Jake Plays Minecraft, Marc's a Wine Mom, and Frenchie & Layla Meet a Serial Killer
The first thing Jake registered was the helicopter.
He had noticed the bodies. Hard not to. But he registered the helicopter first. The air smelled awful, an acrid tinge of gunpowder blowing in on the hot desert air, and the rifle in his hands was still warm. He looked it over carefully before slinging it over his back, looking up and shading his eyes as the helicopter circled overhead. Did it notice him? Did he want it to notice him?
Jake decided that he definitely wanted it to notice him. It didn’t look like an attack helicopter, and best case scenario he had a ride out of this desert. Worst case scenario, he got to gank a guy and steal his helicopter. No losses. Just like in Grand Theft Auto!
Don't want to spoil the premise of this one too much. It's one of those weird pieces where it's a comedy from the POV and a horror from everybody else's. Check it out.
Long time readers are gonna make fun of me for this one.
Short 15k thing under the cut.
The first thing Jake registered was the helicopter.
He had noticed the bodies. Hard not to. But he registered the helicopter first. The air smelled awful, an acrid tinge of gunpowder blowing in on the hot desert air, and the rifle in his hands was still warm. He looked it over carefully before slinging it over his back, looking up and shading his eyes as the helicopter circled overhead. Did it notice him? Did he want it to notice him?
Jake decided that he definitely wanted it to notice him. It didn’t look like an attack helicopter, and best case scenario he had a ride out of this desert. Worst case scenario, he got to gank a guy and steal his helicopter. No losses. Just like in Grand Theft Auto!
He waved helpfully at the helicopter, realizing too late that he still had a combat knife clenched in his fist. It stank of blood. The helicopter began descending weirdly quickly, but Jake ignored it and looked at his knife. He could have sworn he was holding a different combat knife the last time he fronted. Boy, Marc just went through those combat knives. Come to think of it, he had banged that knife against a lot of rocks and guns…had he trashed it? Ugh. More ammunition for Marc’s nagging about cleaning up after himself.
The helicopter’s beating rattle set Jake’s teeth on edge, and he only barely remembered to re-holster his knife before clapping his hands over his ears. He backed up a few steps, sacrificing his precious hearing to hold an elbow over his mouth to keep the awful sand out, and squinted through the pain as a door of the helicopter opened. The pilot had clearly made an effort not to land on any of the corpses, but he hadn’t been quite successful - one of the runners had hit a leg, half-bisecting it. Gross and cool. Like a lot of Jake’s life.
The pilot mouthed a word, gesturing Jake into the helicopter. He was some gringo, so Jake had to assume they were basically on the same side. That was super lucky - he would have hated to walk home all by himself. Stealing a helicopter would have been fun, but he didn’t strictly know how to pilot one, so the gringo was probably for the best. He waved back, grinning brightly, and picked his way across the field of bodies until he dived into the helicopter. The gringo pushed him into the passenger seat, yelling something over the roar of the helicopter, and Jake ignored him as he scrambled into the seat. The pilot pulled back in, closing the door and looking a little green, and Jake craned his head around the helicopter with interest as they immediately took off.
The inside of the helicopter was so cool. Jake wanted to press every button. He knew he shouldn’t - Marc had been super clear about even distracting him when he was driving or operating military equipment - but he wanted to press the buttons so bad.
The only thing cooler was the scenery. The sight of the bodies quickly disappeared behind them as the helicopter craned upwards, and Jake got to look around at the freaking beautiful sight of the sand rising and falling away into rolling seas of gold, the sky reaching down to scoop them up towards safety.
“Sit down!” The pilot called, and Jake guilty settled back down in his seat. “Christ’s sake, Marc, do your seatbelt!”
Uh. Right, seatbelt. Jake scanned his perimeter, looking desperately for that seatbelt thing. He was rattling around a bit, probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Jake found a likely suspect and managed to pull a few straps over his torso, figuring it good enough for now. The pilot reached over and flipped a few mystery switches, and the helicopter stopped climbing. Jake poked at the seat belt, convinced he had done this wrong.
“Do you need medical treatment?” The pilot asked. The noise had died down, the helicopter muffling the cacophony outside, but he still seemed really tense. He kept turning to look at Jake, before clearly forcing his attention back to the front. “Do you have a concussion? Marc, answer me.”
Jake didn’t talk to people a lot. Or really ever. He didn’t like fronting, which was one of the rare points of agreement between him and Marc. Jake only fronted when he had to square up and beat off whoever was hassling Marc, which made Marc pissy enough, and shooting goons wasn’t exactly a great way to meet people you weren’t killing in the next five seconds.
He’d had conversations! Plenty of conversations. He talked to people in Minecraft. The other guys in Basic had teased Marc for his Minecraft thing, which made Marc kick their asses. That had been kind of nice. He still felt a little bad for embarrassing Marc, though. Marc told him not to worry about it.
Talking to military pilots in a search and rescue helicopter in the Afghanistan desert…was like Minecraft, right?
“Uh,” Jake said, pretending this was Minecraft. “It’s chill. Hey, you got a great helicopter.”
“I picked it out special for you,” the pilot said, aiming for a light joke and falling like a stone. “I thought I’d have to rescue you from the cell. I can’t believe you’re alive. You’re the only confirmed survivor of your squadron.”
“Whoah, really?” That sucked. Marc was going to be upset. Maybe. Guy had never learned the name of a squadmate in his life. He was kind of face blind, which didn’t help. “Thanks for grabbing me. How’d you know I was here?”
“Your GPS tracking.” Now that Jake took a second look, he could see that the pilot was pretty freaked out. Maybe Jake was face-blind too. He looked pretty familiar. He racked his brain. There was a guy who hung out with Marc a lot…this could be him. Marc didn’t exactly hang out with a lot of people. He was kind of a nerd. “Was that all you? Was all of that you?”
“All of what?” Jake asked blankly.
The pilot waved a hand, the line of his shoulders tight and tense. “All of that.”
Oh, right. That was how Marc looked when he talked about what Jake did. “The dead dudes? Yeah. They, were, like, shooting at me, so…” Jake shrugged. “Just kinda did my thing.”
“Marc, you are speaking strangely.”
Strangely? Jake huffed. “Maybe you’re the one talking weirdly, gringo. That accent is so fake.”
The pilot flipped a few more switches before letting go of the joystick. He leaned over to a small kit underneath the console and unzipped it, taking out a small flashlight by feel alone. Unceremoniously, he leaned over and grabbed Jake’s chin, turning his head around so he could shine the light in his eyes. Jake hissed, batting him away, and the pilot retreated unhappily.
“You don’t have a concussion. Are you sure you weren’t injured?”
“Wouldn’t I know if I was injured or not?” Jake complained. “Leave me alone, man. I just killed, like, thirty guys. I don’t need you up in my face.”
The pilot stared at him. Still very up in his face. Jake scowled and busied himself looking out the window, admiring the awesome view. He had to co-con with Marc more often. He wanted to see this too. He was happy to let Marc do all of the boring stuff, but Marc had seemed a little down lately. He probably wanted more company. Watch him ever admit it, but the guy got lonely without Steven.
Finally, the pilot said, “Marc, please orient times four.”
Jake stared at him. The pilot stared back. Finally, Jake hesitantly offered, “Orient isn’t a number…”
Instantly, the pilot said, “Marc, you’re having another amnesiac episode.”
“I am not!” Jake cried, offended. It occurred to him to bluff his way out of this - whenever Jake did end up accidentally interacting with people, it was usually pretty easy to bluff his way out of the conversation as Marc and run like hell - but somehow he knew that the man would ask an annoyingly intrusive question like ‘What’s my name?’ and blow it all to hell. “And even if I were, why’s it your business? Thanks for the save, man, but -”
“Those corpses were ripped to shreds.”
Jake stopped short. The pilot had a weird look on his face that Jake couldn’t interpret. Or maybe he just didn’t want to.
He knew that Marc was friends with this man. He was probably making Marc look super bad. But what was he supposed to do? It wasn’t his fault. Jake would do all that and worse for Marc. They were just corpses. They just - you know -
Jake looked out the window, crossing his arms. His spine tingled. “Sorry for surviving. Tell me all about how I should have died later.”
“Marc -”
“Stop it with that Marc stuff!”
The pilot froze. Jake froze.
Uh oh. Abort. Abort. People weren’t supposed to find out about him. Marc and Jake didn’t agree on a lot, but they definitely agreed on that. Marc would never hear the end of it from anybody. They’d kick him out of the military. Then they would make Marc go home, and then he’d have to live with Mom and Dad -
Nope. Not happening. Jake wasn’t letting that happen to Marc. And, like, him.
“Just tired of your nagging,” Jake said instantly. He redoubled his window staring efforts. Wow, look at those dunes. “Don’t need nagging in a fake-ass accent like that.”
“Fake-ass - I grew up in Toulouse!”
“I don’t care if you have lice or not?”
“I am quite French. I am extremely French. You’re being ridiculous. Not French! Lord.” The Very, Very French Guy paused a beat. “You’re the one with the different accent all of a sudden. You’re barely Puerto Rican.”
“Puerto Rico’s a state of mind and a U.S. territory,” Jake said serenely. “Can’t we have a quiet helicopter ride over the Afghani desert?”
