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When he opens his eyes, darkness greets him. Thick and stifling, it slowly begins to settle with a strange heaviness on his chest, making it almost impossible to take a deep breath. As if his lungs were clogged with dust or sand, the man clutches his chest frantically, feeling a strange fabric tightening against his skin. Squeezing, like bandages, as if he were a mummy buried alive.
Seth abruptly sits up, jerking the heavy weight off himself. His sightless eyes dart in panic around the black void while his hands grope about in search of something familiar. A weapon. He needs a weapon.
How will he defend himself without a weapon?
His keen hearing suddenly picks up distant voices. They sound too far away, too indistinct to make out even a single word.
Where is he?
Why is he here?
As he tries to stand, the man falls, his bare knees hitting something cold. Smooth. Stone? Does it feel like stone?
No, no... something... something’s wrong.
Seth is sure he didn’t fall asleep here. Everything was fine when he... oh. He doesn’t remember how he fell asleep too.
Breathe. He needs to breathe. Breathe in slowly, breathe out. Close the eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat. Open the eyes. Again.
He’s a general, he doesn’t panic.
He’s a soldier, he doesn’t lose his head.
He’s an Evil God, he doesn’t fear.
A kind of irritating, suffocating feeling gradually takes root in his chest, digging into his flesh with sharp claws, and Seth almost wants to sink his claws into his own neck, to try to pull out whatever it is that has burrowed into his insides. Something inside is scratching and scurrying, making him want to howl and growl.
Like anger.
An overwhelming rage.
Seth’s hand strikes something hard. He feels his way up the object until he can brace himself against a surface and pull himself up from the strange floor.
Has someone cursed him? Have the gods finally risen against him?
The man laughs hollowly, covering his mouth with his hand. Such a… laughable thought. Those… cowards. Did they think they could play a trick on him like this?
There is no sand around.
He has no access to his sand.
Nothing.
Nothing. He won’t be afraid again.
Suddenly, the viscous darkness recedes as a thin strip of warm light cuts through. It flows like liquid gold until it outlines the blurred shadow of unfamiliar feet.
Seth doesn’t hear footsteps.
Sharp black claws sprout from slender fingers, ready to tear apart the figure standing on the other side… of what?
Seth doesn’t hear the door open. A black silhouette reaches out to him, and as it takes a step forward, Seth lunges with a roar. He slices through the stranger’s torso and leaps back into a long corridor. His eyes are blinded by the bright, strange lights on the ceiling, resembling large, static stars.
“Seth!”
“Dare to come near me and I’ll kill you!”
God breathes heavily, gulping for air as if he can’t get enough, as if he’s still suffocating in that closed-off… room. His eyes dart around in confusion. His attention is scattered between the indistinct patterns on the walls and several doorways.
Too… small of a room for a temple.
Where are the servants?
“Seth.” A stranger’s voice sounds quieter and… softer. “It’s all right.”
A pale hand grabs an elongated object similar to a blunt spear in sudden rage that the tyrant allowed the dark figure to come closer.
“Don’t get any closer!”
The god whips around to face the unfamiliar figure, running his sharp claws along the nearby wall, producing a sickening screeching sound.
Seth feels the roughness beneath his fingers, already resembling scratches.
“I won’t hurt you. I promise.” The warm baritone soothes that… feeling inside.
Seth turns his head toward the wall he himself had been scratching just a second ago.
A square piece of bright yellow papyrus is attached right above his hand.
Why… is there writing on it in his own handwriting?
‘Trust him. He is yours.’
“May I?”
God turns his head sharply, and a dark figure stands right in front of him. Not blocking the light, but as if radiating it further.
He looks down in confusion, noticing the hand extended toward him.
“…Yes.” Seth isn’t sure why he agrees.
Warm hands gently touch his skin and take the weapon. Seth obediently relaxes his fingers, allowing it to slip away, to be taken.
