Chapter Text
Mark was never good at remembering special dates, often missing his own birthday, the day his father passed, and, especially, his own wedding anniversary.
He also had a ugly habit of caring about things far more once they were no longer his. It was as if loss sharpened his memory, made everything clearer in hindsight, like a cruel joke at his own expense.
Devon would have laughed at him, that same tender sarcasm of disbelief laced in her voice, the way she always reacted to the tangled mess of his life. How could he, the same man who had once been blinded by love at the start of his marriage, only remember the start of it after he himself had ended it? She’d tell him he was predictable, that he always held on too late, that nostalgia wasn’t love—it was just grief in disguise. And Mark, as much as he would want to argue, would know she was right.
It would have been ironic if it wasn’t pathetic, sitting on this cold metal stool, pouring his remorse into something that did nothing but dull the turmoil in his head. Mark knew he was beyond repair, that inebriation wouldn’t absolve him of the life he had built and then torn down with his own hands.
But still, he drank, let the dark tint flow down his throat and burn the unspoken words there. At this point it didn’t taste like anything, there was nothing to savor or enjoy, just the relief of feeling nothing
Until he felt something, actually, someone felt it in him.
“Are you always this melancholic, or are you just trying to look tough?” the voice asked, playful yet steady. It was a woman’s voice, but not too high-pitched, there was a depth to it, a low undertone that unsettled him just a little. Her diction was sharp, clear without being rushed, she sounded amused and sure looked like she was
There was curiosity in the depth of her eyes, staring back at him like he was a puzzle she intended to solve. Her lips, stained with some shade of plum-colored lipstick, curled into a slight, knowing smirk. She looked dangerous, something he’d lust for from a distance, then forget about. Or at least, that’s what he told himself.
Play her game; might do you some good. Isn’t this all about forgetting?
“ Trying to look tough, actually. Did I succeed?” His eyes shifted from their fixated stare at the wine left in his glass, now meeting hers directly, no longer that cautious, side-eyed glance.
“Well, if I’m here, I think we can say you did.” A hand flew to her own hair, untying it as she settled into a vague stool, deliberately facing him. The red strands tumbled over her shoulders, framing the pale skin of her face and curling where the blue wool jumper she wore started
“And you? Always this curious, or just drunk?” He said the word “curious” less like an accusation and more like a hope, as if Mark wanted her to keep prying, giving her the keys to him and leaving her to uncover whatever she wished to know, disappearing afterward like an exquisite memory from a night that slowly faded in his mind.
She turned her gaze to the side, a faint flush blooming on her cheeks. Leaning against the bar, she let the weight of her head rest in her closed fist, her fingers curling loosely around her face. For a moment, she lingered in that quiet pose, then looked back at him, her expression playful, tinged with interest.
“Maybe both, do you care?”
“I don’t think so, who are you again?”
She hesitated before answering, her mouth opening slightly before closing again as if weighing her words. A nervous tension in the air, but she eventually spoke, giving him the name he wanted.
“Helly.”
“Helly what?”
“Just Helly.”
Mark allowed himself to be guided by her, telling her his own name and chatting for what felt like hours disguised as fleeting minutes, sweet nothings over half-finished warm drinks, forgotten in the back-and-forth of uninteresting subjects that her magnetism reignited, like a cover story in a magazine.
She had this ability to keep him in the palm of her hand, to hold his attention exactly where she wanted it, to get inside his head. Mark was pretty convinced she was the most charismatic person to ever exist—clever, quick, making the world, and him, revolve around her. It was as if everything he did was dictated by her will, even if he wasn’t quite sure what that will was.
“Don’t lie to me, it’s in your face that you’re here because of something shitty”
Even as unguarded as she was, Helly still carried herself with a certain polished, indifferent demeanor that gave away just how out of place the word “shitty” was in her vocabulary. It rolled off her tongue like some foreign absurdity, he breathed out a laugh at that
“You really don’t want to know.” He says, sipping on his drink and hiding beneath the warm odor of alcohol
“Who are you to tell me that?”
“The person that knows”
“Come’on, just tell me, I can tell you why I am here, you look like you want to ask” Helly giggled, shook her head, and grinned like she didn’t have a single care in the world. Her smile was contagious—almost enough to make him forget what he was about to tell her.
