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francixoxoxo · 2 months

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🂱 Dogs’ White Teeth ☠︎︎

𝐁𝐨𝐱𝐞𝐫!𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐗 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝, 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬, 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡-- 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥.

Coryo wasn’t a violent guy. He didn’t know why he fought in the ring.

That’s what he told himself. He wasn’t violent, ‘cause he didn’t deck the first guy who looked at him funny. That was Coriolanus Snow’s logic. He wasn’t violent, ‘cause he felt nothing as he pounded the punching bag until his knuckles bled, he only felt a thirst for cash. Not blood.

But the first time his glove connected with a guy’s stomach? Oh, Coryo was violent. He’d never admit how stupid gratifying it was when he threw a punch to knock the other dickhead’s lights out.

Coryo shouldn’t be with you. He doesn’t deserve a girl like you, he could live a hundred times over and never deserve a girl like you. You’re kind, and generous and so, so thoughtful and fucking smart, you’d think you’d be smart enough to stay miles away from him.

But no. Here you are, standing in the dingy basement the fights are held in, among a crowd of shitty and disgusting people— Coryo’s people. Not yours. He’d rip his own teeth out before he let them be your type of people.

Speaking of which, he has one of his guys standing beside you, a looming warning that nobody could touch you. Coryo knew somebody would try. You were wrapped up like a piece of candy in a prison yard, and he was nothing if not protective. You already didn’t belong in the dank room, watching your boyfriend either scramble somebody’s brains or get his brains scrambled— he got some peace of mind knowing you atleast weren’t alone in a crowd of violent assholes.

Coriolanus was a good boxer. A damn good fighter. Of course he knocked the other guy out, short and burly with a mop of stick-straight hair, by the time Coryo was done he was missing a tooth. Coriolanus was baring his own teeth in a sneer, lip curled and nostrils flaring as he spat out a bit of blood onto the ground beside the man.

He stumbled a bit as the referee grabbed him by the forearm tugging him to his feet and raising his glove up to announce his win. Coryo's bare chest was heaving, covered in a sheen of sweat. His nose was surely broken, blood drying under his right nostril, his eyes wide and crazed as he looked 'round for you. A crooked smile split his lips, revealing his maroon mouthpiece as he lifted his brows at you.

Coryo, bloody and battered, was definitely a sight.

Maybe it was wrong to find it so hot, as you cheered with the rest of the crowd for him. But that attraction always, always delved into a distraught concern for your boyfriend by the time he was in the locker room.

Coryo lifts his head as he hears footsteps. His elbows are on his knees, his hand that had been rubbing his shaved head falling down as his lips pulled into a smile. “Hey, baby.” He’d cooed to you while you stepped close, slotting yourself between his spread legs. His hands found a home on your waist as he grinned dopily up at you.

“Hi.” You mumbled, your hands cupping his cheeks. Your brow furrowed, you gently pressed both thumbs along the length of his aquiline nose. Coriolanus curled his lip and grunted at the pain, you sigh. “You broke it again.”

“It’ll heal.” Coryo shrugs, watching you with puppy-dog eyes as your thumb swipes some blood from under his nostril. He rubs your hip affectionately as a thanks. God, he was love drunk. Absolutely whipped for you. He just hated how much he made you worry. Coryo didn’t think himself worth your peace of mind.

“Oh, but it looks like it hurts.” You frown, your thumb dropping down to brush over his busted lip. Your gaze trails over his blackening eye.

Coryo shakes his head a little, pressing a kiss to your thumb pad. “I’ve had worse.” He reaches up, clasping your hand in two of his. He thinks he catches a smile, but it quickly falls when you see the state of his hands. Bloodied and battered, his skin split at each knuckle, your expression melts.

He doesn’t protest as you reach for his bag, rifling through the duffel. When you find what you need, you slip into his lap, your knees straddling his hips. The boyish grin that splits his face is almost hilarious as you reach for one of his hands.

