Survival Of The Fittest

"I see."

Diego regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. They were so pointless, words said on reflex to pretend you had some basic level of empathy for the person you were speaking with. Of course he saw, of course he understood, they were both in the same situation. They were filler words that accomplished less than nothing. It was a minor mistake: one that wouldn't really matter in the next couple of seconds, but the kind of mistake that liked to replay itself in his head.

He followed Marceline to the window, partially to distract himself, and partially out of curiosity of what she was looking at. And, outside, there was a wide field of green that panned in front of the manor. He hadn't paid it much mind when he'd first arrived, it had been irrelevant to his quest for shelter. And, it still felt irrelevant now. It must have been a beautiful, vibrant garden at one point. But the field before him was choked with grass, vines of golden pothos. It looked the same as the rest of the island now, dark and all-encompassing.

The urge to speak struck him again. Leaving the conversation off on that weird non-response bothered him. It didn't matter, it really didn't matter, but he had to speak, so.

"You know, I have an easy solution to that problem of yours," he said while looking out the window. "Just. Don't sleep."

He smiled again, blew air out of his nose at his own joke.

The smile faded.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to, I mean, I'm not making fun of you. It's just, uh, up until last night, I'd had trouble sleeping. So, uh, I kinda avoided the whole nightmare issue."

Who needed nightmares when you were living in one anyways? he wanted to say. But that also went without saying.

"That sucks though. The nightmares, I mean. I'm sorry you have to go through that."

He wanted to ask if she felt well-rested, still, but he'd left her to sleep against the hard wooden dresser while he'd hogged the bed. It felt like an insensitive question. He let the silence hang.

"It's not that bad," Marceline replied, continuing to tap her finger against the windowsill. "They never made it that hard for me to sleep, and usually they'd come around the time I'd be waking up anyway. Sometimes they have even helped me sort stuff out in my head."

Through the front-facing window, Marceline got a surprisingly good view of both the gardens and the larger houses. The gardens likely didn't match the beauty standards that the original inhabitants had desired, given how wild and free the plants had clearly become, but she found some peace looking at it, nonetheless. There was something beautiful about life being allowed to grow wild and free instead of being constrained by the standards of others.

The houses meanwhile had clearly been abandoned for some time, but they likely at least resembled how they had been originally, before whoever used to live here disappeared. There was something sort of inherently creepy about abandoned buildings, like the one they now inhabited. Even ignoring the fact that they were living out their last days on murder island, had Marceline been placed here entirely by her lonesome, she likely would have still found the place unnerving. Buildings were inherently signs of people, and abandoned buildings were signs of people long gone. Exploring them, and seeing the little tell-tale signs of previous habitation, could only make her wonder who used to be here, what their lives were like, and why they were gone.

She blinked, realizing that she had been slightly lost in thought. She had originally looked out the window just because she wanted a mild change of scenery from the dusty wooden floors of the manor, but now she was primarily watching for movement. Trying to see if anyone was traveling through the area, and especially if they happened to be heading to the manor. She looked away from the view for a moment, back to Diego, finally acknowledging her new companion once again.

"The joke wasn't that bad, by the way," she said, doing her best to give him a pained smile. "I've made way worse jokes at my friends' expense, actually. The only things that were off limits were, like," she paused, squinting a bit as she tried to remember everything, the rhythm of her tapping gaining tempo. "Alex's blindness, Beryl's narcolepsy, Roxy's home situation, and, uh, Amelia's lack of parents..."

She looked back out the window, carrying on with her impromptu speech as the speed of her nervous tapping slowed back down to normal. "My nightmares weren't anywhere near as bad as having to deal with any of those things, so I don't mind jokes made about them."

She knew that she was starting to ramble on, sticking to her usual behavior of talking someone's ear off as soon as they gave her the opportunity. Did Diego mind her tendency to speak so much in one sitting? She knew it had sometimes gotten on Roxanne's and Alex's nerves in the past. She knew that both Kelly and Nick had mocked her for it, since she arrived here. Maybe Nick had been right, and she really did like the sound of her own voice. Or maybe she just thought that she had a lot to say.

