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There’s a knock on the door but it opens before Julia can say “come in” or even look up from the mess of the time machine and spell binder before her. She’s been trying to figure out that time rewinding spell the Free Trader Beowulf performed one time. It’s only been a few months but to Julia it feels like it has been lightyears since what now feels like a much simpler time, and right now—in this time—she’s desperate to not feel useless despite her invisible-Dokkaebi-killer circumstances.
“Hi,” comes a stilted voice in the doorway.
It’s Penny. Julia’s brain short circuits for a brief moment. Penny is probably the last person she expected to come talk to her alone. Or Margo, her mind supplies. Most likely Margo, but Penny is a definitive second.
“Hi?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” Penny gruffs. Then adds, “about Kady.”
Julia isn’t sure her eyebrows can contort any more than they already have.
“Okay…” Julia scoots over to make room for him.
“I’m not gonna sit,” Penny is quick to announce. “I don’t do that shit. Too intimate.”
Julia blinks at him, slowly, and for the first time, she sees him. To be fair to herself—which she almost never is—she’s never really been around the guy before. She’s never really been around any of them—Quentin’s friends that is. They hate her and she can’t really blame them. Or, well, not entirely.
Regardless, for some reason, Julia sees Penny. The little kid inside of him. That’s all he is. Well, a scared little asshole kid. She hasn’t forgotten how he destroyed her chances of killing Reynard when she literally had him right in front of her, but despite that low-simmering fury, something in her relates to that scared little kid inside of him.
“Look,” Penny starts. “Like I said, I don’t do this shit.” Julia squints at him. Yes, like you already said, she thinks. “But Kady…” Penny trails off. “I care about her, okay? A lot.”
I do too, the voice in Julia’s head sounds before she’s even aware she’s thinking it.
“She says she owes you. But from where I’m standing, she doesn’t owe you a damn thing,” Penny lets the cutting words sit in the air that surrounds the two of them, as though he’s reveling in the minute way she flinches when he says them.
“I want to know why she feels responsible,” Penny blurts once he seems to have decided he’s made her squirm for long enough. Straight and to the point, like ripping off a bandaid. Julia can respect that. But then he fumbles. “For…” A look of discomfort crosses over Penny’s face, like for a split second he actually considers how what he says could make Julia feel. It oddly makes her uncomfortable, and she’s grateful when it only lasts that split second. “...what happened to you or whatever.”
Or whatever. Mind Julia scoffs at Penny’s word choice while Body Julia drops eye contact. Despite Penny’s lack of care being a welcome contrast to the—at times—suffocating concern of Quentin and Kady, it seems her mind doesn’t get to control the automatic responses of her nervous system. Involuntary flashes of—Blood. Her fault—that day—Richard’s blood. Her fault—seep from the tiny boxes—Her friends' blood. Her fault—she has desperately tried—their eyes draining of life as their souls leave their bodies. Her fault—to lock them into. Just yet another thing she gets to add to the painfully growing list of things she does not get to control.
Julia’s eyes slam shut, the flashes becoming more intense. Kady trembling underneath the table. Her fault. Reynard. On top of her. Inside—
Julia gives a vicious shake of her head, hoping the tightness in her chest and the threat of tears stinging the rims of her eyes would disappear along with the hauntings and the thick, cloying nausea that sits in her throat—whether it’s from the memories or the trickster God fetus inside of her, she doesn’t know. It doesn’t disappear, though. None of it does. So instead she blinks, hard, and casts a silent and temporary mind-clearing spell. The effects of which are blissfully immediate as she feels the stormcloud of memories travel away—back into her tiny boxes. Julia sighs; she can breathe again.
“You… okay?” It’s said like it pains him to even ask. You know, the woman who is responsible for the death of his friend, his… girlfriend’s? pain and pretty much their whole entire fucked up situation.
“Fine,” Julia supplies, but not even the ghost of a smile graces her lips. She’s not trying to convince anyone. That’s quite clear. “What, um—” Julia swallows down the last remnants of her nausea and rubs her palms over her legging-clad thighs. “What do you want to know, exactly?”
“I just said…” Penny starts off exasperated but he has the decency to look apologetic for a mere moment—not that Julia would know; she’s looking at the hardwood floors, not him—as he takes in the obvious nervous mannerisms of the woman sitting in front of him. What? He’s not obtuse; he just chooses not to engage and this—insert a figurative gesture to his surroundings—isn’t his problem, but he huffs and squats down so he’s level with Julia anyway. “Kady feels responsible to help you out and she won’t tell me why so… I thought maybe you could.” Julia doesn’t respond. Or move, really. Should he like, get someone or—“Or something."
