“Mark.” Steven’s voice resonates through his skull, waking him sharply. “Sorry for waking you up. Just, I got work today.”
Mark hums affirmatively and sits up. Or well, tries to – he’s stopped by a strong arm across his middle. Logan’s arm.
“Woah, who is that guy?” Steven remarks.
He pushes Logan’s arm off him gently, climbing out of the bed and tiptoeing over to the bathroom, looking into the mirror with tired eyes.
“I don’t want to hear it, Steven.”
“What? I wasn’t gonna say anything. I’m happy for you.” Steven replies brightly. “He looked handsome. Well done.”
“Well done?”
“Yeah, well done. You’re getting out, meeting new people, etcetera, etcetera.” He smiles fondly in response.
“I’m not some social recluse, I –“
Suddenly, a pair of arms wrap around his waist, startling him. He looks in the mirror, ignoring Steven’s shocked expression, to see Wade resting his head on his shoulder.
“You running off so soon, Markie?”
“Oh, another one? Wow, Mark.” Steven says, earning him a dirty look.
“I’ve got work.” He gets out through gritted teeth.
“Ugh, it’s not fair that I get two gorgeous hunks in my bed but they both abandon me in the day.” He pouts childishly and buries his face in Mark’s neck. “Can’t you just skip it?”
Mark pauses and raises an eyebrow at Steven in the mirror.
“We are not skiving off work, Mark.” He replies sternly, shaking his head. Mark sighs quietly and rotates so he’s facing Wade, smiling at him and holding his forearms gently in his hands.
“Would that I could.” He shrugs and moves Wade’s arms off of him. “You’ve got my number. You can call me if you miss me that much.”
He kisses Wade’s cheek and squeezes past him out of the bathroom, walking right into Logan.
“You’re leaving?”
“That’s what I said!” Wade pipes up from behind him.
Mark looks down, shakes his head, and laughs slightly under his breath.
“I’ve gotta go to work. I’d stay if I could.” He says, smiling slightly. “I didn’t realise you guys would miss me so much.”
Logan grins, moving his hands to cup Mark’s face, kissing him gently. Mark stands dumbly, arms hanging by his sides, blushing furiously. When Logan pulls back and moves away, he continues to stand there, stock still, face bright red and warm.
“Go to work, Mark.” He smiles, Wade shoving him forward lightly. He blinks back to consciousness, and catches Steven’s amused expression in the mirror above the shoe rack, giving him a look that screams ‘don’t start’.
“I’ll see you guys later, promise.” He says as he shoves his shoes on, grabs his (Steven’s) coat, and leaves promptly. “I’m not answering any of your questions about it. Take the body and go to work.”
---
Steven loves his new job; he almost can’t believe he’s got it – finally a tour guide at the American Natural History Museum. Natural history isn’t usually his wheelhouse, but seeing the joy on these kids’ faces as he tells them monkey and dinosaur facts makes it worth it. He also doesn’t particularly enjoy living and working in America – Americans are so loud, and everything just feels so overstimulating all the time – but at least he’s not surrounded by the artefacts of colonialism quite so much anymore.
It’s a rare quiet day (touch wood) – a Tuesday in the school term, only a few people milling around, so he sits in the main hall and just lets his mind wander, thinking about what a whirlwind the last 6 months has been. Mark and Jake tend to leave him alone during workdays, knowing that he has to focus when giving these tours, so his brain feels shockingly quiet.
Suddenly, in the corner of his eye, he spots two familiar faces, and can’t pinpoint where he knows them from until one of them walks right into a woman trying to leave because he’s too busy looking at the other. It’s those guys from this morning – Mark’s …. friends? He tries to make himself smaller – if they see him, they’ll think he’s Mark and then they’ll come over and he’ll have to pretend to be Mark or tell them about everything when really Mark should do that –
“A museum is not the kind of place I would’ve expected to see you working, bub.” The shorter of the two, wearing a blue and green flannel shirt over a faded band t-shirt Steven can’t quite make out, interrupts his racing thoughts.