“We’re in Saudi Arabia,” the pilot said flatly. Okay? Desert was desert. “I admit I pry. Nasty habit, but it is the only way on Earth to get anything out of you. You had an aneurysm when I asked you for your birthday.”
“June tenth,” Jake snitched happily. “A Gemini. Hilarious, right? Isn’t that great?”
Something was encroaching very slowly over the pilot. A quiet suspicion growing louder and louder; an idea picking up steam and churning faster and faster. “Because there’s two of you.”
Uh. Uh. Shit. “No?” Quick, think of a deflection, throw him off the scene - “There’s three, but one’s been quiet since we joined up.”
Silence fell. Whoops. Jake frantically searched for Marc in his mind, finding nothing. Big Whoops. Shit. Double shit.
The pilot’s face was impassive, and he only moved to do mysterious piloting switch flipping and radar checking. Like he hadn’t said anything at all. Jake was sweating his ass off, literally and metaphorically.
But it was strange. Normally Jake would be planning how to bump this guy off to keep the secret safe or some cool super spy stuff like that. And maybe normally Jake wouldn’t have spilled the beans so quickly. But some part of Jake wanted to tell him. Jake wanted his help. He really was Marc’s friend. Who Jake totally…
Jake groaned, thumping his head back against the headrest. “Marc’s gonna kill me.”
“Feel free to blame myself,” the pilot said. Jake was already way ahead of him. “Why would he be mad at you?”
“Are you kidding?” Jake cried. “He’s always all like -” He imitated Marc’s voice, hopefully well. “ ‘You’re a secret, Jake. We’re gonna get in a ton of trouble if you get found out, Jake. Don’t embarrass me, Jake. Stop embarrassing me, Jake.’ As if he’s not majorly cringe. All he does is watch TLC reality shows and work out! Who does that! I swear he’s outsourced all of his actual personality.”
“Is that what he does for fun?” the pilot asked, clearly morbidly curious. This endeared him to Jake. He never got to snitch about Marc. “I always wondered.”
“Yeah, he wants everybody to think all he does is sit and stare at the ceiling all day. Like, he totally does, but even then we’re hanging out. He’s had no time lately. I fucking hate Special Forces. Why are all of Marc’s coworkers so dumb?” Jake paused a beat. “You’re cool, I guess. You’re friends, right? I think I saw you in a bar one time. I’m always kinda up there when Marc’s too drunk, man has no self-control.”
“I’d call us friends, yes,” the pilot said, somewhat dodging the question. “Jean-Paul Duchamp, at your service.” Zohn-Paul? Whatever. He wasn’t going to remember it. “And you’d be Jake.”
“Jake Lockley,” Jake said proudly. It was a great name. Way better than Steven’s. Come from a movie all you want, but Jake drew the line at Captain America. “It’s from the fake ID we got when Marc was fifteen so we could buy whiskey.”
“America is a ridiculous country. You were in the Special Forces before you were old enough to buy a beer.” Jean-Paul glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, eyebrow cocked. “What else do you do that Marc finds embarrassing?”
“Uh, nothing? He’s just prejudiced against me ‘cause I’m a kid. As if twenty one is so adult - yikes!”
The helicopter had jerked halfway through Jake’s sentence, and Jean-Paul frantically righted it. The badly done seatbelt gritted against Jake’s shoulder, and he scowled at it. He almost missed the wild look on Jean-Paul’s face, and when he looked back at him he was calm. If about ten times more stressed than he was two minutes ago. Was this what Marc meant by embarrassing?
“Kid?”
“I’m fifteen,” Jake said quickly, “so teenager. Not a kid, technically.” He faltered a little, suddenly more cognizant of himself. Of the awkward, too-big body. It had just been getting more and more awkward. Further and further away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Marc’s super weird about my age and he’s always making me promise not to talk about it. But you have good vibes, so I thought…”
“It’s absolutely no problem,” Jean-Paul said quickly, accent just a bit more pronounced than before. “Sincerely, do not concern yourself. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Really?” Jake asked, unreasonably pleased. Marc always made it sound as if the entire world was against them. It was, so no arguments there, but it was still nice to hear those words. He never thought he would. “I think so too. I like being fifteen. I don’t want to be any other age, so fuck Marc about it. I can do my job just fine like this.”
Jean-Paul’s eyes widened at the word ‘job’. Sadly, the military didn’t care about violating child labor laws.
“So Marc killed those men back there?” Jean-Paul asked, far too urgently. “Marc killed them and became you afterwards?”
Uh. It was always such a blur. Jake scratched his nose. “Nah. When I got control there were already a few dead bodies around. But most of them were still hassling me.”
That didn’t make Jean-Paul feel any better. Voice rising, he said, “So the intact bodies were Marc?”
Jake crossed his arms, hunching his shoulders and staring fixedly out the window. “Sorry, I guess.”
“I - no, never mind.” Jean-Paul subsided, a little bewildered. “No need to apologize. Everything is fine. I suppose it is very good to meet you, Jake. I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“This is about as good as my circumstances get,” Jake said, which made Jean-Paul look a little pained. “When are we getting back to civilization? I dunno when Marc gave the body water and my throat is killing me.”
“It’ll be a while,” Jean-Paul said quickly. “There’s a pallet of water and some MREs in the cargo space. Why don’t you go and have some? I’ll take care of things up here.”
“Are you sure?” Jake asked, already untangling his seat belt and hoisting himself off the chair. He hadn’t realized it until Jean-Paul mentioned food, but he was starving. “Awesome, thanks. You’re a cool guy, Francito.”
“Francito? I hope that is a compliment.”
“It’s like saying ‘Frenchie’, which I guess is a compliment if you’re extremely French and super proud of that.” Went unsaid: no sane person would be proud of that.
“What are the chances that you actually remember my name?” Jean-Paul asked, pained.
Jake laughed a little, holding a hand over his mouth. Jean-Paul’s eyes widened a little in surprise. Had he never heard Marc laugh before? “Pretty shit chances, man.”
But Jean-Paul just smiled - a little wrung out and left to dry, but still a smile. “If you are so incapable of learning names, then I’m certain you’d be absolutely uninterested in learning about this console.”
That got Jake’s attention. He hung off the back of his chair, eyes wide. “I’m interested! I’m, like, a Green Beret, you gotta teach me how to fly it! Safety of America’s at stake, Francito!”
“Okay, I said nothing about flying it -”
“And let the terrorists win?!”
Jake got some food and water in him, and listened attentively as Jean-Paul explained what each mysterious gadget and switch did. The guy had a massive fetish for airplanes. He had probably only joined the military (or whatever he was part of - French something) for the opportunity to fly as many fancy planes as possible. Jake didn’t blame him. It was dope as hell. Why couldn’t Marc have joined the Air Force? Not enough punching for him, probably. Meathead randomly picked the ‘badass’ branch just like everybody else did.
He hadn’t flunked out of the Marines like everyone else. Especially all the other snot-nosed eighteen year old boys stomping around to prove how tough they were. It had never been about that for Marc and Jake. They had gotten through it and done a great fucking job. Marc was recommended for Special Forces in just a few years. Marc’s superiors were already bringing him into the mission missions. The super classified ones. Somehow Jake had the sense that the mission missions were where Marc had met Jean-Paul.
Marc loved the military. It was so structured. At any given moment somebody was telling him what to do and how to behave and what to think. He fucking loved that shit. All Marc had to do was whatever somebody told him to do, and he only had to worry about doing it right. And even when he did it wrong barely anything happened.
For the first time in his life even the interpersonal stuff was easy. Marc just never said more than five words at a time. Man barely talked. He accepted every invite to every bar crawl, so he didn’t look standoffish or cold or anything - which had just been a side effect of Marc’s constant desire to be in a bar crawl - and he stayed out of everybody’s way. Nobody had any opinion on Marc and Marc had no opinion on anybody. The only thing people knew about Marc was that he was very good at hurting people.
People didn’t know anything about Jake. But they knew he was good at hurting people. Jake wasn’t sure if he liked the military or not. He had never really stopped to think about it. Liking or disliking a situation never changed the situation.
But Jake liked sitting with Jean-Paul. He liked listening to Jean-Paul go into way too much detail about the manufacturing origins of random rivets in the ceiling, and how if it was made in France it wasn’t real Imperialism, just sparkling racism. It was nice.
His name was Jean-Paul, right? He hadn’t misheard that? It wasn’t Zahn-Paul? He didn’t know French names. But it had to be too late to ask, right?
Whatever. The question dissipated in his mind, dissolving in the vast waters of his consciousness, and Jake slowly nodded off as Frenchie’s voice softened into a distant cry from far away.
***
Marc shook awake.
A warm, heavy hand was on his shoulder, and Marc shrugged it off before he even opened his eyes. He had a fuzzy, uncomfortable headache, and his mouth tasted like something died in it. Was he hungover? What -
“Jake? We’re here.”
Oh. Jean-Paul. Cool, Jake’s problem. Marc could go back to -
Marc’s eyes flew open.
Jean-Paul was standing next to him, expression inscrutable. Marc was sitting in the co-pilot chair of - what was this, a Search and Rescue helicopter? If he looked out the window he could see the extremely boring expanse of the aircraft runway around them, screams blaring in the distance as planes landed and took flight.
Marc tried to say something, but his tongue was too fuzzy and gross. His head hurt. Something smelled like dried blood, and Marc knew it was him.
