Hanging out in the cottage didn't seem like something Marina could do while simultaneously relaxing, so Julia had just casually invited herself over one day when Marina wasn't working that night. And then put on a Disney movie, just to see if Marina would cop to enjoying it because why not?
But that was over, and the answer was still unclear on whether or not Marina would admit that she liked The Little Mermaid and now Julia was leaning back into the couch, turning her head to look at Marina.
"You know, if we're not friends, as you insist, what are we?"
Marina hadn’t seen this particular movie and so she didn’t know it. She had been in Tumbleweed for a while, but it wasn’t like she’d looked for new Disney movies to watch when she could watch the ones she knew were Disney movies. So she’d been mostly silent watching it. She didn’t know the songs or any of the other things. She’d seen Frozen and Moana and someone at college had gotten her to watch Tangled, Zootopia, and Brother Bear. It had been a weird collection, but she’d liked all of them. The only apparently “classic” Disney she’d seen was Sleeping Beauty and she’d been hideously bored because Aurora was the most boring princess in the world. She couldn’t figure out why anyone cared so damn much about her because she barely spoke and just cried cause she couldn’t marry some guy. Her parents probably had it coming, really. They didn’t invite this lady they knew could super curse their kid and risked slighting her knowing she had magic. Honestly. It was dumb. So she’d avoided most of the other older ones assuming it was about the same.
The Little Mermaid was a bit better than that. She still didn’t understand why seeing a man once meant you were in love. Sixteen year olds were stupid. Like she couldn’t have found something better? Really. She had a lot of feelings on the matter. Ursula was harsh, but like who agreed to terms and conditions that were that stupid. Also why didn’t Tritan do something if he presumably knew what was going on? DUMB.
So instead of answering Julia’s question, which she did here and chose to ignore, she said, “All of this for a man? Definitely not worth it. Also who falls in love with someone in three days? A psychopath maybe.”
"I can't believe you never saw it before," Julia replied. "And that's a Disney film for you. Maybe not making the best life choices, but they sing some fun songs along the way. Well, until they bargain away their voice to an evil sea witch."
She grinned, and then cast the spell to refill her drink. "So, another movie? Something else? You actually answer my question that you thought you dodged?" No, Julia hadn't forgotten. It was almost too much fun to put Marina on the spot like that.
“Moana didn’t give up all her time for a man,” she grumbled. “I mean, sure she had to deal with Maui and he was stupid, but like the grandma at least didn’t suck.” Not that she’d really had a grandma. And her parents cared more about her than her own parents had about her. She didn’t really get the good parental relationships, but it was interesting. “And there was a dumb rooster that kept almost dying. Vallo could stand more Hei Heis and less whatever the fuck drugged up birds they like to summon.”
Marina was undoubtedly trying to avoid the question for as long as possible because it was stupid. Who needed to label all their interactions anyway? Who cared? She didn’t know why it mattered? Also why were people so insistent on the friend thing anyway? All of hers had died, so wasn’t that incentive enough to avoid it?
“Anything but discussing the nature of our relationship.”
"Yeah, but Moana was released after Disney realized that maybe it was a good idea to not give kids problematic views about relationships. Like maybe you don't marry someone in three days," Julia pointed out.
But she had to laugh at Marina's take on Hei Hei. "I would definitely take more of him and less of scary Vallo birds." Especially those vultures. "You wanna watch Moana?" she asked, eyeing Marina as she said that she didn't want to discuss anything.
She debated saying something more, but decided not to push right then. If she learned anything, it was that she didn't want to push Marina too far, and sometimes the line where that happened was razor thin. Instead she took another drink and just shrugged. "Okay."
Marina rolled her eyes. “Is that why the storylines always suck? I mean, have you seen Sleeping Beauty? Who even cares about Aurora? She’s the most boring princess ever.” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to watch the older ones if they all got married like three days in or something. As for whether or not she wanted to watch Moana, the answer was most effectively yes, but she didn’t want to sound too excited about it, so she just answered, “Yeah, we could watch Moana if you wanted.” Because then it wasn’t her choice. Which was apparently a thing. Even though Julia already knew that she’d been in two musicals and liked Disney movies.
She side-eyed her as she let go of the topic of their “friendship”, but took a drink and looked back at the TV as if she hadn’t just found it slightly suspicious that Julia dropped the topic so quickly. “What’s your favorite Disney movie? Or do you even have one? Was it all Fillory all the time?”
