reflectedlight | 🌙 Inbox - Marc Spector's Dead Drop

Marc, sitting up in Steven's bed, is the most embarrassed he's ever been maybe in his entire life.

He groans, puts his face in his hands. His head is killing him. Did Kylar fucking poison the body twice? That little shit.

He fumbles his way out of the bird's nest of blankets that Steven sleeps in - oh my god, MAKE YOUR BED, don't just throw them on there - and immediately hits the floor face-first when his ankle gets caught in ...

Yep. The stupid thing Steven invented to try to stop the sleepwalking. It's like a shackle, but made out of a blood pressure cuff and a bungee cord. Fuck his entire life.

Marc slaps the floor and curses, rolls over to undo the cuff. Again. For the second time in twenty-four hours.

At least nobody saw that?

Marc's dancer, back out of cat form and in the little baseball cap, waves from a chair.

Marc points at them. "I don't even want to hear it, Smartass."

Smartass, which is apparently Hat Guy's nickname when they're in humanoid form, shrugs cheerfully.

Marc throws his shirt on again, leaves the stupid pajama pants, laces his boots up, reluctantly opens the cabin door.

Fully expects Kylar to be right there. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Sure.

(It's definitely Marc again. Marc's posture makes him look two inches taller and his resting expression is an exhausted glower, where Steven's is goggle-eyed anxiety.)

Edited 2026-04-07 06:58 (UTC)

Kylar is, to maybe no one's surprise, on the ceiling behind Marc. Has he simply been waiting in his room like a creep? Yes. But it's respectful and let's be honest. He has seen so so so much worse. Nothing Marc or Steven could say or do would really throw him off or even phase him.

"Wow. That sleep walking thing is really persistent, huh?" He says it from arguably the general direction of above before dropping to the ground and dropping the mundane invisibility all in one go. "We need to talk." Really, no surprises here at all.

Behind -

Marc is turning and whipping a pyramid-shaped glass paperweight really hard at the source of the voice before he even registers that it's Kylar.

"SHIT"

That's Kylar.

"God ...damn it!"

WHY WERE YOU ON THE CEILING?

That thrown object gets blocked, if haphazardly by his fake arm. It's reflexive, or the ka'kari moved it on its own. Kylar has no idea but he grasps enough of what just happened to yell back.

"Marc, what the HELL? Seriously? Don't you have Hat guy for this very reason? Gods..."

Smartass makes a little ehhh gesture. They're here to keep Marc from killing anyone, they were pretty sure that one was not going to actually hurt Kylar.

"Don't you have the floor?"

FOR WALKING ON??

"Did you - poison the body?"

He puts a hand over the needle prick spot.

"Twice?"

Okay, resourceful, he's impressed and also annoyed.

Floors are overrated. He wobbles a hand before the other questions roll in.

"Yeah, asshole. You're welcome, by the way." He gestures for them to stay in the room. "We doing this in here or we going outside? Don't worry, plenty more remedies where the previous came from. But I'd prefer not to go through my whole supply in a single day so..." Can we please figure this out civilly?

"Not in public," Marc pleads. His dignity is gone, you dropped it like two doses ago.

"Thank you."

It's a heavy one. It's serious, even if it's croaked out as more embarrassment comes crashing over him. He owes you a lot.

"We're a fucking mess. This whole - brain, this whole life -" The collective, the system, Marc-and-Steven, the mind that will instantly snap into amnesia and blithely have a cup of tea after having a screaming meltdown - "is a mess."

Edited 2026-04-14 07:15 (UTC)

"I've seen.. worse." Has he? Is that actually comforting? Is Dorian worse? Dorian can barely string a sentence so.. yeah. Probably. He'll usher him back in, close the door behind them and then stand by the door. Again, he has this thing about sitting or maybe just getting too comfortable.

"You know, I'd like to help regardless of the temp thing. Fuck it. But I gotta ask you some things and you need to keep your head and tell me or we'll be going in circles and you'll just be doing another lap when it's the next guy's run."

He folds his arms.

"So are you in, or what?"

"Yeah. God, yeah. I owe you that much."

The end of the conversation isn't even something he's got a strong memory of, which is NOT a good sign.

"I'm sorry about... what I said. Fuck. I know why I freaked out, I think, but remembering it is like watching it happen to somebody else, which, you know. Isn't good.

I'll answer whatever I can."

He drops into a chair and immediately slumps down like he's trying to vanish into it.

At least he's cooperating. That's good. Relief, to some extent. Some people like to hide further or bottle up. He knows the type. Poke and you get stung.

Does he go easy or... no. He's kind of over it.

"You gonna tell me what happened thirty years ago?"

Marc starts to panic again. It's visible in the line of his shoulders, the wideness of his eyes. But he's got it this time, he takes a breath in, holds it, breathes it out.

"Fuck. You aren't messing around. Jesus. Okay.

Yeah."

Give him a second.

"You ever seen someone break under torture? Like really break, not just give up what you needed. Like, they're not going back to who they were afterwards, maybe ever."

It sucks when you've been training your mind for years to remember ridiculously complex things while under immense pressure. His master used to spar (attempt to murder?) him while making him recite complex calculations or extensive history. So, unfortunately, he picked up on that small piece of information very quickly.

"Yes. I have." He does not elaborate and his response gives no room for emotional debate, there simply is none. It's cold in here.

"Well. This shit happens when you break a kid like that before they're like..."

Marc isn't even showing his face any more, he's got his head ducked down and clutched between his hands. "I don't know, the literature says six, but I think we were ten."

Edited 2026-04-14 08:55 (UTC)

He's quiet, just observing for a long moment.

"Is that why you were asking me about Azoth?"

"Azoth?"