“Come on, let’s go,” Jean-Paul said. “Chop chop. We are getting you out of this base and we are doing it as quickly as possible.”
Marc groaned, pushing his head up. He rubbed at his eyes, battling the hammer behind his eyes. “Jean-Paul, I have a killer headache…”
Jean-Paul froze, eyes widening. “Marc?”
Why the surprise? Who else would it -
Jake.
A tidal wave of ice washed over Marc’s body. His heart plummeted into his stomach. No. The last thing he remembered was feeling like he was about to die, fighting for his life and praying to himself. No, no, no -
“Fuck,” Marc said softly, yet with immense feeling.
“Oh, good. You’re back.” Jean-Paul smiled pleasantly at him. Something in it was unbelievably threatening. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Marc opened his mouth, then closed it. Weakly, he said, “They were shooting at me…”
“As I said. We are getting out of this base and we are doing it as quickly as possible.”
Fuck.
***
Thirty minutes later Marc sat in a peeling and moldy coffee house in the outskirts of the nearest city, staring desolately at the cup of coffee in front of him and slowly coming to terms with his fate. And crushing embarrassment.
Jean-Paul wasn’t making fun of him, so that was something. Marc would just die if Jean-Paul started making fun of him. He was so cool. He was the coolest person Marc had ever met. Criminally cool. He was ridiculous and incredibly weird, but he was cool. And he was, like, thirty. So he was an adult adult. Marc couldn’t believe that he voluntarily hung out with him. But he was also kind of a loser, so maybe he just didn’t have anybody better to hang out with. Marc sure didn’t.
The coffee house was dim, dust stinging Marc’s nostrils. The only sound was a buzzing radio playing yet another repetitive Arabic pop song, masking the sounds of clanging from the kitchen. Old men in sandals and old women in headscarves sleepily nodded over their newspaper, blinking sleep out of their eyes.
“That obnoxious sergeant of yours is going to start wondering where we are in a few hours, we don’t have much time.” Jean-Paul took a long sip of his own coffee, somehow with an air of martyr-like tolerance. It was hard to tell if it was of the coffee or of Marc. “Marc, I realize that this is likely a very sensitive topic for you.” Marc grimaced. “Of course, I am not necessarily entitled to any private health information you may have. You aren’t required to tell me anything about what just happened.”
Marc perked up. Escape? Escape from personal conversation? “Really?”
“No. What the fuck, Marc?”
Marc hunched defensively over his coffee, picking at the peeling linoleum circular table with one fingernail. “We had it handled, okay? Literally no other pilot on the base would have noticed or cared that I was acting weird.”
“Unluckily for you, I was the one who insisted on the rescue mission,” Jean-Paul said shortly, and Marc winced. “So I was the pilot who found you. It is a miracle you survived that ambush. I had little hopes for your survival.” Marc winced again. Yeah, neither had he. “And I find you in a ring of that -”
“Jake gets carried away,” Marc muttered. Boy, did he get carried away sometimes. It was a problem. One that Jake always left Marc to clean up. “He didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Carried away doing what?”
Marc drank his coffee.
Jean-Paul sighed, not so much exasperated as overwhelmed. It made guilt twist in Marc’s stomach. Jake could barely hold a conversation for five minutes, much less for hours. He had to have been a terror. “Why does a firefight make you believe you are a teenager? You need to help me understand, Marc.”
Make him believe he’s a - “Don’t be ridiculous,” Marc said shortly. “I know I’m not a teenager. Jesus, Jean-Paul. Jake’s the teenager, not me.” Jean-Paul slotted him an unimpressed look at him, as if he was being purposefully obtuse. Marc realized a few seconds later that it might seem as if he was being purposefully obtuse. “Look, man, I’m just…” Marc swallowed, mouth dry. He had chugged two bottles of water and he was still parched. Some stains never faded. “I’m just sick in the head. Okay? That what you wanted to hear?”
Jean-Paul lowered his cup, expression creasing. “Marc…”
Marc leaned back in his seat, trying hard to control his own feelings. His own guilt and shame. “I’m crazy. And I’m good at hiding it, so people don’t know. That’s it. Sorry you had to find out.” He paused a beat. “And sorry you were locked in a helicopter with Jake for hours. He’s annoying as fuck.”
“I happen to like Jake,” Jean-Paul said mildly, shocking Marc to his core. “He has his charms. As do you. The greatest charm about you, Marc, is that you are far from an ordinary person. None of this changes my opinion about you.”
Marc couldn’t help but snort. He knew it was an ugly, mean sound. Marc was an ugly and mean person. Just another one of his infinite charms.
Please. All he had going for him was a pretty face. And obviously Jean-Paul didn’t give a shit about that, so fucking mystery why he was hanging around.
“Good thing I picked out the one place where everyone pats you on the back for being good at killing things, I guess,” Marc said sourly. “My one fucking talent.”
“Good at - you were seventeen, Marc, you said you’d never shot a gun before. Why would you chase down a profession that encourages death?” Jean-Paul was sounding increasingly incredulous. Bet your opinion’s changing now, Duchamp. “What does this have to do with Jake?”
“It was the only place I fit,” Marc said. “That’s it. The only place Jake could belong. We’re just meant for stuff like this.”
Jean-Paul leaned forward, watery blue eyes sparking with intensity, but Marc only felt tears pricking at his own eyes. Marc would rather die than be like his idiot squadmates, but he was jealous of them a lot.
A couple of them were bad people. Bad like Marc was bad. Bad in a lot of ways that Marc wasn’t bad. But it didn’t bother them. They didn’t need a damn fifteen year old boy to fight their battles for them. They could do everything Marc needed Jake to do all by themselves, and they could even laugh about it later. Marc couldn’t do that. Jake could handle anything, but there was a lot of stuff that even Jake wouldn’t do. They didn’t feel this way.
But Jean-Paul didn’t hang out with them.
“Marc,” Jean-Paul said, “you have to help me understand. Why does Jake exist?”
He didn’t understand what kind of question that was. How it was a question that stuck a hand into your mouth and ripped out the worst thing you had ever done. Maybe he didn’t know mental illnesses that well. But that thought felt wrong - Jean-Paul knew everything about everything, he couldn’t not know. Maybe he was just a normal person who assumed that whatever Marc had to say couldn’t be that bad.
But Marc wanted to tell him. That was the worst part. Was he allowed to tell him? Would Jake be alright with that? He stretched back into his mind, groping around for Jake, but he couldn’t feel him. It was their usual, but it was still aggravating. Why is it that Jake could always pipe up when he wanted Marc to eat that gummy bear on the ground or sneak into that abandoned building, but when Marc would actually like his input -
Jean-Paul said that Jake confessed who he was. Maybe that was input enough.
Hesitatingly, every word forced out through a clenched throat, Marc said, “I was Jake’s age. When I was Jake’s age, something…um, happened. And Jake took care of it for me. Didn’t really get it at the time…I just kinda felt him sometimes. Wasn’t really Jake, just…this feeling. Stepping inside of me.” Marc felt his hand drift up to clench at his shirt, just over his heart. “Two years later, something…” He hadn’t intended to say it. Everything else had been hard to say. But this came out so easily. “Jake put Mama in the Urgent Care clinic. I remember - sitting in that waiting room. Thinking - I had done that. That it was me. Then I realized it wasn’t. It had been Jake. And he introduced himself.”
Steven had not been happy. Steven had been really unhappy. Everybody had been unhappy. Battered woman and a battered kid show up at an emergency care clinic and everybody’s eyes turn to Dad. Mandated reporter his ass. Where were the mandated reporters for the last eight years?
Dad had tried telling them. That was the fuck of it. The first and only time Dad had ever spoken up about it. And it all made them double down even harder on blaming Dad. Marc had hated Dad his entire goddamn life for never saying shit to anybody, but at that moment he had wondered if he had ever tried. If he had been laughed out of the office. Women must have the right to do whatever they want to their families.
They had enlisted two weeks later. Dad hadn’t stopped him.
Steven couldn’t make sense of any of it. He had been so confused, completely incapable of reconciling the way he understood the world with its reality. He fell back into his ‘knowing what the fuck was happening’ state, and at least those times usually meant Marc wasn’t alone, but now Jake was here and Steven fucking hated Jake. Steven hated him. Every time another CPS guy came to the door Steven would start yelling at Jake, who would just start yelling about how they need to kill the CPS guy too, then the CPS guy would see the fingernail marks in the wardrobe door, and Marc would start having a meltdown. So they left, and the CPS problem solved itself.
Things became very difficult with Steven, and then Steven left. Guess he couldn’t have Steven and Jake at the same time. That was just how things were.
Jean-Paul stared at him. Marc took a long drag of his coffee, hiding his face. Jean-Paul sipped his coffee too, but he didn’t look away from Marc. Marc’s neck prickled.
Finally, Jean-Paul said, “Who else have you hurt?”
Marc ducked his head, scratching at the back of his hand.
“Marc, I am deciding whether or not I should report this.” Marc’s head jumped up, heart leaping in his chest, but Frenchie didn’t change his expression. “Those bodies were shredded. If you are telling me that you cannot predict or control this -”
“He’s not random!” Marc hissed. His heart was leaping in his chest, heavy and hot. “Jake does it to protect me! He doesn’t front unless somebody’s trying to kill me, Jean-Paul, don’t blame him for that. It’s my fault, I’m the one always getting him into these stupid - it’s my fault, leave him alone!”
