#mololly writes

When he first started hanging out with Allison’s friends, Jake had had a lot to unlearn. ‘Affection’ had always been a strange concept to him; it was romantic, after all, wasn’t it? And he hadn’t always given himself the space to understand what that meant. So, the first time Oliver pulled him into a bear hug, Jake had pushed him away. Close contact was unfamiliar, alien, and definitely not something Jake considered platonic. Thinking about that now, when Oliver’s head was rested casually in his lap, and Jodie was snoring lightly on his shoulder, made Jake smile. He moved his hand to rest on Oliver’s head, fingers sliding easily through his coarse blond hair, and Oliver hummed quietly. Startled, Jake pulled away.

It isn’t there intentionally. Not at first, anyway. The first small fraction between a funny comment and a witty remark that would once have come from Jodie Bailey is a tense one; one where none of the young heroes know exactly what to say. For a moment, they’re blindsided, expecting another voice to chime in, and then they remember. The space hangs heavy between them, and Jake quickly throws a joke into the air, smothering them in their usual light. Humour had always been their cover, but never more than then. 

The second time, Oliver feels the silence like a punch to the stomach. He walks away before someone else summons their own humorous response, filling in for the voice of the loved one he lost. He is found hours later in her vacant room, watching the slow-dying ivy fall from the walls, wisps of wind tunnels whipping them in circles on the floor. 

The fifth, sixth, seventh time, the moment is shorter. They are learning to fill the gaps faster, not leaving room for the wave of grief, but long enough that they remember. They always remember. Whether it is Danny filling the space with a drawn-out drawl, or Allison with her razor-sharp wit, the gap is always left. Shortening, but ever-present. 

“He’s gone, Quinn. We just need transport. Get these guys back to base.” Connor’s voice buzzed over the intercom, and Quinn frowned.

“Confirmed. Be careful, Connor. Don’t do anything stupid,” he said, before switching the feed to the speakers located through the base. “Code Red. I repeat, there is a Code Red. Transport required, all teams report to deployment.”

“Guess I’m in charge then?” Micah asked, still watching the grainy feed of Connor sealing his team in the Facility boardroom. Quinn claps a hand on his shoulder, using it to push himself out of his seat.

“Yep. I’m gonna go brief the others,” he said solemnly. “I’ll let you know when we sort a dispatch, and you’re gonna have to get the message through to Obed.”

“Got it. Good luck with James,” Micah said, trying to joke but sounding almost monotonously tired. “Oh, and… try not to let them send Dan.”  

“Quinn, what’re we dealing with?” James asked as Oliver leant on him, trying to catch his breath, the two of them having run from the training room three floors down. Quinn looked across the room of people, all staggering in at various levels of exhaustion. It had been a monster three days, and he was surprised at how many of them were still standing. He almost didn’t want to tell them the news.

“Reaper took out the drain, but Electrode managed to get out alive, so we need a tracker. Enigma sealed the others in a probability bubble so they’d be safe, and he’s gone after Chronos alone. The others need an Evac team as soon as possible. We might need Medical but, from what I can see, we’re going to be adding more bodies to the morgue either way,” Quinn explained as quickly as he could, and James nodded, turning to his team.

“You heard him. We have a lot of people still not cleared by Abbie, but we can pull together a big enough team for a safe Evac. Hypoxia, I want you and Typhoon on tracking as soon as possible. The rest of you, I’m going to need at least three volunteers for the Evac team,” James said. “I know we’re all tired, but, the faster we get everyone back, the faster we can shut down the Facility permanently.”

“Who died?” Dan piped up, stepping out from behind Mitchell. Quinn went pale, and swallowed slowly. “Quinn? Who is it?”

“... From what I could see, the drain siphoned aura strength. It latched onto the strongest force in the room.”

“No. Fuck off, tell me it isn’t -”

“Psych is currently incapacitated, but Engima has already conveyed his doubts when it comes to survival chances. At the moment, in the lock, all probability is fixed, so he’s dying, and quickly.”

Dan’s hand flew into the air, quickly followed by his teammate, Alex, and their healer, Mitchell.

“Let me go. James, let me get him. Please.”

James looked up at Quinn for a moment, who shakes his head. James just sighed.

“This is a shit situation… But, okay. But Carcino leads, not you, Beacon. Everyone else, fall out.”