God, what is he meant to do? As soon as he starts talking they’re going to notice he’s not Mark. But if he just says nothing, is that more suspicious and weird? He smiles awkwardly as he tries to think of what to do, and luckily (or perhaps not so luckily) his spiralling is interrupted once again by his supervisor barking at him.
“Steven Grant, if I have to tell you to stop standing around again –“
“Yep, sorry!” He looks back to Mark’s friends. “Uh, let me show you around, gentlemen.”
He turns promptly, walking in a random direction, decidedly not checking to see if they’ve followed him. He’s not sure he wants them to – trying to explain everything to new people again is not something he wants to do. Steven tries to reach Mark inside his head, but he’s unreachable. Christ on a bike, he’s on his own with this.
“So, I like the accent.” One of the men says behind him, and Steven stops and turns to face the both of them. “Is this some undercover identity thing? ‘Cause I’ve been there, done that. I’m actually leading a secret double life as an actor. Such a weird experience. Although, my wife –“
“It’s not an undercover identity.” He replies bluntly, mind racing trying to figure out the best way to word it. “And neither is Mark.”
The shorter raises an eyebrow, while the other opens his mouth to talk, but gets a swift kick in the calf before he can make a sound.
“I have – or well, I guess, we have – uh, dissociative identity disorder. So we’re separate people, but we’re in the same body, technically Mark’s body, but sometimes I control it, sometimes he does, sometimes – “
“Yeah, I know what dissociative identity disorder is, bub, I’m over 200 fucking years old.” One of the men holds out a hand for Steven to shake, which he carefully takes. (Steven tries not to think too hard about how the strength of this man’s grip is making him feel – this is Mark’s little dalliance, not his.) “I’m Logan. And this chatterbox is Wade.”
Wade waves happily and Steven smiles awkwardly back.
“So, it’s like two for the price of one? Because I’m incredibly down for that.” He rocks on his heels as he talks, as if he can’t stand still. Steven can’t decide if that’s endearing or incredibly annoying.
“You’re down for most things, you fucking horndog.” Logan elbows him in the side. “Do not listen to a word he says. Not sure how me or Mark put up with any of this bullshit.”
Steven opens his mouth, questions and explanations rising in his throat, when he spots his supervisor, blanches, and beckons them over to the case containing small figurines pulling large blocks of stone towards a slowly forming pyramid.
“Well, if you have any questions about the pyramids, or Egyptian culture in general, please ask. That’s what I’m here for.” He says, thanking whoever for his own quick thinking so as not to get yet another black mark against his name at this brand new job.
“So, how do we know aliens didn’t build the pyramids?” Wade says, shit-eating grin spreading across his face.
Steven blinks at him, smiling exasperatedly. This is a question he gets a shocking amount – but he can tell Wade is only asking this to mess with him. He looks over Logan’s shoulder to check if his supervisor is still there (she’s not), before huffing and rolling his eyes.
“Because it would be stupid to come all the way to Earth from whatever galaxy they came from just to build a load of massive stone tombs and monuments, and then just leave again.” He sighs out.
“How do you know they’ve left?” Wade responds.
“Have you met any?” He cuts in.
“Logie has.” He replies, just as fast as Steven cut in.
“What?” Logan finally chips in to the conversation, one eyebrow raised at Wade.
“Oh, no, that’s right. Wrong timeline. Not this Logie.” Logan breathes a heavy breath out, shakes his head, and lightly massages his temples.
“The things you say continue to baffle me, bub.”
“What can I say, I aim to baffle.” Steven looks between the two of them, politely smiling, before cutting back in.
“Look, this is all very charming, but I actually do need to get back to work. You can talk to Mark after 5:30. Nice to meet you, Logan and Wade.” He turns on his heel and leaves the room, breathing out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, in an emotion he can’t quite place.
---
When Steven steps out of the museum, into the pouring rain, he feels right back at home. Tourists and locals alike rushing past, rain freezing him down to his bones, and the ache of tiredness growing at his temples. The only difference here is that he doesn’t have the dread of having to face the Tube, Jake insisting that they were within walking distance.