Jean-Paul jerked backwards, shocked, and Marc realized far too late the implications of what he said.
Well, whatever. He already knew Marc’s worst secret anyway. The bar was already on the floor. Jean-Paul was annoyingly observant, and he had understood automatically what Marc had meant. What had happened.
“Jean-Paul,” Marc said. “If you report me, I’ll have to go back there.”
Jean-Paul was lost, raging in conflict. Marc could see it. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Marc had always known this would happen. He’d been with the military for four years, and he worried about being found out every second. There were plenty of things wrong with him other than Jake. Two or three dissociative episodes at the wrong moment and he knew he’d be out on his ass. It had always been a risk.
Just didn’t think it would be fucking Jean-Paul who sold him out. Marc was a fucking idiot for trusting anybody. Watch him do that again. So stupid.
But when Jean-Paul spoke again, it was almost random. “You have been sitting here trying to convince me you are some sort of amoral killer. Jesus, Marc, I’ve had so many shocks today I would have almost believed you.”
Almost? He wasn’t - “It’s true,” Marc said harshly, throat tightening. “I keep getting into fights and Jake keeps finishing them. He destroys everybody.”
“You mean you keep having to defend yourself? Is that your sin? Why would you tell me that you attacked your mother and not mention that she tried to kill you first?” Marc ducked his head, hunching his shoulders. “In a situation like this, why would you try and make yourself sound as bad as possible?”
This was such a stupid thing to get hung up over, but that was Jean-Paul for you. “It was my fault anyway.”
“What was your fault?” Marc stayed silent. Jean-Paul was looking increasingly bewildered and three times as stressed out. “Your fault that your mother tried to kill you?”
“She wasn’t gonna,” Marc muttered. “Just felt like it…”
Marc had never told anybody about Mom before. Strictly speaking, he hadn’t actually told Jean-Paul. Wasn’t his fault Jean-Paul had added two plus two. It was unbelievably strange to talk about Mom this way with his mouth to anybody but Dad or the others. He had imagined it sometimes - a lot of times, that one year he had a History teacher who really loved Steven - but he had never quite imagined this. He was familiar with the shame, but this was just embarrassment.
Marc scratched the back of his hand, fingernail digging into the skin. “Jean-Paul, I don’t want to talk about this…”
It was only then that Jean-Paul subsided, quite potentially realizing that people didn’t really like giving play by plays of shit childhoods. He just stared at Jean-Paul instead, long and unhappy, and Marc let the shame and guilt and fear curdle in his stomach until it turned his gut sour and aching.
“Christ,” Jean-Paul said finally, as if this was any kind of decision at all. “Christ, christ, christ…”
“Are you going to report me or not?” Marc snapped. “At least let me do it myself so it looks voluntary.”
“I’m not going to report you,” Jean-Paul said empathetically, and Marc stopped short. He ran a finger through his neat hair, looking a little wild. “Nobody is going to find out about this. Nobody. Marc, does the military have a copy of your mental health records?”
“I never went to the doctor?”
“Fucking American healthcare…lucky for us, then.” ‘Us’? “Here is what we are going to do, then. Can Jake hear us?”
“He doesn’t hang out much. I can write stuff down for him later.”
“Good enough. Do you have an emergency contact?” Marc slowly shook his head. “From now on that’s me. From now on, whenever Jake fronts or even comes close to fronting, you call me. That includes another amnesia bout, Marc. Anything happens, I need you or Jake to call me, and I will come as soon as possible to sort things out.” He paused a beat, something clearly occuring to him. “Is Jake why you’re always waking up two hundred miles from camp? You said it was sleepwalking.” Marc shrugged innocently. “Fantastic. Well, please stress to Jake the severity of the situation. Can he understand the necessity of that?”
“He gets it.” Mostly. He would probably have a little more trouble with the ‘asking for help’ portion of the plan, but Marc knew he would have trouble too. “Jean-Paul, this really isn’t…”
“If you are going to end that sentence with ‘necessary’, I will dump coffee on your head.” What a great friend. “It is very dangerous to be at risk of zoning out on the field. There is a reason we send the men with uncontrollable PTSD home. And with a situation like Jake in the mix! Marc, he does not seem completely capable of understanding what he does.”
“Handy,” Marc muttered, “isn’t it.”
“I would expect so.” Jean-Paul rubbed his forehead, eyeing the cup of turgid coffee balefully. “But dangerous nonetheless. Even if he is safe in the field, he may not be safe with other people or in unfamiliar places.”
It was true. Jake had no idea when to keep walking or who to avoid. Gullible, too. He was trusted too easily. He did just fine when Marc was there, but Marc couldn’t always be there. “If you’re there it’ll be familiar,” Marc said, almost as exhausted as Jean-Paul, “so fine. We’ll call. I’ll make sure Jake calls you too.” He paused a second, almost uncertain. Jake hadn’t said it in so many words, but… “He likes you. He thinks you’re smart.”
“Oh?” Jean-Paul straightened, unreasonably pleased. Any guy with a helicopter didn’t have to work very hard to make a jock fifteen year old boy like him, Jean-Paul. “I can’t believe I won his approval before I won yours.”
Helicopter. But Marc flushed a little and took a long sip from his coffee anyway. “I never said I didn’t like you.”
“But you’ve never said you liked me!”
“I don’t say shit like that.”
“Because you don’t like anyone.”
“Because I’m a guy,” Marc stressed. “Guys aren’t like that. We just, like, know. One of these days you’re gonna have to figure out how to be a guy right, Frenchie.”
“I assure you that many people have attempted to mold me into a correct man and they have all failed quite flamboyantly.” Frenchie paused a beat. “I’m sorry. Frenchie?”
Marc, of course, got a medal over the whole thing. For valor. Surviving the death of every squadmate and beating off 30 ‘terrorists’ was apparently cool or something. Marc wasn’t certain what he had done that was so valourous, but whatever.
Only twenty one, his superiors said, and going so far.
Frenchie got kind of annoying. He was so weirdly overprotective, like some ridiculous French mother hen. Marc blamed Jake. Jake loved Frenchie. He was the only human being Jake would voluntarily stick around. When they were on different deployments and went months without seeing each other, Jake would literally make Marc call him so he could front and tell Frenchie about his video games or something. And Frenchie was stupid about him too. You had to really like a guy to let him keep calling you Francito. Or Frenchie.
Yeah. Marc went so far. He was the real pride and joy of the Special Forces. He sure did make something of himself.
“I have a bedroom,” Frenchie said, like some kind of fucking asshole. “Three! Three bedrooms in a house I barely use. We’ll get you a Green Card, it’ll be -”
“I’m not a pet, Frenchie!” Marc snapped, and the line fell silent. “I don’t need your damn pity! I’m not an invalid, I can do this on my own!”
“I truly do hate Americans,” Frenchie said, reception crackling in the shitty apartment he was going to lose in two weeks, and Marc could almost see his sneer. “You were denied VA disability, SSI, mental health treatment, and any vocational support. But you don’t need any of it, because you can do it all on your own and you are much too good for any help.”
“I’ll find a job -”
“You’ve found five and you can’t keep any of them,” Frenchie said mercilessly, and Marc winced. “You went from your parent’s home to the military and now you are twenty five with no skills but military work and no idea how to pay a bill. Your pride is admirable, Marc, but you are being stubborn. Stay with me as long as you need to and we can work something out. Shock of shocks, France even has healthcare. You can get treatment for once in your life.”
Screaming echoed from the apartment above his head, and Marc had gathered five pieces of furniture in five months, and the cabinets were empty, and -
“I’ll be fine,” Marc said. “I’m always fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Can Jake take care of himself?” Frenchie snapped, and Marc cringed. “He is still a child. You think he does not deserve a safe place to live? Any consistency? You may be able to live happily bouncing between motels, but Jake cannot. What will you do if he gets scared and hurts somebody? Marc, you aren’t thinking -”
Marc hung up on him. He didn’t throw the phone at the wall, even though he wanted to. He couldn’t afford a new phone.
Later that day, as Marc struggled to figure out how to unclog a garbage disposal, Jake pulled forward into the co-pilot’s seat. He was down too. Jake had blamed himself for the discharge. It wasn’t his fault. Well, it was, but Marc was the adult here. It was Marc’s responsibility. He was the one who fucked things up for them.
Hey, we haven’t called Frenchie in a bit. Can -
“We are not calling Frenchie,” Marc snapped. “He’s a fucking asshole and we’re done with him.”
Okay, fine, decide that for me. Great. You are definitely in charge of who I talk to. Just in case Marc had not picked up on the sarcasm, Jake felt the need to add, Asshole.
“I know I can’t take care of you,” Marc yelled, and Jake recoiled back. “I know it, I know it, I know it!”
He sat on his kitchen floor, cheap Walmart tools scattered around him and a garbage disposal half-disassembled in front of him, and cried from a deep well of pure hate. He hated garbage disposals and bills and cooking. He hated Frenchie and he hated himself and sometimes he hated Jake and Steven.
But sitting on the floor, fighting tooth and nail to figure something out that somebody should have fucking taught him, Marc hated Mom and Dad most of all. But that was nothing new.
Jake had never once listened to Marc in his life, and was so reliable about doing the opposite of what Marc said that reverse psychology almost always worked. Jake called Frenchie two days later, squinting at the DMV website and desperately trying to figure out how to obtain any of the paperwork necessary to renew their expired ID when their parents had their birth certificate.
