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Steven doesn’t remember how he got here.
But it’s a far cry from waking up in central Europe or in Cairo, because it’s the inside of his wardrobe, he thinks. At least, he hopes it is, because that’s his shirt and his jacket he can see with the limited amount of light through the shutters, and it definitely smells like his wardrobe.
He can hear footsteps outside of the door. It sends a shock of dread straight through his spine for reasons he doesn’t quite understand yet, and he finds himself tucking his knees further into his chest, curling in on his body as tightly as he can. He’s never been scared of footsteps, never really been scared of noises at all, but he finds himself cowering from them nonetheless.
This must have something to do with Marc. Steven can’t feel him, can’t hear him at all; something must have upset him, surely, because now Steven is upset and scared and has no idea why.
He doesn't know why he’s upset, but he still doesn’t get up. Doesn’t get out of the wardrobe. He still doesn’t know how he got here.
With a barely suppressed shudder, he rests his cheek on his arm.
The wardrobe door opens and he can’t help the way he jerks back, away from the light.
“Marc?”
It’s Layla. He has no reason to be scared of Layla.
Steven peels his face away from his sleeve to look up at her, squinting his eyes in the new light; she’s definitely confused as to why he’s here, but she doesn't look shocked.
Maybe Marc has done this before. They were married, they probably have a lifetime of memories that Steven has no clue about. Has Layla seen Marc this upset before, in a position the same as this? Because underneath all the innate desire to only protect her, he clearly loves her, trusts her. Steven wouldn’t be surprised.
A pang of something - shame, maybe - hits him square in the chest. Layla isn’t searching for him, Layla is seeking out Marc, and Marc isn’t here. He can’t give her what she’s looking for and he still wants to make her happy and that strange scared feeling is still surfacing throughout him.
“Sorry,” is all Steven says. He is, he really means it - he’s sorry he can’t be who she wants, who she wanted to find, who she was expecting to find. He’s sorry he can’t be her husband, because right now, Marc isn’t there, neither in the mirror nor his head, a blank emptiness taking up the space in his mind where his voice would usually sit.
Layla’s eyes widen in understanding upon hearing his accent. They don’t dampen with disappointment like Steven thought they would - instead, her face softens into something gentle, understanding.
“Steven,” she says. “Don’t apologise. Are you alright?”
“...I think so,” Steven says, cocking his head to the side.
“Is Marc there?”
Frowning, Steven glances at the mirror on the wall of the wardrobe door, now visible since it’s open. Marc isn’t there. The person looking back at him is Steven, slightly confused and a little upset, and definitely not Marc.
Marc isn’t speaking, either. Not talking in his head, not mumbling to him through the mirror; there’s no dull pressure between his temples, no heavy feeling in his head to suggest he might be there, might even be close at all.
“No,” Steven says eventually, and then tacks on for a second time: “Sorry.”
“I can talk to you too, you know. I’m not going to leave just because you aren't Marc,” Layla tells him, sitting down by his side. She’s warm, Steven notices, a welcome presence beside him, and an instinct he didn’t even know existed urges him to lean into her side.
He shakes his head quickly to snap out of his thoughts. He’s not Marc, he’s Steven and he’s very much not married to Layla and so he’s not going to cuddle up to her on the floor.
Over all of the fuzziness in his head, he notices a solid warmth on his back, and- Layla’s put her arm around him. He doesn’t remember her doing that but suddenly it’s there and he’s grateful, because he’s not floating so much anymore, he’s tethered to where he sits on the floor, where Layla’s arm sits comfortably on his shoulders, where her hair is brushing his face by accident.
She’s warm in an unfamiliar kind of way, because Steven isn’t used to any of this. To touch, to comfort. Whenever this happens he’s usually alone-
But Layla is sitting close to him now, bringing him back from wherever he was, somewhere blurry and foggy in his mind. Layla has her arm around him, Layla is speaking to him quietly, loud enough that he can hear it through the haze but still quiet enough to be gentle, to not startle him.
It’s like she’s done it before. She probably has, Steven realises, just not with him.
He had seen Marc like this with his own two eyes, back when they were in the Duat; still and vacant, empty, and he was there but at the same time he wasn’t - he was standing right there in front of Steven but there was simply nothing behind his eyes. He knows there’s a word for it, he’s sure Marc has told him, but he doesn’t remember it right now.
Everything is blurry and a little empty, just like Marc had been. If Steven had to put a word to it, it’d be bad. Or something along those lines.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” She asks him, more loving than Steven thinks he deserves.
“I don’t know what happened,” Steven mumbles. There’s no point in hiding it from her, not when she’d know. “I- I woke up here.”
“In the closet?”
