metalogs | Lucy In Disguise With Glasses [Closed]

You know, there's something intriguing about becoming someone's go to 'normal human problems' person. Which was of course silly because Mark was so not a 'normal human person'. But hey, he was being invited over by a friend, he was going to get food, and he liked talking to Huvrye.

So there he was, knocking at the door, wondering what was expected of him.

Mark knows a lot more about humans than Huvrye ever will on account of being one, he's fun and easy to talk to, and he respects boundaries that Huvrye didn't even know he had. Of course he's become Huvrye's go-to Norman Human Problems person.

Huvrye opens the door, greeting Mark with a smile and a "Hey," and closes the door behind him after he comes in. "Thanks for coming. Pretty sure I owe you an explanation now," He pauses as a thought strikes him. "Wait, your powers don't reflect magic stuff, right? Just other people's powers?" Things he should've asked over the phone but didn't think of until just this second.

"Yeah, magic and me don't seem to happen," Mark confirms. What an interesting question to have asked of him. "I mean, I'm pretty sure that's why I don't mirror you. Your powers are a class that I can't really get a piece of."

OF course he's not certain. The coming here messed with him a lot of ways he didn't understand.

"Yeah, but I'm also not magic." He shrugs and heads over to a side table, picking up a roll of what looks like velcro and holding it up a bit. "I don't know if you've met Doctor Strange, but he is magic, and he made me a magic disguise so I could hide my wings and look like someone else. The problem is, I can't really...figure out who else to look like. I'm not really good at normal human looks, and I don't want to copy anyone else exactly, so..." He trails off awkwardly and shrugs again. He doesn't exactly know how to phrase help me figure out how to look like a human, but here they are.

"Magical disguise sounds great for not getting harassed. Saw your thing online, figured that since I don't know too much about religion. It wasn't part of my life growing up."

Still, he's intrigued over the question of 'who else to look like'.

"Why not look like yourself? Just without the wings?"

"Yeah, I'm kinda tired of getting stared at."

He undoes the velcro, neatly unrolling it. It's the sort of strap runners use to keep their phones attached to their arms so they don't have to worry about carrying it, but he's removed the phone attachment, leaving a velcro strap and plastic buckle. As of a few weeks ago, it's also been enchanted by Doctor Strange, though testing it hasn't gone as well as he'd like.

He pauses and looks at Mark, then gestures to himself in an encompassing up-and-down motion. "Have you ever seen a human who looks like me? Even without the wings." Most of the humans he's seen with white hair are old, and nobody else has red eyes. "I think someone would figure it out."

Oh Huvrye, what a silly question.

"I mean, other than hiding the wings, a minimum change would mostly just be disguising your ears, making your skin a touch paler, and your eyes a little more pink. You'd pass pretty easily as someone with albinism. I went to school with someone who had the condition. Sure you'd still look a bit irregular, but you'd be accepted as within the... what's the word? Standard deviation of humanity? The question is how much of YOU it is you want to keep."

To be fair, he comes from a world where people can modify their appearances at a genetic level. Why would anyone choose to look like a homunculus?

"None of it." The answer is immediate, born of years of hating how he looks and knowing that he's irrevocably stuck with it. Still, that's...probably not something he should tell Mark. "I mean, it's not much of a disguise if I still look mostly like myself, right? The harder it is for people to figure out it's me, the better."

See, Mark doesn't see the point to altering appearance unless you're trying to hide. But that's not what he's focused on right now. Instead he looks at Huvrye with an almost sad, contemplative look.

"I get the not looking like yourself as a disguise, though it's a bit of a shame, as you look pretty good. Have you considered softening your looks to be a bit more human normally, and then altering yourself more for being a hero?"

That's the point, Mark - he is trying to hide when using his disguise. He sticks out enough to have to join a guild - he can at least try to have a life outside of that, even if he has to hide who he is to do it. Otto had introduced him to the idea, and if Otto can do it with a bit of magical help, then so can he.

...or he can at least try. There's still a lot he doesn't know about human culture, and it'll be harder to cover those knowledge gaps if he looks like a human.

And then Mark says you look pretty good and his brain grinds to an abrupt and complete halt. That...that doesn't make any sense. He knows he doesn't look good. He was designed to fit a certain aesthetic, to make sure nobody could ever mistake him for a civilian; his look is plain, and boring, and that's never going to change, thanks to the appearance lock built into his system. He's stuck looking this way, and he hates it.

