needlebomb | inbox.

[ more than cool. saves marcus the trouble of having to come up with an excuse to message henry first. ]

yeah? i do love an internally overwhelming sense of existential dread. hits me where i live.
it's nice to know you're listening to it. especially now. if it's getting you through all this.

i, uh, wasn't sure if it would be too much. the mixtape, i mean. obviously.
i mean, it's kind of a big thing to give someone on a first date, right? "hey, this is all extremely new, but here are some songs that kind of made me think about you", or whatever. not that they were even explicitly romantic. most of them. but. i wanted you to like them.
just seemed like a lot. so i'm glad. that you like it. if you do.
and i'm glad that i didn't come across as desperate. unless i did. so.
yeah.

[ yeah. yeah. oh, boy. he's just gonna stop talking. ]

[ henry had thought that by now he would be prepared for how much marcus's earnestness gets to him. he still isn't. ]

No. It's not too much. It's perfect.
That is once I found a cassette player and figured out how to work it.
Also I noticed that you included a little dance break, which must have pained you greatly, I'm sure. And if that's not peak romance, I'm not sure what is, honestly.

I like it.

it was. that was slightly disingenuous of me, including a song i didn't like all that much. but, uh.
i thought that giving you eight tracks of some white guy crying his heart out on an acoustic guitar might have made you think of me as... i don't know.
exclusively gloomy and melodramatic? which would be a fair analysis, but not one i want you to come to so early.
i thought a little mainstream appeal could cover my bases and/or coerce you into sucking my dick.
so.
yeah.
peak romance.

anyway.
good. cool. i'm glad.
shame the world is ending before i can make you volume two.

You don't need to try this hard, you know.
I appreciate it a lot, but there are maybe six people in the whole world who know as much about me as you do.
If that's all you want I'm already pretty invested. I like you.
And I happen to love melodrama. So if you could ramp that up a little, I would probably let you come in my mouth willingly.

Although. I suppose one could argue that little is more dramatic than the world ending and it is putting a bit of a damper on things. As much as I appreciate it aesthetically.

Anyway, it was much more cohesive than the one I made for you.

i want to, though. i want to try.
i'm new to all this. dating. i never dated anyone back home. i don't know what to do, exactly.
and i really like you, so i don't want to screw this up. don't want to be too eager. don't want to not be eager enough. don't want to make this a big deal. don't want to not make this a big enough deal.
so. yeah. i'm invested, too. i like you, too.
and i do want to come in your mouth. holy shit. you can't just spring that on me. jesus.
pretty fucking unfair to interrupt my heartfelt, insecure babbling by making me hard. a literal dick move.

and dude, don't sell yourself short. you could have put eight tracks of bob dylan baby boomer hippie bullshit on there and i still would have treasured it.
well, no. i wouldn't have.
but i would have told you i treasured it.

we should see each other again. when the floods clear up. assuming they ever do.
and, you know.
assuming you want to.
which i assume that you do.
thus prior usage of the word "assuming".

we can listen to more music together.

I apologize if I ever implied I was interested in playing fair when I could turn you on instead. I wanted to see if that would interest you or if I was taking the wrong approach tbh.
If it helps, I never dated anyone back home either. At least. I didn't really think of anyone that way. I just... wasn't attracted to anyone enough to want to fuck them? Which is weird when you're 18 I guess.
Only to say that these are uncharted waters for me.

Anyway. I would have given it to you last time, but I was pretty thoroughly distracted.
So now you'll have to wait to find out if I've done that or not.
Although to be clear, I thrive on unearned praise which is always welcomed.

And.
I do want that very much.

First though, I- should tell you something.
I mentioned before that there's a friend I live with. I think that. We might be more than just friends now. She hasn't said that specifically, but if so I didn't want it to seem like I'm hiding her from you. Because you mean a lot to me.

I understand if that changes things for you. I hope that you still want to see me though. Um. Yeah.

i don't think that's weird. if anything, it's kind of reaffirming to hear. means that your affection is hard to earn. i'm proud that i've managed to get my hands on it.
new is okay. i didn't even consider the possibility that i might like guys until one of my friends here gave me a handjob.
and now there's you.
it's been kind of a lot.

anyway... i don't care. it's fine. if you and her end up being exclusive, just let me know. i promise i won't go full jilted ex-lover and break into your house so i can set your shit on fire.
i'm not going to lie — i can be a possessive, needy, clingy piece of shit, but i also like having my freedom, so. you see whoever you want and i'll do the same.
probably a good ground rule to establish in case this thing does get serious, somewhere down the line. i don't want us to get jealous or angry with each other, or anything.
so.
yeah. i'm happy for you. and i still want to come in your mouth. it's all good.

