-"Marc, you can't keep doing this.—
Marc woke with a start. Almost panicky, eyes shooting open, muscles coiled and ready to fight or run, and his lungs were burning from the sharp breath he had pulled in. Sweat beaded on his brow and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
His vision swam, his mind feverish, and he felt like he hadn't slept in weeks.
He was alone.
In a room. A white room, white walls, white ceiling, no windows… White light casting everything into a glaring brightness with no shadows to speak of.
Marc's heart hammered in his chest and he tried to get his bearings, the vertigo of waking so abruptly nearly overwhelming.
"W-…"
He stumbled to his feet, shouldering against one wall.
"H-how…"
The door. There was a door. Milky glass window with shadows moving behind it.
Get out. Get out of the room.
And he ran. He heard the splintering of glass, of a broken window, and he ran. Everything was too white, too clean, too shiny. Every door looked the same.
"Calm down," a dark, familiar voice rumbled.
He whirled around, but there was nothing. The world was starting to swim in front of his eyes.
"Where am I?" he managed, each word so hard to utter.
"The Realm of Souls."
His mind blanked, then terror settled in.
No… No! He hadn't died… had he?
Steven… where was…? "Steven!"
He stumbled and caught himself, tried to run, tried to find…
The fluorescent lights reflected off the polished tiles, blinding him. Everything was white. Everything hurt to look at.
He was breathing too hard, his heart was hammering, his pulse racing. The instinct to protect Steven, something hardwired into his soul, was screaming at him to find his alter. To make sure he was safe. That none of this could hurt him.
And then he collided with something very hard, very unyielding, but not a wall. He almost bounced off the obstacle but was deftly caught in a strong grip. For a moment Marc tried to fight, but he was too uncoordinated to do more than simply collapse against the only rock in this blinding white sea he had. An arm curled around his shoulders, trapping him but also keeping him from just falling to the ground.
It was as if an anchor had been cast and the out of control ship that was his mind was suddenly moored. The shards clicked into place, formed something whole, something stronger, keeping him… there. The whiteness dimmed, became more bearable. The strangely tilting world aligned.
Marc blinked. Then he looked up.
"Oh fuck," he managed.
The skull gazing down at him seemed to grin. Khonshu. His god. The entity so entwined with him, so close, so overwhelmingly present. He felt him everywhere, not just where he held on to the human avatar.
It was grounding. Like suddenly taking root.
"You're… Fuck! I… I'm dead?" The sheer terror of that thought was overwhelming.
"No." The god sounded rather amused.
The weathered skull was as it had always been, the rags still as tattered, the colors still as bland. Except, this time, for the first time, there was more in that gaze but endless time and space. It was a thin sickle of a waxing moon. Surreal and terrifying in its own way, but grounding.
"Why am I here?"
"It is a memory."
Something else struck him and panic surged once more, colliding against the gentle shield around his mind. "Steven! Where's Steven?" he whispered, adrenaline rising sharply, muscles tensing.
"Protected. You protect him."
Protected from this… this… "Memory," he managed.
"Yes."
The anchoring hold was unbroken, truly keeping him stable, and Marc had never felt such sincere thankfulness toward the deity than now. It was now that he became aware of the fact that he had smacked face first into the god. At the moment he was with his back against the tall form, held upright with ease. The moon god was a rock in a stormy sea, unmovable, unbreakable. There was a hum in the back of his mind, Khonshu clearly aware of his thoughts, all over the place as they were.
"This is a memory… and I'm in the Realm of Souls? In my mind… I'm there?"
"Yes."
With Khonshu. Who was living in his head anyway. Well, his mind and soul, actually.
"So, I was here?"
"You were here," he confirmed.
"But this isn't real…"
"It is a memory. It was reality, though not one your human mind could understand at the time."
"At the time," he echoed numbly. Marc tried to dig deeper, tried to remember, but he couldn't really see. "Why can't I remember?"
The moon god was silent, studying him, clearly pondering something.
