Work Text:
The first thing Marc does when he gets back to his apartment is crack open his shitty Linux laptop and book a plane ticket for a Swiss Air Lines red-eye from LCY to Cairo International. This is, of course, after buying a liquor store’s worth of booze, and also after spending a fair bit of time slumped over at the side of the road, feeling incredibly sorry for himself.
Ever since coming to and finding that in the interim, he’d managed to let the Scarab slip away — while also getting the ever-loving shit beat out of him — it’s become glaringly apparent that Marc doesn’t have his little issue nearly as under control as he’d like. In fact, it’s getting to the point where he quite literally can’t get out of his own way. Everything he tries to do recently, it seems Steven is right there alongside him, all clumsy limbs and stammered apologies, ready to undo it. No matter how much he wrestles for control of the body, attempts to brute-force his way through the swirling mental tide of dissociation, he can’t manage to keep himself present anymore. Not like he used to. Constantly being in battle with yourself when you’ve already got enough external opposition to begin with …. It’s mind-numbingly frustrating.
How stupid is it that the reason he’s in this mess in the first place is entirely because he’s unable to communicate with himself? It would have been fine if Khonshu had chosen any other person to be his ‘avatar’. Instead, he had to pick the poor bastard so mired in mental health issues that he can’t even get a simple job done. Obviously, Khonshu’s decision wasn’t out of pity, but Marc has no fucking clue why else he’d think he was a good option. Maybe he's just crazy. A perfect fit, then, really.
The two days leading up to his departure are a blur — surprisingly, not for the usual reasons. This time his mind is clouded entirely of his own volition, courtesy of a few cheap bottles of Smirnoff Red scavenged from his local corner shop. Instead of using the little time he has left to gather intel online or via word-of-mouth, he spends his evenings desperately trying his best to block out Steven’s frantic pleas to let him front. He nurses whatever bottle is left dangling from his fingertips until the early hours of the morning, sinking into the calming presence of the cool burn at the back of his throat while generally wallowing in his own misfortune.
Since Steven doesn’t drink, it hits much harder than it usually would. For some reason, his inability to even self-destruct properly just serves to make him feel twice as shit, but at least he can get drunk quicker.
It’s odd, this growing disconnect between himself and his physical reality. His body doesn’t feel lived in — or rather, it feels lived in by a socially anxious, mild-mannered gift shop attendant as opposed to a purportedly ruthless mercenary. Funny, that. Coming out of his quasi-hibernation — essentially a kind of waking coma, stretching out for months on end — he’s more out of shape than he’d like, reflexes dulled, movements too slow. This is in part because he’s out of practice, but also because he’s fucking exhausted from so many nights of Steven forcing the body to stay awake, terrified he was going to drift off and find himself somewhere he really shouldn’t be. It makes Marc feel claustrophobic — like a prey animal, pacing the corners of a too-small enclosure.
A few years back, on a previous stint in Cairo, while scanning the crawling freeway beyond the banks of Nile Corniche for any sign of his cab, he’d spotted a gaunt African lion being transported in a chipped-paint cage. The trailer had rattled away, likely headed for the nearby zoo, the cage’s bars juddering as it wove between lanes. The sight had seemed so out of place amid the glittering malls and fast-food joints, bloated streams of taxis and commuters clogging the city’s veins. In his memory, the lion wasn’t pacing, though. It was just lying there as if it were ready to die. Plucked out of space and stuck somewhere it didn’t belong.
Even the Pyramids look out of place now. In his sense-memory, some hybrid of Khonshu’s recollection and his own, he sees past a shimmering heat-haze to a great spill of sand, pristine and untouched like the fine powder filling the bottom half of an hourglass. The landscape is spotless save for small villages and towns — splotches of red, black, and brown smattering the horizon — as well as trails of men forging paths through the dunes; keffiyeh and thawbs, bright swathes of cotton billowing in the dry wind. In present reality, though, high-rise office buildings and apartments clutter the skyline of the adjacent cities, power lines and satellite dishes emerging from the smog. Just down the road from the narrow, cracker-box motel he usually books, there’s an old apartment duplex with a panoramic view of the Pyramids rising in the distance; the Great Sphinx with its sun-bleached and crumbling limestone glaring in the heat. Recently, that building has been converted into a Pizza Hut. You know, just in case, while you’re enjoying your Memphis BBQ Chicken, you feel like contemplating Khepera–Rê–Atum or the life of the Pharaoh Khafre.
