#marked.

After the show, Louis turns up at Harry’s hotel room wearing the same tank top that drove him to distraction on stage. It’s not the first time this has happened. It won’t be the last.

Harry’s tried to be good. To be careful. They’ve been told: stay friends, stay quiet, stay out of trouble. But Harry can’t look at Louis and see anything but want.

He wants Louis on his knees. Wants him covered in it. Wants to mark him up and never let him wash it off.

And tonight, Louis wants it too.

A filthy, reverent story about obsession, surrender, and claiming what’s always been yours.

Mocking Jay Part 2 Sentences — Accepting.

The rain rattled low against the glass walls, a steady rhythm that filled the silence the demigod refused to break. It rolled down in silvery threads, cutting faint reflections of the two of them across the room — Daon pacing like a caged beast, and Baekhyun, the picture of indolence, draped over his velvet couch as though the world hadn't just burned itself raw outside.

He turned a page with the delicate care of someone handling something far more precious than paper (which, in truth, the transcript might as well be), thumb tracing the edge before his eyes flicked lazily upward. The light caught on the rings at his fingers, on the faint sheen of his skin.

"You'll wear a hole in my floor, darling." He was the first to speak, voice smooth and honeyed, just enough to slide beneath Daon's fury and catch. "And for what? A man who will already be dead before your little speech is finished?"

His gaze dipped back to the faded ink, though his lips curved, just slightly. There was a cruel kind of beauty in watching him like this — blood in his eyes, rain still clinging to his shoulders, the very air around him trembling with the weight of violence yet to be done. The vampire would never admit it, but it was rather... alluring.

"He doesn't need to see your eyes." He continued, quiet, almost kind. Almost. "You only say that because you want him to know it's you, that you're the one who gets to end him."

He finally looked up then, eyes gleaming under the flickering flames of the hearth.

"You always were sentimental like that. It's cute."

The low hum of the speakeasy thrummed through the dim light, neon glinting off the polished bar. Baekhyun’s hands hovered over the bottles, but Daon's presence, so annoyingly close, made it impossible to focus. He was busy mixing a rather cliché, yet fitting Bloody Mary at the unwanted customer's request, jaw clenched, fingers dancing over the bar with just a hint of aggression. The reason, of course, sat across the counter, a vexing grin plastered across their face.

When the god leaned in, one hand gripping Baekhyun's chin and forcing his gaze upward, Baekhyun snapped instantly, the heat in his voice matching the flush creeping across his cheeks.

"Keep pushing me, see what happen." Crimson hues flared briefly in his eyes, glittering with dangerous amusement. "I have no problem killing you just because I feel like it. Besides..." He jerked his head slightly, forcing a smirk that was all teeth and sharp edges, "...you are an absolute pain in my ass."

He leaned back just enough to reclaim his space behind the bar, still close enough for Daon to feel the warning in every syllable. "Might just add another drop of love potion to your drink, sweetheart." Baekhyun added, a scoff escaping his lips as he cast a sardonic smile over his shoulder, recalling their last encounter.

Baekhyun frequently has dreams or nightmares about Aedus — ▲

The fire comes first, always the fire, all too consuming and suffocating. It coils around him in sleep like a serpent, smoke clinging to his lungs until breathing feels more like drowning. And then, through the haze, a shape. Wings unfurling, light too blinding to bear, and a face he knows better than his own.

His heart sinks, too heavy to carry. Baekhyun's feet move before his mind can process it, sprinting so desperately toward the mirage that every muscle in his body screams for relief. Aching, burning. The air stings like venom in his lungs, but he doesn't care — can't care — because what if this time it's real? What if this time the fire won't fade?

"Chan—" The name tears out in a broken call before he can stop it, a distraught fracture in the silence. But when the figure steps closer, the details don't match. The tilt of the mouth, the gleam in the eyes, it's all so wrong, so foreign.

