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yellowocaballero · 2 months ago

Note

a while back you mentioned having written ~40k of a steven moon knight fic as well as some of a frenchie fic? i was just wondering if those would ever be posted/shared or if they will stay in google docs superhell forever (also love your work!! your star wars swap au i particularly enjoyed as well as the tma evilcon + associated fics) best of days to you !!

Look at this evilcon fan over here. Deep fucking cut.

Ah, yes I have. The 40k fic was written for Marvel Trumps Hate, and I didn't post it due to some vaguely complicated but not altogether important reasons. The Frenchie fic was the unfortunate victim towards me very abruptly falling out of MK, lmfao. I think all of my fandoms have The One Abandoned Fic that I was working on when I just Got Over the fandom (Human Relations sequel, so cruelly abandoned....).

Kind of a shame, since the Frenchie fic was not bad and just got kinda roadblocked at the end. I've tossed around maybe finishing it when MKS2 comes out and I inevitably get sucked back in. I don't want to post the MTH fic on AO3 right now (maybe in the future when MKS2 comes out and I get sucked back in etc) but there's honestly no reason not to show you...I think...looking back over this, I think I may have decided that the fic's sense of humor was just too insane. It's very.......uh.....

Uh, ok, just between you and me and other people reading this then. It's a fic about a normal guy who thinks that schizophrenia makes you immortal and autism gives you superpowers.

I'll put it in a follow-up post. In the meantime here's the first few scenes from the Frenchie fic. I really do wanna finish this one day....

“A phone call?”

The jackal barked in elderly confusion.

Steven leaned back in his chair, scratching his stubble. Jake was insisting that they experiment with facial hair and it was best to let him have these little victories. “Well, under the human American law each citizen is entitled to a phone call if they get arrested. That’s probably what he means.” The jackal barked dismissively. “Have you tried telling him that?” The jackal barked again, aggravated. “I see. Quite a pickle. Well, I don’t see any harm in giving him the call. We’d have to warn him that this is a faux legal system and that he’s not entitled to any lawyers, but perhaps he could tell his wife he won’t be home for dinner? That would be nice.”

The jackal growled.

“We could be nice,” Steven said reproachfully.

The jackal barked again.

“If you really think about it, nothing’s stopping us. Masters of our own fates and whatnot, right? Well - yes, yes, I know the gods are the masters of our fates, that’s not quite - look, sir, there’s no point in worrying a man’s wife unnecessarily, is there? How would your wife feel if you disappeared off the mortal plane?” The jackal hung its head, and Steven sighed as he stood up. “I’ll lend him my mobile.” The courthouse only had landlines, and even then that was iffy. Magical ancient Egyptian constructs still struggled with 4G. “But if he messes about with my Twitter then we’re adding another thousand years onto his sentence.”

Situations like this were why Steven still showed up to work. This zoo often struggled at little things like this without him. The place had gone to the jackals while he was gone - literally, they had taken over many administrative positions - and it would take months just to clean up the wreckage. Steven didn’t mind - nothing made him happier than a good little routine. Ten to two, that was his preference. Downright inhumane to make a man work any longer than four hours a day. He had even scheduled a deli or restaurant to visit for lunch each day of the week. And Marc and Jake were not allowed. Steven only zone. A man’s office was his castle. Besides - if they knew what he got up to all day they might complain about it.

The two were deeply asleep - Jake because he found Steven’s entire life dull as dirt and Marc because all of the mandated socialization they were doing lately really took it out of him. Steven found it delightful. Jake’s friends were really nice once you got to know them, and you could reliably get a pained expression out of any of them once you told them so. Marc found their whole thing exhausting and if Jake wasn’t entertained he wanted to die, so around noon the two slept like Alexander the Great’s mummy. Might as well build them little tombs. That was cute. Steven knew exactly what his own tomb would look like. He was practically a pharaoh and everything - maybe Khonshu would make sure he got one? No, Khonshu didn’t care about them nearly that much. Boy, but wouldn’t that be nice.

