That was how Marc and Steven got a new roommate. Not that Anubis took up any room or was really noticeable. Like their moon god of the past, who had only ever been visible when he was threatening Marc or Steven, or stalking the latter, Anubis was mostly invisible. He hung out on the roof a lot, watching the world below where people went about their daily lives, or he explored the vicinity.
One evening, when Steven came home from his volunteer work, he was surprised to find the entity sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the bookshelves, books scattered everywhere around him, reading.
"Uhm," he stammered, slowly placing his messenger bag onto the ground. "I… uh… you can… touch stuff?" he blurted.
The milky white eyes met his. "Yes," the god answered slowly. "I can… touch stuff."
"Ah… uhm… how?"
Anubis frowned a little. "I do not understand."
"You can interact with this world? Everywhere? You can handle things? Lift them? You are reading my books! How can you do this?"
Anubis' ears flicked and he studied him, clearly mulling over the words. "I… cannot," he finally said, words almost chosen carefully.
"B-but…"
"Outside these walls, I cannot. Within the place that is your home, I can."
Steven gaped. "You could… touch me? Or I could… touch you?"
There was a small smile playing over his lips. "Possibly."
"How?" Steven was absolutely stunned. "I thought you needed an avatar… to interact in this realm… like handling my books and magazines…"
"Yes and no. The avatar is our vessel, our eyes and ears when we are not in this realm."
"You are in this realm now."
"Because the ushabti was taken here. We never roam among your kind, Steven. We reside in the Overvoid and limit our time within this realm. That is how it always was. Only our avatars see us. A few gods were more… frequent visitors. Like your god."
"Oh."
"But we cannot physically interact in your realm, except with each other."
Steven helplessly gestured at the spread of books and magazines.
"It's a knack," the god explained with a shrug. "It needs a lot of concentration and energy, but I can accomplish a few singular tasks. Khonshu uses the elements. I can focus my energy to handle a select few items."
"Oh. Uhm, cool."
"It is easier if the energy in a place is harmonious, balanced and calm. And if the energy is familiar, of my own realm."
Marc was by now very closely listening in. Steven shot him a quick look.
"We… make this possible," he concluded.
"Yes."
"Alright. Brilliant." He paused. "Glad to help?"
Anubis chuckled. "You really are a very unique choice, Steven Grant. As is Marc Spector."
"Thank you?"
"I will leave you to enjoy your evening alone."
And with that he was gone, leaving a very puzzled Steven behind. "Oh. That was weird. Wasn't it?" He glanced at Khonshu, who huffed a little.
"Care to explain?" Marc demanded, taking over.
"Anubis likes to show off," the moon god grunted dismissively.
Marc crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Can you do the same? Touch stuff?"
A bandaged hand gently cupped his face. "I can, Marc. I can." The words were quiet, almost revering.
"You couldn't before." Marc reached up and curled a hand around the bony wrist. "Neither could I. You were insubstantial."
"You gave me a connection to this realm and to yourself. You made it possible. Until then I could never touch anything, let alone my avatars."
"You just used wind to throw some stuff around when you were having a fit, I know."
Amusement flooded through him. Marc gave the wrist a little squeeze, then let go. Khonshu's hand fell away, but the connection was still strong and unwavering.
"Anubis and I are not the same," the moon god told him. "My interaction with you is based on what we are for each other. You are more than a mere avatar, Marc. You are my soul-bound. I couldn't physically affect you before that. You allowed this to happen when we bonded."
The quiet, very open words rang with emotions neither could really put into words.
He looked into the empty sockets. Marc knew a lot had changed and the first time Khonshu had physically touched him, he had been frozen in shock. It had been a first clue as to what had happened to him, to them, to what they were. It had been the beginning of something terrifying and still so amazing.
"Anubis can focus his powers more easily. Not all gods have this ability."
You didn't and still don't, Steven piped up. Only with us.
Khonshu rumbled. "No, I never had. Only with you. Through you. You are the one who gives me this freedom."
So, Anubis can interact in this realm in a very limited way, and he uses the… the, uhm, calmness in the flat to do it more easily?
"Yes."
Because this is our home?
Khonshu regarded him silently.
"Hm," Marc muttered and plonked down on the bed. "Alright. Anubis somehow thinks this is a kind of mediation retreat and he can poke around Steven's book collection without much trouble. Keeps him occupied and apparently happy. We are running a day-care!"
He searched for the remote and found it underneath more magazines and folders full of loose papers and newspaper clippings.
"Steven," he sighed.
It got him an apologetic smile.
Marc switched to an old black and white movie and sat back, enjoying the entertainment.
Steven got used to the whole situation of Anubis poking around the shelves and reading through the books and magazine after a few days. Mostly he sat inside the alcoves, absorbed in whatever had roused his interest. Some days he wasn't around, but then he would pop up and continue reading.
Marc just hoped the god wasn't about to come along on his Moon Knight jobs, which were his way of escaping into some kind of normalcy. Having yet another Egyptian entity hanging out in his vicinity was slightly unnerving. Where Steven tolerated the new roommate, Marc found he wasn't the kind of person to easily share the privacy of his home with a virtual stranger.
Anubis didn't follow, which was a relief. When Marc went to Romania to weed out some bad elements and introduce them to Khonshu's justice, the jackal-headed god stayed in London.