On the morning of his flight, he leaves his apartment early, breathing condensation into the cool, pre-dawn air while the city is still silent and drenched in pitch darkness. The plan is to pick up his things and immediately head for the airport, but when he arrives at his storage unit, it’s already unlocked, fluorescent light spilling out from beneath the door in thin, white strips across the concrete.
And Layla is there.
She’s sitting cross-legged on his mattress, leaning back against the wall, her nails drumming out a tinny rhythm on the metal frame while her chunky combat boots bunch up sheets he’d previously folded with crisp, military edges. He rarely sleeps here (or, he supposes, he never sleeps at all these days — hah), but it still annoys him. Or … is it annoyance? Just seeing her again makes his heart ache, which probably isn’t the same thing.
What he does know is that he’s so overwhelmed, he’s physically incapable of having this conversation right now. Whatever manner of admission or emotional disclosure Layla wants to pry out of him, she’s not going to get it. Actually, that’s kind of a sticking point for them in general. A theme.
He crouches down and tugs his suitcase out from beneath the bed, ignoring her, before moving to drop it onto his desk with a resounding clunk, plastic wheels on metal. Layla winces.
It’s unclear how long he’ll be gone …. Maybe he should pack more shirts? If his previous trips are anything to go by, he’s undoubtedly going to get stabbed more than once. Hm ….
He should definitely pack more shirts.
‘Sorry, when are we going to talk about this?’
’Talk about what?’
‘Marc.’
‘… Layla.’
She sits forward, propping her chin up in her hands, blinking up at him through her fringe with doe-eyed attentiveness.
‘I can wait. Pretty good at that, actually. I’ve had practice.’ The way her accent drips with wry sarcasm reminds him of the beginnings of so many fights they’ve had in the past. The subtle hinting that he needs to get his shit together and just talk to her usually precedes verbal sparring, which in turn escalates, devolving into the part with the yelling and storming-off.
‘I thought we agreed that we were done? Over? Vamoosed.’ He twiddles his fingers sarcastically, keeping his tone as light as possible.
‘I don’t recall you mentioning that you were going to vanish off the face of the bloody planet.’
‘Well. I was busy.’
‘Can you please just talk to me?’
He flips a thin, linen shirt over in his hands and tucks it in on itself. A ‘ranger roll’. ‘What’s there to talk about?’
‘I don’t know! Maybe an explanation as to what the hell is going on with you?’
‘See. This?’ He gestures about. ‘This is why I told you we would never work out, because —‘
‘Because you never tell me anything!’ Layla throws her hands up, dark curls bouncing, eyes wide. A flyaway ringlet falls across her forehead, and Marc’s fingers itch with the instinctive urge to close the distance between them and brush it away, tuck it behind her ear. He doesn’t. ‘So, what, the reason you keep disappearing is because there’s yet another guy living in your head? Because that’s what I’ve been getting from all this.’
He huffs out a harsh sigh, raking his hands through his too-greasy fringe as he begins to pace the unit. It’s much too cramped to be trapped having a conversation in here with another person, he’s now realising; too much like the stifling confines of his inner-world, which he’s grown horribly familiar with over the past six months while Steven’s been galavanting about. (See: standing hunched over trolleys and scanning endless piles of knick-knacks: barcodes plastering the back of cheap, plastic Nefertiti figurines; ridiculously processed gummy sweets shaped like the Eye of Horus; and ‘Grow-Your-Own-Mummy’ kits — which as a concept makes absolutely no fucking sense, honestly. Visiting the public library on Charing Cross, solving his Rubik’s cube over and over and over again …).
‘Do we have to do this? Do we seriously have to do this now?’
‘Yes. When is there ever going to be a good time?’
Probably never. Preferably never. Thanks. Glad we had this talk.
