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The Hilltop Diner is your standard East Coast Greek diner. It's been in operation since the 60s and has barely changed at all since then. It may be a tad sleezy, but that's made up for by the food being greasy and delicious.
Charlie arrives far too early as usual, sitting nervously in a booth and fiddling with a fork. She has a half drunk glass of Dr Pepper in front of her that she's taking sips from as she stares scared at the door, hoping that Mearc will either show up immediately or he'll be too scared to show up and then they'll have on thing in common.
Mearc, meanwhile, is very precisely punctual, stepping inside within a minute of the scheduled time for the meeting and glancing around for a Charlie. Once he spots her, he beelines in that direction, expression hard to read (though his green freckles are much brighter than the red right now, whatever that means).
Once he sits down, she reaches next to her and pulls out a small bouquet of red and green flowers. "Um, Wren said you'd like these? For, um, your freckle colors. She said." She looks about ready to puke as she says that, her brain twisting her all around.
He looks at the flowers, then at Charlie, though it's hard to tell if he's making eye contact he's totally not. "Thank you very much." He accepts the bouquet, and sets it down beside him with a tiny smile. "I'm afraid I didn't bring anything for you."
"Oh gosh, no! You didn't have to bring anything!" Charlie says, her left hand rapidly twitching under the table. "I just thought it would be nice to do, you know? As an offering of, um, friendship?" She cringes at how her description ended. That was no good.
"Ah." He nods slowly, glancing down at the menu--perhaps trying to offer her a moment to rein in her anxiety, because it's pretty damned blatantly loudly obvious to the Autumn in the room. "Thank you."
His looking down does little to quiet her hypervigilant anxiety. If anything it makes it worse, her brain convincing her that he's too disgusted to even look at her. "So." Charlie tries to start, before realizing she doesn't know what to say and leaving the word hanging there in midair
"So." It comes out soft, just this side of gentle, as his gaze lifts again. "You seem nervous. Would it be useful to you, in having the conversation you want to have with me, if I were to steal your fear away for a while? No obligation, but it seems like you're struggling, and I can help with that. If you want."
"Is... is that a thing you can do?" Charlie asks with wide green eyes. "If you can and in a magic way, not a therapy way, that would be amazing!"
"I can, but it's not going to last past this meeting. And in order for me to make it happen, I need you to talk about something specific that causes you fear." He nods, watching her thoughtfully. "I need a fear stated in the air, so I can eat it."
"Any fear or um, the one I'm, um, dealing with right now?" The look on Charlie's face is not unlike the look on a child confronted with evidence that they stole all the cookies.
"Any fear--you don't have to reveal anything specific."
She lets out a deep exhale. "I'm afraid that I'm going to go to Hell when I die," she speaks into the air, the words coming out much smoother than she thought they'd be.
He fumbles with the Contract at first, but after a moment, her words turn into a thick black smoke that he inhales into himself, and then chews, swallowing all her fear down. His mantle flares with a loud rhythmic rustling, and a faint panting sound that comes from nowhere.
She blinks twice, a more natural blink than the tic blinks she does when stressed. "Holy crap," she says, looking around, "Woah, I can say crap now without feeling bad. Craaaaap. This is amazing, wow. I need you to do this to me during a date so I can touch Wren's boobs. Woah, I can say things like that too!"
He lets out a bright laugh at that comment. "I doubt it's likely I'm going to be around you and Wren on a date when touching boobs is a likely outcome. But I think now you have a measure of the scope of your anxiety and fear. Would you like a notebook and pen to take notes on what you're thinking right now, while things are clearer?"
Charlie laughs alongside him, loud and genuine, not caring what people around her think for possibly the first time in her whole life. "I dunno," she says, letting her accent fully drawl out, "If you want me to, but also I really do need to talk to you about stuff."
"Alright. What is it you wanted to discuss with me?" He does reach into his messenger bag for a notebook and a black ink pen.
"Well, it's kinda stupid now, but like I was afraid that you'd torpedo my relationship if you didn't like me enough. And Wren said that that wasn't true, but I didn't really believe her, since she thinks I'm a good person and not a hunk of crap." Jokes on Mearc, he didn't eat her self loathing, only her fears.
"Aha. It feels stupid now, but if it helps you any: I will not take action to end your relationship with Wren based solely on my impression of you." A direct promise, ripe to be Sealed if she feels like it.
And seal it she does. Free and clear as she is, she knows after this dinner, she's going to need that reassurance. "You're a way cooler guy than I thought you'd be! I got really worked up about you, silly as that is." She lets out a girlish giggle and takes a big sip of Dr Pepper. "Gosh, it's like my Durance barely even happened," she says, a blissful smile on her face. She suddenly straightens up and her face turns serious. "So, Mearc," she says, her accent garbling his name a little, "What do you like to do?"