[ ... ]

[ ... ]

[ ... ]

I wish you would stop talking about yourself that way. I thought we'd established I have much higher standards than that. There are so many genuinely awful people out there. Two things they all have in common is not worrying about how shitty they might be, and I have spent zero time thinking about all the things I want to do to their cocks with my tongue.

We agree on this much, yes?

I want to be honest because I respect you.

yeah.
my bad.
i know that aggressively sarcastic self-deprecation is maybe the least attractive defense mechanism there is.
i will dial it back.
i'll, like, get a little drunk and say something hypercritical about your eyebrows the next time anxiety makes me want to call myself out on perceived personality flaws before you get a chance to.
you know, like a normal person.

[ that's a joke. he's joking. and he likes henry's eyebrows. holy shit, okay, he needs to change topic, like, right now. ]

let's focus on you and this girl in your life?
we could talk about how the two of you became, uh, "more than friends". if that's something you would be interested in doing.
would that weird you out? talking about that with me?
especially with such direct proximity to thoughts about my cock?

Good luck with that, my eyebrows are perfect.

[ it's possible they have not only different, but opposing coping mechanisms. ]

It's not weird though, just... complicated. You would probably like her. She almost kicked my ass the first couple times I met her.

It's- you remember those kids I was supposed to spy on. She was very much a wild card in that scenario and part of the reason things went in a different direction. Her name is Blue. She was- is dating my target, but he isn't here anymore. I mean here in the city, he is still alive, or he'd better be.

According to another friend of ours, I'm dating both of them in the future but that seems- far fetched.

I'm sorry. That's a lot. She's my dominant here.

perfect is a stretch.
perfect adjacent, maybe. perfect lite.
i'll give you a solid 98% on the perfect eyebrow scale.

[ dot dot dot. ]

what is it with you and being attracted to people who can kick your ass?
her. me, obviously. i'd wreck you in a fight.
totally cool if you've got a masochistic streak. i can give you a couple of bites next time i see you. really leave a mark.

but you're right. that does sound complicated.
kind of reminds me of saya, actually. this girl i know back home.
she's amazing. strong. solid. the kind of person that can fix

[ me, he wants to say, but that seems like the opposite of dialing back the self-criticism, so he deviates. ]

any problem.
i think she has a thing for my best friend? one of my best friends. i don't know. it doesn't matter. i don't know why i'm even talking about her. sorry.
it's cool that you and blue found each other here. and that you're enough of a pimp to fuck both her and her boyfriend, apparently.
next level shit, cheng.

I will accept 98%. Now you can't take it back.

Also it was more of a metaphorical, verbal ass-kicking and I don't see how that's obvious at all. Although- Yeah. Are you joking about it, because I think maybe I would like that.

[ he never thought about it before, but now he will. ]

But again, I feel like that's an unlikely reading of the scenario. I feel like if he does show up-

[ well. that he would have to explain some things. but that makes it sound like henry is getting away with something. not that gansey is a good friend that henry very much wants to see again, even if it means blue decides to drop him. and he doesn't want to talk about that. ]

Never mind. They do sound similar, though. Are you into her? Saya?

98% is undercutting it. if you pushed for the full one hundred, you probably would have got it.
and — no. i'm not joking.
i think it'd be kind of hot.
putting a hickey on your neck. letting you go through the day knowing that someone could see it.
kind of fun.
but, uh.
don't want to make your not-girlfriend jealous, so. gonna have to give me the go ahead before i maul you like a bear eating salmon.

i'm into pretty much any girl who acts like she likes me. i'm very much a "men and women can't just be friends, there's always something there" kind of guy.
saya's... manipulative, though.

[ not a no. marcus hesitates before he adds on. ]

i could tell you how i met her, but it's kind of complicated. and dark. and heavy.
i don't want to spring a bunch of sad shit on you if you're not up for it.
you could tell me about this guy in the middle of you and blue, instead, if you want. he sounds... similarly complicated.

Okay fuck you. I've reevaluated and decided they're perfect again.

A salmon huh? Is this evocative simile indicating the expected wetness of the situation as well as intensity, or am I thinking excessively of rivers because of the literal monsoon? You want me to ask her if I can play outside?

But tbh I don't believe that. In my experience guys who say "men and women can't be friends" either hate women, which I don't think is true, or every girl they're interested in wants to sleep with them, which sounds more accurate.

I get it though. I think. ...does it have anything to do with being kidnapped to that assassin school?

[ he heard something about it from billy. he should be more forthcoming with them both about the information he has, but it's an old habit. ]

I can tell you about Gansey after.

too late. worst eyebrows i've ever seen. 0/10!
i fucking got you. oh my god. wrecked. destroyed.
and no.
i don't want you to ask. i just want to make sure i'm not going to upset her if you come home looking insanely well-fucked.
i'm not exactly looking to make any enemies here.