He has no clue at what point discussing the fate of humanity itself, saving the world from Ancient Egyptian Gods with comparably ancient vendettas, became easier for him than just talking about what’s been going on inside his own mind.
Marc shakes his head, gaze trained on the ground. There’s the creak of mattress springs as Layla gets up, and then the air shifts as she crosses the room to stand next to him, bringing her hands up to gently rest her palms on either side of his face, a faint warmth. His breath catches.
‘Who was that guy? Why did you — When did he … Is this something to do with Khonshu? The fucking — I don’t know — the Scarab?’
He snorts quietly. ‘You think Steven is related to the work I do? What we do? … Steven? Really?’
It’s fucking weird to speak about him aloud after so long going to painstaking lengths to prevent Steven or anyone else from finding out about their disorder. It still feels physically wrong, actually; invasive enough to make the hair at the back of his neck prickle — but he’s backed into a corner.
‘How the hell am I supposed to know, Marc?’
He shakes his head again, pursing his lips, which obviously isn’t the right thing to do, or what Layla wants from him, because suddenly she’s huffing in frustration again, dropping her hands from his face and spinning around.
‘You don’t bloody talk to me. You vanish for months on end, you don’t answer my calls, you don’t even let me know you’re alive — and then you show up acting like you can’t remember who I am, going on like you’re this — this stranger.’
There’s a long pause.
‘… He’s not “this guy” or a stranger.’ Marc says it low, under his breath, going back to needlessly busying himself with his duffel bag, almost hoping she won’t catch it.
On top of his jacket lies his Glock, which is now, for some reason, just out, loose in his bag among haphazardly tossed items, his shit strewn all over the place. Right, last week’s whole — episode. Steven rummaging through his things, investigating.
‘What?’
Finally, Marc releases his grip on the duffel, letting it crumple back onto the desk, and turns to face her.
‘He’s — he’s me. He’s not — Jesus Christ. I mean, I’m me, but … I’m also. Steven.’
‘… I don’t understand.’
Fucking hell. This is awful. He has more trouble talking about his goddamn feelings than Steven trying to stammer out that he actually takes his decaf lattes vegan: ‘I — I asked for soy — milk. Um, not — not … I don’t — I mean, sorry, mate. You know what? I’ll just. I’ll just drink this! It’ll probably be fine! Thanks. Yeah, no. Thank you!’
‘I’m not being possessed or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Forgive me for assuming. It’s not like there’s an Egyptian deity you moonlight for. Or communicate with telepathically. That would be mental.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘Fine. The situation with me, with Steven, doesn’t work like that.’
’So then tell me how it works.’
‘I have … a … thing.’
‘A “thing”.’
‘A condition.’
‘Can you stop being so goddamn cryptic? For once in your life?’
Marc puts his head in his hands and then scrubs at his face. Christ, he needs a shave. He breathes in, out.
‘… This is hard for me to talk about, all right?’
Some of the determination in Layla’s face gives way, then, her gaze softening. ’I know.’
‘Just give me a moment.’
He takes another breath, chest aching.
‘When I was a kid — There was a long time where I …’ He swallows, mouth suddenly too dry. Is he really doing this? How the fuck is he supposed to even phrase it? How do you begin to explain something like this? ‘Where we … You know how I never talk about this shit? There’s a reason, all right. It was bad. A bad situation that I — couldn’t get out of. So at a certain point, our mind sort of —‘
Broke.
‘— Fractured. We couldn’t handle it.’
He lets this information hang in the air, surveying Layla’s expression, watching for any sign of scepticism. For a while, she just stands, fists clenched tightly at her sides as she stares at him like she’s waiting for something else, some missing piece, a further explanation, or possibly even a: ‘Hah — got you!’ Several emotions cycle across her face, then, shifting from surprise to uncertainty, concern … One moment, it looks like she might laugh, mouth forming a funny, crooked line of incredulity as her gaze darts away, darts back, and away again; but when she finally realises he’s not — he doesn’t know — pulling the world’s most elaborate, fucked-up practical joke in a strange attempt to renege on their divorce, her face falls.
The silence is agonising.
