Chapter Text
He is aware that he's dissociating, okay? He keeps spacing out and losing the thread, sometimes needing several seconds to get back to it. Did they have a checklist for things he wanted to cover? He isn't even sure.
The others are trying to swap in. His head hurts from the effort of holding them back. But he doesn't let them make it easy, he doesn't give up.
This is his conversation. The man across from him in the booth, in the diner he doesn't quite remember getting to, is his dad.
Two strangers in casual clothes walk into the diner...
Marc isn't paying much attention until they come to his table. "Can we...help you with something?"
The strange men ignore him, turning to Dad. "This is him?"
Sad-eyed, Dad nods. "This is him."
"Hold up, what?" Marc looks from the strangers -- clocking them for weapons first, logos and badges second -- to his father. "Who the hell are these?"
"These are from Adult Protective Services, son."
A dozen whirlwinds of emotion slam through Marc's mind -- horror, fury, grief, betrayal, hysteria. "Were you even listening to a word I said?"
"There's no need to make a scene, sir," says one of the APS officers. "Just come with us, nice, and easy, all right?"
"A scene? I didn't even move!"
Dad cups his hands over one of Marc's. "They're going to help you," he says, horribly earnest. "You need a lot of support. You know you do."
Marc yanks out of his grip. Everything is going muffled and distant; a rush of static fills his ears. "You have never in your life paid attention to what we really need support for!"
The white noise isn't enough to block out the other officer muttering, "Goddamn lunatic."
"Show some respect," Dad tells him sternly, before turning back to Marc. He's doing this eye thing that Steven absolutely inherited, sad eyes, I'm-disappointed-in-you eyes. "Just go with them, son. They're going to make sure you get better."
Marc's vision is starting to tunnel, darkness closing in from the edges. His head aches; his limbs are locking up. The APS officers grab him, and he can't move.
But he can't blank out -- he can't hand this off to the others, he can't -- he has to seem better, they'll let him go when he's better, talking to the voices in your head is not better...
☽
He jolts up in bed with a yelp.
It's the deep dark of night, no light except from the little goldfish night-light Steven put by the door after their last string of nightmares. Which has turned out to be amazing for confirming he's not in Gabon or Sudan or Okinawa, but...
A warm, heavy shape under the covers beside him. He shakes her by the shoulder. "Layla. Layla!"
"Hrmph?"
"Am I awake?" asks Marc, voice cracking.
Is this real? Is she real? Is he out of the nightmare, or has he just fallen into another level, one that tricks him into thinking he's safe? Did Dad really have him committed in Chicago, and the dream is that he's at home in London, with his bed and his wife and his stupid adorable goldfish night-light?
"You're 'wake," mumbles Layla, sounding more than half-asleep herself. "Go ground. G'wan."
...He rolls out of bed, and spends an embarrassing amount of time spacing out on the carpet before he remembers it's a therapy word.
So now there's another stretch of time where he's sitting against the wall in his pajama pants, huffing a scented candle with one hand and fiddling with the night-light (the plastic is textured with scales, really satisfying to run your fingers over) with the other...until he relaxes enough to let up his grip on the others.
"Bloody hell, Marc," murmurs Steven. "Must've been some nightmare."
Jake runs their thumb around the rim of the (unlit) candle jar. "Told you this was a good one."
"You got that to wind me up, and you know it."
"I got it because bacon doesn't smell anything like psych ward," says Jake primly. "Windin' you up is just a bonus."
"Maaaarc," groans Layla from the bed. She got in late, one of them remembers now. "Shush."
Oh. He's doing this out loud.
Marc doesn't think he can keep a handle on whether or not he's talking, so he slips out to the living room and ends up lying prone on the couch. Lit by the soft blue from the tank with the real-live goldfish in it. He leaves the candle on the end table, next to a mirror, and fiddles with one of Steven's metal fidget things instead.
(Jake has other preferred ways to keep his hands busy...but Marc can tell it's not a good idea to be messing with firearms right now.)
Physical space and inner space blur and overlap. His head on the armrest turns into his head pillowed on Steven's leg. Jake leans over the back and rests a hand on his arm.
