The pets turn into sitting down on the floor so he can hug.
"I've never had anyone want to protect me, I don't think. ...I don't think John helping me too means you can protect me any less, it's only a difference in when and how."
Ohhh wait!
"Oh, wait, I think I just figured out how polyamory works?"
Well, no one ever accused him of being good at romance anyway.
"Yeah, but you don't really want to be following me around twenty-four-seven, on the lookout for stabbers, right? You've got your own life! Things to do!"
Unless, for example, a huge scary moon god comes at him to knock him sideways out of the body slightly too fast for him to even scream, but what are the odds of that happening?
"Is protection part of vengeance? Or is that just something you enjoy?"
"If you hurt my friend I will eat you, is vengeance," Kahl says primly. "If they have not hurt my friend yet, they may be allowed to make an informed decision about the prospect."
He nuzzles Steven some more. "And the rest I can do because I want to."
"Well," Steven says, cheerily. He slings an arm around Kahl, settles in to just use him as a pillow again. "It's more of a pre-vengeance, since they haven't done anything yet." This is gentle teasing. KAHL YOU KNOW YOUR DOMAIN BETTER, HE'S JUST BEING ARGUMENTATIVE FOR THE SAKE OF IT. "Nuclear deterrence, except it's a tiger.
Do you do other things that are just things you like, that don't go with the domain?"
It's a warning. Or a threat, depending on your point of view.
"Most things can be connected to vengeance if you try hard enough," he muses philosophically. "But I like raspberry danishes, and watching out for my people when they sleep."
He bats gently at Steven with a paw the size of a dinner plate. "You should sleep, for that matter."
YOU ARE SO CUTE. He fluffs the white ruff just behind Kahl's jaw.
"Oh, that reminds me. Er."
His face twists.
"I've got a sleeping disorder. I, er, walk around. It's a bit ... embarrassing? Only thing that makes it better is not taking the anxiety medications, which I have already been yelled at for doing by infirmary staff.
I've got a ring of sand around the bed, tape on the door, a little ankle thing I made to try to keep me from walking too far... If I start sleepwalking and you're in here, can you just... keep me from doing anything silly? Nudge me back to the bed?"
"It's the first food I ever tried. Someone I...admired told me to," he explains, chuffing a little contentedly as Steven ruffles his fur.
Oh, is that what you've got? he thinks dryly at Steven's confession, but all he says is, "I will watch over you," a solemn promise that doesn't sound at all like he's threading a careful needle. "Get some rest now," he urges, bumping Steven's legs toward the bed.
Bed is indeed a complicated thing; he seriously has four deadbolts, tape holding the seam of the door shut that'll break if it's opened and then closed again, sand on the floor that will show footprints, the front door key hidden in an extremely dead potted plant that has not gotten natural sunlight since January, and a homemade ankle shackle made out of a bungee cord and a blood pressure cuff. The restraint does not look kinky. It looks like a mistake of engineering.
The bed, chronically unmade, is enclosed under a point of the attic that throws it into a windowless slant of shadow. The bedposts make a shape around it like the opening of a mausoleum.
Steven looks very young in his oversized sweatshirt for bed and big, grateful eyes.
"Thank you, Kahl," he says. "Um, you can - you can post up wherever you'd like if you're careful about the sand. You might get cuddled a bit if you're up here, at least until I... maybe try to wander off."
Kahl flits into his butcherbird form and darts neatly between the apparatus, before turning back into a cat (small) once he's on the bed, since he's not totally sure Steven and the tiger would both fit.
And you can tell when he's asleep, because the shared body flinches back away from Kahl as slowly as Marc thinks he can get away with without getting clawed. Marc is coordinated and careful where Steven is enthusiastic and clumsy, and there's tension in just about every line of him.
Not a big fan of gods. Not a big fan of affection in general, frankly.
He uses a lower register than Steven does with the same voice; a tough-guy American accent. He crosses one leg over his lap so he can start undoing the stupid ankle thing with very, very practiced motions.
Curiosity! The thing that killed that cat! Ha ha. Very good. Great.
"I'm not Steven," Marc says, just so everybody's on the same page here. "We're.. .I don't know, roommates. I'm only out because I know you've already seen me."
And he appreciates you not immediately telling everyone, but is still suspicious about everything else. Suspicious is his default social reputation tier.
Cuff is tossed open, Marc steps over the ring of sand.
This actually hits Marc like a punch. He stops and stares down at Kahl, openly astonished.
There's no place where Marc's memories stop. Steven has all the amnesia in this family, Marc's got none of it. Marc remembers everything up until curling up in bed just now in the first person, as if it's all something Marc decided to do himself for some fucking reason. Still, sometimes, still, thirty years on, he'll play back something Steven did and and think oh god, that was me. Oh god, it's always been me. How do I make it stop?
(The beating heart of the thing and the merciless truth of the thing contradict each other, are opposites, but you can't understand how they balance if you don't have both.)
Souls are real? And, more than that:
"We've got our own?"
Room is spinning. The Earth got knocked off its axis a little.