And the longer it goes on, the more Marc feels much too exposed, a gnawing hollowness growing in his chest. If he were Steven, he’d probably be dissociating right now. (Swells of dizziness; hands going numb; strobing, flickering vision; reality receding and everything becoming dreamlike — usually followed by Marc being yanked forwards, unceremoniously thrust into the driver’s seat, tasked with fending off whatever perceived threat.) But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, he’s restless, senses sharpening, all his nerve endings set alight, urging him to run, or … maybe punch something. His fingers flex unconsciously, closing around an invisible weapon.
It’s then that he belatedly realises what he’s feeling is anxiety.
Which isn’t how this is supposed to work. Generally speaking. Anxiety is Steven’s thing. Not his.
‘Layla … I know this is a lot to take in.’
’Sorry. Sorry — I’m just … processing.’
Marc sets his jaw and stares across the room at his reflection, the way it warps and shifts, divided by the breaks in the metal fixtures.
‘So you’re telling me that you have — multiple personality disorder? Is that what this is?’
… Close enough. Layla doesn’t actually sound disbelieving like he thought she would, or even angry, just confused.
’Sure.’
It was in his mid-twenties that he found out what was going on with him, although not without a fair year and a half of denial on either side of that. He’d gone to the doctor, frustrated with memory problems, and left with a referral to a psychologist with a specialisation in ‘DID’, ‘DDNOS’, and ‘complex trauma-related somatisation issues’. He hadn’t ever gone. Obviously. Google and his local library had at least provided him with a patchwork understanding of his shiny new suspected diagnosis, which at the time felt more like a death sentence than something he’d ever learn how to navigate. (It … still does feel a bit like that, actually.) That first week, he’d spent hours fending off headaches, wading through scraps of information and misinformation while attempting to piece together enough detail to form a sort of makeshift scaffolding, a barebones foundation on which to rebuild his life. Evidently, it hasn’t held up very well since then.
Between him and Steven, he’s always been more aware of what was going on with them. Knowing about it makes it easier to hide, to keep what’s going on from Steven and the people around them. Typically, one doesn’t want to hire someone for mercenary work if they have a dissociative disorder. It’s not comforting to think that at any moment, your soldier might be taken over by a civilian who has never picked up a gun before, who doesn’t even eat meat because it makes him squeamish. Although to hand it to him, up until very recently, that hadn’t been a problem. He’s glad, too, because it’s a fucking pain in the arse.
The issue isn’t just having ‘multiple personalities’, though. Or anything like the plot of the shitty, B-grade films Steven buys at the last-legs DVD shop on Earlham a la M. Night Shyamalan. It’s blurriness, headaches, and mental fogginess brought on by stress. Feeling like the world around you isn’t real, and like your body is disconnected, limbs foreign. Waking up, fending off the urge to vomit as your heart trips over itself. Disorienting moments of not knowing where you are. Memories that force themselves upon you and replay so vividly it’s as if you’re living them again in agonising detail.
It’s not being able to let anyone know because they might be able to use it to manipulate you or take advantage of your situation. Missing chunks of memory, confusion. Time skipping and blending into itself. Being inconsistent in all your relationships. Never being able to keep things, jobs, people. Never being able to hold on to anything long enough for it to stay ….
Steven gets the brunt of it, being the way he is, but that doesn’t mean it’s been all that easy for Marc either. It’s … lonely. He’s handling it, though. He has been handling it his entire life, and nothing is about to change or get in the way of that.
‘“Sure”?’
Marc raises his eyebrows, tilts his head to the side, and shrugs, deliberately nonchalant.
‘And you’re only just mentioning this now.’
‘You weren’t supposed to — This entire conversation was never supposed to happen.’
‘And this is real? This is really real? You’ve —‘ Layla lets out something approaching a laugh, but her eyes glitter under the harsh lights of the unit, some mixture of shocked and upset. ‘You’ve been dealing with this all this time? The whole time we’ve been together? And this isn’t some weird fucking thing — some ploy to get me to … I don’t even know.’
‘This is real.’
‘Christ, Marc.’