The alcohol wipe is ripped from its packaging with help from your teeth. With a tender, delicate touch, you swipe the pad along Coryo’s knuckles. His fingers flex against the sting, his lips pulling in a grimace. “It’s not that big a deal.” He whispers almost plaintively, pressing the concave ridge of his nose into the slope of your shoulder like jigsaw pieces.

“It’ll make me feel better, how about that?” You huff, letting go of his hand to fully unravel the wipe and clean the blood caking on his skin. His nostrils flare, but he nods. Coriolanus watches as you lean for the bench beside him. His hand on your side tightens to keep your balance for you as you grasp the roll of bandages, coming back upright and wrapping the material around his knuckles.

He lets you go about fixing him up (though he’d argue there wasn’t anything to fix, nothing worth your peace of mind,) with surprising lenience. Only when he grits his teeth against the sting of alcohol on the other hand does he speak. “You didn’t bet on me, did you?”

“I did.” You let a faint smile creep across your features. Your thumb brushes along his metacarpal bones. Coryo scoffs, averting his eyes with a shake of his head. “I told you not to.”

“So? You won anyway.”

“It’s the principle.” He insists, his nose brushing your jaw as he cranes his neck forward in frustration. You orbit those bandages ‘round his hand, on and on until you’re satisfied. “What principle?”

Well. On plenty of things, Coriolanus thought. He wasn’t something to waste money on. He wasn’t even something to waste time on, frankly. There wasn’t a point in putting in effort with him. He felt a bit like a vicious mutt; who cares if he’s got a muzzle on him? Or if he can sit, and fetch, and give you paw? He bites. In the end, he will always bite.

“What if I lost?”

(What if he screws up?)

“You’d lose money. It’d be a waste.” Coryo mumbles, presses a faint kiss into the tender skin of your neck. Your pulse is warm under his lips.

(You’d lose time you could be spending with somebody… he doesn’t know, better.)

“It’s not a waste. It’s just trust.” You shrug, and he wonders for a moment if you can crack his head open like a walnut, peer inside and read his mind like a book; one you were simply rereading for lack of new novels.

With his newly dressed hands he rubs his palms over your back. Coriolanus studies every crease of your face with a strange reverence, his brows tense for a brief moment to match the divots twixt your own. “You shouldn’t bet on losing dogs.”

Your shoulders lift, fingers sneaking ‘round his head to run your nails through his cropped blonde hair, “Who says you’re a losing dog?” A laugh sings from your lips. Coriolanus only smoothed his hands down your waist, his own lips pulling taut in a guilty expression.

You’re putting all your money on him, and it’s not literal. You love him, that much is true, and that much is too much. It tightens his chest, it chokes the air from his lungs and the pink from his cheeks. Atlas had a puny burden to carry, since he never had to fear letting you down.

Come on now. He just made a couple hundred bucks off of decking a guy until he looked more beetle than boy— all spasms and twitches and whimpers that make Coriolanus’ head spin with a power trip to put vermillion behind a man’s eyes. They all say violence is gut-churningly horrific, and maybe it is. But it isn’t if you’re winning, if you’re the one with his fist curled. If you’re the one landing on top.

Coriolanus is the kind of guy to get high off the crunch of somebody’s nose under his glove. You creep into the deeper corners of his mind, weaving cobwebs to lay in and inadvertently instilling a disgust, a self-loathing that not even a parent could plant. You don’t mean to, sure.

He wants to be better. He wants to cut his bad leg, he wants to behead the serpent in his belly, so that it’s safe for you to reach your delicate little hand in there. He wants to be deserving of all the goodness you wreath him in.

He’s fully aware you deserve a guy that doesn’t have to carve himself to be good to you. What can he say besides Snows tend to be selfish?

Coryo would slit his skin from his Adam’s apple to his navel to let you crawl inside. But he’s certain. It’s in his nature, it’s his body, not his heart and not his mind, that will reject you like an organ donation, will spit you out. Perhaps you would fit better elsewhere, in another man’s cavity, for his is too large to be comfortable. He felt like a scrambling man trying to sew you in, a rare organ, a piece that he’d fill his own gaps to make fit.

