[ She's completely and utterly checked out by the time they get on the road, feeling an all encompassing sensation of lonely and hurt. In pain, a desperate and debilitating desire to just scream and never speak again all at once. She puts her head against the window, looks aimlessly out the side like the changing scenery will somehow make her feel better. It doesn't. It doesn't make her feel any better when it's Marc driving, Lottie in the same stupor she's been in since he picked her up. Not a word or comment about how he's trying to die with the way he's driving, just crying, so utterly unlike her it's scary.
The fact she is fully inside her head means she doesn't realize for how long they've been driving, doesn't realize she can't recognize anything on these streets much less wherever the hell they're at when they park. She's too busy idly scratching at her skin and crying over, and over, again.
Grant manor is large and sprawling and open, andβ it's a few minutes after he says 'we're here' that she finally moves. Lifts her head away from the window with something like recognition before she slowly turns to look at him. Her lips part sluggishly, trying to catch up with everything she's brutally forced out until now.
It's weak, it's broken, warbly and confused (hurt) when she saysβ ]
You said we'd go home.
[ And she doesn't know if he meant his, or hers, but she doesn't expect this. This weird mix of lavish and unkempt, of foreign and not something she wants, at all. Lottie doesn't want new and unfamiliar. She wants the coffee machine at her house to stir to life so she can stay up until she passes out, she wants the dim and dark brooding man cave of the Mission. She wants to swaddle herself in a blanket and cry beneath her bed, on the floor, because no one will see her and that's for thebest, isn't it? ]
( she can't see his expression, can't see the brief flash of surprise at her response, can't see the way his lips curve down when she — whines. it's whiney and upset and marc hadn't thought she'd find his decision a problem.
(but then, marc does that — he makes decisions for others, doesn't confer with them, and doesn't think of how they'll feel about it. marc wants it and he thinks it'll be fine and it's a good decision, so it must be, in spite of how often that's proven to not be the case.)
he glances from her to the house and back again, hand resting on the door handle before he explains, abruptly— ) My home. You'll be safe. ( a sideways glance as the door's swung open with a soft click and he adds, ) And I need to get changed. Shower. ( all things he can do at the mission, but has chosen not to. he pauses, his boots crunching on the gravel underfoot as he walks round to the other side of the car and opens her door.
he says, a little quieter and a little softer, ) I didn't think you'd want to see Reese. ( or anyone, he means.
he waits until she gets out of the car to turn and head inside, holds the door open for her. the inside is a mix of marc and steven — the foyer more steven, tasteful and modern and simple. expensive and understated. marc lingers, awkwardly, watching lottie. he's mindful that she's not happy, but given what she's just been through, why would she be?
he looks towards the staircase, bypasses the thought of the kitchen and food (for now), and gestures. ) The guest bedroom has an ensuite. You can get cleaned up.
[ It's a problem. Very much a problem, right up until he tells her that it's his home and he needs to take care of himself, too. Taking a shower and getting changed are all things he can do at home, his other home, the Mission. They both know this, so that means it's a deliberate decision that he's staying here. That's how she'll be safe β she'll be with him. And he's letting her know in as little words as possible, not necessarily comforting because they are, but because of what they imply.
So she stays silent, the unpleasant curl of her lips softening when he gets out of the car, when he opens her door. She almost protests on instinct that she knows Reese (sort of) and she'd love to see her (not really), but it hits her. Abruptly, loudly, because Marc is quiet and tender when he speaks to her and she remembers.
Right.
Right.
She slides out of the car and follows after Marc like a duckling, stares at his hands that swing back and forth as he guides her, opens the doorβ ushers her in first so he can stay at her back. And when she sees the foyer it is.. A lot. Who the hell designed this? Because it certainly wasn't Marc. Marc's whole place has theming in it, decisions she's sure he poured his heart and soul into while sketching it out late at night. This is stylish but oddly, she doesn't know, like a spread on a magazine? Like it's someone else's touch. It's enough of a conundrum that she properly forgets the throbbing at her cheek, the ache to her knees and the marks at her wrist. Because she's just a guest at Marc's fancy house, does it need to be more complicated than that?
But she's snapped out of itβ Marc comes back into vision and she lets her eyes drag to the staircase. This house is so fantastically foreign, but it's good to see Marc is still Marc. Lottie doesn't even bark out a laugh, because if she does it might sound watery. Marc has always been like this, but still, 'you can get cleaned up' feels the oddest sort of impersonal for what happened, today. She knows he's trying his best, but it's growing to simply not be enough. Now, she's realizing, it might not be enough, and it's painful, the way those words hit her for no particular reason at all.
(It's the expectations, the ones she has for Marc that can never be fulfilled. He's just not like that, he can't be what she needs, she knows this but she still desperately wants him to be. And now she's wondering if she's setting these on him just so she can have an excuse to be mad, to put her frustrations out on somebody because it's the only thing she has control over right now.)
Maybe, if she waited, Marc would've led her after she gave her consent. But impulsive Lottie doesn't, she mumbles something inaudible, tonally (vaguely) like an mhmm before she makes her way up the stairs step by step, hands curled into loose fists at her side. ]
( he would have led her up — intended to, in fact — and he'd gestured only because he knows it's not a small place. instead, lottie strides ahead of him, her hands balled into fists and he has a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he's done something wrong.
and so he doesn't immediately point out that she doesn't know which room he's referring to, that when she gets to the top of stairs she'll be greeted by a hallway with a dozen doors — the bedroom that used to be his and marlene's, the room at the other end, a (slightly) smaller mirror of his — the one that used to be jean-paul's. half a dozen smaller guest rooms, ones that had never been used for their intended purpose — marc and marlene had used them for storage, mostly. )
To the right, ( he says as lottie nears the top of the stairs. unlike marc, lottie doesn't pad dirt and blood and more up the stairs — one reason, frankly, why marc (and steven and jake) had all agreed that carpets were a bad idea.
his gaze lingers on lottie for one second, then two. quiet. contemplative. ) Give me a second. ( a statement not a question, and he heads to the left, the opposite direction to where he'd instructed her to go.
(his bedroom, the one that's mostly him (now), barring a few sparse reminders of the life he-and-jake-and-steven had before. there's two wardrobes, one his — a mix of all their belongings, haphazardly organised thanks only to the infrequent amount of time any of them spend here, even more infrequently worn. he doesn't give that one any attention, not now. instead, he heads to the other wardrobe, the one that used to be marlene's. there's not much there — a few t-shirts, a couple of dresses (expensive, that steven had bought), sweatpants. items that marlene hadn't wanted to take with her when she left, items that neither marc nor steven nor jake had managed to find it in them to ask her about.
(for a while, marc had thought it'd meant that, like every break-up before the last, she'd come home until he realised it'd meant that there were parts of her she wanted to leave behind.)
lottie and marlene are about the same height, he thinks, although the similarities end there. lottie's bustier, more slender where marlene had a more athletic build but, at a guess, they're close enough in size that he doubts it'll be too much of an issue.
one t-shirt, then, and one pair of sweatpants.)
he doubts lottie will have lingered at the top of the stairs waiting for him to return, and it's only on approach to the door to the master guest room — the room he assumes she's entered rather than any of the others — that he speaks again.
(it doesn't occur to him that he still hasn't taken off any of moon knight's clothes, that he's still wearing the mask.) )
—Clean clothes. ( he half thinks of explaining that they were marlenes and then promptly thinks the better of it. ) For after you've showered.
[ He's not wrong on both counts β Lottie has no idea where she's going, but that has never stopped her from stomping away before and it won't now, and that she wouldn't wait for him to return. She's already inside the room he instructed her to go in ('to the right') when she hears his footsteps. It's irritating, how much more she strains her ears for any type of sound, for anything that might catch her off guard. She's still jittery when she turns to look at the door, briefly is taken back to the room she was sequestered into before Marc's voice rings out. It's a brief walk to open it (she had been standing and staring at the bed, spacing out and on the verge of an anxiety attack, she thinks), meets his eyes (eye holes?) before they hesitantly track down to the offered clothing. Some of that anger comes crashing back as her eyes begin to blink rapidly, fighting back tears of frustration before she takes them.
Pointedly: not grabs them. She's angry enough to have a physical reaction but aware enough of what he's doing that she doesn't immediately take it all out on him.
The door, however, is shut firmly on him.
Pointedly: not locked.
It takes her a minute to figure out how the shower works, but she manages it after a few tries. She peels off clothing that sticks to her with sweat, dirt, blood (from Marc), and it's a disgusting sensation. Her worst nightmare. She doesn't want to be in her body but she's stuck in it, with every scrape and scratch, every cut and bruise. She sees them all when she looks into the mirror and this time she doesn't blink away the tears. This time, Lottie muffles her cries. An attempt at privacy where she hasn't had any forβ not just today, or yesterday, but all of her life. And for once, she wants to keep this moment to herself. So she stays there, inside the bathroom, sitting on the floor, face in her hands and simply cries.
She does the same inside the shower for more than an hour, some of it in warm water and some of it in cold (for her hair). Lottie still feels like shit by the time she gets out, but her body is as clean as it's going to getβ because she can't scrub bruises away.
