Episode 1: Star Comes to Earth

"Diaz, get up."

Marco jolted awake when someone shook his desk. He had fallen asleep during study hall, the one time of day he could try to rest without running the risk of getting detention or being sent to the office again. Skullzy didn't care what anyone did during this period (though it was designed with homework and studying in mind), so sleep was a self-evident freedom here.

The threat of detention, or even suspension, did not bother him the slightest… but his irregular attendance and even less regular sleeping patterns had made the past few days especially hard. His parents had just come down on him for what happened two weeks ago with lots of tears and yelling, and he was now at risk of truancy. Marco decided it was best to try to minimize his misbehavior right now for his parent's sake, at least until things lightened up around school.

It's not like he ever really needed to go searching for trouble anyways. Trouble always seemed to find him.

He shot a sideways glance at Janna, whose foot rattled his desk a second time. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he looked around to see no one else had gotten up from their desks, so he inferred class was not over… meaning Janna had disturbed him intentionally.

"What?" Marco hissed at her, the venom clear in his tone. The sleep he was sacrificing for this better have been worth it.

She simply rolled her eyes and whispered back. "Don't give me that attitude. You got called to the principal's office. Twice. Skeeves announced it and you snoozed through each one. I thought you didn't want to get suspended again?"

Marco did not even bother to stifle the groan that escaped his lips automatically. A few heads turned in the mostly quiet classroom, but no one paid him much attention.

"See you in detention?" She asked as he threw his hood up from under his black leather jacket.

He shrugged, already moving towards the door. "Probably. Don't even know what I did this time."

With a quick snap as the door shut behind him, Marco rubbed the corners of his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger, exposed beneath his fingerless gloves.

Cursing silently to himself, he tried to imagine what he was being blamed for this time.

Probably Oskar again. Another shitty tag job with my name on it, I'm guessing. Who the fuck would sign their own name when tagging something? Skeeves hadn't bought that a month ago when the same thing had taken place, though he had been speaking true. Marco's locker did contain a few incriminating canisters of spray paint, but they hadn't been used for that work in the school parking lot. At the very least, when Marco vandalized something, he had the common sense not to sign his fucking name.

He tried to explain to Skeeves and his parents, but no one bothered to take his word for anything anymore. Again, Marco couldn't say he blamed them - he did have fair share of marks against him. Unlike Oskar, however, he at least had the fucking spine to accept responsibility. Breaking rules was only satisfying if you didn't get caught, but if you did, that's part of the game. A reputation like his inevitably comes with that: consequences and a reality check. It ups the ante, raises the stakes, and it makes the next time when you pull it off without a hitch that much more satisfying.

Damaging school property just to get him into trouble? Not only was that stupid and obvious in his opinion, but it served no purpose.

Paying no heed to the call of his name by one of the hall monitors, Marco strolled past lockers and classrooms with his hands in his pockets. One of them rubbed circles into the case of his cell phone, the other fingered the tab of his lighter. His cigarettes were in his backpack, so carrying his lighter around felt sort of stupid, but he liked to be able to offer a light if people asked for one.

Upon reaching the office, Marco leaned his elbows against the front desk rested his chin into his knuckles.

A mousy but kind older woman with brown hair, grays peeking through, looked up at him through her glasses.

"Hello, Marco."

"What am I in for this time, Mrs. M?" His eyes trailed over the various things strewn about the desk - a pencil cup holder with nothing but scissors in it, a dusty old Dell monitor, some flyers for the local Kiwanis club, and perhaps most interesting of all, the sign-in sheet. Normally, this piece of 8x11 white printer paper would be as unimpressive as everything else in the office; today, there was dazzling purple ink scrawled across three lines of the form, written in letters so artistic he might have thought it calligraphy.

He had to squint at the words to make sure he read them correctly.

Moon Butterfly - 12:35 PM

River Butterfly - 12:35 PM

Star Butterfly - 12:35 PM

With a quick glance at Mrs. M's screen, Marco could see it was only ten minutes after the "Butterfly" folk arrived. He smirked to himself, thinking "folk" to be especially appropriate with names like those. They were the kind of things he expected from Ferguson or Alfonso in their D&D campaign. Maybe it was some of the bohemian crowd from Oakland or Arcata moving to town, Marco guessed.

"Oh, you're not in trouble. Wait… you don't…? I, um, thought your parents would have mentioned it."

Now his interest was thoroughly piqued. Marco set his jaw and stood up a bit straighter.

His parents? Did he need to get pulled out of class? Immediately, his thoughts went to his abuela, in fine health but getting up there in her years.

A little urgently, Marco leaned over the desk. "Is everything okay? I didn't hear anything from my parents. What's going on?"

She smiled at him, trying to ease his nerves. "Um, don't worry Mr. Diaz. It's nothing like that. Just… why don't you go back to class? I need to talk to Principal Skeeves about this - he might not want to meet today after all. You don't have to worry about anything, okay?"

Marco pressed his lips together but ultimately threw his hood up and buried his hands in his pockets.

"Mmm… 'bye." He went out the door and pulled out his phone, texting frantically.

He opened his Messenger App and found his Mom's contact.