"Is that what the nightmare was about?" asks Steven. Voice softer now, imaginary hand playing with Marc's sleep-rumpled curls. "Psych ward?"
"...sort of."
"He was tryin' to talk to the rabbi," fills in Jake. Deceptively casual, but his own phantom hand has a death grip on Marc's pajama sleeve. "Who was all set to send him to the psych ward."
Marc winces. "You saw?"
Past check-ins have confirmed that they can share dreams. He was really hoping they didn't share this one.
"Little bit. You had a hell of a block on us," says Jake. "You gotta let us in on these things, loquito."
"Me. Specifically me." Steven's fingers card through his hair. "If you have this dream again, try to let me swap in."
"Absolutely not," snaps Marc.
"Marc..."
"Nah, he's right," says Jake. "You're the only one who doesn't get nightmares about hospitals. Don't wanna put that on you."
"No, listen, that's why you should swap me in!" protests Steven. "I don't have the original memories, yeah? So the dream won't have anything to work with. I ought to stop the nightmare right in its tracks."
...Huh. That sounds plausible.
"I know you might not remember, while you're in the middle of dreaming," adds Steven. "And even if you do, you might not have enough control to pull it off. But at least try."
☽
"There's no need to make a scene, sir," says one of the APS officers. "Just come with us, nice, and easy--"
"No. Absolutely not," snaps Steven, pushing back his chair and standing up. "We're not a minor in your care, you've got no legal standing to do this, don't even pretend that you do."
"They're going to help you, son," says Rabbi Spector, horribly earnest. "You need a lot of support. You know you do."
No point even trying to convince the man he's not Marc, is there? "I'm walking away now," says Steven as he squeezes past the officers, heading for the exit.
He doesn't recognize the diner they're in, or the street outside the windows...but any street will do over this, yeah? Open air. Open road. He'll pick a direction once he's out there.
He reaches for the door --
Two sets of strong arms grab him, dragging him backward.
A cold shock runs down Steven's spine. These aren't strangers at all. They're Harrow's people -- Billy and Bobbi -- the ones he sent as fake police officers to kidnap Steven, the ones who played the attendants in their afterlife psych ward.
"Goddamn lunatic," mutters Bobbi.
"Let go of me!" yells Steven, trying to wrestle out of their grip. He's not going to make it easy for them! "I know who you really are! I'm not just going to follow you off like a trusting little puppy, not this time!"
Billy clicks his tongue. "Paranoid. Such a shame."
They're dragging him toward a door in the back of the diner. In spite of Steven's best efforts, it is easy for them.
He switches to calling for backup. "Marc! Jake...!"
"Just go with them, son," says -- it's not Rabbi Spector anymore, it's Elias Grant, it was Steven's real dad all along -- though he's got the same I-know-what's-best-for-you tone Marc used back in the day, ordering Steven to go to sleep and forget. He seems very far away. "They're going to make sure you get better."
"Whatever they told you about us, they're lying!" cries Steven. "Call them off, Dad, please--!"
Billy and Bobbi shove him through the door, and slam it closed.
...and this isn't a kitchen. Or a freezer. Or whatever else you'd expect to get in a diner.
It's his therapist's office.
Sure, it's all weirdly-sterile and bleached-white, but it's the same room! He usually sits on this couch. His doctor sits on that chair. There's the end table with its box of tissues, the desk with its pens and paperweights.
He's safe after all! Steven's real-world experience of mental health treatment is all good! Their brain doesn't have anything to torment --
"Hello, Steven. Good to see you again."
Steven whirls around in horror.
"Please, sit down," says Doctor Harrow. Standing by a window, holding a bleached-white coffee mug, with his soft voice and his smug smile and his stupid pencil mustache. "Make yourself comfortable."
"You're not allowed to be here." Steven backs away, voice cracking. "You -- you don't even work here."
"Don't I?" Harrow strolls over to Dr. Sterman's desk, setting his mug down like he owns the place.
(Doesn't even use a coaster. The monster.)
"We're inside your head, aren't we? If I'm not supposed to be here -- make me go away."
