Chapter Text
Mark would like to think he was doing better.
He’d had some time to recover from his breakup, coming to terms with the toxic relationship it had become. In a city as big as New York, and with all the traveling he did, it should be difficult to bump into exes. However, Mark had always had shit luck when it came to that. This was compounded by the fact that his ex had expectations from partners that made sure their paths crossed in certain upscale locations.
As a result, Mark had stopped visiting higher end dining if it wasn’t for a job, and he most certainly did not attend any of the elite clubs or bars. Sure, he could afford it, but at what cost? Besides, he often didn’t get along with most of the people in his income bracket outside of business affairs. He was a simple man. (Or as Patrick often put it: he was boring and didn’t know how to enjoy his wealth.)
Despite precautions, Patrick was hard to avoid. Today wasn’t the first time they’d come face to face since the breakup, but it was the first time Mark hadn’t been torn up about it. He was healing, that much was obvious. That didn’t stop the flood of memories caused by Patrick’s sneering face.
“Like it was my fault,” Mark muttered to himself as he trudged through a park near midnight, trying to walk off all the booze he’d consumed. Sure, he was better, but he wasn’t perfect.
He should probably hit the gym first thing in the morning. He had slimmed down more than he cared for. Doing reps was monotonous and left too much space in his own head. He used to enjoy that, but after two horrific relationships back to back, he found it hard to work out long enough to push himself to the bulking mass of muscle he’d been previously.
Not that it was a huge deal, he reasoned. He wasn’t exactly hitting the dating scene at the moment.
“Coward,” he whispered to himself, scuffing his foot against the sidewalk. The self-deprecation was against his new positivity goals, but he was drunk, so he let it slide. His mother had lectured that when he was ready to date, then he was ready, no sense in pushing it any sooner. And he wasn’t ready. He just…didn’t want to get hurt again. Not yet.
It’s your own fault, a sneering voice in his mind accused. You’re not good enough.
Mark had made a lot of mistakes. He’d been so desperate for love that he fell head over heels for a man too broken to love him back. Then he’d fallen into the arms of his almost-ex-fiance’s gold digging doppelganger. It took longer than he cared to admit to notice how similar the two looked. He was honestly embarrassed about it now. All his friends and family had been cringing that entire relationship as Partick drowned in the lavish gifts Mark used to prove how much he could love someone.
Toxic.
The breakup had been a whirlwind of screaming and Patrick throwing things at Mark’s head. After that, Mark took a long overdue vacation to do some soul searching. A year later, he was doing a lot better. He wasn’t nearly so desperate to find the love of his life. He had time, and being single wasn’t the end of the world.
He was better.
Well, he was usually better. Tonight wasn’t better.
Mark had been at a business dinner wrapping things up when Patrick had appeared in a cloud of cologne and jewelry. He had been perched on the arm of some CEO’s son, confident in the big fish he’d managed to catch. With a dirty look and a whisper into the guy’s ear, Mark became an unreasonable target of petty remarks and vitriol. He thought he’d handled it fairly well, being as polite as he could be and making sure his own party was aware that he didn’t know the CEO’s son. Everyone had turned a blind eye to the drama after that, but Patrick’s smirk clearly declared himself the winner of the interaction.
Peter had never made such a face at Mark, not once. In fact, even during their horrific breakup, Peter had been far more polite in the face of Mark’s lashing out than anyone should have been. Even when Mark had thrown that punch. The downside to his exes looking so alike was that Mark was convinced he deserved from Peter the cruelty Patrick offered, and Patrick’s uncanny alikeness made it feel like double the punishment.
But the fact remained that Peter owned his mistakes in their doomed relationship, which was a special kind of torture. Patrick just wanted to attack others to make himself feel absolved of sin, which was like a twisting knife to the gut. Mark, when seeing either of them, felt like he deserved all the pain they offered.
Thus, Mark had headed straight for a bar after the run in with Patrick and drank himself stupid. His tolerance had lowered since he’d lost weight, something he discovered the hard way when the bartender cut him off. He should consider that next time so he didn’t end up stumbling around a park, blurry-eyed and miserable.
“I’m going to have such a hangover tomorrow,” Mark muttered to himself. He should get some water before he was arrested for public intoxication. He spotted a public bathroom in the distance and headed towards it. Maybe there was a water fountain.
The closer he got, the more he heard the murmur of voices. It wasn’t unusual for people to hook up this late at night. He’d done so himself multiple times, finding someone attractive on an app and then meeting up long enough to see if they could click for an hour. He was too much of a romantic to fall into that routine very often, but sometimes the loneliness was overwhelming (and his libido wept for attention). He was still working on that.
