marceline, that's too distasteful! (ydidueatmyfries) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-04-12 09:57:00 |
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Originally Marceline built her house in a cave. It was a perfectly nice cave with still clear waters and pretty rock formations. She’d claimed the spot originally for the acoustics and because Simon wouldn’t be able to fly overhead and find her. But the cave was gone now and there was a town surrounding the little pink house and Marceline found herself both needing to flee and anchor herself somewhere familiar. It was too noisy now, too hot, too dry. Marceline didn’t like anything about her current situation. She couldn’t go explore, not as far as she would have liked. That would mean leaving Tumbleweed and Marceline couldn’t leave Tumbleweed because even though she knew she had no real chance of stopping The Mushroom War, she couldn’t leave the people there unprotected either. Her jam session with Murphy and Amanda hadn’t helped, maybe because she held back, or maybe because she hadn’t really wanted to be there. She wanted to rip up every single building in Tumbleweed and force the humans to scamper away to the most desolate corners of the Earth. Terrorize them until they found somewhere safe to hunker down and escape everything awful that could happen to them. Instead she waited. Waited for the end of this world or for someone to get mad at her or for her to get mad at someone else. Her collection of enchanted guitars and bass guitars stared at her from their stands spread around the downstairs, but Marceline ignored them. Not even floating, she laid on soft shaggy blue carpet of the living room and stared at her ceiling, trying to tell if she’d missed any spots with the pale pink paint she’d used on the interior walls of the first floor. It was much more comfortable carpet than she’d ever realized before. -- Ronan was unbelievably glad to be back at the Barns. He always was: being parted from it still took its toll on him. At least the worlds they’d been to hadn’t been as stifling as normal cities could be, they’d been full of wild places, creatures, and different types of magic. But there was nowhere quite like home. Not everyone was glad to be back, though. The first day they’d gotten back, Marceline had gotten mad at him for seemingly no reason when he’d posted about the church. There had been a reason, of course - the city reminded her of a place where bad things had happened, and she was worried they were going to happen here. Ronan could understand that fear. He also understood the anger that she used to defend herself against it. He knew he couldn’t defeat her demons, but maybe he could help her learn to live with them, or at least give her an outlet for some of the anger and pain brewing under the surface. It was something he’d done himself, after all. So one evening, after sunset, he dreamed a firefly to track her down. He followed it in his car to a strange pink house that seemed very much like it could be hers. He parked in front and got out to find the firefly had already disappeared inside the house. He knocked once, then tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. Pushing it open, he started to shout, “Yo! Marce--” And then he spotted the light of the firefly, and Marceline on the carpet. “There you are.” -- Marceline didn’t move. The doors to her house didn’t even have locks. They’d never needed them before. The cave where she’d originally built her house was remote and not easily found. Even if someone did show up, few people on Ooo were moronic enough to break into the house of the fearsome Vampire Queen. “Go. Away.” Marceline didn’t so much as twitch. She didn’t so much as look at the door when Ronan entered, spotting him in her peripheral vision. She did like the firefly, though. Slowly raising her hands, she cupped them carefully over it where it had landed on her shirt, turned invisible to spy on it, and then visible to hide it. It was a stupid trick, but one she’d done without even thinking. Marceline didn’t want to think. -- “No,” Ronan said, without hesitation. He had not come here just to be told to leave. He had come here to be yelled at, maybe to be punched, maybe to take her for a drive, maybe to find something for her to break. At the very least, he would get her to do something more than lie on the carpet. At least she seemed to like the firefly. So that was something he’d managed to do already. But it wasn’t enough; he could tell from her continued listlessness, the way she hadn’t moved from her position on the floor except to hold the firefly. “Get up.” -- “No.” Her eyebrows twitched as though she’d thought about glaring at Ronan, but