“Are you hungry?”
“…Yeah?”
Seth frowns, touching his stomach in confusion. The heaviness in his chest was indeed accompanied by this feeling of emptiness in his stomach. But he… hadn’t felt hunger in a long time. Gods don’t feel… hunger.
“I’ll make us dinner. Do you want to take a bath?”
“No.”
“All right. If you want to change, I left another T-shirt on the bed.”
A dark figure disappears into the next room, from which light poured out particularly brightly, irritating his sensitive eyes.
His gaze falls on the open door from which the man had literally jumped out earlier. Now it didn’t look like a tomb… just a bedroom?
God returns with quiet steps. He runs his hand over the soft surface… of the bed. He touches something even softer.
Then he touches his chest again, feeling a similar fabric, but wet. That must be why it had hugged his body so tightly earlier.
The man looks at his own body in confusion, pulling the fabric away from his chest in puzzlement.
It’s pressing against his neck.
What… is he wearing?
His gaze, somehow vacant, drifts over the now barely lit contours of the room. It settles on the wall. Murals… so realistic. Paintings.
A grown man with a thick mane of wavy black hair smiles at him from the wall.
It’s… Anubis.
A little lower down, four other pairs of eyes are looking at him. Unfamiliar… yet somehow boyish.
The man’s gaze latches onto another bright yellow parchment. He frowns.
‘Our sons.’
Our…
“Do you need help getting changed?”
Seth spins around abruptly, meeting the piercing blue eyes of a dark figure. Why hadn’t he noticed them before?
He lowers his gaze slightly and sees red spots. He reaches out toward them. His skin is turning red, too. Blood.
“I hurt you.”
“It’s okay.” The dark figure smiles gently, and another hand rests on his pale one. Warm. “So… do you need help?”
“Yes…”
Seth nods, lowering his gaze, suddenly feeling so… numb. Paralyzed. Something’s wrong.
Warm hands touch him on either side and pull the damp cloth over his head, allowing Seth’s overgrown hair to brush against his damp back. The man doesn’t move.
The dark figure takes a towel, unnoticed by the older man earlier, and gently touches his skin again, wiping away the cold sweat.
Then he dresses him again.
“Blood…?”
“We’ll wash it off. You don’t have to worry.”
The dark figure smiles gently again and takes his hand, leading him out of the hallway once more. He leads him forward until he suddenly stops in a room, even warmer than the others. Strange.
A dark hand reaches for something… something that looks like a khopesh. No, not a khopesh… something else. Silver. Metallic?
Seth flinches, suddenly hearing the sharp sound of water. Cool water rolls down his palm, gradually turning red and then disappearing again.
“There.”
The low baritone voice nearby is somehow soothing. Somehow so soothing.
Seth turns his head, trying to look into the stranger’s face. For some reason, he can’t get a clear look. He tries to tilt his head until the dark figure steps back and sits him down at the table.
“I made your favorite today.”
A beautiful smile appears on the stranger’s face again, and Seth doesn’t notice when a plate is set down in front of him. He doesn’t smell the delicious food. He can’t take his eyes off the stranger’s figure, frowning and continuing to stare, as if trying to make out something specific in the darkness.
So strange.
The room is so brightly lit, and yet he can’t make out the stranger’s face.
A stranger… no. No, not a stranger.
Seth lowers his gaze slightly.
On the bright yellow papyrus, black lettering is visible: “Horus.”
“Horus…”
“Yes, Seth.”
“I… forgot you.”
The gentle gaze of blue eyes lowers, veiled by that familiar haze of sadness. Pain.
A swarthy face comes into focus before the man. Tired. With dark circles under the eyes, that unruly black hair now sticking out in even greater disarray. A previously unfamiliar crease has settled between thick eyebrows.
“Don’t say that…”
Seth’s gaze sweeps across the kitchen, and he can barely let out a trembling breath before a sob mixed with a hysterical chuckle bursts from his chest.
