Despacito (Slowly)

Steven didn’t know who was more nervous, if him or Jake. Before he remembered? He had wanted to know Jake, understand why their third Alter had kept to himself for so long, and why he had chosen seduction through song of all things to make them remember.

Now, however, things were different. He still didn’t remember everything, because most of those memories, the clarity of them, were still in Khonshu’s care. But he could grasp vague impressions. Ghost images of them as children. Of them as teenagers, both alone and with the old bird looking over them -especially once Marc figured out a solution to the Statue problem without them running away to New York- and part of him wanted to chase those ghosts and figure things out… except he knew it would be faster just to accept the feelings he had recovered, and know that once this was solved, the memories would came back.

“Entonces… ¿Qué es lo qué recuerdas, Corazón?”

“I remember you started calling me that when we turned 14, and liked seeing me turn red,” Steven said, the memory coming back to him as he spoke, feeling himself blush. “You… liked doing that because it made Marc mad.”

Jake laughed, a true honest laugh that sounded like the best thing in the world for Steven now that the memories were coming back. Their real memories, and not the fractured things he had seen in Anubis’ ship. Because now he understood that what he had seen had been colored by Marc’s experiences, and more importantly, by the way Marc’s own mind had filled out the holes created by the pills and the shocks.

“Marquitos no sabía cómo expresar sus sentimientos entonces…” Then Jake sobered up, looking away at the wall where he kept his photos. They had chosen to stay in Jake´s room to give Marc and Layla´s privacy as it was still the one more closed to everyone. “… nos robaron tantas cosas, que me sorprende que pueda expresarlos ahora.”

“You and I both know he is still the most emotionally constipated of the three of us,” Steven pointed out. Because yes, he loved Marc, but getting the man to talk about his feelings, or act upon them? It was a titanic job that took most of his and Layla's patience.

In fact, with one dance at the Museum's storage room, Jake had managed to make Marc express more emotions than all of Steven and Layla´s attempts.

“Bueno, fue el que tuvo el peor ejemplo,” Jake said, quietly as he sat in his cot. Steven frowned upon seeing it, wondering when Jake would decide to change it for something more comfortable. After all, it wasn’t as if he still was thinking that Marc and Steven didn’t want him around, was it? “Tú creaste a los Grant en tu mente, y ellos eran mucho mejores padres que los Spector…. Y yo…”

“You had the old Bird,” Steven finished. “Although now I think that a lot of the things I used to think were Mu… Her… were my broken memories of him, you know? He was the one who told us about all the places his Statue had been, and how because of the Moon… he was always traveling.”

“Piolín siempre fue mejor que esa mujer,” Jake nodded. “¿Cómo recordaste?”

“I haven't got everything back, but I know now why I was the one who forgot everything when you were the one who took the brunt of the shock therapy,” Steven remembered that much. How Jake would push and fight his way to make sure neither Marc nor Steven got the actual shock as it happened. Sometimes, most of the time, he managed. The few times he didn't were the scars that Steven had reopened to find his path back to the Other void.

“No podía dejar que los lastimaran así”, Jake said, as Steven sat next to him. It was obvious now that, for all of his Hispanic bravado, Jake wasn´t sure if his touch, his real touch, in their mind space, would be welcomed. So Steven did the same thing he had done for Marc, to make Marc realize how much he was loved and wanted. He just side hugged Jake, letting him know he was there. “Y aún así, no pude salvarte siempre.”

“You did more than enough. You gave me time to save myself,” Steven sighed as Jake looked at him, obviously not believing him. “The Old bird taught us how to share memories, remember? Put them in those orbs, organize them so we could watch them if one of us wasn’t conscious at the time?”

“Ah, sí. Las canicas de los recuerdos,” Jake nodded. “Tú siempre fuiste mejor creándolas que Marquitos y yo.”

“Yeah, well… I put everything… all our time together. You, him… even Khonshu, in their own marbles, took them off my head, so that the shocks and chemicals couldn’t reach them,” Steven explained, figuring that he remembered that, because even as he was taking off his own memories, he was creating that one. The human mind was a complicated mess, and nothing proved it better than him, Jake, Marc, and the whole situation they were in. “And then I gave them to the old Bird, so he could safeguard them.”

