was better was if his father was still breathing, waiting for him on the couch with a scotch in hand, maybe a lukewarm beer. It would be better if he had a chance to right his wrongs, to say goodnight to his son once more before he had his smile hung on the wall in a whole new way.
You wondered how the son would feel. Would he feel as you had? Numb? Would he cry for hours, quit his job and quit his care, or would he move on like nothing had happened: go to work tomorrow, go to school when the next semester started, go on a date with his girlfriend all while pretending his father was not dead, that maybe he had just left. Delusion was a man’s best friend.
What if they had fought that day, an hour before his son left for his job? Maybe they had yelled at each other over nothing, left without a goodbye, door-slamming.
You felt sick suddenly, all the blood rushing to your head in a great wave, your stomach tossing. A hand shot out to grab your waist as you vaulted forward, cold and frigid through a shirt you did not own. Was this what guilt felt like? Did guilt manifest like the flu, affliction at its finest, most malicious state? Or were you just tired from the cold, tired from the lies.
“Y/N?” Mark whispered into your ear as he struggled to keep you upright, eventually hooking an arm around your waist to steady you against his shoulders. He was so cold. Or maybe you were just too hot.
“I’m fine,” you struggled for air, “M’fine.”
“Christ,” Mark muttered, moving the hair out from in front of your face, his frigid hands scorching your skin, “Do you want to sit down?”
“N-No,” you curled your hand tight into your stomach, “Just wanna go home.”
You just wanted this to all stop. You wanted so many fucking things. You wanted to smile again, you wanted to go back and chase Mark into the arms of someone better, someone softer and less ruined, wanted him to grow up well instead of into this hell of earth that’s been crafted for him, wanted to never kill, never see blood except in the movies. You wanted to smile again.
“You’re gonna have to wait a minute, love, just hold on, Val will be back in a second and then we can go, promise.”
“No, Mark,” you fought against a bile that kept burning your chest and throat, coating you with bitter flames that wanted to drown you out, serenading you with regret, “I wanna go home, but I don’t know where that is.”
“Okay,” he breathed, “okay, Y/N,”
You felt like crying, but then you realized you couldn’t. The pressure behind your eyes would simply live there like a serpent underfoot, fangs retracted but still present like a promise. The feeling was unbearable, like a train slipping from the tracks slowly, knowing what will happen, what you need to happen, but you aren’t ready and it just fucking won’t happen.
“I think I need to go, Mark,” you hushed him and his hands as they soothed you, petting your skin, cooling your arms.
“No,” Mark shook his head and pulled you closer, “No, Y/N, not this time.”
“Mark, let go.”
“No.”
What did it matter anymore? You’d already left him broken-hearted.
♤♤♤♤♤♤
Taeyong never failed to look the picture of pale paragon, his hands indefinitely steady, his face impeccably silent with beauty, eyes irreversibly all-knowing. You always thought you hid it well, but before him, you were stripped back until you were pink with callowness.
You sat a few feet from the bar, far enough that no one would care to listen to your conversation, but close enough that the green glass bottles still reflected on your skin like greed. The bar itself was fairly calm, not empty but not swarmed with people, a heady thrum of drunkenness soothed the low-lighted atmosphere even more, drenching the air with a whiskey buzz. The old leather seat of your chair matted to your thighs with sweat, reminding you of your Grandfather’s summer smoking habit and new ballet shoes you never got to break in.
The woodwork of the table you sat at was surprisingly beautiful, with natural curves from the forest, smooth glass casing to avoid stains, a mahogany color scrubbed into the rings of the wood. It made you think of Taeyong’s smile as he watched you thoughtfully, swirling a brand of cognac he had always hated in his glass. They were similar, somehow, with their glass casing that protected themselves, that reflected the gold lighting of the bar like stars, that only let you see the depth it covered as it chose for you to, clear mystery.
“I think this may be the first time you asked to see me,” Taeyong startled you form your study, your eyes flicking to see him staring into his glass, black eyes curious. He leaned back, crossing his ankle over his thigh and holding it with his free hand, his suit jacket dropping open. The pocket square tucked against his chest drew your attention, the a blood orange shade that was patterned with a white design, shocking against the casual blackness of the rest of Taeyong’s ensemble, bare the deep ghoulishness of his skin as it was revealed by the two unbuttoned top buttons of his dress shirt.