"You are not…" His throat catches, grief folding into rage, into something jagged and soon his fingers are coiling into first into a grip so deadly that it breaks skin, drawing faint streaks of blood along his palms. "...fuck."

Still, the vision lingers. Still, the flames take his shape. Why?

Baekhyun's hands tremble as he takes a step forward, unwilling yet unable to look away. "If you're not him, then why do you keep showing yourself?" The question falls like broken glass, sharp and aching, because he already knows the answer.

Baekhyun and Hyejung taking care of a bunch of orphan puppies and/or kittens — ▲

Droplets of rain traced glistening paths down the apartment door, leading toward the cozy corner by the warm hearth. Outside, the downpour battered the glass walls in a relentless rhythm, its roar broken only by the frantic yelps of drenched puppies clustering around Moon, Baekhyun's hybrid hound. By contrast, his own canine sat unbothered, curled in a bean shape by the fire — hardly surprising, given its usual temperament, as calm and steady as a river.

The litter had been abandoned in a cardboard box at the side of the road, a sight neither of them could ignore once the clouds above began to roar. And so, here they were: Baekhyun and Hyejung huddled by his fireplace, drenched like wet chickens, while tiny puppies tumbled around them and Moon, threading through the quiet weight of their own decision.

"I did not think the rest of this through..." He was the first to speak, an audible and defeated sigh slipping past pale lips as he attempted to brush back the drenched bangs stubbornly clinging to his lashes. A couple of pups scrambled onto his lap, nibbling at his fingers when he reached forward, stumbling ever so often the way newborns do.

Hyejung snorted, wringing out the sleeve of her soaked blouse. "You never do." She sounded a little too joyful, he noted, though her voice carried no jest, only the weariness of someone equally swept along by impulse.

The fire crackled, its warmth chasing faint trails of steam from their clothes, while the puppies yipped and tripped over each other in chaotic delight. Moon lifted his head only long enough to cast a slow, unimpressed glance at the new arrivals before tucking his nose back beneath his tail.

Baekhyun leaned back against the wall, exhaling as if the weight of the night pressed down on his ribs. "What are we supposed to do with them all?" The thought slipped out before he could stop it, steel-blue hues following the tiny figures rushing back and forth.

Baekhyun and Junho are in an arranged marriage, but Baekhyun doesn't want to go through with it — ▲

The morning's cold breeze caressed his cheek as if Mother Nature herself had come to greet him, the howling wind singing words of ancient tales while the rustling leaves wove white noise into the rhythm. He couldn't quite tell when the moon had departed and the sun begun its climb, only that the wind had kept him company ever since the agreement was announced.

You are to be betrothed to Prince Junho at the dawn of the next day. Echoing, haunting words that clung to his mind like a plague, building a nest from broken twigs.

It's funny, he thinks, the way the clouds above weep over his demise, delicate and yet raging droplets crashing to the ground in an incessant rain. It almost goes unnoticed when the center of it all enters the room with quiet but deliberate steps, perhaps in hopes of making his presence known.

Baekhyun doesn't turn around, allowing the faint splashes of rain to kiss his forehead as they break against the railing, a hand extending out into the water's range to let it pool in the palm of his hand.

"You know, Jun, I could run away."

Junho's footsteps stopped a breath behind him. For a moment there was only the rain — a soft, patient percussion — and whatever small war played out in the space between two people who had been taught how to pretend.

"Do you hate me that much?" The other's words are not of hurt, but coated in the same old playful banter they have shared since childhood. So when Baekhyun turns it is with a laugh, joyous and yet ever so bitter with the weight of it all.

"I could never hate you... but I do not love you, just like you do not love me. Well, not in that way." Droplets drip from the tips of his fingers, but his hand comes to rest against the taller's chest anyway, just where the heart lies. He lets it rest there for a moment as their gazes lock, long enough to convey the dread that still eats away at his soul.

Silence hangs, but this time it is with comfort and the promise of something yet unknown. Far, far away from here.