Too much to believe, too much to deny, you fool me again to quiet my pride

[plaguedrat]

He'd stubbornly avoided the city's latest mischief. Any glimmer of glass or crystal had sent him walking in the opposite direction, determined not to get involved. Didn't want to see his future, didn't trust destiny or fate or any preconceived future.

But lately it seemed as though the damn things were following him. The more he walked away, the more Rat found the glinting spheres in his other directions. Apparently, they had a message for him.

"Fuck you," he muttered, even as scooped the stone into his palm.

Grey. Grey back but his rat tattoo nowhere to be seen. Grey who lounged by Curtis, exchanging lazy kisses with the devotion he used to think he would enjoy forever. Now he had no interest, no memory of Rat. All he wanted was Curtis.

Curtis pinning Grey to the bed with his good arm, forearm across his shoulder blades, marking him up with bites. Kisses. Fucking him.

Rat, unloved, alone.

Snarling, Rat threw the crystal aside. "It's not real."

Comments

[pontmercyfriend]

Marius woke up in his own body sometime in the middle of the morning, thankfully. He'd let himself have a few hours to readjust from his child's mentality, wincing at some of the memories (mistaking a stranger for his grandfather, fleeing a cop on the back of Flavia's bicycle, etc) and savoring some of the others (Dorian magically healing his knee, Eleanor being lovely to him, Rat giving him clothes, feeding him, reading to him, etc).

After a lengthy shower and a breakfast he barely tasted, he'd decided to go for a walk. The fresh air would do him good, he thinks, grabbing a light jacket to throw on as he makes his way towards the park.

He's walking at a steady pace, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, when he hears a familiar voice and the blunt sound of an object getting tossed aside.

"Rat?" He calls out, turning the corner to find the other man visibly upset next to some sort of crystal ball. Marius hurries his strides, craving to be at the other man's side. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

[manwiththeknife]

"Jesus," Curtis said, ducking out of the way of the stone as it sailed his head. It landed in the grass, unharmed.

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

He hadn't seen a lot of the kid, since Grey had vanished. In all that time, it looked like his mood hadn't improved a hell of a lot.

[backward]

He'd shown her the picture before. The one of — of Grey, she reminded herself, having blocked him as well as she could from her mind. It wasn't that she felt a sense of ownership or possessiveness over those features or that smile. Far from it.

But seeing either always had a tendency of bringing those voices back, forcing Effy to pay attention to every passing sound no matter how small or subtle, down to the shifting of the wind.

She wasn't sure what they said now, as Effy had a glimpse of the image in Rat's stone, but they festered in the curve of her ear, whispering. Hissing. Something was amiss. She watched as the crystal sphere rolled towards her, settling by her feet.

"Why let something that isn't real upset you?" she asked, leaning down to pick up the object. "You know it's shit."