WE'RE BACK, BABY! WHOOOOOOOOO!
So, this is how our intro-joke-thing starts. Nether just screaming his head off.
Yep. Isn't that how most of our intros start?
Good point.
Salute to the Awesomer Army! My name is The Awesomer, and here it is! The story we've put the most of our time and effort into!
For the past year, we've been writing this! For the past year, we've been putting our hearts and souls into this one story! For the past year, we've been not writing Faded Gold and instead have been writing this!
We have blatantly been ignoring the Pewdiepie fanfiction and instead have been writing this. A Markiplier fanfiction.
You're welcome, ladies.
No, in all seriousness, we've been looking forward to completing Faded Gold just so we could continue on and write this instead. I have put my heart and soul into this, and we are finally ready to release our abomination of a story to the public.
Ya'll ready for this?
I got the popcorn. Let's see how many hate-comments we get sent to us!
Enjoy!
The Man on the Porch
Eris POV—
From the standard point of view, I couldn't say I didn't have a somewhat ordinary life.
Well, look at me. About to tell you my life story. Always a wonderful way to hook the reader, eh? Bore them to death with stories about where you came from, and they'll just come flocking in.
Ah, well, it's necessary. Do try to stick around, won't you?
Simplifying my childhood, I grew up in the Yukon province of Canada, in a tiny village a few miles away from a small RCMP (Royal Canadian Mountain Police) camp called Silver City. The small ghost-camp, as well as the Kluane Lake area, ended up as my earliest childhood stomping grounds; something I admit to being lucky to have. I lived with both of my parents, whom of which I gained all of my physical attributes from: straight black hair, pale skin, and large hazel eyes gracing an oval face, with a short frame that bordered between lanky and athletic.
Science—despite something I wasn't entirely interested in—was my forte, and led me to believe my future was to be within the science community, and eventually landed me in the medical end of the spectrum. But while I had always wanted to write a book, or become an editor for a publishing company, I had been instead shipped off to America for my college classes.
I was applied to the Athens University in Alabama to study health science with chemistry for a minor, and I hoped I could soon work with medicine and maybe actually get to writing the book I had always wanted to do when I had the free time. But in reality, I reserved money for tuition and expensive-ass books (seriously, those things put you in debt), I finished my homework and projects on time, and did the extra-credit homework when I was free.
I lived with a roommate in a shitty one-story apartment building with rent cheaper than my groceries. I did my best to pay my bills on time, worked at a two-star retail store for my current job, and worked with martial arts every weekend and Wednesday nights. I enjoyed a single-life, with little financial debt, little worries, and not much to think about aside from school projects and homework. It was a kind of life some people would kill for, as I have been told in the past.
People said it was nothing more than that: A simple life, led by a simple girl, with simple dreams.
But I always said it wasn't a simple life, by a simple girl. Hell, I wasn't a simple girl.
I didn't even have a life.
People... stayed away from me, to say it bluntly. I almost naturally sent out this vibe for people to keep away and leave me alone. My face was always lifted into a troubled-looking scowl, my appearance uncaring as I sported baggy hoodies and jeans. My way of speaking was often in short sentences, with a tone that constantly rang 'just leave me alone so I can think.' What few times I actually stopped and thought of being social, I quickly pushed the thoughts away and immersed myself in my courses, just wanting to keep to myself.
I was perfectly okay with it.
No... 'okay' isn't the word. I wasn't 'okay' with it...
I was... numb.
I was apathetic with life.
I woke up, ate, went to school, ate, came home and did my homework, ate, and went to bed with no emotion. Hell, I would go entire weeks without even speaking to anyone.
No one cared, so I didn't care.
What reason would I have to care?
Life traveled on without me, and it would probably not even need me in the first place. I could disappear, and not even my family would care for long. Life was just another thing.
Numb.
Apathetic.
Emotionless.
Live life, and let the others do the good things.
But things changed, and it started when I found a man bleeding in front of my apartment.
There was a certain... feel... to the night.
It was something that many college-aged people would understand pretty well: It was a night of Netflix streaming and burnt popcorn. A cold, Alabaman blizzard with snow loftily swirling through the midnight-blue air. A lonely night with Mel Brooks movies and an empty apartment. The night after a day filled with fleece pajamas and green slippers. The third day into Christmas Break, where fraternities and sororities released their insanity onto the town they resided in until the holidays were over and the schools regained their tight grips around their students.
That's a good description, don't you think? I pretty sure many people had something like that.
I did my best to "relax" for the Christmas Break, before the college would beckon back to me for more half-assed assignments to do. I had spent an entire day sitting inside, not even daring as much as taking a shower for the last three days straight (I am disgusting). With my peripheral vision, I could make out the blinking apartment light glowed a soft orange color overhead, lighting up the poorly renovated living room/kitchen/bedroom/dance studio (at least according to my roommate, whom was out-of-town for Christmas).
Apathetic.
Like everything I lived for.
To put it bluntly, we didn't live in a very... ah... privileged neighborhood. Walk out the door and look on the ground, and there were broken glass shards and joint-butts, and the occasional Cuban-cigar dealer would wander to our apartment door nightly to offer us a limited deal on illegal tobacco. Mice and rats loved our shit hole of a one-story apartment, often scurrying through our walls at dusk with their tiny claws dragging across the dry wall when they crawled up into our cabinets to our food. You couldn't open our cabinets and pull out a box of raisin-bran without finding the cardboard chewed through by tiny, gnawing teeth.
The blankets we we turned into curtains over our newly replaced windows (long story) let tendrils of a pale white glow into the apartment, showing off the fact that—surprisingly—winters in Alabama could be brutal.
