The presence of a duffel bag in Steven's flat that he doesn't recognize is concerning. Marc uncovers it while trying to organize the loft above the bed—he's been going a little stir-crazy amidst the barely controlled chaos of Steven's sprawling book collection—and he examines it like it's a bomb about to go off for a few long minutes while his mind slips and slides around acknowledging the likeliest explanation for its presence.
Occam's razor. Occam's blackouts. Occam's lost time. (In Cairo, and in the weeks since Cairo.) Steven worries, wants to talk about it, wants to figure it out. Even Layla seems concerned over the phone when she calls from Egypt, busy, as the only avatar left in the world. But Marc is the one who won't face it. Can't.
He scowls and finally grabs the duffle bag, pulling it into the waning light spilling through the window nearest Steven's bed, unable to shake the feeling that he should run and pretend he never saw it but equally unable to stop himself from looking inside. It's plain, lightweight, and not army surplus like any of his, but still very much not Steven's style: he yanks at the zipper and tries not to think about all the times he hauled Steven's table across the hardwood floor so he could reach the loose panel in the wall.
Inside is flat cap. Okay, strange. Gloves. A gun, and it's not one of his. (Out of habit, he pops out the magazine to run his thumb down the line of unspent ammo. It is not a full clip.) There's a bundled up jacket in his size, but he's never seen it before, and one single nondescript key.
Fuck.
He squeezes his eyes shut, and then in an effort to delay having to rouse Steven and call his attention to the front so he can say I told you so for even a few more moments, Marc fishes around in the pockets of the jacket. One of them has a wad of cash, but it's when he's groping his way through the other he feels a sharp sting against meat of his palm and he swears, pulling the offending object out as blood wells up in the cup of his hand. He stares at... a little tool. A scoop, long and thin and sharp: clearly ancient and shining wet and red from where he'd jabbed himself with it. One glance and Steven would know that it's an embalming tool for the mummifying process, but all Marc knows is that the world goes white for a split second and suddenly he's sprawled on his back with one arm, his shoulders and head dangling dangerously over the edge of the loft platform, legs tangled with—
Legs tangled with another pair of legs. Marc sits up so he gets spots in his field of vision, but that doesn't stop him from immediately recognizing: "Steven?!"
He liked to call it dozing, because official names and titles made it all feel a little too real. He'd accepted that they were, well, them. That was easy enough when you ended up going through the whole lot of everything they had but it didn't make it easier from the perspective of the outside world. Normal. Cold. Judgemental. So it was easier for him to return to the idea of squirreling away at home. Reading anything and everything he can and pretending, just a bit, like his life hadn't been terribly interrupted by a murder pigeon, a murder dog and...
He still wasn't sure what to call Marc and he did his best not to think about it. Maybe for now he can just be 'Murder Man'. Though he doubts he'd like that very much at all.
They both needed their own time during the day, it became abundantly clear, and usually, things were sliced up into work (it took up a lot of his time, but it was far easier to find something low-key as Steven Grant non international fugitive), errands, downtime and self-care which was a bit more literal for the two of them. He couldn't deny he was a bit more greedy with time, especially at first, but now that they weren't fighting it wasn't so bad to take the back seat.
"Marc?" The sound of his name is a blurry groan, the sort that he can usually only manage once he's finally (finally) dragging himself out of bed. His head tips up, messy curls half stuck to his forehead, blinking once, twice. There's a period of seconds when all he can do is stare before instinct kicks in and he's grabbing, pulling Marc up a bit with his cloying touch. Not because of the edge, that sort of situational awareness is reserved for people who don't stumble on their own rugs, but to drag him into an oxygen-stealing hug. "What's this?" A moment later he's pulling back, touching his face like he wants to check the validity of it but not really doing anything to help. "Oh god-- have we gone and got hit by a bus or something? Died in our sleep?" Oh no.
Marc doesn't miss being dead. Obviously. He doesn't even miss the heady warmth of the sun on his neck in the field of reeds, the woody smell of the papyrus plants perfuming the air, the sheer magnitude of the silence laying over everything like a blanket... but he did miss this, no matter how much of the time they'd spent yelling and squabbling and running. He clutches at Steven for a second too long, even after he pulls away, before the questions bring him back to his senses.
Still, he absently grabs at Steven's wrist so he can hang onto it like a lifeline as he finally glances down, around them, to the dusty flat full of books and the detritus of the life Steven is finally allowed to live, which looks no different now than it did five minutes ago when Marc first hauled himself up here. The sun has moved a little lower, perhaps, but otherwise there's no outward sign of this monumental shift in his whole universe.
He twitches, looks back to Steven, like he has no idea what to do with himself. He wants to have a plan, but he doesn't. There's nothing to rally against, no clear danger to protect Steven from. He at least should let Steven's wrist go, but he doesn't do that either. "No, we weren't sleeping, I—" He realizes belatedly that he's still holding onto the mysterious artifact, which is the only thing that could possibly be responsible for any of this, surely. He lifts it up in the scant space between them, blood falling in occasional lazy little drops onto the left leg of his pants and the right of Steven's, which match: it's the same pair of dark jeans he put on in the morning. His day to handle waking up, after all. It's another thing that's different from the way it had been in the Duat, with Steven in his loose pajama shirt and comfy sweats and Marc in standard issue ward whites. "I was cleaning," he says like that'll clarify anything. "I found... this." Apparently he still can't voice exactly where it came from just yet, not without some prodding.
He should definitely examine what that means, psychologically or whatever. He should also actually pay attention when Steven researches why they are the way they are, but would he really be Marc if he could bring himself to do that just because it might actually help him? Surely not.
Despite theories to the contrary, he was a tactile man, had always been for as long as he could remember-- for as real as those memories were. He wanted to be touched, to touch, so when a hand lingers at his wrist he doesn't move in some sort of stupid line of thought that hopes that if he keeps still Marc won't pull away. It's selfish, and foolish, but he'd accepted that he was a little bit of both of those when it came to Marc. The blood does catch his attention, enough that his gaze lingers a little too long on it; not good, but not serious. At least not in the mortal wounds kind of way, the two of them being split into their own bodies was a different kind of worrying.
"Where'd that come from?" Cleaning, he'd said, but it wasn't the whole truth of it-- was it? He didn't remember having anything like that in his apartment, though that didn't mean Marc hadn't brought it in. The question is fleeting however because he finds himself so caught up in the fact he could, again, feel Marc under his fingers. It made his stomach twist up into tight knots. Knots the butterflies were currently trying to escape with and choking him up in a way he couldn't ignore no matter how hard he tried.
"An embalming tool...?" His voice comes out soft, questioning like he's talking to himself rather than MArc; though moments ago that would've been much the same thing. Reaching out his touch is cautious but curious, gently prodding it like he's afraid they'll sprout into threes or slam back together. Neither happens and after a few seconds his fingers slip away, drawing a lazy line over Marc's hand before falling to lay helplessly against his thigh. "I didn't think this was possible." And after he had longed for it for so long... for some reason it didn't fill him with the delight he expected. There's a lingering pulse of doubt, but he swallows it down and ignores it.
"Let me at least bandage your finger before you get something in it." He murmurs, but it's so hard for him to move. To draw away. Like he's waiting for Marc to get them both up and going as he often did. His hand reaches out, wanting to draw the tool away to set it to the side so he could get a better look at where he was bleeding from. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth like suddenly he should have dozens of things to say and yet he couldn't muster anything in his head that sounded good.
"I think we've a small first aid in the bathroom, yeah?"
Truthfully, no matter how much he missed Steven having a physical presence that he could reach out to and lean on, Marc didn't really want something like this, wouldn't have asked for it, is a little bit afraid of what it might mean now that the initial shock and relief from the feeling of warm skin under his fingers is starting to wear off. It's not that he doesn't think Steven deserves his own life—he's wanted that for him desperately since the moment he really took over in the wake of the shiva—it was just that until a couple weeks ago he'd very much planned on being gone by the time that Steven had it. Now, though, he can finally see the possibility of a life that he doesn't completely hate stretching out before him, and the idea of being alone in his own head for all of it is downright terrifying.
Even at his happiest, Marc doesn't want to be himself all of the time. Most of the time.
But he isn't really thinking about any of that right now (his existential crisis will come later, when Steven takes his eyes off of him for too long), instead he's distracted by Steven being distracted by his hand. Marc watches him struggling to come to terms with this as well, feels a wash of relief over the fact that Steven isn't jumping for joy over it and then immediately gets hit with the backwash of guilt about being pleased that Steven isn't as happy as he would have expected. He'd understand, of course, if Steven had immediately started celebrating. But it would still have stung. As it is, though, he lets Steven take the artifact and leans closer to him without really thinking about it, shoulders huddling together like they've got a secret.
