Chapter Text
“So,” Steven grumbles under his breath, fumbling with the toothpaste cap in one hand and unfolding the bathroom mirror with the other, “Morning check-in?”
Marc slips into the panel on the right, pushing his hair out of his face as he gives Steven his usual grimace (it took a while for Steven to realize that it’s Marc’s equivalent of an acknowledging smile). “Morning, Steven.” His eyes aren’t foggy with sleep, so he must have woken up earlier and decided to let Steven lie in since it’s the weekend. “Where’s Jake?”
“Estoy aquí,” comes the gruff reply from the furthest edge of the left panel. Jake lingers half a step out of view, his hair tossed messily over his face in lieu of the usual cover that his flat cap affords him. Steven tries not to chuckle out loud when it crosses his mind that Jake looks exactly like one of those English sheepdogs with the shaggy, overgrown fur that hangs over their eyes. The mental image floats away when he remembers that he’s pissed.
“Morning, fellas,” Steven says through a mouthful of minty foam as he starts brushing his teeth. “Sleep alright? Yeah, fine? Me? Not so ace. Y’see, I rolled on my side and got woken up by this.” He lifts up the side of his shirt, revealing to the mirror a giant bruise blooming from the top of his hipbone to his belly button. “Wonder what happened there.”
“I’m detecting a hint of snark in your voice.”
“Do you, Jake? Well, maybe you should swap out your usual hat for one of them fancy ones that Sherlock Holmes wears. Care to explain what you did with the body?” Interrogating Jake is a delicate craft — ask too little and he’ll slip right through your fingers with his usual evasive wording; ask too much and he’ll simply shut you off. The best way to go about it, Steven has found, is with personal indignation. Marc, rightly wary of Steven’s wrath, slinks to the back of the conversation.
“Jeez, fine. I was tracking down a group of insurgent soldiers in Ethiopia. Ended up chasing them right up to the Wakandan border. Khonshu half-assed his healing on me and disappeared in a hurry. Like there was someone there he was trying to avoid.”
“You mean, like, someone in Wakanda?” Steven’s hand comes to a halt, his toothbrush left half-dangling out of his cheek. “You don’t mean… oh shit, you mean the Orisha?”
“The what?” Marc mutters quizzinigly.
“The pantheon of Wakanda. Among their ranks are the Heliopolitans — Egyptian deities that chose to remain after the Ennead decided to leave Earth and reside in the Aaru. Yeah, I wonder why Khonshu was eager to take off. Can’t imagine he has a very good relationship with Bast, or Thoth, or Ptah—”
“Speaking of… her… um, Bast,” Jake cuts in, still keeping his reflection mostly out of view, “There’s something I should probably tell you guys. Khonshu got the hell out of dodge, but I wasn’t so quick.”
As he listens, Steven runs the tap and starts rinsing his mouth out. “Ye—” he gets out between gurgles, “G’on.”
“Well, okay, maybe it was on me, just a little bit, for giving her attitude. So what? Am I so wrong for calling her a kitty cat?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh, don’t fucking team up against me here,” Jake grumbles, throwing his hands up. “Well, anyway, she showed up, started interrogating me on what I was doing there, accused me of interfering with her people, asked what kinda pact I had with Khonshu… etcetera etcetera. I sassed her a bit, then la gata got all huffy and shit and the next thing I know, I looked like this.”
“Like wh— oh— oh… my… days.” Something between a gasp and a laugh gets stuck in Steven’s throat, and as he glances to the right he can see Marc covering his mouth with a hand.
As he finally steps into view, the pair of fluffy black ears sitting atop Jake’s head become painfully apparent, even if they’re pulled back and pressed flush against his head. Steven is no zoologist, but he can tell what angry cat ears are supposed to look like when he sees them. “Mate, holy shit, that’s…” Steven interrupts himself with an amused snort, no longer able to contain himself. Even Marc is trying to suppress a laugh on the side.
“Yeah, laugh away, assholes. Nevermind the fact that I can’t fucking go out in public anymore.”
“Alright, calm down. It’s probably just a temporary hex—”
“Are you promising me that, you big fucking nerd?”
“Watch it, Jake. Lay the hell off Steven.”
As Jake stalks closer to the mirror, Steven can see the little hairs at the base of the cat ears bristling, he thinks. “Look mate, I’m sorry about your little predicament, I really am, but it looks like Bast only cursed you. As in, I don’t see any cat ears on me. So um… I don’t really know what you want me to do about it,” Steven says, half-teasing, half-exasperated, as he replaces his toothbrush and heads towards the kitchen.