“Espera… ¡¿Quieres decir que todo este tiempo, Piolin tenía tus recuerdos y no nos lo dijo?!¡Nada más lo rescatemos voy a patearle el huesudo trasero tan duro que va a desear que Layla lo dejara encerrado en su ushabti!”

“As if you didn't make him promise not to tell me and Marc about you when we found him again,” Steven pointed out, laughing. It was so freeing, so good to be able to talk to Jake again like this. Even without all his memories, he had his feelings back. And for that? He´d risk traveling unprotected through the Other Void a thousand times over.

“¿Él te lo dijo?”

“No, but I have a brain, you know,” Steven pointed out. “You and Marc think alike when it comes to the whole protecting me business. Marc thought he was protecting me by keeping us separate and me completely ignorant of his existence. So it follows that you would take big steps to make sure we didn’t know about your godly best friend.”

 “Nuestro mejor amigo,” Jake corrected, but Steven shook his head.

“Before, maybe. But at that time, you were the only one who remembered him,” Steven paused, looked at Jake. It just occurred to him then that there may be more to the story of Khonshu reviving Marc as his avatar, given that now Steven knew that Khonshu would’ve fixed Marc up, no conditions needed. But there were other pressing issues to consider first. “So… the Old bird mentioned you have a limousine? How did that happen?”

And there was a story there too, Steven realized, judging by the way panic settled in Jake’s face.

*          *          *

Whatever Marc had been expecting when he checked in with Steven and Jake after talking to Layla was not Jake looking quite chastised and Steven glaring at him. After he had come back, Steven had seemed far closer to Jake than ever so… this was new.

“What did I miss?” Marc asked, out loud, as to let Layla know what was going on.

“Marc, you pay rent for my apartment, right?” Steven asked, apparently out of nowhere. “Utilities and such? What I though M… She paid for?”

“Yeah?” Marc was completely lost, but with each word, Jake seemed to shrink more unto himself.

“So… did you ever meet our landlord? Or did you think I just happened to find the place and decide I could afford it with a gift-shopist Salary?”

“¡Dije que lo sentía! ¡Además, no viste los lugares en los que Marquitos quería que te quedaras! Hacían ver su bodega como un palacio.” Jake replied, too fast for Marc to catch anything more than his name and the fact that Jake was very, very ashamed of whatever he had done. “Y además, las cuentas estarán a mi nombre, pero solo use los consejos que tú me diste…”

“Again… What did I miss?” Marc asked again, now only inside signaling to Layla to wait for a moment.  Despite the urgency both Steven and Jake had to help Khonshu, it seemed they found ways to distract themselves from the matter at hand.

“Jake here is a secret millionaire and the owner of this building,” Steven said at the same time that Jake replied in Spanish. “Puede que tenga más lana de la que uno consigue trabajando como taxista…”

Marc blinked, looking at Jake in his denim jeans, black shirt and newsboy cap. He looked no different from him and Steven, except for the moustache that adorned his upper lip. Not what Marc had come to identify as a “Millionaire” Look. Hell, sure, some of them wore black shirts, but those were usually turtlenecks.

“What? No… I make the checks to…”

“Gena Landers,” Jake said. “Una amiga mía, que hace los mejores hot-cakes de Londres. Y…  me deja usar su nombre para algunas cosas.”

“And where did you get the money to buy a building and a limousine with a gift-shoppist salary? Because last I checked, I was the only one of us with a day job!” Steven was really angry about it.

“¡Oye! ¡Yo también trabajo! ¡Cuando me dejan el cuerpo, tengo mi ruta de taxista!”

“Well, a cab driver salary doesn’t pay for a full ass building! Or a limousine!”

“He has a limo?” Marc was trying to follow the argument, but he was lost. Was Steven implying that their apartment, with all their books and space and the big window that gave them a perfect look of the moon was theirs? Well, Jake’s? “How did you get a limo? Why did you get a limo?”

