Despacito (Slowly)

If Layla had thought Marc was an infuriating man with a one-track mind? He had nothing on this Jake Lockley. He had been somewhat vulnerable with her, and she hoped, honest. But now she wondered if what he had told her was only what he wanted her to tell Marc and Steven, the things he couldn’t because of the language barrier between the three, and nothing that he didn’t want to disclose. Because every time she pressed, he changed the subject.

And of course, he wanted to know about Khonshu.  Because that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? As much as this man had teased her husband and boyfriend before, he had only really revealed himself when she told them that Khonshu was gone.

If she hadn’t, or if Khonshu hadn’t decided to go to the Ennead, would Jake Lockley ever have come forward? Or would he have been happy just making everyone terminally horny by whispering sweet nothings on their ears?

Layla wasn’t sure. After all, he had introduced himself to Marc before she arrived, so maybe she was just suspicious of Jake because she knew Marc had not really planned on revealing himself to Steven at first. Had even tried to convince him that meeting Marc had been a dream the first time.

And had been thwarted by the exact same CCTV camera that Jake had used to reveal himself.

“Estoy esperando, cariñito,” he said, and even when he hadn’t moved from his position, from that inviting and carefree lounge in the couch that made part of her want to just go and sit on his legs and let him do whatever he wanted to her, there was something in his tone that made him sound far more dangerous than she expected. “¿Qué paso con mi… con Khonshu y los cobardes que lo dejan hacer todo el trabajo sucio?”

Layla didn’t miss the split second where Jake’s changed his wording. He had done that before, started talking about Marc with what sounded like a pet name, before using just his name. Then, it had made Layla think that Jake didn’t want to make her think he was too familiar with her Marc. Now… now she figured it was a tell. Of what, she didn’t know yet, but she was going to find out. Because as hot as Jake was, and as much as he shared a body with Steven and Marc… she was not going to let Khonshu use him to manipulate them.

“I told Marc and Steven all I know, and I think you were listening,” she replied, leaning back on her chair. “Tawaret only told me that Khonshu called the gods and told them he would be accepting their judgment of him.”

“¿Cuál juicio?” Jake didn’t sound happy at the news. “¡Khonshu, Marc, Steven, tú y yo les salvamos el trasero a todos y ninguno levanto la mano para ayudarnos! ¿Por qué tiene que enfrentar un chingado juicio?”

At the end of his rant, Jake had gotten up, walking around the living room while he moved his hands up and down. He was angry, each word faster and louder, until Layla completely lost track of what he was saying. He turned her gaze to her, and she gasped. Because while she was sure that he wanted to look intimidating and dangerous, and he did as she knew that expression that promised pain if answers weren’t given, she had seen it more than once in her husband’s face towards other, his eyes didn’t match the same fire. His eyes looked broken, desperate.

“¡Llama a la hipopótama! ¡Pídele que te explique que fue lo que paso!” Jake walked forward towards her, raising his hands to grab her… but it was no longer Jake, but Steven the one who was in front of her.

*          *          *

“What just happened?” Steven asked as he realized that Marc had pushed him to the front when he thought that Jake could be a danger to Layla. Steven had tried to argue, tell him that it didn’t sound at all as if Jake wanted to hurt Layla, that he was just lashing out, but Marc had obviously not been listening.

“You tell me,” Layla replied, getting closer and hugging Steven tight.  It seemed as if she wanted to comfort him, despite Steven not really needing said touch right then. Obviously, he had missed something important of what Jake had told her by not understanding Spanish, which meant he had to learn, the faster, the better. “Jake’s… something, all right. Is he with Marc?”

“Luv? Is Jake there?”

“Yeah… and we’re kind of busy,” Marc replied, sounding a bit out of breath. “He’s not happy I grabbed him before he could hurt Layla…” 

Steven sighed and repeated the information to Layla, who frowned immediately.

“He was not going to hurt me!”

“Well, I didn’t know that and he’s not really pulling his punches here!”

