—although truthfully, it's not entirely the thought of lottie watching fight club, it's the subject matter. the topic. the revelation that edward norton and brad pitt are two facets of the same guy. it's the inadvertent and uncomfortable adjacency to marc's own life. it's the deep-buried awareness that the primary reason he hasn't mentioned it — his issues, his condition, whatever — is because he's not been able to decide how he thinks lottie will react. what she'll think.
it hadn't been easy to tell reese or badr or even soldier. it'd been less easy to spell it out to marlene, they'd spent years dancing in circles, with all four of them — her and marc and steven and jake — talking about each one as an alternate identity, a disguise, something steven (not marc and not jake) occasionally lost himself in.
he doesn't think he'd ever told frenchie, it'd just been a realisation gleaned off a decade of behaviour, of abrupt changes in personality and name. he'd known, marc thinks, for much longer than marc has any idea. he'd never been as oblivious, as self-centred and self-absorbed as marc had been to not notice what was being said in actions alone.
he lifts a shoulder in a shrug, an awkward movement made more difficult by the half-lounge position he's found himself in on the bed. ) Anti-capitalism, dissociative identity disorder, and anarchic fight rings, three of your favourite topics? ( a pause. ) But mostly, it's because it came out in ninety-nine. ( or: how old were you, lottie? )
[ Out of everything he just listed, every little worry etched and coded into his sense of self at finally getting a notion as to how much she might care about his conditionβ ]
It was anti-capitalism?
[ It is this she questions. Not about anarchic fight rings, or dissociative identity disorder, but the fact it's apparently anti-capitalism (sheesh)?? Because really, the other two she can't be bothered to care about. The fact that the less hot guy was actually also Brad Pitt meaning nothing to her except, neat, she guesses?
And yeah. I know. I'm aware! God. [ She was nine!! Alsoβ ] I watched it like last year.
I watched Gone Girl this year. [ Only because she saw a gif set of the main character mentioning Coolgirlβ Lottie's own nickname for Caroline and thought, wow, someone I can relate to in media? Wrong. So very wrong. But Neil Patrick Harris was cute! ] It's about this girl who married this guy and he pissed her off so she pretended he murdered her.
( marc's in too deep now to admit that he hasn't seen it either, absolutely can't admit — can't, in more ways than one — that his knowledge of it is in impressions, passing thoughts and feelings and recollections that aren't really his, just — shared. in commentary and emotions directed his way, a pointed frustration that said less of the movie itself and more a projection of how steven felt about how marc insisted on conducting his life.
something something metaphor, something something you could learn a thing or too. something something marc had not been very fucking thrilled.
—was it anti-capitalist? there were elements of anti-capitalism, the sort that marc had ended up with an impression of as 'edgy', the kind that early twenty-somethings would lean into during drunken conversations of how to change the world and make things better. (or that had been steven's impression—.) )
It wasn't a celebration of the rich, corporate lifestyle, Lottie. He tried to kill himself. ( or part of him, the part of the story marc was most unclear on, wanted the least amount of clarity on because that hit a little too close to home. the wanting to bury — literally, metaphorically — a whole personality. a tale of destructiveness, of how to systematically destroy an entire facet of one's life with insomnia and depression and violence.
what a fucking apt movie she'd chosen. he hates it.
a raise of a hand and a wave, dismissive and disinterested. )
I did it for the money. ( he adds, and it's true. it's true in the way that it was a reason, not the main one, but the one it was acceptable to talk about. the one he doesn't mind acknowledging, the one that's in all the files and reports on marc spector. the one that sits alongside the others and implies something of his morals and his ethics.
but that's enough of that. her explanation of gone girl earns an expression of bemused acceptance, the sort that says fine and fair enough all at once. )
—And I thought I had it bad when Marlene moved halfway across the globe to get away from me.
[ Yikes? Marc seems to be taking this movie discussion a little too.. Not personal, but he's a little more bitey than usual? Or maybe he's always like this, and she's just forgotten. Has gotten used to the odd slink of his demeanor tonight as they both navigate a situation startlingly new and unpleasant. Now, at least, things are.. Alright. They're okay. She watches his hand rise and twists her brows up, thinks better than to push on this when he's made it clear he's different.
Obviously! Obviously, Marc Spector is different. In more ways than the obvious. He isn't Brad Pitt or Other Guy but he's got enough personality and presence to dwarf both. Whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen but, her point still stands. And see? He said he did it for the money. Different.
Apparently, not so different to cut out the ohh my girlfriend haha jokes. Lottie grimaces. ]
Yeah well, try being Ben Affleck with a crazy hot wife.
[ It must be very hard!! Lottie knows a portion of his strugglesβ after all Caroline is no walk in the park with how little she knows of where she stands with her. Despite the dates, despite the kisses. How Caroline's bomber jacket still hangs in her closet, pristine and maybe the only thing well taken care of in her bedroom. ]
( the look he gives her is odd, almost indecisive when she says 'try being—' and he's not entirely sure if she means crazy comma hot, or crazy hot. the latter, probably, knowing lottie, and he half wants to point out that marlene was (is, that hasn't changed) hot.
instead, his eyebrows dart up in doubt and skepticism. marriage? not for him, thanks, is written in his expression even if he doesn't say it. there aren't a huge number of responses he can think of to that — lottie's — comment that don't slide towards slightly weird. uncomfortable. more information than he'd necessarily be happy to share. I spend enough time pretending to be someone else—. it'd be a good joke if he'd ever been remotely open with lottie about himself, about the positioning of marc spector and mr. knight and moon knight, let alone grant and lockley. )
I've got enough on my plate being Marc Spector, ( is the version he settles on, before glancing down at the plate still sat between them. the food isn't finished, but at least she's eaten something. ) —Are you done?
