Chapter Text
WARNING
This series contains themes and graphic implications of
Pedophilia, underage-sex, abuse, and mental health issues.
Viewer discretion is advised.
“Something is different about the world.”
“Colors are brighter, the air is fresher, and I am no longer around other people.”
“...”
“I’m alone. For once in my life…. I’m not sure I like it.”
For Today, all Marco could get done was one simple entry on his morning breakfast. Today Star barged into his room and badgered him until he got up, all so for once he could eat with everyone else instead of re-heating sad-stale cereal around lunch.
For all of Marco’s catty hostility towards the girl, it was things like this that reserved for her a warm, fragile place in his heart.
Speaking of fragile things….
In the distance Marco heard a vase shatter, sighed, and pushed his chair away from the table.
He walked at a leisurely pace to the hallway between the washroom and the kitchen, and stood, arms crossed disappointed in front of Star, and his mother’s prized antique.
“Star…”
“I know what you’re gonna say, Marco! But I SWEAR! It wasn’t me this time!” Star shot up in a flurry, hands flying everywhere in a motion not dissimilar to a tornado. Marco’s eyes languidly tracked each and every direction Star moved in as if she was the equivalent of a lichtenberg scar. She busied herself around the hallway, finding the broom, abandoning the broom, finding something to hide the shards in, finding nothing, pulling out her wand as if she JUST realized it was there…
Marco couldn’t help himself, he snorted.
Star swung her head to the direction the ironic giggles were coming from, head tilted in confused-offence. “Hey! What are you laughing at!”
She punched his arm and that jerked Marco out of his laughing fit. He looked up into her eyes, glitter in his normally abysmal eyelids and said: “Nothing, just glad I met you.”
It was like watching a human blue-screen in real time.
Star’s eyes, an animation of glitter and glimmers stuttered to frozen static. Her smile freeze-framed and all her normal jumpy adhd mannerisms left her all at once.
“Hehe.”
Star’s awkward breaths were the only thing that filled the suddenly loud silence.
“Y-yeah…. I’m glad I met you too! Bro!” She bopped him softly on the arm.
Sure, Star could hit harder, she could break a Monster’s skull with nothing but fists and grit.
So tell him why that awkward little-touch sent an ache straight to his soul that broke it to pieces.
Marco quickly covered up any hurt shown on his face and put on a forced glimmering smile. “Yeah! Th-thanks.. Star.”
Star got an awkward steel-toned smile.
God! Why did Marco have to ruin everything?
Star And Marco would've spent more minutes burning in the awkward silence. But thankfully a guy approached pulling them out of it.
“Marco! It’s time for school!”
Unfortunately that guy was his dad.
“Dad!” Marco hated the way his voice lilted to a whine at the end. “School isn’t even in session! It’s fucking summer!”
“Oh?” Marco’s dad turned on his heel, crossing his arms over his burly chest. “We’re yelling now? Are we?”
Marco hated his innocuous-seeming stance. Hated the way his voice was carefully monotone yet lilted near the end with just a bit of what was underneath. He hated the way he could show his disappointment, lack of care and threaten him subtly all at once!
He hated that he was the only one who could see it.
Hated how crazy that made him feel when he spoke up about it.
Marco didn’t even notice the cool sting of tears near his eye before Star wrapped a hand over his.
And he didn’t catch the slight wince Star felt when he wrapped around it like a vice-grip.
Too much was happening in his mind, behind his face. Yet all the same, he sighed and let the anger, hurt, fear, resentment, flush out his skin, leaving a cool tint on the surface.
“No, Dad. I’m not angry.”
“No one said you were angry-”
“I’M NOT ANGRY!”
The silence came with a vengeance. Flooding each and every nook and cranny of the claustrophobic box they found themselves in. Star’s eye flickered from Rafeal Diaz, to his son who started looking less and less like him everyday. He doubts she picked up on the silent conversation happening between them. He doubts she ever will. He doubts that Star, brave, kind and beautiful will ever see the fat-ass elephant in the room.
“Well… Come on, Marco!” She cut through the silence as if handling a sword. “We’ve gotta get you dressed! Can’t wear that same-old hoodie to this part-ayy!!” Star lit up, and dragged Marco out the room, running up the stairs to throw him into her tower.
And Marco just kept quiet, along for the ride, and letting Star’s warm sugary, unstable energy soothe what he could not at the moment.