She worries her lip, expression drawn, like she has a lot of questions and doesn’t know where to begin, before finally starting up again:
‘I just don’t get it. If he’s part of you — if he’s you — then why did you try so hard to hide this from me? I swear, all I’m asking is for you to let me in, just a bit. It’s all I’ve ever been asking for. That’s how relationships work.’
He huffs out a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I don’t think I was made for relationships.’
Layla, at this point, far beyond accepting his brooding, Byronic ‘action-hero’ bullshit at face value, folds her arms across her chest. Finally, he accedes.
‘Steven’s … He’s not like us, okay? He’s — anxious, fragile, too sensitive. He’s weak. I have to protect him from this shit. He’s not supposed to …’ Marc lets out another frustrated sigh. ‘He was never supposed to find out about me — or any of this.’
That’s how things are. Marc puts out fires. He’s the one who keeps everything together. He talks Steven through panic attacks, for a long time blending in as just a voice at the back of his head going, Breathe, just breathe. You’re fine. This feeling will pass eventually. You’re going to be okay. It’s his job to keep bad memories locked away, make sure Steven forgets, take over when anything reminds him of something from before. When Marc fucks up and accidentally lets Steven out front when he’s out with Khonshu, it’s his job to fix it, so Steven thinks everything he experienced was just an alarmingly vivid dream. He does everything in his power to keep their dissociation hidden: the sand, the masking tape, the fucking fish ….
It’s not like he’s getting the entirely crappy end of the deal, though.
He knows Steven has his own burdens to deal with too. He’s the one who holds onto a majority of their emotions; all of the body’s anxiety, loneliness, sadness — but also all of its softness. He enjoys reading awful, sappy French poetry and singing along to ELO on the radio, chatting and making small talk with fellow commuters, having spirited one-sided conversations with his goldfish …. Apparently, in a quite remarkable feat, there’s this side to him that has managed to remain, despite everything, kind and gullible; naive, innocent. It irritates Marc sometimes — more frequently than he’d like to admit. The responsibility of it all. It’s like he’s been stuck with a lifelong babysitting job against his will. The anger isn’t just because of that, though:
Steven is everything he can’t afford to be.
For so long, Marc wanted to hate him, but it’s not his fault that he is the way he is. It wasn’t Steven’s decision to send their mind splintering in God knows how many different directions. The truth is, it managed to do that all on its own.
Layla watches him for a moment. ‘Marc …’
’You don’t understand. It’s so hard to — Now we’re switching all the time. And I don’t know how to — How I’m supposed to —‘ He groans. ‘It’s not safe. For him.’
What Marc doesn’t say is: for you.
If he had refused Khonshu all those years ago and let himself die like he was supposed to, they’d never be in this fucking situation. Instead, he gave in, and then made the most idiotic mistake of his entire life: showing his hand, making it obvious that he cared for someone. Ever since then, Khonshu’s been fucking lording it over him, taunting him, a constant reminder to be brought up whenever he gets too defiant: he can never leave. No matter how much he wants to. The drying blood on his hands will become the fresh blood on hers.
He knows the response he’d get back if he mentioned it to Layla, though: I don’t need you protecting me. You always have to ‘protect’ everyone, but I can handle myself.
‘I didn’t want you trying to talk to him, breaking down the walls between us any further. You saw him out there before. I can’t have us going out when I might be replaced with a … a bumbling idiot.’
Marc wouldn’t usually speak that way about Steven — but he’s pissed off, stressed, and frustrated with this entire situation. He can almost hear the snarky rejoinder in his head: Cheers, mate. But no reply comes; no offended scoff, no fighting back. Ever since shoving him out of their blurry, mixed state, forcing him down into that dark place they sometimes go — where time doesn’t travel in straight lines but skips around, flickers, fades and becomes immaterial — his mind has been oddly … silent. Some ‘protector’ he is. Even though this is what he wanted, it’s still disorienting to not feel Steven’s presence hovering at the fringes of his mind, to find himself completely alone.
Even on the rare occurrence that Steven does creep closer to the front now, eyes wide and distrusting, all Marc senses from him is this stifling, cloying hopelessness; fear, turgid and cold; and, of course, the quiet. It’s his job to save people, not break them even more. He wonders if Steven can feel his guilt or if all that’s coming through is resentment.