But-

Mark's an artist, and artists are supposed to know what looks good - that's how they're able to make art. And Mark thinks he looks good. He just said it. But- but how? What part of him looks good? Is Mark just saying it to be nice? That has to be it, right? They're friends, and he's saying it to be nice.

But...Mark doesn't do that. Not really. As far as Huvrye knows, Mark has been nothing but honest with him.

So...he really does think Huvrye looks good?

Why?

It's a question he can't answer; it's also about when his brain starts working again, and he realizes he's just been standing there silently blinking as he attempts to process what he's just heard. "...what?" He sounds - and looks - absolutely baffled.

It's a damn long period of time that he's standing there, staring and blinking. And in that time Mark's heart aches because damn, that's just another glimpse into things that Huvrye has been denied. These touches of humanity, of self confidence and self worth that he's been refused.

"While you're not the traditional sort of model or celebrity beauty of my world, Huvrye, you're not unattractive. In fact, I don't doubt there are people who would be easily attracted to you. You've got a sort of ethereal, fae sort of look that many people would prize. And I'm sorry no one back in your world ever told you that you've got good qualities."

...no that still doesn't make any sense.

"But...I'm so plain." His mouth moves without his brain, because his brain is still too busy trying to process the turns this conversation has been taking. He's a homunculus - he was made to fit a specific mold. There's nothing unique or special about how he looks, and there's nothing he can do to change that. That much would be obvious to anyone in Lasardhi-

But he hasn't been in Lasardhi for weeks. He's been in another world, where the dominant species is humans and they've never seen a fairy like him before. He's unique here. He sticks out. And nothing about him stands out more than-

His expression visibly falls. "It's the wings, isn't it. Ever since I got here, it's always been the wings." His plain, boring wings that still get attention, because it's not like humans have them. They're what people take pictures of when they see him, they're what people ask about, they're why people call him an angel even though he definitely isn't - it's all the wings.

(He wouldn't trade them - he loves flying too much for that - but it's still disheartening. It's for a different reason here than at home, but no matter where he is, what he is still sets him apart and makes him less than a person. He can't escape.)

Plain? Mark actually chuckles at that.

"Okay, let's start with one thing. The attention you're getting now is probably heavily from the wings, because they're not common. I'm not going to argue about that. But that's not it, Huvrye. People like things that are different. That said, there's a lot of lore in human history about fairies and elves and you sorta fit the description and people are into them."

And it's just like that. So yes, it's entirely possible he can mostly look like himself and people will like the look of him.

He knows Mark is trying to help. He knows Mark is trying to reassure him. But he's missing the point. "It's not that- it's-"

He stops as his brain catches up with his mouth. Mark isn't getting the point because he doesn't have context - he doesn't know what Huvrye is; what he was back in Lasardhi; how being admired for his features still makes him feel like a thing, and how being treated like a person here makes that rankle even more than usual.

Mark doesn't know he's friends with property. Mark knowing that - and everything that goes along with that - will end that friendship. Huvrye can't tell him.

Which means this conversation is now in dangerous territory. Huvrye sighs, closing his eyes for a second or two, and tries to get back on track. "Look. I don't plan on wearing the disguise all the time - only when I want to do something that I don't want people to immediately associate with me, or when I just...don't want to stick out. That's why it needs to look different from me. That's all."

Well, if it wasn't explained of course he wouldn't find the point. Though Huvrye is sort of selling Mark short. He doesn't get it, Mark's been property, and he wouldn't believe that people should be property and that Huvrye isn't actually a person.

"Okay then. If that's what will make you most comfortable, let's figure some things out. How about the hair color first?"

Mark rolls with the redirect, and Huvrye nearly sighs in relief. At least the conversation is out of dangerous territory.

What follows is nearly an hour of trying to fine-tune a few looks that fall into what Huvrye has been assured is Normal Human territory. The goal is not to stand out; to that end, he winds up with four variations on what would generally be referred to as Generic White Guy. They're all tall, to match his height or something close to it, but fortunately nothing else stands out aside from "tall."