“Are you guys fighting?” Jake asked, completely giving up and going back to reddit. “Marc’s gotta stop assuming I’m siding with him during fights. He’s, like, always wrong.”
“We’re not fighting,” Frenchie sighed. He didn’t sound mad at Jake - even when he was mad at Marc he never acted mad at Jake, which was very chill of him - but he did sound weirdly worn out. “I’m just disagreeing with some of his decisions and he is being very stubborn about it.”
“So the usual?” Jake clicked aimlessly around the site, but his heart really wasn’t in it. They would probably end up spending the night watching TV again. Marc mostly just watched TV. Jake was stuck cleaning the body and apartment and all that. And job hunting, but fuck him if he knew how that worked. He was watching YouTube videos on it. YouTube knew everything. “I don’t know, Frenchie. He’s really stressed out. And…like, I dunno. I have to brush the teeth. I don’t mind, but…” Jake faltered. The entire situation made his gut twist strangely. They were uncomfortable on a primal level - never quite at rest, never quite secure. “We’re losing the apartment, and I don’t really know where we’re going to live…”
“Jesus Christ,” Frenchie said.
Two weeks later, as Marc dumped his backpack of possessions in a new motel room, Frenchie called Marc again.
“I have a job for you,” Frenchie said, in what may have been his version of an apology. God, had Jake called him? Jake always broke the picket line. “And you’ll be able to keep this one no problem.”
“Steven’s not going to accidentally take me for any walks?” Marc asked unhappily. It wasn’t Steven’s fault - he couldn’t talk with either of them, never even knew where he was - but…
“It’ll be no issue,” Frenchie assured him. “You know how I’ve been running some jobs here and there after I quit my work with the French Special Ops?”
“Yeah? You haven’t said shit about it.”
“They’re classified,” Frenchie said. Marc would later learn this meant illegal. “But they are a great deal of fun. You’ll have a blast. And I’ll be there, so you won’t be up to any trouble.”
“Fine, fine. Stop it with the hard sell.” As if he had a fucking choice. Damn it. “What’s the job?”
“You know your old CO Bushman?”
Not as well as he thought he did.
It wasn’t a better environment for Jake, but it was the only one that Marc could give him. He was happy with it, anyway. He got antsy without a good fight. Frenchie frequently pointed this out whenever Marc half-heartedly vocalized wanting to quit. Jake was happy, their bank account was very happy, the life was unbelievably fun and exciting, Frenchie was graced with his best friend’s presence - what wasn’t there to love?
“Baruch ha-Shem,” Marc said loudly, pressing his hands together. “I have ascended to the level of best friend. I thought I would be your annoying primo forever.”
“I do not view us as familial,” Frenchie had said, even louder and weirdly panicked. Everybody around them used the ‘brother’ word, but Frenchie was polite enough to roll with primo. Brother was for Jake and Roro. Frenchie could share best friend with Steven, if he really had to. But he was behind Steven. “Not really - Jake is quite primo! Very familial about Jake. But I am honored to have you as a fantastic best friend -”
“Okay?”
“Not that you were not somewhat primo-ish when we first met,” Frenchie added, despite not really needing to add anything. “Not best friend, more in primo direction. However, things have - you’re much older, and I am not much wiser - wow, is that the new shipment of sniper rifles?”
“Shit, for real?!”
Frenchie was happy. And it wasn’t too bad. Apparently Marc had actually become terrifying in a fight. Jake kept looking for people who could beat them in a hand to hand fight, dragging himself through that endless quest he assigned himself the moment he was discovered, and the stream slowly began drying up. Marc had no preference between anything anymore.
But it wasn’t the normal life Marc had wanted for Jake and Steven. He needed to save up as much money as possible, to keep them going as long as he could in case he never figured out how to hold down a real job, but after long years streaming through his fingers he had finally built up a sizable nest egg. A nest egg that grew bigger and bigger as Frenchie always convinced him to stay for one more payout.
“This is it,” Marc said. “This is the last one. This is it.”
“I promise! I promise, that is exactly what I said.” Frenchie held a hand up, perfectly imitating the weirdest boy scout of all time. “Look, it’s perfectly pacifist. There’s even academics involved. You’ll be all finished afterwards.”
“All finished,” Marc said. “Right.”
It had been his last chance to leave that life. He hadn’t taken it - too concerned over money and boredom and bloodlust. There would be no more chances, no more opportunities. No way to ever give Jake or Steven a normal life. No backing out. No time for regrets.
At least Jake was happy with Khonshu. He always got antsy without a good fight. If they had nothing else, they had that.
“I like it,” Jake had assured Marc, white gloves dripping with blood. “It’s fun. I feel like Desmond Miles.”
I don’t even know who that is, Marc had said, exhausted. I can’t keep up with all of your video games.
“Fortnite is not complicated -”
He was happy. They had that. And they had each other. There was that too.
There was rarely anything more.
******
After two sleepless nights clutching an engagement band, Marc decided to tell her.
It had obviously been a mutual decision. Half of each sleepless night was spent in the mindspace - not so much arguing furiously as arguing together against that looming terror. Jake kept on telling Marc that he had the final say, since it was his girlfriend, and Marc kept telling Jake that he had the final say, since the situation was technically about him.
Marc had hesitated. That had cinched it. Layla had knelt in front of him, holding that ring and looking at him as if she was everything good in her world. He had hesitated, tensing away, and she had seen it. Her face had fallen. Her hand had begun to drop.
He never wanted to put that look on her face again. He never wanted to let that thought roost in his chest again - ‘if you knew about Jake, you wouldn’t be saying this’. The fear and hesitation, because it had been actively difficult to hide Jake from her in the past four years, and the thought of continuing that for the rest of their likely short lives seemed exhausting. Maybe if it had been easier to hide him, maybe if the task hadn’t seemed so insurmountable - but as it stood, the only way she would never find out was if she left his life. And Marc didn’t want that. He wanted something again, and he didn’t want that.
Everything else he could hide. The things he’d done that she would never forgive - Roro, hurting his mother - could be hidden. The things that couldn’t come out of his throat could stay in his chest. But if she left him because of Jake, then fuck her anyway.
He almost wanted her to. It would make the decision for him.
Four days after she proposed, Marc mustered everything he had and laboriously typed out a text. He had tried telling her in person, but his throat had closed up so harshly it almost strangled him. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to have this conversation via semaphore.
Marc: Can we talk when you get back from your mission? In the hotel room 8pm I will have takeout Indian
There. Great text. Awesome.
Layla: ok yeah sure
Layla: Anything bad?
Layla: ha ha
Marc considered the matter. Jake was pretty terrible.
Marc: Yes, very bad.
Layla: ok cool
Layla: we can’t have it over text?
Marc: No
Layla: see you then
Layla: love you
Layla: lol
Marc patted himself on the back. He was so great at fiance.
When Layla came home, after five hours of her mission and five hours of him staring at the ceiling playing mental basketball with Jake, she was practically vibrating with stress. It made Marc antsy. For some reason he always got nervous when Layla was super stressed out. He tried to repress it.
“Okay,” Layla said loudly, dumping her singed backpack on the hotel bed, “if you’re going to break off the engagement just tell right now instead of beating around the bush.”
Marc stared at her, naan half-hanging out of his mouth.
Chew, dude. You’re so embarrassing.
Great. Backseat driving. Jake was almost never in the ‘cockpit’ while Layla was around, which suited Marc just fine. Jake had fought a few battles back-to-back with her - Layla had never noticed, far too concerned with more important things - but that was where their overlap ended. Jake probably didn’t have a real reason. He never hung out in the cockpit while anybody else was around either. Frenchie was the only exception. Constant backseat driving while Frenchie was around. Made for a few awkward team missions.
He had to be here for this. Jake wasn’t happy with it. But apparently everybody was stressed.
Marc gulped the naan, slowly pushing forward her steaming carton of Indian food across the small, rickety table towards her. He pointed at it.
Layla squinted at him. “Is that an ‘I’m not breaking up with you’ or an ‘eat food before I break up with you?’.” Marc held up one finger, and Layla abruptly sagged like a puppet with its strings cut. “Oh, thank fuck.”
Had he worried her? Shit. Bad grade in fiance, Marc.
He waited until Layla had started digging into her own curry before swallowing the last mouthful of naan and speaking. “It’s the opposite. There’s something I…have to tell you.”
The stress returned. Instantly. “Oh my god, you’ve been cheating on me.”
“I don’t know any other women?”
“You don’t need to - that’s a no?” Marc slowly shook his head, and Layla exhaled again. “Marc, please just say it and stop giving me a heart attack.”
Easy for her to say. Marc picked at the edges of the file folder next to him, forcing himself to keep his heart rate steady. This was more terrifying than a warzone. Love could be war, he guessed.
He had written this out. It was written in small, messy script on a sheet of lined paper ripped from a spiral notebook. It was in the folder, and he could take it out and read from it if he needed to. He had memorized it and could probably recite it backwards and forwards, but it was there if he needed it.
Layla noticed how tense he was. Somewhere along the way she had learned his language, learned how to speak every word Marc never said, and she understood him in a backwards and forwards way that almost frightened Marc. She had seen the good and bad and ugly in him, and she had still held up a ring and asked him to show her the rest. She didn’t know what she was asking for. She didn’t know how ugly it was.