"Huh?" Marc asks, very much like a man who has not bothered taking care of his own injuries for years and years. They always disappeared under the wrappings of Khonshu's healing armor, whether he wanted them to or not, after all. But it's different now, isn't it? Shaking himself out of his stupor, Marc finally (finally) tugs Steven towards the ladder at the side of the storage loft and reluctantly lets go so he doesn't have to put the open cut on his palm directly down onto the dusty wood when he swings his weight around and sets a foot onto the ladder. See? He does listen. Sometimes. "Yeah, buddy, I think it's in the cabinet."
When he hits the ground he groans, knees aching from the amount of time he spent kneeling on the hard wood, but he hobbles off to the bathroom to locate the first aid kit without any more complaint than that. Despite the fact that he's never actually used it, it only takes Marc a moment to grab it and make his way back—which is good because every part of himself protests leaving Steven's orbit just yet—and he holds it out for Steven to take.
"It's a wonder we don't have more scars than we do." He offers, a soft tease rolling off of his lips. It's not said with the full force of actually chiding him, especially not when Marc is complying, but mostly to draw him out of his thoughts. Out of that trance that seems to be rolling through him in waves. Still, to him we is now so much more comfortable than I and he isn't yet ready to look into that. How Marc looks though, Steven gets it, even if he's trying to play things a little more normal, there's something so strangely... vulnerable about being in his own body. He doesn't feel different, not physically anyway, and yet everything feels askew. Like he was walking on one of those bridges through a rotating tunnel, his balance was realistically fine, and yet his body felt like it was ready to tip at any second.
There's no resistance to the pull, sliding down with a little grunt of effort though they slip apart and he's so painfully aware of the distance that all he can do is stand there for several seconds. His own path down is far more careful, the thud of his own feet only really heard because the room itself was left so silent. His head is so empty.
Fingers wrap around the kit, holding it firmly in one hand and the other is quick to snatch Marc's wrist again as if he needed to be led around. A small tug is all he gives, demanding silently that the pair of them find the couch now. Sinking down onto it he waits till his other half complies, though he's stubborn enough to stare at him till he does. Turning sideways on the couch, one leg curls up the ankle hooked under the knee of the other, his other foot planted on the ground. He balances the kit on his thigh, and maybe it's telling that he still doesn't let go of his wrist as he pries open the kit. Digging through it a little, he starts prepping the things he needs to clean up the mark. He's never liked blood, but for whatever reason, it seems his desire to make sure Marc is tended to overrides the urge to recoil from it.
"Maybe we're just dreaming together." It sounded almost wistful like he liked the idea, a shared little dream between them where they could touch but weren't really pulled apart. In truth, he didn't believe it, it's clear just from the set of his brows; lower, closer to an expression befitting Marc, introspective as he finally lifted the cotton ball to that wounded palm. Gingerly started to clean it, careful of the sting he knew would come with it. "Just... just a strange little dream."
Steven's ploy to pull him out of his own head works, finally gets Marc's mouth to quirk up slightly at the corner even as he gets led around the apartment like a wayward kid field-tripping at the art museum. He's been putting concerted effort into letting himself be helped more lately—for Steven's sake, he tells himself—and though results are mixed he thinks it might be doing Steven some good right now to fuss rather than to focus.
(It's doing Marc good too, but he's not going to just admit to that.)
"Too bad. A couple more scars and maybe you'd look tougher." That's not true, obviously. He and Steven are already identical (for obvious reasons), and while Marc's scowl looks like it could peel the paint off walls regardless of his actual mood, even at his angriest Steven doesn't seem like he'd purposefully harm a fly in anything but self-defense. If that's already true despite things like his broad shoulders and the packed muscle in his arms, which Marc put there over a lifetime of dedication to hurting people, a couple scars would hardly make a difference. They wouldn't change the way he holds himself, the openness of the expressions that he makes with their shared face, the nervous energy he's always got practically radiating off him even when alone in his flat trying desperately not to fall asleep...
That stray (guilty) thought puts Marc back on track. His fingers twitch at the sting of disinfectant, but otherwise he gives no indication he even feels it, just drops his free hand to the leg that's curled against his own and he starts plucking at the denim there in an idle fidget. It seems like even Steven can't manage to sound hopeful about the likelihood of them waking up suddenly to find everything back to normal. Normal-ish. Normal for them, anyway. "Maybe," He hedges, because he doesn't believe it any more than Steven does but it is a kinder way to put the idea that maybe they're hallucinating now, maybe that's how far gone they've gotten, maybe that's how broken their brain really is. Abruptly: "I found—" He exhales sharply, then glances up at the loft that they just finished climbing down from. The words feel like they're coming from far away even though he's the one saying them: "I found a bug-out bag that's not mine." And not Steven's either, obviously, because he's Steven and a singular duffle bag would never even begin to fit the number of books he'd probably try to take along when abandoning this flat. "That's where that... thing. Was."
"Tougher." He repeats with a soft scoff, in truth he had many of the same thoughts, never mind he wasn't inclined to look tough. Perhaps it'd make him more appealing, but he was comfortable how he was. Looking tough just sounded like he was asking for a fight, and that meant trouble. Probably for Marc, were he to be entirely honest with himself, but he won't be. Doesn't want to think that far into things as of yet.
It's the sudden nature of Marc's words that draws him up from his work, soaking up the blood and cleaning the cut. It's worse than he'd thought-- not a prick on the hand or finger at all-- but not so awful that it's life-threatening. He tosses the cotton ball onto the coffee table and finds a second one, repeating the process with the sort of delicacy one might reserve for a small animal or a child, not a grown man who'd probably been through far, far worse before Steven even had proper awareness. "Oh." And for a second that's all he says, but it's clear he's working through it with the way his hand stills like he's forgotten mid-stroke what he was doing. "Oh." Again, more breathy this time when he finally caught himself, tossing the ball to the side and gently beginning to apply a little bit to the cut before beginning to pinch it slightly and apply a few butterfly stitches.
He didn't know how he knew how to do this, it seemed he just did.
"You don't think...?" He's hesitant to say it, the implication sitting heavy on his tongue. His gaze wanders, from one side to the other, like he's looking for a third person lurking in the flat waiting to pounce on the both of them. When he finds nothing in his cursory glance he returns to finish the little bridges on his palm and begins to ever so delicately wrap his palm. "Like in Cairo before. Not just us, then."
Marc almost protests the gentle treatment, but something pulls him up short. He doesn't want to need it, or like it, or want it... but he sorta does. All three.
Steven is too good to him.
Steven is also killing him, here. Marc has to fight the strange floaty feeling rolling through his brain, fuzzing around the edges of his vision. Force himself not to dissociate right there on the couch as he finally confronts the thing he'd been avoiding for weeks, out loud, all while being carefully taken care of by the only parts of himself that he'd ever actually liked—the parts that were someone else. Not just us is, of course, the only possible conclusion to come to, but Marc's every maladaptive instinct is to run away from it. He'd know if there was someone else, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he have to? There's no space in his memories for a third life.
(There was Cairo. Twice. There was going AWOL from the Marines. The second sarcophagus. There were a lot of other things that would all add up, if only Marc could pin them down instead of squirming away every time he gets too close to the idea of them.)
God, is this what Steven felt like, running from room to room in the Duat with the structure of his life falling down all around him? And before that, filling his flat with sand and sound and stimuli, tying himself down to his bed at night to try and stop his own body from doing things he didn't understand?
Marc always felt bad about that, about all of it, but it's one thing to watch someone's confused distress from the outside (or inside, as it were) and another entirely to be on the other end, drowning. Marc bites his lip to try and stop the rest of his expression from crumbling, eyes trained on their hands. "I don't know," he snaps, out of sorts and angry about not being the one with all the answers and information. The control. "Steven," he hurries to add, immediately contrite about getting snippy, looking away from their hands because watching the gauze get wrapped around his palm makes him think of Khonshu's armor. Steven is the only reason he finally managed to escape. "I don't know," it's a transparent plea for help, where his pride won't let him use the actual words.
His gaze snaps from his work, fingers nimbly tucking the bandage in, not even giving himself the chance to admire his work. "Mh." It's a soft, aborted sound in his mouth as he stares, and it's clear he's reading over Marc's features. Assessing the familiar and more. The panic he knows. The way he seems to be ready to detach, to sink off into the abyss. He's stared like that, into the nothingness of forever, so many times laying on their bed as he desperately struggled to keep a hold on the last vestiges of energy he had.