Her hair clings to her body, bits of green dye trickling over slender shoulders as she palms at the clean clothes he had given her. Wonders: what the fuck? She picks up the shirt, thinks.. Uhh. She can give this a try? But when it's slipped on she realizes this is very much an issue when she can't get it down past her chest. Lottie spends the next ten minutes trying to get out of the shirt before opting to just wrap a towel around herself for modesty.
(Because wearing the sweats then the towel on top seemed a bit.. Much.) ]
Marc?
[ She calls out, easing her door a smidge open (yes, she is peeking through it like a child). ]
( her stare is accusatory, angry. she's silent and then—
—she shuts the door on him.
he stands there for a moment longer, mouth parted in deep surprise at her reaction. something (someone) at the back of his mind says 'well done', and he presses his hand against the bridge of his nose. well fucking done indeed. he's not sure what he's done to upset her more than she already was, but apparently, he's done it.
he gives her five minutes before padding back towards his bedroom, five minutes before he strips out of the cape, the cowl, the mask, the boots, all of it. it's dumped unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the bathroom before he showers, years of practise and use meaning the shower's turned on quickly, meaning he showers quickly. takes long enough to become clean, for the water to stop running down the drain tinged with pink.
like lottie, marc's body is adorned with bruises and cuts though his are entirely the result of his own actions and not all from tonight. his are the result of willingness, of choice, of a decision made of his own free will. he doesn't cry about his, never has and never will. they're testaments to how he feels about himself, about what he needs to do to silence the guilt and the loathing that feels like it takes up his entire soul.
they're deserved.
he dresses in his clothes — spector's — a plain, loose-fit t-shirt tucked into an equally plain pair of trousers. he doesn't stay in the bedroom — he heads towards the guest room, pauses outside, and then reaches the conclusion that he's a fucking idiot, and heads back to his room.
it's an unpleasant feeling, the sensation that something's not right and he doesn't know what to move or how to get the pieces to fall into place. he hates it, hates the way that the night's gone, and he's antsy. he knows that if lottie wasn't here, he wouldn't be either, he'd find somewhere else to be, someone — anyone — to take his feelings out on, anything to take the uncomfortable edge off.
it feels like it's caught in chest, in his head, and—
then there's a noise. faint. questioning. a little plaintive.
back to the guest room and the door's open and his breath catches and—
it's lottie, her green hair wet and slick and visible, even through the crack in the door.
[ He calls her own name in turn andβ she pauses. Suddenly a little more aware of the fact she is in a towel and maybe she should've worn the pants, but it's too late now. And Marc looksβ like himself. And, unlike himself, he's in plainclothes, and not his suit. It's nice, it makes the pause turn a little more weighty when she can finally see his eyes. Can finally make out his expression that isn't hidden by a mask. Has more to go on than his voice, the way he touches her.
She has all those things and yet, she doesn't use them. Just.. Stays quiet for another moment, feeling spectacularly embarrassed for no reason at all.
(It's because she can't fit in the shirt, it is definitely because of that.)
She clears her throat nervously, glances down to the ground as she tries to not let the way her hair drips over her skin bug her. Tries to not let the fact she's making a mess on the floor, bug her. ]
..Um, is it okay if I can wear one of your shirts?
( she doesn't answer straight away. if marc wasn't able to see her — some of her, anyway — he'd have pushed into the room to check on her. to make sure she was okay. she's — not okay, but nothing else is wrong, nothing else has happened.
he can see that she's dressed only in a towel and, the longer the silence lasts, the more marc slowly pieces together what she's about to ask. he'd been wrong. marlene's clothes don't fit her.
(is that why she's awkward? embarrassed in a way that marc doesn't often see from her?)
he opens his mouth to speak just as lottie coughs and looks down and away from him. it's not quite a slice of normality because there's nothing normal about any of this for either of them, but it's almost laughably mundane given the events of the night. )
—Yeah, sure.
( like he'd say 'no'? the answer is given immediately, almost before she's finished asking, and it's only a few moments before he returns with something of his in hand, held out towards her. it's given with a— )Sorry, ( said to break the silence that feels palpable. there's a brief, sharp moment where marc wonders if she's going to slam the door in his face (again), and he shifts his weight to push a foot forward, enough to stop the door closing entirely if she decides to just for long enough to ask— )
[ It is laughably mundane, and maybe some part of Lottie would be amused by this all if she weren't so viscerally aware of her body in the opposite way she usually doesβ she is not appraising and preening herself for photos but being forced to remember that some things stretch weirdly over her if she isn't careful with sizing and, if she's really negligent, could be downright uncomfortable across her breasts. And it's nice when, before she can even finish saying anything, Marc is already going back into his room and retrieving a shirt for her. Without even an explanation required.
He apologizes and β Lottie just takes the shirt, odd and quiet because she was going to say that, but now she can't because he said it first so she opts for a weird, ] It's okay.. [ Because it isn't really his fault..? Men, historically (to her), have never managed to get sizing right. All of two times did Sunny buy her a dress and a pair of pants that fit, so her expectations have always been spectacularly low.
She lingers by the door, having truly no idea what else she could say but not wanting to leave just yet either. But there's the issue of the fact she's still wet, still dripping, her wet hair clinging uncomfortably to her skin in a way that makes it crawl. She'd like to be dressed before she gets sick on top of this butβ she doesn't move. Marc does, actually, closing the distance in the thick silence that overtakes them.
(In the moment he does slyly slip that foot between her door, she actually was about to close it. She can't change with an open door β especially with no clean underwear. It's a problem that Esther has admonished her before about, something something "You can't keep kicking me out every time you need an outfit change!") ]
Uh.. [ Marc asks if, of all things, she wants a drink, and.. She clings his shirt a little to her chest, not out of anger or apprehension. She's just a littleβ surprised? ] Uh, yeah, if that's alright?
Coffee? Tea? ( water? something else? the question hangs in the air between them, even as marc slides his foot back, away from the door. it's something to busy himself with in the time it takes for her to get dressed, something for him to give himself the pretence of being occupied with instead of just sitting with his own thoughts.
it won't actually change anything — whatever she opts for, whatever marc takes the time to make, they both know it won't take as long as her making sure she's something approaching presentable, even when it's just the two of them, even when it's a pair of (old) sweatpants and one of marc's t-shirts. )
The kitchen's downstairs and to your left, ( he tells her, gaze shifting pointedly away. as if he can see through the floor to where he's talking about. the kitchen — like the rest of the house — is clearly made for more than two occupants of the house, is made for a family. it's disused, sparse in a way that speaks of its sole (infrequent) occupant leaning into practicality over anything else — coffee, first and foremost, and then food — leftover takeout, no real ingredients to speak of. ) I'll wait down there for you.
( a breath of a pause punctuated by something akin to realisation and a quick, searching glance of lottie's face. ) Unless you want me to bring it back up.
[ Lottie was moreso hoping Marc would just make a decision for herβ that he'd bring something or another back up and that'd be it. So she's glad to see at least one of her assumptions ringing true, when he stares at her a little too much when he offers to come deliver her drink, instead.
She leans back, unsure of what he's searching for and almost too scared to ask (because what is he seeing that she isn't? What kind of Lottie is she showing him, without even realizing it?). She palms at the shirt in her hand, glancing somewhere up and off to the side because his eyes areβ for once, they're a little too intense. Too earnest. She vaguely wishes for the buffer of his mask because eye contact is hard, for some reason. She shuffles her weight from foot to foot, tugging the towel around her tighter. ]
Coffee? You can bring it back up to me..
[ There's a beat, where she opens her lips but has to physically stop herself from adding 'if that's okay'. She knows it is, she really does, but it's hard not to add it when she feels so much like a burden in so little time. She finally meets his gaze again, reaching up to wipe some water off her face. ]
( she opts for coffee which means marc will have coffee, too. he'll wait until she's asleep and then he'll break open something stronger, something to ease his thoughts, to distract him, to unfocus him. to lessen the guilt and the knowledge that this is his fault, lottie stood in the guest room (frenchie's room) of grant manor, marc's t-shirt clutched to her chest. bruises not fully formed blooming across her face, her arms.
she looks away from him, unable to meet his gaze, and marc thinks that this is it, the moment where she puts two and two together. where she realises that moon knight is marc spector is danger is a problem, and she decides that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. that there's a reason why marc doesn't have anyone in his life, why marlene had moved away with diatrice, why jean-paul had said enough was enough — jean-paul! the very man that'd pulled marc into bushman's orbit, into a (very successful) mercenary life. jean-paul, of all fucking people, had decided that marc was too much, and if he couldn't stand marc spector, then why would lottie person be able to? she doesn't deserve any of this—.
he inhales and runs a hand through his still damp hair, curling softly at the ends in a way that marc usually hides with either his mask or determined combing up and back. her usual, she says, and marc thinks he'll give it his best shot but the only coffee he usually makes is black, accompanied infrequently by a dash of milk and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
[ She hasn't hit that realization quite yet β she won't hit it for quite some time and she won't hit it in the way he suspects.
She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off, a terrible incident that neither of them could've seen coming. She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off because it will not happen againβ and whether she distances herself from Marc for a little is still left in the air, still unclear. Just like how she did to Caroline when she pushed somebody off a building and almost billed Lottie as an accessory (and she almost didn't even talk to her again after that, only being convinced by the visit of Virgil that sheneeds her).
