Shawn's Marvelous Medicine

[Fiori]

Shawn flashed Dickie a thumbs up and an awkward smile in response to his question and Iris' subsequent introduction, his eyes glancing nervously at the gun in Darryl's hand.

It wasn't a particularly big gun, in fact it was comedically tiny. How very on brand of their organisers to make sure they only got assigned guns that were absolute dogshit. Still, he wasn't going to bet his life against a bullet anytime soon, and small or not that peashooter likely packed a punch. Besides, a tiny gun that you could fit into a jacket pocket? He could think of a couple ways a weapon like that could come in handy...

"Well, that and a couple other things..." he says, following on from Iris' last statement. "A spare map, an extra flashlight... Pretty much everything that remained in the fella outside's bag, other than his weapon and rations."

Shawn sighed mournfully, shaking his head at the inhumanity of it all. "Grim stuff... But, like I was saying to Iris, you guys are welcome to 'em if you want."

[Maraoone]

((June Madison continues from Ego Te Absolvo))

Though it was open, three hollow knocks sounded from the wooden door.

June took a deep breath.

It felt like she was about to jump off a cliff.

She withdrew her hand, and then stepped fully into view.

Though there were three other people, her eyes were drawn immediately to Iris, to the bandages wrapped around her head. Her damage.

I'll be there for you, Medea had told her two days ago.

Please, June begged.

June cleared her throat, tried to speak past the lump.

"Can I- can I come in? I don't mean any harm."

She kneaded the knuckles on her hand.

"I promise."

[Deamon]

Ah, it was Shawn.

Ah.

Shawn wasn't to be trusted. The person that did got burned and if he was willing to fuck someone over while there were no stakes back in Salem, then it was not safe to trust him when lives were on the line. So while it was just Shawn as Iris said Darryl only took his finger off the trigger, he didn't completely holster the gun. But it was lowered, a concession to normalcy he was comfortable enough with.

"Oh cool," Darryl responded to Iris' comment about Shawn finding a first-aid kit. Darryl narrowed his eyes slightly at Shawn's explanation, it wasn't that he didn't believe it. It made all the sense in the world that he would have found the first-aid kit on the corpse. It was how he said it. Darryl was about to speak up, to be proactive rather than sit on issues like he had with Letitia but before he could voice any complaint there was a series of knocks from behind him and Richard, causing Darryl to spin around, gun-pointed at the door. Finger off the trigger.

"Fuck June!" He breathed out lowering the pistol. "Jesus Christ,"

He shook his head in disbelief then turned to Dickie and Iris.

"We cool with one more?"

[Buko]

“We’re good with one more,” Dicky spat before he could stop himself, “I just dunno if we’re good with her.”

Darryl hadn’t been there when Iris told the story, and they hadn’t bothered repeating it in the following days. June attacked Iris outta nowhere. Pushed her down stairs and took her glasses, stuffed her in a barrel and then ran the fuck-away. What was she gonna do with Iris’ glasses anyway? They were fuckin' prescription. Why else would you attack Iris if not for being a psychokiller mega-bitch. And the worst of it? June had inches on him and Darryl. And pounds. This broad was built like Glenn “Big Baby” Davis. It wouldn’t be easy if shit got physical. Dick couldn't expect it to be anything but hard out here.

If June wanted to stay, it wouldn’t be easy to make her go away. That was the key word, make. June wasn’t gonna do anything that June didn’t want to do.

“What you lookin’ at Madison? Got somethin’ you wanna tell the class?”

[backslash]

"Oh."

Iris's voice was small. Her posture immediately folded in on itself, as she shrank back in her chair. A little color had come into her cheeks as the room warmed just a bit from the bodies filling it; that was gone now.

"...Hi, June." It sounded stupid even as she said it, but she didn't know what else to say.

[Fiori]

Things just kept getting more and more interesting.

No sooner had Dickie and Darryl introduced themselves did a fourth visitor arrive, one whom even his previous guests were surprised to see. A part of him wondered if she'd been tailing them, waiting for an appropriate moment to make herself known for one reason or another? Who could say, though it quickly became apparent that she was an unwelcome presence.

Shawn didn't know much about June, certainly not enough to understand the others' animosity towards her. She was another bleeding heart liberal type like McDickerson, right? It was unlikely to be down to petty political differences then, nor had June's name come up on the announcements at any point. Evidently she'd done something to put his guests on edge, but what exactly remained unsaid.

Granted, Shawn managed to gleam a small but telling clue from Iris' reaction. Unlike the others she seemed deathly afraid, shrinking away and unconsciously reaching for her head. Did June have some part to play in that little injury? Maybe, maybe not, but it was clear that she'd done something to put Iris on edge. 

Well, what better way to ingratiate himself than to voice concern for his new potential allies?

