Chapter Text
"Marc, you can't hide this from her forever."
"I'm not hiding anything."
"You just went through the flat and hid things! You even hid things you didn't have to. Look at what you did to my poor desk!"
"I said I was sorry, alright. Even if it was for your own good."
Steven huffed. "I don't like doing this. All this...secrecy. We should be honest with her. Tell her about what's been happening. She can help—"
"It's not her problem. We can deal with it."
"I really think we should—"
"No," Marc snapped. "This conversation is over. Layla will be here soon."
"Marc," Steven said sternly.
"Steven," Marc replied, his voice even sterner.
They did the equivalent of a mental staring contest, waiting for the other to blink. After a while, with no end in sight to their standoff, Steven sighed, and backed down, his frustration shifting into tiredness. "Fine. We'll do it your way. But don't think I'm happy about this."
"Good to know," Marc said, crossing his arms.
Steven remained silent.
Argument done, Marc returned to watching the front door, listening out for any sign of Layla's return.
It'd been almost a month since he'd seen her last. Along with her day job of retrieving stolen artefacts, Layla had been “working casual hours” for Taweret, as she put it, doing missions here and there for the god. The two jobs meant she was often leaving for weeks at a time, to the point she was gone more than she was present.
Marc was happy for her, happy to hear about all the good she was doing, but that didn’t mean he didn't miss her when she was gone.
In sharp contrast to her, Marc had been doing practically nothing the last few months. After almost a decade of indentured servitude to Khonshu, he wasn’t used to any sort of inactivity. As much as he enjoyed the sense of stability that Steven’s apartment gave him, the lack of productivity made him antsy. He'd argued several times with Layla about coming with her, on helping out with her missions, but she would always tell him he should be taking it slow, and settling into living with Steven before he started going on risky missions.
That was just a nice way of saying that, without the suit, he would be a liability. She wasn't wrong. Even with his military know-how, he couldn't keep up with the high-risk, god-level stuff that Layla was now involved with. He'd only slow her down.
So he'd stayed in the apartment, and attempted to make some sort of life for him and Steven. It was slow going, with a lot of false starts, but he was getting there, with his fair share of good and bad days.
The best days were always the days when Layla came home.
Ever since she'd announced her return a week earlier, he'd been counting the minutes. Layla would only be back for a few days before she had to jet off to Sydney to 'meet' with a collector and 'retrieve' an Egyptian relic, so Marc was going to make every moment he had with her count. He was going to make sure everything was perfect.
A few more minutes of tense silence passed before he heard the sound of footsteps outside his door, and then the sound of keys jingling. Marc straightened.
The door swung open. “Hey! Marc, Steven, I’m her—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Marc rushed forward and swooped her up into a hug.
"Marc!" she said, laughing. "Let me put my bags down first."
He laughed as well, and withdrew from the embrace. She looked as beautiful as ever, her hair tied back into a frizzy bun. He kept his hands on her shoulders, not yet ready to let her go.
"Hey," he said, smiling.
"Hey," Layla said, her own voice soft. "Good day today?"
"Mmhm," Steven hummed in their mind, somehow managing to make it sound sarcastic.
Marc ignored him. "Why wouldn't it be?" he said, brushing a hand across her cheek. "You're home."
"You've been having a lot more good days lately," Layla commented.
Her tone held no accusation, but there was a still of hint of something in her voice that Marc couldn't quite decipher.
Defensively, he said, "Is that a bad thing?"
"No," Layla said, "no, I'm glad. I'm glad you've been feeling happier."
Marc kept his expression neutral. Despite what Steven thought, it wasn't completely a lie. Marc had been feeling happier lately. More than he was after Wendy died. Sure, he'd had a lot of bad days during the times Layla was away, days where Steven had to take the wheel for longer than usual because Marc could barely get out of bed, but that was normal. It wasn't something for her to worry about. He could handle it without having to get her involved.
Layla let his hands linger on her shoulders for a few moments before gesturing to her bags sheepishly. He let her go, but drifted behind her as she set down her bags on the makeshift kitchen island.
Layla's eyes flickered over to the fridge, catching on the bright yellow post-it notes Steven had covered it with. The notes were covered in things like 'Don't forget to eat dinner!!!' and 'If you're reading this at 1AM, please go to sleep' and ‘Daily reminder to stop changing our phone’s weather settings to fahrenheit, it is nonsense and you should know better by now’. They were more for Marc's benefit, really, and mostly harmless. He'd made sure to take down the more worrying ones during his cleaning spree.