[ Oh, she means both. Crazy comma hot and crazy hot. Hot crazy. Hot enough to ignore all the red flags, arguably embrace them. And boy, has she been thereβ is still there. Instead he's stewing in all the noncommittal, simple, things she said. Only to prove a point that Ben Affleck had it harder than all of them, and he still chose to stay with her after all the insane shit she did.
(..#truelove?)
She didn't get it, the ending, but she thinks Marc might genuinely enjoy it (and truly what does that say about her opinion of him and things he'd like?). He seems finished with the topic as soon as she sees his eyes settle on the plate, something like confusion dotting on hers. ]
βUh. Yeah? I guess.. But you didn't eat any of it.
( marc's problem β one of them, at least, the main one β is how much time he spends in his own head. how little he talks β actually communicates and elaborates on his thoughts and feelings in a meaningful way. in a way that allows understanding. he could explain, of course he could, but he doesn't and he won't unless cornered and forced into it.
where lottie's expression reflects burgeoning confusion at his response, he opts to ignore her when she points out that he didn't eat any of the food. he shifts his weight and picks the plate up, placing it to one side off the bed, aware, still, of the mess lottie had managed to make and not notice. at length, then, he offers her a vague noise of acknowledgement, of agreement β no, he didn't, but it's fine. that wasn't the point. )
[ Sadly, she has yet to notice the mess she made (will she ever...) but on a surprisingly somber note, she does realize that yes.. This is grey gruel. But it's grey gruel Marc made for her, that he didn't have to. She scratches idly at her neck, watching him move the plate and settle. Only looking a little more relaxed than she is. It's with a glance towards the empty, pillow-less, side of his bed does she mumble outβ ]
( marc is certain she won't notice, isn't particularly interested in drawing attention to the fact, to potentially causing another to-do. he lets it slide, gaze following lottie's as she glances towards — him? his sparse side of the bed given she's created a hovel for herself with every single pillow available.
he knows that if he'd told her earlier, given her any idea that whilst yes, he's hungry but no, he can't really be bothered to eat anything right now, his suggestion of food was for her benefit alone, she'd have pushed back. argued. made it difficult for him and refused. it's easier to pretend otherwise until it's too late.
(he'll eat — at some point.)
a wave of a hand, dismissive in lieu of awkward. ) Don't thank me.
[ He says don't thank me and it's here, sitting on his bed, surrounded by his things, belly semi-full with Marc coddling her that she hyper focuses on it. 'Thank'. That that was the first time she ever said it tonightβ despite how much has happened. How many tears, how many mean words she readily gave him rather than any real expression of gratitude. She hates how he tries to play casual and she hates how she really, really, can't stop herself from sayingβ ]
No. Thank you.
[ It is still light and soft, but there's weight to it. An unspoken nod to everything he's done for her despite her lack of appreciation, her being so unnaturally difficult and sad. Wholly unpleasant. ]
( the thanks is uncomfortable and marc doesn't quite know how to acknowledge it. he's been thanked before, of course he has — by people who'd come to the midnight mission for help, by people who asked for mr. knight and not marc. by people who knew marc and who knew steven and who knew jake, but in the case of the former, it wasn't often. marc — marc, specifically — tends not to do much worthy of thanks, tends to fuck things up more than he fixes them, and he's aware, intimately, of how much all of this is his fault.
and she repeats herself despite his protestations. a heaviness to her utterance that's not exactly unlike her because they've had heavy, uncomfortable conversations but they've almost always taken the shape of disagreements, of anything and everything that isn't one or the other giving gratitude. it's not something marc's ever been good at giving or receiving, and he resists the urge to sit up, to leave the bed and the conversation, to find something else entirely to focus on.
his lips curve, unhappy, and his gaze rests on hers for one moment, then two, then he looks away. can't quite help himself when he remarks, )No, ( more bitter, more caustic than he'd intended. ) It was my fault, so don't—. ( punctuated by a sharp, sudden pause, an inhale of breath that isn't so much audible as it is marc shutting himself up, cutting himself short because admitting that something's his fault, out loud, doesn't come easily, doesn't sit well, and—.
he sits up, an abrupt movement punctuated by a glance away from her before he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands, not wanting to wait and see the change in lottie's expression, her reaction, her response. her agreement.
[ Lottie already sees itβ the way he blows up. Can see it in the tick of his jaw and the way the air grows stale and unbreathable for the time it takes for him to admit his fault, to deliberately turn away from her. She doesn't expect him to say it, to tell her that this was all because of himβ they both know it is. But he said it, felt uncomfortable and queasy all at the fact he gave life to it. Spoke it into the universe, and she wishes he hadn't because now that's all she can think about.
It was my fault, so don'tβ.
He gets up, turns away.
It was my fault, so don'tβ.
She stays, watches.
Doesn't cry, no matter how badly she wants to. She's passed that now, too tired and emotionally drained to give time to it, the fat globs of tears that so badly want to stream down her cheeks. Lottie knows he's running away, tooβ knows he is maybe just as fragile as she is when it comes to this topic, the thing they've been pointedly avoided mentioning all night. It's not like she wants to talk about it, either, but it happenedβ it was his faultβ he hurt her. But.. He didn't mean to. Her eyes stare down at his back, softening. A little hurt, a little mad. The usual complicated mix they force on each other because it's easier than facing the unpleasant truth. ]
..I know.
