Third Shred of Love

Chapter 8.1

Eventually Steven did order the tickets and he found a hotel that wasn't so far away from your parents' house.

It was a rainy late evening. The sky lit up every now and then, followed by a loud bang.

As always, after work you came home and had dinner.

Assuming that Steven was still at the museum or Jake was driving (or Marc doing whatever he did), you decided that it wouldn't hurt to pack a little.

You got out both suitcases and dragged one over to the room next door. Hopefully one of them would pack.

After about 30 minutes you were done. No you weren't done packing, you were just tired.

You fell face forward onto the bed and let out a tired groan.

You could hear the constant sound of the raindrops hitting different surfaces outside.

Suddenly the sound of rattling keys against the door echoed through the apartment.

Finally.

You got up and opened the door. All the lights in the hallway, kitchen and living room were turned off. You could barely just make out a shadow.

"Jake?" You guessed by the cap that he had just taken off. You must've scared him because he had slipped and almost fell.

"Y/N?" Marc's voice cracked.
"Marc!?" You were surprised. "Are you ok?" Your hand began searching for the switch on the wall.
"No! No, no, no, no don't turn on the lights!"
But it was too late.

You saw soaking Marc with his hand out in front of you in a glove. Nothing out of the ordinary, until you looked down and saw that the puddles and drops, he was leaving after him, had a light shade of red mixed in, like when you poorly rinse a paintbrush after using it.

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked up at his clothes. His hand was wrapped around his stomach holding his jacket, almost as if he was hiding something.
"Marc are you ok?" You looked up into his eyes. He looked rather worried and startled.

You walked over to him, and as you did, you saw him visibly tense up.

He clenched onto his leather jacket.

"Marc?" You glanced at his hand then at him.
"Y/N, go to your room."
"What happened?" You pulled your hand up towards the wet leather.

"No!" He grabbed your wrist and pulled it away.
"Marc what is-" You gasped seeing red streams running down your hand from Marc's gasp.

"MARC!" You pulled away and jumped back.
He looked at the gloves to see what might've caused such a reaction from you. "Shit."

Worry took over fear quicker than you had realized "Marc are you hurt?" You hurried back over to him.
"N-no I'm fine. Y/N go wait in your room, I'll tell you everything alright?Please." Despite the "please" everything that he was saying sounded like an order.

"O-ok." You backed away.
"Turn off the lights."
You swallowed flipping the switch and made your way back to your room.

In a few minutes you heard the shower door lock.

As always, curiosity got the best of you and you decided to sneak into Stevens, or in this case, Marc's room.

Switching on the lights, you looked around the room. What was he hiding?

You scanned the room and noticed the opened laundry hamper in the corner of the room. Before doing anything you glanced behind you, making sure Marc was 100%  in the shower.

You tiptoed with pace over to it and opened the basket.

You went pale.

Your heart began racing like crazy and your stomach did such a big flip, that you almost threw up.

Slowly you pulled out a white shirt, correction, red shirt. It was almost fully stained with, what seemed to be, blood.

The metallic smell that reminded you of rust filled your senses to the fullest extent, to the point that you felt like you were actually going to be sick, right on Stevens new rug.

"Marc!" You got your grasp back on reality. Was this blood his? Was he badly hurt?

It was Marc, he wouldn't tell you even if he was dying.

Like an arrow from a bow you shot to the bathroom and began rapidly knocking on the door.

"Marc!" You tried to contain yourself.
"MARC!"
You turned the handle and the door opened, causing you to stumble in and crash into something, or someone.

"Fuck." You heard, as your elbow met the hard ground.
"Y/N," you felt a firm grip on both of your arms. You were pulled up with force and as you caught your balance you remembered why you were in such a hurry.

Your eyes widened seeing Marc's unamused face.
"Marc!" You bolted over to him and began examining every cell of his upper body.
"Y/N what are you-"

Your hands were all over him, searching for something that wasn't supposed to be there.

Waves of panic kept washing over you.

Marc stood there like a statue, red and not knowing what you were doing and what on earth was going on.

Grabbing his face with both hands you moved his head from one side to the other checking his neck.

"Y/N, Y/N." Marc tried to snap you out it.
You kept looking and looking, constantly mumbling something to yourself. If everything was out of context, someone might've assumed that you were insane.

"Y/N!" Marc's voice blared through the flat.

Deafening silence followed after.

You blinked yourself back to your consciousness and that's when realization struck. You had broken in mid shower.
Your eyes instantly shot to we-all-know where.

Thank god he had a towel around his waist.
And he was ok.

You swallowed looking up, seeing his disturbed, vexed expression.

An almost soundless whimper escaped your lips before you clumsily scurried back to your room in pure shock of what happened seconds ago.

Marc stood there for another minute, also trying to process what had just happened.
His feelings were somewhere in between embarrassment and flatter, but he didn't know for sure.