totalwildcard | Somewhere on the Mainland; Tuesday Evening

Somewhere on the Mainland; Tuesday Evening

It had already been feeling like kind of a great day to get the hell off the island. And when Harley happened to run into Marc ("happened to run into", "one of them had had gone looking for the other", po-tay-to, po-tah-to)? That just made it into a great day to get the hell off the island and drag him with her! And since it turned out there was roller derby out on the mainland? That had settled where to drag him to.

Right now, that dragging was literal -- wait, well, no. It was physical? Point was, they'd left the car a few blocks away, and Harley was pulling Marc along by the hand towards what she was pretty sure was the correct building - yanno, even before she saw the people filing in through the main entrance, sporting various unnatural hair colors with a general alternative sense of style about them.

It made her squeal with excitement. "Oooooo you can practically smell the sweat and broken noses already!"

(NFB and for the dragee!)

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"Are you getting the impression that I do?" Harley replied, her hands settling more firmly on him now that it seemed... safe. "I'm not great at math but I'm still pretty sure this'd be a smoother ride if even one of us knew what the fuck we're supposed to be doing."

"Only one of us used to be a shrink," Marc pointed out.

He didn't sound like he actually thought like that should do anything.

"Yeah, and then I fell madly in love with a patient and did all the wrong things if the goal was any of it bein' at all functional!"

Just saying.

"Or to remain a shrink!"

Marc sighed. Again at himself. "Actually been trying to take my own advice. Do what I wouldn't do. That's why - yanno. Talking. Stuff."

"Talking," Harley echoed, for no other reason apart from processing, really. "Stuff." That, too.

Something in her expression was shifting again. Kind of soft and uncertain.

"You're really trying?"

Marc gave a wry grimace. "Pathetic, I know."

He'd taken that to mean that if this was him trying, he really was bad at it. Which in fairness was also true.

Harley shook her head.

"That's not what I meant." Did that help? "I know ya don't... like trying."

Marc took that in.

"I tell people don't do what I used to do," he said. "I didn't talk. With you I try to talk. I wasn't honest. With you I try being honest. Really fucking sucks when it blows up in my face."

That wasn't an accusation at her. More him talking about his frustrations at how it wasn't something he'd had instant expertise on.

(Perhaps it was a shame that the person he knew who did have expertise on honesty and communication had purposefully left Marc to his own devices here.)

Now, there were a few things Harley could have said in response to that. Maybe even one or two she should have said.

But Harley didn't even consider anything other than her first impulse, which was to ask, "Why are you doing it? Tryin'?"

"Trying to be less of an asshole," Marc said.

It was the honest reply.

"But why?"

It was an honest question. She wasn't trying to badger him, or anything.

"Hurting people is the one thing I'm good at," Marc said. Not a brag, not a mopey condemnation. Just a statement of fact, no different from his eye color. "I hurt people I care about. Thought, I dunno. Try something different. See if I even could."

Harley was watching him with big eyes. "With me?"

Her voice went all squeaky at the end there, sorry.

"... Yeah?" Marc said, not sure if he'd somehow said the wrong thing again.

Well, maybe this would help clear it up (and yeah, still squeaky):

"No one ever tries with me."

"And it's me?" Marc said, in a statement that made grammatical sense in his head. "That really sucks."

And suddenly Harley's hands were reaching up for his cheeks, to cradle his face.

"It doesn't," she insisted. "It doesn't suck that it's you."

"A guy who's only good at hurting people shouldn't be the first person who's trying to be nice to you," Marc said, to clarify. "That's a raw deal."

"Sure, and don't I know it!" Harley replied. "But a guy that just thinks he's only good at hurting people isn't half as bad!"

That was you, Marc.

"Half as bad as what?" Marc asked.

"As a guy that's actually only good at hurting people," Harley replied, patiently.

You know, by Harley standards.

Marc didn't know what to do with that. There were only a handful - okay really less than a handful when you got down to it, like from a counting on your fingers perspective - of people who he felt got him enough to be worth listening to when they said stuff like that.

("Stuff like that" being "nice things about him." However nice they might be.)

"I'm trying," is what he went with. Not to deflect. More to acknowledge it was a work in progress? Or something.

"I know," Harley said. One of her thumbs rubbed his cheek. "I'm startin' to get that."

And it was getting her kind of soft.

"I know I fuck up," Marc said. "Not saying gimme a pass or anything. Just - I dunno. A break?"

"I didn't know I wasn't givin' you one?"

She wasn't always great at picking up on stuff about her own behavior, so this really wasn't a surprise.

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