!: that classic collapse into someone’s waiting arms / can she collapse into marco's arms? <3
send a symbol, get a drabble . accepting
It wasn’t exactly a secret that the Mariposa was her own personal project – it served the cartel well, sure enough, but Melissa didn’t care about the money laundering aspect at all: she was all about the support and the new chances it offered the girls she had rescued over the years. Hurt and broken shells at first, who had eventually evolved into blooming, beautiful ladies – and that was the sort of transformation that filled her with pride.
No one cared much for what she did with the girls – the police was suitably bought and happy with the favors they had in forms of drinks and company; the cartel wouldn’t harm the daughter of one of their own as long as the bar was profitable and helped the family’s goals; so in a way, the Mariposa existed in a bubble of tranquility and peace even among all the horrible and awful tales that came in from the outside world.
So when Melissa got to the bar that morning and found the body of one of her girls, the fragility of that protected environment became more than apparent. She screamed and broken down into tears almost on the spot, and it was pure luck that Marco had been there to catch her – Melissa fainted a few seconds later, overwhelmed by the emotions and the gruesome picture she had just seen. She had been born in that family, the cartel was her world to a degree – but she had been shielded from the horrors for most of her life.
The butterfly princess, they called her – and in her tower of ivory they had kept Melissa, but it was harder and harder to pretend that there wasn’t blood staining the marble floors now.
When she recovered consciousness, she was on one of the bar couches – there was noise around, people walking and some conversation going on, but she couldn’t focus on anything but for the warm, steady hand of Marco. He had been sitting with her apparently – and his fingers were gently caressing her hair, intertwined with chestnut tresses and soothing her in a way that was immensely helpful to restore her nerves to a more controlled state. The woman wished it had all been a bad dream – Melissa considered trying to go back to sleep and to ignore the world a little while, but…
No luck. The images just kept coming back.
Sighing, she moved – and Marco pulled his hand away, almost respectfully. But she had a smile on her face (even if it was a weak one) when she was once more back in the world of the living, adjusting her body on the couch so she was sitting again, reaching out for his digits and squeezing them gently in a wordless ‘thank you’.
“I feel better, but… Can we just stay here for a little longer?” she asked, eyes darting to where the corpse was and now the poor girl was at least covered by some tablecloths, other men from the cartel whispering among themselves while they prepared to move her elsewhere, “I don’t… Think I can go near them right now.”
A strong, warm hand closed over hers – the soft pat was everything she needed to calm down for the moment.