Layla's gaze lingered on them long enough for it to be obvious she was reading a few.
“How’s Steven?" Layla asked. "He hasn’t said hello yet.”
“Yeah, sorry; he’s in a mood right now,” Marc said. “I thought I'd do some cleaning before you got back. He’s still pissed that I fixed up his mess of a desk.”
“It was already organised! ” Steven cried, seizing the answer as an excuse to start the argument up again. “You’re the one who’s messed it up.”
Marc rolled his eyes. “You had about eight different book piles on there, one of which was this close to toppling. I did you a favour. Now you’ve got deskspace to actually do some work.”
“How am I supposed to do my work when all my books are gone? ”
“We have a laptop.”
Steven made a noise of disgust. “I don’t work well with technology, you know that.”
“Oh, really? And here I thought you were collecting an Internet’s worth of books for fun.”
“The thing is, Marc, I would have been happy to rearrange some of my books for Layla's sake. I’m only angry because you did it without asking first. It’s not right. How would you feel if I suddenly rearranged your Chicago Cubs memorabilia into alphabetical order?”
“...I’m not even sure how you’d do that.”
Steven floundered. “Well, I—I'd figure it out! Somehow!"
There was laughter from behind him. He whirled around, startled. Layla was watching him with an amused smile. Steven’s face grew hot with embarrassment.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry Layla,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.”
Her smile only widened. “It’s okay, Steven.”
He pulled her into a hug, nuzzling into her shoulder with a contented hum. “How was your flight?”
Layla wrapped her arms around him, giving him a light squeeze. “It was fine. Forgettable, really. How about you two?
“Oh, we’ve been..."
Having trouble. Not doing so great. Feeling a bit down at the moment. Struggling.
"Steven," Marc warned.
Steven sighed.
"We've been fine, desk-related squabbles aside,” he said, pulling away. “Oh, and food-squabbles. Marc’s been trying to get me to eat less nut mixes. Something to do with too much sodium. Absolute bollocks, I think. I drink enough water for the both of us, we’re fine. He, on the other hand, only seems to drink those bloody protein shakes and—"
"Don't."
"Um. Yes. Protein Shakes. They’re awful. Has he made you try them? I had a sip of one and eurgh, I’ve no clue how he deals with it. It’s like drinking sand.”
“Says the guy who eats vegan chicken nuggets. ”
“Oi! They’re actually quite nice. If you’d just try—”
“I’m not putting those anywhere near my mouth.”
“But they’re healthy.”
“I don’t care, I’m not eating that crap. ”
“Fine, fine, so long as you don’t try and make me drink another protein shake.”
“Hey, I didn’t make you do that. You’re the one who decided to take a sip. That’s on you. ”
Steven grumbled, but conceded the point. He glanced back at Layla, realising she was missing most of the conversation.
“Oh. Erm, sorry about all that. We haven’t, um, been out much lately." Was that saying too much? Marc didn't prod him to shut up, so he went on. "Haven't exactly gotten used to regulating our conversations around other people yet.”
Layla glanced towards the mirror beside the door, and then back at him, a curious expression on her face.
“What?” Steven asked.
Layla shook her head. “It’s nothing, it’s just...I’ve noticed you two don’t really use mirrors anymore to talk,” she said. “Then again, I never really got how that worked between you two. Did it have something to do with Khonshu? Was one of you in the mirror somehow?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Steven said. “Can you imagine? That’d be strange, seeing the world from a mirror.”
Marc pressed forward. “It had nothing to do with Khonshu. It was just a visualisation trick I had, to help myself”—he searched for a suitable word—“rationalise, I guess, talking aloud to someone who wasn’t physically in front of me. And to translate what Steven was feeling into something outside of myself, to create distance between me and him.” He shrugged. “At least, that’s how Steven's explained it to me. He’s been reading a lot of psychology books lately.”
“No harm in learning more about ourselves. I thought it could help. ”
“Yeah, well, if I ever have to hear you say ‘compartmentalisation’ again I think I might just throw those books out.”
Layla smiled. “I’m just glad you two are getting along better. It's nice to see you more settled.” She paused, eyeing him cautiously. “I know you probably don't want to talk about this right now but...have you tried reaching out to your mutual friend yet?”
