Chapter 2
It had only been hours since the three men had been separated. They still weren’t too sure how it happened in the first place. Marc had been in control, going about his morning routine, when he suddenly felt a wave of nausea hitting him, so dizzying that he couldn’t focus. He tried to ignore it, but at Steven’s insistence, he began to make his way towards the bed to rest, although he didn’t make it very far before collapsing. He felt like he was seizing, but he couldn’t tell if he was even moving. All he felt was excruciating pain, and Jake and Steven were feeling that same pain, much to Marc’s chagrin. When they woke up - when Marc woke up - it was so quiet.
“Steven?” he asked once he could form coherent words again. He glanced around, trying to settle his still sleep-blurred eyes. Once they refocused, he found himself lying on the floor right outside of the bathroom in the now darkened apartment. How much time had passed since he'd been knocked out?
“Marc?” Steven’s voice called out from across the apartment. Marc stumbled to his feet, scrambling towards the direction he’d heard Steven, trying to wrap his brain around any reasoning as to why Steven’s voice was coming from across the apartment. He didn’t get far at all when he found himself face planting into the floor once more, tripping on another body that he had not seen in his endeavors to find Steven. “What the hell?” Pushing himself up onto his knees, he turned to see another man, almost identical, yet different, and he froze. “You.”
The other man groaned, pushing himself up to sit on the floor instead of flopping helplessly, his expression readily settling into an almost seemingly natural glare, glowering at Marc. Jake Lockley was a man who Marc had tried to hide from Steven, and somehow, he now sat before Marc. Marc hoped he was dreaming or something, but it became clear to him quickly that he was very much there in the flesh when Marc grabbed him by the collar and pulled him towards him to examine him further. The two scowled at each other, but Jake made no move to fight back, letting Marc stare him down intensely.
“Are you done?” His voice had a Spanish-speaking accent to it, one that Marc couldn’t quite place, but was oh so familiar with. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard Jake speaking, but this was definitely the first time he had properly interacted with him, speaking directly to him, too.
“What did you do?”
“You think this is my fault? Y como carajos do you think I did this?” Jake jeered. Marc’s scowl deepened and he let go of Jake, pushing him aside bitterly. Standing up, he pointed a finger at him.
“I don’t know how this happened, but I’m sure you and Khonshu are behind it,” he spat, then swiftly walked out of the bedroom area, refocusing his original task of finding Steven. It proved to be an easy mission because upon stepping around the shelves, he almost immediately crashed into the other man. Both of them startled away from each other before both seemed to realize who the other was. Marc couldn’t help but stare at Steven; was he staring in awe? Shock? He honestly couldn’t answer the question, but he made hurried notes of Steven as if this were the only chance he was going to get to see him.
Steven was a bit shorter than him and he looked a bit thinner, too, not horribly thin, he was clearly still pretty built under the loose fitted clothing he was wearing, but his shoulders seemed less broad than his own. His eyes had a light to them despite being dark pools, Marc was sure anyone could easily get lost in them, they glimmered like a universe waiting to be explored, full of mystery, yet so comforting and knowing. Those eyes were searching Marc, analyzing him like Marc had been doing to Jake moments before, but they were more gentle than Marc had done.
“This can’t be real.” He spoke in a mere whisper, and he was slowly reaching towards Marc to touch him, placing a hand over Marc’s chest, his eyes wide with wonder. “You’re tangible.” His voice was high pitched with revelation. “Marc, you’re tangible.” He met Marc’s eyes, astonishment painted across his face. “How is this possible- are we on the Duat again? Did we die again?” He frantically began to look around, removing his hand from Marc’s chest to hold his other hand against his own chest as he began to fret.
Marc reached for him, gently taking him by the shoulders and pulling him into an embrace. It had felt like ages since they’d last been able to do this. He hadn’t even known if they would ever be able to again. “I don’t know, Steven, but yeah,” he chuckled, feeling Steven hesitate then hug him in return, “I’m definitely tangible.”
Steven was the first to pull away from the hug, Marc disliking the cool feeling it left when he did so, but the two stared at each other for a moment, Steven with a dumbfounded grin on his face. “Do you think we’re dead?” Steven repeated his previous concern. He moved away, bringing his arms up to his chest again as though he expected something to jump out at him from the darkest corners of the apartment during the nighttime. Only their living room lamp illuminated the space.
“I don’t feel very dead.” Jake had made his way towards them, still standing away from them, but close enough for Marc to feel like he was enough of a threat to put himself in between Jake and Steven instinctively. Jake rolled his eyes at the action.
“You’re the other guy,” Steven said, tilting his head at Jake. Marc hated that; although Steven had had minimal interactions with Jake, whenever they did, Steven would tilt his head at him almost innocently, intrigued. Jake didn’t deserve that.
“My name’s Jake.” He shot a look at Marc, not bothering to hide his distaste of him from Steven. “So you can stop calling me ‘the other guy.’”
“That’s right, I never did catch your name, did I?” Steven stepped forward to stand almost beside Marc, but still a bit behind him, causing Marc to slightly puff his chest out as though to dare Jake to try and come any closer. His chin tilted upwards in response. It was a standoff, and Steven was the prize.
Steven, however, wasn’t stupid, and immediately caught the tension that was rising because he was quick to try and deescalate the situation before it grew to something bigger.
“Alrighty, then, fellas, it seems like we’ve got quite the thing to figure out here, no?” he laughed nervously. “Are we dead? Are we alive? Are we on the Duat again? Who has Khonshu now? All good questions, wouldn’t you agree?” He threw his hands into the air in a shrug.
Neither Jake nor Marc responded. They were still glaring at each other.