“¿Cómo crees que conseguías la información de narcotraficantes en Londres? ¿Consultando la sección amarilla?” Whatever Jake had just said, Marc knew it was insulting him. Then again, Jake pretty much was always insulting him, just to get him to answer and prove he was understanding. At the thought, Marc frowned. He didn’t remember speaking to Jake before this day, and yet, he was sure, as sure as he was that Steven was his soul and superpower, that Jake only insulted him because he wanted Marc to acknowledge him. As he chased that thought, he felt his head become heavy, fogged, as it had been in that horrible fake hospital his mind had created. But he needed to chase that thought, the certainty that Jake never really meant those insults, that he was just teasing Marc, and that when Jake crossed a line, he always apologized with some small detail, usually bought with the money Jake got when fronting working for Mr. Zapata, of the corner store near the Spector’s house, even if Jake was saving that money for them to run away one day. That was why Marc had…

“I got you your newsboy cap, the first one,” He said, apparently out of the blue, fog lifting suddenly around that simple fact even if the rest remained hidden, surprising both Jake and Steven. “I… I don’t know how I know this, but I did, didn’t I?”

Steven uncrossed his arms and walked to Marc’s side.

“Luv? Are you… remembering? Does it feel like if your body was being shocked?”

Marc shook his head.

“No... my thing were the pills, remember? They had me medicated, and sedated, until I couldn’t remember my name, let alone yours,” Marc knew what Steven was asking. He had seen his love double in pain when the memories were coming. So for Steven, the barrier was the electricity that had run through their body. For him, it was the fog created by the drugs.

It was not going to be fun to fight that.

“Am I right?” he asked Jake, meeting his eyes. “Did I buy you that first hat?”

Jake smiled, fondly, regaining some of his usual swagger.

“Y aún la conservo, en una de nuestras bodegas. Cuando me la diste, te prometí que te enseñaría a bailar como todo un latín lover,” And then, again, that confident wink, that shot a lightning of lust through Marc even when this was not the time to think about that. “Creo que la primera lección salió bien, ¿No, Mi Cielo?”

Steven coughed, just as Marc felt himself flush. He still had no idea what Jake was saying, but he knew it was something sexual because that wink? That wink wasn’t innocent at all. And well, Steven was blushing too and Steven understood Jake now.

“Jake, don’t tease Marc. And when you say ‘our warehouses’…. Please tell me that doesn’t mean you also own that horrible place Marc was sleeping in when he had no time to get back here,” Steven glared again at Jake, but it didn’t have the same strength as before, Marc noticed. It seemed that Steven’s worry for what was going in Marc’s head was stronger than his annoyance with Jake hiding the fact that he had been sitting on a pile of money for a while.

“Nunca dijiste que las bodegas eran una buena inversión así que… no,” Jake shrugged. “Y en serio… no quería guardar el secreto. Solo no sabía cómo decirles cuando no sabían que existía, y pues… no parecía que este fuera el mejor momento para revelarlo. A menos que necesitemos dos boletos para el Cairo… Porque entonces, puedo conseguir primera clase. Layla lo merece.”

“You took us to Cairo in first class the first time?” Steven asked, more shocked than angry in Marc’s opinion. “And we can’t remember?!”

“No… entonces le pedí a Frenchie que nos llevara. Teníamos prisa.”

Marc knew that name, and groaned. “You know Frenchie too?”

“El cree que soy tú. Cuando el se emborracha, habla en francés, yo en español y  él no ve la diferencia,” Jake shrugged, as Steven translated. And Marc couldn’t help but feel sad for Jake because he wondered how many actual friends Jake had, since he couldn´t have possibly been fronting for long times, not without Marc noticing.

“We don’t need to go to Cairo,” Steven said, cutting off that tangent, probably because he didn’t know who Frenchie was. Marc had made very sure that Steven never fronted when they were around Jean Paul “Frenchie” Duchamp, not because he thought the man wouldn’t like him, but because when he and Marc were together, things were usually blowing up.  “The trial is not held in the Pyramid of Giza, and even if it was, we’d get a portal to it, remember? That’s what Khonshu said about the first one.”