"Plus," she continued, oblivious even to her own musings about her inability to let anyone else get a word in edge-wise. "I found a cure. Sleeping next to Dolly the handful of times she stayed over at my parent's place usually made them go away. Even being here, I didn't have one when I was with her."

She inhaled sharply through her nose, doing her best to suppress the ever-present grief that still festered within her.

"Too bad she's gone now..."

The smile Marceline gave Diego was forced. It told him he'd gone too far, but not enough for her to take offense yet. The smile was a smile of consolation, 'you tried to make a joke,' et cetera. She'd made way worse jokes, she said, so the joke he made was still bad. He wanted to apologize, but sometimes saying sorry too much was also a wrong thing to do, too annoying, so he let Marceline talk on. She was moving past it anyways, so it didn't matter. None of this mattered, none of this would matter soon.

She brought up Dolly again, seemed to squirm within herself. She seemed to have loved her in the truest sense of the word. Diego didn't have any idea what that looked like. He knew of Dolly, like he knew of most people in school, but he did not know her. He hadn't even noticed her name pass by on the announcements. There were too many of them. So, he didn't know what their relationship was like, what their love looked like.

The spite that had been with him last night the last time Marceline brought her up had disappeared of its own accord. All that was left was curiosity. A kind of longing.

Diego wanted. And Diego wanted to be wanted. He knew that much for sure. He had spent years wanting whenever he looked at the boys of Hunter High, and he had spent years quietly, internally hoping someone wanted him the same way, even if he'd never planned on coming out any time soon. But, he'd never really planned for anything beyond that. He'd never had the chance to. He didn't know if he was the kind of person to lust or love, or both, because he'd never let himself answer that question. It had been too scary, back then.

He had had friends he cherished deeply. He had family he cherished deeply. But he'd never had anyone that could just make his problems go away the way Marceline described. It sounded unrealistic. Yet, that existed for some people.

"What was that like?

"I'm sorry, I didn't, I, uh... I'm sorry."

The words came unbidden, he wished he could unsay them almost instantly, but he couldn't. He waited for her response, kneaded the joint of his thumb.

"It's... okay."

Marceline took a deep breath, to steady herself, reaching up to grab the key pendant with her free hand. Before all of this happened, she could've talked endlessly about Dolly to anyone who was willing to hear it. Ramble on and on about all the time they had spent together enjoying each other's company, the adorable, unique little quirks that she had, and all the mischief that they had gotten up to together. They were good memories.

Except now she didn't have anything else but the memories.

Talking about someone who was gone was difficult at the best of times, and Marceline had never learned how to properly process grief. She had experienced it before of course, primarily through the gradual loss of her grandparents on both sides of the family as she grew up, but she never truly learned how to come to terms with it. She couldn't have even imagined that she would one day be grieving for her friends. They had all been so young, with so much life ahead of them. The thought of any of them were even capable of dying never crossed her mind.

Now it was her entire reality.

Diego asked her a question, though, so it was high time that she answered it. From the sound of it, it didn't seem like he had ever been in a relationship himself. She could understand that, since not everyone in George Hunter had a sweetheart to call their own, after all. Not all of them could relate to having a dedicated partner like herself, or a constantly shifting web of polyamory like Beryl. Even among her band members, Roxanne certainly didn't, and Alex presumably didn't, though Marceline had admittedly never asked.

"If you mean being with her, then, well..."

How would one describe being in love to someone who has never experienced it? It was a tall ask for anyone, let alone an immensely stressed teenager in the middle of a death game. When she was younger, long before she ever experienced love of her own, she had read enough poetry about the subject that she could probably just recite them, though remembering the exact metaphors used would still be a challenge.

"It was almost like... like a dance, sorta."

That sounded right.

"There's nothing stopping you from dancing alone of course, and some people prefer that, but when you have a partner there's so much more you can do."

Some things could only be done with the help of another person. That applied both with the art of dancing and with many other things in life, and love was one of those things. Now that she was thinking back on it in hindsight, this metaphor made a whole lot of sense. No wonder it was the first one that she had remembered. Her next words came much easier to her.

"Except there's some vulnerability inherent to it, and it requires trust, you know? One wrong maneuver or lack of coordination and suddenly your head's hitting the floor. It's two people opening themselves up to each other, and learning to trust each other so wholeheartedly, with everything. Letting them see you for who you truly are, and seeing them for who they truly are in return."

