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In the reflection, Jake Lockley’s arms were crossed, and he was scowling. In the mirror next to him, Steven was just looking distinctly uncomfortable.
Marc sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. This wasn’t going to be easy. He hadn’t expected it would be, of course, but…
“It’s a bit like a conference room, innit?” Steven said, sounding strangely hopeful despite the way he still hovered over his own body as though protecting it. “Pretty nice of Layla to find these mirrors. Makes all this a bit easier, yeah?”
The full-length mirrors were, indeed, helpful. Right now, they were leaning against the wall opposite the fish tank, and Layla had gone to give them privacy to sort some of their shit out. So far, all they’d really done was glower at one another disapprovingly.
Well, Marc and Jake glowered.
“You—” Marc began, only to shake his head again. God, where the hell was he supposed to begin?
“Me,” said Jake. The smooth, New Yorker drawl was somehow unnerving, if only because it was unfamiliar on Marc’s tongue.
Marc didn't know where to begin. He didn't want to begin, really: he felt like he’d finally sorted something out with Steven, figured out a way to coexist cohesively and be both aware of each other and, ultimately, content with their cohabitation. Marc knew Steven, had known him for his whole life, remembered the moment Steven came to being and protected him. Marc knew Steven was nothing if not a good man.
“Me as well,” Steven chirped. The joke fell flat, and Steven released a pitiful, “Ha…” before scratching behind his ear. “Well, this talk has been lovely. How about, well, we introduce ourselves, yeah? Say something about ourselves like a fun fact the others might not know.”
There probably wasn’t much Marc didn't know about Steven.
“I’ll go first,” Steven continued, undeterred even as Jake rolled his eyes and Marc set his jaw. “I, well… hm. Well, my favorite type of fish isn’t actually the red oranda goldfish, even if they’ve grown on me. In fact, I’d actually always wanted a cat, but the bloke in the fish tank looked so lonely I couldn’t help but take a liking to him.”
“Because you were also lonely?” asked Jake.
Steven winced. “Now, that’s not terribly polite. But yeah. Kinda. Plus, Gus only had one fin. Special, that, and I knew I could take good care of ‘im.”
Marc closed his eyes. Steven probably was the best fish dad in the world; it was just that he came with the baggage that was Marc, which also meant killing fish by accident.
“Oh, no worries, mate! Gus lives on long in memory, and that’s what matters, yeah?”
“So what is your favorite type of fish?” said Jake.
“Pardon?”
“You said the goldfish wasn’t your favorite fish because you wanted a cat. That’s like sayin’ you don’t like dogs ‘cos a giraffe ate your hat. They’re unrelated.”
“Oh. Well, I quite like the water leopard, but it wasn’t really sustainable to get a tank all set up for one of those guys ‘round here.”
“No offense, Steven,” said Marc, “but I’m not sure talking about fish is gonna make us suddenly more trusting of each other.”
“You mean, make you two more trusting of me,” said Jake.
It was fair enough; that much, Marc could say. He met Jake’s eyes and said, “Exactly.”
Jake reared back and scoffed.
Steven wrung out his hands. “It’s not that simple, right, Marc? It’s not—well, it’s a learning curve. That’s how it was with us two. Hell, I thought…” Steven bit his lip. “It took me a long while to trust Marc, and that was only after we got stuff in some sort of afterlife-memory visitation ordeal. I had to learn about him, and, um. Well, I had to learn about myself, too. It’s hard, it really is. It’s still not easy now,” Steven continued, finally letting his hands drop, “but it’s so much better. And living like this, sharing a bloody head and body? That’s not going away, so we have to figure this out somehow.”
Jake looked surprisingly put-out, facing away, eyes flicking over everything in sight. “I told you my name, didn't I?” he said. “And it ain’t my fault you two went through a whole memory trip together, especially since you left me in the fuckin’ sarcophagus.”
“I woke up in one, too,” Steven said, apparently not realizing this was the opposite of helpful.