Steven sighed. It seemed that any progress Layla had made with Jake had been completely undone now. But then, they were still missing about half the information from Jake, and all the reasonings behind Khonshu’s sudden act of contrition.

Why would he kept Jake as his avatar for a few months, just to abandon him like this?

“Layla, luv…” He looked at her, a bit lost. He wanted to go back to Marc, make sure he and Jake didn’t hurt each other -not that they could hurt each other physically, he didn’t think so, but words could be more painful than any punch- but he wasn’t sure it would be a good idea without something more to offer Jake than asking for forgiveness for not getting him out of his sarcophagi when they had been in Anubis’s ship.

“Tawaret is not answering me either, if that’s what you’re going to ask,” Layla said, not letting go of him. Whatever Jake had told her about their shared past? It had shaken her. “When she told me that Khonshu had gone to the Ennead in the Other Void, she said she might have to be there for a while too.  Only… she told me that she’d be back as soon as she could.”

“And Jake didn’t get even that from the old bird,” Steven nodded. “Ok. I… “ He stopped, looking down at his hand. It was tense, closed in a fist, and he could feel the cuts from the glass bleeding again. “I think I really need to get back to the others but…”

“If Jake comes up again, I will deal with him,” Layla told him. “I really don’t think he’s dangerous, Steven. I think all he’s done? It’s to protect you two.”

Steven’s mind flashed back to that roof in Cairo, when he had come to, only to discover that he had stabbed a man, was covered in blood, and Marc was convinced that Steven had been the one who did the deed.

At the time, he had been horrified that there was blood on his hands. That he shared a body with a killer. That Marc seemed not to care for others. Now, he realized that Marc cared far more, that he was as shattered with each death at his hands as Steven was. But also, that at that moment? They had been terribly distracted by their mutual argument, by his own denial and insistence that Marc had to be an intruder and to leave him alone.

And that distraction, given how Harrow’s men were? Could have been deadly if someone didn’t intervene. Jake had probably only come out to save them because Steven wasn’t letting Marc focus on the problem at hand.

“You’re right,” Steven agreed. He had misjudged Marc terribly, and now he knew that. He refused to make the same mistake with Jake. “Keep trying to get a hold of Tawaret? And… I hope we don’t need to but… check what’s the earliest flight to Cairo?”

“You want to help Khonshu?” Layla asked, incredulous.

“No,” Steven said, sitting down and taking a deep breath, trying to let himself fall into their inner world. “I want to help Jake.”

*          *          *

In less than twenty four hours, Marc Spector had learned two very important things about his Alter Jake Lockley.

One: He was one hell of a dancer.

Two: His left hook was almost as good as his dance moves.

“No quiero lastimarte, Marquitos… pero me vas a dejar tomar el control ahora. Necesito hablar con Layla y tu no vas a detenerme,” Jake was telling him, which was the longest sentence his Alter had told him so far. And Marc didn’t understand a word besides Layla’s name and what he assumed was his own.

“You’re leaving Layla out of it, Jake,” he replied, dodging another punch. He wanted to say the first one to his face had been a lucky shot, but Jake was a damn good boxer and it was taking all his concentration to keep him on his toes. And Marc wondered once again how long had Jake been with them, and how his life had been.

More importantly, why he couldn’t remember Jake, given that short of a few memories -like how they had ended working at the Museum in the first place, or how Gus 1.0 had entered Steven’s life-, Marc knew pretty much all about Steven’s life.

“¡No voy a lastimarla! ¡Sólo quiero que me ayude! ¡Ella es la única que puede hablar con la hipoptama para decirme que paso con Khonshu!”

“I have no idea what you’re saying!” Marc managed to get one good punch on Jake’s side, but he was quickly distracted by Steven’s sudden appearance in the middle of the room. Jake also noticed, and tried to make a run towards his room, probably to get some distance and be able to front again. Marc and Steven didn’t need to be anywhere in their inner world to get control anymore, but he remembered a time when taking control of the body was a lot easier if he was in a place that reminded him of well, just him.

