Mark & Haller, early Monday morning

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On their flight to China, Mark and Haller finally discuss the hook-up that wasn't. Mark takes his rejection pretty well, too.


"So. Fly to China often?" Mark leaned casually against Haller's seat, taking another good look at the tall, clean-cut young man who not too long ago had been almost dying to take a tour of him in the middle of a crowded dance floor. He wanted to get this done now, before they began yet another "Save the [insert victim here], save the world" mission.

Jim jerked up from the sketchpad on the tray table. He'd been trying to get a little distraction in on the way to China to unwind. The long few days hadn't done much for his attentiveness to the outside world, and he was paying for it now. He'd just managed to go into the quiet trance of letting his hand glide along paper. Looking up at Mark, he considered it fortunate that at least he had experience keeping screams inside his own head. Now, if only he was well-shielded enough that Betsy wouldn't notice. For many, many reasons.

"No," Jim replied, putting his pencil down before the piece he was working on could become truly interesting. "Not China. Um . . . you?" In his head Cyndi covered her face with her hands in exasperation. LAME!

"Do you mind?" asked Mark, pointing to the empty seat next to Haller. Without waiting for an answer beyond what might have been a shake of his Haller's head, Mark, climbed over him and the tray to take the seat. "Okay. So. Obviously we had a massive failure to communicate a couple weeks ago. Please don't tell me I was barking up the wrong wood and that green-haired chick is your girlfriend. . ."

Jim blinked. "Wh-- oh, Lorna?" Part of Jim's mind turned to the purple-haired woman sitting several rows safely out of earshot. Another part mused, Oh, yeah . . . Lorna's a girl! Jim coughed. "Um, no. That would be . . . no. I was, um . . . okay. Screw it. Restart." The telepath took a deep breath. He was really going to have to do this, wasn't he? But on the other hand, it was a long flight. A really long flight. And unless he got this out of the way, it was going to get a lot longer with the younger man sitting next to him.

"Okay," Jim said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I . . . this is probably going to sound like the most deeply stupid excuse you've ever heard, but I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. MPD. Um, you know. The kind of crazy where sometimes you think of yourself as other people." The long hand drew down his face miserably. "I'm really sorry about how I acted in the office. I was freaking out. I'm a student counselor at a school, so I kind of try not to advertise it. Except that gets a little difficult when it decides to stick its hands up people's shirts."

That explanation stunned Mark into actual silence. It took him a few seconds before he could process this new information and formulate something vaguely resembling a response. "Oh. You know, I don't think I've ever heard that one before."

"Um. Okay, maybe not. We're pretty special. The type with airquotes." Jim wondered if it were possible for hair to flush. He scuffed the back of his head awkwardly. "It's okay most of the time, it was just a bad week, and that personality likes to act out any way she can." Argh no Cyndi you cannot add 'with tongue'!

"She?" Well, damn. Mark had been in a homo mood that night, and he'd spent it macking on a girl? "So are you, like, trans or something? I had a trans SO once, a couple years ago. It was a deeply dysfunctional relationship."

This is why we don't explain. "Different kind of dysfunction. My alters basically identify as 'not David.' Age and gender and behavior. I'm not, um . . . I'm straight. As far as that alter goes she thinks she is too, but it's just topical. It's a . . ." Jim sighed and let his head thump against the back of the seat in front of him. "Okay, there are literally not enough hours in the flight to give you a complete TMI on my vastly screwed up sense of identity, so instead I'll just shorthand to 'yeah, cocktease'."

This was very weird, yet Mark was taking it in rather calmly. Maybe because in the past few months he'd help to break up an organ harvesting ring, destroyed an old Soviet living computer, fought off demons, and was now on his way across the globe to save some mutant whose death would destroy the world. Having tried to get into the pants of someone with multiple personalities seemed par for the course. So he just nodded and sat back. "Any chance of this alter coming out for the chance to join the mile high club?"

Jim snorted, one side of his mouth quirking slightly despite himself. "Kinda unlikely. They frown on smoking in bathrooms in an airplane. I'm thinking this would be kind of worse."

"Oh, well. That flight attendant there was particularly interested in my comfort." Mark smirked at Haller and stood up, this time waiting politely for clear passage. "And I do love Chinese food . . ."

At some moments the madness was just too alluring to resist. There was a suspicious exaggeration to the older man's New York accent as he said, "Yeah, if you're the type of guy who doesn't mind being hungry again thirty minutes later."

Then the telepath blinked and flushed at Mark.

"Um, episode!"