Pasito a Pasito (little step by little step)
It started with Steven humming to himself.
(Well, it started before that, at least from Jake’s point of view. But for Marc and Steven? It started with Steven humming)
The thing was neither Steven nor Marc could identify the song Steven was humming. It was familiar, in the way songs you’ve heard over and over again are, but neither of them could really recognize it, nor remember the lyrics enough so that they could at least try to find it in the web.
“That song again?” Marc asked, prompting Steven to turn around to meet his alter’s eyes in one of the many mirrors they had strewn over the apartment.
They didn’t need mirrors to communicate, of course. They were a constant presence in each other’s minds, even if they retreated to their own corners of the mind space. But after their misadventures in the Afterlife, when they had had the chance to hold, feel, and support each other? Both Marc and Steven had come to like seeing the other’s eyes, even when touching was now impossible, or at least, impossible in the waking world.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s been in my head all morning,” Steven shrugged. It was like the world’s most insistent ear worm. Every time they thought it was gone? It would come up again, unbidden, at the weirdest moments.
For Steven? It was when he was alone at the inventory room at the museum -He had managed to get his job back, out of a miracle -although Marc suspected it had to do with Harrow’s cult losing their power and thus, the influence they had to cover the fact that before the destruction of the bathrooms, Steven had been seen chased by a known international Terrorist and thus, perhaps his mental breakdown was justified- feeling a bit down with himself, when the song would come to his head, soft and slow, almost as a caress in his ears, until Steven would find himself smiling and humming along even if he still couldn’t quite make the words.
He was pretty sure they weren’t in English.
It was different for Marc. Ever since coming back from Egypt, being free from Khonshu, he had been out of sorts, not knowing what to do with himself. Layla, dear wonderful Layla, had suggested that perhaps the problem was that Marc no longer remembered who he was when he was not protecting Steven’s normal life or working for Khonshu. And as he didn’t have to do either now -not when Steven was aware of him and happy to hear him in their new co-conscious arrangement- and well, good riddance to the old stuffed pigeon.
Except…
Except Marc had to admit that there were parts of the job he missed, and it was not just the fast healing from the suit.
It was helping people, making amends for his time as a mercenary. Those times, when he wasn’t chasing crazy Ammut followers, or hearing Khonshu yelling on his ears.
He missed that, and he felt without direction. Wondering how, despite managing to ruin everything good in his life, every new opportunity, he was still lucky enough to be loved by two wonderful people like Layla and Steven. Feeling unlovable and down on himself, figuring if it wouldn’t be better if he just left Steven to front, so he and Layla could be happy. Not that he’d tell that to either.
And that was when the song came to his side of the headspace. A whisper and a warmth feeling, as if he was being hugged by the words.
The song, the voice he just couldn’t quite pinpoint, made him feel as if he was worthy of love. So even if he pretended to be annoyed by it, even as he found himself humming it along with Steven, or even when he was fronting and trying to figure out what to do with his life, he had grown to enjoy being surprised by it whenever it happened again.
“Deja que te diga cosas al oído, para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo…”
Steven was moping the floor of their apartment when the words came to his lips, unbidden and unthought by him. It felt a bit like when Marc took over just part of the body, without fully fronting, which made Steven frown a bit. Because it wasn’t Marc singing, he knew. It wasn’t him either, he had never managed to twist his tongue to speak any other language but English and this was far more complicated than two years of Spanish in High school.
Because now he realized that the song was in Spanish. That was why he and Marc had had trouble remembering the words. Because neither he nor Marc spoke Spanish.
He glanced at the closest mirror, a full length one they had in the door, and blinked. He seemed to have been dancing with the mop, and he could tell by the look on the reflection's eyes that the person right there was not Marc nor had been expecting to be caught.
“Wait!” Steven said, but it was to no avail. In a blink, whoever that had been so close to consciousness as to control part of the body without Steven noticing, was gone, and Steven was left just looking at himself. Marc was apparently resting so he had missed the… the other.
Steven took a deep breath, as he realized that he didn’t feel any different. There was no emptiness in their mind space, no feeling of an intruder. Whoever that had been? Was not an intruder. HE was part of them. And Steven then remembered that one room they hadn’t entered back at Tawaret’s ship. The third sarcophagus.
There was a third one.
Steven blinked, trying to sort all the complicated emotions that came with that understanding. With knowing that now he had an explanation to those blackouts where Marc had sworn he hadn’t been hurting those around them, the fight with Harrow when Layla had tried to tell them they had been moving differently, but Marc had refused to think about it.
They weren’t two. They were three.
And then, as a bucket of cold water that erased the remaining warmth he had felt from hearing the… their third singing to him, Steven remembered Khonshu’s last words to him.
“I will free you both”