It’s a situation he has no clue how to navigate. The only way Marc’s ever been able to deal with fear has been through galvanising it into action; Steven is the one who gets the luxury of letting his anxiety take over so freely. At best, that anger is a powerful motivator when wielded with precision, but in moments of panic, it can quickly spill over into becoming a destructive force, bubbling out of him against his better judgment and scalding anyone unlucky enough to be nearby. He just can’t be any other way. He doesn’t know how. His fists are still bruised from the past few days of compulsively lashing out at every reflective surface he saw, knuckles marred with cherry-pulp gashes where the skin has split.
‘All Steven wants is to read his geeky little books, feed his fish, go to his dull gallery job cataloguing inventory, and live a normal life.’
‘Is that … what you want?’
Marc falters, pulse quickening. As he rubs at the side of his neck in an unconscious self-soothing motion, he can feel his heartbeat tripping along beneath calloused fingertips. There’s this swooping sensation in his chest, irritation giving way to — something else, a distracting ache, a feeling he’s unable to place. Like the ground has suddenly become unstable. For a second, he thinks it might be Steven finally showing up again, but when he scours his mind for any sign of him, he once again comes up blank.
A normal life ….
It’s an odd question. Steven isn’t literally him, despite them sharing the same body. But — isn’t he also … in a way, an amalgamation of all the parts he’s unable to let in? The feelings he’s unable to acknowledge because doing so in the past would’ve meant being less able to cope with the absolute maelstrom of shit they’ve had to — and still have to — go through?
Marc opens his mouth and then closes it, at a loss. (Again: Incredibly uncharacteristic. Being gormless is definitely a Steven trait.)
‘If he’s you …’ Layla presses on. ‘I mean, doesn’t that mean there’s at least a part of you that wants that too?’
He frowns, heart stuttering. Breathe in for four — out for four ….
‘If I did, it wouldn’t matter.’
‘What are you talking about? Marc. If that’s what you’re looking for — I mean, what you really want, once this is all over … We could make it work! We could figure something out. If we —‘
‘Layla, please stop. I can’t —‘ His voice actually sounds pained.
‘Why?’
’I’m not — I’ve always been the one who was supposed to protect us. To protect him. It’s always been that way. When we were kids … Steven wasn’t strong enough to do that, so it had to be me.
‘Back then, all I wanted was to — God, I don’t know, get justice for us.’ He lets out a self-deprecating scoff, which comes out sounding more choked than he’s expecting, a jagged, wet exhale of air.
It always comes back to fucking justice, doesn’t it?
Over and over, he tells himself he does what he does for the right reasons, that he’s making the world a better place, but just beneath the surface, glinting like the dull edge of a blade, is the truth. On the rare occasion that he has the body to himself and is truly, completely alone, there it is: the sneaking suspicion that all his work as an ‘avatar’ has been nothing but selfish. Steven’s panic and immediate revulsion at discovering his storage unit, gear, and finding out even the tiniest bit of information about who Marc truly is, feels troublingly close to his own barely-smothered feelings of self-loathing.
Maybe that’s part of why Steven’s been so damn loud recently, why they keep having episodes of rapid switching, abrupt lapses into strained co-consciousness. The internal dissonance caused by having so many clashing thoughts jammed into the same body at once, as well as swapping in and out of control so frequently, leaves them fending off horrific migraines that begin as a stabbing ache behind their eyes. It never used to be like that. It was so easy to stay separate, keep things squared away, compartmentalised like they should be.
‘After this last job with Khonshu … Once I’m done, I’m done. Then Steven gets to live his own life and I can just … stop using the body.’
‘“Stop using the body”?’
Marc inspects his knuckles. ’Disappear. He won’t need me anymore. It’ll be better that way.’
‘What are you talking about?’
When he looks up, Layla’s expression is shuttered off, scarily blank.
Shit.
‘Just let Steven be out full-time. Like he wants.’ A shrug. No big deal.
‘So … you would just be gone,’ she says bluntly. ‘You want to kill yourself.’
