The room stared silently at Marco. Everyone starting to get teary-eyed, so Marco decided to try to change the subject again.
"Uh, any other questions?"
Star shot her hand up immediately.
"Yes, Star?"
"Yeah, can we give you a hug?" Star asked.
Marco frowned. He already regretted saying that he wasn't okay. He had wanted them to understand, but now they just seemed more worried than ever.
"I, uh." Should he just go back on his word? Was he already past the point of no return?
One look at the faces of his friends and family said it all. If he pulled back now, they'd know he was lying. It would only make things worse.
"Yeah, sure," he said. There was a pause before anyone moved, but then they all moved at once.
Everyone huddled around Marco protectively. For a moment, Marco was worried he'd be crushed by the weight of everyone's support, considering how the hug from his parents before had been enough to crack his spine.
But Marco didn't feel any pressure as they wrapped around him. His dad put his arm around his back while the girls softly touched or held onto a part of his body. Marco's mom and Jackie each had a grip on a hand while Janna held Marco's hip. Star didn't really have anything else to cradle, with everyone else in the way, so she rested her forehead on Marco's.
They were being so gentle that Marco felt like some glass statue. They were afraid of him shattering into a million pieces.
Eventually, they all let go and looked at one another, unsure of where to go from here.
Marco's mom turned to his father. "Oh Rafael. What are we going to do?"
His dad wiped a tear from his eye.
"Don't worry, Honey. We're going to get through this together. We'll get the best therapist money can buy." His dad thought for a second. "And we'll also get a tutor, to teach him how to write again. Whatever it takes to help our son!"
"What? I don't need therapy," Marco said. That seemed ridiculous. There wasn't anyone on Earth who could help Marco in that regard, especially since he was the first human to ever earn scissors from Heckapoo. Marco was in a league of his own. No human in this entire dimension could relate to him.
No one else seemed to agree though. They all shared surprised and confused looks.
"Marco, you clearly need to talk to some sort of professional," his mom said. "With the amount of trauma you must have gone through, it's a surprise you're even talking right now."
"Yeah, but I turned out fine," Marco said. It's not like he was some helpless victim. He managed to move on from a lot of things, without the help of some therapist.
"Dude, you're in a hospital right now because you didn't sleep for a week," Jackie said bluntly.
"Not to mention, you kinda just admitted that you're not fine?" Janna said.
Marco scratched his head. "What I'm saying is, you can't just throw money at this and think the problem will go away. I don't want to talk to some stranger about it, I want to talk to you guys."
"And we are talking," his mom said, putting her arms around Marco. "But I think we need to consider our options. We want to be extra sure you're okay."
"I get that," Marco said. "I just don't trust some random person who's being paid to listen to me. What if they decide to manipulate me or to trade out my secrets, or-" Marco stopped himself when he saw everyone's expressions.
Pity. Worry. Fear. This was what he'd been trying to prevent.
"I know I sound crazy and all, but those kinds of things have actually happened to me when I've opened up to people." Every time Marco had tried talking to someone about his past, he'd immediately be chased out of whatever village he was staying in. He wasn't that stupid anymore. He had to limit this to friends and family only.
Marco looked up and noticed their stares again. They didn't know how to speak without breaking him. He felt like that pathetic boy who needed rescuing from the forest sixteen years ago.
"Alright, can we stop acting like I'm some fragile little child? I'm an adult now."
His mom flinched at the word. Marco tried to ignore her reaction.
"I can handle it."
Jackie and Star shuffled awkwardly.
"Please. Someone say something!"
"We just… don't know how to take all this in," Jackie said. "You're, like, this thirty year old badass suddenly, with a bunch of PTSD and trust issues, in the body of a teenage boy." Everyone around her nodded in agreement.
Marco was going to correct her, but nothing she said was actually untrue. "Yeah, kinda."
Marco bit his tongue. He really needed to think before opening his mouth. They weren't getting it, and Marco was just making himself look worse.
He looked over at Star. She was the only person in this room who had actually seen who he had become. The confident warrior who had just finished this impossible journey. He had never felt better than at that moment.
Had he kept his body going back to Earth, they wouldn't even be having this conversation. They would all just be so impressed at what a man their timid little Marco had become.