“Great. We both woke up in fuckin’ sarcophaguses—”
“Sarcophagi.”
“—whatever, but you got out, and I sure as hell doubt you managed that by yourself.”
Steven hummed. “Well, no. But Marc already knew about me. We couldn’t bloody well expect someone else to be trapped when we thought we were the only two in the body, yeah?”
But they had suspected something. Back in Cairo when they’d both blacked out, Marc had thought… he didn't think it was someone else, not really, but he’d known something was wrong, and then they’d seen and heard that other sarcophagus getting banged about, and they’d walked away.
Marc just kept making choice after choice, and so many of them kept backfiring.
“Sure,” said Jake. “I get it. But it’s not like I could completely control that, either.”
“You consistently pretended to be us two,” said Marc.
“And what’s wrong with that? I couldn’t exactly talk to you two until recently, so what the fuck else was I supposed to do? Put another fuckin’ ID out there with our face but my name, as if it ain’t already suspicious we had two?”
“Oh. He makes a good point, Marc.”
Marc sighed. “I just don’t understand how you could’ve been around without me noticing. I’ve known about Steven the whole time. What makes you different?”
“Steven was the one living a happy ignorant life, and you knowing about him probably made you feel like you had a decent fucking purpose in the world tryin’ to keep it that way for him. He’s sunshine and fucking butterflies, and loathe as you may be to admit it, Marc, that comforted you for your whole fuckin’ life.”
He didn’t loathe to admit it. Marc—he’d told Steven that he was the best of them. Steven was their good, Marc’s protector from the shit the world tried to spiral onto him. “I’ve never denied that,” said Marc.
“Well, my life wasn’t always just sunshine and butterflies,” Steven said, “sometimes not even close, but I’m sure we get your point.”
“The point is, Steven didn't know about you, Marc, and that in itself can be seen as fucking ridiculous, but the mind does what the mind does and convinces itself it knows everything. There’s always an explanation. Right, Steven?”
“I suppose so.”
Marc shook his head. “That still doesn’t make sense. I never thought I had a sleep disorder.”
“Yeah, but you did have missing time and someone else you could blame it on,” Jake rebuked, “and the stuff from before Steven—we were young enough that neither of us woulda noticed somethin’ was off.”
Marc blinked. Looked at Steven. Steven, strangely, didn't seem at all surprised by this bit of information, but he did look contemplative and stressed. Not unusual. “Before Steven?” said Marc. “What the hell does that mean?”
Jake uncrossed his arms and settled back on his heels. “You’re welcome, I gave you even more information about myself. Happy fuckin’ birthday, Marc.”
“It’s not possible for there to have been a before-Steven,” Marc said, and Steven made some sort of noise suggesting he wanted to interrupt. Thankfully, he didn't. “Steven came around because of what happened to our brother and what our mom did. The only other thing that could possibly compare would be the fucking military, and you’re saying—”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Jake’s tone was dry, oddly impassive in a way that made him sound a bit closer to Marc.
Marc looked at Steven.
Steven shrugged. “Then can you try explaining a bit of it to us?”
“No," said Jake.
“... No?”
“This,” Marc growled, “this is why we can’t trust you. You aren’t even trying to make us understand, and every chance you get, you’re throwing digs and being an asshole. You are giving us literally every reason to not trust you, and then you’re going around acting all hurt that that’s how we feel when you are the one causing that! You can’t just say you’re not a bad guy and expect us to believe you point-blank.”
“I saved you two!”
“You saved yourself!”
“If I wanted to, I could have gone on back to Earth and left you two shits in the Reeds and the Duat, but I made my choice. I brought you two out of there. Sure, when I’m saving your asses on Earth, I’m also coverin’ my own, but that doesn’t mean everything I’m doing is just—fuckin’—selfish.”
“Then why aren’t you telling us about your past—our past?”
