All The Stars In Texas

by southspinner

Marco Bodt has always wanted to make the history books and has come to the conclusion that infamy looks far better on him than fame. Jean Kirschtein has always wanted to get out of Depression-ridden West Dallas. A chance meeting throws the spark that sets Texas on fire, and what started as something simple becomes a dangerous game of love, lust, and the birth of living legends.

4. Chapter 4 - Jean

A week passes like an hour, and I suppose that's the difference a little company makes.

I'm used to having the garage to myself. Eren has a habit of being a lazy bastard and saying he's got paperwork to do when he's actually taking a nap at the front desk, and when he's not doing that he's banging around my workspace and tap dancing on my last nerve. That usually lasts a few minutes before I throw something at him and he clears out; so for the most part it's me, the radio, and long hours trying to bring dead vehicles back to life. A little frustrating, a little lonely, but it pays the bills.

It's different with Marco around. He knows his way around cars, helps me get my usual workload done twice as fast, and the place doesn't feel quite as dead with him whistling underneath the cars and telling awful jokes. Watching him, it's easy to forget the circumstances that brought him here. No one would ever expect a wanted man to be so... nice, for lack of a better word. The impeccable manners and easy smiles he'd shown Mom and Ninette on that first day I met him seem to be a universal principle. Two days after starting work at the garage, he'd even charmed cranky old Mrs. Brzenska at the diner across the street to the point of her bringing us free food, an entire meal and a slice of apple pie each won on nothing but smiles and "yes, ma'am"s. I couldn't tell if it was some sort of witchcraft or just plain old skill.

Every customer he's dealt with since he's been here does nothing but sing the new guy's praises to Eren, who seems to be the one person in the entirety of West Dallas who doesn't think Marco Bodt is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of course, Eren's pretty angry with the world in general, has been since we were kids, but the mood he's been in for the past week is a rare level of surly, probably something to do with the fact that I went behind his back in a manner that resulted in him not getting money.

I'm elbow-deep in the engine of a Dodge truck with starting problems while Eren's up in the front room dealing with customers, a middle-aged man in a flannel shirt and his wife who's actively gushing that "The new young man you've got working out there is a doll, Eren, I hope you keep him around."

"Oh yeah, he's a real peach, ain't he." Eren grumbles, green eyes glaring daggers through the open door at us when Marco snickers as he hands me a wrench. "In fact, Jean hired him. I was never even consulted. I'm just so happy that my employees take initiative."

"Hey, Marco, is it just me or d'you got a funny taste in your mouth too?" I ask as soon as the bell in the front room chimes, signaling the customers' departure.

"Yeah, yeah, I do," he nods, sitting down on a glider slid halfway underneath a rusty Chrysler coupe and shooting Eren the brightest of smiles. "Tastes kinda bitter."

"Laugh it up, you two," Eren snaps, slamming the receipt book shut and raking a hand through messy, dark hair. "'Cause I think it's real funny that we're already in the red and you had to go playin' charity and making promises you got no right to make, Jean. A goddamn riot."

"It's one missed sale. You seen how much faster our turnover rate is?" I shrug, waving my wrench around at the cars parked in the garage. "You're paying my usual wages and doing twice the business. Marco's more than paying for himself. F'you could stop being a Scrooge for ten seconds you might realize that this ain't too bad of a deal."

"Yeah, sure." Grumbling, Eren grabs his hat off the front desk and jams it angrily down onto his head, snatching up the receipt book and storming out into the garage. "God bless us, every fuckin' one. I'm headed down a couple blocks to talk to Mr. Fischer about financing the repairs on that truck. Stay busy, don't screw around, and I swear to God I'll pop you in the jaw if I come back and you're blastin' that damn radio again."

"Yessir," Marco nods, smiling serenely. Eren stalks out through the open garage door, and Marco waits five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen before chucking his wrench down on the concrete and walking over to flip the radio on with a smirk. "Smoke break?"

"I'll do you one better." Shooting him a grin, I slam the hood of the truck down and slip through the doorway into the front room. Under the desk is an old lunch pail filled with half-melted ice, four bottles of Budweiser bobbing up and down in the water. Watching out the window to make sure no one's looking, I grab two of them, kicking the door shut behind me as I walk back into the garage and hand one to Marco. "Eren says he can't do paperwork without drinking or he's liable to punch a wall. There's usually something up front if you know where to look."

Marco snorts out a laugh, knocking the bottle cap off against the edge of the workbench and raising his drink slightly in my direction. "To Eren Jaeger, then. For his good taste in business practices that almost makes up for his shitty taste in beer."

