Chapter Text
It's been a very long day for June. She's tired, and usually, a good meal would help. This meal, however, is only making it worse. Every time she looks down at the (admittedly, delicious) pot roast in front of her, she's just reminded of the exhausting conversation she'd had with Jack late that morning.
At least it's quiet. Funny, June didn't think it would be. All eight of them are at the table tonight, usually there's plenty of noise, but she can only hear the occasional scraping of silverware against their dishes.
She's fine with that. She doesn't need any conversation to distract herself from overthinking everything she said and didn't say to Jack.
It's a good thing that she's so good at hiding her feelings. She's had a lot of practice.
Merritt clears his throat. "So…addressing the, ah, time-bomb in the room, June"—at the sound of her name, her head shoots up from where she'd been eyeing her bowl—"everything okay over there?"
"Yes." It comes out sharper than she'd meant it to. Oh well, maybe it's more convincing that way.
This is weird. So weird. June is sitting at a dinner table with the Horsemen. The people who changed her life, saved it, ruined it—all three, really. It was hard enough to reconcile those opposing ideas when it was just her, Charlie, and Bosco, but now, she has to look them in the eyes every day.
Do they know? Does Atlas? He has to, at least somewhat. He had the audacity to talk like he knew her when they first met, when he brought up the 'boarding schools'. She wasn't June Roquelaure back then; he knew who she used to be.
She had been June McClure, from New Orleans.
When she was really little, her parents told her bedtime stories about le Fin Voleur, Roquelaure, a peasant who steals from the king.
The version of the story she heard goes like this: A young man, called Roquelaure, lives with his widowed mother. They are both very poor, and Roquelaure must find a job to support them. He decides to be a thief, but his mother begs him to reconsider, saying that the young man will wind up dead. His mother goes to the church, and prays to the statue of la Sainte Vierge—Mother Mary—to tell her a better job for her son.
She begs, "la Sainte Vierge, what is my son meant to become?"
The statue says, "Fin voleur." Fin voleur—a master thief.
Roquelaure's mother weeps, but says, "May God's will be done."
What she did not know, is that her son had snuck into the church, hid behind the statue, and spoke as la Sainte.
The news that Roquelaure would become a master thief spread quickly beyond their tiny village and into the city, where it eventually reached the ears of the king.
The king, concerned for his wealth, decides to test Roquelaure's abilities, hoping that the young man will fail. He goes to Roquelaure's village and issues him a challenge.
"Boy," says the king, "if you have so perfected your craft, then I bid you sneak into my stables tonight and steal my horse. It will be guarded by four of my men. If you are successful, I will reward you with gold. If you fail, you will be hanged outside my door tomorrow morning."
"Have no fear, my king," the young man cries out, "before tomorrow morning, I will have your horse!"
The king returns to his castle, and Roquelaure begins to think.
His mother tells him, "You should not have taken his challenge, my son. You must be so worried!"
Roquelaure simply replies, "It is not much of a problem at all."
That night, Roquelaure disguises himself as a beggar and goes to the castle. Pushing open the door to the stable, he calls out, "Bonsoir, mes amis!" The four guards surrounding the king's horse look up at Roquelaure, but do not suspect him because of his clever disguise. "The king has called upon me to entertain you all tonight, for I come from a far-off village, and therefore know many stories. These stories will, I hope, prevent you from falling asleep as you keep watch for the thief!"
Roquelaure told his stories, and time began to pass quickly for the guards. All of a sudden, Roquelaure said, "Your king must not be as generous as I have heard… He should have given you food and drink! Would it not keep you awake and alert? It makes no sense to abandon you this way. Luckily for you all, I do have something here"—he gestures to a bottle in his pocket—"but it is not much. You can have a drink, if it pleases you, to wake up. Then I will continue telling you stories."
Roquelaure passed the bottle around, but did not drink from it himself. It was not regular water, he had mixed it with maypop flowers to put the men to sleep. From there, the task was not difficult. He untied the horse and lead it home.
The next day, the king paid Roquelaure the gold he promised, and he was humiliated. He proposed another task to the young man, hoping that he would fail this one. "Tonight, you must steal the cakes from my oven. The oven will be surrounded by guards. You must demonstrate your skills!"
"Alright," Roquelaure agreed, "I will steal your cakes."
When night fell, Roquelaure used the skin of a pig as his disguise. He went, again, to the castle, and began to wander among the guards near the kitchens.
"Where did this pig come from," wondered the guards. The pig made no reply, only continued to be a nuisance. "Why, if I can get my hands on this obnoxious pig, I will throw it into the oven myself!"