“Wait!” Steven seemed to realize the same thing that Marc did, as he stepped in front of the newly created door, effectively blocking Jake’s way. “Please… talk to us.”

“Ninguno de los dos me entiende, y estoy perdiendo tiempo,” Jake growled, his voice going at least two notes lower. “Se lo dije a Marquitos y te lo digo a ti, Estebancito… no quiero lastimarlos pero esto es importante…”

Marc looked at Steven, who didn’t seem as if he had understood more than him of Jake’s words. And once again, Marc wondered why Jake didn’t speak English, and why he spoke a language that neither him not Steven spoke. It was frustrating, because just as they had managed to break one barrier between them, there was this other wall, invisible but far stronger than the three of them. No matter how much Marc and Steven wanted to understand Jake, no matter what Jake felt for them, if anything really, the result was that they were as separated as always.

“Layla said you understood English, yes?” Steven asked, looking eerily calm. Just as he had been when talking to Khonshu when demanding to be treated like an equal, or that split second before he had saved Marc at Anubis’ ship by falling to his early death in the Duat. Jake stopped, surprised. As if he hadn’t expected to see Steven be that serious. “So please, just tell us, yes or no.  Are you being forced to work for Khonshu for our sakes?”

“¡No!” Jake, if possible, sounded offended at the insinuation. His fists were ready to hit something, someone, but it seemed that, just like Marc, he was unwilling to actually launch himself at Steven. “¡Khonshu es nuestro amigo, con un carajo!”

*          *          *

As he waited for the Ennead to review the situation, the case raised against him by Arthur Harrow in one last spit on his face, Khonshu let himself be lost in memories.

He remembered every night, he had told Steven Grant, and that was true. Every position of every star was burned in his memory and would forever be. But what he had not told the curious knowledge seeker was that he mostly ignored those nights. One night was just like the other when you had thousands upon thousands to remember. The stars’ position was not what made that night memorable. Then, he had just remembered it because the burial of Ammut’s first and only true Avatar had been a somber event.

Truth was, Khonshu had other nights he preferred to remember.

For example, the night he had met his Avatars.

Marc Spector and Steven Grant did not remember that night, of course. Upon meeting Marc Spector again, Khonshu had felt saddened to see that memory gone, but had understood why it had been so. And given Jake Lockley’s pleas, he had taken a different path, a different role for them than what had been originally.

But he remembered that night, in a completely different continent from Egypt. One of his lesser statues had been taken to the Museum in Chicago, and there, he had caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a very bright soul. In the Museum, he had barely been able to see the owner of said soul, as they were dragged away from Khonshu’s statue’s presence very quickly by an angry sounding woman -whom later Khonshu would come to know as their Avatar’s mother, may her soul forever rot in the sands of the Duat. He had to wait for the early winter night, as the New Moon created shadows that allowed him to travel through the city’s streets and pathways away from his Statue.

His steps had taken him to a building called a mental hospital, where he saw a very curious sight, and realized that he had been wrong at the Museum. He had not seen a bright soul, not exactly. There, carefully listening to a conversation behind a closed door, was a human child. And next to that child, he could see two other shapes, almost identical in looks if not in clothes, also listening. Khonshu knew right then that the two others were not corporal and tilted his head in some confusion. He was seeing three souls, intertwined in one body. But he could not see anything that signaled the extra souls as outsiders to the body. It was as if the three had been born to the body, united, even as they were clearly three different children.

Curiouser and curiouser.  But then, those were his Avatars. Always surprising him, always finding a way to make the Old God realize that there were new things to see in the Universe, despite his age.

Jake Lockley managed to surprise him even more. A memory Khonshu treasured deeply, because the child, wearing a baseball cap and a scowl, had looked away from the door where the other two were whispering to each other, a conversation he did not seem to be part of…

Right into Khonshu’s eyes, when no human, disembodied soul or not, could have seen him.

“¿Y quién chingados eres tú?” the child had asked, in a tongue that was not common in the city they were in. And by speaking up, he called the attention of Steven Grant and Marc Spector too.