Marc tagged on a few more days in and around Cluj-Napoca, getting into a scuffle or two with some newbie magic wielders who had picked up the wrong object or wanted to try their hands at some kind of summoning. He got skewered for his troubles once and on another occasion someone tried to turn him not a sieve, using a machine gun.
Sitting the shadows atop a church, the Catedrala Mitropolitană Adormirea Maicii Domnului, still in full Moon Knight armor, he just let himself relax. The park and market place below were quiet. Some people still walked around, but at close to three in the morning, everything was truly quiet. There was a little twinge from the old scar that had remained of the Unholy dagger that had stabbed and nearly killed him. The amateur summoner had hit Moon Knight with some quite powerful blasts. The energy crackling all over him had let the old injury flare uncomfortably for a brief moment.
Khonshu was leaning against one of the columns supporting the tower, radiating moody unhappiness.
"Will you cut it out?" Marc murmured, head resting against a column. "We won. The guy's gone, out of the picture." Swallowed up by his own magic, which hadn't been a pretty sight in the end.
Khonshu stared at him, all darkness and foreboding. Marc sighed, one hand still resting over the scar hidden underneath the protective suit of armor. Through the soul bond, he felt the moon god's emotional spikes, how unhappy he was about his Knight's weakness.
The entity suddenly crouched right next to him, impossibly fitting in a space he shouldn't be comfortably seated in, let along manage to squeeze in.
"I cannot heal this mark," he stated. "It is my weakness, not yours."
Marc snorted. "You're not all-powerful, no matter what you might think, Khonshu. I was injured. The scar will always be there. So this guy's little magic trick triggered some twinge or two! Get over it. I didn't bleed and I can still fight. Old scars hurt sometimes."
The presence came closer, swirling through every cell of his Knight's body, soothing and calming. Marc briefly closed his eyes and the suit shivered all over his body.
"I swore to always protect you, my soul-bound. I have failed before. My failure is in this mark you bear, in the pain it causes you."
And it was a mark not made by Khonshu. A mark that brought discomfort, despite being healed.
He looked into the ancient sockets. "Not your fault, okay? Didn't think you're the kind of guy to keep on blaming yourself for something you didn't do, old bird."
Khonshu rumbled and sat back, leaning once more against the church's column. One leg dangled over the ledge, the other was pulled up.
"I'm good," Marc said calmly. "We're good."
At least for now. With a former Egyptian god of the afterlife living with them; well, more or less living. Marc had no idea what Anubis got out of the whole deal.
At least he didn't shed and was housebroken.
Khonshu's amusement chased away the last remnants of the moon god's darker moods.
He finally descended from the cathedral and let the suit disappear. Marc walked through the silent, empty streets. He finally jumped back to the flat, tired, but with the satisfaction of a job well-done.
Two days after Moon Knight's return from Romania, Anubis started to accompany Steven to his museum job and explore the place, then go over to the British Museum and do the same, sans Steven, who refused to check if he was banned as a visitor after the washroom incident.
"You could mask yourself," Anubis proposed after Steven told him about that fateful night.
"I'm not going to wear a wig and fake beard!"
It got him a bemused look. "Why would you?"
"Huh? You proposed it. Just now! To masquerade as someone else?"
The other god carefully closed an old book. He was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, using a cushion and a blanket for possible comfort, though Steven had no idea if these other-dimensional entities actually needed it. Khonshu wasn't anywhere to be seen, but Steven was quite aware of his own god's close proximity.
Probably playing gargoyle on the roof, he mused.
"You do not need to… wear anything additional," Anubis now explained, slow and almost as if talking to a child. "You can move among humans without getting noticed as to who you are."
"I… can?"
"Yes."
Marc was by now very close by, attention roused.
"With the… ceremonial armor?"
"No." Anubis tilted his head. "You haven't reached that potential yet, I see."
"Uhm…"
He nodded to himself. "You will need to train then."
"I… uh… sure…. How?"
Anubis shrugged. "It is your potential. It is your god's power to you. Those among the avatars that choose to serve for more than a lifetime learn how to be seen and unseen."
"Can all avatars do it?"
"Possibly."
"Naf never mentioned it," Steven murmured.
"Naf?" Anubis inquired.
"Uhm, nothing, no one, I mean, just someone we met who… well, could have used… uhm… forget it…"
Marc gave him a sharp look and Steven quickly busied himself with straightening some stuff on his desk.
"If we can do this… I'm not trying it at the British Museum first," Steven finally said.
"It takes skill," Anubis agreed.
"Which means it has to be learned. Learning takes time and repetition."
"Yes."
Steven looked inward and met Marc's gaze. They silently agreed they would test it, but not right away, especially since neither had an idea how to start.
Khonshu's presence increased and he was suddenly there, scowling at Anubis, who had gone back to reading. Steven grabbed the keys and left the flat. He dug the wireless headphones out of his jacket pocket to simulate talking to someone on the phone, which was way easier than just talking to thin air and getting looks.
"Is this really possible?" he asked as he sought out a less busy corner.
"Yes. But my Knights never needed it," Khonshu replied. He had settled on a vendor's stall, on the tiny canopy above the cart.
Steven sat down on a bench. "It could be useful."
"Possibly."
"But you have no idea how it works."
"It was never needed."
That's Khonshu-speak for 'haven't got a clue', Marc muttered.
The moon god gave them a long, hard stare. Steven wasn't fazed.
"But we could learn it."
"In time."
"How?"
Silence. Great. Their god truly had no idea.
Bollocks!