Star knew all this. She knew that he survived through everything and became stronger because of it. She just needed to tell everyone else that. Tell them how strong Marco looked, how ready he was.
"Star, when you came to pick me up from Heckapoo's dimension, you saw me, right? You saw me at my prime."
Star fidgeted a bit.
"Yeah, I saw you." She looked uncomfortable as all eyes turned towards her.
"And I looked great, right?"
"You looked… really tired," she said, "and scarred. Covered in scars. Lots of scars."
Marco frowned. That definitely wasn't what he wanted everyone to hear. Why would Star answer like that? His parents looked like they were about to cry again.
"But you were checking out my hot bod!"
"I mean, maybe a little, Marco, but I was in shock more than anything. I was just trying to understand what had happened. Trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this towering giant in front of me was my best friend from eight minutes ago."
"Star, you were staring at my abs."
Jackie lifted an eyebrow and Janna hid a smirk. Star had a confused look on her face.
"I was staring at the scars on your abs, Marco."
Huh. Marco may have romanticized that whole encounter in his head. He should have known better, but for some reason he got the impression that Star was checking him out when she was ignoring his story and gazing at him. Now, Marco made himself look like some raging egomaniac.
Wait a second.
"But you called me beautiful."
"Okay, so maybe I did blurt that out. But battle worn warriors are my type, you know? But then I got a better look at you..."
"What do you mean?"
"Why do you think I was so happy to see you back to your old self on Earth? The older you looked kind of… scary."
Huh? Did he really intimidate Star that much?
"Marco? Looking scary? You sure you weren't just hallucinating, Star?" Janna asked, probably in an attempt to add levity to the situation.
"No, trust me, Janna," Star said. "He looked really hardcore. Like, there was blood on his jacket, and he had this huge burn mark across his arm, and this one spot on his side was a little caved in, so it looked like he might have been missing some organs!"
Despite Star's excitement to describe Marco's battle scars and Janna's interest in them, the rest of the room tensed at this new information.
"You lost your organs?" Jackie asked.
"It wasn't anything important," Marco said. "And it's all back now, so it doesn't matter."
Apparently Marco said the wrong thing again, becausethey spoke out at once.
"Marco! You need to take this more seriously!" his dad said.
"Just how are you okay with this?" his mom said.
"Holy crap. That is hardcore," Janna said.
"I'm pretty sure all your organs are important," Jackie said.
Marco blinked. "You guys are missing the point. Yes, I was 'covered in scars', but scars are just badges of things you've overcome. I used to hide them, until the day I realized that they were nothing to be ashamed of. Now I wear them them with honor." That is is, he used to display them, but now that Marco was back in his Earth body, did he even have any honor?
"Are you sure you just didn't feel like going shirtless?" Janna asked.
"I'm sure, Janna."
"But, all those... battles you fought in. Didn't they bother you at all? Don't they still bother you?" his mom asked.
"I mean, no one's made of steel, but each one was easier than the last. My first mission with the guild, for example, was pretty... eye-opening, to say the least. The Heckapoo running the guild knew who I was, so she was probably aiming to traumatize me as soon as possible. We had to rescue a Qur Don village from Blood Mages."
"What are Blood Mages?" Jackie asked.
"Did you eat breakfast?"
Jackie blinked. "Um, I did, but what-"
"Then you don't want to know. Every person I've described them to has thrown up."
Jackie promptly stepped back.
"Well that just makes me more curious," Janna said. The rest of the room, while still cautious, seemed to have a morbid curiosity of their own. Marco had to change the subject before he would actually have to describe it to them.
"That's not the point," he said. " The point is that it was the first time I had to deal with so much blood and death. I wanted to run away after that first mission and hide back inside my forest, but Allion had survived through it with me, and she saw all the same death and destruction, and shekept going. When they were counting survivors, she told me I had too much potential to just give up, so I stayed. I probably wouldn't have gotten the scissors if it wasn't for her."
"Counting survivors?" his mom whispered.
"I didn't realize she had such an impact on you," Jackie said.
Marco chose to answer the easier of the two questions.