“This sounds like planning time,” Marc interrupted. “Think you should front, let Layla hear too.” At the twin stares of confusion, he realized that between the reveal of Jake’s fortune, his own breakthrough and them worrying about Khonshu, he never told them what he talked about with Layla. He hadn’t even remember they hadn’t been listening, as he had already gotten used to Steven being always aware when awake. “She says she’s on board. She’s going to help us however she can.”

“Te casaste con un Tesoro, Marc,” Jake grinned. “En serio, si Estebancito no hubiera logrado que tu Morenita los perdonara, te hubiera pateado el trasero de ida y vuelta hasta el campo de las cañas.”

“Layla is the best,” Steven replied to whatever Jake said, then hugged first Jake, kissing the other man’s cheek, then Marc, kissing him on the lips. And Marc was surprised to realize that this time? He wasn’t jealous. Of either. He was just… happy that every part of themselves was finding how they fit together, again. “Ok, so listen carefully…”

*          *          *

“The only gods who have avatars right now, are Tawaret and Khonshu, right?” Layla looked up when Steven started talking out loud. She had dozed off a bit when Marc told her he was going to check on the others, still tired from her flight, but the moment she heard Steven’s sweet British accent again, she was wide awake. “Everyone else got killed by Ammut and company.”

“Yes?” She replied, unsure if she was talking to him or it was just the Body channeling whatever the guys were saying. But then Steven looked straight into her eyes and mouthed a quick ‘Thank you’, so she knew she was being included. And decided to cuddle a bit closer to him, being rewarded by a hug.

“So they can’t judge Khonshu on Giza, because well, Osiris couldn’t rule. And they didn’t get new avatars in the last month because they’re… very specific on how they get one. That’s one of the rules the old bird broke. Tawaret too, now that I think of it, but I don’t think she’ll get in trouble for you.”

“How do you know this?” Layla asked, frowning. Steven getting sudden knowledge of things always scared her a bit. Even his fighting prowess was a bit too much to take. And while she didn’t want to give any credit to Marc’s idea of brainwashing, she still needed to know.

“I’m guessing a bit,” Steven admitted, shrugging. “During the fiasco that was Harrow’s trial, Osiris’ avatar mentioned that Khonshu was too close to humans, and had almost revealed them with his masks, and weapons. And with that trial? Every avatar had a portal to the pyramid, even us. So if the trial was in Giza, you and Jake would’ve been called to project the gods, which means the trial must be in the Other void.”

“That… makes sense,” Layla nodded, still not fully convinced. “But you can get in there, right?”

“Yeah, and I think time moves a bit differently there, so we still have time to get there. Not much, but I’m pretty sure Khonshu’s fate hasn’t been decided yet.” Steven continued. “But… if we all go, that’s, me, Steven and Jake, the Body is going to be… well, comatose for a bit.”

“How long?” Layla was worried now. She had enough friends in London that she could maybe get help to put the boys in intravenous feeding but… she hoped that was not needed.

“Hopefully no more than a night?” Steven shrugged. “You may get called in by Tawaret if things go sideways, is that ok?”

“I told Marc, and I’m telling you: I got your backs! No matter what, I’m here for you guys,” Layla repeated and, to make sure Steven understood the message, kissed him deeply. She loved them, and was starting to like Jake, so she wanted them to understand that there was no leaving her behind if she could help.

“You are the best, Luv,” Steven kissed her back, grinning. “You know what? I think we can make this work. “The body will probably just fall asleep, but anything happens, we trust you to do the best for us. All of us trust you.”

“Even Jake?” Layla wondered, as she was aware they had met very recently.

“Even Jake. He thinks the world of you,” Steven grinned. “And he says he wants to serenade you again… ‘properly’ this time, once we rescue our… once we rescue Khonshu.”

Once again, Layla found wise not to mention Steven’s little slip about the god. She figured he was correcting himself for Marc’s sake, but hoped that once everything was over, she’d get the full story.

“Jake Lockley, tienes una cita conmigo,” She said instead, aware of her horrible accent but confident Jake would hear her. Then she turned to Steven, and asked the other question that was burning her curiosity.  “How are you going to get to the Other void?”