Now, she is still in a hard to navigate maze of emotions, of thoughts. Some middling on simple and the other middling on so complicated she wants to just numb her brain out. He inhales and runs a hand through his drying hair and sheβ stands there. Watches the way his hair bounces and looks when it isn't covered by sweat and his mask.
She pauses for all of two seconds before hitting him with: ]
βTea. [ Whatever blend he has, she means. ] Hot is okay.
(tea. that's — fine. he can manage tea, he thinks. it's the sort of caffeinated drink he'd had first in the marines as a last resort, something less precious than coffee but served the same purpose; then, in the middle east and around, a drink that proved itself to be more versatile than marc had ever imagined. tea was not ever his first choice, but he's always kept teabags on hand, somewhere at the back of a cupboard, just in case.
marc spector, who'd grown up poor, not quite steven grant, who was used — entirely — to a life of luxury, to loose-leaf tea and to a certain degree of standards.
tea, she says, and marc's expression shifts only slightly in acknowledgement, his foot sliding back and away from the door in acceptance. finally, he's willing to allow lottie the privacy she requires to change into his t-shirt and marlene's pants whilst he busies himself with making coffee and tea, busies himself with anything that's not his thoughts, because he knows if he allows that to happen, he won't be quite himself. won't be the marc that lottie knows, is familiar with.
it's fifteen minutes later, then, that marc returns to the room with one cup of black coffee in one hand, and one cup of tea in the other. neither are especially good but they're serviceable, and marc finds himself wishing with more earnestness than he'd have expected of himself, for nedda. she'd have known the meal to make to set the world to rights (or close to it), she'd have known the tea to brew to set lottie's nerves at ease, the dinner to make.
this is the sort of scenario where a mirror is held up to marc spector and he's found wanting.
he taps the door with his foot in lieu of having any free hands, and waits for lottie to re-emerge. when she does, when she holds open the door, he'll hold the cup in his right (dominant) hand out to her, the cup of earl grey minus milk, minus sugar. )
[ In the fifteen minutes it takes for Marc to busy himself downstairs in the kitchen, making her drink, she's officially closed the door and toweled her body dry. Has slipped the old pair of sweats over her legs (for a second she was worried if her ass would fit but, thank god) and then slides Marc's shirt over her torso. It's loose, big, and the important part is she can breathe and function like a normal person inside it. She wraps her hair up in the towel, then, lets it sit on top of her head so nothing else gets wet.
And with no makeup, with no skincare in sight other than some lotion, Lottie is.. Done.
She is done getting ready and lookingβ well, she has no idea what she looks like and she wants it to stay that way, quite frankly. The less she knows, the better. The less fretting, the less panicking, the less crying. So she sits on her bed for the night and waits for something to do.
(Or: waits for Marc to return, so she'll have less of an excuse to be in her head.)
The tap tap tap makes her jolt, makes her tense and the why, she can't explain. But when she reminds herself she is at Marc's gigantic empty ass mansion, that it's just Marc, and that she can turn the lights on instead of sitting in the dark like a weirdo, she gets up. Opens the door slowly and sees a Marc with cups in both hands. Marc will see a Lottie who's looking better than worse, who is swimming in the plainly colored top. The sleeves are long enough to cover her hands (her wrists, is the important thing) and she's far more cozy, domestic adjacent, like this, looking vaguely bewildered at his appearance, like she forgot he'd be coming back. She takes the one offered: the tea. It's nice and warm in her hands and the steam, if she positions it just right, makes her nose feel less stuffy.
She doesn't drink it, however β in a way she doesn't need to, to figure the taste, she knows there's no milk, no sugar (Marc doesn't seem like the person to have those things at the ready normally, but especially not here, in a manor he's never told her about). Lottie simply palms it, switches hands when the heat begins to become uncomfortable on her skin. ]
..Thanks.
[ She says, and that should be the end of that, quite frankly, but.. It isn't. Lottie awkwardly lingers at her door, using herself as a stopper (no foot is required this time, Marc). And even she can't pinpoint the reason whyβ is it because after this, she thinks she'll be alone? That he'll go back to the Mission for the night and leave her? With no phone or anything? Is it because she's not sure if she should sleep, if she can? Does she want him here?
She uses a free hand to gesture down to her own cup, speaks into the silenceβ ]
( she stays stood in the doorway, doesn't push the door open any further to invite him in, doesn't retreat away herself and leave the door to shut, him still on the outside. it's awkward, a weird little metaphor for where they are right now — marc having done this nearly nightly for over ten years, his knuckles bruised and grazed, more bruises still travelling up his arms, his ribs. to lottie, this is new, it's more than uncomfortable, and she doesn't know if she wants to let more of marc in or shut him out completely.
he looks less awkward and more guilty, concern etched in the frown pinching his eyebrows together, the steady gaze fixed on lottie. it's not an expression seen often, but it's one that marc wears often beneath his mask, at nighttime, whenever he spends too long by himself thinking.
thanks, she says, and he doesn't say anything. he drinks a mouthful of coffee instead, grimacing slightly at the heat but god, it's good to drink something. he's tired. (how long has he been awake? he doesn't know.) then she says the tea looks good and he makes a noise, an exhale of breath through his nose that's part amusement, part scoff, because it doesn't. it's just tea.
grant drinks tea on occasion, loose leaf stuff that marc doesn't have the patience for. marc learnt to make tea in the marines, stationed alongside british soldiers in the middle east. a teabag dumped in a mug, hot water added, then milk. ('never trust a man that puts milk in his tea before the water, spector—'.) it's nothing fancy, nothing special. )
You don't have to just stand in the doorway, Lottie. ( to get to the point. ) You should rest, ( he adds and means 'you should try and get some sleep', but he knows that needing sleep and being able to sleep are two very different things. ) If you don't want to stay up here, there's the lounge. TV. The library.
[ In the most absurd of ways, it doesn't occur to Lottie to invite him in. A simple solution that bypasses her entirely. He takes a measured sip of what she assumes is flaming hot coffee and she winces for him. Winces despite the fact she's doing the same thing with her tea because now she's feeling like she's done something wrong and it upsets her in all the wrong ways. What he says next, upsets her, too.
He says she should do these things, she should rest. If she doesn't want to stay up here, she can go elsewhere. It's a reasonable assumption, from all she's given him, from all she's been through, that she might not want him there. Would want to be alone. Lottie knows this, desperately knows she's not being easy to read or reasonable and who would want to hang out with someone like that? She spaces out, deep in the trenches of her mind that her grip on her tea almost goes slack.
It's, really, the fact he's so ready to take that decision away from her makes her, she doesn't know, sad? Frustrated? Lottie stares at him with an unreadable expression, the only tinge of real emotion edging on is: hurt. Then: understanding. Something like resignation settling deep in her bones because she is tired. Tired of thinking, of being so angry.
But she doesn't want to sleepβ probably can't, with the way she's been existing since he picked her up. Her tongue burns from the tea, and her mouth feels like cotton, standing still in her doorway, feeling the walls close in around her.
And thenβ she swings the door open wider, clenches her jaw in a bout of hesitation, worry, ]
Can Iβ [ She swallows. ] can I listen to some of your music?
( it feels like it takes a long time for lottie to respond, her expression at first distant and blank, and then hurt. tired. hesitant. marc thinks that this was a mistake, that he should've done the same for lottie as he'd done for reese, taken her to andrea, someone more qualified to deal with everything. someone more qualified to talk and to help and to comfort.
that he shouldn't have brought her here, to grant manor. that it'd been a selfish decision, the sort that marc's good at making, where he decides he knows the best course of action and will take precisely zero input on the matter.
then she speaks and it's the last thing he expects to come out of lottie's mouth, a request to listen to music. his music. music that he doesn't even listen to all that often, only infrequently when he's feeling self-indulgent, when he needs some kind of noise as a distraction which is not often. he's never really been into music — sort of, here and there, as a kid and a teenager, and then there'd been other priorities. listening to the radio or keeping up with what was cool had never been something he'd done.
it's an out of the blue request that has marc's eyebrows arching and his gaze sliding from lottie to the inside of (frenchie's) room, to the sparse decor that marc hadn't bothered to replace once frenchie, like marlene, moved out. there's nothing in there for her (them?) to play music on, and it's his turn to look hesitant, doubtful, not out of a desire to say no, but because he's not sure how to say yes. )
Here? Or—. ( a loose wave, a gesture — vague — at the rest of the house. he could get his laptop, or something—? )
[ The thing is: TV feels too normal. A library feels too stifling. Quiet. A lounge is too, what, barren? All of it serves and promises to keep her alone, her brain rattled, but what won't? Music. Music is full of distracting sounds and noises, the sound of another person breathing and crooning into her ears, and if Marc wants to keep that boundary between them, this is her next best thing at not being by herself, at not going crazy. She knows it's outlandish and weird for her to ask, especially when she knowingly teased him over it.
And the way he looks at her, after, she makes her request makes her feel outlandish and weird. The way he tries to look into her room (the guest room, not even like the way he did when he saw her bedroom for the first time, and not she's finding she'd much prefer that than this) after, makes her want to cringe, to shout out that she actually didn't mean that and she's very tired. Wants to slam the door shut and drink her tea, lay down on the bed and wallow. Dissociate for as long as she can until she's forced to seek out entertainment.
