Archive of Our Own

“...and the burial customs in the Middle Kingdom of that time liked to reflect their political trends that suited their fancy, y’know? So like, during the Eleventh Dynasty– which, by the way, was a group of rulers, so you’ve got your Pharaoh Mentuhotep II and all that, yeah? So during all that the tombs were actually cut into the mountains of Thebes! That uh, that was a city located along the Nile. They called it Waset back in the day, though. World Heritage Site now, which is pretty bloody amazing, but yeah. They carved out the tombs in their mountains surrounding the king's tomb, or even local cemeteries. It was their native city, you see? So they preferred to be buried there. Kinda like how if I died, I think I’d probably wanna have my ashes scattered across the Nile or something. If that’s allowed, even…Or… I dunno how that’d work, really, the three of us…”

Steven stops to take a breath as he stops to peer at the barcode that’s not scanning; there’s a little tear right through the middle so he has to punch the numbers in manually. It finally beeps and he’s satisfied enough that it’s gone through, so he lifts his head back up and takes a breath.

The little pocket mirror that he keeps beside the register flashes at him.

He feels a tug between his brows as a wave of sudden embarrassment crests. “I’m not boring you… am I?” He asks, voice a little pitchy with uncertainty.

The small sarcophagus plushie is twisted around in his grasp as he awaits an answer. Marc’s smile is a welcome sight as he appears in the reflection.

“Course not,” he says, and Steven has to pause for a moment to figure out if there’s any sarcasm laced between his words. He doesn’t think there is.

He lets out a shaky laugh, putting the plushie down, his fingers however move on their own accord to find it again, thumbing against the soft material.

“Oh. Right. Good,” he says, with a nod to punctuate his words. “Cos, like, I think it’s pretty brill how they had all these burial traditions, innit?”

He scans the next plushie until the gun, it beeps. 

Marc snorts a short laugh. “I mean, you certainly know your stuff.”

Steven feels a blush grow hot at the tips of his ears. He shrugs the compliment off as he grabs another plushie to scan.

“Yeah,” he chuckles darkly. “That’s why I’m back behind the gift shop doing inventory instead of…” he waves his hand towards the door where the rest of the quiet museum lies. “I dunno. Doing something useful with all this information in my head.”

His eyes gaze back towards the mirror where he can see Marc give a little shrug. He has a unperturbed look about him when he tells him,

“Well, it’s your…” he pauses. “It’s like your special interest, isn’t it?” He says, his mouth twisting into a sideways grin. 

Steven blinks, folding the little paper tag on the plushie between his thumb and his finger, he blinks again before he continues with his work, sweeping the plushie under the scanner and onto the pile where the rest of the collection awaits it.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “I guess… I guess so. I’ve just always liked that kind of stuff.”

Marc hums in agreement.

A comfortable silence falls between them, the room is still save for the little beeping from the scanner everytime Steven passes another plushie under its red laser. He’s halfway done with the box when Marc’s voice crops up again.

“So,” he says slowly. “Tell me more about this ancient burial technique then.”

Steven lifts his head up, unable to mask his excitement as his brows go high. “Are you sure?” He asks. “Aren’t you like, bored of hearing about all this stuff?”

Marc smiles from the pocket mirror. “When you tell it? Never. Now, what were these Dynasty dudes like, hm?”

***

Their routine is an easy one: they wake, they take the number 29 bus to work, do their job, end up on inventory (because Donna has been on some sort of extra strong power trip ever since she gave Steven his job back), say hello to Crawley over a lukewarm panini and or burrito, and then shuffle on home. 

Some days there’s errands that Marc needs to run. He’ll front whilst Steven is on his lunch break, sometimes taking advantage of the situation to swap their lunch out for something that isn’t leafy and green, though, London lacks the kind of fast food he’s been used to back over in the States.

But Steven does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to working at the museum. He enjoys it. 

He does. At least, he does on most days.

The bus is sticky hot.

That’s all that Steven can focus on right now is that everything around him feels almost suffocating from the heat.

Had he been aware of the miniature heatwave that was sweeping through the city this week then maybe he would have left the flat in something that wasn’t a shirt, trousers and his jacket. He’s getting a few odd looks from surrounding passengers who’d clearly gotten the memo ahead of him, as they’re dressed in typical British sense whenever there’s a uptick in the usual boring, lifeless temperature that exists in this gray, overcast country: short shorts, spaghetti string shirts and sunglasses perched on top of heads.

There’s even the faint aroma of coconut sunblock wafting around the air. The kind of smell that reminds him of beach themed holidays, certainly not London transportation services.

He’s even seen the usual amount of middle aged men patrolling the streets in flip flops and swim shorts, nothing to cover their swollen beer bellies that are shiny with sweat and grease, chest hairs stuck over their pudgy little nipples.

It’s not exactly a comforting sight, but Steven isn’t too fussed about what the male population of the city chooses to leave their houses in today.

He’s feeling crowded and overwhelmed at best. He’s not feeling good at all, and as the bus continues to chug along the slow line of traffic towards his work, does he wish he had stayed in bed this morning instead of rolling out of it to be confronted with all of… this .

There’s a youngish looking kid sitting next to him playing music from his phone. They’ve got a pair of headphones fitted snug around their head as they aimlessly scroll through what looks like a very heated twitter thread, but Steven can still hear the tinny sound of the music escaping the headset, a far away sound, he presses his hand into his thigh as he tries not to focus on it.

The feeling in the pit of his stomach only gets coils, getting tighter once he’s off the bus.

People spill into the street where the sun is boiling in the middle of the sky. Someone stops right in front of him to shrug their backpack off, looking for their water bottle with a frustrated grumble, and when Steven tries to sidestep around her, he’s clipping shoulders with someone coming the other way, resulting in a few hurried apologies, he keeps his head down as counts his hurried steps towards work.

Except there’s some sort of street performer that’s very meticulously stationed himself right in the sweet spot for the traffic for tourists, which is why there’s a slow crowd surrounding him right now, all stopping to watch as he strums away at his guitar, the amplifier that it’s plugged into making it sound a little metallic in places, Steven has to shove past a few people that have seemed to forgotten that they’ve just stopped dead in the street.

