Work Text:
1; 1997
Dad had said he could go to Emmett’s house. He was allowed to go, he hadn’t done anything wrong.
His mom screamed at him when he walked through the front door.
“Marc, you idiot!”
If they had been an normal family, Marc could have convinced himself that she was worried about him. But even at 11 he knew what she really was doing. She got pleasure from controlling every aspect of his life. It was her way of holding onto reality after RoRo's death.
“You don’t do anything right! How many times have I told you to come straight back?! You never listen to me!”
“I-I was at Emmett’s. Dad said I could go.” He hated the way his voice shook. He was supposed to be strong.
“I don’t care! You obey me.”
“But-”
His words fizzled out, stopped by the venomous glare she shot at him.
“Go to your room. You know the punishment.”
He faltered on the steps. He knew the punishment. He whimpered quietly. He didn’t dare let her hear. Finally getting control of his legs, he ran to his room, careful to not slam the door behind him. Who knew what else she could use as an excuse to punish him.
He tore a blanket from his bed and huddled in the corner, by his mirror. With the blanket over his head, he was safe. There was a shield between him and anything she could do. His panicked breaths made the blanket rise and fall.
Thunderous steps marked her path towards him. Marc’s hand slapped over his mouth and he scrunched his eyes shut. He bit his finger to keep from crying. Mom hated it when he cried.
The blanket was torn off. “Why are you such a baby? You brought this on yourself, it’s your fault.”
The belt in her hand was the same one she had always used. Marc eyed it warily.
She grabbed him roughly by the shirt and pushed him onto his knees. “Don’t scream this time or I’ll give you more. It makes my ears hurt.”
She lifted the belt and-
-Jake took the beating silently, blankly-
-Steven was alone. His back was sore and his bed unruly and unmade. He frowned and blinked. He glanced around the room. “Oh, better make the bed. Maybe Dad’ll read me a story. I liked that hobbit one.”
He folded the blanket clumsily and set it on the bed. He didn’t know why there was blood on the floor. He must’ve gotten a bloody nose. He got those a lot when the weather cooled down.
He sat gingerly at his desk and pulled out his maths homework. He winced as pain shot up his back. It must’ve been his posture, Dad had been saying he needed to work on it, reminding him to sit up straight. He wanted to grow up to be big and tall and strong.
Steven shuffled, sitting up and releasing the pressure on his back. He hummed as he began to calculate the problems, counting on his fingers.
2; 2001
The day was too hot, with a warm breeze and the blistering sun shining down. Even in a thin t-shirt Marc was sweating and burning up. He wondered how hot it had to be for skin to melt.
He didn’t know what had possessed him to do this. He never really had friends at school, so when Darren and Brock took him under their wing, he was grateful. It didn’t matter that they beat up little kids, that they used to pick on him. It didn’t matter that they made him do their homework or help them cheat on tests when he didn’t want to. It didn’t matter that they made jokes about RoRo. That’s just what friends did.
And friends invited each other to go swimming. That was a normal thing to do in the spring, especially on a day this hot.
Still, he regretted coming. He longed to be back at home, sitting on his porch in the shade with a popsicle and comic book.
Instead, he was following Darren, Brock, and two of the bratty popular girls from school down an all-too-familiar path that he definitely didn’t want to be on. His mouth was dry even as he heard the rush of water over the rocks.
It was spring. Snow was melting and the streams and rivers were swollen with water. Just like that dreadful day, the cave was 3 quarters full and hidden behind a curtain waterfall.
His hand shook. “W-what are we doing here?”
“What, are you scared? It’s just some water, don’t be a baby.”
It wasn’t just some water. They knew, all the kids at school knew. When it happened, no one talked to him for a week. The teachers made everyone write him cards with hearts and sorries scrawled inside.
But Darren and Brock were his friends. Brock lived on the other side of the cave, maybe they were just going to his house to play.
They stopped at the base of the cave. Marc looked up. The bratty girls were scrambling like spider monkeys up the side of the cave. Darren looked back at him.
“You coming?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He cursed himself for saying that. He could still run back home.
He clambered up the rocks, scraping his fingers, rocks and dust trickling onto his head. He shook them off. He hoisted himself up the last ledge. He got to his feet, panting, and brushed the dirt off his hands. The girls smiled back at him and skipped to the edge of the cave on the other side, over the water.
Marc slipped off his sandals, frozen and anxious where he had landed.
“Marc, look, stand on the edge with us!” one of the girls squealed. Her voice was whiny, nasily. Marc inched foraward.
“I’m not sure…”
“That’s pathetic, Marc, just come with us.”