“It’s my wedding anniversary, was, actually.” She hesitated briefly at his words before her expression shifted to one just as tired and uneasy as his, redirecting the focus from his failed marriage to her own troubles.
“I got a new job, one I especially don’t want.”
“Yeah you sure don’t look like you’re from Ganz.”
Helly laughs and finishes off the remaining liquid in her glass, a Long Island, now mostly diluted by melted ice, before returning to teasing him in the same vague, drawn-out way she has been for hours.
“Where do you think i'm from, Mark?”
“Uh,” He pauses to think, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated, playful gesture while fidgeting with the hem of his rolled-up sleeves “New York? You don’t have an accent tho,”
“I’m from Kier” Her words are uneasy, she looks around, almost if searching for something in the sea of people.
“Kier? You’re too much of a big city person for me to believe that.”
“What the hell is a ‘big city person’?”
It had been a long time since Mark had felt this urge to keep talking, this feeling that every minute was the last and had to be filled. She was intoxicating—mysterious and elusive. They didn’t need details or opinions. Helly had her sharp, ironic jokes and a youthful charm, like a dream or a distant memory, someone he might have known at the start of college.
If nothing he had put in his system was enough for the worst hangover of a lifetime, she would definitely be enough.
“So what about that job, why are you here if you don’t want it?”
“It’s not that easy.”
But Mark Scout was easy—God knows how easy he was. Easy enough for her to flutter her eyelashes and rest her hand over his, easy enough to brush her leg against his under the table and sweet-talk him while sharing a drink. He knew it himself—he was lonely, forgotten by his own choice. Helly simply saw potential and took him in. He couldn’t blame her.
Even though he had promised himself otherwise, he didn’t make it any harder. He simply let her steer him, offering him a ride he initially refused—only to accept it gladly moments later, loathing the idea of being left alone there with that funny feeling of exposure. He was polite enough to at least try to pay for her drink, though she had already done it before he could. Polite enough to open doors and hold her umbrella.
Maybe a little too polite. He had no real reason to help her once they were inside, nothing that justified stripping her rain-soaked clothes, running his hands over her body, keeping her warm through the night—or fucking her senseless. After all, he didn’t get that politeness in return. Helly was gone before the sun could rise, slipping away from where she had been draped over him in his bed.
Helly had left nothing behind, no note or trace of her existence, nothing but the memory of her body against his and the sharp, sinking feeling that he’d let her go too easily.
Mark was always known as strict since the dawn of his career in academia—precise, a bit too rough with his words, always the right amount of hard. He dominated the classroom, and pretty much every room, with eloquence and honesty. He was responsible, blatant, but not rude. His critiques were sharp but never baseless, his expectations high but never unreasonable.
He was also very well known for being straight on time, a man who valued punctuality as much as he valued a well-argued thesis. Whether it was a lecture, a meeting, or a casual coffee with colleagues, Mark Scout was never late. Until, of course, he was.
Now he found himself in the most ridiculous state he had been in for quite some time—sprinting through the wide, cold concrete halls of the modern hall building of Ganz University. His shirt was wrinkled, his derby shoes badly tied, and his jacket clung precariously between the handles and the square shape of his messenger bag. His breath came fast and uneven, the rhythmic slap of his soles against the polished floor echoing louder than he would’ve liked.
Mark Scout—always on time, always put-together—now looked like the kind of frantic student he used to mock, the ones who lost track of time buried under papers and poor decisions. But today, for the first time in a long while, his lateness wasn’t due to a missed alarm or overworking. It was because of her.
There’s always a her , Devon would say, smirking at him over dinner.
Mark hadn’t quite thought of her yet, too busy trying to get his shit together after waking up to a series of rushed calls from Dylan, who, judging by the sheer number of missed attempts, had been hoping, maybe even praying, that Mark would pick up at some point.
He hadn’t had time to think of her while brushing his teeth, tying his tie, or speeding up to campus, nor did he have time now as he finally stumbled into the run-down auditorium. The place was as bleak as ever, rows of washed-out green velvet seats spread through the space in tired, peeling symmetry. Mark dropped his things onto one of them, barely catching his breath before sinking down beside Dylan.
The bigger man didn’t say anything at first, just leveled him with a stare—wary, irritated.
Mark frowned. “What?”
Dylan didn’t hesitate.
“Where the fuck were you, Scout?”
“At my house?”
