Who: Juno & Marco When: Around 7pm Where: Juno’s room
Marco’s afternoon had gone by in a blur of numbness, both from his drugs and his emotional state. Mostly from the latter. He still wasn’t sure what would end up happening tomorrow. He’d made sure to avoid Tobias and Daphne, and even avoid hearing about it. Tomorrow, he’d either have drugs, or he wouldn’t, and he was just trying to mentally prepare for that.
He’d come up to the house after the bells chimed in town, and had made it up to the mansion by three. His foot hurt like a bitch, but he’d ignored it, got his fix from Cecilia, and had retreated to his room, where he’d hidden for the next few hours as he rode out his high, and wished for more. He’d even gone downstairs to ask Cecilia for another hit, but hadn’t found her, and instead went to go make sure to eat.
At some point while he was sitting down there, quietly munching on a bowl of cereal, he remembered that he’d gotten the idea to eat some cocoa puffs from Juno, who he was supposed to bring dinner the night before. Shit.
Ten minutes later, he was at Juno’s door, a bowl of dry cereal in one hand, a glass of milk in the other. He’d spilled some milk on the way up, unable to get his hands to stop shaking. That was par for the course, though. He just tried not to think about it.
“Juno?”
Juno wasn’t used to success. Not in general, and definitely not in this God-forsaken shithole. Up until the last minute she had been expecting to fail, only believing they might just make it to the house unshackled when the key turned in its lock and nearly fell over from the loss of that extra weight. Not that that really meant anything, considering this was going to be a group effort thing that meant if even one of the other pairs failed, they all failed. Mighty communist of the fuckers who ran this place, but she supposed it was a step up from “let’s have a vote”. Juno had wanted to help, and tried to, but there was little to be done on time after taking so long to walk anywhere in the brace – and it wasn’t as though she or Jim really knew where the others might be, either. After showering Juno had made the rounds on the network, sent and replied to a few messages, then decided to take a break in general. All in all, it had been a “you tried your best and therefore no one can criticize you” sort of day, and she had even brought up a souvenir to her room – the hideous painting called Salvation.
It was on the floor by her bed, since she hadn’t had it in her to go locate anyone who might have a hammer and nails - like Chase, for instance – and because she had really wanted to rush under a hot shower as soon as she had gotten back to the mansion. And she had spent hours there, no regrets. Food was on the back of her mind as she hadn’t had any dinner, breakfast or lunch, but Juno had grabbed a snack from the kitchen before rushing up the stairs upon arrival. She was nothing if not used to getting by with the bare minimum.
There were a million things she wanted to do, but here she was on the floor of her room, hair wet and not even combed through, feet bare and sort-of cold, contemplating the hideous painting with the stupid name. A cardinal carrying a hedgehog had to have some sort of symbolism. Juno wasn’t the sharpest tool in any box by far, but it hadn’t escaped her that it was ‘funny’ how there was a cardinal in the painting and a Catholic priest as her pair to find it.
“Those fuckers.” she muttered, looking from the painting down to her wrist, where her ponytail holder should have been if it hadn’t disappeared sometime between falling asleep in her bed and waking up on the ground to a holy boner in her line of sight. She heard her name being called faintly on the other side of her door and looked up, mildly startled. If her heart beat faster with the prospect of her being correct and that voice being Marco’s, she didn’t pay it any mind. Getting on her feet, she ran her fingers through her damp hair and opened the door to find Marco standing there with food in his hands. She looked from it to his face and tried not to look too happy to see him.
“Is this my dinner? You’ve got more delay than The Oscars.” Juno pulled away from the door to let him in, taking the glass of milk from his hands in the process.
“I was up cleaning until… I don’t know. Fucking one in the morning, I think? I just forgot. Sorry.” He nodded a thank you for taking the milk from him, and he shifted the bowl of cereal so he had it in both hands, and held against his chest. He didn’t want to put it anywhere it wasn’t supposed to go, so he’d wait for her.
“I’m glad you got out of your handcuffs,” he said, ducking his head into the room before stepping inside. He didn’t know that she hadn’t been in handcuffs, but something much stranger. “I went looking for you and Jim, but I worked my way around this big circle, and by the time I’d gotten around to you guys, you… What the fuck is that?”
His focus had fallen on the ugly-ass painting on her floor. He wasn’t sure why it was there. Not just there in her room, but the grander there. Why would anyone even bother to frame that hideous thing?
As Marco explained why he had forgotten, Juno merely shrugged in response, not looking particularly offended or sad that he had forgotten to bring her last night’s cocoa puffs to her door. Truth be told she hadn’t been expecting him to remember; she’d been hoping, because she had been hungry and it had been his stupid fault that her first bowl had gotten soggy as all hell, but it was no great loss. Setting the milk onto the wooden surface beside her bed and beneath the stairs to her desk, Juno turned around to look at Marco with the bowl pressed up against his chest and bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling at how childlike he looked right now. She motioned with her hand for him to join her, snickering.
“Wasn’t handcuffs, but I’m glad you’re out of yours.” In rapid succession Juno went from unexpected gleefulness at the idea that someone had been looking for her to confusion as to how Marco knew to look for her and Jim both. Then Marco noticed the masterpiece, and of course Juno didn’t want to spoil the reaction by asking for clarification. “That was where my key was hidden.”
Before sitting down by the wooden bedside table, Juno pulled the painting towards her, still held up against the bed, and once again motioned for Marco to sit and join her in contemplation. Before he could, however, she was pulling the bowl of cereal from his hands with a nod of thanks and sitting back down. “It’s called Salvation.”
Marco hesitated to sit, instead standing in the middle of the room, turning to really take it in. He’d only been in his room, Cecilia’s, and Chase’s. He was already impressed by the differences, but adding one more to the list just added to his amazement. If he could say anything for the fuckers who had trapped them there, well, at least they were giving well-deserving artists some work.