"Tell me!" Marc demanded and twisted away.
Khonshu quickly took hold of his wrist, the motion almost a blur. It was like a vice clamped around his limb. No pain, just the unbreakable hold. He regarded him steadily.
Truth be told, Marc was afraid what might happen if he lost this anchoring connection.
"What happened to you is far beyond a living human mind's capability to comprehend," Khonshu repeated. "It simply… switches off when faced with a realm beyond your limited abilities."
Marc dimly wondered if he should be offended.
"The human consciousness cannot fathom the realm of the gods. Actually, any realm but their own. Every encounter is interpreted as nightmares, maybe dreams. You shaped this place, rendered it like it is."
"A mental asylum?" he managed, voice shaking. "Because maybe I belong in one?"
Khonshu huffed a little. "No human can stay sane when confronted with the Realm of Souls."
"It's official then," he muttered. "I'm mental."
"No. We wouldn't have this conversation had your small brain imploded from the overload."
Marc glared at him. "Yeah, thanks. I'm starting to greatly dislike you again!" he snapped.
He tugged half-heartedly at the grip, but he wasn't released.
Khonshu had the audacity to chuckle. "Your mind and soul are no longer just your own, Marc Spector. It is a shared world of a co-existence. It is bound to me. You are and have been my avatar, bearing my armor. Now it has adjusted to a deeper bond. You were both here," he tapped an infinitely gentle finger against Marc's forehead. "I can feel your pain. You both suffered and nearly lost yourselves. You both share the memories, the burden, both of you making up a whole. You both protected each other, refused to give in. The rest was lost as you were the only ones to survive Ammit's spree."
Marc swallowed.
"As long as you refuse to accept your alter's strength, you won't be able to heal completely."
"Steven…"
"He is stronger than you might think. He has already confronted his own experiences and accepted."
Marc froze, terror shooting through him. "What did you do to him?!"
"Nothing."
Truth. He spoke… the truth. Marc closed his eyes, swaying a little with the need to get this over with and the equally strong desire to not let Steven in on this nightmare… the reality of what had happened. As he had always tried, so desperately, until the walls had crumbled and their lives had mixed together. Co-fronting.
"It is even beyond my abilities to bring back what was taken by Ammit," Khonshu added almost apologetically.
"I… okay… I think… I didn't know… anyone else…"
"You shared this, Marc. You need to share it again."
He swallowed hard. He didn't want Steven to relieve this horror. It was his job, his place, not anyone else's. Not Steven's.
"You are not alone. He was there with you," Khonshu murmured, the voice heavy in his head. "He remembers, but not enough. You remember, but not everything."
"I…"
There was a loud banging sound from somewhere and he heard a muffled voice.
"Open up, Marc."
He was starting to tremble. His was a life of violence. It had always been violent. Steven was his safety. He protected him. Steven shouldn't have been involved.
"He protects you," Khonshu's voice had dropped even deeper, resonating inside his mind. It was a soft caress over his stressed mind, anchoring him on so many levels he knew he would just break into a million pieces should the god let go. "Just as viciously."
Marc screwed his eyes shut and shuddered.
"You are not alone. Your scales are perfectly balanced within each other."
The door to the white room was suddenly flung open and Marc's eyes shot open wide, meeting his own eyes in his own face, but still not his own.
"…steven…" he whispered, sounding almost wrecked.
Disheveled, looking like he had just fallen out of bed, dressed in an old, dark sweater and sweatpants, Steven was mirroring his surprise.
"M-marc…?"
There were dark rings under his eyes. He was too pale, too fragile looking, too… frayed at the edges. Looking at him, something broke inside the mercenary; something that had had so many cracks already, it had been held together by sheer determination and willpower.
Marc launched himself at the shell-shocked alter, barely aware that Khonshu had let go of him, and wrapped his arms around the startled man. Holding on. Just holding on as if he was his lifeline. And he was. He had always been.
"Steven!"