He gave the Bast statue guarding the elevator its usual nose pat, he smiled and waved at the lumbering shabtis, and he stopped and said his usual ‘hello how are you how’s Nephthys Osiris talking to you again yet’ to the Set statue as the jackal gave him the stink eye for holding them up. Kindness was key, Mr. Jackal. Steven believed in positive Steven-god relations. He lived in hope that the other gods would model good behavior for Khonshu and eventually sway him into becoming less of a dick.

The ibis perched adorably in a little booth checked his identity as it picked up a little visitor’s badge with his beak and dropped it into Steven’s outstretched hand. It pecked at the computer keyboard a few times, accomplishing nothing other than mangling the G and H keys, and a series of papers ground out of the ancient fax machine. Steven cautiously reached over and fetched the papers, scanning them. They were details of the prisoner’s case, which made Steven feel a bit like one of the Forbidden Lawyers. The jackal led him down the winding paths of the jail as Steven fumbled in his pocket for his glasses, squinting down at the pages.

“Well, this doesn’t seem too nasty,” Steven announced. “I’m sure we can get this sorted out. Certainly not a problem for our Jake, eh?” He looked at the jackal out of the corner of his eye. “Eh?” The jackal did not respond. “Right?”

Steven made the executive decision that this was a bureaucratic issue and therefore not a Marc or Jake issue. They’d just over-involve themselves and pretend they knew anything about the fake legal system. Marc and Jake were like baby brothers playing video games with you on an unplugged controller. They needed to feel like they were doing something or they’d throw a hissy fit.

The jackal didn’t have to stop and point out the prisoner. Steven could hear him from all the way down the hall: empathetic, pointed, and incessant French patter. The man sounded like he was arguing against a parking ticket, which displayed a disappointing lack of cognizance as to the severity of his situation and the high likelihood that he was about to experience extrajudicial horrors beyond his imagining.

Poor guy. Imagine being from France.

For the first time in Steven’s life his shaky French that he could not actually remember learning but that Marc and Jake did not know actually came in handy. As he got closer he could more or less puzzle out what the fast talking man was saying to the two unamused and unswayed jackals. Could the jackals speak French? It had to be some magic thing. The only animals around here who could actually talk to the humans and explain to them what was happening were the baboons, and they were never polite about it.

“ - one little call! That is it! I will never darken your doorstep again, I swear it. One phone call - and, maybe, letting me go! We can talk about it, let’s talk about it! You and I, we are reasonable men - jackal, I am a reasonable man and you are a reasonable jackal - unless you are a woman? Are you a woman? You are still a jackal at any rate. You are a very reasonable gendered jackal, and I am innocent of all crimes - and even if you are a nongendered jackal, I do not judge, I have friends of all kinds - if you give me one phone call I may call one of my friends and he can help, I am certain he is friends with very many of you people -”

The man cut off the second Steven walked into view of his cell. The cells were very basic, with only a cot and a toilet and one wall of metal bars. He was standing up against the bars, fighting with the two unamused jackals standing against the cement wall in the hallway. The man’s head jolted away from the jackals and fixed on Steven, forgetting his captive audience entirely. His slicked back hair was frayed and mussed, gelled strands sticking up every which way, and his blonde mustache twitching in surprise as his eyes widened.

Steven was sympathetic. Human prisoners were always shocked to find a real bloke around the place.

He waved a bit awkwardly, his reading glasses flopping in the air. In shaky and awkward French, he said, “Bonjour! My name is Steven Grant. And you are…” He shoved his glasses on, squinting down at the intake form. “Jean-Paul Duchamp?” He pronounced it ‘Jean Paul Dew-Champ’, and judging from the man’s twitch he had mangled it. Oh well. “Right. Do not worry, everything will be fine. You wanted a phone call? I have a phone for you.”

The man stared at him. Steven silently suffered this. He knew he was attractive.

Finally, the man said in accented but thankfully perfect English, “I have changed my mind. May I speak with you in private, Monsieur Grant?”

The three jackals barked simultaneously. Steven rolled his eyes. Honestly! He knew he was the Avatar of Khonshu now, they didn’t need to be like that! “I don’t think that’s allowed. For security reasons and all. Not that there’s anything you could possibly do to me.” A grizzled jackal with one eye barked. “Emotional - hey! I would have you know that my Myers Briggs said I was the resilient type!” Steven considered the matter for a second. “Oh, but I did have a bad horoscope today. Maybe you’re onto something. Do we have any augurers on staff?”