[ It pains her to say it, as much as it pains him to hear it. And the crazy thing is her tune would be so different if she was still mad at him, too, would've used this as an opportunity to hurt. To make his chest sting like hers did, to get inside his head and stomp all over it. ]
( it'd almost be easier if she was mad or was upset. it'd give him something else to focus on and to react to that isn't the tired remnants of the night. lottie's emotional and it's alternately infuriating and tiring and — sometimes — funny. here and now there's none of that. instead, it's quiet sincerity that doesn't give marc any leeway, anything else for him to latch onto.
I know. soft and unpleasant but only because she's not. she's agreeable and accepting and not holding it against him and that almost makes it worse because what is marc supposed to do with acceptance? with it sitting alongside thanks?
a half-glance over his shoulder, back towards her. he can't see her, not really, not beyond the vague shape of part of her body. him, tense and uncertain. for now, he thinks. she means it for now. no-one holds it against him at first. if the night was slightly different, if their conversation was slightly different, he'd point it out. (not for the first time—.) but her offering — a gentle response — doesn't deserve marc's petulance, his pointed antagonism, his self-loathing that edges dangerously close to self-pitying at times, if not for the anger that emerges instead of whining. )
[ Lottie doesn't realize how difficult this must be for himβ how many times he's gone through this same song and dance always knowing the inevitable change of tune when it becomes the third or fourth time it's occurred. That this sense of calm and agreeable-ness won't last. All she sees is someone unwilling to take credit where credit is due, because if he didn'tβ
She presses her lips into a thin line when he half-glances over his shoulder, feeling her stomach churning. Forcing her brain to shut off for a few blissful moments because she doesn't really want to consider what would've happened to her if he didn't. If she were still there.
(Cold concrete. Smell of dust. Tongue and lips dry. Chest constricted and wrists sore from the bindings, body aching and cheek stinging. Copper tang in the back of her throat. Salty tears rolling down her cheeks. Snot drying on her hair.)
She stifles the sensation, her memories, down her throat. Lets her confusion win over when her brows furrow and her spine slouches, Lottie looking and feeling slowly unsure the longer he keeps his back to her. ]
Yeah.. Of course I do.
[ She offers in response, unwilling to go with her gut instinct of challenging him, of asking what he means by that. She doesn't want that right now, fights, harsh words. Hurt feelings, more than what this is. Rejection of some kind? ]
( he circles around the bed, oblivious still to lottie's thoughts. to the myriad of feelings she's trying to keep at bay, to the way she's trying not to think of any of it at all. the antithesis to marc, who thinks too much.
jean-paul would tell lottie, marlene would tell lottie. speak of the not-too-distant past, of peter alraune (senior and junior), of ricky and ray — gena's kids, the boys marc had gotten involved in his shit as teenagers. of the way that marc seemed to have a type — that is, enemies that seemed to become obsessed with him, with besting him, with proving him wrong. raoul. mogart. knowles. ryan trent. jeff.
zodiac wasn't — isn't a once-off. neither is (was) the committee — they were grudges, inherited from father to son, to daughter. marc, singularly, has a way of appealing to men (mostly men) who, as a way of hurting marc, seek to hurt the people he cares about. a catch-22 because marc is so very good at helping those that don't know him.
(perhaps precisely because they don't know him.)
it turns out it's harder when it requires consistency.
he turns to her, then, expression not exactly defeated, but in the proximity of it. accepting, but not exactly happy. he believes her, it's just that he has the benefit (question mark) of experience on his side. he doesn't want to get into it, though—. )
[ It's a terrible, terrible, mixture of satisfaction and dissatisfaction that grips her when he says that. Marc says he believes her and it isn't with joy or explicit happiness, not with anger or disappointment, how it sits in the air. It middles somewhere between all of that and her own face shows how she feels: tired. Like she isn't sure what else she can do to get the conclusion she wants, to see the way he'd light up at her appreciation. To, maybe, give her a hug. To be a little warm in the face of her own warmth. To be happy that something has arguably gone right tonight (she ate dinner, they're talkingβ they're not normal but they can be. She knows they can be.)
Idly, it hits her that he says it like he's tired, too, like he shouldn't revel in its sincerity now because soon β eventually β it will wither away into something else. She doesn't know whatβ they know each other but Marc and Lottie are both loose and tight lipped when it suits them, when it's easiest for them. And while she helped him expose some of himself, his past, to her, it's never all of it. Just like how there's still plenty of her he doesn't know yet, always lingering in the back of her mind when it's relevant but never moving past that, past her lips.
He's made his way around the bed, putting more impossible distance between them, and she miraculously doesn't feel slighted. Understanding crosses her face, one that denotes she won't ask because she knows he probably won't tell. Like as much as she'd want to it'd be a waste of effort, she'd just make things worse somehow. ]
..Okay.
[ And just like that: she deems it over, doesn't want to linger in this odd energy any longer. So, she swings her legs off the side of the bed, too, plays with her fingers at her lap. Ignores how dry they are because the lotion Marc has here isn't the expensive medicated one in her room, her bathroom cabinet. ]
( for marc, it's nothing new. the strange twist in atmosphere, the way that everything feels — once again — subdued, almost dark and damp. a feeling of just being, rather than anything explicit in terms of happiness or sadness or even anger.
tiredness, then, is the overwhelming sensation, the feeling that's easiest to pinpoint, to blame, to hang a hat on and say that that's all any of this is. even if he knows it's not true, knows it's the weight of lottie's experience catching up with her, knows it's the everything of marc and moon knight and grant manor.
he sits on the edge of the bed, gaze skirting lottie for a moment, travelling instead along the carpet, to the curtains — shit, he'd forgotten he'd drawn them, that there was no scenery outside to catch his attention, nothing to blame his inattentiveness on. luckily, thankfully, something, lottie sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed. it's excuse, reason enough to look to her, to the way her fingers intertwine and fidget. unsure. )
—Which room?