Nothing could have prepared Dan for walking through the boardroom door. He had already had to stomach walking past an incapacitated Connor at the bottom of the stairwell, surrounded by bits of broken guard rail and partially lay on the pale, bloodied body of Carter. However, he would forever believe that the feeling as he stepped into the bubble holding his best friend to the last wisps of life was the deepest pain he had ever felt. His teammates, his friends, were huddled together, expressions ranging between confusion and anger. Feeling Mitchell’s hand on his shoulder, he jumped, beginning to shake. The air around him began to collect slowly, forming small clouds that seemed to gravitate towards each other.

“You can save him, can’t you?” he asked quietly, but Mitchell didn’t even acknowledge him, moving to quickly heal Jake’s shallow wounds. “Mitchell. Mitch, please, tell me you can save him.” He could barely look at the body. A fizzling pink glow was evaporating quickly from Stephen, down to the last dregs of light. He didn’t look dead. That was all Dan could think. He didn’t look dead. Small shards of ice shot down from the clouds surrounding him as he yelled, “Mitchell Tanner, tell me that you can bring him back!”

“I can’t do that!” Mitchell shouted, and Dan flinched, stepping back quickly, ice melting almost instantly. Mitchell didn’t get angry often and, mid-healing, his skin was almost transparent, giving him a more corpse-like appearance than the boy on the floor between them. “He’s gone, Dan! I can’t fix that!”

The room fell silent. Amy, who had been rocking slightly where she was sat against the wall, wiped a small amount of blood from her face. Aleisha tugged slightly on the edges of her gloves, as if she was attempting to pull them further up her forearms. Alex bumped his shoulder against Dan, who was beginning to well up, causing a few tears to escape, but they froze against Dan’s skin.

“He can’t just die.”

“I’m sorry, Daniel, but Mitch is right,” Aleisha said gravely, not meeting Dan’s eyes as his gaze flickered over to her. “I can… sense him, almost. He hasn’t… passed yet, but he can’t come back.”

For the first time since entering the room, Dan allowed himself to hover his gaze on his best friend. His skin was mottled, but pale, and Stevie was slack against the dirty carpet. The last trace of his aura, his life force, evaporated, and the air around Dan began to effervesce. Dan’s mind immediately swarmed with noise, and the smoke gathering around him began to cycle through matter states. As a crushing weight grew in his chest, he realised just how much his best friend had been protecting him.

“We need to get him out of here,” Alex said quietly, so quietly that Dan could barely hear him over the murmuring in his head, looking pointedly at Obed as if to imply that it was he who should be carrying the small hero. Obed nodded solemnly, making as if to pick him up.  

Connor could barely breathe.

It had been a few days since the funeral, but he’d barely stopped crying since, and hadn’t left his room at all. He was still wearing the dress shirt and pants from the day. He hated feeling like this, but since Olivia died it had been rare for him to feel anything at all.

At a quiet knock on the door, his head snapped up, eyes blurry and unseeing for the most part. The world was a disjointed mess of colours and words on a good day - but Connor hadn’t had a good day in a while. The door opened, and a small plate of food slid in. Connor frowned. How could he eat at a time like this? Why should he?

Connor got to his feet and stumbled over to the door, standing over the plate and glaring at it. It was a sandwich - probably chicken - with a packet of crisps and a Capri-Sun. Probably his brother trying to make sure he wasn’t starving to death. Not that he was going to eat it. He picked up the drink first.

He remembered having one on the same day he met Olivia. The first day of college - they never had money to buy his lunch, so he always took food with him. She took her own food too, so she knew it was safe to eat. When he met her, she was in a wheelchair - too weak to stand from the extensive therapies that came from having her cancer. She called it ‘hers’ because she’d almost never been without it. Olivia and her cancer had been together since she was a young child. The puffy cheeks and reddened nose were almost comically characteristic of people using her medication - but Connor hadn’t thought of that when he first saw her. He thought she was cute, if he was honest. Her choppy brown hair was fluffed up, and her big blue eyes were sharp - he didn’t have to wonder if she was smarter than him, he knew from one look that she’d be able to talk him under the table on even his favourite subjects. He fell for her almost instantly, which is why, when she wheeled over to his table and asked if he knew anyone yet, he said no, but that he’d like to get to know her.

It had been approaching their two year anniversary when she died. It was the date he set her funeral on.