Our tiny salvaged LCD TV (that amazingly managed to hook up to the internet) played a rerun of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights," flashing an image of my favorite part: Mark Blankfield playing the blind servant, claiming he could finally see before he ran straight into the tree he just tumbled out of. Despite enjoying (enjoying, not laughing) the joke thousands of times in the past, I had stopped paying attention to the movie a while ago, mainly because I knew the film entirely by heart, including both of the songs and dances.
Still, I allowed the movie play, if just for the sake of something breaking the silence of Christmas Break. I lethargically switched my eyes from the Mel Brooks flick to my forest-green slippers, watching in detachment as they slapped against the bottom of my feet when I wiggled my toes; flap-flop-flap-flop.
I moved my attention again to the flickering overhead light, my gaze landing on a grey moth that had sought out refuge from the cold of the outside to the soft orange light bulb. It fluttered and bumped its head against the glass bulb, trying desperately to reach the light; unable to land because of the burning heat of the glass.
A deep sigh escaped my lungs before I could stop it. "Merry-freaking-Christmas," I muttered, my voice rusty-sounding from lack of use. I was only here because I wanted to spend some time alone away from everyone, including my family. They had invited me, of course, but I refused politely. I needed time to think about... well... nothing.
I've done that for the past four months. Make some friends, at least!
I closed my eyes with another weary sigh, starting to doze off. The thought of making some actual friends could wait...
...
...
Knock, knock.
I roused quickly from my sleep, sitting up on the couch almost in a blind panic. "Whas'sit?" I murmured automatically.
I blinked and laid back quickly after my startled heart fell back into normalcy, a hand over my eyes to block the dim light from outside. "Ugh. 'S bright..." My voice slurred almost drunkenly.
My sleep-fogged mind had already started to process why I had been suddenly awoken; What the hell was it? Did I have a nightmare? Nah, don't be stupid. I don't even remember feeling any kind of mental terror when I sat up. Was it a certain sound? Maybe the rats were starting to get brave and run around the floors without cover, or...?
Knock, knock.
"Ah." I smacked my lips dryly in remembrance, regaining my attention-span enough to understand someone had rapped at the door. But this late at night? On Christmas Break? Hell no!
Removing my hand from my face, and with heavy eyes I cast a fleeting look at the TV. The credits of the movie were rolling smoothly up the screen now. I slept for time. Through the make-shift curtains on my windows, the wind shrieked and snow created a complete white-out. The sight of the wind and ice alone made me shiver, and I drew the blanket that was draped across my legs closer to my torso.
I finally dwelled on the thought of me hearing a knock on the door. Was someone outside?
I looked back at the window, where snowflakes beat heavily across the air like kamikaze pilots towards the Earth.
No way someone could be outside at this time. It was far too cold.
I allowed my eyes to slide down, heavy with sleep now that I realized I woke up for nothing. My thoughts drifted away from my body, and my last coherent decision being that if there really was a person who was at my door, it was another one of those insane cigar-dealers in our neighborhood.
Just ignore it, my mind drawled soothingly. They'll go away. Just relax, and go to sleep...
Sleepy... I inwardly sighed, and started to sink deeper into my couch, pulling the blanket to my chin and nuzzling the lumpy cushion with my chin.
...
Knock knock!
I started slightly, but my eyes refused to open. Finally realizing that someone really was insane enough to be outside in this weather, I groaned loudly. It was probably just enough for whoever was at the door to hear my annoyance. "Go away! I'm not interested in buying your fucking cigars! And it's freezing-cold outside!"
Knock, knock!
"NO!"
...
...
...
Knockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknock!
"ALRIGHT! I'M UP!" I hollered angrily. Pissed off and tired, I swung my legs off the couch and stretched my lower back, which had gained a few uncomfortable cricks from my quick nap. I watched as a few popcorn kernel shells that I hadn't eaten fell to the ground from my sleep-shirt, like scales of golden sunshine. Reaching for the small rope-spool-table, I plucked my 3.5 prescription glasses from next to the plate of half-eaten Oreo cookies and pushed them on my face, clearing up my terrible vision.
My green slippers made a slap-slap! sound across the floor as I shuffled to the door, grumbling about the stupid Cuban cigar dealers and their deal with only trading at night loudly, in hopes the guy at the door would get the message. I ran a hand quickly through my hair to make it look as if I were a respectable human being, and put one of my eyes against the peephole we had installed in our door. Through the yellow light of the only functioning street lamp on our street, and through the heavy snowfall, I saw the silhouette of a man.
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKKNOCK!
He looked a few years older than me, but not by much. Maybe around 25 or so, though he was a few inches short for his age. But he apparently made up for it in muscle and... an interesting choice of wardrobe. Despite the cold blizzard tonight, he wore cargo shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt with a faded image of a pink mustache (really?).
Goosebumps raised on his snow-covered skin, pale and shivering violently. His obsidian-black hair was shaggy and caked with dirt and sweat, falling just over his left eye. Frameless square prescription glasses sat haphazardly perched on his nose, covering up his large, puppy-like coffee eyes. On his right cheek, a long cut ran from the corner of his eye to his jaw line. Blood still trickled from the wound, like running paint on a white canvas.
I scoffed quietly. "Go away!" I said again. My fingers reached for the lock and twisted it until I heard a soft click! I turned away, ready to turn in for the night. I didn't really care what the guy wanted. He looked as if he was another druggie from the area.
"Help me!" a shivering baritone voice called, followed by more knocking. "Please, I'm begging! Open the door!"
I growled slightly, already tired and pissed of from being so rudely woken up. "NO!"
"I can't walk anywhere else!" the voice cried. "Please, you're the only one awake! I need help!"
"Why?" I demanded, turning around and pressing my eye against the peephole again.