There’s the clinking of coin after coin being flicked into a hat. A woman is arguing with her toddler son, dragging him along by a short, chubby arm as he whines loudly as he begs her to stop so he can watch the entertainment that’s captivated his thinning attention span. A group of school kids that seem to have strayed from their trip tour guide are messing about, chasing pigeons; one girl shrieks loudly, the pigeon not even anywhere near her as it dumbly flaps half a foot away, but her friends find it hilarious, so they’re laughing loudly too, and it just all feels too much.

He can’t do it. He can’t face it anymore. Everything feels too hot, too loud; too much of everything all at once. His shirt is sticking to the small of his back and he can’t actually remember if he packed himself a lunch today or not, his satchel feels oddly light where it’s slung over his shoulder so he’s guessing he’s going to have to go to the cafeteria on his break which is more crowded, more busy, more bodies to be bumped into and more loud conversations overlapping one another that he can’t escape.

Just another nauseating thought of the day and it’s not even 9am yet. 

A phone starts ringing somewhere, but nobody is answering. It goes on and on, ringing out in a cheery little tune on loop, and Steven swears his legs move on their own accord as he turns around from the opposite direction of the museum, walking in quick steps towards the bus station again.

By the time he gets home he feels like he needs to have a good cry.

He should call into work but every time he reaches for his phone he gets a prickly sense of panic creeping up his spine.

What would he even say? Oh hi Donna! Sorry I won’t be in today, yeah, I got all the way to work but before I reached the museum there were just too many people outside so I legged it home! Yeah I know! Mental! Oh, what do you mean I’m fired?

His fingers find themselves twisting up into straggled strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead, pushing it back, flattening it back against his scalp, he paces the floor of his flat a few times.

“Shit,” he curses under his breath. “Bloody fucking shit.”

He paces a few times, like he’s trying to exercise away the burning prickle behind his eyes, but even after he’s done four laps around the fish tank does he realize the feeling isn’t going to go away any time soon.

He’s holding his breath, trying to surpass the sob that’s bubbling up inside him when he catches his reflection in the tank.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on?”

Marc’s voice is a welcome distraction to drown out the pounding of blood rushing in his ears. It’s a soft and easy sound and Steven exhales almost on cue, like he’d needed it to remind him to breathe. The dry sob follows soon after, clawing itself out of his chest with jagged claws that leave the back of his throat feeling sore. 

“Hey, okay,” Marc says, creeping closer to the edge of the tank. His image is a little distorted but Steven knows that it’s just his head messing with him. He squeezes his eyes shut and when he opens them again, his cheeks are wet and Marc’s face is a little clearer.

“Go sit down, okay? Just. Sit down, Steven.”

Steven does as he’s asked. He fumbles backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed, and he’s flopping himself onto the mattress, it bowing under his weight, he presses the heels of his palms against his eyes as he sucks in a shuddery breath.

“You okay?” Marc asks, voice steady. Steven looks up at him, blinks again, his cheeks dampening as more tears dribble down the sides of his face. He sniffs, though it does him no good.

“I just,” he starts, his words chopped up by an incoming hiccup. It wracks his body with it and he doesn’t like the way it feels, worming away in his chest.

He’s quick to toe his shoes off, bouncing away from where they fall onto the floor, he shuffles back on the bed, brings his knees to his chest, digging his toes into the soft give of the mattress, he rocks back and then forth a few times til he’s certain he won’t be shaken by another hiccup again.

“Just couldn’t do it today,” he croaks, his voice thin and tired sounding, he feels as if he’s run a marathon. He hates feeling that way. It reminds him of the moments months ago when he’d wake up feeling achy and bruised and not sure if the dreams he had were really dreams at all. Like he was slipping away from himself.

He swallows, his mouth feels dry but he can’t be bothered to get up and grab himself a glass of water. Not for the first time in his life does he wish he had someone here to get him one instead.

“Okay,” Marc says, slowly, like he’s trying to process it a little bit at a time. “You called in sick for work?”

Steven shakes his head as he wraps his arms around his legs, folding in on himself like a black hole; he wishes he could just collapse inwards and not exist anymore. He presses his forehead to the tops of his knees and rocks again.

“You want me to do it?” Marc asks, voice so gentle and forgiving. It makes his eyes prickle again with more tears threatening to spill.

Steven doesn’t answer straight away. He’s not really sure why. Eventually he just nods his head, yes, yes, yes.

So Marc gives him a moment to sit there, rocking back and forth, thumbing over the cuff of his jacket, counting his breaths.

It’s easy to let Marc front, pull himself up and pick up the phone.

***

Donna thinks that Steven’s just got a case of some tummy bug that’s doing the rounds of his local area. Maybe a dodgy kebab or something he picked up on the underground. That’s what Marc tells her. And it doesn’t matter anyway; she’s probably glad to not have to deal with him today and Steven is grateful to slide back under his bedsheets, twisting his finger around the edge of the blanket as he listens to the sound of the city continue on without him below his window.

“You wanna talk about it?” Marc’s voice is small from the back of his head. 

Steven’s breath stutters in his chest. He shrugs his shoulders even though he knows, surface level deep, that he doesn’t really want to talk about anything right now. It feels safe, cocooned up in these sheets, tucked away from the busy bustle of the world where he doesn’t have to deal with anything or anyone. 

He feels a sharp tug nagging at his stomach, when Marc tells him,

“You should get something to eat.” A pause. “Do you want me to order something in?”

Steven shakes his head. Usually he’d launch into some spewed out rant about how he doesn’t particularly like the whole fast food thing that the rest of the world is seemingly dependent on. He likes buying local and making dinners at home when he can help it. It’s all about saving the environment and what-not.

But he can’t be bothered for that usual chit chat that usually has Marc fondly rolling his eyes and Steven feeling like he got his point across. 

He ignores the gnawing hunger pangs deep in his belly and tugs the blanket up closer to his chin.

It’s quiet for a moment, before,

“We really ought to talk about what happened today, don’t you think?”

Steven sighs, his breath is hot where it tickles the back of his hand, curled around the edge of the blanket, he blinks. 

“I told you,” he says out loud, his voice feeling too big and too loud for such an empty, still room. “I just couldn’t do it today.”

Because everyone has their off days. Sure, maybe Steven was entitled to a few more of those than other people that might not be going through the same shit as he were, but it was definitely human to wake up on the wrong side of bed. To find yourself irritated by the little things in life. To want to skip out on a job you’re not totally and 100% in love with, to just spend the day in bed. 