“All roads.” Is all he could whisper, his azure eyes glassy, hoping that his eyes were glassy in the sense of a window pane. That way you could see without forcing him to wrap his tongue ‘round the words, which is getting increasingly difficult. Coriolanus speaks like an Olympic sprinter, he’s sure that he’ll chicken out of it if he takes his time. “All roads lead to Rome, to me being a shithead.”

Your lips pull taut. For a moment, a gut-churning, pain-staking, bile-rising-to-the-throat moment, Coryo thinks he got through to you. Maybe you’ll dump him right there in the locker room. He didn’t think the prospect would put such an anchor in his stomach. Again, he thinks, Snows tend to be selfish.

But then your lips are moving again, your hands are bracing the back of his head with intertwined fingers, your perfume filling his nostrils and distracting from the dank stench of the locker room, it’s not too strong, it’s the best thing he’s ever smelled, but he can’t focus, he can’t, words the greatest poet couldn’t conjure after a lifetime of pensive thought are rolling off your tongue, somehow to him, somehow all of this is for him, and it’s all so sickly sweet that he’s dizzy with it.

“You’re doing your best.” Already your visage is blurring like ink in the rain. He believes he’ll chew through his cheek. “You don’t see what I see, Coryo.”

Damnit. A pearly tear slips down Coriolanus’ flushed cheek, the scarce light shooting diamonds from his azure eyes, your hands twisting to hold his face. He looks like a boy in your hands, and if it weren’t for his purpling eye, his lip split, you think he’d pass for a little boy.

He sucks in a breath through his nose as your lips connect, his lip painful whether the kiss was tender or bruising. Coryo was fierce in his love, fierce in everything about you, always, but oh, how grateful is he for how soft your lips move on his. His hands roam to the plane of your back again, a relieved exhale leaving his nostrils against your cheek.

It didn’t seem to matter whether Coriolanus thought you fit into the crevice (gaping hole, ravine, sink hole, call it what you will,) of his heart or not. You found your way in, you’d crawled deep into his heart, his body, his soul, and sewn the door behind you. How silly of him to believe that he had any choice in allowing you in or keeping you out. How foolish to believe that if the hole in his belly was too weeping for a single other soul to fill, that you wouldn’t stretch your arms high above your head and your legs as extended as possible.

How utterly idiotic of Coryo to believe that the hollow in his chest was a tower to selfishly keep you in, and not your rightful home.

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mgparker · 8 months

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Come Back to Me

Marc Spector/Steven Grant x F!Reader

Summary: Mark leaves on a mission for Khonshu while you deal with a confrontation of your own. Unfortunately, this particular foe is aware of your specific skill set and uses your weakest spot to deliver a fatal wound. Laying there defenseless and abandoned, your final desire is to speak to the love of your life one last time.

warnings: ANGSTTTT!! (the fav), character backstory, flashbacks, character death, reader wound, sadness, despair etc etc, cliffhanger

masterlist!

“M-Mark?” Fuck. Fuck. Your voice was wobblier than you had expected.

“Baby?” You heard some shuffling. “What’s wrong?”

You pulled the phone away to clear your throat. “Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

Despite your assurances, he wouldn’t be fooled. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” you breathed. “Yeah, I just wanted to talk.”

The pain was spreading from your side, crawling through your torso like deadly vines. It was nearly blinding. Pulling the phone away from your mouth, you tried to steady your breathing.

This isn’t how you wanted to go. Whimpering in pain and regretting every decision that got you here.

No. What you wanted was to hear your lover’s voice one last time. The warm timbre of his essence. Your favorite sound in the entire world.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He pressed. “Where are you?”

Your man was nothing if not stubborn. “Yes, baby. I’m okay—“ you really weren’t. “What—what did you do today?”

Marc sucked in air through his clenched teeth, gripping his phone with white knuckles. “It was meant to be a surprise, but I’m coming home for a few days… our leads haven’t gotten us anywhere and Khonshu believes we just need a comfortable place to think.”

You would’ve scoffed at that if your chest and throat weren’t on fire. Khonshu believes?

