𝖜𝖆𝖗 𝖟𝖔𝖓𝖊;

seventeen days, she’d done the maths some hours earlier. dorcas had been gone for seventeen days, no tracks to follow. it felt simultaneously like just a weekend and half a year. a loud song played in her mind, leading her to forget again and again that she was sitting on the floor next to nick’s front door - the mix of concoctions, mostly magical, half of which she could not recall anymore, certainly did not help. her disappearances weren’t unusual, but they were often shorter, at least when it came to HIM. they were often rejuvenating, just an escape ( what happens in manchester stays in manchester ). yet, for a few months already, she’d been taking longer to reappear, and rarely returned in her best of states. those who could often follow her were more often left behind, just as clueless as the rest. her hidden life was muddled with dorcas meadowes, order member, ministry worker, not the pale figure on the floor leaning her head on the door like a stray dog. why here? the more she needed to run, the less she appeared at his house, the less she tried to need him. the song kept getting louder whenever she tried to piece together her way to his building or the internal reasoning for it. the bass covered up the steps going up the floor. the drums how fast her heart was beating, painfully almost. her eyes were fixed on her backpack, secure between her knees. // @sectumscmpra​

she’s slipping and it’s a thought that stains his mind no matter how much booze he uses to scrub it away. this lack of control is sickeningly familiar. a chain around his neck that’s liable to tighten and loosen as it pleases. maybe it’s because dorcas is frighteningly close to daiyu in age and demeanor, both girls fighting ( fought ) violence and injustice that nik can’t ( couldn’t ) protect them from. in the year leading up to daiyu’s death, she distanced herself, stopped replying to letters for weeks, didn’t show up in their usual havens. and then she was gone. without a goodbye, without knowing of the funeral until weeks later. nik fears the same fate will fall upon the girl he’d welcomed into his home.