She sniffled, her incessant, rhythmic tapping coming to a stop, as her gaze turned away from the window and instead back to the wooden floor below her.

"It doesn't always work, dances can be screwed up, relationships can fall apart. But when it does it's..."

She thought back once again to all the time she had spent with Dolly, and how she had opened herself up so completely to her girlfriend. Being able to be wholly herself around her, and truly feel like nobody but herself in her presence. It was liberating, being allowed to be like that with someone. It guided her and overwhelmed her, and in the moment it let her feel like nothing on Earth could stop her.

"...beautiful."

She began to choke up as tears started to stream down her cheeks.

"I-I... I never really learned h-how to feel okay dancing on my own..."

Dance had always been Diego's least favorite part of PE.

He'd never had the bodily coordination for it. The way he best understood it, the method that had allowed him to somehow pass PE, was deconstructing the dance into a series of instructions to be followed. Put your arm here, step your leg back this much, twist your shoulder this way. Rigid, prosaic, but understandable. It showed in his dancing, his assigned partner would tell him. He danced like a mannequin, she joked. He had smiled back at that remark with nothing behind the eyes.

Love being like dance was a common metaphor. He'd hoped Marceline would make it clearer, but the things she said after were all metaphors.

Diego wrote prose, not poetry. He'd never been much good at deciphering metaphors, much less writing them out, layering them, playing and interfacing them with sound and line cuts and word choice like whatever poets did. He couldn't write what he didn't understand, so he just stuck with prose and its comparatively straightforward, if plain, methods of telling things.

Poetry was considered a romantic thing. Dance was considered a romantic thing. He was good at neither.

There was another metaphor to be found there. He let it pass by. Not all thing that could be made into metaphors needed to be made into metaphors.

The gist of what he got from Marceline's explanation was that love was beautiful. That was the particular word she stressed. He'd heard the sentiment several times. It was probably true. But, many things were beautiful. Sunsets were beautiful. That did not mean that love was a sunset, or anything like it.

Diego claimed, to himself, that he had loved Lorenzo, as much as the fact sickened him now. But did he really? He didn't know what he himself meant by that word, exactly, couldn't exactly put it into words. He knew he had wanted Lorenzo. Was Diego's love wanting, and only wanting? Was it a valid form of love, or was it just wanting, and nothing more?

He knew others would have called it lust. Perversion.

Cam had told Diego she loved him three times. Once after Swiftball, once before he tried to leave, once before he killed her. Cam was asexual. Her love was not romantic. Her love had almost killed him. So, what kind of love was it then?

Diego's mom told him she loved him every day. She had sent him off with the words 'I love you' before he went to DC. Her love had raised him and his sister by itself for two decades. Was her love the same as Cam's?

Marceline spoke of a love that seemed to be all-revealing, all-healing. It sounded mythical. What was that like?

It all sounded so foreign to him. He heard so much about love from so many people, and he wanted it so badly, and yet at the end of the day, it all meant nothing to him. He still knew as little about it now as he did then.

He didn't have any good answers to Marceline, didn't really understand anything she said. All he knew was that she was mourning someone she lost. That, at least, he understood.

He had an impulse to hug her, but she was facing away from him, and she might have taken it as a form of hostility. The idea of hugging someone while shirtless made him vaguely uncomfortable too. He put a hand on her shoulder instead, hoped she got what he meant.

Marceline tensed and almost jumped away when Diego put his hand on her shoulder, this place having rendered her so unused to physical contact being anything other than a threat. Despite that, she managed to calm herself, and accepted the gesture for what it was, his attempt at comforting her. She appreciated the effort, but she didn't believe that she deserved his affection, however small and meaningless it was. She had been taught from a young age to stick to the golden rule, the guiding principle to expect others to treat her how she had treated them. She had treated other people horribly by stealing from them, betraying them, and murdering them, so she expected to be treated horribly in turn. In a way, that made Diego's kindness an aberration, a treatment that she couldn't help but feel like she hadn't earned.

She sniffled, reaching one arm up to wipe her eyes on the gauze wrapped around it. Despite her reservations, she allowed herself to appreciate Diego's comfort, and didn't try to interrupt or ruin it.

