metalogs | Lucy In Disguise With Glasses [Closed]

Who: Huvrye

atypical_echo
What: Huvrye has a magical disguise and needs help figuring out Normal Human Looks, so he asks Mark for help.
When: Mid-January, post ageswap event
Where: The Diadem Hotel
Content Warnings: None so far

Huvrye has had the enchanted velcro strap for a few weeks now, courtesy of Doctor Strange, and while he knows he should practice with it more, everything just feels off when he does. He knows that just hiding his wings and ears isn't enough to really disguise himself, but he's also having trouble seeing himself as a human enough for the disguise to really work. He sees plenty of humans around, but he doesn't want to just copy one of them, because that's going to cause other problems if someone else recognizes them.

So he does what he normally does when he runs into Normal Human Problems and calls Mark, asking for his help with something ("it shouldn't be too bad? I'll explain when you get here") and promising to pay for dinner. Provided he didn't get mugged along the way, Mark should be here soon; for now, Huvrye is waiting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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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