Oh. Fuck. Take the body Marc! You gotta take it back right now. Nownownownownow… he tries to bail out, but the blissful nothing never comes. Instead he's stuck, feeling everything his body can throw at him.
And there's a lot. If his brain were a car dashboard it would be lit up like a Christmas tree with flashing warning lights all blinking away. Ding bloody ding bloody ding. Attention! Your car's totally fucked, mate. There's something lodged in his throat and his chest feels heavy and and his wrist is pinned and he's far too cold and some fucking arsehole has taken a drill to his ribcage and… Stop cataloguing it. Do something.
Oh god, he's gonna be sick. That's enough to set him in motion. He tugs his wrist free from whatever is pinning it down and flops over onto his belly. Then, just before it's too late and his stomach completely rebels, it dawns on him that it's probably not a great idea to hurl with his face mashed onto the floor. One hideously uncoordinated push up later he's precariously balanced on wobbling hands and knees doing his level best to turn himself inside out; water and blood and more sand than a human body should ever contain. He tries not to notice that the sand fades to nothing on the stones. After eons, when the spasms in his gut have faded and his lungs are no longer heavy with fluid, he's left with that dreadful feeling of obstruction. It's the feeling in the throat when a pill gets stuck, but turned up to 11. The panic rises. He'll choke and he'll die, and be back in that place again. Drowning in sand. Getitoutgetitoutgetitout. He coughs violently, desperately. Spits. Oh bugger me, he thinks, those are actual honest-to-god bullets.
Hands and knees turns out to be too ambitious to maintain for long, so, purged and trembling, he sags weakly down onto his elbows. No longer totally controlled by the urge to puke and gag, his mind clears enough for the full horror of everything to come crashing back. He can't help it; frustration, pain and long repressed grief all crawl out as a pathetic wail.
"Marc?" A voice pierces the bubble of misery he's trapped in, timid and afraid.
He wants to answer, but all that he can manage to start with is yelps of pain. "Ow. Ow ow ow." What a fucking understatement. He flops weakly onto his back, rubbing at his chest with numb fingers. "Nah, 's me," he croaks. "Just gimme a minute, yeah?"
Hot tears leak from the corners of his eyes, leaving sticky trails across his temples and curling round the tops of his ears. Oddly, he finds he's come to terms with the things he learned on the Barque of the Dead almost as if he had lived them in their proper times. They'd still be enough to bring him to his knees if he weren't already flat in his back, but with the blunted sadness that comes with time. There's still gaps and blanks that he suspects will never fully be filled, but for the most part he has an actual past rather than the rickety mish-mash that his mind had constructed to mask how little was real. Sure, at some point he's going to have to examine it all again, slot the pieces together a little better, but for now he'll cope. No, what fills him with heartstopping grief is being too alone in his head. Now he understands who he is, or more importantly, who they are as a whole, he finds the silence in place of Marc's abrasive commentary terrifying. Not his absence, as it's not absence as such. He's there but not; a tenuous link at best. Right now he'd even welcome ruddy Khonshu for company, particularly if the bitching and moaning came with a side order of that handy regeneration power.
Oh yeah. Someone spoke to him. Better do something about that.
His eyes don't want to open. They're gummy and sticky and gritty with sand, so it takes a fair amount of blinking and contortions to regain his sight. He really wants to rub at them, but his arms feel like cold spaghetti and won't move. Eventually the world swims dimly into view. He's not sure what he's expecting at this point. Given the events of the last few days it could be the flipping Eiffel Tower for all he knows. Instead, it's an angel leaning over him, haloed in dim torchlight. Ok. So not exactly an angel; it's Layla, damp and bedraggled, but to his mind there's practically no difference.
Beautiful Layla.
Who presumably just watched her husband die, only to reanimate like something off The Walking Dead, puke up half an ocean, at least a quarter of the Sahara Desert, two effing bullets and both his lungs.
Then lie on his back and bawl like a baby for a bit.
Not exactly a heroic return.
And, of course, at some point he's going to have to tell her why she's stuck with him and not Marc, and how come he even exists when he's not entirely certain of the techical details on that one himself.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
What he is fairly certain of is that they're still in Alexander's tomb, even if he's looking at from a perspective he can't quite figure out. Of course, there's a chance this is yet another layer in in the nesting unrealities, but Marc's inert presence at the fringe of his mind makes him doubt that's the case. Still, it can't hurt to ask. "This is real, yeah?"
Apparently it can.
"I have… no… fucking… idea!" Layla sobs.
He moves to stand, to go to her, but the world tilts wildly as he does. Alright, so walking's off the cards for now. Let's take a shot at something a little easier. He makes it to his knees. There's a wall a few feet away. It swells and recedes like the ocean, but at least it's better than sprawling on his back. He slumps against it and reaches out to her. He expects her to sit alongside, squeeze his hand, but instead she crawls up against him and rests her head against his chest as the sobs subside to sniffles. "Hey, hey, we'll figure it out," he soothes. Tries to make a joke. "Pretty sure this is the real one. I hurt too much for it to be anything else." She shifts, and he can see her face through her curls. Her eyes are red-rimmed but she gives him a small, watery, smile.