That, in his opinion, was normal. It was as normal as he could get.

It was apparently, however, that Marc wasn’t on the same wavelength.

“You got overwhelmed,” he tells him. 

Steven sits up, the blanket falls away from him, pooling at his waist but he still has it gripped tightly beneath his fingers.

“I didn’t— don’t say that, it makes me out like I’m a child ,” he refutes, a little heat to his voice at the end. He doesn’t need anyone, Marc included, babying him. He sucks in a breath, awaiting his response.

His tone is more tentative this time. “I wasn’t saying you were,” Marc resorts. “But you know that was what that was, right? Like a, uh, a sensory overload?”

Steven is sure he’s heard that term before. He buries the feelings that come in tow with it alongside every other emotion he’s experienced today, bubbling up inside of him with the threat of spilling over. 

“I’m going to sleep now,” he says flatly. And with that he lays back down and tugs the blanket up over his shoulders and under his chin. He’s not a child, but on some days does he wish he could be.

***

It’s Marc that wakes hours later. 

It’s the middle of the day and there’s already shadows crawling up the walls of the apartment, the street below is busy with its usual vendors, their loud echoes voices seeping through the one inch gap left in the window. 

He sits himself up and winces almost immediately. He has a headache the size of Texas and it feels like his brain is nothing but a loose rock rolling around the inside of his skull. He scrubs a hand roughly down his face; he’s in need of a shave, something Steven usually chastises him on doing because he’s the one that prefers the baby face they sport when they do, so when he swings his legs up out of bed to get up, he’s half expecting Steven’s voice to appear to remind him of it.

But there’s nothing.

It used to feel silly, in the beginning. Talking out loud to what appeared to others as nothing. But after a while they’d both grown used to it; a comforting sign that neither of them was truly alone. And after so many years of hiding himself away from Steven, both of them sharing time in the metaphorical shoe box he’d stuff themselves into, it was nice to be in tandem with him and just enjoy his company on days when they were alone.

He clears his throat before speaking, and even that feels like an effort.

“Steven?”

The apartment is quiet save for the low rumbling of the tank filter that’s working away, what with Gus The Second and Gus Return of The Fin (names that had Steven written all over them) bobbing along aimlessly in their tank, there’s no sign of the alter around.

Which isn’t anything to be of concern. Not just yet, anyway. 

This morning had been pretty stressful, and it’d been a hot minute since Steven had experienced a meltdown like that before. Or at least, a meltdown he could remember.

He sits up, swallowing around the lump in his throat, he feels an empty clench in his gut, so he makes himself a tea and butters two slices of toast, ignoring how bland it tastes as he chews it down. He pops two paracetamols and washes it down with his drink, not caring when it scalds the roof of his mouth. 

He has a shower, let's warm water trickle down the back of his head as he feels his earlier headache start to finally ebb away. When he steps out of the shower he’s expecting the reflection in the mirror to shift a little like it might have done before. But when he swipes away the condensation, it’s only his wobbly reflection peering back at him with heavy, tired eyes and a mouth drawn into a straight line.

He sighs, and drops his head down, his wet curls tickle where they fall over his forehead.

“Shit.”

***

It’s around five when his phone starts to buzz, it dances around the countertop where it’d been discarded by Marc after calling into the museum earlier, and when he pulls himself up off the couch where he’d folded himself into for the afternoon, he feels his face pull into a tight frown when he sees its Layla’s name lighting up the screen.

She speaks as soon as he answers.

“Steven, hi.” She sounds a little breathless, like she hadn’t quite expected him to answer. “Guessing I caught you at the right time. Leaving work right now?”

Marc stutters a little awkwardly, like it wasn’t his ex-wife he was talking to. His eyes slide towards the alarm clock that sits uselessly on the bedside table. Layla had managed to time her call almost perfectly, because right now this usually was the time on a normal day that Steven would be making the slow walk home through London.

He clears his throat, feels his grip on the phone go a little tighter than anticipated. 

“Oh, um. It’s Marc, actually,” he says a little stiffly.

There’s a pause, the other end goes quiet for a moment and Marc tries to imagine what Layla was doing now; sorting through paperwork and reading maps, stopping to talk to him. To Steven. 

“Oh,” she says. “Right. Hi, Marc. Everything okay?”

It’s then that Marc realizes he still hasn’t felt Steven nudge. Normally at the sound of her voice, or even at the mere mention of her, the Brit would be shoving himself to the front to get to spend just a minute to talk to her. The snarky little jab that Marc had sent his way that day out in the sands about Steven being in love with his wife hadn’t just been friendly fire to annoy him. There had to be some truth behind it simply because he could feel the way his heart would flutter a little in his chest when Layla was nice to Steven. When she’d glance over at him or send a smile his way.

Marc understands all the notions to falling in love with Layla, because he’s done it all before.

He swallows thickly when Steven remains quiet still.

“Yeah,” he lies, almost on cue. He’s just too used to hiding the truth from Layla so often that it’s second nature to him. He squeezes his eyes closed and he can feel his earlier headache creeping its way back around the edges of his skull.

‘Being honesty’ tallys arounds his head and he sucks a breath in through his teeth.

“No,” he then admits with a soft sigh. He opens his eyes. The sky outside is a blend of oranges and blues, the hot summer sun slowly melting down towards the horizon, he can hear the sounds of the street stalls outside finally packing themselves away for the day. “Steven had a bit of a… a day, y’know.”

Layla is quiet again. He can easily picture her, chewing on the end of her hair. It was the kind of bad habit he secretly adored.

“Oh,” she finally says, her words are soft around the edges. “I’m sorry. Is he okay now?”

Marc sniffs. “He’s been quiet,” he tells her.

Layla hums. He can now imagine her pulling the wet strands of hair from the corner of her mouth and twisting it around her finger. You’re not married for as long as they were without knowing everything about them, even when you’re separated by miles and miles of ocean and earth.

“Was it because of work again?” She asks him and he can hear the little wince in her tone. Marc knows that she has the same opinion on his workplace as he does: he hates it, she hates it and poor Steven just sticks his fingers in his ears and pretends not to hear their choice words on how his manager treats him.

Marc huffs a dry, tired sounding laugh. “He didn’t even get to work,” he tells her. He rubs his hand alongside the edge of his jaw. The stubble he shaved off earlier after his shower is already starting to grow back again.