Penny starts to stand back up.
When Julia speaks, it’s a challenge.
“And you thought I would tell you, why?” She’s looking at him again now.
Okay, now he’s starting to actually get annoyed.
“Because I asked nicely?”
Julia scoffs—laughs?—at that. “Yeah, well, in my experience people don’t usually get what they want just because they ask nicely.”
Penny narrows his eyes at her. The hell is her problem?
“I’m trying to be nice here,” His irritation seeps into his words now as he stares into Julia’s eyes. They kind of skeeve him out, to be honest. Have they always been this hollow? This depressive? He guesses he wouldn’t know, regardless. Jesus, they’re worse than Quentin’s and he thought Quentin’s were impossible to beat. Her eyes are lit with a challenging fire but it’s almost like he can see it fading back into this sad nothingness as the seconds pass. It’s giving him the heebie jeebies. Moving on. “Your wards are pretty strong—impressive even, I might say—but I’m sure I could get past them with just a bit of effort.” Julia’s eyes widen at that, panic flashing within them. “We could skip this whole pointless talking to each other thing and I could just pop in and find out myself.” Julia recognizes that he’s goading her and her jaw tightens. “If that’s what you’d prefer.”
Julia huffs. That’s definitely not what she would prefer, and he knows that. Fine, he wins.
“I’m assuming you know about the…” The nauseating sensation of her nails clawing against the hardwood tiles zaps through Julia’s body and she shudders. Swallows. Blinks. “...the summoning, right?”
“That idiotic plan to summon a fucking Goddess that actually brought a murderous trickster God who nearly killed Kady to Earth and massacred all the other poor idiots working with you? Yeah, I’m familiar.” Julia sucks in a breath and averts her gaze, keenly aware of exactly what Penny is omitting from his harebrained recounting of the event. The message is all the same though: her fault.
“Quentin told us after you backstabbed us in Fillory and stole the damn Leo Blade and The Beast.” Julia nods, tense as she tries to wrestle with the rising conflictions of shame towards herself and anger towards Penny for blaming her for things that felt so egregiously out of her own control. “And Kady told me she was involved like, five minutes ago so…”
The mention of Kady allows for the shame to win.
“Right,” Julia blows out a breath and weakly adds, “That’s pretty much the gist.”
Penny waits for Julia to add something—anything—else but she doesn’t. Christ, this chick is stubborn.
“So why does Kady feel responsible when you are the one who nearly got her killed?”
Julia once again closes her eyes against the onslaught of memories her temporary mind-clearing spell could no longer hold back.
Julia’s feet are frozen in place. Have been since the moment she noticed something was wrong with their spell. Kady had the wherewithal to slide under the table in Julia’s living room as soon as Reynard appeared. She cowers there, silent sobs wracking her frame and giant tears streaming down her face as The Fox calls her name in his sickeningly sweet, singsongy voice.
“Kady…”
Julia’s heart is lodged in her throat, thrumming a million beats per minute. Her friends lay dead with slashed throats just a few steps away. And Kady…
Kady is mouthing at her to run. Pleading with her—to run. Run away and save herself. But Julia can’t and she won’t. Her desperate quest for magic and power killed Kady’s mother and now… it has killed their friends. She is the one who believed Our Lady Underground had come to her, had chosen her. As though she was special, something she has so thoroughly been told she’s not her entire life. If she hadn’t bulldozed headfirst into the first deity who approached her; if she had talked it over with the others first then maybe, just maybe, they would still be alive and Kady wouldn’t be clinging to the legs of her fucking living room table in fear for her life.
A taunt in Kady’s direction rips Julia from her spiral of self-blame. Her eyes latch onto the way Kady is trembling and Julia’s chest squeezes in a protective urge so much more intense than anything she has ever felt before. The predatory nature of Reynard the Fox’s tone and movements unfreezes Julia and sends her stumbling forward on shaky limbs. She has no clue what he intends to do to Kady—if it’s even anything other than kill her—but she knows that she cannot let any of it happen. She forces herself in front of Reynard, creating a body of distance between him and the woman Julia cannot bear to let him hurt.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Julia barks and it’s the last time she hears herself say anything with a semblance of genuine strength and conviction.
But he doesn’t hurt Kady. Reynard takes Julia first and she screams at Kady to run—to GO. As it happens, Julia has no idea if she does. She can’t hear anything other than the nausea-inducing pants, grunts, and groans of the thing on top of her.