They were all standing near the edge now. Marc was behind them, feeling left out. He wanted to join them, he really did, but his heart was racing even just by being at the cave.
His legs made the decision, walking up next to Darren and the nasily girl, planting himself on the rock.
Darren wrapped his chubby arm around Marc’s shoulder. Marc had the sudden urge to shrug it off. He stayed still.
“See? This is why we’re friends.”
Then they pushed him.
His legs and arms flailed wildly. His hair whipped into his face and wind whistled in his ears. He could just hear Darren and Brock and the bratty girls laughing wickedly before he hit the water with a deafening splash.
His feet scraped against the rocks at the bottom. Water spilled into his mouth, half open in a scream, and filled his lungs. He spluttered, choked. He waved his arms, tried to rise to the surface, but was stuck at the bottom. His eyes burned, exposed, and he saw precious air bubbles escape his mouth. Light shattered in fractals and sliced into his sight.
He wondered if this is what it was like for RoRo before he died.
Fear pressed against his lungs. He needed to breathe more than ever before. His chest was compressed and pulled apart by a million hands from a million angles. The edges of his vision turned fuzzy black, then blinding bright white-
-Steven gasped for air, lifting his head out of the water. He coughed for what seemed like an eternity. “Oh dear, oh dear me. A bloody pond.”
He was never the best at swimming and doggy paddled his way to the rocks. There he sat, heaving, water dripping from his hair.
“Well, lovely day to go for a swim,” he said, once he could breath normally. Kids laughed and squealed in the distance. He searched the rocks and found his sandals at the top, above the waterfall, along with bottles and wrappers. He stuffed those into his shorts pockets, mumbling at whoever left them behind, and trekking along the path home.
It felt familiar somehow, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. He’d heard of this place and thought it awfully cool that he lived near a waterfall, but Dad had forbade him from ever visiting it.
Still, he’d just gone for a dip, right? That’s what had happened, he remembered now. It was a very hot day, he had just wanted to cool off a bit. He could remember dipping his toes into the water, then his whole body.
It was a harmless swim, Dad didn’t have to hear about it.
3; 2003
Dad had worked all day, and Mom had sat on the couch, drinking. She had stared blankly at the wall, a bottle glued to her hand.
Dad had brough a cupcake home from work. Marc knew he risked coming home late and stood patiently as his wife berated him and he was grateful for this small gift. The candles cast dramatic, gothic shadows on the walls.
His Dad smiled warmly at him. “You thinking of a wish?”
Marc folded his hands neatly in his lap. “Yep.”
He wished he could leave. He wished RoRo was back. He wished he had never brought him to that cave. He wished he could take those pills in the bathroom and not chicken out each time. He wished this nightmare could be over.
“Blow ‘em out son, I want a lick of that frosting.”
He gave a weak smile and blew out the candles; 16. 16 years of this hell. How many more could he take?
His Dad clapped his shoulders and grinned. “Growing up so fast, you’re gonna make your old man cry.”
“Aw, don’t cry. Have some frosting.”
Marc savored the cupcake. Mom was still on the couch, she couldn’t beat him from there. He ate it systematically, trying to make it last as long as possible. First the frosting, then the rest. He licked his finger and ate every crumb.
His Dad ruffled his hair. “Hey, I’ve got a little bit of work to do, but then let’s watch a movie, yeah? Your pick.”
Marc nodded. He always had work. He watched him disappear into his room, and knew he wouldn’t be coming out for hours.
Satisfied that he had consumed every part of the cupcake, he picked up the plates from the table.
“I wish he had lived, and not you.”
Marc couldn’t help the way his grip faltered as he carried the plate to the sink. His heart lept a little. He turned his back, unable to look at her. He busied himself washing the plate, hands shaking wildly.
She was uncharacteristically silent after that admission. He almost wanted her to go through the checklist: I hate you, it’s all your fault, you will never be as good as him, you aren’t my son. At least he was used to those. The silence was unnerving and he was terrified to face her again.
But the plate was cleaner than it had ever been. He scrubbed it one last time, prolonging this as much as he could, and finally dried it, stuffing it in a cabinet.
He turned. His mom’s eyes were red and glazed over. She took another swig of the bottle. Marc held a breath. She wasn’t focused. He could rush past her and go up the stairs and maybe she wouldn’t even notice.
He put his head down as he walked, quickly but smoothly, trying to make it seem casual.
“Marc.”
Her voice was a metal barrier thrown in front of him, forcing him to stop. He dug his nail into his hand, focusing on the pain. He just had to get to his room.
She looked him in the eye, cold and calculating. It was scarier than any other rabid look she had ever given him in his life. It was sinister.