"Uh, yeah. During my time there, she was my motivation to keep going, and her support helped me put battles behind me." Marco smiled. "On my first year anniversary of joining the guild, I told her how I wanted to extinguish our leader's flame. Allion said she had the same goal, so she believed the fact that we were together must've been destiny or something. She made me promise that defeating Heckapoo would be a competition between us. The winner would replace Heckapoo as guildmaster, while the loser would propose to the winner."
Marco heard his mother and Star say 'aww', while Jackie and Marco's dad shared shocked faces. Janna was the only one who maintained a neutral look.
"Marco, you were engaged to her?" his father's face of excitement then turned to anguish. "I'm so sorry."
"We never got engaged," Marco said, "Even though I was the one who became guildmaster, she never did propose to me. We kept dating, but it had always bothered me why she didn't keep her side of the promise. I was too afraid of offending her to ask." Of course, he eventually found out why, but he preferred keeping his memories of Allion pleasant.
"I'm sure she had a reason, dear," his mom said. "You were both young. She probably just didn't want to rush into things."
"Uh, yeah," Marco said, trying to act casual about it, "sure."
"How did you handle her passing?" his father asked.
"It was rough, but I eventually had to move on. I actually don't remember that much of the grieving period, since it was about ten years ago, but I guess it went about how you would expect." Drinking, crying, oversleeping, rage-induced pit fights. The usual widowy stuff. "My responsibilities as guildmaster were a priority though, so they were a nice distraction."
"What about when you stopped being guildmaster?" Star asked. "Were there others things that could distract you from all the bad stuff that happened?"
Marco realized that they were now just going through his entire chronology with 'how did you deal with this trauma?' questions, so Marco tried to make his answer as general as possible.
"Mostly I would try to focus on Heckapoo and Heckapoo only. I would spend years obsessively looking for any signs and traces of her clones. And whenever I actually found one, nothing else mattered. We'd be locked in combat and mind games for hours, days, weeks, and on special occurrences, months and years. Eventually just the thrill of another adventure made things irrelevant. There was no time to think about Allion or Mirria."
Marco realized just how cruel that sounded, but the thought was interrupted by Jackie.
"Mirria? Who's that?" Jackie asked. Marco mentally slapped himself. There was a reason he hadn't mentioned it in his story.
"It's nothing," he said, and everyone frowned. Crap. Now he would have to give some sort of explanation. "It was part of that war I fought in."
Villagers desperately running as the ground beneath them crumbled. It was no use. They wouldn't make it.
Marco snapped out of it. There was a long moment where everyone was waiting for a longer explanation, but when he never gave one, Marco's mother spoke.
"So you used Heckapoo to block off those negative experiences?"
"More or less." Marco said.
"But since Heckapoo is out of the picture, what now?"
"I'll be honest, there were others who were close to me like Allion. Some are still alive, while others aren't, but they all had an impact on me. While I wish I could have done a lot of things differently, I believe that most wounds heal over time, and for the ones that don't, I block them off."
Some of them winced at what Marco said, while others glared.
Were they… judging him?
"So, what? You're just going to decide which people are too inconvenient to think about and pretend they never existed?" Janna asked. Where did that come from?
"No, it's not like that," Marco said. "I'm just saying that some things should be kept in the past, that's all. The people themselves I'll never forget."
"Are you sure?" Jackie asked, still unconvinced, along with everyone else.
"What? Do you want proof? Throughout my journey I kept a diary that detailed all my adventures. Almost everything is in there," save for a few torn out pages, "and I would occasionally reread it to remind myself of my accomplishments." And of his mistakes.
"Really? Where is it?" Star asked.
"I took it with me to Earth. It should still be in my jacket inside my room."
"Interesting," Janna said.
"Oh, yeah. There's also the tattoo on my back," Marco said. He'd almost forgotten about it.
"A tattoo?" his dad gulped.
"Yeah, it has the names of important people I lost throughout my journey, so they'd always be a part of me. Allion's on there and there's a bunch of other-"
Marco stopped.
It wouldn't be there anymore. Not after he returned to Earth.
"Marco? Are you okay?" Jackie asked.