"It's alright." He finally says, because his own pulse is nearing his ears, but that desire to keep Marc as safe and as calm as he can is overriding his own panic. Forcing him to swallow it down like he's drinking sand. But he will. Any time he can, he will. He knows that now, the fear he had felt when it came to Marc converted to a desire to protect, to make him happy, safe. He doesn't know how, not in a way he thinks is worthwhile, not yet, but he'll learn. "It's alright." Again, repeated, to match Marc's own distress as his fingers curl around that bandaged hand. Careful of the wound but holding it all the same.
"We've got each other, right? That means we can handle just about anything." His other hand reaches out, cautious at first. Why was it so strange to touch, it was his body, their body, but apart it felt so distinctly different. Like he had no right to any of Marc anymore. The thought makes his stomach churn but he ignores it. Puts his hand down, pressing into his chest, not dissimilar to the way he did during his own panic attacks. A solid weight but not an uncomfortable pressure. "I'm not going anywhere, third bloke or not, we've made it through way worse than that, yeah?" A nervous smile, one side of his mouth lifting more than the other. It's meant to be reassuring.
"I don't see anyone else here but us, so that's all you got to focus on, okay Marc?" His hand presses in and holds for four seconds before relaxing for about the same, he continues the slow presses, hoping he can ease him into the same breathing pattern. His own is struggling to keep to it, and yet he can't let himself notice, they can't both be falling apart. "You've just got to pay attention to me." A little lift of his brows, struggling for playful, for something other than this pain he hates to see etched on his face. "You know like I've always wanted. Shouldn't be too hard, yeah?"
Marc's free hand snakes up, anchoring around Steven's wrist again, the one pressing against his chest. For one mad second he wants Steven to push harder, like he could possibly press all the way through and make them into one body again by sheer force. Osmosis, or something. That ludicrous thought is what finally shoots past the cloud of existential panic, and Marc starts to follow Steven's coaxing with a few rattling gasps, feeling half a fool and still realizing only belatedly how bad it had gotten when he feels like he's breathing through a dozen layers of cloth. (Or, bandages? No, no, those are gone.) As the difficulty of inhaling eases with repetition, the ebb and flow of air between them, he slowly raises his gaze back up to Steven's face. His eyes feel hot and wet but he's not crying yet, mouth pressed into a grim line of determination while he struggles to control himself, even as his brows furrow into telltale little creases of sadness that doubtlessly give him away. After a few moments he manages to nod jerkily, trying to convey without words how much he appreciates the effort.
His hand slides further up from Steven's wrist, then, so his palm covers the back of Steven's hand and pins it against his chest. He could swear he feels his heartbeat battering against his ribs there, clamoring to leap out of him and into that waiting hand. He wonders if it would still be empty and white, dull without Steven to make it glow. He's being ridiculous, he knows, but it turns out that being aware of it doesn't make it stop.
"I, I always pay attention to you," he says like a confession, probably ruining the attempted playful tone of Steven's coaxing. But he wants Steven to know. Now more than ever, except maybe that time in the sprawling sands of the Duat. (It had been pretty important to him then as well.) Unfortunately, it turns out that paying attention to Steven means that Marc is finally noticing the amount of difficulty he's having as well, and he rubs his calloused thumb over the knuckles of Steven's hand, an attempt to be soothing. "But, yeah. We've survived worse. Together." Dying, for one.
He exhales, shuddery in the dusty air of Steven's loft: tiny motes chase each other around in the last of the evening's sunlight. Marc would watch them dance, but he can't get himself to look away from Steven's face now, wanting to make sure he isn't going to fall apart as well. Without thinking (doing a lot of that today), he blurts: "Don't leave me."
He doesn't even try to pull away, and for once it's not for the selfish reasons that usually compel him. He wants to be something, wants to help Marc however he can in the ways he remembers Marc doing so long ago before he even realized it. He lets Marc decide how hard he presses, how long he holds him, because he likes holding onto him, but more than that he wants to do his best for him in a way he's been failing at for who knows how long. His mouth pulls into a somber sort of smile at the words, and he tries to ignore the way it makes all of him twist into something that's better left swallowed down and forgottne. "Yeah, mate, I guess you do."
He might have continued on with some kind of teasing but the last part digs deep into him. It feels like a knife, pinging off of his ribs, painful, sharp, sudden and a gasp leaves him that he hadn't planned for. "Oh." There's a wetness to his voice, and for a second he tries to consider how to answer that, what to say-- he knows the answer already, of course, but the fact Marc had said it said more than anything else.
"I'd never." He gasps out, and perhaps he's not being as considerate as he'd told himself he'd be, because he's shoving forward, not unlike he had in the Duat, arms latched around him tight enough that it's almost painful. "I'd never, I'd never Marc." His fingers curl, bunching up shirt and digging into skin alike. "You're stuck with me Mate, no matter what." A hushed, pained laugh as he shook his head. "You try and leave and I'll come sleep on your porch."
This time, Marc's fingers bunch in the fabric of Steven's shirt too, one wrinkled fistful of material hiking the back of his clothes up (sorry Steven.) Marc does try to be slightly more careful and not undo the hard work just finished on his other hand though, so that grip is much more loose, trembling slightly from a comparative lack of pressure. He buries his face in the crook of Steven's neck and shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, slumping enough in boneless relief that Steven is pulled over him, almost onto his lap where their legs are tangled together on the couch. Maybe he should take a second to slow down and try to recover from having half of a panic attack, but Marc has never done emotions in moderation.
And he can't help himself right now anyway, the reassurance is— it means more to Marc than he could ever say, even if he were actually good with his words. The magnitude of it dwarfs everything else, anchored by the sensation of Steven's fingers digging into him, ten points of contact where he feels whole even though he very much is not anymore. Steven doesn't want to go, doesn't want to leave him: he should want to, but he doesn't. No matter what.
Okay. Okay, so there's another person inside... one of them? Both of them? Someone Marc didn't know about, all this time. Marc is numb, but he also wants to cry, or scream, or rage. The only thing he doesn't want to do right now is float away, surrender the body—usually his first instinct—because even though he feels completely unraveled, he's being held in one piece by Steven's tight grip.
Maybe now, maybe with Steven here and them working as a team, it won't be impossible to figure out. Maybe. "I don't really have a porch," he says, without moving his face, muffled against fabric and the skin underneath it. He really wishes he'd left the body in Steven's comfortable, soft sleep shirt right about now (it'd feel better on his nose and cheeks), but it's too late for that. He spends a moment trying to picture Steven setting up a blanket and pillow outside the padlocked door to his storage container, and curling up right there on the concrete. The mental image is absurd, and yet, against all odds he finds himself unable to doubt that Steven would do it if pushed. "I don't think they'd allow you to sleep in the hallway. It would probably be bad for business."
His ability to persist is all he can offer, hopefully that will be enough. They mirror in many ways, in this, the idea that the other should long for that sort of freedom and some space. It's strange, perhaps a general lack of self-worth that's a little more universal than he'd care to admit. But he was stubborn, selfish, clingy and a dozen other things that wouldn't let him let Marc go unless he... unless he thought he wanted to. That would probably change everything. Steven would smile and nod and let him go and probably die more than a little, but he didn't want to go, and that was enough to keep that fierce attachment burning bright in his chest.
"Pedantic." He chides, but it's soft, barely above a murmur as he gives another squeeze before relaxing his grip some. It's still far too cloying to be healthy, he's still piled on like a puppy who'd brought someone sad their favorite sock, but not enough to keep Marc from breathing proper. He needs that, needs to take deep breaths, to force his nervous system to slow down or it wont get better and there's nothing Steven wants more right now. A little sniff before he sighs, it's all warm and a light caress as his cheek presses in, stubbornly refusing to be dislodged as of yet.
"I'd rent the one across from you then, wait there till you decided to come out." A little hum, he swallows and some of the weness finally leaves his voice, drawn down with the rest of that ache. "You'd never have a moments peace, I promise you that."
Marc likes that threat a lot more this time than he did last time. He shifts, turning his face away from Steven's neck so it's his cheek on Steven's shoulder instead—to make breathing a little easier (and because he's a bit embarrassed with himself after the initial wave of existential panic starts to let up)—but he doesn't move much otherwise.
He really should take back his plea, tell Steven that he doesn't have to do any of that, that he's free and he can live whatever life he'd like to without Marc's baggage, but even as the guilt plucks at the corners of his brain, Marc can't bring himself to offer him that out. What if he takes it? (Obviously he wouldn't take it. He's literally saying he wouldn't take it. But Marc is Marc so it's going to be a good long while before he actually internalizes that idea.)