“No sé, Steven, can’t you like, look for a cure in one of your little books? I thought you were supposed to be the mythology expert,” Jake sighs, his shoulders slouched, his voice sulky, as he drags his feet from the bathroom mirror to the reflection in the fishtank.
“Holy shit, Jake,” Marc exclaims suddenly, from the faint reflection in the window pane. “Turn around.”
“No. Fuck you, Spector.”
“Hmm?” Steven hums, scratching his stomach groggily as he opens the refrigerator door. “What’s this about now?”
“Steven, my G-d, look behind him,” Marc urges, trying not to laugh. “He’s got a tail.”
***
“Jake… take your hat off. I wanna see.”
“No, it’s fucking embarrassing. I don’t know why Bast thought the cat ears were necessary.”
Layla raises an eyebrow. “Or the tail. Don’t forget the tail.”
Jake rolls his eyes as he pulls his hat down a little tighter over his head. “Right, how could I forget. It’s not like I have it wedged down my pant leg and zip-tied to my knee.”
“No one asked you to,” Layla quips.
“I’m not risking it sticking out. I don’t want the good public of London to think I’m a fucking furry.” He makes some kind of agitated flick with his hand to dismiss the conversation as they round the street corner. “Anyway, the club is up ahead.”
Layla zips her jacket up and grumbles, “Remind me again why you’re coming with me.”
“He’s a child predator. Not hard to figure out why Khonshu wants me to go after him.”
“Okay, well, our gods gave us wildly different instructions on how to deal with him, so just…” Layla grimaces and shoots him a warning look. “Back off when I tell you to.”
Jake rolls his eyes. They come up to the street corner and he starts reaching for the gun tucked into the back of his belt. “Si, senõra. I just think you should sound a little less snappy to the guy that’s keeping your avatar side-gig a secret from your husband and boyfriend.”
“As if Marc hadn’t kept his fair share of secrets from me.” Jake stares, one eyebrow raised. Layla pauses and mouths ‘what?’ at him. Then she continues out loud, “I’ll tell them, okay? I just need to find the right time. You of all people should sympathize.” She points at the neon sign ahead of them, its fluorescent pink arrow gesturing towards the nightclub’s entrance. “Alright, just up ahead. And remember, you promised to follow my lead.”
“Si, si, just go in.”
They find their guy pretty easily. Some big shot movie director that had booked out half the club to throw some gaudy after-party. Jake managed to coax him out of the club by posing as a film enthusiast and fan, buttering him up with compliments on his latest filmography before asking him to step out for a smoke. As soon as he had both feet out of the club, Layla had grabbed him from behind and dragged him into an alley.
“What the fuck— what’s going on?”
Jake drops his fanboy façade and grabs him by the collar. “Tranquila, señor, we just wanna talk—”
“I-I don’t have any money on me!”
A punch to the jaw shuts him up. Layla glares at Jake, who just loosens his fist into an open-palmed shrug. She shakes her head and rounds on the man. “We’re private detectives, and we have photographic evidence of your exploitation of minors both on and off set of your recent production. You have 24 hours to turn yourself in, before the photos will be sent to every major newspaper in England.”
He tries to squirm away, but Jake’s grip on his collar won’t yield. “I-I have no idea what you’re talking abo—”
“You know damn well what she’s talking about!” Jake snarls, slapping the man across the face. Rip. He blinks down at his glove, now torn at each fingertip.
Four angry cuts, parallel to each other, rake across the director’s cheek. Beads of blood collect at the ends of each cut and start to roll down his face. He looks like he’d been scratched with—
“Claws?” Layla asks out loud, sounding as puzzled as Jake feels.
“Claws…” Jake echoes.
“C-Claws…” the man stammers. “A monster, you’re a monster—”
“No, that’s you,” Jake growls. “Now go, before my partner here changes her mind about apprehending you the soft way.”
The man scrambles out of sight without needing another prompt from either of them. Jake takes off his ruined glove, gawks at it for a moment, before stuffing it quickly into his jacket pocket. “This is a new development for me as well, so don’t— don’t look at me like that.” He sucks in a breath. And then he looks at his claws again and the words just start pouring out of his mouth like a damn torrent: “I don’t know what the fuck kinda curse I got hit with, but this is not good. I can’t go out in public like this. I mean, G-d, who knows what’s next? I woke up with the ears and tail and now the claws, Christ on a stick, am I gonna slowly lose my humanity and start regressing into some brainless furball that just eats and sleeps and knocks shit over and—”
“Alright, calm down, you’re catastrophizing. Jake?”
“Mrrow?”
Layla blinks. “Did you just meow?”
“Did I just meow?”
“You need to talk to Taweret.”
“I need to talk to Taweret.”