His shoe bounced in impatience, your steady silence drawing for a minute too long, your eyes peering too closely for Taeyong’s liking.
“I think this may be the first time I’ve seen you order Cognac on your own volition.”
He smiled again, this time knowingly.
“I thought it fit my character today,” he shrugged.
“Your ‘character’?”
“Precisely,” he chuckled, “Do you think I have the pleasure to be myself?”
You opened your mouth to respond but Taeyong didn’t offer you the chance, skipping the quips and sparring- a man who lives for pacing.
“I know why you’re here,” he told you as a man coughed at the bar. You drifted your gaze towards him for a moment, seeing the hunched shoulders and fourth finger tan-line your too used to seeing, disinterested.
“Why’s that?”
“You already know the answer to your question, Y/N,” Taeyong sighed, “I can’t help you get out.”
“I just need to know where he is, Tae,” you pleaded, leaning forward, “That’s it. I’ll leave you alone after.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
You groaned, frustrated, pressing your fingertips to the nape of your neck as you leaned into the table. This is the only route you had to take. Taeyong was the only breathing man on this earth that would know where he was, and he was turning you away like a salesman on his doorstep, no sympathy in his ever-dark eyes. You felt your eyes sting, but not with sadness or fear, but with frustration- desperation.
“It’s a location, nothing more, nothing less,” you tried again.
“Too much.”
“It could be as broad as a fucking country at this point, I don’t really care,” you dropped your shoulders, widening your eyes, searching his gaze, “I need a starting point.”
Taeyong was unmoved, his face set in stone. Walking into this bar you knew the chances of getting what you needed were slim to zero, but hope had weeded its way into your chest surely enough, uprooting reality with its warm tendrils. The task was much the same as convincing a conman to pity a banker, changing a fundamental belief of Taeyong’s was unheard of, impossible. He was a confidant for the devil himself, priest swallowed by flames unholy, and that deal would always uphold, save his own life. And Taeyong, like every piece he preached, was selfish.
“You need to accept reality,” Taeyong levelled, “The day you accepted the knife was the day you accepted all of this. You chose your end of the ultimatum, nobody forced your hand.”
“Nobody forced my hand? Are you kidding me?” you scoffed, rolling your eyes, “Your telling me after being primed in your youth to kill, after years of brainwashing to the point of frothing at the mouth at the idea of blood, after being shut in a dark room with a splay of weapons on the table with one simple objective- you think I had a choice?”
A brass flicker crossed Taeyong’s eye. “You could’ve ran.”
“From him? Honestly, Taeyong, how far do you think I would’ve gotten?”
Silence.
He set down the glass he had still been swirling in his hand, all the ice melted into a watered down concoction he would never drink. It hit the table with a hard thud, casting the liquid up the sides. Your eyes dodged Taeyong’s fixating on the few droplets as they sat gracefully upon the table’s glass.
“Chicago.”
“I’ll send you postcards when this is all over.”
Taeyong smiled, ever-slight, but for the first time it felt genuine.
“You’ll never have a place to address it to.”
The problem with living a life unknown, unplanned, and entirely out of your control was just that- you were never the one making decisions, especially in relation to your heart.
“I haven’t seen you in awhile.”
There was a definite crassness to your emotions, one you never could fight or ignore, a sense of violence deeply rooted in your bones since birth. It exposed itself with delight every chance it could, gorging itself on negativity of until its cruelty was plump and full. Until it made you sick. There was a time you thought you had controlled it, nights where you misplaced your reality in the body of someone else, deluding the hunger with diets of false-love and tears of ecstasy instead of sorrow. You were always much more foolish than you tried to reckon- especially with the way your heart would beat.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, smile soft, eyes warm and caring. These were times you thought maybe you weren’t alone in such ruthlessness of feeling, because how could a man look at you like that and pretend it wouldn’t crack your ribs open till the fruit of your want spilled out. A heart could not be pure after it pumped blood into the hands of a killer- he was no better than you. He just hid it well, hid it behind eyes with turned-down affection.