Marc didn’t have to ask who Layla was referring to; it was the term they’d all started using for the mystery alter who’d shown up out of the blue to fight Harrow and his followers, and who’d since been stealing hours and even whole nights from them. Marc hadn’t told Layla that particular detail though; she still thought that Cairo was the last time the mutual friend had popped up.
Steven and Marc had been dealing with it, the best they could. They each tried reaching out on numerous occasions; Steven had left messages, hoping to receive an answer, but his sticky notes were always left untouched when morning came. Marc, on the other hand, had tried to catch the hidden alter in the act, hoping to get some proof of their existence beyond the noticeable absences in time and other more worrying things, but still no dice on that front. So for now, with no name to go by, or even pronouns to refer to them with, they’d been designated the ‘mutual friend’.
“Yeah,” Marc said. “I, um, tried a few times. They haven’t really been responding. Pretty sure they’ve gone into hiding again.”
"Oh, so we're outright lying now. Bloody hell."
Layla placed her hand on his cheek. “Are you sure they haven’t been showing up lately? You look exhausted.”
Marc pressed his own hand over hers and sunk into the touch. “Nothing new, then.”
"Do you want any help? I could stay—"
Marc was already shaking his head. As much as he wanted her to stay, he didn't want to be the one to hold her back. After everything he'd put her through, she deserved to live her own life, free of his problems. He already burdened Steven with them more than he should; he wouldn't burden her too.
"No, it's fine," he told her. "We’re fine. It’s really nothing to worry about.”
Layla's gaze lingered on his face, a small crease between her brows. “Why don’t we lay down for a bit? Watch a movie or something. We can go out tomorrow.”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “Mmm, that sounds great. Just don't be surprised if I fall asleep half way through."
"Don't worry, I'm used to you snoring through movies."
Marc pulled away with an insulted look. "I do not snore.”
Layla shrugged one shoulder, and gave him a mischievous smile.
“I watched that movie you recommended, by the way," Layla said, in lieu of confirming or denying the snoring accusation. "The ‘Tomb Buster’ one.”
Marc groaned, embarrassed. He loved the movie, but even he couldn’t deny it wasn’t the best quality. He'd been taunted enough as a kid for his deep passion for the movie that he'd learnt it was better to keep it secret. But he’d wanted to share it with Layla, so he’d set those insecurities aside and told her about it.
“And?”
Layla made a so-so gesture. "It wasn’t amazing, but I still enjoyed it. I like that plot about the lunar god. Um, what was she named, Coy...olqua?" She clicked her fingers, her expression thoughtful. "Coyanzeque? Coyalzahee?"
"Coyolxāuhqui," Marc corrected. "It means 'Painted With Bells'."
Layla blinked, surprised. "You remember that off the top of your head?"
“I watched it a lot as a kid,” Marc said, shrugging. He pointedly did not look at the laptop left unattended in the corner of the room. He didn’t want either Layla or Steven getting any ideas about his research interests. He wasn't ready to share that just yet.
Layla thankfully didn’t notice his evasive tone, stepping around him. “Well, since I watched a movie from your childhood, I thought perhaps you could watch one from mine.” She wandered over to her backpack, and pulled out a DVD case, holding it up to him like a prize. Marc squinted, trying to read the cover; it was blurry, but he able to make out that it was in Arabic.
“Mate, if you aren’t going to wear my glasses, you really need to think about getting contact lens .”
“They’re gross,” he muttered under his breath.
"Putting my hand down Alexander the Great's gullet was gross. Trust me, mate, the two don't compare in the slightest ."
"Yeah? Well, I've had to put my hand down a dead lion's throat. See how well you'd do with contacts after that."
"I'm sorry, did you just say a dead lion?"
Layla raised an eyebrow. “You did what?”
Marc shook his head. “Sorry, not you. Um, what is it?” he asked, pointing at the DVD case.
Layla gave him a bemused look before deciding she'd rather not know.
“‘The Night of Counting the Years’.” She gazed at the DVD wistfully. “My father loved it. Made me watch it with him at least once a year. It was nice. I haven't watched it since...well."