Connor dropped the juice back onto the plate, which he picked up. He considered throwing it at the wall, but then he got a better idea. The plate flew through the air and broke against the mirror. The glass fractured, a few shiny splinters falling like stars with the plate as it crashed to the floor. The rest of the mirror didn’t last long. He marched over and threw it hard against the wall, a guttural scream clawing it’s way from his throat. It felt good to scream, good to break. It felt good to feel.

He grabbed a pillow from his bed and hurled it at his shelves, knocking down a few of the awards there. They lost limbs and heads and footballs as they broke apart on the floor, but he didn’t care. The were fake, shiny reminders of coming second, or third; or of his ‘participation’. Worthless. As worthless as his memories of a girl long dead; as worthless as his dreams of a long, happy future that would never come. He threw another pillow and watched them fall. As he did, he couldn’t help but think of himself and Olivia…

While they were together - while she was alive - Connor had felt invincible. Like they could do anything. So, when Olivia’s cancer returned, he thought of everything but her death. He thought that if he just loved her enough; if they just got to the hospital fast enough when she got worse; if they just got one more minute that she would be safe. That he wouldn’t have to lose her, and they could carry on being invincible.

But, as he screamed and cried and destroyed, Connor was learning that they were not, in fact, invincible.

So he raged. He kicked things and threw things, and he screamed until he lost his voice. But it helped. As his knuckles ran with blood and his throat dried out, he could feel the anger beginning to ebb away. He almost wished he could stay angry - his only alternative from the last few days being empty, unfulfilled longing for time to turn back. That was the only ‘emotion’ he could hold, as it left him feeling empty - emotionless and cold. It was so much worse than crying, or pain - because then he actually got to feel something. What he felt might burn him up, it might be a fiery rage that destroyed everything in it’s wake, but it was something. A small fill for the void swallowing him the rest of the time; a crashing wave in a still ocean that left him breathless but alive.

The aftershocks would fade eventually, he knew that, and he would sink back into the void of nothing that had surrounded him the moment Olivia’s heart had stopped beating.

In our world, we are all born with barcodes on our wrists - to show that we are and always will be property of our government. At the moment of birth, the numbers read as a line of nine zeros, and they change as we age to show our likes, dislikes, and moods. For some of us, they also show our darkest secret, in the form of a single red star. Let me explain.

Barcodes all look pretty similar, even though everyone’s is unique to them; straight black lines marked into the skin, with nine numbers underneath. There is normally a small space before the numbers, but not on everyone. Sometimes, that little gap is filled with a small red star. To have the red star means that you are forever marked as a glitch in the system, as someone, something, that went wrong. The Marked Ones, as they’re known to be called, spend the rest of their lives hiding their barcodes, afraid of what people would say if they found out.

That’s how I’ve lived my life, too. Nobody other than my family and my doctors have ever seen my barcode, and I fully intend to keep it that way. Some people get angry when I don’t show them, some ask why. Some plead, swear never to tell anyone what my secret is, and some try to guess. I always say the same thing;

“I won’t show you. It’s my barcode, and it’s my choice. I expected you of all people would understand.”

That usually shuts them up. Usually.

One person has never really stopped asking. He dropped the subject for a little while, when I asked him to, but I know he’s curious. I know he’s just trying to show that he cares. He’s my best friend, after all, that’s what best friends do. They care about you. But I’m still afraid. I don’t want him to leave me - Mitchell’s pretty much the only friend I’ve got.

“Daniel… Danny,” he’ll say, so quietly that I can barely hear him, “why won’t you show me? What’s so bad that I can’t know?”

I think he’s guessed it already - no, I know he has - but I still don’t want to show him. I just can’t risk losing him. But even now, while he’s sitting beside me, I can feel his hand on my arm, as if he can somehow read my barcode through my sweatband. It’s practically his default position. I know he can’t read it - you need skin to skin contact to do that - but it’s still making me uncomfortable. I pull my hand away and cross my arms, and it’s only then that I realise there are tears in his eyes.

“What?”

“Please. Danny, please. It’s like you don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you, Mitch,” I say quietly. “I just don’t like showing people.”

“But I’m not people, I’m your best friend,” he says softly, and his hand twitches like he wants to reach out for me, but he doesn’t. “You’ve seen mine, you know everything about me. I feel like you’re shutting me out, and I just want to understand why. I’ve known you for years, Danny, but I don’t know you.”

