⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

The stench of a hospital was consuming Marc's insides like a deadly parasite. The silence from the room was agonizing as he watched doctors, nurses and family members enter and leave the waiting room. Layla was just two seats away from him for two reasons; one, she didn't get along with him and two, she wanted to give him his space since he looked like a complete mess.

One of the doctors called Layla's last name and she got up instantly, her voice lowering down in order to not startle Marc in his seat anymore. She could see how he gripped the sides of his seat tightly and how he began to read his phone in order to distract himself.

Marc didn't lift his head from staring at his phone until he saw a shadow looming over him, Layla's dark curls being the first thing he noticed.

"She's awake," Layla revealed. "You can go into her room if you like."

Marc snapped his head up at the request. "Are you sure? Shouldn't you go in first? You knew her — "

"You need it more than me," Layla told him in a serious tone, nothing familiar to the tone she was used to do whenever he was around.

Marc was hesitant, and that was obvious for everybody, but he took the slowest and quietest steps towards the room she was supposed to be in. When he finally found it and opened the door, the sight in front of his eyes made his blood run cold.

(Y/N) was laying in a hospital bed, the IV tube connected to her left hand that was lifted to weakly wave at him to come inside. She looked much more pale, much more fragile, and Marc blamed himself because he was part of the reason she didn't get any better.

"Hey," (Y/N)'s hoarse voice greeted him.

Marc cleared his throat to stop his guilty staring. "Hey," he made his way over. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a bus," (Y/N) tried to lighten the mood, thinking Marc was too far away from his usual self. The look that Marc gave her instead was nothing like the one she expected, so she sighed and rolled her eyes. "I'm feeling better now, mom. Drop the overprotective act."

Marc shook his head. "I just want to make sure you feel better."

"Oh, yeah?" (Y/N) tilted her head despite the soreness it brought her. "And why is that?"

Marc didn't respond to her question. He stayed in silence while he heard (Y/N) sigh through her nose in disappointment and shifted her head back to its original position.

He decided the silence had taken long enough and he swallowed the lump in his throat. "So, are you comfortable here? Everything good?"

"I hate it here," (Y/N) confessed.

"Why?"

"Because this has been a recurrent place for me ever since the day I was born," she said. "Connected to machines and wires. It drives me sick. I can't stand it anymore."

"But you're safe here. They make sure you're getting better," Marc tries to convince her and himself at the same time.

"We both know there's probably no getting better," she accepted the sad truth, and Marc felt his heart stop.

She kept silent for a minute of thinking and she extended the hand that wasn't connected to the IV to grip Marc's hand in the tail of her hospital bed.

"Marc, please," she pleaded. "Stay. This place is a nightmare."

"I'm putting you at risk for staying here with you," Marc told her, which was part of the truth but not entirely.

"I don't care. I'm taking this decision myself. I want you to stay here with me, please," she knew it sounded a bit pathetic, but she couldn't help it. "I can't —  I hate it here. I would rather spend a week of happiness than my entire life stuck in the hospital."

Marc shook his head frantically, wanting to help more than anything. (Y/N) kept her hand on his as she continued. "Promise me that you'll stay with me. That you won't leave."

Marc knew the next words coming out of his mouth would be a lie. "I promise."

After that, Layla walked into the room by herself, now wanting the privacy to speak to her closest friend by her own and Marc would've thanked her if he didn't know any better. He regretted his actions, but he thought it was for the best.

He walked out of the hospital doors without uttering a single goodbye, not a sound coming from him until his phone beeped and he reached out to read it. Marc wasn't strong enough to stop the whimper from leaving his lips when he finished reading it, an unreadable look in his eye.

Steven stood alongside (Y/N) after watching the entire thing play, the figure of a younger version of Marc walking right past them as if they didn't exist.

Steven wanted to ask so many questions about the scene but was afraid he'd be shut down without an answer after seeing the look in (Y/N)'s eye throughout the entire thing.

"That was the day he left," she whispered, which confirmed Steven's theory.