She actually looks like she's about to do it, with the anxious way her body hums and how her knuckles curl tighter around the tea cup, the minute way her jaw flexes. But then heβ he.. Oh.
This isn't a no?
It's.. Not a no.
Her brows raise, eyes blinking at him a few times in surprise because she was so sure this is where he'd abandon her (strong words, used because Lottie is still lingering heavy in all her strong emotions, covering her brain in a honey so thick it's hard to wade out of). She sips at her tea, winces behind the cup. Where, he asksβ she hadn't thought about it. She hadn't considered music an option until it just, blurted out. And she doesn't have her phone, it's not like she can ask for a link to his spotify.
She shifts her weight back and forth, an unsure shrug of her shoulders sliding up. ]
I don't know.. [ It's a genuine I don't know (because she was half expecting Marc to have a record player, something not entirely unheard of for both of their generations nowadaysβ or even a stereo system, the man has a manor for crying out loud!). ] Wherever is good to listen to stuff here?
( each question and answer feels like it takes an age, a difficult balancing act that's not quite working of silences and words and misunderstandings. it's not that marc wants to keep distance between them, it's that he doesn't know how to bridge it. he never has.
as time had gone on, marlene and jean-paul had both reached the same conclusion, that whilst marc could be a good partner, a good friend, it was infrequent, it was irregular, it wasn't in any of the ways that they'd needed often enough. the first time frenchie had been injured — because of moon knight — marc had gone to the hospital. he'd been there, seen him, spoke to him.
the second time, he hadn't.
the second time, he'd thrown himself into moon knight more than ever because he didn't know how to acknowledge that jean-paul's injuries — the fact that he'd almost died — were because of what marc asked him to do night after night.
he'd tried to tell himself that, given their history, it was only expected. it was just the risk they run. that there were no assurances in lives like theirs, and it'd sounded hollow even in his own mind, so he hadn't gone. hadn't been able to look jean-paul in the face until marlene brought him home, back to the manor. until she'd asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing and marc had muttered something about finding them and revenge, something short and angry before leaving (the conversation, the manor, anything to escape).
he doesn't really know how to do this, to look at the consequences of his actions in someone else. it's one thing, something else entirely when it's him that's dealing with it, him that suffers. that's all part of this, a reminder. this — lottie stood, lost — in the doorway to a guest room in grant manor of all places, is not that.
lottie rocks in her indecisiveness, her lack of familiarity with the manor, with this, with what she's asking palpable. wherever is good to listen to stuff here, she answers, and marc presses his lips into a line. he gestures back towards the stairs and says— ) Downstairs.
( a moderately sized room that might have been a comfortable lounge once upon a time — a coffee table, a few books in a neat pile that have the appearance of being looked at somewhat recently, a glass of something half-drunk. a sofa. chairs. artwork (avant-garde) on the walls, the sort that could very well be a reflection of marc's tastes in a way that some of the more refined pieces of furniture and decorations aren't.
and a record player. a cd player, too, because neither marc nor jake can often be bothered with dusting off records, replacing needles, or anything else that goes into record player upkeep. none of them are anything marc's bought recently, all mementos of childhood because, frankly, marc doesn't really get why anyone would choose to have a record player in this day and age.
marc's music is all eighties. drama and melancholy. synthy new wave and post-punk. jake's is motown and disco, more fun than marc ever is. )
Take your pick.
( he doesn't quite realise, not yet, that some of the awkwardness isn't just because of what lottie's been through. it's not because he blames himself (he does) and he doesn't know how to process that right now, it's because he's brought her back here, to somewhere that's not just his. it's his and grant's and jake's, it's intimate — open — in a way that marc hasn't been with lottie, it's showing her parts of him that aren't just moon knight adjacent, that isn't just their weird little nights of tv and food. )
[ It's the artwork that really does her in, the peculiar way it screams at her that this place was definitely shared by more than Marc, once upon a time. Lived in long enough for someone to consider what they'd like the walls to look like, when it felt right to stare at them in boredom or grief or whatever.
Now, it is settling in, the weird ever constant reminder that she doesn't know as much about Marc as she thinks she does (because she does, she did, she has to have, because what else have they been sharing everything for? Has he been lying this whole time?). Like she thought she did, because thisβ this? She followed him into the house with little complaint, followed him to her room with little complaint, followed him down the stairs with little complaint. But now she is going insane, realizes that nothing of what happened today is normal and it's eating away at her with such an intensity she finds herself lost in staring at that avant-garde painting, too.
This, is probably the only thing that reminds her of Marc in all this.
The odd, lonely, way the brush strokes stare back at her. How detached and endlessly feeling her being is, all at once. It stings and sits and swallows her whole as he directs her to where the music will be playing. The record player, or the CD player, both of which she hasn't touched in years (the record player because it's trendy now, the CD player because she's not a tween anymore).
She sits down slow, aiming for steady but more wobbly, before mindlessly thumbing through both records and CD's. There's a a deep inhale, something that vaguely sounds displeased and frustrated, at the abrupt shift in taste. Disco? Marc is into disco, now? When there's nothing but 80's realness just a few records back? Who the hell lived here with him? Or was that just another thing he lied about, too? She frowns while her back is still to him, holding a vinyl she just picked at random, the sleeve so dusty she sneezes.
(It is Take On Me she holds in her hands, the three members of ever titular a-ha smizing tastefully at the camera.)
Still, despite how it bothers her, some of her and the way she lingers around everything bothers him, she doesn't bring it up. Just plugs her nose with her hand as she hands the vinyl somewhere behind her, somewhere she assumes him to be because she sure as hell doesn't know how to play things on a record player. ]
( he catches the inhale, the way that she sounds, suddenly, so unhappy, and his gaze snaps towards her, rests on the top of her head in a vain attempt to work out what it is that's bothering her.
(it doesn't work.)
he knows that there's a lot that lottie doesn't know about him, about his situation, about his everything, and he thought she knew that, too. that they were both on the same page about there being so much unsaid between them, a comfort to be found in the fact that neither of them asked questions and so neither of them got answers they didn't want to hear.
he takes the sleeve, lottie's fingers leaving stark spots of colour against the dust, a physical reminder that it's been a long time since marc's done any of this. listened to music like this, spent time in here with something — someone — other than his own thoughts and memories. she's picked out a record that's not quite marc's tastes — he knows it, of course he does, it'd been painfully popular and experienced a brief resurgence in the 2000s after some something or other band had covered the track. it'd been bought for him, he thinks, as a not-quite joke, accompanied by a remark about listening to something a little less gloomy once in a while.
he doesn't quite sigh knowing that the synth pop of a-ha is going to be startling loud, shocking in the silence of the manor, the silence between lottie and him regardless of volume. it'll disturb the uncomfortable not-peace of the situation. he guesses that's what lottie wants.
the infrequently listened to vinyl is slid out of the cardboard, placed on the equally infrequently used record player, needled lifted up and then placed carefully down on one of the grooves near the edge. a soft click and a whir, audible fuzz filling the silence before the first notes of the track start playing.
he looks to lottie, watches her. watches her reaction, studies her expression. he should say something, he thinks, should do something, should be—
[ The entire time she can feel his eyes on her. His stare, that manages to tell her so much when Marc willingly says so little. He matches her beat for beat, word for word practically, grabs the sleeve and lets the sound of him getting the record player ready take hold of the lavish room they're in.
The one that is filled with so many things, with Marc, and still she manages to feel very, very, alone.
A glutton for punishment, she sips at her tea again. Lets the heat curl unpleasant on her tongue and doesn't move from her spot. Simply sits and brings her legs up to her chest, stares ahead at the collection of favorite songs and bands that belong to somebody she doesn't know. Hell, maybe it is Marc's. Maybe it's Marlene's. His kid's. She doesn't know, and usually she wouldn't care, but right now it makes her skin crawl, being the odd one out. Being the anomaly in a house that is already one cohesive unit.
Marc belongs here, to some extent. She doesn't know if this is his vacation house or his actual house because he sleeps at the Mission, butβ. He's been to her house. He's been inside her bedroom, her kitchen. He knows where things are in her house, he has her Netflix password (whether he used it, that's up in the air, but she gave it to him and that's what matters, isn't it?). She bought him slippers.
The first notes of a-ha's Take on Me flitters to life, loud and so hilariously upbeat that it doesn't register at first. Every note, every stroke of a key, every beat of the drum just melts together as Marc's eyes burn the hottest they've done tonight, right at her back. Staring at his shirt, really, that sits weird atop her skin. She pulls the sleeves down further to completely encase her hands, places the teacup right by her toes and stares into the liquid. She feels her eyes water, feels herself crying all over again.
And thenβ she laughs something bitter, audibly strained. She bought him slippers. ]
..Nope. I'm good.