It was as if foam bubbled at her mouth as she hissed.
“I wish you were dead.”
He could barely make it up the steps to his room before he collapsed on the floor by his dresser. His old figurines tumbled to the floor. He clawed at his throat, trying to loosen a nonexistent noose. His nails left raw marks on his skin. Gasping for air, unable to breath or think or focus he blinked, blinked, blinked-
-Steven was sitting on the floor. He blinked and looked around. Furrowing his eyebrows, he hummed. “Oh dear, what the bloody hell happened this time? Clothes on the floor, tsk, what a mess. Ah, my minifigures! There you are, ya buggers, I thought I’d lost ya. You know where you go; up on the dresser, there ya go.”
4; 2021
Moving clouds had always unnerved him.
Layla leaned into his shoulder. She hummed. “Whatcha lookin at?”
Marc nodded at the sky. “It’s kinda… freaky, isn’t it? How fast the clouds move?”
“Hmm. I think it’s nice. My dad and I used to climb onto the roof of our house and just lay, and at night we would watch the stars but sometimes during the day we would watch the clouds just move on and on. We could spend a whole day up there.”
Marc stiffened at the mention of Layla’s dad. He’d been meaning to tell her - he had meant to tell her long, long ago, but it never happened. He was a coward and had shut his mouth before the words could ever spill out. She deserved to know, he knew, but he was unable to bring himself to tell her.
She glanced up at him. Her gaze was soft and concerned. “You alright?”
He sniffed, nodded. “Yeah. Just don’t like the clouds.”
Layla snickered. “Mr. Macho Mercenary Marc is scared of the clouds.”
He let out a nervous laugh and stood, running his hand through his hair. “Hey, how ‘bout you get some of that takeout you’ve been wanting to show me? I’ll clean the room.”
“You’re telling me Marc Spector is going to clean? Did you hit your head?”
“Funny funny. Just go. Consider it a wedding gift.”
“Few years too late for that, husband.”
“There’s no statute of limitations for stuff like that.”
Layla grabbed her purse. With a glance at her as she pecked his cheek, Marc knew she didn’t believe the excuse. She was smart like that, she knew him. (Or, she thought so.) This was a pity leave, then.
“Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone.”
He saluted her. “Yes ma’am.”
When the door to their hotel room finally closed, Marc let the wave of anxiety course through his veins. He hated how his first instinct was to escape, whenever Layla got too close.
He dug through his bag for a handful of sleeping pills and drank them down. He needed a break, a real break. He needed to slip into the background and let someone else take control. It would be close, but hopefully Steven would fall asleep before Layla came back. Then Marc just had to be the one to wake.
He banged his head lightly on the wall. Maybe he could force Steven out-
-The room was messy, that’s what Steven noticed first. He couldn’t believe anyone lived like this.
“Dear me, where am I? I- oh good heavens is that mold? This is atrocious, what nitwit did this?”
He pressed a worried hand to his forehead. He searched around the room for a bloody broom and folded the curious combat gear, setting them gently on the bed, which he paused to make.
He felt nervous, though he couldn’t understand why. All he knew was that cleaning solved everything. He dusted all the surfaces, organized the two sets of toiletries in the bathroom, scrubbed a mysterious stain out of his own shirt, and even bugged a hoover off the cleaning lady.
The question of how he got here and whose room this was nagged at him like a pressure on his brain, but he swiped it away with the window cleaner. He was seriously worried about the mental health of the people that were staying in this room. Had these windows ever been cleaned? They were grimy and smudged. They were so dirty that his reflection was distorted and broken and he swore he saw it move apart from him.
And he was unusually tired. What a day, he thought, sitting on the spotless blankets among the two duffel bags. Waking in a strange room, cleaning, and falling asleep. At least he had gotten that nasty stain out.
He was out in a minute, a heavy weight on the bed.
Layla ruffled his hair as she set the takeout on the counter.
“He’s more mental than I thought,” she muttered, “he actually cleaned.”
5; 2024
Thick blood covered his hands. Usually the suit took most of it and Khonshu kept it clean, but this time he had taken the suit off too early.
The man at his feet, slumped against the short stone wall, was unconscious and oozing blood. A cavernous gash ran the length of his head. Had Marc gone any further, the man would’ve died.
He held his hands in front of him, watching painfully as the blood trickled onto his sleeve, staining them. Steven was fronting more and more these days, he had to clean this all up and get back to Steven’s apartment from wherever this freak show Khonshu had led him to was before he lost control.
He had to get to Steven’s apartment.
He searched for a sign. He was in Slough. If he could catch a bus, he could be back in London by 5. Hopefully Steven would wake up and could get some rest, they needed it.
