Paper Moon ☓ Hood [ON HOLD]

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you're all that i hope to find

in every single way.

☾

"Why me?" The question hung out in the air along with his breath, the white cloud in striking contrast against the dark of the night.

Marceline stared out to the lone street lamp glowing adamantly a few houses down and shuffled her shoes against the concrete of the steps they were seated on. Her forehead crinkled as she tried to find the right words.

"I guess since you haven't been around for much of my crap there's no reason for you to think any differently of me, I don't know it's all kind of backwards really." she said slowly, as if trying to justify her own actions to herself.

Calum fixated his eyes on the loose thread of Marceline's jumper she was picking on. An array of thoughts ran through his mind of all the possible things this girl had gone through. Something that was powerful enough to make her so closed off, so fragile. Calum soon found a sense of sadness for her, intertwined with a twist of anger; but another look at the way she swayed her hair off her shoulder simmered his feelings into gladness that she had opened up to him.

"Well if hardly knowing a thing about you will get you to talk to me, I guess I'm alright with it." he said jokingly. But Marcaline just kept her eyes ahead.

"You'll find out soon enough."

A loud crash rang through the silence and Calum thought he'd have to check his life insurance considering the amount of times his heart's stopped in the past half hour.

Marcaline didn't think much about it and released a heavy sigh as she rose from the steps. She made her way round the house and looked over her shoulder as if to say "C'mon then." before disappearing round the corner. Calum scrambled after her, almost confident the noise was from some serial killer.

She sat next to a boy, he was probably around fourteen (Calum was a terrible judge of age), and his head was turned away from Marcaline, unmistakable sniffles sounding from him. Marcaline didn't have an arm around him or anything, she just sat there
picking at her jumper again. Her eyes shifted up to meet his and she stood up, coming closer to him.

"Sorry, it's my brother." she whispered.

"What's wrong?"

"He's just a little sad at the moment, oh and don't mind the noise I think he was just kicking round a ball again." she gestured to a soccer ball laying in the corner of the garage.

"But why's he crying?" Calum didn't know what to make of this. There were miscellaneous objects scattered on the floor, probably stacked previously and Marcaline just shook her head murmuring "Maybe another time, Cal." The nickname brought him unexpected butterflies.

Calum picked the soccer ball up, and Marceline asked if he played, probably to get her brother's attention because the boy perked his head up, scrubbing at the tear stains on his cheeks.

"We just came from a football match, Marcy." Calum chuckled, but he knew what she was getting at. He started off with a few knee ups then proceeded to show off a little. Marcaline scoffed under her breath.

"How do you do that?" Marcaline's brother had finally joined them was obviously trying to hide his interest.

"Just a lot of practice buddy, I could teach you sometime. What' your name anyway?" Calum tried to make conversation and make it seem like he hadn't witnessed his little breakdown.

"I'm Alex. You're even better than my brother was." Alex said it as if he hadn't meant for anyone to hear.

Calum had millions of questions running through his mind but decided now wasn't time to be an asshole. He was pretty surprised his little jerk façade hadn't leaked through out of habit. He was kinda thankful too.

"Actually that would be a good idea." Marcaline piped up.

"What would?"

"Calum could teach you a few things about soccer. I mean if it's alright with him." Marceline added, the tips of her ears going a little pink.

"Sure, what about tomorrow?" Calum tried to make it look like he wasn't excited, but even he knew he had failed incredibly.

"Mum wouldn't be happy about a stranger coming to our house, Marcaline." Alex scoffed, and with his eyebrows knitted together, he took the football from Calum's hands and left.

"Just ignore him, I was never his favourite." she joked, but all the questions Calum had just started eating away at him again. "Anyway tomorrow wasn't any good, Dylan and I are going bowling." She turned away quickly after that as if she still wasn't comfortable admitting she was seeing someone.

"Oh right." Calum slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. "I guess I better get going now."

Marcaline looked back up at him and nodded with a little smile. "Yeah thanks again, Cal." There were the butterflies again.

When Calum reached his car he sat inside for a while and stared at the flickering light of the lamp post, rubbing his eyes.

☾
omg thank u very lots for reading im so sorry ive been gone 5ever ive had so much school stuff to do and been stressed af
(ps michael can't tell me what to do)
(pps these are all kinda fillers dw)