(There's no way Marc asked the kid his name. He was more focused on like, getting him to chill out and maybe stop bleeding.)

A dismissive wave, like it's a bad smell (because it was...).

"Never mind. So what happened? That something you can say?" He wants to understand better but he also is aware that there appears to be a limitation here as well. It's skirting that boundary that he's trying to figure out.

"Hey. No. Wait."

Marc sits up.

"What? Go back, what'd I say?"

??Azoth??

Answer the question, though.

"Do you wanna know what hurt the kid specifically, or do you wanna know how it meant we're two guys now?"

Edited 2026-04-14 09:38 (UTC)

"Both. Whatever is easiest to start, if that's needed." He'd be willing to go an eye for an eye again, so to speak. But he's not backing up now about Azoth. He shouldn't have even said his name. It's an unpleasant and very distant thought. There's disgust that he's choking down, subtly so.

"Fuck."

Both are hard, and the easier one he doesn't even understand.

"Look, there's bad parents in your world, I know there are. Everyone's got bad parents. But you - I don't know, you didn't have them to begin with, so it's hard to explain. When you're little, you don't even really get that they're people that can be fucked up, you just know they tell you everything about how life works and they love you and they're going to teach you what's bad or good. And if they really fucking hurt you, it's because it's proportional punishment for something you did that was really bad, and if you can figure it out and fix it, you can make it stop.

Afterwards, just - after each incident, although long-term this went on for a decade, we had to try to understand why it was happening. And there'd be these... lull periods between where we had to pretend it wasn't happening, because my dad was on her side, everybody was on her side.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do both, I couldn't take it and then go back to trying to help take care of her. She was sick, really sick, and it was important that we all be understanding and-"

Marc's voice goes hollow.

"Give her a second chance at redemption. And a third one, and a fourth one, and over and over. And you can't get mad at her, and you gotta be patient and kind and sweet, because she loves you, and she's a good person on the inside, and it's not her fault."

Marc's accent is drifting.

Nope. Nope. You stay asleep.

"Just - gimme a second."

Edited 2026-04-14 15:05 (UTC)

There aren't really any comments to be made. Kylar stays quiet. Marc is correct. He understands this all second hand. He doesn't know a single person that was not abused at some point in their life for an extended period. Maybe Ilana, or Logan. Nobility seem to get off easier, even the minor ones. But you'd hope the High King hasn't dealt with abuse. Besides the Hole. But that was.. Kylar isn't going there. Even he can't handle that.

There's only a quiet exhale. Again, second-hand attempt at understanding, but he can visually see this is a struggle. He knows he's asking for a lot. But he's still not seeing what made that come up from their earlier conversation. So he waits, patient. "Take the time you need."

He is not sure he can make himself even talk about the thing that brought it all up earlier, in the Enclosure. He can do this much, though.

"So we - so Steven got made to do the part I can't do, which is letting her apologize and saying we forgive her and we understand. And still showing her report cards and giving her Mother's day drawings that say I love you. I can't do that. I remembered too much, I was too fucking ashamed of how much she hated me. You don't know what's good or bad yet at that age, you just know your parents punish bad behavior and reward good behavior.

We were just ... too young to make it all reconcile together. So there had to have been a good kid she loves and a bad kid she hates. It probably started out that simple. So I'm part of whoever we were before he split himself up to try to be everything contradictory she was telling him he was, so he could do his best to develop the way he was being taught to by a fucking - batshit crazy adult. And so is Steven. And we don't fit back together at this point.

Is that enough for what you asked?"

Edited 2026-04-14 19:09 (UTC)

"You tell me, Marc." He says with a shrug.

"I'm trying to figure out what caused your outburst before so it can be avoided later. You talked about my being a warden and a murderer and how that's somehow fine. First off, it's not. It's fucked up. I'm aware. I'm an awful person, I probably don't deserve to be here at all. Didn't deserve it the first time, either. I don't get why this works and yours doesn't."

There's another sigh. "But I'm not seeing why that caused your..." Oh, no. What can he even call it? He lacks the vocabulary for this so he goes with the word he knows, usually just reserved for Dorian. It's not fair. They're on different levels. "madness before I had to knock you out. We've had an ongoing discussion about it already. So yeah, something's missing. As far as I can tell. But if you can't tell then I'm not pushing it." For now.

Fffuuuck okay.

"She started beating the hell out of me because I killed her other son. Little brother. Eight.

She was... sane before that. We were normal."

Marc's voice is flat. Just facts, no emotions.

"So if it's not me as an adult killing targets that means I'm an inmate because of-" He still can't say his dead brother's name, actually. Nope. "That. That incident. Which means she was right.

That was a little much."

But he's got it now. It tracks. It's fine. It's depressing, but it's fine.

Edited 2026-04-14 19:39 (UTC)

"Sorry." He says a bit awkwardly. It's what you're supposed to say for these things, right? It's less second-hand. He lived with the Drakes for ten years. Serah, Mags, Ilena, they may as well have been his sisters and now only Ilena's alive. Even Ulana used to care for him and she's gone, too. It's just the Count and Ilena left. And it's because of him.

"But I know you're not here because of that, either. I don't know the circumstances, but I know that can't be why."

Honestly? This is way better. Way easier than someone trying to be sweet about it. That makes Marc's skin crawl. The facts? He can do that. They can just talk about this like it's something that doesn't bother him.

"What, you did it too?"

What a miserable pair they make.

🌙 Inbox - Marc Spector's Dead Drop

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i forgot about hat guy for a second when he threw the thing im so sorry hat guy

he can take a vacation, it's fine. tee hee tag?

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cw child abuse

cw child abuse

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cw child abuse and dissociation

cw child abuse and dissociation

cw child abuse and dissociation

cw child abuse and dissociation

cw child abuse and child death

cw death

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