And the smile Steven gave her was so bright, it was almost like a full moon in a night filled with stars.

“Easy. Jake is going to drive us there.”

*          *          *

“Perdón… ¿Qué voy a hacer qué?”

Jake miró a su Corazón convencido de que el recuperar sus recuerdos -y enterarse de las propiedades a sus nombres- lo habían vuelto completamente loco. O tal vez las advertencias de Khonshu finalmente se habían hecho realidad y el Otro Vacío había destruido su mente.

“Drive us through the Other Void, of course,” Steven was grinning, which made Jake worry a bit more, so he looked at Marc.

“Dijo que quiere que conduzca a través de un vacío inter-dimensional, ¿O escuche mal?”

“I still don’t understand you, Jake,” Marc sighed and looked at Steven. Fortunately, his Cielo seemed to be in the same page as Jake as the next words out of his mouth were the same that Jake was thinking. “Steven, Jake can’t drive through the Other Void! First, only you can get there, and two, we have no cars here.”

Steven looked at Marc expectantly, as Marc opened his arms to encompass the whole of the apartment. Jake blinked, wondering if he had missed something in translation, when it dawned on him.

The only reason they had no cars there, was because… they hadn’t thought they needed a car there. If he wanted a car to work at in his free time, to just be busy while the other two fronted? He could have one… just like Steven had his library and Marc had a punching bag that appeared only when Marc was really frustrated and couldn’t just front and punch someone.

“Un momento,” he said, and went to his room door, opened it and glanced inside.

Just as he had though? SHE was there. The most beautiful car he had ever seen, the car of his dreams, since he was 15. A gorgeous White ’73 Buick Riviera, just waiting for him to take her out in the open road.

Of course, that was the problem. His room had turned into somewhat of a garage apartment, but it had no garage door, no way outside. His baby had nowhere to go.

Sighing, he closed the door and went back to his head-mates.

“Suponiendo que tuviera un carro… ¿Cómo lo sacaríamos de un departamento en el quinto piso?” He asked, nonchalantly, even if his fingers were aching to get behind the wheel of the White beauty in his room.

“We're not on the fifth floor here,” Steven pointed out, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And Marc can open a door for you. He's good at modeling our innerspace.”

Marc, always quick on the uptake, glared at them.

“You mean to tell me he has a car in there?” Marc shook his head and started pacing, and as he did, he opened Jake’s room door to see the gorgeous car still there, still waiting for a better exit. “Of course he has a car here. Why not? We talk to gods, we share a body, and now, our non-English speaking Alter has a car in his room that just five hours ago, was downstairs from this room, and now you two want us to go and rescue a god who manipulated my life for three years!”

Jake was about to hit Marc again, because he was getting tired of him complaining about rescuing Khonshu, but Steven stopped him.

“He’s just overwhelmed, Jake… Same thing happened at Anubis ship. Just let him vent, for a bit.” Steven said just as Marc reached the opposite wall.

“You want me to open a door to outside here? Sure, I can do that, love,” Marc continued, his Chicago accent growing stronger by the minute. “Just don’t be disappointed if outside is not…”

Marc trailed off as he realized that yeah, he had created a garage door inside Jake’s room and had opened it. Only it didn’t open to a view of the real world, as all their windows did. Instead, it opened to a bit of road that just stopped as the huge vastness of the alien galaxies of the Other void.

“What the…?” Marc started saying, and Jake finished for him “…. Chingados?”

Steven walked out of the room, right to where the road disappeared, and motioned for them to follow. Outside, what was their home looked like a rock slab, not a building precisely, just… a rock. With a garage door. And Jake could see it was floating in the middle of nowhere.

“What’s going on, Steven?” Marc asked, as Jake cautiously moved as far as the edge as he could without going back to the safety of their inner world home.

“Remember what Tawaret said? That there were thousands of interconnected planes of reality?”

“Vaguely?” Marc answered while Jake shook his head. He hadn’t been there for them when Harrow shoot them, and the shock had trapped him in a wooden sarcophagus so he had missed that part of their trip.