If Marina thought she was being sly, getting Julia to decide on Moana for her, she was not. However, Julia again gave her friend some grace and simply said, "Yeah, it's been a while." It was such a weird trait, not even being willing to say you wanted to watch something.
It had been a while on Sleeping Beauty too, so she didn't bother commenting on Aurora. "I think the fairies were fun in Sleeping Beauty. At least, that's what I remember."
But something stopped her from pushing or teasing again. Maybe just that Julia genuinely cared about Marina, and the more time she spent with her, the more she was able to decode what she was saying.
"It was all Fillory almost all the time. But I loved Lilo & Stitch a lot. I had a stuffed Stitch at one point. Not sure what happened to it. My mom probably threw him away."
She reached for the remote and queued up Moana, not yet pushing play. "Have you seen that one?"
“I like the blue one and the red one. I guess the other one was okay, but Maleficent could have just gotten invited and everything would have been fine. Also Prince Phillip was boring as fuck.” Everyone was honestly boring. She knew there was a remake of the movie, but she wasn’t overly sure it didn’t suck, too. Even if Angelina Jolie was kind of hot. Would that even make up for it, though?
She considered the information, squashing some unnatural desire to find a Stitch doll to give her later. It was a stupid idea and Julia would like it too much and then she’d do that annoying knowing look she did. Like she could see into someone’s soul. It was dumb.
“No. I haven’t seen that one. When did it come out? I missed a lot of the stuff before 2010.”
"Yeah, I remember that. Like she got mad she wasn't invited." Julia shrugged. She'd watched that when she was really young. "And Lilo and Stitch came out in 2002? Maybe? I was nine or ten. I'll make you watch it sometime, but not today," she grinned. "Today is for Hei Hei being an adorable mess."
And with that, she pressed play.
“But if they knew she would get mad, they could have just done it and avoided a cursed kid, but that’s parents for you.” And you couldn’t trust parents not to be assholes. She hadn’t heard of positive parental interactions. So did they really exist? Except weirdly the Unimpressive White Guy’s dad. But he died, so…
“Oh. Huh.” She was mostly just hoping to have limited necessities at that age and up until she was old enough to get a job and then leave. Her dad died before then, but it was no big loss. “I think you mean super dumb.” But she liked Hei Hei anyway. How could you stay mad at a mentally deranged rooster that was only a danger to himself?
She carefully moved her knee to her chest, chin propped on her knee as the movie started, watching as the grandma told the story of Te Fiti and Maui stealing her heart. Leave it to a man to decide something belongs to him and fuck everything up. She stifled a snort when the one kid started crying and Moana seemed generally unphased. Once the dad walked in and said no one was allowed to go past the reefs, she rolled her eyes. Like she got it, people died, but really.
"Super dumb, but also an adorable mess," Julia replied. And the right call, because Lilo & Stitch was about family and maybe a bit much right now. Found family, but still. Of course, Marina's resistance to admitting she had ties to people was met by Julia as a challenge. But mostly in the sense that having had a series of incredibly shitty experiences in the past shouldn't cut her off from people now.
Of course, there was far more to it than that, that even Julia hadn't considered fully. But as the movie continued, Julia stole a couple of glances at Marina, who was clearly into the story. It was a different side of her friend she rarely saw, and one she appreciated.
Marina just felt like there wasn’t much point in letting people in too far because then she’d start to rely on others and that was when you got fucked over. Need someone and they’d most assuredly screw you over. Care about someone and they would absolutely disappoint you. She had more than enough experience to go on when it came to the subject. Especially with Anna. Sure, she’d been shitty and she’d done bad things and she probably hadn’t deserved anyone, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t count it toward her overall ideology regarding the subject.
She enjoyed the movie just because there was no romance, just a girl trying to prove she could do something and save the world doing it. And sure, that wasn’t her usual emotion. She wasn’t out here trying to save the world because that was helping people and helping people also always ended in disappointment or getting fucked over. As if on cue, her robotic eye narrowed the mechanical pupil and then widened it again.
She wanted another drink, but she didn’t want to get up, so she grabbed for her wand - which she only really kept around for if she was feeling bored or lazy - and summoned another one from the fridge. “Did you need one,” she asked, eyes not moving from the screen as Moana sailed to find Maui.
"I'm good," Julia said, as she noted how casually Marina had just used that wand. If she was honest with herself, she was jealous that she didn't have a Harry Potter wand of her own. Even so, she was drinking liquor, and slowly at that.
"I do like Hei Hei," Julia said randomly as it seemed half the movie was just the rooster confused on the boat, or falling off the boat, or just confused in general. He added something to the movie and it would be incomplete without him.