"I'll drink to that." I'm a little too afraid to break my bottle and look like an idiot trying to open it the way Marco did his, so I twist it off with the hem of my shirt over the cap before clinking it against his and taking a sip.

"Somethin' tells me that after working with that guy every day, you'd drink to just about anything."

"Nah, he's a good guy."

"Eren's a good guy and you got no issues helping a fugitive flee North. You sure got an interesting moral compass."

"I got no issues helping a fugitive flee North as long as he works to pay for his stolen car," I shrug, digging a cigarette out of my pocket and lighting it before continuing. "And the fact that Eren's a cranky, tight-fisted sonuvabitch don't mean that he ain't a good person."

He rolls his eyes a bit, hops up to sit on the cluttered surface of the workbench. "Whatever you say, compadre."

"Look." I don't know what it is about that one word, but there must be enough gravity in my voice for Marco to take me seriously, the smile fading from his lips when I breathe out a sigh and hop up to sit next to him, setting my beer off to the side and rolling the cigarette between my fingers. "My old man offed himself, okay? The family business went down like the fuckin' Titanic and he gambled away the savings we had left trying to get it back and the day after I turned sixteen he put a Colt revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger."

Marco just stares at me for a few seconds, blinking slowly. "Jesus."

It feels like a ball of lead just dropped straight into the hollow of my chest, memories tugging me back to Mom screaming, Nettie confused and crying, Police officers everywhere. And me. Just me. Me in the corner feeling like the world had imploded around me, not even enough space for grief under the weight of the fact that I was now the only thing standing between us and an even worse disaster. Two years later, and I still feel like I'm trying to claw my way out of the wreckage. Slow progress is still progress.

"Anyway, the day after the funeral, Eren showed up and offered me a job. His dad's a doctor in town. Remember my fancy private school? Eren and I went there together; he was a couple years ahead of me. But he wasn't exactly the doctoring type, so after graduation his dad floated him the money to get the garage started. Business here's usually so slow that he didn't really need the help, but he hired me anyway. He's a pain in the ass, but he's the only reason I can feed my mom and my sister, so yeah, in my opinion he's a good guy."

A long stretch of silence. Eventually, Marco nods stiffly, taking a long drink before setting his bottle down on top of a rusty toolbox and shoots me a sidelong glance. "No offense, but your old man sounds like a piece of shit."

"None taken," I shrug, taking one last drag off my smoke before hopping down from the workbench and grinding it out under my foot. "Not gonna disagree with you. What about you? Gotta be a reason you've been hell and gone from Telico for four years."

There's a flash of something across his face, but it's gone before I can see exactly what it is, replaces with a little quirk of a smile and a shake of his head. "Nah. My folks are good God-fearing people who're grateful for their simple lives."

"So why'd you take off, then?"

"I wasn't grateful for my simple life," he replies, and there's just the slightest flash in his eyes that warns me to leave it there.

And I do, because the bell in the front room chooses that exact second to ring.

"Shit," I hiss, grabbing both the beer bottles and shoving them under the workbench while Marco reaches over much more calmly to turn the radio off.

"You that scared of Eren?" he asks.

"Whoever's up there ain't Eren." Shaking my head and grabbing for a wrench so I look busy. "Eren would've come back through the garage. It's either a customer or Mom coming to drop something off. Either way it won't look good if we're back here messin' around. I'll go see who it is; you… fix something."

He just sighs, grabbing the toolbox and going back to the car he'd been working on when Eren left. Cursing under my breath, I rake a hand through my hair and nudge open the door to the front room, expecting to see my mother with something I forgot back at the house but met instead with a taller, younger woman in a starched nurse's uniform, black hair pinned back neatly beneath her little white cap and dark, almond-shaped eyes glazing boredly over her surroundings.

"Mikasa. You should've come in through the garage. I 'bout had a heart attack," I laugh nervously, a big, dopey smile stretching lazily across my face.

"Eren fusses when I don't use the front door," she shrugs, holding up a little cloth-wrapped bundle as a response. "Besides, he left his change of clothes at home. I just came to drop them off. We've got a benefit dinner after y'all close up tonight."

"So he's gotta dress up tonight. That explains why he's in such a foul mood," I snort, leaning against the counter. "He just stepped out to go see a customer about payment issues, but you can bring that on back and put it in his locker for him."

She just hums her assent and follows me back into the garage, sidestepping the puddles of oil and dirt to save her white shoes from disaster. Marco re-emerges from beneath the Chrysler with a rattle, tilting his head to the side. "Not your mom, then?"