(A bonus is finding out that the magic in the disguise fools the camera as well, so Huvrye now has pictures of his human disguises so he can memorize them and be able to use them at a moment's notice. Strange thought of everything when it came to this.)

The conversation stays in neutral, focused territory, and while Huvrye is grateful for it, he still keeps turning over the earlier parts of the conversation in his head. That Mark thinks he looks good. That he knows that's not the case. That he also knows Mark doesn't have context for his world - for why he's plain. He can provide some context, right? He's seen pictures of this world's military, and it's uniforms and conformity here too - he should be able to use being military as a reason he can't change his look without going too much deeper, right?

(And Mark will respect it if he stops the conversation after that, right? He already did once, and he said Huvrye doesn't owe him any explanation, so that should hold. Right?)

He drops the current illusion, revealing wings and pointed ears and red eyes again, and looks at Mark. "Thanks again for the help. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you." He pauses - does he really want to go through with this? But if he doesn't do it now, when will he have the opportunity again? - takes a breath, and continues. "I know I promised you food, but I want to show you something first, if you don't mind."

"I think you would get plenty far without me," Mark said, "but I'm glad you didn't have to go it alone."

IT had been a long experience, helping Huvrye tweak and twist the illusions until they made him look as unique as they could manage, while also not being too interesting. It's a lot of work, but he accepts it as the best part of being someone's friend. Because help is what friends do.

"Sure, I'm happy to see whatever you want."

"Okay."

He can feel the adrenaline spike as it happens. He's nervous - he knows exactly why, but still. Why did he bring this up? Why is he taking this risk?

...because he trusts Mark. Boy, is there a lot riding on that right now.

He keeps himself steady as best he can. "I...I know you said you like how I look. I just - where I come from, there's salons - there's alchemists who can change how you look: hair, skin, eyes, wings - so you can look like-"

He pauses, then turns his back to Mark, focusing on the disguise spell, and his wings change. For a few seconds, they're the pointed, monarch-bright wings of Lennis; a few seconds later, they're the rounded, black-tipped blues and tans from Yin's memory; and then, for mere moments, they're bright, multi-tiered and tailed, with stained glass feathers in all colors of the rainbow-

(He closes his eyes for this one. It feels like invoking her, sticking a knife into a place deep within him that started screaming when she got her hands on it and never stopped. She's the perfect example of the potential of salons - the epitome of Lasardhin beauty - and if she ever arrives here, he's dead.)

-and then he drops the spell and opens his eyes, and his wings are his own again. "But I can't do that," he continues, voice quiet. "I'm stuck the way I am. And...it is pretty plain."

It's an explanation. It's context, so Mark understands. It's definitely not a display of the low self-esteem he's had for most of his recent life. It's fine.

Edited 2023-01-30 21:12 (UTC)

Well, that's a lot to process. And it really just underlines the low self-esteem that Huvrye is almost made up of. Well, it takes some time to heal from things like that, and he's going to do his best to help.

"No," he says, reaching out to touch his friend's shoulder. "You're not plain. I'm telling you that right now. Maybe in your world you're different because you can't change, but that doesn't mean that you're plain. No matter what people tell you. Got it?"

He doesn't move away, but he also doesn't look at Mark. Mark still doesn't get it. It's not enough of an explanation - not enough context. How could it be, when Huvrye is still avoiding telling him the main reason he hates the way he looks? That his skin and hair and eyes and the plain white of his wings is every bit as much a uniform as the boots and pants and jacket he wore in Lasardhi? That even if nobody here can recognize a homunculus on sight, he's still in uniform, and he can't shed his skin as easily as he can his clothes?

Mark's already close. They're already talking. It would be so easy to open up and explain what he is, and how he was made, and what he was made for.

And it would be so easy for Mark to decide Huvrye isn't worth the trouble and walk out.

He wants someone to understand - someone who hasn't lived it but still gets it-

No, he wants his friend to understand, and to still be his friend even though Huvrye's not a person - not really. He wants Mark to know and still stick around. But he can't read minds; he can't guarantee that Mark won't leave once he finds out-

"That's- not it." He folds his arms, gripping his biceps tightly. "Or it's- not everything."

He trusts Mark; he's scared; and right now he's caught between the two.