( this one or the other, he means.
he also means, though he doesn't ask, where would she want him to stay — on the floor, in the same room, or in the other, at the other end of the hall? )
[ Marc doesn't answer her at first, doesn't give her any direction on what she can or can't do and it makes her mood sink even further strangely enough. She doesn't have his attention, but the closed curtains do. Is she that boring? That uninteresting? Unpleasant, now? When he finally does, asks her which room, she blinks down at the ground.
Spends a second or two watching her bare feet swing back and forth the tiniest bit. She knows what he's askingβ even if he isn't saying it. Even if he won't, probably never will, because Marc would never open himself up to that type of rejection so blatantly. He asks which room and she feels her skin prickle uncomfortably at the idea of leaving this one. Of being by herself, in the dark. With no sound, nothing to distract her. Of being reminded of where she was trapped. Of dirt and cold concrete, of her asthma acting up with her chest so constrictedβ ]
βUm, um.. This one?
[ Your room. With you. She looks up at him after she comes to a conclusion, not even noticing a bit of her anxiety peek through her voice. Or her face. A hand moves to scratch at her cheek but she stops, brings it back down awkwardly when she remembers the cheek she defaults to picking at is the one that's swelling. ]
If that's cool.. If you don't want me in here 'cuz it's weird I can go to the other one.
( he looks at her, abruptly and almost surprised, the unexpectedness of her response plain to see and read in the set of his expression. momentarily loose and open, without the usual tenseness of his features because whatever he'd been expecting of her, that wasn't it.
it's unsure and almost fearful in the same way lottie's been all night, an ebbing and flowing of absolute certainty that's quickly replaced by the opposite. this one, she says, and he thinks it's supposed to be a statement, but the way her voice catches as the end suggests otherwise. if that's cool—.
it's not quite a relief, not really — he knows he's not going to get much sleep either way, probably, but at least this way he'd be close enough to her if something happens. but in every other respect, it is a little bit weird, because it's not normally what—.
it's not the sort of admission either of them have ever really made. vulnerability. a preference for someone else to be close and near, just in case. marc has spent a lot of his life trying to master the appearance of not needing and — especially — not wanting anyone else, that the infrequent admissions of the opposite (the truth) are — difficult. uttered at length, finally, only when they absolutely have to be.
[ It isn't something either of them would easily admitβ something either of them would even consider saying if not for the extreme circumstances of it all. It's why she adds that clause, that if it's cool, because she's never had to lean on Marc for comfort. For safety. Has never had to need his presence to feel comfortable before like she will, now. And it's vaguely scary, how uncertain and vulnerable it makes her feel, how she has to sit in the silence of it all when he fully processes what it is she says.
It's why she looks so stupidly relieved when he doesn't push her away, when he allows her to exist in his space instead of the room across. Lottie looks like she might cry, even. But before she can let him stew on that, the sight of her emotions flaring heavy again, she coughs. Looks down long enough to gather herself, uses the excuse of feeling her fingers across the bedding like she hasn't laid down on it the entire time he was cooking. ]
..What about you?
[ It's soft, light. It's curious, vaguely worriedβ not that she's inconveniencing him by taking his bed, but worried about how he'll sleep. Mostly, worried about where he'll sleep, how far he'll be from her and if it'll edge on feeling impersonal or the right amount of close to allow her to sleep comfortably. ]
What about me? ( he repeats, somewhere between surprised and challenging. he hears that curiosity, the lightness, the way it's completely at odds with how lottie's expression had folded in on itself with apparent relief when he'd said she could stay here. here-here.
the worry is there and he ignores it, the same way he doesn't comment on anything else that lottie's showing-but-trying-not-to because what is there to be worried about? acknowledgement isn't a path he wants to go down, and so he doesn't. he doesn't, then, think it's about how he'll sleep because he thinks that she must know that he probably won't, not until or unless he just passes out, awkwardly and suddenly from creeping exhaustion.
the floor's fine (he's slept on worse), or he'll curl up (not exactly, sprawl out, more likely—) in a chair. they're large enough, comfortable enough, excluding the inevitable crick in his neck that he'll get.
he gestures towards it, to the chair he's not sure he'll actually sit it, and says— ) I'm not going anywhere.
[ She knows he won't but she still asked. Is only marginally mollified by his response of gesturing towards the chair β the one they both know he may or may not sit in. She'd protest if he left it there, but he doesn't. Marc says I'm not going anywhere and it seems like that is what does the trick. She may still be worried, anxious, and everything between, but she feels far safer hearing (not knowing, but hearing) that than everything else. ]
..Good.
[ She turns her head back towards the pillows so he doesn't see how relieved she is at that, because some part of her manages to still feel embarrassed at her response despite how arguably normal it is (all considering what has happened, how emotionally exhausted and fragile, distraught at a seconds notice, she's been). She grabs the pillow they used as a table and fluffs it up beside the one she left untouched. Getsβ cozy, sort of. Lottie is really just trying to figure out how to lay down on something soft again, trying to figure out how to get her brain to shut off.
