December 3rd

Jean has perfected the art of forgetting. Things, people, old bruises on his heart that’s always been too loyal and good until the day he brought someone home, and their laced up fingers had his father take his half-empty bottle of booze and throw it against his head along with the word “fag”. It’s been lonely and cold since then. Scholarship, study of medicine. Honorable doctor. What a talented young man, his colleagues say. His bed’s only for him, has been ever since the laceration on his forehead healed.

It’s 3 am and a gurney is shoved into his emergency room; several bruises and slashes on a young scared face, tears in dark fearful eyes and a sky full of freckles scattered over warm cheeks. Broken arm. Jean stitches what he has to, holds a calloused hand when the man who’s almost still a boy cries all night. He hears his story, and he knows that he’ll be lost and spiralling down an abyss that he’s barely just crawled out. “Fag”, the boy sobs, he’s been called. It echoes in Jean’s head, booms and roars and fucking sings.

His shift ends, and it doesn’t. He spends nights by his side. His name’s Marco. He’s beautiful and so heartbreakingly good that Jean curses the world, and it’s weeks after Marco’s out of hospital and on his couch “for just some time” when Jean comes home at 5 am, greeted by bright eyes with hope rising in them, and he wraps his arms around Marco, lips finding his, finally, and a little whisper between gasped breaths – “stay”.

December 2nd

It’s their three month anniversary when Jean sits his parents down and explains that Marco finally wants to meet them. His father’s smile is almost contagiously bright, and he even forgets to sip his beloved coffee over the way Jean’s face blushes and he bites his lip with a shy smile. His mother stops reading the newspaper and looks over the rim of her thick glasses. “It’ll be fine, darling,” she says and squeezes his hand gently. Jean swallows and tells them about how Marco’s a little different and how much they’re in love, that Marco’s very nervous and please, please don’t bring up those embarrassing childhood stories. His mother grins and says that she won’t promise anything.

When Marco and Jean ring the doorbell a week later, his mother opens and immediately pulls Marco into a bone-crushing warm hug. Marco stares at her, wide-eyed, and their lip quivers around a watery, happy little smile when she gently asks which pronouns they’d like today and if they prefer coffee or tea along with sugar cookies. His father pats Marco’s back and has the family photo album tucked under his arm, whispering “you’ll love this” into Marco’s ear with a grin. Back home, hours later, Marco kisses his relief and happiness into Jean’s mouth and whispers thank you’s along through his fingertips dancing along Jean’s spine, lighting fire in his bones.

A broken sob shatters from Jean’s lips when Marco kisses him first, shy and gentle on the soft cupid’s bow above his shaking mouth; and when Marco backs away, eyes panicking and arms letting Jean go, Jean throws himself back into, face buried in the curve of Marco’s neck and whispers “no, no please don’t let go…”

And Marco, after he understands, doesn’t.

Once A Year

Jeanmarco Halloween
sfw.
mentioned suicide

The year dies in October.

Jean doesn’t know or care much about seasons or the change of colour in leaves, the wind going colder and whirling under his clothes and soul. It’s the 31st, and for some strange reason, it’s not midnight like in those horror films when he’s perched on the floor of his room and fiddling with the old wooden ouija board.

When the brim between living and dead shivers and blurs, when children scream for candy outside and loud orange and neon green screech for attention in the stores, Jean’s sitting in his room inside a chalk pentagram surrounded by candles.

It’s the third year after the incident.

He speaks the words he’s been mumbling to himself all week. Jean puts his fingers on the board, the wood warm and pulsing under his tips. The letters mean nothing, and neither does the triangle that starts moving around all by itself.

Jean smiles and blinks the tears away.

“I missed you so fuckin’ much.”

A shiver runs up and down his spine when Marco giggles, his laughter hollow and foreign.

“Missed you too, idiot.”

Jean swallows, gulps down the guilt and fear, just like every year. Marco becomes less human every time; every time Jean feels a kiss ghosting over his lips, Marco’s colder than before and his blurred spirit hovering over the board becomes thinner and so translucent that it’s almost fucking beautiful.

The hole under his chin where he fired the gun and killed himself is still there.

Marco’s mother followed him half a year later. His father’s in jail now, after three years at last. Marco’s form twitches and coils around Jean’s crossed ankles when Jean tells him how the police came, finally enough evidence. He’d dared to touch another boy, and had gotten himself caught. Finally.

Marco’s last kiss tingles on Jean’s lips, salt and sadness.

“Thank you, Jean.” No, don’t say that, Jean whimpers into his hands and tries to hold him, just fucking keep him close – you come back next year, don’t you Marco?

No. Marco doesn’t say it, but his eyes are the last part of his ghost fading into a golden gleaming light, and he leaves Jean behind with a guilt that’ll never be satisfied, never be eradicated like a vanishing form of silver soul melting with the cold night air flushing in from the window.

Every year, on the 31st of Halloween, Jean sleeps with the board under his pillow.

His fingers find the wood in the middle of the night, and he bites back all those sobs that Marco left behind when he went to peace.

Where Jean was wrath and sadness, breathing fire in his lungs destroyed from crying and ragged of screaming til his soul cracked –
there Marco was wind and water, the whisper of night in trees, the cool ice gliding down Jean’s throat and chest when hands took all his pain and fear. And his kiss left Jean struggling, writhing, breaking; and finally, with soft fingers promising healing and ease to his strained heart, he gave in.
Marco said his name like a prayer, and Jean sobbed ‘amen’ before he closed his eyes and the world melted around them.

a thing I did. inspired by the idea of waterbender Marco who can heal and firelord Jean who lost his parents in war and got on the throne with just twelve years.