A wave of disappointment sunk into Marco's stomach. That tattoo that had been on him for over a decade was gone now. He had several highly esteemed artists work on those, each name drawn in a way that reflected the owner's personality. Allion's name was drawn with fierce lines, while Oran's had his surrounded by the animals he held so dear. Tashren's name was bold and strong, like the final sword he crafted specifically for Marco. And Heckapoo's, well, hers was written in boiling gold.
He would never be able to recreate it, and attempting to do so would be downright disrespectful.
It was like every passing moment on Earth reminded Marco of how much he lost by going through that portal. All he had to show for it now was his scissors, but were they even worth it? It wasn't like he was using them to go on more exciting adventures to save more people. What was even the point of getting the scissors if he was just going to stay here? He was stuck on Earth now, being expected to go to Earth school like a good Earth boy and get a stupid Earth job to raise an Earth family. It was so suffocating.
Marco was then reminded of what Janna had told him two days ago, about how he'd most likely forget all the people from Heckapoo's dimension, just like he did with his Earth friends. He didn't take her words seriously at first, but now that the tattoo was gone, it seemed very possible, and that terrified Marco. Would that quest just be remembered as a bad dream? Did those people he see die not matter anymore now that he's back on Earth? Marco scrambled to remember all the names that were on his back. How many names were there again? 82 or 83? Dammit! It was already starting!
Marco put his hands on his face and started to hyperventilate. This was too much. His family and friends looming over him didn't help either. They weren't giving him enough room to breathe. Why wouldn't they give him some fucking space?
He was about to shout when his mother put her hand on his head.
"It's okay, honey. Let it all out."
Wait.
What?
Was she really expecting him to cry, in front of everyone? That was the last thing he needed to do. He'd been trying to prove how capable he was. If he cried now, it would prove he was an overly emotional teenager again. If he cried, he'd just be proving them all right, that he wasn't okay, that he couldn't handle it.
Marco sucked in an uneven breath. He could feel everyone's worried gazes. It was obvious he wasn't okay.
If he sucked it up, if he pushed it all back down, they would know. They would know how much this hurt him, that he was just burying his feelings, and they would worry even more if they saw him do it again.
God, he wished he had some draconian ale right about now.
No, he wished he had his old body right now.
His strength, his scars, his tattoos-
Marco felt it all bubble up in his throat and he let out a sob. Then, as if a dam broke, he started wholeheartedly crying.
He felt his cheeks soak with tears and a disgusting stream of snot come from his nose that was so bad he couldn't breathe out of it. He sobbed again and someone put his face against their shoulder and rubbed his back. He pulled the person tight against him into a hug and held on for dear life.
"It's okay. It'll be okay," his mom said, and he realized she was the one holding him. He sat there for a while, just crying into her shoulder.
Once his sobs calmed down enough for him to speak, he pulled his face away from her shoulder, but didn't let go from the hug.
"Sorry," he said. He wasn't sure if he was apologizing for ruining her shirt or ruining the memory of her son, but he needed to say it.
"Oh, honey, it's okay. There's no reason to apologize." She kept rubbing his back and there was no way he was about to ask her to stop.
"Thanks," he said, and hugged her tighter.
"For what?" she asked.
"Everything…" Marco said, and his mom placed a kiss on his forehead.
"My little boy," his dad said, and pulled him out of his mother's embrace to lift him up into a bear hug.
"Be careful," his mom said. "You don't want to hurt him."
"Oh, sorry." His dad laid him back on the bed.
Marco wiped his eyes and looked across the room. Everyone looked like a huge weight was off their shoulders. What? Did they expect him to break down like that? Had they taken bets on how soon he'd start crying like a child?
"Thank god," Janna said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "It's okay guys, he's still human."
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"We were worried you were emotionally stunted or something," Jackie said.
"Like a robot," Star added.
"What? I'm not emotionally stunted," Marco said. His eyes were drying and his voice was raw.
"So, what, you were just holding it in the whole time?" Janna asked.
"Of course!" Marco said. "If I just started crying, you'd think I couldn't handle it!"
"Marco, noone could handle what you went through," his dad said. "The fact that you were handling it was what was worrying us."
"Wait, so breaking down and crying was the answer all along?" Marco asked. Had he been stepping on eggshells for nothing?