Then he looked back at the painting, Salvation, and thought that maybe not all their artists were well-deserving. “Salvation. Right. Of course it is.” He snickered as he took a seat. “Was the key attached to it? Or… Why the hell did you bring it back here?”
Shrugging, Juno didn’t bother asking why Marco wasn’t sitting down but instead looking around. She had better things to do, like pour milk into a bowl of cocoa puffs and finally quiet down the rumbling in her stomach. It had become quite loud ever since food was present in the room.
Taking a hearty spoonful of cereal into her mouth, Juno chewed through Marco’s sentence, and raised a finger in his direction as she was still not done eating when he asked a question. She looked back at the panting, narrowing her eyes. “Nah, it was between it and the frame, we had to take it apart to get to it. I don’t know. I guess I’m collecting souvenirs, I kept the other punishment too. Keepsakes. We had a really heavy leg brace, we took hours walking down to the gallery because of it, and we still made it.” she looked at Marco and smirked, shrugging. “Which won’t matter if anyone else didn’t make it, but I’m not expecting anything good from this place anyway.”
She turned a little in Marco’s direction. “What was yours like? Who was your ‘buddy’?”
Marco didn’t answer right away, instead distracted by her stairs up to her desk, enough that he was squinting up at them as he considered them. “You don’t fall down with there being no railing there?” he asked, smirking.
As soon as the thought was voiced, though, he fell back into their conversation. “Wait, wait, a leg brace? Not, like, shackles, but a brace? That’s fucking weird. How long did it take you to get there?” he wondered. “Mine was… weird. I was with Owen, and we were wild cards. We had our key, and we could either use it on us, or one other team. He wanted to use it on Cecilia, but I got him to let me go to help other people. I went around town, but I only found Kate and Juliet.” He shrugged. Technically, that was true. He hadn’t found Tobias and Daphne, just their key. “But, um, yeah. We were just handcuffed. I’m kind of amazed he let me out of his sight.” Then he smirked again. “Hard to believe you didn’t have to fight Jim for this fine art, here.”
When Marco didn’t answer Juno stared at him, eventually shifting her gaze onto where his was directed. Oh, the stairs. She looked back at him again as he asked whether she fell down with no railings, and pointed at herself, bruise free for the most part. “What’s it look like?” she smirked back. She had gotten used to it, and kind of liked having to climb up there now. You really got used to anything if you did it long enough.
“A brace up above my knee, I couldn’t bend my leg at all. And the padre is way taller than me so that was a fucking nightmare.” Juno looked down at her still-sore left leg and rubbed her knee. “It fucking hurt. Took us hours. We woke up in the street somewhere way off town.”
With each detail of Marco’s own little adventure Juno’s brow quirked up more. She snickered at how unsurprised she was that Owen had wanted to find Cecilia first thing, and then decided to focus on her food instead of voicing that thought. “Oh yeah, did you help ‘em?” Juno smiled then, because if he had helped them it was a good thing she was a little bit proud of. The smile turned into a snort as she, too, had a hard time believing Owen had let Marco roam free. Then again, Juno wouldn’t want to be shackled to a dude she hated for hours either, so she understood. “Jim was surprisingly willing to let me have it. Go figure, right?”
Marco looked down to Juno’s knee, frowning at the thought of having to hobble around without being able to bend the damn thing. Something else grabbed his focus, though. “Wait, you woke up in the street? Like, in the middle of the street?” he asked, his brow creasing. “They at least put us in a bed, though, it was a fucking gross one. Mildewed and shit. Fucking gross.” And now that he was thinking about it, maybe he should have showered when he got home. It wasn’t the first thing on his mind, though. Or, clearly, even the fifth.
“I didn’t, um, find the key, but I guess I helped. Maybe I shortened the search? I don’t know.” He shrugged. Either way, he figured it worked against him when it came to what had been asked of him. Again, he found the thought upsetting, and he sighed and tried to push it from his mind. It was fine. He was gonna get cleaned up, right? Sure. Good.
“Where you gonna put this fucking thing?” he wondered.
Running a hand through her hair to push it back off her face, Juno turned fully to face Marco, folding her legs ‘indian style’. “I woke up in the street half curled up into a dude I hardly know who had a-“ she stopped herself, blinking. “It was awkward. And freezing. Because yes, I spent the whole fucking day in a tank top and capris. It’s why I spent like two hours in the shower when I got back. At least I think it was two hours, my skin was way red by the end of it.”
Not having been there, Juno couldn’t say whether Marco had helped or not, but she could tell this wasn’t exactly something he wanted to keep talking about for some reason, so she let it drop. Instead of saying anything she simply nodded, looking down at her cereal and eating some more before Marco asked another question.
“I dunno.” Juno replied, mouth full of cereal. She looked around and back at him. “Where would you put it? And don’t say the trash.”
Marco barked a laugh. “No, but that was my answer! Don’t shoot down my clever quips before I get to say them!” he mock complained. “Maybe in the bathroom? I don’t know. I wouldn’t want that thing looking at me while I sleep. Or outside on the door, so everyone knows which room is yours, and who you are. Who’s Juno? Oh, she’s the one who likes terrible art.”
“You’d think they’d start us out with some jackets or whatever,” he added. “Or start us out at Cassi’s, so we could grab real clothes. I don’t know. I’m glad it’s over. Scared for tomorrow.”
With a grin, Juno shrugged. “I guess I know your mind. You’re fresh outta material for this audience.” She considered his suggestions, scrounging up her nose as she looked up at the colorful painting above the steps to her desk. “I dunno, it’s not creepier than whatever dude’s face is in these painting above my bed. Although he does kinda look like my favorite Warrior, but how the hell would they know that if I haven’t said it out loud?”
Narrowing her eyes at Marco she shook her head lightly. “Yeah I have bad taste in a lot of things. I don’t like the painting, douche, I’m keeping it to remind me of fuckery. It's kinda easy to forget this place is a hell hole because my digs here are way better than my place back in New York.”
