Chapter Text
Marc was still pretty checked out after this morning—and Jake was certainly still feeling the aches and pains of the beating Marc took–Christ, he had to teach the guy how to take a punch—so Jake didn’t feel all that bad about walking into The Museum right as it opened. Jake was sure The Museum had an actual name. He knew it did, but that was something Marc knew and not him. Something Jake didn’t really care enough to know. It was just The Museum. The Museum with The Man In The Gift Shop that Marc liked to stare at. Whatever. Focus, Jake. Truthfully, he wouldn’t have felt bad about what he was about to do even if Marc hadn’t just had the shit beat out of him, but at least this way if Jake at least pretended to feel a little guilty he could clear his conscience.
Or whatever it was that Khonshu was always prattling on about.
Jake hummed. He paused in the open lobby, standing just outside the gift shop. He shoved a hand in his jacket pocket, fingering the grooves and lines of the little golden scarab they carried around as he watched The Man In The Gift Shop.
He had a goofy looking smile on his face, lopsided and crooked, and was crouching down and talking to a little girl. He looked a little more put together today than he usually did, Jake couldn’t help but notice. He wore a smart looking black sweater, a pair of jeans without a hole in them, and a slightly less beat up–in comparison to his usual–looking pair of yellow sneakers. His mop of curls was even somewhat in an orderly fashion today, swept up and away from his eyes. There was something in his hands that he was showing the girl, but Jake couldn’t make out what it was from this far away. Whatever it was, she was fascinated by it.
“What are we doing here, Jake?”
Jake hummed, tilting his head and ignoring Marc’s disgruntled looking reflection in the shiny tiled floor.
He never really got what it was that interested Marc so much about The Man In the Gift Shop. There was a passing resemblance to Layla, he supposed, if he looked closely enough. They both had that pretty brown curly hair that Marc liked to tug and pull on, at least. But Marc hadn’t thought about Layla in a long time, and Jake hadn’t ever thought about her. She wasn’t his to think about. Neither was The Man In The Gift Shop, for that matter. That was Marc’s thing, but…
…but they came here a lot.
Even when Jake was fronting.
And Jake didn’t really have an excuse for that.
They—Marc, mostly, but Jake indulged every once in a while—liked to watch The Man In The Gift Shop, which…sounded way creepier now that Jake’s actually thought about it for longer than a passing moment. But The Man In The Gift Shop–Steven, Marc hissed–was so…oddly familiar. Comforting. There was something about him that made both Marc and Jake want to reach out to him, to hold him and refuse to let go again.
And Jake was tired of wondering why.
With Marc all but knocked flat on his ass from this morning's little tumble, too tired and exhausted to properly front, now seemed as good a time as any to find out that why. Exploitative on Jake’s part, maybe, but that’s what he tended to do best. Khonshu would be proud of him, at least.
Not that Jake gave two shits about what that pigeon thought.
“Leave him alone,” Marc scowled up at Jake from the reflection on the tiled floor.
Jake ignored Marc and made a beeline right towards the gift shop as The Man In The Gift Shop Named Steven got back to his feet and went back to the register, the little girl following after him with her hands clasped tightly around whatever it was he had been showing her.
“Jake if you go in there I swear to god—” Marc followed after him, jumping up to the reflection in the glass windows when Jake passed them. He looked panicked.
For a brief moment, Jake thought about turning around.
But it wasn’t like he was going to get a chance like this again for a while. Marc was never very fond of giving up the body if he didn’t have to.
“Marc?” Jake asked cheerily, slipping past a group of teenagers who were also staring at The Man In The Gift Shop Named Steven. Jake felt a hot spike of jealousy. He wasn’t sure if that was from him or Marc, which was fucking ridculous. Jake pushed past the teenagers and ignored their huffing and calls after him, glancing at one of the shiny countertops in the gift shop. Marc was scowling at him, and Jake scowled right back. “Go the fuck back to sleep.”
Marc did not go the fuck back to sleep.