She gets as far as being half in, half out, of the covers, green hair piled up and around her, fingers awkwardly laced at her tummy, feet fidgeting. Sometimes glancing at wherever Marc is, just to make sure he's still there. ]
( it feels oddly intimate even if it's nothing of the sort, for marc to share a room with lottie as she half-attempts (something or other like) sleep, as she attempts to make herself comfortable, somehow managing to both be over and under the covers. if she's comfortable — in the sense that marc knows the bed's comfortable, has passed out on it more times than he can count from more varied circumstances than he can recall. grant had made a point of the house being comfortable almost to the point of absurdity, eschewing marc and jake's different-in-reason but similar-in-outcome propensity for the bare minimum — she doesn't show it.
she fidgets, even as marc stands to turn off the light (but not before turning on the two bedside lamps). she fidgets, too, as marc seats himself in the chair he'd gestured at, even if he has no real intention of falling asleep in it, even if he's not even sure how long he'll stay sat in it.
she glances to him, then away, then back again. it's hard not to catch the movement in the corner of his vision, hard not to turn to glance at her. he thinks that there's something she wants from him, or there's something he should say or do, but it'd beyond him to realise what it is. )
[ There's nothing she explicitly wants that he isn't already giving her. He's giving her his bed, space in his home, he's giving her food and water and a nice shower to soak in before she promptly freaked the fuck out again. Marc has done everything right and yet she is still a little antsy, still a little anxiety ridden in the dim dark of his bedroom (because she thinks she sees figures in the shadows and worries about how quickly Marc could get to them, to get himself bloody all over again). His sheets are soft, not quite silky and not quite thick. It's a great temperature, arguably. And yetβ. ]
I know. [ Sharp, soft, tired. Then alert as she insistsβ ] I'm aware!
[ She huffs to herself, rolls around so her belly is flat on the sheets and her face is pressed into the pillows. Even if she explained it to him he wouldn't understand, she thinksβ he wouldn't get it, how she feels. How her paranoia and anxiety is running rampant in the silence between it all. His breathing, how she rustles the sheets, how he settles into his chair that squeaks when he shifts his weight just right.
( it's an odd state of affairs in that marc would both argue that he has done everything right, but also feels — knows — deeply, intimately, that he's done precisely nothing right. that there's more that he should have done, that there are things he shouldn't have done. his emotional volatility would shout the former, whilst his quiet, unsubtle self-loathing would whisper the latter.
her first response is not quite a bark, but it's not far from it. despite the quietness, the tiredness and the fatigue, it's oddly desperate, sharp, like a knife jabbing at the awkwardness, the difficulty of everything in the air between them.
(marc wouldn't know, but he'd know. he knows how paranoia feels, how it is to expect enemies and terror behind every door. how it is to have expectations of what there is and know that it's just your mind. that realistically, it's nothing, that almost every horror imaginable is a figment of a mind deeply attuned to creating enemies.)
his gaze rests on her, deep and and dark and intense. non-judgemental. accepting. oddly understanding — it's not an expression many people get to see on marc, for as tolerant as he is (surprisingly), he often seeks to hide it beneath a veneer of unreasonableness. a state of being that's not untrue, but isn't a reputation that is in any way beneficial. )
I know, ( he says. it's not soft, but it's not harsh. it just is. it's the type of utterance that says that he's been there, that he knows what it's like to want to sleep and find nothing instead. that there's a lot he's never told her in between the warnings and the reprimands he has. ) It won't be easy.
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—although truthfully, it's not entirely the thought of lottie watching fight club, it's the subject matter. the topic. the revelation that edward norton and brad pitt are two facets of the same guy. it's the inadvertent and uncomfortable adjacency to marc's own life. it's the deep-buried awareness that the primary reason he hasn't mentioned it — his issues, his condition, whatever — is because he's not been able to decide how he thinks lottie will react. what she'll think.
it hadn't been easy to tell reese or badr or even soldier. it'd been less easy to spell it out to marlene, they'd spent years dancing in circles, with all four of them — her and marc and steven and jake — talking about each one as an alternate identity, a disguise, something steven (not marc and not jake) occasionally lost himself in.
he doesn't think he'd ever told frenchie, it'd just been a realisation gleaned off a decade of behaviour, of abrupt changes in personality and name. he'd known, marc thinks, for much longer than marc has any idea. he'd never been as oblivious, as self-centred and self-absorbed as marc had been to not notice what was being said in actions alone.
he lifts a shoulder in a shrug, an awkward movement made more difficult by the half-lounge position he's found himself in on the bed. ) Anti-capitalism, dissociative identity disorder, and anarchic fight rings, three of your favourite topics? ( a pause. ) But mostly, it's because it came out in ninety-nine. ( or: how old were you, lottie? )
—I don't know what Gone Girl is.
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It was anti-capitalism?
[ It is this she questions. Not about anarchic fight rings, or dissociative identity disorder, but the fact it's apparently anti-capitalism (sheesh)?? Because really, the other two she can't be bothered to care about. The fact that the less hot guy was actually also Brad Pitt meaning nothing to her except, neat, she guesses?
(If he were to tell her, he'd find her blasΓ© attitude would be the same. That everyone has their own shit going on and Steven and Jake are now part of it. That so long as he doesn't question her about her own condition β the allergies that seem to worsen as she gets older β she truly could not care. But she would, at the very least, try and google as much she can by herself because she'd know even admitting that much to her meant Marc stewing on it for hours. Months. Awkwardly (maybe) thank him for letting her know, before realizing they're having a moment she's unprepared to have and she'd change the subject.) ]
And yeah. I know. I'm aware! God. [ She was nine!! Alsoβ ] I watched it like last year.
