There were signs already that Jack was leaving St. Mungo's soon. Most of his things, which on previous visits had been strewn everywhere, were now packed up. Jack wasn't really up to playing with anything anyway. He seemed especially tired. Marlowe wasn't feeling too hot himself, but nothing like he'd felt last month. He hadn't had a match this time. He hadn't pushed himself so hard.
At the moment, Marlowe and Jack were alone in Jack's hospital room. His parents had gone down to the cafeteria to get him something to eat, though Marlowe had warned them he might not have much of an appetite on full moon days.
"Marlowe," Jack said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Does it hurt?"
Marlowe swallowed. He had always tried to be honest with Jack. He had tried not to sugarcoat anything. It didn't seem fair to pretend it wasn't what it was. Still, he was afraid to scare him.
"A little, yeah," said Marlowe. "It hurts while it's happening, but it only lasts a minute and then it's over. With the potion it's not so bad."
"You said the potion tastes bad."
"It's terrible," said Marlowe. "Worst thing ever. But it does help. It's worth it. You want to feel like yourself, you know? It helps you feel like yourself."
Jack still looked apprehensive.
"My girlfriend makes it for me," Marlowe said. "Once you get out of here, she can make it for you, too. She's working on making it better. She wants to make it so we don't have to transform at all. Then it wouldn't even hurt."
"I hope she does" Jack said.
"Me too. I think she will. She's very smart."
Then Jack started to cry. He had never cried while Marlowe had been there. He always seemed to be in such good spirits. It positively broke his heart.
"I wish this hadn't happened to me," he said. "I don't like this."
"Yeah," Marlowe said. "Yeah, me too."
Jack's parents came back in then and his mum swooped in with a hug.
Marlowe hoped she didn't think he'd made Jack cry.
He glanced at the clock. He needed to go soon.
"Jack," Marlowe said, and Jack made eye contact with him. "Listen... tonight isn't going to be the most fun night of your whole life. I'm not going to pretend it is. But you're going to survive it. I did. And you're way tougher than I am."
Jack smiled a little bit.
"I don't want to spoil the surprise," he said. "And I want you to have something to look forward to. So I have something for you, but it's in this envelope, and you can't open it till tomorrow, alright?"
"Okay," said Jack in a small voice.
"You promise?"
Jack nodded.
"Pinky promise?" asked Marlowe, holding out his pinky.
Jack smiled a little bit bigger, linked his pinky around Marlowe's, and said, "Yeah."
"Alright," Marlowe said, smiling back at him. "I better get going, but I'll see you soon. And next time it won't be here. That's good news, right?"
Jack nodded.
Marlowe held his hand out for a high five, pretended to need to shake it out even though Jack hadn't really hit his hand that hard at all, and then he stood up.
"Bye, Marlowe," said Jack.
"See you later, bud," Marlowe smiled.
—-
Marlowe had left the hospital feeling heavy, and it only got worse as the sky darkened. Tonight he was going to try his idea for Caiti and as much as he had tried not to think about it, he was nervous. He had already put things in his shed so he could catch the venom or whatever it was, though he wasn't one hundred percent confident his plan would even work.
He was on the verge of talking himself out of doing it when Caiti arrived with his potion.
"Hi," she said a little breathlessly. She kissed him hello and then handed him the potion.
"Thanks," said Marlowe and he drank it down while it was fresh.
"How was Jack feeling?" she asked. Though she'd never met him, Caiti had gotten very invested in Marlowe's friendship with Jack. She was always asking about him.
Marlowe sunk lower into the couch. "Average, I guess. He was a little scared. I told him I have a surprise for him to open tomorrow, so he has something else to think about."
Caiti smiled. She got awfully smiley when he talked about his visits with Jack. "What is it?"
"I got him and his family tickets to the next match," Marlowe said. "I'm gonna show him around before and introduce him to everyone. And I got it worked out that he gets to release the snitch."
Caiti looked like she might cry.
"What?"
"You're just sweet," she said.
Watching her watch him, Marlowe's heart started to beat very fast. It wasn't like Caiti knew what he was planning on, but somehow, he felt like if she looked at him too long, she would find it out somehow. Maybe Caiti was a great legilimens and he just didn't know it yet.
He looked away from her. He couldn't risk the pressure of her actually counting on him. He was only going to be able to do it if she didn't know. He sort of wished he hadn't told her about the idea at all, except that then, he probably wouldn't even be entertaining the idea of trying it and he wanted to help her. He really did. Caiti did so much for him.