Layla hums a short sound. “Hm. One of those days, yeah? World-too-busy-for-you kind of thing.”

Because Layla gets it. She always has. Marc feels a dark chuckle rising up out of him, because somehow, even with so much distance stretched between them alongside untouched divorce papers and a hell of a load of baggage between them, she still got him when she needed to.

She could read hieroglyphics, and French and Arabic and some Spanish when the situation called for it, which was clever enough. But she was also one of the few people in the world that could read Marc Spector like a damn book without even trying. Even when she wasn’t here in front of him to see the tired look dragging across his features, or the hunch in his spine when he sat himself down; she still could pick him apart, piece by piece with such a careful dedication. 

He rubs a hand over the base of his neck, thumbing away at the edge of his hair line where his curls are a little damp with sweat.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “It’s been hard for him, y’know?”

Layla doesn’t miss a beat when she tells him.

“It’s been hard for you both, Marc.”

Her tone is firm. It reminds Marc of a time last year when another argument had materialized out of Marc’s inability to share his feelings with his wife. It’d escalated into a screaming match, circling one another in their bedroom like a pair of hungry animals, the happy, loved up travel photos of them both, lined up against the walls of their home had served as an almost humorous juxtaposition as Layla had thrown her arms up in a temper whilst Marc had kept his hands balled into tight fists by his sides as she had cried to him,

“You can’t do this alone, Marc! You can keep hoarding all this trauma on top of trauma and not expect it to spill over a little. Don’t you want to get better? Don’t you think you deserve that, Marc?”

And at the time Marc had wanted to crumple. Right then and there like wet paper, he so wished he could just fold in on himself and tell her,

No. I don’t think I do deserve it.

But it was different this time, he reminded himself. He was unlearning all that self destructive behavior that was ingrained into him. Like un-wiring the bomb strapped to his chest, it took some percision and patience. 

He exhales, a little shakily before he answers her.

“I know,” he tells her with a gentleness to his voice he reserves just for her. “I know.”

Layla is quiet for a moment. Before,

“Marc? How much– and, tell me if I’m pushing a little too hard here, but how much have you told Steven about… yourself? All the things that make you, you?”

It’s quiet in the flat. His eyes shift across the room to land on where the goldfish are dumbly pacing the length of their tank.

Gus Return of the Fin bumps into the little Pyramid of Giza replica that sits a little wonkily at the bottom of the tank, looking a little spooked for a moment like it hadn’t been there the entire time. He curiously nudges the end of his face against it, as if he were scoping it out before he seemingly becomes content with its presence there, and swishes his tail to propel himself back up towards the surface of the water where he’s in search of any remaining fish flakes that might linger.

Marc sighs.

“About what? Mom?” He asks.

That word itself feels a little tight in his throat. 

“No,” Layla says gently. “I just mean. You know. Regarding what happened today. Does he know how to cope? With any of that? You haven’t had an overstimulation in a while, Marc. Not that I know of at least.”

Marc feels his gut start to slowly coil, wrapping around itself in one big knot like an angry snake. These weren’t the conversations that he liked having with her, which was all the more reason why it was important to push through it.

“I told him it was a sensory overload,” Marc says, ignoring how flat his own voice sounds in the speaker of the phone. “He bitched about me treatin’ him like a kid and he’s been asleep ever since.”

“So he doesn’t know then?” Layla asks.

Marc doesn’t answer straight away. He shuffles back to the bed and flops onto the edge of it, the air in his lungs escaping him with one slow breath as he does so, like he were deflecting.

“Dunno. He doesn’t remember therapy or anything so…” he flicks away an imaginary crumb off the blanket. “Probably not. No.”

There’s an air of diplomacy in Layla’s voice when she says next,

“Don’t you think you ought to tell him then?” 

Marc kind of wishes he never answered the phone.

“Maybe,” he says. “But he’s already taking every other bit of information in his stride. Don’t wanna overload him and melt his brain or something.”

Layla hums, a sweet sound that is something akin to a chuckle.

“He’s braver than you know,” she says softly. And he can so picture the kind of smile she’d been sporting right now. The kind that makes him wanna just kiss her real slow-like. “You both are.”

It makes the corners of Marc’s mouth twitch into something of a smile for what feels like the first time in ages.

“Yeah,” he says, a little breathlessly. “I know.”

There’s a little shuffling on the other side of the line and Marc pictures her sitting down now, whatever she was doing before has been momentarily forgotten. In fact, Marc hasn’t even asked why she was calling in the first place. He doesn’t get a chance to, however, because her voice crackles through the speakers again.

“You know, it’s nothing you have to feel ashamed about around me, Marc,” she tells him, voice small, an almost whisper. “Remember what I said on the boat to Mogarts, back in Cairo?”

Marc wishes he could feel her hands on his right now like they had been that night, grounding him. Making him feel so more real than he’s ever felt in his entire life.

“That whatever it is, we do it together, yeah?” 

His throat grows tight and there’s a familiar hot prickle burning behind his eyes that he’s quick to blink away.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “I’m getting there, Layla. I really am.”

She hums to that. He closes his eyes and pictures her face. It helps.

“I think you should talk to Steven,” she eventually says. “It’ll help.”

Marc sniffs. “Guess I gotta get better at that, huh? The whole opening up and shit.” He jokes weakly.

Layla clicks her tongue. “You will do. In time, Marc.”

He holds the phone a little tighter, holding his breath as he waits for the clenching around his heart to subside.

***

Despite Layla’s encouragement, Marc isn’t so great at spilling his guts, so it seems. And Steven is still tucked away refusing to come to the surface, blanketing himself in what appears to be a layer of shame from the events of the previous day.

Marc calls into the museum, and is able to pull off both the wonky accent and the facade that he’s still unwell, to which Donna advises him to stay where he is and not come into work and infect the rest of them as well as the guests. 

He laughs, something awkward and very Steven sounding and when he hangs up, there’s an empty feeling rolling in the pit of his stomach.

He stands himself in front of the mirror beside the door, his hair is uncombed and messy where it flops over his eyes, framed beneath by a near perfect ring of faded purple rings from so many broken nights. He sucks in a breath and squares out his shoulders.

“Steven? Steven, you can’t hide forever pal. C’mon now.”

The reflection is still for a moment, and the longer Marc stares into his own pinched and narrowed eyes, the more he starts to worry that maybe Steven had spiraled a little too far.