“Dude, you really fucked him up. Someone’s gonna call the cops.”
Mark stopped walking and turned towards the sound of the voice. A group of men were wandering out of the public restroom he was aiming for. The light over the brick building flickered, obscuring their faces. Mark himself was lost in the darkness of his surroundings, so they didn’t notice him. He moved off the pathway and deeper into the shadows of the nearby trees to guarantee he wouldn’t be spotted.
“Nobody’s callin’ the fuckin’ cops,” another of the group said with utmost confidence. “Homeless people and runaway mutants don’t go to the cops.”
“Ew, I stuck my dick in that. You really think that was a mutant?”
“Who cares? We had fun, right? Let’s go home.”
“All that for a burger.” Someone in the group laughed in response.
“We filled him up with protein. He should be grateful, the filthy mutant.”
Their voices trailed off, laughing and bantering among themselves. Mark frowned at the restroom they’d vacated. He didn’t want to get involved in any illegal activity, but their conversation had been alarming. Was someone hurt in there? He should really—
It’s not your problem, a voice said in the back of his head. If he is a mutant, you can’t take him to a hospital.
Mark would likely get into trouble, too, for fraternizing with someone like that. Mutants living on the street were all wanted for something. Mark knew he’d be charged for aiding and abetting, whether that was valid or not. Perhaps a good lawyer could get him out of it, but that would affect his job.
Well, if hospitals were out of the question, he could at least provide some basic first aid…
Are you going to take him back to your apartment like a white knight and let him steal from you? the logical side of him ranted. Have you not learned your lesson after Peter and Patrick? You need one more person to take advantage of you before you learn to walk away?
“I wasn’t raised to be that bitter of a person,” he muttered to himself. Was his past really going to turn him into someone that heartless and cynical?
Well, that settled it. Mark turned toward the squat, cement building and hurried over. Yeah, maybe he was a white knight and a bleeding heart and whatever else people wanted to accuse him of, but he wasn’t going to let a couple bad relationships change the man he wanted to be. He wasn’t the kind of guy to fear people because of a mutation they had no choice in. He also wasn’t going to let himself become the type of guy to walk away from someone in need just because it was the most comfortable option.
He was nearly jogging by the time he arrived. He swung himself around the wall and into the tiled room before stumbling to a stop and sucking in a sharp breath. The person on the floor looked early twenties, maybe, with some kind of Asian background. His clothes were filthy and mostly ripped off of him, leaving his bruised skin bare to the cold air. There was blood and semen smeared across his ass and face, a puddle of bile under one cheek. His nose and one eye were beginning to swell. He’d probably been slapped hard enough to make him compliant.
The guy’s eyes rolled, looking up at Mark. There was a kind of bone deep exhaustion and resignation in the man’s sallow features. He coughed and swallowed before attempting to speak, his voice rough from abuse. “Money up front this time.”
Mark snapped out of his shock and moved to kneel by the guy who flinched at the sudden movement. “Sorry. Can you—”
“Not my ass.” The guy pushed himself a little higher on trembling arms, but they gave out on him. His face hit the tile with a wince. “You got any…food…” His eyes rolled, and Mark did his best not to shout curses and chase down those guys in the park. Sure, Mark was a big guy, but four against one still mostly drunk and gym-skipping individual weren’t good odds.
“I’m going to try and clean you up,” Mark said.
He dove at the paper towels, yanking out all that were left and wetting them in the sink. The guy on the floor flinched when the cold water dripped across his skin and whined in protest as Mark attempted to clean the blood off the poor guy’s ass. He just wanted to check and make sure it wasn’t still bleeding. Those kinds of injuries could take a long time to heal.
“Please,” the guy moaned before coughing again. “Please, no more there.”
“It’s alright. I’m not going to do anything.”
The words meant nothing. The guy was squirming on the floor like he was trying to get away but didn’t have the energy to. Mark kept both hands on the now trembling skin to make it clear that they weren’t straying from the task at hand. He did his best to keep his movements gentle in the face of those desperate and pained noises.
“It looks like the bleeding has stopped,” Mark murmured as he checked out the damage, painfully aware of how awkward it was to be staring at some stranger’s asshole.
“No more,” the guy begged, voice weak and slowly clogging with tears. “Please.” He sounded delirious — probably was. If he was trading sex for food, who knew how long it’d been since he’d eaten anything. On top of the beating to keep him docile, it was clear he was too addled to have a real sense of what was happening.
“No more,” Mark promised as he gently pulled the tattered shorts back up skinny legs.
