The Calm Before The Storm

By Jakelovelucy

> **Author beginning notes:** fixating on my girl marla who has 3 scenes max what else is new. in ‘fragile’ jake and marla are portrayed as more of a fling but in the short story ‘le déluge’ theyre dating so i kind of combined the two universes to make jake and marla exes! #characterstudy lmfao
> also here's a link to a short excerpt of 'le déluge' if u want more context!! go give my girl marla some love <3
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At night, Marla tossed a few pills of Emovia into her mouth and watch the penguins waddle around in Antarctica.

Or sometimes she smiled at the little kids jumping up and down in their floaties, their parents motioning them into Bali’s fluorescent waters, the waves beckoning at their tiny stubby feet. When she was feeling a particularly masochistic, she sat down in the middle of a burning forest clearing and let the California redwoods fall down one by one around her, ignoring the news reporters and losing herself in the fiery fuschia of the involuntary kindle. Or she’d find old videos of Greenland before it started turning green, marveling in the childish dreams of her high-end clients that she promised to sell them, because now you could only have dreams if you could pay for them.

She never displayed the African savanna, though that was her favorite view, but the videos she projected on her Spine never captured the vastness of that space well enough, and not having Le Déluge’s savory meat slabs in front of her while viewing it in her apartment was a major downside. Not that she had an appetite after taking the pills, but still. A waste of a good view.

What a glorious life it was, to have the world at your fingertips whenever you wanted. She sat back and let the pills sedate her, watching the extinct landscapes taunt her one by one.

As much as she wanted to enjoy plant-based food, Marla could never love anything more than eating meat. Everything at Buddha’s Kitchen was shaping up to be a disappointment, from the oversaturated salad to the cheap wine to the company. She rolled her eyes as she watched Jake cut through a fried cauliflower patty absentmindedly, the soul in his eyes gone, if he ever had one to begin with. She couldn’t fathom how they dated for two years, let alone that they still met up with each other like this, feigning interest in anything other than undressing each other at the end of the night, but when the world ushered a constant state of desperation, it was natural to take up any offer it provided.

“We should’ve gone to Le Déluge tonight,” she told him as she scanned the aforementioned restaurant’s homepage on her Spine. “The theme was India this week.”

“The food doesn’t taste too bad,” he responded without having tried anything, not a crumb to be seen near his lips. “Didn’t you see a lot of people recommending this place?”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” she moped. She was being annoying, she knew that, but Jake was too depressed with his own life to retaliate, and she had too many of her own demons to offer her care. “Dishes with only vegetables and no meat has to be the most miserable meals ever.”

“You could learn to get used to it. It’s how we have to survive, anyway,” Jake said, a frown dangling at the edge of his tight-lipped expression.

“Not us,” she shot back. A waiter came by to refill her glass with the wine, which was beginning to coat her mouth with a putrid beetroot aftertaste. “We have the luxury to indulge ourselves in pleasure once in a while.”

“Do we really?”

“Once in a while,” she repeated. “I’m tired of just surviving. Ugh, I’m never trust my coworkers’ recommendations again.”

“How’s that been? Coworkers and work, I mean.”

“Awful,” she responded, a little more giddily than intended. It was too early in the night to already be breaking their one promise of not talking about work, but he asked, and she could never resist an opportunity to complain. “Earth is throwing its umpteenth temper tantrum at us for being the shitty species we are, so traveling hasn’t really been a priority for anyone.”

He nodded, a new somber light in his eyes as if he just remembered again what sort of shithole they were living in. The desire for escapism must’ve possessed him severely tonight; usually that was all he ever thought about. “Right. Should’ve known. There’s a new one I’m tracking right now, near Cambodia.”

“God, another storm? When is it hitting?”

He shrugged. “Who knows. You know how unpredictable this shit is. Davi— my boss is on my ass about it.” He poked at his haphazardly-cut patty slices. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought up work.”

She rolled her eyes again, blatantly so he could see her irises go to the back of her head at his ridiculousness. “You’re the one who asked me about work first. Aren’t you the one who told me we shouldn’t bring it up when we’re together?”

“Sorry,” he said again, but the word had hardened in his mouth. “Didn’t know what else to talk about.”

She huffed, stabbing her fork into her damp salad. “You’re being such a dick today.”

“Thanks.”

“What the fuck is up with you?”

“What is the point of meeting up like this, Marla?” Jake looked straight at her. His words sounded exasperated, but on the outside he just looked tired. “It’s not like you like me anymore. Or enjoy talking to me, for that matter. Isn’t this just more work for us?”

If it wasn’t such a pathetic question, Marla would’ve laughed. As if he didn’t know the answer. Jake was too grown to act disappointed in their situation when he knew that was why they broke up in the first place: because just as survival had, love in this new world had become a chore. This was someone she’d once loved, that she watched fight mental battles and drown himself and starve himself, that she had once cared so much about that she would pour all of her emotions and worries into him — and she was tired, too. Tired of not caring about him anymore; tired of still wanting to see him and hating it whenever she did. But she still came out to see him occasionally, and so did he, because it was less work to be friends with benefits, and what else was there in life to look forward to anymore?

