Chapter Text
August 2nd 2009, 22 years old
After getting discharged from the military Marc moved back to Brooklyn. He didn’t have anywhere else to go really. He wasn’t quite sure how Steven knew their landlord or why she let them stay for such cheap rent but he didn’t intend to question it much. He barely saw her anyways. He might’ve only met her two or three times in total for less than one minute each time. He didn’t care much.
For a while Marc had decided to get himself checked into a mental hospital. That’s how truly clueless he had been but every time he picked up a flyer on it he’d suddenly grow tired and black out so he ultimately decided to stop trying. Maybe a mental hospital just wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He didn’t bother to waste any thoughts on it any longer. He’d never call it denial though. Because it just simply wasn’t that.
At some point however he found himself with a knife in his hand. Chopping mushrooms in the kitchen as the hot oil and onions alongside garlic were sizzling in the pan next to him. Marc had always struggled with intrusive thoughts. He knew it was something that wasn’t normal as well but he’d never cared much to do anything against it since he always had it under control. Now however it was getting harder to fight against this persecutory side of himself.
It was like… of course it was trauma related what else would it be. He shakes his head and puts down the knife. He picks up the chopped up mushrooms and pours them into the pan.
He just didn’t quite know where it came from, maybe it was just another mom related thing. Maybe it came from dad not seeing him as worthy enough to save him. Maybe it was some type of long term aftermath of the addiction he’d once had a few years ago. He didn’t know. Maybe it was something else entirely.
He stirs his vegetables and reaches over to stir the pasta as well, a bit of oil spritzing against his forearm, burning him with a hiss.
He pulls his arm away, his face twisted in pain and shock.
His phone begins to ring and he doesn’t know what is bothering him anymore at this point. The sizzling and crackling in the pan, the traffic out on the streets, the radio playing soft tunes in the back or his ringtone blasting through the apartment.
It was like all these sounds and the music, all these tunes were mixing together, mushed up inside his head and grinding roughly against his brain, his nerves crushing and pulverizing inside his mind as his hands fly to his temples, pressing tightly against his head.
Yet everything just gets louder and louder and louder and then, just for a single second he thinks everything is quiet and he hears absolutely nothing.
He hesitantly lifts his hands away from his head.
The noises immediately attacking him again and drumming harshly against his brain and his hands fly right back to his head, banging against his temples and his fingers tug tightly at his hair, making his scalp hurt as he falls to his knees.
His throat begins to hurt and it feels like his vocal chords are being ripped out of him as he screams.
He screams as loud and as long as he can and he doesn’t know what he screams. He simply screams, trying to overthrow everything else. Trying to tune out all the other noises until everything is quiet and everything feels like nothing. Until he doesn’t drown in this pain anymore.
And then there’s a throbbing feeling against his temple, like it comes from the inside of his skull and he shakes his head and he breaks down more. And he screams louder, the vein in his forehead pulsing as his forehead connects with the cold hardwood floor. He hits himself repeatedly. His palm forcefully banging against his head trying to make it all stop.
‘Let go Marc.’
It all had to stop.
‘Give me the body Marc.’
Marc doesn’t hear anything. Doesn’t notice anybody talking to him. Like his mind systematically filters out the voice.
Then there’s knocking on the door and it’s so loud and so rapid and somebody calls a name but he doesn’t hear anything anymore at all, he can’t make out any words he can just make out the pain. And everything is getting so much worse.
It all has to stop.
‘Dame el cuerpo, te ayudaré, Marc.’
Everything is getting worse, getting louder, getting more unbearable.
Make it stop. Grab the knife.
So he sits up on his knees and he quickly grabs the sharp knife from the counter.
Make it all stop!
‘Stop it Marc!’
He breathes heavily while grabbing onto the handle tighter, more determinedly.
Then the door bursts open and a woman storms in, eyes wide, terrified. She rushes over to him.
Make it stop now! Slash your throat! Stab your neck!
‘Put the knife away right now!’
The throbbing in his head becomes more intense again, he fights against the pain, pushes down the feeling, shoves everything far away from him with as much force as he can.
He lifts the knife and turns it on himself and the woman, which he’s sure is his landlord and she’d throw him out after this for sure, grabs onto his wrist with all the strength she has and she pulls on his arm, pulls his hand away from his body.
“Stop that! Ja-Marc! Stop!” She yells and tries to prey his fingers off of the knife but he doesn’t let go.