And then Steven clung to him just as tightly. "Marc…"
More memories surfaced like a tidal wave. Different ones. Both their experiences meshing together to be shared.
Marc squeezed his eyes shut with a whimper. He had flashes of a similar situation. Of the sarcophagus, of the maze of white rooms, the mental facility… trapped in the sarcophagus… then he was back in the Realm of Souls. Running, being chased, the hungry presence chasing them…
"It's okay," Steven whispered, sounding shaky and just a breath away from losing it, too. "It's okay… I'm okay. I'm here. We're okay."
Marc's knees gave way and he collapsed to the ground, his fall cushioned by Steven's strong hold as he sank down with him, still holding him tightly.
His whole world collapsed and then realigned itself. He buried his face against his alter's neck, shoulders shaking from the tidal wave of emotions crashing down on him.
He remembered.
"Jake saved us," Steven whispered, sounding a little broken. "The other… he saved us… Marc, he saved us…!"
He pushed back and framed Steven's face, looked into the wide-blown eyes, the wetness glistening in there, and he knew he was crying, too. He had no recollection of Jake; the third alter.
"Are you okay?"
"Uhm, yes, I'm… rather well… all things considered. The memories…" He frowned, then his eyes widened again. "The sarcophagus!"
"The what?"
"I… I found a-a.. sarcophagus. In a room. I opened it. I… it was him," Steven stammered and his fingers twisted into Marc's loose, wide shirt. "He told me to run. Find you and run. He would take care of this. For us. As he has always done." He swallowed wetly. "Not look back. Just find you… save us… find Khonshu… and do what you do best."
Now he was gone. He had never known him; neither had Steven. And he was gone. Gone, gone, gone! Like so much from his life.
"I'm not leaving," he heard the alter whisper fiercely. "I'm not leaving!"
Marc was shaking so badly, his teeth were chattering. He was fighting the overwhelming emotions, all what hadn't been said, all he had felt and was still feeling.
Steven simply held him. He was both the protector and the protected, a fierce sentinel guarding the other.
Everything seemed to slot into place, making him whole, despite the many holes in his soul. Khonshu neatly filled those cracks, belonging, claiming... healing them.
"This happened faster than I believed possible," Khonshu could be heard. He sounded thoughtful, watching the two men, nodding to himself. "You are very receptive, Marc Spector. Adaptable. Your mind is stronger now. It adapts to my powers, our new bond, and it can withstand the realm's influence."
The light inside the room changed, became softer, warmer, but still silvery white. It was the moon rising, the energy seeping into him, chasing away shadows. Around the two men, wispy strings formed.
Steven reached out for one and it turned more substantial without losing the ghost-like quality. It wrapped around his forearm, creating intricate patterns, criss-crossing and shaping more and more into the wrappings Marc was intimately familiar with. Off-white, silvery, light gray, golden hues…
He reached for Steven's wrapped forearm and the bandages crawled over his own skin.
Soft linen, yet not linen at all. The temple armor and yet so much more. A part of Khonshu, his energy, his powers. It enveloped them, pulled them together, and finally there was the Moon Knight, kneeling on the ground, chest heaving.
Something trickled through him. Something endlessly, timelessly powerful. Something not him but still inside him. It encompassed them both, made them whole, made them one, and they were still those two sides the pendulum swung back and forth with.
Bright white eyes looked up, met those dark eye sockets of his god, and Khonshu hummed, nodding to himself.
"This is what makes you so strong," he told his avatar. "This is what had you survive. And this is what heals you."
He startled awake, the dark room in stark contrast to the white of before. Of his… dream?... memories?...
He was still in London, still at the flat. Everything was calm. There was the faint sound of rain against the window panes and the moon was behind thick clouds. He still felt its power and it was a rather reassuring sensation. Like a heavy but fluffy blanket.
Marc scrubbed a palm over his face, his head, hair disheveled. There were books everywhere and their sight alone relaxed him even more.
Then a thought struck and Marc frantically looked inward, found Steven safe and sound far away from the front, though the protective wall around him was flimsy at best.