“Please, I— I can’t…”
“What’s your name?” Mark asked in a soothing voice as he settled the shorts into place. It was too cold for shorts, but there was a good chance those were the only clothes available to this person.
“Name?” the guy croaked, looking over his shoulder with furrowed eyebrows and an unfocused gaze.
“Yeah.” Mark smiled and did his best to look helpful rather than dangerous. “My name’s Mark. What’s yours?”
There was a long pause, as if a name was the last thing the guy expected to be asked for, and it was clear he was unsure if he should give it. “Dae.”
“Dae? I like it.” Mark moved over and slid one hand between Dae’s shoulder and the floor. “I’m going to help you up now. You think you can sit up, Dae?”
“I don’t know,” Dae mumbled.
“That’s alright. I won’t let you fall.”
The moment Dae was pulled from the floor, he slumped, eyelids fluttering as he dry heaved. Mark wrapped his arms around the thin frame and held on as Dae moaned and trembled. His hair was plastered to one side of his head and sticking straight up from who knew what. Mark desperately wanted to wash off as much as he could before they headed out.
“I’m going to help you over to the sink, okay?” Mark asked.
Dae made a low, distressed noise and shook his head, but Mark wasn’t deterred. Dae was light, too light, and despite skipping out on the full gym routine, Mark was still strong enough to support a person three times Dae’s size. So, after a lot of stumbling around and protesting, Mark managed to manhandle Dae over to the sink in order to wash off the worst of the tacky cum and bile smeared across his face, neck, and hair.
By the time Mark was done, Dae was nothing but dead weight. Even saying his name didn’t rouse the poor guy. There was a good chance he was dehydrated and his sugar was too low to stay conscious after not eating. The chilly weather wouldn’t be helping any. He felt dangerously cold.
Dae’s t-shirt was ripped down one seam and had no inclination to go back on his body at all. Mark tossed it in the trash after a few aborted attempts before doing a lot of juggling and stretching in order to strip off his own coat and wrap it around Dae. After that was the easy part. Mark simply hefted the small body into his arms, cradling Dae into his chest.
He paused then, taking in the pale, sunken cheeks and the dark rings under long eyelashes. His coat nearly swallowed Dae whole, but at least it was warm. How long had Dae been living like this? What had happened to convince him that such a life was better than any other alternative?
Mark sighed as he made his way out of the cramped room and back to the dark walkways of the park. “Don’t worry,” he whispered to the unconscious bundle in his arms. “You happened to run into a self-destructive knight. You’ll have everything you need, no matter what it costs me.”
Peter’s face drifted into his mind. He thought about those nights when Peter would stare off into the middle distance, troubled, hurt, and so painfully alone even with Mark in the room. He remembered the little smiles Peter would offer when Mark did what he could to push away that pain and darkness for at least a little while. He’d been willing to do that as many times as it took in order to see Peter happy.
He told himself that he should regret the time and effort he spent on that relationship, but he couldn’t. Peter had needed someone during that time, someone to pull him away from the black hole he circled. Mark simply couldn’t hate that he was the one to help.
And so, again, he’d do what was necessary. Maybe Dae would hate Mark for it, or use him, or judge him, or walk away as if it never mattered. But it did matter. At least Mark could live with himself knowing that he didn’t allow anyone to drown in an uncaring world. Not Peter. And not Dae.
Once you finish pushing everyone else to the surface, who is going to pull you from the depths? that voice in his mind asked.
Just like usual, Mark ignored it and focused on the person who needed him.
~*~
Mark didn’t sleep well despite the alcohol in his system. He woke up every few hours in a panic that his guest had expired during the night because he hadn’t taken the man to a hospital, even though he knew he couldn’t. During the times he was awake, he guzzled water before coaxing his patient to drink pedialyte and protein shakes. At one point, Dae had run a fever, but he broke it as fast as it came on. Other than mumbling protests at all the liquids, he slept for nearly fifteen hours straight.
Afraid to leave his patient alone, Mark took a day off from the office and worked from home. He claimed to have a cold, and since he was just as efficient on a remote laptop, nobody argued or accused him of a hangover. Thanks to all the water the night before, his head only held a low throb, but the lack of sleep was the real killer. Still, he threw himself into his work as a distraction, and the day flew by.
The apartment was quiet save for the clicking of his fingers on the keyboard. He didn’t want distractions just in case Dae called out for help. It was that reason Mark knew when his guest had finally woken enough to get a sense of the surroundings. Saving what he was working on, Mark pushed himself from the couch and moved to the bedroom where bedsheets were shuffling around erratically.
“Am I dead?” Dae’s voice carried down the hallway, confused and awed.
