marceline, that's too distasteful! (ydidueatmyfries) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-08-06 21:25:00 |
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The last thing Ronan had expected to see when he went to help Marcy with her pool was boards over her windows and doors. At the same time, it was not really a surprise; Marcy did weird shit all the time. “Hey,” he yelled through the boarded up door, as he pounded his fist on it. “What the fuck?” He was not really surprised, or worried, when he didn’t immediately get an answer. If he’d found her house completely empty, without the boards, he might have been more concerned that the portal had taken her back. But she was the only one who would bother boarding up her house like this, which meant she was here somewhere. If not here at her house, then still somewhere in this world. And if she had gone off somewhere, that explained why Baelfire had been quiet and absorbed in his painting all week. But it didn’t explain why she’d boarded up her house. Ronan stared at it for a while, thinking, half-waiting for her to come out. But she didn’t, and eventually he got back into the car and went home. He hadn’t given up, though. Once he got home, he went for the jar that he kept in his room - one of two - that contained a single firefly. One of the jars was labeled Gansey. The other was labeled Marcy. He took the jar back out to the car with him and, once he was behind the wheel again, let it go through the window, expecting it to start flying so that he could follow. Instead, it landed on his wrist. Ronan stared at it for a moment, wondering if it was broken. Then he realized it was sitting directly on the emergency bracelet he’d made for himself, which would take him to the dinosaur island. He got back out of the car, locked it, and then wished for the bracelet to take him and his firefly to the island. Once there, the firefly took to the air at last and Ronan followed it to her house. It was set away from all the others, and Ronan kept a wary eye out for the dinosaurs as he moved toward it. “It’s me,” he called, before walking in. By way of greeting, he added, “What the fuck, Marcy?” He didn’t say it angrily, but almost casually, as if he was asking her how her day had been, or hadn’t the weather been nice lately. -- “Hey,” Marcy said. The house was just one room. Marcy had moved over some of her stuff; clothing mostly that she kept out of a large duffle bag until she built herself something else. Schwbl, her undead poodle, was curled up sleeping in a corner of the room. “What’s up.” Marcy hid her surprise at seeing company. She hadn’t honestly expected anyone to try the island to visit. Maybe Baelfire was the only actually fearful one. She had the bass guitar resting in her lap, plucking at the strings in an absent line of melody, barely filling the room. Maybe he was just annoyed she stopped working on the pool. -- “Looking for you,” Ronan answered, because it was the truth. He wasn’t annoyed about anything yet; so far as he knew there was nothing really to be annoyed about, but some reason for concern. “Why are you out here? And why’s your house all boarded up?” — “Cuz I’m going to live here now,” Marcy said. “I don’t have room for all my stuff yet. I’ll need to build out another room or something.” She shrugged. -- “Why?” Ronan asked. “I thought you were all jazzed about the pool and shit.” — “Yeah, and then Bae dumped me, so I don’t have to drive myself crazy trying to live somewhere I don’t want to live. Besides, you came here. It’s not like it’s that hard or dangerous to get here.” Marcy rolled her eyes. -- “Oh,” Ronan said. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t that. Although it did explain everything about her behavior and Baelfire’s. He just really hadn’t expected them to break up anytime soon. “Well...shit. Alright.” He looked around. It was kind of a cool place; he didn’t mind being here, but he felt that saying so might be interjecting somehow into what it sounded like had been an argument, and he didn’t want to do that. “So are you never coming back to tumbleweed or what?” — Marcy shrugged. “I still work for Ororo for now. I don’t mind coming into town. The bracelets make it easy. I just don’t feel like living there. Besides…” Her eyebrows knit at the center, “...I shouldn’t have to live there. I shouldn’t have to be okay with it. And I shouldn’t be judged for that. Yeah, I freaked out at first that everyone else lives in Tumbleweed, but I was trying to protect them. Who knows if Rogue would have told everyone else about this place or if you would have figured out the bracelets if I hadn’t? It’s not like I freak out that everyone lives there now. I just don’t have to like either.” Marcy may have repeated the discussion in her head between Bae and herself a few times since it happened, trying to figure out what she should have said or done differently. It only made her mad when she couldn’t completely figure out what went wrong. The entire situation felt unfair. “Whatever, right?” Marcy looked down, her long, thick black hair falling over her face