But the image before him shifts, just a fraction, and there’s a rush of air escaping past parted lips, feeling the tightness in his chest start to loosen.

“What?” Steven is blunt. His voice a little hoarse. He’s got a sulky, sullen look about him but Marc would rather that than nothing at all.

Marc shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Steven remains still in the reflection.

“I just–” he darts his tongue along his lip, wetting it. “I just wanted to check in on you,” he says, voice impossibly small. “After yesterday you kinda did a ‘me.’” He adds, voice catching onto a light chuckle.

Steven’s brow furrows. “Yeah,” he says flatly. “I see why you like disappearing so much. Maybe I ought to do it more often.”

As he says it, he folds his arms over his chest, tipping his chin upwards, Marc knows that all of this right now is just an act. A childish one, at that, but Marc knows he’s just saying it to gauge his reaction.

Marc purses his lips together. Wills some self restraint and patience before he talks back.

“Well. If it helps,” he says, casually. Then, “I spoke to Layla yesterday.”

Steven’s whole face twitches. Pavlov’s dog type shit, Marc knew it’d be the thing to get him to crack from this funk he’d settled himself into.

“Oh,” he says, his tone a little less rough this time. “Is she alright?”

Marc hums, nodding his head. “She’s fine.” He licks his lips a second time. “She was asking about you.”

Steven shifts a little, a fidgety essence about him, his arms uncross themselves so he can fiddle with the cuff of his shirt. 

“She was worried,” Marc says slowly. “Worried that I wasn’t being fair.” He inhales slowly. Holds his breath. Realizes how much he misses smoking. Exhales.

“Steven… yesterday wasn’t… it wasn’t the only time you’ve felt like that, right?”

Steven blinks innocently from the other side of the mirror.  His fingers still fit around the edge of the cuff.

“Well,” he says in a small voice. “Yeah. I’ve had my fair share of bad days, sure.”

Marc ducks his head down. He doesn’t look back up before he’s doing a slow turn. The two Gus’ are bobbing up around in the tank, all fins accounted for, Marc takes a pinch of the flakes on the side and sprinkles them into the water. He’s never been a huge lover of goldfish but he will admit that watching their fat little mouths open and close around soggy flakes was kind of entertaining.

He moves around the tank and slowly makes his way to the mirror beside the bed. He doesn’t sit down, afraid that if he did he might fold in on himself and not find the strength to undo himself to face the other man in the reflection waiting patiently for him. 

He’s working his hands into knots, wringing his fingers together when Marc looks at him again.

“I told you about mom,” he says, the words seem to just materialize out of nowhere, existing there in the air. He hadn’t a speech of any sorts prepared, but his mind seemed to have no issue in churning out the words without much thought behind them. “I told you about mom and Randal and… and the whole us thing, back on the boat. Even when I’m not so great at explaining it all.”

When Marc looks at him, he’s waiting so patiently. So tentatively where he stands close to the edge, and for a single moment, it feels as if he's standing right behind him. A hand on his shoulder, the tickle of his breath on the back of his neck. The shifting sounds of feet on creaky floorboards.

It’s a rather comforting feeling.

“Do you remember school, Steven?” Marc asks.

Steven blinks. His lips twitch but no sounds escape them. He seems to think for a moment as his face twists up. When it finally relaxes, there’s a brief dawn of realization evident across his expression.

“Bits and pieces,” he says in a thin, sad sounding voice. “But not a lot, no.”

Marc nods, his head drops forward. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and starts to absentmindedly chew.

“Why?” Steven asks. “What has this got to do with yesterday?”

Marc doesn’t lift his head up. He keeps it bowed so he doesn’t have to look at Steven when he tells him,

“I’m sorry I left you to go through it alone, Steven.”

He feels his own heart give a jerky little stutter in his chest, though he knows it’s not all him that’s making that feeling settle deep between his ribcage.

He can feel Steven push to the front, heavy and weighty he’s close to the edge when he says with an air of uncertainty,

“Go through what alone, Marc?”

Marc can’t answer him with words alone. His stomach feels empty and heavy. 

“With what , Marc?” Steven presses harder.

But Marc doesn’t answer. He just falls away with ease as Steven pushes forward.

***

“Look at people when they’re talking to you, Stevie. They ain’t gonna bite y’know. Don’t look like such a kicked puppy all the bloody time. People’ll think we’re abusing you or something.” Donna’s voice is shrill and nasally and not at all a comforting welcome back after having two days away from it.

He blinks, feeling his cheeks grow hot as he forces his eyes to remain steady on her face. It feels like such an effort, all just to see her ugly upturned smirk, all toothy and snarky and full of unnecessary wit.

“Yeah, right. Sorry.”

She says nothing more after that, retreating towards the back room to leave him behind the cashier. Another three and a half minutes pass when the next family of customers come trolling on through and Steven tries to look the man in the eyes as he rings up their gummy worms and plushie. 

But his gaze is pulled away almost on cue as the father of the family looks at him, and he chats idly to them as he keeps his focus on the cashier, eyes darting around nervously the more he feels those eyes on him that he refuses to meet.

They don’t seem to care, or notice, and after they’ve paid they’re gone and Steven can breathe again.

As the cashier screen goes to sleep, it darkens and he’s faced his own reflection peering nervously back at him. 

For a moment he considers if maybe Marc will make an appearance. He isn’t sure why: he doesn’t usually stick around when he’s actively working up front of the shop. But still, after yesterday's little to-do, it’d be a good time for Marc to just show his face. Show that he’s alright.

He would have called out sick again had it not been for the fact that three days in a row might not put him in his good books considering he’s already on thin ice with Donna.

So he’d hauled himself out of bed, head feeling thick and no sign of Marc had left him feeling a little uneasy. 

But Marc isn’t there, just him. 

And it’s still just him when his lunch break rolls around the middle of the day. JB finds him in the cafeteria and drags up a chair without his permission or his own offering to come join him, and due to his own inability to be rude, Steven is subjected to sit through half an hour of ramblings that he only partly listens to as he mindlessly chews down his cucumber sandwich.

He’s listening to JB rant on about a fight he witnessed in Spoons last Friday when suddenly.

“Oh. Hey.”