He always poured you a drink when you saw him, something smooth that burned the bitter taste right from your mouth. You would never be able to say you didn’t appreciate him, because lying about something so great would surely condemn you more than you were already. Your skin crawled at the thought of him no longer trusting you, and it was selfish- a pitous greed that begged you to hold his hand one more time, feel his lips upon your neck, let him carry the weight of your pulse.
“I have to go away,” you said, drinking to hide the downturn of your lips.
“How long?”
Time. It constricted you, shoving itself down your throat once more with its rough bloatedness, pulling the air from your lungs. TIme was unforgiving, it was callous, but time was also your only companion. In time, this would all be past memories; in time, he will not linger on your picture; in time, you would be able to be honest to yourself, honest to your greed. The monotone climax of a ticking clock would always comfort your mind. Even in the darkest pathways of your conscience time would pass and run with gravel in its heels, never stopping, never giving in. You would give into time, and soon he will too.
“Forever.”
Wide-eyes. A deer caught in the headlights, two ex-lovers under the mistletoe. He was quick to recover, exhaling.
“Would it be wrong to say I knew this was coming?”
“No,” you answered, “It would be right.”
“I still hoped though,” he laughed, not sounding bitter- just bored, disappointed, “I always held onto this idea that maybe you would meet me in the middle one day, that you would somehow come to feel the same.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t apologize,” he cut you off, “There’s nothing you need to be apologetic for, really, I was the one who tricked myself. After awhile I was more curious how long it would take, counting days on the calendar like it was a game. Strangely it felt like scratching out tallys on a prison cell wall, but instead of freedom at the end there was execution.”
It’ll pass, it’ll pass.
“I would never have been enough for you, you know? I never could have been who you needed. I’m too far gone for that,” you told him, cementing your hands together as to not reach out for him, knowing that it wouldn’t be fair to.
“That’s not true, is it?” he seemed to ask himself, getting up from his seat across from you and walking towards the darkened window, “Why did I want you so badly, then?”
“We have a tendency to want things that are bad for us,” you said, “I’m just as guilty as you are- more so, really- I took you like a drug. It was numbing, for a while, relieving to me when it was dark outside. I used you as a way to fill the silence. I used you. Don’t you understand? I fucking used you up, Jaehyun, every part of you for granted.”
“Stop,” he told you firmly, and you watched the muscles of his back tense as he peered through the window harder, as if he was searching for a reason.
“You’re right,” he said, “You used me, but damn me if I didn’t want you to. It’s all I know, Y/N.”
“What?”
“I said,” he turned around, and his eyes were burning, “It’s all I know. I was taught to be used, by money, by men in higher places, by women with checkbooks and lonely smiles. I am meant to be used. In any way- every way- I am a tool, just a hand attached to the gun.”
“You were meant to be so much more.”
“Empty dreams go just as far as the bedside, Y/N, that much we both know.”
You could tell he felt like crying, but at the same time you knew you would never see it. People like the two of you had used up all your tears by watching others sob. After awhile you don’t deserve the relief.
You stood up, and while your feet pulled towards him you forced yourself away and to your coat that hung on the wall. “There’s more in life than love, Jaehyun.”
“But it’s the only thing I’m allowed to use.”
Your coat scratched your arms as you pulled it on, and his gaze scratched your skin as you opened the door.
“Thank you, Jaehyun, for France.”
In time, you’d only be a memory.
♤♤♤♤♤♤
You took a train to Amsterdam with a thick scarf for company, the bitter cold flushing your nose through the thick fabric. The station was drenched in melted snow, puddles of icy slosh dotting the cement like clipped angel wings, dripping icicles looming overhead as if prepared to grant nightship, a winter renaissance requiem. The black vinyl of your boots caught reflections of the straggling passengers, the station near empty, all the passersby with coat-collars upturned. You studied the ground in silence, peering at your pant legs where they met your boots, soaked half-through and branding red cold into your legs. No trains would come for another hour, the second leg of your trip over the horizon of hiatus, and liminality plagued you.