Marc went quiet, unsure how to approach the mention of her father. They’d discussed Abdullah’s death a few times since Layla had learnt the truth, enough for her to recognise Marc had all but sacrificed himself to keep the archaeologists alive, and that he’d only survived through a cruel, twisted sense of luck. She had accepted his role, but she’d yet to truly forgive him for keeping it secret, the hurt left by the lies still leaving their mark. He was okay with that; he had no right to expect her to forgive him, not after he'd lied to her for so long.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't try to make up for what he did.
"I think he'd be really happy to know you're watching it again," he said quietly. "That you've found a way to keep your happiest memories with him alive."
Layla's gaze lost its mournful distance, and she looked over to Marc with a small smile. "I think so too."
She fed the disc into the DVD player. Unsurprisingly, when it had loaded up, the menu was all in Arabic. Marc felt Steven withdraw with what he was sure was disappointment.
Marc sighed. He'd been kinda short with Steven today; maybe now would be a good time to try and mend a few bridges. “Could you put English subtitles on for Steven? His Arabic isn’t great.”
Steven's surprise at the request quickly shifted into gratitude. “Aw, thanks mate. That's nice of you. Though...I am going to need the glasses to read them. ”
“Urgh,” Marc said, pulling the despised things from his pocket. “Fine, but don’t expect this to become a habit.”
He put them on, letting them settle into their proper place. Sure, they made everything clearer, he couldn’t argue that, but was it really worth looking like a middle-school teacher? No, it wasn’t. He scowled, making sure his irritation at being forced to wear the stupid glasses was apparent.
When he glanced at Layla, she was wearing an expression he’d seen her make only at puppies and Steven. “You look adorable.”
Marc crossed his arms and huffed. “Just start the movie.”
Layla laughed, her whole face lighting up with delight. Marc smiled despite himself, unable to keep up the pretence of grumpiness in the light of Layla’s joy. She scooched closer to him, nestling herself against his side. Marc softened at the touch. He rested his arm around her shoulder, gently playing with the curls of her hair.
“I really am glad you’re back,” he whispered. “I missed you. We missed you.”
Layla’s eyes almost seemed to sparkle as she looked up at him, and Marc only melted further. He’d seen the stars race across the sky, and the golden light of the Field of Reeds, but nothing compared to her.
“So did I,” Layla murmured. “You know I don’t like being away from you.”
“I know.”
“Just don’t run off again, alright?” Layla said, her voice light and teasing.
Marc kissed the crown of her head, breathing in the lavender smell of her hair. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The first thing Marc noticed when he woke up was that he wasn’t in the same place he’d fallen asleep. Instead of a mattress underneath him, there was grass, cold against his cheek.
The second thing he noticed was that he felt like shit.
“Urgh, what,” he groaned.
It was like his brain had been stuffed with cotton, each thought sluggish. For a brief moment, he thought he was on the end trails of a dissociative episode, but the disorientation he was feeling right now was of a different variety than what he was used to. More...groggy. And nauseating.
It was still a familiar feeling though. He just couldn't place it yet.
He went to push himself off the ground, but immediately collapsed back down as a sharp stinging pain rocketed through him, sending a shot of panicked adrenaline along with it. It was enough to chase the disorientation away. His mind still didn't feel completely clear, but he no longer felt like he was a second away from collapsing back into unconsciousness.
The pain was hardly a preferable alternative, though.
"Shit," he hissed.
Marc rolled over onto his back and after a few failed attempts, managed to sit up. He looked down at his forearms and hands, where the pain was originating; the sleeves of his jacket had been all but torn to shreds. Through the tears in the fabric, he could see that his forearms were littered with long cuts, some deep, some shallow, but all of them distributed together in groups of four. It wasn’t just his arms that were injured; there were a few shallow cuts along his chest as well, and his palms were grazed all over, coated red from palm to finger.
Right. Blood loss. That would explain why he felt the way he did.
"What the hell happened?” he murmured. His voice had a drunk-sounding slur to it. That probably wasn't a good sign.
He felt confused stirring from the back of his mind. Marc prodded gently.
“Steven? You there?”
Steven made a series of incomprehensible grumbles and groans.
“Yeah buddy, it's one of those days," Marc said.
"Are we hung over?" Steven moaned.
"We could be. I really wouldn't be surprised if we were."
"What? You can't tell?" He felt Steven take stock of the situation. "Bloody hell, what happened to our arms? And why do we smell of smoke? Have we been smoking?"
"I think our mutual friend," Marc said, emphasising the nickname with a scowl, "has been messing around in places they shouldn't."