I felt my lungs fill up with a sharp gasp of shock.
With his left hand, he clutched a slash-mark that had passed through his t-shirt and went into his chest and abdomen, scarlet blood dribbling down his cold fingers in little rivulets. His left leg had three wounds no larger than the width of my thumb; one on his thigh, and the other two in his calf, giant rivers of blood seeping down his skin and into the clean white snow. There were bloody hand prints on his leg just over the wounds, which did show that the man did try to staunch the bleeding with his other hand.
KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK! This man used his right hand to knock on the door, thinking I had left. It was completely smeared with his blood, small crimson droplets splattering on my door like polka-dots each time he banged at my apartment.
"STOP KNOCKING!" I cried angrily, sure this guy was a drug dealer that hadn't done the rounds he had been supposed to do. Maybe that's why he was injured. "I'll call the cops!" I threatened.
The man's eyes widened. "N—No! Please! I need help! I'm bleeding, and I don't think I can last long!" His voice was slurred suddenly and tired-sounding, like he had run a long time without sleep. Maybe that was due to blood loss.
"Call a fucking ambulance!"
The man swayed slightly, his eyes drooping a little bit. "I—I can't..."
"Why?" I demanded, ready to actually call the police.
"Because... I... ca..." The man staggered dangerously on his left leg, suddenly yelping from putting pressure on his bad leg. "The... police will..."
I set my jaw, thinking; conversing with the small voice in my head. Should I let this guy in?
No. He's gonna bleed out on your floor, and you'll get blamed for murder. Long time in prison. Normal life is uniform enough. Think of jail schedules and shit.
But... he needs help.
I paused at the last thought. Why was I suddenly concerned over someone else? This was just another druggie on my steps, and he was most-likely bleeding because he got jumped by some addicts that didn't get their fix or something. Why the hell was I concerned whether this guy needed help?
"Please..." he begged, his deep voice cracking with desperation as he looked up at the door, his puppy-dog eyes dim. His lips looked like they were coated in frost.
God, he looked like he could collapse and die on the spot any second. If I walked away, how exactly would I explain to the cops about a dead body on my front steps? But even then, there was the risk this guy was just a really good actor and was trying to lull me into letting him in so he could stab me in the fucking back when I wasn't looking. Look at how he looked at me with those eyes! He looked like he had experience with giving people that look! A professional actor!
Still, if I kept a good watch on him...
And he looked so weak...
I could at least sit him down and call 911, I argued with my mind.
But he might kill you if you open the door, and what life you have will be cut pretty damn short.
Like I have things to live for. My family won't even mourn that long. What do I have to lose if this guy's a murderer?
Don't start screaming at me when he stabs you.
"Do you have any weapons?" I finally demanded against my better judgement.
The man shook his head dazedly. "...no... weap..." He leaned against my door and closed his eyes, shivering badly. "...so... cold..."
I hesitated, again thinking of all the situations that could happen. This guy could stab me. Or he could strangle me. Or break my neck.
But he looked so tired...
I sighed, deciding if the guy was really bleeding to death, I could at least stop the bleeding before I called the cops to come collect him. "Get off my door, and I'll let you in," I said.
The man staggered a half-step away from my door, and I undid the lock. With shaky hands I turned the handle, and hesitated one more time before I opened it.
A muculent wind forced its way into the apartment, carrying the man with it. He limped in slowly, like his limbs were as stiff and cold as damp washcloths left outside overnight. I expected blood to drip all over the shitty carpet floor, but there wasn't a single droplet of the crimson fluid on the ground as he stumbled in. It genius to realize his blood had literally frozen in what little time he was out there.
I closed the door and looked at the man, who had suddenly collapsed to the floor on his hands and knees. He shook with cold, barely able to struggle out a sentence: "...tha... thank... ank... y... yo..."
"Not yet," I said, grabbing a blanket from one of my windows and tossing it over the man's back. I gingerly grabbed his left arm and lifted him up, supporting nearly all his weight. He yelped out in pain, and tears of suffering fell from his eyes and on the dirty lenses of his glasses. Looking closely at his face, I could see the dark, sleepless bags under his eyes, revealing that this man probably hasn't slept in days. His entire body trembled, his muscles contracting and expanding violently.
I dragged him to my crappy leather couch and set him down, watching as he panted in exhaustion even though I did all the work. His face tightened with pain as he clutched at the blanket I had given him as a reflex. "Gah! It... hurts!"
"I've noticed," I replied.
I walked away to grab one of my many hidden first-aid kits (again, we didn't exactly live in a nice neighborhood), and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. I knelt on one knee next to the man, level with him. I pulled out a small dishtowel from the kit and dripped a few drops of the hydrogen peroxide on it. Already my college professor's drawling voice entered my mind, reminding me what to do in an emergency. He didn't look like he lost that much blood, so I needed to clean his wounds first to get rid of any early infections, and worry about everything else later.
I looked the man in the eye. "You are so lucky I decided to let you in."
"What... t's... tha...?" the man asked, still dazed and exhausted.
I pulled up the blanket to reveal the man's left leg. I looked at him. "You're gonna hate me, but hold still."
The man didn't protest. I took a deep breath, and started dabbing the dishtowel on the wound on the man's thigh.
"Oh..." the man said, closing his eyes, a look of pure and simple relief making his jaw go slack. The early feeling of the peroxide against his wound probably felt cool, a contrast to the hot throbbing sensation someone might feel when injured. "That... feels..."
He suddenly jerked up, slamming his fist on the arm of the couch with strength he hadn't been showing earlier. He was now going through Stage 2 of peroxide-treatment: the bubbling hell as it began to disinfect the exposed tissues. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT! THAT HURTS LIKE DICK!" he shrilled.
