Chapter Text
Seeing Khonshu waiting for them when they walk out of the tomb - more than a little shaken but perfectly healed - isn’t a surprise. Marc’s gotten used to the presence over the years, in turns obsessively hot and dismissively cold, trampling over any personal boundaries he might have had and more often than not leaving him frustrated and confused.
There’s no keeping up with it, and he’s stopped trying. Being owned by an immortal deity made a lot of human sensibilities go out the window, when you thought about it. Which he very much tried not to, lest Steven realized just how absolutely fucked up the whole thing was.
So, seeing Khonshu waiting for them isn’t a surprise. But there’s something wrong with the picture, some of the gauntness gone, the proportions less other and more human and-
when they come closer, they realize the god is smaller. Smaller than his usual 10 feet of irritable divinity. Smaller than them, and Marc’s never fooled himself about their stature.
Khonshu doesn’t turn, choosing to watch the setting sun, dramatic as always. He waits for them to come to him, and they’re torn between running - Layla, Harrow, Ammit, people dying, come on, Marc! - and dragging their feet, unsure of their welcome. They did fail spectacularly; this whole thing is their fault, and just because Khonshu hasn’t chosen to push the matter yet doesn’t mean they’re off the hook.
There’s only so long the adrenaline lets them dither, though. They’ve got a world to save after all, Jake’s words - new as he is to them, all edges and possessive concern - ringing through them as they finally close the distance.
The outfit hasn’t changed, tattered linen and tarnished gold - but it’s now wrapped over what’s unmistakably a human. A teenage human, lanky but not awkward with it, the arrogant confidence easily carrying over from one form to the next. The head remains uncovered, and Marc studies the new features. They’re ever so slightly exaggerated, like whatever designed them didn’t care to bother getting it right. Or got it wrong on purpose, the difference just there enough to make you want to look twice. And then keep looking, disoriented and rapt.
(Uncanny valley, Steven chimes in, and they both feel Jake roll his eyes fondly.)
Dark skin, white hair braided away from his face. Sharp cheekbones and chin, making the almost-delicate features look predatory. A sardonic smirk. A smudge of dark eyeliner around the eyes, emphasizing the unnaturally light color; gray so pale it’s almost silver.
Fuck, he’s beautiful. He also looks all of maybe sixteen.
Fuck.
Marc falls to one knee reflexively, uncaring of Steven’s surprised objection, and keeps his eyes down. He needs a moment to collect his thoughts. Questions can come later.
There’s fingers under his chin, forcing him to look up - soft where before the linen bandages used to scratch, but still cool to the touch as always - and he does, flushing in shame. Somehow, the new form makes everything that came before, a decade of being a monster’s a god’s toy, so much more humiliating. He shouldn’t love it. There’s no hiding it from his god, but any hope of keeping it from Steven and Jake goes out the window, too, with the pathetic whimper that escapes him.
His god laughs, bright and mocking, the fingers tapping gently then withdrawing.
“We have work to do, pet.”
And, yeah, okay. This can… wait. Going by how amused the words sound, he’s. Not getting out of this one.
Watching two kaiju-sized gods literally come to blows on the outskirts of Cairo would’ve probably been pants-shittingly terrifying all by itself. Having your god turn into a teenager just before it happens makes it-
Marc has no words. He wants to watch, but Harrow’s coming after them with a vengeance. Even with Jake switching in, a new sleek black suit flowing seamlessly from the two familiar ones, they’re hard pressed until Layla arrives to strike the final blow and save the day with the magical - literally - solution.
What he does see, though… he’s not sure what the fight would’ve looked like with Khonshu in his old form, but he seems to be holding his own despite Ammit towering over him. He wields the staff against her with his usual precision, throws her words right back in her face when she tries to sermonize at him. He’s still a god. He’s still divinely powerful and scathingly arrogant. He’s still fighting ferociously when they drag Harrow away to do the ritual, and snaps a furious Finish this, you idiot in Marc’s head when he keeps looking back to make sure Khonshu’s okay.
