Chapter Text
“You have a date?”
“It’s not a date!”
Nathaniel covers his eyes in frustration as Alix bursts out laughing, flopping down onto the bed next to him. “It’s not a date,” he repeats weakly.
“Sure it’s not,” Alix snorts. “But seriously - you’re serious about how it went down? This guy who you barely know and haven’t seen in fourteen years just asked you out like that?” they snap their fingers for emphasis.
Nathaniel groans, rolling his eyes and wishing he was still able to poke Alix with the arm not covering his eyes. “He didn’t ask me out, but yes.”
“Uh-huh. If that’s what you’re saying happened-”
“Alix!”
Alix snorts, elbowing him in the side. “How is he, anyway? Find anything about him?”
Nathaniel shrugs, trying to find a way to describe Marc in a way that wouldn’t come across as - well - rude. “He wasn’t what I expected but also kind of was in a way. If that makes sense.”
“Not at all.”
Nathaniel winces slightly. “He was… weird,” he admits after a few moments. “You remember how we went to that robotics museum back in middle school? The one that had an entire display of super realistic looking robots?”
Alix blinks, looking mildly confused. “Kind of. Why are you asking?”
“It’s just-” Nathaniel tails off, picking absently at a loose thread on his trousers (he really should cut it off.) “You didn’t like looking at them because their eyes looked so weird, and our teacher explained it was because of something called the uncanny valley effect - something that looked human but there was just something wrong about them. That’s how I felt looking at Marc.”
“What, you think he’s a robot?”
“I don’t think he’s a robot,” Nathaniel shrugs. “But - okay, question. You hang out around town like, every day.”
“Unlike someone I’m currently talking to.”
“Not the point. What I’m asking is if you’ve seen Marc around. At all. He said he never stopped living here, so…”
Alix frowns. “Give me a description.”
“Dark hair down to his shoulders, tan skin, really dark eyes, looks like he has vitiligo. Also wears ugly tourist jumpers but that’s beside the point.”
Alix hums to themself, their eyes going slightly vacant as they think. “Can’t say I’ve seen him. Seems like the type of person you can’t really miss though.”
Nathaniel sighs heavily. “That settles it,” he mutters decisively. “He’s a figment of my imagination. A childhood imaginary friend that’s come back to haunt me.”
“However,” Alix replies firmly, holding up a hand to prevent him from going on a tirade. “That chick I was telling you about - patch girl, her name’s Zoe - mentioned that she has a new housemate that moved in with her last week. She thinks he might have been homeless before then - the way she tells it, her new friend didn’t have any money or family to speak of and seemed extremely confused. So she’s letting them stay with her. I asked what they looked like, she told me they looked like… well, what you just described to me. Chances are that’s Marc.”
Nathaniel stares at them. “Marc isn’t homeless.”
“Well obviously he isn’t now,” Alix scoffs, rolling their eyes. “But it looks like he was before Zoe found him.”
“He told me he’d lived here all his life-”
“So maybe he just recently went through something that made his finances go kaput and he ended up without a house all of a sudden. It happens,” Alix shrugs. “The point is, Marc does exist, believe it or not. So calm down and just go on your date.”
“It’s not a date!” Nathaniel protests indignantly, clumsily grabbing his pillow and trying to whack Alix over the head with it, which they easily deflect with a laugh. “It’s just a hang out. A hang out. Nothing more. Understand?”
“If you say so,” Alix grins, hopping off the bed. “Go get ready - well, as ready as you can with that bound up arm of yours. Yell if you need help.”
Nathaniel rolls his eyes but gets up, walking over to his wardrobe and using his foot as a hook to yank it open. He studies his clothes. Since when did he own so many button up shirts?
Rolling his eyes, he fights with basically all of the clothes he tries to put on and winds up twenty minutes later wearing a simple pair of trousers, a shirt and a jacket, and a massive chip on his shoulder that only he can see. He has a similar battle with pulling on his one and only pair of half decent trainers (as it turns out, trying to do up shoelaces with only one hand is a whole new circle of Hell) before Alix takes pity on him and helps him put them on.
“You know what I’ve been thinking recently?” he tells them matter-of-factly, waiting for them to glance up questioningly before he answers. “I shouldn’t have punched that mirror.”
Alix rolls their eyes so hard, Nathaniel is convinced they’re going to pop right out of the sockets. “You’re only just realising that?”
They’re smiling though.
“Yes,” Nathaniel replies, equally as solemnly as before. “Wasn’t one of my best moments.”
Alix rolls their eyes again but doesn’t seem to have a reply this time, simply yanking a knot in place before standing up. “You could say that again. Now go enjoy your date. Tell me how it goes.”
