#iso2108

( PROMPTS )still accepting!

HE LOWERS HIMSELF down onto his bed, head pounding with the pressure of being so congested he can barely think. Is it Saturday? Or maybe Sunday? Did the day already switch into Monday? It doesn’t particularly matter that all of his days are blending in with each other because at the very least, he’s on break. He can wallow and wibble in agony in the comfort of his own apartment instead of being public menace number one in the lecture halls. He hated being that kid.

There’s a noise to his right, the subtlest shuffle of papers, and he turns his head to look towards his desk. For a few minutes he had almost forgotten that Napoleon was even over, but every now and then he’ll bat something off of a ledge or softly thump down from a high place, and Mark will remember. “I’m so sorry,” he laments, limbs spread out on his bed. “that I can’t give you the love you deserve.” When was the last time he had taken his cold medication? four hours ago? five? All he really needed to know was that he couldn’t, well–shouldn’t, exceed six pills within a twenty-four hour period.

Unsurprisingly, he gets no response from the black cat, but Napoleon does saunter a little closer, paws delicately picking over the residual mess that was his study space for finals.

“You just get me so well.”

The cat meanders closer to his motionless body.

Mark closes his eyes because he’s tired and it’s time to rest them.

He gets caught in that in-between stage of asleep and awake, body floating on some for of higher plane of existence (or maybe it was just the cold medicine) for a few minutes? hours? until he feels a gentle nudge against his left cheek.

Eyes opening with some struggle, Mark isn’t particularly surprised to see Napoleon’s cute little face centimeters away from his own. He almost goes cross-eyed trying to make eye contact with the cat but then the most magical, unexpected, thing happens.

Before he feels it, he sees a pink little tongue–and then he feels the rough lick to the tip of his nose.

“Oh my god.”

Napoleon lets out a ghost of a meow–it might have even been a cat yawn; Mark isn’t sure.

“Did you really just–”

Everything in his life was leading up to this moment.

“That was so cute, Napoleon.”

His response is a bored look accompanied by another quiet meow.

And the thought crosses his mind. Was he still infectious? Because the last thing he wants to do is get Napoleon sick! How could he, Mark Tuan, claim to be Napoleon’s loving catfather but get him sick while Sehun trusted him in his care?

Mark reaches up to swipe his sweatshirt sleeve against his nose (because cat tongues are rough! and he’s really ticklish), before reaching out a finger to pet Napoleon’s paw. “We’ll get through this together, little man.”

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2. things you said through your teeth.

“What are you doing here?”

He swims with the tides,

He reminded her of a lot of things, like the coal colored feathers of a bird taking refuge from a storm and the taste of a sweetness that lingers for just a moment before disappearing all at once. He was the sort of man with many wonders in his head, the ones that made her want to wonder with him because he never said all that was on his mind. Rather, he gave just enough and just like a fish caught on the bait, she reeled him in slowly because she was too afraid to lose him. Wonderful minds were hard to come by, but as wonderful as they were, they were often times just as frustrating.

“It’s been a while.”

entrances you with his dance,

Closer and closer, it was though it were fate for them to meet. A strange encounter that led to even stranger stories to be told, some never heard by another living soul and some with an audience of listeners. She remembered it clearly as though that cloudy day had been just a dream. She could laugh at how ridiculous she acted, forcing him to stay with her in that restaurant with nothing but burdens on their shoulders and a language to be understood only by the two of them.

how long has it been since she’d seen him? It had been far too long since she saw the light in his eyes that flickered depending on the words he shared with her, but she had commended him then and she would commend him now. He was stronger than he probably thought he was, pushing through her questions with bitter sweetness on his lips. By the end of it, she had learned just enough to understand the brokenness that lingered in his soul. But he was getting better, she thought. He’d been able to get through their conversations, even the ones that were more demanding than their first encounter. 

“I don’t have any stories to tell you today. Not any I want you to hear, anyway.” 

Still he sat perched on ledge of the window, his shoulders between the tall table in front of the window and the door. He didn’t look at her, eyes looking around the room as though he’d forgotten what it was like to be in here.

“After the first day we met, I left feeling defeated.” She whispered, but she wasn’t sure if he heard her. The storm outside was loud and treacherous, and she could see how it had drenched his coat and hair. She sighed, resting her chin on her palm as she looked upon the shelves he kept his eyes on.

she clenched her jaw and breathed as softly as she could without letting him feel the shift in her mood. “I wanted to understand you better, but you’re a puzzle that never ends. it frustrated me to look at you, knowing that with each pause you took, and the longer you took to respond, the more you replayed the memories in your head and broke them down until they were something else. Something I couldn’t even begin to fathom.”

and leaves you with null. 

#markleon tag

it is done.

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Send “%” for a CURIOUS text.

🍓 ° Send me a word and my muse will reveal a memory that has to do with it.

“Sometimes, though rarely now, I’ll take off all of my makeup put on a snapback and a face mask and just wander. I’ll walk around in my poor excuse of a disguise — though I think it works fairly well for now — and discover new neighbourhoods, streets, stores and houses I could dream about living in someday. Sometimes I’ll find myself in a park and just sit down on the grass to look up at the sky,” her face lights up as her rambling continues, “I’ll look at the clouds and think about what the shapes look like. Just as if I was a kid, you know? I’ll imagine if it’s a heart or a strawberry or maybe a princess. It’s soothing to clear my head and think about something so abstract.” Nodding a little, she looked at him suddenly surprised to realize she didn’t even know his name. 

Talk about...: accepting!

“You’ve got to be the world’s toughest seventeen year old, or else you won’t make it for too long.” 

Initially discouraging, yet over time her doubt has eroded to show the truth in the statement. It has been a long time coming, what with her family’s death, her captivity, and now this aching Limbo -- half free, half the devil’s -- and yet she believes from the depths of her heart, from the concept of espoir in it’s most concentrated form, that she is almost there. That light at the end of the tunnel, symbolic, inviting, enigmatic, it’s brushing against her fingertips. The concept of almost has reignited the fight in the once fatigued form, rekindling desire. Not vengeance, but justice. Right now she believes she is currently the world’s toughest nineteen year old, a title earned through blood, sweat, and tears (mostly tears, some blood, minimal sweat.) It began with the death of her youth, the child who believed in the good in people was killed with their very own hands, and from her corpse came an archangel of melancholy and desperation, not love, never love, because they took it with them when they passed away. 

She smiles and they forget that every bone in her body has been broken to calcifying as to not break again, she laughs and they’ve dosed her in poison and told her that she was going to end up just like them.