Marcell returned moments later with a bunch clothes in his hands, “How about these?”

He held them up for approval, yet it would be anything but approval that the man would receive.

Alec gawked at the pair of hot pink trousers matched with an equally pink shirt, they were adorned with frills and sequins that shimmered like a pair of grotesque pink glitterballs, like an outfit from ABBA. “I am not wearing those!”

“Aww, but I think they would look great on you!”

“Yeah, if I wanted to dress up as a flamingo for the rest of the day,” He complained, “Haven’t you got anything else to wear? Anything that’s vaguely normal?”

“This is a circus,”

“Forget I asked, just get me something that won’t insult my manliness, will you?”

“You’re lucky you said that to me, but if it was someone else, they may have been extremely offended, pink can be perfectly manly, you know.”

Alec looked away sheepishly, “Yeah yeah…Still, I don’t want to wear those things,”

Marcell said nothing but gave him a funny look.

“What?”

“Shall I teach you about the fabulous history of pink? You might change your mind…”

“Huh?”

It was clearly a rhetorical question because Marcell rabbited on without waiting for him to give a coherent response, “Did you know in the 19^th century, pink used to be a boy’s colour? Because it was seen as a diminutive of red, which was the colour of war. So, if you were in the 19^th century now, you’d be very manly for wearing these. Also, an interesting thing to note, girls were dressed in blue because that was seen as feminine a colour too.”

Alec blinked stupidly for a few seconds, before replying, “Okay…? So what? We live in the 21^st century now,”

The man rolled his eyes, “It proves that gender connotations from colour are completely reliant on societal contexts. Pink, like every colour, is neither masculine nor feminine. So, you shouldn’t hold back from letting loose and wearing a pink suit!” He gave a little twirl as if to emphasise his point.

The idea of letting loose was an extremely foreign one to Alec, in fact, he felt disgusted by it, the idea of willingly letting people see the undignified self he had always tried so hard to hide. But even so, he didn’t think he could remember ever having a fondness for pink or any colour really. So he whittled on back at Marcell. “Wow, okay, didn’t need the lecture, even if what you say about gender connotations is probably correct, it doesn’t mean that now I’m suddenly going to want to wear those. I haven’t been repressed or anything, I just don’t like pink and frills.”

“But is that because society has told you that you shouldn’t like pink or actually because you don’t like pink?”

Suddenly this small argument about what clothes Alec should wear had turned into a philosophical debate. The poor Irishman was not sure if he was mentally prepared for this. But he wasn’t going to lose.

“Does it really matter? Who are we, but slaves to society? Aren’t we all born as blank slates without any preferences of our own? Whatever our opinion or preference is, it would be because society or someone says so.”

“You can tell if something tastes or smells good, can’t you? You can tell that the greenery of a forest or field is beautiful?”

“Those things are innate, it’s down to biology, not actually us. We aren’t anything but vacant pieces of consciousness swimming about until the world is thrust upon us and we absorb random pieces of the world into us. Opinions that aren’t our own. Thoughts and feelings that many people have already experienced before. In fact, the sad author here writing this webnovel is just using phrases, ideas and words that have been given to them by society and isn’t writing anything new. Don’t pretend to be an individual, with home grown and organic thoughts about the world.”

“Wow, no wonder you’re so gloomy all the time if all you’re thinking about is all that miserableness,”

“Anyone would be gloomy if they had to suffer being around you as much as I have already,”

“Ouch!” Marcell grimaced at the verbal onslaught, “But you know, despite being slaves to everything, we have all been slaves to different things, everyone has been brought up differently and has a different biology, which means that we are individuals. Yes, we were vacant pieces of consciousness swimming about, and you could argue that we have no free will. But we all bring something new because nobody else has had the same weird combination of biology and environment that we have, which is rather fabulous don’t you think? Makes us all a pretty interesting bunch of people.”

“I don’t know about you, but I have met many boring people in my lifetime,” Alec was beginning to lose track of this conversation, he just wanted a goddamn shirt that wasn’t pink already, “But, anyway, whatever... can you go fetch me like a shirt which isn’t pink or something, please? I’m getting a headache already from this stupid conversation,”

“I was enjoying it though! I love a good old deep philosophical debate,”

“Whoopie doo for you,” The raven-haired man scowled.

“No need for a tantrum,” he grinned, “I’ll get you something else to wear, I’ll be back in a minute,”

The bastard.

* * *

It was only a few moments before Marcell returned swiftly with a stripey black and white shirt and some black dungarees to go over the top.

“Now, I’m what... a French plumber?”

“Ohhhh please stop complaining already, these are about the most orthodox clothes I own,”

He wasn’t sure if he believed him but was tired enough of this topic to concede anyway, “Alright, fine,”

Marcell handed them to him in an overly theatrical gesture, which was well-fitting for the showman that he was.

“Thanks,” Alec muttered.

Whilst he tugged on the clothes, Marcell had gone and busied himself in the kitchen doing only God knows what. The sleeves of the shirt were a bit too long and the material a bit clingy, so it clumped weirdly on his arms. The dungarees weren’t any better either. Despite Alec having pretty lengthy legs, he had to roll them up around the ankles. He muttered curses angrily to himself when the material kept unravelling itself.

When he was finally dressed, he begrudgingly shuffled into the kitchen.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Before Alec knew what was happening, he had found himself flat on his face.

Marcell spun around and snorted at him.

“DON’T LAUGH YOU PSYCHO BASTARD! IT’S YOUR RIDICULOUSLY LONG SHITTY TROUSERS THAT MADE ME TRIP!”

“ahmf!” a small, scared sound coming from behind him shortly followed his exaggerated out-burst.

"Ooof!" Raphael unmercifully stepped on top of Alec, leaving him winded, as he rushed into the room behind him.

“Oh Annie!” he heard him coo, “That horrible noise has just woken you up. I’m so sorry sweetie! It’s all that silly Irishman’s fault, not Daddy's, okay?”

What a disgusting display of fatherly affection.

And great, the ridiculously adorable brat was now awake too.

How the heck was he going to deal with this stupid situation?