“The- wardrobe, yeah."
Layla laughs, her breath warm by his side, and Steven decides that Marc isn’t here and Layla’s close to him already and so he leans into her, shivering a little as he does.
“Everything still feels- a bit weird,” Steven says to her as he rests her head on her shoulder. “Like I’m- upset, but I don’t know why, and I’m all a bit on edge.”
“You think it had to do with Marc?”
“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. I think everything might’ve gotten a bit much- for him, I mean- and it’s quieter in here.” He glances around the wardrobe for emphasis. “Not as much going on.”
“Do you want me to take my arm off of you?”
Steven muses over that for a second. He wasn’t lying, he still feels a little jumpy, sort of panicked and dazed at the same time, and it’d be easy to get overwhelmed by anything that isn’t- well, Layla.
This is a good kind of touch. It doesn’t hurt, isn’t too much, doesn’t come from a place of wanting something from him, it’s simply kind, and that’s all it is. It makes the nervousness subside a little bit, keeps him closer to her and not drifting off somewhere in his mind.
“No,” he mumbles. “Stay. Please.”
And Layla stays.
Just like that, with no explanation or further words from him, Layla stays. She squeezes his shoulders to show that she’s there without words, that she isn’t leaving, and he shifts closer to her, not sure whether it was by accident or not; he buries his face in her hair and that’s definitely not an accident and he wonders, almost, if Marc would be upset with him.
He hopes not. Because this, all of this is too nice to give up.
He understands why Marc married her, as her other hand comes to rest on top of his head, not minding that they’re still both sitting on the floor and Steven’s still not quite right and Steven’s also very much not her husband right now. She doesn’t mind that his flat is a bit messy and he’s sort of a bit messy and she doesn’t mind that he needs to be comforted like this- she just does it.
She just does it, no questions asked. And Steven doesn’t know how he- how Marc- had gotten so lucky. He’d called Marc a wanker and he’d meant it, to be fair.
Steven’s just leaning on her now. There’s no other way to explain it. He’s completely lax against her side and he would probably apologise to Marc if he was here, but he’s not, which is part of what makes all this so… disorienting. Strange.
He doesn’t know if Marc is okay with this, with Layla gently starting to thread her fingers through his hair, with Steven learning how easy it is to fall into her and be safe, with Steven basically cuddling up to his wife in search of comfort.
He hopes it’s alright. He won’t know what to do if it’s not.
This is decidedly not the same as kissing Layla. This is something much more vulnerable, much more exposed; he trusts her, of course, he’d be dead if he didn’t - but it still makes him feel almost defenceless, having her hold him, having all of his walls down. Kissing her on a whim before jumping into a pyramid is so, so much different from being held in her arms, being completely surrounded by her as she comforts him.
Hopefully this won’t make Marc ‘throw them off a cliff’ like he’d promised.
Her fingers brush his scalp and he shudders, eyes nearly slipping shut like he doesn’t have the energy to keep them open. It’s all less overwhelming now and part of him feels a bit silly, that he was anxious without even knowing why, that maybe Marc had been upset and that’s why he was upset, forced to the front with no recollection of how he’d gotten there-
It’s all too much again, it’s too similar to suddenly coming to with blood on his hands, and he doesn’t want to think about that now especially not right next to Layla because he likes this and doesn’t want to ruin it by panicking-
“Steven.”
The spiral stops. Steven blinks once, then again, and they’re still on the floor.
Layla’s hands are still on him and his head is still resting on her shoulder and their sides are still pressed together and he’s still upset. Why is he still upset?
“It’s- okay, you know,” she tells him, though her voice sounds a little unsure.
Steven doesn’t blame her. Even he himself doesn’t know if it’ll be okay, and he’s sure Marc doesn’t either. But she’s trying, and Steven couldn’t ask for anything more.
“You’re alright,” she says, her hand still brushing through his curls.
Steven was sure his mother used to do this. The gentle, kind touches were from the woman on the other end of the phone, the woman who left him voicemails and sent him postcards that he would put up on Gus’ tank and he had missed her so much; he would listen to her voice and send her messages back, and he had been so wholeheartedly sure she had been as warm as this.
Marc’s memories told a different story. Steven still isn’t sure it’s fully hit him yet; the weight of it all, the heaviness of what Marc had really protected him from.
When he really does search for it in his mind, he can’t find it. Can’t find the nice memories he thought he had. Can’t find anything that might even entertain the notion of her touching him like this, so tenderly.
“Why are you remembering her like that? That’s not what she was like-”
Steven had been so sure. He was so, so sure he had remembered her doing this.
“You’re not meant to see that, that’s the whole point of you.”