He exhales shakily, breathing continuing to slowly stabilize as he gets a better hold of himself. "If you got a storage unit maybe we could clear out some of these books," he says instead, an attempt to tease. They could also just store things in Marc's unit, now that he doesn't have to hide anymore, but that's a minor detail. He doesn't actually want to change Steven's space, or bring any of his stashed weapons from that unit into it, it's just that the sheer volume of clutter in the flat drives him a little crazy sometimes after so long of being aggressively compartmentalized and far too neat. He's a little bit convinced that the third... whoever it is never would have gotten away with leaving things in his rigidly structured space, barely out of sight. Surely, he would have known. (He wouldn't have. He doesn't know about the things that Jake has in there, unwilling to see them even when he sees them, unwilling to acknowledge what they would mean.)
It also doesn't occur to him at all that maybe, just maybe, they were actually intended to find the bag—and the artifact. He opens his eyes again finally, gaze sliding around the crowded shelves without really seeing anything. Somehow, it almost feels easier to start talking about this with Steven's weight against him stopping him from drifting away into nothing. "If there's someone else, where is he?" Apparently it doesn't actually have to be another guy, according to Steven's research, but Marc is just going to assume that it is.
There's a snort from him, and it's hard to tell if he's taking Marc seriously or not, a little turn of his head, a tickle of his hair as he scans the part of the room (not much) that he can see from where he's comfortably collapsed. It should be weird, but it isn't, the weirdest part of it for him is the fact that he's aware that it ought to be weird. He never liked himself much, for whatever reasons, not high-tier self-loathing of course but never to a degree that he feels like it fills the gaps in this most people might call narcissism. Thinks the most self-indulgent part is the fact he ignores those ideas in favor of the familiar smell of their shared soap and linens.
Instead of a snippy response, though, he gets a smile. His voice is warm, a little too vulnerable and fond, but if there was ever a time for it-- it was now. "I think I could make room for things for you, yeah." Maybe not the weapons, maybe. He really wasn't sure how comfortable he'd ever be around them, not at this stage anyway. Anything else, though, he could push some things around and make space. If it would make Marc want to stay more, how could he think otherwise? Though there was no agreement on removing anything, that was going to be a little more of a struggle.
Organizing... Well, it was manageable. "Maybe he got spooked and ran?" He offers, though it seems unlikely, though his honest answer doesn't feel very good on his tongue. A little shift and he's just keeping close, refusing for the time being to give him any space. Though his hold softens, one hand tracing lines up and down, doing his best to be soothing, or some approximation of it. "It is a bit odd, though, innit?" A little curl of one side of his mouth, thoughtful, lingering on the idea for a second before he slumped.
"Maybe he's shy." A little laugh, because it sounds ridiculous even when he says it, but the truth was simple-- "I've no idea, the more I think about it the less it really makes much sense. Though we didn't see much of him before, maybe it's a bit to do with that?"
Oh, that's not what he meant but— it's a good thing that they can't look at each other in their current positions because Marc's face does something ridiculous and sappy in response to Steven's offer to move Marc's stuff into his space. He'd sorta passively assumed he'd be staying here, but Steven's willingness to displace his own things to make room is a step beyond that and he doesn't know what to do with himself about it. Surely there's some metaphor in there for being let into his life or his heart or something, but Marc's not going to linger on it.
Instead he's going to pull back, just slightly enough to make eye contact again, forcing himself to release the back of Steven's shirt finger by finger after he's very sure that he's back to looking appropriately dour again. He reaches up to tap on his own temple with the hand that Steven just finished wrapping, not the first time he's ever made that gesture in front of him. "Maybe he's still..." you know, in there. "Or here." He points to Steven's head as well, though he doesn't know which would be worse. Someone he can't control inside of him, or Steven having to go through what he just finished dealing with all over again? He thinks he could stop a man in a second body, physically, but could he do that knowing Steven would be the one to feel it later? And if he's the one being pushed out, how is he supposed to keep Steven safe?
Because he doesn't really think another body showed up and then left already. He's absolutely certain that he wasn't out for long during the initial split: the sun was in the middle of sinking, where a few minutes would have meant a noticeable change in lighting. (He should not be sure of anything, of course, because his mind has always smoothed over gaps in reality for him, leaving him none the wiser. Isn't that what they're discussing right now?)
"I don't understand— I know what happened to us. I've always known." He kept it all, collecting all the pain and torment and awful secrets, hoarding them each like just the worst treasure. That was the only good thing he'd ever done. "Why would there be anyone else?"
When Marc pulls away, he resists the urge to reattach like a grumpy barnacle, because they can't stay like that forever. It'd be ridiculous. Leaning back he blinks a few times, his face is dry though his eyes are a little red-rimmed, softened by the world as he looks at Marc like he's the only thing in it. That hand slipping up catches his attention with the movement, tapping one temple, then the other. And that thought is... sobering. "Maybe." He murmurs, and he's not sure how he feels about that at all.
Was that possible? There was just someone else lurking below the surface, waiting to spring free and... do what? Other than moments of blacking out, of defensiveness, he realized they knew nothing about this third person. Were they kind? Cruel? No matter how much he thought about it he couldn't find any answers. Unsurprisingly. They really didn't have anything to go off of, at least anything he knew.
"I don't know..." He answers, and he hates not having an answer because Marc is already distressed and he doesn't know how to fix it. His hand slides down slowly, finding Marc's forearm to gently squeeze, thumbing gently against him. Wanting to offer... something, anything. "Maybe it's someone not... not fully formed? Just an instinct or otherwise? Maybe... there's nothing to be worried about? Might be why he's not shown himself, yeah?"
Truthfully, Marc wants desperately to latch onto that. Maybe it's not a good thing, exactly, but it would make him feel less stupid to have missed an instinct rather than a whole person in his head. (Which isn't fair, obviously, given that Steven is much smarter than him, and their brain still managed to trick him for so long.)
Except, even as Marc tries to hold onto the idea it slips through his fingers. He slumps against the couch cushions again, like all his strings have been cut except for ones on the arm that Steven is still touching. Goosebumps have erupted there beneath his moving thumb, and Marc finds himself staring down at the point of contact. "He has his own clothes." Like Marc. "Cash. A gun." Also like Marc. If all they had to go on were the blackouts while the body was in danger, he could maybe believe... But. "And that thing was in one of his pockets. It looks like it came from a dig site, or something." Maybe a museum nearby. Maybe a salty old bird god, freshly rejected, had it stashed somewhere to be useful later.
Either way, for one insane moment he wonders if he was made up as well, if there's some other Marc inside the body successfully out-Marcing him, but he pushes the thought aside as soon as he has it. He still has to wonder, if Steven is all the good parts, and he's all the bad parts, what's even left over for some third man?
"I don't like this." There, he said it. (Like there was ever any doubt.)
"Oh." That was familiar, and there's a flicker of that on his face-- a lift of a brow, a quirk of the corner of his mouth-- but he stifles it quick enough. Now is... probably not the time to antagonize Marc about the familiarity of it. He leans in mimicry, perhaps a habit, or perhaps he too feels boneless. Allowing his shoulder to sink into the back of the couch, head tilting to the side and allowing his head to squish into the softness of it. His hand remains latched on, however, gently stroking against him like a comforting metronome.
He's not sure who he's comforting more now, but he also doesn't think it matters. It helps him, repetitive movements, touching Marc, little glimpses of comfort that help stifle the anxiety. "So roaming around, in one of us." Back to square one, and he realized he had been trying to come up with other reasons in order to make things more comfortable, but there are no other options that come to mind, and perhaps that's for the best. He doesn't need to give them both more excuses. The answer is there, they just have to accept it.
When Marc speaks again, his gaze lifts, and he gives a gentle nod. "Yeah." A soft murmur as he gives a squeeze, a small interruption to the slow brush of his thumb. "I don't think I fancy it either." A gun, that was enough to tell Steven that he and the fellow were probably not... similar. Though if he never made himself known, was he really like Marc, either? Content to live alone?
It's a lingering amount of time before his mouth pulls into a thin line and he lets out a slow, held breath. "You never set up a date for me, did you?"
Marc's eyes finally move back up from their arms to Steven's face, and his brow furrows. He spent a lot of time watching Steven go about his life, the comforting mundanity of it—books and work and the grocery store—but there are some things he misses, surely.
Obviously he hadn't missed the mostly empty box of chocolates from barely a handful of weeks ago. The misery radiating off Steven in waves. He remembers his own panic as well, stuck in his reflection in the fish tank, the bathroom mirror, completely unable to push Steven out of the front seat on his own—even after calling out to him, telling him to stop—once he'd realized what Steven had done. The phone he'd found. The number he'd called. It took Khonshu scaring the living daylights out of him for Marc to be able to take the body back, and absolutely everything had unraveled from there.