“Oh, that's putting it mildly. I mean, look at us. What on earth were they doing? Boxing with a especially feral cat?" Steven paused. There was a spike of fear so sharp it made Marc wince. "Or do you think it was a jackal? Oh god, do you think Harrow did this somehow? Does he still have the power to do that?”
Marc considered the suggestion. The cuts did have an animalistic quality to them, but it was nothing that could have been done by any of London's wildlife. From the way the wounds were laid out, their mutual friend had clearly done their best to defend themself against whatever had attacked them, and had only just managed to get out there alive. Jackal or not, Marc was just glad that they’d woken up still breathing.
"Whatever it was, I’d rather not stick around to find out. You know where we are?”
“Um. I don’t know, a park?”
Marc huffed. “Yeah, I got that, smartass. I meant in the city.”
“I’m not a GPS, Marc. I can’t figure out where we are based on a few buildings," Steven snapped. There was a long pause. “But I suppose, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd reckon we’re in the outer suburbs. No clue which one exactly; I never ventured this far out of the city.”
“So not a short distance, then.” Marc patted down his shirt and pants with the tips of his fingers, and groaned when he didn’t find anything apart from the apartment keys. “No wallet. And, great, no phone either. Damn it. Guess that means we’re walking.”
“Are we really in any state to do that?”
“Not like we have a choice.”
“That didn’t really answer the question.”
“We’ll be fine,” Marc said, waving him off as he staggered to his feet. “I was able to crawl through a desert to a temple after being shot. I can manage this.”
“I really don’t think ‘getting shot’ should be the bar we’re setting. Just because this doesn’t hurt as much doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. We should rest.”
“Yeah, at home. I’m not staying here,” Marc said. He squinted upward; the sun appeared to be setting, the sky awash with pinks and purples. “Looks like it’s almost evening. Shit. We must have lost the entire day.”
“Or more.”
Marc clenched his jaw. He didn't want to think about that right now. “Yeah, maybe. At least it being late means there won’t be as many people out.”
He started to make his way down the street, picking a random direction and hoping it’d lead them to somewhere more familiar, or at the very least someplace they could use as a touchstone to figure out where they were. It only took a few streets for him to start huffing with exhaustion, but he pushed on; blood loss or not, he was getting home. He was getting back to Layla.
A few cars passed by as he navigated the maze of lookalike streets, and he made sure to turn away from the road as they passed so they didn’t see the blood on him in their headlights. He couldn’t hide as well from the people in the houses, but they paid him no mind, not even giving him a glance when he hobbled on by. Which was pretty strange for the suburbs, he thought; he could remember quite clearly the collection of looks he received from neighbours as a kid whenever he talked to himself in public, or when he'd walked down the street covered in bruises. People in the suburbs didn’t tend to ignore strange things; rather, they sought it out, desperate for a story to gossip about with their friends.
And yet no one here batted him an eye. Not that there were many people around to do so as it was. Marc frowned, looking around.
Obviously he didn’t want to run into anyone, not when he was covered in cuts and blood like he was, but he’d expected at least a few people to pass him by on the sidewalk. But there’d been no one. Even for the evening, the streets were strangely empty. It almost felt like a ghost town.
Marc wasn’t alone in his discomfort.
“Okay, not that I’m not relieved we haven’t bumped into anyone,” Steven said, “but it’s a bit odd we haven’t seen anyone, don’t you think. A jogger at least. Or someone taking out their wheelie bins. We would have run into one person by now, surely.”
“It is weird,” Marc said.
"Weird is an understatement. There is something very off about this place."
“That’s the suburbs for you.”
“Marc, I’m serious. Something isn’t right. ”
Marc grimaced. “I know. But let’s just focus on getting out of here first, okay?”
“Okay,” Steven said, quietly.
Marc turned around the corner, finally spotting something other than another row of identical townhouses. It looked like a small town centre, with a few stores scattered here and there. Marc sighed with relief. It finally felt like they were getting somewhere.
And for the first time that evening, he wasn’t completely alone in the street either. There was a teenager, probably around 18 or 19, with short blue hair and wearing a very punk get-up, standing out the front of a corner store. They were looking down the street, with the impatient focus of someone waiting for another to arrive.
"Maybe they can give us directions?" Steven suggested. "Because, between you and me, I'm hopelessly lost right now. I have no idea where this place is."