[ She wishes there was some way to turn up the volume, to drown out anything else he could say along with all her senses. To make the person who hardly desires to be present enough for her, at her most awful, get out of her sight. But since she can't, Lottie does what she does bestβ avoid her problems like it's normal. ]
( he feels cold. recognises the feeling, vaguely, as dread. recognises it as an unpleasant memory, of marc and marlene in similar positions in the same room. marc returning home after a night of moon knighting, after a night with stained glass scarlet and a night of questioning himself. unsure and indecisive about what he should do, of asking marlene and knowing that something was wrong, of asking her and just being told 'it's fine, forget it, just say what you came here to say'.
he can't see lottie cry but he can hear it, in the way that her words slide together, are enunciated in that slightly watery kind of way and he cringes. shortly after that he'd encountered carson knowles and marlene had left him — really left — for the first time, but not after painfully spelling out all the ways steven (marc, really—, everything she'd said had been about marc) was difficult, challenging. the futility of staying with him and the repetitiveness of his — everything.
the memory is there and he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead as if trying to bury it down, punctuated by a soft inhale of breath that's almost a groan before he makes his way around, to sit next to lottie. a-ha is loud in the silence, technically speaking but it feels the opposite. it feels like the silence is deafening, everything that's unsaid hanging between them like threats.
he looks to her, to the sleeves of his top, the one that's too big for her. laughably so, really, the way the shoulders droop down her arms, the way that the sleeves engulf her hands. )
This is what happens. ( an abrupt remark. he thought about prefacing it with an 'I'm sorry', but—. ) This is why they're gone, ( he adds instead, and he assumes she'll know he means marlene and frenchie and everyone else he's sort of but not really told her about. )
I'm sorry.
( he thinks that's what the problem is — him and the effect he has. everything that happens to the people he loves and cares about.
he doesn't think that the problem is him in an entirely different way, the fact that he doesn't trust enough to talk and to share. )
[ Forever absorbed in herself, she doesn't even think of how the way she acts will impact Marc. Is so swept up in herself and her own emotions that she can't be bothered to consider him when she wants him gone, when she's stubbornly decided how he feels already. To her, this is an open and shut case. It doesn't matter if she's so stupidly hurt by all of this. Doesn't matter if Marc shifts minutely, presses the heel of his hand against his forehead punctuate by an almost groan because he, too, is experiencing a flurry of emotions that are gripping him. And she knows. It's drowning him, too. And she knows.
(What she doesn't know, is how he sees Marlene in Lottie with the distinct way she so readily shuts him out, when he is searching for a solution to a problem he can't see.)
She hears him step closer, feet padding across the floor, to her first before she sees the edge of his arm in her peripheral. Marc sits beside her and Lottie doesn't expect it, is actually elated this is even happeningβ but she has to remind herself she's upset. She's upset even if he's trying to reach out, because it's not that simple. He can't decide to finally be near her and expect everything to be okay! It's not fair.
He turns his head and now his gaze is so close andβ it's not fair. She sniffles louder, stares even harder at the liquid inside that cup of tea (he made it for her) that shifts from their movement, tries her best to not look at him (looking so very put out, lost, like he aches for something he can't place) because he doesn't deserve it, her recognition. His lips part and his voice is uncharacteristically exposed, the loudest thing in the room. Louder than the bittersweet crooning vocals of a-ha floating about the room. They're at the chorus now, a hilarious crescendo that matches the way her heart stops, how her expression warbles in frustration.
What the fuckβ
She ducks her head into her knees to hide the furious tint to her eyes, the pain (her tears) that gathers at her eyes and slithers down her cheeks. Making her so effortless to read to him, because Lottie has always been like that. Predictable, easy to console, someone who is simple at heart. Whereas Marc is wholly the opposite, shifts in expression so minute it's a wonder she can tell them apart. And he doesn't deserve that, the easy way out. And in a way he doesn't deserve how she absolutely does not care about that, her apathy bubbling to a point where she refuses to acknowledge itβ his explanation, his sorry. ]
I bought you slippers.
[ It sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It isn't at all what she wants to say in response to Marc's apology, but it's what he gets. Because as stupid and silly as it may seem, as insignificant as it may seem, it meant a lot to her. As much as letting him become part of her life, as much as trusting him with keeping her personality a secret (an unspoken promise, but Marc has always known how much of herself she hides to be pleasant every day, he knows because she is so bratty and unpleasant, childish and demanding, of him daily). ]
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The fact she is fully inside her head means she doesn't realize for how long they've been driving, doesn't realize she can't recognize anything on these streets much less wherever the hell they're at when they park. She's too busy idly scratching at her skin and crying over, and over, again.
Grant manor is large and sprawling and open, andβ it's a few minutes after he says 'we're here' that she finally moves. Lifts her head away from the window with something like recognition before she slowly turns to look at him. Her lips part sluggishly, trying to catch up with everything she's brutally forced out until now.
It's weak, it's broken, warbly and confused (hurt) when she saysβ ]
You said we'd go home.
[ And she doesn't know if he meant his, or hers, but she doesn't expect this. This weird mix of lavish and unkempt, of foreign and not something she wants, at all. Lottie doesn't want new and unfamiliar. She wants the coffee machine at her house to stir to life so she can stay up until she passes out, she wants the dim and dark brooding man cave of the Mission. She wants to swaddle herself in a blanket and cry beneath her bed, on the floor, because no one will see her and that's for the best, isn't it? ]
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(but then, marc does that — he makes decisions for others, doesn't confer with them, and doesn't think of how they'll feel about it. marc wants it and he thinks it'll be fine and it's a good decision, so it must be, in spite of how often that's proven to not be the case.)
he glances from her to the house and back again, hand resting on the door handle before he explains, abruptly— ) My home. You'll be safe. ( a sideways glance as the door's swung open with a soft click and he adds, ) And I need to get changed. Shower. ( all things he can do at the mission, but has chosen not to. he pauses, his boots crunching on the gravel underfoot as he walks round to the other side of the car and opens her door.
he says, a little quieter and a little softer, ) I didn't think you'd want to see Reese. ( or anyone, he means.
he waits until she gets out of the car to turn and head inside, holds the door open for her. the inside is a mix of marc and steven — the foyer more steven, tasteful and modern and simple. expensive and understated. marc lingers, awkwardly, watching lottie. he's mindful that she's not happy, but given what she's just been through, why would she be?
he looks towards the staircase, bypasses the thought of the kitchen and food (for now), and gestures. ) The guest bedroom has an ensuite. You can get cleaned up.
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So she stays silent, the unpleasant curl of her lips softening when he gets out of the car, when he opens her door. She almost protests on instinct that she knows Reese (sort of) and she'd love to see her (not really), but it hits her. Abruptly, loudly, because Marc is quiet and tender when he speaks to her and she remembers.
Right.
Right.
She slides out of the car and follows after Marc like a duckling, stares at his hands that swing back and forth as he guides her, opens the doorβ ushers her in first so he can stay at her back. And when she sees the foyer it is.. A lot. Who the hell designed this? Because it certainly wasn't Marc. Marc's whole place has theming in it, decisions she's sure he poured his heart and soul into while sketching it out late at night. This is stylish but oddly, she doesn't know, like a spread on a magazine? Like it's someone else's touch. It's enough of a conundrum that she properly forgets the throbbing at her cheek, the ache to her knees and the marks at her wrist. Because she's just a guest at Marc's fancy house, does it need to be more complicated than that?
But she's snapped out of itβ Marc comes back into vision and she lets her eyes drag to the staircase. This house is so fantastically foreign, but it's good to see Marc is still Marc. Lottie doesn't even bark out a laugh, because if she does it might sound watery. Marc has always been like this, but still, 'you can get cleaned up' feels the oddest sort of impersonal for what happened, today. She knows he's trying his best, but it's growing to simply not be enough. Now, she's realizing, it might not be enough, and it's painful, the way those words hit her for no particular reason at all.
(It's the expectations, the ones she has for Marc that can never be fulfilled. He's just not like that, he can't be what she needs, she knows this but she still desperately wants him to be. And now she's wondering if she's setting these on him just so she can have an excuse to be mad, to put her frustrations out on somebody because it's the only thing she has control over right now.)
Maybe, if she waited, Marc would've led her after she gave her consent. But impulsive Lottie doesn't, she mumbles something inaudible, tonally (vaguely) like an mhmm before she makes her way up the stairs step by step, hands curled into loose fists at her side. ]
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and so he doesn't immediately point out that she doesn't know which room he's referring to, that when she gets to the top of stairs she'll be greeted by a hallway with a dozen doors — the bedroom that used to be his and marlene's, the room at the other end, a (slightly) smaller mirror of his — the one that used to be jean-paul's. half a dozen smaller guest rooms, ones that had never been used for their intended purpose — marc and marlene had used them for storage, mostly. )
To the right, ( he says as lottie nears the top of the stairs. unlike marc, lottie doesn't pad dirt and blood and more up the stairs — one reason, frankly, why marc (and steven and jake) had all agreed that carpets were a bad idea.
his gaze lingers on lottie for one second, then two. quiet. contemplative. ) Give me a second. ( a statement not a question, and he heads to the left, the opposite direction to where he'd instructed her to go.
(his bedroom, the one that's mostly him (now), barring a few sparse reminders of the life he-and-jake-and-steven had before. there's two wardrobes, one his — a mix of all their belongings, haphazardly organised thanks only to the infrequent amount of time any of them spend here, even more infrequently worn. he doesn't give that one any attention, not now. instead, he heads to the other wardrobe, the one that used to be marlene's. there's not much there — a few t-shirts, a couple of dresses (expensive, that steven had bought), sweatpants. items that marlene hadn't wanted to take with her when she left, items that neither marc nor steven nor jake had managed to find it in them to ask her about.