“Excuse me,” Jean-Paul butted in, increasingly wild eyed, “Do you care to explain what is going on, Monsieur Grant? Because the only explanation I’ve received so far was from paperwork on papyrus and a rude baboon.”

Why was he saying his name like that? The French were so weird. Steven leaned down slightly to whisper in the nearest jackal’s ear. “And he must have been really bad if a French guy is calling him rude.” The jackals cackled. Jean-Paul’s eye twitched. “Never fear, Mr. Duchamp. I’m sure we can get this whole thing sorted out before supper. Let’s review the details of your case, shall we?”

“What case?”

“Oh, you’re in an ancient Egyptian courthouse for ancient Egyptian crimes,” Steven said vaguely, sliding on his reading glasses and flipping through the pages again. “Yes, the Egyptian gods are real, no they are not aliens, you better believe in ghost stories Ms. Swan you’re in one, etcetera. Alright, alright…I see…ah! There we are! Charged as accessory to one count of tomb raiding…oh, just a little asterisk here, let’s see what that’s all about…you stole from a children’s hospital!?”

“I did not know that is what we were doing!” Jean-Paul cried. “Someone tells me to fly a medical helicopter, I do not ask questions! If I made a habit of interrogating every one of my clients I would not have a great deal of clients, monsieur!”

“Organs from a -”

“It is called professionalism!”

“It’s called evil!” Steven said, appalled. The jackals barked in agreement. “I have to say, Mr. Duchamp -”

“It’s doo-shamp. And John-Paul. Mon frere.”

Oh wow, oh no, sorry for the French microaggression. Honestly. “If it wasn’t for the fact that you betrayed your clients the second you discovered what they were stealing and refused to pilot them away you would be facing the same punishment they are. It’s quite karmic. Do you know what Egyptian canopic jars are used for?” Jean-Paul looked a little queasy. “Exactly. Do you still want that phone call, Mr. Duchamp? You’ll receive your sentence from Thoth with or without it.”

“Then why give it to me?” Jean-Paul asked waspishly.

Steven shrugged. “I wouldn’t want your husband to worry.”

“Rest assured, I am quite single.” Jean-Paul stuck his hand out through the bars. “Give it here.”

Steven pulled up the phone function on his mobile and passed it to Jean-Paul, ignoring his thoughtful expression. He tried to convey ‘mess with my phone and I’ll mess with you’ through rigorous eyebrow tilting, but he knew he was very bad at it.

Jean-Paul stepped back, swiping on the mobile. It did not look like he was punching in a number. Steven abruptly became anxious that he was snooping on Steven’s mobile. He had remembered to delete his text history with Layla, right? Right?!

He typed something on it before looking up, holding it up oddly to show Steven the screen before passing it back to him. “I changed my mind. No need for a call. Thank you for lending me your phone, monsieur, but it was unnecessary.”

The screen was open to the notes app. Steven abruptly felt like they were passing notes in class. Except not quite, because Steven was the Avatar of an Egyptian god and the other party was in jail for magic crimes. The note read -

marc what is the plan

Oh. Oh!

Steven looked up, and now he could clearly read the man’s irritated ‘why are you looking surprised, this is a matter of utmost secrecy’ eyebrow twitch. “Goodness, I’m so sorry. The egg is really on my face here, I’m so embarrassed.” He looked down at the jackal next to him, who twitched its ears attentively. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. It seems -”

Steven stopped short.

This man knew Marc. He now knew Steven. Marc really, really, really hated it when this happened.

Marc had spent the vast majority of his life masking. His family had been big believers in the ‘never talk about it and pretend it doesn’t exist’ school of mental illness, which had resulted in a great deal of very terrible problems. Marc did not learn from any of these problems and continued to hide the DID from everybody he had ever met up to and including his own wife for a depressing yet impressive length of time. Steven hadn’t really agreed with the wife decision, because it was a slightly huge aspect of their lives that was very much Layla’s business, but Marc believed in privacy. Steven couldn’t fault him for that.