Steven closes his eyes, and manifests as hard as he can. For a second he pictures his real therapist: long dark hair, sharp chin, round glasses, that blue blazer she likes, a notebook in her hand. Then he cuts it short -- doesn't want to encourage their brain to make factives -- not even the nice ones.
He tries to picture movie therapists instead. That's a complete wash! All the ones he can think of are incompetent or evil. Or both.
He tries to picture Marc or Jake at Dr. Sterman's desk...just channeling some of her good advice, maybe even wearing the blue blazer...he has a wild moment of picturing their internal Knight at the desk, blazer stretched tight over its golden chestplate...
"See? It's not working, is it?" croons Harrow. "I'm still here."
Steven opens his eyes and backs up against the door. Locked. He pounds at the wood, rattles the handle, to no avail.
Distant voices, though, echoing on the other side: "Steven? Steven!"
"Marc! Jake!" yells Steven at the top of his lungs. "I'm in here!" And, as Harrow starts strolling toward him: "Back off! Get away!"
"Oh, but this is all you, Steven," says Harrow. "You are doing this to yourself. You know that, right?"
"It's a nightmare." Steven digs the heels of his hands into his temples, then, when that doesn't work, escalates to swatting himself in the head. "It can't hurt me, it's a nightmare, wake up, wake up--"
He flattens himself against the door as Harrow gets much too close. "That's not working either."
The others are outside now, he can hear them, calling his name and beating at the door from the other side. Makes no difference. They can't get in.
"See, this is exactly why you need to spend some time in a facility," murmurs Harrow, as Steven sinks to the carpet and tries not to cry. "I'll even write the referral."
☽
His real therapist's offices are in a converted house on a suburban street. Quiet. Out-of-the-way. And, thankfully, with very different architecture from Chicago.
After his third time getting up to let Marc and Jake double-check the view out the window, Steven unlatches it and shoves the whole pane upward.
(Four things they can hear: birds chirping, a lawnmower, basketball bouncing on asphalt, traffic on the road down the block.)
"Sorry I'm pacing so much," he says, leaning into the fresh air. "Would it be too annoying if I checked the door again?"
"You won't get in trouble for pacing in here. Or for triple-checking the door," says Dr. Sterman.
(A real doctor. A real bloody therapist. Got her real degree at a non-imaginary university. Dresses like a present-day grown-up, too!)
"Although if you do that too many times, you're going to stress out our receptionist. Am I right in thinking someone feels extra protective of you today?"
"Spot-on." When both Marc and Jake flinch, Steven adds, "What's the point in hiding it? You aren't exactly subtle, both pacing around me like angry guard dogs."
"Nothing wrong with being vigilant," says Dr. Sterman. "Would it help to leave the windows open?"
Steven has a quick internal conference. "Yeah," he decides. "Yeah, I think that really would."
He paces to the other window, shoves it up as high as it goes, then sits on the floor in front of it. The breeze on his face is nice.
"I'm the one who asked them to come along this time," he says after a bit. "The nightmare -- it was in an office like this. I couldn't get out. And they couldn't get to me."
"That sounds pretty awful," says Dr. Sterman frankly. "Were you alone?"
"No. It wasn't you, though! That's a good sign, innit? Even when our brain's coming up with terrifying nightmare scenarios, it doesn't put you in them."
Yes, the others are immediately scolding him not to jinx it.
The doctor jots something on her pad of paper. "If your brain ever switches up its tactics, I promise not to be offended."
"Thanks, doc."
"Do you know if the dream person was a specific person from your past? Or, if the others know, would they be willing to--"
"No, I know!" says Steven quickly. "He's, uh. It's sort of a long story."
"Highlights?"
"He was Khonshu's previous Avatar, didn't handle it well, quit to start his own murder cult, he's dead now, and we're not going to confirm or deny how we know that."
"...Ah."
"We even know why he's our evil anxiety-therapist!" adds Steven. "Because our brain put him in that role before, so we've already thought about it! Real one was very manipulative -- pretended he understood and supported me but it was just a ruse, played me and Marc against each other, kidnapped me for a bit, then convinced a whole council of gods that we were crazy so we couldn't be trusted about him being a supervillain!"
Dr. Sterman, who only got the original Superhero Reveal four or five sessions ago, takes a deep breath. "Can you pause just a minute while I write all that down?"