Now I’m close to tears as well. I wish he didn’t have that effect on me, but I can’t help it. He means the world to me and I don’t want to keep him out - but I just don’t see what other choice I have.

“I want to tell you. I do, I just can’t. You’d hate me.”

“Look, we both have secrets. I want to change that,” he says, and I look up.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been a while since you saw my code. Things have changed a bit,” he explains quietly, and I immediately think the worst. ‘He’s dying,’ I think. ‘He hates me, and he’s dying, and-’ “Not in a bad way.”

“Then what’s changed?”

“Show me.”

I don’t know why he’s so bothered. He can get to know me without seeing it, can’t he? What’s the big deal? Sure, he knows I’ve got a secret, everyone knows it on some level, but why is he so intent on knowing it? But, I have to admit, I’m curious. Too curious. I guess that’s why he’s my best friend - we’re so alike. We’re not the type of people who let things go easily. I take a deep breath, turn to face him again, and hold out my arm.

“Just… promise me you won’t hate me?”

“I promise,” he says gently, taking my hand in his as he pushes the sweatband up my arm. I want to pull away, like I always do, but I stay as still as I can. My hand is shaking. When he sees my numbers, I hear a sharp intake of breath, and then there is a beat of silence. He says nothing, but his face says enough. I suppose I should have said this earlier; if you have the red star, it means that you have tried to end your life on at least one occasion. For me, it was a long time ago now.

“I knew it. You hate me,” I say, my voice barely audible, and I pull my arm away. I can feel the tears coming, so I turn away from him again and cross my arms over my chest, trying to ground myself before it gets too bad. The one thing I could never deal with well is rejection, and Mitchell’s is the worst kind. My chest feels tight, and I breathe slowly through my nose, trying not to gasp for breath.

The next thing I know, he’s in front of me again. He takes my face in his hands and stares me straight in the eyes. Mitchell has the kind of eyes that haunt you, make you feel like you’re on the spot, and I’ve never felt uncomfortable under his gaze before now. Then again, I’ve never seen just how damn blue his eyes are before. I’ve never been this close. Close up like this, they’re breathtaking. Gentle hues of blue twisted with sharp contrasts of green. They’re unusual, sure, but they’re gorgeous.

“I could never hate you, Danny. It’s, uh, quite the opposite really,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing his words with the utmost care. That alone is enough to make me nervous. Mitchell’s usually pretty careless, the reckless one, so to see him being so careful is strange.

“Mitch, what d’you-” I don’t get to finish my sentence.

“I think I love you.”

My heart stops in my chest. Before I can register what’s happening, I can feel his lips on mine and I don’t know who kissed who, but I don’t even care. His hand is tight on my wrist, but not painfully, and the fingers of his other hand are threading through my hair. I hold on to his t-shirt, pulling him closer. I didn’t know how much I wanted this, wanted him, until right this second when it hit me upside the head and started making me dizzy.

With his hand on my wrist, I know he’s reading everything about me. For the first time, my thoughts and memories are racing through his head. I grab his wrist, right over his barcode, and let his thoughts flood my mind. Things I’d seen a million times and things which were completely new swirled around but, before I can get a good look, everything fades into black. I can’t feel him near me anymore, and it takes me a moment to register that he’s pulled away. As my eyes open properly, I see him standing slightly away from me, his head in his hands.

He saw it, I know he saw it. The worst day of my life - the day it almost ended.

“Mitch, please. Let me explain.”

“Why would you do that?” He asks, his voice small and disjointed, and I realise that there are tears in his eyes.

“You saw why,” I say quietly, “but I’m okay now. It’s never going to happen again. I promise.” I mean it. I’ve been ‘okay’ for a while now. I’m hanging on by a thread, but now I have a feeling that he could be the one to pull me back. “Mitchell?”

When he turns around, I barely get a second to look at him before I’m being swept off my feet in a bone-crushing hug.

“Don’t you ever do that again.” The forcefulness of his sentence is kind of diminished by the fact he’s mumbling into my neck, but I don’t care. I don’t care that my feet aren’t touching the floor anymore and I don’t care that the air is being squashed out of my lungs because he’s still here.

Despite how much I needed it, how much Mitchell needed it, the comfort of the hug wears off, and more nerve wracking thoughts creep in.

“What does this mean, now?” I mumble into his shirt, and he holds me tighter, as if I’m going to disappear if he lets me go. I can feel him trembling a little, which I’ve never felt before, and it scares me. But I know what's wrong this time.