The old, authentic chestnut door groaned shut, sealing Star And Marco in a world far enough from earth that no Jack-asses could hurt them. When she turned on Marco though, her smile fainted, once again.
“Marco… Why do you look like that?”
“Look like what?”
Marco couldn’t see his face, and all Star could see was a mannequin mask in likeness of Marco’s face. So oddly still and uncomfortably empty.
“Like you’re possessed? Is there a monster in you? Is monster arm back! Can I check underneath your skin just to make sure.” Marco didn’t know, what he was expecting Star to do when she was finally chest to back with him, but it certainly was not try to actually peel open his fucking skin.
“AH! Star!” Marco pushed her off and turned full face to her with his hands on his hips and blood finally circulating through his facial muscles.
“MARCO, THIS IS SERIOUS! THERE’S AN ELDRITCH PARASITE LIVIN IN UR BOD-AYY!” Marco had to physically hold Star away from him lest he have violently long scars he could not explain to his school-mates.
And y’know, maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t eaten well in a long time, or something to do with spending a year around Star, but he was finally realizing just how strong this girl really is.
“Guh- Star! Get off of me!”
Surprise! She didn’t get off of him.
The spontaneous tussle kept on. Groans and breaths permeated throughout the room until Star’s hand brushed his left pec…
Baby…
Slap!
It was surreal. Surreal in that way he fucking hated.
One minute he was having a frankly expected redundant fight with Star and the next. He was staring at a shell-shocked expression as a plum-red bloomed on her face.
Marco pushed down the sensation of his hand stinging, he had to focus on what was at hand.
But…
No matter how many words his brain churned out, for once it was like Marco had to hack out what he wanted to say. As if his throat went numb, as if his tongue turned to stone. His eyes traced Star’s bedroom floor with no particular intent in mind except to move, and keep blood flowing throughout them.
“I-I’m sorry?”
Crap.
When he looked at Star he saw something he wasn’t expecting…
Sure he probably should’ve! He should have expected this, who would be sunshine and rainbows after someone slaps him.
…But Star only ever gave that look to Monsters. Not to him.
And in a flash, that look was gone, covered up by something he used to interpret as real, but now had its authenticity compromised.
“Let’s…Let’s get ready, yeah?” Star didn’t wait for a response, she brushed past Marco’s rather clueless form. Walking out her room to her bathroom.
W-what did he do?
He looked down to his hands, a prickling sensation coated his skin.
Everything was so normal before… Then something… cold just came over him and he slapped Star. He fucking slapped Star!
Shivers wracked throughout his body. Star looked at him as if he was a monster, Star left the room to change, as if he was a predator, Star avoided him because she’s…. Afraid.
Of him.
Star is afraid of him.Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
Star is afraid of him.
He has to make this right.
Marco rushed into the bathroom, finding Star doing her makeup by the mirror. He wasted no time with pleasantries.
“I got afraid! The last time someone touched me there-” Marco was cut off by a gulp. Not now, throat. “It-It wasn’t…” He gulped again. “It-it wasn’t.” Come on brain, don’t fail me now!
Through the haze of his heartbeat, the rush of blood, Star locked eyes with Marco. “It wasn’t what? Marco.”
And the sentence he was trying to spew out was spontaneously de-railed by the small edge of impatience he caught.
“It-It wasn;’t…” Tears stained his face and a bit of his hoodie.
Star sighed, giving up on him. “It’s ok, Marco. You just had a moment.”
She applied foundation to her cheeks, eyes never breaking contact with the mirror.
“We all have our moments. Don’t we?”
She…
She…
She can’t fucking compare me to her mom!
Marco’s body felt like it was in the middle of a seizure. But despite everything, he flipped it around, and started hobbling out Star’s en-suite and room.
He fell into his room, door banging as it made contact with the wall. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps and hurriedly clicked it close softly. He shuffled over to his bed. But didn’t feel tired. He went to pace around his room. But felt too fatigued. He even went to his window, to “Watch the birds” or whatever. But nothing could satiate the reckless grating demon possessing his body as his own.
…
…
He luckily… had a plan for this.
His eyes, calm for the first time in what felt like forever, swooped over to his scissors.
Symptom 1: Indigestion.
After a while, the blood stopped flowing and the tears, staining his parchment dried setting it off color. Marco came back to himself in a haze, but feeling much better all things considered.
Star Butterfly.
Not enough to deal with his issues, but enough to at least… exist.
That can be enough right?