(for a while, marc had thought it'd meant that, like every break-up before the last, she'd come home until he realised it'd meant that there were parts of her she wanted to leave behind.)
lottie and marlene are about the same height, he thinks, although the similarities end there. lottie's bustier, more slender where marlene had a more athletic build but, at a guess, they're close enough in size that he doubts it'll be too much of an issue.
one t-shirt, then, and one pair of sweatpants.)
he doubts lottie will have lingered at the top of the stairs waiting for him to return, and it's only on approach to the door to the master guest room — the room he assumes she's entered rather than any of the others — that he speaks again.
(it doesn't occur to him that he still hasn't taken off any of moon knight's clothes, that he's still wearing the mask.) )
—Clean clothes. ( he half thinks of explaining that they were marlenes and then promptly thinks the better of it. ) For after you've showered.
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Pointedly: not grabs them. She's angry enough to have a physical reaction but aware enough of what he's doing that she doesn't immediately take it all out on him.
The door, however, is shut firmly on him.
Pointedly: not locked.
It takes her a minute to figure out how the shower works, but she manages it after a few tries. She peels off clothing that sticks to her with sweat, dirt, blood (from Marc), and it's a disgusting sensation. Her worst nightmare. She doesn't want to be in her body but she's stuck in it, with every scrape and scratch, every cut and bruise. She sees them all when she looks into the mirror and this time she doesn't blink away the tears. This time, Lottie muffles her cries. An attempt at privacy where she hasn't had any forβ not just today, or yesterday, but all of her life. And for once, she wants to keep this moment to herself. So she stays there, inside the bathroom, sitting on the floor, face in her hands and simply cries.
She does the same inside the shower for more than an hour, some of it in warm water and some of it in cold (for her hair). Lottie still feels like shit by the time she gets out, but her body is as clean as it's going to getβ because she can't scrub bruises away.
Her hair clings to her body, bits of green dye trickling over slender shoulders as she palms at the clean clothes he had given her. Wonders: what the fuck? She picks up the shirt, thinks.. Uhh. She can give this a try? But when it's slipped on she realizes this is very much an issue when she can't get it down past her chest. Lottie spends the next ten minutes trying to get out of the shirt before opting to just wrap a towel around herself for modesty.
(Because wearing the sweats then the towel on top seemed a bit.. Much.) ]
Marc?
[ She calls out, easing her door a smidge open (yes, she is peeking through it like a child). ]
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—she shuts the door on him.
he stands there for a moment longer, mouth parted in deep surprise at her reaction. something (someone) at the back of his mind says 'well done', and he presses his hand against the bridge of his nose. well fucking done indeed. he's not sure what he's done to upset her more than she already was, but apparently, he's done it.
he gives her five minutes before padding back towards his bedroom, five minutes before he strips out of the cape, the cowl, the mask, the boots, all of it. it's dumped unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the bathroom before he showers, years of practise and use meaning the shower's turned on quickly, meaning he showers quickly. takes long enough to become clean, for the water to stop running down the drain tinged with pink.
like lottie, marc's body is adorned with bruises and cuts though his are entirely the result of his own actions and not all from tonight. his are the result of willingness, of choice, of a decision made of his own free will. he doesn't cry about his, never has and never will. they're testaments to how he feels about himself, about what he needs to do to silence the guilt and the loathing that feels like it takes up his entire soul.
they're deserved.
he dresses in his clothes — spector's — a plain, loose-fit t-shirt tucked into an equally plain pair of trousers. he doesn't stay in the bedroom — he heads towards the guest room, pauses outside, and then reaches the conclusion that he's a fucking idiot, and heads back to his room.
it's an unpleasant feeling, the sensation that something's not right and he doesn't know what to move or how to get the pieces to fall into place. he hates it, hates the way that the night's gone, and he's antsy. he knows that if lottie wasn't here, he wouldn't be either, he'd find somewhere else to be, someone — anyone — to take his feelings out on, anything to take the uncomfortable edge off.
it feels like it's caught in chest, in his head, and—
then there's a noise. faint. questioning. a little plaintive.
back to the guest room and the door's open and his breath catches and—
it's lottie, her green hair wet and slick and visible, even through the crack in the door.
(fuck.) )
Lottie?
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She has all those things and yet, she doesn't use them. Just.. Stays quiet for another moment, feeling spectacularly embarrassed for no reason at all.
(It's because she can't fit in the shirt, it is definitely because of that.)
She clears her throat nervously, glances down to the ground as she tries to not let the way her hair drips over her skin bug her. Tries to not let the fact she's making a mess on the floor, bug her. ]
..Um, is it okay if I can wear one of your shirts?
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he can see that she's dressed only in a towel and, the longer the silence lasts, the more marc slowly pieces together what she's about to ask. he'd been wrong. marlene's clothes don't fit her.
(is that why she's awkward? embarrassed in a way that marc doesn't often see from her?)
he opens his mouth to speak just as lottie coughs and looks down and away from him. it's not quite a slice of normality because there's nothing normal about any of this for either of them, but it's almost laughably mundane given the events of the night. )
—Yeah, sure.
( like he'd say 'no'? the answer is given immediately, almost before she's finished asking, and it's only a few moments before he returns with something of his in hand, held out towards her. it's given with a— ) Sorry, ( said to break the silence that feels palpable. there's a brief, sharp moment where marc wonders if she's going to slam the door in his face (again), and he shifts his weight to push a foot forward, enough to stop the door closing entirely if she decides to just for long enough to ask— )
Do you want a drink?
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He apologizes and β Lottie just takes the shirt, odd and quiet because she was going to say that, but now she can't because he said it first so she opts for a weird, ] It's okay.. [ Because it isn't really his fault..? Men, historically (to her), have never managed to get sizing right. All of two times did Sunny buy her a dress and a pair of pants that fit, so her expectations have always been spectacularly low.
She lingers by the door, having truly no idea what else she could say but not wanting to leave just yet either. But there's the issue of the fact she's still wet, still dripping, her wet hair clinging uncomfortably to her skin in a way that makes it crawl. She'd like to be dressed before she gets sick on top of this butβ she doesn't move. Marc does, actually, closing the distance in the thick silence that overtakes them.
(In the moment he does slyly slip that foot between her door, she actually was about to close it. She can't change with an open door β especially with no clean underwear. It's a problem that Esther has admonished her before about, something something "You can't keep kicking me out every time you need an outfit change!") ]
Uh.. [ Marc asks if, of all things, she wants a drink, and.. She clings his shirt a little to her chest, not out of anger or apprehension. She's just a littleβ surprised? ] Uh, yeah, if that's alright?
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it won't actually change anything — whatever she opts for, whatever marc takes the time to make, they both know it won't take as long as her making sure she's something approaching presentable, even when it's just the two of them, even when it's a pair of (old) sweatpants and one of marc's t-shirts. )
The kitchen's downstairs and to your left, ( he tells her, gaze shifting pointedly away. as if he can see through the floor to where he's talking about. the kitchen — like the rest of the house — is clearly made for more than two occupants of the house, is made for a family. it's disused, sparse in a way that speaks of its sole (infrequent) occupant leaning into practicality over anything else — coffee, first and foremost, and then food — leftover takeout, no real ingredients to speak of. ) I'll wait down there for you.
( a breath of a pause punctuated by something akin to realisation and a quick, searching glance of lottie's face. ) Unless you want me to bring it back up.
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She leans back, unsure of what he's searching for and almost too scared to ask (because what is he seeing that she isn't? What kind of Lottie is she showing him, without even realizing it?). She palms at the shirt in her hand, glancing somewhere up and off to the side because his eyes areβ for once, they're a little too intense. Too earnest. She vaguely wishes for the buffer of his mask because eye contact is hard, for some reason. She shuffles her weight from foot to foot, tugging the towel around her tighter. ]
Coffee? You can bring it back up to me..
[ There's a beat, where she opens her lips but has to physically stop herself from adding 'if that's okay'. She knows it is, she really does, but it's hard not to add it when she feels so much like a burden in so little time. She finally meets his gaze again, reaching up to wipe some water off her face. ]
Just my usual, I guess?
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she looks away from him, unable to meet his gaze, and marc thinks that this is it, the moment where she puts two and two together. where she realises that moon knight is marc spector is danger is a problem, and she decides that she doesn't want anything more to do with him. that there's a reason why marc doesn't have anyone in his life, why marlene had moved away with diatrice, why jean-paul had said enough was enough — jean-paul! the very man that'd pulled marc into bushman's orbit, into a (very successful) mercenary life. jean-paul, of all fucking people, had decided that marc was too much, and if he couldn't stand marc spector, then why would lottie person be able to? she doesn't deserve any of this—.
he inhales and runs a hand through his still damp hair, curling softly at the ends in a way that marc usually hides with either his mask or determined combing up and back. her usual, she says, and marc thinks he'll give it his best shot but the only coffee he usually makes is black, accompanied infrequently by a dash of milk and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
(does he even have non-dairy milk? fuck. shit.) )
—As a back-up?
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She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off, a terrible incident that neither of them could've seen coming. She'll think of it as an unfortunate one off because it will not happen againβ and whether she distances herself from Marc for a little is still left in the air, still unclear. Just like how she did to Caroline when she pushed somebody off a building and almost billed Lottie as an accessory (and she almost didn't even talk to her again after that, only being convinced by the visit of Virgil that she needs her).
