Follow love and it will flee, flee love and it will follow thee (Morissa)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Maverick Harisson was a good man, a good man who was deeply in love with a good woman.

But Maverick had always known that Larissa didn't love him. Fate was cruel, it picked favorites, and Maverick had never been known for his luck.

And then there was Larissa - sweet, caring, kind and rough around the edges yet ever so gentle under the cover of night Larissa, who was fated to love another woman that did not love her. In Maverick's eyes, there would be no greater sin to commit, to reject the love of an angel, to reject Larissa's love. To him, the sinner should face the wrath of the heavens for such a slight.

Yet like a stupid tragic romance ripped straight out of a teenage soap opera, Maverick loved Larissa, Larissa loved another woman, and that woman loved another man. The only difference lay that that man loved her back just as madly as the woman loved him. Oh, how Maverick wished to be in his place, with Larissa by his side. But fate was cruel.

The ones that suffer are always the main characters.

But by sheer luck, by the will of the Gods above, he escaped the fate of the spotlight. He lived his life on the sidelines, somehow always there, yet if you asked anyone they would not be able to recall his face.

Still, he moved on. At least, he told himself he had. But how could he ever, truly, move on from someone like Weems? He learned to love himself, to let go of what wasn't his. Larissa wasn't his. She wasn't his to have. He couldn't let go.

Larissa was a main character. Maverick knew that because even as she lay on the cold stone floor of the Crypt, wracked with pain and with poison flowing through her veins just as surely as her blood. Facing death itself only to protect a child that was not her own, she still loved her. His arms were wrapped around her, he couldn't let her go.

But Larissa still loved another. He knew of it because the name that Larissa whispered longingly as her heart gave out was not his own.

"..Morticia.."

But in life as well as death Larissa was bright. He knew she was aware that her love was hopeless, never to be returned. To Morticia, she was just a former roommate, a friend, something to throw away as soon as she proved to be as worthless as she felt. The girl always at her back, always in second place, hidden away in Morticia's shadow and wrapped tightly around Morticia's little finger as surely as everyone else that had ever crossed paths with the young Dove.

So, with a heart full of lead, Larissa let herself die. As she believed, alone, unloved and forgotten. Oh, how wrong she was.

And yet Maverick simply couldn't let the unwitting recipient of his affection die like that, he had to save her. You have to understand, he HAD to.

He would have it no other way.

So naturally, he snuck into Nevermore in dead of night, with a shovel, a car that was not his and something akin to hope daring to burn in his chest. Quickly, he made his way

Silently, he dug up the fresh grave, careful not to maim the surrounding lilies. Just as he reached the intricate coffin, the moon got obscured by dark, stormy clouds. He knew that, very soon he would feel raindrops. He had to hurry.

With a grunt, he pried open the coffin's lid, he felt his pulse in his throat and his heart ached tenderly at the sight that greeted his sore eyes.

There, Larissa lay, expression so different from when he rocked her corpse in his arms, she looked so at peace now. With a shudder he unwillingly recalls the way that delicate chest once rose with pitiful half-gasps of air that never seemed to quite fill dying lungs, he remembered how she clutched at his shirt before going limp, leaving him alone in the land of the living. It hurts all over again.

Carefully, he scoops Larissa up in his arms before gently setting her down on the soft grass. Her white dress flowed with colour in the dim light of thunder.

Maverick slammed the coffin's lid back down, shutting it with a resounding click before shoveling piles of dirt back onto it. The ground would set back down on its own, the rain would wash away all traces of him ever even being there.

Maverick picks Larissa up just as it starts to rain.

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It took him two days of no rest nor food to bring Larissa back, spell books and kid's blood splattered his work desk, unwashed coffee mugs stock piled up in his sink.

But he'd done it.

'And they say there are no retakes' Maverick smirks to himself.

But now that she'd been brought back, he spent another day and a half ridding her of her memories and replacing them with others. He even made himself her "father", however wrong and backward that felt. He forged documents, statements, bribed all the right people and made sure to be seen in all the right places. By the end of it, he could already feel the trade setting in.

An eye for an eye, a soul for a soul, a life for a life.

He'd given his soul to Larissa long before this, he might as well do it literally.

Maverick was a dog on a leash, led by an owner that was completely unaware of how deep its affections ran. He would do anything for Larissa, he would give up his heart only to see her smile at him as she did Morticia. He would burn down the world only to keep her in it. And now, he'd trade in his life for hers.

Maverick was not a main character, his death would affect no one.

But perhaps it would be able to finally pull some of them together. Maybe Larissa would finally be happy. He would make sure she was happy.

Even if that meant he had to die.