“Yes well, apparently, one of those interconnected planes is our mind,” Steven opened his arms to show them all the expanse of galaxies around them. “And I figured out how to access the entrance… because we’re connected to Khonshu.”

“So, because I accepted to be his avatar, I connected our head to… this?” Marc pointed to the sky, and Jake could tell how the wheels in his Cielo’s head were turning. “But… Jake told Layla you disappeared on us… before. Before we met him, before we were even sent to the hospital!”

“Part of our forgotten history,” Steven nodded, and Jake realized that Steven was giving Marc the tiny pieces he needed to find out his own memories past the wall created by the drugs he had been given.  “You will remember… but… it will have to be on the way to the Trial.”

“Aún no sé cómo crees que voy a llevarlos… tú eres el que sabe cómo encontrar a nuestro pajarillo perdido,” Jake murmured, looking at the endless void. There were no roads there, how was he supposed to drive his new baby there?

“Well, the route I took last time was pretty rough, I would rather not have to do it again and I'm not sure I can get you all with me that way,” Steven said. “But I know you can do it, Jake. Think about it…  whenever we got lost, you were the one who always found our way back… That’s who you were, right? His Explorer? He knew you would always find a path. You just need to remember how to look.”

Marc asked about what Steven was talking about, but Jake was not really paying attention. It was true: Khonshu always called him his pequeño explorador because while Steven was always trying to follow the god and ask him about the past… Jake was always trying to find ways to… get away. At first it was just trying to run away, get him and his alters as far away from that woman as he could, but as they grew older, it was just the idea of leaving, of being on the road… of finding new places and just… drive.

After he lost his connection with his Corazón and his Cielo, maps became his friends. Oh, sure, whenever he fronted, he made new friends too, Crawley, Gena… even Frenchie even if the man thought that Jake was just a very drunk Marc who forgot English after one too many tequilas. But Maps? Maps were his connection the past, when he'd sit with Estebancito, Marquitos and the old Tweety Bird, as the god told them where his Statue had been and Jake would find the routes he had taken, always unerring, trying to figure out where the lost temples were, without Khonshu telling them.

And of course, that night… that horrible night when Marc had almost… almost died? Jake had wrestled control long enough to find Khonshu´s temple.

How could've forgotten that, when it was the first step that had taken them here, to reuniting again just as he thought they would lose everything right then?

He blinked away the tears that had formed at the memory and then stared. Because the void was no longer a void. Now he could see how the stars, the galaxies and nebulas, formed distinct paths, not only in the distance, but also one that came right to his feet. All of them in different colors, all of them promising different new destinations.

“Corazón, Cielo… no se imaginan la chingonería que estoy viendo,” Jake said, and as he focused a bit, he realized he knew exactly which road would take them to Khonshu. “Súbanse al carro… tenemos un juicio que interrumpir.”

*          *          *

When Jake turned to see them, the grin obvious in his voice even if Marc still didn’t know what he was saying, the sense of dizziness and loss of reality that came with the memory of the drugs hit him hard, making him fall to his knees.

The twin screams of Love and Cielo weren’t enough to pierce the fog that came to him when he saw Jake’s eyes in that moment.

They had gone dark, so black that there was almost no Iris to be found at all… as if his eyes were the new moon in a white sky.

In any other time, if he saw that in his face, in any of his alters’ face? He’d suspect they were being possessed by someone. Khonshu, maybe, or another god. But Marc knew that the man who was so happy about the sky above them was Jake. He knew that deep in his bones and his heart, even if the part of him who resisted so much to the idea of any of them liking Khonshu, of them having any reason to save the bird, still wanted to find reasons to mistrust Jake.

But the reason why the fog came was because right then, right there, he realized he had seen those exact black eyes before once… looking at him from the reflection of his own knife, the night that he had almost died.

As the drug induced fog claimed his brain, Marc could remember nine words that ringed on his ears that night, before he blacked out and woke up at Khonshu’s statue’s feet.

“¡Reacciona, con una chingada! ¡No vamos a moriraquí!”