I watched Gone Girl this year. [ Only because she saw a gif set of the main character mentioning Coolgirlβ Lottie's own nickname for Caroline and thought, wow, someone I can relate to in media? Wrong. So very wrong. But Neil Patrick Harris was cute! ] It's about this girl who married this guy and he pissed her off so she pretended he murdered her.
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something something metaphor, something something you could learn a thing or too.
something something marc had not been very fucking thrilled.
—was it anti-capitalist? there were elements of anti-capitalism, the sort that marc had ended up with an impression of as 'edgy', the kind that early twenty-somethings would lean into during drunken conversations of how to change the world and make things better. (or that had been steven's impression—.) )
It wasn't a celebration of the rich, corporate lifestyle, Lottie. He tried to kill himself. ( or part of him, the part of the story marc was most unclear on, wanted the least amount of clarity on because that hit a little too close to home. the wanting to bury — literally, metaphorically — a whole personality. a tale of destructiveness, of how to systematically destroy an entire facet of one's life with insomnia and depression and violence.
what a fucking apt movie she'd chosen.
he hates it.
a raise of a hand and a wave, dismissive and disinterested. )
I did it for the money. ( he adds, and it's true. it's true in the way that it was a reason, not the main one, but the one it was acceptable to talk about. the one he doesn't mind acknowledging, the one that's in all the files and reports on marc spector. the one that sits alongside the others and implies something of his morals and his ethics.
but that's enough of that. her explanation of gone girl earns an expression of bemused acceptance, the sort that says fine and fair enough all at once. )
—And I thought I had it bad when Marlene moved halfway across the globe to get away from me.
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Obviously! Obviously, Marc Spector is different. In more ways than the obvious. He isn't Brad Pitt or Other Guy but he's got enough personality and presence to dwarf both. Whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen but, her point still stands. And see? He said he did it for the money. Different.
Apparently, not so different to cut out the ohh my girlfriend haha jokes. Lottie grimaces. ]
Yeah well, try being Ben Affleck with a crazy hot wife.
[ It must be very hard!! Lottie knows a portion of his strugglesβ after all Caroline is no walk in the park with how little she knows of where she stands with her. Despite the dates, despite the kisses. How Caroline's bomber jacket still hangs in her closet, pristine and maybe the only thing well taken care of in her bedroom. ]
But then again he cheated on her, so..
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instead, his eyebrows dart up in doubt and skepticism. marriage? not for him, thanks, is written in his expression even if he doesn't say it. there aren't a huge number of responses he can think of to that — lottie's — comment that don't slide towards slightly weird. uncomfortable. more information than he'd necessarily be happy to share. I spend enough time pretending to be someone else—. it'd be a good joke if he'd ever been remotely open with lottie about himself, about the positioning of marc spector and mr. knight and moon knight, let alone grant and lockley. )
I've got enough on my plate being Marc Spector, ( is the version he settles on, before glancing down at the plate still sat between them. the food isn't finished, but at least she's eaten something. ) —Are you done?
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(..#truelove?)
She didn't get it, the ending, but she thinks Marc might genuinely enjoy it (and truly what does that say about her opinion of him and things he'd like?). He seems finished with the topic as soon as she sees his eyes settle on the plate, something like confusion dotting on hers. ]
βUh. Yeah? I guess.. But you didn't eat any of it.
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where lottie's expression reflects burgeoning confusion at his response, he opts to ignore her when she points out that he didn't eat any of the food. he shifts his weight and picks the plate up, placing it to one side off the bed, aware, still, of the mess lottie had managed to make and not notice. at length, then, he offers her a vague noise of acknowledgement, of agreement β no, he didn't, but it's fine. that wasn't the point. )
βIt wasn't for me.
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Wellβ. Thanks..
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he knows that if he'd told her earlier, given her any idea that whilst yes, he's hungry but no, he can't really be bothered to eat anything right now, his suggestion of food was for her benefit alone, she'd have pushed back. argued. made it difficult for him and refused. it's easier to pretend otherwise until it's too late.
(he'll eat — at some point.)
a wave of a hand, dismissive in lieu of awkward. ) Don't thank me.
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No. Thank you.
[ It is still light and soft, but there's weight to it. An unspoken nod to everything he's done for her despite her lack of appreciation, her being so unnaturally difficult and sad. Wholly unpleasant. ]
Seriously, Marc.
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and she repeats herself despite his protestations. a heaviness to her utterance that's not exactly unlike her because they've had heavy, uncomfortable conversations but they've almost always taken the shape of disagreements, of anything and everything that isn't one or the other giving gratitude. it's not something marc's ever been good at giving or receiving, and he resists the urge to sit up, to leave the bed and the conversation, to find something else entirely to focus on.
his lips curve, unhappy, and his gaze rests on hers for one moment, then two, then he looks away. can't quite help himself when he remarks, ) No, ( more bitter, more caustic than he'd intended. ) It was my fault, so don't—. ( punctuated by a sharp, sudden pause, an inhale of breath that isn't so much audible as it is marc shutting himself up, cutting himself short because admitting that something's his fault, out loud, doesn't come easily, doesn't sit well, and—.
he sits up, an abrupt movement punctuated by a glance away from her before he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands, not wanting to wait and see the change in lottie's expression, her reaction, her response. her agreement.
god, sometimes he really hates himself—. )
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It was my fault, so don'tβ.
He gets up, turns away.
It was my fault, so don'tβ.