Marlowe couldn't say the next thirty minutes were the most difficult he'd ever spent with her. Not with the big fights they'd had or the days just after he'd returned to school from St. Mungo's. But they were up there. Usually Caiti calmed him down, but today, being with her was making him more nervous by the second.
By the time Marlowe was getting ready to head outside, Caiti had picked up on it. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You seem jumpy or something."
"I'm just worried about Jack," Marlowe said, which was not really a lie, if not the whole truth.
Caiti's face softened.
"He'll be okay," she said, but she gave him a big hug. Marlowe linked his hands behind her low back. He knew Jack would be okay. It was himself he was worried about.
—-
Nothing hurt anymore. It never did during the night. It was before and after that he felt it. It was his regular body that bore the brunt of the pain. But Marlowe hurt in other ways.
He felt like every sound outside was amplified one hundred times. The crickets chirping outside weren't cheerful — the sound scratched at his eardrums like nails on a chalkboard. There was a brook maybe half a mile away and Marlowe swore he could hear it gurgling.
Someone's dog kept barking and frogs croaked and someone was playing music over the radio inside their house and under everything was this buzz of conversation Marlowe could hear but not make out the words to and he felt like he was going mad.
He wanted it all to turn off, everything off. Shut the world out. He wanted to be outside himself.
He didn't want to do this.
Hours had passed, he was pretty sure. He didn't have a clock. He'd had one at first, but after one full moon spent counting down the agonizingly slow minutes, listening to the tick, tick, tick of the second hand, he had found it was better if he didn't have one available.
But it felt like hours had passed that night and Marlowe had been staring at the little cup he'd brought in all the while, trying to work himself up to putting it to use.
He'd borrowed his mum's computer while she was out, found a video of some muggle scientist milking a snake for its venom, figured the same would probably work for his situation. But he kept thinking of that snake, angry, lashing out each time the scientist's finger lifted from its head.
It's not hard to get it to bite, the scientist had said. It's already agitated, just by being held this way.
If he bit down, would he feel like that snake? Would it unleash something in him that for now was tempered with drugs? Marlowe hated thinking about what was suppressed inside him thanks only to Caiti's potion. He wanted it out of him completely. He wanted it gone.
If he bit this thing, maybe Caiti would figure out how to get it out of him.
But if he bit it, maybe it would unlock something instead.
For hours, Marlowe had waffled between these two possibilities, agonizing over what would happen, what he would feel. Every sensation was already so heightened. Would it be a relief, like giving in?
Marlowe didn't want to like it.
He thought he probably would.
He tried to do it. Over and over again, he made to approach the cup, but he couldn't move. He felt frozen. He tried to focus on what Caiti would say when he brought it to her, but it didn't help.
Those damn crickets wouldn't shut up. They were making him crazy.
Marlowe just couldn't do it.
—-
The next morning, Caiti arrived at Marlowe's house later than she'd meant to be there, but according to his mum, he hadn't come inside yet.
"Should I... should I go check on him?" Caiti asked.
"You can try," Mrs. Finnegan said. "He doesn't usually like anyone to bother him there."
"I know," Caiti said quietly.
But she decided to try anyway.
Outside, Caiti knocked on the door of the little shed. "Marlowe?"
There was no response.
Caiti stood and waited. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. He always said he never slept much on a full moon. Her hand hovered in front of the door. It took a minute to convince herself to knock again.
Still, Marlowe didn't answer.
"I just wanted you to know I brought something for you," she said. "If you're not feeling good."
Nothing.
Caiti sank down, back to the wall of the shed. "I'll just wait a while," she said. She didn't even know if he could hear her.
She held the little potion bottle she'd brought with her between her palms and frowned.
It didn't happen right away. She'd been sitting there at least ten minutes before she heard the lock click. She turned, but the door didn't open.
Instead, Marlowe's voice, a little crackly, said, "You can come in, Caiti."
She jumped up, turned the knob slowly, and slipped inside.
It was dark, and Marlowe, lying on the couch, rolled onto his side away from the light that poured in through the door. Caiti shut it behind her.
"Hey," she said softly. She crouched down on the floor beside the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Marlowe nodded.
"Can I get you anything? I've got this potion..."
"In a minute," Marlowe mumbled.
So Caiti stopped talking and rubbed his back instead. He was making her nervous. It wasn't that he didn't usually act miserable after a full moon, because he did. Marlowe really leaned into feeling sorry for himself. There was just something off about how he was behaving.
A few minutes passed before he rolled back over, but he didn't say anything. Just looked at her. His eyes looked so tired and busy.
Caiti folded her arms on the edge of the couch and rested her chin on top of them.
"In a couple weeks, there's this thing for the World Cup," Marlowe said. "Like an event with all the British League teams. There'll be a lot of press there and stuff, but I was hoping you'd go with me."