Steven backs away from the window while she's writing. It doesn't seem to trigger anyone's anxiety this time, so they let themselves go back to the couch: flopping sideways on the cushions, feet hanging over the edge.
"We're not here to talk about that guy," says Jake. "Hi, doc, by the way. Me now."
"Nice to see you, Jake."
"Yeah, yeah." When Steven gives him a disapproving poke, Jake manages to add, "You too. Look, Steven still thinks the nightmares are about us havin' to process old memories. Because that's a trauma thing, right?"
Dr. Sterman nods. "Typical dreams are the mind's way of processing recent memories and experiences. Traumatic memories often don't get processed in a normal way, so they can keep reappearing years after the fact. While you're awake, as flashbacks, or while you're asleep, as -- this."
"Right. Okay, But, see, what if it's not that? What if it's about unprocessed feelings? Yeah, that's right, I said the F word, don't all keel over at once."
(Steven has a sudden memory of somewhere, somewhen, where at least one of them got a literal cookie for using "the F word.")
(...he hopes it was from their school-age hospital stay, not their post-military one, but he couldn't swear to it.)
"You were workin' up to that, right, doc?" continues Jake. "I beat you to it?"
"It is not a race," says Dr. Sterman, "but yes, I have to admit that you did. Can you say a little more about that?"
Jake jabs a finger at her. "I was already gonna. You do not get to take credit for that."
She holds up both hands in surrender. "I wouldn't dare."
"Anyway. We've got anxiety that someone could still try to lock us up. And Marc's scared that if they do, he's just gonna freeze up and go with it. Again."
"I see."
"Then Steven's scared that if they do -- here's where the symbolism from That Guy kicks in -- he's gonna know it's not fair and he doesn't need to be there, but he physically can't get away. A-gain."
"Still following."
"And me -- I can fight this stuff...I will fight this stuff...but I'm scared that it won't make any difference, because these two will block me out until it's too--"
He breaks off, choked-up.
"...again?" suggests Andrea.
"Good, you got the theme," says Jake hoarsely. "Worried I was bein' too subtle."
☽
He's not going to panic he's not going to panic he'll waste all his energy panicking and then won't have it later he'll start hyperventilating and then if nobody comes in time he'll suffocate although this is probably not real so he's not going to panic he is not going to--
"Jake? Ja-ake!"
--if he doesn't make some noise they won't find him, so, okay, now he's kicking and (muffled) screaming and just generally panicking.
"In here, in here!" calls a distant voice. Running feet, getting closer. Banging at the door, then full-on kicking it in.
Oh thank fuck, this isn't physical, this isn't their body strapped to the bed, because that's Marc and Steven running to his side. Their Knight is here for him too, Marc wearing the suit and already drawing a crescent dart, while Steven cups his face in both hands and urges him to breathe.
Marc slices through each set of heavy straps with military efficiency. Steven picks apart the more delicate clasps of the gag, in between thumbing away tears from the corners of his eyes.
He tries to hold still to make their job easier. He really does. Still can't totally stop his limbs from thrashing as soon as they're free.
He throws himself off the hard mattress -- collapses on the blank white floor, he's too dizzy to stand, vision a blur, every joint stiff, every muscle pins-and-needles--
Someone tries to touch him, he flinches away--
"Marc? What's happening? Was he drugged, is he..."
"He could be lots of things," says Marc brusquely, crouching at his side. "Jake. Jake, listen to me. We're taking you somewhere safe, okay? Let me pick you up. You want to crawl, we will stay right by your side and fight off anyone who comes near you, but it'll be faster if I carry you. Please. Trust me."
...Jake nods.
So Marc scoops him up and carries him out with superhuman strength, while Steven kicks doors open in front of them and slams them shut behind. Whatever kind of dream-scenery they're running through, Jake doesn't process it at all, until he gets hefted into a small enclosed space and dropped on another set of stiff white cushions.
This one's safe, though. He can tell. Leather and exhaust and burning rubber doesn't smell anything like psych ward.
A motor roars. Tires scream. They move.