“What did you say, Ja…?” Steven Grant was the first to speak, because that was Steven Grant, always curious. But he had stopped when he saw Khonshu, his eyes shooting up the second he registered the God’s presence. Marc had been the last to see him, getting up immediately to stand between the other two and Khonshu.

Protecting them, even then, even when Khonshu presented no danger to them.

And now, in the present Khonshu sighed. Only two people remembered that night now. Himself and Jake Lockley. Part of him figured that if he revealed said memory to Tawaret, to Osiris, they would see that no matter what Arthur Harrow said, Khonshu had never taken advantage of his children.

If they believed him, of course. Because again, no human could see a God, not unless they had already agreed to be their Avatar. And Khonshu hadn’t asked that for any of them. They were children, after all, not warriors. Not then.

But the bigger part of him, a part he supposed was why the other Gods always looked down on him for caring too much for humanity, for letting himself get attached to the short lives of human beings, wanted to keep that a secret. It was his and Jake Lockley’s, just as the other nights he remembered and Steven Grant and Marc Spector did not and would probably never remember again as other humans had abused of his children’s body, destroying neural paths with electricity in an attempt to fix what was not broken, had been theirs.

So Khonshu kept silent, as Osiris stood up and glared at him. Next to Khonshu, Tawaret, the only goddess of the Ennead on his side, send him a compassionate look. Khonshu had to admit it felt strange to have someone on his side. It warmed his empty chest.

“Before he was judged, Arthur Harrow accused you of seeking a Marc Spector, a man whose mind was broken and weak, and manipulating him into accepting servitude under your thumb in order to affect the human world because Harrow himself was no longer willing to be your Avatar. How do you answer to those charges, Khonshu, God of the Moon and Night Sky?”

The trial had begun.

*          *          *

Steven blinked at Jake’s words, confused.

He didn’t know Spanish, not really. Just a few words here and there that he had picked up at the Museum, enough to point out the bathroom to a lost tourist from Spain.  But Jake had said one of the most familiar ones, and one Steven would’ve never imagined any part of himself saying about the old Egyptian god.

Amigo.

Friend.

Marc also seemed to know the word, because he looked as stunned as Steven felt.

“Khonshu is no one’s friend…” Marc began saying, which only made Jake even angrier.

“¡No tienes idea de lo que estás diciendo, Marquitos! ¡Te quiero un chingo, pero si no te callas, vas a…!”

“Enough!” Steven yelled, angry. “Can’t the two of you be one minute without fighting? You always…”

He stopped short, looking at Jake, then at Marc. There was a sliver of a memory there, something in the tip of his mind that wanted to come out, but when he tried to chase it, his whole body tensed up, making him feel as if he had just licked a battery.

“You always fight,” he finished the sentence, and when he did, the feeling went away. The memory didn’t come back, it was still behind that electric sensation. But now Steven knew something deep down within himself. And he figured Marc had realized too. “We knew you, before. It is not that we didn’t know you were here… we…”

“Me olvidaron, si,” Jake looked away, and his tone was hurt. “Pero sé que no fue su culpa… y no es lo que importa ahorita.”

“We can’t understand you, Jake. We have no idea what you’re saying,” Marc sighed, looking up to the ceiling. Yes, this was familiar to Steven, in the same way that fighting had been, back in Cairo, after the Duat. Muscle memory, but not exactly because this wasn’t a Muscle that was being woken again.

“Keep things short,” Marc and Steven said at the same time as Jake mumbled in Spanish. “Oraciones cortas.”

They all looked at each other, Marc confused, Steven calculating, Jake hopeful.

“We’ve had this argument before,” Steven looked straight at Jake, who nodded carefully. Steven could see his feet tapping down on the floor, and he just knew that the tapping was following the rhythm of a song only Jake could hear. That that tapping was just like his own fidgeting with his hands, like Marc’s opening and closing fists. A way to calm themselves down.

