sorry for the slow output of requests, trying my best to catch up with all of my fics rn :)
• steven hears marc admit that they're unwell and wants answers as to what that means. maybe he won't like what marc has to tell him•
for lucy <3
comment as you go !!
As startling of a reality as it was, Steven had accepted the fact that his body was not entirely his own; that didn't mean he was ok with living through reflections, watching Marc puppet them through situations Steven had only ever seen in movies and denying him any claim on the body.
But he sooner would have lived the rest of his life imprisoned in his mind than experience Khonshu's invasive possession.
Being inside The Great Pyramid of Giza had been one of the most amazing experiences of his life, seeing his books come to life in a way no one else had been privileged enough to live through.
And then Khonshu had taken control like a cold grasp that even Steven could feel in the depths of their headspace, watching in stupified terror as Marc flashed in and out of the emptiness he was trapped in, feeling his alter's tears stain his face as the gods stared at all three of them as if they were nothing but worms; just as Khonshu had berated him only a few days earlier.
The parasitic presence of Khonshu in his body was awful but it was manageable, hearing Harrow rip him and his fragile mind to shreds had been unwelcome but familiar but when Khonshu pulled away and let Marc fully into the forefront, it crushed Steven.
"I am unwell, I need help."
It hurt more hearing it come from his Marc than it had ever hurt coming from other people because Steven knew it was true, no matter how hard he tried to bury it with shaky smiles and an ankle restraint, hearing Marc confirm it left Steven with nothing but the rubble of a wannabe life that built around him and encased him even further in his sick mind.
Marc had admitted to a room full of gods that he was unwell, what did that make Steven?
He spent the rest of the trial quiet, buried in his head as he hid from any reflective surface offered in the pyramid whose wonder did nothing to sate Steven as it had earlier.
He was grasping at fistfuls of sand trying to hold himself together with what little pieces he'd been given, realising with every grain that slipped through his fingers just how much of himself was missing.
He called his mother every morning but the longer he thought he couldn't picture the woman's face or her name outside of 'mum',
The same applied to his father, wherever the man was, whoever the man was.
His childhood was a blurry mess, his school experience being as generic as butter on bread with nothing telling to suggest any of his cluttered memories were really his.
Was anything he remembered his or had he stolen it without realising from watching life unfurl around him in the bustling heart of London?
Steven didn't dare to poke his head out of headspace until he knew they were far away from the council of gods, finding himself back in the hotel room Marc had embarrassingly gotten blackout drunk in when they first arrived in Cairo.
His view was still skewed from the mirror Marc had shattered with his bare fist and he could see Marc back in his familiar position, sitting on the floor supported by the bed frame as he clutched his damp and matted hair in his hand.
"Did you mean it?" Steven asked quietly, not bothering to announce his presence to the other man. Marc never spared him that luxury. "That we're unwell?"
Marc didn't jump, in fact, he didn't seem at all bothered by Steven's sudden reappearance as he dragged his eyes to the cracked mirror, gaze unfocused and dreary as he hummed in question.
"What are you talking about, Steven?" He asked. "I need to get ready to find that sarcophagus before Khonshu gets pissed."
"What you said in the trial," Steven asked again with a little more context, ignoring Marc's blunt and choppy response. "You said we were unwell."
Marc didn't reply instantly, drawing a deep breath and holding it deep in his chest as Steven patiently waited for the man to respond but as the seconds ticked by in silence, he doubted Marc planned to tell him anything at all.
"Don't ignore me."
"Steven," Marc hissed in warning, eyes screwed shut as his hand fell away from his hair, thudding on the floor of the hotel room as he glared at the mirror. "I was just telling them what they wanted to hear, ok, we're not unwell, you're fine."
"Well I don't feel fine," Steven whispered. "I'm not stupid, Marc, alright? So stop lying, what's wrong with us?"
"Nothing, Steven. For your sake, absolutely nothing," Marc spat and his words rushed straight to Steven's head, sinking into the depths of confusion and enlightening every missing chunk in his psyche.
"I'm not some kid," Steven huffed, holding himself in the cold confines of the mirror, feeling the head scape slowly close in on him as movement became harder. "You don't have to lie to me about this stuff."
"I'm just trying to protect you," Marc sighed, giving another look at Steven's cracked face in the mirror before turning away from the mirror again.
"I don't need protecting, Marc," Steven said sourly, hating how nothing added up, hating how Marc's dismissal stung, hating that Harrow had managed to so easily worm his way into his mind and leave him fumbling for sanity. "I want the truth, I'm sick and tired of people telling me that I'm not alone and that I'm strong and not broken because I know it's a load of balls."
"You're not broken, Steven," Marc said softly, like those words burned in a similar place to how they did in Steven.
"Yeah? Then why do I feel like half a person? So much of me just isn't there, Marc and I know you know where it is. You can't sit there and tell me we're not unwell when I don't even feel like a damn human being!" Steven snapped, the words catching as a miserable sob in his throat as he chased Marc's eyes through his cracked worldview.
"You're as much of a human as anyone else in the world," maybe Marc was trying to be reassuring but his short responses were doing nothing to soothe Steven's crumbling resolve as his darkened thoughts swelled and threatened to eat him alive. "And you're one of the best people there are, Steven, you're more of a person than I could ever hope to be."