Now, she is still in a hard to navigate maze of emotions, of thoughts. Some middling on simple and the other middling on so complicated she wants to just numb her brain out. He inhales and runs a hand through his drying hair and sheβ stands there. Watches the way his hair bounces and looks when it isn't covered by sweat and his mask.
She pauses for all of two seconds before hitting him with: ]
βTea. [ Whatever blend he has, she means. ] Hot is okay.
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marc spector, who'd grown up poor, not quite steven grant, who was used — entirely — to a life of luxury, to loose-leaf tea and to a certain degree of standards.
tea, she says, and marc's expression shifts only slightly in acknowledgement, his foot sliding back and away from the door in acceptance. finally, he's willing to allow lottie the privacy she requires to change into his t-shirt and marlene's pants whilst he busies himself with making coffee and tea, busies himself with anything that's not his thoughts, because he knows if he allows that to happen, he won't be quite himself. won't be the marc that lottie knows, is familiar with.
it's fifteen minutes later, then, that marc returns to the room with one cup of black coffee in one hand, and one cup of tea in the other. neither are especially good but they're serviceable, and marc finds himself wishing with more earnestness than he'd have expected of himself, for nedda. she'd have known the meal to make to set the world to rights (or close to it), she'd have known the tea to brew to set lottie's nerves at ease, the dinner to make.
this is the sort of scenario where a mirror is held up to marc spector and he's found wanting.
he taps the door with his foot in lieu of having any free hands, and waits for lottie to re-emerge. when she does, when she holds open the door, he'll hold the cup in his right (dominant) hand out to her, the cup of earl grey minus milk, minus sugar. )
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And with no makeup, with no skincare in sight other than some lotion, Lottie is.. Done.
She is done getting ready and lookingβ well, she has no idea what she looks like and she wants it to stay that way, quite frankly. The less she knows, the better. The less fretting, the less panicking, the less crying. So she sits on her bed for the night and waits for something to do.
(Or: waits for Marc to return, so she'll have less of an excuse to be in her head.)
The tap tap tap makes her jolt, makes her tense and the why, she can't explain. But when she reminds herself she is at Marc's gigantic empty ass mansion, that it's just Marc, and that she can turn the lights on instead of sitting in the dark like a weirdo, she gets up. Opens the door slowly and sees a Marc with cups in both hands. Marc will see a Lottie who's looking better than worse, who is swimming in the plainly colored top. The sleeves are long enough to cover her hands (her wrists, is the important thing) and she's far more cozy, domestic adjacent, like this, looking vaguely bewildered at his appearance, like she forgot he'd be coming back. She takes the one offered: the tea. It's nice and warm in her hands and the steam, if she positions it just right, makes her nose feel less stuffy.
She doesn't drink it, however β in a way she doesn't need to, to figure the taste, she knows there's no milk, no sugar (Marc doesn't seem like the person to have those things at the ready normally, but especially not here, in a manor he's never told her about). Lottie simply palms it, switches hands when the heat begins to become uncomfortable on her skin. ]
..Thanks.
[ She says, and that should be the end of that, quite frankly, but.. It isn't. Lottie awkwardly lingers at her door, using herself as a stopper (no foot is required this time, Marc). And even she can't pinpoint the reason whyβ is it because after this, she thinks she'll be alone? That he'll go back to the Mission for the night and leave her? With no phone or anything? Is it because she's not sure if she should sleep, if she can? Does she want him here?
She uses a free hand to gesture down to her own cup, speaks into the silenceβ ]
It, uh, looks good.
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he looks less awkward and more guilty, concern etched in the frown pinching his eyebrows together, the steady gaze fixed on lottie. it's not an expression seen often, but it's one that marc wears often beneath his mask, at nighttime, whenever he spends too long by himself thinking.
thanks, she says, and he doesn't say anything. he drinks a mouthful of coffee instead, grimacing slightly at the heat but god, it's good to drink something. he's tired. (how long has he been awake? he doesn't know.) then she says the tea looks good and he makes a noise, an exhale of breath through his nose that's part amusement, part scoff, because it doesn't. it's just tea.
grant drinks tea on occasion, loose leaf stuff that marc doesn't have the patience for. marc learnt to make tea in the marines, stationed alongside british soldiers in the middle east. a teabag dumped in a mug, hot water added, then milk. ('never trust a man that puts milk in his tea before the water, spector—'.) it's nothing fancy, nothing special. )
You don't have to just stand in the doorway, Lottie. ( to get to the point. ) You should rest, ( he adds and means 'you should try and get some sleep', but he knows that needing sleep and being able to sleep are two very different things. ) If you don't want to stay up here, there's the lounge. TV. The library.
( distractions. )
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He says she should do these things, she should rest. If she doesn't want to stay up here, she can go elsewhere. It's a reasonable assumption, from all she's given him, from all she's been through, that she might not want him there. Would want to be alone. Lottie knows this, desperately knows she's not being easy to read or reasonable and who would want to hang out with someone like that? She spaces out, deep in the trenches of her mind that her grip on her tea almost goes slack.
It's, really, the fact he's so ready to take that decision away from her makes her, she doesn't know, sad? Frustrated? Lottie stares at him with an unreadable expression, the only tinge of real emotion edging on is: hurt. Then: understanding. Something like resignation settling deep in her bones because she is tired. Tired of thinking, of being so angry.
But she doesn't want to sleepβ probably can't, with the way she's been existing since he picked her up. Her tongue burns from the tea, and her mouth feels like cotton, standing still in her doorway, feeling the walls close in around her.
And thenβ she swings the door open wider, clenches her jaw in a bout of hesitation, worry, ]
Can Iβ [ She swallows. ] can I listen to some of your music?
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that he shouldn't have brought her here, to grant manor. that it'd been a selfish decision, the sort that marc's good at making, where he decides he knows the best course of action and will take precisely zero input on the matter.
then she speaks and it's the last thing he expects to come out of lottie's mouth, a request to listen to music. his music. music that he doesn't even listen to all that often, only infrequently when he's feeling self-indulgent, when he needs some kind of noise as a distraction which is not often. he's never really been into music — sort of, here and there, as a kid and a teenager, and then there'd been other priorities. listening to the radio or keeping up with what was cool had never been something he'd done.
it's an out of the blue request that has marc's eyebrows arching and his gaze sliding from lottie to the inside of (frenchie's) room, to the sparse decor that marc hadn't bothered to replace once frenchie, like marlene, moved out. there's nothing in there for her (them?) to play music on, and it's his turn to look hesitant, doubtful, not out of a desire to say no, but because he's not sure how to say yes. )
Here? Or—. ( a loose wave, a gesture — vague — at the rest of the house. he could get his laptop, or something—? )
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And the way he looks at her, after, she makes her request makes her feel outlandish and weird. The way he tries to look into her room (the guest room, not even like the way he did when he saw her bedroom for the first time, and not she's finding she'd much prefer that than this) after, makes her want to cringe, to shout out that she actually didn't mean that and she's very tired. Wants to slam the door shut and drink her tea, lay down on the bed and wallow. Dissociate for as long as she can until she's forced to seek out entertainment.
She actually looks like she's about to do it, with the anxious way her body hums and how her knuckles curl tighter around the tea cup, the minute way her jaw flexes. But then heβ he.. Oh.
This isn't a no?
It's.. Not a no.
Her brows raise, eyes blinking at him a few times in surprise because she was so sure this is where he'd abandon her (strong words, used because Lottie is still lingering heavy in all her strong emotions, covering her brain in a honey so thick it's hard to wade out of). She sips at her tea, winces behind the cup. Where, he asksβ she hadn't thought about it. She hadn't considered music an option until it just, blurted out. And she doesn't have her phone, it's not like she can ask for a link to his spotify.
She shifts her weight back and forth, an unsure shrug of her shoulders sliding up. ]
I don't know.. [ It's a genuine I don't know (because she was half expecting Marc to have a record player, something not entirely unheard of for both of their generations nowadaysβ or even a stereo system, the man has a manor for crying out loud!). ] Wherever is good to listen to stuff here?
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as time had gone on, marlene and jean-paul had both reached the same conclusion, that whilst marc could be a good partner, a good friend, it was infrequent, it was irregular, it wasn't in any of the ways that they'd needed often enough. the first time frenchie had been injured — because of moon knight — marc had gone to the hospital. he'd been there, seen him, spoke to him.
the second time, he hadn't.
the second time, he'd thrown himself into moon knight more than ever because he didn't know how to acknowledge that jean-paul's injuries — the fact that he'd almost died — were because of what marc asked him to do night after night.
he'd tried to tell himself that, given their history, it was only expected. it was just the risk they run. that there were no assurances in lives like theirs, and it'd sounded hollow even in his own mind, so he hadn't gone. hadn't been able to look jean-paul in the face until marlene brought him home, back to the manor. until she'd asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing and marc had muttered something about finding them and revenge, something short and angry before leaving (the conversation, the manor, anything to escape).
he doesn't really know how to do this, to look at the consequences of his actions in someone else. it's one thing, something else entirely when it's him that's dealing with it, him that suffers. that's all part of this, a reminder. this — lottie stood, lost — in the doorway to a guest room in grant manor of all places, is not that.
lottie rocks in her indecisiveness, her lack of familiarity with the manor, with this, with what she's asking palpable. wherever is good to listen to stuff here, she answers, and marc presses his lips into a line. he gestures back towards the stairs and says— ) Downstairs.