It wasn’t anybody’s business if Marc didn’t want it to be their business and they were not Marc’s actual wife. Jake spouted off about shame and internalized ableism, which was undoubtedly true, but nobody was really entitled to his health information. He had the right to self-disclose when he wanted and to who he wanted. Steven only wished that this reasonable desire did not lead to sitcom-esque hijinks as they all switched mustaches and pretended to be each other. Sometimes literally. Jake had his whims.

Marc wouldn’t want this random pilot knowing personal stuff about him. He was probably just some colleague he had worked with one time and never saw again. And Steven was very dedicated to helping Marc and making his life easier, just like Marc was dedicated to helping Steven and making his life harder. Jake was dedicated to being a bully.

Being involuntarily outed was traumatic for Marc. The last time it happened he fell asleep for four weeks and plunged Steven into a Jake induced nightmare. What if he went back to sleep? What if he never woke up this time? What if he left Steven alone with Jake forever? He couldn’t take that chance.

Marc didn’t have to find out about any of this. No point in stressing him out over nothing.

In a stunning show of cunning, cleverness, and subtlety, Steven looked down at the jackal next to him. “Actually, can I talk with Mr. Duchamp in private? There’s some things we need to discuss.” The jackal asked what. “Human things.” The jackal asked why it had to be private. “They’re private human things.” Steven paused a beat. “Like periods. We’re going to talk about our periods.”

The jackals knew enough about humans to know that periods were private human things and not enough to know that cisgender men did not get periods. They gave him dubious looks anyway, but when Steven mimed yanking a crescent knife from his chest they obligingly filed out. The grizzled one-eyed jackal turned around and gave John-Paul a gimlet ‘I’m watching you’ eye, but John-Paul just sniffed and looked above it all. French people sure were good at looking snooty.

The second the jackals turned the corner and disappeared from sight Steven took a deep breath and changed.

He straightened, folding his expression into a deep scowl. He tilted his head forward in Marc’s faux intimidating fashion and affected Marc’s terrible Chicago accent - which was just as fake as Steven’s very real to him British accent, thank you very much! Jean-Paul straightened too, eyes widening again.

“What the hell?” Steven demanded. Ugh. It was hell on the throat to talk like this. “How did you even get yourself into this mess?”

“Me? I am the one in the mess?” Jean-Paul stabbed a finger at Steven, who scowled deeper. “What was that? What is this? Why are you working for an ancient Egyptian courthouse under a false identity?”

“It’s a long story,” Steven snapped. It was really easy to avoid questions as Marc. You just had to be mean. “And it’s none of your business.”

“At this point I think it is very much my business! Jesus, Marc!” Jean-Paul exhaled deeply, rubbing his forehead in a forcible attempt at zen. “What is this, some sort of op? Are you undercover?”

“I said it was none of your business!”

“This is why you don’t run the ops,” Jean-Paul said. Steven was offended on Marc’s behalf. “I am impressed at your acting skills but not at your subtlety.”

“The usual, then,” Steven said wryly. “I’m impressed with your talent at getting arrested.”

“I get it, I get it. Marc Spector twenty, Jean-Paul fifteen. I swear, Marc, only you would get yourself in these predicaments.”

“You’re the one in the predicament. I’m doing fine.”

“My predicament is your predicament.” Why would that be true? He said it so casually, as if it was a given fact. Quite presumptuous of him, in Steven’s opinion. “At least now I don’t have to waste a hope and a prayer that you would pick up your phone this time. How are you going to get me out of this one? They have a giant baboon! Have you seen the baboon!”

“The baboon’s very understanding about my medical needs, so watch it.” Wait - had he wanted to spend his one phone call on Marc? Why? They were talented, cool, and altruistic, but… “Look, I’ll do what I can. But the gods aren’t exactly easy to argue with. I’ve tried to get them to overturn a sentence before and it failed miserably.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard my friend try to do things the legal way.” Jean-Paul folded his arms. “Just bust me out. Isn’t that more your style?”

What a suck-up. Marc didn’t have friends. Steven smiled anyway, brittle and thin. “Don’t worry, Jean-Paul. I’ll do everything I can to help you. Just please try and understand the position I’m in.”

Jean-Paul stared at him. Steven forced himself to look the other man in the eyes even though it made him uncomfortable. Marc always stared down people he didn’t trust.