(“You’ve clearly never tried to get the subway at rush hour if you’re arguing back. Think your British Tube, but full of Americans.”)
He can’t wait to get home, have a nice (imported) cup of Lady Grey, and catch up on the telly he’s missed. He feels Mark’s presence in back of his head, getting more tactile as he begins the walk home, and he’s content for once in his life, until he hears footsteps and a voice behind him.
“Stevie!” He turns, slowly, and is confronted with Wade’s grinning face, and Logan trudging behind him, the cowlicks in his hair somewhat flattened, making him look almost like a sad, wet cat. “How’s my hard worker?”
“Good, thanks.” He responds automatically, not even perceiving that Wade called him ‘my hard worker’. “Really coming down now, though, isn’t it?”
“Oh my god, you’re so British it’s like you’re a caricature of what American showrunners think British people are like.” He spins on the spot, grin not fading, even when a taxi drives by, splashing all three of them in puddle water.
Thank God, he’s made it home. He roots around in his pocket for the keys, pulls them out, and then turns to a bouncing Wade and a frowning Logan.
“You lads wanna come in for a quick cuppa and a biscuit?” He gets out through chattering teeth, Wade practically jumping, nodding frantically, and Logan just staring all sad-eyed at him.
He unlocks the front door, and the three of them awkwardly shuffle into the hallway and up the stairs to their apartment.
“Shoes off when you get in, please. I don’t want to clean mud off these floors again.” He says, throwing the keys down on the table next to the door, toeing his shoes off, and walking over to collapse in a dining chair. “Have you been here before?”
Logan shrugs his wet jacket off, hanging it carefully off the back of the chair next to Steven, before sitting down heavily onto it.
“Once. It was very dark though, and we were all a little … distracted.” He responds awkwardly, watching Wade look at every object in the apartment like precious artefacts out of the corner of his eye. “He usually comes over to ours.”
“He doesn’t like making a mess in his apartment. Definitely does not seem to mind trashing ours though.” Wade pipes in from his place staring at the kettle in the corner of the kitchen. He proceeds to bound over to take a seat across from them and starts talking incessantly, when Steven catches Mark’s stunned, angry face in a mirror in the corner of the room, blurring the sound of Wade’s chatter.
“Steven.” He gets out through gritted teeth, and Steven walks over to the mirror promptly, ignoring Logan and Wade’s confusion as he strides over.
“Nice of you to pop in. Was just having a nice chat with Logan and Wade, but if you want to –“
“Just give me control, Steven.” Mark says finally, not leaving room for him to finish, to which Steven nods and lets Mark’s growing presence in the back of his mind overtake him until he’s watching the world through the mirror. “Jesus.”
“Mark!” Wade bounds over to Mark, wrapping his arms around his middle and kissing up and down the side of his face.
“Alright, Red, it’s been like 10 hours.”
“Ugh, ten hours too long! I always miss you when you leave.” He pauses his kissing of Mark’s face to spin him around and smile widely. “And, no, I don’t mind that you’ve got an extra guy in your brain. He seems sweet.”
“I will not let you corrupt him.” Mark says, moving his hands to Wade’s waist and squeezing lightly.
“An excellent call.” Logan says from the table, grinning toothily at the two of them. “We’ve gotta try and keep Wade away from the general public.”
Wade pouts at Logan and playfully slumps down onto the sofa behind him, crossing his arms and sticking his lip out like a petulant toddler.
“You guys are so mean to me. It’s a wonder I put up with either of you.”
“Fine.” Logan shrugs, standing and holding out a calloused hand towards Mark, which Mark pads over to take with a grin. He makes eye contact with Mark, and starts walking backwards to where he thinks the bedroom is. “Me and Mark will go and have fun without you, then.”
“Wha-“ Wade starts, watching as Mark leans in to kiss Logan and lets the door close behind them. He tuts loudly (and receives a giggle from Mark) and jumps up, striding heavily over to the bedroom, a smile threatening to break his facade. “So mean! Don’t get too far without me!”
(Steven smiles from the mirror and turns around, unwilling to interrupt Mark’s evening too much more. He cannot wait to laugh with Jake about this.)