"Told ya."
The man kicked his leg in a weak attempt to push my hand away, only to shout out in pain a second later. "AH, FUCKING ****!" (A/N: If you guys haven't known before, there's one word I won't put down in my stories. You guys will probably figure that out on your own.)
"Oi! No need for that word!" I scolded. "And don't kick, or you'll make it worse!"
The man ground his teeth. His face seemed to regain a tiny-bit of color from the heat of my apartment. "How... do you... know!?" he demanded.
"I study health sciences at Athens," I shrugged. "I at least have an idea of what I'm doing." I started dabbing at the freshly bleeding wound again, using my knee to pin down the man's foot so he couldn't kick too much and cause more injury. "Now, unless you want several infected, festering wounds in your body, I would suggest you try to hold still."
The man nodded, new tears streaking his cheeks. "I... I'm... ow!... Mark..."
I put down the dishtowel and peeled open a paper-wrapped gauze pad, putting a little peroxide on the pad to help continue with disinfecting. "Mark? Nice name."
"Thanks...!"
"What's your last name?"
The man—Mark—let out another cry as I placed the peroxide-gauze pad on his leg, swallowing thickly before answering with a croak: "Fischbach."
Mark Fischbach. Not a very common name, but it still sounded somewhat familiar. I paused with a roll of medical tape in my hand. "Fischbach? Like..." I wracked my brain, trying to remember where I heard the name. "The author of TwoKinds?"
Before I moved to America for school, I surfed the internet sparsely for "entertainment" (or "Mindlessly Watching Shit," as I called it), and TwoKinds was something I stumbled across. It was funny enough for me at the time, but I never really stayed on long. I read enough to know the basic story and remember the author's name.
More tears spilled from Mark's eyes, which was probably from the gauze pad. "No. That's my brother, Thomas. I play video games on YouTube."
I twisted my mouth into a frown. "YouTube? Huh."
"My username's Markiplier."
"I don't go on YouTube."
"Ah," he said dryly, as if in understanding. I pushed the dishtowel against Mark's leg. "AH!"
"So, you from Alabama?" I asked, trying to keep conversation light. I didn't feel like speaking anymore than I had to, but I felt like I could at least talk to him, so I could keep his mind off of the pain. "You don't really have an accent that would make me think you are."
Mark shook his head, grinding his teeth as I dabbed the towel on one of the wounds on his calf. "I live in Los Angeles."
I paused for a second time, the towel lingering too long on Mark's wound. He gasped in pain, and I pulled the towel off quickly. "But... that's all the way in California, right?" I bit my lip, trying to remember the major cities of America. "Yeah, California. What are you doing here in Alabama?"
Mark didn't answer. He shifted his gaze to the TV, his eyes still watery. "Hey. You got Robin Hood! Cool!"
A tiny spark of anger from him ignoring my question ignited, and I pushed the dishtowel harshly against his leg. He jumped in surprise and misery, howling at the feeling of the peroxide and the sudden movement he made at the same time. "OW!"
"You didn't answer my question," I said. "If you can't tell me what you're doing here, I'm calling the cops," I threatened.
Mark gulped, his eyes widening. "It's... a long story. Please, can you just finish torturing me first? Please?"
I growled slightly. "Fine. I'm tired anyways. But when I finish, I'm calling the hospital to pick you up."
"No! Don't!"
I furrowed my eyebrows, pausing yet again. "What's the matter, Mark? In trouble with the law, eh?"
Mark ground his teeth. "No. Nothing like that. Just... well... I don't really know."
I cocked my head as I replaced my bloody dishtowel with a clean one. "What did you do?" I asked, now curious with what was happening.
Mark didn't even react when I put the new peroxide-drenched dishtowel against his wound. He sighed and looked at me with bloodshot eyes. "Do you want the full version, or should I give you the gist?"
"The gist," I decided. "If I'm satisfied, we'll wait until tomorrow morning to hear the full version."
I must have chosen my wording wrong when I said 'If I'm satisfied.' Mark shot a glare of livid madness at me, like a vial filled with molten magma about to burst. "Is this like a sick game to you?" he demanded, pissed off. His voice was slipping from a baritone to a bass. "You listen to someone's stories, and if you like it, you don't call the cops?"
"No!" I waved my arms, trying to defuse the situation I had created. "This is just... interesting."
I must've said the correct thing, because the heat in his stare cooled down to something of a roaring bonfire. Mark took a deep breath, biting his lip and furrowing his brow in thoughtfulness. His almond shaped eyes seemed to glaze slightly as he pondered. Was he going over and argument with the voice in his mind like I was? Questioning whether he could trust me with a cold truth harder than molybdenum reinforced steel, or weave an intricate lie from the fabrics of his imagination and prey I believed him?
Of course he was. I knew that look he had on his face. It was the face I always had whenever someone approached me.
Mark finally took another deep breath and let it out slowly, and I could tell he had come to a verdict. He launched into a small explanation: "There are these guys chasing me, and don't ask me why they're chasing me; because I have no idea," he said quickly, stifling one of my first questions. "They ran me out of my apartment, out of L.A., until they managed to catch me somewhere around here.
"I got cornered a few alleys away from this neighborhood, and they pretty much just flat-out shot me in my leg a few times. Then one of them approached me and slashed my face and chest, like they were aiming for a major artery. It was... pretty fucking obvious they wanted to kill me, but I guess they didn't shoot me in the head because they liked playing with their food."
Mark scratched his head, thinking. "I don't know exactly what happened next. Maybe I passed out from blood loss, or I got really fucking woozy from the experience. Either way, I got away somehow, and woke up in front of your house."