“So, uh,” Steven said, “I better call the jackals back -”

“Please admit you do not know who I am.”

Steven froze. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

Jean-Paul sighed. He kneaded his forehead again, shoulders slumped, but something about the gesture had changed. My predicament is your predicament - what did that mean? “Why didn’t you say - non, non, you would have no reason. Marc, please listen to me.” He looked solidly at Steven, and Steven found himself looking away. “It’s Frenchie. I’m your friend. We met in Afghanistan and we’ve worked together ever since. You’re having another amnesiac episode. This happens to you sometimes and it is nothing to worry about. Do you believe me about this?”

Steven opened his mouth. He closed it.

He couldn’t help it - he hunched his shoulders, clutching at his sleeve and drawing away. “I don’t have friends. You’re lying.”

“Call up Layla and ask,” Jean-Paul said. His voice was even and steady, and it struck Steven oddly. The man was literally in a jail cell about to be Egyptian tortured and he was comforting Steven? Looking out for him in a mental health episode? Did the world contain two Lukes? “Do you know Layla? Your wife? Now there’s a thief for you. I am but a humble pilot in comparison.”

That cinched it. Marc would never tell anybody he didn’t trust about Layla. Much less about what Layla really did for a living.

But Marc didn’t trust anybody. Marc wasn’t supposed to trust anybody. That was Marc’s whole thing. He only trusted Steven and Layla. He only trusted Steven and Layla and - Frenchie? What kind of nickname was that? That was so stupid.

Marc was really bad at naming things. Movie poster, pilfered ID. Frenchie. Jeez.

Steven put it down. He let his shoulders hunch back into their natural slouch, bent his voice back towards its natural tilt, and dropped the mean expression. Despite himself, he groaned.

“Marc’s going to kill me!” Steven wailed. “He’s going to go to sleep again and leave me with Jake!”

Jean-Paul recoiled, surprise turning into shock. Wow, wow, big surprise. Marc or Jake’s friends freaking out over Steven. Stop the presses.

“He’s gonna blame me for this, you know,” Steven cried. Not whined. Nope. “This is why he doesn’t trust me with anything. As if it’s my fault that his friends keep getting arrested? Maybe I should get a little more recognition for being the only one without delinquent friends. Honestly, I don’t know why we can’t keep better company sometimes. A book club? A Dungeons and Dragons group? Anybody who doesn’t punch people for a living? Is that too much to ask?”

“Hm,” Jean-Paul said. “Your dissociative episodes have grown stranger.”

“What were they like in the military?” Steven asked, morbidly curious. “Marc didn’t even mention amnesia episodes. He can be right frustrating, you know.”

Slowly and carefully, Jean-Paul said, “Do you remember the manic episodes?”

“We’re bipolar?” Steven asked blankly.

“That is what I thought. I do not think I was correct.”

Wait. “Did you think Jake was a manic episode?”

“Jake?”

“The other one,” Steven said helpfully.

“Ah. Yes, I think so.” Jean-Paul paused - not as if he was uncertain, but as if he wasn’t sure how the words would be received. “I understand DID is a very difficult disorder.”

Something tugged at the back of Steven’s mind, then yanked. Steven felt himself fall backwards, and something else surged in him -

Frenchie stood in front of Marc, right in every way, wrong only in the eyes - only in the way he was looking at Marc -

Cautiously, he said, “Steven? You look dazed.”

Dazed. That was what he’d always call it. Whenever Marc zoned out and left his body, whenever Frenchie caught him wandering listlessly around camp with no memory of having even left bed - you look dazed, Marc -

“Do you ever get tired of your front row seat?” Marc asked hoarsely.

But Frenchie just smiled - a little cockily, a little kindly. “The view is quite good.”

Marc couldn’t do this. He never could, he could never do anything - but he couldn’t do this. Humiliation crushed him, Frenchie’s affection and acceptance its strange shadow. The shadow was worse than the weight. It was the shadow he couldn’t handle. He couldn’t handle this.

He turned on his heel and left, leaving Frenchie alone in the cell with no promise of rescue and no aid given, and he found himself walking faster until he turned the corner. The jackals were still huddled like a football team growling thoughtfully at each other, and they perked up when they recognized Marc. He ignored them, walking through the crowd until they leapt away.

