#“how did mj and shoka meet the first time?” ask riley they wrote that one

[charaznablescanontoyota]

can i just. can i just throw "one of the infinity kids meets one of the oneshot kids" at you as a prompt. fake fic title "the ball pit car" cause why not.

hiiiii mk i am ignoring your title but listening to your prompt <3 sorry an idea overtook me

the first time mj takes her to the party house, it's too much. too loud, too crowded - the sense memory of a different house overtakes her. beer-smell heavy in the air, bile in her throat, the heavy pulse of music overtaking her own heartbeat. dear diary, i want to kill. and you have to believe it's for more than just selfish reasons...

veronica shoves her way through the kitchen and out the back door. she hears mj call her name from somewhere behind her and waves him off, slinking to a far corner of the yard to light a cigarette with shaking hands. she'll be fine in a minute. just needs to breathe fresh air for a bit. a couple of bad nights can't put her off parties forever; she needs to believe that, or they inevitably, absolutely will.

the yard is deserted for a while, until it's not. another girl comes outside, slamming the sliding-glass door shut in her wake, taking a long hit off of something in her hand that's more contraption than cigarette. she makes a beeline for the exit door in the center of the grass, then stops, eyes lingering on veronica.

"hi," she says.

"hey," veronica replies.

the girl's red lips curl into an expression veronica knows too well, a smile just barely masking condescension. "big fun, right?"

"sure," veronica says, and takes a drag of her cigarette. "weren't you just leaving?"

"are you with mirror boy in there?" the girl asks, talking straight past the question. "you can do so much better. he's not even the real deal."

"we're not together," veronica says. she likes mj just fine, but with the same remove as she likes her diary. they're conversation partners. sounding boards for each other. she needs to talk to someone, especially here, or there's a distinct chance she might go further off the deep end than she already has.

"i mean, another jason? with guns, even?" the girl twirls a lock of hair around her finger idly, like she hasn't just given voice to veronica's own intrusive thoughts. "jason todd, jason dean - wow, they've even both got the two-first-names thing going on. not a good rebound, girl."

veronica freezes with her cigarette halfway back to her mouth.

"how do you know that?" she asks. no way this girl is from sherwood. she doesn't dress like anyone veronica's ever met; she's almost goth, but not in the greasy, piercings-and-smeared-eyeliner way the goths at westerburg are. a more fashionable way. like a goth heather.

the girl's smug-cat grin widens, shows teeth. "dear diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count."

it's like having a bucket of ice water thrown in her face. any retort veronica could hope to give scrambles itself in her throat, overtaken by sea-sick nausea. this girl has been reading her diary? how is that possible? and what else does she know?

the kitchen door opens and mj steps out, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets. he looks from veronica to the other girl, then back to veronica, and his expression settles into the angriest one veronica's seen on him yet.

"shoka," he says to the other girl. "leave her alone."

"scary, scary," the girl - shoka - says. "what are you gonna do, shoot me? right in front of veronica?"

mj glares at shoka. his hands don't leave his pockets, but veronica can see him make the calculation in his mind. she opens her own mouth to stop him, tell him she never wants anyone shot on her behalf again, but shoka cuts her off with a laugh.

"alright, alright. come find me if you want a real rebound, sweetie."

she slouches through the exit, whistling. as the door slams shut, mj joins veronica at her post against the backyard fence. she passes him her cigarette wordlessly; he takes a drag and breathes smoke out into the stagnant night air.

"you know that girl?" she asks.

"i wish i didn't," mj says, and hands the cigarette back to her.