As much as I tried to stop it, I couldn't avoid rolling my eyes as I wiped some of the blood from Mark's wound. It really didn't sound that believable; in fact, it sounded like the plot to a really crappy action flick. It couldn't really be something I would wholeheartedly accept.
Not unless he elaborated a bit with some logical information, because some things didn't quite add up.
I took a deep breath, and looked him in the eye, hoping this small amount of contact would help weasel out some of the truth. "If they shot you, then where are the exit wounds?" I questioned.
Mark shrugged, closing his eyes. "Beats me. Maybe they got lodged in there."
"Uh-huh," I said, my tone edging on unconvinced. "In that case, you're gonna have a festering internal infection.
I continued drilling for questions, like an oil-driller looking for a new vein: "How long have you been running for?"
Mark shrugged again. "Dunno. A week or two? I feel like dying, really."
"Maybe you should find a place to camp out for a few days."
Mark opened his eyes and stared. "Really?" he demanded, giving me a look. "No fucking shit I should do that, dingus. Was that really necessary to tell me that?"
"Yes. Yes it was."
Mark stared at me, eyes hard and cold like that of a lawyer.
Then a smile split across his face, and he burst into laughter.
It was a strange kind of laughter. It was that kind of laughter that sounded warm and comforting, but also worn and somewhat tired, like a favorite shirt; it was the laughter of someone who laughed often. Everyday, it sounded. But there was something else behind it I couldn't place my finger on. It sounded as if it wasn't just his voice, but hundreds of other kinds of laughter were layered deeply under his.
It was strange, but it was a nice laugh. I couldn't help but feel my face curve into a light ghost of a smile.
After a few extra guffaws, he started to cool down. He cocked his head when he finished his loud cackling, his face suddenly struck with curiosity. "I... I didn't get your name."
I hesitated, already questioning my mental health. Here was a dude named Mark Fischbach—a man who was supposed to be in L.A. doing whatever it was he does on YouTube—on my couch, bleeding and injured, who may be just a psychopath about to kill me. And yet, despite the strangeness of the entire thing, he was trying to socialize with me.
If this guy really was famous like he claimed to be, then I couldn't help but think of those weird fan fictions those girls at the University would talk about where this situation would fit in; someone like Mark shows up on someone's doorstep and asks for something, and the hopeless girl inside fauns over him like he was a fallen god from the heavens above. Then it turned into a porno script.
I shivered at the last thought, biting my cheek to keep from groaning in disgust.
Geez, I thought, chiding myself slightly. It's not like I'm gonna suddenly get that mental disorder where people fall in love with their kidnappers or something like that. What is it called? Stockholm syndrome?
My face tightened into a frown. I already let this dude in my house. Might as well give him something for me to properly go by.
Still questioning my sanity, I finally muttered almost under my breath, "Eris."
Mark raised an eyebrow ever so slightly up his brow; a movement so small you would've missed it if you blinked. "Eris? Like, the Greek goddess of discord?"
I nodded, still reluctant as I elaborated on Mark's questions and cleaned his wounds. "It's a weird name, I know, but I like it. If you ever meet my family, you would understand why they gave me the name of the goddess of discord."
Mark chuckled lightly, an undertone of unease passing through. I wasn't sure if he thought I was joking, or he suddenly got nervous from my mysterious answer. "Where ya from?" he asked innocently, hissing through his teeth when I dabbed at his leg again.
I pursed my lips, absentmindedly handing him the used dishtowel so he could start cleaning the blood from his hands. He took it gratefully and scrubbed his fingers. Should I tell him that, too?
"The Yukon province," I said.
"Oh!" he responded quickly. He gave me a mischievous smile, like that of a cheesy birthday clown when asked to tell a dirty joke. "You're Canadian!" he said, as if this were amazing news to his ears. "Is that why you let me in your house, or why you're cleaning my injuries?"
I didn't respond for a second, still cleaning his wounds. The words rolled through my brain.
Tick.
Tock.
Ding!
I suddenly paused with my treatment, giving Mark a slightly confused look. "Are you calling me... polite?"
"Yeah!" he said, grinning again.
With a playful-looking scowl on my face, I completely drenched my second gauze pad with hydrogen peroxide before pressing it against Mark's leg. I secured it quickly with medical tape and grinned as he slammed his fist on the couch with horrible pain, gritting his teeth to hold back a strangled-sounding scream from exploding out.
"Don't fall for those stereotypes you see on TV, friend," I said through my smiling teeth. I could almost feel my eyes flicker dangerously. "My family isn't exactly... polite." I thought about the right wording. "We have... pride what our family is, and we can fuck up a lot of things when we want to."
Where this proclamation came from, I had no idea. But my voice took on a tone that held immense gratification in my family, which was strange.
Mark gasped, and I felt his muscles twitch under my foot as he repressed the strong impulse to kick his leg. He wiped a few pained tears from the corners of his screwed-up eyes before saying: "You... really live up to your name."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I decided, adding a few more drops of peroxide to the towel. "Now, hold still."
Mark remained somewhat silent as I continued to clean his calf (excusing the occasional hiss and whimper), and I didn't egg for him to tell me the rest of the story. Though it sounded interesting (and I wanted to prove that it was real before I did much else), it could wait until tomorrow morning, and I had a feeling that it wasn't the truth I was looking for. Maybe it was a coverup because he did something stupid—like accidentally shoot himself in the leg three times with a gun and then slash his face and chest with a knife.
Hey, it happens.
Nonetheless, he seemed harmless to me, and I would honor his wish to not call an ambulance—until tomorrow, that is.
Evaluating his other wounds before I patched up his leg, I discovered the slash marks on his cheek and chest had stopped bleeding and formed itself a make-shift cast; the blood had turned into a gummy-texture, and the cut on his chest had dried with bits of cloth from his t-shirt with it to help stop the flow of blood. His chest would need most likely stitches to avoid anything getting infected, but if the slash on his face didn't keep bleeding, I think he would be fine.