He expelled a breath.
Shadows moved and Khonshu was suddenly crouching at the end of the bed, hunkered down. Watching. Waiting. So patient.
"This was real," Marc whispered as he sat up, voice rough.
"Reality is a fickle construct to the human mind."
"Cut the mystical crap!" he snapped, adrenaline still swimming through his system, his heart still beating so much harder than normal.
"It is a memory of a realm you shouldn't be able to recall." Khonshu sounded intrigued. "The battle against Ammit wasn't only physical, it involved the soul. The human mind and soul rarely if ever perceive our realm as you did."
"But I do now?"
"Yes. You are growing stronger. Your acceptance of me has opened the gates between us. Your past imbalance kept you from succeeding, but you are healing yourselves. It will create new pathways, and it has already."
He felt like crap. Absolute crap. There was nothing strong about him.
Their dynamics had changed. They co-fronted. They gave each other room and time.
They were survivors and the last ones of every single one who had been within Marc's mind. He had no idea how many had perished, couldn't even feel loss. He had only ever consciously met Steven. Jake… there wasn't even a shred of a recollection. He had been a moment, was now a memory for Steven, with no emotional attachment. The one who was so remorseless, he must have been Khonshu's wet dream come true. Just how often had that alter come through and left nothing but blood and death in his wake?
"Jake was part of the imbalance?"
"At the time? No. Now he would be."
"How many jobs did he do?" Marc asked, eyes finding Khonshu.
The god regarded him silently for a very long time. "One."
"And he wasn't good enough?" His voice was without inflection, trying so hard not to let his disgust show.
"He was too good. His darkness had no light."
"Uhm…"
Khonshu traced light patterns over his forehead and temples. "In here, he was darkness. Without light. His usefulness was… limited. No conscience, no remorse, but your ultimate protector. The last resort, the one used to the agony."
Marc frantically tried to remember, but there wasn't a single moment he had ever felt this third alter rise.
"When…?" he murmured. "When did he…?"
Khonshu's hummed softly. "The greatest of duress," was all he said. "When the suit's power to buffer the pain, to heal wounds inflicted on my Knight, were not enough. He was your shield and he left a river of blood."
Marc wanted to claim he was usually detached from feeling any remorse for when he had to kill an opponent, but even he, the one who had been trained for this, was a little queasy at times. Marc hesitated, spared lives, and as a mercenary he had declined certain jobs that gave him hives just hearing the proposition.
Which meant Jake had fronted whenever the job got too much. He had been with the system for a long, long time.
He was gone now.
Gentle fingers curled around one forearm, anchoring as they had done in his vivid recollection. His mind settled more, the pendulum swinging evenly, no longer erratic and out of bounds. He stared into the hollow sockets, saw the waxing moon in them, and Marc felt his mouth go dry.
"You have bound yourself to me," Khonshu stated. "You shattered the walls between you and the soft-hearted idiot. You no longer shield yourself from me, and you stopped fighting me. Your mind is adjusting to what the connection between us means. You have grown stronger since. Only stronger. As one."
"Is this an avatar thing or a you thing?" he asked carefully.
Khonshu chuckled. "You are no longer just an avatar, Marc. You are my soul-bonded. I know of none of the Ennead who dared to go this way."
"Uhm?"
The endless power surged through him, washed away the fragments, cleansed his mind, and he whimpered softly as he felt the memories fade. But not forgotten. Just… memories. Distant. He could look at the events and not break.
He had been judged.
He had been given a sentence.
He had been freed. He and Steven.
"What else is there? What else don't I remember?" Yet, he added silently.
"The mind can only handle so much. In time, you might recall more as you grow. As you trust in yourself. And me," Khonshu added meaningfully. "Your bond to me is your shield and your anchor, but also your door to another realm." The god cupped his face. "Your acceptance of each other, the violence and the softness, is your strength. You will face yourself again and again. Loss and victory. Pain and happiness. I trust in you to be what I asked of you so long ago; and more. I ask you trust me to not harm you in any way."