"You look…" He begins, then stops himself before a torrent of words tumble out about how beautiful she is and how he'd have crawled 'cross broken glass to get back to her and how he's so glad he's the one who made it back and all the other awful things he shouldn't think right now because she wants Marc and Marc's trapped and it isn't fair… Tries again. "It's great to see you Layla. I thought I was a gonner there. But I'm not, so it's all good." He pastes a smile in place, but he can feel it doesn't reach his eyes.
"Are you on your own?" She asks, voice small. "I mean, did Marc come back too?" It's another bullet to his chest; he's just the placeholder for Layla, he knows that, but it shouldn't burn so. He tries to give her a proper answer but the words won't form. "Marc's knackered. It was a lot while we were…" He pauses, throat tightening, unable to form the word. Dead."…away. And he took the brunt of it. So looks like I'm driving for now." He swallows. "For a while, actually. Probably until we free Khonshu." He has to give her hope, so he continues, "I think… I think Marc needs his help to fix himself."She looks so sad his heart breaks for her. They curl together; the warmth of her embrace helps quiet the doubt and fear.
Eventually it dawns on him that they're at the bottom of the pool which had surrounded Alexander's sarcophagus, now miraculously drained of water. Above them, the golden foot of the casket reflects the torchlight. It's beginning to dim; if they stay much longer the flames will die out and leave them in darkness. Thoughts of clicking from the shadows press in and push him to action.
He can barely stand, let alone climb. The wall of the pool is built from tightly fitted smooth stones, and the ever curious part of his mind marvels at the precision of the construction. The rest despairs that such admirable craftsmanship makes them an absolute bitch to scale. Layla makes it look completely effortless in comparison.
He flops bonelessly to the ground once they've hauled him over the edge. "You could at least have tried to help," she snaps. The heat in her tone startles him, a sudden contrast to her earlier hesitance. "I'm doing my best," he protests, outrage bringing him back to his feet. "You try getting shot to death, brought back and then climb a bloody vertical wall." "I didn't mean you," she says irritably, glaring into the middle distance.
Puzzle pieces start to slot into place, parts of the disjointed mess that began with the crack of Harrow's pistol.
A plea to 'tell Layla' before confusion and terror and red hot triumph and falling and sand.
It doesn't fit together yet, but he can feel a shape is forming.
"He's not!" Layla snaps, again not addressing him. He tries to make light of her outburst. "Hey! Last I checked, I was the one who could have an argument in an empty room."
Suddenly she's acting like, well, him.
The cube clicks, another side solved.
And suddenly he sees her. Really sees her with eyes that seek the details and extrapolate.
"Wait. You weren't wearing that before, were you?" He claps his hands to his mouth. Registering the burnished copper, leather and linen. The bone crescent and blade he recognises from a hundred different sources. Figure 2.6 - Ivory wand from the tomb of Kemnephet… Figure 7.1 - Items excavated in the temple complex at Karnak. Location believed to have been dedicated to… Figure 6b - Close up of engravings on the artifact shown in figure 6, note the solar disk and…
"Oooh." He breathes, revelling in their cleverness. Realising the consequences. "Oh, oh shit. He's not going to like this much." He grins, buoyed up by the hope that brings. "Neither's Marc, but it does bugger up one of that bloody obnoxious pigeon's threats." He backs away to better take in the change, then reaches out and rests one finger on the wand at her hip. "Taweret, right?"
She nods. He looks around. She's probably not going to be visible to him, just as Khonshu was merely currents of air to Layla, but he owes her so very very much.
"She still here?" He asks, waving. There's things he really should say to the goddess who brought him back. They gabble out in a jumble. "Sorry for screaming at you before. All a bit new to me, this. Still not completely over the heart thing, mind. Or the Boat of Utter Misery. But that's not entirely on you."
He can feel the change in Layla. There's a shift in her posture that gives it away. An eerie green glow in her eyes.
Yes, Steven Grant, I am here and Layla Al-Faouly has agreed to be my avatar in your world until you release my brother from his prison. Do not waste this second chance. It comes at great cost. To all of us.
It looks unnatural, and he's reminded of the sensation of being pushed aside felt at one remove. "So that's what it looks like when Khonshu does it to us," he marvels. "Freaky. Well, hi again and thanks for the help, Great One. Any suggestions on where we go from here?" Layla's lips part as if to speak again, but the glow on her eyes is already dimming.
Steven steps forward to support her as Taweret releases her control. "Bloody typical," he mutters. These gods do so love their dramatic entrances and exits.
"You alright there?" He asks, resting his forehead against hers. "'s a bit weird innit, when they do that. Bloody rude if you ask me."
She steps back and sighs. He fights down the urge to follow.
"So what now?" She asks.
Oh, he knows what they need to do next, though he wishes he didn't. There's no convenient portal from the Ennead to skip them to where they need to go, so they'll have to do it the hard way. Just the two of them, with the limited assistance of an overburdened goddess.
He has a horrible feeling that putting this into words isn't going to make it sound any less crazy.
It really, really doesn't.