like a veil. -- “This feels like an argument I shouldn’t get in the middle of,” Ronan said. He didn’t necessarily disagree with her, but he was getting the impression that Baelfire did, and presumably he had a good reason. “But whatever, you don’t want to live there, don’t live there. I’ll hang out with you out here, or when you come back.” He reached out to pluck his firefly off of her shoulder where it had attached to her shirt, and put it back in the jar he was holding. Then he settled down on the floor near her, leaning against one of the walls and stretching his legs out in front of him. “You gonna make a pool out here too?” -- “Dude, the ocean isn’t that far.” Marcy lifted her head, part of her face visible before focusing on the floor once more. She was trying to not look at hurt as she felt. If she had to express some kind of emotion, she chose apathetic or angry as her preferred social armor of choice. -- “True.” Ronan shrugged. “Why do you need a pool when you can swim with the sharks? Or the ocean dinosaurs, or whatever.” He didn’t want to get involved, but there was a part of him that did, too, because he hated to see his friends hurting. He really didn’t know what was best for them here, though. It wasn’t a problem he was going to try and solve, especially not right in this particular moment. -- “Exactly,” Marcy said. Fans of the show Adventure Time or just anyone who had listened to enough of Marcy’s music in general, might have recognized the baseline she subconsciously played from the song I’m Just Your Problem. She wasn’t singing though. Not in the middle of the conversation. -- “I’m making a lake,” Ronan said. He shrugged. “Adam wanted it.” -- “Yeah? That’s cool.” Marcy’s tone was light to hide the frown on her lips. She wanted to say more. Ronan understood her better than a lot of people. He liked doing the same kind of reckless things as she did. Case in point: he came to the island to see her. So they should have done something fun instead of just standing there in her new place like someone had died. “It’s not too big?” she checked. -- “I have to decide how big to make it,” Ronan said. “If you made a lake, what would it be like?” He genuinely wanted her input; she’d been building a really awesome pool, so she’d obviously given some serious thought to water features. “I would put a shark in it, except I don’t make living things on purpose anymore.” He considered the firefly. “Except these, because they’re really just balls of light.” -- Marceline frowned and let out a long sigh. It wasn’t Ronan’s fault. Part of the point of making the pool wasn’t just about the joke about naked dudes (although that might have been roughly half of it). Part of making the pool was to make her house feel more like did back home, in her cave, next to a lagoon. Safe. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll come check it out though. Promise.” -- Ronan looked at her. He hadn’t meant to cause that reaction. He’d hoped to get her distracted thinking about what the lake could be like, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be distracted, at least not by talking about other things. Which was fair, since she was hurt. He understood it as well as probably any mortal person could, and empathized, but he didn’t want to think too hard about how he would feel if this happened to him and Adam, because the idea scared the shit out of him. Still… “Cool,” he said after a moment. “No rush. I mean, it’s not even made yet.” He paused. “You want to do something? Or talk more? Or you want me to leave? Whatever you want.” -- Marcy sank a little, feeling guilty Ronan had come all this way. If she were feeling better, she wouldn’t have been afraid to be upfront about what she wanted-- whether it was telling him to stay or go. Telling him either felt like she was saying the wrong thing. She’d clearly said the wrong thing to Baelfire or maybe he wouldn’t have broken up with her. “I don’t know,” she admitted. -- Ronan didn’t mind that he’d come all the way out here, even if she asked him to leave. He was in no rush for her to decide what she wanted either. He shrugged. “I’ll just sit here til you figure it out then.” -- Marceline looked at Ronan seated on the floor next to her, their backs against the wall. After a sigh, her head sank until it was on his shoulder. It was nice and she decided she didn’t want to move or speak after that. It was nice to be still. “Thanks,” she said. -- Ronan raised his arm carefully to lay it around her shoulders, without dislodging her head. He shrugged again, just the barest movement of his muscles, also so that it didn’t shift her off. “I told you, you’re my friend.” -- Marcy had tried, since the night Baelfire dumped her, to play it off like the tough, cool vampire queen that she was. Anger was allowed, but she hated that she’d cried at all that night. Maybe if they’d only argued they would still be together. But when Ronan gently reminded her they were friends, Marcy bawled her eyes out. She missed Bae. She liked Bae. She had really, really liked Bae. She was going to deck Ronan if he told anyone. |