Setting the sadly empty cereal bowl down – because Juno had been that fast – she looked back at Marco and sighed. “You don’t think we all made it, do you? You’re probably right.” she pulled up her leg, hugging her knee much like she had the previous night in Marco’s room. This time, however, Juno hissed when moving her left leg at all. “How’re you doing?”
Marco frowned down at that ugly fucking painting. “That’s actually pretty smart,” he mumbled, curling his legs under him. “Though… I’d kill for a room like that on the outside, you know? I’ve been sleeping on a cot in a stockroom the past two years. And that’s an upgrade.”
His smile faltered, but as sad as it was, he still managed to keep it. “I think if you had a brace on your leg, they probably did a whole bunch of dumb fucking things. It’s not like they wanted us to succeed. Last time really messed with my head, so, this time should be just great.” He didn’t answer how he was doing. Just looked down at his hands, which were still shaking, then hid them in his lap. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll run all the way down to the beach,” he joked.
There was a deep sigh as Juno crossed her arms over her knee and propped her chin up on them. “Yeah I know what you mean. I shared an apartment with three other chicks, my room’s like…a single bed. With drawers underneath that I can’t pull open all the way, and no window.”
Marco’s sad smile made Juno frown, eyebrows bunching up together as she bit her lip. They had messed with her head too last time, and she had been able to ride the high of succeeding in a test so far, but right now this was probably what they meant by ‘come down’. “You never told me…then again I guess I never told you…though you didn’t ask…” Juno was rambling mostly to herself, she realized then, and promptly stopped talking. “I miss the beach. I haven’t been to this one, it’s not the same thing.”
“This beach sucks. I was down there the other day with Juliet, and it’s just a cold, gross lake. I miss the beach, too.” Marco smiled a little bit more, waiting for her to ask what it was she had originally started to ask. “You want to know about the octopus,” he said, looking to her to confirm this. “Sorry I didn’t ask. I think I asked if you were okay, but I was so fucked up that day I just…” He shrugged. “Honestly, most of that day is fucking gone. What, um… What’d they do?”
“Oh. Great. So another disappointment then.” Juno had been looking away when Marco tried to guess what she had been rambling about; slowly, she lifted her gaze up to his face, managing to look apologetic. “I know, I wasn’t giving you shit for not asking. Forget it.”
Somehow Juno hadn’t been ready for the question to be turned around on her, and when it did all vestiges of a smile disappeared from her face. Instead of telling, she decided to show him. She stood up from the floor and went into the bathroom, coming out seconds later with a trophy in one hand and a bit of paper in the other.
As she sat down Juno handed Marco the trophy, waiting for him to read the lovely engraving that ran through her mind over, and over, and over again since that day: “Do you really think surviving is really that big an accomplishment if you haven’t done anything else?” and then between her fingers she held out the bit of paper with the more ominous note of “PS- Consider yourself on suicide watch. You don’t get a way out.”
Juno waited for Marco to read them, looking at his face as she gauged reaction. It was never going to be as fucked up for anyone else as it was for her; that was the point of personalized punishment.
Marco held the trophy and the paper, frowning down at both of them. The didn’t have the same impact on him, and they weren’t meant to, but he still understood that the note on the trophy was a low blow, and the note was ominous and cruel. “Fuck these guys,” he said, voice low. “Like they have any fucking right to tell anyone that getting by isn’t a fucking miracle for some people.”
He squared his jaw as he handed the trophy back to her. “If I were you, I would have thrown that shit out the window onto the pavement already,” he told her. He opened his mouth, starting to ask a question, but hesitated and closed it again. Then he changed his mind again, and decided to go ahead and say what he was thinking. “I get the suicide watch thing. I remember what you were saying with the gun thing. But… I don’t know, I don’t actually know that much about you to be able to say if I should take that at face value or not.”
The engraving on the trophy encompassed something Juno had struggled with a lot over the years. It was even a big driving force behind all that self-loathing she was completely aware of, but could do nothing about. To hear Marco say out loud what she had told herself countless times, it felt good. Juno smiled, visibly touched by knowing at least someone got it.
She shook her head, jaw set just like his was, and tossed the trophy onto the bed as well as the note. “Keepsakes, remember? These fuckers aren’t bringing me down and I’m keeping every dent they try to make on me to prove it.” she had failed that one before, wasn’t about to do it again. Juno furrowed her brow at what Marco said next, tilting her head.
“That it’s ‘just in case it gets bad’? So I can go out on my own terms? You got no reason to believe me except me telling you I’ve thought about it a whole morbid lot and haven’t actually done it yet. It’s just a thing that’s there. In the back of my mind.” she ran a hand through her hair again. “Sometimes I feel like I’m only here out of spite, sometimes I wonder if maybe I’d be missing out on something awesome. Which is stupid, I know.”
Biting her bottom lip, Juno regarded Marco for a while before sighing and dropping her arms to either side of her body. “If you do wanna know that much about me, though...ask. If not, that’s cool too.”
Marco shook his head. “The… No, the suicide thing wasn’t what I was taking at face value. I meant the trophy.” He turned and pointed a finger at the thing. “I don’t know if all you’ve done is ”survive.” I understand wanting to kill yourself.” He let that statement pass, figuring if she wanted to know more about it, she could ask.
He watched her, trying to decide if she was actually comfortable with him asking questions. “Same. But, you know, you can for me,” he said, figuring it was only right to offer to open up, if she was offering to do the same. She knew his bigger secrets now, anyway. “So what are you surviving?”
“Oh.” Juno lowered her head, suddenly feeling pretty stupid for not understanding the meaning behind Marco’s words. She gave him a sad look when he said he understood; while she felt grateful that he did, Juno also wished he didn’t. She snickered humorlessly, chin propped up on her folded knee again. “It is. Of all the things people call ‘accomplishments’…I mean I guess I graduated high school. Barely.”