It’s Dylan, standing there in front of their table, clutching a packet of crisps and a packaged sandwich she’d clearly just bought from the cafeteria itself, looking a little confused as to why Steven was sitting there with the head of security. Last time he’d spoken to Dylan she’d basically told him to shove it. Last time he’d actually seen Dylan was when he was being escorted out of the building after his little HR meeting.

The crust of his sandwich gets lodged in his throat and he has to cough three times before it clears and for some reason he finds himself standing up out of his seat.

“Hiya.”

She blinks, unimpressed. “I thought you got fired.”

JB snorts at that. He picks up his Yazoo, pausing before it reaches his lips. “He’s like a bad smell, ain’t he? Just can’t shift him from this place.”

Dylan doesn’t even pretend to look amused. She fixes Steven with a straight look.

His smile feels wobbly on his lips. “Don’t think they call it being fired anymore,” he says lamely. He feels lame. “Legally, that is. I think they’re a bit more PC about it. Think it’s more like letting someone go. Like. Like a fish. You know, because you let fish go when you– I dunno why I’m explaining fishing to you, that doesn’t even have anything to do with what we’re talking about, does it?”

She hums, her brows twitch upwards, maybe just a touch amused by now. “Well. Whatever they call it, I hope you’re… okay now.”

And that stings more than having to spend his lunch break with JB, because of course the entirety of the staff and their mums knew about him going mental and busting up the toilets. Except it wasn’t him, it was Marc and the jackal but if he even tried to even explain that to anyone, he’d be back in the HR office with another stupid, useless leaflet about mental health and therapy that wasn’t going to help him.

He ducks his head down. Hears Donna’s stupid voice nagging him about eye contact but when he pulls his head up he still can’t seem to manage it.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Cheers.”

Dylan’s gaze flickers from him, to JB, to him again. “Just keep me away from any steakhouses and we might be okay.”

Steven bumps his knee against the table as his body involuntary jerks forward. “Oh! Yeah. Course. I mean, if you ever wanted to… you know. Get a drink?”

Dylan takes a slow breath. “It was a joke, Steven,” she tells him flatly, almost tiredly. “I think that ship has sailed, don’t you? No offense.”

He isn’t sure why she adds that last part. He takes huge offense to being shut down so coldly. In front of JB as well, it feels entirely offensive. 

He pretends to ignore how hot his face is, hoping that the other two might too ignore how red it was probably glowing.

“Ah,” he says, and for some reason he sits back down again. He can’t remember why he stood in the first place. “Yeah. You’re right. No offense taken.”

Dylan shoots him a thin lipped smile. The kind that people preserve when they know they’re being lied to.

“Well,” she says, taking a step backwards. “See you around, I guess.”

And with that she’s gone.

JB finishes off his milkshake and burps, loudly, making Steven cringe.

“Well that,” he says, stretching back in his seat. “Was fucking dreadful, mate.”

He doesn’t finish off the rest of his sandwich, suddenly feeling as if his appetite had completely disappeared.

***

He promises himself he isn’t going to cry.

Not until he gets home at least.

And it isn’t a full on Bridge Jones breakdown that has him blasting all varying love songs throughout the ages. Instead he gets home, shrugs off his jacket, checks his phone, grabs a packet of crisps even though he knows it’s going to ruin his dinner tonight. He feeds both fish, makes sure the documentary that’s playing tonight is recording and then… then he lets a few tears leak out of him.

It’s cathartic in a way. Nothing was ever going to happen between him and Dylan. She was insanely out of his league and Steven knew that, even when he’d somehow snagged himself a date with her at the steakhouse, part of him knew deep down that there was nothing that he could offer her that some rich younger, better looking guy could give.

He wipes away the remaining moisture around his eyes with the back of his wrist, almost jumping out of his skin when Marc is there in the reflection of the mirror.

“Sorry,” Marc says, voice gravelly. “Are you okay?”

Steven sniffs, pinching the collar of the shirt to wipe it beneath his nose. Any other time and Marc might have chastised him for the bad habit.

“Okay now,” he tells him. “ You alright though? Been a bit quiet today, haven’t you?”

Marc doesn’t give him a straight answer, just hums, sounding a little strangled.

Steven moves over to the sofa, the mirror on the wall beside the door is just in view.

“How was work?” Marc asks, sounding as casual as possible.

Steven shrugs his shoulders a little jerkily. “Alright. Donna is the same. Had lunch with JB.”

He doesn’t tell Marc about Dylan. 

“Cool,” Marc says awkwardly. His image shifts a little in the mirror, nearing the edge where it distorts a little before he straightens himself up.

He clears his throat before talking.

“Anything… anything happen?” He asks, tiptoeing around the words almost. “Anything like the other day?”

Steven brings his knees up towards his chest, folding in on himself he feels a pinch between his brows.

“I told you,” he protests. “It was just a bad day. I dunno why you’re so upset about it.”

Marc huffs a heavy sounding sigh. He brings his forefinger and thumb to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes droop shut for a moment before he’s looking back at Steven again, leveling him with a steady look.

“Because I care, Steven. Okay? Because I need you to know that. I need you to know that I care.”

Steven feels a bit silly all of a sudden. Kind of like when you’re driving in a car and you go over a bump in the road and your tummy flips over and you’re suddenly aware that you have all this stuff on the inside of your body like a stomach and other organs and it gives you this weird feeling that you’re a whole person made out of person bits. 

He blinks, and the urge to cry again is creeping back up on him. 

Marc pulls a face, a pained one, then,

“Steven, I need to tell you something. And if I don’t tell you now then I never will and Layla said I should and well, we both know she’s usually right so, if this all goes wrong… blame her.”

He curls in on himself a little tighter. He says nothing in a silent permission for him to continue.

The image in the mirror shifts another fraction again.

“When I was younger,” he starts, words forming slowly off his tongue. “I, uh. I used to have days like the ones you had the other day. I’d get to school or we’d be at the mall, and it was just. All so much. Too much input, you know? Up here.”

He dances the tips of fingers against his temple. Steven fights the urge to touch his own fingers against the side of his head.

“Before Randal died,” Marc rasps. “Mom and dad, they took me to see a doctor. Because of these… meltdowns. That’s what they called it. Overstimulation.”

Steven flinches at the word, recoiling like he’d been physically scalded by the word itself. 

