Steven is vegan. Marc is still a meat-eater.
From the start to the rebirth it’s been a set rule. Stamped into them—an organism at the root of it, alive—to differentiate. He is attached to a name attached to another name where one eats meat and one does not.
Steven is vegan and Steven is into Egyptian history.
He’s into ancient texts, dead language and French and hieroglyphics, while Marc likes boxing, used to like the Marines, and likes surviving.
They share features and teeth and a stomach despite the fact their diets don’t match up, which means the thing they feed is omnivorous, but Steven doesn’t know that, because Marc makes sure that he doesn’t.
They share a lot that Steven doesn’t know of. They share some memories too, like old Synagogues and prayers told three times a day. Like the smell of honeysuckle and rot floating outside the place they grew up and the way they’d both start eating up the sides of the building if left to fester. Like memories of Mom, and reading with Mom, and Steven won’t stop talking about how much he misses Mom, so Marc pushes that aside and tries not to let that eat at him too.
So they share parents. And a body. They share eye color, hair color, a scar above the eyebrow, bruised ankles. The same hooked nose from the same Rabbi father, so there are some set rules to this, like Steven is never supposed to know Marc exists and Marc is supposed to stop their lives from ever intersecting.
The cards are a new thing, though. They’re all he’s willing to risk.
At a shop near downtown Marc thumbs through postcards stacked neatly on a rack by the liquor aisle. A pop song he vaguely recognizes from something stashed away at the apartment plays quietly through the store's speakers.
He makes his way through the G’s with printed pictures of geckos, ghosts, Giza, moves to H where Hawaii ocean water laps at his fingertips. They’ve been categorized alphabetically then by cover. Rows of big, fat “ Greetings From ” wherever the hell Marc could ever want to place himself.
Even if they share pieces of life Steven’s veganism is still not confusing to him. Steven has other organisms different from his. Habits Marc does not possess.
One time, he’d bought out the magnets from the Museum's gift shop on discount.
He’d arranged them on the fridge like a timeline. Start Predynastic end Byzantine Empire. The next day rearranged by rate of death. The next by birth, then power. Each time Marc thought to check they were switched or moved with other, bright alphabet magnets stuck above to label what the scrambled mess of pictures signified. Somehow Marc knows Steven wasn’t writing it for himself.
When the statistics started to fizzle out he’d made the switch to personal beliefs: which era he’d most likely survive, which era he’d be killed. Which had the best inventions? Which were best dressed?
Eventually those had started getting more difficult to piece together so Steven had abandoned them and bought out the gift shop’s tapes to stick to the door at night depending on mood. There was never any writing for those so Marc was forced to figure it out for himself.
Anubis meant Steven had a good day. Nerftiti meant he’d had a panic attack. King Tut meant he’d planned an all nighter and Marc would only see the tape after the time had already passed.
Between these discrepancies there are other things too. Other parts of Steven that belong only to him.
There’d been a time he was more into music. He’d collect CDs of old 1960s, 70s, 80s soft rock and pop bands to stuff in open cracks on his shelves or leave them to pile up in a milk crate that used to contain only mangos. In 3/4 time signatures he’d drum only on the downbeats. In 6/8 only on the ups.
The chorus hits at the speakers and the song’s name materializes like a half remembered dream in Marc’s head, and with it he grabs a bottle of some cheap liquor to his left. He remembers the case is shoved between a series of essays and free verse poetry on one of the bookcase’s bottom shelves. He’s pretty sure Steven’s forgotten its location. He’s mortified that he’s forgotten his mom used to own it too.
Steven also bites his nails to the bed.
There’s a stash of band aids behind the mirror above the sink he uses to wrap up his fingertips when he goes too far and they start to bleed.
Steven also wears chapstick. Cherry, flavorless, mint. He picks at his eyebrows, never chews with his mouth open, and always wears a jacket. He feeds the stray kitten who wanders behind the back of the Museum every Wednesday before he leaves even though he’s allergic to cats.
Marc plucks out “Greeting from Los Angeles ” before he stalks to the register and slides it across the counter to a teenage cashier with pockets of acne scarring smattered across his cheeks.
“LA?” The kid questions, turning the card over in his hands. His accent is thicker than Steven’s.
“Yeah,” Marc nods.
“You from there?”
“Yeah,” he repeats, even though it isn’t true. Marc is not from LA and he is none of those things that Steven is.
He fishes for a wad of crumpled bills in his back pocket.
Marc doesn’t buy gimmicky magnets and tapes, he spends money on fake passports and forged documents. Stupid postcards. He buys Steven a new life twenty minutes away from Marc’s old one just so when Marc fronts his location won’t be a shot in the dark.
Marc doesn’t listen to much music. Marc doesn't bite his nails, doesn’t wear chapstick, doesn’t feed strays on Wednesday nights.
Marc whistles. Steven can’t. Marc kills. Steven can’t.
Marc eats meat. Steven can’t.
Once he’s done paying he takes the card and pockets it, takes the liquor and holds it by its neck. He walks out the rundown little store to take a seat on the curb out front. The cement is hard against his ass. His feet splash into a puddle.
Marc fishes for a pen and takes the Los Angeles card out with it, flattening the paper against his knee. He smooths it over once, twice. The texture is glossy on the printed side and sure to leave smudged fingerprints. Uncapping the pen with his teeth he hurriedly writes—
Dear Stevie,—
then freezes.
The pen trembles in his grip. The comma he’d written trails sloppily, too long. Slowly, he removes the cap from between his molars and sets it down on his lap.
It’s Steven’s pen. The one he’s writing with. From the gift shop. Pyramids warp to fit the frame at the bottom before meeting with gold detailing. The part Marc’s thumb is braced against has rubbed away with wear, and suddenly Marc feels very lightheaded.
Of course. Steven’s jacket, Steven’s pen.
Marc carefully caps it back, folds the card, and puts both back into the jacket pocket. He reaches down to spread his fingers out onto the curb and squeezes the edge, skin stretched against his knuckles. Khonshu materializes behind his shoulder just to knock over a cup of orange soda in the parking spot in front of them.
“Feeling guilty?” Khonshu asks like he’s caught Marc in a lie.
“No,” Marc lies.
He decides not to mail this one out.
Love, Mum.