Juno wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to ask anything of him, but on the other hand it was only fair if they traded answer for answer, even if she already knew more about him than him her. Licking her lips, Juno looked down to try and formulate an answer that was as complete and short as possible. Might as well come out and say it.
“My dad used to beat the shit out of my mom and me. And when he wasn’t beating us, he was berating, insulting…making sure we didn’t have one fucking second of peace in that house. My mom though, she never wanted us to tell anyone. She didn’t want me to, so I kinda never did.” She still hadn’t looked back at Marco, and she was aware her expression had become empty if a little sad, but if she stopped to think about it she might just let the memories take over. That wouldn’t be good for anyone. “I got sick, you know? I got really sick when my dad was around. And I guess my mom did too because at some point she found a way to be numb. I don’t know where she’d get the pills, or even if it was just pills now that I know more about it but she did and she kinda…stopped existing. Even if I asked for help. So it was just me.”
There was a hint of moisture in her eyes, and Juno shrugged. “It became all about getting through it, getting out. All I did was get by. But some shit happens for so long you can’t forget it even when you are out. And then you look back and you realize you haven’t done anything but that, and your life’s gonna suck forever because of it. But at least you’re out; and you’re alive. But they’re right, you know? What’s the point?”
A deep breath later, and Juno was back to looking at Marco. “I don’t know what to ask you.” she nearly whispered. After a beat, she shrugged. “I’m gonna ask you about the octopus.”
Marco found himself just staring, biting his lip just because he wasn’t sure what the right reaction was. He’d figured something had happened with Juno, but he’d never figured out what it was. Maybe an abusive boyfriend, or just general depression. He hadn’t thought that she’d been not just abused but abused for years of her life. He wondered if he should offer her a hug, but that seemed wrong in this instance. He kind of wished she would tell him what the right response was.
“I’m sorry,” he managed. “That… I had no idea. I’m glad you got out. I mean, some people don’t, right? I… Fuck, that’s not helping. I’m sorry. I don’t think they’re right. Getting out and surviving, that’s… That’s a big deal.” He winced, then turned to sit so he was facing her, sitting indian style. “I don’t think I’m so good at saying the right thing here. Just… You’re really strong, um, for making it through.”
He’d almost missed the question asked of him, and he found it hard to answer, if just because he wanted to know more about Juno. All of his shit was just craziness. “The octopus is dumb,” he told her, shrugging. “I have a few visual hallucinations that happen regularly. The octopus is one of them. I’m not afraid of the real one, it just… I wasn’t expecting it, and I just kind of lost track of what was real when it popped out. I thought maybe this place was just in my head. That’s what scares me. Not the fucking fish.” He laughed just a little. “It’s dumb.”
Were they gonna go back and forth asking questions of each other? Was it his turn? Was this a thing? “Do you ever see them anymore? I mean, before we got here.”
While Marco spoke, all Juno did was nod. She exhaled deeply once he went on speaking, supporting her side of things.
“I don’t know if I did, sometimes.” she confessed after a while. “I get nightmares, I hear his voice. That fucker’s never too far gone. So I’m still kind of doing it.” Juno smiled fondly, shaking her head. “I feel like there’s never a right thing to say about this kind of shit, Marco, don’t worry about it. Thank you.”
Juno, of course, didn’t know about the regular visual hallucinations, and her eyes widened as he went on. She wondered why the octopus, if it was random or had some significance, and couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to have her whole reality put into question and fear it might just be really all in her head. Having it be a possibility. It was terrifying. “They fucking triggered you. Those fuckers!”
Eyebrows raising at Marco’s next question – this felt more like a game now than anything else – Juno didn’t understand his meaning at first. “Oh, my…them? Nah. He’s dead. Booze probably caught up to him, or maybe it was all the venom. I dunno. And I hadn’t seen him since I left home when I was eighteen anyway. My mother came knocking when he was about to kick it, asking me to come say goodbye or some shit. I said goodbye to the coffin; that was fucked enough. She wanted to reconnect, or some shit, after. But when we talked things through…” she snickered, shaking her head. “She never apologized. You know? I mean I understand – I told you that – I get wanting to be numb, but I was there, alone, begging for help and she just doped up some more. She wanted us to be a family again like that shit wasn’t on her too. On some trip asking me what was I supposed to do? well. Fuck that. I walked away.”
Pulling all her over one shoulder, Juno twisted it around as best she could, really missing her goddamn ponytail holder. She wasn’t used to that. “But hey I seem to remember you called your mom a bitch once, so I’m gonna go ahead and guess there’s a thing there too.”
Marco was pretty sure he didn’t manage to hide his flinch. “That’s why you got mad at me over the network,” he concluded. He looked down into his lap, suddenly feeling guilty for his addiction again. “That… Yeah. That makes sense. I’m sorry. That… I would have left that alone, too. I’d stay away from that.” He shook his head. He kind of wished he’d remembered some of the more comforting shit he’d heard over the years, and could turn and offer Juno comfort now. Then again, if he’d forgotten it all, maybe it hadn’t been that comforting to begin with.
He lifted his head again at her question. His mouth curved into an uncomfortable smile. “My mom?” he asked. “Yeah, I’ve called her a bitch a lot more times than just that once,” he joked, then shrugged. “She didn’t want kids, and sure as fuck didn’t want to have a crazy one. She left me in hospitals a lot. She, um… Yeah. Used to lock me in closets when she brought guys home, or just didn’t want to deal with me? And she’d tie me down when I got too bad. I’m not saying I didn’t always deserve it, but…” He shrugged. He tried to keep his smile from faltering. “And then she kicked me out.” He wondered if Juno would have preferred to get kicked out than have had to stay as long as she did.
“We’re a hell of a fucking pair, aren’t we?” he asked, finally frowning again. “How’d you get out of that shit?”