He snatched clothes from a line - a grandma’s sweater and a pair of long, flowy pants - and changed in a dark alleyway. He pickpocketed enough change off a young couple and a gruff business man to pay for a ticket.
The ruined clothes he dunked in gasoline and set on fire in a metal bin. In a gas station, he scrubbed his hands until skin peeled raw and red and the water stopped draining half blood, but he couldn’t get rid of the memory.
By 3 in the morning, Marc was sitting on a bus with a grad student, a snickering pair of teens, and a homeless man. He pressed his head against the window. It was a jarring vibration that he leaned into.
He didn’t dare close his eyes. He watched through blurry, tired vision, as England woke and the sky brightened. He couldn’t fall asleep it case it was Steven who woke up, but he desperately wanted to.
At the apartment, he fumbled for the key under the welcome mat. Blood stained it, he’d have to be sure to wash it. When he opened the door, he felt a rush of home. Steven’s home was his home, at least for now. And, if all went well, if he could get himself (and Layla) away from Khonshu’s cold dead bird claws, it would be for the foreseeable future. He wanted Steven to live as much of a peaceful, ordinary life as he could.
He put the tape on the door, the sand over his footsteps, and clasped the restraint to his ankle. It took all the strength he had to make it into bed and not collapse on the floor. He couldn’t stop thinking about the man with his face bashed in, blood spattering Marc’s clothes and hands. He had to burn those clothes, not even clean freak Steven could get those stains out.
He knew that, if he had pulled that trigger on the steps of Evil Pigeon’s temple, kids would have their parents and families wouldn’t mourn for bodies too mangled to be on display and he wouldn’t have blood on his hands, at least not like this.
He was so exhausted. He needed to disappear for a long time, sink into Steven’s domesticism and homey attitude. A loud, choking cry escaped from his mouth. He buried his face in a pillow-
-Steven’s hands smelled like copper. There was dried blood under his fingernails. He frowned, morning sun streaming into his room. The sand was untouched, just how he had left it. He was fastened to the beam, and a glance at the tape on the door reassured him that he hadn’t gone anywhere in his sleep.
He went through his morning routine. He eyed his rubix cube on the dresser. He didn’t remember solving it. He must’ve done that early, early in the morning. Sometimes he couldn’t distinguish those times from dreams.
He tapped on the glass of the fish tank.
“Gus, good morning love. I had a wicked dream. You didn’t happen to get a head wound while I was asleep, did you? Of course not, that’s bonkers. How are you today? What do you think, toast or porridge for breakfast?”
+1; 2025
Marc screamed his name until his voice refused to work any longer. He collapsed against the side of boat, unable to stand.
Behind him, barely registering in his mind, a clink and a soft gasp from Taweret. “The scales are balanced.”
And he found himself in a golden field, the blazing sun shining directly behind him. Gone was the ship, the Duat, the sand… gone was Steven.
He stood for a moment, completely frozen. His lungs refused to move and he wondered if his heart stopped beating briefly.
It all came back in a sick, painful wave that rushed over him with an intensity he had never felt in his life.
He’d had panic attacks before, they were part of him like back pain or migraines. He knew the seizing of his throat and the tightening of his chest like he knew his own birthday. But this one threatened to ruin him.
He pressed his hands against his neck, forcing them in place despite the out of control tremble. Legs shaking, he fell to the ground. The dirt in paradise was freakishly soft, a cushion beneath him, but a pebble dug into the back of his skull.
On his back, shoulders shaking and chest heaving and arms seizing and throat closing, he looked up at the sky.
He wanted Steven. His best friend, his only friend, his better half. His protector. He wanted him back so much that pain shot up from his heart and refused to dissipate.
There, on the ground, clutching his chest and sobbing and experiencing the worst panic he had ever felt, he let himself be swallowed by the cursed reeds and the liquid sun.
Steven had helped him through the worst times of his life, and he repayed him by sentencing him to death.
Marc wondered if, through sheer panic, he could bring Steven to him. It might have worked when they were all together, but now he was three different bodies and separate people and Steven was Steven was dead Steven was dead Steven was dead Steven was dead Steven was dead
He let the terror consume him until he was nothing more than a grey corpse jerking and writhing on a bed of reeds. The sun appeared to him as cracks through a coffin. He would kill himself a hundred times over if it meant Steven had gotten to live. If anyone’s heart deserved to be balanced, it was Steven’s. Pure, soft Steven.
Another cry tore at his throat. Not even Jake was there for him.
The hurt, abused kid inside him sobbed. He screamed and screamed in a desperate attempt to fill the quiet golden air.
Marc Spector was completely, utterly alone.