⊱ ────── {⋆❉⋆} ────── ⊰

Elias Spector peered out the window of his home and saw the tall and lean figure of his son standing right beside a red car, and he didn't need to have any sort of psychic powers to know that he was hesitating in walking in.

Marc drank a large amount of the bottle of liquor from his hand and nodded to himself a few times to reassure himself and stop the tears from falling. He saw Elias by the window making signs at him to come inside, but he just shook his head.

Marc stuffed the bottle into his jacket and walked off the sidewalk into the empty street while muttering to himself, "No, no. Not gonna do it. I'm not giving you that satisfaction."

Steven had (Y/N) by his side watching the memory unfold right in front of their eyes, being able to see in first hand how Marc finally gave up and crumbled right then and there.

His knees had gave up and the sobs had left his lips the moment he hit the ground, placing his hands in the floor to brace himself. It was too overwhelming, the guilt that he felt back at the hospital, seeing the woman he cared so deeply about getting worse by every passing day because he was too much of a coward to tell her the truth; and the years of abuse from the person who was supposed to love him and protect him no matter what, reminding him of how he failed to save his little brother. Everything was too heavy for him to carry in his shoulders. He wasn't a god or a titan strong enough to carry the weight of the world in his shoulders; he was just human.

Marc removed the Yarmulke from his hair and hit it against the concrete floor, using his hands to stomp on it to release his inner anger before cradling it in his hands.

"I'm so sorry," Marc sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

He swayed back and forth on the floor and the only thing Steven and (Y/N) could do was watch hopelessly. Marc then lifted his head with red, puffy eyes, his hands still holding the yarmulke until his eyes rolled to the back of his head again.

Abruptly, he shot up from his kneeling position with widened and confused eyes, and Steven was the first to notice that he wasn't staring at a memory of Marc anymore, it was himself.

"What. . ." the accent dripped from his voice. "Where am I?"

Steven looked around in confusion. "Bloody hell, what. . .Oh, bollocks. Not again."

He dusted himself off and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, all while Steven kept his kneeling position on the floor and his eyes began watering at what this meant, remembering what Marc had said earlier.

"Heya, Mum. Hey, you all right?" the other Steven kept talking to himself on the phone. "Yeah, um. . .Would you believe it? I am totally lost again. I don't know where I am. What an absolute muppet! No, I know I did it again, but I don't know."

Marc appeared from around the corner while the other Steven drifted off to the other side of the street with the phone in hand, absolutely thrilled in having the conversation with his mom when in reality, there was no one listening.

"I'm looking down a street. . .Kinda looks a bit life Mayfair. I think. . ." he walked far away.

Marc joined Steven and (Y/N)'s side and kept avoiding their eyes as he began speaking. "This is it. Mom's death and shiva two months ago. This was the moment our lives started bleeding into each other."

"Milwaukee. . .Milwaukee Avenue?" other Steven's voice was growing fainter. "Does that sound familiar?"

"I couldn't. . ." Marc drew the attention back to himself, his voice wavering. "I just couldn't. . .I couldn't face that again. All the things I'd done."

Marc's gaze fell on (Y/N). "The secrets I've kept from you."

(Y/N) gave him a weak smile. "It doesn't matter to me anymore." And it was the truth, she was in a state between death, so she couldn't quite care if she could've gotten cured or not.

"Marc," Steven placed a hand on his shoulder while (Y/N) rubbed her thumb on his hand. "All those horrible things that she said to you, she was wrong. It wasn't your fault."

"I shouldn't have brought him in the cave," Marc continued his denial. "I shouldn't have brought him in the cave."

"Hey," (Y/N) called his attention. "You were a little boy. It wasn't your fault."

A rumble shook the entire street they were standing on, an abrupt moment that not only startled her, but the boys as well.

"Hey, do you feel that?" Steven asked the two. "I think we just stopped."

Steven looked to his side and he was the only one to realize what this probably meant. "The Gates."

"The Gates of Osiris. Come on. Hurry."

i know i just made a mess with the timeline and location of events, but let's ignore it all for the sake of this book (even though it's going to bother me too at night)

-see you soon, bex