The big bird knew what Marc would be returning to. He knew you were lying in a pool of your own blood.

The thought sent a surge of panic through your body, even as the pain was beginning to overwhelm you. “No! Uh—um you— you’re already so close. W-what are you stuck on?”

Tears welled in your eyes, it felt like a blazing iron rod was being shoved into your chest and dragged up slowly until every organ could feel the flame.

It was silent on the other end for a heavy moment, before Marc’s deep voice hesitantly spoke your name. His tone lifted, suspended in question.

A shake courses through you, fear beginning to blossom in the pit of your stomach. The last thing you wanted was for him to panic… and now you’re beginning to panic as well.

You weren’t ready.

A sob broke through your lips before you could stop it. As if you even had the strength to.

“Marc,” you sobbed, turning your head to gaze at the phone beside you. As if it would give you one last glimpse at the love of your life.

His breathing picks up frantically. “Where are you? Tell me now.”

On his end, fabric is wrapping around his body at a faster rate than it ever had before. He could feel the strength of Khonshu enter him, the god’s presence filling the void.

The corners of your vision darkened and just when you thought you’d scream from the pain— it was gone. Miraculously, you felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Your heart dropped.

“I’m sorry,” a daze washed over you. There was nothing else to do but wait. A forlorn smile graced your paling face. “I’m so sorry, baby. There isn’t much time left.”

“What time?! Stop this shit, where are you? I can make it there as soon as you tell me.”

“There’s not enough time,” you pressed. You were coming to terms with the distant bright light that was supposed to be illuminating your vision.

You would’ve wished that that was what you were seeing as you drifted off, but one wish stood above all the others—

Your desire to be with Marc and Steven.

You barely notice the frantic yelling on the other end of the line before you’re cutting it off weakly.

“I—“ you go to clear your throat but the numbness had spread too far now. “I love you. Every part of you, baby. I just— I just wanted to hear your s—sweet voice one last t-time. Okay? I love you…”

The last word died on your tongue. And the darkness had taken over before you could hear Marc’s broken response.

A strangled yell left Marc’s lips. His stomach was knotted. The shadow of Khonshu appeared in his peripheral vision.

But Marc was rooted in his own grief. His lips were quivering, snot mixing with salty tears as he bared his teeth, shaking from the pure emotion of it all.

Why wasn’t he home? He had vowed to protect you, shield you from the horrors of the world— his world— but it wasn’t enough.

He couldn’t be there all the time, and you’d always reassured him that it’d be okay. That you didn’t feel like you constantly had to look over your shoulder, you didn’t want Marc or Steven to spend every second of their life protecting yours.

It’s his fault. God, the thought made him choke. Hands flying up to grasp at his throat as if he could stop it from tightening. It’s all his fault.

Maybe—maybe it’s not too late. Maybe, just maybe, you’re alive.

He could still feel Khonshu’s presence over his shoulder. “Take me to her.”

It’s silent. The wind breezing past his ears, the serenity of the night sky brazenly mocking his wild panic.

“Now, Khonshu!” He spun around quickly, voice wavering in rage.

If it hadn’t been for the God’s power over him, Marc would’ve been with you. The only person who truly matters to him in this world.

By some beautiful twist of fate, Khonshu unexpectedly relents, nodding his giant head in the direction of a portal.

Marc couldn’t find it in himself to thank him, everything else had faded away until all he saw was your mangled body on the other side of it.

His feet took him across the rooftop at an immeasurable feet, practically flying over the distance, until his surroundings had changed completely.

“No,” he cried, dropping to his knees painfully. Shards of glass pierced his skin as if he weren’t already bleeding out with you. “Baby? Baby, wake up. Wake up!”

Your body was lifeless in his arms, and the embrace felt strange, nothing like how you’d lay in his arms at night. Fingers gripping his necklace loosely, head tucked into the crook of his neck… legs tangled with his as if your bodies were one.

Blood left a trail from your nose to your chin and shaky hands went to wipe it away before pausing in midair to hover over your face…

“Love?”