Hey, just got pulled into the principal's office. They said it had something to do with you guys? I didn't do anything this time. I mean it. (12:49 PM)

Marco stared at the screen, brows drawn together in concentration the whole way back to study hall. His next actual lesson, Psychology, began at 1:10, so he hoped his parents would text back before so he might be able to focus. It was his favorite of all his subjects, but he would never admit it to anyone - his parents must have known something was awry when he actually did his homework for that class. He couldn't help it - the whole discipline was genuinely fascinating to him.

The still silence of Skullzy's classroom should have been a tell-tale sign that something was wrong, but Marco was looking at his empty chat with his mom, hoping to see that amazing "..." bubble that would say she was typing back.

Instead, he deadpanned a few inches away from his desk, shocked to find it occupied.

It was a girl he had never seen before, of that he was certain.. He would have remembered someone like this.

She had soft features, curving from jaw to ear to nose with unspoken grace. Delicate pink hearts were stuck to each of her cheeks like a temporary (or was it real?) tattoo. Atop a head of molten gold, a headband with two small, red bows dangled down and added to her overall surreal appearance.

Then there was the most striking feature of all - those eyes. Wider than the sea and bluer than the skies, Marco was a little frightened to realize that something - someone - so intense was actually looking back at him, her pupils flickering up and down over his frozen form as he gaped at her. A canopy of confused valleys appeared along her brow as he continued to stare stupidly.

"That's my seat," Marco blurted out, unsure of what else to say.

The entire room was watching them, which normally might have made Marco a little nervous, but he had all but forgotten he was even in school. This strange person in his seat had his complete attention.

The girl folded her hands in front of her across the wooden face of the desk and looked around awkwardly.

"Oh," she mumbled. "Um… sorry?" She seemed about as unsure as he was.

Blinking a few times, Marco tried to remind himself this wasn't a Western stand-off. This was a classroom, filled with people who he would have to see everyday, and this girl was not going to ruin the good thing he had going. She was clearly lost and needed to understand her place, and it appeared he would have to be the one to put things into perspective… all the while, trying very unsuccessfully to ignore the rising pressure in his chest, taking shapes like shadows under candlelight. The silhouette of something was there, and growing, but he couldn't let himself get distracted.

Besides, he's Marco fucking Diaz, for Christ's sake. He can't let some pretty mop of blonde hair turn him into a push over.

Quickly tucking his phone into the pocket of his jacket, he slammed both hands across the desk from her. She flinched back at the sudden movement.

Good.

"You new or something?" He said with a smirk, his tone filled with just the right amount of condescension. It suggested he didn't care if she answered yes or no, but that he was more interested in what the hell she thought she was doing.

The shifting of the girl's eyes stopped suddenly, no longer preoccupied with the onlookers in the classroom. She was staring back at him, and Marco saw a tiny flash of anger appear somewhere in those baby blue's. A storm at sea, a hurricane, they were like a call to danger. A challenge.

And Marco loved a good challenge.

She looked ready to say something, cheeks flushed with anger, so Marco provoked her further. "Well?"

Then, as quickly as the tension had appeared, it evaporated. She dropped her gaze back to the desk and drew an arm across her chest, no longer willing to meet his eyes.

"I'm… I'll move." The words were like ice, and now it was Marco's turn to flinch. He hadn't expected the shift, and it felt like the ground suddenly became unsteady, like he had missed a step going down the stairs.

Before he could regain his footing, he made another mistake. This one was unforgiving; a fatality, a mark against his ledger made in red ink. He let his guard down, and looked, and saw her.

This wasn't just noticing or acknowledging - this time, he looked into her face and saw things beyond what was physically there. Marco studied the tiredness that lined her eyes, and the shine of rosy color in her heart marks, and the pull of gravity against her pomp red bows as she bowed her head away from him.

The shaking of his own hands caught his attention, the cold outer face of his lighter rubbing uncomfortably against his gloves. Within, his hands were hot and clammy, and that was to say nothing of the heat he felt in his face.

Her lips parted to let escape the smallest, most sincere words he had ever heard.

"I'm sorry."

There were the outlines in his chest again, rising and falling like an angry tide, suddenly very real and ragged with his breathing. He didn't even know this girl's name, or where she came from, or why she was here, or how she could look so pretty and…

"Are… you okay?" She asked, noticing Marco's expression turn from shocked to annoyed as he flickered between reality and his pounding heart.

Fuck.

Even the way she talked sounded like a sweet melody, causing his breath to catch in his throat.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"W-whatever," Marco stammered out, throwing his hood up. He seemed to recall that he was not alone and he was in a room full of his peers - Janna, for instance, was noticeably wide-eyed behind the blonde girl and mouthing at him. "C'mon, c'mon."

"You can sit there today."

As quickly as he could without making more of a scene, Marco all but threw himself into the only other open desk - the one right beside her, and tried to angle himself away.

He could feel her eyes on him, though, piercing him like a switchblade. His resolve to never look at her again was broken rather quickly once he heard the slightest snicker to his left, and with a quick glance, he saw she was smiling.

"Thanks," the girl said.

Marco rolled his eyes and looked away again, feeling his face warm up. For some reason, he smiled, too.

"Whatever."