Jake was positive that if Marc hadn’t just gotten his ass handed to him this morning and had to have Jake take over the body so they could stumble home with some dignity, Marc would be throwing him out and taking the body back.
As it was, all Marc could do was quietly seethe and glare at Jake from a glass pyramid display.
Jake hummed triumphantly, glancing around the shop before heading towards the candy stand over in the kids section of the shop. He reached for a pack of gum, just something to have a reason to get in line for the register, but Marc stopped him. Jake frowned at his hand, held still and hovering just over a pack of gum.
“Let go, Marc.”
“Grab the hippo.” Marc said.
Jake frowned and glanced down to his left. There was a little wire cage right next to the candy stand. It was stuffed full of a plushie of a hippo in ancient Egyptian garb. It looked stupid. Taweret, Jake thought. That was her name. Taweret. “Why?”
Jake didn’t know why he knew that, but there were a lot of things he didn’t know why he knew.
Marc was silent for a moment before he responded. “It’s—it’s Steven’s favorite.”
He sounded confused. Like he wasn’t sure about it. Like Marc was certain in his answer but wasn’t certain in why he knew it.
“It’s his favorite.” Marc repeated, a little more confident.
“You sure about that?” Jake did nothing to hide the annoyance in his voice, but he grabbed the stupid fucking hippo because Marc looked like he was about to make a grab for the body and that was just going to end badly for everyone involved. Jake peered at the plushie as he got in line behind a mother and—Christ, was that five kids?—and ran his hand over the soft velveteen fabric. It was kind of cute, he guessed. Better than old bird brain for sure.
Where was Khonshu anyway?
He tended to stay away when they weren't Moon Knight-ing and Jake was fronting, but he usually would have shown up by now, hovering ominously over Jake’s shoulder and telling him to give the body back to Marc because he’s easier to deal with than you.
“Careful”. Marc said. There was just enough of a reflective surface on the golden bits of clothing of the plushie that Jake could see Marc staring at him. “Push your luck and he might actually show up.”
Jake snorted. “Please. I’d love to see him.”
The woman in front of them turned around. She glared, and Jake glared right back. He must still have blood on his face along with the mottled bruising on his jaw and nose, because a moment later her eyes widened and she was ushering her hoard of kids out of line, leaving Jake face to face with The Man Who Works At The Gift Shop Named Steven.
Huh.
He was kind of pretty up close.
Pretty in a way that doesn’t look quite right. Eerie. Unnatural. Too perfect, Jake would say. Like a doll.
“You all set?” Steven asked. He smiled, and for a moment it looked so...so forced.
“Almost.” Jake answered easily. He slid up to the counter, setting down the plushie before grabbing about five packs of gum off the little wire rack on the counter. Then he threw an extra one on top of that, because gift shop gum sucked ass and didn’t last more than ten minutes if you were lucky—regardless of if strangely pretty gift shop workers were selling it to him.
Steven’s smile softened as he looked at Jake’s pile. “Still trying to quit smoking?”
Jake blinked.
“Do you get smokers buying gum from you often?” Jaked asked, because yeah, he was trying to quit because Marc was getting all pissy about it. But Steven didn’t know that. Steven shouldn’t know that.
“I see you sometimes,” Steven hurried on, grabbing a box of gum to scan. “You’ve got a cigarette every once in a while so I just thought—“
He cut himself off and didn’t finish, instead busying himself with scanning the boxes of gum.
Huh.
That was interesting.
“Do I know you?” Jake blurted out. That wasn’t at all how he had meant for this to go, but Steven was looking up at him in surprise and Marc was very suddenly absent from the headspace, and, well, Jake got this far. Might as well own it and keep going. “You look familiar.”
It took a moment, but Steven’s surprise slipped from his face, replaced by a carefully neutral look that didn’t look right on him. “No, mate. I don’t think so.”
The thing was, Jake Lockley was a good liar. He was good at telling them and he was good at hearing them.
And Steven was lying.