Ugh. She knew she should’ve taken Emovia before coming here tonight.

It was best to do what she’d practiced so much over the past few years: act nonchalant, unfazed. She wrapped her fingers around the stem of her wine glass and brought it to her lips, the blood-red liquid swaying gently, imitating the beginnings of a storm. “I thought we met up to get away from our work. Do you meet up with me because you like what we talk about together?”

Jake sighed. She hated when people did that, but she held back from making any sort of reaction. “Not anymore, I guess.” She took a sip as she watched him put his fork and knife down, his eyes glazing over suddenly. “Hold on,” he said, his attention diverted, his invisible Spine taking over his body.

A ping at her own Spine delayed her anger toward Jake at checking his notifications, shifting her own focus to the message in front of her. From Luna, who she hadn’t seen for two weeks: *r u free tn? come over, i miss ur touch. u know my door code.* She swiped the message away. Going over to Luna’s would probably give her more relief, but the man in front of her was giving her such a headache that she needed to get something out of it to make this shitty dinner worth it. And Jake didn’t know about she had other flings — not that she had to tell him, and not that he would even care — so he would probably find it odd if she dipped without making a move.

She closed her Spine and looked back at him, eyes still frantically scanning the hologram in front of him. Was Jake seeing anyone else beside her? It wouldn’t be unrealistic for him to have found someone else that he fancied, or that he at least related to more than her. Maybe a coworker at SAFE that he could see all the time without sacrificing his one true love, his job. They could both get legally married to each other and their work and hold their wedding in the fancy ass Homeland Security building and celebrate with pep pills instead of a wedding cake. It was hard to find that much flour for cheap nowadays.

She was tired of this. Putting her glass down, she leaned forward, elbows on the table and hands propping up her chin, the space between her and Jake’s face only a foot apart. Her heel found his calf under the table and dragged up the fabric of his dress pants, slowly, past his knee and up his thigh. “You promised me last time that you wouldn’t do that again,” she said pointedly.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding like he really meant it this time, that he was tired of himself, too. “Cambodia.”

“Is it supposed to hit soon?”

“Not sure yet. David’s predicting we have 72 hours before it’s too late to come up with a potential disaster plan for the supplies.” He brought his gaze back to her, eyes blinking, his hand instinctively placing itself on her ankle in his lap.

“So you can spare an evening?” she whispered.

He sighed again, but this time Marla knew she had won.

She always wore her red dress when she went to go see Jake, because it was the one he knew how to take off the best. It made their nights together an easy operation, a rare instance of routine. He always wore pants that didn’t require a belt, and a more casual top garment that was easy to raise over his head, and though they switched whose apartment to go to each time, an elevator was an elevator and a good bed was always a good bed, and the path was easy, it was always too easy.

“I have to go,” Jake whispered in Marla’s ear, waking her out of her tired haze. It was still dark out, the nuclear sunrise yet to detonate its radioactive glow in the sky. “David’s prediction was about 50 hours too late.”

She curled herself tighter into her blanket, wide awake at the loss of his human warmth. His eyes were only a minute away from frosting over again; she could tell he was trying to keep up his apologetic demeanor for her. The slip dress she put on before they fell asleep felt icy against her skin.

“Stay longer next time,” she whispered.

He kissed her on the forehead. “I will,” he said. The bed creaked as he stood up, and Marla sat up to watch him walk out the door.

She sat in that position, eyes still on the now-empty doorway, the room too silent and suffocating without the breathing of another body taking up space. A plop in her lap broke her vision, and she looked down at her lap. A water droplet, diffusing into the threads of her blanket. She looked up at ceiling for a leak, before feeling another droplet on her cheek, and another and another, the tears sliding down her cheeks and along the curve of her neck..

She let herself go then, water pouring out of her eyes enough to fill a well, her heaving filling in for the silence, the saliva gathering in her mouth choking her throat. She was tired of not feeling anything — of still wanting Jake here, of only wanting him for his warmth and his body. Of watching her love for him dissipate with each subsequent time they touched each other, of knowing that she was too soulless now to love anyone besides herself but still being sad when they left her behind.

Her Spine burst open in front of her blurred eyes, a warning about her climbing heart rate. She swiped the notification away, accessing a shortcut on her home screen as she patted her nightstand for her capsule. The shortcut opened a widescreen video of an African savanna that she saved a while ago, just in case, trees all standing tall in their Y-shapes, a minute breeze blowing through the dry plains. Marla focused her attention on one tree in the distance as she sank the Emovia into her mouth, down her stomach, down, down down.

She imagined herself as one of those trees: immovable, supported, unfeeling. Her breathing slowed, and she felt her back straighten, the last of her tears leaving dried salt trails on her skin. She watched as an elephant passed her by, its trunk grazing against hers. She was a tree, immovable.

What a glorious life it was, to have the world at your fingertips whenever you wanted. She sat back and let the pills sedate her, blending in with the rest of the landscape.

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> **Author ending notes:** i just think marla is not this soulless bitch and that she’s another example of the fucked up world they’ve ended up in! justice for marla my girl just wants some love :(( thank u to all who read i love u and am giving u a kiss on the cheek
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