"Lemme guess..." he says, unprompted. "You're here to apologise now that Iris here is surrounded by friends?"

[Maraoone]

"N-no," she said, not able to meet any of their gazes, least of all Iris.

Some part of June was supposed to feel anger at the idea of Shawn Bellamy, of all people, getting on his high horse, as if he had any standing to do so. But, all the fiery parts of her, all the parts of her that held feelings and passion and energy, they were all muffled and near-extinguished. All that resided within her now was this deep sense of guilt and regret.

Iris and all her friends looked at June with varying degrees of admonishment, disappointment. Iris had done it, she had spread whispers down the gossip network, and now June was poisoned in the eyes of each and every one of them. They hated her, in other words, and she'd expected it, it was what she'd predicted. It was her worst nightmare, but she'd expected it.

She bit her cheek. It was all she could do not to throw up.

Dick, class vice-president, was asking for an explanation. She didn't want to give one, but her therapist had told her that the first step to fixing any problem was to name the problem. Accountability and all.

"I, uh, I'm the one that, uh, did that," she said, pointing at Iris' bandages, eyes still on the floor.

She corrected herself, made herself look. "I pushed her down the stairs. I- I freaked out, and I was scared so I just, I hid her away. I'm sorry. There's not enough words in the world to say how sorry I am, but I am."

Her eyes welled up with tears, but she wiped them away.

"I- I don't know what happened with her glasses though, that wasn't me."

She shook her head.

"Look, I don't- could Iris and I have a moment? I know none of you guys have any reason to trust me, so one of you can stand guard if you want or- we could meet somewhere in viewing distance, whatever you guys want, but I- I want to make things right."

She gulped, eyes tentatively looking at Iris.

"Please?"

[backslash]

Iris took a deep breath, and then another, as the boys closed ranks around her. Her heart was in her throat, and she could feel the way that her body wanted to shake, but she felt- warm? Like Shawn had said, she was surrounded by friends. Iris was surrounded by friends, and June was alone.

She stayed quiet as June made her explanations and apologies, though her mouth twisted, unsure what sort of expression it wanted to settle into. June was crying. Iris had never seen her cry before, but she'd never seen most of her classmates cry. She was crying, and she was sorry, and there was a hard, cold knot in Iris's chest that said that sorry was just a word and it didn't make her headache go away or make it any easier to see. But there was also the part of her that felt sorry for June in return, watching and listening to the state that she was in.

Please, June asked. It was so much like the way that people would sometimes come lean on Iris's desk and ask so sweetly to copy her homework, if she could do just a little bit more of the group project, if she could just maybe do some things last minute for the yearbook because they'd forgotten. So much like that, but so different, because none of them had ever forced themselves to look at her with tears in their eyes.

Iris took in another breath and held it, like it would buoy her up, and then she stood. She was shaking, but only a little. She wasn't entirely sure what to say until she said it.

"Y-yeah," she agreed, voice small and trembling. She set her jaw and said it again. "Yeah, we can talk outside, if you- we can talk." She started to move towards June, but Richard put his hand out, catching her by the elbow as she would have passed in.

"Hang on." He nodded towards Darryl - towards the gun in Darryl's hand - and then to Iris. "Take this."

"No," Iris said immediately, surprising herself probably more than anybody else. "That's- I'm okay. I'll be okay. We're just going to talk." She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him, or everyone else in the room, or herself most of all. She didn't want to hold the gun again, and she didn't want to do anything else that would set June off again, no matter how sorry June said she was.

They could talk. They were going to talk. It would be fine. Her friends wouldn't let her get hurt. Even if this was all some kind of trick, June wouldn't be so stupid when Iris obviously had a friend with a gun.

If she was about to get hurt again, some part of her whispered, she wouldn't have to pull the trigger herself.

[Maraoone]

They walked, snow lightly dusting the both of them, feet crunching the frost underneath. June's heart almost seemed to buzz underneath her chest, thumping with each step. It felt like walking towards a cliff, really. She could still run away, some part of her thought. Iris hated her, Dick and Shawn and Darryl hated her, she could just cut her losses and run.

But, she'd thought Medea hated her, and she was wrong. And, Medea would've wanted her to try. So she had to try. That's all there was to it. She had to.

The two of them walked until they were somewhere adjacent to the tunnel entrance June had emerged from a couple minutes before. Far enough from the rest to be out of earshot, near enough to be within eyeshot.

They positioned themselves so that June's back was to the entrance, Iris' back was to the infirmary. Quick exits for both of them, just in case.

June decided to speak first. This was all her idea after all.

She held her arm tightly, tapped her fingers on the sleeves of her coat.

"How are you, uh, how are you feeling? I mean, physically. Does it"—June gestured to Iris' forehead—"Does it still, uh, does it still hurt?"