"Honey, you've always been a sensitive kid," his mom said.
"Yeah, you used to cry at least once a week," Star said.
"Seeing you so stoic was pretty creepy," Jackie said.
"Really?" Marco asked.
"Yeah. You were talking about forgetting all these people who had died, and something about that just didn't sit right," Janna said, "and that's coming from me."
Marco chuckled. "I just didn't want you guys to see me as weak or treat me differently."
"Oh, you're definitely not weak," Star said. "You're, like, the toughest guy I know."
"And we're always going to treat you a little differently, Marco," his dad said. "That's just part of growing up."
He supposed that was true. It would be impossible for him to ask that they treat him exactly the same as before he went on his quest, and he felt kinda bad for expecting it of them.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Marco said. He felt better now. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good cry, with friends and family around to help him through it, and he hadn't realized how much he needed it. Everyone was here to help him, and he would have to strip off his emotional shell if he wanted any of that help.
He took a deep breath. From then on, he should be more honest with them.
"What's wrong, Marco?" Star asked.
"I... kind of don't know where to go from here."
"Why do we have to go anywhere? You're at a hospital right now. Let's just worry about that for now," Jackie said.
"Jackie's right. Let's just make sure you're okay first," his dad said. "We can worry about all that big stuff later."
"I'm sorry if it was too early to talk about therapy, Marco," his mom said. "We can talk about that whenever you're comfortable."
"Thanks," Marco said. His voice was still raspy from crying.
"And you can take the rest of the week off from school, so you can take some time to adjust."
Marco sighed in relief. "Yeah, I think I need it."
He let out a dry cough.
His mom handed him a glass of water and he took a deep gulp.
"Better?" she asked.
"Yeah, thanks," Marco said.
"So, now that you're calmed down and acting like a human again," Jackie said, "I've been wondering about something."
"Yeah?"
There was a short pause where Jackie figured out how to word her question.
"Do you still feel like an adult?" Jackie asked.
"Oh yeah," Janna said. "When you came back to Earth, did you suddenly feel stupider?"
Marco thought carefully about this. Janna's joke aside, he was definitely more mature now, but...
"I mean, what exactly constitutes feeling like an adult?" Marco said. "People in this dimension always make a fuss about what age you have to be to be considered an adult, as if maturity happens overnight after some arbitrary amount of years has passed. The concept of adulthood didn't really exist in Heckapoo's dimension. It was just a giant cluster of people trying to survive. You started drinking as soon as you could afford alcohol, and you had kids whenever you had time to breathe. Adults and children in that dimension weren't as different from each other as they are in this dimension. No school or jobs to conveniently label them. People are just the culminations of past experiences that shape who they are. There's no age when that stops happening."
Boy, he was glad he drank that water.
There was a long pause, where everyone just kind of stared at him.
"Uh. Did you not want the philosophical answer?" Marco asked.
"Um, no, something a little more straightforward," Jackie said.
"Wait, Marco. Did you have children in that place?" his dad asked, looking concerned.
"What I… no. I didn't. I never had time to breathe." Although he did have money for alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
"Oh what a relief," Marco's mother said, wiping her forehead. At least that was one thing they didn't have to worry about.
Marco sighed. "Anyway, I guess I don't feel like an adult in this body, because of how much smaller I became, but mentally I feel the same as I felt before I came back. If there's one thing that's preventing me from considering myself an adult, it's a lack of independence. I was on my own for a lot of my quest, but now that I'm back on Earth, I'm gonna have to rely on my parents for a lot of things now, and that definitely makes me feel like a child."
"I meant, like, was it creepy when we kissed?" Jackie asked.
"Oh, yes. Definitely," Marco said, realizing Jackie had meant for that question to be about the kiss all along.
"Wait, you guys kissed?" Star said.
"Yeah," Jackie said with a frown. "I kind of… forced it on him though."
Star was counting on her fingers. "But, when did you two even get the chance? Me and Janna didn't… interrupt you this morning, did we?"
"Oh, no, well, it kind of just happened while we were hiding from the demon in my parent's bedroom," Marco said.
"Sounds like the ideal make-out time to me," Janna said, smirking.