Standing up, I pressed a hand against his forehead experimentally. He didn't appear to have a fever, nor frost-bite anywhere visible, but even a dummy could tell he was developing a minor case of hypothermia from standing outside in the blizzard for god-knows how long; he was shivering and his skin had taken on a light tinge of blue. I pressed my fingers to his wrist, counting each pulse for thirty seconds; 64 BPM answered back, which was more elevated than usual. Thankfully, the case was minor, and it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with a hot meal and a few thick blankets.
"You have any dizziness? Nausea?" I questioned.
Mark shook his head in response. "Nah."
"How long has it been since you've eaten, or drank any water?"
Mark cocked his head thoughtfully, trying to answer my question. "I've probably eaten about lunchtime yesterday; small burger. I drank some water maybe six hours ago or so."
Okay. He wasn't in too much danger for starvation or dehydration. He could still stand some food, by the looks of it, but that would have to wait. I turned my attention back to the remaining wound on his calf. Just a patch, and I would be done.
"Alright," was all I said to his response.
It was late, I was tired, Mark was tired, and I was too overwhelmed with all that had happened in less than 45 minutes. I just wanted to finish Mark's leg so I could go to bed (even though Mark looked like he needed it more than I did).
I finally peeled the waxy paper away from another gauze pad and added a few drops of the peroxide, ready to place the temporary bandage over Mark's final wound. Carefully, I used the dishrag to wipe away any excess blood that blocked my view. My fingers pressed against the considerably-warmer flesh, and I was just about to push the pad on the wound.
Flash.
I noticed something.
I squinted my eyes, my fingers retreating from the wound. Was that...a glint in his leg?
I furrowed my eyebrows. Yeah... there was.
It was small, but there was something obviously lodged in the bright red of his muscle, and it shined through his blood with a brass-like color.
I nudged Mark's arm. "Hey... you know you have something in your leg, right?"
Mark opened his eyes blearily, his eyes fogged with slumber. He had started to doze off while I finished patching him up. "Really?" he yawned.
I nodded, already curious. "Maybe some... shrapnel of some kind? It definitely like metal."
Mark's eyes widened suddenly, all traces of sleep leaving behind eyes that were bloodshot and slightly fearful. He started to grit his teeth in some kind of anticipation. "Are you gonna have to...?"
Nodding only slightly, I reached into the first-aid kit and fumbled with a pair of silver tweezers, already starting to wipe it down with the peroxide. "This is gonna hurt even more than before. Just... don't kick my face."
Sparing you from the gruesome details (and screaming, and everything like that), we discovered that the object it wasn't shrapnel, but it was a brass cylinder no thicker than the width of my thumb, with a cone at its top so it was aerodynamic. It had collapsed upon itself slightly, like a half-crushed soda can, which was definitely from impact with Mark's leg.
It didn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out what it was.
Mark looked like he was trying to swallow a golf ball when I showed him. "What... is that?"
I used the peroxide-covered cloth to clean off the piece of brass, rolling it in my fingers as I held it eye-level to Mark for slight emphasis. "Shouldn't you know, Mark?"
Mark shook his head.
"Didn't you say those guys shot at you?"
Mark's eyes widened at the realization. "It's... it's a bullet?"
Mark and I met eyes. I placed the blood-covered bullet on the rope-spool coffee table. "Yeah. It's a bullet."
Silence and shock both reared their ugly heads in the wake of the room, and we both sat completely still, uneasily looking at the tiny weapon that I had just extracted from Mark's leg. It was strange enough that a half-dead man showed up on my doorstep, asking for my help. It was even stranger that I willingly let him in. His story, his situation, and his lack of stabbing me in the back was even stranger that what had already happened.
But this topped the bar, because it confirmed what Mark had been telling me.
"You weren't lying..." I murmured quietly. I looked up at the man, whom of which still had his almond-shaped eyes locked on the bullet. "...were you, Mark?"
Unfortunately, sleep didn't solve my problems like hoped it would.
After the wounds Mark had been tended properly, I tossed him my roommate's extra pillow and blankets, telling him to get himself situated so he could sleep on the couch. Our couch was one of those old sofas where if you removed the cushions, you could pull out a mattress for someone to sleep on. It was really my roommate's 'bedroom,' but I don't think my roommate would mind a little blood and sweat on his bed, would he?
"Don't you have an extra bed?" Mark questioned, a tiny hint of complaint tinged in his voice.
"Nope. Sorry. What you're sitting on, right there, is our extra bed. My roommate practically lives on that thing."
"Ew."
I shrugged. "I would offer my bed, but you wouldn't feel any more comfortable. My roommate and I drew straws, and I got the short end. You're sleeping on the best we got."
"Glad it's a five-star bed," Mark muttered.
"Shut up, or I'm throwing you out in the snow."
Mark managed to swallow a few painkillers to help with the throbbing sensation left from the hydrogen peroxide, after which he pretty much just thanked me and passed out on the sofa within seconds. Flipping off my TV, locking the doors and windows (seriously, the cigar dealers were fucking psychos), and drawing my make-shift curtains closed, I slunk back into the dark reaches of my room.
My room was nothing special: a futon with a few drawers at the base for winter clothes, a small bedside table functioning as my work desk, some plastic bins that functioned as my closet, and a few Eddsworld and TwoKind posters strewn here and there. It was really more of a nook rather than a bedroom, mainly because the walls that separated my room from the rest of the apartment were just pieces of cardboard glued to together, and my door was a curtain with the words: COME IN WITHOUT ASKING, AND I'LL MURDER YOU written in red paint.