The rows of seats in the town car are wide enough for three men to space out. Marc and Steven ignore that to press against Jake on either side, sandwiching him in a tight hug, and he's not actually sure whose chest he spends the next however-long sobbing into.
☽
As he gets ahold of himself again, the car slows down from "high-speed-chase flooring-it" to "freeway cruising."
"So--" He hiccups. "Fucked that up, huh."
"Do not even," says Steven immediately. "You had a nightmare. Not your fault a load of nightmare stuff happened in it."
(Oh thank god, Jake was crying on Steven. He would've had to be re-committed for terminal embarrassment if it turned out he got weepy all over Marc.)
"Didn't stop you, though." He twists his hands deeper in fistfuls of Steven's shirt. "You beat it."
"I mean, we're not dreaming now," says Marc...a steady weight against Jake's back, leaning so hard he must be practically diagonal.
"Wh...?"
"More specifically," adds Steven, using his other hand to massage Jake's scalp through his curls, "we woke up not having any kind of panic attack, and also completely unable to hear you, after we had a dream about you fighting someone. Wasn't hard to join up those dots."
Jake sniffles. "Neither of you got locked up after your--"
"Don't jinx it!" hisses Steven.
Right. Obvious.
"That's what you're afraid of, huh," adds Marc. Only reason Jake can't feel the breath on his neck is that Steven's arm is in the way. "That we don't block you out, and instead of saving us -- you make it worse."
The smooth purr of the car around them changes as the tires lose grip, like they just slid onto a patch of mental iced-over road, and now they're careening wildly out of control...
"Shhh, precioso, we've got you," urges Steven...though he only has Jake with one arm now, he needs the other to hang onto the headrest. "It doesn't matter if you screw up, because me and Marc will always come get you! Just like you and me would go rescue Marc, if it was him. Just like you two would come rescue me."
"Try to let go," agrees Marc, braced with a white-knuckled grip on the molded plastic above the window. "Trust us a little more, okay? Let us drive."
...Hang on.
Jake pushes Steven away, elbows Marc to the side, and sits up to get a better look around the cabin. The zigzagging view through the tinted windows looks like one of those moon-shaped landscapes that show up in their head -- endless gray rock, crater rims on the horizon, dark skies.
The partition between the passenger seats and the driver's cab is up.
"Who even is driving right now?" demands Jake.
"I think it's--" Marc's hand lingers on the small of Jake's back, shaky as the car bumps over a rough patch. Moon-gravel crunches loudly under their tires. "It's, you know, more of a metaphor than--"
He's in normal clothes. And he was definitely wearing the suit before.
Jake half-steps, half-falls across the compartment to the facing bank of seats. Kneels on the leather. Taps the partition.
It rolls down -- and sure enough, as Jake leans between the headrests, he sees their internal Moon Knight suit at the wheel. One empty boot on the gas pedal, though it's not actually pushing down at all. Glowing white eyes fixed on the uneven non-road ahead. The wheel spins wildly under its gloves -- they're not gripping it at all, just resting faithfully at ten and two.
A tap on one mummy-wrapped pauldron, and their Knight turns its steady gaze (the only steady thing in here right now) on Jake instead.
"Hey, momito! You're doin' great," he says. Trying to sound upbeat. Like it's all to do with driving skills, and not the fact that there's nothing out here to crash into. "How about you pull over and let me swap in now, ay?"
"Not sure that's the answer!" calls Steven. "For a lot of reasons!"
Marc scoffs. "What, you think our brain is gonna spin up an imaginary traffic cop?"
"It might do! Been a regular parade of imaginary threatening authority figures round here lately!"
The car swings in a wide curve as Jake cranes his neck to stare at them over his shoulder. "The hell are you guys talking about?"
Marc and Steven blink at him. Then at each other.
"Think you better look in the rearview, hermoso," says Marc at last.
What, like Jake can't talk his way out of getting stopped with bloodshot swollen sir-are-you-on-something eyes? Just to humor them, he gives it a look...
...then recoils (the whole car jolts as they bounce over a too-big rock), clapping a hand over his face.
His round, smooth-cheeked, blatantly teenage face.
"I mean, you might be sixteen?" says Steven. "My grade-school memory's all skippy. I haven't got a great sense for how we looked at specific ages..."