Mark couldn’t help but snort a laugh as he stepped into the doorway. “You’re not dead.”
Dae was sitting up on his elbows, surrounded by soft pillows and Egyptian cotton sheets. His hair was a mess, a jet black bird nest atop his head, but his color looked a lot better than it had on the dirty bathroom floor. He eyed Mark with a tense wariness, eyes occasionally cutting around the room to seek out what escape routes were available. Mark didn’t take it personally. He was built like a linebacker, his head shaved close to hide the early balding he suffered through. Most people found him intimidating in the best of situations. He could only imagine how Dae felt waking in an unfamiliar bed with Mark hovering by the door.
“Who are you?” Dae asked. “Why am I here?”
“I found you in the park,” Mark answered in as calm and neutral of a voice as he could manage. “You looked like you needed a place to go.”
Dae sat up a little more, one fist holding the sheets up near his chin. “You make a habit of picking up homeless people?” He looked down at the too-big pajamas hidden beneath the sheets he shielded himself with. “And stripping them while they’re unconscious?”
“No.” Mark shrugged. “You’re a special case.”
That didn’t assuage Dae’s suspicions. He narrowed his eyes at Mark. “Is this your murder den?”
Mark couldn’t help the laugh he choked on. “This is my bedroom.”
“So it’s your sex den.”
“Haven’t really had sex in a while, if we’re being honest.”
Dae squirmed as he thought about that. “Did I proposition you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t accept. You’re injured.”
A frown bloomed on Dae’s face as he squirmed some more. “You gonna accept when I’m healed then? Seems like a long term investment for a quickie. I’m sure Grindr has better options.”
“I can confirm that.” Mark pointed to the en suite bathroom. “Toilet’s over there. I’m about to start on dinner. You like fish?”
“You gonna drug it?”
“You can switch our plates if you like,” Mark responded before turning and heading to the kitchen. “Let me know if you’re allergic to anything.”
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous about how this was going to go. For however cautious Dae acted, he was still an unknown mutant that Mark had invited into his home. Who knew what kind of powers the guy had. If Dae decided to grab some money and make a break for it, Mark could end up the one seriously injured. Just because Dae hadn’t used his powers before didn’t mean anything. Perhaps he’d been too weak to fight those guys off, but Mark had just spent fifteen hours nursing those mutant powers back to health.
Well, nothing to be done about it now. He may as well focus on cooking. He had a small grill built directly into his oven specifically because he ate a lot of fish as part of his exacting diet. Maybe the novelty of grilled fish in a high rise condo would appeal to Dae. Mark turned on the oven and set about chopping some asparagus to go with it.
Dinner was nearly finished by the time Dae emerged from the bedroom. He was no longer wearing pajamas, but the shirt and sweatpants Mark had left out were just as baggy on him. The dampness of his newly tamed hair indicated he’d taken a shower, likely trying to make use of all that was available while he still could. Considering Mark had left out his collection of tiny hotel toiletries as an offering, it was nice to know Dae took the offer.
Mark played it cool as he finished cooking while Dae shuffled along, his head on a swivel while taking in the open floor plan. “This place is excessive.”
“Is it?” The condo wasn’t even on the high end of what Mark could afford, but he was single, so he didn’t see the point in fighting for more room than he needed in NYC of all places. “I got a deal on it because of the bad view.” Mark pointed a fork at the pulled curtains. Beyond them was nothing to see but the mirrored windows of surrounding buildings and clogged traffic down below.
“You have a clawfoot tub in your bathroom.”
Mark smiled. “That was the selling point for me, I’ll be honest. It’s big enough to fit me.”
Dae ran his eyes up and down Mark’s large frame. “No easy feat.”
“I grant you.” Mark plated the food in equal portions and set them on the bartop with a flourish. “Pick which one you’d like.”
The selection process was slow as Dae cautiously approached, his dark eyes flicking between the plates and Mark in turn. At long last, he slid his way onto one of the stools and dragged a plate over to him, not bothering to hide as he sniffed it and poked the contents for good measure. Mark grabbed some forks and placed one on the counter beside Dae’s food before walking around and sitting on his own stool, two spaces of distance between them.
“I thought you might prefer bottled water, all considering.” Mark pointed to the bottles already beading with condensation between them.
It was clear Dae still had reservations about the situation, and questions were painted across his face. However, he held back, clearly prioritizing the option to eat real food over getting answers to his questions. Mark didn’t push it, so they ate in relative silence. Dae all but inhaled his food and only paused for a moment before taking Mark up on the offer to check the pantry for anything else he might want. He emerged with a container of mixed nuts that he obliterated by the time Mark finished his own meal.