Juno couldn’t help noticing Marco’s flinch, feeling a pang of guilt as he spoke. But there was no denying it, and no point in trying to pat him in the back about it. “Not your shit to deal with. But yeah, it... dredged up some shit.”
Knowing all about shitty moms, or at least enough, Juno thought she had been prepared for what Marco was about to tell her; instead, she found herself more and more horrified as he went on. By the time he was done, Juno’s hand was firmly planted over her mouth. “Nobody fucking deserves any of that. Much less a kid. Even I know that.”
A fucking pair indeed. Juno felt miserable, for both of them this time, and she really could use another hug. Of course she didn’t dare ask, wouldn’t even know how. Scratching her back, Juno sighed. “I got a job, a shitty job, just weeks before graduation. So I boasted about it to my dad, I got cocky and I just said out loud I couldn’t fucking wait to get out of there. So he…he went balls-out. He fucking laid it all out, every fucking thing wrong with me, how I should’ve been aborted, how the sight of me made him sick, how I should’ve become someone else’s problem.”
Looking up at Marco Juno hesitated to continue. It took her a while. “I blew up right back. I was so angry, so miserable, instead of cowering in a corner I just…threw it all right back. And that was the beating of my life, I was blinded for a while after that, too. I don’t even know how I survived that. But at some point I took something, I don’t even remember what it was, I took something and I turned it around and I-“ well, there it was; tears streaming down her face as Juno realized she had, at some point, started shaking. “-it took me a while to stop. And when I did, while he was down and she was off crying somewhere, I took my shit and I left. I made it like a mile or two ‘till I collapsed on a bench at the pier.”
Marco didn’t know if it was appropriate to hug Juno or not, so he didn’t. Still, he didn’t like that she was crying. He couldn’t blame her for crying, but he hadn’t meant to bring up memories that would make her break down. Unsure what to do, he scooted over so he was closer to her. He reached a hand over to her, then pulled it back. He did this again, and then again, before realizing how awkward the motion must have been and finally putting a hand on her arm. If he wasn’t a comfort, he figured maybe the whole display may have ended up being good for a laugh, even if he hadn’t meant for it to be.
“Hey, just breathe, okay? You’re okay. You’re… You’re better than okay. You’re kind of a badass,” he told her, forcing an awkward smile. “Just breathe. We don’t have to talk about this anymore, if you don’t want to. Okay?”
Through the tears, which she was extremely embarrassed about and quick to wipe off her face, Juno watched Marco’s hesitation. She followed the movement of his hand, forward, back, forward, then back again, then finally watched as he placed it on her arm. By then, slightly amused, she smiled as she sniffled. Slowly and just as hesitantly, Juno put her other hand over his.
“I’m breathing. I’m alright.” she assured him, nodding. The compliment had warmed her a little, and her smile grew. “Okay. It’s kind of all been said now anyway. You’re kind of a badass too, you know?”
Marco snorted. “I’m really really not, but thanks.” He smiled and gave her arm a squeeze, hoping it was as comforting as he was going for. He found her own hand over his to be pleasant, even though he wasn’t the one needing the cheering (which was nice, for a change). With a sign that touching was okay, he let go of her and scooted over a little more until he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with her.
“So,” he said, his tone lighter, “what do you want if we get rewarded tomorrow? Other than to get the fuck out of here. “I’m thinking I’d like them to put, like, laser tag down in town. To go with our bouncy obstacle course? That’d be cool. Or, I don’t know, what? Like a really nice hat?” He grinned at her.
“Yeah you are. You’re not lost yet, and fuck, you could’ve been. But you’re not. You’re here. Badass.” and if it depended on her, he was going to stay. Not literally here, as she hoped they could all make it home eventually, but she would do her best to make sure he wasn’t lost; either to the drugs, or his illness. When he started to move Juno laid half her face onto her folded arms on top of her knee to look at him, smiling. It had been a while since she’d been in such close proximity with someone else consensually – thus, waking up next to Jim on the ground did not count – and though she was loathe to admit it, it provided a little inner warmth.
Chuckling lightly at the nice hat, Juno shrugged. “I dunno, I hadn’t thought about it to be honest. I just didn’t wanna get punished. But I could go for some laser tag, that’d be so cool! Total stress release too. I’m kinda curious what a spa day would be like, you know? People would go nuts for those.” she grinned, rolling her eyes. “But, I mean, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a really nice hat. What kind of hat did you have in mind? Or would we all get different ones?”
“I don’t know, I’m thinking something cool. Maybe those big Cat in the Hat ones? We can fill them with snacks so then they’ll stand up straight, and also, portable snacks. Oh! Wait, what am I thinking? We can ask for more of these great paintings.” Marco’s smile just grew, and at least for the moment he was genuinely happy. He still thought that she was wrong about him being badass, but he appreciated the thought.
“Um… You know, I was, though,” he said after a beat. He kept his smile, but his gaze no longer stayed fixed on Juno. “Lost, I mean. For a long time.” His smile started to lose the joy behind it, though he wore it still. “When my mom kicked me out, she didn’t leave me with any meds. Disability still got sent to her, so I couldn’t get any pills, and I just…” He shrugged. “I went away. I got bad.”
“Oh my God that is fucking terrifying. But hey, snacks, fuck it I’ll rock the big hat. Three of them if I have to.” Juno shut her eyes, nodding solemnly despite her face still being pressed down against her arms. “More paintings. Yes. Please. The heart wants what the heart wants.”
While Marco kept the smile, Juno’s grin faltered when he looked away and changed the subject. Once again she attempted to imagine what being lost like that had been like, and she kept coming up empty. Instead, all she could feel was a little heartbroken for Marco.
“But you made it back. I don’t know how, I can’t fucking begin to imagine, but you did.” she said softly. This time, it was her turn to reach out for his arm, then pause with her hand mid-air, curling up her fingers. Instead, she leaned her shoulder into his. “It’s not about never losing, dude, that’s impossible. You fall and you get back up, that’s badass. I don’t give a fuck what those assholes say, and I know it’s not the same thing you and I went through but it’d be so easy to just let go and get lost. I know it would. But you’re here. And I’m here. So fuck you, if I’m badass then so are you.”