"Then why won't you treat me like one?"
This time his accusation succeeded in leaving Marc stunned, the man's mind visibly coming to a halt via his rigid posture as he listened to Steven's poisoned claim, something harsh coating his faraway gaze as he dragged his eyes back to the mirror as Steven shook with anger and frustration.
He was just so scared. Any semblance of normality he had in his mundane life between his sleepwalking and memory gaps had been ripped out from under his already unsteady feet, the glaringly obvious gaps in the lie he had submerged himself in presenting themselves like twisted trophies to prove just how gullible Steven had been in a so obviously fake life.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Marc eventually decided. "You were never supposed to see any of this shit so just go back to sleep and let me deal with it, yeah?"
"No," Steven stood firm. "No, you don't get to just brush me aside like that anymore. You're so insistent that this is our body so tell me what's wrong with us, why are we unwell?"
"Shut the fuck up, Steven," Marc barked and to his shock Steven found himself wanting to comply, terrified of just how angry Marc could get with a bloodthirsty god backing him. "It's none of your business."
"Who the bloody hell do you think you are to decide that?" Steven whispered harshly, shaking his head as he edged as close to Marc as the reflection would let him, face almost pressed against the glass as his trembling hands clenched into tight fists.
"I'm me, that's who," Marc answered cryptically, shuffling on his knees to get equally as close to the mirror, jamming his cracked and dry finger into the shattered glass right where Steven's chest would theoretically be. "I'm the only one of us who was ever fucking born, I'm the one that mom and dad actually loved and talked to before you came along! You were never anything more than an imaginary friend for me, Steven, I came up with you from some character in a movie that Uncle-fucking-Perlman made me watch once before the bastard-" Marc didn't finish his sentence.
Steven was thankful for that small blessing, tears filling his softening eyes as he backed away from the mirror even less of the person he was before approaching it; if he was ever a person in the first place...
An imaginary friend? That's what Marc had reduced him but even that didn't fit the gaping puzzle pieces in Steven's mind.
He had a life, he knows he had a life before Marc so rudely disrupted it. He'd cared for Gus and he had a job in the gift shop and he ate his dinner with Crawley every night at the fountain. He had puppeted the body just as Marc was currently and he knew an imaginary friend couldn't do something like that.
"It's called DID, Steven," Marc continued speaking after a few painful minutes of reflection but Steven could hardly bring himself to listen. "Me and you, we have DID."
"I thought I was just your imaginary friend," Steven grumbled, gaze distant as his tears burned against his cheeks as he let the cold of the headspace consume him that little bit more.
"It's a little more complicated than that," Marc was treading dangerous territory now and it was clear he knew that from his carefully selected words and low tone like he was trying not to startle a wild animal.
"Everything's always a little more complicated with you," Steven said dryly, quickly wiping his eyes with his sleeve whilst not bothering to meet the other's eyes through the cracked glass.
It was dehumanising.
"I can't tell you everything, Steven, but I can tell you this condition we have, it's to keep us safe and the reason you can't remember anything is why we're alive, it's my job to carry the heavy shit so you can live a normal functioning life, so just let me do it," Marc said it as a matter-of-fact but Steven could tell the man was growing desperate, clutching at straws just as Steven had fumbled after the grains of runaway sand.
"Some life you're letting me live, innit," Steven muttered, sarcasm thick and pointed and he finally dared to look back up into the hotel room, seeing the regret staining Marc's face and the frustration glinting behind his similarly tear-filled eyes.
"I'm trying my best, bud, but it's like I said, I'm unwell, it's hard," Marc admitted, lips pulled into a frown as his eyes cried out for a lifeline, burning with something akin to hope as he held his gaze steady with Steven's who didn't know how to feel.
"I'm not your bloody 'bud'," he huffed, hugging himself tightly with what little mobility he had. "I get what you're going through, right, cause believe it or not I'm in your blooming head just like you're in mine and I could have helped if you'd let me."
"Could have?" Marc uneasily pointed out the past tense.
"You don't deserve it anymore, you don't get to say you're trying your best when you run away from every hand offered to you," Steven snapped. "You're damn right, Marc, you're unwell and not one person wants to help you get better anymore."
"Steven-" Marc pushed, fingers trembling as he reached for the mirror with guilt licking at his features. "Please just listen to me."
"I'm done listening," Steven said proudly, jutting his chin as he let his arms drop dramatically away from his chest. "I'm done with you and all."
"For not wanting to be treated like a child you're sure acting like one," Marc pointed out, any remorse Steven had seen in him fading into his sourness. "You've lived your whole life wrapped up in a bubble and you're gonna complain that I'm trying to keep you as cushioned as I can?"
And Steven wanted to retort but Marc didn't offer him the chance.
"You have no idea what happened to me, Steven, and for good fucking reason so leave it be and leave me the hell alone."
Steven might not have been able to fill in the cracks in his person, jamming uneven puzzle pieces into the gaps with the shreds of information Marc had let up scrawled across them in marker, he might not know what Marc had gone through and he was certainly not ready to risk his life at the mercy of a god.
But he could do as Marc asked.
And he did, letting the headspace swallow him from the confines of the mirror and leaving Marc alone in the hotel room waiting for Khonshu's next instructions, broken and unwell.
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