[ marcus doesn't hate women, nor does he think every girl in the world wants to fuck him — he's just kind of pathetic and gets obsessed with girls who show him, like, the smallest amount of kindness. he's not enough of a dick to say that, because he doesn't think it would reflect well on this thing he's got going with henry, especially because so far henry is... special, and different, and the affection marcus has for him is a lot more genuine than the high-octane obsession he typically gets with people he doesn't really like. so yeah. he keeps that answer to himself. saya, right? that's what they were talking about. ]

so yeah. the guy in charge of my old school, master lin, had set an assignment to his AP class to find me, tell me about king's dominion, and convince me to enroll.
my face and my name were all over the news, which is why he did that. i was living on the streets at the time, because there had been an attack at the boy's home where i grew up, and the cops had put a warrant out on my arrest.
kids with reps like mine don't come along very often, so lin really, really wanted me. i mean, if you're running a school for assassins, you obviously want to get in touch with the homeless orphan who allegedly blew up a building and shot all the kids and staff inside.

saya was one of the students who received lin's assignment. she's the one who got me to enroll.
i was gonna throw myself off this belltower, right? leave a stain on the pavement. (don't worry, i'm good.)
she found me while i was up there. told me she knew all the shit in my head, swore to me she knew how bad i must have been feeling. she promised me i didn't have to be alone, if i came to king's.
and she kissed me. i fell for her pretty hard, after that, because — you know — a pretty girl kisses you and promises to save you at the lowest point in your life, and getting obsessed is kind of unavoidable.
but the thing is, she's got these powerful connections with her family back in japan. yakuza.
i told you this before, i think, but there's a class divide in king's. some people have a high profile bloodline, and the rest of us, the poor and the impoverished and the special exceptions there on scholarships or hand-picked enrollment, are considered worse than rats.
saya made it very clear that she wouldn't be seen dead talking to a rat like me.
she only kissed me and said the things she said so that she could get a passing grade.

[ dot dot dot. ]

but we're friends now. kind of.
there's actually this other girl, too, who's kind of in the middle of us. and i'm kind of in the middle of her and her boyfriend, because she wants me to kill him.
it's a whole thing.
i've already talked way too much, so. i guess i'll tell you about her another time?
talk to me about this gansey kid.

[ henry reads all of that. a couple of times. there's nothing that doesn't make a certain amount of sense, given what he knows and the earlier warning. and henry doesn't often get emotional. he's generally the one to hold it together when the others are emotional, but like. jesus. it's the little 'don't worry, i'm good' that chokes him up. like even when recounting all of this he was concerned about how henry would take it. and he was right.

marcus doesn't seem to be expecting any particular reaction. and henry doesn't know if any reassurances would be welcome. there are jokes at his fingertips, like asian mobsters apparently really do it for you hmm, but he's not ready. fucking yakuza. luckily they're not really in the same business.

it sounds messy. and henry is sorry for all of it. he should say something, but as much as henry talks, being able to say what he means has always been a different thing. ]

Thank you for telling me.
Just. Hold on for a minute.

[ it's going to take him a little while to get in the right frame of mind to talk about gansey, but he doesn't want marcus to think henry left him on read after basically pouring his heart out. ]

Right. Okay.

His name is Richard Campbell Gansey the Third. (I know.) His mother is about to be elected to the Senate or Congress or something, and his father is, well, Richard Campbell Gansey II. Which is a big deal even amongst a class of students whose fathers have been alumni for generations. And he… has this ability to draw magic to himself. Literally, not metaphorically. Which was of great interest to my mother, and I was planted at the school anyway to give her a plausible reason to travel and keep an eye on the son of a contact of hers.

He was on this quest to find a wish. Until recently I had every intention of stealing the wish. It's just that- the more of his secrets I gathered the more he just seemed… lost. I realized how similar we were. Just this feeling that we were supposed to be important to each other? He was in way over his head and I- wanted to save him, I guess. So. I. Invited him and his girlfriend, Blue, to a party to test the waters and it kind of changed a lot of things.

I just... I don't mean this in an arrogant way, but I'm used to people listening to me or befriending me for status, but it's different when someone can really understand you. Who you are.

So then I told him everything. Which makes you the second person ever, by the way. And we saw the quest through, sort of. The three of us were set to go on a road trip before we ended up here.

Also he is Blue's True Love. Again, literally not metaphorically. That's partly why I'm not confident in that assessment of our relationship. All of this sounds far more whimsical than it should to account for the number of people who died that semester. That tends to happen around him, a kind of storyfication.

That's… that's about it.

[ he doesn't regret talking about gansey. or hearing about saya. he wants to learn and he wants marcus to know. but it was a lot at once, and he doesn't know what to do now. ]

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