When all is said and done, and Harrow’s lying on a slab of sandstone in the ruins of the Ennead council chamber, Khonshu’s there, too - crouched on one of the broken columns, playing with his staff idly as he watches them catch their breath. There’s tension in the air now that the immediate danger has passed; Marc’s confession and Steven’s kiss and Layla’s new supernatural status and Jake’s sudden existence all weighing down on them. Khonshu’s the only one unaffected, which makes sense. Why would he care about mundane human distress when his archnemesis is all but vanquished?
Khonshu doesn’t bother with speeches when he jumps lightly off the column, bandages fluttering in non-existent breeze as he stalks - there’s no other word for it - towards Marc to take his head in his (human, so small now) hands. He’s still just as strong as always, so even if Marc wanted to, there’s no opposing him when he pulls Marc’s head down to lay a kiss on his forehead, languid and lingering, cold like a blessing spreading through Marc’s entire body from every point of contact. He barely hears Layla’s shocked inhale over Khonshu’s murmured, “Thank you, pet,” condescendingly indulgent even in its genuine… sweetness.
Harrow doesn’t scream when the blade of Khonshu’s staff pierces his heart. Ammit does, shrieking indignant curses that Marc’s entirely too distracted to pay any attention to.
“How-?” he manages to stammer out later, when they’ve locked out regular-human access to the council chamber, Harrow’s body left to rot, and made their way back into the city. He finds Khonshu seated in the open window of Marc’s hotel room, casually looking over the commotion below as the authorities try to deal with the absolute mayhem left in their wake. Marc was hoping to just crash into the bed until morning - the last… weeks, really… catching up with them with a vengeance. The two spots where the bullets hit still sting even though he knows all the damage has been repaired.
Khonshu’s head whips up - not at Marc’s words, but at the way his hand goes reflexively to his sternum, to reassure himself for what feels like a thousandth time this night. He gets off the sill to meet them halfway, and the size of the room makes Marc feel like prey. It’s ridiculous, when his god is now maybe a third his usual size, with no mystically floating oversized skull or claw-like hands. He looks ridiculously young, illegally so, but the eyes - there’s knowledge there. Familiarity. Confidence born of millenia.
The skull was familiar. This is… uncharted territory. After a decade serving him, Marc never thought to run into new, again. Stupid, in retrospect. Khonshu’s a god. Of course they’ve barely scratched the surface.
He should’ve expected the hand on his chest. He should’ve expected the impatient snap of the fingers, and a curt “Off.” As he obeys, the move so automatic by now that he doesn’t even question it until after he’s holding the flimsy, bloodied fabric of the hoodie bunched in his fist, he realizes he had no way to anticipate the haughty pout or the way Khonshu’s eyebrows scrunch in displeasure. He has a ridiculous urge to try and cover himself, but then his god’s hand lands on his chest again, the familiar chill replacing the wrong-wrong-wrong of the sense-memory of the bullets hitting them, and Marc finds himself choking on a sob. Too much, too much-
With Khonshu so close, Marc has to look slightly down to meet his eyes, and that just feels wrong, too, like just another way his world’s been ripped off its axis. Khonshu tilts his head, and it’s still bird-like, even now, still a challenge and an admonishment, and they’ve done it so many times before-
Marc’s on his knees before he realizes what happened, hiding his face in familiar linens wrapped over unfamiliar body and crying until he can’t anymore, until all that’s left is just… absolute, utter exhaustion. The hand carding through his hair is smaller, but the chill is familiar - the ritual that soothed him after a hundred missions, Khonshu’s exasperated, somewhat detached fondness coming through even more now that there are facial features for Marc’s brain to interpret.
“How?” he croaks out again after he’s cried all his tears, after Steven and Jake retreated somewhere deep under in an effort to give them some… privacy? Fuck, he’s got. So much explaining to do.
Khonshu’s hand tightens in his hair, a warning that his brain was conditioned into interpreting as a promise of things to come. He doesn’t whine. It’s just a surprised intake of breath that makes his god chuckle darkly.
“Does it matter?”