Briefly her mind drifted to Lilo and Stitch and what that would be like to watch with Marina. She had the feeling she'd mock the Ohana quote, but Julia figured she'd also get stuck on it. As much as Marina tried to pretend she didn't care, it was painfully obvious that she did, deeply, about the people important to her. Not that she'd ever admit it or say anything other than 'gross' in response to being called out on that.
Glancing at Marina again, Julia shifted over on the couch so she was sitting close enough to nudge her, which she did. But then she left her alone, so they could finish watching the movie.
Marina would probably deny any affection for Hei Hei in public, but it was also possible she’d fight anyone that said anything negative about him seriously, too. She took a quick drink of her beer as the movie progressed.
She was hyper aware of the movement when Julia got closer, not sure whether to prepare herself for those moments when Eleanor leaned on her or even the possibility of a hug. So when all it was was an elbow nudge followed by silence and nothing else, the growing tension in her body seemed excessive. She allowed for a quick glance over at Julia and then tried to ignore her until the end of the movie.
“Did you like it?” She moved then, almost like a spell had lifted. She sat with her legs crossed on the couch, tempted to stretch but also not sure she wanted to.
"Yeah," Julia answered, smiling softly. "Did you?"
There was something about the fact that they'd just watched two Disney movies back to back which she wouldn't have expected, that made Julia give Marina one of those searching looks that she probably hated. "You surprise me sometimes," she admitted. "In a good way."
She nudged Marina again, teasingly, but this time she brought her hand up and started casually playing with Marina's hair, wondering what the other woman would do. Julia had always been a very tactile person, it was definitely how she showed affection, and she was not treating Marina any differently. Yet.
Marina shrugged at the question. “It was still good.” Which didn’t really exactly answer the question, but she was fairly certain Julia could probably tell anyway. Which was stupid. She was quiet as she felt Julia’s eyes on her. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she kept her expression as neutral as she could. There was no need to give away too much.
The nudge wasn’t as surprising as the sudden feeling of Julia’s fingers playing with her hair. She stilled, not really certain if she should or could move in that moment because for some reason that didn’t make sense, Julia was touching her. It reminded her of her Timeline when Julia healed her face and it was an uncomfortable sensation. She squirmed slightly after a moment, moving just out of reach. “Anway…” She cleared her throat, avoiding eye contact. She didn’t know what else to say then because she was distracted, so she took a long drink of her beer instead to give herself a moment to think.
"Not a fan, then," Julia said, somewhat sheepishly, bringing her hand back to her lap, taking a sip of her drink. Which she then decided needed a refill so she set it down on the coffee table and refilled it, glancing over at Marina afterward.
"Sorry, didn't mean to make you that uncomfortable." But at least she had an answer to a question she wasn't fully aware she'd been asking.
Marina felt awkward still because physical intimacy was still a weirdness to her. Eleanor was always prone to hugs and then even Lucifer had hugged her once and that was awkward, too. Somehow she just had a lot of people around her that were very...touchy. Doing the touching was one thing...and it wasn’t usually intimate in nature. It was just...to keep people from getting attacked by ghosts in the library like that creepy time that the ghost version of the Deer Killer had touched her face and it was unsettling then, too, but that was more to do with the fact that he was dead and creepy.
“It’s whatever. It’s not the first time you’ve touched me out of nowhere.” Her fingers unconsciously reached up to touch her face where the scar had been before. She took a breath and turned to face the TV, fingers moving to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"I did a really good job, didn't I?" Julia asked, knowing exactly what Marina was referring to. But then she smiled. "Would having a warning make it better?"
Marina rolled her eyes then. “Shut up.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not really a touchy kind of person. Everyone else seems to be really interested in it, though.” Which was weird. When she’d been younger, she’d never really had people that hugged her or were soft with her, so it was awkward and she didn’t understand it.
"Yeah…" Julia said in response. "I kind of am?" There was no kind of. She was always reaching for Kady's hand, or leaning into Q, or snuggling up with the people she was with. But then again, she also didn't have an aversion to the word friends.
"Especially with people I'm close to," she added, no longer avoiding discussions on the nature of their relationship.
Marina stared at the table. She’d noticed that with Emo Hair. And she’d seen it otherwise. They’d watched an entire five seasons of their show. So she’d seen Julia and she’d seen Julia in Tumbleweed, but they’d never been particularly touchy-feely there either. She let that marinate inside of her for a while until she couldn’t stand the overthinking anymore and looked at the TV again as if there was anything to distract her there.