“Get off me!” He tries to push at her and she just keeps on pulling harder, using whatever force was left in her. Everything was far too much by now.
“Please stop!” She pleads, then she turns around stretching his arm out in front of herself so that her back was now facing him and if he wanted to stab himself he’d have to hurt her first. So he pulls his legs up and tries to push her away from him while she still tries to get the knife out of his hand. They struggle against each other and it all was too much.
When he shoves her with so much force that she lets go of him out of pure shock to catch herself so she wouldn’t fall on her face he immediately pulls his arm back away from her.
The blade grazes her arm.
She’s bleeding.
She shrieks in pain and turns away from him, turning her arm to look at the damage he’s done and Marc just looks at her with wide eyes.
Suddenly everything truly was quiet. No traffic, no phone, no fizzing or cracking in the pan, no banging on the door. Just silence and white noise in his ear. He can hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest.
“Oh my god.” He whispers and looks at her. “I’m sorry. Really I’m so fucking sorry!” He quickly pushes the knife away from him and gets up from the floor. I didn’t want that I swear to god.” He whispers, more to himself as he makes his way to the bathroom, he quickly comes back with a first aid kid.
“Can I… can I fix it please?” He sits down on the ground next to her and looks into her eyes, waiting patiently, hoping for permission. “I swear I didn’t want that I promise I was just… I swea-“
“Hey.” She placed her hand against his shoulder.
“I run a 24/7 diner in New York, I’ve had worse in a regular night shift.” She tries to comfort him and while Marc appreciates it he knows that it’s a lie.
He grabs a few things from the first aid kid and begins to fix the wound on her arm.
“I’m sorry.” He says. Repeatedly. Again and again and again.
He wonders why mom never said sorry. The he pushes the thought away from his mind.
It wasn’t an accident.
He wraps the bandage around her arm and secures it with a bandaid.
“That won’t happen again. I swear it won’t.” He looks down in shame as he places everything back into the box.
“Everything is fine. I promise.” She says and helps him. At some point while they tidy he looses himself, he zones out without realizing it. Then he blacks out.
-
June 2nd 2016, 29 years old
“Okay.” Marc claps into his hands once and walks up to Layla. “Are you ready baby?” He smirks and steps onto the mat.
“Oh I was born ready.” She smirks at him brightly. Her hair was gathered into a low ponytail and she was wearing a sports bra and a pair of sweatpants. Nothing special about it but to Marc she still looked incredibly beautiful. In less respectful words he’d say she was smoking hot right now.
Her hands had some type of fitness or sports gloves that Marc couldn’t bother to remember the label off on them as they laid sassily against her hips.
“Good.” He stands in front of her in a pair of sweatpants and a plain black shirt, his curls lazily falling into his face. “Don’t worry I’ll go easy on you.” He smirks.
“Oh please yes.” She nods with big eyes. “I’m kinda scared about getting hurt.” She wipes some hair behind her ear, then stretches her arms while shifting her weight.
“Don’t be I’d never hurt you روحي.” Marc nods.
“Oh working on our Arabic are we?” Layla smirks at him and Marc nods proudly. “Got myself a beautiful teacher that I need to impress.”
Layla chuckles and shakes her head before waving him over. “Come on now, bring it.”
Marc adjusts his posture and walks closer to her, he starts by throwing a few easy punches that Layla can block without any struggle.
It took him about two weeks to convince Layla to spar with him, he’d insisted on teaching her some simple hand to hand combat, even if it wasn’t enough for her to ultimately knock somebody out and win a fight it was enough for her to stay alive until he’d get to her. In case things came down to it. He hoped she’d never have to be in a situation like that though.
He’s been training her for a few weeks now, she works out by herself, simply to stay healthy and all that jazz, the more intense sessions have been brought to her by Marc, much to her displeasure. She’d never admit that it was actually kind of fun.
Today was the first day they’d actually practiced hand to hand with each other.
After a while of blocking him Layla grows tired of the repetition so she ducks and punches into his stomach, softly, neither of them actually would want to hurt each other.
“Hey!” He says while stepping back. “Low blow.”
“Literally.” She smirks and takes a step towards him, he tries to go for another punch but she blocks his arm hard and kicks her shin into his side, lower than she would in a real fight.
Marc narrows his eyes at her and grabs onto her leg and she twists away from him and rolls forward over her head, yanking her ankle out of his hand with the motion. She stands back up and looks at him with a proud smirk. She blows some hair out of her face and dusts off her shoulder.