Marc held up his bloody arms; what remained of his tattered sleeves were already stained through. "Steven, we look like we walked out of a horror movie, do you really think they'd even want to talk to us, let alone be anywhere near us?"
"Well, not with that kind of sulky attitude. "
"That's not—you know what, fine," Marc groaned. "But if they call the police, I'm blaming you."
Marc crossed the street, hugging his arms closer to his chest, hoping the kid wouldn’t notice that he was covered in blood that, for once, didn't belong to someone else.
"Hey, kid!" he called out. Shit, that was way too loud. Quieter he said, "Uh, sorry to bother you, but do you know the way back to Camden Town from here?"
The kid didn't react beyond lifting their phone to give it a cursory glance before staring down the street again.
Marc hesitated. Social interaction had never been his forte, and sure, he wasn't exactly the definition of approachable like Steven was, but he was at the bare minimum good at playing nice when he needed to. He forced a smile on his face, hoping it came off as friendly.
"Hey, um, we're—I’m kinda lost. Haven’t been this far out of the city before. I could really use some directions.”
Marc paused in front of the kid. They still weren't paying him any mind, pointedly ignoring him.
What had he been expecting, really? In his experience, people rarely wanted to help strangers, especially those who looked like trouble.
And he always looked like trouble.
Marc grit his teeth in frustration. He would not yell at a kid. It wasn't their fault he was a mess that people would rather ignore than deal with.
"Come on, please," he said as calmly as he could, reaching out for their shoulder. They didn't respond to the touch beyond a slight shiver. "I really just want to get home."
The moment he spoke, the kid flinched and leapt back with the yelp. Marc startled back himself, shocked by the sudden reaction, and quickly raised his hands placatingly. A moment later he realised that probably didn't help his case, considering his palms were covered in blood, but he kept his hands up all the same, fearing any movement might set the kid off.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said. "I'm sorry, I should have asked before I touched you."
Despite their reaction to his touch, the kid still didn't look at him, or even acknowledge his presence in any way. They retreated away from him, eyes darting around anxiously.
"Hello?" they said. "Who's there? Who said that?"
Marc frowned, his arms falling. "I did? Hey, are you okay?"
But they didn't seem to hear him. They retreated back further and further, away from the light cast from inside the store.
The moment the kid stepped away into the shadows, they vanished. In the most literal sense of the term. One moment they were there, and in the next they were gone.
Marc tensed, taken aback. He squinted into the darkness, trying to find any trace of the kid. But there was nothing, not even a hint of the direction they’d disappeared in.
"Did they just turn invisible?" Steven whispered.
"I guess?" Marc said, throwing his arms up, only to regret the movement when pain rocketed down to his shoulders. "Because we can’t catch a break.”
Steven hummed thoughtfully. “I s’pose if we had powers of invisibility, we’d use it to get out of social situations too. Especially ones where there’s scary strangers pestering us.”
“I was not being scary.”
“I know you weren’t trying to be, mate, but that’s just how you come across sometimes. Perhaps I should give it a go, yeah. I am better at this sort of stuff than you are.”
Marc fought the urge to rub his hand down his face. “Yeah, fine. Whatever gets us home faster.”
Marc drew back, letting Steven slip forward. It wasn’t as comfortable a switch as they’d grown used to, the blood loss making it even more disorienting than usual. It took some time for Steven to reach anything nearing control, and even then, it took a few minutes more before the dissociation passed. He blinked through the dizziness and stumbled a bit as he orientated himself.
Before he could even settle properly into the body, the pain hit him. He groaned. Marc had been dealing with this the whole time?
“Ow ow ow,” he muttered. “Bloody hell, how were you walking around like this? This is awful.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad? Wow. Okay, mate, you really need to reevaluate your idea of the word 'bad' if you think this isn't it." He winced. "Oh, I am going to give our mutual friend a good talking to if and when they show their face. This is just mean, leaving us like this.”
“Trust me, I’m going to do more than give them a talking to.”
"I swear, if you punch us in the face again."
"You're never letting that go, are you?"
Rather than answering, Steven bit his lip, and breathed through the pain. It was like Marc said; they’d gone through worse. This was nothing like getting shot and killed. He should be able to handle a few cuts. A few, very deep cuts. A few very deep, very painful cuts.