The pig continued to cause problems, and the guards were overcome by anger. They picked up the pig, carried it to the oven, and threw it inside.
The so-called pig began to snatch up the cakes and put them into the sack he had concealed beneath his clever costume. Now, the oven was beginning to grow too warm for his tastes, so he made such a racket that the guards complained once more.
"That howling! Get it out of there, it'll deafen us!"
So the oven door was opened, and the fake pig ran off into the night. He went straight home, shedding his disguise along the way. Throwing open the door to his home, he called out, "Mother! Come eat the king's cakes, they are still warm!"
The next day, the king visited again. "You really are a clever thief," he said, "but to prove that you are the best, you must come and steal the sheet off my bed tonight—the one I will be sleeping in with my wife! This time, I predict there will be trouble for you."
"I will be there! You'll see," said the thief.
Roquelaure's mother was nervous. "You will certainly get caught tonight, and you will be hanged!"
Her son, however, was calm. In the afternoon, he made a straw dummy, patterned after himself. He placed the doll on the end of a fishing pole and, when night came again, made his way to the castle.
This night, the king kept watch. He ran from window to window, waiting to catch a glimpse of the thief. Seeing this, the cunning Roquelaure hoisted the doll so that it's head appeared to peek over the king's windowsill.
"Here he is, quick," he called to his wife, "pass me my rifle! I shall down this thief with the first shot!"
The king took aim and fired at the doll, hitting it right in the head. The doll tumbled to the ground. The king leaves his chamber and hurries to the fake corpse, while the real thief enters the chamber through a hidden door.
Under the cover of darkness, the young man says, "Quick, my wife, give me the sheet! I've killed him, he is bleeding, hurry!" The queen quickly removes the sheet from the bed and gives it to Roquelaure. "Now, my wife, give me your ring, too!" Confused, she obeys. "Now, give me a kiss!" The queen does so.
Roquelaure leaves, taking the sheet, the queen's wedding ring, and the memory of her kiss.
The king had reached the doll, but did not dare to look too closely at what was, to him, certainly a gruesome scene. He returns to his chamber and says, "Quick, my wife, I must cover the body! Give me our bedsheet."
"But, I just gave it to you a moment ago!"
"No, I haven't been back since the gunshot. You are upset and talking nonsense."
"No, no, I gave you the sheet. Then you asked for my kiss, and I gave that too!"
"Ah! That rascal," cried the king. "I ordered him to steal my sheet, not the kiss!"
The great thief, Roquelaure, returned home, happy with his success.
The next morning, the king came to see him for the final time. "I will no longer order you to commit any thefts, you are not just any thief, you surely are the best! Now, I will give you a reason to never steal from me again."
Roquelaure received a fortune from the king, and lived peacefully with his mother for the rest of his days.
She still remembers that story. How could she not? Roquelaure was her Robin Hood, and she wanted to be him so badly when she was little. It felt only natural to use Roquelaure as her stage name. She didn't mind keeping June, she liked her name, she just…didn't want to be a McClure anymore.
Her parents didn't seem to want her to be one, either. That's why they kept sending her away. The thing is, though, the programs they sent her to are expensive. It used to be, back in the days when her parents still told her bedtime stories, they wouldn't have been able to afford that.
They had lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. And then, when she was seven years old, they had to go to that stupid magic show. Of course, she blamed the Horsemen. When she was fourteen, and hurting, and blaming everyone, including herself. They ruined her life. Without that money from their New Orleans show, her parents couldn't have sent her away.
At seventeen, with distance between her and the program, she could think a little clearer. It wasn't about her. So what if that money made her life worse? It helped the hundreds of other people at the show. She was cold and hungry most nights, but no one else would be.
At eighteen, she met Charlie and Bosco, and she realized that if she'd never had something to run away from, she wouldn't have found them. Their hero-worship grated on her nerves, at first. Charlie had been eight years old at the Vegas show with his at-the-time foster family, Bosco had been twelve at the Five Pointz show in Queens with his mom, but June hadn't actually gone to the NOLA show. Her parents did. Would she have felt different if she had seen them? Maybe. She could imagine feeling as inspired by the Horsemen as Charlie and Bosco were, as inspired as she was by Roquelaure.
The Horsemen didn't ruin her life. They made it a lot harder by accident, but it was worth it in the end. Charlie and Bosco knew that story; they were the only people she had ever told.