Marc is grateful, of course. He wouldn't go back if he could. Khonshu is gone and Steven doesn't hate or fear him, and it's more than he could have even imagined a year ago or five years ago, or more than that.
Still, that's the only date he can remember Steven actually going on. (Trying to go on.) He had mostly made a point not to think about it, since, for reasons he does not have the easiest time pinning down. No matter. "A date? What do you mean?" He can't mean that one, surely.
"With the-- from work?" He offers, as if that'll jog Marc's memory, but he's looking at him like he doesn't know and that makes the unsettled feeling in his stomach bloom to a sort of cold that takes over the whole of his chest. He tries to keep it from his face, but it's clear he's keeping something knotted up in his chest. After taking a deep breath and letting it out, he decides to start over, because he needs to make sure. Has to.
"Before all of this..." He gestured between the two of them as if that would be able to fully encompass the whole of what they had been through, "Near the beginning really, girl from work came up to me, right? Asked if we were still on for a date that I didn't remember making. Lil bit queer but it wasn't like I was going to say no." He flushes and scowls at himself, embarrassed to admit he was willing to go on some random date he didn't remember making. Perhaps it was desperation, or perhaps he just attributed it to all those lapses in memory he kept having. "I thought for a bit, that it'd been you."
Which seemed reasonable, before he really got to know Marc, or better yet met Layla. Taking the whole of that into account, and the fact it'd been at a steak house made it a little more clear that it probably hadn't been Marc at all. It made him wonder if he was even supposed to show up, even supposed to find out. Something about it made him uncomfortable, more than just the idea of his body roaming around at night fighting people but...
"I think he was going on dates in our body." The hand not clinging to Marc pressed into his own chest uncomfortably. "Who knows what else."
Marc can't quite keep the judgment off his face as he runs down a mental checklist of each of Steven's (former) coworkers. "Who would you even date at your job?" He had, admittedly, watched them all before from Steven's reflections, even grunted his way through bits and and pieces of Steven's shift when it was completely unavoidable, and as a direct result of that he decidedly has no idea what Steven would see in any of them. Most couldn't be bothered to call him by his name, and he wore a nametag every day.
Wait, but that's not important right now. Steven is clearly on his own verge of panic, clutching at his chest like it might open up on him and spill everything out. That look of fear is terribly familiar: Marc had seen it on his face so many times before, as he sat in bed and strapped himself down and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
And he can see why, now, again, because for some reason the thought of a stranger meeting another stranger while inside their body for a date is almost more disturbing than what they know he's done. More so than a gun and a jacket and a key, a flurry of bloodshed in desperate moments, asking somebody out would make him someone with a personality, with preferences, with free time. Marc feels for a moment like he doesn't fit in his own skin. To small, or too large, or—
No, focus. "How did you—" Damn it, he thinks, get it together. He moves his arm finally, sliding it back so that their palms are touching now, something more mutual than Steven hanging onto his forearm. A combined effort, a mutual grip, feels like it might be more grounding. "How did you stop ignoring me? Or, what was happening?" Because clearly, he needs help in that department.
"Wh--" The question throws him off for a second because that was not, of all things, what he expected Marc to ask him about. In truth he didn't have a good answer, she'd been a tour guide but he didn't know her particularly well. A little snort escapes him, somewhat judgemental, as he stares. His own thumb still rubbing nervous little circles in the middle of his chest. "Well I clearly didn't set up the date Marc." A purse of his lips, but he looks caught between antagonistic and amused.
Though it doesn't linger long when the realization sets in and his hand tightens like he could be some kind of grounding force for them both. It was more than instinct. More than... nighttime walks. Someone had been in the body, working his job, pretending to be him-- maybe pretending to be them and neither had noticed. Though Steven had thought he was losing his mind, and had been in many respects, he had lost so much time it all blended together in a way that left him feeling crushed more than anything else.
His fingers spread when Marc's fold in, lacing together like two sides of a coat and he coils them in again instinctively. He can't remember the last time he held anyone's hand. If he thinks about it hard enough, he knows the answer is really never. Never any time that was real, or for him. A little breath escapes as he focuses on the warmth of the touch while the questions come again and he tries to find a good answer. Eventually, though, all he can say is far too matter-of-fact,
"You killed Gus." It doesn't sound angry, or harsh, just thoughtful. A little lift of his shoulders, shrugging helplessly. "I guess it-- he was something I knew to be real, something that grounded me each day." A little brush of his tongue over his lower lip, wetting the flesh as he shifted, gaze finally lifting back toward Marc again. "I realized without him I was... well, I was going to be painfully lonely and..." A little knit of his brows, trying to think back to what had happened, it all felt like a mess looking back. "Though, honestly, it's not like you or big bird made yourselves easy to ignore after a bit." A little grunt escaped him. "Finding myself with a broken jaw crawling through the grass is a bit of a wake-up call."
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disassociating) wrote2022-05-08 11:07 am
@accessgranted
Occam's razor. Occam's blackouts. Occam's lost time. (In Cairo, and in the weeks since Cairo.) Steven worries, wants to talk about it, wants to figure it out. Even Layla seems concerned over the phone when she calls from Egypt, busy, as the only avatar left in the world. But Marc is the one who won't face it. Can't.
He scowls and finally grabs the duffle bag, pulling it into the waning light spilling through the window nearest Steven's bed, unable to shake the feeling that he should run and pretend he never saw it but equally unable to stop himself from looking inside. It's plain, lightweight, and not army surplus like any of his, but still very much not Steven's style: he yanks at the zipper and tries not to think about all the times he hauled Steven's table across the hardwood floor so he could reach the loose panel in the wall.
Inside is flat cap. Okay, strange. Gloves. A gun, and it's not one of his. (Out of habit, he pops out the magazine to run his thumb down the line of unspent ammo. It is not a full clip.) There's a bundled up jacket in his size, but he's never seen it before, and one single nondescript key.
Fuck.
He squeezes his eyes shut, and then in an effort to delay having to rouse Steven and call his attention to the front so he can say I told you so for even a few more moments, Marc fishes around in the pockets of the jacket. One of them has a wad of cash, but it's when he's groping his way through the other he feels a sharp sting against meat of his palm and he swears, pulling the offending object out as blood wells up in the cup of his hand. He stares at... a little tool. A scoop, long and thin and sharp: clearly ancient and shining wet and red from where he'd jabbed himself with it. One glance and Steven would know that it's an embalming tool for the mummifying process, but all Marc knows is that the world goes white for a split second and suddenly he's sprawled on his back with one arm, his shoulders and head dangling dangerously over the edge of the loft platform, legs tangled with—
Legs tangled with another pair of legs. Marc sits up so he gets spots in his field of vision, but that doesn't stop him from immediately recognizing: "Steven?!"
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He still wasn't sure what to call Marc and he did his best not to think about it. Maybe for now he can just be 'Murder Man'. Though he doubts he'd like that very much at all.
They both needed their own time during the day, it became abundantly clear, and usually, things were sliced up into work (it took up a lot of his time, but it was far easier to find something low-key as Steven Grant non international fugitive), errands, downtime and self-care which was a bit more literal for the two of them. He couldn't deny he was a bit more greedy with time, especially at first, but now that they weren't fighting it wasn't so bad to take the back seat.
"Marc?" The sound of his name is a blurry groan, the sort that he can usually only manage once he's finally (finally) dragging himself out of bed. His head tips up, messy curls half stuck to his forehead, blinking once, twice. There's a period of seconds when all he can do is stare before instinct kicks in and he's grabbing, pulling Marc up a bit with his cloying touch. Not because of the edge, that sort of situational awareness is reserved for people who don't stumble on their own rugs, but to drag him into an oxygen-stealing hug. "What's this?" A moment later he's pulling back, touching his face like he wants to check the validity of it but not really doing anything to help. "Oh god-- have we gone and got hit by a bus or something? Died in our sleep?" Oh no.
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Still, he absently grabs at Steven's wrist so he can hang onto it like a lifeline as he finally glances down, around them, to the dusty flat full of books and the detritus of the life Steven is finally allowed to live, which looks no different now than it did five minutes ago when Marc first hauled himself up here. The sun has moved a little lower, perhaps, but otherwise there's no outward sign of this monumental shift in his whole universe.