Marco wanted to tell Juno that she wouldn’t like how he got by, and what made him find his way back. She wouldn’t like it, and he wasn’t going to tell her unless she asked. He just kept his head down, smiling softly. She even managed to get a little bit of a blush out of him. “Alright, alright, I’m a badass too. Jeez,” he joked. “Escucharte, siendo toda sabia.” He bumped his shoulder to hers again.
“You and I, we’ve really got to stop with these fucking emotions.” He smirked.
“Yeah asshole take the compliment.” Juno told him, chuckling lightly when he bumped his shoulder into hers again. “A broken clock, and all that.”
Nodding effusively, Juno ran her fingers through her hair for the tenth time that day. “I know, it’s disgusting. What did we talk about before we started pouring out our hearts and feelings all over each other, Marco? Let’s do that again.” before they could, however, Juno remembered something. “But first; did you take your meds and eat? All taken care of for now?”
Marco tipped his head back as he thought. He laughed just a little, grateful that she thought to ask, but still kind of surprised by her checking up on him. He slowly nodded. “I had to skip my morning dose, but I took my afternoon and evening dose, and… Yeah, I think I ate. Yeah, I had cereal too. You and Lennon are gonna have to fucking coordinate or something, I swear. Get one of those magnets that says the dog has been fed, but change it to The Marco. Wait, did I tell you that Lennon knows, too? I don’t fucking know.”
Then he chuckled. “I think our whole friendship was centered about how fucking great Star Wars is,” he told her.
Nodding, Juno smiled a little proudly that he was doing okay. And then she snorted, giving a headshake. “You’re not a fucking dog, Marco. Though if you wanna go on walks I guess we can swing that too.” Looking up in thought, Juno shrugged. “I don’t know. I think you might have. I was gonna message him today see if he wanted to hang out, but after all of this…”
Letting her voice trail off, Juno ended up laughing at how flimsy their ‘friendship’ sounded when put like that. Although that he called it a friendship at all warmed her up a little more. “We gotta branch out, then. There’s only three of those that count, the prequels were kinda crap and the extended universe which I don’t know a lot about was kinda invalidated when Disney came into the picture. So before I start rambling about The Warriors, what else do you think is pretty cool?”
Marco snickered and rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant,” he told her, smirking. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to do that too. Maybe we can all hang out together. I don’t think I’m his favorite person right now.” He shrugged. He did that himself, though.
He was a little worried to tell her that he hadn’t seen The Warriors in a long time, if at all. She clearly liked it a lot, since she’d mentioned it twice in their chat today. “I don’t know, I think a lot of stuff is cool? I mean… I don’t know. I like… stuff.” He laughed. “That’s a weird question. What do you like?”
“That would be awesome.” she sighed as Marco said he wasn’t Lennon’s favorite person right now. “You told him, huh? He’s friends with Chase. Don’t worry, he’ll come around. He’s cool.”
Marco’s extremely vague response was also extremely frustrating, and Juno groaned as she tilted her head and rolled her eyes. She decided to enumerate a bunch of stuff she liked in a boring, monotone voice. “I like carnival rides, walks on the beach, trap music, hair metal, rap music, EDM, chocolate, ice cream, eighties synth pop, running, weight lifting, reading, arcade games, eighties movies – they’re like, in a league of their own you know? I don’t know, a bunch of TV shows.” she shrugged, slapping her thigh impatiently. “I don’t know, man, stuff.”
Marco gave a half shrug, bring her shoulder along with it since they were still pressed against each other. “Kind of had to, since Cecilia put up a message about the blood. Apparently I’m enough of a fuck-up that people see a trail of blood and people can just kind of, um, guess.” He frowned and shook his head. “But he’s seen me on two of my bad days, so I don’t blame him for thinking… Whatever. Anyway.”
He made a face, responding to each thing as she named it. “Never been, like that, don’t know what that is, yes, okay, don’t know, yes, yes, yes, no, no, not good at reading, eh, yes.” He just grinned as she went off on her little tangent about eighties movies, then laughed as she seemed to grow more frustrated. He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I like, um, comics? Or I used to. And, uh… classic movies. Chaplin, Marx brothers, that sort of shit. And… uh… not having seizures? I don’t know. I don’t actually, um, do much. I like popcorn.”
Instead of dragging the subject Juno stayed quiet, but ended up pressing her shoulder lightly against his again in some useless show of support. She wondered just how bad Marco’s bad days were, if Lennon would immediately think he had been responsible for the blood.
It was amusing to hear the short responses he gave to each thing she listed, though Juno did not understand his grin at the eighties movies thing. It was true! They were different from anything that came before and after. She couldn’t imagine Big Trouble in Little China to have come out any other decade. “Oh yeah, you into Marvel and DC and stuff? I don’t know, when you live in the city they’re all supposed to live in but there’s never a hero anywhere in sight in real life you kinda…it kinda loses its glow.” She gave an eyebrow raise at the classics though. “Oooh, the classics. Never seen many of those, actually.”
She blinked at his mention of seizures. Nobody liked having those, and it was one thing that was not like the others. The popcorn made her laugh. “Hey I like popcorn too! How’s about, now that you’re in a rich person’s death trap where there’s usually sometime between actual torture and, what would you call it, down time with an actual bunch of shit to do- how about you start doing stuff? Like, I dunno, let’s take a walk while eating popcorn. I’d take you on the Wonder Wheel if we had one, you’d either love it or hate it. Probably hate it.”
Suddenly, Juno had an idea and she turned excitedly to face Marco, though she kept the closeness they had maintained until then. “You could teach me your psychic tricks! If you made a living off of it you had to be good right?”