His snake-like, clawing whisper of “I chose you, Julia” repeats inside her mind on an endless, soul-destroying loop—Why her? Why?—the entire time. She hears every utterance that leaves his lips. She feels it all. His every touch, his every movement. It’s a pain that she cannot even begin to describe and she’s sure that she never will.
When it’s over, she can’t help but wonder why he left her alive, why he didn’t kill her, and even more, she can’t help but wish that he had. But then she remembers—Kady. She flips her head towards the table; she’s gone. Kady is safe. At least there’s that.
Julia resurfaces in the present to a sensation she’s become closely acquainted with in recent months. Her palms are slick with sweat; her chest constricts around her ribcage and her ribcage around her heart; it pounds in her ears alongside the incessant ringing; her mind feels fuzzy, and she’s sure she could puke for what would be the third time that day.
“—thing you’ve fucked up in our lives, you won’t even tell me why Kady is so eager to risk her fucking life for you?” The ringing and pounding begin to fade, bringing the muffled voice in the background front and center. Oh, right. Penny. He’s still here. Shit.
Penny scoffs when he’s met with even more silence. “I was right. You are a psychopath. You don’t give a shit about anyone other than yourself.” Then he turns to leave.
Julia runs an aggressive hand through her waves and tugs briefly at the roots, desperate for a sensation to distract her from the fact that she can’t fucking breathe. Her shame and blame have evaporated and been replaced by a burning fury nurtured by the complete lack of understanding everyone has had towards what she’s been going through—everyone but Kady.
“Fuck you,” Julia rasps between the constricting pangs in her chest.
“Hey,” Penny spins back around. “That’s my line,” he retorts, then adds, “Fuck you!”
And Julia could almost laugh if she didn’t think she would start crying instead.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Julia’s voice lacks the bite she wanted it to have. Turns out panic attacks drain you of energy pretty damn fast. Now she’s just tired, defeated, and she wants this manchild that is Kady’s fuckbuddy to leave her the hell alone. “But for what it’s worth, I made sure she was safe. I wouldn’t let h-him hurt her, okay? That’s why she thinks she owes me, and to give her credit, she kind of fucking does so…” Julia’s chest loosens a smidge and she is finally able to inhale a productive breath of oxygen. God, that feels good. “Happy now?”
All the fight and defensiveness drains from Penny’s body as he stares down at Julia, and for the first time, he finally sees her. He sees the silent heaving of her chest beneath her bowed head and the way she grips the duvet she sits atop with white knuckles, and he feels a little bit like an asshole. Not that he would ever admit it.
“You protected her.” An understanding.
“How else did you think she survived?” is Julia’s monotone inquiry.
“In my defense, I didn’t know she was even…” Penny glances at the bedroom door, suddenly feeling the need to escape from the emotions he singlehandedly instigated. “I didn’t really have time to think about it.”
“Before you barged in? Nice,” Julia swallows, clenching her fists one last time before she lets go of the poor duvet as she finally begins to feel somewhat human again. She needs a fucking cigarette. “Maybe you should have.”
“Yeah…” Penny breathes an agreement he was slowly beginning to come to. “Thanks though… for telling me or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Julia says aloud this time.
Penny parts with a sharp nod of acknowledgment and heads for the door. He hears the shaky exhale and squeaky “fuck” Julia breathes out when she thinks he’s gone, and it tugs at something deep, deep within his chest. Again, he’s not obtuse. Or heartless, for that matter. And right now he sort of feels like a grade A asshole.
He rolls his eyes, mutters a “fuck me” and re-enters the room.
Julia is still perched criss-cross-applesauce on the edge of the bed like he left her moments before except now her elbows are in her lap and her head is in her hands—or well, hand—as she rubs circles against her temple.
Penny fights the urge to flee before she notices he has returned.
“I’m sorry.”
“Jesus!” Julia jolts. “What the hell?”
With her face no longer covered by her brown locks, Penny can see the streaks of tears that run down her cheeks and her puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
Aw, fuck me—again. He doesn’t do this shit.
Julia swipes her sleeved hand under her nose—angrily almost, Penny notes, as though she’s mad at her own nose for running—and tucks her loose curls behind her ears.
“What for?” Julia sniffs. She glances up at Penny’s face for only a second before her eyes dart away. His gaze feels like she’s under a microscope, and she’s painfully aware that he can see the wetness on her cheeks if the dumbfounded look on his face is anything to go by. She huffs and wipes them away as well. See? Good as new.
“I don’t know,” Penny shrugs. “Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
“—It’s fine.” Julia liked him better when he wasn’t staring her down with pity. She flips a page in the spell binder even though she’s already on the page she needs. “You’re just worried about Kady. I get it.”