“Marc? What is it?”
A twisting and putrid part of Marc wanted this to be the final straw. He wanted her to leave him over this. He wanted it to be simple, and he wanted her to make the decision for him. Why did he always want the worst things possible to happen? Just to get it over with?
Slowly, haltingly, Marc spoke.
“We agreed years ago that we don’t need to tell each other everything. You said that you trusted me to tell you anything important, and - and I trust you. But there’s something important I haven’t told you. I didn’t tell you earlier because this is a really private thing for us, but I don’t want to start off our marriage by fighting to hide something.” He faltered a second, and found himself saying words that weren’t in the script. “I don’t want to keep acting like he’s some dirty secret. It’s not fair to him.”
“Oh my god,” Layla said, in slow and mounting horror, “you have a baby.”
“Okay, fuck this.” Marc grabbed the folder next to him and slammed it on the table in front of her, ignoring the way she leaned away. “Read it. That’s it. No babies necessary.”
No, this is good. The bar’s going on the floor here. Give her a few more worst case scenarios, this is going great.
Layla flipped open the folder. She read the headline of the first print-out. Her eyebrows climbed. Marc buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t watch this.
He heard the soft sounds of paper sliding as Layla flipped through the folder. Frenchie’s idea. It was all pages from websites he’d printed out. What it was, what it looked like, all of that stuff. There was a handwritten list of books that he recommended too. Marc had angrily vetoed all of the ones about childhood trauma. That wasn’t her business, and he didn’t have to talk about it. Jake himself was bad enough.
They sat in silence for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Jake was silent. Marc couldn’t speak if he wanted to.
Finally, Layla said, “Thank you for trusting me with this, Marc.”
Tension drained from his body, and Marc looked up at her. She looked - she didn’t look like she was mad at him. Or like she thought he was a freak. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she was looking intently at him, but she wasn’t - Christ.
“Are you mad I didn’t tell you earlier?” Marc asked weakly.
Layla flipped over another page, landing on a section on etiology. “I get it. You’re telling me now because it’s my last chance to back out of our relationship, right?” Marc nodded. Layla’s eyes sharpened, and she nodded firmly back. “This doesn’t change anything. We’ll figure it out together.” She halted, something occurring to her. “Khonshu’s not…”
“Not what?”
“He’s not…like…” Layla grappled with something before giving up. “Khonshu’s not a…personality, right?”
“What? Khonshu’s an actual god. Seriously? No.”
“The Weapon of Justice thing is completely unrelated to the DID?”
“Completely unrelated,” Marc said. “And if Khonshu was an alter I’d kill myself.”
When you think about it…
“I mean,” Layla hedged, “you’re certain…”
“Mental illness did not give me immortality, Layla.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, that was - that was dumb.” Layla stopped short, finger lingering on a section Marc had highlighted on other symptoms. “I thought all of this was the PTSD.”
“Bit hard to differentiate,” Marc said grimly. Dissociation was dissociation, wasn’t it? There wasn't a special PTSD flavor and special DID flavor. Maybe. “I told you I’ve been living with the PTSD for a while.”
“Looks like it,” Layla said softly. She was back on the etiology page. Move the fuck on. Why won’t anybody move on from that? He wished he could have told her everything but that part. If he could share Jake and Steven with her - just Jake and Steven - then he would have told her years ago. But Jake and Steven raised too many questions, and the answers were only words he couldn’t say. “Marc, whatever happened -”
“That’s not on the table,” Marc said harshly, and Layla quieted. “We aren’t talking about that.”
“Are you -”
“It’s not important and we aren’t talking about it.” She was probably drawing conclusions. Whatever. She could do whatever she wanted. “Look, I just - I knew I couldn’t hide it from you. So now you know. If you meet Jake, then you meet Jake. Just leave him alone. He won’t want to talk to you. That’s it. Now you know, alright?”
“And let me guess,” Layla said dryly, “we’re never speaking about this again?” Marc had, in fact, been under the impression that they would never have to speak about it again. “I’m sorry, Marc, but I don’t want to ignore this. Ignoring this means ignoring you. You keep on asking me to just ignore all of your PTSD symptoms, and it kills me to see you in pain when you won’t let me do anything about it. I want to make things easier for you.” Marc squinted at her. “What? I can be emotionally available if I want!”
“Frenchie tried telling you about his breakup and you bolted out of the room,” Marc said dubiously. “You hate feelings.”
“I hate Frenchie’s feelings.” She might just hate Frenchie. “I love your feelings.” She might just love him. The thought was warming. “Even the ones you don’t like as much. Okay?” She faltered a little, uncertain. Marc was uncertain too. Maybe married people felt everything together. The thought was terrifying. “Can you tell me about Jake? Is that his name?”
Could she tell him about Jake? What was there to say? What wasn’t there to say?
Could he tell her about Jake’s ridiculous hats, his video game obsession? The way he loved to drive even though Marc never let him? How fucking humiliating it was that Marc had to let a fifteen year old fight his battles for him? Marc didn’t know if there was a ‘supposed to’ or ‘should’ in this situation, but he was reasonably sure that younger alters shouldn’t have to protect the older ones. He should be the one protecting Jake. Jake, who had a thing for Lord of the Rings that was terrible for their bank account.
Could he begin to tell her about the first time Jake saved his life? Fifth, tenth, fifteenth? About how Jake put the bottles down for him and flushed away the pills? When Marc was twenty five he would wake up randomly to see every razor in the house in the trash and Jake sullen. That wasn’t the kind of thing he knew how to tell her.
Marc couldn’t decide. He couldn’t pick one thing out of infinity to tell her. It was better just not to say anything. “Nothing to say. You won’t have to meet him. Don’t worry about it.”
Layla set her jaw. Stubborn Layla face. Uh oh. “What if I want to meet him?”
“You don’t,” Marc said dully. “He’s annoying.”
“You’re annoying and I like talking to you,” Layla said, faux-sweetly. Marc flipped her off. “You don’t have to, Marc. But I would like to. It’s like…” Layla grappled for some sort of comparison to ‘meeting your fiance’s DID alter’ before brightening. “Meeting your parents! I never met your parents. This can be like that.” She paused again, the etiology of DID marching through her head. “Oh. Bad comparison.”
At least she knew why they were no contact now. Small favors. Very pointedly, Marc said, “I don’t know. What does Jake think?”
“I don’t - oh! You’re talking to him!”
We agreed we’d probably end up meeting eventually, Jake said warily. He was just as uncomfortable with the conversation as Marc was, if not five times as much. We should…
Marc pressed his lips together and projected loudly. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Jake was silent for a long moment. It was rare for him to stop and think about things. He didn’t have a lot of impulse control and he had a lot of impulses. He could be canny and clever when he wanted to be, and surprisingly tricky and subtle. But mostly he was just a punk.
Finally, he said, Yeah, alright. Fine. You’re forgetting to mention something. Marc winced. Nuh uh. I’m not hiding that. I like my age, you can get over yourself about it.
“There’s one last thing,” Marc said haltingly, and Layla perked up. “I…Jake, he’s…”
Nope. Couldn’t say it. He reached over and moved aside a few pages in the pages in the folder, finding a page that described Littles. He tapped on it.
“Oh,” Layla said, reading. “Oh. Oh! That’s…that’s alright!”
“I know it’s weird,” Marc said dully. “It’s just the way it is.”
“That’s fine,” Layla said, even more resolute than before. At least she had already realized she was going to run into some stuff she found weird or uncomfortable. Layla was sharp. “I - uh, I get it. Looks like they mostly come out in therapy.” Left unsaid: which Marc definitely does not go to. “No problem, don’t feel pressured.”
“I don’t. And you’re right. He doesn’t front much. Mostly just -” When they were in fights. “ - with Frenchie.” Layla shot him a scandalized look, and Marc smiled apologetically. “They’re friends.”
“Frenchie knew - Jake! Jake’s that friend Frenchie mentions! Jake’s that mutual friend you two have! Shit!” Layla was looking increasingly outraged. “Now I have to meet him, Marc!”
What’s her deal?
“She gets really competitive about Frenchie,” Marc said to the floor. Let her hear this one. “I still don’t understand why.”
“You don’t get that he’s annoying,” Layla hissed. “I can’t believe he has this up on me.”
“What, is there a score system?” Marc asked, alarmed. “Over what?” Hermano, you’re dense. “What do you mean dense?”
Layla giggled. “Sounds like Jake’s a smart kid.”
“He’s fifteen and he’s an idiot.” Something subtly untensed in Layla when he said that, although Marc didn’t really know why. A small child would probably be even weirder for her. “If Jake still wants to, then…”
“Tell him he needs to help me win over Frenchie,” Layla said, smiling. “Does he like games?”
“He loves them.” Marc squinted at the table, mentally reaching inside. “C’mon, Jake. Why don’t you tell her about your new Assassin's Creed?”
“I’m very interested,” Layla assured him.
It was sweet of her. Marc could still feel the discomfort deep within Jake. Marc stood up from the table, moving back to the beds and pulling out Jake’s favorite sweater. He found the sensation and weight comforting. He grabbed one of Jake’s fidget toys - the Infinity Cube, the one that drove Marc crazy - and moved to sit down on the floor in front of the coffee table. He beckoned Layla over, pulling the sweater over his head.