“It’s not a-” Accepting defeat, Nathaniel cuts himself off with a small, slightly despondent grumble. “Okay. I will.”
_____
Nathaniel feels like his blood is on fire as he walks into the bakery, and he has to force himself to take several deep breaths before he starts looking around.
Jesus Christ, Nath, he thinks to himself. It’s not an actual date, despite what Alix says. Get it together.
So why does his heart keep freaking pounding?
As he scans the area, his eyes eventually fall upon a person sitting alone in the furthest corner at the back, staring directly at him. Yep. That’s Marc alright, if the mop of dark hair and stupid jumper (a different one this time but no less odd-looking, like he’d just grabbed the first thing he could find from a bargain sale with no regards for what it actually looked like) says anything. He also feels that familiar shiver, the murmur in his brain informing him that something is very wrong here.
Definitely Marc.
He winds his way through the tables, eventually dropping down into the seat opposite the other man. “Hi.”
“Hi. Hi!” Marc grins, leaning slightly forward across the table - and instinctively, Nathaniel finds himself recoiling into the back of his chair. Marc’s eyes - still as strange and off putting as ever, two pools of darkness that don’t seem to be reflecting any of the natural light from the window or even the light from the lampshade above - flash with something like embarrassment before he sits back in his chair. “How have you been?”
Nathaniel shrugs. He really, really doesn’t like small talk. “I’ve been doing alright. You?”
“I’ve been alright. Just living my life, you know? Hanging out with the seals, shopping, writing…”
Nathaniel nods in response, not really sure what else he’s meant to say to that. “Hanging out with the seals?” he asks after a few seconds.
Something like panic flickers briefly over Marc’s face before it quickly vanishes. “Oh, you know - when they swim up to shore. There’s a specific area down by the cliffside that they sleep in sometimes.”
Now Nathaniel is even more confused. He knows the area that Marc is referring to - it’s a little cove of rocks and sand long eroded into the side of the cliffs, and it is relatively common to see small groups of seals napping there. “You can’t get to that part of the cliff. It’s off limits to the general public.”
Marc blinks, and Nathaniel swears he can almost hear the gears in his head turning. “Then I’m doing it illegally,” he says simply.
Nathaniel stares at him for what feels like ages. Marc doesn’t say anything else.
What the fuck?
Eventually (and mostly just to cut through the silence more than anything,) Nathaniel clears his throat. “So - tell me about yourself a bit. I don’t really know you, after all.”
Marc hums, tapping his nails against the tabletop thoughtfully. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. I don’t care.”
“Well,” Marc says slowly, tilting his head to the side slightly as if considering his words. “I’m currently twenty-one years old, I’m intersex, I have a journal I like to write in and I live with someone named Zoe. Is that enough?”
“Did you go to university at all?” Nathaniel asks, trying to keep the conversation going. He’d rather not be stuck in a spot of awkward silence again, thank you very much. “No judgement if you didn’t and all. Just curious.”
“University?” Marc echoes, and from the way he says it Nathaniel gets the feeling that it’s his first time ever hearing the word. “Oh - no. No, I didn't have time for it.”
“That makes two of us that didn’t go to it.” Nathaniel grins, but even to him it feels strained. “How long have you been living with Zoe?”
“About a week and a half? Not sure.” Marc shrugs. “I was trying to find somewhere to stay and she found me. I don’t think she really understood half of what I was saying though. But she’s kind, so…”
Nathaniel nods like he understands. “Do you want to order anything now?” he asks, mostly just to avoid an awkward lull in the conversation.
Marc nods. “Sure. You’ll have to pay though, I don’t have money. At all.”
Nathaniel resists the urge to roll his eyes. Somehow that doesn’t surprise him in the least. Largely because he’s still not entirely convinced that Marc is a real person. For all he knows, the man sitting across from him could be a figment of his imagination and he’s looking really stupid to the other people in the bakery right now and talking to thin air. “What do you want?” he asks, waving the menu at him, which Marc takes.
The person hums, placing it down on the table to stare at it - which Nathaniel finds a bit odd in itself, but that’s beside the point - before pushing it back across a few seconds later (way too fast for him to have actually read the thing.) “You choose, I can’t. I’m fine with whatever.”
Nathaniel rolls his eyes but takes the menu back anyway, trying not to panic about the fact that he’s now expected to choose for two people, not just himself (and half the time, he can’t even choose for himself when it comes to ordering food, more often than not just waiting for Alix to suggest something that sounds vaguely appealing to him for him to decide on.) He scans the list of treats in front of him, eventually settling for one that sounds the least offensive - two slices of victoria sponge accompanied by a simple tea set. He picks the menu up to show Marc. “Is this alright?”