Marco let a small smile slip onto his face. Looking down at his journal, he thought the entry was a little… bare. Luckily! He had the perfect idea for the aesthetic of it!
He got up, picked up his scissors ignoring the dried hot blood on it, and went to his toybox of magazines and photographs.
He shuffled around, riffling through seas and folds of papers and monograms, as if he were a child digging around for his favorite candy.
“Come on, now… I knew Jackie gave me this a week ago… It can’t be that deep in there, can it?” He plunged deeper into the depths, until his hands hooked on the smooth, warm, leather cover of Jackie’s birthday gift to him.
He lit up and quickly fished it out from the pile! Here it was!
The Butterfly Obituary
A book detailing different species of butterflies all around the world.
Marco cradled the book in his lap, admiring the cover as the conversation he had with Jackie played through his eyes.
NO SIGNAL
NO SIGNAL
NO SIG-
—--
It was just another day. Marco was scribbling in his sketchbook while the chaos of the class droned on in the background. Star was babbling on about some gum she found under the desk or something, some kid was lecturing a circle of kidnapees on the dangers of being rebellious and the teacher was snoring by the desk.
Marco realized halfway in he was sketching a butterfly.
He ripped out that page. And moved on to another one.
“Yo”
Behind him, Jackie emerged from the back drop of their biology classroom, and plunked in the seat next to him. That seat wasn't assigned to anyone, so Janna and Jackie used it as a sort of office space when they wanted to talk to Marco.
Marco's face split in two with a smile. “Hi Jackie! “ he crooned.
Jackie's face bloomed with a smile a few mega-watts short of his own. She tore a rucksack out of her school bag, foregoing cleaning up the mess of pencils that came afterwards, and threw it on Marco's table.
“Got you something~” Something Marco always appreciated about Jackie is that she made eye contact with him. It made him feel seen, made him feel important to someone.
Marco’s face sparkled as his clapped his hands together in excitement and adoration. Sparing not a thought, he untangled the knot on the rucksack and pulled out what mightve been a work of art.
“Jackie…”
Marco, for once, wasn't scrambling for something to say, wasn't paying attention to his body cues, his facial expressions, or anything. His mind was hijacked with the need to commit every bit of the leatherbound Grimoire in front of him, to memory.
“I… I…”
Jackie watched him throughout all of it, silently eating up his slack jawed expressions and little puffs of praise. Without warning, Marco leapt into Jackie's arms with wild abandon and hugged her tight. Jackie, momentarily struck, ran her fingers through his hair.
“Thank you… “
Marco gave the grimoire appraisal by lightly scratching his fingers across the surface.
The book not only carried the widest encyclopedia of butterfly breeds across the world, it also held blank spaces for the owner to right their own thoughts and studies! Granted, Marco didn't use it for that purpose. He started out hoping to find butterflies to study out in the wild, but as most things go with him, it didn't fit into his routine and was eventually rendered nigh.
So… He used it for diary entries instead.
The paper was just so beautiful, and the dotted lines so inviting. After hard days and harder fights he would find himself curled over its sandalwood parchment, scribbling in his worst thoughts, his darkest secrets, and fondest desires.
Marco tucked the leatherbound slab between his arms and closed his chest with a jovial kick of the foot. He walked to his desk, laden with empty perfume bottles and a vat of ink, and set his Journal down. Opening it to a page in the middle.
What greeted him was an opaque spread of the Limentis Arthemis or, “Red Spotted Purple.” A little intake of breath signified his pleasure, this breed of butterfly was one of the most interesting of its kind. It was described in the book as an interesting hybrid between Mimetic and non-Mimetic breeds.
A creature who was the perfect composition of their habitat and their own unique structure… breathtaking. A perfect balance between identity and belonging.
He would give anything to be like that.
Marco went on to splatter the events of the day onto the parchment. With every stroke comparable to an incision, he felt his muscles uncoil, with every puddle of ink that bled across the page, he felt his heart settle. And with the final apostrophe looped in elegant cursive, he felt a feeling of satiety settle on his chest.
Marco heard a great big thump from the hallway near him, ugh, Star…. What is he ever gonna do with you?
Marco closed his journal, locking the cover with a ribbon dead-bolt Janna gifted him a few months ago. Before he opened his door however, he caught sight of his reflection in his shoddy floor-length mirror.
Noticing the dry crusted streak down the concave of his cheek he thought.
Damn, what a reflection it is.
He left the room, with his head down, and a silent prayer on his lips.