"And you don't owe me everything. Or anything," Mark reminds him. He wants Huvrye to remember that, to only share what he wants to share. "But no matter what it is, it doesn't change one simple truth. This is who you are, and no matter what, you get to define what 'who you are' means to you. You aren't where you were anymore. Here you can be what you want."

And Mark will fight for that for him.

It's that same assurance. Mark won't push, so Huvrye has to make the decision himself.

(Because historically he's been so good at making decisions. He's definitely never gotten the people he cares about hurt or killed. It's fine.)

But then Mark keeps going, talking to him like-

What Huvrye wants is enough.

-like he's a person. It sinks in, brushes against the awful, powerful little crystallization of thought he'd had during their last conversation - that Huvrye had buried rather than open that yawning pit underneath himself - and it ignites.

He's not a person. He knows that about himself. But Mark doesn't, and Mark keeps talking to him like he is- like he gets to make his own choices in life- like he really can leave everything behind-

Would Mark still be talking to him like that if he knew?

He wants to think so. He wants to hope so. But if that's not the case, he loses this friendship, and he can't stand the thought-

So then what? He lets the lie go on, builds a friendship on an assumption that isn't true, and feels this awful acidic burn in his chest every time Mark treats him like he's a person? How long until that poisons everything? How long until it burns him to the ground? He can't bury it again - he had barely managed it the first time, and now it's worse; is it really better than getting the worst over with now? At least if it all collapses, he'll know, and he'll have time to heal.

(Not that he ever heals from this kind of collapse. Maybe it'll be better this time; it'll still be his fault, but at least Mark will be alive.)

His shoulders are hunched and his head bowed, like he's curling in on himself, trying to protect himself before the pain comes, never mind that it's already here. "No," he manages. "I brought what I am with me. I don't get to change that."

He's telling him. He's telling him, and he stands to lose him as a result, and now it's too late to stop.

"That's not true at all. You were brought here, but what you brought with you as well is the emotional pain and baggage, and over time you'll learn how you carry that, how you let it define you, is always still your choice."

And right now Huvrye is choosing an unhealthy choice because maybe that's all he know how to do.

Mark doesn't get it. Because Mark still thinks he's a person. Mark still thinks Huvrye gets to have choices, and a path he determines, and everything else that comes with being a person, and that awful burn in his chest only gets worse the longer Mark talks, and he just needs to get this over with.

(It's going to go wrong. It always goes wrong around him. Because of him. But he started this, and he doesn't get to stop.)

"No." He shakes his head and drops his grip on his arms. His sleeves are already rolled up to the elbow, to let him wrap the enchanted velcro strap around a forearm; it doesn't take much to push a sleeve up to his shoulder, revealing the tattoo on his bicep: EH G3A15. His serial number, inked on both arms in big black letters.

(People don't have numbers. Not like this. He knows that much, at least.)

"I'm a homunculus." His voice is surprisingly even, if heavy - it's a statement of fact, after all. "I wasn't born; I was made, to be a weapon in a war that doesn't end." Against Isor; against every other city-state on the continent after Isor fell; against the Corrupted. "That's why I don't have any experience being a civ - my whole life has been military. I'm not a person. I'm just...government property."

There. It's out. Mark knows now. What he does next is up to him.

(Please don't leave- please don't leave-)

They don’t need explained, those numbers. Mark’s seen things like them before, in history books. His father had been such a history buff, and so there were plenty of ‘primary source’ resources in their house growing up. So of course his mind flashes to the most obvious parallel in his own world, the one most people would come up with. And then his mind leaps to something else, something other people wouldn’t think of.

17-E-5-L5. He knew how traumatized that had left him. Imagining it marked on his skin would have made him sick. Of course they never would have been able to do it, because they had tested him around people who could heal, so the tattoo would have been lost if they had tried.

That said, he has to think that Huvrye has a date with someone good with ink in the future if he wants it. But that isn’t what he is going to say now.

“Huvrye, I’m going to say something that is going to sound like absolute insanity right now, but I need you to answer me seriously, okay? Because there’s a point to it. I hear everything you’re saying, and don’t get me wrong, we’re going to take the time and unpack the clearly fascist dystopia you grew up in, and how people are never property, and so many other things, but for the moment, I need you to take the next thing I say very seriously, okay?”

He gives it a moment, gives Huvrye the chance to think about the request from Mark. And then he goes forward with it.

