MHA #15, Monday Evening

[pocketpretzels]

As had become habit over the past few months, on Monday evening Watts found himself seated at his kitchen table surrounded by a stack of paper as he wrote to folks back in Toronto.

The most detailed letter went to the Detective and Dr. Ogden, as per usual, given that the former had experience here and thus Watts could be entirely honest about the things he'd seen and done. Less detailed were the missives sent to George Crabtree and Mrs. Hart. And finally, this week, there was a short note he owed Miss Louise Cherry, who'd written him recently expressing doubt that this address was even real. So he was writing back to assure her that no, no one had killed him in a fit of exasperation and he was in fact alive and well, just in Baltimore rather than Toronto.

It was slow going, of course, as he was making an effort to keep his writing as legible as possible. Even then, there had been more than a few sheets he'd had to discard entirely, and the wastepaper basket was starting to fill up.

[ooc: for the neighbour! that he came over is ok to mention, details NFB please.]

Comments

[pocketpretzels]

Watts nodded. “Courting? Or- dating, to use your term.”

[hasaknightjob]

Yeah, no, still took a second for Steven to process that because his mind was nowhere near that area - in many senses of the phrase, in fact.

"Dating?" Steven shook his head. "Marc and I aren't - I mean it'd be like dating family, first of all, so very much no. Never mind it's not even physically possible."

It was amazing how stunned confusion was pushing him right past where nerves had made him reluctant to go.

[pocketpretzels]

“I am afraid you’ve lost me,” Watts confessed, now thoroughly confused as that was not the reaction he had expected at all. “If he is not your paramour, then what? You’ve stated before that he is your priority.”

[hasaknightjob]

"He is," Steven said, because that was a truth he could cling on to in any circumstance. "I mean, again, to be very clear not my paramour. But yeah he is my priority. He always is. He always will be. He and I are - are a package deal, you see. We share everything."

Steven knew that wasn't nearly clear enough so he continued, gesturing towards himself. "Including our body."

[pocketpretzels]

"Your... what?" Watts said, still not feeling as if things were any clearer.

[hasaknightjob]

"Marc and I share our body," Steven said. He wished he knew a better way to explain it at all, let alone across whatever historic vocabulary divide there was for Watts. He tapped the side of his head with a finger. "He's in here with me. It's - it's like two souls but only one physical form."

[pocketpretzels]

Now, Watts preferred philosophy and fiction over science and medical journals, but even he had heard of the case of Christine Beauchamp in the United States. Still, it was quite one thing to read about it and yet another to apparently be confronted with it outright.

"I see," Watts said, clearly still digesting this information.

[hasaknightjob]

Well it wasn't as though Steven had expected Watts to be thrilled about the information.

"I know it's a lot," Steven said. He glanced towards the door, wondering at what point Watts was going to ask him to leave. "It was for me as well when I learned. But that's why - it felt wrong not telling you. I am sorry about that. It's only we've had to be careful. Back home you say you've heard from a god and that's almost normal. Say you've got a little American man living in your head and you can get locked away."

[pocketpretzels]

Okay, that startled a laugh out of him, which to his credit he managed to clamp down on quickly.

“I’m sorry!” he said hurriedly, not wanting Steven to think he was poking fun, even as this was a lot to digest. “I’m not- I don’t mean to- I just- of all the things you could have said, I was not expecting ‘little American man’.”

[hasaknightjob]

Laughing was better than disgust or horror at least?

"No, it's all right," Steven said. "I didn't either. I mean he's actually same size as me since - " again he gestured towards himself to indicate the body " - but, you know. Bit of a learning curve when you find out about it. He was a voice before he was anything."

[pocketpretzels]

Llewellyn Watts was a philosopher at heart, with all sorts of ideas regarding what constituted ‘personhood’.

Not to mention he’d had his own experiences with disgust and horror being leveled at him because of some aspect of his person that he could not change.

This was new, yes, and not something he entirely understood, but there were plenty of things out in the world that puzzled him, what was one more? If anything, what hurt was Steven taking so long to decide to tell him, but even that on some level he could understand.