"You two were kissing in our bedroom?" his dad asked.
"There was a demon in our bedroom?" his mom asked.
Different priorities, these two.
"Yeah, Star's demon ex-boyfriend brought over a cursed mask that turned Ferguson into a crazy superpowered demon that tried to kill us all," Janna said. "Did we not mention that?"
"What?" his father said. "Is this true, Marco?"
"Yeah," Marco said, "but it turned out okay. I beat the demon and he got sent to demon prison." Marco just realized how dumb that sounded. All of a sudden, Marco began feeling light-headed.
"You can't just let a demon into the house, Marco," his father said. "It's very dangerous."
"It wasn't that bad. I've faced demons a lot more powerful than Thomifat," Marco said.
His stomach sunk. Why did he say that just now?
The room froze at this new tidbit of information.
Wait. No. It was time already?
"Really? You didn't mention demons in your story," his mother said. Marco took a look at the clock. It was useless. It wasn't like he could read it. Had it really been el hours? He hadn't expected to actually be in conversation when the side effect hit him. He assumed he'd be asleep or something.
"I didn't mention a lot of things in my story," Marco said, without any control over his words. "I left all the worst parts out."
"What?" Janna said. No, this wasn't happening. Not now.
"Are you okay, Marco?" Star asked. If everyone shut up for a minute he would be.
"No, I used a Truth Ritual on Tom to get him to confess his deepest insecurities and the side effect is hitting me right now," Marco said. He was partially relieved that everyone seemed more confused than angry.
"Uh, what?" Janna repeated.
"I'm forced to tell the truth for the next few minutes or so."
"Oh," Jackie said.
Why now? Everyone was accepting him now. He finally managed to make things better.
"So, wait, you really left out all the worst parts of your story?" Janna asked.
"Yes," Marco said, and bit his lip to try to stop himself from continuing.
"What about telling us 'everything'? You just lied to us?" Jackie asked. No, it wasn't like that.
"Yes." Marco's lip started bleeding.
"How much did you lie to us?" Janna asked, stepping toward him threateningly.
"Wait, we shouldn't be doing this," his father said.
"I agree, he should tell us this on his own terms," his mother added. Janna turned to them.
"About 90 percent of what I told you was toned down or a straight lie," Marco said. No. No. No. No. No-
"See? He'd never tell us on his own, right, Marco?" Janna turned to him menacingly.
"No, I most likely wouldn't." Marco looked over and saw Star and Jackie staring at the scene, probably torn between intervening and hearing what he was going to say.
Janna continued. "Why?"
"Because I want to keep it buried. All the things I've done. I don't want you to think I'm a monster."
"Wait, Janna!" Star said. "Marco's parents are right. This is wrong."
"Star, when are we going to get another chance like this?" Janna said. "You weren't there when he told me about the time he caught his first clone. He went into so much detail. Today, he summed up sixteen years in sixteen minutes. That's not fair! I think he's hiding something. Something big."
"But-"
"He said it himself. He won't tell us on his own. This is our only chance to find out what really happened there!"
Star was about to argue, but stopped herself.
"Now." Janna turned to be face to face with him. "What could you have done that was so bad I would suddenly think you're a monster?"
Marco tried to clear his head. If he could think of something tame, maybe he would blurt that instead, but his mind went straight to the one thing that would make Janna hate him the most.
His body fell to the ground, his head twisted to look behind him. His lifeless eyes stared ahead in confusion. Marco did not enjoy seeing death, but it was better this way. He stood against The Reckoning.
"I killed Toza." Marco felt tears soaking his cheeks again. Everyone in the room stopped their bickering and stared at him.
"What?" someone in the room whispered. No, no, no...
"I chased Toza into an alleyway when he was weakest, I held him by the neck and twisted his head and-" Marco choked on his words as the karmic side effect cut off. It felt like a hand had just released his neck. He could lie again.
Marco looked back up and everyone was terrified of him. They were taking steps back, as if they were afraid he was going to do the same thing to them as he did to Toza.
There was only one thing Marco could think to do.
He had to get out of here.
He had to run away.
Anywhere in the multiverse was better than right here, right now.
