Vanishing Grace

Part II

Mark has always guarded the little grain of light in his heart that makes up his humanity; it's this little untouched, innocent part in him where he stores all of the good things that remain.

Hope and love.

Compassion and empathy.

Kindness.

Everything that distinguishes you from the undead roaming the streets, everything that makes you a shred more human than the monsters hunting for sport or the soldiers trying to take control of this chaos.

More importantly, it's in this tender, secret place, that he keeps a pair of honey-brown eyes.

Those are constant but the rest has changed.

Tutor's sweet, innocent face has developed more edges to it and there's a hardness now around his mouth that wasn't there before. A tiny, pale scar runs over the bridge of his nose, pink, a little fleshy. That's also new, and Mark has trouble trying not to see this as his fault. Tutor has grown up a lot in two years.

He's not a stubborn, defiant teenager anymore, nor the shy child Mark had met years ago. Truthfully, he's not even the young man that had been torn from his arms. This man is different, this man is not Tutor. The details don't matter though. He still smiles the same. His eyes still haunt Mark.

Mark has found him. Alive and vibrant, a little worse for wear surely, but he stands before him now, his grip tight enough to crush.

"I thought you were dead. Mark – I – I thought you were dead."

Tutor keeps repeating the same words, clinging onto Mark's wrists where his hands are raised to hold Tutor's face between calloused palms. He's trying to drink him in with newfound clarity, seeing all of the ways his Tutor still itches under the skin of this man.

"It's okay, Tor it's okay," Mark laughs, "I knew you were alive, I knew it and I found you."

Mark smiles like he always does, toothy and fond and dimpled. In between the lines, Mark can already read that Tutor will be begging for forgiveness soon, but there's nothing to forgive.

He gently wipes away the wetness from Tutor's cheeks, pinching them a bit in the process like he used to do when they were still round and soft. It makes Tutor laugh, a fragile, wet sound that doesn't carry all that much humour. Tutor's thumb circles over where Mark's pulse beats.

"Why are you here? How did you find me? How did you know –"

Mark shakes his head. Of course, it would only take a couple of minutes before Tutor's brain would be running ahead.

There are no easy answers to these questions but they have time now to catch up. Right now those feel insignificant. All that matters is that he made it, that they made it. He's going to tell Tutor eventually. They can figure it out together, making sense of the time lost.

Tutor looks at him a little wondering and Mark wants to pull him into a full embrace, close his eyes and breath him in, burying his nose in Tutor's curiously bleached hair and feel something lost finally slotting right back into the place where it belongs.

He's not given the chance though.

As quickly as he has Tutor back, he's being ripped away from him and Mark can only stare in complete disbelief at War yanking Tutor out of his arms and against his chest. He angles his arm around Tutor's throat, a gun pressed tightly against his temple as he slowly backs away over the wooden planks of the pool area, each step creaking.

"As cute as this reunion was, it's over now. I missed my shot the first time, fucker. I won't miss it again."

War growls the words loud enough for everyone to hear, but it's a message specifically delivered to Tutor. He can only grunt in reply, robbed of air while he struggles weakly against War's iron grip.