Chapter Text
"This pizza might just be one of the best yet."
She can feel the familiarity of those words as Marco opens the cardboard box. The pizza smells appealing, more so when compared to the slice she had eaten the day before. She tries to focus on the smell as Marco takes his seat next to her. It's a routine, she knows this and has it memorized from a million do-overs playing on repeat in her mind
The covers are on them as he eases himself beside her, their shoulders brushing together. His free arm holds the remote and turns on the TV. There's a click, switch, and then the screen pops an image of a flashing title. Moon does her best to pay attention but the heat that radiates off his sweater onto her unclothed skin sends a shiver down her spine she can't suppress in time. He feels it, she can tell with the side glance he gives her and the way he shifts his body to get closer to her as he pulls the covers higher. He likely thought she was just cold it but was more than that. She couldn't even breathe the way she usually did to calm herself; it frazzled her.
There's only one solution.
She closes her eyes and wills her body to unwind. Her mind is both her oasis and her clutch; a blackhole that she had no idea where it would take her. She bites the inside of her left cheek and opens her eyes once more. Thankfully she can see from her peripheral vision that Marco is actively paying attention to the program. She knows she ought to do the same and wishes she could but still isn't quite able to. She still feels the warmth but unlike all the times she has tried to ease away from it she's doing her best to ease into it.
Moon feels the panic signals flair as her mind laughs at her for being so weak. She doesn't see the zombies on the screen, can't even think to tell Marco who now is fully regarding her with his gaze that she's scared, hear him laugh because he knows the girl that he's seeing would never shake at Hollywood terror films, then laugh along as though it was some big joke but feel a burst of relief because she was able to ease into the normalcy of this world. Instead of those hypothetical what-ifs all Moon can think to do is pull herself out of this mess with a smile but she knows, knows from the reflection in his eyes that it's just a big mess of a failed attempt. She's ready for the worst, for him to be suspicious or ask her if she wanted to talk about it but then-
Talk? Talk about what? How I am a fake-a lie and your Star is somewhere else and I never intended for any of this to happ-
"This movie blows. Wanna watch another one?"
Her jaw goes slack.
He has to know. There's no way Marco can't know. This wasn't the way her daughter would act. She couldn't even make the excuse of it being a joke because Star's humor didn't run that way. That's when it hits her; he's ignoring it. He can see she's not acting the way she ought to and rather than confront her about it he is letting it slide similar to the way he was slowly easing himself away from her side.
Moon doesn't know how to take it. She's never had anyone notice something and turn a blind eye to it, much less out of consideration because she knows that's why Marco was doing it. He's being considerate towards her, the girl he sees who he knows has a different life that he's probably thought over by himself and tried to understand to the best of his abilities but fully can't because of the way he was raised and sees the world around him-
Moon, you're overthinking again.
The thought brings her back to Earth and the sight of Marco watching the TV. Did he change the program? She can't tell; she hadn't been paying attention to the first. But she sees a pair of friends sitting in a living room similar to theirs laughing amongst each other. She hears him laugh too and sees that he's lost himself to the program. Then it hits her that she had spent time, however short it may have been, so lost in her thoughts that she lost the chance to feebly attempt to explain herself and, most of all, had her shoulder still beside his. Had she slumped onto him? When? She can't even feel the warmth anymore, as though it had merged with her own body heat. They were radiating the same heat.
She bit her tongue. Because that was what she did. How she was raised, how she existed. She didn't have it in her to yell it. She could yell in the battlefield for her people, for a cause that was above her own but when it came to this...the words couldn't come out of her mouth let alone properly form themselves.
Breathe in, breathe out.
She does this.
Marco ignores it.
The woman on the TV is crying alone in the livingroom.