He twitches, looks back to Steven, like he has no idea what to do with himself. He wants to have a plan, but he doesn't. There's nothing to rally against, no clear danger to protect Steven from. He at least should let Steven's wrist go, but he doesn't do that either. "No, we weren't sleeping, I—" He realizes belatedly that he's still holding onto the mysterious artifact, which is the only thing that could possibly be responsible for any of this, surely. He lifts it up in the scant space between them, blood falling in occasional lazy little drops onto the left leg of his pants and the right of Steven's, which match: it's the same pair of dark jeans he put on in the morning. His day to handle waking up, after all. It's another thing that's different from the way it had been in the Duat, with Steven in his loose pajama shirt and comfy sweats and Marc in standard issue ward whites. "I was cleaning," he says like that'll clarify anything. "I found... this." Apparently he still can't voice exactly where it came from just yet, not without some prodding.
He should definitely examine what that means, psychologically or whatever. He should also actually pay attention when Steven researches why they are the way they are, but would he really be Marc if he could bring himself to do that just because it might actually help him? Surely not.
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"Where'd that come from?" Cleaning, he'd said, but it wasn't the whole truth of it-- was it? He didn't remember having anything like that in his apartment, though that didn't mean Marc hadn't brought it in. The question is fleeting however because he finds himself so caught up in the fact he could, again, feel Marc under his fingers. It made his stomach twist up into tight knots. Knots the butterflies were currently trying to escape with and choking him up in a way he couldn't ignore no matter how hard he tried.
"An embalming tool...?" His voice comes out soft, questioning like he's talking to himself rather than MArc; though moments ago that would've been much the same thing. Reaching out his touch is cautious but curious, gently prodding it like he's afraid they'll sprout into threes or slam back together. Neither happens and after a few seconds his fingers slip away, drawing a lazy line over Marc's hand before falling to lay helplessly against his thigh. "I didn't think this was possible." And after he had longed for it for so long... for some reason it didn't fill him with the delight he expected. There's a lingering pulse of doubt, but he swallows it down and ignores it.
"Let me at least bandage your finger before you get something in it." He murmurs, but it's so hard for him to move. To draw away. Like he's waiting for Marc to get them both up and going as he often did. His hand reaches out, wanting to draw the tool away to set it to the side so he could get a better look at where he was bleeding from. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth like suddenly he should have dozens of things to say and yet he couldn't muster anything in his head that sounded good.
"I think we've a small first aid in the bathroom, yeah?"
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Even at his happiest, Marc doesn't want to be himself all of the time. Most of the time.
But he isn't really thinking about any of that right now (his existential crisis will come later, when Steven takes his eyes off of him for too long), instead he's distracted by Steven being distracted by his hand. Marc watches him struggling to come to terms with this as well, feels a wash of relief over the fact that Steven isn't jumping for joy over it and then immediately gets hit with the backwash of guilt about being pleased that Steven isn't as happy as he would have expected. He'd understand, of course, if Steven had immediately started celebrating. But it would still have stung. As it is, though, he lets Steven take the artifact and leans closer to him without really thinking about it, shoulders huddling together like they've got a secret.
"Huh?" Marc asks, very much like a man who has not bothered taking care of his own injuries for years and years. They always disappeared under the wrappings of Khonshu's healing armor, whether he wanted them to or not, after all. But it's different now, isn't it? Shaking himself out of his stupor, Marc finally (finally) tugs Steven towards the ladder at the side of the storage loft and reluctantly lets go so he doesn't have to put the open cut on his palm directly down onto the dusty wood when he swings his weight around and sets a foot onto the ladder. See? He does listen. Sometimes. "Yeah, buddy, I think it's in the cabinet."
When he hits the ground he groans, knees aching from the amount of time he spent kneeling on the hard wood, but he hobbles off to the bathroom to locate the first aid kit without any more complaint than that. Despite the fact that he's never actually used it, it only takes Marc a moment to grab it and make his way back—which is good because every part of himself protests leaving Steven's orbit just yet—and he holds it out for Steven to take.
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There's no resistance to the pull, sliding down with a little grunt of effort though they slip apart and he's so painfully aware of the distance that all he can do is stand there for several seconds. His own path down is far more careful, the thud of his own feet only really heard because the room itself was left so silent. His head is so empty.
Fingers wrap around the kit, holding it firmly in one hand and the other is quick to snatch Marc's wrist again as if he needed to be led around. A small tug is all he gives, demanding silently that the pair of them find the couch now. Sinking down onto it he waits till his other half complies, though he's stubborn enough to stare at him till he does. Turning sideways on the couch, one leg curls up the ankle hooked under the knee of the other, his other foot planted on the ground. He balances the kit on his thigh, and maybe it's telling that he still doesn't let go of his wrist as he pries open the kit. Digging through it a little, he starts prepping the things he needs to clean up the mark. He's never liked blood, but for whatever reason, it seems his desire to make sure Marc is tended to overrides the urge to recoil from it.
"Maybe we're just dreaming together." It sounded almost wistful like he liked the idea, a shared little dream between them where they could touch but weren't really pulled apart. In truth, he didn't believe it, it's clear just from the set of his brows; lower, closer to an expression befitting Marc, introspective as he finally lifted the cotton ball to that wounded palm. Gingerly started to clean it, careful of the sting he knew would come with it. "Just... just a strange little dream."
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(It's doing Marc good too, but he's not going to just admit to that.)
"Too bad. A couple more scars and maybe you'd look tougher." That's not true, obviously. He and Steven are already identical (for obvious reasons), and while Marc's scowl looks like it could peel the paint off walls regardless of his actual mood, even at his angriest Steven doesn't seem like he'd purposefully harm a fly in anything but self-defense. If that's already true despite things like his broad shoulders and the packed muscle in his arms, which Marc put there over a lifetime of dedication to hurting people, a couple scars would hardly make a difference. They wouldn't change the way he holds himself, the openness of the expressions that he makes with their shared face, the nervous energy he's always got practically radiating off him even when alone in his flat trying desperately not to fall asleep...
That stray (guilty) thought puts Marc back on track. His fingers twitch at the sting of disinfectant, but otherwise he gives no indication he even feels it, just drops his free hand to the leg that's curled against his own and he starts plucking at the denim there in an idle fidget. It seems like even Steven can't manage to sound hopeful about the likelihood of them waking up suddenly to find everything back to normal. Normal-ish. Normal for them, anyway. "Maybe," He hedges, because he doesn't believe it any more than Steven does but it is a kinder way to put the idea that maybe they're hallucinating now, maybe that's how far gone they've gotten, maybe that's how broken their brain really is. Abruptly: "I found—" He exhales sharply, then glances up at the loft that they just finished climbing down from. The words feel like they're coming from far away even though he's the one saying them: "I found a bug-out bag that's not mine." And not Steven's either, obviously, because he's Steven and a singular duffle bag would never even begin to fit the number of books he'd probably try to take along when abandoning this flat. "That's where that... thing. Was."
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It's the sudden nature of Marc's words that draws him up from his work, soaking up the blood and cleaning the cut. It's worse than he'd thought-- not a prick on the hand or finger at all-- but not so awful that it's life-threatening. He tosses the cotton ball onto the coffee table and finds a second one, repeating the process with the sort of delicacy one might reserve for a small animal or a child, not a grown man who'd probably been through far, far worse before Steven even had proper awareness. "Oh." And for a second that's all he says, but it's clear he's working through it with the way his hand stills like he's forgotten mid-stroke what he was doing. "Oh." Again, more breathy this time when he finally caught himself, tossing the ball to the side and gently beginning to apply a little bit to the cut before beginning to pinch it slightly and apply a few butterfly stitches.
He didn't know how he knew how to do this, it seemed he just did.
"You don't think...?" He's hesitant to say it, the implication sitting heavy on his tongue. His gaze wanders, from one side to the other, like he's looking for a third person lurking in the flat waiting to pounce on the both of them. When he finds nothing in his cursory glance he returns to finish the little bridges on his palm and begins to ever so delicately wrap his palm. "Like in Cairo before. Not just us, then."
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Steven is too good to him.
Steven is also killing him, here. Marc has to fight the strange floaty feeling rolling through his brain, fuzzing around the edges of his vision. Force himself not to dissociate right there on the couch as he finally confronts the thing he'd been avoiding for weeks, out loud, all while being carefully taken care of by the only parts of himself that he'd ever actually liked—the parts that were someone else. Not just us is, of course, the only possible conclusion to come to, but Marc's every maladaptive instinct is to run away from it. He'd know if there was someone else, wouldn't he? Wouldn't he have to? There's no space in his memories for a third life.
(There was Cairo. Twice. There was going AWOL from the Marines. The second sarcophagus. There were a lot of other things that would all add up, if only Marc could pin them down instead of squirming away every time he gets too close to the idea of them.)