Bewildered, Steven nearly gave himself whiplash as he snapped his head away from the sight of your bloodied body.

And despite wanting to run away, his hands tightened around your frame, his lungs failing.

Everything burned, his chest, his stomach. God, his arms and legs were going numb.

And where Marc couldn’t go, Steven went.

Denial.

“Love, come on,” his head has turned to you again but his eyes were squeezed shut. “Wake up. The gag has gone long enough.”

No response. Your laughter wasn’t shaking your frame, your voice wasn’t reassuring him that it’d all been a silly, cruel joke.

“Lovie…” he knew how much you hated the name and despite it, absolutely nothing.

Weren’t you going to argue? Playfully punch him in the shoulder as you giggled at him to never call you that again. Weren’t you going to put on that half-assed angry frown that you always did before smiling and pulling him to your lips?

Weren’t you going to kiss him and tell him everything would be alright?

His heart dropped with the realization that you already had.

You already spoken those words sweetly and he’d dismissed them, twisted them into something rageful when all he should’ve done was pulled you into his arms and never let you go.

“Steven,” you tried, grabbing onto his hands with an unusual hint of desperation. Almost as if you knew something he didn’t. “Sweetheart, it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be alright.”

The sincerity in your eyes practically sparkled or maybe that was just the pure love that you felt for him. But it didn’t get through to him this time, instead his panic and anxiety twisting his words and actions into something else.

“How can you say that?” Steven stressed. “How can you be so positive all time?! Consider the possibility that maybe sometimes you’re just wrong!”

His soul shattered when he realized… it was the last time he’d ever hear those words.

He hadn’t believed in them and now this happened.

Steven forced his eyes to open slowly.

In the pale moonlight, your face was still as beautiful as the first time he ever saw you.

It was early in the morning; the sun was barely over the horizon and the streets of London were not all too busy for this hour.

Thankfully for Marc, the little coffee house that was nestled in the array of buildings on Russell Street was practically empty. Save for the steady stream of customers who would fly in and out with a streaming cup of coffee or tea in their hands.

But tucked in the corner of the large window seat was you.

Exactly as he’d seen you in his numerous hours of laborious research. Hair tucked behind your ears, oversized round glasses slipping off the tip of your nose, lips tucked in concentration, a loose sweater hanging off your shoulders.

There was a sense of tranquility about you. A stillness despite the bustling customers mere feet from you.

A girl immersed in her own world; a utopia all within the threads of your pale green sweater, the gentle sway of your feet under the table, the hint of a smile at the corner of your lips.

How odd it was to find such astounding beauty in someone you knew everything and nothing about.

Because in your little world, you may have been closed off from the reality around you, but an open book to anyone who cared to look.

And Marc couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t.

He just hated that he had to be the one to shatter your universe.

“Excuse me,” Marc said when he finally worked up the courage to enter the shop. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

Then you looked up at him and he knew it was a sight he’d remember for the rest of his life, an image that would flash behind his eyelids whenever he closed his eyes.

Your eyes piercingly studied his through your eyelashes for a long moment. The hint of a smile was gone.

“Sure,” you eventually smiled brightly.

A dazzling smile that kept him rooted to the spot a little longer than necessary.

Thankfully, you didn’t seem to mind it. “You’re American?”

Marc finally sat down next to you, gripping his chocolate muffin tightly. “Actually, I’m from Chicago.”

If your chuckle was charming, he couldn’t imagine your laugh.

“Which is in America, if I recall correctly.”

“You do, it is... in America.” God he needed to work on his social skills. He felt like a bug under a microscope. Partly because of your particular line of work, mostly because you’re the most beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes on.

You shut your book softly. “What brings you to London?”

Marc was sure you would’ve shut him down by now, questioned his intentions or tried to put his ass down. But you were graceful, serene... Seemingly not worried at all about his intentions.

If he’d asked, you would’ve told him that you had a keen eye for vibrant souls. His being one of the brightest you’d stumbled upon.

“Uh, work,” he replied unconvincingly. “What about you? You’re a fellow American yourself, aren’t you?”