“You know what,” Steven wheezed, “you’re actually quite brilliant at talking to people. A proper social butterfly, you are. So maybe you can come back to the front—”
“Steven,” Marc said flatly.
It’d only taken Steven a few weeks to learn the many different variations of how Marc said Steven’s name, and the assorted meanings for each of them. There was the ‘you said something funny but I’m trying really hard to stay mad at you’ Steven, the ‘you just said something unbelievably stupid, but because I like you, I’ll allow it’ Steven, and his most favourite, the ‘I don’t know how to say in words how much I appreciate you but I do’ Steven.
This was definitely not one of those. No, this was very much on the other side of the spectrum, in the ‘just do the thing, or I swear to god, I will turn this car around’ Steven territory.
Steven grimaced. “Mmm, right, yep, s'pose I should take one for the team, yeah. But I am treating myself to some chocolate when we get home. The good stuff too. I’m talking Lindt. Those little gooey Lindor balls. I’m going to indulge, because I deserve it.”
“Isn’t there milk in those? That's a vegan no-no, isn't it? ”
“I am vegan except for when I’m stressed and upset, okay. And right now I am very stressed and upset."
"Is that right? So, what, you're a vegan only on Wednesdays? Full-time ball of stress, vegan on the side."
Steven made a face. “Ha ha. Very funny.”
“Well, one of us has to be.” Before Steven could get offended by that, Marc gave him a mental nudge. “Heads up, someone’s coming.”
Steven blinked and glanced over his shoulder. A girl, around the same age as the other teenager, appeared into view. She was glancing up and down the street in confusion. Steven smiled and gave a wave.
"Ah! Hello," he greeted warmly. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, miss, but I'm quite lost. Y'see, I managed to get myself quite the sticky situation, as I'm sure you can tell from all the blood and whatnot. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too bad. Well...okay, so it is bad, but I’m not about to faint. Still, I'd be extremely grateful for any sort of directions you can give so I can get home. And—oh, you're not listening to a word I'm saying are you?"
Sure enough, just like the teenager from earlier, the young woman was not paying him any mind. She wasn't even on her phone, so he couldn't blame that for her blatant dismissal. In fact, she was giving the area a very good look around, clearly searching for someone.
"Sasha?" she called out. "You here? Hello? If you're hiding somewhere to jump scare right now, it’s not funny. Sasha?”
"Oh, is that your friend?" Steven said, trying to catch her attention again. "Blue hair, leather jacket, may or may not have powers of invisibility? They were just here, actually."
The girl ignored him to pull out her phone. She clicked onto one of her contacts and pressed it to her ear.
"Hey, where are you?" A muffled voice echoed through the speaker and the girl's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What? A ghost? Um, okay? Where are you now? Oh, okay, that's not too far. I'll see you in a jiffy.”
She put her phone away, and looked in the direction that Sasha had disappeared off to earlier.
Steven darted into her path before she could get too far. "Miss, I really am sorry to impose, and I know I’m being awfully rude right now, bothering you like this, but if you could just give me directions, or perhaps let me borrow your phone for a tick so I can call my, er, partner, I'll be out of your—"
The girl didn’t stop. She didn’t try to step around him either. By the time Steven realised she was seconds away for bumping into him, it was too late to jump out of the way. He flinched, preparing himself for the head on collision.
But it never came.
The girl walked right through him.
Steven lurched forward, an awful shiver running through him at the sensation. For a moment, he could only stand there shaking, too shocked to do anything else.
What...
“What the hell,” Marc said.
“That was weird,” the girl said from behind him.
Steven finally turned to face her. She looked unsettled, rubbing her arms up and down as she stared at him.
No, not at him. Through him.
She frowned and gave a full-body shiver, but continued on her way, barely disturbed by the fact she'd just walked through someone.
Steven, meanwhile, was very disturbed. No, sorry, forget disturbed. He was outright terrified.
One person turning invisible? Yeah, alright, he could believe that. Enhanced people were surprisingly common. Heck, most of his people he knew had superpowers.
(Okay, so perhaps the fact he only really knew, at best, two people—one of which shared a body with him, and the other being Layla—didn't help with that particular argument, but his point still stood. A lot of people had powers! It wasn’t bizarre to consider it the first explanation for something odd.)
But two people he'd tried interacting with having superpowers, both of the ghostly variety, was a bit of stretch, even for him.
He couldn't ignore the facts. And the facts were that neither of the teenagers had been ignoring him; they simply hadn’t seen him at all.
