Chapter Text
True to Jackson’s words, Mark is undisturbed as he walks through the woods toward his grandmother’s house. To pass the time and distract himself from thoughts of what might be hiding in the descending darkness, Mark tries to mimic Jackson’s movements and tread lightly over the foliage. Now that he is concentrating, his footsteps are marginally quieter than the crash of cymbals.
A sound jars Mark out of his trance, and he looks up to see the side of a familiar cottage through the next line of trees. Again, He hears the sound, an odd cracking noise, from the opposite side of the cottage. Thinking of all the horrible things in the forest that might be coming to prey on his vulnerable grandmother, Mark breaks into a sprint. Another crack echoes around the clearing.
Mark skids around the corner of the house to see his grandmother raising an axe high above her head. As he gapes, she swings the axe with her spindly arms and slices a piece of timber in two. Straightening up, she regards Mark with sharp brown eyes.
“You’re supposed to be doing this, you know.”
Mark is speechless.
“Well, come here, you scoundrel. Put these with the rest,” she continues, dusting her wrinkled hands on her skirt.
Mark complies without thinking or taking his eyes off of his purportedly frail and ailing grandmother. She is slightly bent, but she carries herself with an air that demands respect. The last time Mark had seen her was the past autumn when she had emerged from the woods in a rickety, donkey-drawn cart. Despite Mark’s parents’ efforts to convince her to live with them after Mark’s grandfather’s death, she had refused. Resigned to her stubbornness, Mark’s family had accepted the situation.
That was before Mark knew about the creatures that lurk away from the beaten path.
“That’s my boy. Now, are you going to come greet your old halmeoni or not?”
Her lined face is smiling, and Mark recognizes the expression. It reminds him of handmade quilts that were warmer than any other blanket and of one more story before bedtime even though his mother told them to say goodnight.
Mark smiles in return, feeling the relief of familiarity ground him after the events of the recent past, and gathers his grandmother into his arms. She chuckles and rubs a soothing hand over his back.
“I thought you were sick,” Mark says to the top of her head. He withdraws when she laughs again, short and loud.
“I only told my son that so he would send you. Why don’t you visit me more often?”
Mark thinks of unearthly wails and sharp claws. He frowns slightly, but before he can respond, his grandmother's fingers are hovering over Mark’s cheek.
“It seems you had an adventure getting here,” she murmurs. When Mark remains silent, she hooks her arm into his. “Come in, then. Let’s hear it.”
That night, Mark is staring at the ceiling while lost inside his own head. After his grandmother had cleaned him up and placed a cup of tea in his hands, he had only divulged a fragmented story about being chased by a creature that was scared away by another. Even Mark had a difficult time believing his words, but his grandmother had accepted the tale with a knowing twinkle in her eye.
Mark wonders what she could possibly know when he himself knows only confusion and doubt. Aside from the very tangible proof of the cuts on his face and the bruises blossoming like sickly flowers over his torso, he could have imagined the encounter. Perhaps he fell into a ditch, roughed himself up, and hit his head.
Closing his eyes, Mark considers this possibility.
The wolf appears silently, as if it has coalesced from the very shadows. Mark is not scared. The wolf knocks him over--maybe knocking him out momentarily. He does not remember, but he is not scared. The wolf turns into a man with burning eyes and sharp teeth. Mark is not scared. The closer the man gets, the more Mark is drawn in. Somehow, the danger is attracting him rather than repelling him. While all rational sense indicates he should run away, Mark only wants to stay close to the man, Jackson, and follow him away from the path.
Even the fear Mark feels as they are pursued by the horrifying creature is muted in Jackson’s presence, with Jackson’s hand holding his. Jackson growls, and Mark is intimidated, but primarily awed. He does not have time to ruminate on these feelings as he is caught up in the whirlwind that is Jackson pulling him along as he runs for his life.