Marco ignored their gazes and searched around the bed.
"Looking for these?" Janna asked. She held his scissors in her hand and took a step back out of his reach. She was the only one in the room who wasn't afraid of him. She was just pissed.
"J-Janna, you need to understand the context," Marco said, desperately.
"Was Toza on your back tattoo, Marco?" she asked coldly.
"Of course he was!"
"Janna, calm down," Star said, taking a step toward her.
"How can I calm down? Did you hear him, Star? He killed the very first friend he made in that dimension. I don't think this guy's Marco anymore."
"J-Janna, please," Marco whispered. "Just hear me out."
"Why should I hear you out? So far you've lied to us, used some weird magic on Tom, killed Toza by personally snapping his neck, and then tried to run away when we caught you."
"I know it looks bad," Marco said, "But there's a lot you don't know-"
"Oh, I know," Janna said. "How many other deaths have you been keeping from us?"
"I-"
"How many people have you killed, Marco?" Janna asked.
Marco opened his mouth, but no words would come. He wanted to say it was only Toza, but he couldn't lie now.
"Janna, just- Everyone, just give me a few minutes to explain myself."
"Okay," Janna said, "Is there anyway you can use that truth thing on yourself again?"
"It doesn't work like that…" In reality, he could use it on himself using a mirror, but he wasn't about to tell her that.
"How convenient."
Star tried to approach Janna again. "Listen Janna, everyone needs to cool off. Right now."
Janna became only more angry. "Excuse me? Did you forget that Marco just lied to our faces? Aren't you mad?"
"Of course I am!"
Marco flinched. He betrayed everyone's trust, and now-
"But I want to hear what Marco has to say," Star said. "He must have had a good reason. I believe in him."
Janna scoffed and turned to Jackie. "What about you, Jackie? Feel like trusting Marco after all of this?"
Jackie stared wide-eyed and couldn't seem to make coherent words.
"Leave Jackie out of this," Marco said. "If you want to put my head on the chopping block, then just do it."
"No one's head is going on any chopping blocks," his dad said.
"You mean, apart from Toza's?" Janna said.
"I think we should just wait and see what the doctor has to say about Marco's condition," his mom said. "He could have found something that explains this."
"I can explain this. You guys just have to listen to me!" Marco said.
His parents looked over at him and seemed unsure.
"Don't you trust me, guys? I'm your son!"
"I- I don't know what to believe, Marco," his dad said. "Just, please, stay on the bed until the doctor arrives."
This was it. All of their trust in him was gone. Marco didn't even know what to do at this point.
"Give me my scissors, Janna," he said. "Please."
"You said you earned these scissors," Janna said, "by any means necessary, apparently."
Marco flinched.
Janna flipped open the scissors and ripped a portal open. It looked more like a pitch black pit than a portal.
"Janna, what are you doing?" Star said.
"Making sure he can't run away from this." No, she wouldn't...
Marco looked up, and she tossed the scissors into the portal.
Marco jumped out of his bed. There still might be time to-
"No!" Star shouted. She threw into the portal just a second before it closed.
"Star!" Marco said. He heard a chorus of other voices shouting alongside him.
Marco didn't waste any time reacting to what just happened. He ripped the needles out of his arm and headed straight for Janna.
He pinned the girl to the wall. For the first time, Janna looked terrified of Marco.
"What were you thinking of when you made that portal?" he asked her. She tried to get away, but he gripped her shoulders and held her still.
"Wait, I-" Janna started panicking.
"Janna, listen very carefully. When you opened a portal with those scissors, what place were you thinking of?"
"I-I don't know," Janna said. "I wasn't thinking about anywhere. I was just pissed!"
"That was the last thing I needed to hear right now." Fuck! Shit! Crap!
"I- Where's Star?" she asked.
"Magical items like the scissors or Star's wand use your thoughts to operate. If your thoughts aren't clear, they run off emotions." Marco paced back and forth. If Star wasn't back in a minute or so, she was probably stuck there. Permanently. "Bad emotions like envy or anger tend to be unpredictable and really dangerous."
"So, you don't know where Star is, then?" Jackie asked, taking a step towards them.