One more trip on a metal railroad, the low thundering to lull you asleep, and you will be stepping past a line unmarred. There would be no turning back, no chance to fall back to Taeyong’s feet or meet Jaehyun’s eyes again. You already said your goodbyes, maybe not in so many words, but with casted down eyes and an empty chest. One more kill. One more body to lay rest to, to dissolve itself into the snow until the blinding white overtook him, no more protest on his lips.
A lonely cast iron bench tucked against the ticketbooth, shielded from the patches of night sky that broke through the architecture with a red hangover. The brick wall was a sallow white, creased with darkness like wrinkles on the pale face of your grandmother weeks before she passed. You moved towards it with a daze in your legs, eyes trained on the cool metal, on the flat light that casted upon it. There was no one around anymore, the five am train long off.
Footsteps approached your slumped figure, your nose tucked deep into the soft gray scarf around your neck and cheeks, your hands wrapped around your waist, hidden by your camel coat. You peered up, eyes heavy, feet cold, and found a blackened figure before you. A man with broad shoulders and a longline coat, hands in pocket and shoes toeing the ground.
“Taeyong told me you may be here.”
You wish you felt relieved instead of sick.
“That doesn’t sound like Taeyong,” your voice came out muffled and the figure drew closer, his face washed by the lamp about your head, gaunt cheekbones and wide, childish eyes. He sat beside you, wrapping his coat tighter to his body.
“He must be going soft, then,” Mark said, “How else would you know where you're going?”
“Why’d you come here, Mark?” you ignored him, staring off to the tracks as they sat empty, only the ghost of the trains and sparking metal flashing like delirium in front of your eyes.
“To say goodbye,” he said with a shrug, “because we both know you sure as hell weren't going to.”
You’d had too many goodbyes in the last dregs of this winter season, all too close together, each a different color of pain. This one burned the brightest, though it left a black hole in your gut, systematically breaking the rules of your upbringing. Mark had a habit of ringing out your fundamentals till they bled.
“Mark…” you sighed, sitting up, forcing yourself away from his warmth as your scarf dropped from your mouth.
“I couldn’t go with you, could I?”
You looked at him, but he was facing the tracks, lashes brushing his carmine cheeks with each gentle intake of breath. He shook his head slowly, laughing to himself, his shoulders shaking with a mix of frustrated misery.
“What am I saying?” he chuckled, “Of course not. Never. Because you always have to do things on your own.”
“I have to.”
“You choose to.”
He sounded angry, bitter like unripe blackberries, juice tinged with just enough sweetness to swallow but the bite would settle and stay in your mouth, coppery like blood. You wanted to be cruel back, ached to argue with his assumption, wished to tell him the truth. I’d take you with me if I could. I’d fucking tie you to my side if it was possible. I need you.
The problem with living in a selfish world was that other people were selfish too, and your heart was one of them. The muscle would pound against your chest, violent and sound, telling you what you already knew. ‘You can’t do that to him! You can’t, you can’t!’ it said with each tremor, with each breath you took that fueled it. Your heart was selfish to protect him, even though you knew it was too late, cause time is on a schedule you can never keep up with, no matter how fast you run. This fact caved every other inch of your body, the one with a fervent desire for company, for freedom, and sang a tune of cupidity to your ears. Sweet melodies, warming like honey, so enticing...but you couldn’t. Your heart was much too strong now, too powerful after all the allowance you’ve given it, especially when Mark was right there- inches away but too far.
“What else did Taeyong tell you?” you asked meekly in favor of the words in the back of your mouth.
He looks to you now, and the defeat of his face is dooming. Your hands itch for him, fingers curled tight in your coat instead of the nape of his neck, legs crossed away from him instead of pressed along his side, mouth shut tight instead of on his, his neck, his cheeks, beside his ears to make empty promises. After all he had seen his eyes were still bright as they looked to you, full of memories and realization. Maybe he had accepted it before he came to find you here, a broken girl on a bench that stung like ice, hiding from the world in plain sight. This was the last time he would see you.