Mikasa fixes him with an even, analytical look, which is about as close to a warm first greeting as it's possible to get from her. "You're the new guy."

"Yup," he nods, beaming up at her like the scrutiny just rolls off his back. "Marco Bodt. Nice to meet you."

"Mikasa Ackerman." It's hard to tell if you haven't known her for as long as I have, but she softens a bit, the corner of her mouth giving the barest upward twitch. She skirts around the front of the car and goes over to the rusty lockers in the corner, shoving the bundle of clothes into Eren's before looking over her shoulder at me. "I'd stay, but I'm on break. I need to get back to the hospital so I can get off at five to get ready."

"You could always ditch that benefit-whatever and let me take you out for dinner instead," I blurt out before I can stop myself, dissolving into that dopey grin again while simultaneously wishing I could sink into the ground beneath me.

"Maybe some other time," she says, a little almost-laugh coloring her voice as she shuts Eren's locker and turns around. "I promised I'd be there. Besides, Ninette's birthday is next week, isn't it? You should buy her a present instead."

I know she doesn't mean it like that, but the insinuation that I couldn't afford to buy my little sister a birthday present and take Mikasa out on a date stings, mostly because it's true. I mumble out something along the lines of yeah, you're right, face red and hands shaking slightly as I head back to the workbench to pick up my tools again. She's right. Of course she is. The days where I wore a shirt twice before I outgrew it and threw away more food than I ate are long gone. Now it's working overtime for the mere possibility of getting Nettie a doll that isn't falling apart for her birthday. It's not the time to be thinking of anything else.

Marco seems to pick up on the discomfort left hanging in the air, slides his glider the rest of the way out from under the car and grabs the bumper to haul himself up. "So I'm guessin' you know Jean's family, right - agh, dammit!"

The rest of his question gets cut off by a pained groan as soon as he stands up, a hand pressed to his abdomen and his face knotted up in discomfort. He sways a little on his feet, darts out a hand to steady himself, and the action shows the red stain blooming outwards across the fabric of his shirt.

"Oh God, are you all right?" I rush out, running over and throwing his arm over my shoulder before he can lose his balance again. Despite how shaky Marco is on his feet, he feels solid, strongly-built and enough heavier than me that it's a little hard to keep him from falling over.

"M'fine," he mutters. He looks like he's about to pass out, hazel eyes glassy and a sheen of sweat clinging to his skin despite the fact that it's not all that hot in the shade of the garage.

"Get him into the front room. I've got some things in the car." Her shift at the hospital apparently forgotten, Mikasa goes rushing out into the lobby, the bell on the front door jingling in her wake.

Marco manages to move of his own accord across the garage and through the door, using me more for balance than anything else, but his normally tanned skin is pale as a sheet by the time he collapses into one of the chairs in the front room, freckles sticking out in sharp contrast. Breathing shallowly, another flash of pain skates across his face when he looks down at the mess his shirt's become. "Every time I think the damn thing's healed up…"

He doesn't have time to finish that thought, trailing off as Mikasa comes walking briskly back through the door with a massive first aid kit in tow, nurse mode fully engaged as she all but shoves me out of the way. I've seen her work, know how she gets, and I know she's what Marco needs far more than me right now.

Last year Ninette was climbing the dead tree in our back yard, fell off the top branch and broke her arm along with bruising herself blue all over and knocking her head hard enough on the ground that she saw double. We didn't even bother taking her to the hospital, just drove her over to the Jaeger's, partly because we knew she'd get better care there and partly because we couldn't afford to pay for a documented doctor's visit. Mikasa was the one who set her arm and made sure the concussion wasn't too bad. She does this thing where it seems like the world outside her and her patient doesn't even exist, like everything else is an afterthought and more than likely in the way.

That's how she is with Marco now, kneeling down in front of his chair and pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. "Burning up. Jean."

"Huh?" I jump a little, not thinking that she'd acknowledge someone outside her zone of focus.

"I know Eren's got that damned beer bucket behind the counter. Bring me the ice." The other two beer bottles roll off somewhere after I yank them out, but I don't take the time to notice where they went, watching as Mikasa pulls a handkerchief out of her purse and ties a handful of ice up in it before pressing it against the side of Marco's neck. "All right, shirt off and tell me what I'm dealing with."

"Buy me dinner first, dollface," he sputters out a thin little laugh before wincing again and reaching up to pop the first few buttons of his shirt. "Got cut a little over a week ago. It's just taking a while to heal up. I'll be fine."