“Un par de veces,” Jake nodded. What he said was still a mystery, but Steven thought he was getting better at reading the tone. Which was amazing, since he usually was completely hopeless at understanding tone from other people, in a language he actually understood.

“So… Short answers. Khonshu is your friend?” Steven asked and was proud of Marc who only rolled his eyes, rather than express his disbelief out loud.

“Nues…” Jake began, then took a deep breath. “Si.”

“And you work for him… willingly?” Steven insisted, trying to understand how any part of him would be comfortable killing, even if it was for the so called greater good.

Jake opened his mouth, and Steven realized that he was about to launch into a long explanation that would fall in deaf ears so he raised his hand.

“Yes or no, Jake… at least until I learn more Spanish.”

This actually seemed to amuse Jake, who chuckled before giving another short “Si.”

“WHY?!” Marc yelled but shut up when Steven glared at him. “Fine. Don’t tell me until we learn Spanish!”

Seeing that Jake was going to answer, Steven turned his glare at him. “Please, Jake… We want to understand, but it’s hard when we don’t know your language.”

Jake shook his head but, thankfully, let it go. And once again, Steven was hit with the familiarity of it all. Him, trying to negotiate some kind of peace between Marc and Jake, sitting in the middle of their living room. Only… the memory had a different place. Not a living room, but…. He frowned, as he felt the tingling of the electricity back, and he realized he needed to stop thinking about that, because he couldn’t afford the distraction. And yet…

A sudden flash of him and Marc as children, sitting in a marble floor, with another child that had to be Jake, leaning against a column with a sign about… food? A food court? Came before his eyes, but it was gone too fast for Steven to follow.

“¿Cariño?”

“Love?”

Both Marc and Jake sounded worried, but Steven shook his head to ease their worries.

“One problem at a time,” he said, more to himself than to the others. But it was hard to do so. Because he couldn’t shake the feeling that, if he remembered more, maybe they could help Jake better. Either by helping Khonshu, as Jake wanted, or by helping him see that the old god was probably manipulating him too.  “Did he promise you anything?” He asked, remembering how Khonshu kept Marc under his service by threatening to take Layla -even if realistically, the pigeon wouldn’t be able to do anything to force her into Avatarhood and, in fact, had been rejected by her.

“¡No! ¿Cuántas veces les tengo que repetir que él Piolín momificado no es nuestro chingado enemigo? ¡Él te enseño…!”

Jake said something else, but Steven wasn’t listening. Outside “No” and “Nuestro”, he had no idea what the words that Jake was saying meant. But one of those, Piolín, was right at the edge of that electric fence in Steven’s mind space. It tugged at him, the same as Gus 2.0’s apparently regrown fin, the scoff marks in the floor from Marc trying to hide his phone and keys, the missing time before Steven found Marc again… And just like then, he couldn’t stop pulling at the thread, trying to follow it as Marc and Jake yelled concerned, as the voice of Marc’s mother, blaming them for their brother’s death, started shrieking in his ears, joined by more voices, voices Steven didn’t know but instinctually feared.

He lifted his hands to cover his ears, trying to silence the new voices, but he found he couldn’t because they were coming from inside him. From his own memories. His mouth fell full with something, cotton, wet and disgusting, as he could feel something hard and dangerous touch his temples. And he knew, he knew the pain would come, and the only thing to stop the pain was to let go. To forget.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t let Jake and Marc go again. He loved Marc and was starting to love Jake. And even as the voices kept talking, kept telling him that if he just accepted his name was Marc Spector,  if he remembered he was Marc and Jake and Steven didn’t exist, then everything would be fine and they could go back to just a little medication, that he just needed to be normal, for his mother’s sake… But Steven tried to ignore those voices, he tried to chase the memories behind the voices

The shock that came to his temples was a memory, but it was so clear that in the inner space was as if it was real. And Steven felt himself falling, falling deeper into his own mind. But as the darkness enveloped him and he started to lose consciousness, a last thought came to him.

The sky… the sky above him… it looked just like the Other Void in Anubis’s ship.