"He's not sixteen," says Marc. With the perfect confidence of someone who does remember which school year they missed almost half of.
"Of course I'm not sixteen! I'm a grown-ass adult!" Jake pulls up his thin washed-out hospital shirt, checking whether at least his adult scars are still there. No such luck. "I'm gonna change back, right? How do I change back?"
Two of the wheels ride up on a slope and tilt the whole car sideways, enough to send them all sliding toward the left-side set of doors.
"You will absolutely change back, love!" says Steven. With, in turn, the perfect confidence of someone who's managed to turn his own mental health into a special interest. "This is a whole thing -- I'll talk your ear off about it later, if you like -- you've been stuck in a bad flashback, just give yourself time to recover."
"As much time as you need," adds Marc, hands planted on the window with elbows locked, to keep his internal self-image from falling any farther and crushing Steven's. "Don't force yourself to suck it up and get over it already."
Jake snorts. "This, I gotta hear from you?"
"Yeah, I know I'm a bad example!" snaps Marc. "So learn from that!"
Another glance at the front seat. Their Knight is watching the lack-of-road again, still secured in front of the wheel. (It's a responsible imaginary driver, wearing its imaginary seatbelt.)
The mirror is...Jake can't look at it for too long.
He gets off the forward bank of seats and stumbles back to the rear one. Marc half-scoots, half-climbs up off Steven to make room for Jake to squeeze back in between them. Jake grabs Steven's hand, and pulls the whole arm to loosely wrap around his torso...then, without thinking about it too hard, does the same with an arm of Marc's.
He closes his eyes, and tries to let go.
Might start bawling again, but he really tries...
The car settles back on level ground, cruising ahead almost steadily.
"There you go, precioso," murmurs Steven. "Never got much of this back then, did you? Let us give you some of it now."
Jake winces. "Swear to Khonshu, cariño, if you're talkin' about parenting..."
Marc huffs in amusement before the car can start swerving again. "Pretty sure he's talking about support and protection from adults who give a damn about you."
...oh.
☽
All of that ends up being enough symbolic self-soothing to get them...a few nights in a row of peaceful sleep.
Doesn't cut off the nightmares for good. But the break was nice while it lasted.
☽
They can't remember what time zone Layla's in this week, so they send a text and hope for the best.
Several texts, really.
Call when you have some down time
Real down time, don't lose sleep or cancel anything
We swear it's not an emergency
Practicing the thing where we reach out BEFORE it's an emergency
She's only an hour ahead of London. They prop up their phone on the kitchen table, give her a disclaimer that they're pretty blurry and might not remember the whole conversation later, then have a nice light chat about the local attractions over a shared breakfast/brunch.
"Did you just call to check in?" asks Layla at last, using two fingers to swipe leftover syrup off her mostly-empty plate. "Or was there some other thing you wanted to chat about?"
"There was a thing. Yeah."
She licks her fingers clean while she waits.
"Babe?" asks Marc at last. "You wouldn't ever -- you know. Have us committed. Would you?"
A long silence on the other end of the line.
Jake, shaken-up from the dream but at least he's still an adult this morning, swaps in before Marc can start spiraling. "This is not a reassurin' pause, escarabajita!"
"Look, if it was anyone else asking, I would've said no!" exclaims Layla. "That's not what you need, it wouldn't be good for you, absolutely not. But because it's you asking, I'm working on whether this is your way of trying to hint that I should think about it."
"It's not!" says Steven, relieved. "It's not that at all, it's -- you know the nightmares? The ones we've been having since Chicago?"
"Could hardly miss them," admits Layla. "Is that what they're about?"
Their throat locks up. None of them can answer.
"Because in that case, no. I would not. Absolutely never."
"Do you have other plans, then?" asks Steven after a while. "For what to do if we have, um. Some kind of breakdown? Not that we're planning to! But...if our mess got more intense than you were prepared to handle..."
"I can handle a hell of a lot, Steven Grant, and don't you forget it."
"Yes, love."
"But if you were really in a bad state...?" Layla points her fork at the phone screen. "I would start calling in your friends. You know we have some pretty amazing friends."