Marc’s walk turned into a run. A drum beat rocked his head, pushing hard at his heart. The beat threw him forward, turning his run into a sprint down the winding cement halls. His desperation reached out and thought of a word, and once he thought it he just couldn’t stop.

Jake. Jake. Jake! Jake, I can’t do it again - Jake - !

Marc woke up face first in Jessica Jones’ hair clutching a bottle of Jack.

He yelped, jerking away automatically and falling off the couch with a heavy jolt. The bottle jumped out of its hands, landing on the stained wood coffee table with a heavy thump and rolling against a bulwark of beer bottles.

Marc bolted upright, ignoring his pounding head to take inventory of his surroundings. He relaxed the second he registered where he was. Heroes For Hire apartment. Morning. Luke Cage was passed out in an armchair, sawing wood. Colleen’s bra was draped across the back of a couch. Did these people do anything other than party?

Jessica flopped over, squinting blearily at him in the morning light. Cars honked outside and traffic blared, the sound cutting harshly into his throbbing head. Jessica waved a hand limply at him. She mumbled something that Marc could somehow translate into ‘what’s your problem?’.

Nothing. No problem. Not right now, not here. Marc climbed back onto the couch, pushing Jessica aside to reclaim his spot. Amazingly, they were barely even cuddling - their couch was one of those IKEA types that you could just keep adding onto, it was fucking ginormous. He left the bottle of Jack on the table, whiskey slowly sloshing in the glass. Jessica went back to sleep immediately, her warm breaths pressed against his back.

The sunlight faded into night, then nothing.

“ - and that’s why I wouldn’t fuck Mr. Fantastic unless Sue Storm was watching.”

Marc bolted upright.

“I left Frenchie in prison!” Marc cried.

“Man, what kind of weird dreams are you having?” Danny asked. Marc could hear his voice from behind the couch, accompanied by the rattle of silverware and the hefty scent of bacon. “I can interpret it for you if you want. The prison’s probably a metaphor for -”

“Your psyche,” Colleen intoned.

“That’s a bit on the nose, don’t you think?” Luke said.

Marc rolled off the couch again, slouching his way to the breakfast table and collapsing in his chair. Somebody put a bowl of cereal in front of him and began shoving it in his mouth. Everybody went back to ignoring him and resumed their conversation about the most fuckable superheroes.

“Monica Rambeau at the top,” Misty said, for what sounded like the five hundredth time. “Very top. Except my girlfriend.”

“I’m the last heir of a samurai clan, not a superhero.”

“Very top. Monica Rambeau.”

“Do you think the Avengers have these conversations about us?” Danny asked Luke. “Like, they have to, right? I don’t think they’re above it.”

“They have mimosa brunches. Man, you know they do. I don’t want to know what the hell they say about me.”

“One time Hawkeye flirted with me and I snapped his bow over my knee,” Jessica reported. “It’s about controlling the narrative, Luke.” Marc’s hand reached out and swiped bacon off her plate, cramming it into his mouth. “Watch it, asshole!”

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Luke told him, half-amused. “Who do we got today?” Marc glared at him balefully, but he held up the ASL finger sign ‘M’ anyway. “Good to see you, Marc. You’re the early bird, huh?”

“Jake was complaining about you yesterday,” Jessica told him gleefully, as if she was snitching on her classmate to the teacher for saying the b word. “He told us all about your intimacy issues. Is it true that you yearn for acceptance, yet are terrified of receiving it?”

“And why,” Marc gritted out between clenched teeth, holding his spoon at a vicious angle, “is Jake always telling you my goddamn business?”

“He likes to vent.”

“Then tell him to shut up next time.”

Misty scraped up eggs with her knife primly. “Five times a day seven days a week. Never listens.”

“Five people live in this apartment, there is no such thing as your own business,” Colleen said, dead-eyed. “I haven’t had privacy in a year.”

“It’s not that different from the monastery,” Danny said philosophically. “Smaller, though.”

“Drunker?” Misty asked.

“Not really.”

“Damn. Guess you had to do something without television.”