It is only when Jackson roars that Mark is truly afraid. But then the creature is gone, and Jackson is bright, warm, and curious and concerned over Mark’s injuries. Mark is surprised when Jackson switches from worried to sensual in the width of a second, but despite how strange, how forward, how fast, and how wrong the situation should be, Mark is eagerly reciprocating the affections. He has never felt this intensely for someone else, and he wants Jackson with every fiber of his being; on his mouth, his neck, his skin, and all around him.
Mark’s eyes open, and the sensation of his heart hammering against his tender ribs is unmistakable. Jackson is real, and so are the feelings he instills in Mark. It is as if Jackson had cast a spell on him. Mark remembers the enigmatic trinkets and baubles scattered around his grandmother’s house that he had seen in a new light that day. Perhaps Jackson had enchanted him.
When this thought crosses Mark’s mind, he recalls Jackson’s reactions to him. Jackson had not hesitated to protect Mark and rescue him from the nightmare creature, had immediately tuned into Mark’s words when he spoke, and had worried about Mark’s well-being. One of the very first things Jackson had done when they encountered each other was smell him. Mark ponders the way Jackson had reveled in Mark’s scent with his nose buried in Mark’s neck. Is the spell mutual?
Who is Jackson?
Two words echo simultaneously inside Mark’s head.
Danger. Mine.
The next morning, Mark is dressed and outside before he realizes he has actually woken up. His grandmother is sitting in a rocking chair outside the front door and sharpening her axe. Mark opens his mouth to give some excuse for his swift departure, but she simply gives him the same knowing look from before.
"Go on. The forest is calling you, is it not?"
Grateful, Mark kisses her forehead, waves to Michael, his grandmother’s donkey, and walks out to the edge of the clearing in which the cottage sits. Facing the trees, Mark takes a deep breath and steps off the path.
Tracing his path from the previous night is thoughtless in the golden light of morning. Mark allows himself a moment to gaze through the trees, searching the dappled shade for any hint of monsters, and he finds none. Either the comforting presence of daylight is chasing away the nightmares or Mark truly smells of Jackson, whom the nightmares fear enough to eschew thoroughly. No longer surprised by facts that fail to affect him in the manner they should, Mark continues through the woods.
He stops in front of the towering tree beneath which he and Jackson had parted company. There is no sign of Jackson, and Mark remembers they had not specified this as their meeting place, but he knows that this is where he is meant to be. A rustling sound at the base of the tree captures Mark’s attention. Out from the roots and leaves emerges a hulking wolf with midnight colored fur.
The wolf lopes over to him, and he kneels down, smiling as the wolf pushes his snout into Mark’s ear. The cold nose brushing against Mark’s skin causes him to laugh and recoil, drawing his shoulder upwards.
In the next moment, Jackson is in front of him with a smile bright enough to dull the sunshine. He raises his hands to caress Mark’s face, and his words are faintly disbelieving when he says, “You came back.”
Mark leans into the touch as Jackson strokes his thumbs over his cheekbones. “I came back.”
Their lips meet chastely, and that feeling is back; the odd collection of emotions Mark can’t quite label. He chases the sensation and deepens the kiss, and Jackson is happy to oblige him. Before long, Mark is on his back with Jackson in his arms, nosing into the hollow of Mark’s throat. As Jackson leaves butterfly kisses along Mark’s collarbones, Mark discovers a name for the feeling.
Bliss.
Resting, warm and fluttering inside Mark’s chest is a mixture of butterflies, satisfaction, and rightness.
Mark voices the question that had been weighing on his mind since his late night ruminations. “Why did you find me?”
Jackson licks thoughtfully behind Mark’s ear before he responds. “I usually scare people away if I find them straying from the path, otherwise they'll fall victim to the other residents of this forest. But you,” he says and gazes into Mark’s eyes. “You are something else. You smell so wonderful and feel even better. When I looked at you, you weren’t scared. Your eyes were beautiful and calm. Even with a creature from your worst nightmares chasing you, you were brave and ready to trust me. You didn’t run away from me.”
Jackson buries his face back in Mark’s neck, and Mark wraps his arms around Jackson’s shoulders, staring up at the sun beyond the leaves.
“I don’t think I could.”