Steven almost wishes he hadn’t.
He wishes he could’ve been kept from it for longer, wishes he could’ve still thought his mother was kind, was normal, had rested her hands in his hair the same way Layla is doing. Hell, he wishes he could’ve still believed his mother was still alive, wishes he was still blissfully ignorant to the horror of everything.
Maybe he still likes to believe it. That he was loved. Because if his mother didn’t hold him like that, then who did?
Because that means he’s just so lonely. Steven Grant has no mother, no friends, Steven Grant doesn’t even have Gus anymore, he can’t even keep something going with a pet fish.
Layla is married to Marc, he tells himself. Layla is married to Marc and Marc has been touched like this by her before, not Steven. Steven is horribly and painfully alone and the sheer gentleness of being touched, held so innocently for the first time in- well, ever, is enough to nearly bring him to tears.
He is alone, he is unloved, he can’t go on a bloody date he can’t keep a goldfish alive he lost his job-
“Steven?”
Layla’s hands are unmoving in his hair. When did she stop moving them?
He doesn’t even register the confused expression he’s making until her hand comes to rest on his cheek, her thumb easing out the tension he hadn’t realised was there. It’s like she knows him inside and out.
“Are you sure you're okay?” She says then, a lot softer, a lot quieter, the hum of her voice soothing in his ears.
“...I don’t know,” Steven admits.
Her other hand starts petting his hair again, so kind and loving that Steven’s heart wants to explode out of his body. It’s like Taweret has taken it out of his chest all over again, because he just doesn’t know how to handle all this: being held, treated gently, loved just as much as Marc but in a different sort of way.
“That’s okay,” Layla tells him, so gracious and understanding that Steven isn’t sure he’s deserving of it. Marc was mad at him when he kissed Layla, so is this over the line? Is he allowed to receive this comfort or is it too much? Is it okay for him to be held by her or will he regret it later, is he never going to be let to have this tenderness again, because he can’t take it, he can’t take another day with the overwhelming and empty loneliness.
He wants this. Layla is married to Marc and not him and he knows but he still wants this, needs this, needs to be held the way he wasn’t when he was young; to fill an ugly, aching void, deep in his chest somewhere.
If his mother had never held him like that- then nobody ever had. That one failed date had been the closest thing he’d ever really gotten to a relationship, the closest thing Steven Grant had ever gotten to a relationship.
The loneliness hits him hard in the stomach as Layla tucks a curl of his hair behind his ear.
“I don’t- is this okay?” Steven asks her, wishing that the ground would swallow him up, take him away. “With Marc, I mean. And with you.”
“Of course it’s okay with me,” Layla says. A lump in his throat forms almost immediately when her hands find his shoulders, touching his skin as if to say it’s okay without words, too.
“And Marc?”
“Do you think Marc wouldn’t be okay with this?” Layla asks him, and Steven hates that she knows what to say. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, because this isn’t like he loves Layla, or at least- not like Marc does.
Steven doesn’t say anything. What if he does, and Layla leaves? Because he can’t stand the thought of her leaving.
“Marc wants to keep you safe,” Layla continues in his silence. “That was the point of all this, wasn’t it? To protect you. Buying another goldfish, staying in London. He just wants you safe, Steven.”
A sob builds in his throat and Layla’s hand cups the back of his head over his hair and it’s too much for him to bear.
She smells sweet, familiar, something not of London but of home, of kind hands and quiet words, and Steven’s almost… jealous. That he could’ve had somebody to hold him dear for so long and he didn’t even know she existed; she was a phone call away on a cellphone locked in his wall that he didn’t even know to look for.
“Am I keeping you safe?” She asks him, and he looks up at her then, looks right into her eyes. They’re loving, there’s something fond and caring in the deep colour there, something that really does make him feel safe.
“Yes,” Steven tells her honestly. That’s what she liked about him, isn’t it? That he was honest. Her eyes are so earnestly loving when they look at him, and maybe he is worth something, worth being comforted, not just an unwanted part of her marriage to Marc. Maybe Layla does love him like her eyes say she does.
It’s a different kind of love to the ones he’s known before. A weak attempt at love from his father to make up for his mother's violence. A protective and careful sort of love from Marc. Maybe Gus loved him, as much as a fish can love.
But Layla loves him gently, innocently, and maybe it’s strange for somebody of his age to want something naive like that - somebody to take care of him, without any strings attached, somebody to hold him like they love him and nothing more. But Layla offers that sort of love to him without hesitation and Steven melts into her like it’s where he belongs.
“Then it’s alright,” Layla says to him, resting her head on top of his, her eyes fluttering shut.
Steven closes his eyes too, and silently moves his arms to hug her back.