"No! She could be anywhere in or out of the multiverse right now!" Marco swung his fist against the wall and it cracked. "Fuck!"
"M-Marco, calm down!" His dad put a hand on his shoulder. Marco pushed it away. He needed to think.
"W-well, she has the scissors at least, right?" his mom said.
"They're not going to be very helpful if she spawned an inch above an active volcano," he said. Or some bottomless pit. Or an empty void.
"Then what do we do?" his mom asked.
"Wait. We wait and hope she ended up in a dimension with solid ground and breathable air. And then we hope she still has the scissors to get back." That was all they could do.
Marco leaned against the wall and let his body slide down until he was sitting on the floor. He didn't even care about his bleeding arm.
"For fuck's sake," he said under his breath.
There was an awkward shuffling throughout the room as everyone took in what was going on. It was suddenly dawning on them that Star may be in danger, but they had no way of knowing for sure.
"I'm sorry," Janna said quietly.
Marco looked up at her and sighed. He would be mad, too, if he heard it like that. "Believe me when I tell you, killing Toza was a lot more complicated than it seems."
"Okay," Janna said, "but you're keeping so many secrets. It's been bothering me since you gave us that big story. Nothing really had any ends unless we asked. It was always you just going to the next part, leaving the last part open ended."
"That's because nothing in that dimension ended well." This probably wasn't going to end well, either.
"Honey, I'm sorry we doubted you," his mom said.
"It's okay," Marco said to everyone in the room. The ticking of the clock in the room counted all the seconds that Star was probably dead.
Jackie took an uneven breath.
"There's nothing we can do?" his dad asked.
"Do you happen to have an extra pair of scissors?" Marco said.
"I, uh-"
"We can call Star's mom," Janna suggested.
"Even with another pair of scissors, there's no way to find her."
More awkward shuffling.
No one was talking now. Marco actually preferred it this way. He was able think clearly. Marco tried to come up with something, anything that could help. Maybe the Locator Ritual? No, it wasn't cross-dimensional.
Janna fell to her knees.
"She's dead," Janna said. "Oh my god. She's never coming back and it's my fault!" She sucked in a sob and covered her face with her beanie. "Why didn't I just listen to her?"
Jackie leaned over and pat Janna on the back. "Star will be fine. She's tough, and she has her magic…"
"You really think so?" Janna asked. Most likely not.
"Sure!" Jackie said. "I bet that any minute now, she'll come in through a portal, and it'll be like the last few minutes never happened!"
Wait.
That was it!
Marco got up from the ground.
"I can fix this," Marco said. It would hurt, a lot, and he hadn't done it in years, but it was their only hope at this point.
Everyone turned to him.
"What are you waiting for? Just do it," Jackie said. They didn't even want to know how, they all just trusted him to save her.
He wasn't sure if he trusted himself to fix this, honestly.
"Okay, just give me a minute to think." To remember.
He closed his eyes. The room was silent, but the tension pressed down so heavily it almost made it worse.
Almost.
God damn, what was that stupid hand signal? It was infuriatingly complex and if he fucked it up just a little, he'd probably just end up killing himself.
Ashes fell from the sky like snow, coating the ruins that once was a city. On the horizon, the great beast destroyed its next target. It wouldn't stop until everyone was dead. Marco looked down at his hands, charred and coated in the blood of the people he'd failed to save. He'd been abandoned by Kar, yet again. He knew it would happen. It happened every time. He was glad it happened every time, because maybe, just maybe, Kar would be the thing he lost on his way back.
Marco held his hands above him and closed his eyes. He knotted his fingers together how he'd done seven times before, and spoke in the ancient tongue.
Wow, where did that come from? Marco shook the memory away, but he was glad it happened like that.
Marco copied his past self's hand gestures and took one last look at the room. Everyone was staring at him expectantly. He offered a reassuring smile and then closed his eyes again. He had to do this right.
Marco focused on his pinkie toe.
"Kilithikadya Sema Useerant Metos Fir farillecassion Biel'Tan! Menshad Korum, Khgirgint mugin gis pgiyment." Pinkie toe, pinkie toe, pinkie toe…
Marco felt his body burn to dust and everything went black.
Oh, thank god.