The ‘I am too’ goes unspoken.
Somehow Penny seems to hear it, though, because when Julia finally manages to meet his eyes, she sees a recognition in them that makes her insides squirm.
“Why did you do it?” Penny asks after a long stretch of silence.
Julia licks her lips instead of rolling her eyes. “Do what?”
“Protect her.”
Julia’s fists tighten around the edges of the spell binder.
“Does it matter? She’s alive.”
That’s all that matters.
“I mean, I’m assuming you didn’t exactly want to get—” A sharp inhale from Julia stops Penny in his tracks before the next word can leave his lips.
Killed? Raped? Impregnated by a trickster God you naively believed was a benevolent Goddess who would save you? Pick your poison.
“Sorry,” he mutters. Jesus. Julia is making him really fucking sad and he wants to punch himself for even having the fleeting thought but—fuck, man!—some part of him wants to help her too. Is this how Kady feels? he can’t help but wonder.
Penny takes a step forward but when he notices Julia tracking his movements, he steps right on back. “What I’m trying to say is…” Penny shakes his head; he can’t believe he’s doing this shit. “I know that I would never put my ass on the line for just anybody. Ask literally anyone here. I try my best to stay far away from other people’s bullshit.”
“But that wasn’t other people’s bullshit. It was my—”
“—Shut up.” Julia blinks, slightly offended. “Okay?”
Julia closes her mouth. She watches Penny intently, trying to follow his train of thought and beat him to his end point before he reaches it himself.
“What made you so willing to do that for Kady?”
“The rest were already dead because of me,” Julia refuses entertain his suggestive inquiry. “It’s the least I could have done.”
“No,” Penny counters. “The least you could have done was hightail it the hell out of that apartment.”
“My apartment,” Julia whispers.
“Yeah. Whatever.” What is with this chick’s incessant need to focus on the most insignificant details? Penny thinks. “My point is… you did a hell of a lot more than the least. You did what I would have done. You fucking sacrificed yourself.”
“Is there a point to this, Penny?” Julia squeezes her eyes shut along with the pen in her hand. She thinks she could snap the instrument in half if one more tone-deaf, half-baked attempt at kindness left his stupid mouth. “Or are you just trying to piss me off?”
“I just told you my point!” Penny’s voice begins to raise in volume. Seriously, what the hell is her problem?
Julia’s eyes narrow. “Problem?”
Shit. He said that out loud, huh?
“My problem is that I am sitting in a house full of people who blame me for pretty much every bad thing that has happened to them and—while, yes, okay, I fucked up in some ways and I am sorry for that—no one besides your damn girlfriend seems to understand that I am drowning here,” Julia’s voice is measured but her words are pointed and cutting. Her hands are shaking as she speaks; her tentative control over the anger she’s been fighting to keep from boiling over for months slips away just a little bit more with every word that leaves her mouth.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Penny gulps. “Look, uh—”
“—and I need one million fucking dollars to give to this crazy-ass Mudang bitch so that she can get rid of this fucking thing inside of me before the other crazy-ass Mudang bitch kills me along with it so that I can then get back to tracking down Reynard and killing him,” Julia’s eyes stare like daggers into his soul and Penny is reminded precisely why he doesn’t do this shit. “That is my problem. Understand?”
“Um,” Penny stammers. He can’t remember ever being this intimidated by a woman before. This is a first. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
“Great,” Julia chirps and averts her attention back to the time reversal spell she was trying to crack before Penny so rudely interrupted her. Clearly, she has decided that the conversation between the two of them is over—but she seems to be the only one.
“So you’re not in love with Kady then?”
The question hits Julia so out of the blue that her anger simply vanishes. She actually laughs. “W-what? In love—are you serious?”
Penny’s eyes widen as he realizes his misstep.
“Oh. No. I just—I thought—”
Julia cocks her head at him, a puzzled look in her eyes. “You thought—what?”
“I mean. You did what I would have done and I love her so…”
Julia gapes at him. That’s the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard. People don’t just save other people’s lives because they are romantically in love with them—true. Though Penny’s innocuous inquiry seems to have stirred up something inside of Julia because now she can’t stop thinking about every interaction she and Kady have ever shared. Penny has tugged at a thread that was just waiting to be unraveled. An unraveling Julia just could not deal with right now.
“I’m not in love with Kady, Penny.”
“Right.”
Julia nods, “Right.”
She totally is.
“Anyway, you can count me in for the heist or whatever you freaks wanna call it.”