Steven had given up on them pretty quickly and whisked himself off to bed, claiming that the separation had made him sleepy - Marc didn’t believe him, but agreed that they should go to sleep since it seemed to still be dark out; they could figure it out in the morning. Maybe they’d be ready to talk about all this once they were all fully rested, Steven had reasoned.
Steven had claimed the bed by accident simply by going to it first, leaving Marc and Jake to argue over the single chair sofa.
“I’ve lived here longer!”
“I think we’ve all lived here the same amount of time, pinche pendejo.”
“What the hell did you just call me?!”
The two bickered, although they didn’t get that far when Steven made another appearance, looking rather annoyed with them. His hair was tousled already.
“You two can take the bed if it’s that much of an issue,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll sleep on the sofa, yeah?”
“I am not sharing a bed with him,” Marc said indignantly.
“Finally something we can agree on,” Jake scoffed.
“Then I guess none of us get the bed!” Steven snapped. He’d brought a small throw with him from the bed and angrily sat down on one of the small cushioned chairs, pulling the throw over himself, eyes closed as if to say that was his final verdict.
Jake scowled at Marc and went to get his own blanket off the bed, later disappearing into the bathroom, leaving Marc standing there, still feeling frustrated. Finally, he did the same as the other two, settling down at Steven’s desk.
Now, Marc had been the first to wake up. Morning had dawned upon him once more, and a single glance over to the chair where he’d remembered Steven bundled down in the night before confirmed it hadn’t all been an obtuse dream. Steven was still softly snoring away on the chair, his head resting at an angle that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, and the throw blanket he’d brought with him was strewn over half of him from his shoulder down to his lap with one arm sticking out. Sunlight streamed in and the shadows from the heavily filled shelves created rays of light that bounced perfectly around the quiet apartment. Marc stiffly sat up. He’d fallen asleep with his head resting in his arms against the desk. His back ached from being in such a curved position for hours on end, and he leaned backwards in an attempt to correct the poor posture he’d developed overnight.
He stood from the desk, relieved that he didn’t have to sit there any longer; that chair definitely wasn’t built for long-term sitting, he’d noted. He crossed the few steps towards the kitchen, sifting through the few groceries they had remaining. They were supposed to go out a few days ago, but just hadn’t gotten around to doing so, so he had to settle for a bowl of slightly stale cereal. He opened the refrigerator and sniffed at the dubious milk, unable to tell if it had gone bad or if he was just overthinking. Steven’s groan interrupted his pondering, and he ditched the possibly spoiled milk back inside of the refrigerator to go check on Steven.
“Marc!” was the first thing Steven exclaimed when he saw the other man walk around the table and over to him. “Oh, man. I thought I’d just had an odd dream.” He paused. “I guess it’s real, huh?” Marc nodded grimly.
“It’s real, alright,” he responded. “And we’re out of food. I don’t know how we’re gonna feed more than one mouth at this rate.” Steven cracked a small smile.
“Thinking with your stomach, I see,” he said, his tone teasing. “Why don’t we wake Jake and go down to the supermarket,” he suggested, sitting up more straight. The blanket off his shoulder, landing smoothly on his lap, where he gripped it in his hands, revealing how nervous he was about the predicament than he was actually letting on. Guilt washed over Marc in an instant. He and Jake had been so focused on butting heads with each other that it had immediately fallen onto Steven to be the reasonable one.
“We’re gonna figure this out, Steven,” he said.
“Well, yeah, mate, it’s a pretty easy fix, we just have to go down to the grocery and get more food. Rather boring, isn’t it?,” Steven joked, standing up. He folded up the blanket neatly, placing it down where he had previously been sitting.
“You know I don’t mean the food situation.”
Steven paused, his back turned to Marc. Although he couldn’t entirely see his face, Marc could see his smile had dropped.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
Steven’s jaw tightened. “Right.” He turned his face entirely away, looking towards the window. The rays of sunlight danced around him, the particles of dust floating around him giving an almost glittering look, and Marc caught himself staring. Steven’s dark curls were untamed, frazzling here and there in all directions, and yet they still framed him perfectly.
“Eugh! Who kept spoiled milk in the fridge?!” Jake’s spitting broke the silence. Marc whipped around, an amazing look on his face. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was surprised he hadn’t heard or seen Jake literally walk past them or the fact that he hadn’t bothered to even sniff it like Marc had been doing minutes before to check if it was bad or not, but either way, Jake’s raucous reaction was absolutely worth it.
“Ohh, my days, Jake, I’m so sorry!” Steven had quickly walked over to the other man, taking the carton of milk from him, catching a whiff of it and wrinkling his nose and he set it down on the table across the kitchenette. Jake spat into the sink once more then wiped at his mouth with the heel of his palm, a grimace drawn. “I’m so sorry, I meant to toss that last week.” Apology after apology poured out of Steven.
“Ya, ya,” Jake waved his hand, silencing Steven. “Ya pasó.”
“Good, good, ‘cause Marc and I were about to go out to the supermarket. You’ll come with us, right?” Steven urged. Marc fought back a grunt of annoyance. He could do without Jake joining them, but if Steven was firm on Jake tagging along, he wasn’t going to be a dick about it. Jake looked doubtful, but when he caught Marc’s eyes, he smirked.
“Yeah, I’ll come,” he conceded. Marc made a face; Jake had definitely seen Marc’s irritation and was only agreeing to join them to spite him. He opened his mouth to shoot a few choice words at him, but Steven spoke first.
“Great! We should probably look into buying a couch or maybe even a second bed while we’re out. I’m so sorry about the sleeping arrangements last night, and frankly for my bad attitude, but I think if we put our heads together, we can sort this all out, yeah?”