“I would be out in the school yard and everything would just feel… so much all at once. Kids being loud, the basketball hitting the back of the net would set my teeth on edge. The girls would play rope and… the sound of it hitting the floor would make my skin crawl. I’d get so angry and I couldn’t help it. I felt so trapped in that place, the place where kids are supposed to just be kids, and every day I’d hope it wasn’t one of those days when I’d get past those gates in the morning. My third grade teacher found me crouched behind the bench one time, crouched down with my hands over my ears refusing to move. I hated it. I hated it and I hated that I didn’t understand why I did hate it so much.”

“Long story short I was diagnosed with being on the… the spectrum. It was different back then, they didn’t really know much about it and it made life at school kinda rough because of it.”

He sucks in a breath, his chest pushing itself out.

“I didn’t know if you remembered any of that…”

Steven’s fingers twitch, finding the bottom of his trousers, he tugs at the ends where they’re starting to fray. He doesn’t answer Marc. He doesn’t think he needs to if he can see his stature right now.

“But I was able to mask it,” Marc tells him. “As I got older I kept it buried, like all my other fuckin’ issues. I hid it but… you, Steven. You just kept being yourself. Unapologetically so. It was the one thing I couldn’t protect from you.” His voice grows tight then. “And to tell you the truth, buddy, I’ve kinda wrestled with the idea for so long that maybe I shouldn’t have even thought about it anyway.”

The tears that are pooling behind his eyes finally cascade down the sides of his face, this time however, he makes no effort to wipe them away, letting them drip miserably off the end of his chin.

“But if you’re suffering,” Marc presses. “Because of it. Then I can’t live with that, Steven. I can’t expect you to just keep going about your life thinking that those things are… that it’s just normal.”

Steven blinks and more tears dribble down his face.

“Well,” Marc says gruffly. “Nothing is normal,” he stresses. His voice softens again. “You know what I mean. Don’t you?”

There’s an ache in his bones when Steven finally unfolds himself from the sofa. He scrubs a hand down his face. He needs a shave. He needs a tea. 

Actually, he might need something stronger than just a tea. He knows where Marc keeps his whiskey.

Marc doesn’t press right away, and the flat is quiet because of it.

When Steven does finally speak, his voice sounds shaky, even to his own ears.

“Every time I think I’m wrapping my head around all this, it feels like there’s something more.”

Marc winces at that. His turn to be burned by the words.

“I know,” he sighs. “And I’m sorry. I really am, Steven.“

Steven shakes his head, his curls are loose since he’s been in control of the body and Marc hasn’t subjected it to the heavy amounts of gel like he might tend to do otherwise.

He pushes it out away from his eyes.

“There’s things I see in you,” Marc says, his voice cusping on the edge of pleading now. “That I went through before and I just… I know how tough it can feel.”

Steven doesn’t look at him. His mouth feels so dry and his chest feels so unavoidably heavy. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, shapes bursting behind his closed lids, it’s so still he can hear the small intake of breath from Marc once more.

“I can help,” he says. It’s like the night in the museum toilet when everything started going wonky when he was standing there with sweat licking at the base of his spine and his head spinning from the emotional whiplash. “I can help you, Steven.”

He sucks in his own breath, shuddery and broken sounding, more tears prick the backs of his eyes and he exhales, a wobbly, wet laugh following soon after.

“I think I want to be alone for a bit,” he whispers. 

Marc doesn’t protest it. Doesn’t fight him on any of it. He just blinks and he’s gone. Like static tickling the back of his mind, it slowly fades into a dull hum that soon becomes easily ignorable.

***

He does his own research.

At first he promises himself he isn’t going to. Blissful ignorance and all that, it feels easier to stuff those thoughts and everything Marc had told him into a far corner of his mind and try to carry on with his life pretending that it wasn’t there, the lid on that metaphorical box slowly coming undone before he could jam it back on again. 

But he’s too curious for his own good, something in his nature, he has a tendency to search for more even when he knows not to. Like sticking his hand in under a flame, he’s aware of the consequences but finds himself drawn to the flickering heat nonetheless.

He feels a bit silly when he opens up his laptop one night and taps into the search bar:

Autism in adults 

A few useful links pop up, alongside some ads, and Steven doesn’t click on any of them, but instead he scrolls back to the top of the page, backspaces his last search and replaces it with:

Am I autistic? 

The page refreshes and there’s all sorts of links, mostly regarding autism in kids, the kinds of things curious adults might have searched, and for a moment Steven pictures his own parents asking the same kinds of questions, and it makes his gut twist up a little.

He rephrases his search a second time:

Am I autistic? For adults

There’s a link to a quiz. It seems all too obvious but the longer he does this the more naustiating it all kind of feels. So he clicks on it and waits for the page to reload.

It opens up to the first question straight away. He leans back in his chair, it groans under his weight and he reaches for the tea he made himself earlier, a little lukewarm now after he’d manage to forget about it whilst scrolling through endless google result pages. He brings it to his lips letting the last wisps of heat tickle his upper lip as he reads the first question.

I prefer to do things on my own rather than with others. 

There’s four options: strongly agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree and strongly disagree.

He hovers the mouse over the first two watching them light up each time.

Maybe some time ago he might have picked the first option; he likes to eat lunch alone, he used to spend most weekends hauled up in his flat by himself and his friendship circle consisted of just one other person that usually didn’t actually talk back to him.

So maybe he might have led himself to believe he liked to be alone. But after his adventures with Layla and having Marc around, Steven had come to slowly realize that expanding his circle, even when it was just by a fraction, was still bearable to him. He liked it, even.

He clicks the second option and the page takes a moment to reload again.

I prefer to do things the same way - for instance, my morning routine or trip to the supermarket .

He shifts in his seat again and sets his tea back down. He was a creature of habit. And whilst that was an almost impossible task when you suddenly were sharing your body with someone else, there were times that Steven would find himself itching to fall back into his old habits, just out of familiarity. Adding tape to the door even when he knew it wasn’t necessary anymore. Fitting the ankle restraint around his leg before bed. Phoning mum even when he knew now it was just an empty line on the other side.

He swallows thickly and clicks the first option. 

I find myself becoming strongly absorbed in something - even obsessional.

He knows that if Marc is present for any of this in any shape or form whatsoever, he’d probably be laughing at him now. The books practically ready to suffocate him should be a dead giveaway, and he’s reminded of his earlier conversation with his headmate about special interests, and it makes Steven wonder if that was Marc holding out some sort of olive branch even back then.