Marco chewed on his lip to hide a frown. He hadn’t thought about fact that the heroes were in New York, that they weren’t helping people who needed help. People like Juno. He couldn’t say much about that, other than that they weren’t real. That didn’t matter much to a kid, especially one who was looking for a hero. He focused on the classic movies instead. “No? My Abuela, she used to sit me down in front of the TV for the marathons on Turner Classics. She liked the silent movies because her english wasn’t great, and then I just wouldn’t realize that the other black and white movies were different movies, so I’d just think they were talking now. And now I can just focus on silent movies better. But Groucho Marx is amazing. I fucking wish I was as quick as that guy. They’ve gotta have at least A Day At The Races here…” He hadn’t actually looked for that one, though he was pretty sure he saw The Gold Rush sitting in the theater.
“I guess I need to find something to keep myself busy. All of my free time before went to.. Well. You know.” He shrugged. “What’s a Wonder Wheel?” He was actually pretty surprised when she started in on his psychic routine. “You really wanna know?” he wondered. He was good at it, but still. “It kind of takes the magic out of it if you know the behind the scenes.”
Marco’s story about his grandmother was surprisingly endearing, and Juno’s smile reflected that same endearment as he went on to tell it. If her own grandmother had lived closer, perhaps her whole life would have been different. Juno both liked and hated to think so; then again, abuela had died when she was very little, so there was no point in thinking about her. She focused instead on imagining little Marco and his abuela watching silent movies. Happier times for sure.
“Um, the Wonder Wheel is that huge ferris wheel in Coney Island. Except some of the cars slide on tracks really fast so it’s a bit of a thrill when they do. Kinda like a rollercoaster ferris wheel, you feel like you’ll be launched into the air when it slides. But only if you wanna.” Her smile turned dreamy. “And you can see everything from up there. It’s even better at night with all the lights.”
When Marco questioned her will to hear about his psychic exploits, Juno stretched out her arms, palms up as if to ask why she wouldn’t want to know. It sounded fun, and intriguing, and a little bit useful maybe. Juno rolled her eyes as he started in on ‘the magic’ of it. “Dude. It’s highly unlikely I will ever consult any psychic, let alone you. Now come on, spill.”
“The cars move?” Marco asked with such energy that it came across as being the wildest thing he’d heard. It wasn’t sarcastic, either. He was genuinely floored by the idea of it. “Holy shit. I’ve never been on a roller coaster. Or a ferris wheel. Coney Island is where you get the hot dogs, right?” He couldn’t help but smile at Juno’s new demeanor at the thought of the skyline. He liked when she was happy. “I bet it’s really pretty at night. It always looks pretty in pictures.”
He made a face as she pressured him to tell her about his psychic skills. “It’s, um… You ever heard of a cold read? There’s a bunch of steps, but basically, you just tell people obvious shit, and then stuff they want to hear. Like… Okay. This would all work easier in, like, the library, or something that looked a little more mystical. I have this plush red chair, with the old curly wooden arms and legs back home, and it’s just a fucking chair, but it sets the mood, you know? And then,” he cleared his voice, then softened his tone, and let his head tilt to the side, just a little. “You talk calmly and you smile, and you’re sympathetic to the shit that they think is actually a problem in their life. You can take their hand, since you’re making a connection.” He took one of her hands in his, his palm flat against the back of her hand, so her palm was up. Then he laughed. “Your hands are cold.”
He continued, still holding her hand. “Okay, so you listen, and you make sure they know that being psychic is a gift, but it’s not always one hundred percent right. Sometimes you need guidance. Then you start. And people are predictable, they usually come to you wanting to know about love, health, travel, jobs, money, education, and ambition. I had someone come to me once wanting to know if there was a way to murder their boss and not get caught, and that one was kind of fucking weird, but usually it’s not that.” He smirked.
Juno found it surprising that Marco would be excited by the prospect of the Wonder Wheel’s cars moving, but she grinned and nodded. “Yeah! It’s like, you feel like you’re being launched forward and into the air, like you’re about to fly or fall. But then of course you don’t. But you’re on the very edge of the wheel, everything you see around you out of the car is air. If you sit in front, anyway. There’s hot dogs, pretzels, all kinds of carnival food. And it is, the lights hitting the sea, the lights all around you…” Juno sighed. “I miss it. Whenever I could spring for it, hell I would even go a month on ramen if that meant a Wonder Wheel ride and a hot dog once in a while.”
She had heard of telling people the obvious stuff, it seemed like solid logic. Despite feeling a little bad for the people who were desperate enough to fall for it, she was excited to hear – and see – Marco ‘at work’. “Oh yeah, mood’s important in everything. White light won’t do-” she commented, words dying in her throat when Marco’s demeanor and voice changed. Juno tilted her head back a bit, eyes narrowing. She started when he took her hand, looked down as he mentioned it being cold, and then chuckled softly. “Sorry.”
As Marco spoke Juno nodded, smile still in place. She hadn’t met many people, but even still she never thought she would meet a professional psychic. Even if it was all bullshit. “Well I told my boss to go fist herself once; we all have our issues with our bosses. But anyway, you guide them where they wanna go, more or less, right? Where would you guide me?”
“All the lights reflecting off the water? Yeah, that… That sounds really pretty. I’d almost want to do the wheel without the crazy stuff, just because it sounds really… I don’t know. Calm, I guess.” And calm was so hard to come by some days.
He laughed at the idea of Juno telling that to her boss. “How does someone fist themself?” he wondered, laughing. “They probably deserved it.”
Then he was quiet as he thought about her question. Where would he guide her? “Well,” he started, his head tilted as he considered. “What I’m getting from you right now is you’re someone who can generally be trusted. You’re not perfect, or a saint or anything, but you’re trustworthy. You understand the importance of being a good friend.” He smiled down at their hands. “Okay, that’s cheating a little, because I know you.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s not peaceful because it’s in the middle of an amusement park, but if you bring some headphones with you, some music you like, you can totally chill out up there for a while. Some days it isn’t even full, so it’s almost like you’ve got the place to yourself.” Juno smiled. “I’ll take you there someday.” It was good to have dreams.