"You do now," Kahl says. "It's...fuzzy in places. Still tangled together, down at the roots. If I look very close, I can sort of see where it...tore. But souls are alive. They grow. Even if you start with just one and separate it. Like apple trees, or livers. Steven's grown his little piece into his own."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The pets turn into sitting down on the floor so he can hug.
"I've never had anyone want to protect me, I don't think. ...I don't think John helping me too means you can protect me any less, it's only a difference in when and how."
Ohhh wait!
"Oh, wait, I think I just figured out how polyamory works?"
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Okay cool, Steven, yeah, Marc will just go fuck himself, thank you for the suggestion.
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Well, no one ever accused him of being good at romance anyway.
"Yeah, but you don't really want to be following me around twenty-four-seven, on the lookout for stabbers, right? You've got your own life! Things to do!"
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Unless, for example, a huge scary moon god comes at him to knock him sideways out of the body slightly too fast for him to even scream, but what are the odds of that happening?
"Is protection part of vengeance? Or is that just something you enjoy?"
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He nuzzles Steven some more. "And the rest I can do because I want to."
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Do you do other things that are just things you like, that don't go with the domain?"
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"Most things can be connected to vengeance if you try hard enough," he muses philosophically. "But I like raspberry danishes, and watching out for my people when they sleep."
He bats gently at Steven with a paw the size of a dinner plate. "You should sleep, for that matter."
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YOU ARE SO CUTE. He fluffs the white ruff just behind Kahl's jaw.
"Oh, that reminds me. Er."
His face twists.
"I've got a sleeping disorder. I, er, walk around. It's a bit ... embarrassing? Only thing that makes it better is not taking the anxiety medications, which I have already been yelled at for doing by infirmary staff.
I've got a ring of sand around the bed, tape on the door, a little ankle thing I made to try to keep me from walking too far... If I start sleepwalking and you're in here, can you just... keep me from doing anything silly? Nudge me back to the bed?"
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Oh, is that what you've got? he thinks dryly at Steven's confession, but all he says is, "I will watch over you," a solemn promise that doesn't sound at all like he's threading a careful needle. "Get some rest now," he urges, bumping Steven's legs toward the bed.
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Bed is indeed a complicated thing; he seriously has four deadbolts, tape holding the seam of the door shut that'll break if it's opened and then closed again, sand on the floor that will show footprints, the front door key hidden in an extremely dead potted plant that has not gotten natural sunlight since January, and a homemade ankle shackle made out of a bungee cord and a blood pressure cuff. The restraint does not look kinky. It looks like a mistake of engineering.
The bed, chronically unmade, is enclosed under a point of the attic that throws it into a windowless slant of shadow. The bedposts make a shape around it like the opening of a mausoleum.
Steven looks very young in his oversized sweatshirt for bed and big, grateful eyes.
"Thank you, Kahl," he says. "Um, you can - you can post up wherever you'd like if you're careful about the sand. You might get cuddled a bit if you're up here, at least until I... maybe try to wander off."
Wince. Very embarrassing.
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"That's okay." Cuddles permitted.
1/2
Kahl gets cuddled. Steven usually ends up in a tight little frowning ball by the time he's asleep.
2/2
Not a big fan of gods. Not a big fan of affection in general, frankly.
Re: 2/2
"I don't wish to hurt you."
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He uses a lower register than Steven does with the same voice; a tough-guy American accent. He crosses one leg over his lap so he can start undoing the stupid ankle thing with very, very practiced motions.
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"And besides, I'm curious."
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"I'm not Steven," Marc says, just so everybody's on the same page here. "We're.. .I don't know, roommates. I'm only out because I know you've already seen me."
And he appreciates you not immediately telling everyone, but is still suspicious about everything else. Suspicious is his default social reputation tier.
Cuff is tossed open, Marc steps over the ring of sand.
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He doesn't mention the third one. If Marc doesn't want him spilling secrets, fair's fair.
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There's no place where Marc's memories stop. Steven has all the amnesia in this family, Marc's got none of it. Marc remembers everything up until curling up in bed just now in the first person, as if it's all something Marc decided to do himself for some fucking reason. Still, sometimes, still, thirty years on, he'll play back something Steven did and and think oh god, that was me. Oh god, it's always been me. How do I make it stop?
(The beating heart of the thing and the merciless truth of the thing contradict each other, are opposites, but you can't understand how they balance if you don't have both.)
Souls are real? And, more than that:
"We've got our own?"
Room is spinning. The Earth got knocked off its axis a little.
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"Yeah. It... tore.
But he's got his own. That's all I ever wanted for him," he says. He's very emotional, but the only tell is more gravel in his voice.
Oh my god, they're not undiagnosed, but what the fuck else can it possibly be any more. They have a diagnosis. From... a talking cat.
Fuck this place, fuck all its silly shit, but Marc is very grateful at the moment.
"If something happens to me, will Steven disappear, or will he be okay? Can you see any of that?"
(None of them would be okay without the others.)
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"Something?"
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Something."
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cw suicidal ideation
Re: cw suicidal ideation
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cw child abuse mention
cw child abuse mention/suicidal-ish thoughts
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