God, is this what Steven felt like, running from room to room in the Duat with the structure of his life falling down all around him? And before that, filling his flat with sand and sound and stimuli, tying himself down to his bed at night to try and stop his own body from doing things he didn't understand?
Marc always felt bad about that, about all of it, but it's one thing to watch someone's confused distress from the outside (or inside, as it were) and another entirely to be on the other end, drowning. Marc bites his lip to try and stop the rest of his expression from crumbling, eyes trained on their hands. "I don't know," he snaps, out of sorts and angry about not being the one with all the answers and information. The control. "Steven," he hurries to add, immediately contrite about getting snippy, looking away from their hands because watching the gauze get wrapped around his palm makes him think of Khonshu's armor. Steven is the only reason he finally managed to escape. "I don't know," it's a transparent plea for help, where his pride won't let him use the actual words.
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"It's alright." He finally says, because his own pulse is nearing his ears, but that desire to keep Marc as safe and as calm as he can is overriding his own panic. Forcing him to swallow it down like he's drinking sand. But he will. Any time he can, he will. He knows that now, the fear he had felt when it came to Marc converted to a desire to protect, to make him happy, safe. He doesn't know how, not in a way he thinks is worthwhile, not yet, but he'll learn. "It's alright." Again, repeated, to match Marc's own distress as his fingers curl around that bandaged hand. Careful of the wound but holding it all the same.
"We've got each other, right? That means we can handle just about anything." His other hand reaches out, cautious at first. Why was it so strange to touch, it was his body, their body, but apart it felt so distinctly different. Like he had no right to any of Marc anymore. The thought makes his stomach churn but he ignores it. Puts his hand down, pressing into his chest, not dissimilar to the way he did during his own panic attacks. A solid weight but not an uncomfortable pressure. "I'm not going anywhere, third bloke or not, we've made it through way worse than that, yeah?" A nervous smile, one side of his mouth lifting more than the other. It's meant to be reassuring.
"I don't see anyone else here but us, so that's all you got to focus on, okay Marc?" His hand presses in and holds for four seconds before relaxing for about the same, he continues the slow presses, hoping he can ease him into the same breathing pattern. His own is struggling to keep to it, and yet he can't let himself notice, they can't both be falling apart. "You've just got to pay attention to me." A little lift of his brows, struggling for playful, for something other than this pain he hates to see etched on his face. "You know like I've always wanted. Shouldn't be too hard, yeah?"
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His hand slides further up from Steven's wrist, then, so his palm covers the back of Steven's hand and pins it against his chest. He could swear he feels his heartbeat battering against his ribs there, clamoring to leap out of him and into that waiting hand. He wonders if it would still be empty and white, dull without Steven to make it glow. He's being ridiculous, he knows, but it turns out that being aware of it doesn't make it stop.
"I, I always pay attention to you," he says like a confession, probably ruining the attempted playful tone of Steven's coaxing. But he wants Steven to know. Now more than ever, except maybe that time in the sprawling sands of the Duat. (It had been pretty important to him then as well.) Unfortunately, it turns out that paying attention to Steven means that Marc is finally noticing the amount of difficulty he's having as well, and he rubs his calloused thumb over the knuckles of Steven's hand, an attempt to be soothing. "But, yeah. We've survived worse. Together." Dying, for one.
He exhales, shuddery in the dusty air of Steven's loft: tiny motes chase each other around in the last of the evening's sunlight. Marc would watch them dance, but he can't get himself to look away from Steven's face now, wanting to make sure he isn't going to fall apart as well. Without thinking (doing a lot of that today), he blurts: "Don't leave me."
whoop lost it in my email ;;
He might have continued on with some kind of teasing but the last part digs deep into him. It feels like a knife, pinging off of his ribs, painful, sharp, sudden and a gasp leaves him that he hadn't planned for. "Oh." There's a wetness to his voice, and for a second he tries to consider how to answer that, what to say-- he knows the answer already, of course, but the fact Marc had said it said more than anything else.
"I'd never." He gasps out, and perhaps he's not being as considerate as he'd told himself he'd be, because he's shoving forward, not unlike he had in the Duat, arms latched around him tight enough that it's almost painful. "I'd never, I'd never Marc." His fingers curl, bunching up shirt and digging into skin alike. "You're stuck with me Mate, no matter what." A hushed, pained laugh as he shook his head. "You try and leave and I'll come sleep on your porch."
cancelled tbh
And he can't help himself right now anyway, the reassurance is— it means more to Marc than he could ever say, even if he were actually good with his words. The magnitude of it dwarfs everything else, anchored by the sensation of Steven's fingers digging into him, ten points of contact where he feels whole even though he very much is not anymore. Steven doesn't want to go, doesn't want to leave him: he should want to, but he doesn't. No matter what.
Okay. Okay, so there's another person inside... one of them? Both of them? Someone Marc didn't know about, all this time. Marc is numb, but he also wants to cry, or scream, or rage. The only thing he doesn't want to do right now is float away, surrender the body—usually his first instinct—because even though he feels completely unraveled, he's being held in one piece by Steven's tight grip.
Maybe now, maybe with Steven here and them working as a team, it won't be impossible to figure out. Maybe. "I don't really have a porch," he says, without moving his face, muffled against fabric and the skin underneath it. He really wishes he'd left the body in Steven's comfortable, soft sleep shirt right about now (it'd feel better on his nose and cheeks), but it's too late for that. He spends a moment trying to picture Steven setting up a blanket and pillow outside the padlocked door to his storage container, and curling up right there on the concrete. The mental image is absurd, and yet, against all odds he finds himself unable to doubt that Steven would do it if pushed. "I don't think they'd allow you to sleep in the hallway. It would probably be bad for business."
i deserve it tbh
"Pedantic." He chides, but it's soft, barely above a murmur as he gives another squeeze before relaxing his grip some. It's still far too cloying to be healthy, he's still piled on like a puppy who'd brought someone sad their favorite sock, but not enough to keep Marc from breathing proper. He needs that, needs to take deep breaths, to force his nervous system to slow down or it wont get better and there's nothing Steven wants more right now. A little sniff before he sighs, it's all warm and a light caress as his cheek presses in, stubbornly refusing to be dislodged as of yet.
"I'd rent the one across from you then, wait there till you decided to come out." A little hum, he swallows and some of the weness finally leaves his voice, drawn down with the rest of that ache. "You'd never have a moments peace, I promise you that."
♥
He really should take back his plea, tell Steven that he doesn't have to do any of that, that he's free and he can live whatever life he'd like to without Marc's baggage, but even as the guilt plucks at the corners of his brain, Marc can't bring himself to offer him that out. What if he takes it? (Obviously he wouldn't take it. He's literally saying he wouldn't take it. But Marc is Marc so it's going to be a good long while before he actually internalizes that idea.)
He exhales shakily, breathing continuing to slowly stabilize as he gets a better hold of himself. "If you got a storage unit maybe we could clear out some of these books," he says instead, an attempt to tease. They could also just store things in Marc's unit, now that he doesn't have to hide anymore, but that's a minor detail. He doesn't actually want to change Steven's space, or bring any of his stashed weapons from that unit into it, it's just that the sheer volume of clutter in the flat drives him a little crazy sometimes after so long of being aggressively compartmentalized and far too neat. He's a little bit convinced that the third... whoever it is never would have gotten away with leaving things in his rigidly structured space, barely out of sight. Surely, he would have known. (He wouldn't have. He doesn't know about the things that Jake has in there, unwilling to see them even when he sees them, unwilling to acknowledge what they would mean.)
It also doesn't occur to him at all that maybe, just maybe, they were actually intended to find the bag—and the artifact. He opens his eyes again finally, gaze sliding around the crowded shelves without really seeing anything. Somehow, it almost feels easier to start talking about this with Steven's weight against him stopping him from drifting away into nothing. "If there's someone else, where is he?" Apparently it doesn't actually have to be another guy, according to Steven's research, but Marc is just going to assume that it is.
♥
Instead of a snippy response, though, he gets a smile. His voice is warm, a little too vulnerable and fond, but if there was ever a time for it-- it was now. "I think I could make room for things for you, yeah." Maybe not the weapons, maybe. He really wasn't sure how comfortable he'd ever be around them, not at this stage anyway. Anything else, though, he could push some things around and make space. If it would make Marc want to stay more, how could he think otherwise? Though there was no agreement on removing anything, that was going to be a little more of a struggle.
Organizing... Well, it was manageable. "Maybe he got spooked and ran?" He offers, though it seems unlikely, though his honest answer doesn't feel very good on his tongue. A little shift and he's just keeping close, refusing for the time being to give him any space. Though his hold softens, one hand tracing lines up and down, doing his best to be soothing, or some approximation of it. "It is a bit odd, though, innit?" A little curl of one side of his mouth, thoughtful, lingering on the idea for a second before he slumped.