halfway through lost the will to continue with her anger. Instead, she continued to alternate between invisible and visible, just so she could see the the firefly disappear and reappear under her hands. She still hadn’t moved otherwise. “...What’s even the point.” Marceline lifted her hands and stared down at the little bug, not even connecting it to Ronan’s appearance. -- Ronan slammed the door behind him, just for the sound of it, and moved over to her. He considered sitting down, but instead stood over her, hoping that he could get her to stand up and face him instead. He raised his eyebrows at her. “What’s your plan, lie here and wait for the world to end? That’s the dumbest shit I ever heard.” -- Her eyes tracked him as he came closer, but she barely managed a frown after her deep sigh. Marceline tried her very hardest to keep her face from betraying a single thought. “What do you want me to do? Watch everyone I care about ignore me and get themselves killed? No thanks. I think I’ll just stay here instead.” Marceline very delicately prodded the bug on her shirt with a finger. It’s wings fluttered briefly before they resettled. Her own eyelashes started to feel wet, but Marceline focused her will to keep her eyes from betraying her further. — “Either get up and do something useful,” Ronan said. “Or get up and do something stupid.” He knew that wasn’t the best advice, all things considered. But those were the only two courses of action that had ever made him feel better. Driving too fast, punching walls, cursing in two languages. Or action, real action that drove him closer to solving whatever problem it was that was bothering him. That had manifested itself in a lot of ways over the years. Going back to the Barns. Going to Cabeswater with Adam. Going away with Adam to school. “You haven’t even fucking told us what’s going to kill us,” he pointed out. “Or what we can do about it. It’s not ignoring you if you haven’t told us a damn thing.” -- Marceline considered, and after a moment admitted, “I told Neal.” Bae had never really said or complained or asked why Marceline talked to Neal so much. At first it had mostly been harmless curiosity. She wanted to know how alike they were. She wanted to know if Baelfire was still going to want to be her friend when he inevitably aged out of being her boyfriend, or if he was just going to get tired of her the way “And anyway, I was like seven. I just know The Great Mushroom War happens. The bombs kill everyone that live in the cities, and only the humans that lived in remote places survived. I asked him to tell everyone to get out of Tumbleweed and he basically blew me off. Which means Henry and his moms aren’t leaving, which means Baelfire isn’t leaving, which means no one else is leaving.” Which meant Marceline wasn’t leaving. — “Oh, you told Neal,” Ronan mocked. Partly he felt it was justified; she thought they were all going to die, what was the use in telling one person? One person who had not taken her seriously? But also, he still wanted to get under her skin. He continued, purposefully trying to push her buttons. “About something that happened when you were seven years old that you barely even remember? How do you even know anything’s going to happen at all?” “And if you’re right, and we’re all going to turn into that--” he pointed at the large horned skull mask on her wall-- “What use are you, telling one person and then laying down to die?” -- Marceline lacked the emotional intelligence to be consciously aware of what Ronan was doing. She didn’t hate it though, though she couldn’t say why. It did make it easier to talk. “Humans can’t turn into lich-spawn, dude. That’s impossible.” He goaded her into rolling her eyes. At least that was something. “I was in a city when it happened. I saw what happened to everyone human. They died bad, Ronan. The ones that didn’t die fast, died worse. I don’t want to be alone again. I don’t want to see that happen to people I care about. This world… it looks like my past. It looks like my world before the war. That’s how I know. Any one of those other worlds would have been better. But this one? It’s burnt toast.” She sighed. “I mean, I told you, right? Are you going to get out of town?” -- Ronan went silent when she actually started to talk about what she’d seen. Baelfire had given him a vague idea that something had happened and she was afraid of it happening again, but he hadn’t known how bad it was. No wonder she was all fucked up for it. “Sure, yeah,” he answered. “Let’s get in my car and go.” He was willing to drive out of town tonight. He wasn’t going to stay out of town. But maybe if they drove around, found a remote place where she could feel like they’d