Her gaze continued to be set on the scenery outside of the window, not yet sparing another look Diego's way. The change of view was nice, but she was beginning to grow bored of it in the same way that she had grown bored of staring at dusty floorboards and worn furniture. She almost turned away from it, almost decided to focus on the person she was actually with instead. It was right in that moment that she was ready to look away when she saw finally saw some movement.

Wait... was that..?

She felt a chill travel up the length of her spine, causing her whole body to freeze up. The figures were far away, and specific details were hard for her to make out, but she could recognize the person she saw anywhere. There was Roxanne once again, alive and well. There was someone else with her, too, though Marceline couldn't quite tell exactly who it was from this distance and at this angle. She would need to get closer if she wanted to know, but...

Should she actually go down to her? Marceline wanted to, because Roxanne was her sole remaining friend from her life before this place. Except, could she really call Roxanne a friend, still, after what she did? Maybe Roxanne wouldn't want to see her, maybe the only response she'd get would be in the form of flying lead. Yet, Marceline's heart still ached for her friend, and she hoped that despite everything Roxanne's heart ached for her, in turn.

She wanted to win, she knew that taking the risk and putting herself out in the open like that was a bad idea, but this could very well be her last chance to talk to her friend. She didn't know what she would say, she didn't know how she could possibly clear the air between them after everything that happened, but she needed to go and try. Maybe she would even get the closure that she hadn't been able to get with Dolly, Beryl, and Alex, if such a thing as real closure even existed to begin with.

"I have to go."

Marceline immediately moved away from Diego, gathering up her belongings including the shotgun, haphazardly and frantically shoveling the ammo for the weapon from the bag she had poached into her own. She left the rest of the supplies in the extra bag behind, hoping that Diego wouldn't simply take them and leave. She was willing to trust him with that much, despite the fact that they had just formed what could only tenuously be called a bond.

"Follow me if you want, or stay here," she continued, gripping the shotgun tightly in both her hands. "I'll be back soon."

((Without another word and without giving her companion a chance to respond, Marceline rushed down the manor's stairs and out the front door.))

He hadn't followed because she shrank from his touch.

He hadn't followed because she froze, sniffled a bit, and, no more than a few seconds after his token attempt at comfort, immediately moved to leave.

He hadn't followed because he wasn't sure if he'd done too much or done too little, only that he hadn't done enough.

She'd told him he could follow, but the departure in and of itself sent enough of a message, so he stayed. It had been stupid to ask that question anyways. Her presence here had been something precarious, and he should've treated it as such. But he hadn't. He'd asked her that question, she left, and he'd stayed. He stayed, and he sat onto the bed, and he stared into nothing for a minute or two. Doing anything would break everything.






After that period of time had passed, he got up and walked to the window for no particular reason. He stared out onto the overgrown field formerly known as a garden and witnessed a few figures there, but his attention was immediately possessed by the short, pink-haired girl he'd just been with, facing off against two other girls.

She must've just wanted a word with one of them. Or she must've run into them while running off. Or while getting some time to herself. If she'd been intending a fight from the start, they'd have been dead already, right? Marceline had more than enough firepower to finish the two of them off. But, all of them were still standing. Marceline was outnumbered.

So it was time for him to leave, right?

Math wasn't a subject Diego liked, but it was a subject he was good at. Marceline had more adversaries than allies on the field with her. They could easily outflank her, team up on her, use their combined forces to kill her. If he joined, it would only make the encounter an even one with even odds. Even odds of them winning, of Marceline getting to live at most a few days longer, even odds of both of them dying right there and then.

Or, if he left right now, abandoned the manor to whoever Marceline was fighting, then Diego's life was guaranteed for this very moment at the very least. And then he could figure out the next moment. And the next. And the next, and so on until the end.

This was temporary, he'd told himself. Last night didn't matter. She could die right now. And if not now, then later. Tomorrow. The day after. Why not decide when it ended? Why not have control over this, at the very least? If it was temporary, if it was gonna end, then he could at least decide when to end it. Rip off the Band-aid. Better he do it himself. He'd already faced a minute or two of the new loneliness just earlier. What would another couple of hours or days be?

A gunshot sounded out, Diego jumped. He looked over, one of the girls that wasn't Marceline almost buckled, limped over to a nearby tree.

