[ JL's apartment isn't huge, but neither is it small, he's poured real money into this shit with only basic help from the Girard family. Because JL's grown up in the sort of shit system he has, drunk dad, off the fucking hinges mom, he knows, right? You can't get too tied up with people who want to call themselves family, because half the time they don't act like it, they don't even fucking understand the concept. That's what his Pa doesn't get, he thinks, walking over to the loo and sitting down on the closed lid, giving JL a long look out his one good eye - that JL's more family than anyone else Marcel's ever known. You'll stop seeing him, a blow to his upper body punctuating each word, you hear me, boy. Oh, Marcel heard. That was where the roundhouse kick came from.

He shrugs out of his t-shirt. His chest's got blue and black splotches everywhere, in ugly dot-to-dot patterns. Dropping it on the floor, he looks down at his ankle boots, face remaining expressionless. His right foot is throbbing now, hard. ]

Gotta take off the right boot for me, foot's swollen. [ A shrug, like it's nothing when it's vulnerability and they don't deal in that shit, not between the two of them. ] Got in a decent kick to his head.

[ While waiting for the other man to decide whether to help him or laugh in his face as would be his right, not that the latter wouldn't make Marcel want to kill him anyway, Marcel starts loosening his belt and unzip his jeans, letting them fall open around his hips. There's an ugly, bloody bruise along the slope of his hipbone.

Boy, boy, boy. ]