“Because that’s my fucking burden to bear! My memories, my memories aren't meant for you, and I...” He shook his head. Jake was breathing heavily, eyes wide, hands balled into fists much like Marc’s own.
“Alright, uh, how about we try and cool our jets a bit, yeah?” Steven said. He was looking between Marc and Jake best he could with how the mirrors were angled and, briefly, Marc felt Steven tap against his mind, likely meant to be comforting. Instead, Marc used that moment of contact to leave Steven falling into their body, allowing Mark to settle in the reflection.
Steven blinked several times, stumbled, and adjusted their shirt collar. “Oh,” he said. He looked at Marc. He looked at Jake. “You two blokes are making this difficult,” he said plaintively.
Both the mirrors were twins of each other, those cheap ones college kids would normally get for their dorm rooms; long, thin, and a weak plastic at the edges. Steven belatedly realized Marc had given him the body because he’d been about to punch in the mirror, so, ah, applause for self-control and restraint. Cheers, Marc. Steven would’ve hated to phone Layla and tell her that, not even twenty minutes into their talk, they’d lost a mirror due to a tragic and unforeseen incident.
Suddenly, Jake was dropping to the floor, giving Steven a brief sense of vertigo he promptly brushed away. “Look,” said Jake, “I’m not being stingy on purpose, okay?”
“Well, you kind of are,” Steven said, pitching his voice in a way that he hoped wasn’t accusing, “given you’re the one in control of whatever you say, yeah?”
“Fine,” Jake growled. “I’m doing it on purpose, but I’m not doing it for no reason. Marc has his shit that he remembers, Steven has his, and I have mine. There’s a reason each of us exists. If there wasn’t…” He sighed, his head toppling back as he looked to the ceiling. “If I told you everything… it’s not s’posed to be like that. If you two could handle it, I wouldn’t’ve been made. But you can’t, so I’m here, and I’m keepin’ it from you two because that’s what I was made to do. Just like how I’m sure you two have some shit kept from me. It’s just better this way.”
Steven looked at the fishes in the reflections of the mirrors, each swimming peacefully and obliviously.
Maybe he had a point. Steven knew now, roughly, what their mum had done, what she was really like. But Marc had taken him away before he could get the worst of it. Maybe Steven would’ve coped, maybe he could have handled it, but Marc had made sure he didn't have to. Because, well, maybe Steven couldn’t handle it.
It seemed almost absurd that the same couldn’t be said for Marc. The man was a damn bull, mustering through anything. Sure, he had emotional shortcomings, the attempted divorce to Layla being the most stellar proof of that, but, well. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses.
As best as Steven could, he bundled up his thought process and tried to share it to the ether in his mind where Marc was tucked away. He knew it must have been perhaps slightly effective when Marc’s shoulders dropped, and his eyebrows flicked downwards, thinking.
Jake wasn’t looking at either of them, head still tilted up.
It was quiet for a while, and Steven shuffled his feet, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Just when he was about to break the silence with words that he hadn’t yet prepared, Marc said, “Fine.”
Jake’s eyes slid in the direction of the other mirror. “Fine?”
“Fine,” Marc repeated. “I get it. I won’t push as hard. Can you just give me a rough age range to work with?”
“I don’t know. Forever? I’ve always been around in some capacity. But I think I got my name when we were ‘round four years old.”
“What kind of four-year-old picks a name like Jake Lockley?” Steven blurted, and then he just as quickly added, “Wait, sorry, I didn't mean that—”
“Yeah, sure you didn't, Steven Grant. ‘Sides, it was just Jake then.”
“Okay, yeah, fair enough,” said Steven. “Well, um. Glad that’s settled. Kinda.”
Marc hummed in a way Steven realized was acquiescence. Well, that had to be good enough.
“Right,” said Jake in what was very clearly Steven’s accent, “cheers to that, mate.”
“Oy, bugger off,” said Steven, but he was smiling, and when he looked to Marc in the mirror, he was grinning, too.
Not too shabby. Not too shabby, indeed.