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Spending the night sulking in a bar was not the way Mark would have liked to spend his evening, but he was sort of out of options. It was either drown his sorrows in cheap beer that tasted gross, but at least got the job done, or do the same exact thing at his house. Where the lack of Ashe still lingered, like it always would unless- no, when he found his son. And he certainly was not expecting to get the odd feeling of butterflies in his stomach when someone gently put their hand on his shoulder and he turned around to see Tide fucking Lambert.
The guy he had been so used to getting his shit kicked in by. Why wasn't he doing that now? Mark was sure it wasn't because it was a public area, because their fights had been shown on TV several times, they weren't really afraid of causing a scene. So why did Tide just look at him with an unreadable expression instead of putting him back in prison? It wasn't that he didn't appreciate he wasn't getting instantly put in jail without passing Go, it sure as hell confused him. Even more so when the hero gestured to an empty table in the corner of the bar, conveniently sketchy and broody for what he was sure was going to be a very awkward conversation. Nonetheless, Mark followed him. For God knows what reason. He sat down on the chair closest to the wall, feeling like he wanted to bury his head in a bucket of twenty two mildly venomous centipedes if it meant getting away from Tide. Sure not the best way to die, but it was probably better than kicking the bucket out of embarrassment.
"They're looking for him." Mark looked up to Tide from where he had previously been glaring at the wood graining of the table as the hero spoke. He knew they where, he'd gotten letters from William. As odd as the kid was, with his weird wolf poetry and weird romantic tension with the elf kid, he was good at updating Mark whenever they made progress on finding his son. The three definitely had their quirks. Good and bad. Dakota, he knew, would stop at nothing to save Ashe. Not just because he was a hero, but the kid was loyal as a dog, wouldn't abandon anyone for any reason. That was proved when he saved that monkey from the facility he had first met them in. And sure, Vyncent didn't really understand how Prime worked, but he was trying.
And sometimes, that was more than what Mark could say about himself.
He knew he wasn't a good father. He had wanted to fix it for so long but he just couldn't figure out how to start over. It was too late now. Ashe had been possessed by that same fucking thing that tore his wife to peices. Mark didn't know if it was even possible to get his kid back now, let alone try to become the father he hadn't been but needed to be after so many years.