blood.

blood entwined. two souls. two bodies. one town. same nightmare. same curse. blood, it's warm. he touched his cheek, surprised as his fingertips came away wet. the lack of pain was enough to assure him it was only mannequins' blood that marked his skin and not his own.

his eyes fluttered closed, surrendering to the brush of your fingertips on the apple of his cold cheek trailing a path to his jaw. and the soft hush of your breaths fluttering the hair at his crown. the rest of the world— the rest of the town, with its fog and its monsters and its ghosts— fell away with the acidic weight of mary's death.

a clenched breath sneaked through his gritted teeth, feeling your touch drifted like feather along his brow, over the bridge of his nose like a whisper tracing to the curvature of his skull, all the way down the soft, baby hairs at the nape of his neck, only to curl your fingers unto his jacket in the next breath.

he lifted his gaze to yours. it was only then that he noticed his fingers wrapping loosely around your wrist. so delicate, so fragile— just as his beloved mary. his mary who loved him. but not enough to save him.

so do you.

because like mary, you were never here anymore.