“That you were heading to the States,” he said, “that this was the last job you would take, and then… well after that he said he didn’t know. Said you probably didn’t even know.”
“I don’t.”
“Then that’s it?” Mark asked incredulously, but his eyes weren’t angry, just tired, always exhausted with the weight of other people’s lives built upon him like feet of dirt above his grave, “You’re just- you’re gone?”
“I can’t do it anymore, Mark, can’t make it a game. I can’t compete with other people’s lives like the Queen of Hearts anymore, they’re not pawns. We aren’t gods.”
You were curling in on yourself, you could feel it. The mask was slipping, wilting into a dead brown shade of shame, of guilt. You were tired of dehumanizing every man and woman you stumbled upon, tired of forcing yourself to not meet their eyes, to not smile. Because what if they were the next person you’d have to drain the life out of? You were tired of being lonely.
“You’re right,” he nodded, “because we’re chess pieces too, Y/N, maybe not pawns, but something worse. We both know what you’re going to do when you leave, you’re going to kill the player.”
“Have to take the head, yeah?” you said without humor, ignoring the tremor in your hands. For the first time since you were six years old, the thought of blood made your stomach hurt.
“I hope for your sake two won’t grow back.”
A silence washed over the two of you, unspoken words leering at your faces, phrases stuck in the backs of your throats. You could feel yourself growing colder, but you couldn’t tell if it was the wind or your body simply giving up on feeling, a numbness that started in your feet crawling upwards, upwards. Mark leaned back into the bench, sniffling at the frozen air, head lolled to gaze at the aperture that loomed beside the canopy, before the covering that shielded the platforms. It hadn’t brightened an inch in the sky, still vantablack with ease, the rest of the world sleeping as you tucked your want away with locks and keys strong enough to force the stars back.
You thought for a fleeting moment what life would have been like if you grew up with a mother, an older brother, a baby sister on the way as you should have. If your suburban dwelling would be orderly and pale blue, your walls changing color as you changed over the years. What kind of music would you have listened to? Would you had been popular, a loner, a girl in the back of the room with rotating hair styles and shades? Maybe you would have met Mark one day, in a library or a coffee shop or in college in some boring class neither of you could understand. Have you had seen him across a room with his gentle eyes and thousand-watt smile of innocence, maybe you could have fell for him the right way.
Distress uprooted you from your musings, reality chilling you again as wind swept through the funnel of brick mortar and white-knuckled fingers. There was no other life but this one, you had made up your mind about that years ago when you stopped wearing ribbons in your hair, and avoiding that truth would always send spirals of panic in your legs till they were shaking. The possibilities, the what ifs, they rattled you more than a set of empty eyes and a parched, chapped mouth could ever. You had a carnal want to change the past, as anyone stuck would, but you can not ever do that. Only make new decisions. Only say goodbye.
The whistle of the train pierced your ears from a distance away, and you glanced down to your watched as it peeked out from your sleeve, noting the five minutes you had left before you would turn your back to the one thing you had always wanted to run towards. Mark seemed to stiffen, previously distracted to the sky and the shifting smog that ruled it, his eyes refocusing. He made no move to stand, no twitch to walk with you. You drank him in one last time, the slight curl of his dark hair around his ears, the dry pink of his lips as his tongue swiped across them nervously, the width of his shoulders you wished to hide in, his hands as they were smoothed on his legs, and finally his eyes, watching the spark fade as you stood.
Not being able to bear it anymore you turned your back, holding your coat tight to yourself, blanketing yourself in reviere. The temptation to turn back, to touch him, was suffocating, making your neck pang, your hairs stand on in. The stone clapped out your retreat as you walked, the train drawing in closer and closer with a flowering chrun. Time seemed to be dragging on, only now slowing when you need it to sprint, your watch ticking on with a menacing glare. You could still feel him watching your back, willing you to turn. You couldn’t. You can’t, not here, not now, no, no, n-
“Y/N! Just- wait, okay?” Mark yelled from behind you, suddenly standing and rushing forward as the train started roaring, deafening in the previous silence that you made home with. You refused to turn around, fingers pressing the buttons of your coat until they made your skin bright red.