Which is why she kind of gets it. If she had researched "June McClure," and found pictures of nice-looking, expensive boarding schools online, she would assume that's all it was. All she was. There was no way to know what really goes on in those places, no way to know why she ended up there.
She's not angry at the Horsemen anymore, she's not. June doesn't blame them, so why is something boiling under her skin, why are her fists clenched so tightly that her nails are drawing blood?
Atlas doesn't know. He saw the boarding schools and fucking assumed. Spoke to her like he knew her, like she was some privileged rich kid rebelling against her parents for no reason. Does he even recognize her last name—her old one—from the list of Tressler's victims? Probably not. It's been more than eleven years since the show in New Orleans.
June looks back down at her bowl. She hasn't really touched her food, has she? Hoping she succeeds at sounding normal this time, she says, "I'm fine."
"What, is the cuisine not to Miss Boarding School's liking," Merritt taunts.
June knows his game, knows that Merritt pokes at bruises he knows are there until he gets the reaction he's looking for, but understanding that doesn't give June some magical ability to resist it.
It's been a very long, emotionally exhausting day.
June crashes the fuck out.
"God, is that what you think of me? Is that what everyone here fucking thinks of me?" There is no slow build, she's yelling. She stands so quickly that her chair is knocked over backwards, hitting the floor with a bang. June clutches tightly at the edge of the table and shouts, "That I'm some kind of pretentious rich girl who ran away from home for fun? They weren't fucking boarding schools! Those places are not fucking schools at all, even if I hadn't run, if I had stayed and gotten a stupid fucking diploma, nothing would have changed for me. No college would have taken a diploma from those places, there's no happy, normal life I could have had."
Most of the table is suddenly trying to become one with the wallpaper. Merritt is sipping his drink and staring resolutely at a fixed point somewhere in the middle of the table, as if he isn't an instigator. Lula, Henley, Jack, and Daniel are all wide-eyed shock. Charlie and Bosco, the only two people at the table, other than June herself, that really know what this is about, are cringing in sympathy.
Daniel holds a hand out placatingly, "June, no one—"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"
"Tell him, June," Bosco says, trying to be supportive. June whips her head around to where he's seated on her left and glares. He sinks down a little lower in his seat.
June turns her focus back on Daniel. "That first day you met us, you started talking like you knew everything about us. You don't! You don't fucking know me! You ruined my life!"
Charlie inhales sharply. He's got one elbow on the table, leaning into his hand, and digging his thumb into his temple. He looks like he'd rather be just about anywhere else.
Bosco leans over, and quietly says to him, "I thought we were past this." Still loud enough for the entire table to hear, mind. Bosco doesn't exactly know how to whisper.
"I don't think she'll ever really be past this," Charlie, who does know how to whisper, says out of the side of his mouth.
"I can hear you!"
"I know," says Bosco, unapologetic.
The anger crescendos. It crawls up her throat, and now, she can no longer speak. Her face must be red, she thinks. June doesn't like being angry, especially not this angry. It always reminds her of the "game", where she was trained into the habit of always saying the meanest thing possible to people who never really deserved it. Honestly, she hopes this anger continues to choke her, before she says something truly awful.
Bosco knows her well. He knows that her anger burns out quick, so long as she gets really, properly angry, rather than be left to simmer for days. Of course, he would do this. In any other moment, June would think of that fondly, but right now, it disgusts her. It pisses her off even more. How dare he manipulate her like that? How dare she let him—anyone—get close to her?
She needs to leave. She needs to get out. Fuck sticking around, fuck all the work she's done on getting rid of the impulse to bolt, she needs it. That instinct keeps her safe because it keeps her alone. No one can hurt her if she's alone. God, she can't think. All she knows is that she doesn't feel fucking safe right now, and she needs to be safe, so she has to leave—she's stumbling away from the table, though she doesn't remember deciding to move.
June is hurrying down the hallway, and she's not sure when she started crying, only that she is crying. Between one blink and the next, she's sat on the floor of her bedroom, leaning against the door. She can't remember how to breathe normally.
Time passes, she's not sure how much. The entire world seems to fall away, as if she could open her bedroom door and tumble out into the void. It feels like it's just her, her breathing, and the crushing weight of every bad thing that's ever happened to her.
There's a knock on her door and she nearly jumps out of her skin. "June?" It's Lula's voice. "Can I come in?"
This has Charlie written all over it, June thinks. She's not sure what exactly he and Bosco told them after she left, but she's sure that Charlie told them to send Lula to check on her, not any of the others. Lula wasn't at the NOLA show, that's why. She wasn't a Horseman yet.