“I don’t really remember much from last night,” Dae admitted as he picked at the last of the cashews. He didn’t appear to enjoy that particular nut, but he clearly refused to waste what food was being offered.
Mark collected the dishes and moved to rinse them in the sink. “You were hungry. There were some guys that took advantage of that. I found you in the bathroom after.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” A reasonable question for someone that wasn’t a mutant. Mark glanced over, but Dae was avoiding eye contact. His shoulders were stiff, like he asked the question because he knew he should, not because he wanted to.
“You asked me not to,” Mark lied. He didn’t want Dae to panic if it was discovered that Mark already knew about the mutant status.
“You didn’t suspect me of anything illegal?”
“Prostitution is illegal.” Mark set the plates in the dishwasher before turning around. “Like I said, you propositioned me despite being beat up and sprawled on the floor.”
Dae flushed and picked at the edge of the black granite bar top. “Clearly I’m not good at this business, so I could be avoiding the police for something else.”
“Like homelessness?”
Dae gave Mark a quit being stupid look for that.
“Are you dealing?”
“No,” Dae snapped.
Mark shrugged. “Then it’s fine.”
“What if I’m the murderer?”
With a smirk, Mark crossed his arms. He hadn’t lost that much muscle. “I could take you.” Then again, this assumed Dae didn’t have some dangerous power.
“I can’t tell if you’re just that upstanding of a guy, an idiot, or a dangerous liar.”
“I’m just a sucker for tears.”
Dae’s chest puffed up with indignance. “I didn’t cry!”
“There’s no shame in it.”
“I didn’t!” Dae insisted, slamming the empty container of nuts onto the countertop.
Mark bit back a smile as he nodded his head over at the front door. “You’re free to leave anytime, but I’m also offering for you to stay until you heal up. You were in pretty bad shape, and your eye is still swollen.” He reached up and tapped the small cabinet over the microwave. “There’s some Tylenol in here if you need it.”
“And I take it if I stay, it’ll be in your bed.” Dae didn’t sound particularly upset or offended by that statement, just resigned.
“Yes,” Mark said and watched the utter non-surprise on Dae’s face for a moment before he clarified, “but I’ll be on the couch, like I was last night.”
“In your own home?” Dae asked, incredulous.
“It’s a nice couch. Wanna try it out? I have a show coming on soon.”
“So you’re just a nice guy that’s not at all worried that I’m gonna steal from you.”
“My money is in plastic, and I’ve got nothing here that can’t be replaced.” Mark pushed away from the countertop and headed over to the large sectional set up in front of his TV. “You can call me self-destructive if you want to. I won’t even argue with you. It’s been a rough year.” He flopped onto the overstuffed cushions with a sigh and grabbed the remote. “But don’t ask me to leave you covered in blood in the middle of the park just because you were hungry enough to blow a guy for a burger.”
Whatever Dae thought of that statement, he didn’t divulge. Instead, he stayed quiet behind Mark’s head for a long time before finally walking over to the other end of the sectional to watch TV. They stayed that way in companionable silence most of the night. Mark did a bit of extra work once there was nothing left he wanted to watch and handed the remote to Dae who found some mindless action movie to zone out to. When Mark offered more to eat, Dae took it without question, devouring everything he was allowed to.
In a strange way, it was relaxing. It had been a long time since Mark had simply spent a quiet evening with someone. For all that Dae was a stranger, they had crossed a line of intimacy between them that removed the awkwardness of trying to impress one another like most new acquaintances. Or dates. Not that Mark thought this was anything like dating, and he had no intentions of pushing his loneliness on someone in Dae’s position.
Regardless, it was nice if surreal in a way how relaxed Mark was in Dae’s presence. Maybe he really needed to look into finding more friends to hang out with.
Late into the night, after Dae nodded off for the third time, he was finally convinced to crawl back into Mark’s bed. True to his word, Mark settled in on the couch again. It really was comfortable, and he didn’t truly mind it, even if he’d need to spend more time stretching in the morning. At least this time he wasn’t worried about waking up in a panic now that Dae had proven to be as healthy as he could be.
Whether he woke up robbed blind with no homeless mutant to be found remained to be seen.
I’d probably rob me, too, in his position, Mark reasoned with himself. Still, he found himself not at all worried about it. He didn’t know if that was because he trusted Dae in a way he shouldn’t or if he was finally starting to realize how much he didn’t care about the material things he’d collected in his current lonely life.
“Yeah, I definitely need more friends,” Mark muttered to himself. “Or some antidepressants…”
On that lovely thought, he drifted off into a long, dreamless sleep.