It was really kind of pathetic, but it was better than nothing at all.
I stood over my futon for a second, thinking about whatever traveled through my sleep-deprived mind: Should have I let Mark in? Why was I helping him? Why didn't I call 911 and have left it at that? And finally, why the FUCK did I even start to believe his story?
Sleep. That would bring some kind of an inkling of an answer, right?
With a deep, exasperated sigh, I spread my arms wide and flopped onto my lumpy mattress with a theatrical WHUMP! I pulled my itchy fleece blanket over my body, lay my head on a giant lump near the end of my mattress that I decided was my pillow, and closed my eyes. It was all a dream. I would wake up, and he would be gone, and I would be on the couch staring at the credits of my movie as if I had fallen asleep.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
I woke up in the morning, undoubtedly refreshed and ready for the day, but I was disappointed to find out that I was laying on my lumpy mattress and not the couch. With hopeful eyes, I looked around the edge of my cardboard walls, hoping to see that no one was there, and that I had just really dreamed it up.
Nope. The couch was occupied with a man with raven hair, and blood droplets covering his arms and face.
"Shit," I groaned, rolling onto my stomach and staring at the wall. "It was real."
Another thought traveled through my head, and I scowled. "I gotta make breakfast, don't I?"
Comparatively, I was perfectly fine if a weird guy with injures and bullet wounds showed up on my doorstep. I was fine if I needed to bandage his wounds and dig a bullet from his calf. I was fine if I most likely had to stitch up his slash wound on his chest later on today. I just hated cooking for another person.
Need a back story? When my roommate and I first moved in together for college, we tried multiple things to ease up the tension of living together for a few years without an actual, responsible adult. We tried shopping (I hated shopping), movies (I didn't really care enough to watch too many movies), doing homework (hahaha my roommate doesn't do homework), and even just chatting (this usually lead us to either arguing, or me half-grunting to whatever he yammers on about). Another one was cooking meals. And... we discovered we both had COMPLETELY different preferences when it came to food and cooking.
Also, there was this think about almost burning our apartment down, but that's not as important as bonding with your roommate.
My roommate and I finally decided that it was usually easier if we just cooked our own meals. Every now and again, we might make cookies or some weird shit for the both of us, but that was really about it. We cooked our own food, that was it.
Unfortunately, it appeared that I would have to cook for a stranger in my house.
"Fuck me sideways," I hissed through my teeth. Slowly, reluctantly, and lazily, I lolled out of my futon and onto the floor, landing square on my back with a thump. "Ow..."
Mark stirred, but remained asleep.
Rubbing out the sleep that gummed my eyes, I reached over to my desk/bedside table and plucked my glasses, perching the square frames on my nose. My vision cleared enough for me to read the clock on my wall.
7:45. About two hours earlier than my usual wake-up time.
Sighing, I pulled my curtain-door closed and searched through my plastic bin-closet, quickly switching from my popcorn-scented pajamas into gym shorts and a t-shirt. I did a quick rummage through my futon-drawers until I found my hand mirror and started to see if I looked like a presentable human being. Honestly, I've seen better days cleaning out the bathroom in my parents' house, but I could fix myself up. I rummaged in the drawers again and produced a mini hairbrush, carefully picking through the knots and tangles of my short brown hair.
I ran my fingers down the locks after a few minutes. Smooth, and clean-looking, at least. I would need a shower, especially after stewing in my own filth for three straight days. I would have to stop by a public shower later today when I had the chance. For now, I was acceptable. A few sanitary wipes down my face to wipe away any more dirt and such, and I looked like a girl on a lazy Saturday. Good. I looked like I did every day.
I stood up and opened my curtain-door, stepping over my creaky floorboards into the kitchen, which was really a sink, a stove, a mini fridge, and a microwave oven. Not to shabby, but it could be better. Opening the fridge, I swiped up a cardboard carton and opened it with a certain gusto, hoping my cooking wouldn't have to have too much effort put into it.
Three eggs. Good. At least it was a start to a shitty breakfast.
Reaching back without even bothering to look, I fumbled with the remaining half a carton of milk we had before closing off the fridge and placing everything on the counter. A pan, salt and pepper, and the sound of a gas oven flicking on later, and I began cooking a breakfast that would barely fill a desert plate.
On the couch, Mark groaned exhaustively and sat up, glasses haphazardly on the bridge of his nose. Blearily, he ran his fingers through his shaggy hair as he squinted in my direction. "Mornin'."
"Mornin'," I greeted back. I opened the carton of milk and sniffed, then added a splash to the pan. "How'd you enjoy the five-star bed?"
He chortled. "Better than some of the places I've been recently."
"Really? What are some of these aforementioned places?"
A shrug was given in response. "Crappy motels, homeless shelters, buses. I think I slept in a tree once."
"A tree?"
"Yeah. I ended up in a forest at one point and was too paranoid to sleep in my car."
"You got a car?"
"Had a car," Mark corrected, his eyes lighting up in a slightly playful manner. "Embarrassingly enough, I accidentally parked in a fire-zone and it got towed."
I chortled like how he had earlier. "Smooth move, Lucy."
Mark nodded and grinned at me sheepishly. "I can be an idiot sometimes."
"Like when you decided to call me 'polite?' " I offered.
"That's a good example," he admitted. Mark sniffed the air tentatively, his nostrils twitching like a bloodhound trying to identify a scent on the hunt. "Are those eggs?"
"Yea. It's all I got besides poisoned corn flakes."
Mark's eyebrows elevated up his forehead, as if they were trying to become one with his long hair. "Poisoned corn flakes?"
"We gotta rat problem," I supplied.
"Nice. Next you'll be telling me that your roommate is a weasel."