survive another Mushroom war, then they could talk to the portal makers about setting up an escape plan in case shit went down. It was something. -- That caused Marceline to sit up fast. She’d been expecting more that won’t happen here or it’ll be alright. More placating junk that wouldn’t do anything but make sure no one made it out alive. Her body hovered in the air and without meaning to, her eyes started to glisten. The vampire didn’t cry, but she was clearly touched by the offer. “What about everyone else?” she asked. -- “I was thinking we could go find a place for everybody to escape to,” Ronan said. “And come back for them. Unless you think we’re all gonna die tonight and we don’t have time for that.” He didn’t think they were going to die tonight, but also, he didn’t really know. Baelfire had asked him how they could reassure Marceline that they were safe here, and Ronan had reminded him very simply that they weren’t actually safe here or anywhere. Safe as life, Gansey had sometimes said, when asked about the safety of something. And life wasn’t safe, so that was true. -- Marceline shrugged. She had no idea when the bombs would fall. If she were being honest with herself she might admit that Bae’s observation about this being a different universe could be true. That maybe the bombs wouldn’t fall at all. But if that were true then people were justified in ignoring her, the idea of her worst fears being ignored still hurt savagely. (Okay, maybe she’d been a jerk going to Neverland. Not because she’d been wrong but because of the hurt it caused Bae. She couldn’t exactly blame him for not taking her seriously now after what she did.) “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Marceline said. There were no stairs to the second floor but a ladder that Marceline ignored as she flew upstairs to get an umbrella and a pair of long evening gloves to cover up her arms. The first floor was literally a kitchen and a living room. Marcy opened her fridge and starting shoving a few tubes of lipstick into the pockets of her jeans. The lipstick didn’t need to be cold, it just made her feel a little more normal to store her food there like everyone else. “Do you need to grab anything or are we ready to go?” she asked. — Ronan scoffed. “Of course it is.” His tone was a little bit smug. He was very pleased with himself for getting Marceline up off her floor and out to do something useful. He might have personally preferred the punching or breaking things option, but on the other hand, this plan was likely to have longer-term benefits. She could rest a little easier knowing that maybe, if disaster hit, she could get some of the people she cared about to safety. Hell, Ronan would probably rest a little easier for it too. While she was flying around getting ready to leave, he took his tablet out of his pocket and sent a group message to Adam, Gansey, Noah, and Baelfire. Taking Marcy for a drive. Be back late. When she reappeared, he put the tablet back in his pocket without looking to see if anyone had replied. He shrugged at the question. “No. We’re good.” He turned to leave, but then as an afterthought, looked back at her over his shoulder and added, “Bring my firefly.” Technically, it didn’t need to be brought; it was still on her shirt and would follow her wherever she went, because that was its purpose. But Ronan wanted her to make sure she kept track of it, because he was kgoing to want it back later. -- “Your firefly? It’s clearly attached to me,” Marceline said. She relocated the bug to her shoulder to where it would be safe before launching herself at Ronan to hug him, muttering, “Jerk.” She gave him a brief squeeze, holding only as long as she thought either of them wouldn’t completely hate or be embarrassed by before letting go. -- “I made it,” Ronan explained, “To track you down.” He was surprised by the hug. Less surprised by the insult. They were really incredibly alike in some ways. Their anger, their insults to people they loved. Ronan’s favorite word was ‘asshole’, but he accepted ‘jerk’ too. “Screw you,” he said, without any real venom. He didn’t pull away from the hug; he wasn’t uncomfortable with hugs, most people just assumed that he did, because of his sharp edges and abrasive behavior. “Come on.” He unlocked the car, and slid into the driver’s seat. -- “Stalker,” Marceline said. She paused just before opening the door to the passenger seat. Bae was supposed to reacquaint her with cars but this was for something important. He’d understand. Maybe. If Marceline hadn’t acted like too big of a freak. Sighing, she opened the door and sank down into the passenger seat. “You think if we find a spot we can really get people to leave?” Marceline