ethereal - marvel x oc

chapter 2 - crisp winds

[chapter 2 - crisp winds]

[trigger warning - sexual harassment and violence(?)]

They were following him. He could tell. In the way the breeze brushed past his cheeks, rustling his shimmering black hair, pulled losely up in a high ponytail. In the way the birds swooped down and chirped to each other, feathers blowing and sleeked back in the wind, and in the way the hairs on the back of his neck tingles in awareness.

It was colder now, insanely cold. Takeshi's breath fanned out in front of his face, curling around in the frosty air like clouds of silver smoke, curling into golden swirls as the sun hit them. He decided to just walk casually, sometimes mingling with the bustling crowds, to his disgust as warm figures pressing against his sweater covered form. The sweat and a sickly sweet perfume made him nauseous, though he kept his balance as he slipped between the human bodies.

Pale lips rested over a blue-and-white striped straw as he took a sip from his green tea, pressing the ice to the roof of his mouth with his tongue. A sudden sweet cotton candy scent swirled into his nose like acidic smoke and pushing the other scents away, brushing against his cheeks and stinging his porcelain skin. Takeshi tipped his head slightly, his hair sliding across his forehead, peering over into the end of a hardly lit alley - even in the last light of the sunlit hour.

She was pressed uncomfortably against a taller man, her back stuck to a dusty, dirty brick wall and her hands pushing roughly at his chest. Sophie was staring in fear at the man's hand that soon brushed its fingers against her tear licked cheek, pinching tightly the side of her face with his calloused pointer finger and thumb. The man's other hand was stiff around her thigh, pulling her shaking form uncomfortably toward him, his fingers bent into the curves of the muscles in her legs.

Takeshi momentarily forgot about the agents watching from the sidelines, their dark eyes carefully analyzing the situation and speaking under their breath to an unknown listener. He slid into the alley, his footfalls hardly making a sound, a whisper in the icy breeze.

"Hey!"

Everything froze, suddenly, the air was still and sharp. The man shot away from the wall, a hand pressed firmly around the back of Sophie's neck and dragging her fear limp form with him, making her whimper in pain. A rusty knife, worn at the hilt, was suddenly sharp against her neck, the end already drawing a thin line of crimson blood. The scent rolled uneasily into Takeshi's nose, tickling his skin and rolling inside his mouth.

A crystal tear rolled slowly from Sophie's right eye, slipping down her chin and sprinkled onto the knife as she tried to choke her sobs - only to make the knife sink deeper into her pale skin.

It happened in only a few seconds, where now the man was on the dirty ground unconscious, twitching and bleeding from the right side of his chin from a blistering slash, and the knife discarded on the dirty alley floor where it snapped easily under the weight of Takeshi's booted foot. The skin over his left knuckle stung lightly, a smudge of pink across the white skin from its contact against the man's chin.

He was immediately surrounded in a cotton candy scented hug, the warm limbs of Sophie wrapping desperate around his neck. The fresh blood leaking from the cut on her neck smeared against the skin of his chin and neck making him almost hiss in annoyance. Takeshi hugged back, though awkward to the touch of another. It left a warm, bubbling feeling inside his stomach that made him shiver uncomfortably.