"Maybe he's shy." A little laugh, because it sounds ridiculous even when he says it, but the truth was simple-- "I've no idea, the more I think about it the less it really makes much sense. Though we didn't see much of him before, maybe it's a bit to do with that?"
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Instead he's going to pull back, just slightly enough to make eye contact again, forcing himself to release the back of Steven's shirt finger by finger after he's very sure that he's back to looking appropriately dour again. He reaches up to tap on his own temple with the hand that Steven just finished wrapping, not the first time he's ever made that gesture in front of him. "Maybe he's still..." you know, in there. "Or here." He points to Steven's head as well, though he doesn't know which would be worse. Someone he can't control inside of him, or Steven having to go through what he just finished dealing with all over again? He thinks he could stop a man in a second body, physically, but could he do that knowing Steven would be the one to feel it later? And if he's the one being pushed out, how is he supposed to keep Steven safe?
Because he doesn't really think another body showed up and then left already. He's absolutely certain that he wasn't out for long during the initial split: the sun was in the middle of sinking, where a few minutes would have meant a noticeable change in lighting. (He should not be sure of anything, of course, because his mind has always smoothed over gaps in reality for him, leaving him none the wiser. Isn't that what they're discussing right now?)
"I don't understand— I know what happened to us. I've always known." He kept it all, collecting all the pain and torment and awful secrets, hoarding them each like just the worst treasure. That was the only good thing he'd ever done. "Why would there be anyone else?"
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Was that possible? There was just someone else lurking below the surface, waiting to spring free and... do what? Other than moments of blacking out, of defensiveness, he realized they knew nothing about this third person. Were they kind? Cruel? No matter how much he thought about it he couldn't find any answers. Unsurprisingly. They really didn't have anything to go off of, at least anything he knew.
"I don't know..." He answers, and he hates not having an answer because Marc is already distressed and he doesn't know how to fix it. His hand slides down slowly, finding Marc's forearm to gently squeeze, thumbing gently against him. Wanting to offer... something, anything. "Maybe it's someone not... not fully formed? Just an instinct or otherwise? Maybe... there's nothing to be worried about? Might be why he's not shown himself, yeah?"
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Except, even as Marc tries to hold onto the idea it slips through his fingers. He slumps against the couch cushions again, like all his strings have been cut except for ones on the arm that Steven is still touching. Goosebumps have erupted there beneath his moving thumb, and Marc finds himself staring down at the point of contact. "He has his own clothes." Like Marc. "Cash. A gun." Also like Marc. If all they had to go on were the blackouts while the body was in danger, he could maybe believe... But. "And that thing was in one of his pockets. It looks like it came from a dig site, or something." Maybe a museum nearby. Maybe a salty old bird god, freshly rejected, had it stashed somewhere to be useful later.
Either way, for one insane moment he wonders if he was made up as well, if there's some other Marc inside the body successfully out-Marcing him, but he pushes the thought aside as soon as he has it. He still has to wonder, if Steven is all the good parts, and he's all the bad parts, what's even left over for some third man?
"I don't like this." There, he said it. (Like there was ever any doubt.)
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He's not sure who he's comforting more now, but he also doesn't think it matters. It helps him, repetitive movements, touching Marc, little glimpses of comfort that help stifle the anxiety. "So roaming around, in one of us." Back to square one, and he realized he had been trying to come up with other reasons in order to make things more comfortable, but there are no other options that come to mind, and perhaps that's for the best. He doesn't need to give them both more excuses. The answer is there, they just have to accept it.
When Marc speaks again, his gaze lifts, and he gives a gentle nod. "Yeah." A soft murmur as he gives a squeeze, a small interruption to the slow brush of his thumb. "I don't think I fancy it either." A gun, that was enough to tell Steven that he and the fellow were probably not... similar. Though if he never made himself known, was he really like Marc, either? Content to live alone?
It's a lingering amount of time before his mouth pulls into a thin line and he lets out a slow, held breath. "You never set up a date for me, did you?"
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Obviously he hadn't missed the mostly empty box of chocolates from barely a handful of weeks ago. The misery radiating off Steven in waves. He remembers his own panic as well, stuck in his reflection in the fish tank, the bathroom mirror, completely unable to push Steven out of the front seat on his own—even after calling out to him, telling him to stop—once he'd realized what Steven had done. The phone he'd found. The number he'd called. It took Khonshu scaring the living daylights out of him for Marc to be able to take the body back, and absolutely everything had unraveled from there.
Marc is grateful, of course. He wouldn't go back if he could. Khonshu is gone and Steven doesn't hate or fear him, and it's more than he could have even imagined a year ago or five years ago, or more than that.
Still, that's the only date he can remember Steven actually going on. (Trying to go on.) He had mostly made a point not to think about it, since, for reasons he does not have the easiest time pinning down. No matter. "A date? What do you mean?" He can't mean that one, surely.
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"Before all of this..." He gestured between the two of them as if that would be able to fully encompass the whole of what they had been through, "Near the beginning really, girl from work came up to me, right? Asked if we were still on for a date that I didn't remember making. Lil bit queer but it wasn't like I was going to say no." He flushes and scowls at himself, embarrassed to admit he was willing to go on some random date he didn't remember making. Perhaps it was desperation, or perhaps he just attributed it to all those lapses in memory he kept having. "I thought for a bit, that it'd been you."
Which seemed reasonable, before he really got to know Marc, or better yet met Layla. Taking the whole of that into account, and the fact it'd been at a steak house made it a little more clear that it probably hadn't been Marc at all. It made him wonder if he was even supposed to show up, even supposed to find out. Something about it made him uncomfortable, more than just the idea of his body roaming around at night fighting people but...
"I think he was going on dates in our body." The hand not clinging to Marc pressed into his own chest uncomfortably. "Who knows what else."
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Marc can't quite keep the judgment off his face as he runs down a mental checklist of each of Steven's (former) coworkers. "Who would you even date at your job?" He had, admittedly, watched them all before from Steven's reflections, even grunted his way through bits and and pieces of Steven's shift when it was completely unavoidable, and as a direct result of that he decidedly has no idea what Steven would see in any of them. Most couldn't be bothered to call him by his name, and he wore a nametag every day.
Wait, but that's not important right now. Steven is clearly on his own verge of panic, clutching at his chest like it might open up on him and spill everything out. That look of fear is terribly familiar: Marc had seen it on his face so many times before, as he sat in bed and strapped himself down and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
And he can see why, now, again, because for some reason the thought of a stranger meeting another stranger while inside their body for a date is almost more disturbing than what they know he's done. More so than a gun and a jacket and a key, a flurry of bloodshed in desperate moments, asking somebody out would make him someone with a personality, with preferences, with free time. Marc feels for a moment like he doesn't fit in his own skin. To small, or too large, or—
No, focus. "How did you—" Damn it, he thinks, get it together. He moves his arm finally, sliding it back so that their palms are touching now, something more mutual than Steven hanging onto his forearm. A combined effort, a mutual grip, feels like it might be more grounding. "How did you stop ignoring me? Or, what was happening?" Because clearly, he needs help in that department.
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Though it doesn't linger long when the realization sets in and his hand tightens like he could be some kind of grounding force for them both. It was more than instinct. More than... nighttime walks. Someone had been in the body, working his job, pretending to be him-- maybe pretending to be them and neither had noticed. Though Steven had thought he was losing his mind, and had been in many respects, he had lost so much time it all blended together in a way that left him feeling crushed more than anything else.
His fingers spread when Marc's fold in, lacing together like two sides of a coat and he coils them in again instinctively. He can't remember the last time he held anyone's hand. If he thinks about it hard enough, he knows the answer is really never. Never any time that was real, or for him. A little breath escapes as he focuses on the warmth of the touch while the questions come again and he tries to find a good answer. Eventually, though, all he can say is far too matter-of-fact,
"You killed Gus." It doesn't sound angry, or harsh, just thoughtful. A little lift of his shoulders, shrugging helplessly. "I guess it-- he was something I knew to be real, something that grounded me each day." A little brush of his tongue over his lower lip, wetting the flesh as he shifted, gaze finally lifting back toward Marc again. "I realized without him I was... well, I was going to be painfully lonely and..." A little knit of his brows, trying to think back to what had happened, it all felt like a mess looking back. "Though, honestly, it's not like you or big bird made yourselves easy to ignore after a bit." A little grunt escaped him. "Finding myself with a broken jaw crawling through the grass is a bit of a wake-up call."