This was so not what Caiti had expected him to say that she almost didn't process his words at all. "Oh," she said. "Yeah. I'll go. When is it?"
"I can't remember," Marlowe said. "It's on a Saturday, I know that. They're going to officially announce the UK and Ireland teams, even though we already know who's going. Mostly it's just a big party."
He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I'm not the focus at all, obviously, but people still might try to get pictures and stuff. For all those stupid gossip magazines."
Caiti shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she said. "I don't read them so it's not like I'll really know what they say about me. Gossip doesn't travel nearly as fast outside Hogwarts."
Marlowe gave a weak smile. Caiti reached behind her and grabbed the potion bottle she'd brought in. "Drink this alright? I added something and I want to see if it helps any more than usual."
So Marlowe sat up part way and drank the potion down, and then when the bottle was empty, he mumbled his thanks and passed it back to Caiti to set on the table again while he pulled the cushions off the back of the couch.
He scooted back to make room for her. Caiti climbed up beside him, all ready to pull him into her arms, but he beat her to it. His arms went right around her, and he held her to his chest, his face in her hair.
It still felt like there was something on his mind that he wasn't saying, something really troubling him.
Caiti didn't know if asking was a very good idea. He'd tell her if he wanted to.
His hand slid from her hair, down her back, coming to rest on the back of her leg for a moment before rising back up to her waist. He took a deep breath that tickled her forehead, and then she felt his lips against her temple and he scooted back a few inches to look at her.
His face was so still, but his thumb had slipped under her shirt, hot on her skin, then his hand began curling and uncurling on her low back and Caiti's eyes went in and out of focus at his touch.
It was hard to look at him.
"I was going to-" Marlowe said suddenly, but then he stopped talking.
He stopped moving, too.
"Going to what?" asked Caiti. She felt like she was inside a bubble, so relaxed it was like he was trying to tell her something complicated but she'd only just opened her eyes from a deep sleep.
Marlowe looked at her like he was kicking himself for saying anything at all, like whatever he'd been about to do was something he'd planned on keeping inside his own head.
"Nothing," he said.
Caiti didn't push it, but she was curious now. She had a feeling he'd keep talking if she didn't ask. "Okay," she said softly. Marlowe pulled her back in close. She could almost hear his brain whirring away.
"I was going to try that thing I told you about," he said. She knew what he meant, though he'd never said it in actual words since the first time he'd brought it up. "I was all ready to do it, but I chickened out."
His hands were on her back again, so, so gentle. He sounded so apologetic, like this was something he'd promised her and he hadn't followed through, like she hadn't told him more than once that he didn't need to do it.
"Marlowe..." she started to say, but he cut her off.
"I know you're going to say I don't have to do it if I don't want to, but I do have to do it. I want to help you. And it's not just because it might benefit me. There's Jack, too. And all these people I don't know about. And I'm in a position where I can maybe do something, because I know someone who can really do something. And I know I need to get over myself and just do it, because it's such a small thing in comparison to everything you're doing... but last night I tried and I got scared. Sometimes I'm still scared of myself. Sometimes I still need you to remind me I'm just me, and I don't like knowing that I need someone else for that. I should be able to do that by myself."
Quite out of nowhere, Caiti felt tears pricking at her eyes. Marlowe's hand was against the back of her head like he was trying to ensure she wouldn't look up at him as he said all this, but he didn't need it there. She couldn't look at him anyway. She pressed her face hard into his chest and squeezed her eyes shut to try to stop the tears coming. It wasn't really that he was he scared of himself, still. At least not entirely. She knew he felt that way. It was that Marlowe still believed in her. He really, honestly thought she could do this. And he was willing to do something that he so clearly didn't want to do just to help her along.
Caiti had lost a lot of faith in herself recently, but hearing him, completely unprompted, refer to her as someone who can really do something... that had filled her up so much and so quickly that she was literally overflowing and the tears she couldn't seem to hold back were the proof.
"I will do it," he said. "I want to do it. I just have to get out of my head."
Caiti couldn't speak. She just nodded, focused on breathing, on trying to push the tears back.
And then, just when she thought she'd gotten herself under control, he said, "Can you wear orange? To that thing? We're supposed to wear our team robes, but everyone else said their wives mostly wear orange or black."
This ping-ponging back and forth was so confusing, she didn't know if she should laugh or cry, so both happened. She lifted her head up and kissed him. "Yeah," she said. "I can probably manage that."
Marlowe reached up to brush a tear off her cheek, smiling bemusedly.
"You're so weird," she said. "You're so confusing."