He clicks the first option again, rolling his shoulders and the page reloads.

I am very sensitive to noise and will wear earplugs or cover my ears in certain situations.

Nausea swirls in the basement of his belly as he’s reminded of the events of the last few days, back outside of the museum, and suddenly Steven wishes he hadn’t been curious enough to seek out these answers. Wishes it were another thing Marc had kept from him and spared him from knowing about.

But he knows that if he doesn’t do it himself, he’ll just spend all that time in between worrying without knowing. He doesn’t think he’d ever need to wear headphones or physically cover his ears from loud sounds, but he remembers what Marc had called it: a sensory overload. 

He hits the second option, and holds his breath.

Sometimes people say I am being rude, even though I think I am being polite.

He balks. That was a tough question, because if he were to ask the one person who knew him the best he’d probably just snort and call him an ass anyway. 

(It was Marc. Marc would be the one to say that.)

But he tries to wrack his mind of all the times that maybe someone had mistaken his attitude as anything but positive. Donna had a natural magnetism to criticize everything he did. Saying he was bad with customers, that he was lazy and useless. There’s a lump in his throat, and he decides not to dwell too much on the answer for any longer.

He picks the third second option for good measure. It doesn’t feel good though, like he’s somehow siding with all the mean things Donna has ever said about him.

I find it easy to imagine what characters from a book might look like .

Now that was an easier question. 

Reading had been a constant comfort in his life for all that he can remember. It was what lined the walls of his home here, the integral part of his routine both day and night, delving into a series of books both fiction and non-fiction, he was more in tune with the make believe world he surrounded himself with more than the real one that actually existed.

He harkens back to his childhood, what he can remember of it anyway, all those hours spent in the in-betweens of rows of shelves at the library, and they all feel like mostly happy memories, until they are very quickly soured when he remembers that the reason he spent so much of his time alone, nose in a book and head someplace else was because home was scary and he needed a place to escape to when slipping through the door mentally just wasn’t enough.

Steven grabs his tea, swallows down a mouthful. It’s near enough cold at this point but he doesn’t care. He taps his cursor against the first option. Tries not to think of those library outings any longer than he has to.

I find it easy to talk in groups of people .

Slightly disagree. He’d always imagined that if he got a job as the tour guide at the museum he wouldn’t be totally horrible at talking in groups.

I am more interested in finding out about ‘things’ than people. 

Slightly agree. The books surrounding him once again usefully proving proof.

I find numbers, dates and strings of information fascinating.

Definitely agree. He’s almost itching to finish off this quiz just so he can get back to the book he was making notes on, for fun.

I prefer non-fiction books and films to fiction.

Definitely agree, again.

I find it upsetting if my daily routine is upset or changed.

Slightly agree. It had taken a while to adjust to everything that had happened after Cairo, what with now living in tandem with Marc. He put up with it, which didn’t mean he was totally in love with it all. 

Steven continues to click through question after question. He ignores how sweaty his palm feels against the mouse, the prickle of heat creeping up the back of his neck as every single question confronts him in a way he’d never felt before. Like a cornered animal he wishes he could just lash out, slam the laptop closed and crawl into the familiar comfort of the place between his bed and his bedsheets, cucconing himself away from what awaits him at the end of this quiz.

He finishes the last question. He thinks that maybe it’ll take a moment to calculate his results, churning it around like a big bingo wheel, ready to pluck out a simple yes or no to determine his future. The trajectory of his life in full color. 

But it happens faster than he’s expecting it to happen. The page blinks and there’s his result:

You have a strong likelihood of being autistic.

There’s a little slew of information scattered around the bottom of the page like useful links and where to go to next. 

And Steven knows to take all this with a pinch of salt. This website can’t diagnose him. He can’t trust this kind of diagnosis through 30 quickfire questions alone.

But he remembers that Marc has a proper diagnosis. He’s seen real professionals. Real doctors that had noticed it and seen it and slapped a label on and told him what it was that made his brain tick the way it did.

And so in turn… As a technicality…

Steven doesn’t slam the laptop closed. It’s slow and deliberate when he pushes it down, and his eyes slide away from the screen to the little round mirror that hangs beside the kitchen wall catching the light from the overhead bulb that hangs there. 

Marc is barely there, like he was coming up under deep water. Steven blinks and he’s just a little more clearer.

“Gonna tell me that you told me so?” Steven says out loud. His voice feels strangely flat. 

Marc’s nostrils flare, yet, he doesn’t seem angry. Not in the slightest. 

“No,” he says eventually. “Are you good?“

Steven doesn’t answer straight away, instead opting to exhale a long, slow breath through his lips, he combs his fingers through his hair. He swings back on his chair before he jerks forward. His heart does an excited leap in his chest.

“Think so,” he says quietly. He blinks again at Marc. He rests his elbows on the table, even if he thinks it’s bad manners. “I think I’ll be alright.”

Marc’s throat bobs, the way it does whenever he’s stewing on a particularly difficult thought.

When he speaks, his voice is hoarse.

“You don’t have to be,” he tells him. “You know that, right? You don’t have to be fine, Steven.”

And it’s not like Steven needs permission anyway. He’s never felt like he did before, so he’s certain he wouldn’t now.

But as soon as the words leave Marc’s mouth, it kind of just happens; his head bows down between his elbows, his chest rattles and a sob crawls its way out of him, violently almost.

And it may sound pained. And it perhaps sounded like he were wounded by the fact. But in reality, in the truth of it all, it was a cry of relief.

Because it felt like something slotting into place, a little piece of furniture in his mind finally making up the set in full. Like suddenly he could see the entire picture color for color.

And he knows that Marc means well. He does, because even when he doesn’t want to admit to it, Marc is a good person. But he also knows that whilst this tidal wave of emotion came over him, eventually he’d be able to breach the surface and breathe again.

Because it might feel unsure right now, but it was going to be okay. It was. It had to be. 

And a few days later after the wave has settled, retreated and left all that was left in his wake as it’d drawn itself back, Steven wakes one morning before work, and there’s a new book on his desk, a fidget spinner, a little pot of green slime and a handwritten note from Marc, not his usual chicken scratch but instead something he imagines he sat down to write down carefully:

‘Don’t know if any of these might help. I know you like your rubix cube so it’s worth a shot. You’re not alone, Steven. Remember that.'