Mikasa and I both suck in a breath through our teeth when he finally gets the shirt off, revealing a long, ragged cut down his midsection that's bleeding too much and looks far too inflamed to be over a week old. Mikasa's seen worse, but ever since I watched people scrubbing blood out of the floorboards of Dad's study I've never had the stomach for this sort of thing, eyes settling on the dip of Marco's collarbone so I don't have to look at the mess beneath, counting the freckles there and trying to swallow the metallic taste in my mouth. "Christ on a crutch."

"You two gonna stand there eyein' me up, or are we gonna patch this thing?"

"It's infected," Mikasa frowns, digging around in the first aid kit until she comes up with a bottle of iodine. "That's why it's not healing as fast as it should and why you've got that fever. Your lucky we caught it; at this rate it probably would've necrotized and you'd be in way deeper trouble than you are now. How did this even happen?"

Marco locks eyes with me over her shoulder, his voice perfectly even as he says, "I had a little accident mending a fence."

Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a better thing to tell her than 'I got injured busting out of jail.'

"Well, at any rate, we've got to clean this before it gets worse," she huffs, popping the top off the iodine bottle and flicking her gaze upwards to look at him. "How high is your pain tolerance?"

"Higher than you'd expect. Why?"

"Because this is gonna hurt," she shrugs, pouring a stream of the brown liquid directly onto the wound.

Marco manages to utter every single profanity I've heard in my life and a few I haven't in the space of about two seconds, his voice colliding with the backs of his clenched teeth and fists clenching in his lap. Mikasa doesn't even blink, dousing a wad of gauze in the stuff and blotting around the edges of the cut. The tidal wave of cursing fades into one long, pained hiss, Marco's eyes screwing shut as he stomps one foot repeatedly on the dusty floorboards.

"Almost done," she says, something soothing in the temperate lull of her voice while she finishes cleaning out the wound and pulls out a long roll of bandages, winding them around his waist in measured, practiced motions.

In response, Marco lets out a half-manic little cackle of a laugh, letting his head fall back and staring up at the ceiling. "Stings a little."

Looking at the whole scene still makes me feel queasy, so I swallow hard and duck around behind the chair, reaching for one of the discarded beer bottles that's rolled out into the lobby. I'm just starting to stand up when I actually get a closer look at Marco's back, the spray of freckles across broad shoulders not nearly as noticeable as the thick, jagged lines of raised white scar tissue cutting across from the nape of his neck all the way down to the waistline of his pants. It looks like some sort of wild animal mauled him. I think back to him telling Mikasa that he had a high pain tolerance and grimace.

"What in the hell happened to your back?" I ask, crossing back in front of the chair as soon as Mikasa's done bandaging him up.

If possible after the whole fiasco with getting the cut patched up, Marco's face goes even paler. But it's not pain I see skating across the planes of his face, not anymore. It's echoes of something, memories, and for once I don't even see a trace of his smirks and quick wit and smooth talk. There's only one thing in his eyes, resonating so deep that I can almost feel it secondhand.

Fear.

"Oh, that," he says too softly, trying for a smile but failing halfway. "I, uh… I got caught under a tractor."

It's the same look he gave Mikasa when he said he'd been fixing a fence.

"I've heard horror stories about things like that," Mikasa nods, packing up her kit and handing Marco his shirt back. "You see people come into the hospital who've had a real number done on 'em by farm equipment. Dangerous stuff."

"Yeah," he mutters, voice hollow and eyes seeming to be staring at something else even though he's looking right at me. "I should probably be dead, tell you the truth."

"Good thing you're not, or Jean would have to deal with Eren on his own," she says with a little smile, headed for the door. "All right, I've really got to go. Marco, you keep that clean and change the bandages once a day. No work until it's healed up. Take a few days and rest, all right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Much obliged." The smile comes to him this time, only faltering once Mikasa's out the door and he slumps back against the counter with a shaky breath. "Probably shouldn't've cussed so much in front of a lady, but goddamn that hurt."

"She's Eren's sister. She hears worse than that over the dinner table," I laugh, stashing the ice bucket back behind the counter and handing him one of the two remaining beers, which he drains half of in one gulp. "Sorry we don't have anything stronger. Got whiskey at home, but a lot of good that does now."

"Sister?" he frowns, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm and giving me a disbelieving look. "But she's Asian, ain't she?"

"Adopted sister, and she's half-Japanese, yeah. Her mother came over in 1912, married her dad and had Mikasa a couple years later. Her old man was pals with Dr. Jaeger, so when they both died in a car crash, I think it was… thirteen years ago? Anyway, the Jaegers took her in."

"Huh," he nods, slipping his shirt on with a wince but leaving it unbuttoned while he finishes his drink and watches me with an oddly analytical stare over the top of the bottle. "So is she your girl, or what?"