Laughing along with Marco, she shrugged. “Fuck knows, she’ll figure it out.”
There was a pang of nervousness when Marco seemed to be considering her question; even though she had asked, Juno wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. As he spoke, her brow furrowed more and more. She was inclined to not believe him, not just because he bullshitted this stuff for a living, but because it all sounded so far removed from who she saw herself as. “So…you mean that? You’re cheating because you’re telling the truth?” her voice was filled with scepticism, even some confusion. “You really think that?”
Marco’s face fell at the sound of her scepticism. His hand fell away from hers. “You don’t think that?” he asked, and suddenly felt like he’d made a terrible mistake. He shook his head just so he could clear it, stammering nervously before he could get words to form. “The thing about this is, it’s a general phrase that most people can relate to. There’s like an eighty percent chance that that’ll make sense to you. But, um… Yeah. I picked that one because I mean that. You could have run screaming from me, when you found out everything. You had every right to tell me to, uh, well, fist myself.” He managed a lopsided smile at his clever callback.
“But you didn’t, and you’re my friend, and I trust you,” he told her softly.
The second Marco’s face fell, Juno knew she had fucked this up. Whatever this one, this little moment, slam dunked in the trash. She had done this before, and still it looked like she would never learn. Her hand had warmed somewhat when he held it with his, but it felt cold again now. It seemed that she was the other twenty percent to whom the phrase didn’t really ring true. When Marco told her he had meant it, and went on to explain why, Juno’s brow scrunched up in endearment again, a hint of longing. She had never heard herself called a friend before, let alone a good one.
“I’m…” she chuckled faintly, shaking her head as she lowered it. “I’m not used to that. Friends. I mean I know people I don’t totally hate, you know, who don’t totally hate me either, but they’re either total dicks or I just fuck it up. Some distance is usually observed. Long distance. For how much I could use an actual friend, you’d think I’d have learned not to be such a fucking asshole but...”
He had no reason to lie, though. And Juno knew she had been there for him where she supposed most people would have bolted. So maybe, he did trust her. Maybe they were friends. And maybe that was okay. One good thing in the middle of all B-series horror movie bullshit. The words almas gemelas came to mind again. She smiled, head still low as she wasn’t too keen on looking up at Marco right now. “Now I guess I’m your asshole.” she said softly, faintly, as if afraid to say the words.
Marco remained silent a moment, unsure of the right way to respond. When he came up short, he just laughed. “Cabrón. I like it. Fuck, we all know that I’m a huge fucking asshole, so you have no complaints from me. We’ll be each other’s assholes. Which, taken literally, just sounds really fucking gross, right?” He laughed again. “We’ll take over this fucked up operation, one dick move at a time.” He smiled at her, watching expectantly, waiting for her to smile back. He really hoped she smiled back, and he hadn’t just responded wrong. It was a possibility, he supposed.
“Kind of weird that it took getting kidnapped to find friends for some of us, right?” he added, more gently. “I get where you’re coming from, there. Of course I do.”
Juno didn’t know what reaction she had been expecting Marco to have. Silence she could handle. Laughter made her raise her head in fear, mouth twisting slowly into a snarl. She was sure he was about to laugh at her and her stupid fucking feelings. But then he didn’t, and Juno stared in disbelief from the whiplash that only her thoughts had caused. Marco was being accepting, even aligning himself with her. And being crass, which in her somewhat shell-shocked state made her chuckle for only a second without showing on her face. When he smiled, however, Juno shed her shock slowly and smiled right back, bright and wide. Still, there was disbelief there. And yet, she felt invigorated by the prospect of taking over this entire thing one dick move at a time. That, she could commit to.
He had a point. A sad one, but a point nonetheless. Juno would never admit out loud how much it meant to her that he understood, but in a way she never actually thought possible outside of books, the notion made her actually feel a little warmer.
“Of course you do.” she repeated, smile turning soft again as she looked down at her hands, then his. In a murmur, she added, “Thank God someone finally does.”
Marco kept the smile and nudged his shoulder against hers again. So maybe he’d have a buddy for the end of the world. If he would have to adapt and clean up, then he was grateful for Juno. Hell, he was grateful for her either way. Finding people who stuck with him through his insanity and stupidity had never seemed possible, and now, somehow, he’d managed to end up in a house with a few people who were willing to give him a shot. Maybe this time, maybe with their help, he wouldn’t blow it.
His smile grew a bit mischievous. He placed two fingers up against his temple, squinting slightly, in a pose that he had dubbed the Professor X. “Oh, oh, so the spirits are telling me that you… Wait, slow down, they talk so fast sometimes… I’m seeing some sort of electronic? Maybe a phone, or a TV, and it used to work, but it doesn’t anymore. Is this something that relates to you? And they’re showing me the number two. Now what does that mean?”
As a reflex Juno brought a palm to rest against Marco’s arm briefly when he nudged her. When he brought his fingers up to his forehead Juno rolled her eyes, already expecting some psychic bullshit to come out of all this. She wasn’t wrong, or disappointed. Juno laughed silently as Marco went on to show her exactly how that whole ‘something that anyone relates to’ thing worked. When he asked her what it meant, Juno gasped audibly, eyes widened comically. “Wow! That is amazing! I’m about to throw the phone and the monitor at your head, that’s two electronics that will stop working you really are the real deal. Astounding.”
Shaking her head as she cracked a smirk, Juno found herself hoping – again with hope – he would stay the course and recover. Now he was here, she didn’t want to lose him, which was terrifying. She hadn’t wanted to get too personal, but that was all out the window now. Because friends. Something good to get used to, as opposed to pretty much every new thing in the past few weeks. Except the room, of course.