“I forgot our children.”
Horus seems to be more frightened by this than… anything that happened before. He jumps to his feet, knocking over a chair, and pulls his husband into his arms, holding him tight while his pale face seems to grow even whiter with fear and now glistens with the torrent of tears that wash over him in waves, wrenching an animalistic cry from his chest.
Horus holds his beloved’s fragile body in his arms, pressing him close, just as he has done many times before. Many, many times.
He assures himself that it’s okay if he does it one more time.
“It’s because they’re forgetting me, isn’t it? I’m disappearing…” Seth clutches the fabric of the other man’s T-shirt, not noticing how he’s tearing it uncontrollably, as if trying to stay afloat in the deep sea. “I asked you to leave me when this happens! To hand me over to Maat!”
The Sun God presses his lips together, gently stroking and pressing the other’s head against his chest. He focuses on this sensation — the feel of crimson curls at his fingertips. On the warmth of the man’s body. Still here.
“How can I?” Horus whispers, pressing his cheek against the scarlet top of the head. “I promised I’d fix everything. I’ll find a way to make people remember. I will. You’re still here, Seth.”
In response, another broken cry tears through the room, mingling with sobs, and Horus closes his eyes, kissing the pale forehead.
“How long has it been since the last time?! A week? Three days?! I hurt you!”
“Please…”
Seth falls silent abruptly, feeling a tear fall onto his forehead. He looks up, freezing, seeing those beloved glassy eyes staring at him so pleadingly. So begging.
“Don’t make me leave you, okay? Not again.” Horus quietly sobs, clutching the man’s body tighter in his arms, burying his nose in his sharp shoulder. “We’ll make it through. We’re making it through.”
Seth sniffs as well, and for a couple of minutes, the world seems to pause. Leaving them in their small, cozy kitchen in a tiny apartment on the outskirts of the city, in a quiet residential area, with their quiet sniffles and mutual wiping of tears.
It takes a little more time before Seth, exhausted, smiles, bumping hands with his husband as they reach out again to wipe each other’s cheeks, forgetting themselves in the process. They sit on the floor — Seth between his husband’s long, folded legs, literally in a cocoon of dark arms and huge wings warming his bare feet.
Seth feels a void inside. A weary emptiness, as if he’d been swept away by a wave and finally washed ashore.
He fixes his gaze on the yellow sticker on the broad chest again and peels it off with two fingers, examining his own sweeping handwriting.
“You came up with this last time… See? It worked.” Horus rests his head on Seth’s shoulder, watching the man’s hands. There’s an almost naive hope in his voice. Seth can’t voice it.
“I couldn’t see it at first… I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Seth finally allows himself to relax a little and leans against the strong figure beside him. He takes the dark hand in his own, squeezing it gently. Trying to offer support, too.
No matter how fleeting this moment of clarity is — he’ll make the most of it. He has to.
“You know… the hardest part is this moment. When you ask to be let go…” Horus bites his lip almost until it bleeds, pressing his forehead harder against the man’s neck, listening to Seth’s breathing. "Write a sticky note saying it’s useless?"
“Because you’re stubborn?” the older man laughs hoarsely, wiping his nose with his free hand.
“Yes. Very stubborn. And… I love you so much. So so much.”
A stack of yellow stickers and a marker appear in his palm, and Seth shifts his gaze to Horus. To the way he’s looking at his hands too, and pressing himself against him as if it weren’t him who, just an hour ago, had been holding himself so confidently and calmly. As if he hadn’t been the grounding anchor.
'I love him.'
The sticker lands on his tanned forehead, and after a surprised glance from those blue eyes, the man smiles warmly too, kissing his beloved's warm cheek.
“Thank you.”
Horus closes his eyes. He listens to the steady beating of the heart. He intertwines their fingers, Seth’s hands have finally warmed up.
“I promise I’ll fix everything.”