Initially the pain is only the tip of the blade as it pierces his stomach. After that, the sensation is more… obstructive. The steel blade pushed in where it shouldn’t be, getting in the way of his organs, like having a band-aid on a joint makes you feel like there’s something stopping it from moving properly. The pain really hits when his assailant rips the blade free - slicing at a wide angle across his body, tearing its way through his abdomen from hip-to-hip as it leaves.
Marc staggers backwards, his hands automatically flying to the gaping wound in his middle. The man is leering at him, bloodstained linen shirt and pale, loose jeans almost flapping in the wind. Marc has a moment to register the man’s discoloured, rotting smile before it’s gone - replaced by a look of shock that remains frozen there as he hits the ground face first. The blade in his back is removed by an angel with golden wings and glowing brown skin. Her abundant ebony curls bounce as she rights herself, the blade disappearing somewhere in the elaborate armour that encases her athletic form. Her satisfied look vanishes instantly as she gets her first real look at him.
“Marc!” his name shouldn’t sound like that when it comes from his angel’s lips - choked, horrified. He realises he can no longer feel his legs, that the pain has become a raging inferno throughout his torso, and the ground rushes up to meet him.
His descent is halted by strong arms, which manoeuvre him onto his back and cradle him against the golden breastplate. Her small features are pinched in terror and fear as she gazes down upon him, her face already beginning to blur. He’s starting to feel hollow, his heart squeezing and thudding erratically. His lungs have become too full to breathe, as counterintuitive as that seems, but he understands why when the bubbling, gurgling sensation starts deep in his chest and hot, metallic wetness flows out onto his lips with the gasp of her name.
----------------------------------------------------
[Layla POV]
She knows when she sees the wound. But somehow her mind still screams a denial… until he chokes out her name. His impossibly dark eyes are dominated by fear and pain as they lock onto her face, the bright crimson bubbling and spurting out onto his lips a stark contrast to his dark olive-toned skin. Her hand flies to his face, resting flat against his cheek as she tries desperately to bring some comfort to her husband.
“Marc, Marc, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay. Tawaret! We need help, now!”
Her panicked call is answered swiftly. The enormous Hippo Goddess materialises beside them, towering over their prone forms.
“Oh my goodness, oh no!” Her hands flap anxiously as she kneels beside them.
“Tawaret, help him, please, heal him!” Layla begs. She knows it sounds more like a command than a request, and any other Deity would have torn her apart for it. Tawaret’s face falls, and Layla already knows what she’s going to hear before the Goddess speaks.
“He’s no longer in the service of Khonshu, he can’t use the healing powers of the suit anymore. And I - I don’t have the power to heal him. It’s not something I can access. I’m so sorry, Layla, I really am.”
Layla can see that she means it. The Hippo Goddess is on the verge of tears as she lays a gentle hand on Marc’s head. “May your journey be swift and the field of reeds greet you like the war-hero you are.” Then she’s gone. Layla’s blood runs cold.
Marc’s body is quaking now. The pool of blood surrounding them has spread so far that Layla can no longer see its edge in her peripheral vision. The shallow, rattling breaths are becoming quieter. A shudder runs through him - then it’s no longer Marc she’s holding.
“Lay-la-” Steven chokes out, and it’s suddenly much harder to hold in her tears at the sight of his innocent face contorted in terror and agony. She desperately tries to soothe him.
“Hey, hey Steven. It’s okay-”
“-m - ‘m s-scared-”
Her heart shatters. His dark eyes are wide and bloodshot.
“Shhh - shhh Steven, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay -” She sees him acknowledge the lie, fear wiping out the last dregs of hope in his eyes. He tries to speak again - only short, helpless noises escape.
“Shhh - I’m sorry, Steven, I’m so sorry -” Her tears finally break free, and she holds him tighter. In that moment he locks his gaze with hers, his face spasming as he fights for breath, as the terror overwhelms him-
Then his face goes blank, his whole form falling still.
The sob that punches out of her jolts the still body in her arms. Gone. The realisation that Steven died in her arms hits her like a truck, and she feels a belt tighten around her chest.
She barely has time to feel the shock and grief start to set in when the body jolts again, the eyelids spasming over glassy eyes. She can’t fight the flare of hope that sparks to life inside her. It gutters out instantly.
Marc struggles to speak. The weak, choking noises he manages to make eventually form a word “Ste.. Ste-ven-” and his face portrays his crushing grief through his pain “-Can’t-”.
Layla fights down a sob. Her head bobs in an approximation of a nod, her own grief contorting her face. “I’m so sorry Marc - He - I was with him when - when he-” Marc’s eyes bore into hers, he tries to speak again, but now no words escape at all. A strange rattling whine emits from his throat, and Layla feels the panic grip her again - she knows that sound.
She rushes to speak while he can still hear her.
“- I love you! It’s okay, baby, I love - “
She’s still chanting her mantra as with a sigh he has no control over, Marc sinks into her arms, his eyes glazing over and his face going slack. He’s suddenly heavy , his weight no longer being held at all. His chest’s shuddering, desperate movements cease.
This time is somehow different - before, it had been like his face had paused, awaiting his return from the headspace. Now it didn’t even look like him. Nor like Steven. The features are just… empty.
Layla’s world freezes. It’s only when her chest starts to burn and her heart screams in her ears that she realises her breath stopped with her husband’s. Her whole body is numb, yet tingling painfully. It’s like she’s holding this moment in the palm of her hand, an inanimate object of a thing that she’s detached from.