What he wants to say is: it’s not like that. But isn’t it?
In his reflection — his; not Steven’s, but fully his own — he sees his mouth form a firm line, eyes dark. He doesn’t say anything.
‘What makes his life worth so much more than yours?’
‘… Sometimes I think Steven is who I was supposed to be — if things didn’t happen the way they did. It’s not fair for me to keep holding him back.’
‘But what about what you want? You’re a person.’
The expression on Layla’s face is so openly sympathetic, so transparently concerned. It’s love, really. Love that he doesn’t deserve — but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He’s trapped, hunched in on himself in front of his desk, pinned between her and a duffel bag stuffed full of weapons.
She lays her hand on his arm, only a gentle pressure at the crook of his elbow as if she’s hesitant to even touch him at all. All he can do is just stare at it, unable to meet her gaze; deep brown pools, warmth, a splash of dappled sunlight across the surface of a coffee cup. He knows that he won’t be able to look away if he does. Him, wanting things, it’s never going to work out. That much is abundantly clear. Real people get to want things. People like him manage to fuck up everything they touch.
‘I don’t feel like a person. I feel like a …’
Not a brain, not a body … A tool, maybe? A weapon? A mistake? Symptom of their ‘brokenness’?
Khonshu’s words echo in his mind — ones usually directed at Steven.
Parasite.
He tugs his arm out of Layla’s grip, shrugging her off to take a few paces back, putting some distance between them, even though the loss of contact leaves the fabric of his jacket where her hand used to be feeling cold.
‘I’m just not supposed to be here. I don’t know why I thought that maybe I might be able to have … something of my own eventually. Fuck, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway! It’s killing him, me being here. I’m ruining his life.’
Steven said as much himself.
Anyway, there’s a reason Marc goes to such pains to keep their lives separate. Steven doesn’t even know what happened to them. If he keeps getting closer, digging into memories he shouldn’t, things could get very, very bad. They could split again, or worse. It’s one of the only things he knows with absolute certainty: Steven can never figure out what happened to them. He just can’t. It would destroy him. It would ruin everything.
At a certain point, the cure can become worse than the disease. Ergo: Marc has to go. Steven will be able to survive a couple of panic attacks on his own just fine. In fact, once he’s no longer losing time, he might actually be able to have a proper girlfriend like he’s always wanted, hold down a steady job — maybe even have friends. It’s incredibly simple, really. As long as Marc’s still around, Steven can never have a normal life.
Unaware of this internal diatribe, Layla worries her lip and slides her hand across the desk, just barely interlacing their fingers. Where they brush, those few faint points of connection, it feels like static electricity is buzzing between them.
‘Have you ever tried actually communicating with him?’
Marc blinks.
‘… Communicating.’
‘Listen, I don’t know how it — How all of this works. But is there any way for you to just … talk? I mean, Steven isn’t so bad. I like him. He’s a sweetheart.’
‘Communicating is the whole reason we’re in this mess in the first place. Keeping our lives separate — it’s always been for the best. For him. For both of us.’
‘It doesn’t look like things are working out “for the best” anymore, just going off of — I don’t know, everything. Maybe it’s time to try something different?’
If only it were that easy.
There’s so much more he wants to say, not just to Steven but to Layla, about this awful Catch-22 he’s caught in with Khonshu; about how he does want to talk to her, but doesn’t have a fucking clue how to even begin to approach half the shit in his past himself, let alone voice it aloud; about how he’s scared if she figures out what he’s done, she’ll be repulsed by him; about how he’s not actually all right and that all those years ago he should’ve just dialled that psychologist’s number he was given, chicken-scratch scrawled on a sheet of motel stationery; about how he’s more scared than he wants to let on and needs help. And yet — he can’t bring himself to say any of it. His throat closes up, his mind goes blank, and all he can do is stand there uselessly. Silently.
Across the room, his reflection frowns back at him in the hazy glare of the storage unit’s gleaming metal walls. If he squints long enough, the way the shadows play across his face make the troubled man looking back appear almost sad, features tinged with sympathy.
‘… Maybe.’