asked. It wasn’t what she actually wanted to ask. She wanted to ask how pissed off Bae was at her. -- “Seat belt,” Ronan said, before answering her question. He turned the key in the ignition and started the car. His BMW came to life with a low rumble, not the satisfying growl of Gansey’s Pig and all its horsepower, but this car was his, formerly his father’s. He’d been riding in it all his life. He pulled away from the curb and accelerated down the street, a good 15 miles over the speed limit. He wanted to go faster, but he’d save that for when they got outside the town’s boundary, into the hills. He had an idea about where to look for a cave, although it had been in the mountains, and now there were no mountains, just hills. So he wasn’t really sure if it would be there or not. “Probably not right now,” he said. “But we could probably get them to agree to an escape plan. Our people, at the very least. Probably some others. We might be able to convince Eliot to make a portal or two.” -- The seatbelt made of metal buckle and cloth strap felt alien in her fingers. It wasn’t sticky and made of bacon with dripping maple syrup with a sunny side egg buckle like the vehicles in Breakfast Kingdom. Nor was it made of gossamer and mist like the cars of Lumpy Space. They were called cars on Ooo, but this was a car. Marceline couldn’t remember seeing real cars functional and running, that weren’t just broken down husks used as a quick shelter. Her fingers touched the seat. “Just one or two?” Marceline said. Her face fell. There had been more portals than that on the boat. She sank in her seat. “This is hopeless.” -- “I don’t fucking know,” Ronan said, irritated. “Maybe he’ll make ten. Stop being so goddamn pessimistic. We’ll work it out. This group survived a goddamn black hole.” He was genuinely annoyed, and when he got angry in the car, he drove faster. His foot pressed down harder on the pedal and the engine revved. He considered running the stop sign at the end of the corner, but stopped at the last minute for a pedestrian, tires squealing. -- “Why is everyone so spread out in the first place!” Marceline shouted. “How is anyone supposed to get anywhere fast enough to help everyone if something does happen! Why is everyone being so stupid about this?” Tumbleweed looked larger than the Candy Kingdom. Ooo didn’t have cities anymore. Certainly nothing the matched the scale of the modern world at the height of human civilization. It didn’t feel like a town to her, with its roads and buildings and infrastructure. Her memories of the past were too hazy. She barely registered Ronan’s excellerating speed and didn’t comment on the hard stop, even as she thumped back into her seat. -- “Plenty of people around here can fucking teleport,” Ronan snarled. “Or fly. And they’ll get their fucking friends. Or they’ll be shit out of luck and die. Probably all the regular townspeople will die cause they know fuck all about teleports and magic.” He said it like he didn’t care, but he did. He was here trying to help her, wasn’t he? He wasn’t just trying to make her feel better. Which was good, considering he seemed to be doing a shit job of it now. As soon as the pedestrian was out of the road, Ronan accelerated again, and turned at the next corner onto the road that would take them out of town. “And you’re fucking worthless to them if you just keep sulking, so just fucking grow a pair already.” -- “Grow a pair of what? That doesn’t even make any sense!” Marceline snapped back. --- “Balls,” Ronan answered, and it pleased him immensely to say it, enough that he smirked. “Or like, put on your big girl vampire pants or whatever. Grow the fuck up, is what I’m saying.” -- Marceline glared at him. His smirk only made it worse. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Have you ever been kicked in the balls? Cuz as someone who’s done the kicking, they’re not that impressive. And secondly, I can’t grow up. I’m a vampire. That’s kind of the whole dumb thing about being a freakin’ vampire!” Marceline curled up in her seat and kicked the glove box with her foot petulantly. “I can’t punch my way out of this one. I can’t just kill something and make it better. What am I supposed to do?” -- That actually surprised Ronan. He looked over at her, taking in her appearance as if for the first time. “Wait. How old are you?” Every trace of his anger was gone. It had really only been irritation; his temper was often like that, flaring up and getting fueled by other people’s annoyance with him. As with 99% of his arguments, it was over in just a few minutes - at least for him. Other people tended to hold onto even little petty fights longer than he did, which sometimes turned into bigger