[backslash]

Iris squeezed the strap of her bag tightly as she followed June outside, despite her repeated assurances to herself. If nothing else, she'd have all her supplies if she needed to run away.

She stayed quiet, waiting for June to make the first move. It was June's apology that she wanted to make so badly, after all. When the question came, she bit her lip and took a moment to form an answer.

Because what she wanted to say, the first thing that came to mind, was Are you stupid?

It was a startlingly mean thought, even when faced with somebody who had hurt and terrified her. But of course it still hurt, and Iris wanted to say so. You could have killed me, she wanted to say, and you're asking if it still hurts?

Do you know that my dad works in a morgue, June? He puts people on a table, cuts them open, and figures out what killed them. Did you know that something like a hundred thousand people die in household accidents each year? How many of those people he sees? People who slipped in the shower or fell down the stairs on a completely normal day and just died?

Did you know that he's had people in the morgue who hit their heads, got up and walked away, and then died from bleeding in their brains hours or days later? Did you know that you could have killed me even if I got away? Did you know that June!?

Iris squeezed the strap of her bag tightly and didn't say any of that, because she knew that June didn't know, and because Iris wasn't going to drop dead from bleeding on the brain. She'd made it almost a week since then, and the thought had kept her up at night, whether or not she'd wake up again if she let herself fall asleep. But she hadn't brought it up to Richard and Darryl because there was nothing they could do, and she didn't bring it up now. She was still here.

"Yeah," she said softly, aware that she was shaking but unsure if it was from cold or fear or anger. "It still hurts, but- it's gotten a little better, I think." Some part of her wished that she hadn't even given June that much reassurance, but it also felt wrong to lie.

"You really... don't know what happened to my glasses?"

[Maraoone]

June saw it, the way Iris' hands quivered as she gripped herself. She realized, about as soon as she said the words, how dumb her question was, but she didn't know how else to convey what she wanted to into words. She was trying to check in, she guessed. Her therapist said that apologies should be for the aggrieved, and not the aggrieving. She was trying to see exactly what damage she'd wrought, to figure out the degree of apology she needed to make, though she realized no matter what the physical wounds actually were, they'd never compare to the weight of attempted murder, whether that attempt was first-degree or third-degree. She was trying to make good, but her brain and her vocal cords translated all that into morbid curiosity, rather than concern.

That had always been the issue with June. Emotions and words were two different forms of communication, and she'd always been shit at translating the former to the latter. She felt so strongly and she wanted so strongly, but all that ever came out her mouth was half-baked slop.

She shook her head again. Try, Medea would've insisted.

"...that's good. That- that you're hurting less, I mean."

Iris asked again about the glasses. June's brows narrowed slightly.

"I don't know what happened to your glasses, I was... I ran away too fast to really, uh, to-"

She looked down, bit her lip.

"I didn't keep track of it, I'm sorry."

June couldn't stop shaking too now. It was cold. She was trying to fix the worst- the second worst thing she'd ever done in her life, she was at the moment of fixing, and she still didn't know how to fix anything. She had hardly gotten any sleep or food in her system since Medea died. Iris hated her, so many people hated her, and she didn't know how to fix it. The cold brought on anxiety. The anxiety made her colder. The cold and the anxiety were overlaid on top of each other and compounded one another. None of it was related. All of it was related.

She swallowed, forced herself to speak.

"I was— in school, I just— I— whenever I got angry, I would just try to walk away, but when I was in that cellar with you, I— I couldn't walk away and, like, I knew it was wrong I knew I needed to go away and I couldn't so I just— I did that. I did that. I'm sorry. I did that."

Her gaze was fully fixed on the ground now. She was supposed to face her mistakes, but it was taking all her strength just to be here right now.

[backslash]

"Why did you-" Iris's voice came out in a rasp, and she had to stop and swallow around the lump in her throat before trying again. "I- I was so scared, and when I realized you were there, I was so happy to just- not be alone."

She'd never wanted to be alone, even when she did. When she didn't want to be with any of the people she knew, there were still people she wanted to be with. She just didn't know who. People she hadn't met yet, people who would understand her and love her and tell her that she was funny and smart and not a weird stalker freak.

Nobody ever gave her what she wanted and needed. Nobody gave her the help she needed the most. June had put her in a barrel, and the people who came along after had screamed at her for crying for help, and now Iris had to think that they'd been the ones to take her glasses, or destroy them, or whatever, because all she was to them was garbage.

"I- I understand you were scared," Iris said, but she couldn't make it meaningful. Of course she understood that. They'd both been scared together, and that should have been solidarity. "What I don't understand is why you- the barrel." She couldn't put words together as neatly as she wanted to, thinking back on it. The memory had stopped being clear. It was a blur of dark and pain and screams and the stink of rat piss and stale alcohol, and voices all around her, mocking and berating.