His hand grasped your shoulder as the train slowed beside you, slowly moving forward, barely breathing. Forced to turn you shut your eyes childishly, asking anyone to listen to rant you the willpower. His grasp slipped down to your waist and pulled, and you fell, hands still stuck between the threads of your buttons, seconds from tearing. He wrapped his arms tight around you, bracketing you to his chest so tightly you swear your breathe melted away into a puff of white. You could feel his nose beside your ear as he buried his face in your hair, and warmth blossomed in your bones, teetering on the edge of overwhelming.
Hands shaking, blistering to reattach to your coat you allowed yourself to reach out, allowed yourself to tuck them inside Mark’s coat collar, allowed yourself one taste of comfort. Now, seconds before you had to disappear, how could it hurt to just say goodbye?
He pulled away, hands suddenly framing your face as his eyes implore you, searching for a sign. You shut your eyes again at the honesty that dug into his skin, that flooded into you though his fingertips. You felt like sobbing, like laughing, like swallowing all you had planned for this beat of a moment.
And he kissed you softly, with chapped lips that taste like cheap toothpaste and hotel coffee. A longing rooted itself inside you then, unresponsive to the way your lashes stuck together, inadmissible to your fingers as they pulled him gently towards you. A longing that you could not pinpoint, as it washed over all of you, through every muscle and nerve and it hurt.
You pulled away after a moment, lips still a hair’s breadth away, oxygen mingling, feelings colliding. You wanted to kiss him again, harder, softer, everywhere in between, wanted it so badly you almost took it. But the train had stopped behind you, and you had a job to do, had a new life to find. One without Mark, and maybe, maybe one day you’ll be okay.
Yet when you opened your eyes and saw his shut tight, saw the storm that controlled his features, saw him fighting everything that he too, wanted, when you stepped away and let his hands fall from you with what seemed like a limp. You knew you never would be.
So you took hold of the train door so you could have something to hold as you stared at the way Mark’s eyes were closed, in a way that spoke the ‘I love you’ you knew he could never say.
♤♤♤♤♤♤
Finding him was unnervingly easy. Alarmingly simple when this was the man who taught you how to be invisible, how to live a life without attachment or trail. It was so elementary, in fact, that it frightened you.
You spent a long time in Chicago through your sorry childhood, divulging your senses in the miscreant population until you felt at home with them, dirtier your hands until bleach couldn’t even make them clean. He had said it was the perfect place to learn your trade, to perfect your skills. Large, bustling with self-centered activity and a self-serving attitude, filled with dark alleyways and people whose own parent wouldn’t miss.
Walking through the city again made you want to retch. Each smell was nauseating, each whiff of smoke throwing you into your memories with flaming palms. There was no one here to catch you but yourself, your heavy coat and frown-etched face. Thoughts saved you from your own gun on silent nights in shitty motel rooms you paid for with cash, but the idea of never having to kill again was taunting. You supposed however, when your finger ran over the clean metal, petting the trigger, that that was taking a life as well. But this one you wouldn’t have to look in the eyes afterwards because the darkness would envelope you whole, welcoming you.
You never would have the guts to do it though, the idea of Mark somewhere, even forever out of your grasp, somehow finding out was too much for you to consider. Heartbreak was not a feeling one could repeat, not something you could be homely with. He deserved to be able to know you were alive, at least. It was all you could give to him now.
The man was routine, insufferably so. A morning walk from his apartment to the cheap cafe down the road, a newspaper on his way back. Later he would come out, cigarette weeping in his hand, sitting on a bench outside the building alone as he inhaled and exhaled slow, measured breaths. A part of you contemplated if the smoke stream was the same everyday. He then would put the bud out, tossing it into the broken clay pot of some used-to-be tree and fumble his way up the steps, back inside. At night he would appear again, catching a cab to a dive bar where he would play pool or poker or simply just drink with the same three guys you had seen every night. At midnight he would take his leave, placing a tip on the counter with a kind nod to the bartender and he would go home. The next day: repeat.