"Charlie, given the specific triggers you have, I'm not sure your Durance is the only source of trauma you're coping with." He smiles slightly as he says it, before addressing the question. "I run a Youtube channel, where I put videos up about security concepts. It's not fancy, I'm not a creative graphics person, but it means a lot to me. I also play video games and generally try to make myself useful around the 'hold."
She gives him a slightly sad look. "Yeah, but that's easier to say instead of talking about my Mama." She lets out a bittersweet laugh. "She'd kill me for talking to you, you know. A gay man who can do magic? Her head would explode." She mimes an explosion and makes a goofy sound effect.
"Video games sound fun! I've only ever played the old arcade machines at the theatre in the town over, so I've only gotten the old stuff. I'm a pretty deft hand at Galaga though!"
"Point of information: I'm not strictly gay, and prefer the label 'queer' for my sexuality, if we're going to discuss it like that. But, uh. I can't stand arcades these days. Between the noise levels and feeling like my back is exposed any time I'm at a machine, I can't stand to be there." He seems comfortable opening up about this vulnerability with her, though. "I like games I can play at home, especially those that require solving puzzles or deep strategy."
"Oh crap, sorry. Gay stuff is honestly super confusing to me and I feel like I'm getting it wrong all the time." She affixes him with a warm smile and says, "I know what you mean. I always feel like I'm getting stared at. You'll have to show me those games though. I like puzzles, even if I'm not great at them."
Around this time, the waiter shows up and Charlie orders a burger and a chocolate milkshake.
Mearc orders himself a bowl of soup and a BLT, fries extra-crispy with some gravy to dip them in. And a chocolate shake as well.
"I imagine it's hard to seek information about 'gay stuff', given your fear. But I think perhaps understanding more about it would be helpful in detangling some of that."
The gravy order earns a shudder from Charlie. That's a bad texture. Even de-feared, she hates that. "I mean maybe. It'd certainly be nice to stop having nightmares where Wren is the devil and dragging me to Hell. I just... don't know if it'll work? There's a lot of poison in my brain and I don't know if knowing more about it will suck that out."
"That's a pretty understandable response. I tend to recommend seeking help from the Spring court, in trying to disentangle this sort of...everything. Because that's what they're here for. I assure you, the Spring Monarch themself would make time to talk to you about what's causing the levels of anxiety you're experiencing, if you asked. Because you deserve relief. And for at least part of it, you could work with a mundane therapist. But those are choices you'd have to make yourself. Is the level of relief you're feeling right now worth the effort to push through the work of healing?"
"I'm seeing a therapist! It's just... hard talking about my issues with normal people. And I've talked to Anneliese a few times, and I think she's spring." She takes a big drink of her soda before asking, "themselves?
"Ah, it's another piece of 'gay stuff', though really it's more 'queer stuff'. So, you're familiar with transgender people, right? People who feel the gender that the doctor thought they were as a baby really isn't actually the gender they feel like?"
"I, um, I never heard it said polite like that, but I'm vaguely familiar?" She says, deciding to leave what she always heard about that unsaid.
He nods slowly. "That's not even entirely the most polite way to talk about them, but. Some people feel that neither binary gender suits them entirely. They aren't male, they aren't female. For some, they don't have feelings regarding gender at all, and sort of toss the concept aside. Some swing like a pendulum, feeling more feminine one day, more masculine the next. And some feel like their gender identity either lies between male and female, or completely bypasses that spectrum."
There's a point where he uses hand gestures, defining one point on the table as 'male', one as 'female', and shows both the midpoint and then a point off outside that line.
"The broad polite term for such people is 'non-binary', and a lot of them use 'they' as a personal pronoun instead of 'he' or 'she'. Beside Ari, there's Lux in the Winter Court who's around. Teagan, Summer. It's considered very rude to ask such people what their 'real' gender is, or what parts they have."
She gives slow nods of comprehension throughout his whole speech. "So... people can just choose whatever they want to be? That's really cool! Gosh golly, thank you for telling me this before I made a real fool of myself!"
He keeps his voice low, gentle. "For a lot of people, it's not about a matter of 'choosing'. It's about living in a way that affirms how they feel inside. Like...if you woke up tomorrow in a 'guy's body', one with a penis, you'd feel really uncomfortable, I'm guessing. That's how a lot of them feel every single day as they go about life in the body they were born in. And that's why they may take action to transition. It's not about 'destroying the body God gave you' or whatever you've heard. It's trying to live life as who you are--who your soul mandates that you be."
She takes a second to think, her eyes quirking up. "I mean, I don't know if I'd be uncomfortable, but I know what you mean, I think. I imagine it's kinda like how our bodies are now, huh," she says, gesturing to her halo.
"Yeah, I imagine it's similar. There's a word for it, the feeling that your body as it is doesn't match the image of yourself you have in your head. 'Dysphoria'."