With a roar, reality crashes back in and she’s aware of the screaming sobs wrenching themselves from her throat. She curls herself tightly around the body in her arms, fighting her mind’s desperate attempts to look for signs of life, anything to deny reality and divert the truth. She wonders if it’s possible to tear muscles or fracture bones with the force of her sobs, the quakes of her body, as she shudders through the shock and grief.
Then the coldness sets in.
Her shudders and sobs halt. She takes one, two, three breaths. Then she sits back on her heels to drink in the sight of her soulmate’s face one last time. She could swear there’s something behind his glassy eyes, a strange vibration running through his body like an electric current. She smiles for him, one last sight for his eyes to see before she gently smooths her fingers over them, closing the lids and putting him at peace. She begins to utter a prayer, to ask the Gods to take his and Steven’s souls to the glorious afterlife where they can live in peace and joy for eternity. Where they’ll wait for her.
As she recites her prayers, she watches the throes of a body’s settling process after death with an almost detached gaze - or maybe it’s her grief stricken mind giving one last ditch attempt to deny reality.
There’s the tiniest twitch under the golden-brown eyelids she’s just closed. Then the almost imperceptible spasm of the muscles on the right side of Marc’s greying lips.
She only just registers the weak shudder that runs through her husband’s entire form before an undeniable convulsion hits.
Marc’s chest jolts upward, his limbs tensing as his mouth opens in a silent gasp. Rigour Mortis she tells herself - the nerves dissipating their last impulses-
She doesn’t finish the thought.
An explosion of white engulfs Marc’s body. Pale bindings wrap themselves onto his upper torso and shoulders, a hood forming around a mask of dark strips of fabric - the same fabric that wraps itself snugly around each arm and leg. A bundle of white cloak pools around him, piling up on her lap and trailing into the crimson pool surrounding them.
Layla barely has time to acknowledge her terrified thoughts - Oh God, has something evil taken over his body? - when an audible, desperate choking sound accompanies a sudden, jolting rise of his chest. He twists in her arms, and she sees barely a flash of his skin as the mask pulls away and he turns his face to the ground. With deep, guttural coughing, watery crimson sprays and drips into the existing pool of red as his lungs work to clear themselves.
Time seems to stretch eternally until his coughing finally eases. As she helps him to lay back in the safety of her arms, she just catches the last slither of his cheekbone as his face vanishes beneath the dark mask again.
Every muscle in his body is pulled so tight he’s practically suspended, arched in her arms. A violent shudder runs through him, before he begins to relax incrementally, a tiny amount at a time, until he’s resting in her arms again.
Under the black mask she can hear the great chugs of air he’s pulling in, matching the deep, sharp expansion and deflation of his ribcage. She’s frozen in shock, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream as she struggles to process - what just happened? What’s happening? What do I do?
Layla can’t tell if he’s staring at her, or just staring. The glowing white eyes give zero indication of the actual focus of his gaze, or the intention behind it. “-Marc?” she finally ventures. After a second’s pause, he gives a tiny shake of his head. “Steven?” He doesn’t reply.
She’s still trying to decide if she should speak to him again, or whether the head shake was meant to communicate that he couldn’t answer her, when the mask and hood recede to leave his head exposed. He looks… different. Well he was dead a few seconds ago . But something doesn’t sit right.
“I - I thought you didn’t have the suit any more?” Her voice quakes in the cold of her body.
Dark eyes lock onto hers. His mouth works for a few seconds, his throat bobbing with an audible clicking sound as he clears the residual blood clogging it.
“They don’t.”
His statement and voice unnerve her. Her adrenaline spikes again, ready to defend herself if she needs to, when something begins to form at the back of her mind. A vague memory, a suspicion. That night in Cairo - Harrow - Marc savagely beaten into the ground - and then -
“Who are you?” She doesn’t mean it to sound as abrupt as it does.
He blinks at her, his expression wary. He’s still fighting for breath.
“Jake.” He finally huffs out.
She nods her head jerkily. They thought there was a third … “Where -?” She doesn’t need to finish her question. Jake knows.
“I've got them.” His voice has a gravelly quality that she suspects isn’t all from taking his last breath a few minutes before.
“-You’ve ‘got them’?” Hope and fear war in Layla’s chest. She searches the oh-so-familiar eyes, finding fear, pain, and a hint of relief in their dark depths.
“Yeah. They’re safe. They’re still… ‘ unconscious ’ , they took the brunt of the - of it.” The effort of speaking seems to wear Jake out, he’s still breathless, but Layla can’t help herself.
They’re safe. “-They’re ‘safe’? Safe where? Are they okay?” Layla is err-ing on the side of caution with this stranger.
To his credit, the look of impatience and irritation passes as fast as it appears. Something unreadable but somehow soft replaces it.
“- Yeah, they’re safe. In here -” he weakly gestures to his head “- like I said, they took the worst of it… I couldn’t break through their shock to take control.” he pauses for a moment, and she recognises the look that both Marc and Steven get when they’re looking inside or communicating in their headspace. “They’re gonna be fine. They need time to heal.” He finishes softly, almost affectionately.
Relief floods her system. They’re going to be alright. And he clearly cares about them.
But the reprieve is short lived - they have to move.
“Ok Jake, we need to get out of here. Tell me as soon as you can walk and I’ll help you as much as I can.”
He nods. “Just need a minute… Let the suit give me enough juice to get moving.”
She nods in response, her eyes scanning their surroundings before settling back on this semi-stranger’s face.
“So… I don’t think we’ve really met before.” She ventures.
The man wearing her husband’s face blinks at her, then a slow smile spreads across his features. It’s both slightly unnerving and sweet at the same time.
“Oh, we’ve met. I’m the one that saves our asses.”