“I’ve introduced you to coffee a few different ways. What’s your favorite kind of coffee so far? Remember, think seriously before you answer. And think about why it’s your favorite.”

He's...not leaving.

Yet, says a poisonous little voice in the back of Huvrye's mind, but he ignores it for now. Mark knows, and he's not leaving, and the acid burn in Huvrye's chest is slowly starting to subside. It's okay. For now, it's okay.

(It might not be okay later. He'll take 'for now.')

He's still listening - he doesn't correct 'grew up,' at least not yet - and while the leadup to whatever question this is going to be is making him nervous, he still trusts Mark. "Okay."

...though evidently trusting Mark doesn't prevent him from being utterly blindsided by that question. For the second time today, he's left blinking and staring at Mark as he tries to gather his thoughts. What coffee is his favorite? What does that have to do with anything?

But Mark asked him to take it seriously, and he does, turning the question over in his head. He's had a lot of different coffees since he'd arrived here, to the point where he doesn't remember all of them. Which one is his favorite?

"There's one they make downstairs," he finally says. "It's mostly regular coffee, but it's got salted caramel in it. I think that one's my favorite." It's the first coffee he'd had that had been flavored (and better quality than anything he could get back in Lasardhi), and it had stuck with him. It had also become his regular order downstairs, to the point where the people in the coffee shop would start prepping it for him when they saw him in line.

He has to ask, though. He shouldn't be pushing, but he needs to know. "Why?"

Good, he has a preference, and a reason for it. Perfect! Mark offers a smile in response.

“Because weapons are things, Huvrye, and things don’t have preferences, or likes and dislikes. A gun doesn’t like armor piercing rounds over standard. A tank doesn’t have a reason to prefer dry ground over muddy, even if one is better for its operation. There are no preferences with a sword when it comes to whether their handle is wrapped in one color leather or another. People have preferences.”

He’s going to put aside the whole idea of animals here because those have preferences too but he’s not going to muddy that water. Right now he needs Huvrye to see that he’s a thinking, reasoning being. And that makes him a person.

“You were a soldier for your world, and it sounds like you weren’t given a choice in that life. But that doesn’t mean that you are without your own ability to make choices. Sometimes people get caught like that. I got caught in that, I had my agency stripped away for years, but that didn’t make me less of a person, and that doesn’t mean I lost my right to make my own choices now. And right now, you’re free of whatever fucked up structures you were in, and you get to make your own choices, no matter what your past was.”

He listens, and by the end of it he's shaking his head. Mark may have a point, but the point doesn't apply to Huvrye, or to other Lasardin homunculi. They may be thinking, reasoning beings - any soldier that can't think for itself in the field is just dead meat - but that doesn't make them people. "It's not the same. You've been a person your whole life, even when your government didn't treat you like one. I've never been one, and making my own choices here doesn't change that. Homunculi aren't people."

As for his past, he gets the feeling a lot of choices are going to be made for him if anyone ever finds out about the details. Better to keep that under wraps for as long as he can.

Homunculi. What did that word even mean? And why did it matter?

“You sound like a plantation owner back before the Revolution. They used to say that about some people too. People that were ‘made’ to serve them, to work in their fields and make money for them. Of course that doesn’t change the fact that just enslaving a person doesn’t make them any less a person.”

And being a former slave, even a military slave, didn’t make Huvrye any less of a person.

“You’ve been a person all your life too Huvrye. You were just controlled by bad people who refused to see that. People who didn’t deserve you.”

He may not get the reference Mark is making, but he's picking up on the point at least, and Mark is still missing his. "But they were still people. Humans, right? They were born, and they had parents and families." That's an assumption, at least - he doesn't know if Mark's world has clones like this world does, but Mark would've brought it up if it applied, right? Plus, clones are still people, as far as Huvrye is concerned - copies of existing people, but people nonetheless.

"That's not the same. The people who controlled me made me." Wait - is that the part that Mark's not getting? "I'm made out of dead civs and held together by alchemy. I wasn't born. I was never a kid. I didn't grow up. I don't have a soul. I'm not a person."

But it's nice to be treated like one, says a quiet voice somewhere deep in his mind. He's not listening - the hypocrisy and indoctrination run far too deep to be uprooted so easily - but the thought is still there.