“What gave it away?” You were teasing him.

Maybe he could hear that laugh again after all. “Your accent and the whole sweater thing you’ve got going on? Practically screams California.”

Your laugh was surprisingly booming, genuine. He found himself smiling at the sound of it.

It can’t be this easy to fall in love with someone you just met.

“It’s New York actually,” you corrected between fading giggles. “Close enough.”

Embarrassment tinted his ears red. “It’s not.”

Smiling widely, you shook your head in agreement. “It’s really not.”

It’s silent for a few moments and just when Marc thinks you’re going to open your book again, you speak softer than before.

“I’m assuming you sat in my little corner for a reason, Mr. Spector.”

The gravity of your simple statement uncharacteristically flew past his head. Instead, he was a little more focused on trying to hear that twinkling laugh again.

“What’re you doing?” You rose an eyebrow, watching as the man wildly looked around the space you were occupying. From the two adjoining walls to the wooden round table.

“Looking for any indication that this is in fact entirely your corner. So far I see nothing except...” There was no way he wasn’t making a fool out of himself but he was in too deep to stop--

The pin suddenly dropped.

“I didn’t tell you my name.”

A nonchalant expression adorned your face. “People like you don’t seek people like me unless they need something.”

His brain short-circuits.

“People like me...” Marc repeated, his voice lifting slightly as if almost in question.

“I’m aware of every single entity within my range whom fit the qualifications of a very secure database. Yelena Belova, Alexei Shostakov, Spider-Man who happens to be around on a school trip...” you listed idly, twirling the little stick that was stained with your hazelnut coffee. “... Marc Spector.”

The rose-colored glasses were slowly slipping off. His years of servitude under Khonshu’s hand began to harden his exterior until he could finally look at you as a threat. Just to be sure.

“Why would I be on that list?”

You motioned toward the untouched muffin. “Are you gonna eat that?”

“Why would I be on that list?” His jaw clenched.

“Well, why wouldn’t you?” You take a sip. “Moon Knight is an incredibly promising prospect in the eyes of those who protect our world. You’re incredibly powerful.”

Marc scoffed. Is that what he was to you? A potential business deal, a recruit?

“But it doesn’t really matter to me anyway.”

His eyes shot up in interest. The corner of your lips had turned up again.

“I don’t work for any agency anymore,” you explained. “I’m just a girl with an incredible skill set and impressive resume.”

“Humble much?”

There was a knowing twinkle in your eye. “Only when I need to be.”

Your stares met with a shared interest. As if you two were really seeing each other for the first time.

To Marc, your beauty was astounding, ethereal. He could only hope that you’d choose to stay in his life.

“I did come for a reason... I have a mission and I could use someone with your specific skill set.”

“You need help.”

“Well, I didn’t say that exactly--”

“It’s what you meant,” you narrowed your eyes playfully. “Thankfully, I’m a woman of the people. But why should I help you?”

“I’m backed into a corner. I’m just trying to do things right in the best way I can. But I need you to trust me.”

“Trust is gained, Spector.”

“Then allow me to earn it.” The mercenary countered.

You allowed your eyes to look over him. At his open grey button up, his ironed white shirt and black pants. His ebony hair, brushed away from his face, sprinkled with a hint of grey. The scruff on his jaw and the brown of his eyes.

Falling in love with someone you just met can’t be this easy.

Your resolve crumbled and you knew he was going to be in your life for the unforeseeable future. The fluttering in your abdomen pulled you in before you could stop it.

Not that you wanted to.

“So what does this mission entail?”

Slowly, a genuine smile curved Marc Spector’s lips, one that you reciprocated with a blinding beauty that made his heart nearly stop.

And as he walked out of the coffee shop that morning, your number scribbled on a note that was neatly folded in his pocket, there was a sudden change... brief but enough for Steven Grant to suddenly find himself on Russell Street. Confused and a bit frightened, but only for a quick moment--

Until he turned his head and gazed into the large coffeehouse window...

To see you for the first time, with eyes that had adoringly gazed upon yours for hours.