“I can’t help thinking you are more experienced than you said you were.” Marc puts his hands on his hips.
“Learned everything I know from you baby.” She smirks, what a liar.
Marc shakes his head with a chuckle and starts fighting her again, at some point after a while of fighting he kicks her leg out from under her, making her fall down onto the mat. She shrieks softly and holds her head.
“Shit, Layla?” Marc crouches down next to her, his heart immediately beating at a rapid pace, his throat closing tightly in a panic. “Are you okay?” He asks worriedly.
Then she entangles their legs, puts one hand onto his shoulder and the other to his waist and turns them over. She ends up straddling his lap and grabs onto his wrists to pin them over his head. “Looks like I won.” She smirks brightly.
Marc breathes out, forces his heart to calm down and his lungs to let more oxygen into his system. Layla would think he was just breathing shallow because of exhaustion. He could live with that, she didn’t do it on purpose either way. She couldn’t know.
“That might be the dirtiest trick in the history of mischief.” He whispers, not quite trusting his voice not to crack just yet.
“You didn’t say I wasn’t allowed to use tricks.” She nods proudly, her smirk still playing against her lips and she leans down to him after a moment.
Her lips meet his and he can feel her smile against their kiss and he swears every time he kisses her it feels like the very first time.
It leaves him short of breath, makes his heart skip a beat, almost making him think it’ll stop beating altogether. She tastes soft and sweet, some of that honey and pomegranate chapstick still on her lips. Her lips in general were always so soft, so smooth and warm when they moved against his slowly, intensely, determinedly. Like she never wanted it to stop just as much as he did.
Their noses bump against each other softly for a moment and she grins at the feeling, a short chuckle leaving her lips and he smirks at the noise, waits for her to lean into him again.
And she does, her body relaxes and melts against his, her whole body weight now laying flush against him and her hands finally letting go of his wrists to move to the sides of his neck softly, her thumbs stroking over his skin. His own hands grab onto her waist, tightly but not hurtful, he pulls her even closer against himself, if that’s even possible. His hands so warm they make her skin tingle and goosebumps rise on her skin beneath his fingers, like a loving fire that slowly spreads across her skin.
The whole world around them was just a blur, nothing mattered more than their hearts steadily beating against each other and their senses slowly being intoxicated by one another. Even when he slowly runs out of breath marc thinks he’d rather die than to ever stop kissing her and-
“Marry me” he whispers against her lips and they still. She pulls away from him and her eyes find his. “What?” She asks with a frown, sitting up more, her hands running from his neck down to lay flat on his chest.
“I-I don’t know… sorry.” He shakes his head. He wasn’t worthy of that.
“Oh.” She replies, wiping a strand of hair out of her face. “Kinda sounded like a proposal but whatever right?” She says, her voice sounding hurt. Marc hated that.
“It was a proposal.” He answers.
“But?”
“But I’d rather you not have the option to say no.” He whispers and reaches his hand up to tug the strand back behind her ear that keeps falling out into her face, his fingertips softly brush against her cheek.
“Why do you think I’d say no?” She asks, her hand reaching up to grab his.
Because he wasn’t worthy of love. Because no one could actually truly love him. Because he ruins everything he touches. Because it would kill him if she realized all of that.
“I don’t know but… but I don’t ever want to be without you again.” He shakes his head and somehow after this he can’t stop himself anymore. He wants to stop but he can’t. “I don’t want to let you go even if it’s selfish but… you’re just… you’re my peace and everything is so damn easy when you’re with me. Nothing has ever been fucking easy but then you came into my life and you… you’re just my favorite thing in the world and you saved me. You save me every day.” He looks up into her eyes, trying to read them.
“I love you Marc, عمري” she reaches a hand out, leans it against his cheek before leaning down to him completely, her forehead against his. “You’re also not as horrible as you think you are just by the way.” She smirks.
And Marc decides he won’t argue because if he did and he told her the reasons of why he was in fact horrible then she would say no to him without a doubt.
So he just chuckles and closes his eyes. “My heart is yours, with or without wedding, روحي.” He tells her. “But if you wanted to we could just… we could just do it right away. We don’t need a lot of people maybe we’ll even fly to Egypt if you want, whatever you like is fine I just want yo-“
“Marc.” She pulls back a bit and looks down on him again. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He looks up to her confused.