Marceline seemed to be doing good for herself, Diego realized. For now. But that would end eventually. Even if they ended up being the final two, Marceline eventually would have to not do well for Diego to live. He would have to ensure it. Why make that his responsibility? It was a cruel thing to leave someone he'd just had a heart-to-heart with, yes, but the island was cruel. It asked for cruelty if you wanted to survive. Wasn't that the point of what he'd done to Lorenzo?

The distance between Marceline and the other girl lessened. A punch was thrown, Marceline was sent reeling.

He should be rooting for the other girl here, right? If he wanted it to end sooner, then he should want the other girl to win. Justify his decision to stay here. It would end sooner or later, better not to prolong the anticipation, the dread of it all.

And yet, a sense of joy washed over him when Marceline hit back, sent the other girl sprawling.

After Marceline, there would be no one else. He'd hurt a lot of people. There were a lot of people that would be going after him. Finding Marceline had been a miracle in and of itself. He could end it now, for sure, but he could also make it last just a little bit longer. He could get another night. If he didn't make it out of here, she would probably be the last. Another night would be fine, right?

The other girl pulled out a dagger. Marceline dodged, shot at her, but lost the gun. Echoed shouts, meaning lost by distance, reached the manor.

Lorenzo had been in this position before. A worse position, actually. He'd watched as Dane pressed his gun against Diego's forehead, and he'd acted. He didn't have to do that for him, it had been too risky, but he'd done it. He'd done it, and he'd gotten shot for it.

Did that arm wound weaken Lorenzo? The bandage Diego had wrapped around it had been bloodied. Had it gotten infected? If he hadn't gotten shot, would he have won his fight with Ty?

Maybe saving Diego had been a mistake on Lorenzo's part.

Not that Diego regretted it. He preferred the way things had worked out. But, he also didn't have to save Marceline. As he'd told himself, it would be safer, it would be easier in the long-term.

So why wasn't he leaving? And if he wasn't leaving, why wasn't he helping her?

Diego stayed frozen by the window, entranced as the other girl charged again, caught Marceline's hand. Marceline kicked back, sent the other girl sprawling, and Diego let out a sharp gasp of relief.

Marceline drew out a sword, and it somehow glimmered in the rain-smothered light.

The two girls stood frozen on the battlefield. Time stopped.

He was supposed to lean into it, right? That's what he'd been telling himself since the lake, right? Then this was his chance. This was the prime opportunity to go and prove that to himself. Lorenzo hadn't been monstrous enough, perhaps, and maybe that's why he'd been lying in the lake. Hesitation could be fatal sometimes.

But did he really want to be worse than Lorenzo?

Only one girl was fighting Marceline right now. He could tip the odds in Marceline's favor, or he could keep himself out of risk entirely, not risk another injury. But, was that a line he was willing to step past? Could he really—

There was a burst of action, and then there wasn't. Marceline plunged her sword halfway into the girl's torso, pulled it out, and the other girl collapsed.

Without Diego doing a single thing, it was over.

Marceline went down with the dying girl, held her in her arms. The girl that had been shot earlier walked out from the tree, retrieved her gun. She walked over to Marceline and the corpse, lingered over them for a tense, painful number of seconds. And then she just walked away.

It was done, it was over with, and yet Marceline sat still. She remained over the dead girl. Facial expressions were hard to make out at this distance, but the scene felt too familiar. He felt a long washed-away tackiness over his face, back. He felt pulsations beneath his fingertips.

There was no reason for Diego to leave now. The decision had been made for him. Marceline had won. The others had left. There was no risk anymore, he could get his company. But, he hadn't done anything. A wave of guilt washed over him. He'd hadn't done enough, he felt like. He didn't know if he should've just left the situation, the consequences of it all behind, or if he should've risked his life and helped her. He was still alive, it should've felt like the right decision to stay back, but it didn't.

He willed himself to move. Marceline wasn't leaving, there might be others waiting in the wings to attack her. It was best to get her while he still could. She won, he could have her around for a bit longer. She needed help, he could help her.

After retrieving his weapons and their bags, he walked down the stairs and rushed towards the garden.

((Diego Larrosa continues in Beyond Human (Barely Human)))