"I… what… she… God, no!" I sputter, grabbing the last beer for myself and musing that Eren can shove his complaining where the sun don't shine as I flush beet red and twist off the cap. "I mean, we've gone out around town a few times, but it ain't like we're going steady or nothing. Eren'd kill me, and I can't exactly afford a girl right now, y'know. I mean, I wish, but… yeah."

"Uh-huh," Marco says, nodding slowly.

"Yeah," I mutter, feeling ten kinds of awkward as I start organising the papers on the front counter so I have something to do with my hands. The lobby gets very quiet for a few minutes, but I can still feel Marco watching me as I finish tidying up.

"You slept with her yet?" he asks suddenly.

"Jesus Christ, Marco!" I all but squeak, dropping a stack of folders.

"That's a no, then. You ever kiss her?"

"What the hell, man?!"

"Another no," he smirks, buttoning up his shirt and rolling his shoulders. "You ever kiss anyone?"

I lean down and pick up the folders, feeling like my face is about to melt off.

"Sweet sacks of shit, you haven't," he throws his head back and laughs.

"Shut up!"

"That's so fuckin' adorable, Jean, Christ."

"I'll come over there and 'adorable' you here in a second," I grumble, tossing my armload of papers back onto the counter and glaring at him. "Over there actin' all high and mighty. You ever slept with a girl, then?"

"No, I have never in my life slept with a girl," he says with an impish grin leaning over the counter.

"Ever kissed a girl?"

"No I have not."

"Then why the hell," I hiss, leaning over the counter as well and whapping him upside the back of the head, "are you laughin' at me?!"

If anything, he only smiles wider. "No reason, I guess. Blame it on the pain. Makes me giddy."

"You're really damn strange, you know that?" I frown, not even noticing how close our proximity to each other was until I'm walking back into the garage.

"You have no idea," Marco says airily behind me, stopping in the doorway when he sees me yanking my stuff out of my locker. "Going somewhere?"

"Yeah, taking you back to the Springers. Mikasa said you had to rest, remember?"

"God Almighty, a convalescence in the Springer household," he groans, scrubbing a hand down the side of his face. "I don't know that I trust Sasha anywhere near an open wound. She'll pour arsenic on it instead of iodine and claim it was an accident."

"Well you could always stay with me," I reply before I even know what I'm saying, stopping short and staring at the pattern of rust on the front of my locker door.

Marco flashes the brightest grin I've ever seen on him and says, "I wouldn't want to impose."

"You said you're sleepin' on the couch at the Springers', right? That's nowhere to rest up if you're trying to heal," I rush out, not sure why I have to justify the offer, legitimize it in some way, really not sure why my cheeks feel hot again. "So come home with me. You can kip in my room for a couple days and I'll take the couch."

"Oh, I don't know," he all but drawls out, and it strikes me that this is some sort of game to him, seeing just how hard I'm willing to work to make this happen. It strikes me some time after that I'm not exactly sure why I'm working to make this happen at all.

"My mom's a great cook," I offer.

"Sold." Marco claps his hands and rubs them together with a victorious little smirk, walking over and leaning on me with a dramatic swooning motion. "Take me to my sickbed, Jean Kirschtein, I do believe I feel faint."

"Get off me, you goon," I scoff, landing a solid shove on his shoulderblade. I can feel the raised ripple of the wide scar there through the fabric of his shirt.

"All right, all right," he concedes, getting up and adjusting his newsboy cap on his head, leaving it a little crooked. "You blush a lot, y'know?"

"Shut up!"

He doesn't say anything until after I've locked up the garage and we're almost back to my house, drumming his fingers on the dashboard and looking aver at me for a few seconds before he finally asks, "So what are you gonna tell Eren? About me not being able to work for a few days, I mean."

"I'll tell him to take the repairs out of my paycheck if he's really that pissed about it," I shrug, shifting gears and squinting out through the dust cloud my truck is kicking up. "He won't do it. And if he does, he's an ass and oh well."

"That's…" he starts, looking out the window and pursing his lips.

"That's what?"

Marco lets out the same soft little laugh that matches his Cheshire Cat smile, turning back to me and shaking his head. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"I feel like you ain't exactly had much niceness in your life," I tell him, parking the truck out front and hopping down out of the driver's side.

"Not really," he shakes his head a genuine, warm smile settling on his lips as Ninette comes running out onto the porch with a happy squeal. "Not 'til now, at least."

Two years later and I'm still crawling out of the wreckage, but I finally feel like I've done something right.