“Yes.” She chuckles and he looks at her dumbfounded for just a second, giving her time to change her mind, to say no. She leans down and kisses him again.
And before the world fades out and he completely lets himself fall for her he wraps his leg around hers and shifts his weight to roll them over, he pins her wrists above her head once her back hit the mat.
“I won.” He whispers against her lips before capturing hers again, her toothy grin offering him access to her completely. So he takes it and they work together like a storm. Electrifying and powerful, quiet and peaceful.
She’s his and he’s hers.
-
February 11th 2024, 36 years old
“Aren’t you going to tell him you don’t want to work for him anymore?” Layla asks him just above a whisper, she was laying on his bare chest in their bed. He was wearing a pair of loose grey sweatpants and his shirt which had fallen to the floor earlier was now loosely hugging her body, her curls were messily sprawled out, just slowly smoothed back by Marc’s gentle fingers as they ran through her hair. He would say her hair was his favorite thing about her but that wouldn’t be true, even if he truly tried he couldn’t choose one thing about her that he loved more than all the rest. She was entirely perfect to him no ifs and buts.
“I told him already.” He mumbles, trying not to disrupt her comfort. His other hand pulls the blanket over her up higher before his fingertips gently trace up and down the soft skin of her upper arm. “He says he just needs me for that ..last thing.” Marc whispers, it was a white lie that he needed to tell her, at least that’s what he’d tried to convince himself of. It wasn’t.
Marc had spoken to Khonshu about wanting to end his avatar duties after moms shiva. He felt that something was different, the wall he built between himself and Steven all those years ago was unstable, if not completely broken down already. It wasn’t safe enough and he never would want to loose control in the middle of a mission and for Steven to find himself in danger. He couldn’t live with the thought of that alone so he’s told Khonshu he couldn’t keep doing it any longer.
Khonshu just told him that if he couldn’t control ‘the worm’ he wasn’t any use to him anymore either way.
Then he said he’d just take Layla as his avatar instead.
That’s when all color drained from Marc’s face and his head felt so fuzzy he almost dissociated on the spot.
Because it was his fault. His fault alone.
He’d brough Khonshu close to Layla, he involved Layla in his missions and he put Layla in danger. So he decided it was his job to protect her now more than ever. So he made a decision, just for her. Just to make sure she’d be safe. Maybe he didn’t like what he’d have to do but it wasn’t like it mattered what he wanted. The only thing that mattered was that she was safe.
“Is it about Ammit?” Layla asks, her fingers playing lazily with his necklace.
“Yeah something about it.”
“I can come to help you again. We’re good at doing things together if you remember.” She smirks a bit, her hand running down his chest to grab onto his hand, lacing their fingers, her own skin leaning against the warm metal of his wedding ring.
“I know.” Marc forces a smile onto his face hoping she could hear it in his voice. “But it’s just like an… interrogation thing, I’ll call you when it turns interesting though.” He promises and he thinks he was becoming a pretty good liar by now.
She nods and he presses a kiss to her forehead. “I love you so much Layla. قلبي.” He feels he has to say it. Has to hear it back from her. One last time. “I love you more, روحي.” She mumbles and soon she drifts off, Marc keeps playing with her hair until it’s 1am, listening to her soft steady breathing and taking in her sweet scent of honey and gardenia, letting her heart beat close against his own chest.
“It is time to go Marc Spector.” Khonshu stands in their apartment now, hand close against his staff.
“You have decided to continue your duties as my avatar so now stay true to your word.” He demands, his tone of voice immediately annoying Marc but he doesn’t talk back. He can’t anyways.
He gets up from the bed and puts on his clothes, he packs the rest of his things into his duffle bag before putting on his sneakers.
“You won’t find me here anymore when we’re back from the mission.” He whispers.
“I always know where you are Marc.” Khonshu answers and Marc just nods. He grabs the flowers he’s hidden away from Layla earlier today and puts them on her nightstand. He looks down on her for a second and for just a moment his heart feels so fucking heavy and he considers staying. Considers not leaving her. Considers risking it all. Then he forces the thought away. He needs to do this. He needs to protect her.
He leans down and presses a kiss against her temple, loving but careful. Then he turns and leaves the apartment. The last time he’d seen it.
The apartment. Layla. Their life together.
He sends her one last text.
‘Hey حبي, I hope you slept well. I’ll call you soon. I love you more than anything. You’re beautiful.’
Then he turns off his phone. The divorce papers reach her just three weeks later.