Marc blinks, and Nathaniel realises that while he’d been looking at the menu, the other man had been staring past him at a spot over his shoulder. Instinctively Nathaniel turns around as well to try and see what Marc had been looking at, simply being met by the very normal sight of an elderly woman talking to a dark haired waitress. He turns his attention back to Marc.
“Sounds good,” Marc is saying, tapping the menu with a finger. “What were you looking at?”
There’s a seagull outside. Nathaniel watches it try to drag a discarded crisps packet across the pavement before answering. “You tell me, I was trying to figure out what you were looking at.”
Marc shrugs casually, tapping his fingers against the wooden surface of the table. Nathaniel notices a large scar that cuts across the back of his hand. He also realises that Marc’s fingernails look unusually… sharp, for lack of a better word. “Oh, you know. Just staring into space. You were doing it with that seagull just now, right? I was doing the same.”
“You were looking at people.”
“Nope.”
“You were.”
The waitress comes over then, so Nathaniel takes a deep breath to steady himself before he orders. “Just - just the simple tea set, please. With two slices of Victoria sponge.” He mentally curses himself out a bit for stuttering, but the waitress doesn’t seem to notice or mind. She simply smiles, nods, writes down their order and walks away. Nathaniel turns his attention back to Marc and once again very clearly sees him staring across the bakery again, this time looking at a man hunched over a slice of cake.
“You’re doing it again,” he notes. Marc blinks, glancing back over at him.
“Doing what?”
Nathaniel opens his mouth. Closes it again. Takes a deep breath. “People watching.”
“I’m staring into space.”
“You’re not-” Nathaniel hears his voice begin to rise and cuts himself off, taking another, slightly more strained, deep breath. “Look. I’m not judging you or anything. I’m just confused. So… why?”
For a second, he thinks Marc isn’t going to reply. The other person’s face has gone carefully blank, like he isn’t sure how to reply.
Then he sighs. “I just like seeing how people work,” Marc admits after a minute. “I was, uh… very isolated growing up. Very. So I’m just trying to figure out how to be normal, kind of.”
Nathaniel blinks.
Marc’s explanation makes sense for the most part - it certainly explains most of his weirdness, at least. Though that doesn’t entirely explain some things, the most prominent being the fact that Marc apparently had no clue how a goddamn stop sign worked. Surely even the most isolated of people would know their way around one of them, right? Apparently not.
“You must have been very isolated then,” Nathaniel remarks, inwardly cringing at how accusatory he sounds.
Marc, thankfully, doesn’t seem too offended by his words. “I was,” he simply replies.
It’s then that the waitress comes back carrying the tray of cakes and tea, and Nathaniel watches wordlessly as Marc takes one of the plates and pulls it towards him. He does the same but doesn’t eat, simply picking up a fork and poking at it. Admittedly he’s never been that much of a cake person - or just one for sweet treats in general. Alix thinks he’s insane for it.
He gets the distinct feeling of being watched again, and he knows what he’s going to see even before he raises his head. Marc is watching the hand holding the fork, and Nathaniel watches in mild bewilderment as Marc picks up his fork in a way that’s distinctly similar, almost a mirror copy to how he’s holding his.
This time, he can’t keep his thoughts in check. “Are you even real?”
Marc stares back at him. “Huh?”
Nathaniel gestures aimlessly towards the plate, then him, then the tray. “No offense, but how do you not even know how to hold a fork- are you even human?”
Marc stands up abruptly, staring a hole into some far off area of the bakery. “I have to go,” he says shortly. “Nice talking to you, I just remembered - I need to be somewhere. Sorry.”
Nathaniel stares after him in confusion as Marc hastily exits the bakery, almost walking straight into the doorframe in his haste to yank the door open and hurry out into the street. Then as he passes by the big window, Nathaniel has to bite the inside of his cheek hard to prevent himself from snorting out loud as Marc collides with a lamp post. Then he’s gone.
Nathaniel glances down at the untouched plates of cake in front of him, then pulls out his phone to text Alix.
Hey, he types. Marc left all of a sudden. Said he had somewhere to be. Got a plate of cake with your name on if you want.
Alix’s reply is swift and expected.
Be there in 5. Make sure to tell me what happened!!
Nathaniel rolls his eyes with a smile, leaning back into his chair. His mind is still reeling slightly, trying to figure out what the heck the last two minutes had been about.
If there’s any conclusion he’s drawn from the whole thing, it’s that Marc is a very strange person. But a weirdly alluring one all the same.