Edited (forgot to add the CW, oops) 2023-02-01 01:24 (UTC)

No, he’s not missing it, he just isn’t buying the premise. At all. And he isn’t likely to change his mind.

“First, and let’s get this out of the way: I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in souls. So ‘lacking’ one isn’t going to sell me on the lies that slave-owners tell to their slaves to keep them in line. Actually, I’m pretty sure that one was told to black slaves in America too, so extra points against it. Secondly, you were born, but just born in a different way than I was. Arguing against that would also mean that you’re arguing against the personhood of someone who is, say, hatched, or cloned, or even thinking machines that are constructed or something.”

Because Mark’s seen enough here to believe that AI could probably get to be fully sentient and thus people. So that argument is total bullshit too. And Mark’s not going to buy it.

“And I’m not going to say that the people who created you,” because he’s not saying ‘made’, that’s dismissive of Huvrye’s personhood things, “are good people for using the bodies of people who passed away. But I have seen what alchemy can do, and I know it makes things absolutely real. From what I saw from Oliver, it’s very potent, and it’s very real. So that doesn’t take away from you being a person. Also, new homework for you, you’re reading Frankenstein, because literally we teach in school from one of the most classic stories of all time that even if everything about your creation that you’re saying means you don’t have a soul and makes you not a person is actually wrong. If, and hard if on it from me, souls are real, the people without them are the ones that hurt you so bad, that beat you down until you really believed all their lies.”

Because that’s absolute truth in Mark’s mind. If Huvrye isn’t a person, then neither is he, because they were both lied to by their governments, both tools that never deserved what they were treated like.

“There is nothing you can say to make me believe that one of my best friends in this world isn’t a person, Huvrye. And I know I’m going to find a way to make you see yourself for what you are. Because I made a promise that I’m not going to stand back and not fight to save people from bad things. I’m not going to run because I’m scared or because it’s hard or because I could get hurt. And that includes this.”

...what?

...what?

It's all Huvrye can do to stand there, slackjawed and slightly awed, as Mark starts his argument by blithely dismissing the idea of souls and just goes from there. Saying Huvrye is born. Insisting he's as much of a person as anyone else, regardless of circumstances. Giving him homework. Calmly and methodically tearing down every argument Huvrye has made. He knows Mark is wrong - he knows homunculi are different, that they don't count - but what is he supposed to say? How is he supposed to make an argument when Mark is simply taking them all apart?

(The bit of grace for Lasardhi, and the stark dissonance with his experience, almost gets a startled laugh out of him. He knows where those bodies come from. He's brought enough of them to Resources himself.)

And then Mark calls Huvrye one of his best friends here, and promises to fight for him - even if it means fighting him, or at least his mindset - and Huvrye's ability to think shorts out entirely.

None of this makes any sense. Huvrye has only known Mark for a month - how could he be one of Mark's best friends here? Sure, Mark is Huvrye's best friend, but that's partly because Huvrye doesn't have many friends, between his short time here and his tendency to lose them in horrifying ways. How could he possibly be that important to Mark? His life doesn't matter. He's not a person-

But Mark says he is-

He doesn't get it. It doesn't make sense. The inside of his head feels like locked gears, frozen and straining to move; like broken glass, edges grinding together but unable to become whole; he feels dazed; he feels concussed, and he's had enough concussions throughout his life to place that feeling-

And like he has before when he's been concussed, his mouth buys time for his brain to get itself back in order by filling the silence with something inane.

"...what's homework?"

It's not an attempt to change the subject; it's currently the only thing he can think of when his brain has overheated trying to process something anathema to how it was built.

Mark thinks he's a person.

But he's not. Mark is wrong. That's not how this works. It's not possible.

But, says that same quiet voice, what if it is? What if he's right?

(That voice is getting harder and harder to ignore, but Huvrye tries anyway, because he doesn't have an answer and he's pretty sure that, if he ever does get one, it won't come easy. He's not doing that right now.)

Of course Huvrye comments on the least damaging thing. So Mark reaches out, gently taking one of Huvrye's hands.

"Come on, let's sit down and order dinner. I'll explain homework, and then I'll probably have to back track and explain school and education for young people on this world. So you have enough of an understanding of it to wing it through any questions that may have come up."

Please cut him some slack, Mark, his brain just gave up.

