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Egypt was sandy, as one might expect.
The desert was hot, and Cairo was busy and burning with life.
The markets were full to bursting, the smell of foul madames and kushari drifting in the air. Every sight and smell reminded Marc of Layla - of their wedding, of their honeymoon. He didn't deserve her, but that wasn't new.
Maybe he didn't deserve this view either, or the warm smell of the city, carried in on a hot breeze. As unfamiliar as it was, it smelled like home.
Not Steven's apartment, certainly not anywhere he had lived in the last 18ish years, definitely not his childhood house - he wasn't going to call it a home.
Maybe it had been, once, but not after the first ten years. Not after Randall.
Maybe it was Marc's fault, for what he did.
Maybe he ruined the only home he had ever known.
Maybe he was tired of thinking, he thought to himself, taking another drink out of his bottle. That never worked, though.
It was hot. Really damn hot. He had already peeled all his clothes off, crashing into the hotel bed nearly naked, forgoing blankets as he slept for as long as he could stand.
Layla always liked him sleeping almost-naked. He wasn't sure if she found it cute or sexy. Come to think of it, she liked his pajamas too, always burrowed in his sweaters when he wore shirts to bed. Layla maybe just liked sleeping with him.
Layla liked things about him that he had never thought of, and even some things he had. She liked his hair pushed forward, how Steven wore it, though Marc could never keep it that way for the life of him. She liked his hugs. She liked the menorah candles, which he grudgingly lit every Hannukah after she tried to get him to celebrate Christmas one year, thinking he needed a holiday.
Layla maybe just liked him.
He smiled bitterly at the thought.
He missed Layla. When he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her brushing his hair back, wrapping a curl around her finger the same way she did with hers. When he fell asleep (rarely), he could almost feel her pressed against his back, or wrapped in his arms.
But that didn't matter anymore. Layla was angry at him, Khonshu wanted her for his avatar, and Marc could barely stand the weight of the words he had yet to say to her. He had told her so many things he hadn't told anyone else, said "I love you" like he hadn't since he was ten years old, but not this. Not even the reason they had met.
He hadn't told her about Steven, either. For good reason.
He was either crazy, or...
He was crazy.
Explaining would mean telling her why. Telling her what he had done, and what had been done to him for it.
He always told himself that she didn't notice him flinch the few times she had picked up one of his belts, or the way something as simple as Finding Nemo had made him go pale and leave in the room. Or the nightmares. Most of it she probably chalked up to the military. She told him he probably had PTSD, but when she suggested he see a therapist he had laughed in her face.
Probably not his best move, but she hadn't been too angry. Or brought it up again.
His gaze drifted around the room, stopping in the mirror. Steven was in there somewhere, but he thought he might be sleeping. Somehow, Steven was so different from Marc that he could find everything his alter did adorable. Steven was a thousand times better than him. Layla thought he was cute too, all his stuttering Egypt facts and his shyness.
Steven could quote Desbordes-Valmore as well as she could. He wore his hair forward. He adopted one-finned goldfish.
Speaking of which-
Gus 2.0 was alone. At home - the apartment - with no food.
Whoops.
Whoops was an understatement. Whoops, another fish is gonna die, guess we'll just come home to his floating lifeless body, in the dark, against the rocks - there weren't any rocks. No rocks. Not with Gus.
This was Gus, and the 2.0 part wasn't helping, but it was goddamn fish, he was fine.
He did miss Gus 2.0, he had to admit. Maybe it was weird to miss a fish, but it wasn't as if he was drowning in friends at the moment.
I can hear you, Khonshu's voice eminated from nowhere. It is indeed bizzare to miss a fish, stop wasting time.
"Excuse me," Marc snapped, looking around the empty room in case Khonshu decided to pop up physically. "My thoughts, stay out."
You do not possess thoughts. They belong to me, Moon Knight.
Marc scowled, cursing the night they had met. Cursing the hesitation in his hands. Cursing the fact that he hadn't blown his own head off right there in the temple.
He looked down at his hands. All he could see was the blood.
Maybe he had put it there.
Maybe it was his penence, now, to be chained to this demon pigeon invading his head.
Maybe it was for New York. Dubai. Abdallah El-Faouly.
Ro-Ro.
Layla, because he had fucked up her life enough to count.
Steven too, then.
We have a lead, Khonshu inserted. He was in the room now, the dark corner by the door.
Marc ignored him, staring at the mirror. Steven was passed out on the bed in the reflection, a towel around his shoulders but otherwise in the same state of undress as Marc. He remembered living in the reflection on the fish bowl, watching as Steven would succumb to sleep at last, Rubix cube slowing and podcast running out.
Marc, the moon god berated. Time is running out.
Marc stood, pushing his curls away from his face.
"Yeah, yeah, Khonshu, I'm coming."
He turned his head to look out the window as he dressed. The sun was burning in the sky.
He turned to the Moon.
"Where to?"