It's stupid. He could have sent anyone, because June is not still upset about that. At least, she isn't usually. June shifts away from the door to instead lean against the foot of her bed with her legs folded up against her chest.
"You can come in." Her voice sounds small, shaky. It's so not like her that it makes her feel a little sick to her stomach. June clears her throat. "You can come in," she says, a little stronger this time.
The door opens, and Lula slips inside. She crosses the room to sit next to June, and takes a deep breath. "What's going on, June?"
She hates that question. She doesn't even know how to answer. "I… I don't know, nothing? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to… I'm just…just really tired." It's a lame excuse, and she knows it. That answer wasn't good enough.
But Lula just nods. She doesn't call her on it, doesn't tell her to answer differently, or to try again. Instead, she says, "Yeah. I figured. Jack said you guys had a capital-T 'Talk' earlier. He didn't tell me what it was about, though, don't worry."
"It… this doesn't have anything to do with that, really."
"So what it does it have to do with, then?" Lula pulls her legs up in a mirror of June's position, and leans her cheek on her knees.
June is silent for a moment, wondering how to do this, how much she even wants to say. "What did… what did Charlie and Bosco tell you?"
"Not much. Bosco said that you weren't actually mad at anyone, but that's about it."
"I'm not. Not anymore, anyway. I just… I needed someone to blame, I guess."
"Not to rush you, but I would love some context. Can I buy a vowel? Phone a friend?"
June huffs out a small laugh. "You know Paris Hilton, right?"
"Yes, of course; I love that woman, she's iconic."
June laughs again, still shaky and wet with tears, but a little louder this time. "Then, you probably know about the"—she lifts one hand from its place hugging her knees and makes air quotes—"'therapeutic' boarding school she got sent to."
Lula nods, but doesn't say anything, just waits for June to continue. "Well, that's where I was. I did wilderness for three months, and then I got shuffled around to a few different schools. I'm from New Orleans. The reason my parents had the money to send me is because they were at the New Orleans show. A lot of the money they got that night became my college fund, but they spent the whole thing on those programs. I was so, so angry for a long time. The programs ruined my life. They nearly killed me, like, a dozen times. I blamed everyone—my parents, myself, the Horsemen. I don't blame them anymore. Really. It was stupid."
"It wasn't stupid. You were a kid, and in a situation like that, of course you would be mad at literally everything."
"But it was. It's not like they knew what would happen; they were just trying to help, and they did help! There were so many other people in that audience who really needed that money. I'm over it."
"It's okay if you're not. You feel how you feel. You can't control that. I mean, you probably shouldn't yell at Danny about it, but given the circumstances, I think we can give you a pass."
June takes a breath. "I really am, though. By the time I got to New York, I was pretty much over it already. Then, listening to Charlie and Bosco talk about how much they look up to you guys, admire you guys? Part of me started to feel the same. I wanted to do what you do, change peoples lives for the better, and get one over on the rich. I don't know where all that came from, tonight."
Shrugging, Lula says, "Merritt's good at dragging feelings out of people they didn't even know they had. He's done it to me about a million times."
Deep conversations were never something June thought she'd have with Lula, of all people. She seems pretty… unserious. It's nice, though, to talk with her about something other than Love Island.
A beat of silence passes by them, with Lula just studying her. Then, she asks, "how long were you in there?"
"Three years. I kept trying to run. Not from Wilderness, that would have been suicide, but from the schools. Finally managed it when I was seventeen. I made it from Utah to New York in less than a week, I think."
Lula smiles. "A successful disappearing act. How'd you do it?"
June doesn't think she's told anyone the entire story before. Even Charlie and Bosco only know bits and pieces of how she ended up in New York. They know that she tried to run, like, five times. They know that she got a little farther each time she tried, and finally disappeared when she was seventeen.
She never told them how exactly she did it or what happened on her way from Utah to NYC.
"Why does it matter?"
She shrugs. "I'm curious. I'll tell you my running-away story, if you tell me yours."
"You ran away?"
"Once. When I was nine." Lula pauses for a second before admitting, "I was back by dinnertime."
"Wow"—June nods, eyes widened—"Riveting."
They both laugh. June's giggle is still a little watery, but it feels nice. Lula is really easy to talk to, for some reason, and something just possesses June to tell her everything. She sits and listens, making little comments at the appropriate times, putting a hand on her shoulder when June struggles to tell the darker parts of the story. The story she hasn't told anyone, that she doesn't even really like to think about much.