Marc’s grip on his spoon tightened so hard that his bones creaked. “Then you can just go tell Jake -”

Tell me yourself.

“Shut up, Jake! You can all tell Jake that next time he decides to overshare -” Hissy fit ten minutes after waking up, new record. “I wouldn’t throw a hissy fit if you stopped doing shit just to piss me off!” You are an egomaniac. “That is so rich.”

“Still weird,” Misty decreed.

“Yeah, still weird,” Colleen said.

Luke cut into his hash brown. “I’m just glad that they’re all talking again.”

“Totally glad that Jake’s back to his healthy, regular state of talking to himself,” Colleen said. “Maybe soon he’ll become normal and only serial kill on weekends.”

“I know none of you care about my personal drama,” Jake said flatly, “but would a little respect be so outta line for youse?” Jessica mumbled something around her egg. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, woman, have some self-respect.”

“Steven and I were talking about going to the zoo and looking at the sloths,” Danny said brightly. “Do you still want to do that? I want to see them so bad. All we have back home are sloth bears but I don’t think they’re the same animal.”

“Sloth bears?” Misty asked.

“They mostly eat termites and ants, really,” Steven told her, “not nearly as scary as you’re imagining. Quite adorable. But nothing really beats sloths on the cuteness factor.”

“Steven! Good to catch you. When do you want to go to the zoo?”

“Oh, boy, maybe Sunday? Do we have anything on Sunday?”

I was going to get drunk.

Same.

“Looks like Sunday’s free!” Steven paused a beat, a smile fixed on his face. “You know, fellas, I can’t help but feel as if we’ve forgotten something.”

We forget stuff incessantly, Marc said, tired. Frenchie was always dragging me out of bars I didn’t remember walking inside.

There’s an alternate explanation for that one.

See, that’s what I thought, but Frenchie never thought so.

“Frenchie!” Steven cried. He jerked onto his feet, sending his plate rattling. “We left Frenchie in prison!”

Danny reached out and patted Steven on the forearm. “It’s okay, Steven. It was just a dream. The French can’t hurt you.”

“Not if they’re in prison, anyway,” Misty said.

Luke, the only one who ever remotely was on topic, put down his fork and looked at Steven. “Who’s Frenchie? Since when do you know other people?”

“He’s my best friend,” Marc said. He scrambled away from the table, faintly registering that he was wearing Jake’s outfit. He and Steven had their own changes of clothes in the guest bedroom, he’d have to take a minute and change. They hated wearing each other’s clothing. It felt so invasive. Jake hated polyester, Marc hated wool, and Steven hated layers in non-freezing temperatures. “Damn it, what kind of friend am I!”

Jessica squinted at him, sipping her orange juice. “Wait, you have other friends? I thought we were your only friends.”

“He’s my friend, not Jake’s. You’re Jake’s friends.”

“I’m not Jake’s friend,” Misty said.

“Jake’s my friend but I don’t like him,” Colleen said.

“Jake’s my friend and I like him,” Danny said eagerly.

“No comment,” Luke said.

But Jessica just continued squinting at him - as if she could read something between their three faces, unremarkable individually but painting a clear picture together. “This is what stressed you out so bad yesterday, yeah?” Marc shoved the chair back into the table, averting his eyes. “Why don’t I come with you? Like, buffer zone?”

A part of Marc did want her to come. He didn’t know if that part was Jake or Steven or himself. He never knew where to put himself anymore, how to partition out his life into the good and bad. How to fit together Jake and Layla, how to give Steven the reins on the courthouse work, how to fit into the Heroes For Hire in a space carved for Jake yet welcoming of anybody.

It was so easy. It scared Marc.

“I can handle my own army buddy,” Marc said gruffly. He bent down and kissed Jessica on the cheek. “I’ll call.”

Marc swept out the door, ignoring Jessica calling “You better!” behind him.

#my writing #my asks #so much of the fun of the frenchie fic was marc x HFH dynamics it was so good #and frenchie himself ended up being such an interesting character. what an ass.#trivia: i wrote this THEN l2urh when i got writer's block #and frenchie's thing there was honestly just a speedrun of his arc here.#'steven's based off layla but jake's based off frenchie' was the most based decision

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