“No you weren’t at your fucking house you don’t,” Dylan was shortly cut by the sound of another voice, two voices, coming from behind them
“Hi, kids. What’s for diner?”
“Are you never going to stop with that?”
Irving’s hand tapped lightly on Mark’s shoulder, a quiet apology murmured under his breath as he maneuvered past their knees to take the seat beside Dylan. He looked the same as always—meticulously polished yet perpetually gray, with faint traces of black acrylic paint still clinging beneath a few fingernails.
Peter followed close behind, replacing Irving’s fleeting touch with a firm, friendly grip on Mark’s shoulder. He chuckled at the easy banter between friends, the kind that came from years of shared exhaustion. Running a hand through his neatly combed silver hair, he turned his kind gaze to Mark and let out a knowing smirk.
“And what the fuck happened to you?”
“Why does everybody think something happened to me?” Mark grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face.
“Maybe because you look, uh… funny, Mark,” Irving said cautiously, that same gentle, measured tone he always used.
“Funny?” Dylan scoffed. “He looks like he just got ran ove—”
“Like he got railed,” Petey cut in, his voice smooth with amusement, a laugh bubbling at the back of his throat.
There was a beat of silence before Dylan barked out a laugh, and even Irving let out a quiet, knowing chuckle. They all knew how Mark was—how monotonous his life had become in the last few years, how rigid and still he sounded whenever the subject of his personal life came up. No girlfriends, no dates, no one-night stands, nothing. He was practically a ghost outside of work.
So for him to show up like this—rumpled, slightly dazed, visibly off—there was definitely something out of the ordinary.
Mark tried to explain, stumbling over his words before he was cut off again, this time by another voice, much less pleasant. The chatter wasn’t directed at them, not exactly, but the four of them listened anyway.
“I bet she won’t even show up. Wonder which poor secretary is gonna do the work for her. They’re gonna swallow up everything anyway.”
“You say it like it’s unexpected,” Dario scoffed, leaning back against the seat behind Mark’s, knocking against the back of his head. “Not that it really matters, if it wasn’t la principessa di papà, it’d be some altro stronzo in giacca e cravatta with a stick up their ass.”
The Italian was forced, but the accent wasn’t. Dario had that same irritating, easy charm that somehow worked on everyone. It bordered on ridiculous. He was always like that. It might have made the woman across from him—Gwen, Mark thought her name was, though he wasn’t entirely sure—feel special. But Mark knew better. With Dario, it was always just means to an end.
The conversation was cut short abruptly, not by sound, but by the most complete, utter noise of silence.
By the time Mark had arrived at the auditorium, a crowd had already formed, one that had only grown larger—mostly faculty, gathered in loose clusters, sipping their coffees and making forgettable conversation about their lives, their wives, their students. But it didn’t last.
It faded, row by row, dissipating like smoke, until all that remained was the sharp, deliberate clack of blocky heels against the floor.
Mark had already known the source of the sound before he even turned his head.
The first pair of heels—the ones Gemma always wore—weren’t particularly tall, nude-colored, practical. There were dozens of them scattered around the house back then, an oddly charming waste of money. But they weren’t the only familiar heels echoing through the auditorium.
There was another pair beside them, taller, sleeker. Black patent leather with a rounded, almost pointy tip, a thin strap fastening around the ankle. He’d seen them before, quite literally not long ago. He had taken them off himself, his hands trailing up the legs they once encased, legs that now stood before him, covered in sheer black nylon, disappearing beneath the long, structured sepia-black pants.
Mark didn’t need to see them to know the exact shape, the precise mapping of those legs. His eyes drifted up, past the sleeveless, similarly colorless turtleneck, up to the unmistakable crown of rich, goddamned curled red hair.
His chest tightened.
“Good morning, everyone,” Gemma’s voice cut through the thick tension in the room, measured, diplomatic, and just a little too forced. “Thank you for joining us today in such…” She paused, clearly searching for the most considerate words in her vocabulary. “…complicated circumstances. As I’m sure all of us are aware, after the events of last year, our Dean, Mr.Graner has announced a brief retirement, which called for a substitute. And I’m happy to announce our next step for improvement this year.”
She held the microphone a little tighter, uneasy, acutely aware of the collective opinion in the room. Everybody knew. Nobody wanted to accept it.
Except for Mark.
“Please join me in welcoming our new dean, Dr. Helena Eagan.”