"Huh," she tosses the word around in her head. "I'll have to remember that one, thanks! Sorry that I, uh, don't know a ton of queer stuff but thanks for explaining it to me!"
Around that time, their meals arrive and Charlie begins separating her burger into parts and dousing the patty in ketchup.
"Well, if you ever want to talk about it--things you're too embarrassed to ask Wren, it would be my pleasure." He nods. "I really only learned all of this since getting back, myself, but I've had a few years."
"Oh, here's one that I'm way too scared to ask normally," she says, taking a giant bite. She had been too nervous to eat anything else today, so this burger tastes like manna from heaven. "Is she okay? Like there's a lot of stuff that she doesn't talk about and I don't know if she's hiding it because she doesn't want to talk about it or because she feels she can't talk about and she's in pain?"
He takes a slow deep breath. "Oh, boy. That's a complex one to disentangle. On a broad scale...I don't know if you're expecting her to be 'the experienced one' here, but I've never seen Wren date before. The fact that she's choosing to do this with you, it's actually really interesting to see from the outside. I think on some level, she's scared, too, but afraid that her fear will resonate against your anxiety and lead into feedback loops and stress for both of you. But that's from outside observation."
Charlie's eyes light up. "I'm special?" she asks with a smile bordering on manic, "she hasn't dated a ton of girls before me? Holy crap!" She takes a big sip of her milkshake, utterly beaming.
"...she might hate me for telling you that." He grimaces, as he dips a fry into his milkshake instead of the gravy, before munching the end off.
"Why would she? It means I know that we're both figuring stuff out together!" Charlie's smile turns into a grimace as she watches Mearc's fry crimes.
"Because I know she's trying to be the one who is supportive, here." He looks directly at Charlie...then dips a corner of his sandwich into the soup before taking a bite, just to see her react.
She shudders, queasily looking away to her hamburger with nothing on it but ketchup. "She shouldn't have to shoulder that burden alone, though! She should be allowed to be as much of a screwup as I am with her."
"That sounds like a conversation the two of you ought to have at some point." He nods sagely, and goes back to eating without dipping quite so much.
"How do I do that when all my fear is back?" She asks, eating a slice of tomato.
Mearc thinks before answering, watching as Charlie eats. Eyes on her hands, not her face, thoughtful. "I don't know enough about your dynamic in private to answer that for you."
"It's a lot of hugging and kissing and talking about feelings. Her trying to tell me everything's alright when I'm freaking out. She turned into a cat and let me snuggle her once and that was incredible." Charlie says, a lovesick look on her face
"I can only imagine." He chuckles. "She wouldn't let most people touch her, while she's being a cat, I don't think."
"She mentioned that. But if you can," she sighs lovingly. "Her bunny ears too. She's just so good," Charlie says, practically crying from homosexuality
"She is so very much not my type, it's not even funny. But I'm glad she makes you happy. And I'm glad you make her happy, too."
"What is your type?" She asks, being drawn out of her fur remembering reverie. There's a furry joke somewhere in here, but Charlie has no idea the furry subculture even exists.
He pauses at the question. "Well, not generally women."
"I knew that part, but here I am rambling about my beautiful wonderful fluffy girlfriend and I haven't even asked you if you have anyone or even if you're looking? I know a gay guy I can hook you up with if you want," She says wiggling her eyebrows. Maybe Mearc shouldn't have eaten all of her fear.
He tilts his head to one side slightly, his freckles shifting greener. "What criteria would you use, in deciding someone would be an appropriate potential partner for me, given what you know?"
"Well, he's nice but anxious, doesn't ask many questions and... I think he's attractive? I'm a bad judge of that part. Based on what you've been saying today, I feel like you like to help people and this guy could use a hug for sure. He's Lost like us too," Charlie says, hoping to hype up her pick.
"Mm. I'm not really actively looking at the moment, as nice as this guy sounds." He shakes his head slightly.
She writes down Artie's number on the paper Mearc gave her and hands it back to him. "Just in case! Being in love feels so good."
Mearc looks down at the number. "Thank you, Charlie. Make sure you let Wren know that you feel that way, that you're not only scared."
Charlie nods. "I'll make sure she knows. I'll never shut up about it."
"Good. I'm going to head out soon. Are you properly braced for your fear to return?"
"I guess," she says, not at all afraid of it. "I can't thank you enough for today. You're a great friend."
"I try to be." He nods, packing up his notebook and leaving cash on the table to cover his meal. "Take care, Charlie." And exit Mearcstapa, stage left.
The second he leaves, it feels like Charlie's been punched in the gut. Everything she said, everything she thought while under that influence feels strange and foreign now and she whimpers under the strain of it all. She leaves a tip on the table and staggers into the bathroom, turning on the water so no one can hear her cry
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