You kept waiting for him slip up, to turn down a dark alley one night with stealthy looks over his shoulders, either that or stop in his tracks and flip around, locking eyes with you and laughing at your misfortune. That he would jeer and clap, asking if he had you fooled, asking if you thought you could really beat him at the game he had taught you. But such things never occured. Sometimes he would feed the birds as he smoked, or would leave the bar early only to go home and read a book, or maybe chat with the man who sold him his newspaper every morning, but nothing to profess his lifestyle.
He made no notion of realization to that of your presence, but the fear still grappled with your deduction, yelling profanities through your skull til doubt made your tongue thick. You were wary to act, though younger, more limber and adapted, still standing on the thin ice of deluding yourself that he would win because he always won. The one man you could never beat.
You watched for two weeks, barely eating, only sleeping when your eyes forced themselves closed. You pondered your options, pondered the methods til killing made you dizzy. It came crashing in during the morning, a dull daybreak with gray-blue skies and shuddering trees. He was coming back from his coffee, cup cradled between his two hands to warm them, steam escaping the small hole of the to go cup, a jovial smile on his face. He seemed to be enjoying himself, breathing in the air with relish, turning his countenance towards the sky every few moments and closing his eyes. He was in a good mood.
It pissed you off.
This is a man who reaped your youth from you with a beckoning hand towards the smoking gun, who punished you by locking you out for days when you were nine just for crying. The same fucking man who was gleeful in the morning dew used to burn toys you found on the street in front of you, preached hours of solitude, of making through life independently of feelings, those wretched little bindings. You felt like ripping apart your own chest, felt like using your nails to kill him right after, this man, this son of a bitch who somehow had the audacity to be happy when he had tore the joy out of your flesh before you got to experience it.
You found yourself waiting for him, fuming, eyes spiked with red mist that dripped carnivorously. The alleyway was warm, boxed away from the wind by the two buildings that walled it, heavenly dark and silent. You kept your foot from tapping impatiently, your hand clutching the handkerchief you had tied your hair with that morning, now unravelled and sticking to your neck with a sweat that spoke rage. Now that you were seconds away, now that you could here the infernal tune of his whistling, you almost began to laugh. How humorous was it that you were going strangle the joy out of him, the same way he took yours, and how nicely it is that he is happy now, so that the fear will be so much greater. Sadistic amusement shawled you, and you cradled it close, relishing in the cordial familiarity it baded you.
The gloves on your hands were as a second skin, and you were glad you would be able to feel it this time. Feel to make sure his pulse was gone, run your fingers over his veins as they ridded themselves of warmth, of life. Your meticulous watching, your options, your planning was all scrap now, having rushed to this alley, having seen his mirth.
He was taking a sip from his coffee when you took ahold of him, grabbing his arms and shoving him into the brick wall, his head slamming back and coffee sloshing. The liquid scalded the both of you, your wrist turning pink with the heat as it soaked your shirt, but he was the only one to cry out, you had more important matters than pain, now. His eyes were wild in recognition, mouth opening to say something, but you did not want to hear him speak- not again, not ever again.
You used the handkerchief to stuff his mouth as you kneed his stomach, hearing the groan through the muffle, but you alloted this was all you could do, and if you were to hear anything that dripped poison it may as well be his suffering. He collapsed to the ground with the impact, back leaning on the brick wall, his hands clutching his shirt as the coffee cup lay empty beside him, a dark stain on the floor beside it. You kicked him deftly so that he was sprawled on his side, hands digging into the gravelled pavement as he buckled, legs dragging underneath him. You hated how clean his shoes looked.
Dropping yourself on top of him and rolling him over to face you, he faltered, his throat constricting and legs twitching. Grasping his throat you began applying pressure tightly, not bothering to waste time as he began thrashing, but he was already hurt, and you had him caged beneath you tightly. His hands clawed at your forearms, leaving flourishes of blood in their wake, but you couldn’t feel anything but the way his throat moved under your hands painfully, the way his breath hitched and spluttered maniacally. You were suddenly repulsed by the feel of his skin, of his bulging eyes as a blood vessel popped and colored his blue irises with ruby flecks. For a second, you swore there was fear in his eyes. Yet you pressed harder, more force, leaning into him and looking at his nose, not able to see such a familiar gaze. After a long moment he shuddered greatly and seized, body becoming limp underneath you. You leaned away, scrambling off him with fervor, snatching your handkerchief away so that you may burn it later.