She stays, watches.
Doesn't cry, no matter how badly she wants to. She's passed that now, too tired and emotionally drained to give time to it, the fat globs of tears that so badly want to stream down her cheeks. Lottie knows he's running away, tooβ knows he is maybe just as fragile as she is when it comes to this topic, the thing they've been pointedly avoided mentioning all night. It's not like she wants to talk about it, either, but it happenedβ it was his faultβ he hurt her. But.. He didn't mean to. Her eyes stare down at his back, softening. A little hurt, a little mad. The usual complicated mix they force on each other because it's easier than facing the unpleasant truth. ]
..I know.
[ It pains her to say it, as much as it pains him to hear it. And the crazy thing is her tune would be so different if she was still mad at him, too, would've used this as an opportunity to hurt. To make his chest sting like hers did, to get inside his head and stomp all over it. ]
But I mean it.
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I know. soft and unpleasant but only because she's not. she's agreeable and accepting and not holding it against him and that almost makes it worse because what is marc supposed to do with acceptance? with it sitting alongside thanks?
a half-glance over his shoulder, back towards her. he can't see her, not really, not beyond the vague shape of part of her body. him, tense and uncertain. for now, he thinks. she means it for now. no-one holds it against him at first. if the night was slightly different, if their conversation was slightly different, he'd point it out. (not for the first time—.) but her offering — a gentle response — doesn't deserve marc's petulance, his pointed antagonism, his self-loathing that edges dangerously close to self-pitying at times, if not for the anger that emerges instead of whining. )
—Of course you do.
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She presses her lips into a thin line when he half-glances over his shoulder, feeling her stomach churning. Forcing her brain to shut off for a few blissful moments because she doesn't really want to consider what would've happened to her if he didn't. If she were still there.
(Cold concrete. Smell of dust. Tongue and lips dry. Chest constricted and wrists sore from the bindings, body aching and cheek stinging. Copper tang in the back of her throat. Salty tears rolling down her cheeks. Snot drying on her hair.)
She stifles the sensation, her memories, down her throat. Lets her confusion win over when her brows furrow and her spine slouches, Lottie looking and feeling slowly unsure the longer he keeps his back to her. ]
Yeah.. Of course I do.
[ She offers in response, unwilling to go with her gut instinct of challenging him, of asking what he means by that. She doesn't want that right now, fights, harsh words. Hurt feelings, more than what this is. Rejection of some kind? ]
Do you not believe me or something?
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jean-paul would tell lottie, marlene would tell lottie. speak of the not-too-distant past, of peter alraune (senior and junior), of ricky and ray — gena's kids, the boys marc had gotten involved in his shit as teenagers. of the way that marc seemed to have a type — that is, enemies that seemed to become obsessed with him, with besting him, with proving him wrong. raoul. mogart. knowles. ryan trent. jeff.
zodiac wasn't — isn't a once-off. neither is (was) the committee — they were grudges, inherited from father to son, to daughter. marc, singularly, has a way of appealing to men (mostly men) who, as a way of hurting marc, seek to hurt the people he cares about. a catch-22 because marc is so very good at helping those that don't know him.
(perhaps precisely because they don't know him.)
it turns out it's harder when it requires consistency.
he turns to her, then, expression not exactly defeated, but in the proximity of it. accepting, but not exactly happy. he believes her, it's just that he has the benefit (question mark) of experience on his side. he doesn't want to get into it, though—. )
I believe you, Lottie.
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Idly, it hits her that he says it like he's tired, too, like he shouldn't revel in its sincerity now because soon β eventually β it will wither away into something else. She doesn't know whatβ they know each other but Marc and Lottie are both loose and tight lipped when it suits them, when it's easiest for them. And while she helped him expose some of himself, his past, to her, it's never all of it. Just like how there's still plenty of her he doesn't know yet, always lingering in the back of her mind when it's relevant but never moving past that, past her lips.
He's made his way around the bed, putting more impossible distance between them, and she miraculously doesn't feel slighted. Understanding crosses her face, one that denotes she won't ask because she knows he probably won't tell. Like as much as she'd want to it'd be a waste of effort, she'd just make things worse somehow. ]
..Okay.
[ And just like that: she deems it over, doesn't want to linger in this odd energy any longer. So, she swings her legs off the side of the bed, too, plays with her fingers at her lap. Ignores how dry they are because the lotion Marc has here isn't the expensive medicated one in her room, her bathroom cabinet. ]
I, ah, think I'm ready to go to bed, now.
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tiredness, then, is the overwhelming sensation, the feeling that's easiest to pinpoint, to blame, to hang a hat on and say that that's all any of this is. even if he knows it's not true, knows it's the weight of lottie's experience catching up with her, knows it's the everything of marc and moon knight and grant manor.
he sits on the edge of the bed, gaze skirting lottie for a moment, travelling instead along the carpet, to the curtains — shit, he'd forgotten he'd drawn them, that there was no scenery outside to catch his attention, nothing to blame his inattentiveness on. luckily, thankfully, something, lottie sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed. it's excuse, reason enough to look to her, to the way her fingers intertwine and fidget. unsure. )
—Which room?
( this one or the other, he means.
he also means, though he doesn't ask, where would she want him to stay — on the floor, in the same room, or in the other, at the other end of the hall? )
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Spends a second or two watching her bare feet swing back and forth the tiniest bit. She knows what he's askingβ even if he isn't saying it. Even if he won't, probably never will, because Marc would never open himself up to that type of rejection so blatantly. He asks which room and she feels her skin prickle uncomfortably at the idea of leaving this one. Of being by herself, in the dark. With no sound, nothing to distract her. Of being reminded of where she was trapped. Of dirt and cold concrete, of her asthma acting up with her chest so constrictedβ ]
βUm, um.. This one?