"You're not too far from the truth."
Mark sat up a little straighter on the couch, stretching. I could hear the creaks and pops as his cracked his neck and rubbing his injured leg tenderly with his fingers. "Geez," he muttered. "I feel like I slept on nothing but a blanket on a wood floor."
"Lucky," I said, passing Mark the plate with incredibly small proportions of food. "I feel like that, minus the blanket."
Mark gratefully accepted the food and using his fingers, popped some of the yellow egg onto his tongue.
"Mmm..." His voice took on a pondering tone, deciding whether he liked the breakfast dish or not.
He finally swallowed and uttered out: "You got sriracha sauce?"
I smiled toothily, opening up one of my tiny cupboards of the kitchenette and passing my guest an unopened bottle of the hot sauce. "Use sparingly. That's my roommate's, and he treats it like leaves of gold."
Mark pretty much ignored my warning, popping open the bottle with a flick of the wrist and smothering the eggs in hot sauce. He took another bite, already turning bright red. "Shit I added too much," he wheezed.
"Nice going," I snorted, taking a bite of my somewhat bland-tasting eggs and wrinkling my nose. I swiped the bottle from the man and added a thin strip of the sriracha to my eggs. "Ya want milk?"
"Yeah!" Mark coughed. I could almost see smoke curl from his ears and nose. "Oh god, it's almost like I Am Bread all over again!"
"What?"
"Nothing. Inside jok—AH!" He started fanning his tongue. "Hurry uuuuup!"
Gracing him with a smug smirk, I grabbed one of my old cups and poured out a tall one, handing it to Mark as his face turned about as red as the blood I cleaned up last night. He drained it immediately after I released my grip from the glass. Mark put the cup on the rope-spool coffee table, his tongue hanging out like a panting dog. "Blegh!"
"Mark, I'm gonna tell you now: you just smothered your eggs in the hottest sriracha sauce my roommate could legally buy from our grocery store. You pretty much ruined your breakfast."
Mark suddenly wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Aw, son of a bitch."
I suppressed a chuckle. "I'll give you mine in a minute, but I wanna get this outta the way."
"What?"
Reaching behind me, I held up a needle and thread, pointing at Mark's chest. "You're gonna hate me."
Mark's face fell rapidly. "Stitches?"
"Eeyup."
Mark POV—
Son of a fuck.
Eris, the girl that had so generously let me into her home and helped clean my wounds, also caused me the most pain in less than twelve hours.
First, the bullet wounds. She cleaned those out for me with towels pretty much soaked in hydrogen peroxide, which—I'll tell ya—hurt like a mother fucker. Then, she dug out a bullet (which you never want to feel in your entire life, trust me) from my calf, before putting more hydrogen peroxide on the wound. THEN, she gave me the hottest hot sauce she had, in which I pretty much drowned my eggs in (that was my fault, but she could've warned me beforehand).
Now, she was gonna give me stitches.
"Are you fucking serious?" I asked, letting out a nervous laugh. "You're... you're joking, right?"
Eris shook her head, walking to her... room. It didn't really look something you would classify as a bedroom. It was more of a nook. The flimsy walls were cardboard with a cloth curtain as a door, with some painted words that threatened death unless you had permission. It was childish, really, but then again, I was a guy who played video games for a living.
Maybe I should feel sad for her, but I don't think she cared too much.
She rummaged through a few plastic bins that sat next to her futon, pulling out what looked like a clean t-shirt. Nodding in approval, she walked back over and handed it to me. "Bite down on it."
I cocked an eyebrow, confused. "Why?"
"Because this is gonna hurt even more than the bullet wounds, and I don't want you screaming like a dying animal in broad daylight," she said, almost matter-of-factly. "My landlord'll kick me out."
Point taken. This girl had more logic than I gave her credit for. I took the shirt from her and let out a deep, theatrical sigh. "How many will I need?"
Eris shrugged, already trying to thread the eye of the needle with sutures and failing badly. "Fifteen to thirty if I do this right. But that's not a guarantee."
"I thought so," I said sarcastically, but I winced internally. I absently twisted the shirt into a rope-like shape in my hands, trying to stop my hands from trembling so much. "You gotta use the peroxide, right?"
"Yep."
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling overhead, opening my mouth and biting down hard on the shirt. Through the fabric, I mumbled out: "Make it quick."
Not bad for a first chapter, don'tcha think?
We really wanted to do a chapter where Eris is moving in to the apartment, just so you could get a feel of her character, and then shit happened, and we just decided to revise the sneak-peak.
And when Aether means "shit happened," he means I deleted dat shiz.
Eeyup.
Also, fun fact: I had no intentions of making my character—Eris—be of Canadian ethnicity in the original script of this story. In fact, she was supposed to be Norwegian and be a foreign exchange student at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. I only changed it because... well... I dunno. It was easier?
Can we go now? I'm bored.
You're like that whiny little kid on the field trip that no one likes. Go do something!
But it's boring when I don't have my walking punching bag with me.
I am NOT your punching bag.
Also, we wanna hear something from you guys!
As you have seen from above, the title of our story sucks major dick.
Shut up. We need your guys' opinions: What do you think the name of our story should be? Get as creative as you want, because the title should be something better than what we have now.
How about: 'Nether Saves the Day Because He is Immensely Awesome?'
Fat chance.
*Ahem* Anyways, guys, be sure to favorite and follow if you've enjoyed, and be sure to become and Awesomer Army Member today! A final salute, and I'll see you all soon! I'm The Awesomer, signing off!
-The Awesomer
I'm Aether, signing out!
-Aether
And I'm the incredibly awesome and stunningly handsome Nether, signing off, for now!
-The Awesomer