arguments. -- “Like over a thousand,” Marceline said. She knew she didn’t act over a thousand. Marceline had known herself long enough to realize that her best attempts at acting more mature meant occasionally showing more restraint than normal. It wasn’t real growth. She certainly didn’t grow any smarter, which buried any wisdom she might have had being over a millenia. It was there, it just rarely showed. “A thousand and…” Marceline couldn’t give an exact age. She couldn’t even remember her birthday. The calendars had changed. “...I don’t know, seven, maybe? Ten? I usually just add seven years to whenever someone says the war happened.” -- “What the fuck,” Ronan said. He was astonished and impressed at the same time. “You don’t act like it.” Mostly, he meant that as a compliment. He didn’t particularly like old people. Or mature people, for that matter, although he could tolerate age and maturity in small doses. Both Gansey and Adam were more mature than he was, and Gansey always seemed old - or at least, old and young at the same time. Which, actually, made Marceline - “You’re like the opposite of Gansey.” -- “Thanks.” Marceline rolled her eyes. He might have been impressed, but Marceline had lived with the consequences of her inability to change for a very long time. “At least Gansey can change if he wants to. I’m just stuck this way.” She wondered when Bae was going to figure that out. She hoped if he did, he followed her example and avoided the topic entirely for as long as possible. Marceline thought about it more than she wanted to admit. -- “Everlasting youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh?” Ronan asked. “Surprise.” It actually didn’t surprise him when he really thought about it. If she was a thousand years old, the people who died in the Great Mushroom War or whatever probably weren’t the only people she’d watched die. Although obviously seeing that at seven years old would really fuck a person - or vampire - up, big time. -- “Usually people just get tired of my junk,” Marceline admitted. “I haven’t actually had this many friends in a long time. I like who I am when I have friends, though. More empathetic or something? I don’t know.” After a pause she added, “It probably sounds stupid.” — “It doesn’t,” Ronan assured her. A year ago he would have said something different, but he liked himself better now that he had stopped being angry enough to form deeper relationships to his friends, too, and even more so, his relationship to Adam, which was more than just friends. He glanced at her sidelong. “You’re kind of a dumbass and a weirdo, but you’re not that bad.” -- “Thanks,” Marceline said. She knew what he meant, and she couldn’t exactly disagree with him either. Marceline was rarely the brains of any operation. Most of her friends were smarter than her, or at least as smart. Her eyes watched the shifting horizon out the window. She was more relaxed the more distance they put between themselves and Tumbleweed. She forgot about the tension and ache that had been squeezing her heart just a little while ago. After a pause she finally asked: “So is Bae pissed at me?” — “You’re welcome,” Ronan said, and the corners of his mouth quirked up in amusement. He let her lapse into silence and didn’t break it. He was comfortable with silence, more comfortable with it than most people. For a while he’d used that against people, weaponized the silence to make them uncomfortable. But this silence actually felt more comfortable than anything else since he’d showed up at her house. He glanced over at her when she spoke again. “I doubt it. Just worried.” -- “I’ll message him when we get back, I guess.” She had more confidence that he wouldn’t blow off the portal plan since it’d been Ronan’s idea, which probably meant it was a good idea since the only ones she’d entertained were running people out of town by force or kidnapping the ones she cared about and dragging them somewhere safe. This was probably better and less likely to lead to Bae dumping her. Leaning her forehead against the passenger window, she watched the outside world whip past them. Her eyes swiftly tracking anything that zoomed by. — “Good plan,” Ronan said. He liked the two of them, together and separately. He wasn’t the type to get overly involved in other people’s relationships, but they were both his friends, so he was involved anyway. Even if Marceline had kind of become his friend because of Baelfire. She was his friend now for her own reasons. He glanced over at her again. She seemed much calmer than before, and content to watch things go by the window in silence. He was fine with that, too. He looked back out at the road, pressed the gas pedal a little harder, and drove on. |