[ Your room. With you. She looks up at him after she comes to a conclusion, not even noticing a bit of her anxiety peek through her voice. Or her face. A hand moves to scratch at her cheek but she stops, brings it back down awkwardly when she remembers the cheek she defaults to picking at is the one that's swelling. ]
If that's cool.. If you don't want me in here 'cuz it's weird I can go to the other one.
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it's unsure and almost fearful in the same way lottie's been all night, an ebbing and flowing of absolute certainty that's quickly replaced by the opposite. this one, she says, and he thinks it's supposed to be a statement, but the way her voice catches as the end suggests otherwise. if that's cool—.
it's not quite a relief, not really — he knows he's not going to get much sleep either way, probably, but at least this way he'd be close enough to her if something happens. but in every other respect, it is a little bit weird, because it's not normally what—.
it's not the sort of admission either of them have ever really made. vulnerability. a preference for someone else to be close and near, just in case. marc has spent a lot of his life trying to master the appearance of not needing and — especially — not wanting anyone else, that the infrequent admissions of the opposite (the truth) are — difficult. uttered at length, finally, only when they absolutely have to be.
like with greer. a truth for a truth. )
It's fine. ( a beat. ) You can take the bed.
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It's why she looks so stupidly relieved when he doesn't push her away, when he allows her to exist in his space instead of the room across. Lottie looks like she might cry, even. But before she can let him stew on that, the sight of her emotions flaring heavy again, she coughs. Looks down long enough to gather herself, uses the excuse of feeling her fingers across the bedding like she hasn't laid down on it the entire time he was cooking. ]
..What about you?
[ It's soft, light. It's curious, vaguely worriedβ not that she's inconveniencing him by taking his bed, but worried about how he'll sleep. Mostly, worried about where he'll sleep, how far he'll be from her and if it'll edge on feeling impersonal or the right amount of close to allow her to sleep comfortably. ]
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the worry is there and he ignores it, the same way he doesn't comment on anything else that lottie's showing-but-trying-not-to because what is there to be worried about? acknowledgement isn't a path he wants to go down, and so he doesn't. he doesn't, then, think it's about how he'll sleep because he thinks that she must know that he probably won't, not until or unless he just passes out, awkwardly and suddenly from creeping exhaustion.
the floor's fine (he's slept on worse), or he'll curl up (not exactly, sprawl out, more likely—) in a chair. they're large enough, comfortable enough, excluding the inevitable crick in his neck that he'll get.
he gestures towards it, to the chair he's not sure he'll actually sit it, and says— ) I'm not going anywhere.
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..Good.
[ She turns her head back towards the pillows so he doesn't see how relieved she is at that, because some part of her manages to still feel embarrassed at her response despite how arguably normal it is (all considering what has happened, how emotionally exhausted and fragile, distraught at a seconds notice, she's been). She grabs the pillow they used as a table and fluffs it up beside the one she left untouched. Getsβ cozy, sort of. Lottie is really just trying to figure out how to lay down on something soft again, trying to figure out how to get her brain to shut off.
She gets as far as being half in, half out, of the covers, green hair piled up and around her, fingers awkwardly laced at her tummy, feet fidgeting. Sometimes glancing at wherever Marc is, just to make sure he's still there. ]
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she fidgets, even as marc stands to turn off the light (but not before turning on the two bedside lamps). she fidgets, too, as marc seats himself in the chair he'd gestured at, even if he has no real intention of falling asleep in it, even if he's not even sure how long he'll stay sat in it.
she glances to him, then away, then back again. it's hard not to catch the movement in the corner of his vision, hard not to turn to glance at her. he thinks that there's something she wants from him, or there's something he should say or do, but it'd beyond him to realise what it is. )
Lottie. ( a beat. ) That's not sleeping.
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I know. [ Sharp, soft, tired. Then alert as she insistsβ ] I'm aware!
[ She huffs to herself, rolls around so her belly is flat on the sheets and her face is pressed into the pillows. Even if she explained it to him he wouldn't understand, she thinksβ he wouldn't get it, how she feels. How her paranoia and anxiety is running rampant in the silence between it all. His breathing, how she rustles the sheets, how he settles into his chair that squeaks when he shifts his weight just right.
Eventually: ]
I'm trying. Okay?
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her first response is not quite a bark, but it's not far from it. despite the quietness, the tiredness and the fatigue, it's oddly desperate, sharp, like a knife jabbing at the awkwardness, the difficulty of everything in the air between them.
(marc wouldn't know, but he'd know. he knows how paranoia feels, how it is to expect enemies and terror behind every door. how it is to have expectations of what there is and know that it's just your mind. that realistically, it's nothing, that almost every horror imaginable is a figment of a mind deeply attuned to creating enemies.)
his gaze rests on her, deep and and dark and intense. non-judgemental. accepting. oddly understanding — it's not an expression many people get to see on marc, for as tolerant as he is (surprisingly), he often seeks to hide it beneath a veneer of unreasonableness. a state of being that's not untrue, but isn't a reputation that is in any way beneficial. )
I know, ( he says. it's not soft, but it's not harsh. it just is. it's the type of utterance that says that he's been there, that he knows what it's like to want to sleep and find nothing instead. that there's a lot he's never told her in between the warnings and the reprimands he has. ) It won't be easy.
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