You left his body where it was, unafraid of who find him for you knew the nature of Chicago and you knew you existed to no government, no matter. With a wave you sunk away from the shadows and into the morning chill, physical exhaustion inundating your body as your hands throbbed.
“Goodbye, Father.”
It was the last farewell you would allow yourself to make.
♤♤♤♤♤♤
Two Years Later…
Mark had been free for three months, twelve days, and fourteen hours. He had been looking for you for two years, four months, two weeks, and six hours. Taeyong had sent him copies of every postcard you left him, each a new city, new country, new short message. You would profess your security, your ease, your most recent endeavour whether exploring Paris or swimming in Spain, drinking in Ireland or Moscow, you would send something. This was all he had to go on, and they were thin needles in the hay that buried him alive, that stuck him deeply and would not leave until the month came and went and a new card slipped under Taeyong’s door. Mark had not yet lost hope though, because now, now he was liberated like you. He had finally repaid his debt, worked loose the chains of his contempt until they rusted into his wrists and ankles.
A summer in Italy, deep in May where ochre dripped from the skies like a rich gold pollution, painting his skin with cinnamon strokes. He was tired, craving a glass of something he shouldn’t have, the thin cotton of his shirt too stifling as the sea rolled turquoise and vibrant white behind him. Sunglasses slipping down his nose bridge, lips and nose healthy with rosiness, he saw you.
Quietly sitting at a cafe table, umbrella overhead, legs crossed underneath the glass top. You wore a white sundress and dove-grey sunglasses, a lovely tan warming your skin with a vibrance he had begged to see for years. It was like seeing an angel for the first time, your hair kissing your shoulders as you sipped a glass of something cool, a book opened before you as you bobbed your sandal-clad foot to an unheard tune.
Mark was frozen, overwhelmed with luck and exuberance as he stared open-mouth and ripped his glasses from his face. Squinting through the sudden light he realized that it was true, that you were before him like a blessing, and his feet felt like lead weights beneath him. Moving towards you he watched as you curled hair behind your ear, a few baby hairs curving to your neck with humidity, and he swore he felt your skin underneath his hands again. You noticed his approach when he was still five feet away, head swiveling to take in the image of this oncoming stranger, your senses still sharp to the world in way he would forever admire.
“Mark?” you breathed, unsure if you were seeing things, dropping your glasses down some to peer over the tops of them and Mark’s heart stopped for the fourth time in the last three minutes. Your vision gripped him painfully, and suddenly he needed to be near you, his stride sure as he pushed past the last barrier between you.
“Y/N?” he responded in kind, voice breathy with a daze that could not conclude if this was real or not, that maybe you would disappear before him, a simple mirage to his heat drenched brain.
“How did you..?” you asked, trailing off as you set your glass down and discarded your eyewear completely.
“I don’t know- you were- are here,” he grinned widely now and you matched it, before it crumbled, worry stroking your features.
“Are you here on a job?” you whispered out, almost too afraid to ask. Not wanting to hear the answer.
“No,” Mark wanted to kiss you, “No I’m out, I’ve been out.”
“How long?” you stammered, lifting your glass to your cherry flush lips as your throat constricted.
“Months.”
“Have you been looking for me?”
“For years.”
You smiled, setting down your glass and taking Mark’s hand, the cool sweat of your drink slipping against his feverish palms, but he still loved it. Loved the way it seemed right, the curve of your palm molding with his, your delicate fingers slotting right between his bigger ones. He raised your knuckled to his lips, pressing the lightest kiss to them as a blush feathered your cheeks.
“You found me,” you sighed.
“I did.”
And this time he didn’t have to let his expression speak for him, he didn’t need to wait, didn’t need to let go. He would yell it if he needed to, scream from a rooftop villa in the mountains, surrounded by fields of rolling, tossing jade and your arms.
FIN.
a/n - thank thank thank u to everyone who was super patient with me!!! hope you enjoyed reading!
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