“There. Feel better?” Don’t wear my sweater! “Then you wear your sweater.” Don’t put on my clothing, you are so invasive - “You wear my clothing all of the time, suck it up. Come on. It only has to be for a few seconds.”
Layla walked over to sit cross-legged across from him, carefully watching him carefully. Marc gave her a grimace, running his fingers through his hair.
“We don’t have to, Jake.”
Shut up. Fine. Move over.
“There we are,” Marc said. He glanced at Layla. “Give this a second.”
Marc let himself step away, detaching from the body and moving away from it. He felt Jake step in, reluctant and hesitant, and he gave him a push before settling out of the way.
Jake shook himself, immediately registering his sweater and the cube in his hands. That was the greatest amount of consideration Marc had shown for his comfort basically ever. He must really be serious about this.
The second thing he registered was the woman in front of him. Layla, apparently. She had already noticed the switch, and Jake could see her fight to keep her expression blank and vaguely supportive.
He had met Layla before. They’d even talked. He pretended to be Marc the whole time, and she hadn’t caught on. He knew that she was super beautiful, and that she had a kind face. Jake felt very safe with her, which could only be influenced by Marc - Jake himself didn’t relax around anybody but Frenchie. But she was looking at him now…him, Jake Lockley. It was overwhelming. He felt like a mouse stepping out of its burrow into the open field, neck pricking with the constant sensation that there was an owl waiting just out of sight to eat you. He didn’t have any knives in arm’s reach. There was the suit, but it was the principle of the thing.
He was vulnerable. Jake didn’t really do vulnerable. Jake stepped in when Marc felt vulnerable (mostly Steven’s job, but somebody had been useless lately) and he made the whole vulnerability thing stop. He cut that shit out. Jake didn’t play with that.
He had never done this before. He didn’t know what to do.
Whatever. Layla was the adult here, she could figure it out. He applied his attention to the cube, flipping it around and greatly satisfying himself. These things rocked. The click was part of the charm, Marc.
“Jake?”
Layla’s voice was soft and gentle. It was a tone Marc only heard in the cold darkness in the depth of night, jolted awake by another nightmare. Layla soothed him then. She could do a lot of things for him that Jake couldn’t. Maybe they were a team like that. Even if she didn’t know it.
Jake didn’t look up from the fidget cube. Why did he have to be so socially awkward? What was he supposed to do here? When did you introduce yourself? She already knew his name. Was he still supposed to introduce himself? What was the point of saying his name if she already knew?
“Jake, do you know who I am?” Her voice was soft. It was nice. Nothing like Mom’s. Jake didn’t answer her anyway. “I’m Layla El-Faouly. I’m Marc’s fiancee.”
Jesus Christ. He didn’t live under a rock. As if Marc had shut up about that in the last four days. So obnoxious. Still, it solved the introduction issue. “Jake Lockley,” Jake said gruffly. Layla’s eyes widened. “Still dunno why you’re marrying that. You got bad taste, lady.”
“I’m marrying Marc because I love him.” Layla really did have a sweet voice. He liked it. “How do you feel about that?”
“It’s fine,” Jake said loftily. “Good for him or whatever. I can’t take care of him all by myself.”
When Jake sneaked a peek upwards to look at her, all he saw was Layla smiling at him. It wasn’t exactly a natural smile, but it wasn’t fake. Or it was fake in the good way. Whatever. “You take care of him? That’s really nice of you. How do you take care of him?”
“Oh my god, lady, talk to me like a normal person.”
Layla straightened, smile falling a little. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure -”
“You’re fine, it’s whatever. Good job flexing to Marc that you’re totally good with kids. You don’t gotta convince him, you know. Guy won’t shut up about Marc and Layla babies.” Layla immediately broke into frantic denials, which Jake completely ignored. “I take care of him by beating up goons. You seen me do it all the time. When Marc randomly turns into a badass, that’s me.”
Careful, Jake. Don’t tell her the extent.
What happened to honesty? Whatever. Frenchie was still weird about the whole thing, so it was probably for the best.
“You help Marc fight?” Layla asked slowly - in the confused way, not in a condescending way. Mostly. “But he…”
“I just lend a hand.” There, was that vague enough? Jake wanted to flex about how good at killing people he was, but even he knew that it might upset Layla a little. “I beat up whoever’s hassling him. I’d beat up anybody who hassles him.” Jake focused intently on the cube, flipping it around and around. “If you hassle him I’ll beat you up too.”
Jake, don’t -
Jake pushed Marc aside. He got this one. This was the whole reason he wanted to talk to her anyway. Layla started a bit before forcibly controlling herself and putting that reassuring voice back on. “I would never…hassle Marc. I love him very much, Jake.”
Jake snorted, twisting the cube around his finger. “That’s what they all say. I don’t care. If you touch him I’ll kill you. I’ll do it.”
“I promise I won’t hurt Marc, Jake,” Layla said quietly.
“That’s what Mamá said.” Flip, click, flip, click. “She was real nice and all that. Then she started hurting us. You’re nice too, lady. But if you start hurting Marc then I’m gonna hurt you back. Just like I did Mamá.”
Layla didn’t say anything. Jake kept Marc far away. He didn’t want him to hear this. If Jake had to do something then he didn’t want Marc to see it.
Finally, she said, “If I hurt Marc, I would deserve that. Thank you for protecting Marc, Jake.” Jake snapped his head up, finally looking at the intense expression on Layla’s face. There was something sad in it. A lot of things sad. But a lot of it was nothing but firey intensity too. “From now on I’m going to help you protect him. Is that alright with you?”
Jake squinted at her. “I’m way better at it than you are.”
“Oh, no doubt about that. But I’d like to help anyway.”
Jake considered the matter thoroughly. Layla’s expression didn’t change. Finally, he announced, “That’s cool. I’m not good with his feelings. You can take care of that.”
“I’m not terribly good at his feelings either,” Layla said, straight faced.
“Then find something you are good at, damn.” He missed Steven. Steven did the feelings around here. They had a gap in their ecosystem. “And you gotta do what I say about Marc. I know him way better than anybody does.” He paused for a second, resolving that he should probably give her a fair shake. “Alright. I’ll loop you into the democratic process with me and Frenchie. We need a tiebreaker anyway.”
Layla smiled again, a bit fuller. “Democratic process?”
“We vote on what to do when Marc’s being dumb,” Jake said seriously. “You think he’s bad now? That’s after I’m done with him. It’s pathetic.”
“Then I am very glad you’re here.” Layla nodded, watching his seriousness, and Jake hastened to nod back. “Marc said you liked video games? Are you why Marc owns a Switch he never touches?”
“Uh, yeah.” Jake went back to the fidget cube, flipping it around with dexterity he knew the vast majority of people didn’t have. He didn’t really like Layla knowing about his things. He’d have to ask Marc to hide it later. “I’m done here.”
Layla blinked, a little thrown, but Jake was already checking out. Longest conversation he ever had with a non-Frenchie person as himself. Shit was exhausting. No wonder Marc was so grouchy and useless if he had to do this all day.
“Alright, that’s - fine. It was nice to meet you, Jake.”
The fidget cube fell from Marc’s fingers, its alluring quality completely lost. He shucked the sweater quickly. He liked layers too, but Jake’s were oppressive. Man would live in coats if he could.
“I blacked out a bit,” Marc said hurriedly. Dammit, Jake! “What’d he say? I am so sorry about him.”
“No need to apologize,” Layla said, so quickly that Marc knew Jake had said something completely inappropriate. Dammit, Jake! “I…can he hear us?”
“He’s gone. He’s tired.” It was amazing how he could fight thirty men without tiring, but a five minute conversation exhausted him. “He’s rarely listening in on us. Don’t worry about that.”
Layla sagged, the change as sudden and complete as Marc’s own. She propped her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, carefully regulating her breathing. Marc stiffened, eyeing her carefully, and watched her dig her thumbs into her eyes.
“Marc, that was - that was very weird, Marc.”
Guilt squirmed in his stomach, writhing and slimy. “I’m sorry, I - I can’t really help it.”
“No! No, no, you’re fine.” Layla looked up, abruptly panicking a little, which only made Marc feel worse. “You’re completely fine. It’s not your fault. It was just weird seeing you - but that’s fine. I’ll get used to it super quickly. And you said that I shouldn’t see him a lot, so it’ll be fine.”
Somehow Marc had the sense that Jake’s relatively minimal presence in Layla’s life was a relief to her. He couldn’t blame her, but -
It wasn’t as if Frenchie liked Jake’s existence for a while there either. She’d warm up to him. Or she’d just get used to it, which was effectively the same thing.
“Did he say anything weird to you?” Marc asked. “I think I heard him threatening to beat you up…?”
“Just a shovel talk,” Layla said quickly, making Marc groan. “It’s perfectly fine. He was just…setting some boundaries. It was sweet.” Layla hesitated a second, hand squeezing into a fist before she purposefully relaxed it. “He participates in Khonshu’s fights, doesn’t he?”
Marc bristled. “I don’t put him there. I don’t switch in fights voluntarily.”
“I know, Marc, but - how does Jake work when you’re Khonshu’s Avatar? Does Khonshu assign him missions too?”
Marc’s entire body coiled in tension, heart skittering for half a second, and Layla watched it warily. He hated Khonshu and Jake in the same sentence. Much less the same body. The same life. Marc’s life. He had opened the door and invited Khonshu in, and he hadn’t given a shit if it would hurt the kid who already lived in that home. Great fucking job, Marc. Great job. So much for giving Jake a life free of assholes.