He takes Mark's hand and holds it tight (not too tight, he doesn't want to hurt him), like an anchor, and sighs. "Okay." He can manage dinner, and an explanation, and anything that doesn't involve delving too deeply into his personhood or lack thereof, because that's definitely still in mental gridlock.

Good. Mark tugs him gently toward the couch so they can sit down.

"Alright, I think it's probably best to go with something we've already tried before. Better to just choose something familiar, your favorites."

Reinforce that you have favorites.

Huvrye doesn't quite collapse into the couch, but it's definitely a heavy sit. Today has turned out to be a lot. "Okay." He digs his phone out of his pocket and offers it to Mark, a familiar motion at this point. "Maybe the pho place? It's pretty good."

(If Mark checks the delivery history, that same pho place is three of Huvrye's last five orders. He definitely has favorites.)

Mark takes the phone and smirks when he finds that the delivery history does in fact show this place is pretty common to him.

"Pho it is. I love pho actually. It's comfort food. I've missed not having it. We'll get a huge serving of it, and sit at the table together, and eat it together. That's how it's supposed to be done, but apparently a lot of places in the states don't do it that way."

"Okay." He'd taken to eating wherever - there hadn't exactly been a place to eat in his apartment back in Lasardhi until he'd dragged that couch in, and eating on the couch became a habit that he'd brought with him here. The last time he'd had a meal at a table had been with Hunter, and that had been Hunter's decision.

He's quiet for a bit, letting Mark place the order and easing the edges of his brain out of gridlock. He trusts Mark to order for them both, trusts him with his phone, in his room...so much of his friendship with Mark is acts of trust. How had he not trusted him with his identity until now? Why had he thought Mark would leave?

(Because Mark deserves better; Huvrye knows that, and he'd thought Mark would realize that too. Looks like he still hasn't yet.)

(But Mark knows he a homunculus and still thinks he's a person-)

"I wasn't planning on telling you," he finally says, partially to fill the silence and partially to derail his current train of thought before it can shut him down again. "I wasn't planning on telling anyone, actually. I'm still not used to being somewhere where people can't tell I'm a homunculus just by looking at me, and I guess people here are weird about clones, so I thought..." He trails off and gestures uselessly. "I don't know. It's weird."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Mark says quietly, moving closer to his friend and opening his arms. Come on, cuddle up. IT might make you feel better.

"It doesn't have to be weird, you know. You can be what you want here. We both can. You don't have to be a soldier, and I don't have to be a lab experiment. Again."

He scoots closer, but doesn't hug or lean on Mark yet. He doesn't think he can relax; parts of his brain are still buzzing and grinding against each other, and he's going to need to work that out before he can really rest.

"No, I mean-" It takes that long for lab experiment, again to sink in, and he sits up abruptly. "Wait, what?" Mark had mentioned that his government was interested in his powers, and that they didn't treat him well, but that- no. No.

Yeah, they were both damaged goods, and Mark knew that now, even if Huvrye has not fully done so.

"When I finished my four years in college, I decided I was going to go on a trip around the world with some friends. Instead I was kidnapped by a secret government organization to be experimented on for a long time. I... I don't even get to have the scars from it, because a lot of the tests were done around people with healing powers."

Huvrye's expression falls as Mark explains. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but somehow, the explanation is still worse. To go from the high of a planned global trip to the absolute horror of a holding cell with no end in sight-

And normal people are supposed to scar when they heal - to have proof that they survived whatever they experienced. Homunculi don't do that, and Mark doesn't have them either - no proof of what happened except for his memories.

He shakes his head slowly as it sinks in, expression still stricken. "I'm sorry." It's inadequate at best. It is so, so little in the face of what Mark's been through, but right now, it's all Huvrye has to offer.

"Yeah," Mark says with a little bit of a whisper. It was... It had been so bad.

"There was a lot that place did to me, and made me do. But there's no map of the hurts on my skin anymore, and so sometimes life feels like an impossible dream."

Lucy In Disguise With Glasses [Closed]

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CW: dehumanization and Nazi imagery (discussed and approved beforehand)

CW: dehumanization and Nazi imagery (discussed and approved beforehand) [Confirmed prior approval]

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CW: References to Slavery

CW: corpse desecration, boy is this conversation ever going places

CW: corpse desecration, debates on souls

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