Gymnophoria-Jeanmarco if that’s okay? :D

Send me a word/fandom/characters and I will write a drabble

{ Gymnophoria } – The sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.

——————————-

He’s been doing this for three weeks now. Marco counted. Fifteen days minus weekends. That new guy is staring at him. Not hidden or in secret, no. Open and conspicuous, with one hand holding up his interested face, propping up his chin, and blinking bright eyes. Oh god, his eyes, Marco quickly turns away and focuses back on his texbook. He swears they are golden, with dark spots around the iris. Marco Bodt, you’re an idiot. His classmates whisper answers to each other while the teacher scribbles math exercises on the board.

In every lesson, Jean Kirschstein examines him from head to toes. His glance sticks to Marco’s face as if he had a nasty left-over blotch of spinach from lunch on his cheek. Marco doesn’t know how to react, how to respond – do you respond at all to someone who’s staring at you as if you were some pretty girl wearing a breathtakingly short mini skirt? It’s almost as if Jean’s… hungry.

Marco bites his bottom lip and nervously looks down. Maybe the guy knows.

Maybe Jean Kirschstein knows that he’s gay and this is just a test. It wouldn’t be the first time. Marco remembers his last school, before his parents moved – but that’s over. Panic won’t make this any better. He’s just being watched, that’s all. Maybe… could Jean be…? No. Absolutely not. Marco has seen him kiss a girl after school, right on the lips. His stomach twists. Suddenly, he doesn’t want lunch break to come. Because sometimes Jean is sitting down close to him on the schoolyard, when Marco is eating his lunch alone under apple trees where the leaves rustled in autumn.

Sometimes, Jean follows him and they sit ten meters apart. Marco then counts the crumbs his sandwich left over in his lunchbox. He shuffles his feet around and paints figures and patterns into the dirt with the tip of his shoes. And after long minutes of cold wind swirling over the yard, Jean gets up, and Marco jolts and glances after him when golden eyes return back into the classroom.

The teacher taps her pointer on the blackboard and calls someone’s name, but not Marco’s. He relaxes a bit, tries to remember what the correct answer to something in his textbook is.

His fingers clench around the pencil when Jean shifts, two seats away from him. Marco’s pencil cracks, the tip falling off when Jean tilts his head and blinks at him. Gold. An ugly graphite grey smudge smears over the paper and Marco curses softly, hides his blushing face behind dark hair.

“Silence,” the teacher says. Her eyes sting when she glares at him. Nobody disturbs math class, not when she’s explaining a new exciting topic. Marco ducks, nods in apology.

“I’m sorry.”

The teacher snorts and some other kids giggle. Marco knows his cheeks glow red by now, and he hides behind his text book. His seatmate is sick, and so it’s Jean’s luck that nobody disturbs his strange glances. Marco shifts around and it’s not even uncomfortable anymore. He’s gotten used to Jean’s eyes sting and prickle all over his skin. He knows the dark spots around his iris, knows how he laughs when his friends ask him what he’s doing in the afternoon, and he says that he has a date. But that one day, when Marco saw him kiss a girl, and Jean turned away and his mouth fell open at Marco’s sight – that is his favourite memory.

Marco blinks when a pellet of paper is thrown on his desk. The teacher is scribbling on the blackboard again. There’s something written on the tiny piece, blue ink shimmering through. Marco gulps and glances over. Who would – oh. Oh. Jean smiles briefly, brightness lighting up his face, and then he ruffles his hair. Marco nearly chokes on his breath, god he’s – he’s –

The paper quivers in his fingers when he folds it open behind his textbook.

I’d do anything for you to smile back at me. I’d even continue to sit next to you every break and kinda stalk you in class. But I’d rather ask if you’d wanna go on a date? Because, if you’d say yes, then it’s a date next lunch break. If you’d say no, it’s not.
Then it’s not a date.

Marco’s cheeks are deep red, and he’s barely holding back the tremor in his fingers while he scribbles a reply. The piece of paper comes back to Jean, all crumpled and with black ink and tiny letters on it.

You’ve been staring for weeks now. I think I’ve lost all my clothes in your mind already. Means you owe me at least a sandwich next lunch break.
It’s a date.

Jean nearly chokes when he opens the paper, and Marco sees his palms squeeze around the message. Finally Marco glances back, cheeks glowing when he brushes his hair back, and whispers a few words into the mumbling of his classmates.

“My favourite sandwich is cheese and salami. I hope you don’t really undress me next break.”

Jean’s eyes spark for a second, and he leans over with a grin that has Marco’s heart skip a few beats.

“Wouldn’t dare. I kiss before I undress people.” The teacher doesn’t pay attention, is busy writing more numbers on the blackboard. Marco slowly puts his math book down, bites his lip. Jean’s arms rest loosely on the table; he’s got his sleeves pushed up and a purple vein twitches on his forearm. Marco worries his lip for a second. Then an honest smile spreads over his mouth, brightens his face from shyness to a sun beaming with freckles.

“A kiss has to be earned.” Jean isn’t taken aback. He cocks his head, ruffles his hair, and his next rasped words let Marco’s heart leap into the skies and fly right away.

“I earned a smile, didn’t I? And a pretty one on top of that.” A chuckle, and for a second, Jean reaches out and his finger traces along a cloud of freckles on Marco’s hand, nobody’s seen it. Their classmates stare at the blackboard, don’t see Marco blush and gasp for air, beaming like a love-sick idiot. Jean’s eyes are warm. Gold. It sparks when he says:

“Maybe we can eat together more often. As, uh. Boyfriends."