“So. How long have you…”

[hasaknightjob]

"All my life if you mean 'been'," Steven said. The nerves were coming back now. "A few months if you mean how long have I known. Not long before we moved here, actually."

[pocketpretzels]

He hadn’t actually known which he’d meant when he asked the question, so he appreciated the answer being given for both.

“So,” he said slowly, “why tell me now, then?”

[hasaknightjob]

"A lie of not telling someone is still a lie, isn't it?" Steven said, the question rhetorical. He looked down at his hands, not having courage enough for eye contact. "Even if there's good reason at the start it gets worse the longer you wait, doesn't it? I didn't mean for it to be so long but we kept meeting and I liked chatting with you and... It was nice to just be me. Even though I can't be."

[pocketpretzels]

“Surely you’re allowed to have friends, even with your-,” he paused, grasping for the word, until finally coming up with “condition?”

[hasaknightjob]

Condition wasn't a word Steven would pick but he couldn't hold the choice against Watts. It was what most tended to think after all.

"Friends, yeah," Steven said. "I can do friends, absolutely. It's just more than that is where there's a problem."

Here Steven glanced up because he wasn't sure of Watts's reaction.

[pocketpretzels]

‘Situation’, perhaps, may have been better.

“… I see.” Those two words were getting a particular workout this evening, it seemed. Though now it was Watts‘a turn to avoid Steven’s gaze, because honestly, he thought he’d done a better job at hiding his own feelings, even when Steven went and did things that seemed beyond the bounds of typical friendship.

[hasaknightjob]

To be fair to Watts he'd done a great job hiding it from Steven. It was Marc who'd been the observant (and increasingly impatient for Steven to catch on) one. In fact Steven still wasn't completely sure how true it might be on Watts's part. For his own, he'd come to realize he'd been starting to cross a line. Especially when it wasn't a line it was fair for him to cross with anyone.

"That's - I told you about that friend of mine." Steven looked back down at his hands again. "How there were things I knew she wanted that I could never give. Things like children. A family. But all of it, really. Because how would that even work? You couldn't expect anyone to be all right with half a partner, could you? How could you even ask that of someone if you cared about them?"

[pocketpretzels]

“Half a…” Watts frowned. “You may share a physical body with someone but you’re hardly half anything, Steven,” he insisted.

[hasaknightjob]

Steven actually had reason to doubt that as well but it wasn't the point he was trying to make right now. "My time would be though, yeah? I mean think about it. Couldn't be there every night. Couldn't do every holiday. Or - or even if it was. Even if Marc and I both had someone of our own, how's it work? Come midnight New Year's how's it get decided which partner gets a kiss?"

It was possible this had been an obsession level of worry for Steven for some time now, given all the details he could think of.

[pocketpretzels]

Watts shrugged one shoulder. "Negotiation, of course." He drummed his fingers on the table. "The truth is, I am not... unfamiliar... with the reality of factoring in the needs of a third party."

[hasaknightjob]

"But it's not like - " Steven hesitated, not sure how well known Duke's romantic situation was. He decided to err on the side of privacy, even if Duke had told him about it in the diner. "It wouldn't be all three together. That, I mean there was a chance of that, before. With Layla. But rare example there. In general Marc and I don't like the same sort of people."

A fondness for strong brunettes in general, sure, but otherwise not enough overlap to be counted on.

[pocketpretzels]

“That’s, ah,” Watts scratched his chin, “not the sort of arrangement I was speaking of, no.” He took a deep breath. “The man I was- involved with- before coming to Fandom. He married a woman. And we still continued to see each other. After that.”

[hasaknightjob]

Watts wasn't talking about it like it was cheating so Steven assumed a different arrangement entirely. "But that's not quite it either. I mean I'm glad, for you. All of you. But that's not for me. That's part of the problem, yeah? I want one person but I can't be one person in return."

[pocketpretzels]

Steven would probably be less glad for them if he ever found out that Clara’s ex-lover had murdered her, framed Jack for the murder, and then kidnapped and beaten Watts in an attempt to find out where Jack had fled to.

But that was a story for another time.

“You can,” Watts insisted. “You may share a body but your mind is your own.”