People are almost obsessed with the notion of soul mates - a person whose own unique barcode 'completes' your own, because their black fills in the spaces between yours, and vice versa. I’ve never really believed in it myself, finding the notion just a little bit too cliché. Mitchell, on the other hand, has always believed. I think it was a comfort thing for him, that somehow there was somebody out there who was perfect for him.

I don’t need to see his thoughts to know what’s running through his head as he takes my hand again. He takes a deep breath, lining up the first bar of his code on the edge of mine, and slowly rolls his wrist flush against mine, watching all the time. He didn’t need to, not really, as, when he finally closes his hand around my forearm, a sharp jolt of electricity wizzes up my arm and down my spine.

“I thought it wasn’t…” It wasn’t true; it was just a fairy tale, a story created to give people hope in a bleak world.

“I know. Looks like you were wrong, for once. That doesn’t happen often,” Mitch jokes, but with his wrist against mine still I can feel how fast his his heart is racing. It’s so strong that I feel like he could pull away and I’d still be able to feel it against my skin. I’m never going to forget that feeling; the feeling that something that was meant to be had happened, that that racing pulse was always supposed to lie against mine.

“Yeah. I guess I was.”

It’s late. I haven’t driven down this road in a long time, but I still move on automatic when I come back here, even in the dark. No matter how long it’s been, I always feel comfortable here. These were the streets where I learnt how to drive, and that never leaves you - at least, it hasn’t left me. The streetlights here are a faded orange, giving the street a warm glow in the night. Everything is softened, welcoming; it’s almost as if the very streets are welcoming me home.

It’s been a good few years now. As soon as I finished college, I just left. I took to the rest of the world, taking up odd jobs here and there to keep travelling. I only meant to be gone a year or so, but things got in the way. I always planned to come back home, I didn’t think I’d get so distracted, but the world just took over. I felt a bit guilty for leaving mum like I did; it was only me and her when I was growing up. I just wanted to see something that wasn’t the same streets every day, but, as soon as it was gone, I craved it. I guess it’s just part of me. My feet know the streets, my lungs know the air - I can feel a difference in the atmosphere whenever I’m in this town.

Driving down the main street, past storefronts and school signs, is a comforting feeling. So many of the places I pass hold some sort of meaning. The milkshake bar where I met my best friend when we were seven years old. The art store where I sheltered from the rain and accidentally found a new hobby, painting, when I was thirteen. The library where I spent most of my teens cooped up, studying things with no relevance to school work, like how long a Burmese python lives for (which is about 20 years) or the effect that coffee has on the brain. Memories surround me, cloaking me in melancholy and carrying me on the rest of the drive back to my own street.

I turn the corner. It’s like a weight is lifted from my chest when I see the house. Mum isn’t expecting me, I never called. I meant to, but I forgot. I meant to. I know she’s home, at least; I still recognise her car, even from this distance. She’s not had a new one for as long as I’ve lived, I don’t know how it’s lasted so long. I had my first kiss in that car; it was just a few months before I left. I doubt he’d even remember my name now. I don’t remember his. Some things, I think, are best left forgotten.

Pulling up outside the house, I take a moment to breathe. I haven’t been home in years, and the trip alone was exhausting. Just looking up at the mismatched paint job and the slightly wonky windows is forming a massive lump in my throat, and I consider driving away again for a solid five seconds. I’ve put off coming home for years already, but being so close reminds me of all the things that pushed me out of town. The boys, the girls, the names, the pain - everything floods back, but I get out of the car anyway. As I push open the small gate, everything stops. The memories, good and bad, suspend themselves mid-thought as I walk slowly up the path to the peeling green door.

I feel like I need to knock. This hasn’t been my house for a few years now - it’s always been my home, but I feel like a stranger now. I can’t just walk in, not after all this time. It wouldn’t be right. So I knock as hard as I dare.

It’s late. Almost midnight. I’m not expecting much.

But, when I hear footsteps on the creaking stairs, my heart leaps up into my throat. I brace myself for the barrage of questions from my mother; the where-have-you-beens and the why-didn’t-you-calls that I know will come eventually, if not immediately. The door swings open…

Driving home under the stars is a wonderful feeling, but I don’t think that anything could compare to my mum’s hugs. Not a thing in the world.