"W-why... why did you put me in there?"

What if I didn't get out? The unspoken second half of the question hung heavier in the air than the snow drifting down around them.

[Maraoone]

June put her hand to her mouth, choked on her own sobs. Her face turned red, her eyebrows crinkled.

"I— I'm sorry I— I didn't mean it. I didn't think you would get out," she said, her voice breaking. "I thought I'd— I thought you were— I thought I'd killed you. I just— there were people, there were people and I thought you were dead and I didn't want them to know you were dead I didn't want them to know I'd killed you and I was scared and I— if I'd known you were alive I would've— I would've tried. I'm so sorry I didn't mean it, Iris, I didn't mean it."

[backslash]

Oh. Of course.

June was sobbing, and the worst part was that Iris did believe her completely. She was sorry for all of it, that much was plain to see. She hadn't meant it.

Nobody ever meant to hurt Iris. It was all an accident, or all a joke, and she'd taken it too seriously, and that was why she got hurt. It was her own fault for having such fragile feelings, or for getting her hopes up, or for just being weird. She had to forgive them because they hadn't meant it. She had to, or else she was being the mean and unreasonable one.

"I believe you," Iris said softly, "but you hurt me, and- and the people who came along after didn't help. They just screamed at me even though I was hurt and scared, and- and I don't want to forgive any of you!" She found some strength in the words at the very end.

"I don't want to just say that it's okay even though I got hurt, because it isn't! Even if you didn't mean to, it's not okay." She said the words firmly, surprising herself a little, but she couldn't keep looking at June's red, tear-streaked face as she did so.

[Maraoone]

June's breath stopped. Tears still ran freely from her eyes, but her hand dropped to the side, fist clenched in and out.

Iris knew she was sorry, she knew she didn't mean it, but she wasn't forgiving her. She'd poured her heart out, told her everything, and it still wasn't enough.

She took in a shaky breath.

"I... I'm not asking you to say to say it's okay, it wasn't, b-but—"

She put her fist down to her mouth, bit down hard.

But I need you to say it's okay.

Because, that was the only way she could make it up to Medea. Because, that was the only way Medea would ever be proud of her now. Because, Medea said she would always be with her, but— Because, apologies weren't demanded, she knew, it was up to the other person whether to forgive or not, she knew, but she needed her to say it was okay. Because, because, because—

That had always been the issue with June. Other people could calmly communicate their feelings, her therapist knew how to calmly communicate her feelings, but her mom didn't and her dad didn't and she didn't. She'd always been shit at translating emotions to words, at acting rationally, whatever the fuck that meant.

What she felt was, that Iris didn't like her, and Dick didn't like her, and Shawn didn't like her and Darryl didn't like her, and, K wasn't anywhere to be found and Medea was dead, and the last people that would ever like her were either dead or missing and the last people that would ever ever like her were either dead or missing and she would never find anyone who liked her ever again on this island.

What she never could put into words was that that was the fear. That was what no one ever ever ever understood about her, not her mom not her dad not her therapist not her teacher not her friends. All she could ever say was she was scared of people disliking her, she was scared of people disliking her, she was scared of people disliking her, but that wasn't it, it wasn't just people disliking her or people having mildly negative feelings about her it wasn't about living unapologetically or shrugging off the haters or none of that, it was no one one liking her no one liking her not Iris not Dick not Darryl not Shawn not K not Medea not even Jezzie liking her it was going into exile it was becoming feared it was turning into the pariah monster she'd always feared she'd become.

What she felt was not even Medea liking her anymore. What she felt was Medea regretting ever chasing her down. What she felt the dead stare of Medea boring into her, boring into her blood-covered hands. What she felt was, that Medea wanted her to do better, but she didn't know how to do better because no one had ever told her what better even was. What she felt was, she had all this grief and all this fear and all this guilt and all this regret in her hands, and no one had ever told her what to do with it, how to process it how to hold it where to put it whether to wear it or swallow it or bury it or or or strangle herself with it no one told her what to do with it.

What she felt was, that there was a mistake that was made, a mistake that she was trying so so hard to fix, and Iris wasn't letting her fix it.

She wasn't asking her to say it's okay, but—

"I- I- I need you to- I- I DIDN'T MEAN IT," she shrieked. "NO ONE EVER BELIEVES"—step closer—"YOU DON'T BELIEVE"—step closer—"I DIDN'T MEAN IT. WHAT"—step closer—"WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT TO HEAR WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY I DIDN'T MEAN IT I DIDN'T MEAN IT I DIDN'T MEAN IT."

June did not realize, until after the fact, how close she had gotten to Iris' face, how scratched out her throat felt.

The snow that fell around them seemed to evaporate on contact with her skin.