Jake knew Khonshu upset Marc. It frustrated him. He wanted to fight off any threat to the body, but Khonshu was one danger that Jake couldn’t do anything about. Best to just guarantee that Khonshu wouldn’t become a danger to Jake. It was even possible, thank god.
“Khonshu’s a dick, but he’s not a monster. He has a connection with kids.” Marc quietly suspected it was part of the reason why he found Marc ‘a perfect fit’ - he had the aspect of a child, just like Khonshu did - but it was whatever. It wasn’t Jake’s fault. “He stays away from Jake and doesn’t interact with him unless I give permission.” Only fucking thing Marc had power over in that relationship.
“Wow,” Layla said, eyebrows jumping up. “Khonshu? Respecting boundaries? Didn’t know we could teach old birds new tricks.”
“I don’t think it’s a new trick.” Marc halted, grappling to find the right words for it. Khonshu’s…traditional. And godly families are strange. You know that they just create each other. Jake’s a part of us, but Khonshu might see him as somebody I created. Khonshu respects me as Jake’s parent. He doesn’t intrude on that.”
A familiar look crossed Layla’s face - a look Marc only ever saw when they talked about Khonshu. “But your work with Khonshu still puts him in danger. That’s not…”
“It’s the best I can do,” Marc said, and Layla cut herself off. It wasn’t a conversation worth having, and it wasn’t something he particularly liked thinking about. “It works for us. This is the most I’m going to get, Layla. So is it a dealbreaker or not?”
Layla’s expression softened, and she leaned over the table to take his hand. Her hand fit so easily in his, calloused and strong and warm and gentle, and Marc wanted to curl up with her forever. He wanted to stop letting go.
If that was true, then why did he want her to leave so badly? Why had some part of him wanted this conversation to end with her walking out the door?
Fear that Layla would leave him wasn’t new. It had started about two weeks before they started dating, and the proposal hadn’t stopped it. Marc liked familiar fears. He could rest comfortably within them; organize his life around their presence and forget that they were there. He was only uncomfortable when a familiar fear wasn’t present - when a familiar presence became an unfamiliar absence, and it left a hole in Marc. He would find some way to drag that familiar fear back. He didn’t want to live without it.
The only thing worse than a life without that familiar fear was an unfamiliar fear. That was too much. That tipped him over the edge. It was unbearable. Fear for his life was familiar - fear for his own happiness was not. It terrified him. He wanted it to resolve itself, if only so he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.
“Of course not, Marc,” Layla said, ruining them both. “I love you.”
“Great,” Marc said.
Great.
******
Steven sat in a waiting room, tapping his foot.
He had been waiting there a while. He was sure about that. Not very sure of much else, frankly. It didn’t bother him. Most things bothered Steven, but he was working on achieving serenity. He saw it in a self-help book at the grocery line once: the serenity to accept the things we could not change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
It seemed like helpful advice. There was a lot of stuff in Steven’s life he couldn’t change. He couldn’t do anything about his mean boss and rude coworkers, so it was best just to bear that. He was a little worse at finding things he could change. Download a Tinder, perhaps? A Grindr? Steven didn’t know if he was gay or not, but Grindr seemed a little overwhelming regardless. Strike the Grindr idea. Steven shouldn’t be allowed to make his own decisions.
Maybe he should focus on gaining the ‘wisdom to know the difference’ part right now. His entire life just felt like unchangeable and unpleasant things. Which was a horrible attitude! You never improved your life with an attitude like that. And life could be improved. That was an essential component of optimism. Steven was an optimist, so he had to remember that.
Steven was an optimist like he was a vegan, environmentalist, pacifist, Buddhist-In-Mindset-But-Jewish-In-Practice, and a Gemini: aspirationally, born from a conviction of the kind of person he wanted to be but without much direction on how to get there. Well, you couldn’t will yourself into becoming a Gemini when you were an Aquarius. But it was about the Gemini mindset.
It was never too late to adopt a take-charge mindset. Waiting rooms were a great example of the ‘things you could not change’ category, but he could change if he was miserable about the whole thing. He just had to enjoy waiting rooms. It was about mindset. Just change how you think. Change the kind of person you are. Decide to enjoy waiting rooms. Once you got that down, then life was in top shape.
“You are such a loser.”
A teenager sat across from him, slouching on the molded plastic seat and kicking his trainers against the tile. He was wearing baggy canvas pants and a jumper that reached down to his thighs, sleeves pulled over his hands. The boy had a taller and stronger frame, but the hand-me-down clothing made him seem smaller and slighter. Somebody out there was not buying this lad the right sized clothing. Or maybe baggy clothing was just fashionable? Steven had read that in a magazine once.
“Ah,” Steven said, bursting with conviction to take charge of this situation and show rude teenagers who was boss, “I’m sorry?”
Utter failure. Expected at this point. Steven should just give up on this whole thing. He wouldn’t, but he should.
The teenager scoffed at him, arms folded tightly against his chest. Steven deserved that. “You’re always so sorry. It won’t help you, you know.”
“Uh,” Steven said, left without conversational recourse if apologies were off the table. “I’ll…keep that in mind. Where are your parents, again?”
The teenager pointed forwards, and Steven twisted around to see a set of swinging double doors further into the infirmary. “Mama’s in there. Dad’s talking to the cops.”
Wow. Steven was glad he hadn’t been rude to this rude child. Clearly he was having a truly awful day. “I am so sorry. That’s bloody awful. You really shouldn’t worry. Everything’s going to be alright.”
“You’re worse than him,” the teenager said, impressed. But he didn’t seem dismissive or annoyed. Not appreciative, but… “I thought maybe you and me were in the same boat, but I guess not. I still don’t think that means you should be left on your own, though. People shouldn’t be all by themselves.”
“I’m not alone,” Steven said weakly. He opened his mouth to inform the teenager about his goldfish before shutting it, fully cognizant that it would make him seem impossibly more pathetic. “What business is it of yours, anyhow?”
The teenager ignored him. “He’s such an asshole, making you go through all of this. But you’re an asshole too, so it’s fine. You’re both assholes. Got that? You’re both dicks. I hate both of you.”
Steven wasn’t certain what he’d done to deserve such abuse, but that was pretty par for the course. No point getting up in arms about it. Clearly the kid was going through a lot. “What makes me such an arse, then?”
“You ditched us,” the teenager said, and to Steven’s shock his voice wobbled a bit. “He missed you and you just ditched us ‘cause you were too busy riding your high horse about how murder is bad or something. Fuck off about the murder thing. Nobody cares.”
“Okay?”
“And when you do come back you’re a total nothing about it.” The kid was obviously working himself up into something more and more upset. Steven felt lost. He didn’t know what to do. “Now you’re finally back, but you’re old and weird and lame. He says that you’re doing your best right now and that you’re helping so we need to be nice to you, but screw that. I’m here and I’m not coming out. I don’t know where we are and I don’t know why you two are doing any of this. I don’t like it here and I don’t want to come out anymore.”
“You don’t have to,” Steven said gently. It was important. Not because it should be, but just because it was. “You should be where you feel safe. You don’t have to front if you don’t want to.”
The teeanger’s face screwed up in what he wished was anger. “I didn’t want to leave Layla and Frenchie. I want to go home.”
“I know, Jake,” Steven said, and a wave of exhaustion crashed heavily over his shoulders. “I know. But Marc and I can’t go home right now. And I don’t think you can either. Right?” Jake’s silence was incriminating. “I’m doing the best I can. But this is all I can do. I’m sorry it hurts you too.”
“I deserve it,” Jake said. “That’s what you think about me. That I -”
“Jake, no -”
But Jake just spoke over him, voice growing louder. “You think I deserve it because I hurt Mom. You never hurt Mom. You loved her. That’s why you’re fronting and I can’t. Marc can’t deal with loving her and all of the shit that happened, so he’s taking the easy way out and just decided to love her instead. But you know what, Steven!” Jake’s voice grew louder and louder, until he was almost screaming. “That means you hate me! That means I’m nobody but the kid who hurt our mom, and you hate me without giving a shit why I did it! You weren’t there, Steven! You don’t understand!”
Steven was standing. He didn’t remember standing. A chair skittered backwards, but he didn’t remember stepping back. “Why would you hurt Mum?”
Jake clenched his jaw, expression twisting in hate. He only knew hate. “You and I can’t both exist. It’s a paradox. It tears all of us apart. And I don’t feel like being the bad guy again. So you have fun with the life, Steven. You can have it. Anything that makes you into the person you want to be and that lets you forget the person you are.”
“Wait,” Steven said - yelled, maybe. He couldn’t tell. “You hurt Mum? Why would you do that? Why would you hurt my mum?”
“Your accent’s fucking stupid, you know,” Jake said, before Steven opened his eyes.
He stood on a busy street. It didn’t look like any street in London. The cars were driving on the wrong sides of the lane, and foreign chatter buffeted his ears. Grody signs littered the edges of the streets, featuring beautiful light-skinned women holding skin whitening cream, but that was all he knew. A donkey pulling a cart pushed past him, and Steven had to stumble out of the way.
“Fuck’s sake,” Steven’s mouth said, pulling out a gun.
Steven woke up.