“I’m not really...close to people.” She shrugged. “And the touching’s...not something I’m used to.”
"And you lost everyone once already," Julia acknowledged, knowing the topic would make Marina uncomfortable but she was willing to risk that to have this conversation. She couldn't pretend like Marina wasn't important to her, and that she didn't care about her. Or that it didn't bother her to be constantly kept at arm's length (and right now very literally) even if she knew the reasoning.
"And Anna really didn't help. But letting people close doesn't have to be a bad thing."
Even now, Julia wanted to reach for Marina's hand and had to consciously stop herself from doing so.
Marina wrinkled her nose, even more tense as the topic got closer to things she preferred to just casually mention as non-events in her life that she could just use to prove a point that Henry sucked and so did Julia’s dumb friends. Anna wasn’t part of that. She was her own fuck up and Marina didn’t really want to have deep conversations about her fucked up relationships.
“Conversely, I don’t need to let people close to be happy with my life or fulfilled or whatever everyone seems to think.” Because she didn’t need people and trusting people was a laughable event. She had to rely on herself because she might fuck over other people, but she never fucked over herself. Except with Anna, but that’s because she let herself think with her heart for a change and that turned out poorly. Yeah, sure she also sort of got greedy and killed someone and all that, but she’d also eventually change her core self just to be worth someone and that was a gross thing she wasn’t doing again.
“Wasn’t changing myself for one person enough? I mean, I’m over that sort of attitude.”
Julia listened, frowning slightly at the implication that she was trying to fundamentally change who Marina was. "So is that what you want?" she asked quietly. "Me to leave you alone or stick to watching movies?" She bit her lip, uncertain if she could even do that. But she'd managed to take a step back with Kady, hadn't she?
But that wasn't what she had wanted, and with Kady she did it in hopes that the space would give Kady time to come around and forgive her, which she probably had. With Marina, things were more complicated. They didn't have the same history. But there was definitely more between them than what Marina was suggesting. Or so Julia had thought.
It wasn’t what she wanted, but she didn’t even know what she wanted the majority of the time except to avoid conversations about being close to people. This was just going to be awkward and uncomfortable all around. She knew Julia wanted more than what Marina generally allowed. Because she didn’t do the talking about her feelings or easy touching or general closeness. But she didn’t get all of that or really trust it as a thing.
“I’m just...not who you want me to be,” she said quietly. “And I’m not going to be.”
"What I want is for you to be you," Julia replied. "Intimidating Tony Stark," she said with a smirk. "Pretending like it's all my idea that we're watching Moana. Just… maybe not scared to trust me?"
That was it, wasn't it? Seemingly a small request and yet it was one of the hardest things she could have asked of Marina.
Marina trusting people wasn’t really easy. She’d done it before. She’d trusted Tony not to fuck her up with her eye and if something was seriously wrong, she would have gone to him for something. She’d gone to him with the Stoppard Cube. She’d trusted a Julia. She wasn’t fully certain that she didn’t trust this Julia, but it was uncomfortable to think about. “It was your idea,” was the thing she chose to react to. “You just asked if I wanted to.”
"You keep telling yourself that," Julia said, smirking, and letting Marina off the hook. She'd been around her timeline's Marina and this one long enough to know that this wasn't a negative reaction, and the fact that they'd even carried the conversation this far was something, even if the thought lingered in the back of her mind that she still had more questions than answers.
This was enough for now.
"What's the place you use for those breakfast burritos?" Julia asked, signaling that she was ready to move on. "We should get delivery." She glanced at Marina, resisting the urge to move over and lean into her.
“I only speak the truth,” she replied. Because she was going to just let Julia be the one that chose it until she decided otherwise...and she had no plans on deciding otherwise. She didn’t really ever want to revisit this conversation either, but she wasn’t sure it was ever really over. Either her or Eleanor would probably bring it up again. Even Dorian might bring it up. Either way.
She had half a mind to feign needing an early night just to avoid more conversations - even if Julia seemed to have dropped the topic - but the mention of breakfast burritos kept her from it. She did like breakfast burritos. With a hint of annoyance on her face, she pulled up the delivery on her phone and handed it over after choosing what she wanted.
"Liar," Julia replied, though she didn't explain why, instead taking the phone and ordering for herself. If there was any reassurance that she could give Marina, it was that she wasn't going to feel like rehashing this conversation again, either. Maybe they could just work things out without talking about them.