He swallowed, the touch so much deeper, so meaningful, as were the words. Because he felt the loss and the pain inside the ancient entity. Timeless, endless, remembering every day, every night, everything. Alone; abandoned. The only companionship had been the chosen avatar, and some had come and gone very quickly. Some had been very bad choices.
"I… I trust you," he stumbled over the words. "Now. I can trust you now."
Khonshu tilted his head. "Can you?"
"Yes." His voice cracked. "Yes."
"Enough?"
"You never lied to me in the past. You were just an asshole," Marc told him, mouth twisting into a dark smile. "A pushy, demanding asshole, but you never outright lied. I knew what I was getting into."
"You didn't," Khonshu countered without malice.
Well, maybe not completely. He had been desperate the first time. Really, really desperate and with his back against the wall, a yawning abyss in front of him, when he had reached for his god and shattered the prison that had held the entity. But the second time he had said yes… that had been fully informed.
"When you lay in my temple, bleeding, your life fading, you made a choice. I had no time to slowly accustom you to what it means to be my avatar, my chosen. Mistakes were made."
"Yeah," he breathed.
"You saved each other. You saved me. There is no going back, Marc Spector. You accepted my bond. To be my hands, my eyes, my vengeance," Khonshu echoed the words of so long ago.
"I know."
"It is an open bond now."
"I… know. I can feel it. And… and it helps. To feel. To know. I'm not alone."
"You never were."
Marc reached up and placed a careful hand over the wrapped one that still cupped his face. The ribbons seemed to move under his touch; shivering, rippling. Khonshu was motionless, silent.
"I chose to be your warrior," he said. "A second time, despite the fucked-up first time. You were a manipulative bastard, Khonshu. I understand the reason. I saw what happened, what evil was released. I trust you in my choices."
He trusted like he had never trusted anyone before. And probably never would again.
"You were worthy of my choice." The god tilted his head. "I will always protect you, Marc Spector," he said. "Always. My avatar. My host. You are important to me. Your mind is quickly adjusting to what your body is already capable of handling. Your soul belongs only to me."
He sought for the gentle press of the other presence against his mind as Khonshu broke the physical contact. It was new, almost heady, and he wondered what Steven and Khonshu had been talking about, how much Steven's so empathetic nature, his softness, his inquisitive way, had paved the road for this moment. Probably a lot.
"You will remember more and none of that will hurt you," Khonshu promised. "You can remember without pain, without losing yourself. My power will guide your mind, keep it from fracturing again."
Because of the bond. Because of the balanced scales.
"You and your alter are parts of the same system, of the balance that makes you so perfect. Imbalance hinders the healing. It hinders in your acceptance of everything. Do not protect him from the memories, Marc. It will create the imbalance. He is strong."
"Not a parasite?" he asked shakily.
Khonshu chuckled darkly. "No. Not any more. This is the way it has to be. You both made your choices."
With another shaky breath, Marc closed his eyes. He was tired from the whole experience, his eyes burning a little.
Khonshu's presence was heavier now, wrapped around his mind, almost physical, and Marc let himself fall. He was caught and cushioned in the mind-world, held safely as he let himself fall asleep again. Without slipping into his memories.
Khonshu remained with his chosen avatar for the rest of the night, alert, watchful, probably closer than necessary. He felt calmer now, the age-old anger not gone but further from his mind. He felt a little lighter and a lot more settled.
Because of a human soul. Marc Spector.
He could feel the way the avatar's mind was knitting itself back together, weaving a safety net that hadn't been there before. Only trauma. Pain and loss, guilt and shame, running from nightmares, memories and shadows of a past that had nearly broken him.
Now those pieces were where they belonged and the most important was alive and well within Marc's mind. Steven.
Khonshu watched the moon light as it reflected off the crest of his staff, watched it play over the sleeping man. Faint outlines of the ceremonial armor overshadowed his skin, embracing the warrior.