There was only one explanation that made sense.
Steven started to pace and shake his hands, his breath coming in fast. "Oh god, are we dead? Did we die?”
He could sense Marc’s alarm, but it was far more subdued. “I think we’d know if we were dead, Steven,” he said.
“Oh, right, because we died once, we’re supposed to be experts now." Steven shook his head. "See, the thing is, mate, that was different. We were still avatars of Khonshu then; who knows what happens to ex-avatars? Ex-avatars, I should remind you, who rejected the Field of Reeds. We have no idea how that impacted our chances of getting in there or anywhere else."
Steven kept going, the delivery of the words only quickening with each second, his pacing along the pavement speeding up to meet it. Marc used the little control he had to coax their head to face their reflection, hoping that seeing a friendly face would help Steven calm down, but the moment he saw the glass, he lost any control he had over the body, his shock enough to shake him loose. Steven resumed, having not noticed the small interruption.
"—so we got spat out to walk around as ghosts. That's it, innit. We're ghosts. That's why everything is so odd and no one seems to see us and people can walk through us and oh god, Layla's going to be worried sick. We just went and died and I don't even know how—"
"Uh, Steven," Marc said.
"—and I don't think I even had life insurance set up. Did you? I mean, you were immortal for a bit there, so you probably didn't. We definitely should have discussed this, because now Layla will have to—
"Steven!"
Steven's rambling cut off. "What?"
"Look at the window."
"What, so you can give me your infamous 'you're overreacting again, Steven, don't be a such a plonker' face. Well, for one thing, I am not overreacting. I believe I am reacting quite accordingly, actually, unlike you. And for another th—"
"Steven! Just look."
"Bloody hell, fine," Steven snapped. "Y'know, just for the record, I'd really appreciate it if you—oh."
Steven stared at the shop window with wide eyes. He leaned to one side, and then to the other. There was no movement in the glass. All he could see was the street behind him, and the inside of the shop on the other side of the glass.
It seemed it wasn’t just people who didn’t know he existed.
“So, we don't have a reflection,” Steven said. “Only proves the fact we're ghosts even more.”
"No, Steven, look at the stuff in the store. "
Steven blinked, confused by the request, but did as he was instructed. Without his glasses, everything was quite blurry, but he managed to make out some of the packets further down the aisle. The smaller text was illegible, but the brand names were large enough to make out the individual letters.
Except...no, that couldn’t possibly be right. He rubbed his eyes and willed his vision to focus.
But the letters still looked the same.
On every single packet he looked at, the words were backwards.
"What on earth..."
Steven backed away in confusion, glancing around at the shops around him. Now that he was looking, really looking, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it. On every single sign of every single shop, the writing was backwards. As if they had been reflected in a mirror.
Except, in the reflections in the glass, all the signs were the way they should have been, each letter facing left to right; it brought to Steven's mind the text on ambulances, of how the word was written on the bonnet in reverse so that it would be read the right way in reflections.
This, of course, was nothing like that. This wasn't normal. This wasn’t natural. The whole bloody world around him shouldn’t be acting like a reflection. Not unless...
No. Surely not. There was no way they were...
Steven plopped himself on the kerb and dragged the fabric of his trousers up just past his right knee. For as long as Steven could remember, he'd had a scar on that particular kneecap. It was a thick, long scar, left by what he could assume had been a sharp, rocky surface. It had faded over the years, but it’d never gone away.
That is, until today. Steven inspected his knee with wide eyes; there was no sign it’d ever been there, not even a faint trace. It was simply gone.
Except... it wasn’t gone was it? It was in the same place it'd always been. The only thing that had changed was his perspective.
Steven bit his lip anxiously as he hiked the fabric on the left leg of his trousers up to his knee.
"Oh god," he whispered.
The scar shone in the light of the nearest street light. It looked the same as it always did, except for the fact it now was on the wrong knee, and was facing the wrong way.
Just like it did whenever he saw it in his reflection.
Steven swallowed. "Okay...so maybe I was wrong about us being dead. But I'm not sure this is much better."
"Steven," Marc said, the apprehension clear in his voice. "Do you think...?" He trailed off, unable or unwilling to finish the sentence.
"Yes, Marc." Steven looked over at the nearest reflection, gazing into the world that shimmered there. "I think we're a lot further from home than we thought."