( a moderately sized room that might have been a comfortable lounge once upon a time — a coffee table, a few books in a neat pile that have the appearance of being looked at somewhat recently, a glass of something half-drunk. a sofa. chairs. artwork (avant-garde) on the walls, the sort that could very well be a reflection of marc's tastes in a way that some of the more refined pieces of furniture and decorations aren't.
and a record player. a cd player, too, because neither marc nor jake can often be bothered with dusting off records, replacing needles, or anything else that goes into record player upkeep. none of them are anything marc's bought recently, all mementos of childhood because, frankly, marc doesn't really get why anyone would choose to have a record player in this day and age.
marc's music is all eighties. drama and melancholy. synthy new wave and post-punk. jake's is motown and disco, more fun than marc ever is. )
Take your pick.
( he doesn't quite realise, not yet, that some of the awkwardness isn't just because of what lottie's been through. it's not because he blames himself (he does) and he doesn't know how to process that right now, it's because he's brought her back here, to somewhere that's not just his. it's his and grant's and jake's, it's intimate — open — in a way that marc hasn't been with lottie, it's showing her parts of him that aren't just moon knight adjacent, that isn't just their weird little nights of tv and food. )
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Now, it is settling in, the weird ever constant reminder that she doesn't know as much about Marc as she thinks she does (because she does, she did, she has to have, because what else have they been sharing everything for? Has he been lying this whole time?). Like she thought she did, because thisβ this? She followed him into the house with little complaint, followed him to her room with little complaint, followed him down the stairs with little complaint. But now she is going insane, realizes that nothing of what happened today is normal and it's eating away at her with such an intensity she finds herself lost in staring at that avant-garde painting, too.
This, is probably the only thing that reminds her of Marc in all this.
The odd, lonely, way the brush strokes stare back at her. How detached and endlessly feeling her being is, all at once. It stings and sits and swallows her whole as he directs her to where the music will be playing. The record player, or the CD player, both of which she hasn't touched in years (the record player because it's trendy now, the CD player because she's not a tween anymore).
She sits down slow, aiming for steady but more wobbly, before mindlessly thumbing through both records and CD's. There's a a deep inhale, something that vaguely sounds displeased and frustrated, at the abrupt shift in taste. Disco? Marc is into disco, now? When there's nothing but 80's realness just a few records back? Who the hell lived here with him? Or was that just another thing he lied about, too? She frowns while her back is still to him, holding a vinyl she just picked at random, the sleeve so dusty she sneezes.
(It is Take On Me she holds in her hands, the three members of ever titular a-ha smizing tastefully at the camera.)
Still, despite how it bothers her, some of her and the way she lingers around everything bothers him, she doesn't bring it up. Just plugs her nose with her hand as she hands the vinyl somewhere behind her, somewhere she assumes him to be because she sure as hell doesn't know how to play things on a record player. ]
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(it doesn't work.)
he knows that there's a lot that lottie doesn't know about him, about his situation, about his everything, and he thought she knew that, too. that they were both on the same page about there being so much unsaid between them, a comfort to be found in the fact that neither of them asked questions and so neither of them got answers they didn't want to hear.
he takes the sleeve, lottie's fingers leaving stark spots of colour against the dust, a physical reminder that it's been a long time since marc's done any of this. listened to music like this, spent time in here with something — someone — other than his own thoughts and memories. she's picked out a record that's not quite marc's tastes — he knows it, of course he does, it'd been painfully popular and experienced a brief resurgence in the 2000s after some something or other band had covered the track. it'd been bought for him, he thinks, as a not-quite joke, accompanied by a remark about listening to something a little less gloomy once in a while.
he doesn't quite sigh knowing that the synth pop of a-ha is going to be startling loud, shocking in the silence of the manor, the silence between lottie and him regardless of volume. it'll disturb the uncomfortable not-peace of the situation. he guesses that's what lottie wants.
the infrequently listened to vinyl is slid out of the cardboard, placed on the equally infrequently used record player, needled lifted up and then placed carefully down on one of the grooves near the edge. a soft click and a whir, audible fuzz filling the silence before the first notes of the track start playing.
he looks to lottie, watches her. watches her reaction, studies her expression. he should say something, he thinks, should do something, should be—
—more. )
—Do you want anything else?
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The one that is filled with so many things, with Marc, and still she manages to feel very, very, alone.
A glutton for punishment, she sips at her tea again. Lets the heat curl unpleasant on her tongue and doesn't move from her spot. Simply sits and brings her legs up to her chest, stares ahead at the collection of favorite songs and bands that belong to somebody she doesn't know. Hell, maybe it is Marc's. Maybe it's Marlene's. His kid's. She doesn't know, and usually she wouldn't care, but right now it makes her skin crawl, being the odd one out. Being the anomaly in a house that is already one cohesive unit.
Marc belongs here, to some extent. She doesn't know if this is his vacation house or his actual house because he sleeps at the Mission, butβ. He's been to her house. He's been inside her bedroom, her kitchen. He knows where things are in her house, he has her Netflix password (whether he used it, that's up in the air, but she gave it to him and that's what matters, isn't it?). She bought him slippers.
The first notes of a-ha's Take on Me flitters to life, loud and so hilariously upbeat that it doesn't register at first. Every note, every stroke of a key, every beat of the drum just melts together as Marc's eyes burn the hottest they've done tonight, right at her back. Staring at his shirt, really, that sits weird atop her skin. She pulls the sleeves down further to completely encase her hands, places the teacup right by her toes and stares into the liquid. She feels her eyes water, feels herself crying all over again.
And thenβ she laughs something bitter, audibly strained. She bought him slippers. ]
..Nope. I'm good.
[ She wishes there was some way to turn up the volume, to drown out anything else he could say along with all her senses. To make the person who hardly desires to be present enough for her, at her most awful, get out of her sight. But since she can't, Lottie does what she does bestβ avoid her problems like it's normal. ]
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he can't see lottie cry but he can hear it, in the way that her words slide together, are enunciated in that slightly watery kind of way and he cringes. shortly after that he'd encountered carson knowles and marlene had left him — really left — for the first time, but not after painfully spelling out all the ways steven (marc, really—, everything she'd said had been about marc) was difficult, challenging. the futility of staying with him and the repetitiveness of his — everything.
the memory is there and he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead as if trying to bury it down, punctuated by a soft inhale of breath that's almost a groan before he makes his way around, to sit next to lottie. a-ha is loud in the silence, technically speaking but it feels the opposite. it feels like the silence is deafening, everything that's unsaid hanging between them like threats.
he looks to her, to the sleeves of his top, the one that's too big for her. laughably so, really, the way the shoulders droop down her arms, the way that the sleeves engulf her hands. )
This is what happens. ( an abrupt remark. he thought about prefacing it with an 'I'm sorry', but—. ) This is why they're gone, ( he adds instead, and he assumes she'll know he means marlene and frenchie and everyone else he's sort of but not really told her about. )
I'm sorry.
( he thinks that's what the problem is — him and the effect he has. everything that happens to the people he loves and cares about.
he doesn't think that the problem is him in an entirely different way, the fact that he doesn't trust enough to talk and to share. )
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(What she doesn't know, is how he sees Marlene in Lottie with the distinct way she so readily shuts him out, when he is searching for a solution to a problem he can't see.)
She hears him step closer, feet padding across the floor, to her first before she sees the edge of his arm in her peripheral. Marc sits beside her and Lottie doesn't expect it, is actually elated this is even happeningβ but she has to remind herself she's upset. She's upset even if he's trying to reach out, because it's not that simple. He can't decide to finally be near her and expect everything to be okay! It's not fair.
He turns his head and now his gaze is so close andβ it's not fair. She sniffles louder, stares even harder at the liquid inside that cup of tea (he made it for her) that shifts from their movement, tries her best to not look at him (looking so very put out, lost, like he aches for something he can't place) because he doesn't deserve it, her recognition. His lips part and his voice is uncharacteristically exposed, the loudest thing in the room. Louder than the bittersweet crooning vocals of a-ha floating about the room. They're at the chorus now, a hilarious crescendo that matches the way her heart stops, how her expression warbles in frustration.
What the fuckβ
She ducks her head into her knees to hide the furious tint to her eyes, the pain (her tears) that gathers at her eyes and slithers down her cheeks. Making her so effortless to read to him, because Lottie has always been like that. Predictable, easy to console, someone who is simple at heart. Whereas Marc is wholly the opposite, shifts in expression so minute it's a wonder she can tell them apart. And he doesn't deserve that, the easy way out. And in a way he doesn't deserve how she absolutely does not care about that, her apathy bubbling to a point where she refuses to acknowledge itβ his explanation, his sorry. ]
I bought you slippers.
[ It sounds stupid. It sounds silly. It isn't at all what she wants to say in response to Marc's apology, but it's what he gets. Because as stupid and silly as it may seem, as insignificant as it may seem, it meant a lot to her. As much as letting him become part of her life, as much as trusting him with keeping her personality a secret (an unspoken promise, but Marc has always known how much of herself she hides to be pleasant every day, he knows because she is so bratty and unpleasant, childish and demanding, of him daily). ]
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