Chapter Text
What did you do this time?
"It is good to see you too, Jake," Khonshu says, easing himself from the car. He leans on the trunk with one elbow and crosses his ankles. "I would expect more gratitude given I have returned with both your car and your body." He gestures expansively, "you see, I drove," the god says, and Jake's honestly slightly disturbed at just how smug he manages to make their body seem. "It was surprisingly easy once I became used to your mortal shell."
Jake definitely doesn’t imagine pecking the cocky asshole in the head. Mainly because it’s his own head, and with any luck he’ll be inhabiting it again soon. Of course he’ll review that if there’s any damage to his beloved. But for now, the vulture's in the clear. He stalks around the car, checking her for scrapes and dents.
"Your car is undamaged," Khonshu assures him. "Can you say the same for my body?"
Jake pauses in his inspection of the front bumper and says coldly,
At the moment, yes. If you've damaged her that might change.
"Jake mate, could you give me a hand a sec?" Steven says from within the car, which gives Jake a moment's pause. He'd heard him earlier and assumed the kid was enduring a tug of war with the vulture. But no, he continues from somewhere inside, "having a bit of bother with the door."
Afraid not kid, Jake intones, you're going to need Khonshu for that.
It's instantly obvious what this bother is once Khonshu has grudgingly sauntered round and opened the passenger door.
Steven lifts one translucent blue hand in a jerky wave as he drifts over.
"Yeah," he says wryly. "It's all a bit Obi Wan, innit?"
Jake straightens from his crouch, skull tipping to one side in confusion. Almost unbidden, he brings the staff up and inches it hesitantly towards Steven’s glowing arm. This makes even less goddamn sense than his own situation.
"Oi!" Steven backs away, clipping through the side of the car a little in his attempt to move away. "Not on, mate. This is bloody strange enough without you waving stuff through me."
Sorry, Jake says, and nearly laughs. It's almost the certainly the first time that word has passed this beak. Any ideas on fixing this? He asks Steven, because he's not willing to give the goddamn crow the satisfaction.
"Buggered if I know," the ghost shrugs, "Old Bird? Any ideas?"
“A moment,” Khonshu says, looking from Steven’s translucent figure to Jake. "Hmmm. I see." He reaches out and grasps Jake's wrist.
Ice-bright searing cold flashes out from the contact, burning the world to white.
Jake gasps, pulls his tingling arm back to clutch at his chest. His heart is racing as he looks up at Khonshu. The angular body sways a little and he clutches at the staff desperately to steady himself.
Bloody hell! What the… Steven raises one hand and turns it this way and that before the cavenous eye sockets. Oh my days, this is so weird. His skull swivels in drunken figure-eights until he's looking across at his ghostly twin.
Oh. Hello, he booms cheerfully, beak to beak with Khonshu's shade. That didn't work right, did it? Bloody interesting though.
"No. This was not supposed to happen." Khonshu says irritably, as Steven looks down at the staff in his hands. Everything in Steven's posture positively screams that he's had an idea. Even in Khonshu's body, Jake can recognise the danger signs. Evidently so can Khonshu. He raises a blue-tinged warning hand. "Worm, do not…"
Steven waves the staff experimentally and a gust of wind rips at Jake's shirt, bowling past to spin road dust into a hip high tornado. Steven whoops.
That's amazing. Khonshu, how… The ghostly form of the god practically growls and shakes his head, advancing on his body. No! Stop! Steven wobbles backwards, trying to delay the inevitable as Khonshu glides implacably closer. Wait!
"Give me back my body immediately, Worm. My staff is not a toy."
But! It's practically a wail.
Jake watches as the two Khonshus overlap and merge until they are an impossible shivering mirage of blue light overlaid on linen and bone. The glow sinks in and through, tightening down into the god's body until it is no longer visible. There's a moment of stillness as Khonshu's body straightens in a way that clearly indicates that the god is back in residence before another shiver of moonbright radiance explodes out from him.
Jake has a momentary impression of Steven's dopplered scream and luminous panicked face heading towards him at speed before he feels himself blown backwards and out.
"Really?" Jake says from where he drifts behind their body. "Seriously? Goddamnit!" If he were corporeal he'd fucking kick something. As it stands, he settles for throwing his hat at the back of Steven's head. It fades to nothing before it reaches him, and Jake feels the illusion pop back into unreality on his head a scant heartbeat later.
Steven turns, eyes wide with surprise, and opens his mouth to speak. Then closes it abruptly when he registers Jake's scowl.
"If the next thing you say is a Star Wars reference, kid, I will stay this way and fucking haunt you."
Steven wisely chooses to remain silent.
Khonshu hisses in displeasure as Jake glares at them both.
This was not supposed to happen either, he rumbles, looking between his avatars. I had assumed you would both remain in your body when returned to it. Well that was a mistake, Jake thinks, even I've worked out you can never assume anything where goddamn magic is involved, other than that it will backfire in some dumbass way.
"I think I got this one, Old Bird," Steven says thoughtfully. "I can summon you into our head, right? And getting Jake back home's kinda the same thing, innit, so all I need to do is..." He grins the sharp smile that Jake is coming to associate with inadvisably applied magic. "Laters, Jake," he says, and closes his eyes.
"Kid!" Is all Jake manages to blurt out before Steven is gone, falling into the mindspace. There's a split second where their body wavers slightly, still upright, before it folds at knees and hips and crashes to the floor face first. "Sit down first." He finishes hopelessly.
Then there's a pull, and a feeling of too tight and stretched all at once and he's looking at Steven against a backdrop of white tile and impossibly vast sky.
Jake doesn't say a word, just falls eagerly back to the body. He doesn't even mind the faceful of gravel he has to look forward to. It's his own face after all, and even grazes and dirt is going to feel just fine after all that.