And the sight was like a breath of fresh air, filling his lungs with something he didn’t quite know he needed.

The close-lipped smile that spread from cheek to cheek behind the fist of your closed hand, idle strands of hair that fell to cover your joyous expression, the simple rise and fall of your chest...

And between the moment that he saw you and Marc reemerged to front, Steven Grant couldn’t help but wonder who had made your eyes light up in that way.

Steven Grant wondered if he had the chance, could he make you happy?

But he couldn’t see the light in your eyes anymore. Eyelids rested over those effervescent eyes and a part of him finally shattered.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly. Bringing your forehead close to his, his lips tenderly touched your warm skin. “I’m so sorry, love. I’m sorry.”

Softly, as if to not disturb you, he reached for your hand, catching a glimpse of the fading paint job he’d done on your nails before he left last week.

“I-I-I can’t, I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He couldn’t breathe anymore, gasping against your body as he tightened his embrace.

Acceptance.

With a shudder, Marc kept his eyes closed despite the sudden switch.

This way he could imagine that you weren’t dead, you weren’t cold and lifeless. No, you were alive. Finally squeezing in a nap between your tireless research, hours upon hours at the computer, hacking databases and trying everything you could to help the boys.

Yes, yes, he could take a moment to indulge in that fantasy.

Because once he opened his eyes, it was finally over. Marc Spector would have to live without you.

“How wasteful...”

That pent-up anger reared its ugly head. “What?”

If he wasn’t holding onto you, Marc would’ve committed violence against the god.

“To let such a valuable asset go would be a pitiful waste,” Khonshu drawled from behind his avatar.

Marc shook his head at the audacity. “I don’t want to hear this. I--I don’t want to hear this.”

“Perhaps you do, Spector,” the god insinuated. “Feel the warmth of her skin... look at the color beneath her skin...”

This was cruel. “No...”

“Your grief may be premature--” what? “-- her fate lies in no one’s hands but her own.”

He finally looked up. “Stop with the riddles. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Just as I once appeared before you, the goddess Isis requires an avatar. Your lover is still in the fight between life and death.”

Deception was a skill Marc was certain Khonshu had mastered but yet, he found nothing but the truth in his tone. He felt the god’s sincerity.

Shock stilled his body, mouth slightly open as he stared into the night sky and then slowly back at you.

Despite his aversion to serving a god, the only thought running through his mind was the desire for you to come back to him.

In any way, he’d have you.

Otherwise, neither he nor Steven would make it.

“This is up to you, baby,” Marc whispered into your hair. “But fight. Please... fight. Come back to me.”

Please.

Come back to me.

The voice bounced off the walls of the chamber, echoing until it faded away.

It was the voice that would always bring you back.

“You have a choice to make,” a different voice reminded you, sweet and smooth. “Be my apprentice and help me restore the world to what it once was.”

You were on the tip of the iceberg, held back from what you’d seen Marc and Steven deal with for years but itching to get back to the broken man that was begging for you.

“What does that even mean?” You groaned.

Isis gave you no further explanation than what she’d told you before. You glared at her for another moment before feeling a phantom pain shoot across your body. Well, metaphysical body.

You realized you’re running out of time.

“So I do this or what? Die? I love how you all deal in absolutes,” your snark was still intact. “Any room for negotiation?”

The Goddess of Magic and Fertility towered over you, mighty with large wings that spanned the length of the golden chamber. Eyes that pierced into your soul, quite literally, and a beauty that wasn’t made to be seen by mortal eyes.

It was easy to tell why. Such beauty was captivating, breath-stealing and enough to send any man or woman to their knees.

But yet here you stood, slightly annoyed and about three feet under.

Unamused, Isis blinked expectantly.

Please... Air caught in your throat. Baby...

The decision suddenly wasn’t hard at all.

And it seemed as if Isis knew it as well.

“Will you be my apprentice and help me restore the world to what it once was?” She repeated.

The other half of your soul was missing and you knew how to soothe the agonizing pain for the both of you…

“Yes.”

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